The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #180 The Tom Cruise Cake List with Ian Karmel

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Comedian Ian Karmel (The Late Late Show with James Corden) shares the joys of being on the Tom Cruise cake list but then we get to the downsides of comedy specials about cancel culture, whether professional wrestling is more homophobic or homoerotic, losing enough weight that he’ll never get to play roles like “Tubs The Obese Comedian” again, and which members of his family he won’t tell holocaust jokes around. Stay tuned at the end for Gianmarco’s and Tovah’s review/existential crisis of Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway.  You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Ian on Instagram, Twitter, & TikTok See Ian in a city near you: https://linktr.ee/iankarmel Listen to Ian's podcast, All Fantasy Everything: https://headgum.com/all-fantasy-everything Follow The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi on Instagram Get tickets to our live podcast recording in NYC on March 4 here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/744000544657?aff=oddtdtcreator Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's bi-monthly show in NYC Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Dave Columbo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Hey everybody, this is Joe Marcus Rezzi. This is a great episode we have with comedian Ian Carmel. I also got a chance to see Last Week, Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. And my beautiful, wonderful girlfriend agreed to put some thoughts on the record. And we added to the end of this episode.

So if you're the rare sports fan listener, sorry for that accent. You know, you can end when we get to the credits. But if you like a little theater talk, stick around and hear me and the wonderful Tova Silverman. This is The Downside. Welcome to The Downside. Russell is sick. I am sick. When you walk in,

you say no COVID first. Oh, yeah, sorry. And then you say sick. Yeah. I took a test yesterday and today. It doesn't feel like COVID. It just feels like a... Is that the test you took? The old field test? No, and I've had COVID three times.

What does it feel like? This feels like a chest cold, congestion. Walking pneumonia. Not walking pneumonia. I really regret these small couches. I'll tell you that right now. This thing happens because I've been doing shows for a year. Anytime my body knows that you get any amount of time away from the show,

it feels like there's a permission that's given to, okay, you can get sick. So I had two full days off, and on that that on whatever night was before the 31st on what was that saturday night saturday night second show i was like oh fuck me i'm getting sick and i was gonna have plans and i to meet some friends i was like i'm just gonna go home rest because then next day's new year's eve and you want to do stuff and i just was sick and then i've been sick and it's just like anytime you went to that new year's eve party and got everyone sick i just no i don't it doesn't feel like that kind of it feels like just when you're run down and you're like and you have in a bad cold that is

like annoying the body permission thing is so real yeah absolutely every time we would go on hiatus on the show the first week would spend just having like not even a definable sickness just like a Victorian malady. Yeah. For like seven days. And it's happened on two vacations that I've taken. And now these two days, it's just annoying. You're like, I don't, it's not how you want to spend your downtime.

I just feel like we definitely, I remember once I was very sick and I got a hosting spot at Comics Mohegan Sun. This was like, you know, one year into stand-up. Yeah. And I got a hosting spot at Comics Mohegan Sun. This was like one year into stand-up. Yeah. And I was like, I was, my skin hurt. I was in pain.

But I was like, Michael Jordan. Yeah. Flu game. Flu game. This is my flu host. This is your flu host. And I remember when that was considered admirable. Yes. And now it's considered a crime yeah and uh we're all

we're all on very different planes when it comes to covid still especially like this liberal we were all in unison and now it's a real you see people on twitter like uh you went outside today are you crazy what the fuck is wrong with you it's like real, you see people on Twitter like, you went outside today? Are you crazy? What the fuck is wrong with you? It's like being a Lutheran, right? There's so many different kinds of like, if you're either Catholic and that's unified on this side. And that's probably the right, where like we don't care. Even I have different rules, like depending on the day.

If I didn't have a test at that house already, I don't know if I would have tested before I came here. You know what I mean? Of course. I had one laying around. I was like, of course I'll test before. I'm not going to pretend to here. You know what I mean? Of course. I had one laying around. I was like, of course I'll test before. I'm not going to pretend to be a goody two-shoes over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're a COVID Unitarian. You're a little looser about it, right? There's no things like even our, you know, Broadway doesn't have any rules anymore. So we don't have to test for that. We all need to have like a meeting humanity-wise.

Yeah. Because when you leave the house, there's a risk of death. Yeah. And the question is, what's the acceptable risk of death? There's people pre-COVID who said Because when you leave the house, there's a risk of death. Yeah. And the question is, what's the acceptable risk of death? There's people pre-COVID who said,

you go to see the movies in the winter without a mask? You're crazy. And they're not wrong, per se. Yeah. But we have to decide what level of life we're all willing to agree to have

risking old people dying. Because there are literally people out there still being like, I can't believe people are eating in public. And you're like, wow. Right, there are people still eating in that eating in public. And you're like, wow. Right.

There are people still. Then you're like, if you're vulnerable to that, you can't do anything in your life, I guess. Beginning of 2022, I did some podcasts. Someone was like, well, getting back to social situations is wild. Right. And I was like, holy shit. No, I know.

You would see those posts for a long time into COVID. Like into years, I know. You would see those posts for a long time into COVID. Like, into years, you know? Like the Japanese soldiers on the islands who didn't know the war was going on. Oh, yeah. That's so funny. Yes, but they're insisting. They're like, it is going. It's raging.

Yeah. Welcome to the downside. This is a place where we can get negative. We can complain. We can stop pretending things are good. I get it's the new year and everyone, oh, we get to start over. No, you didn't. It's the same, and you're continuing the same path to death.

And I'm here with my sick co-host, Russell Daniels. Hi. Who, my God, you know what? I got something. I know we have a lot of framed pictures here. I got a new one coming, and it's you with the one Mr. Randy Rainbow. Why did you do that? Randy Rainbow. He's in Gutenberg,

the musical, and there's these guest celebrities. And Russell said if there's one person he wanted, it was Randy Rainbow. Shut the fuck up. Why did you do that? Just for your face right now, it was worth all $86 to frame. $86? No, I didn't get it yet, but I am going to get it.

No, I want that. And then we're also joined. I've heard Gutenberg is amazing. My wife is very into Broadway, and she was going to come on this trip, and then some work stuff came up, and we were going to go see Gutenberg. It was a great time. It just announced today, broke the box office records at the James Earl Jones Theater. Take that, Larry David show.

Yeah. Is that what was previous to it? That and Will Ferrell had a show there. Got to get Larry David on as a producer. Yeah, they wish. So they have these producers every day. It's a new star. And once in a while, what did I see?

A kid the other day. Well, he's been on Broadway, but he's the choreographer's son. Listen, they need to get like they need to get um a new person every day right as a rule through the union and so it can't be a repeat person and so sometimes people back out sometimes they they're scrambling last minute to get someone and uh waiting you know every day at 7 p.m i look at my phone like there's been a couple that i was like i think my friend john marco would have been just there was a peloton influencer recently and i was like there's no way anyone knows who that is yeah you're better than that yeah well she's

more followers for sure a lot more instructor influencer what do you mean like they just influence the peloton i mean she's definitely an instructor But she's also on Instagram Sure, sure That's big You know, yeah Get her on here I don't know her

Well We're joined Thank you By a special guest Never been on a Peloton in my entire life And forget I was I was literally

Carmel Carmel Carmel Yes Ian Carmel Welcome to the show Thank Thank you very much. Last I saw you, it was my late night debut. Yeah.

Absolutely smashed it. I've talked about it on here only to make a note that Neil Brennan didn't even say hello to me. I thought that was a nice gesture for a comic to know the comic. Have you since met Neil Brennan before? No. No, I have not. We were literally at New York Comedy Club two days prior to that taping here.

Yeah. Where I was running it. So we bumped into each other. I think he gets in his own head. I wouldn't take it personally at all. He's a very sweet man. Unless you'd like for him in your personal narrative to be an enemy. In which case, I'm sure he'd be willing to play that.

I do like a little enemy. I like to have an enemy. But I got to curb it. I got too many theoretical enemies in my head. Yeah. I already got Chappelle. I already got Matt Reif now. I can't everyone who's in control.

I don't think Chappelle knows that you're enemies. I don't know. That tweet did pretty well, I think. I feel like Donnell Rawlings probably reads the tweets to him as he goes to bed Yeah, I could see that I'm not sure Dave Chappelle is aware of any feedback to his stand-up comedy

Sure Did you watch? I feel like he's super aware I did watch Acutely aware I haven't watched I did watch Ricky Gervais' new special. Uh-huh.

We had a great episode recently that we talked shit about the Daily Wire's new movie, Lady Ballers. Yeah. The video did great. Did great. So what do you think about Ricky Gervais? We'll become a shit talk podcast. I don't give a fuck. I thought it was, I think he's a very, very, very funny person.

Yes. And he opened the special by talking about the ratings on his previous Netflix special. Oh, brutal. Yeah. Not in a funny way. It becomes so much. Not in a funny way. No, not in a funny way.

No. There was something very. It's so much about this ego of these guys where you're like, I don't know why. What's funny about that? There was nothing funny about it. And nobody laughed and I could only dream of having the success

in my entire career that he has had over like a three year span yeah I think there's a rule with stand up you can only talk so much about the stand up itself

in a meta way you have to earn that yes and like I saw Jess and I get Carnegie Hall and like he had a couple stuff about like his career and I'm like

it was his fifth special he waited to kind of get a little bit more. I mean, he did a little bit on thoughts and prayers, but he does it sparingly. And these guys, it's their whole thing. Their whole thing, it's talking about the reaction, which is two-dimensional in and of itself. Right. It becomes a snake eating its own tail. Yes. And it's like, now I'm just commenting on people commenting on me.

And this is, I mean, Chappelle's fourth special. I mean, I haven't seen the new one. But I imagine he does talk about trans people in the back. He does. But it's not even, it's, my thing is that, first of all, none of this offends me, certainly. And there's such a difference between like an offensive, saying something offensive and sharing an offensive thought. Like what Louis C.K. did so well is he would share a thought that you were like, that is a fucked up feeling you have. That's a fucked up

philosophy that you felt for, it's like, it was vulnerable in the offensiveness. Saying any slur or any just like regular run-of-the-mill joke, it's not funny. Also, in both of these, this is something I fucking hate, is when a comic

spends like a lot of buildup to like, I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it, like taunting the audience. You're not even ready for what I'm gonna say. And then they say it and you're like, well, shut the fuck up. No, it's not that offensive. It's not that thing.

You could have just said it, but you knew if you didn't do that buildup, no one would laugh because it's not that funny. The joke is not that funny, but you have to create this buildup of like, I'm going to go there, I'm going to say it, I'm going to say it. And without it, it doesn't do anything. When they complain about cancel culture to their fans,

I'm like, it's like when you go to your teacher says, guys, you got to stop being late. And it's like, well, we were all here on time. You're talking about not the people even there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, ugh, it's it's what was heartbreaking about gervais doing it and then like over the course of the special he had a lot of like incredibly funny bits because again this is a very funny person and then a lot of like his had

more at least like i didn't love i didn't like it but yeah he had at least funnier some thoughts that are comedic right you liked his anti-immigrant material yeah i love that was way better yeah absolutely we're big brexit guys we connect all that on the staircase but like he when he touched on something very interesting while he was bragging about the ratings which was like the idea that you can't say that anymore and then he was like but i had the number one special all of last year so it turns out you can and that's an interesting idea yeah like saying like you can say this stuff there isn't actually anyone who can stop you because here i am like on netflix and that alone that kind of like dispels the idea of this of these being like forbidden terms really right like of

course and there's also like especially where you more interesting. Especially when you get your vase. There is a feeling – someone said this as much. We're like, oh, you want to say something that will get you canceled? Do Kramer's Act right now. Like you want to actually say something? Like you're – Tova said to me when she said like there's the illusion of me being like saying edgy jokes when really I've just calculated exactly what to say within the framework of society where it feels it tickles you but when all you're going to talk about is cancel culture then go go go for it dude i think it's indicative of like where people are in their life of like i don't know man you got to find a life to live because right now all your life is is responding to other old specials right and then like you said

like it's like the cycle and you you're like, go do something great. Like, break out of how you live your life and go talk to different people because you're not living life experiences that you're able to then form comedic ideas anymore.

All you're doing is responding to your old works criticisms. And that's why Chappelle... And shut the fuck up and go live a life because it's so boring. It's so fucking boring.

We're thinking to your own life. Like, Bilbo at least talks about his family. But like, Chappelle, he talked about he likes to go to strip clubs. And then he moved on, and he liked to go alone. And I was like, well, let's explore that more. Let's go a little deeper into that. He said a joke.

He said, when I shot the special first here, my wife was pregnant with my child. Now I smoke weed with my child or whatever. I'm like, talk about that. Talk about getting high with your kid. I'm like, enough. There's so many things in the world. Yeah. He didn't want to step on May, December.

He thought May, December, cover the getting high with your kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very frustrating. I mean, Chappelle's really was awful. It was like awful. I mean, there was not one. When he said he was done

and he's going to come back and tell one long story, I was like, you're done. What has happened? What has happened in these 37 minutes? What has happened? It was like I couldn't believe it. I was like, you're going to tell one more story?

Like, that's it? Yeah. It just was like. And talking. To build yourself up and then put that out. It's like. The Titanic submarine joke. It was like.

I remember when I had a submarine joke, after two weeks I said, okay, it's done. Yeah. It's moved on. That made the special. And then it gets called back. That's the moment I was talking about

that was so annoying. It was just him laughing at it. He does it usually. He keeps trying to start doing it and he's just laughing and everyone's laughing and him laughing at it. And then he finally does a punchline doing it and he's just laughing and everyone's laughing and him laugh at it. And then he finally

does a punchline and I'm like, if he didn't do all that fake laughter leading up to it, no one would have laughed at it. Right. He's saying it's not funny, it's not funny,

it's not funny. And it's not. But the only reason we're responding, it really is not. And the only reason people are responding is because he's like

making himself laugh at the idea of it. Such a master craftsman of knowing how to play an audience. He truly is. You know what I mean? Like, build up. He's the best at that. He has such charisma.

But when you do it so much, like he ends this whole thing with a philosophy about living in a dream and dreamers and how his dreaming is small and low on assets. And when he milks it too often and then the punchline doesn't pay off too many times, you're like, you're literally, you could just talk like this

about anything. Yeah. You're like, there's nothing at the end of it. And enough of that betrayal, you go like, well, I'm done listening. He's a master of playing

his instrument, but at some point, yes, three notes, and you're like, okay, yeah. This is the downside. One, two, three.

Downside. You're listening to The Downside. One, two, three. Downside. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Well, one thing I want to talk about before we get to you. Yeah, please. I, thank you for being here, by the way.

It's an absolute joy. It's a joy. You came here with your suitcase. Good flight. Wow. Easy flight. Easy flight. What did I do?

I always kind of, I did, oh, I watched Asteroid City again. Again? Again. I saw it in the theaters over the summer, and then I was like, let me throw this on again. While I sort of like dozed off and slept in three minute bursts. I can't, to be honest, I'm not a hater, but I can't click with Wes Anderson. You know, I can see that. Cilantro.

Tell me what's about me. No, I'm saying about me too. Me too. But like I, there's, it's, you have to really like, I don't know. I think you have to, people who are into it are really into it. And I feel like. They watch it a second time on the plane. Yeah. Right.

And I, there's certain ones that I've liked a lot. But I don't really find myself seeking it out a lot. You know, and I've I've fully missed certain ones. So I... I'm a bad person. This is coming out December 10th. January 6th. Jesus Christ.

January 6th. We are way ahead. We're way ahead. Any 2025 dates. 2024 has been amazing. What a great year. The great work was extended. And Russell is still an understudy.

Josh Gad hasn't missed another one. Nope. I got to see a WWE match. My girlfriend got me tickets and I was into it as middle school. Right. I was a big Undertaker guy and Kane, who's now a Republican congressman or something. Is he really? Oh, yeah.

What took so long? Is he a nice congressman or something. Is he really? Oh, yeah. Oh, what took so long? Is he a nice congressman? Is he a WWE to GOP pipeline? No, I don't think he's. He's doing good things? Yeah, he's doing great things. Just charity mostly. I love Kane.

So Kane, were you ever into wrestling? I was. Again, kind of in grade school. Yeah. But I'm 39, so that was like. 35? Yeah. Who was your number one?

Razor Ramon was like my guy. was your number one? Razor Ramon was like my guy Do you remember him? He was the one who became Scotty He became Scotty His finisher, he'd flip you over Hold your arms out like in a cross And slam you down Long, slick, greasy hair

His character was Miami That was the idea When he talked like Tony Montana. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But didn't dress like that, just had kind of a greasy long hair. Toothpick. Toothpick. Yellow vest. He was cool.

WCW. WWF is Razor Ramon and then he became like somebody else in WWE and I was out by then. I discovered online gaming. He went to WCW I think after that. I think he did, yeah. So I thought it'd be fun, and it was definitely fun. It's such a unique

crowd, because it's like, we're not sports guys, and wrestling is this thing where it's theatrical, and I would say very gender non-conforming. It's very loose, like people are wearing nothing and their dicks are out and their tits are out.

Do you remember Goldust? Oh, I think we mentioned Goldust. His whole thing was, I'm gay. Yes. He might kiss you. And he was like covered in gold. It was a threat back then. He might kiss you. But it was also the first time at least that I ever

saw, because they were basically like a John Waters character. Yeah. Full of dust. Like they wore a wig and were covered in gold and the wig would come off. And it was kind of like a drag queen wrestling people out there. Wow. With a healthy dose of gay panic because it was the mid-1990s. But at the same time, gay panic, but also you saw a man licking another man's ear and they were both wearing

nothing like in a way it's like gay panic but it's also like this we all agreed to a really gay thing yeah yeah yeah um and i've heard i've heard that a lot of wrestling there's a lot of hooking up i mean there's gotta be you're wrestling around it must be i went through a goal i guess you could call it a gold dust phase when i I was in middle school in seventh and eighth grade, I would jokingly say to guys, I'd be like, hey. I would flirt in a way that was over the top. And I don't know. Looking back, I don't know psychologically what I was going through. What you were aiming to get out of that?

Yeah. It was funny to watch them be like, ugh. It was jokey. I'm sure for some of those guys, they were probably gay and thought maybe I was, I don't know whether I was like, oh, I think it's because I didn't fit in, and so my reaction was like, I'm gonna make you like, I don't know.

Maybe part of it could be you trying to dictate the terms on which you were uncomfortable, or not accepted, and you knew, you know what I mean? It was like, well, I'm gonna go over the top and scare you so much with this like gay panic thing that everybody's afraid of in middle school. And then you'll reject me on that. Maybe. Not on the things that I'm afraid of.

Yeah. Don't like me for the things I can control. Yeah. The ones I can't. Right. Oh, man. That's so upsetting. No, but it was like fun.

Like it was funny. I don't know. I'd have to go back to ask those guys, was that fun? Yeah. Did I hit on you in math class? I don't know. Probably like you said for some of them, it probably was. They were having their own like cocktail of feelings about it.

One might say I've been gay baiting since I was a 12-year-old. You're a little boy. So I go to these things now, and I just think like I think show business wise like this wasn't a filmed one so I was like how much is everyone getting paid

are the matches less physical because they don't want to get hurt way more women matches than there were when I was a kid how many

how long is this event you had an intermission it was like a three hour event you darted off to a little cocktail bar had a martini and came back

a very expensive beer and I like Michelob Ultra, which I don't think I'd ever had before and that was fun. And it's such a mix of like there's little kids, there's adults. Some of the adults are there like me, like this is interesting. And then some adults like, there was one

where like one guy got cheated and the other guy got knocked out with a chair. And this kid was about to cry. He was like, it's unfair. It's unfair. Oh, no. And he was having fun.

Yeah. But also the announcer, I was like, it's a role a comedian could have played. Yeah. But he was like, he looked handsome. He was good. But his suit was clearly cheap. It wasn't fully fitting. And I was like, this is a sold-out Madison Square Garden show. How much is he getting paid? Is he getting

$100? Is he getting $500? Do they get benefits? I'm so curious. I want to know what everyone's getting paid. There's not a union, is there? I'm pretty sure that's part of the problem. If you look under that rock, you might not like what you find, based on everything I've heard. You know who I bet you's making

a lot of money, Madison Square Garden. Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon. But one thing that I saw, so the tag team matches, I think, are the most fun. And one of these tag teams, there was like the big guy. Who are the big guys? Like Vader.

His name was Vader. He was a big guy back in the day. Vader's the, oh, back in the day. Oh, he's definitely dead. There was a guy named Bam Bam Bigelow. No, I don't remember Bam Bam Bigelow. He dressed like, he wore a spandex version of what Guy Fieri wears. Like on his shows.

It was like covered in flames. I love that. Big bald head. He had like a sidekick who was this like, I think he was like a biker themed dude. Yeah. But he was one of the big dudes. Goldust was pretty big. He was this like, I think he was like a biker themed dude. Yeah. But he was one of the big dudes. Goldust was pretty big. He was not big, big.

Maybe not fat, but like definitely tall. Definitely tall. Definitely tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was Rashiki was big when I was, and Rashiki was, I believe he was Hawaiian. And his like finisher was he'd get you in the corner and like shove his ass in your face. Oh my God. You'd be out.

You'd be down for the count. Was he farting or just like that was just the ass smell bad face. Oh my God. You'd be out. You'd be down for the count. Was he farting or just like, that was just, just the ass smell bad enough. Yeah. It was like, yeah, there was an implied unpleasant.

There was a, yeah. Okay. But so there was a tag team where they had that guy. And like the whole thing with the big guy is like all, if he just lays on you, you're down for the count. Cause he's so big.

And then they had, speaking of all the women matches, they had like a women tag team and they essentially had of the four women like the one woman who was that character but was so sad is she was really just a regular sized woman but in the eyes of she was just like a a regular like a size six yeah but like but like when she got into the ring they would all like bounce and boom boom boom yeah playing tuba in the crowd and playing the tippanies

and it was like her finisher like if she put one foot on your chest you were done oh man and it was really like wrestling to me is like porn in the sense of there's big brush strokes

like there's still big stereotypes and there's no time for nuance. And, and that's what it was like. And, and just to see it back to back and go for the women's league, this is considered Roshiki. That's awful.

Um, so it was, uh, it was a literal sumo wrestler. There was a guy named Yokozuna who was a literal sumo wrestler. Like this is just like Stacy and yeah yeah yeah oh

but other than that I had a very good time yeah but I wanted to tell that story and then you were telling you know I this book that you have

yeah I was I listened to your old Mark Maron and what was so funny was I think maybe Mark Maron called you

big ten times in the first three minutes. Like big, gregarious Portland comedian. And just kept throwing around big, big, big. I was big, big, big. I'm still big, but I was big, big, big. Yeah. And then when you brought up your book, I was like, oh, yeah, this is part of your life. And especially you lost weight while on TV the whole journey of it, right?

Pretty much, yeah. So I used to weigh about like 410 pounds. Right now I probably weigh like 245, somewhere in there. It doesn't matter. I don't really weigh myself quite as much anymore. But, yeah. At the airport today you took the bag off. At the airport I hopped on.

I was like, yeah, they had to put like an extra sticker on me. I, yeah, I lost a bunch of weight, like kind of during the pandemic, but I was on TV the entire time. And I had been on TV before. I was on this show. Oh, my God. What was it called? If I hadn't woken up at 3 a.m. It was the Showtime show about the comedy store.

Oh, oh. Based on that book, I'm Dying Up Here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Dying Up Here. I'm Dying Up Here. Oh, is that what it's called? Yeah. Based on that book, I'm Dying Up Here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Dying Up Here. I'm Dying Up Here. Is that what it's called? Yeah. I'm Dying Up Here. So I played a character on that show, and I remember getting the email for the audition.

I was in like two episodes. I wasn't like a recurrent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was the only one who watched the whole show. Yeah. So I got an email for the audition. It was like, do you want to play a character or do you want to audition for a character called Tubbs the Obese Comedian?

Man, oh man, those break down. Tubbs the Obese, and it's like, you could just call him Tubbs. Just call him Tubbs. We know by the name Tubbs what's implied.

We do not need the thing because then it's because they Tubbs the Obese Comedian and underneath that it's going to get even more descriptive. It's even worse. He's never seen a meal he won't eat.

He's greasy as a pig fart. Like, it's just like horrible, horrible descriptions. They wrote some stand-up for me to do. Yeah. Like, on stage. What was it? I don't, it was something about like. Just munch, munch, munch.

When I step on a bus, it catches on fire. Like, not even one layer of awareness. Right, exactly. Just the worst. But I went to the audition, and I was like, again, at that point I was in the upper 300s, and I was like, they want Tubbs the obese comedian. I'm going to fuck it.

They're going to make them choke on Tubbs the obese comedian. So I went in there and even exaggerated more my double chin. Oh, yeah. And just like, like that. And I was like, fuck them. I left. And as I was leaving, I'm like, I don't know. We love it.

They loved it. And they were like, they're like, they want you to, can you be there tomorrow? Like to shoot. You walk in with like stains on your shirt, some mustard stains. Perhaps even accidentally. Can you hold this? Can I put this sandwich on the table? Yeah, yeah, please.

You hold this Reuben. Russell has a classic from our sketch team, a classic sketch that we stopped doing because we were leaning on it too much. It was so good. Yeah.

But it was Piggy Boy. Yeah, it was a guy for a commercial audition where it's like they can't say, they never say the word fat. Right. I think they'd be

more open to it now. But this is like seven years ago when we wrote it. Jolly. But it was like jolly ago when we wrote it. Jolly. But it was like jolly, everyone's best friend. So it starts off with things like that, and they're coaching him. And it gets more and more just upsetting.

The whole line is just, did someone say pizza tacos? They'll always give examples. They'll be like, you know, John Candy, Chris Farley, Mama Cass. What was the funny one about Roseanne before? No, no, no. It was Jared before. Jared before Subway. Before Subway.

And the arrest. But yeah, and then it just like leads to ultimately coaching him to. Him on all fours, eating out of a bowl. You know, like an oinking. That's what they want. Yeah. That's what they want from you. Yes.

But I willingly played that character. And like after. Well, let me just like comedically. Yeah, I just think it's so interesting comedically when you lost weight. Was there any part of you that thought I'm going to lose a little bit of that edge that makes it so funny? So I was like going into it. I was like, that's not why i'm funny i'm not worried about it at all and then i lost the weight and it was this weird thing where it happened like during

the pandemic so like sorry my phone just keeps going off um so then when i finally went up and did stand-up it'd been a while like i had lost almost like 200 pounds like i'd lost 180 pounds in between going up and doing stand-up and i went went up there and all of my, even the jokes that weren't about being fat were kind of informed by this point of view, which was from a dude who had been fat his entire life. So some of the jokes kind of worked. A lot of it it was a little bit of the Chappelle thing where you're like, so you're familiar with what I've been going through, right? Like you walk up there with that assumption,

but none of these people had known I was fat before. So some of them were like angry at me for telling like what they thought were jokes about fat people when I was just talking about my experiences. And then the big thing was none of my break in case of emergency stuff worked. All those comedic instincts you hone, not just over a standup career, but over your life. All the things you know you're vulnerable about

that you can kind of exploit to get a laugh, to make yourself seem charming, or self-aware, or any of those things were all gone. And I had no idea what the new ones were. And I still am learning what those new ones are, you know what I mean? Like two, three years later. And

that's been really weird. That's been... There's a chapter in this book t-shirt swim club uh yeah it's called t-shirt swim club you have a pool shirt do i do a sketch you have to have a yeah right it's like a universal like we thought that was gonna like fool anyone yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah anything it's just accent Even I have, I do have a bit where I talk about, that's one of the lines where, when I was in middle school, I'd keep my t-shirt on in the pool.

Like, that would keep the mystery alive. Right, yeah. It's a moment I got out, you can see my tits through Pikachu's eyes. It's a wet t-shirt contest the same way. Were you, in school, were you a t-shirt on every time? Every single time. Up until, like, through high school,

t-shirt in the pool. And then, I Up until, like, through high school. T-shirt in the pool. And then, I don't know what, eventually I was just like, fuck it. Like, you know what's going on under here. I just had big boobs always. Yeah. And I was very self-conscious. I used to wear my towel, like, up underneath

my armpits. Were you chubbier? I was definitely chubbier. Yeah. But it was just very focused on, it was just my stomach and tits. Were you chubbier? I was definitely chubbier. But it was just very focused on, it was just my stomach and tits. Yeah. And I remember I wore the towel up there and some guy, of course, came up and said,

that's how women wear their towels. I was like, God damn, can you please? In his defense, he was right. That is how, yeah. I remember I had- Did you have your hair wrapped up in a separate towel as well? Yeah.

Putting on lotion. And I don't, it's certainly like, I don't want to have like stolen valor here, but like I was shirts and skins. I was mortified. Oh, it's the worst. I remember once I was at some club resort and there was a theater program and we were all like Aladdin characters and I was wearing a vest and it was open and I was so self-conscious about the vest.

Well, who was confident about their body at that age? My friend, Kevin Wong, he was a soccer player and he was like, the soccer players were the worst. He was doing presidential fitness challenge. He was winning the awards. Still in my life, I haven't done a pull-up. There was a dude in my middle school who did

22 of them and hopped down like, so what are we doing now? And I haven't done a pull up there was a dude in my middle school who did 22 of them and hopped down like so what are we doing now and I couldn't do one I tried like they pull you up and then they let go to see how many seconds you can hold it no I didn't do that I did have a gym teacher grab me around the waist and try to like hoist me up

which was so humiliating it was the misguided good intentions of this gym teacher being like, you're going to get one. And it just looked like I was a dead pig that he was trying to throw into the back of a pickup truck. Did you do presidential fitness challenge? I mean, I must have. It sounds familiar.

There was definitely things you had to do. I remember sit-ups and run a mile. You both did foot flexibility. Yeah. You did football. You did football. What was your grades again? You did it?

I did it all through middle school and high school. And what position? Offensive center and defensive tackle. What were you? I was an offensive lineman and a defensive tackle. Yeah. They weren't going to put us anywhere else. No.

Yeah. And I was smart, so not that. So the center has to make some of the call. Center is the smartest person on the offensive line. Ass, assess based on what the defenses line up with sometimes. So, but, yeah, you know, I played all seven years of middle school, high school. Were you good at football? For Oregon. Uh-huh.

Yeah. So I was pretty good. I was also just very big. Like I was 6'3", like 340 pounds as a defensive tackle when a lot of the other people playing football were like Jonathan. You know what I mean? They were like a 180-pound offensive lineman. And I was just like, well, this isn't fair to you. And you would throw people out of the way.

You become like this avatar for your coaches' frustrations with their marriages, I would find. Like when you were like that big in Oregon. Like I used to hurt people all the time, not on purpose, but just by virtues of being like a 300-pound kid falling on them. And like the coaches were always like thrilled when that would happen. Like you'd run off the sideline and there'd be some kid like, like, crying and limping off, and you'd be like, that's how you do it! That's how you do it!

You show them, and you get this weird, like, it's some of the only body positivity you get. When you're, you know what I mean? When you're that age, all the rest of it is, like, getting, for the most part, like, a nightmare every second of your life. Also, it's a very specific

athletic skill. Yes. Like, where you're just kind of being trained to Getting for the most part Like the nightmare Every second of your life It's a very specific Athletic skill Yes Like where You're just Kind of being trained to Go For a very short amount of time As fast as you can

Yeah And hit someone As hard as you can And to be like Good at that But you're like I'm big And

You know Probably you too Surprises people How quickly I can move Yeah Like in a Not long period of time, but like just quickly. Sure.

Like just in a small distance. And you wouldn't think of me as someone who can like inflict pain, but you're like, there was something that I have never experienced since we were like, I don't know, hitting someone that hard and like knocking them over fully or, you know, having control., having control, it is kind of like crazy. It felt good, it did feel good, because also the people you were tackling were like the quarterbacks and the running backs

who were the hot kids, you know what I mean? They were like the hot, fast, skinny kids and you were just like, here I come, the fucking ghost of the revenge of all the fat kids you made fun of. You know what I mean? All the way up until this point in your life. You think you're going to fuck the cheerleader tonight? I'm going to break your spine.

Your dick won't work. And then you grab them and you swing them as hard as you can into the ground. And it's this, for a moment. Then you walk off and you're like, oh God, that's like another 13-year-old who I just did that to. I know, yeah. It does feel amazing. You ever hurt someone bad? I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm sure, I mean.

Just black out. You were just like, but you would just have like broken, like you would just have bruises all over your arms and like broken fingers like all the time. But like, so you would, everyone was having that. So I think, I'm sure, but I don't, nothing that I remember like doing, you know, a moment where I really hurt someone. Did you ever like play another team and there was a guy bigger than you and you were like, oh shit, this is what I made people feel? There was a, definitely not bigger than me weight-wise, but we played this one team that had two offensive linemen

who ended up playing at Division I schools, so the best kind of college football you can play. They went to the University of Washington. You know enough about sports to know Division I is good. I never mean to presume. I never mean to presume. So they ended up going to the University of Washington. You know enough about sports to know Division I is good. I never mean to presume. So they ended up going to the University of Washington who are now in the national championship game next week or something

like that. And I remember running into these guys and just feeling like I was trying to throw a punch in a dream. You know the feeling of helplessness where you're like, what is this? I imagine that's how the 180 pound like what is this and it was i imagine that's how like the 180 pound guys felt against me but it was very humble yeah yeah yeah there was a bigger guy on our team that was very slow yeah he was a lot bigger but he he was a

nightmare when he had like to those bag exercises oh we had to like run into the bag and drive it back because he was just but he was not fast. He was not moving. You could get around him if you were in a different kind of drill. Where did you grow up? Upstate New York. Upstate New York. I bet they're pretty serious about football. That's like steel country a little bit, right? We would play teams that went to states every year.

We only went to one of the years I was on varsity. We went to the first round of not a great team. I played in the All-Star game and got to start in the All-Star game. You were really good.

Good in the way that if I had really pursued it, I could have played maybe a Division III. I was on that same level. I even went best third yeah and that's a maybe and i probably wouldn't have started you know what i mean like you would have hated it and i would have hated it you know they also at division three they also make you show up for practice in june like they do at the big and like the big schools and it's

like for what yeah you get to show up the first game we have yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Football's crazy, man. I got to say, I feel, I know it's never going to go away. Yeah. But I think as a, and I know as a non-sports person, I, you know, it's not pure, my desire, but I'm like, this is bad. It's insane that we play. Oh, yeah. And I think about this because especially if you're that position, you got to stay big to be that position.

Like, everyone's just being, no one's future is being thought of it's just win this game it's all current it's all living the now right i got you did you get concussions i got i didn't i never got one i don't think unless or i didn't know that i got one but i got one so bad i forgot where i lived in in high school and they sat me out a week and then they want to get back in there i was literally i got we were doing one of those drills that I think is called Nebraska. You lay on your back as a defender. Another guy lays on his back, and then there's a running back. Yes.

And you both have to get up. Oh, my God. PTS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. These concussions are coming back. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Yeah. So you lay on your back. You lay on your back. You both hop up, and then there's a running back coming towards you. And as a defender, either as the offensive player, you're supposed to move the defender, or as the defender, you're supposed to get rid of the offensive lineman. Tackle the guy with the ball. And I did that.

I got rid of the offensive lineman. And then this guy, I remember he was like 5'4", probably, but he was 5'4", both ways, our fullback. Yeah. And he like hit me right under the chin. Yeah. And I blacked out and woke up with him on top of me and everyone like cheering. And it was the end of practice. And I went up and sat in the parking lot.

And I was just like sitting there waiting for my mom to come pick me up. And my friend walks by. He's like, what are you doing? I was like waiting for my mom. He was like, you rode your bike to school today and i was like oh okay and i went and got my bike and started riding in the vague direction of home and halfway there i was like i don't know how to get home oh my house i've lived in since i was two years old and i eventually like kind of like worked my way there like trying to find a light switch in the dark. And I was like, oh my god, this is really scary.

And then I went back and finished the season, and then played rugby in the spring. It's an addiction. It's the worst time. I don't get it. If I had a kid, this would be where I'd be like, you're not doing football. I will never let my kid. It'd be the reverse of the theater thing. I'd be like, you are starring in the musical this year.

You understand? Please, papa. Please. It's going to be the opposite. It's going to be the opposite. It's going to be sneaking away. You can do both. But no, I know. It's crazy. What are these bruises on your arms? I fell in my tendu today.

I don't know. There was some New York Times Daily episode recently. It was just like a kid who the CTE set in by the time he was like 22 or 23. He killed himself or whatever. Oh, it's real. You're listening and you're like, I don't know guys. I think it should all be banned. I think it's time. These are gladiator fights. They won't.

But they might figure out different, I don't know. Helmets. One day they might fix the helmets. It will. It's like saying they'll fix car crashes so no one ever dies. It's crashing. It is still crashing. They will never get rid of it. No, they'll never get rid of it.

Whoever was running on that platform would lose, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. They would lose California maybe even. Yeah. It's crazy how much people love football.

And they were some of the best years of my life and I would under no circumstances, my kid would have to be like hunger striking or whatever. I don't have a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my high hunger striking

is not going to be playing your position oh right exactly okay now you can go you can play safety but like there's just

having gone through it loved it it would be really really hard for me to let someone I love also play football yeah

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I shouldn't say this but there's a comedian out there who I feel like every time they're running out of content they do an old before and after picture to boost up their Instagram oh sure sure sure and there's just a degree where I'm like one post every 50 pounds

and we're way past that. You got to put it back on all the way and take it back off. And then take it off again, yeah. There's just a degree of like, yeah, okay. And it's so... It's always just hard to talk about because I think sometimes the way that they frame it really is like, that was bad

and then I, now I'm good. Yes. And it really is, to my mind, almost impossible to talk about. It's very challenging. It's incredibly hard to thread the needle. People can feel very hurt easily. I've said the only thing that's

ever been taken off Instagram was when someone said something about an eating disorder and the word eating disorder on Instagram was like, no. Yeah. Nazi, fine. Yeah. Sure.

Every slur in the word, everything you've said on this podcast, fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But eating, the concept of eating disorder, they were like, no one can even see this word. Teen girls aren't challenging each other to become Nazis yet. That's so true.

Right, yeah, yeah. It's so hard to do. I mean, having been that big and also feeling like stuck in it, that, like, helpless feeling of seeing people who did lose the weight did not put wind in my sails. You know what I mean? It was just, like, it somehow felt even more helpless.

So, like, the book I made, I do talk about how I lost weight, but I wrote it with my little sister who is a psychologist who was also heavy uh heavier and like lost weight both of us did it for health reasons very clear like health or like talking to us from doctors who were like i went into i'd already started to try to lose the weight and uh you know i've been on the i've been been eating a very controlled, mostly protein and vegetable diet for three months and then I went up to Portland, where I'm from, and I was like, oh, I'm seeing my friends.

I'm going to go have some drinks. I had chicken wings. I kind of behaved the way I used to and woke up having a panic attack because my heart was pounding. I hadn't had a drink in six months, so I forgot how fast your heart beats when that happens. It was late in the quarantine. I guess it wasn't in the quarantine, but it was in that pandemic period where we thought we could go outside again.

But there was this specter of death hanging over everything. So I woke up 4 a.m. having a panic attack. I thought I was having a heart attack. Uh-huh. Had 911 dialed into my phone, ready to hit send, like, standing outside of my friend's apartment who, like, let me stay there. I didn't call them. I was like, it started to slow down. But I was like, I should go to the doctor. And I went to the doctor. And that night I had a blood pressure.

I don't remember what the lower number was, but the first one started with a 200. Which is, you know, 120 is kind of where you're supposed to be-ish, right? Like 120 over whatever is what they recommend. And that was a real like, oh shit, here's a quantifiable

number where I'm like, medically, I really need to see this through. And that was kind of the wind in my sails. And I guess I talk about it in the book, but also anytime anyone'm like, medically, I really need to see this through. And that was kind of the wind in my sails. And I guess I talk about it in the book, but also anytime anyone wants to talk to me about losing weight or whatever it is, it's like I did it for health reasons, like very specific health reasons, where I was like, oh, I'm going to die.

I'm going to be like Ralphie May. You know what I mean? But without the specials. I'm going to be like John Panette, but without the Las Vegas residency. You know what I mean? I'm going to be like another comedian who is sort of, I had raged against the stereotype of the sad comedian swallowed by his problems kind of thing.

I've been like, some of us are happy, we're fine, we're well-adjusted, blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, oh, I'm going to be going to die at 42. Yeah, it might happen anyway. Who knows? I would love to see John Panett, if he had lost the weight, still doing the Chinese buffet in its entirety.

Just a skinny guy being like, when they see me, they're worried. They're like, why? He ended every goddamn... That poor guy's... His legacy, he was so funny. So funny. Every CD ends with the longest Chinese accent bit you've ever heard in your entire life.

And just brutally, he's like, you should have them say Free Willy in the accent. And that's like the whole joke. Oh, God. The Chinese person saying... Oh, by the way, I was in Philly. And that's like the whole joke. Oh, God. By the way, I was in Philly. There was an old man there. It's the eatery in Philly. Sure. And you just sit at a table with people.

And this old man, comedian, he said, oh, I like that Italian. I said, Sebastian Maniscalco. He said, and that woman with the manicure thing. And I forget what that comedian's name is. But immediately he was like, she does the Chinese accent. And then he starts doing it for me. And I just thought, like, it's got sticking power. I gotta say,

it's this one, this is an old man. He does not watch Stand Up. He doesn't know Chappelle at a New Special. But the Chinese accent, that penetrated his consciousness. And he did for me. And it was... Did you ever figure out who he was talking about? Oh, she's famous. She, like, went viral for going into a manicurist. She's super viral off that video.

I don't think anything much happened after that. Oh, Angelica Johnson? That sounds right. Yeah. She would sell nail filer merch for $20. Someone who blew up and had 10 minutes. And then it was that struggle. She sold out theaters on that energy for a few years.

It's so big that this fucking guy, he'd go. And he'd be waiting for that accent the whole time. That's probably why John Bonet did it every time. It's probably people came and he didn't do the accent. And they said, you didn't do the thing. Yeah. Do you remember that show? That sketch comedy show we went to where we were in it was at this weird thing it was it was est ensemble studio theater yeah and there was a

woman she was chinese to be fair yes but she also did the accent she also did one of the most uncomfortable acts oh man I've ever seen. You know when something's so uncomfortable, you go, even though this is your race, I think – Should I talk to you about this? It was like every stereotype. She was bringing up every – and we didn't know what to do. Also, the audience was all white people, and it was not a lot of white people. It was mainly –

And the kind of white people that weren't sure if they should be allowed to laugh. It was mainly sketch performers and then a few people, and we were all like, I mean, I just, it's been one of the most uncomfortable experiences I've ever had. She did all sorts of things in that act. Wow. Though to be fair, I've always said

it's like, well, listen, white people were exploiting that accent for a long time. At the very least, you should get to milk it for a bit. Good for her to do that and make us all uncomfortable while she does it. But I felt bad. You were like, do we want us to laugh? Because you were like, it would be fake laughing because it's just racist.

But then you're like, but maybe she did. I don't know what. I don't know what she wanted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. That's the stickiest thing. And it took the steam out of the sketch where you drew the Chinese accent. Yeah.

You were really worried about it. You were like, is it going to play? So, okay, okay. So you had the scare. This is the middle of you being on cordon. Middle of being on cordon, yeah. At this point, we're doing like, yeah, I'm like the little sidekick.

Yeah. I'm the little sidekick. I don't know why I have to, I was the big sidekick. Sure, sure. Over on my little desk over there yeah so i was on cordon losing the weight as it was happening which was a uh you james have a talk of like did every every new episode james said it looking good or was it like let's not talk about this there was he was the perfect person like to be like i guess my dance partner and all that because he has struggled with struggled whatever he has dealt yeah struggled like with his weight and perception about his weight and feeling all sorts of ways about it like his entire career going all the

way back to like kind of playing on it um and even before i started losing weight, it was nice because he tried to steer us away from jokes that played on his size. Oh, yeah? Yeah. And not even in a way where he was like, I don't, not in a vain way or anything like that. But he was just like, I think we can be better than trying to get laughs off of that kind of thing. One of the proudest moments that I had writing on that show was when Bill Maher put out this big fat-shaming thing. Oh, yeah. That he did.

I just love Bill Maher and the writers. I'm like, hey, we haven't made fun of fat people for a while. He's like, oh, yeah. Big chunk. Can they be Muslim? Can they be Muslim fat people? Also, what are the ugliest people in the world? Just like quantifiably ugly awful

ugly so to be like the amount of opinions he has about every sort of different kind of person and to be that ugly both in and outside you're like shut up man the audacity of the fact that he called his podcast club random in 2022 whenever he started it's just so sad yeah you just want to go put a blanket around him and like walk him off. I just don't, people, some people like it. I mean,

the guy, HBO's not doing it as a kindness to him. There are people who, I am not attracted to smugness. Yeah. Oh. Oh yeah. Some people love it.

They love it. Yeah. Does it make them feel safe? Do they go, oh, this guy knows. He knows, so I don't have to,

you know? Sure. I don't know. I think there's a huge thing that's people feeling in their opinion, their opinions that they have. I'm one of these people, in fact. I'm just not really attracted to smugness, where I will have something

that I think I believe, and I will sometimes I'll tweet it. It's usually on the internet. And the second I get pushback that seems well thought out, I fold like a fucking... You know what I mean? I'm just like, you're right! I'm sorry! I'm fully dumb. I'm so, so, so, so,

so sorry. To the point where I'm like, I just don't post anything that I believe online anymore. I send out a couple weather balloons during the whole October 7th and the aftermath kind of thing, and some of the anti-Semitism and then

also some of the really disgusting Semitism is not the right word, but horrible stuff from our own community. I'm also Jewish. Sure. And the second I got pushback I was like, oh no, this feels awful. You can feel your blood pressure rise. I'm walking around pacing

and I'm like, that's it. Basketball takes and stupid jokes. Definitely. And show pacing and I'm like, that's it. Basketball takes and stupid jokes. And show promotion from here on out. Never again. Because I'm just not built for it. And he's built for it. He will go out there and he will say like, whatever. He'll say his opinion and he'll stand

on it and he'll say that anyone who disagrees is stupid. And I think there are people who are like, I agree with what he's saying and I'm also so attracted his blood must not does he not get that blood pressure feeling like it must be

because I couldn't live like that I think he's probably addicted to the feeling of it you know and he's also surrounded by people who

the only times he gets pushback are on his show I guess very and very lightly like only like what Ben Affleck went and called him a racist? Yeah.

Ben Affleck was pretty hard. But a new clip with Seth MacFarlane has been going around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of explained to him how COVID works. Yeah. Oh my God. And to be so sure. It is wild. But wait, so he said the fat thing. Oh, he talked about what it's like, like how fat people are a burden on the health system. And it's like, oh, hey, just go lose weight. And it's easy to do. Just stop eating.

And that went kind of semi-viral. And I was like, well, hey, there aren't a lot of fat people on television. And there certainly aren't a lot of fat people on television who are allowed to just be themselves. Where you're like, you know, you have like you had people on This Is Us who were, you know, fat and they were on TV, but you couldn't like slide them a hot off the press script, so with Corden I was like

you're somebody who can actually say something this is an actual area where you can like speak on something we never really did political stuff because I don't think people ever really wanted to hear his take on whatever, we found our little pockets here and there but like this was something john oliver has the the british person talking about right government exactly yeah we didn't need like another dude who like you know what i mean like we didn't need a tony award

winner to be like lecturing americans about that and uh we like i wrote a lot of it but like also just like checking in with him and, like, how he was feeling. And that was, like, a really rewarding process to be, like, at the time I was, you know, fat and, like, the kind of exact person that, like, Bill Maher was, like, condescending to. So was Corden. And, like, to have that and that kind of, like, caught on and I think hopefully made people feel good. How hard did – was Censborg just like positive? I remember it. It was enough that it got a lot of attention because I remember seeing his response.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had like a few stings in it. He made me take a lot more of them out. You know what I mean? Do you remember any? I don't remember any of them, no. I left some pretty good ones in there. It's floating.

If anybody wants to go watch it, it's floating around. I'll put a link in the thing. Yeah, on YouTube still. But we still got like good ones in there. It's floating. If anybody wants to go watch it, it's floating around. I'll put a link in the thing. Yeah, on YouTube still. But we still got some punches in there. But I don't remember any of the ones I took out. No. I can't repeat any of them even on here that I took out. Come on.

There's one in your head that you want to say. I can tell you off. It's not even... I think it makes me look bad. And I don't want to... I also regret it. It's one of those things where you talk shit behind someone's back and then you like... Yeah, of course.

We did have to take out stuff about him not having any women writers on his team or anything like that. Which we just pulled out because it was like... Because you didn't have any women writers on his team or anything like that, which we just pulled out because it was like... Because you didn't have any women writers on your team either. No, no, we didn't at all. No, I had fired all of them earlier that week. Real quick, I just remembered.

If you're a fan of the show, join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash downside for bonus episodes or live episodes. And my special, The Rats Are In Me. Now that Corden is done, answer honestly, is late night dead? Oh boy.

I want, you know, like I never want to be the person leaving it after 10 years and being like, well, that's done for. I'm sure people left Kilborn thinking the same thing. I'm sure people left when Conan died. And I think Taylor Tomlinson and Joe Firestone are two amazingly funny people. And I think because of that creative force at midnight has a chance

you know after midnight I think that's a little different than late night though I mean I think panel is like fun I would content love if panel took off

in the United States not since Chelsea lately or I guess the other at midnight if we had something like that right yeah I I think I'm allowed to say

I did a a pilot presentation of like a newish panel show. Oh, phenomenal. I'll save for my blessing at the end. Are you a can time? Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah.

I hope so, too. It would be great. I don't understand why it doesn't work here and it does work in England. It's like we have the comedic talent. Oh, for sure. We're dying for it. But Late Night as a uh a reflection of what's going

on in the world the the the comedic nightcap um we all know that everyone's watching it in the morning yes we also know that when it comes to anything topical i think weekend update I think Weekend Update has done a very good job of, for the most part, writing about things with a new twist or with a new angle that doesn't feel like this is a worse version of what I saw on Twitter. I think you're right about that. Or sometimes they won't even cover something that's been covered to death. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll choose a random thing in the news to cover because we've already seen everyone's takes on certain things it's just to find the funny as opposed to like Fallon which feels like he's

gotta cover whatever Trump did that week no matter what and the thumbnails for all the Jimmy Fallon monologues on YouTube it's like a picture of Trump and then Fallon looks like hmm and I'm like, why? Trump getting elected was like cotton candy for dinner for late night writers

where it was like the first couple months you were like, there's so much to joke about, you know what I mean? And then at some point you're just like, I'm just craving anything else. I feel sick. You would get sick off it. Every day. Every day there was something.

And you couldn't stay away from it because it was like catnip for audiences. It's how, I mean, the main way Colbert caught wind is because that's like a super talented dude who had like a bunch of super talented people working around him. But it wasn't until Trump elected that it was like, okay, I have my target. I can get people to come watch and see what else is going on over here. And that's, I think, kind of made his show or at least put the wind in the sails to the point that it was like people could appreciate everything else he was doing. And for the rest of us, even our show,

it was like Trump every single day and then three stories about, I can't believe Reese's is putting out this peanut butter cup. You know what I mean? Like, SponCon kind of stuff. But to go back and answer your question, I do think late night is dying. And I think the traditional format, the way we've come to know it as like an American

institution for the last 50 years, 60 years, 60 years, I think it's over. Yeah. We've said this before in this podcast, but I think what's hard about it is that we haven't changed the format really. And what is crazy is when you go back and look at things from the 60s or 70s, there are sometimes amazing interviews that are so interesting. And people are saying things that you're like, well, that's crazy. But now, because everyone knows that everyone's going to see this, and then it lasts forever, and it's not ethereal, it doesn't last just one night, you have to plan it to a T of what will be said in that interview. So it's so fucking boring to watch.

Unless it's two people who are actually friends, and they work together on SNL, and they can riff and do some bits and stuff, and it ends up being a nice little funny little thing. But in terms of real interviewing it's so boring it's dreadfully podcast took it away too because like back in the day if you wanted to hear steve martin talk it was like well you got to watch his seven minutes on the yes you see everyone everywhere all the time so it's not like this isn't your only moment to see these people talk every celebrity is like be oh not everyone, but most of them built a brand under them. I mean, that's no new idea, but they are brands and it's not only like

is it available? They're pushing it on you. Yeah. The only times we got some of the bigger movies, the only time we got The Rock on was when he wanted to sell tequila, too. You know what I mean? I'm coming on. It wasn't even just like movies anymore. It was just like gotta sell tequila al gadot had a literally a noodle brand she wanted

to come on and push and then we're sitting around the table trying to come up with noodle brand sketches that is dark that is dark so like it's not even you're not even always participating in a closed entertainment ecosystem at that point like now all of a sudden you're doing like fast fashion or alcohol or food or whatever. You come up with a sketch like, the noodles, it's better than her acting. Oh, God. Was it frustrating to work in a thing where you... It all had to be...

It couldn't be too mean. It couldn't be too harsh. The actors, you had to make it couldn't be too mean it couldn't be too harsh yeah the actors you had to make them all look good i i doing that for so long did you did you get dark did you feel like ah fuck this all feels so because you know it's it's not like it was uh you were morning tv it wasn't good morning america no but we were like one of the, as far as late night goes, like one of the more lighthearted late night shows for sure. I do think we got to, our escape from that was absurdism, which I don't think our show ever got known for. But like in our sketches, like a lot of the stuff that kind of like didn't go viral, we would like do more absurd stuff.

Like people, like you said, and our personal ethos as a show was we don't air at 1237. We become available at 1237. Leading into the whole, like, you can watch our sketches on YouTube at that point. We're going to be on your Facebook at that point. Later on, it was like, that's when we're going to be on TikTok. So, you know,

in a way, I think like an older Conan, maybe if you had a big guest, but before that you had to see this like insane, absurdist comedy sketch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People accidentally saw that because they wanted to see David Duchovny talk about the X-Files. Sure. Right? And now with us, it was like, if you wanted to see Adele's carpool karaoke, you didn't have to sit through any of the weird, like, influence by like 1970s British sketch comedy stuff

that some of our writers came up with. That Corden, like, personally, I love him. He's like a dear friend of mine. I know, I am completely aware of what the public perception of him is, and I'm not going to, like, all I can say is that I love the dude. I think he's one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I say to him, he was very sweet to me. He talked to me a long time.

He's so sweet. I was on. But I know I can't do anything to dispel people's public perception of it, because they're also going to think I'm biased. He's been sweet to two out of the three of us. Two out of the three? It's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Has he been mean to you? We could talk off line. You're a waiter at Balthazar. Yeah, yeah. You're a waiter at Balthazar. Yeah. But the one thing I can say that I think is quantifiable is that dude would do, if you had a funny idea or what you thought was a funny idea

or even sometimes not a funny idea, he would do it. And I don't think a lot of late night hosts, because I think they look at it like a 30-year job. They're like, I'm not coming in on a fucking Friday to film this sketch. This is the rest of my life. And he would, we would shoot for 12 hours. We would go to the desert with Tom Cruise for an entire weekend to shoot stuff. He would be, you know what I mean?

He'd stay after the show to do things. He'd come in early to do things. And that was a really rare gift. And I think because of that, we got do a lot of like more absurdist stuff but we never like we never went mean but we also knew i think to an extent he also the glossy persona and i mean the new york times wrote about this became a prison sure also isn't that it's a prison for all of them for all of them for all of them they're all in that prison and you don't it's like it's like one of those things where you're like, I almost don't fault you. It's kind of like how you have to be.

Yeah. But it is a prison. It is. And it's like, you can see, you can watch them and feel them being like, get me out of here. To some degree. You know, like they. That's not what Fallon's like.

Of course, they're brilliant. They're talented people. They wouldn't have gotten those jobs if they weren't talented. Yeah. And so, you know, it just feels like, I don't know how to do it though without that it's i think it's yeah i don't but i also don't know how you do it for a long time with that yeah i don't know how he did it for so long given that he could do he did a real team johnny carson like he was a radio man right he this is what he did yes he wasn't going to do broadway he wasn't going to do it yeah yeah this guy yeah yeah and and some

of these other people like it does it feel like you're trapped? Does it feel like you're stuck? Do you want to get out? I think he felt stuck, not to speak for him, but I also think he felt like he had done everything we could. Sure. With that format. I am proud of what we, the era that we were dropped in, basically the last decade, we the last decade, we, like, were the most successful show on, like, YouTube, as far

as late night shows go. You know, like, with the carpool karaoke and the crosswalk and stuff like that. I think we, like, were creative and innovated within the space we were given and then, like, a YouTube algorithm changed and, like, those kind of things stopped getting quite so many hits.

And then we were like, well, shit, we can't do the show we want to do with the budgets the late night shows are going to get yeah going forward which is going to be like completely that's where you're going to start seeing the difference sure i think fallon colbert kibble will get to do it for as long as they want and then i don't know about the rest i just don't know i'll host that's when i'll take over when i'm 50. That's right. I feel like we have no budget now. You said Fallon, Colbert, and Kimmel. Yeah.

Is it ever frustrating as a stand-up comedian, because I like to share as much as I can about my life and my experiences, that you have so many probably stories about different celebrities. Yeah, you can't share. You've left the job, but it's your own. I, you can't share. Or you have to, you know, you've left the job, but it's your own, just like, I was in a green room,

I was at Flappers, and Jay Leno was there. And, you know, he just shared two stories about Britney Spears, and you're, I mean, it was incredible. You're like, oh, this is what, who wouldn't want to hear these tales? Yeah. You have a huge segment of your fucking life that is like, hmm. You also don't want to be yeah it is

where you're like you don't know when you're gonna run into them or or or you want to work at like i mean yeah it's like hey can i you want to go go work on like an award show for a check and it's like well now you can't because you're the guy who like spilled the beans on like celebrity x or whatever i will say that there are for, there were like less than you think. Sure. Celebrities were for the most part like on their best behavior when we were filming with them. Like you didn't get a ton of people like acting out,

but there were a few. Yeah. Oh my God. Tom Cruise's husband said this. Oh my God. You know Jason. Okay. Yeah.

Oh my God. Jason Cruise. That dude, I don't want to say anything about him because I'm on the cake list, and I don't want to get myself taken off that cake list. He sends you a cake? I'm on the cake list. Yeah. I'm not familiar with the cake list.

There's a Tom Cruise holiday cake list. And he just sends cakes to people? There's a bakery outside of L.A. that from the beginning of November, or maybe even the beginning of October, through Christmas, through New Year's, as far as I know, only makes cakes for him to send out. If you've worked with him at all, you get a cake. He sent a cake to James, all of our EPs, me just because I wrote all the sketches he did on our show. He works with, I think every day of his life is booked up.

If you work with him, you get a cake. It's a white chocolate coconut cake. Caramelized chunks of white chocolate on the side. It's a bunt cake. It's made by Doan's Bakery in like Thousand Oaks, California. It's phenomenal. I got a new dream. That feels like an attainable dream someday. Yeah.

Tom Cruise cake list. Yeah. Tom Cruise, the first sketch we shot with him this is not not a gossipy story but kind of a weird thing we were shooting like on a river boat on the thames and it was a like a balmy day and he was wearing a suede button-up shirt which i haven't seen before since but he swe through it, and he didn't have another one because there's probably only one suede button-up shirt on the planet.

Uh-huh. And he was, like, so committed to finishing the stupid sketch with us that he was like, no, I'm not leaving. We're going to finish it, but first we have to get this shirt dry. So then he stood there shirtless

while, like, four assistants, like, dried off this shirt with, like, hair dryers. It was such a surreal thing because you're all stuck on this boat together and you're like they're shirtless tom cruise not really talking to anyone just making like occasional aggressive eye contact he's the most intense yeah yeah he seems intense yeah he's like he's only ever been lovely to me but he almost he almost seems like an alien Where like I just don't You know from people's stories You're like I don't know if there's another person

Like that Remember that COVID leak They were filming Mission Impossible and they leaked that phone call And you got to see Tom And one of those moments where The people who would have normally gotten mad at him Were so pro COVID protocols That they were like it it's okay, you should

yell at those underpaid crew members for probably jostling it so they could eat a little M&M to get through the day. When he plays a villain, it's so good. Oh, collateral. What a great movie that is. He's so good in that. Phenomenal.

Because he's truly unnerving. Like where you're like, in a very calm kind of, like, ooh, God. Yeah. You believe he would murder you more than he would have sex with you. Like, that's, I don't know that, there's all the jokes about him, you know, like, being gay or, like, having a, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think he's sexual.

I truly don't. Sure, I get that. Just pure ambition. I think he's post-sexual. I think he gets all joy that he needs to out of driving a motorcycle off of a cliff. I truly do. I can't imagine. He's so charming and so interesting and so fascinating that the fact that he is the representative of Scientology.

It should be more of a problem. It should be. It really should be more of a problem. But he's so likable that everyone's like hey it's probably fine that maybe he killed Shelly Miscavige

yeah like none of like everyone you kind of put him on I think that's how they did it they did a Mission Impossible stunt and they tested it on Shelly Miscavige they put her in a biker jacket

and threw her off a building the Burj Khalifa yeah like that should be that should be everything it should be more it should be more hurtful to his career than it is

but he is just... Everyone is just all like, well, we like him, though. But Gerard Carmichael, he made a joke about Tom Cruise at the Golden Globes. Everyone's like, oh, my God. Even in the crowd, they didn't want to, like, don't cut to me laughing. Don't cut to me laughing.

Everyone in there, like, I'm on the cake list. I'm on the cake list. I'm on the cake list. That's exactly right. Oh, no, don't please. Because there's a downside I do need to bring up. It's a requirement. Yes.

Your grandparents. Yeah. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust survivors. Yes. Yeah. I think second guest with Holocaust survivors. Do you remember the first?

Second. Oh, yeah. What's his name? Oh, God. I can see the last name. Never forget. Ari. Ari Finling.

Hey, good for you. There you go. This is on your dad's side, correct? On my dad's side, yeah. On your dad's side. Yeah. And they met pre-Holocaust? Post.

Post. Post-Holocaust. My grandmother's still alive. She is. Yeah, my grandfather died when my dad was 18, so I never met him. Is there a number of how many Holocaust survivors are still alive in the world?

I bet there is. Nicole's grandfather, too. Yeah? 91, yeah. Would he do the pod? No, he has dementia. My grandmother's 89 and sharp as a tack. 89?

Yeah. Wow. Sharp. So she does the lecture circuit? She did for a while, yeah. She was doing the Shoah Foundation. She would go speak. She used to go,

she's put it on tape. She used to go around to different schools and stuff. Was it like, here she is and she would do a presentation or just like a Q&A? I think she would be

one of a panel of people who would speak on her experiences. Like they would be interviewed by someone, you know, who would like ask like, she was in Brussels. She was in Belgium. That's where she lived at the time. And then

the Nazis came in. Killed her entire family except for her mother and her little sister. Did they kill them there or brought them to a place? Her father was, like, I mean, if you really want to get into it, her father was killed in Brussels, shot in the head. The rest of them were taken to camps. Her and her sister and her mother were hidden by Catholics in a Catholic convent.

One was a Catholic farmer, and then the other was hidden in a Catholic convent and hid there during the war. And then stayed, actually, in Belgium for five years after the war ended and then came to Coney Island, actually. Sure. You know where you go they just sort of unwind they go like let's go back to brussels yeah this is a nightmare class a these hot dogs are all and that's what she i think that is where she met my grandfather uh he was in paris they were all in poland two generations before this We're not like cosmopolitan Jews. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah.

But. He was in Paris. Paris. And then the Nazis came there. His father abandoned them and moved to Israel. Uh-huh. That area. Like, abandoned his wife and kids who stayed in the same apartment in Paris for the entire Nazi occupation.

So, he left. Of Paris. He left mid-occupation. He was like, I gotta get out of here. He didn't leave just to leave. And he didn't bring them? No. And you couldn't hide in Israel. That's the one place. I know, you could have gotten them in there, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it was terrible.

Our last name used to be Katz. And now I'm Ian Carmel. And they were like, well, we're not keeping this last name of the man who abandoned the family. Wow. That's why they changed it when they landed here? When they landed here. That was part of it. Then there was also the whole Katz sounds a little too Jewish.

You know Ellis Island didn't change anyone's last names? I read this book last year or two years ago, People Love Dead Jews, which is one of the things in there. The name is People Love Dead Jews? People Love Dead Jews. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great book. It's super interesting, and it's not as, like, downside-y as you might expect that book to be. It's one of those books that you're scared to read in public.

Yeah. And I'm one of them. One of my favorite tweets of all time. It's a book. It's called The Rise and Fall of the Nazi Empire. And people are like, how do you read this in public? And someone said, well, for the first half, you got to go. And the second half, you go.

You're like, yeah. All right. God, I love that. God, it's so funny. That's so funny. Hilarious. So when did they change their name? When they got here. But you're saying people did they change their name? When they got here

But you're saying people did not change their name at Ellis So Ellis Island didn't change anyone's last name That was like an excuse that people made up Everyone All the people who did it Because at Ellis Island if you showed up here and you spoke Polish They had people who spoke Polish To talk to you and process you

If you showed up you spoke Russian If you showed up and spoke Yiddish They had people who spoke Polish to talk to you and process you. If you showed up, you spoke Russian. If you showed up and spoke Yiddish, they had people to process you. And if your last name was like my wife's family, Bialystutzky, they were like, well, you're still Bialystutzky. And they were like, all right, but once we get here, we're going to change it to Brown. And then when people would ask, they'd say, oh, they made us change it at Ellis Highland. Because they were a little bit ashamed to turn their back on their background. And this is – they were like. That's like the, oh, the trains.

I'm late because of the trains. Yeah. I'm from Ellis Island. They hate to see a Jew succeed. But yeah, that's so, but we changed it for the Americanization of everything. And then also the great shame of what would have been my great-grandfather,

abandoning me. But yeah, and they all lived in New York. They moved to Coney Island, then spread out to Long Island, other parts of Brooklyn and everything, and now none of them live in New York anymore. Did you ever find out, did they ever find out what happened to him

once he moved to Israel? Was there any sort of... No contact. If he lived and they lived, that's awkward. You know, you're like, well, thanks. We all lived and now – Super awkward. And then we ended up having other family, like, in Israel.

Yeah. And, like, you know, and all over the place. But, no, I don't think there was ever any. I think maybe my father found out, like, when he died or something like that. Wow. There wasn't any. Because he's, like, now now, like I think a lot of older Jews get

into the genealogy trees. It's one thing to abandon your family. It's another as the Nazis are approaching. As they're coming, I know. That is brutal. Awful. And then like the things that my great grandmother must have done to like stay alive and hidden

in that time. It's just, it boggles the mind. If your dad went to go out to get a pack of cigarettes, you're like, could you wait until the Nazis? It's almost worse than just abandoning them normally. Also, they're really going to slow me down as I flee Paris on this bicycle or however he did it. They just knew he wasn't there anymore. Did you go to any of these presentations? it's a lot of weight as a kid yeah like your grandma survived this thing and like how how much did you interact go and see her i didn't go to the presentations but i definitely got one-on-one versions of it you know which were intense but

appreciated were you curious like were you like? She was in a camp. No, no. She was not in a camp. She never got... Okay. She was not a camp survivor. She survived the... She was just hidden in a Catholic convent. A lower grade of survivor? Less impressive.

Right? There should be some rankings. There is. You get a lot of street cred if you're she's not a gold star survivor you know well she was but like not the right one does she have a tattoo no no tattoo no um her sister is also still alive by the way they're both and they're both very sharp the two people and their mother died of course. But the two sisters who survived from their family are still alive. Do you feel, because I do have more Holocaust jokes than I should. I did too.

Did you? I did. And not for any moral reasons did I get rid of them. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Did your grandma ever hear them? No, no, no, no, no. You would never? Never.

Never? Never. My father heard them and that was, no. You would never? Never. Never? Never. My father heard them, and that was bad enough. He was upset? He was upset. He told me to take him out of my act. Wow. Do you have people tell you to?

Oh, not about my Holocaust. I mean, there's one right now that is, again, I think the joke of it is so clear. Yeah. But it's on there. I had a guy pull me aside after a show. And the joke was never on the Jews. It was on Nazis. And he still was so upset and disappointed that I was using the Holocaust in any way for comedic purposes

that he, like, took me aside after a show and was like, you should really stop doing that. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. And then, like, turned me back around and was like, you really should stop doing that. Which also a fat woman did to me at a show after I had lost weight and was still trying to do fat jokes. And she was like, I understand that you used to be,

but you need to know how it sounds now. I don't think you want to be the person who tells those kind of jokes. Which, I didn't agree with the Holocaust one, but the fat woman, I was like, thank you for the reality check. That was actually a good, because I was like, I was actually kind of feeling that in my heart. Feeling it anyways. Yeah, where it felt a little icky.

Even though it was my true experience. But it's your true experience. It is, that in my heart. Feeling it anyways. Yeah, where it felt a little icky, even though it was like my true experience. But it's your true experience. It is. That's what's so tricky about it. That's tough. It is. It's losing. In a way, it's good for you, if not for the audience at first. You know what I mean?

Because there was still a lot of figuring out. Yeah, you're figuring out who your new thing is. Yeah. Which is tricky and frustrating. You know what I mean? Like 10 years and frustrating, you know, like 10 years into doing stand-up comedy, 11 years into doing stand-up comedy, and then, like, being back at that, not quite page one, but page one-y, like, but even further back than page one. Because, like, when I first did stand-up, I had a lifetime of being a fat kid. Yeah.

And, like, deflecting and being funny about it. And then all of a sudden it was like, what do I joke about as a regular dude? It's weird. It's like if I stop being Jewish. Yeah. And I'd be like, well, there goes, I can't tell these Holocaust jokes anymore. You can lean on the Italian thing a little bit.

Yeah. All right, let's go on to our next segment. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. This is where we talk about something that needs to go away, needs to end, personal, big, small. Russell, do you have one you want to start? Yeah, Christmas cards. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. This is where we talk about something that needs to go away, needs to end. Personal, big, small. Russell, do you have one you want to start? Yeah, Christmas cards.

This has got to stop. Christmas cards. Listen, I love, sure, send them. Send them my way. That's great. But the kind of expectation that, not from friends or things like that, but family. You're going to all sit down and then everyone's place, there's a card. They're very expensive now.

I went to a nice shop because I was like, I'm sick of going to like getting, I will go to like a nice, an actual store that makes their own things. I didn't look at the prices because I'm getting cards.

I'm getting like 10 cards. It was $75 for 10 cards. Are you supplying the picture and they're printing? No, no, no, no. This is truly, this is soup to nuts. $75 for 10 cards. Are you supplying the picture? And they're printing? No, no, no. This is truly... You're saying you're writing back? This is soup to nuts?

This is just like cards that people will open. Oh! They're not even like you posed? No, God no. Oh my God. I'm not even doing that. No, I can't send that kind of stuff out. I'm saying there's an expectation in my family that we're...

This is your family thing. I've never heard of this. We're going to sit down and we're going to do – everyone's going to get cards at dinner. You know what I mean? Oh. Which can be nice, but also we're all just getting a card and maybe writing a couple lines in there. But after a year and you're out, the same people, the same same cards you're like we we know the sense of what it's the same people we're not adding new people just hand each other ten dollars you know

and i don't know i just the cards in general are i i hate cards i just hate cards anytime i have to get one for someone i get them literally can i'm telling this to anyone who gives me a card ever i open it up i read it if it's like really like a long thing from a uh an impressive person or a director or something that i'm like oh i should save this i'll save it if it's just from a friend or family member that i love and it i i read it immediately goes in the trash like maybe I'll put it up for a day. One day. Okay, hold up. Let's say you, okay, Josh Gad, fingers crossed, has to drop out of Gutenberg for something. Hit by a truck. Fingers crossed.

And you go on, and I see you. And I mail you, and it's a letter about, like, man, to see your journey. And about your performance. And it's a letter about, like, man, to see your journey and about your performance. And it's detailed. Right in the trash? Maybe I'd take a picture of it and keep that message. But I think, like, I save, like, I've had things from people that I'm like, oh, I don't know that person well, and this means a lot coming from them. Yeah, yeah.

And maybe if I read the card and it was that moving to me, I would save it. I do save some, but in general, I'm talking about like birthday cards or like a thing that's just like, Hey, another year around the, you know, or like an anniversary card,

things, card, things like that, where you're like, I feel bad that you're like, this is a waste of, of paper and of money that you've sent it. And it's so nice.

And I love the gesture. I love the idea of it, but I, I, it is a waste. Do you know what I mean? it. And it's so nice. And I love the gesture. I love the idea of it. But it is a waste. Do you know what I mean? What about... Ultimately, it's my thing. I hate sending them. With your wife, are you writing cards?

No, because she hates cards too. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. My mother will send a card thanking you for sending her a card. Yes, exactly. There's people... Brutal.

Brutal cycle. ...culture of that thing. The older... We get cards from a couple people multiple times a year over just like St. Patrick's Day. Like St. Patrick's Day. We're not Irish. It's like, you know what I mean? You're like, what is this card for?

I thought you were talking about Christmas cards with the pictures on it. No, I like those. Those are fun. But I have I have one person in my life that it's like Industry tangential And I'm like why are you sending me a card of your family Yeah

I'd rather be on the Tom Cruise cake list Than whatever this fucking list is Our friend Jessica Fry and Max They do a good job They've been doing like her and her husband Now they have a kid, do like a funny. That's good. A funny one.

And it's funny every year and it's weird and it's like they think it out and they do something. I love that one. That's my favorite card to get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, sometimes it's just like, you know, it's just like the same for people every year and you're like, what is this for?

I don't get those that much. I don't get that many cards. The idea behind those was to up when you didn't see anyone and you didn't have Facebook or Instagram. Yeah. Here's the update on this kid. Yeah. You're not going to see until their bar mitzvah,

I guess not Christmas, you know what I mean, for like another 10 years. So they play soccer and they're good at history. You know what I mean? And then here's this update on this kid and here's what my wife is up to. Yeah. And here's your once a year update.

But now we don't need that anymore. Yeah, that's so true. Without, you know. I remember as a kid, my family used to get a card from like family members that were like not, they weren't cousins,

but they were like, you know, they were further away but related somehow. Yeah. And every year they'd send a really long, crazy note of their

updates and it would just be bonkers because you're like i don't really know these people but this is crazy and then the picture would be kind of weird it was like clear every year they couldn't get the kids to do it yeah so sometimes it was just the parents with like a goat you know like it was just a really crying child off yeah yeah yeah i i have some friends where they had babies and the babies were very cute and they text me pictures and videos, baby walking and it hits an age where I go okay

not that cute anymore that's just a four year old I don't need this many pictures of four year olds sometimes also the editing you gotta pick out the best moment we don't need a many pictures of four-year-olds. Sometimes also the editing, like you got to pick out the best moment. Yeah. We don't need a four-minute video. We need what's the best 13 seconds in there.

You know, let's think about like what's the best. I like that. A master class on sending the videos to your parents. That would be. A master class like being like, okay, this is the interesting part right here. The government should do that. Oh, just like. We won't help you raise the kid, but we got to take care of you.

Yeah. But here's how to pick the nine seconds that the people will actually watch. Yeah. I have a friend. Sometimes also if I'm like having a frustrating day and my friend sends me a picture of his kid, I'm like, I don't fucking care. I don't care today. Yeah. Well, because also you're like, sometimes that becomes the whole relationship.

Yeah. You're like, okay. What? Like, you know, I like, I know enough not to send a picture of my dog every day to relationship. Yeah. You're like, okay, what, like, you know, like, I know enough not to send a picture of my dog every day to people. Yeah. Like, you know, not that that's the same thing, but it is a thing where it's a crutch you can lean on.

It's our thing that, like, I get more joy out of than you, even if you get some joy out of it. Yeah. Listen, I don't have kids, so I'm sure this is a challenge thing, but all my Disgust Hub will relate with kids where I have some people where, like, if they don't get back, so I'm sure this is a challenge thing, but all my Disgust Hub will relate with kids where I have some people where, like, if they don't get back to you on time

or they just ignore you or whatever, they always have to tell you what was going on with their kid and that's why they couldn't do it. And so it's always like, you know, hey, sorry I didn't get back. My kid had a sneeze. Hey, I didn't get back. My kid, bah, bah, bah.

Eric got a wasabi piece stuck up his nose. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't. And because it's about a kid, that is carte blanche for whatever behavior exhibited. Yes. It's your kid, of course. I can't go, hey, sorry I didn't do that.

I found a great porno and I jerked off three times last night. I can't do that. Yeah.'s three times the same porno that's psycho well all the porno out there in the world and i only watched the same 20 seconds at that point the storyline does have to yeah yeah you're really yeah i do want to see what happens where you're doing porn and you're like no one's gonna watch this part yeah it's gonna forward pass this part. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's that thing. Again, it's fine if your kid had something happen, but I feel them do it every single time. Yeah.

Every single delay. Oh, it's because of this. It's because of that. And I'm like, unless your kid is dead, enough. Yeah. Absolutely. I haven't gone to your kid is dead, enough. Yeah. Absolutely. I haven't gone to a funeral for a kid yet. Oh, my God.

I'm just saying that as a fact. I wasn't saying I want to. But I'm saying that'll definitely be a life event. Any listeners out there? Any listeners? Who wants an invite? Can you imagine the priest like, we have one of the hosts of The Downside. Checking something off the list.

This has got to stop. Kid's dying. What the hell? You have to stop. I've prepared several. Of course, please. So I got to. Oh, just got 13 text messages.

Okay, sweet pickles. That's a quick one. Uh-huh. I'm out on those. I hate it. Oh, yeah. I've never enjoyed a sweet pickle. Every time I'm reaching for a pickle

and I think I'm in for a spicy bite or a delicious savory sour and I bite into it and it's sweet, it's just upsetting. No more sweet pickles. There's no way that was back in Poland. It must have been a mistake. Had to have been.

A bag of sugar fell in. It does feel like a goyim pickle, right? Like a sweet pickle. You can call them bread and butter pickles. Yeah. It feels Dutch. No shade on the Dutch. Sure.

The disingenuous LMAO. Oh. In which context? A text conversation? So someone's like, no, on social media. When someone's like, okay, so landlords are just going to cut off people's heat this winter? LMAO? And I'm like, all right.

It's become the millennial psych. And I just think it's run its course. We need to get rid of that. You're not laughing your ass off. And I know you're not laughing your ass off. But every time I see the LMAO, I'm like, all right. Tone it down a little bit, right? Just be earnest about your feelings on it. Yeah.

You want Twitter to be more earnest. I would like it to be a little more. I really hurt my feelings that the landlord cut off my heat. And I'm worried. I get that. I mean, listen, I hate the way that I write emails, and I hate the way that I write emails and I hate the way that I sometimes text

I rely on I do ha ha ha I do LOL but like part of it's like why don't you try to form a full sentence yes instead of

adding an LOL yeah and I hate I mean like my emails to you know business people I just hate the hey how are you doing?

Have a great weekend. I'm like, how can I still be talking like this? Yeah. I know. I never hoped anyone had a good weekend in my entire life. Yeah. No. It doesn't affect me whatsoever.

I hope I have good weekends. Yeah. You want to say it to Amir? I wish I had the courage to end thing. I don't care how your weekend goes. You should. Get back to this. No, I think I do genuinely care.

I think I would also, I would mainly hope that they do have a good weekend, but I don't care after the fact. I would hope you had a great weekend. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's on a Monday and I'm sending them a message, I'm less likely to care about it. What is this genuine? You went, I hope. Yeah. I hope you have a good weekend.

I can do it like this. Look it. Ready? I hope you have a good weekend. I am hoping real quick. I'm throwing it out there. It doesn't have it. Ready? I hope you have a good weekend. I am hoping real quick. I'm throwing it out there. It doesn't have to be a big, I'm not like praying for it. I'm not saying I'm praying for you to have a good weekend. I'm saying I hope you have a good weekend. Just blowing a kiss. You know, yeah.

Yeah. Come on. Have a good weekend. Yeah. You got one more? Let's go. It's like the way that dudes like will celebrate anything, especially in sports.

Like in my, let's go. Like I, come on. We have to come up with, learn three other things. Yeah. Come up with three other things to say.

Sure. My nephew, like I would like, my nephew is like a, like 10 year old, loves basketball, football, like all that stuff.

And I gave him a box of basketball cards. You know what I mean? And he was like, let's go. Then he got another present for his birthday, like Patrick Mahomes jersey. Let's go. And it's his one thing he says when things are going well. Oh, yeah. And I guess I'm worried for the dudes who either did like Entourage or would have liked Entourage had it been around.

I'm like, we need to expand that vocabulary just a little bit more. What were our versions of that? The things I remember, I would say Peace Out. Oh, yeah. That's what I did a lot. Peace Out Girl Scout. I did a lot of Peace Out Girl Scout. Peace Out Girl Scout?

Just because it rhymed. Combined with your harmless flirtations. Uh-huh. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Oh, you were just a cool kid Who never had a son

I wasn't But I'm sure I had them I don't remember having one You know I don't remember Having like a phrase Yeah yeah yeah But we must have Yeah

I can't remember any of mine I know I said bro And maintain Saying bro Quite a bit Yeah yeah yeah Earnest bros I say bro

And there's never been A joke to it Yeah Yeah Hella But that's a West Coast thing. Hella. Hella.

Oh, it was hella cold, dude. Well, let's go to the blessings. There it is. Let's roll. Action. You better count your blessings. You better count your blessing. Real quick, let me just give one last plug for the Patreon.

Patreon.com slash downside. You can just join for $5 a month. You get bonus episodes at least one a month, maybe more. Live episodes once a month. I haven't announced it yet, but we are doing a live podcast taping in Los Angeles. California. Los Angeles, California. Very nice.

And that will be available exclusively on the Patreon. Tell your friends, we are growing, getting more views than listens, which is weird. Yeah. It is weird, but that's- Just start listening. What it is. Start listening to What the Fuck. What is that?

Love that you're watching. You would have had to put a gun to my head to make me watch a podcast like five years ago, and now it's like the dominant way people consume it. Yeah. make me watch a podcast like five years ago and now it's like the dominant way people consume it. Yeah, I think it, again, I think they are still kind of listening and it's just there to glance at. It's on in the background, yeah. You know, I'm not going to look, give Taurus in the mouth.

You're good looking, guys. Feel free. It's a beautiful studio. And I loved on our last episode, I talked about how people were making fun, they said the couch was too small and all the comments. Someone said the couch was too small, and all the comments. Someone said the couch is not small enough. Wow. Smaller.

Smaller. Smaller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait to have your cold tomorrow. Yeah. Do you have a blessing? You go first. I want to know a theme.

I'll say this. I'll say my thing. Again, because he mentioned on his podcast, I did, so I think it's okay, I did this pilot presentation. Yes. And the host of it was my comedic idol,

Anthony Jeselnik. Yeah. And it was my first time meeting him. Were you doing it with Kyle Kinane? I did it with Kyle Kinane. Yeah, I was out with him the night before. Yeah, yeah. Great.

And then Jeselnik did like a little shout out on his podcast. And it was very cool because this is embarrassing to say. That's my comfort podcast, Jessalynick's podcast. Sure. And sometimes I put it on when I go to sleep. And Tova was awake, and suddenly Tova woke me up.

And I assume it's a night terror given her. But she was like, no, no, go back, go back. And it was Jess jessalyn like talking for a minute it's just saying some very kind things about him about about john marco yeah it was very uh it was very very very cool it was very cool there was no and and it was weird because it was like i knew it was a taping and i had to get over uh meeting him right away. I had to be funny and even rib him a couple times very quickly. That's hard to do, man. It was hard to do.

That's really hard to do. Mulaney came by the cellar. I'd never met Mulaney. I went to the place where I said, what is my mouth? I'm being weird with my mouth. Yeah. And it was just shocking. Yeah.

Also, there needs to be a way. It's so silly when he goes, hi, John. And it's like. And you're like, shut up. We know. Yeah. But it also. I don't know if I like it more if he said, you know.

I think it's him. You know. No, you just have to introduce yourself like you would. You do. Yeah. Yeah. You go, hi. him. You know. No, you just have to introduce yourself like you would. You do. Yeah. Yeah. John Marco.

But it was very surreal. Like in the rehearsal and Justin walks in and goes, John Marco. And I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah. So very cool. Yinzer accent. Let's hope the show gets picked up. Yeah. More panel, baby.

More panels. Do you have a blessing? Yeah. I'm going to go with Nicole. So this year has been a lot of reflecting on 2023. I guess we're in the future. It's already 2024. It's fine.

The bit off, sometimes more than I can chew in 2023. All good things lots of performing some jobs that i still have that why do i still have it but i still have it uh not this not this you know um but i at times had multiple full-time kind of things yeah and we have pets and we have little things and so I just feel very you know she really has helped maintain and take care of things and I want to be just highlight how thankful and grateful I am for

all that because it's been like I'm trying to be better about it as I'm looking at a new year of not doing that like saying yes to everything and and it's hard though and um but I want to be more thoughtful about it because I feel like I'm on this kind of thing where it's all good stuff but it's it's I can't maintain it it's it's not a life that you can just have stuff every day all the time you can You can drive 80 miles an hour through Big Sur too.

You know what I mean? The stuff passing by the window really fast, sometimes that's the beautiful stuff you want to slow down with. But that saying no is so hard. It is. When you weren't even asked for the longest time. I know, yeah. Oh my god. But I want to, you know, I'm not, you know, I, so, but she's had

to like really help like do so many more things than is fair. And so I feel like I'm just thankful that she's done it. If next week your blessing was your divorce lawyer. How? Even if I just had to do the eight shows a week, it's a nightmare to have that eight shows a week it's a nightmare to have that eight shows a week

those are your nights that's a tall thing to have over a year now of doing eight shows a week so it's I hear you I did a New Year's show and sometimes I do these New Year's shows and I'm like what am I doing with my life

how many years have you done New Year's shows? Oh, I think I've done it every year since, for the last five. Wow. And it was like, it was at the Cellar, and I was nervous because I was basically, we did the countdown, they brought everyone on stage at the Village Underground, and then I was the set after the countdown.

Wow. And in my mind, I thought, oh, this is going to be, like, the worst check spot of all time. Yeah. Of all time. But it ended up being, like, really, the crowd was just, like, electric.

And I was like, I'm the last set at the VU. And I just fed off it and gave a fucking gigantic performance. It was great. It was great, but at the same time it's like, it's more than Nightmares for Tova where it's like I am leading up to the countdown

and what am I thinking about? Fuck, fuck. Yeah. Oh, am I about to eat shit? And I'm literally on stage knowing that once this countdown once this countdown is done, I have a set right now. I'm not even leaving the stage. Now, now. Yeah.

Now, now, now. Everyone else leaves. Yeah. And so, again, and then after the set, I feel the same way you do after any good set. I'm, like, riding high. I'm, like, I can do anything. But it's just a – it's a life. Yeah.

It's a life. Yeah. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. And even, and I saw, sometimes I'm like, I, not to brag, I texted Pete Holmes. I'm going to do Pete Holmes' Largo show, my Largo debut. Oh. But I was like, I texted, I joked to him. I said, I did New Year's. It's the nightmare of doing New Year's.

And he was like, he was doing a New Year's show, too. And I saw John Mulaney was doing a New Year's show. Everybody's doing New Year's. Every club is a New Year's show. All of that stuff. Yeah. Even at the highest levels, you're doing a New Year's show. Attach yourself to the Hebrew calendar, and then it doesn't matter at all.

Do you have a blessing for us? I do, indeed. I was, so over the holidays, that's always like a triggering food time, you know, I think for anyone and definitely for me. I had an actual moment where I was, if like a shirt doesn't fit that much or it doesn't fit like I'm used to it fitting or I can't get like a jacket button the same way because I put on like a couple pounds over the holidays. I would have a full blown meltdown like in the past. It was, I have this incredibly weird relationship with clothes. Not weird, I guess it's completely explicable. But like one time I spilled coffee

on one of the shirts that like, that I felt good in. Yeah. And I was at a farmer's market with my wife. We had just seen Colin Firth. Should have been a beautiful day. You know what I mean? He was walking by with like a basket full of like radicchio.

And I was like, ha ha. And then spilled coffee on my shirt. And my mood went from like heaven to hell. So I was having a full blown meltdown. Just because I have this weird relationship with clothes. It goes back to like being in a Sears and not getting pants to fit. And I had a moment for the first time in my life where it like it feels like a greeting card kind of thing but it was like i just accepted my body where i was like this is this is what you're

like right now and you'll probably take some of this weight off again after the holidays and you're not eating like all these sweets all the time and right now this is who you are and that's beautiful too and like it actually landed which is like never a thing i've said that to myself before yeah yeah and then in my head you're like you fucking liar you're lying yeah lying to everyone and this time like it actually landed and i accepted it and that was like just a very beautiful moment and it was just a a thing that I guess took practice. But it was a really, really nice thing that hadn't happened before. And just being generous with myself. It was just lovely.

It was just a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful blessing. That's really nice. As opposed to some people go, music. Who said music? Remember? I was alone for it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, please, please, fuck it.

Jesus Christ. I am thankful for music, though. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Some of it. Some of it. This is coming out January 10th, or January 9th. By the way, guys, just so you know, we're doing everything we can to make these... it's always going to be

a little bit of a struggle, but to record and release it soon so you can be up to date. We are soon going to have an in-studio producer. I hope, you know, I take the show seriously and hopefully we'll get to a point in the next year where we are recording and releasing the next day more often than not.

It is not easy. It is really fucking hard to make that happen. Yeah. Also, we have check out the downside. We have a TikTok page now. We have an Instagram page. It's exclusive for the downside. Help us build this up.

Tell your friends. Share the clips. And thank you for those of you who have joined the Patreon and those of you who just listened. So people in philly uh they they were they they wish you were there russell and i told them i said philly that is manageable someday we could get you to philly philly toronto chicago and la it's coming up baby la so what do you want to plug oh yeah i will be uh at hyenas in fort worth tex Texas on the 19th and 20th. The Desert Ridge Improv February 1st through 3rd. New Orleans, Louisiana

at Sports Drink, which is a fun little venue. March 8th and 9th, and then I'll be at the Punchline March 13th through the 16th in San Francisco. San Francisco, great club. And then March 23rd

at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. I have a podcast, All Fantasy Everything, where we fantasy draft really silly stuff. We've got to have you guys on if you'd like to do it. Oh, my God. Now, have you done musical theater ones? We did musicals. So two of the other hosts aren't very musical-y, theater-y people. Sure, sure, sure.

We had Mark Schabelsky on and drafted, I think, musicals. We could do Gutenberg producer guests. That would be really cool. We could have the two of you and then my wife could do it. Dana Schwartz who's a huge musical fan. Oh, I would die. And then we could just draft songs or whatever. I've seen Merrily We're All Along tonight.

Tonight? Really? It's very expensive. Insane. 300 bucks for like a Tuesday night show. Are you going two of you? And that was like discount. That's pulling some strings. It's expensive. Insane. Yeah. Insane. 300 bucks for like a Tuesday night show. Are you going two of you? Come on. You and Tova? I'm in, Tova.

Wow. Yeah, and that was like discount. Yeah. That's pulling some strings. Yeah. Well, all these people come in and they're like, can you get house seats? I'm like, I can get you house seats. House seats are $250.

Oh, wow. Like, it's crazy. For Gutenberg? Yeah. Yeah. $250. To see Randy Rainbow, there's no amount of money I wouldn't spend. Absolutely not.

Priceless. Russell, what do you want to plug? I don't know. Follow me on Instagram, at Russell J. Daniels. I'm in the final month of doing Gutenberg, and then I don't know if I can say it yet, but I will be performing

again come February end of February to end of April in New York City I'll be announcing it soon if you're a real listener you know what that again means you know what that again meant so a limited run with

an old friend that's very exciting I can't wait. Now, be honest with me. Yeah. I should see it again. No. You won't feel hurt if I don't see it again? No, you've seen it twice.

Okay. Ticket's going to be $300? No, they'll be much cheaper. For me, everybody, I am headlining a temple in Miami, Florida, January 18th. A temple. Let's hope they don't check the Twitter.

January 19th through 20th, I will be in Boca Raton. January 21st at Naples, Florida. And then weekend after that, I'm in Tacoma. And then January 28th, I'm in Spokane. And then I'll be in LA for two weeks doing stuff. And I just found out today, I will be on Pete Holmes' Largo show January 30th. I'm very excited. First time at Largo.

Largo. Feels very cool. My first time at Largo was with your boy, Anthony Jezelnik. Was it? I was blackout drunk because I came from a holiday party and I embarrassed myself. Really? On stage or backstage? On stage.

Backstage. Wow. I don't think particularly embarrassing backstage, but just everywhere embarrassing. It was his show. Oh. I don't think particularly embarrassing backstage, but just everywhere embarrassing. Oh. It was his show. He specifically requested because I had this joke about Shaquille O'Neal that he'd heard was really good. And I went. I was trying to do both.

And I was at the holiday party. And I only had a couple drinks. I swear to God. But there was something about how stressed I was. Because that run to the holidays was crazy stressful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was sitting there. And I had two cocktails, maybe three cocktails. But this was when I could drink 15 cocktails.

Sure. And it just washed over me. And I was barely in touch with myself and still did stand up at Largo. Haven't been back. Oh. Jesonic. His show, it's Jesonic and Enemies. It's such a good show. Oh, I'm in love. All right he does. It's Jess and Nick and Enemies. It's such a good.

Oh, I'm in love. All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Happy, sad new year. Because this is The Downside. One, two, three. Downside.

You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Welcome to the Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Welcome to the broadside. Broadway. Broadway side. On Broadway. How many Broadway shows do you think we've seen together?

Ooh, I don't know. Let's see if we can remember them all. Okay, six was the first one. Six, and that was our first anniversary. Then we saw Funny girl for our second anniversary but do we see really no did we see something else we saw funny girl for an anniversary funny girl for an anniversary i thought i thought that was the gift to me yeah but it was on our anniversary uh parade we saw parade we saw little shop off broadway little shop off broadway shocked shocked but the problem having me as a guest is i'm not

going to say anything negative about specifics what about you you can criticize the book of a musical maybe i want to represent that guy one day i just thought i'm his debt no the the guy who wrote the book of shot oh the guy wrote the book of Shuck. Oh, the guy who wrote the book of Shuck. Sure, sure. Edit that out. So we got to see Merrily We Roll Along. Is that all we saw together? I think so. I mean, you've certainly seen so much more than me.

I can't. What have I seen that you were not there for? You've seen so many more. We saw Moulin Rouge. I did not see Moulin Rouge. Who did I see Moulin Rouge with? Jaden? Your sister? My sister. Your sister? My sister.

My sister? I guess so, yeah. Gutenberg. We didn't see it together. That's true. And you got to see Russell. I saw it twice. I saw it with the original.

You got to see Understudies. I saw it opening night. Oh, yeah, you saw it too. you've seen it twice wow it's a theater it's a theater now well just to preface i i went into this relationship knowing nothing about theater not really giving a shit and but just a reminder she she grew up in a Chabad community. Yeah, it's not my fault. And when you saw Theater Camp with Ben Platt, you had a very emotional reaction suggesting that maybe this wasn't Avenue you would have been. Yeah, I think I like I was always like, I hate theater because I economically and religiously never had the means in which to discover. And I think if you didn't grow up in New York, especially, getting to know theater, especially before the internet, is a privilege.

Like getting to see touring productions, being able to afford. Do you ever see anything? Spam a lot in high school. With the high school? No, with my parents. Because I was a big monty python fan yeah because you could rent dvds for much cheaper than theater was it a mind-blowing experience was it like a whole yes but because of the comedy not because i don't think the theater was a mind-blowing

experience to me yeah yeah um but i think yeah theater camp was like oh you would have liked this if you had the avenue like you would have would have liked this if you had the avenue. Like you would have been in this world if you had the means with which. And I think my hatred or my like, ugh, theater, theater people are so annoying. If I'm just being honest was probably born out of the fact that I just never had it afforded to me. That being said, and now I'm shitting on things twice. Marie's crisis. I'm going to get so many hate comments.

Marie's Crisis is hell on earth. So Marie's Crisis, for those who aren't- They know. If they're listening to this, they know. Not everyone outside of New York. They'd hear about it. Maybe they heard a legend. It's Mecca.

Marie's Crisis. It's Mecca for theater. So there's two real, at least in my mind, two big musical theater places. There's the duplex. 54 Below. I mean, for singing. For you get to sing. The duplex,

it's like karaoke, but with pianos. I'm sure there's other ones, but that's like a big musical theater spot. And then Marie's Crisis, instead of someone singing individually, there's just a pianist. It's intense theater-y. It's just sing-along. And everyone, imagine

a hundred people singing Defying Gravity all at once it's a lot or they're but they're all like so proud of themselves that they know there's and a bit it's like if they're singing um uh the the what's the the one with the cow and the from into the woods into the woods everyone's like and they're all looking just they other so proud. And you're like, and it's obscure. And you're like, am I? You're describing a Jewish ceremony. Like, talk about your pride in the knowing the thing. Like, that is what they're doing.

I understand. It's just not my culture. Your culture is not my costume. I don't know. My culture is not your costume. Yeah, know my my culture is not your yeah yeah and i don't want to wear it i didn't want to wear it but then but i think i think what's so interesting is like i i can at the same time understand the feeling of like everyone but it it it in you it brings out a like And maybe you wouldn't have liked Theater Camp is my point. It's a lot of those

people. Yeah, like, not the movie, the camp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She loved Theater Camp. Yeah, I mean, I quit theater in college because the theater kids were so annoying. That's genuinely why I quit theater. I did Hamlet. I did The Importance of Being Earnest. I was a theater kid in high school, but

we only did plays because women are not allowed to sing in front of men but i did the crucible i did the importance of being earnest i did um uh school for scandal and uh uh what's it called oh my god antigone so i was a theater kid and then when i got to college i did uh hamlet i was rose and cramps and then we did sandbag stage left and then i was so annoyed with the theater kids that i was like this isn't worth it these people are and they were also all being like and i'm like i like to act i like to have fun on stage i like to play but the culture you it's like the the culture is inextricable from doing it.

And I like doing it and I didn't like the culture. Does that make sense? Yeah. I've always said that the only time I've ever – once someone said years ago, theater kids are annoying or actors are so annoying. And it was the first time in my life. You were offended. And I said – I was like, oh, that's what offended feels like. Because I wanted to be like hey we're like that for a reason but i think in as i've grown and matured and imbibed more

theater i understand where that comes from i still think the earnestness uh it's it's kind of like the i don't know enough about dave matthews band but people are like the fans of dave matthew the fans of taylor swift make taylor swift annoying like maybe i would like taylor swift if i if the fans were of disney if disney adults weren't so annoyed like i'm gonna everyone's gonna be pissed at me but like that's kind of how i feel about theater what i've said about disney adults on stage i mean i said they were all molested by their you're you're okay you're free but um but you know what i mean no and i know what you mean because i ultimately did go to comedy and it's not sometimes i ask myself uh you know it's not like i had a success in theater and i i turned

it away but i also talk to theater people who are very sincere. And this is before I was a comedian. And something in me would be, like, for me, my theater kids are Shakespeare kids. Shakespeare kids, to me, are, like, insufferable. And I get that. And so in a way, I like. I've never had to meet a Shakespeare kid. I went to a couple times like this Shakespeare – they're equivalent of an open mic where they do – Russell.

No, no, no. Russell's a Shakespeare kid. I mean, but he – I feel like he appreciates it more than me, certainly. Look, he's a Shakespeare kid. Which king is he in that? King something. Yeah, that's a Shakespeare. Well, anyways.

But like they – I remember I said I was in a Winter's Tale when a Shakespeare's later plays. And I was like, ugh, Winter's Tale sucks. And some guy was like, what do you mean? The metaphor of the flower petal turning into the statue at the end is so profound, no? And so I get it. I did Hamlet fully not having any grasp

of what the story was or what my character was. I just said the words when it was my cue. I had no understanding of the play when I did it. I didn't do a deep dive into who is Rosencrantz. I've always said, I don't know if I could do... Some musicals, like Shucked, you have to be some musicals like shucked you have to be so happy well okay so that's where i think there's different types of theater i put shucked in the same but shucked in the same camp as into the woods uh-huh i would put six in that camp by the

way okay now that's what's offensive to put shucked and into the woods in the same category is is like uh saccharine sweet gooey fudge that's insane um six is in that camp and look not everything in the camp is bad and juliet's in that camp six is in that camp i get it i so i got my uncle my my like jewish uh just not an artsy-fartsy guy. Yeah. And when I was in high school, he asked my mom, what does Dramarco recommend we see? And I sent them to this show called Alter Boys,

which is, it's like the Backstreet Boys, but a parody of a super Christian band, and then they realize they're all gay or something. And it's just super, it's parody, comedy, boy band, and my uncle was like, I will never take a theater recommendation from you ever again. No, I think it's like, I haven't seen The Lion King, but I'd put that in that bucket.

I'd put SpongeBob in that bucket. Just, it's candy. Sure. And I don't think I gravitate towards, I want to be very careful towards, candy musicals. And I think my impression of theater at first was the candy. For example, we saw Shucked, and you liked Shucked. Hold up, that's not...

No, no, no, but then you saw Parade, and Parade is the real story of Shucked. Parade's what would actually happen when a city person a jew moves to the country i thought you meant like like as if like like parade was about a cornfield but like really dark it's about the countryside it's the same let not lesson but it is the same lesson it's it's the same reality but the lesson is like we can all get along and parade's like no we can't you're gonna get like imagine if shucked ended with the jew getting lynched at the very end but you know you said this you were the one that compared it because you were shucked you were like walked out feeling that like ooey gooey candy like i feel good this is so fun but then parade is is

resonant and moving and the music is that the way you characterize me uh post-shocked is deeply upsetting you know you get the ick john marco the post-shocked glow of john marco uh shocked first of all i see theater so infrequently that i still like you have it's a whole roller coaster of emotions for me seeing theater i feel uh this pain i feel like oh i could still do it someday how can i do oh did i make a mistake what happened and then tag on top of that that the whole fucking thing is about well that theater and being a young artist and so so so yes we saw merrily we roll along tonight just now that's just now uh uh one understudy who i think i think it would be a good We saw Marilee Reroll along. Tonight. Just now. Just now. One understudy who I think it would be a good idea. She was so fantastic that to have her on with Russell.

Jamila. Jamila. Sabaris Clem played Mary Flynn, which is normally played by. Lindsay Mendez. Here we go. Lindsay Mendez here we go Lindsay Mendez who I'm sure everyone said is amazing

and I know better now that one of my best friends is an understudy to not be disappointed but she was incredible Jamila Sabar's Clem incredible

and we got to see Daniel Radcliffe and let me just say something about Jonathan Groff, and you don't have to add on this. The spitting is a little bit much. When it was in Hamilton, it made sense. I was like, ooh, your king spits.

The spitting in this, and we had very good seats. We had house seats. And we paid dearly. The spitting, even if it was like a hello, like not even a yell. And all I could think about is the actors on stage. Because I saw one whole long scene.

His spit is all on his lip. And they have to talk to him, fighting the urge to, if you talk to a real person, you'd say, hey, buddy, you got a gallon of goo on your face. Wipe it off. I like it. I think it shows passion and it was really cool to to me it's almost like you go to see the spit you go you you know the infamous spit and you go i i literally text my sister i have seats close enough to see jonathan groff spit and my sister who's a hamilton, was like, oh my God, because that alone is like a celebrity appearance.

And that was one of many celebrity appearances tonight, Jonathan Groff spit. But let me just say, what I couldn't help but know as an actor is whenever he turned to someone and sang at them directly,

he held in the spit. He was not spitting like that directly in their faces because you can't. And all I know is that as an actor, he's like, now suck it in

for this line here and then let it all out. I that as an actor, he's like, they'll suck it in for this line here, and then let it all out. I was saying to you, mid-show, whispering, we probably talk more than we should. I was like, we have to watch something I've shown you a long time ago, Raul Esparza doing Franklin Shepard, Raul Esparza, one of my favorites of all time. And I showed it to you.

When we first started dating. Like I've shown, no offense, many women in the past in high school that I dated. My first girlfriend, when she went off to camp, she made me a mix of like, Belle and Sebastian, is that a band? Sebastian and Belle? Like cool. Sounds right. Cool indie songs.

And I made her a CD of my favorite musical theaters describing the synopsis of the shows that led to the song. And like that, I showed you Raul Esparza singing Franklin Shepard, Inc. I think one of the greatest things ever bootlegged in our lifetimes. Who should be fucking... You noticed him. Well, so then he's like, after we get home, I want you to see Raul's version again,

even though I know you've seen it, but now you've seen the show. Because it's Daniel's amazing, but Raul's like a beast. And then intermission. And I look behind us, two rows behind us. And who is there but Raul Esparza? Which is crazy. The show's been going on a while. The fact that, like, has he seen it ten times or is he finally getting around to seeing it?

Why is he seeing it right now? Yeah. That's what I think was so interesting about it. But that's also the thing, not to be all hoity-toity, we, because we work in this business, we see our shows when? On a, what's today, Tuesday night. No, but I'm talking about like months into a run. Oh, sure. But I just mean whenever we go to the theater, sometimes I'm like, God, there's about like months into a run. Oh, sure. But I just mean, whenever we go to the theater,

sometimes I'm like, God, there's so many people I know here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because we see it on the days that people who work in this industry see it. We're not going on a Sunday matinee because we're in town from Ohio.

Yeah. And, but it was, it was one of those surreal moments where you're like, maybe the universe and manifesting is real because don't you think don't you think like you said it's a crazy not coincidence because of course he is there because he was part of the show but on the night that he that you are there that he has such a profound impact on you that's just very to be, I would argue that every musical we see,

about halfway through the first act, I turn to you and I say, when we get home, we need to watch Royal Spars to do Franklin Shepard, Inc. And there's so many times he was not behind us, and this was the one he was. And then behind him, Ben Platt, great. Very cool for me as well as a fan of Theater Camp.

I have seaweed on my shirt um we'll fix it in post dave i i so wanted to say something to him was nervous well he was like i don't want to be that annoying guy that references his kennedy center performance of i'm like no one else is no one else is going up to him and going your you're bootleg Kennedy Center, blah, blah. Or if they are. I disagree. In New York, they might be. But I don't think he's getting – as an artist, would you rather someone go, oh, I liked your Corden set, or I really love that one seller where you did that joke that was really – Sure.

You would be so taken and be like someone did that recently with like a youtube that like didn't pop and i was like oh exactly and did you like that or you're like get the fuck away from me i always say get the fuck yeah no matter what uh well also what was so funny is so he wanted to work up the courage to say hi to raul and meanwhile like several times people were coming up to john marco being like i'm such a fan and we're like can you do that over here closer to raul so that raul knows that he's someone of note so that he's not doesn't he's just a random fan yeah this domino effect of like like trying to be like thank you so much oh that's so nice of you. But I think what was funny is like the two people

that came up to me who both cited TikTok, they're probably like 21, 19. And it's funny because when we, when I, we did,

we got up to courage. Tova spotted him. We, we walked correctly and then an older woman came. Oh my God. She's going to ruin our moment. This older woman comes up

and, and she's like, you saw him too. And I'm like, I want to be like oh we're we're gonna be peers someday yeah and she she was she referenced some show he was in where he was cutting like a movie where he cut cake and i'm like we are want to talk to him about different things like don't you were trying to glob onto our family like then it turned into

like a line of fans and we didn't want. We both wanted to talk to the famous guy. Like I, yes, in my mind I'm more elevated, but it was one of those things where I was just like, you were going to walk away, this woman, you were going to walk away. Now that I'm here, you're going to use my breaking, my courage to go mention that you liked him in company. Oh, really?

The thing he was tony nominated for get out of here so but anyways but it was very sweet i think it's worth mentioning the the girl that that that came up to you because she was like a big theater fan and a big fan of you and she's a theater major too and messiah and that guy you liked in the play was an alumni of her school alumni which she called messiah yeah uh sounds like the school i went to um it made me go wherever this lives that i think i think i've had some recent like where people go a lot of theater on this and then sometimes i meet theater kids and i go oh whether these people sometimes i, oh, theater kids is too limited. And then I'm like, no, I grew up in a time where these are majors at colleges. This is a large group of people who enjoy art, who enjoy being on stage. And I'm like, oh, this is bigger than I think.

And getting to like see, being able to go to a Broadway show and have an usher who's probably there because he's like involved in theater and a young theater major both come up. I'm like, Usher, who's probably there because he's involved in theater, and a young theater major both come up. I'm like, yeah, you know what? You seem to dig me, and I like talking about the thing you like. I decided my

good resolution, as opposed to the go to work out, eat healthy, my nice resolution is can I see one show a month? Are there other shows that you are on your list right now that come to mind? I tell you the thing that popped into my mind. Yeah.

Was I went, I want to go see Natalie Walker at Studio 54. I said, is that right? 54 Below. 54 Below. That's where my mom went. 54 Below. Where I said, I said said like I knew this person We didn't stay friends after that

But whenever I see a video I go like God damn You're well So when you say When you say theater Does it include Maurice Crisis

It includes Off Broadway No I think it has to be like It has to be like a show Like Not Maurice Crisis I think a show But I do think That can be flexible Of like I think not marie's crisis i think i think a show but i do think that can be

flexible of like broad i think a broadway thing but i do think i would get tired of broadway there's only a couple shows i do could i see the michael jackson show right right right cool the dance is cool but i think off broadway and plays i think we should talk like i would like you to see a prayer for the french republic and that's hard i hear that and i go no and i'm not the person to say watch a three-hour play and i know david cromer's work he follows me on instagram i want him to do the podcast so you should go see his show i know i went into prayer for the french republic anna weinstein who is our good mutual friend she got free tickets i knew nothing about the show and And she goes,

it's three hours long, but we'll leave it intermission. If it's, if we don't like it, if we're bored and I'm like, Oh, we're absolutely leaving at intermission. It's a three hour play and intermission comes.

I'm sobbing. I'm crying. It's amazing. It's very dewy. Um, and now it's on Broadway. And I think that's, I i you shouldn't see with me because i'm not gonna sit through it twice it's hard like i don't want to see i don't want to see

matinees i don't i don't like the feeling i have after matinees it's like it's like getting drunk in the morning and the problem is just my my life well you know we are seeing next we're i know we're, are we allowed to say? I don't think so. Well, we're allowed to say we're seeing Wicked for a reason. We're seeing Wicked

for a reason. So we can talk about that. We can critique a certain newcomer's performance. But it's more just that. It's like if we do this once a month, that is one of our

big date nights. it's just it's just those moments yeah and look i you know what i was thinking about today i'm like oh yeah sam morel goes to basketball games a lot so he takes nights off i can take nights off but it's hard it's hard and so the only way he'll do it is if i don't go to any of your friends weddings and if he can commodify it into a little podcast addendum. Anyways, we saw Marilee tonight. And I loved this show so deeply. I do a brief synopsis.

Sure. A brief synopsis. First, the history of the production. This was a flop on Broadway. Peter Kidd. This was a flop on Broadway. Maybe ran 10 performances, if I have that right. They made a documentary about it.

When did it first come out? I'd have to guess 70s, 60s. So it was like to the time period. Like it's set in the 70s, 60s. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it came out of the time. Yes.

Okay, I see. And basically it was Stephen Sondheim, and I believe, if I get this wrong, please forgive me, Hal Prince had an incredible partnership. They made all these Broadway hits, weird shows, incredible that they succeeded. And this was a flop and ultimately ended their relationship for a long time. I'm sure it was more detailed. Someone fuck somebody.

But they cast it with like nobodies. It was exciting because it covers like someone succeeding at the highest level of being a composer versus when they first started as like college kids. And they decided wouldn't it be cool if we cast like 18-year-olds and 20-year-olds. And Jason Alexander was actually in the cast as a relative unknown. And it was like a disaster. It was just, they took a lot of artistic swings. The characters had shirts that said, producer, composer. You know what's crazy is I've seen this documentary.

You have? Yeah, because I'm not into music and before I was into theater, but I love a showbiz doc. And I will watch a showbiz doc about anything. That's how I knew you were going to like this as opposed to Into the Woods.

I think Tova's biggest problem with Into the Woods is there wasn't a character. It's not about industry. There wasn't a character you were going to like this as opposed to Into the Woods. I think Tova's biggest problem with Into the Woods is there wasn't a character playing an agent. Yes, exactly. I couldn't see myself in that show. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

So... I like industry things. I like things We both love industry things. The art and commerce is a fascinating thing. Correct. And boy, oh boy,

per your earlier comment about commodifying things, am I in the... Doing the stand-up route that I have is an incredible mix of, like, I'm a businessman and I'm a comedian, and this musical speaks right to the heart of it. I would say that I feel connected to both main characters in different ways. I also, for me,

I feel really connected by, as the play, because it starts in the present and works its way backwards, the overwhelming feeling of you make a decision that in the moment feels small and it changes the course of your life, like his wife not staying at the party and

then the affair beginning and as a representative i think the feeling of like that's the power and the responsibility you hold that you have to push your clients to make the right decision and in the in the moment you go oh just do this one whatever and then it could you know they could stop writing the thing or go off of this or if you look at it positively they could get a three picture deal at paramount or this or that but like the way it worked backwards you just saw them making i wouldn't say mistakes but just like they there you watch the moment that that's the it's almost like everything ever all at once but only one of the multiverses

you know what I mean and I'm like show me the one where they go I wanted the ending where they go in every universe I want to be doing taxes with you and this show did not give you that sure sure in every universe I'd love doing that basement show with you if we ran a small indie theater in the nowhere

but that's I think also what I found emotionally charged about it because as much as i'm on the other side of this and a suit and blah blah blah a lot of my closest clients and my first clients and the way i started was a basement and was i i call it our potential years when the playing field was equal before anyone understood what an agent or manager looked like before anyone knew what a writing packet was before anyone even was in the realm of auditioning for jfl it was before any of that like but like the one person you knew kind of was getting packets for thallon but just the time where it was like you didn't

even know what was possible. Yes. Because you just were in it because you loved it so much. And I think of that as like the potential time where the playing field is equal. No one was succeeding because it hadn't even begun. And I got very emotional at the end because the play kind of ends at that. So just to break down. So it starts with like he's he's at the height of his career he's on his third marriage he's cheating on the woman that he cheated on

with originally and but he's rich and he doesn't speak to one of his friends and one of his friends is now an alcoholic and it's like it's very sad his is his life has all the success you can imagine and it's all falling apart and it goes it goes backwards to see you know when that when he when his friend and him got in a big fight and then when did they get their first movie deal all the way back to them being and the whole point is like he his friend is like we we're we're in it to make the art and he's like well we want to be successful and i think that's where you know the art and commerce comes in is like the two sides it, and they're a writing duo. They're a duo, composer-lyricist duo, right?

Yeah. And so they have to be on the same page with the projects that they create together, and then if you're philosophically so opposed. So that's the story, and it goes back to the beginning when they're just straight out of college, like just a dream and a piece of paper and they're like we're gonna make something and then you see them start to make that thing and then you see the like well pause making that thing

so you can go make a movie here and he goes I don't want to make a movie I just want to make the thing that's what I got into it for and it's just the struggle of every artist and and and and that's the whole that's why it's very emotional because you know same thing for my job I want my clients to be successful and make money and be lucrative but the the successful version of this is you get to make what you want to make that's why I love dicks so much because I'm like you got to make exactly the thing I'm sure there were compromises along the way but d Dicks is an insane musical. I can't believe it got made. And to me it speaks to like the heart of when I was going to UCB.

And seeing fucked up weird stage shows. They just took that and they made it an A24 movie. And how many people get to do that. Versus ending up in like minions nine when they started making fucking identical twins so that's what this show represents to me for sure i think though there is the showbiz element and then it's as i talk about it's just like the the poison and allure of money i mean i just think there's there's such a... But, yeah. Just all the temptations along the way.

And I don't know. My biggest critique, I think, of the book is that... You okay? Yeah, sorry. No, it's fine. My biggest critique of the book of the show is that all the money things, the woman he cheats with, the people he hangs out with, they're all kind of like, they're more two-dimensional.

They're like kind of evil. They're just like, it's sex and money, as opposed to, you end up like hating him for the decisions that he made. Well, see, I didn't interpret it that way because I really identified with Jonathan's character of, like, no, the point of this was to become successful. Like, I think that's, like, the point. I don't think he ever strayed from what his goal was. And I don't think Charles Daniel Radcliffe's character ever strayed from what his goal was. He would don't think Charles, Daniel Radcliffe's character, ever strayed from what his goal was. You told Charles he would go back.

He did not do the one for me, one for you. He did one for me and then could not stop saying yes to those things. But I don't think it was just the money. I think it is wanting to make something. Wanting to be a success. Think about his first wife and how his parents are like, her parents didn't want him to marry her and it's like something to prove prove to yourself prove to people around you i did not interpret it as just money money money i think that's how charles interprets it because he's he's resentful but i don't think charles i think charles has flaws too

i think charles's flaw is that he's limiting and he doesn't understand the bigger picture that those – I believe, if you're a good person, I believe you do get the clout that you get to make to the left down the line. You get to make your passion project once you've earned that thing. I think that's the – I think it seems that way in theory. Right. And I think that there's a degree of. Oh, that it happens so quickly that it seems like it seems like from afar, that's what you do. You can get successful and then make the thing. Yeah.

And then it never happens. Exactly. And that's that is the tragedy of it. But I don't think at any point Jonathan Groff didn't his character didn't mean that he would go back. He kept getting distracted but I also think the flaw of Charles is that as and this is a cynical take as you grow up you kind of have to like I I reminisce about those days at the pit basement they also were the shittiest days of my life too i was broke and doing nothing and making and not having any impact and doing being around some of the worst comedy and art too and like their little play about the kennedys wasn't good it was heady and and you know i was saying in the theater

there's when so they go back they show the first doing a song uh when they were like a little troop at an underground theater and it's very and that very overly wordy and about politics and not really. And that's where the producer scouts them. And then it goes down this path. And to me, I'm like, that's their Union Hall show. And you don't want to be at Union Hall forever. You want to go. So, but then what should he have done at the end?

Because clearly, if you just follow, quote, unquote. No, i think he he got too swept up in it i'm not saying the end version of his character was was he did everything right of course not but i'm saying it's not so one-dimensional that it's all about the money or he just fucked his friend it's like this is you get swept up in these things and you ain't and the thing that Charles said is like you have to garden it is correct but I think Charles I think separately Charles being like no I'm just gonna do my art for art it's like that art was heady and green and bad and not for a purpose and here, again, I know I'm a suit, but I think when people go separate art

from the like commerce, art has always been tied to patronage. The Medici's, they paid for the greatest Renaissance paintings. That art could not exist without someone commissioning it. So I think it's an inherently flawed argument to talk about art without tying it to money and i think charles is too idealistic and he couldn't

let that go and that's i'm coming at it from a monetary perspective because that's my job is to exploit art that's my job okay i first of all i disagree with your characterization of you as a suit i think that's a defense mechanism sure and i don't think that's a full – I think you're both things. I think we're both both things. Yes. We are both both things. Yes. But that's why –

And I – I don't care if it was right or wrong. They were both flawed because they were opposite ends of the spectrum. But I think there's a point of – you know the phrase, power corrupts absolute, power corrupts absolutely. You know the phrase, power corrupts absolute, power corrupts absolutely. I think success, success corrupts. The biggest success corrupts absolutely. And that's part of it where you cannot reach the heights of Hollywood or of anything without losing something deep. And again, I'm not disagreeing with your premise but I'm saying like

there is something inherent to success and yeah maybe Charlie was an annoying anchor who would never do anything but then I look at people who have like like the careers that like Daniel Radcliffe I think Daniel Radcliffe made a buttload of money when he was a kid

you can say shitload a bootyload of money when he was a kid and a booty load of money when he was a kid and now gets to do whatever artistic endeavor is interesting to him i think some people might say daniel radcliffe's not the biggest star in the world so he's he's not successful to me that is the paradigm of success is he just gets to do whatever the hell he wants and is is exciting to him and he's picking things that are uh not but they're not flops like he has good taste so he's he made his broadway shows i think he's so famous that he gets to decide if a broadway show no but but but not everyone who gets that decision makes good decisions. And then they end up in things that aren't as culturally zeitgeisty.

I think it has good taste. I think Daniel Radcliffe is the paradigm of success and maintaining artistic integrity. Sure. And he plays that in his character. It makes sense that he's that guy as a person. I think, like, you would never think that the star of this multi, multi-billion dollar franchise would do Miracle Workers on TBS. That's just a fun, weird comedy with Steve Buscemi. I think Steve Buscemi is another example of someone that gets to do weird shit and have fun and show up in weird.

Do you think it's possible to be really just like a grouch? If I were to say. Danny Radcliffe is good. There are people who have done theater their entire lives who, because these celebrities come into Broadway, they get to take up all the oxygen of like what. My point of Jonathan Groff's character of if you just play the game and make the three picture deal you can make to the left even if you don't deserve even if to the left we don't know if to the left is bad or good but he can play the game and say now i want to make to the left and everyone's gonna go okay what if to the left wouldn't be good because he hadn't been because he'd been making all the schlock you

but sure but i think like i guess i guess there's a middle ground but sometimes when people are like no i only care about art i go that's good and fine and i understand it then you're gonna make art for seven people do some things that get you to a place where you have a platform sure i i don't disagree i live this life i was gonna say i live this life but but i i think like so many artists and and especially we've talked at least in our last episode with with ian carmel or whenever this is out that we talk about how comedians get bad and there's just like i'm like the siren call talk about how comedians get bad and there's just like i'm like the siren call for your art to to uh lose its teeth and to just go with the flow of schlock is always there and it is it will get you without you knowing and you've gotta you gotta you gotta work like a frank but think like a charlie

but that's what i'm saying i think the window of capitalizing off of commercial success to make your good art is a small window that not everyone is afforded. And I think that is why I was so emotionally taken by the play, by the show, because I think the reality is many people around us that are pursuing this are going to have a version of this, whether it's Charlie's character that didn't get the success or get his thing on a higher platform or the Jonathan Groff version where they get it, but they're miserable. So it's like it's a lose-lose situation. And it's very overwhelming that we pick this and we are chasing these things.

But it's also the sadness of success or not success i think it's the sadness of the way that you describe how the pit was how do you describe it the worst time of your life or the or you describe it the best but shitty no it's very nostalgic very reminiscent very hopeful and you can't and you literally unlike the show which literally goes in reverse, you literally can't go back. Even if you didn't succeed, you can't go back. If you do succeed, you can't go back. Your friends, as you said, it's the pre-potential. It's also pre-money.

They didn't have different levels. They just had time. I mean, one of the things that we've also mentioned, Russell and I are on a sketch team, I mean, one of the things that we've also mentioned, Russell and I are on a sketch team, and it's such a microcosm of there was a time when we had time to do a show once a month and meet three times a month and go to the Marriott lobby. And we didn't have any money, and they would kick us out. And now I would never go to a place that would kick me out. I would just order the fucking coffee to let me stay. But there was something magical about that. And I never want to to relive it but sometimes i want to dip into it and you try to hold on

and the forces of capitalism i think one of my things is that again that the forces of capitalism ruin that the world that we live in and the way that art functions in today's society. And art cannot exist without this capital like the Medici. Maybe, but I think sometimes Hollywood, and Hollywood is really the catalyst to the destruction of these people's friendship because the zeros get added. I sometimes think, what world would we live in if there were no recording devices? If you wanted to see theater, you had to see it live. You could only get so famous because only so many people could see you. The fact that Taylor Swift is such a gigantic entity, good on her, great artist, blah, blah, blah. It's more that all these people could facilitate a bunch of people succeeding here, but instead all these fans facilitate one person succeeding here.

And in a way, the same with movies. You have a movie that gets made for half a billion dollars. You could make theater and facilitate art, and people could experience and be a part of art in smaller scales. And so in a way, I think it's just like the centralization of money. But I would argue if it's smaller scales, you have limited resources, you might get less quality stuff if you don't get to connect those minds because one's over here and one's over there and they never get to meet.

You lose out. There's pros and cons to all of this. That very idealistic but that you lose out you're just then you're just getting the art in in indianapolis sure but maybe you see a great person once in a while and once in a while but now with this system i get to see great people all the time i don't know i i'm i'm not trying to be like the cynic maybe i am I'm playing devil's advocate a lot but like it's it's idealistic versus like this cold realism and I I find found myself again not saying where he ended up was like where he should have ended up or the right place but I identified with Jonathan Groff's character getting swept up in that because i

think if you participate in this industry it is designed that that's the the end goal there's not a lot of ways to to define success other than that for better or for worse? I think, I, I, yeah, I, I, I think when I think about like my life, I think one of my driving philosophies is I more look at, and again, I, I'm not an admirer of, of all his output, but I look at Adam Sandler and I go, you did the work, put but i look at adam sandler and i go you did the work you built the thing and now you can have your friends and like bring them with like in a way but isn't that what i'm saying that's what i'm saying then you make to the left now adam sandler now for adam sandler he's in a basement like grown-ups too no but unc but Uncut Gems and all this. Now Adam Sandler, who's been seen as a hard comedy, doofus comedy, slapsticky guy,

now gets to make high-concept, interesting art because he earned the right. And he did big Netflix deals, and he gets to make that now. That is my point what you think he'll get to a point at one time where rob schneider shows up at his big hollywood party and he starts drinking again he goes adam he betrayed me and adam goes i hate my life he seems to have done it he seems because rob schneider is secretly in love with him this whole time he's got the metaphor the merrily metaphor we're tracking but sure i mean sure uh you can do it i'm like i'm not saying that's like the best way but that is what he's doing these people that you're citing they

that's so cool i don't just i don't disagree with you i just think i'm just living in reality man sure i just think people think as you do and then one day they're frank and they go wait i thought i had my finger i think one of the things about frank and this is it felt like he never turned in on himself i mean not not jonathan groff this story he never really like looked in the mirror along the way and said, am I fucking up? He just went and went and went. But that's my point, because when you watch it backwards, each action feels so small. It doesn't feel like he's abandoning his friend. It feels like, okay, this little thing is my decision

to get married to my wife, my decision to this. It all happened so quickly, and to him, he's not making any active decisions to abandon anyone he's being presented with things i think that's exactly right like i don't know it's it was very moving it was very uh like i don't know it felt very related to what we what we do and um it was very emotional because i i'm i'm i'm being colder like the the realist here but i was crying at the end because of that reality because of that fear that you could make all these steps and think you're doing it right or at least okay and then that's that's my fear i i hear that i also was crying because i'm like what's your second who are you gonna leave

me for like i you know what i mean like i just like his wife so proud of him they they were doing stuff together they were performing together and then you know your parents are much more supportive of my work than her parents were of his. But you know what I mean? I mean, I think like the cold realities of like relationships is scary and emotional to watch. And. At least you got to see her get her come up at the beginning, which is the end. Like. Yeah.

Like she ended up getting cheated on by just a younger person. Yeah. Oh. It was younger person. Yeah. Oh. It was really good. Really phenomenal. Like that's why I get nervous seeing too much Broadway. It's like we really saw a slam dunk. Yeah.

This was a slam dunk. Like it's a crazy way to start. If you're going to do like I'm going to see a play a month like to start here. I've seen so much of what's already on Broadway right now. I'm trying to think of what's on Broadway. And this just also killed me because I think for me, and I know you can't, it's, I truly think, I know, I think whenever I compare anything to Judaism for you or, like, Chabad and ritual, that i sometimes think you don't see it as the same thing and and what i argue i wonder why what i argue is that from from where i came from where i had no culture i had no religion i didn't have family traditionally that like music theater i get

those like deep yes deep wellings and to combine so whenever i see a musical i'm in that place and then to combine that with this fucking story well it's like a fucking it's a gut punch but that's also why and then we'll be there it's like the universe was listening yes yes universe read a newspaper. We got some bigger fish to fry right now. I'm not talking about anything. But that's how I feel. Because I want to learn more about you and your culture.

I'm kidding. I try to learn more about you by consuming this to the point that now I'm now a fan of it. And I'm waiting for the point that you go Orthodox Judaism is really beautiful and you become organically into it. I think more and more the idea of Shabbat, you're like, oh, that or community. You like maybe you're not practicing these things, but i think you knowing me have learned things about my upbringing that amidst all the bad you're like those are beautiful concepts that you genuinely but the same way this play was touched a part of me my life and consuming theater and getting to know you they're like fiddler parade parade yeah parade as a jew who grew up in the south prayer for the

french republic like i now also consuming a lot of this like jewish art that i that's very meaningful to me over the course of consuming theater that i got because of you and my friends like anna and i i think it would be meaningful for me for you to see prayer for the french republic part of the french republic because i think for you you would be really it'd be one of those things there's a particular performance a monologue by the daughter character i forget the actress's name where you will be mad at like oh man her acting so good you'll have an existential crisis about your own acting. And I think that will be very meaningful to you.

And the story and the just, it's so well done. I don't know, that wasn't the best selling point of all time. No, but I think... See the show, you'll have an existential crisis from the monologue. You'll be moved by the technique, by the acting. Believe me, I wish... It is a desire to be able to enjoy art without the pain

of wanting to do it myself that's not like I don't go in there like I could do it better it's a pain I have the same pain of wanting to be involved and have people involved in it sure but you have a chance of having a Broadway

person on I'm not going to be in in well that's why i quit comedy was because i wanted to go to snl i wanted to be at jfl i wanted to be at these festivals and i go even if i'm successful the chances i'm at all these places is slim being with wrestle seeing wrestle and the slog of doing eight shows I go I mean it it really is a brutal life and you don't get to enjoy it the way that we enjoyed it tonight and it's that mixed thing of like you get to be a part of it but you're doing it every night yeah and sometimes you're in merrily and sometimes you're in shocked which was great which was great uh this is the broad the broad side the i want to come up with a better we've never been great at names we did tovarco as our sketch team

what was what was our other podcast uh about teaching me jew things. Oh, um, Shalom bias. Shalom bias. That was a good one. Um, Broadway theater, theater, theater, kid,

theater, usher, uh, closing night, opening night, closing night, uh, standing ovation,

sitting ovation, sitting ovation, sitting ovation. Yeah. Sitting ovation. This is the sitting ovation sitting ovation sitting ovation sitting ovation yeah sitting ovation this is the sitting ovation you're listening to the downside with john marco cerezi