The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #18 Tweeting Through Grief with Michael Cruz Kayne

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Michael Cruz Kayne (Late Night with Seth Meyers) shares the downsides of going viral for grief, talking about your son’s death at comedy clubs, being comforted online by Monica Lewinsky, having a mom who only says I love you in the third person, and the episode ends with the daddest dad joke of all time. Join The Downside Patreon for early, ad-free episodes and bonus ones on the 1st and 15th of every month. Even if you don't want to listen to them, it's a lovely way to support Gianmarco's delusions of grandeur. We're also adding video on 6/22!!! Read MICHAEL CRUZ KAYNE's viral twitter thread Follow MICHAEL CRUZ KAYNE on twitter, instagram, and youtube Watch MICHAEL CRUZ KAYNE's Seth Meyers set Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to The Downside. Russell Daniels, how are you doing? I'm really good, John Marko. How are you? I am interested to tell that we're going to start these episodes a new way, and I want to surprise you with it here. Wow, okay. I decided, originally we do, how are you? How are you? I say bad, essentially. And then we move on. I decided I want to start each episode with either a sad quote, or a sad fact fact or something negative.

I want to get people in the mood. Okay. The mood for the blues. Okay. And this one, I actually, I was going through the Twitter of our guest today, Michael Cruz-Cain, and this was a retweet. This was a study by Launch, L-A-A-U-N-C-H. This was on MSNBC.

They aired it. They asked a bunch of Americans, they said, to name a prominent Asian American that comes to mind. 11% said Jackie Chan. 9% said Bruce Lee. And 42% said, don't know. You're listening to The Downside The Downside What do you think of this idea? I like it

Do you like that I surprised you during the recording? I do, you surprised me a lot I know, it is fun You surprised me with a song about my dead dog last week Well, it's two weeks ago now We have a timeline, Russell Well, I'm going to surprise you again Let's see see how many

prominent asian americans can you name russell go three i don't like it because you know what can you not name any i can name lots but i'm not gonna play these games i'm not your your monkey okay all right i was just saying i i can name a bunch i wrote down a bunch i was gonna really one-up you thomas akaria, a great computational material scientist. You're reading those? Yeah, well, because I already had them written down on the notepad before I did this. I write prominent Asian Americans on paper to inspire me. You know, I do like that you have the pad now. I feel like you're even more so than the technology that you bought.

I feel like you are taking this seriously because you take notes now. And you didn't used to, I would say. Yeah episode i i i think it's more great a little bit yeah um uh okay so uh welcome to the downside i'm gonna do this too this is a an interview show me and my bussy uh buddy my bussy my bussy russell daniels um we interview people we talk about the negatives we talk about the sad things so So many podcasts, like Dax Shepard is the one that comes to mind, where everything's good, and he brings on Hillary Clinton, and it's just like, let's talk about dancing. And it's like everyone you know in your life that's positive and nice

is either a pedophile or they're going to kill themselves. Or sometimes both, very frequently. So the truth is things are are are shitty and we should talk about it because then we can have fun you know it's funny i don't want to cut you off it's funny that you mentioned dax shepherd because i was just looking at kristen bell's instagram today and it was funny to me because you know she's talented uh person no doubt and but like she's one of those people that like shares like the most generic like memes yes like you're only as special as you feel like that kind of yeah yeah um and i just thought that was funny to like have a real person like she doesn't need to share that but she must genuinely feel it then she got some

flack because she wrote a children's book, I believe, where it was about people who have purple skin. And it was like, you should treat people with purple skin. It was like that kind of generic, I don't care whether you're black, white, or purple. And it's like, what the fuck do you mean purple? That's not what we're taught. It's that same line of thought thinking like, oh, this is useful. We'll teach the kids that color just is it's just whatever red orange yellow green blue purple and it doesn't actually talk about the world as it is

and things to deal with you hear that dax shepherd and chris bell i would love to be on dax's show um there will come a point you'll feel it in the podcast when we start doing better and you start hearing us not talk shit about celebrities hopefully hopefully if everything goes according to plan i'm stopping now um i wanted to i wanted to bring up uh so so you know we we're we're kind of recording a bunch of episodes in advance we're figuring out this whole system but i feel like this will be far enough away from where it happened that i can really talk shit about this i was hosting a comedy show here's my like downside i have to come up with a name with this i guess my downside of the week or whatever and uh i try not to host if i can but

i'm you know clubs are reopening trying to get my my name back out there and uh this was a club where it's a little bit haphazard and one of the one of the comedians he came on and he had hidden one of his arms in his shirt so it looked like he had one arm i'd seen this man before and he had hidden one of his arms in his shirt. So it looked like he had one arm. I'd seen this man before and he had two arms. And you could tell. You could tell. Yeah. And he said, I want you to introduce me, say that I, this is my first time on stage and I work for the club and we're just, you know, please be nice to this guy.

We're going to give him a few minutes. And then he's like, and then I'm going to run off the stage like like kind of nervous and then you go back up and you're like whoa that was crazy uh and then you bring me up by my actual name and i classic i hate there's nothing i hate more than when you ask a host that you're not close to a full sketch to participate in a joke that you wrote because you're asking me to be part of – you haven't asked me if I think it's funny. Or in this case, I think it's probably wildly inappropriate. And then he comes over multiple times. He's like, make sure – and then he said this.

He said, do not say, give him a hand. And I'm like, oh, I bet I know what his first line is. And he goes up and, you know, give me, come on, give me a hand. Oh, my God. And then he proceeds to tell five minutes worth of jokes that are really, I'm not one of those people like, you know, we're like, well, you shouldn't. The jokes he told should only be allowed to be said by someone who has one arm. There must be that comedian out there. And he or she gets or they

gets full rights to these jokes that he told and faked okay but if he was one of were they even good jokes for that i mean they were all some version of like he was going to charge me an arm and a leg luckily i had a coupon which to be fair it's cute uh but then you you make me the liar then i'm the host and i'm like i lied to the audience yeah so they're not gonna believe me next time when i say you know this next comic's great or only a couple comics left what did you do i did the whole fucking shit i wish i was cool enough to say no yeah i wish i was cool enough to go up there and say this next guy asked me to say that he has one arm no but then that's a shitty position to be in too because then you're throwing him under the bus even though he's doing a weird weird shitty i wish you had to do that with every comic that like the next guy says he's a warlock and then

that guy comes up yeah there's one guy he i mean this is not that infrequent but he says i'm gonna hopefully no one listens to this episode but he's really rolling the dice yeah he says um uh tell them i'm your really good friend make sure you say that make sure you say that that you're like that i'm your really good friend give it up for a really good friend then he up. Give it up for what's his name? And I'm like, that's your opener? That's your opener. The opener is a sacred line you work. The openers are so hard to write.

And that's the cheapest fucking bullshit in the world. Yeah. Also, because you're not really selling it either. You're not being like going on and on about it. But I wish I was a dick. And I was like, this next guy is my best friend. You should. Then he would have ate it.

And you would have shown him. He would be talking about this on his podcast right now. Did you want to talk about anything? Nothing. Then fuck off. All right. Then let's bring up our guest. You've heard him a little bit.

Please. Yeah, you. I mean, this is going to come out after the fact. But this guy, he's known around town for opening for me at City Steam Brewery. That's my number one credit. Can I say who your manager is? We talk about her on the pod. That's fine by me.

His manager is on the pod. That's true. That's true. Tova Silverman, my girlfriend. We recorded this podcast at May 18th. She was my girlfriend at this point in time. Who knows? Wow. Please give it up for Michael Cruz. Kane was my girlfriend at this point in time. Who knows? Wow.

Please give it up for Michael Cruz. Kane! Go, go, go, go. That's my own sounds. First of all, I didn't realize the theme music is...

What's that? Who did that? Douglas Goodhart. He's a member of our sketch team, Uncle Funken. He did a wonderful job. When that theme music went,

I was like, holy crap, that blows the whole rest. I mean, people can't... Oh, they can. It's on camera. The rest of this setup is nothing compared to the theme music. That is really a step up.

Are you enjoying your cold filtered water right now? I drank the whole thing. I biked here. So I drank this much water very quickly. I'm going to be parched the rest of the time. Sure. I also want to say before we go anywhere with this, I'm a big supporter of Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell.

I love them. I love the fucking podcast. I love the guy. What's the show? Good Place. Parenthood. Parenthood. Did you watch Parenthood? Oh, no. I love the fucking podcast. I love the guy, the, what's the show? Good Place. Parenthood. Did you watch Parenthood?

Oh, no, I love Parenthood. Good Place is great, but Parenthood. I love Parenthood. I'm convulsing with tears, like blood coming out of my eyes.

No, I agree. I agree. I am a huge Parenthood fan and I get made fun of a lot, but it's a beautiful show. And she's also, she's also Broadway talented.

Do you know that about Kristen Bell? Kristen Bell. Of course I know that about Kristen Bell. Okay, I don't know. It's really for the benefit of your audience. Reefer Madness the musical. There we go. One of the best movie musicals.

And also, I believe The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The short-lived The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I haven't seen that one. Well, you can't see it. There's no place to see it. I don't think it went very well, which is not Kristen Bell's fault. I'm sure. Now tell me about your musical theater background.

Because you... I went to college to get a music degree like a singing uh vocal performance was my russell did that as well okay we're close personal friends and uh my concentration oh no vocal what the hell's my degree uh concentration in musical theater oh shit the uh bachelor of music concentration of vocal performance but what that meant was I did a bunch of musicals in college. And then... I think the longer the degree, the more meaningless it is. Yes.

The guy who ran my department did a lot of regional theater. And so I would frequently be taken out of school to just go do shows with him. So I almost didn't go to college. I would take... That's not true. I probably was at college two-thirds of the time that a person would be in college.

And because he was the head of the department, he'd be just like, give him an A. So I would just get an A in music theory, but only be at two thirds of the classes. Wow. Crazy. I've never heard you sing, though. Have you stopped singing? I sing sometimes. I have a voice that I would describe as ethereal.

Ethereal? What does that mean, ethereal? That's like Enya to me. Yeah, it does sound like Enya. It's more, I guess, godlike. It's more like that. Are you baritone, tenor? Yeah, it's more like... Ethereal? What does that mean, ethereal? That's like Enya to me. Yeah, it does sound like Enya. It's more, I guess, godlike. It's more like that. It's more like... Baritone?

Tenor? Yeah, Baritone. More of like... Geez, who's another person? Maybe, are you familiar with the work of John Raitt? Kind of in that world. The original Billy Bigelow from Carousel. There's no way anyone is still listening to this podcast.

No, no, no. We have a heavy theater. We have a heavy theater uh let's do original billy bigelow i i would say for like two straight hosts we have like a very heavy jewish and a heavy gay audience in general and musical and musical theater who who was the last heavy gay jew who does musical theater heavy gay jew we're gonna haveierstein. We're going to have Harvey Fierstein very soon. We could have him one day, I bet.

I love Harvey Fierstein. Or we could do you doing the character the whole time and pretend it's that. Oh, you do a Harvey Fierstein character. I do.

I do. You're supposed to say I do in the voice. No, I don't want to. I did it on the podcast. You make me do the Harvey Fierstein one. The first podcast,

not everyone has heard it. Say something. They can look it up. Harvey Fierstein, what has got to stop? No, I'm not doing it again. He doesn't want to do it. Say something. They can look it up. We'll talk. Harvey Fierstein, what has got to stop? No, I'm not doing it again. He doesn't want to do it, John Marco.

All right, fine. For the love of God. So, well, speaking of Carousel. Was it the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Maybe it wasn't Tom. Maybe it was Huck Finn.

Kristen Bell was in a thing about Tom. Huck Finn. A Tom, what's his name? Mark Twain. Okay, anyway, we've moved on.

Yes. Well, I was saying Carousel. Well, because I did Carousel. You did Carousel. I did Carousel in college, right? My freshman year. Did you both play Billy Bigelow? No.

I did like a, I did, it was a song cycle, if I'm being honest. Okay. If I'm, you know, it's a little embarrassing. Thank you. I was in a song cycle. Okay. And I did, there's a big song called Soliloquy. Yeah, sure.

Oh, yeah. We've all sung it. And Billy Bigelow, he thinks he's about to have a kid and he imagines what it's going to be like if it's a boy how he's going to raise him to be you know a cis white man yeah and not always though in new productions i love the idea of him saying cis white man in the song though which he absolutely does not my cis boy white girl and but then he's like oh my god what if it's a girl and he starts thinking about like how he's really got to protect her and so there's this big final moment it's a great song where he goes he's like, oh my God, what if it's a girl? And he starts thinking about like how he's, he's really got to protect her.

And so there's this big final moment. It's a great song. Where he goes, he's like, I'll go out and make it or steal it. And I was doing it and I was like, it's a long song and I was making it through, but I'm like a baritone that, you know, cracks sometimes. Yeah. I'll go out and make it or steal it or take it or die. Ooh, the double. You went down and came back for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was truly, I mean, it was a very big music hall in my college. Must have broken your entire soul in half. Really, the kind of, I've bombed before and stand up once or twice and this was this was a different degree where no one could look me in the eye i was like i wanted someone to say it wasn't that bad because you can say that with comedy you can be like well they're really thinking through your jokes um but when it's but when it's uh when it's when it's fucking music you're like we all heard that yeah and it's not with a crack it's not a wrong note it's like music, you're like, we all heard that.

Yeah. And with a crack, it's not a wrong note. It's like 50 notes that came out. I mean, it's one of those things where the verb used to describe it is so accurate. It really is. It's like a cracking where you feel like all the sounds splinters. Our origin stories, I feel like, are very similar because I was in a production. This was a production, not a fucking song cycle of Brigadoon singing that.

Can you scoot a little bit to your left? Cause your, your, your right hand is very gesticulative. Okay. Yes. Scooting to the left. Is that good?

You're going to block the camera. Oh, this camera. Oh, I see. I thought it was this one. Okay. I can,

I can restrain it. Sorry to interrupt. No, it's wonderful. The, uh, I was in Brigadoon, Brigadoon.

What was I talking about? Brigadoon. Oh, and there restrain it. Sorry to interrupt. No, it's wonderful. The, uh, I was in Brigadoon, Brigadoon. What was I talking about? Brigadoon. Oh, and there's a song. Um, maybe the sun gave me the power. I can so long at home and half an hour, maybe. And I'm all aglow and alive. And I cracked so hard on it. And it really is like, if I think about it, I'm there.

I like can like close my eyes and be in that second where you're like, oh, this is not a career. You know what I mean? That moment where you hit that note and you're like oh this is not a career you know what i mean that moment where you hit that note and you're like or you don't hit it what kind of crack was it a straight crack or was it a wobble like a tarzan i think it was like uh it was like it was a straight crack into complete silence into my into me being like i quit i quit this note i quit this note and then just like okay i'll try and sing the rest of the song and every note the rest of the time i don't know what you were like if you kept singing after your song was over but that's only the beginning of this song that's before the real song yeah so every other note of the song i'm

like what today i'm like really clamping down on every note i'm gonna get it just like this that it was rough that's uh i think that's an f or an f sharp on that song i used to sing the song too i'm sure we sang all the same baritone songs. This is the same exact audition book. That's tough. You see, I think a song cycle is not as bad as a musical because no one's rooting for you in the musical at that point. The whole show is shot.

I mean, oh, my God. I once saw Jesus Christ Superstar with Ted Neely. Ted Neely. No, but he was in the movie. By the time I saw him, he was in the movie but by the time i saw him he was like 72 okay and i mean you know he was touring he must be the only way he can make money anymore and it was one of these where everyone else was teenagers and ted neely was jesus 72 and it was the first time i was like rooting for the romans i was like you got to get

this pedophile away from these kids he He was like, the whole show, he's like, really weak. And then at the one part at the marketplace, he's like, ah! And that was it.

That's the only part that was good. He saved it up for that moment. Yeah, yeah. And then there's this long extended sequence in the show where he's crucified

and you're watching this old man in a diaper, essentially, being crucified and someone was like, take him down. He's going to die up there.

Yeah. I like the idea of supportive heckling from was like, take him down. He's going to die up there. Yeah. I like the idea of supportive heckling from the crowd. Take him down. Come on. I was the first Jew to say, take the Jesus down. Speaking of Jew, you're a Jew. I'm Jewish on my dad's side. So I think like for the real Jews, it doesn't count.

What about in your heart? In my heart, I feel culturally Jewish a little bit. I was bar mitzvahed in Israel. My grandmother, at a certain point in my life, my grandmother was like... We're going to bleep out Israel just so you know. Oh, right. Yeah, okay. I have a birthright joke on TikTok right now. And when I tell you that, now people are commenting on my other videos saying,

tell us your views on Palestine versus Israel. But your birthright... i was not birthright it was just like i didn't do anything jewish until i was 13 at which point my grandmother was like you gotta we gotta get some judaism in here so i learned my torah portion from a from like a audiophile and then i went to israel and tried to recite the whole thing from memory. I'm part of like this, you know, tour on a, on a,

on Masada in Israel with like the air force flying overhead. I was bar mitzvah. I was like basically part of a tour group. It was amazing. And I loved it. That's like, you've never been to church. And then when you're 13,

you get fucked by a priest. Like it's like so intensely, I think it shares. I can see the some qualities that it shares with that. I do feel like the analogy breaks down. If you look at it too closely, right in is, I mean, the sum qualities that it shares with that. I do feel like the analogy breaks down if you look at it too closely. Birthright in his, I mean, that's just like the most Jewish. Stop saying birthright. It wasn't birthright.

Bar Mitzvah, but it was your birthright. It was my birthright. There you go. You would know this if your mom was Jewish, but you're. That's right. Just my dumb dad. I hate, like, there's many things I problem with the religion, but the idea that like your dad is Jewish Jewish the fact that you

you add that qualifier everyone does everyone does I say my mom's Jewish so for real you're circumcised yes that's what matters

wait but why why is it that only the mom counts something that it's the the puss juice has to be kosher I don't know what it is

I don't believe I'm not positive I don't think puss juice made it to the Torah but I bet you it what it is. I don't believe, I'm not positive. I don't think push juice made it to the Torah. But I bet you it has something to do with the fact it's like, well, the thing was inside,

was born and created inside the woman and that's why it counts. Probably. I think there probably is something. It is push juice. The tone,

the disdain with which you say it, I do feel like there is another way of thinking of it that's probably very cool. But your way is very derisive. I think it might be nice. Maybe it's a nice—the women are the keeper of the—they keep God.

It's the women. I don't know. I'm making it up, but I bet somebody was like, I know. We'll give—you know what? We'll give Leah a cool thing. That's so weird. They're the keeper of the God, but only men can be rabbis. How strange.

I don't know the rules. So you have kids. Yes. Are you going to raise them Jewish in any way, shape, or form? They are not raised Jewish except that I'm anxious all the time. So that's the amount of Judaism that they get. They probably absorb historical anxiety through the way that I behave. You know what I mean?

absorb historical anxiety through the way that I behave. You know what I mean? Um, but they have, uh, some exposure to Christianity because my wife's parents are Christian, like for real Christian, you know what I mean? Like not like Christian, how anybody like I knew so many people growing up who were Christian, but they don't know anything about it. They're like, you know, chapter and verse go to church, head of the Sunday school in the choir, the whole deal. and verse go to church, head of the Sunday school, in the choir, the whole deal. So they are very sincere in their Christian beliefs. And when we're with them, they, I don't know if proselytize is the right word, but maybe it is. They want my kids to be Christian.

Were they baptized? My kids were baptized. And I was baptized. I was baptized against my dad. Like my dad didn't even know that I was getting baptized. My mom was like, just like snuck me off to get baptized. And then you came back, your dad's like, why is his forehead all wet? This kid's soaking wet.

His whole face. Why is this kid going to heaven now? What's going on? Hang on a damn minute. My dad, who is the Jewish one, is also basically not Jewish. I mean, like not practicing in any way, doesn't believe any of the stuff. But he's like, that's most Jewish. Yeah, exactly. He's culturally Jewish, is what I say.

So you never did Birthright? I did not do Birthright. I don't know what your deal is. Do you have a sponsorship with Birthright? Why does Birthright keep happening? You've never been to Israel? No. You've never been to Israel? No, I haven't. It was going to be a trick question. If you were like,

you mean Palestine? That's what I was going to do. I was gonna be a trick question if you were like you mean palestine that's what i was gonna do i uh okay so so so you're jewish just to say because i definitely want to say my opinions on israel palestine uh-huh i a thing that i do think about that is this can i talk about this here i i don't it's gonna be a couple weeks so though it might have been completely resolved by them yeah and there's gonna be a completely happily functioning i want to say about it is that if if because of this anyone were to ask me my opinions on israel palestine i would only say i really don't know i really like i i have a new thought about it every i have no confidence in myself so the second anyone tells me anything i'm like well that's right that of course is right yes so my wife will send me a tweet during the day about someone saying this thing about palestine i'm like oh wow yeah that's right. That of course is right. Yes. So my wife will send me a tweet during the day about someone saying this thing about Palestine.

I'm like, oh, wow. Yeah, okay. Well then we should do this. And then later she'll send me a different tweet by somebody else. I'm like, well, hang on. There's also that. So your wife's playing both sides.

My wife and I are both trying. We both sit and watch the news and are like, we got to find out what the answer to this is. You know what's funny? So all day we're reading everything. But we're like, I don't, okay, this this i read this article by this guy yeah now this seems right and then she's like but in the comments someone said this what about that and you're like oh fuck well maybe that maybe that i have i mean there's there's two thoughts one is i feel like

a i have the same feeling and then i'm like i'm sure that in World War II, there were Americans being like, it's just so confusing. Like, you know, but Hitler is bringing, like, I'm sure confusion is an easy thing to say. But number two is that I say, like, it is,

when it was about Trump or about like local politics, it's very complicated already when you're being fed propaganda and when you're finding truth and how to get enough information to have an informed opinion. But it's close to us.

So I get a more real sense of like, I know a little bit about the Supreme court and laws that, that I feel like I am a little more informed in who I like when it's from something that's not in America. All of a sudden I'm like, now I don't trust my news sources. That's the thing is that, is that I, John Oliver becomes my news source.

And I'm like, I don't believe that that's good either. That's the thing, is that I... John Oliver becomes my news source and I'm like, I don't believe that that's good either. Yeah. We have close friends who are Israeli, right? So like they have family there. Yeah.

And so they have their opinions about it and I'm going to be like, what do you know? Just because you have family there and you lived there your whole life, you think you know more about me

who just learned about this from my friend Gary on Facebook? Like it just feels very weird to assume that having no personal experience with whatsoever, that I feel much more like I just want someone to tell me the thing and I'm on your team. Like, to be like, here is the deal. Believe this. And I'd be like, great. I believe that. I'm unsure of every belief

that i have you could be like a civil war soldier and like depending on who you last talked to you change from the confederacy i think that yeah just back and forth changing hats i think that is i think that is unfortunately very accurate like i'm not uh i i don't say this about myself as an excuse it's more like um it's more like something about me. That's not good. It's not good that I don't have, I have no certitude in my life with anything. Like I'll be, I'll tell someone, you know, I, um, uh, did you know that, uh, Martin Van Buren was the first president who was born in America? And they'll be like, really? And I'm like, yeah, they'll say really again. I'll be like, well, hang on. Maybe not. Maybe like all I need is two reallys to be like, I was wrong.

I'm definitely not right about that. Sure. Martin Van Buren, by the way, was the first president born in America. Did you know that? Yeah. Well, I don't know. Well, good one that time. You know, Russell, I forgot to say last.

So a joke that I wanted to. What is this podcast about? Are we doing the podcast? We're going to get negative. Yeah. No, no, no. We're going to get negative soon. But I just want to say, Russell, I did.

I had a joke with Russell on an earlier podcast that didn't go quite as I wanted. But originally my plan was I was going to play this. And then I was going to make you answer about Palestinian-Israel relations. And then I was like, I've done enough mean stuff to Russell. But just so you know, that is loaded in the soundboard. Okay. No, we're talking about the downside. So we need to be negative.

Enough of this, the positives about how wonderful Israel and palestine is by the way my time in israel absolutely lovely okay all right well absolutely yeah you go what were you gonna say no no i i he said he was 13 i was yeah i was 13 okay well let's talk about your mom then because i watched uh okay rude your mom uh doesn't say i love you a lot let's there's okay wow my mom uh this well this is in my stand-up but my mom does not say i love you i mean almost ever like now the now the last time i do not remember does she say more to your kids than you she will say to my kids like a thing it's like kind of in a sing-song way she'd be like i love this boy that's what she'll say to i love this boy i love this girl like That's what she'll say to the kid. I love this boy. I love this girl.

Like that. She doesn't really say I can't remember the last time I heard her say I love you to anyone. I know that she feels loved. Like the way that she talks about her family, like her mother, my grandmother, died

not that long ago. And so when she talks about her mom, I know that she loves that person. But specifically those words basically don't get said. So we do, in my stand-up, the thing that is true is that, I mean, most of my stand-up is lies. But a thing that is true is that we will go home and say I love you to my mom as much as possible to try to get her to say it back. We'll just say it all the time. We'll be at dinner. Pass me the rice. I love you so my mom as much as possible to try to get her to say it back. Like, we'll just say it all the time. We'll be at dinner, pass me the, you know, pass me the rice. I love you so much, whatever. Nothing will break her. There is no way to get her to say it back to you. It's just not

how she operates in her whole, her whole family. As far as I know is like that ever. Do you think that that hurt when you were a kid? I don't even think I was aware of it until I like it. I'd never felt not loved. Do you know what I i mean it's just that she didn't say the words like my mom when i was in college my mom would drive into the city pick up my laundry and drive it back home do the laundry like she was coming into the city for work but like that's the kind i gotta say maybe now i know why she didn't say it very often rude but yes that's very possibly true she did but like she's more of a uh she's more of an acting a doer of the thing than a sayer of the thing you know what i mean and she's filipino she's filipino is now is that like part of we did did she grow up in the philippines she grew up in

the philippines yes the the legend is that she had a boyfriend in the philippines and her parents were like we don't like this guy we're sending you to school in the united states whether that's true that feels doesn't feel like a fake story but that that is that's the story as as it was handed down that she that she shares yeah i don't i don't know how often she shares that story but that's the story that as it was told to me. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? I feel like maybe she shared it with your dad

whenever they were fighting. Yeah, exactly. I love this man. Yeah, I don't even want to be here. I'm just waiting to go back. Now, is that I love you, lack of saying I love you culture, do you think that's part of being from the Philippines? I don't know.

I don't think so. I don't think so because I think of Filipinos, like other Filipinos I've met outside of my family, even my own family, as being pretty gregarious and outgoing. But within the family, there's not a lot of like saying, I love you to each other.

It's not very, um, you and your kids. I feel like you say, I love you. I say my kids too much. Like I say it all the time. Yeah.

Uh, like I'm, I'm very, I'm very loving. I'm worried that the amount of love that I show my children will be the thing that fucks them up. Do you know what I mean? You know, that thing, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm very loving. I'm worried that the amount of love that I show my children will be the thing that fucks them up. Do you know what I mean? You know that thing, they fuck you up. Excuse me.

They fuck you up, your mom and dad. Do you know this? This is a poem by somebody. I mean, I know that fact. I don't know the poem. There's a poem that is like, they fuck you up, your mom and dad. They don't mean to, but they do. It's how it starts.

And like, the idea of it is that. I'm going to do that as the opening for the next podcast episode oh beautiful that's a great that's a great opener for something sad but the idea of it basically is no matter what happens you will fuck up your kids and the end of the poem is like basically if you want to fix this problem don't have any kids yourself like that's the way to to not to not have that is that your game plan i don't want kids but uh i don but I wasn't thinking because of that. Okay, it wasn't the poem that flipped it for you? No, it was not the poem.

But so I do worry that I'm not enough of an asshole to my kids because I do think of every hero that I think of in history is like, my dad died or he left home or whatever. Especially in comedy. I think many times how I wish I had parents that were more infested, but I know some comedians who have very loving parents and they are terrible comedians.

Terrible comedians. Their parents come to every god-awful show that they do. But let me also say that I also know people who have horrible parents who are also horrible comedians i don't know that it's specifically the love that is the deciding factor there you know what i mean i know very few really good comedians whose whose family who didn't have something that's what i mean that's the poem they're gonna fuck you up there's something is gonna be something is gonna be wrong you know what mean? Like the number of times my kids have heard me sing the Miss Saigon soundtrack

start to finish, excuse me, cast recording start to finish repeatedly. OBC or OLC? OBC. Oh, wait, I'm singing it.

So it's me. Do you know what I mean? Okay. Like it's just me. Uh, but like, that'll be something that, that for sure will be a problem for them later on.

The fact that, you know, that my son would be like, wait, what's a problem for them later on the fact that you know that my son would be like wait what's a whore you know what I mean because I'm singing Miss Saigon it's like that kind of there's going to be something there I will fuck them up in some way yeah you get it okay so talk to me about because I you know I'm sorry to harp on your stand up but I did watch it

so being Filipino you talked about the hierarchy of Asians yeah and I feel like there's you said Filipinos were at the bottom. Is that how you describe it? So that is, yes, I did describe it like that. Do you feel that way? I feel that way. I don't feel that way.

Well, let me say this. I would not do that joke now. That's a joke that I did coming up. It's on YouTube forever. Yeah. No, I know that. It's not just on YouTube. Well, this is the downside.

So tell me, what did you mean by it? What is the truth to it? What I meant by it is I think it's like sort of a forgotten Asian. You know what I mean? Like I think when people think of Asians, they think of a particular looking person, which is basically like what people used to call the Orient, but they're sort of not allowed to call the Orient.

When people say Asian, they mean what was the Orient. They mean like and the orient includes i mean it's all the place at japan china like places people people who white people and many people are like i can't tell these people apart the that's what people mean when they say asian they don't mean i hate to come back to it but israel which is also in asia they don't mean you know what i mean asian even is a word that almost doesn't have, uh, that doesn't have any useful meaning because there's, it's so enormous. But, um, what was this question? And that comes because of the, because of the Orient. Like, that's why that I've always wondered like certain places we don't consider like Asian or people Asia. And it's because

I didn't know that about the Orient. I don't think I know. I'm not saying I have no historical knowledge of why that is. I'm just saying that in general, when people say, like, if you ask a guy to point to an Asian person

on the street, he's going to look for somebody that he thinks is from China or Japan or Korea. If he sees a Filipino person, he might be like, um, maybe?

You know what I mean? Yeah. I think, I grew up in Potomac, Maryland and we grew up with,omac maryland and uh we grew up the asia of maryland famously exactly but there was there was a big filipino community that that ultimately the babysitting we had people who lived with us we had money and uh we had a lot of filipino uh caretakers nannies uh that like cooked our meals. Like for like a Jewish household,

I had rice was the main dish. There were egg rolls. This is so much, like our lives are so similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Well, we had a woman who lived with us and even saying that feels like diminishing her role, but we had a woman who lived with us named Teodora Tubalia who lived with us

like almost my entire, not almost, basically my entire childhood. And until I was like 30, still live with my parents that would like cook and clean and like run errands and stuff. So we, and we would eat rice at every meal. And that was because she cooked that. Anyway. What was your live-in maid's name? Well, we had my mom and, and we didn't eat a lot of rice. I'll be honest. We did not. Unless it was in some sort of casserole. I had this, her name, I'll say her first name was Tiddy.

We didn't have a Chinese restaurant in town, but it was like, it was the only, what's so funny is that we have like three restaurants in town, and one of them was Chinese. Where'd you grow up? Oh, God. It's like near, it's a small town called bainbridge new york it's like three hours north of the city okay but our ours her name was tanette and i just remember we we had rice every meal and my sister was very picky internet would pick up the rice with her hand and just put it to my sister's mouth and it was just it was uh it was good my sister she should have eaten her fucking rice. But it was wonderful.

It's just so, it's wild when like a different culture just happens to intersect in a way that wouldn't have plenty of. Just to talk about that, like my grandparents, who were very well off in the Philippines, my grandmother would eat food, like utensils were a thing she would like almost never use. And I would, left to my own devices in a house by myself i will eat any food with anything available to me that's why i love

eating things with my hands maybe that's maybe that's maybe maybe you she uh infected you with some filipino you're you became by osmosis filipino i wouldn't i wouldn't say infected now okay the philippines do you know a lot about the philippines no i do not i wish i knew more I wouldn't say infected. Now, okay. The Philippines. Do you know a lot about the Philippines? No, I do not. I wish I knew more.

I feel like it's weird because as I get older, the more that I'm like interested in my cultural history, but really as a kid, I thought of myself pretty much as white. Like I thought of my mom who is straight up Asian as white. Like when my, it wasn't until I was married that, I guess it was before I was married,

but I was dating the woman who is now my wife. And I was like, you know, we're going to meet my mom. You won't even notice, but she's Filipina. And she met her

and she was like, she's fucking very Asian. There's like not, there's not a single moment where I thought your mom is white. Whatever that says about society, I had thought of my mom,

who is definitely Filipina, as a white person until I was fully an adult. It never occurred to me that she was not white. Even though I knew it, I didn't feel it, if that makes sense. So when you grew up did you you never felt it you never felt like if you were the only you know

where everyone else was white in the room you were like oh i'm it's because i don't i don't read as filipino so i didn't live the or jewish particularly i read and that's like a weird thing like um professionally when you're like auditioning for stuff, when they're like, we want an Asian person. Just so you know, while you're casting this, I'm Jewish. Yes, or like we want a Jewish person, which ends up being basically nothing. My first agent in the city, one of the first auditions they sent me on

was for the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. And in that musical, there are two Chinese dudes. And the sides were in Chinese. And then he also had me audition for a Chinese character on Law and Order. So I get into the waiting room and it's Chinese dudes. It's all dudes speaking, like dudes literally speaking Chinese to each other. And I get in the audition room and the intern is like, you're here for, and I'm like, I guess I'm here for the, I'm here for the Chinese guy. And I had hired a Chinese woman off Craigslist to read the sides.

Like, this is how bad I wanted to work to read the sides into my phone. So I could learn them phonetically and then just say them. She could have done anything to me. Like she could have pranked me hardcore there. I could have said anything back to the camera. Does it ever feel like, how do I phrase this correctly where like because you don't necessarily present as asian or people wouldn't

know that it that have you ever walked in a room and it felt like like if i walked in that room it'd be like oh i'm gonna take this role now they're gonna make it a white guy role instead of a chinese guy i would maybe felt that if I had more success auditioning for things. But I think what I usually feel is I walk in the room and I'm like, well, this is not, like I walk in the room and I see 15 dudes who look straight up. Like when, again, like what the casting director,

when she wrote Asian on the breakdown, she was thinking of someone who looked a certain way. It was definitely not this. You know what I mean? And so that is like a weird, the struggle is, is for me has been mild, but if there is one,

it's that I don't specifically belong in either. Like this is like the struggle of the mixed race person that I'm not really a white person and I'm not like fully an Asian person. So it is weird to be like, where, like where, which group is mine? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I could feel like it would be a lonely thing. I mean, I certainly, I've gotten older. I never connected to Jewish stuff. I wasn't raised very Jewish. I went on the birthright later in life, but I think there was a loneliness. Birthright again, holy shit.

I think there was a loneliness to it. I mean, did you ever feel like you didn't have that community? This is very therapy. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think I still feel it. Although, as I become more invested in learning about the Philippines and identifying myself as Asian,

I think it was, for most of my life, didn't really think about it, like secretly rooted for not secretly, but privately rooted for Asians all the time. Like I would root for Asian athletes or whatever. But as I get older, I'm being more vocally Asian. I've been very accepted by the Asian community in comedy. Yeah. I just did this Asian comedy festival last weekend. I mean, whenever this comes out, maybe a month ago. Um, and that experience has been like amazing. And it's very much like,

uh, I don't know if it's a weight off exactly. It's like, uh, it's like a light on that. It wasn't on before of feeling like, Oh, I can do this. Like I can tell jokes about what little I have of Asian culture.

And it like resonates in a way where other people see it as a curiosity. This crowd sees it as like something they identify with. And you can do all the other Jewish comedy festivals. That's right. All the huge, every other festival. I'm doing Scottish and English festivals. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good. It's like a Renaissance fair. Yeah. We, yeah. I mean the thing with the philippines i'm always hesitant when we get the news in a very specific way but yeah i mean the last thing

i heard about the philippines was during the lockdown who's the president right now the filigree go duterte who is pretty pretty harsh he's a he's a bad dude the filipino politics are not specifically i think i had a joke i was trying where it was like he, if you broke quarantine, this was like beginning of coronavirus. He was like, you'll get shot in the head. I don't know if he said that, but it tracks. Yeah. And I said something about, you know, when I go outside, I see all these people partying and I'm like, yeah, it would be nice for someone to shoot me in the head. Something like where I made it about me killing myself.

You had to tell the backstory of who Rodrigo Duterte was to get to that joke? I'm like a John Oliver of stand-up. I like to educate and joke. And then I remember Trump got in trouble because he praised him for the way he dealt with the drug problem. And the way he dealt with the drug problem

was he killed fucking everybody. He just kills people. Just straight up kills them. And who's the boxer? Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao. He's Filipino, right? Yes.

Did you say Filipino, Filipina? You said it with your mouth? I sometimes do. It's inconsistent. And I think that Filipino is safe to encapsulate the whole thing. Okay. I think if you want it to be all the way a hundo P to encapsulating everyone, I believe people are working on Filipinex or whatever.

I think that's a thing that has existed. Pnex. We're really going to goulating everyone. I believe people are working on Philippine-X or whatever. I think that's a thing that has existed. P-N-X. We're really going to go for that. We're going to say P-N-X and expect... Philippine-X, I think. Not just straight up P-N-X. I have a feeling... Who's the president again?

Duterte. Duterte is not going to be a big fan of the... Absolutely for certain. He's not throwing the X up there. Yeah, the Filipino politics are, yeah, tricky. You've been back ever? I've been to the Philippines a lot when I was young. The last time I went was probably before my kids were born,

so like maybe 12 years ago, something like that. Oh, wow. That's a long time. Yeah, I mean, now once you have kids, it's like, now I have to have my kids on the plane for 13 hours. A flight is $1 thousand dollars. It's a day long. I feel bad about not having been back in a long time. Cause I do want to go, but I mean, we barely go to Florida. Do you know what I mean? Like the Philippines would just feel like such a major excursion to

do that. Do you feel with your kids who are a quarter Asian? That's right. Do you feel any like making sure that you pass along certain bits of your heritage? Oh, yeah. I force them to learn about it. Just like any Asian person who vaguely enters the zeitgeist, I'm like, you have to know about Bruno Mars. You have to. He's like you. He's part Asian. He's like you.

He was on my list earlier of prominent Asian Americans. Yeah, right. It's like Sanjay Gupta and then Bruno Mars. My son and daughter, actually, I think both look more Asian than I do. I look the least Asian of my siblings and less Asian than my children. But to answer your question, I do try and make them as proud of being Asian as I can, which is weird because also being a quarter Asian, it's hard to like, I don't know how they'll navigate that when they get older. Maybe they'll just abandon it. I don't know. We'll see. Can we talk about your podcast that's going to happen eventually? I want to go by saying one other thing about Filipinos. Is that okay?

I would love to, as long as it's negative. Well, the only thing about it is the, well, it's more negative about me than it is about Filipinos. The joke about Filipinos being at the bottom of the hierarchy of Asians was a joke that I told before.

I really knew that I was good at being funny. It's like one of those things where I will get up on stage and say anything to make people laugh. And then that was one of those jokes that just worked enough that I kept doing it. And then all of a sudden I was doing it on TV and you're like, Oh, you know what? Yeah. A million people are going to see this joke that I really wrote to make four videos more like 65 000 but yes well also but all the people who watched it live you piece of shit yeah so it is like i would i know that i would never do jokes like that now i would i would never it is very interesting with stand-up where there's a there's just a such a big change between like

i'm doing it at bars and it's crushing and then one day you're like, oh, is this how I want to represent myself? What's one you would take away? Well, I also had a bit about Filipinos being the bottom of the Asian hierarchy and it only plays in certain rooms. I think that's true.

I think that's very true. I mean, I think what you said about it worked and you kept doing it. I think there's much worse comedy that also falls the same trajectory it worked in some room yeah and next thing you know yeah you're you're tony hinge cliff you're freaking in the middle of texas tony hinge cliff yeah golly that was a tough that's a tough watch man i watched did you watch the i watched someone posted the whole set you can watch the whole set i didn't see not just yeah well you were you said when you saw you're like i want to see more I watched someone posted the whole set. You can watch the whole set. Oh, I didn't see that. Not just the-

You said when you saw it, you're like, I want to see more. Russell said, what's the context? What's the context that he go not to ask her? That sounds just like me. I saw one guy, he's like, well, what's the context? As if he was just like, just kidding. And we'd be like, okay. Just kidding, that's my racist character.

That's my impression of a racist guy. He does a whole set. He comes back to the thing a couple times about Asians being terrible or whatever. Just the whole set. I'm sure that's a funny person. I'm sure of it. Because now I've seen like super funny or a performer. But now I've watched like 20 of his videos because of this thing.

His career is exploding because everyone's watching his videos so i've watched a bunch of it and some of it i'm like oh this is you know this is pretty funny it's like one of these guys who's just doing this edgy shit and then some of his some of his jokes and probably some of his personality is just fucking garbage and so that's what that's what you get out there and it is that kind of thing where you do this awful joke and it plays well in some kind of room. And then you make the decision about, do I always want to be in this room? Because if I stay in this room, I can do these jokes for the rest of my life.

And that's a choice that guy made. That guy made the choice at some point to be like, I'm going to be the comic who does this because I'm done trying to be on Fallon or whatever like i'm not going to try and do that or it didn't happen and so you're like yeah i'll build an audience i'm not i'm not trying to be a good person anymore i'm trying to make whatever dollars i can make off being horrible to people and that's and i think that's my deal also just just like degree like there's like i do think there's some kind of difference between like doing it in a bar and no one ever

hears it and then before you know you have a fan base yeah and all of a sudden you're dealing with people who like like it in a way where they're not laughing at it but yeah and again how responsible is someone to like decide how someone takes their comedy but some people take it as like fuel or just encouragement or just part of their general oeuvre of being hateful yeah and and it's it's it's it's uh i i hate it when comedians don't pretend like that exists there's some comedians who are like it's all just jokes and i'm like but you say it constantly and constantly and a certain point you're just part of this like pushing and i don't know the news people are doing the same thing the fox people

and all of a sudden you're the same you're the same energy in the world and these aren't great jokes none of them are great jokes oh yeah well i think that right there's there's uh i think separate issues that are hard to separate which are one is this racist yes and then the other one is but is it funny and definitely no yeah yeah like the the there aren't people who say the they're just jokes it's like write down on a piece of paper the part that you think show me the punchline in this part i think what makes it hacky too is it's like you because it's not a joke really it's a callback to an old racist term that we all know in our general back of mind. So it's hacking in the sense that

you're just like referencing something that exists that we know is a bad word or a bad thing. And so that's why it's just not inventive. And it's lazy. I mean, that's why it's lazy. Yeah, and I really do believe maybe foolishly that there's a joke for everything. Like there's something funny in the idea of racism that many people have you say that a lot many many people have mined that subject

for humor but this just saying a bunch of racist shit that's not it that you don't get any point there's no to me there's no defense in i was just trying to bid out you weren't you were just saying a bunch of racist stuff do any did any Filipinos write you after that and say hey no Filipinos wrote me after that a bunch of white people were like hey no but I do the joke in that set

is that I'm like like on both sides and I'm like you know you're about the Seth Meyers set right yes I was on Seth Meyers TV show we'll put it in the show notes. Seth Meyers, let's get it to 70. There's a joke in that set where I say that, uh, you know, that like I'm low quality on both sides being like Filipino being like low quality Asian and Jewish being low quality white. And the, I did get messages from Jewish people being like, this is really fucked up that you would say this. And I wrote all those people back being like, well, I was trying to say

is X, Y, Z, and had conversations with them that kind of, I felt great about afterwards, but I could see, I mean, I see their point. I could see someone being like, why would you come out and say it sucks being Jewish? Like what's the value of that? And I think the defensive of me is like hey fuck you man it's just jokes but the other part of me is like yeah like why would i do that like what is good about that yeah but you're also commenting on a feeling like like larry david got a lot of flag on you remember he had an sl and l monologue and it was it was pretty open mikey it was pretty like loose yeah but he had a bit where he was like, Harvey Weinstein, a lot of Jews, a lot of Jews. And people were like, oh, thanks for perpetuating that Jews are sexual predators. And I'm like, what he's talking about is the feeling of hearing story after story and being like, a lot of Jews.

It just is a reality. Absolutely. Now, if fucking the most anti-Semitic schmuck out there takes it and goes like, ha-ha, there you see? A Jew is admitting it. Okay, are we going to bend our will to that idiot? I agree with that. I think what I took from it, and maybe this is like me being like a woke beta boy or whatever. What I took from it was this joke could be better. You know what I mean?

There's something. I can say what I'm trying to say here in a way that is harder to interpret as my denigrating the people who are responsible for me being alive. Does that make sense? To a degree, but I don't believe that if any possible person finds offense, that inherently means the joke is not structurally sound. I agree with that.

No, I agree with that for sure, because I think, yes, as you, I'm sure, believe, that some annoying person will find fault with whatever. Yes. That will happen. I hope, I know we like it's like filipino and then it's jewish and like you can't wait in a way i'm i'm fine i i feel good um i welcome the commentary of i welcome the commentary about fat people uh i would love i would love to talk about that well we just did a whole thing on fat

people yeah it's it's a frequent topic um all right so well then let's can we talk about your podcast yeah of course uh what's it called the podcast is called good grief so i'm getting i'm getting texts on my on my phone the podcast is called good grief it feels very downside uh this feels very appropriate to discuss yes well yes this is this is very downside to discuss. Yes. Well, yes, this is very downside. So Good Grief is a podcast about grief. My son died 11, almost 12 years ago. Is that right? And so it's about that sort of in a micro way, but in a macro way,

it's conversations with people who have lost someone. And eventually will be about maybe more than just loss. It could be other kinds of loss, like divorce or whatever. So the podcast will be those conversations. So now this, now your son was a twin. Yeah. So we had twin. Do you want me to tell you the story?

Did you have a question you wanted to share? No. I mean, I'd love if you share the story. The story is that, I'll try and keep it short, my son, we had, my wife was pregnant. Can you imagine if I said that, if I was like, yeah, but keep it short.

Keep it short. Keep this, Could you please keep it short? We gotta do, I have two more birthright promos I have to do, so. Oh my god, oh my god, wait, wait. Oh wait. I forgot.

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Wow, amazing. We don't know what the commercial was for. Could have been for anything. Yeah. Okay, great. So, tell us your story, if you don't mind. Yeah, so my wife was pregnant with twins, and the pregnancy was a big trial.

It was very difficult. Twins are already high risk, and then they were identical twins, and then they had something called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, which means that one twin gets too much nutrients, too many nutrients from the placenta, and the other one gets too much nutrition. How about that? And the other one gets less, not enough.

And so they had to do a thing where they cut my wife open and shoot lasers at the placenta to reallocate the nutrients, which is a crazy thing that they can do. And then they were born early, which is normal ish for twins. And then really like we thought we were going home with them. And then sort of all of a sudden, uh, the younger twin younger by like, a minute got this, uh, very rare condition called the volvulus, which meant his intestines twisted and effectively he died from that. Like there was no, by the time we even got to the hospital, this very rare condition called the volvulus, which meant his intestines twisted. And effectively, he died from that. By the time we even got to the hospital to address it, the doctors were already

like, well, what we're willing to do is, and it's like, oh, okay. Well, when you talk that way, it's like, you're telling me that he's going to die. So like, it became a thing pretty quickly where it was like, we can keep him alive for however much longer, but I, you know, for all, everyone involved, my wife, the doctors, whatever it was like, what, what will that be? If we like keep him alive for another several hours or whatever. So he died pretty quickly after he got sick. And was this after you had your daughter? No, my daughter's younger. Okay. How old were you when this happened?

If it was 12 years ago, I was 14. How old was I? I don't even, I guess I was 30. Is that right? 30, 29, something like that. I was, I was young. I was much younger. It was fucked up.

Did you ever bring him home from the hospital? We never brought him home from the hospital. He was in the hospital for 34 days and died there. So we have his ashes at home, but he, as a living boy, never left the hospital. 34 days. 34 days. days what that 34 days he lived 34 days yeah yeah but i mean that 34 days must have been just uh how much of that 34

days were you at the hospital i mean were you just you were there every single we're there every single day just every single day but he he got what i'm uh just to be clear about that he got sick on like the either the 34th or the 33rd day you know i mean like he was in the intensive care unit for his entire life but we thought on like the 30th day we were getting ready to take him home in like a week they're like you know we just got gonna run a few more tests he's going to take his feeds the next couple days we'll just make sure all that's good so that when you go home you don't have to immediately come right back here because the kid is fine yeah yeah yeah um so i think i mean i haven't really thought about this before but like if we had taken him

home and he'd gotten sick at home i think it would have been you know a thousand times worse sure would it have been i'm making that up i think it would have been worse because then we would have been dealing with it we would have just been like you know what the fuck is happening on our own like it's uh the thing that happened to him isn't like, you know, it wasn't like somebody dropped him or something. It's just like a thing that was going to happen. You know what I mean? There's like, yeah. And I think we would have felt infinitely more helpless than we did, which was already pretty fucking helpless. If we had, if it had been us who had discovered the problem, if that makes sense, it would have been a lot of like, what did I do? You know what you know what i mean yeah which and it still is that it's still that it's still like yeah shit if i had been

there the day that day would i have noticed this 10 minutes earlier than the nurse and that would have been the difference there still is that but if he had been home and then it happened then it would have been every single thing you know we should have fed him this thing i should have put him on this side i should you know what i mean all that stuff yeah and i mean one of the reasons i knew about it is what was a couple years ago on twitter you kind of posted about talking about grief and uh how you were only really allowed that with grief people only kind of want to hear or let you express the sad part of it they they is that is that an accurate reflection yeah i think Yeah, I think you talked about how there's a whole spectrum of things and to talk to your friends about,

give them a space to talk about it as they want to express themselves. Yeah, I think that's very well put, Gianmarco. Whenever I say your name, I want to say Gianmarco. That's what I want to do. That's what I want everyone to do. Does anybody do that in your life? They do it when they bring me on stage to get a little laugh.

To have fun. John Marco. Great. That's how I, I hear your name like that. In fact, even when Tova, when I found out that Tova was dating you by,

because she told me, she was like, do you know John Marco? And I was like, I don't think so. Like that's not a name. Sure. Because I hear your name in my mind.

She said it in a way that made it actually sound like the Jew that I am. I'm sure she said it in a way yeah exactly and marco um but anyway the the question was oh about the tweet so um yeah i think that the general thesis of the tweet being that grief should be a unifying experience because every single person pretty much will feel it or has felt it, but instead it's like very isolating. And the only time that you ever say anything about it is like, oh my God, it was so like, people give you space for like one comment about how sad it was. And then it's very much like, okay, uh, whoesadillas? You're like, on to the next thing. And I think that when I've spoken to people about grief,

you find that there are very full stories in that telling. And in those conversations, what makes those people emotional usually is not talking about how sad it was. It's like remembering some fucked up memory about their uncle and being like oh my god he used to say this awful thing and like that's the moment where they have this emotional release that they don't expect to have because i think we're trained to bottle up so much of those feelings yeah and there's also like it's also the weird expectation of um when you're going through grief everyone's reactions to you are they're like expecting some sort of

thing that doesn't get too deep but they're the energy that they bring to you is like how are you doing you know that thing and you you're very limited in how you can respond to that it seems are you speaking from a personal experience yeah yeah i'm my i'm not the same thing but my dog died last week and it's like this thing where um it's like that energy of like how you do and like it that feels limited because then if you even if you have a funny thing connected to the grief you feel kind of shitty than being like, good.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Because you're like, your energy that you bring right now has limited how I can even respond to that question. It feels like I'm taking care of you a little bit. It feels like you're saying something and you are approaching this in a certain way, which I think is nice, by the way.

I'm not like, oh, you jerk. It's normal, but it is an interesting thing. Someone comes to you in a way that is like i i i want to talk to you like this and i'm going to write you a card where the the font is somehow this also yeah and i'm and that gives you space to respond also like this like this is every email you get is italicized yeah exactly yeah yeah and so like that's that's how all those conversations happen. And just to reiterate, I think those are nice conversations. Everybody's doing the right thing. I remember when I tweeted about it,

one of the things that I said in it was like, you know, people say, so sorry for your loss all the time, which I didn't mean as like, I don't like it when people say that. I just meant like, that sort of is, so sorry for your loss is kind of the whole thing. That's like the way that we're trained to do it.

Right. And Monica Lewinsky responded in the thread, I'm so sorry for your loss and to of the whole thing. That's like the way that we're trained to do it. Right. And Monica Lewinsky responded in the thread. I was so sorry for your loss and to hear about that. Something super nice. And like 50 people piled on her to be like, what? That's exactly what he doesn't fucking want. And I was like,

no, come on. She's been through it. Monica Lewinsky does not need to be taken down right now. And so she, she deleted her tweet and was like, then then said, I'm so sorry or whatever. It was just like, oh no, Monica, you've been so nice. I have a comedian friend who went through a very serious loss.

And it was really hard because our relationship was very much, we were two guy comedians. We just roasted the shit out of each other and made fun of each other constantly and i i felt really kind of stilted in my interactions and i wasn't sure how to be fun with the person and like i don't know if it spoke to the problem with the kind of constantly you know uh ragging on each other whether that's a problem that doesn't leave room for some other things but it felt really i felt really challenged um because i i like i saw saw this person for after a long time and i i wanted to make it fun or enjoyable but i felt like i was bringing this kind of like you want to get lunch i i noticed i

noticed myself doing it too i had a friend who went through this kind of like you want to get lunch i i noticed i noticed myself doing it too i had a friend who went through this horrible thing like a couple months ago traumatic accident and has been gonna be dealing with with stuff for a long time and i was like i realized like every time i texted him i'm like texting the same dumb bullshit like Like, like, like, how are you doing? Or like, what's new? Like, we're not like, like,

no, I know what you mean. The energy I'm even texting with was like limit. Like, it's like, he can't be like, well, I'm,

this is my reality now. And you can't just be like, you know, three times a week being like, uh, like tell me about, you know, like in, in, in, I don't know how to describe it, but I think the, the other thing week being like, uh, like, tell me about, you know, like in, in,

I don't know how to describe it, but I think the other thing I would say about it, at least that way I feel about it is I'm, you know, I'm very forgiving towards everyone's awkwardness. Cause it is, it's very hard to navigate. Yes. Like the thing you're saying is very real of like, okay, you know, I don't know what the best thing to do to me would have been when my son died. I certainly wouldn't want someone to have come up right away and been like roasting him. You know what I mean? Like that would have felt very uncomfortable.

So I think that there is, you know, you just like try your best, but I just, I, what I want is people to have permission to try, to try like maybe asking a second question or whatever, just to be like,

have a conversation as opposed to just being like how you doing i'm okay all right um is there anything i can do for you um not right now okay um well then putting on the tv and not talking to each other for a while which for some people might be great i'm only i'm just me for some people maybe that is exactly what they want yeah but i do think that if you have the right relationship which maybe you don't know if you have you can get one more question in don't know if you have, you can get one more question in there that'll get them talking. And when I've talked with people who have suffered loss about their loss, I find those conversations. I just love them. I love talking

about them. And it feels like, especially the people that I know well, a whole like half of their life that I didn't know about at all, that it's like, Oh, we weren't, were we even friends? If I didn't know this about you before, like did, how much of you did I know? I guess I knew the part of you that everybody else knew, but it's just crazy that you don't ever talk about, you know,

this thing. Yeah. What was it? I mean, this, this thread went, was spread around a lot. I mean,

I can't imagine the number of messages and emails of people pouring their heart out to you or sharing something. I mean, we got a lot. I say we, because I think of it as me and my wife, but we got a lot of responses and I tweeted it at whatever time, like the night of the anniversary of his death. And then a few people responded and right away I tried to respond to the few people who responded. And then I went to sleep and I woke up and there were like, you know, 2000 messages or something. So I again started responding to them. But as I was responding, more of them were coming in.

I was like, I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up with this. And it was, I don't know, it was overwhelming. And I wish that I could have responded to every single person, but it felt fucking great. I mean, it was, it was nice. And it felt, the other thing was that there were a lot of people in the, the thread who were like talking to each other about someone would be like, you know, the most awful shit, right? Like my daughter drowned on her birthday, like shit, like whatever it is, things that that are horrible and someone else being like that exact thing happened to me and i think just that idea of the thing that this one person was like no one's got a story like this and then somebody else on twitter is like oh no i have that too it just it's that's the like that speaks to the thesis of the idea which is that we are bound together by this thing and you know if this i don't know if this is maybe too upside,

but if you like where to be on the subway with the guy who is the most annoying person on there, there's some chance that that guy, whatever the most fucked up thing that happened to you is also happened to him. And there is like a, uh, there's like a community that is all of mankind there.

I said, uh, so I think that's part of it. That's it. That's it. That's the downside. Oh my God god the downside is we're all bound together baby can't escape it that's true when i read your thread you said we're all gonna die and that was the first time i found out that's when you found out my mortality yeah now there's one thing about there you said the receipt from was that is that true yeah it's a true thing that when we went to the funeral home that eventually

which is also I guess who we, I don't know if they actually cremated my son or if they're like the middle man for the cremation, but the receipt that they returned to us says at the bottom of it, thank you, come again, which is just a very, I'm sure that's just like

programmed into the receipt printer or whatever. I'm sure they didn't do that. It would be insane. It would be insane. Maybe they did. Maybe it was like these two Italian guys. Maybe he knew your lesson. Like, give him a laugh. Give him some material. So that was

I mean, that was one of the things in that experience that was you know, because of how sad we were, that was one of those things that was like when you look at it like this is objectively hilarious have you talked about this in stand-up or is it too much of a hurdle that's a big but i i've been trying to joke that involves uh tova's grandmother and i'd say a joke when she was still alive but then i reveal that she's dead and then i go further after she's been dead. Yeah. But the jokes that I have of after her grandmother has died are not,

are not, I think they're decent jokes, but they got to be so strong to pull people out of. And that's a grandmother of someone that's not my relation. Right. Like that's just, I mean, it's,

you know, it's a one man show lends itself, but like to pull it off and stand up. No, I have, I have never tried to do it. A little bit about me. Here's something about me. I have, so I've been, I've worked on a one man show about grief, which is sort of, you know, this subject, which is definitely the subject. And I have tried to work out parts of those shows at standup shows. It's, it's been brutal. I mean, like the people are,

I don't think I lose the audience in terms of like them paying attention to me, but I definitely don't want, I'm only going to do it at a show where I'm last. You know what I mean? I'm not going to, I'm not going to make the guy, the guy coming up next with his arm tucked in his shirt. I'm not going to make him follow that. I have done like when there's Zoom shows where I can like show slides or like shows where I've done like PowerPoint-y kind of things, which isn't quite, it's like stand up adjacent.

I have done material like that, but it's weird because- I think visuals would make the humor pop. Yeah, right. The part of it is that I want it to be good like you know it's like it's about i'm trying to do something with it of course so it's like it's about my son i don't want to be like oh let me like i don't want to be like you know i don't want to do stuff that is shitty in his memory and you might not want to like you know with all stand-up i'd lie

or curb things a lot and like i guess he's gonna's going to be like, you know, if it was a daughter, I think it would really, this could be a funny way. Yeah. So there's no, you can't, you can't do that. Cause you couldn't live with yourself.

Yeah. And so it's hard, but also like, I don't, I'm not as disciplined a writer as I think you are. And I don't know what your style is. No, I'm not a standup,

but you write, you do like characters and stuff, right? You write down your sketches, punctuation. Almost, almost everything that i write i write on its feet like i i'm like i have an idea about this i think something is funny about how advil you know is delicious or whatever so i'll get up and i'm just going to talk about it are you going to do that at the show then yeah probably i'll probably do only i'll do 40 minutes of Advil. Of Advil. Oh, you think you're doing 40 minutes?

I was told 45 and it was $1,000. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't mind if that bombs. I get up there, I do it, it's terrible, whatever. I play it back, I hear the one laugh, I'll build the set from there.

When you're doing stuff about a dead person, it's very, you know, you don't, it's already, it's, it's, you're starting at bomb. Like I'm introducing the subject is a bomb. That's bomb there. You don't want to live down there the whole time. It's not good for the audience. It's not good for you. It's not good for the memory of your son or whoever. It's hard. So the short answer to that is that I have tried, it has not gone very well. And I don't know that I will ever try to do it in that context again. But we'll see. If I feel like I have something good to say, then I will.

You're welcome to do it at our show. Oh, God. That would just be a nightmare. A complete intolerance. Doing it to a room where that's socially distanced, like the room is already half empty just from jump, doesn't sound like the way to go. All right. Let's go on sound like the way to go. All right. Let's go on to This Has Got to Stop. I think we got it right here.

This Has Got to Stop. This Has Got to Stop. Is that the, who did that? The same guy? Same guy. What's his name again? We don't have like multiple. You don't have a team?

This one was by Kanye, DJ Khaled. Who's the guy? What's his name again? Douglas Goodheart. Douglas Goodheart. You're better than this, Douglas. You deserve better. He's great. What do you mean? I just Goodheart. You're better than this, Douglas. You deserve better. He's great.

What do you mean? I just mean like he should be making big time music. So my this has got to stop is people telling my musician friend, this is a great gig. I mean,

whoever did that, the monkey sounds for Joe Rogan about the monkey. How much did you pay? You know, he probably is now a big record deal because of that.

He's rich. How much did you pay that guy to do that? He, I offered, I the money. How much did you pay? You know, he probably is now a big record deal because of that. He's rich. How much did you pay that guy to do that? He, I offered. He did it for free. I offered. That's all I'm saying. I offered money. All I'm saying is, Douglas, you should have taken the money.

You deserve it. It's good enough. That's all I'm saying is it's good. It's good. Doug deserves the money. All right, so we're going to cut that part out. You should vent on him. So what is your, this has got to stop.

Okay, here's what has to stop. You know when you go to, maybe you don't. I go to restaurants with people all the time and there's going to be happening more of the pandemics over and they drink. I don't drink. And now I'm splitting the check.

No way. No, no, no. Absolutely, absolutely fucking not. That is over for sure. You're going to pay for what you got. And if you're not, I'm going to gratuitously order some bullshit. I don't even want to eat

just so you have to pay as much as I pay for the shit that you didn't have. I think that's crazy. It's insane. Russell. As someone who drinks a lot, I think I've never, like I always am. I feel like you have to be aware if you're doing something crazy. Like if you're ordering something a lot more than other people. I felt guilty.

We had a dinner. We had COVID. It was the first, like the first outdoor meal that we had been to in COVID in New Hampshire. When was this? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they had allowed me to stay at their place in New Hampshire. My wife. His wife's family.

Lots of things. Okay, wife, brag. It was a good deal. And I felt like, oh, let me pay for a nice dinner. And we went out. And you got a couple drinks. And then when the check came, you offered to have me pay 75. And then you paid for the rest of the drinks, essentially.

And I felt like I'm an asshole. I should have totally paid for that full bill. He offered the nice thing and you felt weird about it. Yeah, he offered the nice thing. I just feel like I do. He offered the nice thing and you felt weird about it. Yeah, he offered the nice thing. I just feel like, I do feel like there's been times where even if it's like, even if people were drinking, I'm like some, but that couple ordered a full bottle of something that's like way more expensive than the draft beers that the rest of us were ordering. So even then I'm like, well, no, it's not the same.

Like, I just feel like everyone needs to be really like honest with themselves in terms of what everyone's doing. And I think that that's crazy to like. What I'm doing up top now is we sit down. I'm saying, is this a splitting the check situation? I just want to know. Just get into it. I want everybody to be thinking about it.

Yeah. Are we going to split the check? Okay. Then what are you? I'm going to order the same dollar value of whatever you're getting. I'm getting that too. Yeah. You understand?

I'm going to social... Is this socialism? Is this the opposite? No, this is Jewish. I'm just saying, I'm not going to let you order a bottle of red that you drink by yourself and I'm subsidizing that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now, I know you and my girlfriend had dinner two nights ago.

So I have to ask, what was the situation? She paid for the whole, she paid for either. She paid for it or she's, she paid for it or the other manager paid for it. Cause it was like, it was like an industry,

you know, if that was an industry meal. Okay. You know what I mean? Did you drink that time or you just don't drink? I don't drink. I alcohol tastes bad to me. It makes me feel bad and it's expensive.

So I just don't, I don't think a cool reason where I don't like a an thing that happened to me you know i mean it'd be cool if i was like you know i got into a fight with a bunch of guys at a bar that never happened it just makes me feel bad and it's expensive all right that was that was a good this has got to stop is that okay yeah i think sitting down with someone and saying are we splitting this feels a harsh vibe just i don't i don't i think I think if you know what you want, why not go there? You are very generous with paying, though. Russell, he's very hard if you want to pay him back for something or pay for something.

You're like, how much do I owe you for this? Russell's very much a, no, no, no, it's fine. I got it. You're very- I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it one-on-one. I would never do it with one person because I feel like with one person- No, it's a group.

It's a group. If it's 10 people, I want to know the deal. I want to know what's going on before we get into this. Because sometimes you're like, I wouldn't have done this then. Yeah, exactly.

If this is going to cost $20, $30 more than what I thought it was going to be, I wouldn't have done this. Or if you're like, I'm coming here, I'm just going to have an appetizer because I don't want to spend a lot of money. And then some asshole just goes,

you know, let's just split it eight ways. And you're like, fuck. But the social contract traps me into saying yes to that i have to do that this is a little unrelated but one time my wife and i we we like to eat and we like to drink we um we and we always cover what we need to but what but we really like to or like we we or you know so we were upstate for like a for christmas and um and i went with a bunch of friends uh for like a christmas like with friends meal and we were in our minds we were like this is upstate so it's gonna be like so cheap like and so we were ordering like insane things and at the end they were like everyone's

like okay well we can just split this and then uh because everyone thought in theory we were all doing it and then i saw their faces and i was like oh no nicole and i ordered a lot more let's just like let's just like look at what we did the damage we did we spent 500 in upstate new york like oh upstate new york we we now in new york city when we go like crazy like at a nice place we'll be like still less than that one time in upstate new york we spent 500 and everyone else there probably spent 80 as couples do you know what i mean like i don't even know how we did it um but i saw their faces and they were they were like they were doing that thing they were freaking out and we didn't realize what was the was the face drop was it just they were like just because someone they were like oh well i'll just split it and then they were looking and they were just like oh um

they did the um and i was like and then i real i saw i was like oh you don't know we like really ordered so i i that i um all right, well now we go into our final segment. This is you better count your blessing. Uh, we've had a mixed positive negative. I think we've got some negatives in there. And so, uh, my, my blessing I'm going to say, um, is, uh, you know, I'll, I'll say this. I, you know, I shouldn't do too many Russell blessings

and this will be once the show is done but Russell, we're on a sketch team together and we can be, you know, sometimes you write the sketches so you get a starring role.

Sure. And Russell wrote a sketch that I feel like I have a big chunk in. Something healthy. It's a real, it's a real something to sink your teeth into

and I feel like I'm nervous about memorizing it, but it feels nice to have someone trust you with that. Absolutely. I've worked with Russell for five years now or so, and I feel like I have a sense of like, oh, this is how a Russell song goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's very good. One of the best lists is too too easy way to put it, but it's just like kind of just long monologues with lots of details. And there's just a certain way. Sometimes you have to underplay it, super underplay it or drive through it to really make it pop. I'm excited. And I hope it,

I hope it, I hope it works. Yeah. And I hope the next one we're like, I take back, we're going to have a take back. This has got to stop Russell writing me sketches. Um,

Russell, do you have a blessing? Um, I do. Um, I, when I went home on Saturday after I was here, um,

uh, my wife had rearranged like the entire house and, it's been nice after the dog died. It feels like things are like our bedrooms new and like she hung up a gallery wall so it was just like a really nice i felt very thankful that it felt like a shift of things and just even if that's uh masking something or just being like you come up today i'm like it's all different the same even if it's like just like me not dealing with i was like oh this is a new house we don't we're not sad so uh i'm thankful for the effort is nice yes even if it's just trying even if it's just trying to move in some things around absolutely i felt good about that that's

great coming home to things things is a really nice i know it's just any kind of thing that we hadn't they've been stored for a long time it was just like a very nice thing i was very surprised and uh michael kriskan what's your blessing uh i think mine would be it's pretty hokey but it's making my kids laugh like i told them a joke because i my son is 11 i feel like we're getting very close we're not that many years away from me telling him jokes and being like oh my god shut the fuck up or whatever. You know what I mean? Like dad, you're so lame. He would never, he's so nice, but please God don't let him turn into a terrible person. But I just don't know how much longer I'm like, as he ages, he's like, you know, getting ready to go through puberty. And I just, I know like once he gets that first zit, it's going to be,

it's going to be done. He's not going to be laughing at my jokes anymore. I told this joke, do you know, it's like a joke about a guy who has a huge orange head? No, tell us, please. Should I tell this joke? I would love to hear it. Okay. It's disappointment humor. That's great. You don't have to tell me the genre. Okay. So this guy walks into a bar, right? He's got a huge orange head, an enormous, enormous orange head. And he asked the bartender for a whiskey. Bartender's like, you know what? I'll give it orange head. And he asked the bartender for a whiskey. Bartender's like, you know what? I'll give it to you for free.

Give it to you for free. If you tell me, and it's not my, it's not my business, but I'll give it to you for free. If you would tell me what the deal is. You're, I mean, you have, and the guy's like, I have a huge orange head. And the guy says, yeah, if you would tell me, that'd be great. So, uh, the guy says, sure, that's great. So he gets a, he gets his whiskey and he's like, listen, um, I was cleaning my grandmother's attic two days ago and I'm cleaning off this lamp and a genie comes out and the genie says it's gonna grant me three wishes you know the whole like the whole genie thing it's it exists

and uh so i i tried it out as my first wish was for a billion dollars i knew that was going to happen but i gave it a shot and he said check your ven your Venmo. I looked in my Venmo and I'd just been Venmoed a billion, a billion dollars. And the bartender's like, holy cow, that's incredible. It's not, that's not really what I'm asking about. And the guy says, well, let me just hang on. I'll get to it. My second wish was for a woman who would love me despite all my faults for as long as I live. And all of a sudden there was a woman standing right next to me.

It's beautiful woman. And she is everything I could have ever asked for. And the bartender was like, okay, that's fascinating and wonderful, but it doesn't. And the guy's like, okay,

hang on my third wish. And here is, I think where I went wrong is I wished for a huge orange head. One, two, three. Downside. I think we'll end the episode there. I think that's kind of the perfect ending.