The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #181 The Gun Exercise with Tim Murray

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Comedian Tim Murray joins to share the downsides of going to college for musical theater with Gianmarco, why they weren’t better friends, and they discuss the famous “gun exercise”, an acting experiment that should never have been allowed and which legend holds led to one actress putting a condom on a gun with her mouth. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Tim on Instagram & TikTok See Tim in a city near you: https://linktr.ee/tmurray06 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 OR come to our first live podcast recording in LA on March 14! https://www.ticketweb.com/event/the-downside-with-gianmarco-soresi-hollywood-improv-the-lab-tickets/13295123 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. So, okay, ladies and gentlemen, this is The Downside.

I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels. How are you feeling? I'm okay. I'm still sick, but I'm okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. He COVID tested. You gotta start with it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm sick, not COVID. I'm sick, not COVID. Sick, not COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's been a while. He's fine. Yeah. We don't really know. I feel fine still.

I am here. Normally, I babble it on, but I got to get out of the way. I'm here with an old college classmate of mine. This goes to say a lot about maybe me, friendship, life. You're the first person from my college in my grade to do the podcast. Which is huge for me because not only, I do feel very kindred spirit with you for many reasons, obviously, but did you tell the listeners that there was literally only like 12 of us?

Like it was a small, it was a deeply, disturbingly at times, intimate experience. We started at 20, I believe. Started at 20. believe started 20 and there was one woman who left after a week i think three days yeah three days like the acting teacher uh bruce miller great teacher shout out he he was kind of meaner in the beginning i wish he was mean the whole time i loved mean bruce miller he was mean love a mean teacher the very first day we walk in do you remember this the very first thing you ever did we all walk in we're all like i have my notepad out we're all like scared and excited it's The very first day we walk in, do you remember this? The very first thing he ever did? We all walk in

and we're all like, I have my notepad out. We're all like scared and excited. It's the first day of acting school. He walks in, there's a chair

sitting in the middle of the room and he just walks right up to the chair and throws it across the room. Like launches it and he was like,

I'm going to teach you about commitment. Oh my God. But it was the slay. It was like, it was fierce. And then he was like, a lot of you are going to want to do this. Come on, it's fun. It was fun. No, it's fun for

when you're that age, but don't you wish you could kind of like be like an older person going back to school and being, having someone do that in a class now that you were attending and you'd be like, no, thank you. You'd immediately walk out of the room. Like you would immediately be like, grow up. But for 18 18 it was fierce

because then he did a tap dance and he was like this is what you guys did in high school I'm sure. So he's Mr. G from Summer Heights High. Just wants his own time to perform.

He literally said I think all he said was like you know being conservatory it's going to be like hard work and a lot of commitment

and this woman was like oh I think I picked the wrong major. That's so funny. And he didn't say anything crazy he just said this is tough yeah and now she makes a lot of money and she's very successful in whatever field she chose yeah do you know that no no but i'm sure that wasn't is that is that the woman who came to who became uh kamala harris vice president so funny madam kamala madam horrible what's her name who who became like a lady gaga type pop star no that was um um madam horrible is from wicked she became madam horrible the famous pop star no her name is um madam mayhem madam mayhem she was

a really nice girl like uh she wasn't in our conservatory class ever she wasn't ever she was a really nice girl. She wasn't in our conservatory class ever. She wasn't ever. She was a BA, yeah. Which, for the listeners, it was a very complicated system at school that was like, you had to audition to be in the conservatory where there was only 20 of us. And then there were other theater majors, which is how I started. And then I read Shirt Freshman. So here's what was complicated about Tim, and this is why he wasn't on the Zoom.

You were at Miami for a year as a BA. Correct. And then you were like, you have no excuse. You literally saw it up front and were like, I'm going to still enroll in this shit. I want to be in voice and speech for three years. Not only did I do that, I was obsessed. I was like, if I don't get in, life's over. Being a BA, I mean mean it could not have felt good

to be in that building and be like you're a second class citizen 100 yeah 100 it was like working in a restaurant like you're the bus boy yeah and then look at these like bartenders like getting laid and like everyone wants them and they make more money than you like it was truly like you wanted it bad you didn't get any the conservatory kids literally got like priority casting and the shows yeah like it was everything it was talent-based but uh you so so basically it was like we had this okay for like real quick welcome to the downside i had a revelation the other day like i i think we had some you know what a comment got under my skin we got a couple comments being like you talk about so much theater, and it has been

bubbling around in my head for a degree and I went to Merrily Roll Along last night beautiful show, very emotional and there were like two, like an usher and then another person who's in a conservatory who recognized me from whatever, whatever

and I was like, you know what I want to be, I want to talk was like, you know what? I'm going to, I want to be, I want to talk about theater. I don't want to be, if you don't like it, we'll talk about it in a way. This isn't just a theater podcast,

but I'm just saying, I think I was like, this is my people. It almost was. You were almost going to base it around theater, remember? Originally it was going to be a theater thing. So listen,

if you don't dig theater, it's not going to be all theater. No. But enough with the comments. Yeah. Enough with the comments. We're talking theater sometimes. Yeah. And so last last night and so basically we're adding this on to uh uh this last episode so if you haven't seen check it out tov and i did a little mini podcast post show that we tagged on to the end raul sparza was there oh shit and i

talk about his uh uh him performing a merrily roland song all the time i even whispered it to tova i was like we need to go home and watch that again you need to see it's so good and uh and then she was like oh my god is that rule and it was crazy he was there and i i approached him i i kept debating it the whole time i was like is this annoying is this weird and then these kids would these two kids came up and like i know you from from TikTok. I was like, can you fucking do that a little bit closer here so Raul knows that I'm not like crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make you seem so cool.

Not to be arrogant. That'll impress Raul Esparza. I know you from TikTok. But I think you're... No, but at least you're something. Yeah. You'd be like,

what's TikTok? But I did go up and he was very nice. Very theater-y. Very like, you could feel the... Like I said, like, said, your Franklin Shepard ink was so good. And he said, I had the benefit of being able to talk with Stephen every day. And just sincere in that theater-y way.

Spielberg. Randomly, he was calling Stephen Spielberg. Wow, that's cool. Do you... Would you have approached... And you know who was behind him That other guy from Parade The one that everyone is excited about Ben Platt was there

I couldn't give a fucking shit I said you were too old to play him in the movie Dear Evan Hansen Poor guy Imagine making a whole movie And everyone's like, after it's all done, all the posts, people go, you're too old.

Also, having this live, this role that people loved him in on stage and being like, getting kind of all this acclaim for it and all this attention and being like, yeah, that did go well. Okay, let's go to the next level. And then everyone would be like, boo!

We hate it now. We hate it. We hate it. Get it off our screen. That's the interesting thing about this, even about that theater comment, is the theater world is so much smaller than you think it is. The people who love it really love it,

which is why you shouldn't stop talking about it because the people who are listening to this who are obsessed are obsessed. I remember seeing him in that and being like, whoa, he's unbelievable. That was one of the best performances I've ever seen but then you give something to the collective consciousness like the rest of america or the world or whatever and a wig and a wig a bad wig and a bad wig and they're like boo hiss we want yeah the real housewives or whatever we want we want you know bad wig is all i i saw this movie once and it was, uh,

I did like this very Jewish web series. Um, it was called, uh, why Israel is always right. Okay. And, uh, timely.

Yeah. They made a movie and it was about, it was like a, I mean, it was an absurd movie about like a regular New York city slicker realizing he wanted to connect to his like Hasidic roots and become a full-on hasid and at some point you know he he converts all the way and he has a beard they flash forward he's now you know one of these ages and the beard was so fake listen if it was on stage it would have been a phenomenal beard yeah but in the theater and like it's supposed to be very emotional.

You hear people start tittering in the audience. Oh, no. There's nothing worse when there's just that audience titter in a movie because you can't stop it. Everyone recognizes it. I saw Rent, the movie musical, and I remember the moment Anthony Rapp started singing

and he was in the audience at the screening. Oh, my God. You heard titters. No. You're like, it doesn't work. And we all can feel it. Oh my God, no. Also, I feel that way though,

even about very serious movies that use prosthetics where it sometimes looks great, depending on lighting, and then sometimes you'll be watching Maestro in certain light and you're like, this is so silly that we're supposed to take this serious and he looks ridiculous like do you know what I mean and they have those funny voices we're like well sure sweetheart and you're like this is I can't take like I can't take it seriously and then every once in a while something happens that like joke like takes you out of it someone on Twitter it was a scene with Sarah Silverman and the woman in there so it was like I was

terrible in that movie I really I felt like she was terrible scene with Sarah Silverman and the woman in it. Sarah Silverman was terrible in that movie. Is she really? I felt like she was terrible in that movie. I didn't watch the whole thing yet. I've watched about half of it. But I just couldn't get into it. I just was like, it sounds like a sketch character. It sounded like a joke.

You know what I mean? It takes so much courage to, I hope I get some acting roles where I get to kind of play myself. But to then, to go on movie, a movie everyone's going to see. No, I know. Kind of talk like a little bit of a character. I guess he's coming to dinner. Is that what it is? Maybe it's because you're also used to her.

She's just like darling. I think it's also, you can't help but bring in who she is into it, so you're like, you've heard her be sarcastic about so many things. You think they should've had a prosthetic nose. No, no, but her doing a like a genuine like take at like this like very like kind of like character-y thing.

It just felt like it was hard for me to take seriously. Maybe it's not bad. Maybe it's just I'm taking too much of her into it, you know? So, I mean, it's,

so for people listening, enjoy the show. I, Tim and I, we go way back. Why, here's, let's start with this. Let's start with the little, why weren't we better friends? Because looking at our lives, we took very similar trajectories. We both like musicals. We're both gay.

We both. I lean over the table and start making out with you but we're like we're that mix of like i can appreciate musical theater but also have a cynical mean edge that i think led us to do comedy to a degree. 100%. We're both doing, we're not doing the exact same comedy thing, but we're both touring. Yeah. Can I guess, even not having been

at your college, why you weren't friends? Yeah, go for it. I think you are not someone, you've gotten better as you've gotten older about like opening up to the idea of having friends

and being like more of a friend, but I could see you being younger being so focused on school and like the like doing so well and getting the things and closing yourself off from having more genuine connections and also maybe you you're pretty competitive so i could see you being like anyone that you could considered. Okay, what about Tim's floss? I don't have any. I don't know, Tim. I'm just saying. I'm not saying you've gotten better. But I'm saying I don't think of you as

like a... Especially before. Even in the seven or eight years I've known you, I feel like you have so many more friends now. Sure. Does that make sense? Totally. I wasn't going out. But I feel like we friendly like in the very beginning then we had a i think we had like we had there was someone who was like a friend of mine sort of but closer to you it was all complicated it was

very complicated and i think i mean i know you well enough that I feel like we can get so deep about it. And like, you can cut whatever of this that you don't want in. No, we want all of it. I think, I think. But it feels like you called me a slur. Like, I was like, oh my God. Nothing like that. I just think it was, we were very young and not the best versions of either of ourselves.

Sure. I think I had a tendency to be a little bit of a mean girl. And like, I was trying really hard i was also i know it sounds crazy but it was one year older than you and the rest of our class that's a huge thing and i had been there for a year and i felt so different from you guys like i really felt like i was like i'd already made my friends freshman year and so there was that element of it that's that yeah but i think so i think there was also that element of like you know i was like a like not cool super gay kid in elementary and middle school and i used college to like try to be one of the popular kids so that's like i'll totally hold myself accountable for that i think i wasn't

the best version of myself and if i could go back and do it all over i would have like reached out to you more and and and if I could go back and do it all over, I would have reached out to you more. You could go back and do it all over? You'd stay at the University of Miami for musical theater? Absolutely. If I could go back and do it. I would spend every cent all over again. It all worked out amazing for me. I got to do Senior Showcase.

I got a million agents and managers from it. No, I was famously cut from Senior Showcase. So wait, so you were... So for people listening who do go into case i got a million agents and managers from it no i was famously cut from senior showcase um so wait so you you were uh uh so for people listening who do go into college for the arts this is a lot of this is going to be like my problems with college i don't know how you feel in retrospect i have so many so someone recently at the comedy cellar they came up and they said my daughter wants to pursue theater and i gave my my blunt advice, which was this. No theater program is worth four years.

If you're going to go somewhere for four years, it needs to be at a place where it's a big conservatory so you're making a lot of connections or in a big city that naturally pulls you out of it and be ready to leave should opportunity come your way. And she was like, she did the thing that people still do where she goes, oh, you mean like not get a degree? And I wanted to be like, I wanted to grab her and be like,

it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Not in this field. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But that's not how you were in college. In college, you were laser focused. Like Russell's saying, obsessive, I would almost say.

Oh, you can say it. Okay. I had my classic college existential crisis. It was in one of these voice booths where it's super hot. I would practice two hours a day, just scales. And I remember plunking, and I had just this moment of like, if I die, I did nothing. Yeah, that was the vibe.

There wasn't a lot of room to be your friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You really like that booth was very small the booth was there's no physical space but i think we still found deep ways to connect like through that like you and you were one of the first people i ever workshop stand up with do you remember that we went to um like a denny's or something or like an offshoot of that in miami just the two of us and it was like one of the rare moments where we weren't and i also was pretty obsessive about it like about you know we wanted

to be successful actors at the time and we were like chatted to each other about how we both had these joke writing books that we took around everywhere yeah and we're like let's go to a diner and we'll tell each other our jokes and we did and that was like a huge spark for me and then like toward the middle of junior year one of our classmates who will remain nameless was that we were like sitting around outside on these chairs and he he or she said um uh i don't think you can be a stand-up i think only one of us of the 12 of us will be and it's going to be john marco i remember being like and john marco was like you like what you weren't there you don't know about it because i came you were not there they said there's like without you present i just

remember being like whoa so like everything in life's a competition even that and like i like really mess with my head for a minute but But not anymore, obviously. But we both really wanted to do it. So I wonder if there was also an element of competitiveness that we didn't realize that was there. Yeah, you want to be the funny one. Yeah. You want to be the funny one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at least in terms of funny guys, you, me, and Connor, who I think is deeply funny.

Yes. Deeply funny. me and connor who i think was is deeply funny yes deeply funny yeah i think i like uh stole not stole like you know jokes but like uh some essence stuff some movement stuff oh he was funny so fun like truly this guy was literally like as you do now he's a he's a um one of the the general manager of like gay bars in hell's kitsch but he like literally like on day one walks in you're like wow that person's very attractive and then had this like bizarre Jim Carrey affectation with everything that he did that was love him yeah he's great he went he was a link between the two of us for sure like I think the three of us were kind of in that first year I can remember like going

to Target with you and buying our first like ballet dance sites together. Yeah. Oh, the memories. And to, to Russell's point, I even just listening to your podcast a lot lately to like, cause I was excited to come on here and like,

and seeing all your Tik TOKs and stuff. I just think, I hope I've grown a lot and like a better direction and I can just like really sense and feel from you that you've grown a lot. And like a lot of that stuff that maybe would be like something that i wouldn't look for in a friend that was going on in college isn't really there anymore which is like very special and cool to like know somebody for that long this is the downside you're listening to The Downside. The Downside.

With Gianmarco Cerezi. Give me one second. This is very annoying. What happened? I was going to say something. That was very sweet. This is the downside, though. We've got to get negative.

We've got to go back to flaws. I wanted to just mention this couch is small. You're right. Someone said something really snippy on the YouTube that I did want to read. Someone, we joked about how, we didn't joke, we criticized fully, how at weddings or when people who don't make speeches normally, they should still know how a mic works. Yeah.

And then they're like, ladies, and you're like, well, you know that this thing, it has to go in there. Yeah. And this person, I thought it was pretty brutal. They said, this has got to stop. Theater folks not understanding that I get a mic in my face once every decade. You'll have to forgive me for not knowing exactly how they work. I'm not sitting here on my too small couch with a mic once a week.

Oh, your too small couch. But also, commenter, that's fine, but you can hear when you start to pull something away from you and literally no one can hear you. It's not a science to it. This is one of our ten viewers. They're going to say, this guy's not assuming we can all hear.

Yeah. That microphone thing is crazy, though. Did I ever tell you the one time I went to a wedding and the guy, everyone went to a wedding And the guy Everyone went up there, there was a microphone And it was an outside wedding And for whatever reason no one was using it And we were all in the back

We were like, no one can hear it We're all like, we can't hear anything And the microphone's just standing there in a stand No one's using it So then this guy in the back with us Who was complaining He is complaining, he is related. He's going to give a speech. He goes up there.

He goes to the mic, grabs it, and he goes, I don't think I need this, do I? And everyone was like, nah, we all hear you. Silence. Silence. Just starts normal talking after he screamed. I was like, you were back here with us sir you saw that none of us could hear why not it just oh drives me nuts i went to a million

dollar wedding recently like a friend who's extremely wealthy yeah fireworks at this wedding fireworks like that's how much money was put into this insane wedding couldn't hear a damn thing it was outside and they had body mics on oh my god and the mics the sound system just like wasn't working properly i was like why are we here like no one thought to test this like this is crazy everyone always underestimates the sound they always do they always do and also on some level i don't think they want you to hear like it's a really vulnerable place to put yourself in in front of all your family and friends you're nervous say those things all your family and friends you're

nervous say those things so i think and if you're a normal person who doesn't like get up and do that i think it a lot of people are like secretly don't want anyone to hear this do you know what i mean sure sure so it's ultimately i guess um so i i lest we focus too much on on this woman's comment oh yes this woman's comment or musical theater college I do think the one thing that's worth revisiting

for people listening to the Connie Mataxa sure yeah Connie Mataxa famous for the moment I released it

calling me 12 times and saying actually can we take that part out oh yeah yeah one of the worst days of my entire fucking life yeah amazing at calling me 12 times and saying, actually, can we take that part out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have the worst days of my entire fucking life.

Yeah. Amazing. Oh, yeah. It was the day it came out, too, not before. Oh, it was after it came out. I checked before. It was out.

It was one of those where I checked before, like, this cool? This cool? We said all these things? Yeah. She's like, yeah. And then it's out there.

Yeah, and then it's out there. And then I look at my phone. Oh, yeah. And you know, when you see 12 calls from your most recent guest, you're like, fuck. Oh, yeah. This is rough. Yeah. yeah she's like yeah and then it's out there and then I look at my phone and you know when you see 12 calls from like your most recent guest you're like fuck

oh yeah this is rough yeah someone recently they wrote me this morning to take down a a crowd work clip that they were fine with

but then the comments spooked them and now I gotta go take it the audience member that isn't one of my biggest fears it's like honestly

was it a criminal thing no no it was just like I guess there's that one I was thinking was it a criminal thing no no it was just because there's that one i was thinking of just a weird thing about like uh they fought with her dad because her dad was a big trump person and her wife was an immigrant and the way that they phrased it and then and then he said his my dad raised me by himself so people are like you're gonna ban your dad for disagreeing with you politically that's all the comments were kind of roasting him and, you know. Trying to protect. I deserve.

That's the game I play. I'm going to crowd work. You are getting something from these people. And one of the consequences is sometimes you're going to get a message and you're going to have to be like, okay. And we're not like having them sign release forms or anything. Some of these clubs have a little piece of paper somewhere that say like you may be recorded but i'm going to like you know i'm playing in like indie gay spaces like bars and theaters and you know tiny stand-up clubs in like saint pete florida where they're like you know not having

people sign this stuff so i'm always worried about i'm like I I think it's kind of just sort of like the consent of going to a comedy show in 2024 now I was like you're like everyone is doing this so if you're at the show but yeah I don't know if you're saying anything do you know what I mean like because it is like it is a something to offer up information and to sometimes people now this this this could be kind of you know how how the whole movement kind of curbs a little. Sometimes they'll go, are you recording this? Like when you're crowd working with. Oh, interesting. And then you're like, well, that's not fun.

Right. And recently someone revealed that they did a DNA test. They found out their father was not their actual father, but they haven't told him yet. And it's so in the moment. It was so good. I said on stage, can I put this on YouTube? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like sure i had a moment like that in dc where the uh i asked the person what they did for livings and

i'm a i teach theater and i'm a teacher for theater and i was like what is the spring musical and he was like legally blonde and i was like okay the question in everyone's mind are they good and the guy was like of course not and i had i was like you have to let me put that on the internet but i didn't say i was like can i can i post it he was like of course you couldn't see his face or anything okay that's good but i was like i was like it's too there's 20 productions that could be true of at any given moment in america 100 and also like you know seventh graders are hopefully not on my social media they're not wait sorry it was a middle school production yeah it was like it was like's so funny. Isn't that...

In a certain part of the country, too. So you're like, we know we can narrow it, really narrow it down. We've talked about the junior productions. They're so funny that they try to make

all these productions junior versions of. So good. Are they doing a Hamilton Junior? I'm sure. Or like they don't mention the slavery? Oh, that's the original.

Oh. Oh. Nailed him. Nailed him, Lin-Manuel. Nailed him, that Lin. Yeah. So we did a lot of strange things together in college. But there was a classic exercise that we did called the gun exercise.

And this was before there were as mash as many mass shootings are today but after columbine i was just gonna say after columbine yeah definitely after columbine yeah and the the premise of the exercise we all were characters i don't know how we figured out these characters we were given so the whole semester we had to come in uh like every three weeks as different characters that were given to us like the first month was like uh blue collar man in his 40s and then three weeks later that we that most of us probably did so poorly so offensively me being blue collar anything hey boys yeah let's let's go work you're just like you're boys, let's go work. Let's go to Walmart.

What they should have done is the finals was they bring an actual blue collar to watch us portray who they are. That would have been so good. Heckle us and beat the shit out of us. There was a really sweet blonde girl who

clearly had probably grown up very wealthy and never met a blue collar man in her life who just kept going. I brought my refurbished tools. And she just said that over and over and over again. It was like an improv exercise. Like he would ask us questions and be like, so, you know, what is your job? And she'd just go, I just work with my refurbished tools. I still think about it to this day i was like one of the funniest she literally said it like 50 times to like just get through the hour i'm trying to think if this is if if this particular teacher who i think will try to avoid saying their name

great but if whoever this refurbished tools person had big enough tits i'm sure they got an a plus that's that was the vibe that was the vibe that was the vibe so then that that happened the first month and then the next month was like and now be like a 60 year old woman housewife or whatever so then he gave us like that for a couple months and then the last one was he gave us a cd and it had like disturbing sounds and it was like helicopter noises and like random like harsh piano tones and like explosions. You're on Broadway right now. Shut the fuck up.

Every acting thing that brings up, you're like, ugh, this is so stupid. This one's actually crazy. You listened to it? What was the instruction? You were to listen to it and then come up with a character based on what you heard. And they were awful sounds. One, I think, was the best hits of LCD Sound System.

I mean, it was truly... The idea was to come in as something a little fucked up. Like a little off. Yeah. I think that was... I mean, it wasn't like... What was your character? Do you remember?

I'm not going to say, but I. Oh no. It was. It wasn't something, it wasn't anything like cancelable. It just wasn't something anyone would do in 2024. Yeah. What race was it? White.

Okay. So. So you can probably narrow down like what I was doing, but. I forget. I forget what I was doing. What were you? I don't remember. My character wasn't racist. I want to be clear on that.

It was just like, maybe I didn't... It wasn't good. I've talked about the time that I, as an actor, played the My Left Foot character. I'll tell you, it was something similar to that. Sure. Your right foot. It was my right foot.

So then, after we worked on this, basically, they had two seniors. Seniors did it. We were freshmen when this exercise happened. We would be having a class, and we knew this was coming. You didn't know what day it was, I don't think. But the seniors would kick in the door

with fake guns. That looked real. That looked extremely real. And like, get on the fucking ground! And face paint on. They were wearing all black. They were simulating a shooting. And they were well-cast.

They were the dudes of the senior year they they were intimidating yeah certainly as a freshman and uh they you would basically enact a whole you just try to be your character while they did these gradually killed each of you one by one and and this is how crazy the teacher was is that if you got killed in the first two minutes you were expected to be dead for the rest of the hour 15 minute class you had to just lay there unmoving killed in the first the first guy that got killed one guy got killed and he fell in a way i think it was mike desposito he fell in a way that was think it was Mike Desposito. He fell in a way that was uncomfortable. And he was like, I can't hold this.

And so gradually he had to roll over in like a nice little fetus position. Have you seen that episode of Curb where he's at the Civil War reenactment or Revolutionary War reenactment? And he's going to do the reenactment. And it just starts and like there's the guns go off and the guy next to him falls over he goes what are you doing

get up you're gonna be down there all day that was the vibe you had to like literally just lay there for your grade

not just like for your actual grade there was not a piece of paper in it are they coming in are they doing are they like are they like

saying like this is our hostage. And if you don't do something such, we're going to shoot them in the head. 100%. It was, it was the whole goal of the exercise was like, I don't know, can you adapt to what these people want? Like, can you reach your goal in this improv exercise of like, can you impress these two people so that you are the sole survivor? You were the last one standing and that person got an A plus. And then I think the people who got eliminated early got bad

grades. It didn't make sense. It didn't make any sense. It's all up to these others. They could come in and be like you could be the first one they see and they could shoot you right away. The year before us, they made our friend Kate put a condom on the gun with her mouth. No.

It was so messed up. Yes. Like, the whole thing is like, I cannot believe it happened. That is so insane. If, like, schools would be shut down.

Florida would shut down. Even Florida would shut down. If someone found out that was happening right now. I mean, it could be shut down retroactively from this podcast.

From this podcast. I was thinking, like, a New York Times article could come out about it. It was that crazy. Again, we're not going to say the person's name, but it was a little sexual harassing. Wait, hold on. If we're saying put a condom on a fake gun with your mouth or you won't get an A, I would say that's full sexual harassment.

You might imagine, though, that this can't be happening still. No, it was canceled a few years after us. They stopped doing it because I think people were like, what's going on here? That's such a problem where again, I go backward. There's certain things about crazy acting schools that I like and I like weird

exercises and then the problem as per the human history is you start out with something artistic and before you know it some guys like put a it becomes a stanford it becomes a stanford prison experiment yeah it's just like it's just like guys we'll do well james franco is teaching an acting studio before you know it he has sex 301 class we have to suck his dick for an a plus and you go my god literally yeah, yeah. It's just every, it's just the problem with acting and

trying to qualify it as something you can pay for to get, like, it's art. But I like a weird exercise. I like a weird, you're an animal, and you have to go in the woods, and it's stupid looking back, but it's cool. I know you do. I did not like that stuff. I'm but it's cool I did not like that stuff

I'm very like I did not like now you're cold and now you're hot and now you're sinking in cement shit yeah yeah

but I liked improv I wanted to just like but that part of it I did like okay do you guys remember on that day did you who died first

and how did you each die like what I didn't die I won wow I won co-won with this girl named jessica who played a four-year-old girl who was like disturbed and my character also was like an underdog type of thing so i think that was a big part of like you had to try to survive you

had to like try to like do whatever they said and they rolled a sucker on the ground and we both picked it and they were like lick the sucker and we both picked up the sucker and we both licked it and that was how they decided that like oh this is so crazy but that is what happened wow when did you die i don't understand why you guys had to be fucked up characters because you're already bringing in the fucked up people we could have just been ourselves you could have just been yourselves or you could that's the only part of because you're already bringing in the fucked up people. We could have just been ourselves. You could have just been yourselves. That's the only part of this you're not understanding?

No. I just like, I don't understand why these... Everything else about this makes full sense. How did you die? It was like early and like annoying

and I was so upset that I didn't get to do the thing. Like I just died early because they did Duck Duck Goose and I didn't do it right. Did you get a bad grade because of that? Do you remember?

I probably got like a C plus or whatever. I mean, I don't think I particularly cared. That's bad. I was kind of over grade. I understood that these grades didn't matter.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But the funniest one is Leah was playing Heath's mom. You know Heath? Oh, yeah. And I guess Heath was – there were a lot of disabilities, I got to say. But I think Heath couldn't hear, and his mom could do sign language. Yes.

Oh, my God. I remember this very well. And so they shot her in the head and she had the wherewithal that as she fell to the floor she signed language i love you i love you i'll never forget that i could see that i could see that in my mind's eye i could see it 100 thank god i died in the right way to see that moment because it was an Oscar winning scene. After getting shot in the head, she still had the time. Oh my God.

That's so funny. I believe when Mike got shot, but I don't know if this is true or not, but in my head, I remember that he was the first one gone and it was in the first five minutes. So he knew he had to lay there for 55 minutes. I think he went, this is so stupid, as he fell to the ground. I would pay $1,000 for that tape. He did another exercise where he wanted us to

practice moving in slow motion. And Rob and I, we slow motioned to the exit of the building, went and got lunch. Stop it right now. And then came back and slow motioned back in. And I remember, this is how, this is like,

Rob and I both had that thing in us. The same thing that we, you know, cynics mind. And we came back and I remember Heath was like,

I think you really missed out on the lesson of that one. Oh, yeah. I don't know if it was Heath. Meanwhile, we were laying down on the ground while he was watching

The Sopranos on DVD in his office. He was watching The Sopranos? He was his office. He was watching The Sopranos? He was always watching. There were days that were like, oh, right. It was like whatever you call that where you're trying to straighten your spine or whatever. Meanwhile, I have scoliosis. So I was like, honey, it ain't going to happen.

Yeah. This spine is not going to get straight. So we would lay on the ground for 45 minutes doing nothing maybe to prepare us for that the exercise and he would leave the room and most people would fall asleep i'm so anxious i would just lay there being like oh my god there's so much voice and speech and math homework i have to do we had a movement teacher same thing he would give an assignment and then he would just be gone and you would like have the whole like time to like come up with the project you know and he would just be gone and i'll never forget one time

he gave a thing and it was use the building like in an interesting way and choreograph a fight scene like like and and like find a unique way to like do so me and my partner we found a wall that had a crack in it and we were like oh let's start the fight here and it goes out into this thing and they kind of have to follow to watch it and then i'll throw you against this wall and people will not have been seeing it really until we draw focus to it when i throw you into it then you'll fall down you'll see the crack and i'm like well so we do this whole thing planned it all do it and then he goes he gets to end of it goes okay gentlemen not cool that you broke the wall and we were like no you fucking idiot like we literally

said use the building find an interesting way to like we were like and and like if you had done anything or been around but just would check out just would leave and then come back and you're one of the coolest there was an acting class we did once where I believe Logan slapped Connor, for people listening. I remember this. And at the end of the scene, Bruce Miller was furious. He was like, you cannot actually slap people. And they had staged it.

And they were like, no, look, it's staged. No, it's staged. And it was the coolest. He fell out. And you could not get this man. We compared him to Mr. G at the beginning, but that's really not true. He was really like kind of godly. Like he really was like, he was a bit grumpy, but like important.

Like, and we all respected him. He was like not the man doing the gun day thing. Like he was actually teaching us like really like tangible stuff. And the reason that I like this kind of teacher is, as anyone can see from everything we've been saying, a lot of art is bullshit. A lot of this is you have to want to make something good, even in absurd circumstances. For this gun exercise, if you're going to get anything out of it, it's that you're trying to act or be interesting or take it in. That's all you can do. Yeah.

And so when you have a mean teacher or a harsh teacher, that's what you need because you need someone who's saying, like, hey. And Bruce was that guy, like, how many times did you work on this? You didn't work on it? What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, why are you wasting everyone's time? What the fuck are we doing here? Yeah. And you need that in the arts or it's complete bullshit.

And when you're 18, you need structure like that. like that you need somebody to like give it to you i just unlocked a memory when you said that i so he was scary in that way like you didn't want to mess with him really and he was like the dad and me and our mutual friend were rehearsing a scene together in the like side room or whatever and the the BAs who were not, um, this wasn't even BAs, they're non-majors. There was like acting for like the political science majors and the business

majors who just like wanted to take an elective. So one of the scum of the earth. Yeah. Basic, basic bitches. So the like non-conservatory acting teacher was teaching them a class and he overheard us in the next room rehearsing our conservatory class thing for like the goat or who is Sylvia or something. And he comes in, he was like, hey, I'm talking to my non-theater majors right now about commitment and how hard you have to work to do stuff. I overheard you guys doing your scene.

Would you come in and just continue doing what you're doing but can we watch and we both kind of were like uh yeah that's fine that's fine we weren't gonna say no to a teacher like we're gonna we didn't know boundaries we're like sure so we go in and we do our scene when we're done practicing our scene they all erupt in applause as they're erupting in applause, Bruce Miller, the head of acting, walks in the room and says in front of all these people he does not know, what is the matter with you? Is this what you think acting school is? To just walk around, oh, are they just going to applaud you and everything you just did was absolutely perfect? How am I going to teach you now if you're just showing off for these non-majors pathetic

and then and we both started sobbing and we run into his office we're like we didn't do that on purpose we weren't trying to like show off or anything and we explained to him what happened and he was like okay goodbye to this day in his mind he thought you knocked on the class and said hey you guys want to see some real acting i guess guess. I don't know what he thought. Yeah, I thought we were like, hey, ever heard of conservatory acting students? That's us. Like, what? To this day, when I see that girl, if we

talk about it, we both like shush and shudder. Because it was so uncomfortable. Oh, man. So many uncomfortable... It was a deeply uncomfortable time, acting school. I don't recommend it. No. I think the first two years are good.

I only did two years. The second two, I feel the teachers running out of things to say. When people ask me, would you ever take an acting class again? Every director I've ever worked with. Would you consider take an acting class again? Every director I've ever worked with. Would you? That's not considered. That's not considered. Brushing the...

I'm like, when I think about the thing that gives me the shakes is how much of my college life I spent watching other people do scenes. I showed up for class and I watched other people do scenes. For hours. For hours. Of your life. And then I had to listen to us reflect on it i know and listen to my peers who were both here to learn and i gotta listen to their fucking takes

imagine who had little to no opinion in the room in my acting class about people seeing uh-huh anyone have thought not one not one single thought about any of that hell one of the funniest and i this was early on and i hope this isn't mean there was someone who was was like figuring out acting like yeah it took a beat and like certainly struggled like what to do with their their arms yeah you know that that stuff and there was was a scene where someone gave her a sweater. Yeah. She held onto the sweater. And at the end, the notes were like, when you were holding onto that sweater, it's like,

really, it felt like you knew what to do with your arms in that moment. And it was like, the lesson was, well, let's just have you hold on to shit and we don't have to deal with this problem. And I was like, yeah, that's the level of feedback and notes um we had a guy we had a guy he didn't end up finishing the program but he was very naturally talented the most successful actor out of our out of our years right now um but he he was just sad what than you? Just this classical theater program, though. So it's like we're doing these old plays and old things. He's very modern and contemporary, and he gets a lot of work. But I'll never forget, we were doing some Ibsen scene work or something like that.

Maybe it was Chekhov. I think, no, it was Ibsen. He mentions the greatest playwrights of humanity. I started throwing up. No, I know. It was like, bravo. He had to give a he mentions the greatest playwrights of humanity. I started throwing up. No, I know. It's like, oh, something about Bravo. But he had to give a speech in front of a huge crowd of people. But he was just delivering it in the same spot.

So someone gave a note of like, well, you're delivering a speech to a huge group of people. You need to find more people to connect with. Yeah. And he's like, OK, so should we set up more chairs in the studio like empty chairs no just like pretend there's humans like but that was a genuine question

you know and you're like wow should we set up more chairs there was a girl in our class who every time so they would always ask us for feedback like John McGrath said every time she would raise her hand and go, I couldn't, she was always sitting on the side, like close to the door.

Yeah. And she would always go, I couldn't really see the whole time. That's amazing. You gave the sightline note every single time. Maybe change where you're sitting in the room. That's so funny. I couldn't really see every time.

I'm not kidding. She gave it every single time. That's actually like a really smart thing to like, couldn't really see every time. I'm not kidding. She gave it every That's actually like a really smart thing to like, I always have something to say if I never can see. But she was dead serious.

She would be like, when you turned that way, this curtain was blocking you. Claire, move in. Claire. Claire. Oh, Claire. God bless.

She didn't make it to the end. No. Neither did I. I didn't survive. Was it more a financial thing? Yes. I did not want to go to make-believe school for five years of fucking college and pay all of that money. So, okay. So this was, you made that decision junior year?

Mm-hmm. Was it hard? Yeah, it was really hard. Did you feel at that point like one of, like you were of our grade? You didn't feel like an outsider still at that point? I did and I didn't. Like I did still feel like a lot of my friends were gone. Like I had older friends who had graduated.

Yeah, I did start to feel I think more of the fatigue because I had been there longer than you got a full year longer than all of you in college so I started to feel the fatigue of like you know people raising their hands and saying dumb shit about other people's acting and I'll never forget our the day our friend Connor just pulled out a newspaper during that literally just pulled out a newspaper started reading it when one person in particular was going on and on and on. I think I've learned all I can learn here. I gotta go. I was 22 and I was like, next year I'll be 23. I'll be ancient. I have to get

to New York. I have to get to Spring Awakening before it's too late. I remember one of my first manager meetings after graduating and they said to me, they looked at my resume and they said, you're a little old to have no TV credits. And I was like,

I just graduated. I did the system as it was supposed to be done. Right. And that's the kind of moments that I wish I could go back. My dream, or I have some fantasy, some version of where like parents either hire me to talk to their high school kids to like talk them out of theater school or like I,

or, or some college like university of Miami invites me to do like a big, you know, talk to the class and I, and I make them all quit by the end of it. That's my fantasy. One by one. They all,

captain, my captain and they throw their drama masks out into the garbage yes they'll always have they had like an

older Shakespearean guy who does you know did King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company he's had a career

and he comes in and they say something along the lines of kids if you can do anything else do it and that's that's the kind of line.

And I imagine me and everyone else there, except maybe Kim, said, oh, I need to do this. Yeah. He's not talking to me. I need to do this. I will be one of the two people to succeed out of this. And to be fair to both of us, we're still in it. True. In a capacity.

True. So we weren't wrong. But I think it's more about laying out what your life is going to look like. Obviously, you can't, when someone's 17, dreaming big dreams, teach them all about life. But you want to show them that Idina menzel is this is this sliver up here and then there's quitting and then there's all these different things in between and how do you feel about this do you want to do are you willing to do that kind of children's show tour that you did are you gonna do that bachelorette show are you gonna are you okay

going to north carolina are you okay doing a musical? That sucks. You just don't see what the full life could be. Are you okay to not have health insurance when you're 27? Right. Are you okay being 35 and still having to leave New York for six months? Do you want to go on a cruise? You just don't understand.

And that's why insulating yourself in college for four years, you don't get to really see it. We had a girl. She was in the ensemble of Hello, Dolly! And she booked So You Think You Can Dance. And they were like, you can't leave to go do this. And it's like if you understand the real world, you go, you must go. You may never be on TV.

Who's ever dreamed of going to the ball in a beautiful dress? Go! Go. You may never be on TV. Who's ever dreamed of going to the ball in a beautiful dress? Go. You, you, oh. And, and that's the kind of toxic, like, and I understand why a conservatory, how do you function as a school if everyone's going to leave?

That's also tough. Sure. Fortunately, that's the business you picked. Yeah. And I think there were a lot of teachers. There were some teachers I admired, some teachers who are toxic but i still admire god sure sure and then there's some where they do fit the adage of if you can't do teach and not all teachers are that i would never cast that dispersion on all teachers but some of them are out there and some of them are tenured and i don't know what the fuck you're supposed to do

it's harder when it's a like a theater thing, because it's so clear. And also when you have people giving you advice who have been out of the game for sometimes decades. And you're like, how are you going to give me advice on how to do any of this right now? Imagine it's 10-year-mean. They're like, so what do you contribute to this university? I'll show you. Hey, Kate, put a condom on this gun with your mouth.

See how she does it right away? That's acting. That's acting. Can you imagine if Stanislavski in the third book was the thing? The third See how she does it right away? Yeah. That's acting. That's acting. Yeah. Can you imagine Stanislavski in the third book? Like, that was the thing. The third book. Oh, my God.

The third book. That sounded chill down my spine. An actor prepares. Building a character. Wait, an actor prepares. Isn't that? That's number one. Is that him?

I thought that was Uta Hagen. Ask me. Uta Hagen. I don't know. You know why? Wait, I thought it was Uta Hagen, too. No,ta Hagen. I don't know. You know why? I thought it was Uta Hagen, too. No, An Act to Prepare is Stanislavski. What is Uta Hagen?

It's like a really famous one that's like... Yeah, what is hers? Can I tell you how many of these I've read? I had to read them all. And I know you read all of them. I know we had to. Guess how many I read. How many?

Zero. Zero. That's crazy. Ask me if I read any of the UCB... Oh, my God. ...curriculum when I took UCB. Did you? No, sir. No, curriculum when I took UCB. Did you? No, sir.

No, sir. I think reading is bad, and I don't think anyone should do it. I love some of those acting books. I know you do. You were really in on acting. I was going to the library to watch Sandy Meisner's acting lectures where he had his vocal box removed from smoking. Oh my God.

So he could only speak by essentially burping the words. Okay. So this is why we weren't as close of friends because you were doing that. I was sucking dick on South Beach. I was partying. I was, um, that's it really.

I wish I, I mean, look, I wish I had partied. And then you're like, well, did you ever go to South? So we went to college in Miami,

Florida. Did you ever go to South Beach? Maybe college in Miami, Florida did you ever go to South Beach? maybe once maybe once that's crazy can I tell you I went to

I think I might have told this story on the podcast before but when I really knew I was in a bad place in music school I went to a conference in Miami

in the winter time and I was in music school I hated it and it was like conference every day from 8am to 6pm to 6 p.m. while we're in Miami in March. Well, we're coming from the cold, cold all the way upstate New York.

So I went the first day. I did the conference. I couldn't believe that. I was like, what are we doing here? I hate this. We had to wear suits. We had to go. Had a conference.

It was a music ed. Like we're getting like lectures about music teaching. No. And so then the next day second day um i i we were in a group and everyone's going everyone's like oh we all have different things to go to different places to go to different conferences how about we all meet here at 6 p.m and we can like exchange notes from all the different things we went to i said okay i started walking and i saw the escalator at the convention center

and I just kept walking and I walked straight out the door. I went back to the hotel. I got shorts and went to South Beach and just got a six pack and drank and sat on the beach. I like to think that you had no inner monologue that whole time. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing going on in my brain. Also, what I love is that I went in the suit. I was going to do it. I need more moments in my life like this where you just started like, no. I just walked and kept walking. So I went to the...

That's how people leave their families. Or like, you get there, you find a dead body, White Lotus Season 3. I didn't know people could be topless. It was all a surprise. It was all a whole new world. So I'm sitting there. I'm on the edge of my seat right now.

So then I was like, but then some part of me was like, you got to go back. No. So anyways, what's so funny? I went back at 6 p.m., but I didn't put the suit back on. So I went in a t-shirt so sunburned and drunk to meet everyone and and everyone was like oh russell hey what and everyone was like confused because i was like we're paying for it it wasn't required so you're like in theory nothing is required but ever and i paid whatever cost to go to the convention but they're like what and i was like yeah i i got drunk

on the beach and didn't do anything and i was like they're like okay and then i just didn't go anything else the rest of the two days because i was like i'm just i'm not gonna do that no one wants to do it why are we doing why why have a conference in miami if we're not going to take advantage why go to school in miami john marco for four years and not go to South Beach? In John Marco's defense, they did also like the so you think you can dance thing. They tried to drill into us that you had to be so serious about this. Because my first year before you got there, I had a friend that was a gay frat boy who would come knock on my dorm room door at 12.45 a.m. and be like, South Beach is just opening now.

I know you were sleeping we're going out and we would get in my car and listen to like amy spanger wedding singer saturday night in the city and be like we are party animals and we would go to the gay bars and like i remember like we both hooked up with different people on the beach and then like stayed up until like the sun came up and then got back in my car got mcdonald's breakfast took us a class and went to our 8 a.m class i just remember being like i am doing college yeah like this is what college is and i'll say i have like more stories from stuff like that than i do from like being a really good student and like watching somebody do Moliere. Oh, Moliere.

Can I say, I think one of the, first of all, I mean, I struggle like getting myself to party and be in the moment and enjoy myself. But I've said it before. I think one of the frustrations of being like a straight guy who likes, who finds myself more comfortable in queer spaces and has more in common with queer people that the relationship kind of hits a ceiling with nightlife and with going out and gay clubs. And so there's a degree of,

I wasn't going to go to a frat party per se, not that there aren't gay people there, but the people I was close with would go to a gay club or they or they would go to a space where like where where sex was part of it and hooking up and hitting on people and flirting and whatnot and it wasn't like necessarily so i felt like sometimes i didn't know where to go i didn't know where my place was because i didn't want to do there were there were some plenty of straight guys in in the program and say no it wasn't a great program and and it was like i think that was just always part of it that makes a lot of sense and like i don't i don't mean this like offensively but i think like that is a part of a straight guy thing that like gays when you're like

a gay boy especially you have such repressedressed sexuality that it becomes a huge part of your identity and a huge part of something that you need and want to do. Whether people act on it or not, I just think that's mostly true for most gay men. I think I wanted to be as good of a student as you did, as good at theater. But there was this chunk of me that was like you have to go do gay like you have to go be gay and it like literally still something i struggle with where i'm like you know you focus on it too much but that makes a lot of sense that we like couldn't relate on that level like why would you want to go to a gay bar i was not going out to those gay bars or going to south beach to party it wasn wasn't doing drugs. I was barely drinking.

I was there for a butthole. I was looking to be gay. So, of course, why would you want to do that? I mean, I could think of why a person would want to do that. But, like, of course you're not going to do that. But, like, just, like, go to the beach. You know what I mean? Like, a nice relaxing trip to the beach.

I'm not beach guy. He's not beach guy. I'm'm not beach guy he's not beach guy i felt so bamboozled in that i i showed up you show up to miami it's like a vacation you're like palm trees sun it's beautiful on campus and there was a teacher who at the time like he pulled me aside and he said he the guy who was the lead of on the town that year and he said i want you to be the next leading man here like he sold me a bill of goods wow he sold me a bill of goods and like looking back uh uh i i don't think he was hitting on me i do think i do think he thought i was gay and i do think he thought i would be like part of his club his his club 100 like very much and again i i, I have plenty of personality issues too,

but I very much did not end up being part of that club. I didn't want to play the game. Right. And looking back, I have things where he was Jewish and he would have these big Passover meals and all this stuff, and I wasn't invited to them. And all the Jews, even if you weren't close, all the Jews were invited if you weren't close all

the jews were invited and then his friends were also invited and like i look back on that i'm like that is fucked up dude i came to this college for this motherfucker and he's not inviting me to the jewish event i was just talking to another jewish classmate of ours who said the exact same thing that you just really yeah feels like felt so slighted by that and hurt. That's fucked up, dude. It's really fucked up. What's so crazy about that, though... If you have to be a Jew in this world,

you should at least get some meals out of it. Hello? What's so crazy about that, though, is he did that for you, right? He was like, here's this apple that I'll dangle over you. But at the same time, this woman would run around campus in a red, tight bathing suit and giant jugs

just like and she would just slow motion run it was pamela anderson and she would say john marco you could also come to south beach and have fun she would wave her wet wet hair and you said no no he said i want to be in hello dolly i don't want to go to South Beach with you. So the temptation was there. I mean, there were like, we went to school with some of the hottest 18 to 22 year old people when we were 18 to 22 years old that you could... They were all perfectly 18

right on the dot. They were exactly 18. Nothing problematic. When I turned 18 and I went there and came out as gay, I lost 45 pounds in like three months it was the whole the pressure of the whole school

was crazy to be like hot and like party animal so it is kind of a testament to your character that you were really like

I'm not doing anything but that was we were also sort of like in a frat by the way that fucking movement teacher cunt told us,

don't do any weightlifting your first year here because it will interfere with my movement process. So if that motherfucker hadn't said that, maybe I would have done P90X sooner and got a lot more pussy. Oh, my God. True. He told us that. This guy with no pants. Sure did. And you listened to it because we were

you were like oh how do you fuck up how i sit in a chair on stage yeah what a fucking i wow i i just feel and especially my little uh my my two younger siblings they were in college during covid and they got like royally fucked oh two years of no real tuition. And I feel this rage at colleges, at the whole system. And especially, I know there's going to be more theater majors as AI takes everyone's jobs and people go, what do I do with my life? Oh, I become a performer. The teachers are going to get worse.

More colleges are going to have musical theater majors. And it's my cause in life it's your cause in life it's my cause to expose and challenge and college should be challenged in general but i can at least speak to challenging it in the arts for sure i think i have a whole series on tiktok of like if if theater programs had hr and one of the things really one of the things i reference is a very real thing that happened to us. And people are like, Oh my God,

this is such good heightening. And I'm like, no, this is just something that happened. We won't name the teacher, but, uh, it was a teacher that actually really liked a lot,

but we, the, the 12 of us, this teacher decided that we weren't getting along well enough with each other, that we needed to meld more as a group, which is also like, just for those of you who aren't in theater,

you can all map this onto like any business practice. You are not a family. You are not a family. You are colleagues. You are working together. And then you go home to your family where you have that kind of relationship. I disagree.

We're a family, but go ahead. Oh my God. That drives me nuts. You're not a family. Some of us don't have families. So we need to find them in different places. You can't force that. That's why you have to find your family and your friends.

The people that are running things can't control that. The people you're getting paid to work with. I really believe that. Can you have a friend and make them a podcast host? No, you can feel. Russell's not getting paid, I assume. You can feel things. You just can't control it.

And you also can't force everyone to be a part of that and it can't come from the higher up higher up can't be like you have to be a family chosen family is a very real thing very real but if it's all people that you are working with that you're all making money or in a school setting

where you all have to be there for a different reason that's where I think it gets complicated so for us this teacher was like you guys need to be more of a family you need That's where I think it gets complicated. So for us, this teacher was like, you guys need to be more of a family. You need to like each other more. And I just remember being like, this is so stupid. Like I want to make friends outside of this program so I can do stand-up one day

and like have other things to talk about. So we all close our eyes and she would tap two of us on the shoulder to open your eyes and then say things like, tap two people on the shoulder who you your eyes and then say things like um tap two people on the shoulder who you think are not very talented oh tap someone on the show one of them was tap someone on the shoulder who you think is negative and i got tapped on the shoulder and to this day i still wonder who the 11th was and i'm like it's like or like tap someone on the shoulder who is not

gonna make it oh my god my God. I swear. It's so funny. I don't remember that one. The one I thought you were about to bring up, which is not that far, was we all sat down. It was like junior year. So a lot of beef to discuss. And it was like we went around the room and everyone got to say for you one thing we admired about you. And one thing that you needed to work on and it was like this massive like everyone gets to finally say what they want publicly about who's mean and

again another video i'd pay a thousand dollars just to know if i was restrained i i know certainly knowing me i thought that i was like being thoughtful but honest that's probably what i thought i don't remember yours i do remember connor's to who it was and it was like it's the the it was so traumatic for that person that i like it still haunts me to this day it was it was a crazy thing to ask people to do. What did he say? He turned to one of our classmates and said, like, I think you're the least, you came in here the least good at blank. I won't say what it was,

but like of the things you study in acting school, it was acting. Like, I think you're the worst actor in the program. And this person lost their shit, rightfully so, because it was like just fucked up. But also in Connor's's defense it was like that's what he was asked to do and we were 19 years old my god the whole thing is so what do you also you're like what is okay you gotta know like i'm sure that they teachers think that there's

a reason behind all this but on some level it's just a fucked up little game that they get to know and see and play out. I mean, that teacher who the tapping thing, they saw how everyone thinks about everyone in the room and you guys never get to know. So you're just playing this paranoid game in your head of being like, who hates me? But they know.

You think she threw in a tap? The fact that she knows all that and you guys all know that she knows, it's a weird power thing, it feels like. She looks around, no one taps you for the negative one, and she's like. The whole purpose of this exercise was to let this little gay cunt know that he's a negative little bitch. Meanwhile, I was very negative, and I still am working on that. But it doesn't help to have a random person. It would help for someone

that I know and trust to be like hey you have a tendency to be really negative like let's talk about it not you know anonymous

yeah I save my anonymous stuff for like you know ass up blindfolded and they're not honey they're tapping in a different way

I hope your straight listeners love what I'm bringing to the table today there's only one of them. Amazon's holiday deals are here so you can celebrate the season early. With low prices on decor, electronics, and beauty. Perfect for stocking stuffers. And my stockings looking good.

Shop holiday deals early on Amazon now. This NFL season, get in on all the hard-hitting action with FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook. Shop holiday deals early on Amazon now. withdrawals, FanDuel makes betting on the NFL easier than ever before. So make the most of this football season and download FanDuel today. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca Can we mention that there was a teacher

who was pretending they had something. No. I'm writing about this, so let's not. Oh. You are? My most recent play is about this. Let's not talk about it. Also, I think it's so messed up. I don't think there is like... I'm still navigating the way that we are able to talk about this.

You're 100% certain of it? No, I'm definitely not. Okay. None of us are. That's what makes it so weird and bizarre. Well, after we stop this. Join the patreon.com slash downside for all the news. I will not to leave everyone on a cliffhanger.

It's like a full George Santos situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like what was, you know, whether or not they were lying about something huge. Huge. It's kind of irrelevant because they were manipulating and lying about so many things. Right, I remember there was even more to it. There's so much to the story. This was wild.

Sadly, got to say, great teacher. Sadly there was even more to it. There's so much to the story. Sadly, gotta say, great teacher. Sadly. Sadly. Gotta agree. Gotta say, some of the best teachers in my life have been fucking insane. Fucking insane. I know, I've taught you a lot,

and I am insane. By the way, if you're a fan of the show, please join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside bonus episodes, live episodes, my special, The Rats Are In Me. We are getting closer and closer to releasing episodes right after we record them, and that's only because you guys are supporting us and telling your friends and helping this thing grow. Let's go on to our next segment, This Has Gotta Stop. This has gotta stop.

This has gotta stop. Russell, give us a juicy one. Oh, you know what? I have your wife's. No, I got a good one, though. Okay, but I'm gonna play your wife's, too. Go for it. Okay, This Has Gotta Stop.

My fucking mailman. My mailman. Okay, something has happened. They've changed mailmen. I used to have a lovely mailwoman. She would come. She would deliver packages to the apartment okay something has happened and it happened at the worst time of the year happened during christmas where they every time they leave a note that says that says sorry we rang you and no one was home and they're

lying they're lying they are lying and then i I went to the post office, because you have to go and pick it up. And I was picking up a heavy thing. And I was like, well, so we're getting all these notices. And we're home. Like, I was home. And the notice was left. So I don't understand. And they're like, well, you know, maybe.

And he was telling me all the reasons why this could have happened. But I'm like, it's consistently happening. It's happening in three or four packages now. And so then we saw the mailman. And we said, what's going on here? And he said he's filling in for someone else's route, and they didn't give him the key to the building. And you're like, well, get the key.

Well, I don't understand how this works. This is chaos. Or get a new sticker that says, I'm new, and I don't have the key to this building. But I'm also like, then how are you delivering like mail like anything and so it doesn't make sense that just packages can't get in but that you can get into the mail it doesn't make sense so then i was like what what's going on what's the truth and i don't want to know why the united states postal service is lying to me okay we need this need this to be fixed. And I miss my old mailwoman.

She was so friendly and so sweet. And she never, she always delivered everything. And packages weren't too crazy big for her or whatnot. And I just don't understand what's happening. And I feel like the United States Postal Service is failing. And I guess that's fine. I guess we don't pay a lot for stamps.

But- Are you gonna be okay without your ninth disco ball in the living room? That's not even what I needed. I was like, I needed, I was, anyways. So it was just a terrible time of year for them to stop delivering packages and then be cagey about it when you go. And then you go, and there's lines so long in the post office. Anyways, I'm just frustrated.

I just want my mail. That's brutal. Yeah. We have a rare treat. But what is this? I don't remember this. Yeah, this was Russell's wife, Nicole, who we mention on the podcast a lot. One day she'll be a guest.

I went to the University of Miami, too. Oh, she did? Yeah. I first saw your stuff from her. No way. Yeah. Was she a theater major?. I first saw your stuff from her. No way. Yeah. Was she a theater major? She wasn't, but she worked in the box office.

Was she there when we were there? Yeah. Nicole Foss. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Remember when The Rock saw Hello, Dolly? I mean...

I talk about it every day. Wait, were you in Hello, Dolly, too? I wasn't cast in Hello, Dolly. Oh, here's what I do want to say. My biggest thing with, like, especially, like, if you go to Mound. Here's what I do want to say. My biggest thing with like, especially like, if you go to art school, here's what you need to remember.

First of all, kick up a storm. If something feels unfair, fucking fight it. You forget when you're in college, you are paying an insane amount of money. And an inflated,

absurd amount of money and a an inflated absurd uh uh amount of money and so if you are not getting what you want you go and you fucking fight for it i think about like the academic classes i didn't get because in the lottery i didn't get to go sooner so i couldn't take the psychology class because it was popular well guess fucking what fucking what college? Then give me my money back for the class. I gave you for Miami what? I had a little scholarship, let's say $36,000. Not to take a class I didn't want to take. Go make a new class. You cannot take my money and then go, well, this is the system and you didn't win the lottery. Then give me the money back and I'll go somewhere else. And don't take our money and give give me the money back and I'll go somewhere else.

And don't take our money and give it to the fucking football team. This is absurd. Like, hemorrhaging, like, loading money into that football program. And, like, literally we would be like, oh, but you can't get wigs for Hello Dollar. Like, literally, like, what? I understand that that makes money for the school but if you're going to charge us that much money also if you're listening to this don't go to college in america just don't go to college and this is this is going to be like this is almost antithetical to like

here here's the thing okay let's say you get into the college and you're not a good actor let's say in the college you're not a good singer or a conservatory program well guess what they picked you so if they let you in and they decide you're not a good actor or a conservatory program. Well, guess what? They picked you. So if they let you in and they decide you're not a good actor and they're not going to give you any decent parts in the shows, that's on fucking them. They either should train you to be good enough to get a big part in those shows or they should let you go or not let you in in the first place. My point being this, if you are a junior or senior and you get in the ensemble of a musical, leave the program. You do not have to pay $50,000 a year so you can go be in the ensemble of Rent as Maureen's dad. You should leave, John Marco, because first of all, you are good. Wait, did you play Maureen's dad?

First of all, yes. First of all, you are good, and there's places for you. But in a world, you're in an acting company, or you audition for something, yeah, you might have to take your lumps. You might have to play a part you don't want to do, support the thing. The difference is you are paying money this time, and that means you are not in service of them. They are in service of you.

I think if you're going to run a fair conservatory program and you believe in all the people you let in, because why would you let them in if you didn't think they were talented, you should be able to have your ensemble, this one, lead this one. You create a program because, again, the difference is they are paying you.

You are paying them. That is one of my, again, you have to do ensemble sometimes. And I think freshmen should be the ensemble. Sure. And again, in real life, you sometimes are going to be the ensemble or you won't get the part. The difference is you are paying. I can't believe you didn't get Mark. That's crazy, man.

December 24th, 9 p.m. Okay, now I can't believe it. Shut the fuck up. Can I ask you a rude question about that, about being in the ensemble? Sure. A funny but rude question. When John Marko and I were in the ensemble of guys and dolls at the University of Miami, and during Luck Be a Lady, he stood right next to me the whole time, and he never sang.

John Marko. He went on lip sync the whole time. And I would always be like, I think I confronted you about it one time. And I'd be like, hey, man, you know, busting my ass out there. We keep getting these notes that we're not loud enough. More girth. More madness. Why would you not sing?

How come you're lip syncing? I believe what you said to me was, I'm saving my voice. For what? For what? This is the moment. This is the moment. This is the moment. I don't, I faintly can remember it,

but like, I think, I think honestly, this, this should be the beginning. Like this articulates why both of us didn't get along.

Yeah. Yeah. Because first of all, you were like, I'm busting my chops out there doing Luck Be A Lady tonight. Pull your load. And I think I was so precious.

I probably like, my voice was either going or I had like, I had my Zoom voice teacher back home. That's what it was so precious i probably like my voice was either going or i had like i had my zoom voice teacher back home and they probably like gave us notes where they wanted to be straight tone and i was like well my teacher said but the bottom line is i wasn't a i i struggled with singing stuff and so i was like overly precious and it was stupid but but that's awful. That's one of my funniest memories. Isn't that awful?

It's so funny that you were just like, it just I think describes you to a T of like how different you were. Because I said, I'm paying money here. I don't have to sing a goddamn lick if I don't want to. It's funny when someone calls you out in the ensemble though because I was just doing this workshop of this new musical and we had to memorize. It was a three-week workshop and I was at Gutenberg at night and I didn't know we were going to have to memorize as much as we had to memorize like it was a three-week workshop and i was at gutenberg at night and i

didn't know we were gonna have to memorize as much as we had to memorize and so the finale they kind of sprung as the finale all had to be memorized it's this big thing everyone's singing different things and i for the most part i had to memorize but there was the one set of lyrics that kept repeating and there was four like kind of refrains that were repeated and the third one every time we got to i was like i will never remember what this is so but i would scream sing one two and four so i'd be like no and then i get to that third one i'd be like and so we're doing it and um and this girl in the ensemble is laughing at the end of it, like the dress rehearsal. And she goes, you don't know the lyrics at all.

And you were singing so loud the rest of the song, and you fully don't know that one part. And I go, no, I don't. And she's like, are you going to learn it for tomorrow? And I go, I really don't think I will. But I had to pull back just being normal, you know, because it's just a funny thing that happens in ensembles. But everyone knows if you're faking it in an ensemble.

Well, the funniest thing about ours is that it was theater in the round. So John Marco was standing next to audience members. So there would be like 55-year-old women who would pay to see this. I have to wonder if they were like, he'd be like, too many. And I'm like, are they sitting there being like, that boy's not making any sound. He's not making one little noise. Like, what's happening here? And we'd have to turn to each other at some point.

I mean, you'd be 110% in. That's so funny. I am saving my voice. Which I think is why it's awesome that we do stand-up now, because you can't be precious in stand-up. I think that's all it was, is you were being precious about your voice. You were like, I can't blow it. They're asking me to scream, and I don't want to, or whatever.

They're asking me to project more than I want to. But in stand-up, it's so funny. Even hopping back into the theater world a little bit now, I'm like, people are warming up. I'm doing a show right now, and people are physically warming up. And people shout things out in our show, which in stand-up, fucking of course. That happens all the time. And these actors are a little bit – it's just funny seeing how they're like,

oh my God, that person wouldn't stop talking. And I'm like, well, in stand-up, someone might literally throw a piece of bread at your head. You have to figure it out. Yeah. We did every show in the round. Awful, awful to do shows in the round. The choreography is just, and now you walk this corridor. You have to motivate each walk.

Why would your character walk 20 feet for this next sentence? Any other disasters that happened at shows that you did? Other than me being in the ensemble. One of the guys who's now a pretty successful actor in that same show, Guys and Dolls, they didn't, we were in the round, so we were like running across the circular stage and didn't tell us that they had like added an archway in one of them.

And he had one where he ran and kind of jumped off and he got clotheslined. Oh my God. Like fully just like his head went flat. It was, that was bad. Oh, one time Joshua uh joshua henry who is now like a very podcast episode oh my god incredible um his counterpart was this like also unbelievable actress um andrea pedigree was her name and josh is on stage doing the music man

and she was in the bathroom taking a dump and she was um the girl marion yeah she's his counterpart the other lead and the head of our program had to run into the girls dressing room and pull her off the toilet because josh was just standing around on the stage going like oh wow no music oh my god i gotta get these kids to learn the music i had a friend who was playing romeo and he missed missed the morning after scene. Fully missed it. He was in a different building. It was like an outdoor theater thing. It was a big shit. He was like, I gotta get out.

The lights came up and Julia in bed and just sat there for like 30 seconds. Just her in bed. She should have acted like he was getting her out. And then he came running from another building though and totally fucked it up, forgot. And he missed it, and they just lights down.

So they just had the lights come up on Juliet, just in bed. Oh, when we did Hamlet, you were not in Hamlet with me. No, I wish. That was a cool production. It was really super fun. I was Horatio, and so I'm just standing watching everything not doing the sword fighting whatever two straight boys doing the sword fighting uh again the ticket the the tittering in the audience high school boys in the back of the auditorium in the audience laughing at the

stage fighting thinking maybe it didn't look real or whatever so the boys get for you know a little bit toxically masked, frustrated by this. And they start doing this sword fight at triple the speed. Trying to make it look more real. And they're, sword, sword, sword, sword. One of the swords goes flying into the audience. Hits a woman in the chest. Like hard.

The guy. An old woman. A blind woman. Can you imagine? You go to the theater to imagine? You go to the theater to hear theater. You go to the theater to hear theater. She can't see

so she's going to hear. In Shakespeare, perfect thing to go to if you can't see. You're going to hear it beautifully. It's beautiful language. She's enjoying the show

probably knowing this is the sword fighting thing that's happening right now. Out of nowhere, something just hits you like a giant heavy sword hit her in the chest afterwards she was so sweet about it they had to apologize to her of course yeah there's someone like clicks their silverware

together she's like can you imagine oh my god and then the guy next to her had to just like literally lift the sword and hand it back and be like, continue your fight. He threw it. He just launched it on the stage and the audience lost their mind laughing. Oh my God. And then everybody dies. Then everyone gets stabbed. You know what part of the problem is? Who taught some of the stage combat?

The same movement teacher who did the fucking gun show. The gun show. Okay, so let's- No, no, because I have a two o'clock. Do you have a this got to stop? If you have a dog, You need to train your dog This has got to stop

If you Are inviting me over To your house And this dog Is jumping on me And it's barking at me And it pees a little On my leg

If this dog's Trying to bite me This has gotta stop You I had a dog growing up. I loved my dog. We were forced to work really hard to train this dog. So I have no empathy for it.

If you own a dog, you've got to train it. I agree. I agree. Yeah. You have a dog? I always get scared. Multiple dogs. Russell's just a doggy boy, so every time someone talks about dogs.

No, I have a dog. I love dogs. You owe it to the dog. We had a guest who complained about dog poop, and I mean, Russell will murder this man on sight. That guy... No, it was more than dog poop.

That guy just had the worst energy of a person I've ever met in my life. Anyways. Someone did leave dog poop on my front stoop in LA when I went out away on vacation for a week. They just started... Oh my God. That's horrible.

I think not to fuck with us, but just they were like a neighbor that was like, oh, they're clearly away. I'll pick it up tomorrow. Yeah. And then I just came home to a pile of dog poop bags on my thing. But it does drive me crazy because I love dogs and we were so diligent with our dog

and he was like so good. And then I went to my mother-in-law's house for Christmas and this dog was trying to kill us, like trying to bite us. And she was like, just give it 20 treats. Yeah. Like right off the bat,

like 20. So we did. And then of course the dog forgets 10 seconds later. Yeah. You have to like give the treat with a command. Yeah. That's literally whenever my dad started dating a new woman, he would buy toys for her to give to me.

It's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can be a little bitchy, but give him a Power Ranger and he'll like you. Did you? Oh, yeah. Okay, so what works with humans, that doesn't work with dogs.

Yeah. Also, when people have smaller dogs, they can get away with it. They can be like, oh, it'll just jump up and it'll just nip and blah because it because we're ultimately like if we had to we could just like hit it really hard and like protect ourselves but it is like annoying and you're like no like you know because our dog we have one dog one dog is very chill when the other is does bark when people

come in barking's fine but he settles down now. I think a horny dog is funny. A little horny dog that just is humping everything. That's funny. That's amusing to me. Yeah, yeah. That's different. But if you're like,

if you invite me over for dinner and a movie and we're like watching a movie at your place and the whole time we're watching Mean Girls or whatever, the dog is trying to eat my food and jumping on me. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. Figure something out. No, because for our one, too, if we Figure something out. No. Cause for our one too,

like if we're going to have like people, lots of people coming in and out and a lot, when he's going on that crate and that day, you know what I mean? Like that's what has to happen. I went and hooked up with a guy years ago and the dog wouldn't stop jumping in bed with us. Yeah.

And I was like, you need to put the dog in another room. Yeah. Yeah. And he was like, no, the dog will be sad if it's in another room. And I was like,

I'm going to be here 12 more minutes. I don't want this dog involved in our 12-minute lovemaking. And it literally was like a ridiculous comedy of errors for the dog. We'd be hooking up. The dog would jump on us. He would stop. He would yell at the dog. Again, commands the dog doesn't understand.

Stop doing that. Teach the dog commands. Sit. Down. No. Stay. Stop doing that. Teach the dog commands. Sit. Down. No. Stay. It's easy. Are your dogs in the room when you and Nicole are... Well, yeah, the crate's in there. Oh. Yeah. Well, one stays out in the living room and then we have a crate for one.

One's into it? He's near it. I don't know how into it is. We have a flap. He watches, doesn't he? Be honest. Close the flap. Does he watch? No. We've never made eye contact.

The day you were looking at Nicole and you were like, close the flap. We close the flap every night. That's funny. Alright, our final segment. You better count your blessings. This is not my full blessing, but I am wearing this. This is what Russell got Tova, and Tova and I share sweaters.

And it is the Miami Boys Choir. My blessing, you know, I've seen Merrily Roll along. I just have, I don't stay in touch with most people from our college. I mean, this is the first time we've seen each other in so long. It's hard, man. It's, I feel so many feelings. And it's not everybody. It's not everybody.

But there's like six people where it's like, oh, it's, I love them. I love them i love them and it's uh there's so much history i always say it was really tough like when when lee and i broke up i said like one of the tough things was we were so spent so much of that chunk of our life together and suddenly i lost also the ability to like reflect over like five years of my life. And it was like, it was just so mixed. I mean, this is what happens when you, you know, when you have relationships where you spend that much time together, you do everything together. Yeah. But it was just like, it's, I don't know.

even though i feel so much like weird nostalgia and and pain mixed in with it that it like there was something so beautiful about some of the stuff we got to do together even that fucked up gun show thing or just it's more like the fact that we got to talk about that gun show thing and so uh no that's any kind of like theater school thing that you all go through that group of people it's a it's such a weird mix of things you talk about like it's you're like so much of it later on in your life that's fucked up and then but so much of it is so funny and so like you know you've only had only the people in that room had that experience with you and it is like a weird like trauma bonding kind of watch people get better you watch people people find out what they're good at.

I'm certainly envious of people who are able to somehow stay connected and whatnot. But I don't know. It's silly that we haven't seen each other. I agree. It's just kind of how it goes. But I was saying that like I was in Chicago And an old classmate

His parents came And I was in Dubuque, Iowa And Connor's parents came And there's this surrealness of like I know his parents Yeah I know his parents And they knew me when I was 19

And they saw me do a show And they took me out to a dinner once Yeah And like now they're coming to this thing and uh i did a show in philly where a girl that i took one class with junior year an elective class like it was a sociology of mental health class came and brought three friends and she was like you were just always so fun in that class and we would like chat afterwards and like that's been the best part about touring stand-up is reconnecting with these people that you're like,

wow, life actually is really beautiful, and you can make these connections with people, which is also, I think, a big reason why it was important to me to get away from the conservatory and meet people like that, to have these other connections, which I think is another part of why we weren't as close. But I appreciate you saying that. I'm grateful to reconnect with you. There is a certain degree, not to poo-poo anyone who leaves the industry, but just being like,

we're both still doing it. Really. Yeah. We're doing it. Yeah. It really is. Every year you're like, people leave, and then you're like, it's happening still. And it's very special to me that we really did have that day where we read jokes to each other.

Yeah. And now we're doing that. Yeah. It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Top that blessing, bitch. Well, I was going to say, on the way here was really crowded train it was so crowded

and i've been sick so i really wanted a seat and um and i was not gonna get a seat because it was just so crowded and like i can't just you know i'm not gonna but uh then my blessing crazy man gets on he's driving everyone nuts nuts. He's saying things to people. He's going up and tapping ladies' iPads. He's just driving everyone nuts on the train. And he's driving them out, driving them out, but he's not saying anything to me. And he drives enough people out that I get a seat.

And I got a seat. And that man was my blessing today. He never bothered me. I had my headphones on. I never made eye contact. And I got a seat. And that man was my blessing today. He never bothered me. I had my headphones on. I never made eye contact. But he was poking people. He was getting in people's faces. Not aggressively, but in a crazy way.

And so I'm just thankful for him because he really cleared things out by the time we got to 145th Street. And I got a seat the rest of the way down. That's so funny. Thanks, crazy man. That's beautiful. Yeah. Tim tim do you have a blessing i want to echo what you said i feel i am very grateful for that that's what also what i was gonna say when i came in when i came in no i am i when i got this random

email it really like to come on i was like oh that's so that's really so nice and like it has been i hope you know we all talk about it Like we're very inspired by you and excited for you. Especially with like what's happened on TikTok is like, it's very impressive and very cool. And I open for Joe Dombrowski sometimes. Oh, yeah. And he was like telling me like tips and like things that you had said about it that were helpful to him that he then helped me with. And I was like, wow, what a cool circular thing that we're're all like those of us who are still doing it are still able to help each other even if we're not talking yeah but my real blessing is the real housewives of salt lake

city finale aired last night um and it i can i watch it the next day on peacock because it becomes available at 6 a.m on peacock so i set my alarm this morning to watch it the next day on Peacock because it becomes available at 6 a.m. on Peacock. So I set my alarm this morning to watch it. And I woke up, sat up in bed like, oh, my boyfriend was like, what? What? And I was like, it's Christmas morning. It feels like Christmas morning because I got to watch this episode. And I'm not kidding. It is like, it's like, what's the best TV show you've ever seen?

Like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones? You're a Real Housewives boy. I'm a Real Housewives of New York boy. Okay, okay. But sure, I get what you mean. Succession for me. Succession. Oh my God, Succession season two.

You know how you're watching the end of an amazing season of television? Basically what happened in a nutshell is a new character came on this season, a real person. And the whole season she's the underdog. She's doesn't have as much money as the rest of the women. And she's going to be the new hero of the show. Basically she's funny. She's beautiful. She's cool.

And then in the very last episode, it is revealed that she has been, um, doing something truly horrible behind the scenes that they are able to prove that comes to light in an instant. And it's unbelievable. It's literally like watching like an amazing play or an amazing movie where like the curtain has been pulled back and you're like,

you are not who we thought you were. And it is riveting. Like I'm literally, I literally like got on the train today, just like smiling, thinking about how happy I was watching that show and it really does take me out of everything else going on in life like i'm not comparing myself to other comedians or like uh you know shitting on myself for my body or like whatever's going on in your brain

like i don't have enough money the for that 45 minutes that i watched that show life was perfect wow i like that i. That's a good ad for Real Housewives. I was, they said they were going to use me for, what's Andy Cohen's show where there's like

a little bartender? Watch What Happens Live. They said like, oh, they're going to have you as that bartender guy once. That's huge. And then it never happened?

It didn't happen. We'll see if it still happens. It's going to happen. We're putting it in the universe for you. 2024? Do you have to like, do people really own it?

I've seen Guy Branum do it and then Sam Morrison. Yeah. Sam Morrison? Not personally, but I'm a fan, yeah. Connie Marlowe. Oh, Sam. Yeah, of course I know Sam. Connie Marlowe did it for Titanic.

What'd they do? I didn't watch it, but they were up. Sam wore like a see-through shirt. Yeah. Was that? It doesn't matter. You could. You got to dress up.

You got to look dressy. But sometimes it's like, it used to be it was all just like hot shirt. Yeah. Was that? It doesn't matter. You could, you gotta dress up. You gotta look dressy. But sometimes it's like, it used to be, it was all just like hot shirtless guys and now sometimes they'll have like big fans of the show

who are like. Or you plug something. Sure. That's what it is now. It's like you kind of just go on and it's like, so now they have like drag queens

and funny people and like whatever. It used to be like only like hot models and it'll be like, this is the hottest. I get it. That it used to be hot. It used to be hot. And now they've would be like, this is the hottest guy. I get it, Tim. That it used to be hot.

It used to be hot. And now they've made you. It's very much not hot. Because they're not doing that anymore. All right. This is coming out on January 16th. What do you want to plug, Tim? I am going to be in Portland, Maine, Austin, Boston, and Las Vegas doing stand-up.

I'd love for you to come see me. Amazing. Russell, what do you to come see me. Amazing. Russell, what do you want to plug? Come see Gutenberg. You have 12 more days. Do you think you broke the box office record because of these plugs? Yeah, definitely. These completely lifeless plugs that you have at the end of the show.

And then follow me on Instagram, Russell J. Daniels. Oh, sorry. Yeah, follow me on TikTok and Instagram at tmurray06. And we'll put it all in the description of the show. I will be in Miami January 18th, Boca Raton January 19th and 20th, and then Naples, Florida January 21st.

Weekend after that, I'm at Tacoma Comedy Club 26th and 27th, and then Spokane January 28th. And again, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. You're the reason our studio Got all these pretty little things in the back And we are growing

And we appreciate your support But if you are in college for the arts Listen to me well If you can do anything else Fucking do it This is the downside One, two, three Downside

Downside You're listening to The Downside The Downside. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi.