The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #237 Sorta Scared Straight with LeClerc Andre

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Comedian LeClerc Andre shares the downsides of seeking an apology from your mother, doing church camp's version of scared straight, getting falsely accused of prank calling 911, and why you should never cut off semi-truck drivers. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon free for 7 days for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow LeClerc on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X See LeClerc in Chattanooga and Nashville in October https://www.thecomedycatch.com/shows/273013 https://www.comediandiscovery.com/event-details/lebanon-laughs-10-19 For everything else LeClerc, visit: https://beacons.ai/leclercandre Follow The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi on Instagram 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 Technical production by Chris Mueller Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I could never have a kid. I could never have a kid, LeClerc. A kid? Financially speaking. Wait, do you have a kid? I have never have a kid, LeClerc. A kid? Financially speaking. Wait, do you have a kid? I have two.

Two. Oh my God. Yeah. Nuts. Yeah, two. What happened between last night and today where you were talking about kids? Were they talking about kids last night? No, we had dinner. Remember we talked about...

Oh yeah, we talked about like big future. But like you, I feel like you went... Yeah. Last night I was like, I like kids. Yeah. What happened in the last 24 hours? You know, nothing. We'll pull my bank account and we'll look at all the people that I've hired ahead of

schedule. It's very hard. I didn't go to business school. Yeah. I didn't go to business school. You shouldn't be in charge of it. I know. I know, but you are.

You're the CEO. I'm the CEO, and I'm looking for a replacement, and no one wants to take the job. Yeah. I mean, I need a CEO. Do you want me to do it? I don't even know. I don't even know if you're...

Who's in your marriage? Oh, not me. No. It's Nicole? Yeah. Your marriage? Yes. It's my wife, for marriage. Oh, not me. No. It's Nicole. Yeah. Your marriage. Yes. It's my wife.

It's your wife. Yeah. She does everything. Yeah. Everything. She books, travel, hotels, everything. Merch. She does everything.

Oh yeah. Do you ever buy something and she goes, what the fuck is this? Absolutely. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. How, like a dinner or like a nice shirt? No, it's just stuff for myself.

If I spend things on us, she never has an issue with that. But she's like, I think you have enough jeans. I'm like, all right. I'm getting rid of jeans too. You know, it's not. Yeah. But you know, she has a, she has a criticism about everything, which is good. I don't think it's a bad thing.

You know, I think it's good to have a person who says, hey, what are you doing with that? But isn't that tough? Like, I guess I come from a not great family and i always thought like money have you heard of this before chris and i always felt like money i've always said it's just a poison so if someone's if if if if you're constantly if you're not able to like enjoy the the the fruits of your labor i just feel like a bitterness can't help but but build yeah and i don't know how it how it works i don't know i've never seen it function well i've seen it function poorly yeah and i've you know i've seen the comics of the women be shopping and oh my gave my wife a credit card oh my god my wife she goes to bloomingdale's wife a credit card. Oh my God. My wife, she goes to Bloomingdale's with a credit card. Yeah.

And I don't know. Do you find that you're in a good place? Do you get mad? Is that a source of fights? Finances? Yeah. Well, it's tricky because I prefer this over being single and dating. When you're single and dating, you have to put on, right? It's like, oh, can we get this? And it's like, yeah, I can afford this. Or you have to put on, right? It's like, Oh, can we get

this? And it's like, yeah, I can afford this. Or you have to pretend like you can afford everything like the dinners, the vacations and all that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. I would, you're paying for all the cabs, you're paying for the dinners. And then you're like, is it crazy? I was never, I was never, I didn't have, I didn't have the money that I have now. So it was like, I was like, what am I, you I? I was in debt doing it. It's a lot of financial posturing when you're dating. You want to put on like, I'm secure. I have money.

I have savings. So there's a lot of financial bravado that goes into that. But when you're married, it's like, oh, no, we're pouring out. We can't afford this. No, let's not do that. I don't think we collectively can afford this. So it's easier that way when you have that type of transparency. Yeah. Do you feel, do you ever go, do you ever see something you want and you go, got to check with the wife? Do you have that thought in your head? Got to check with the

wife. I don't think that, but I also don't buy things that would put a significant enough debt in our finances. So it's like, oh man, I should probably run this by her. But usually when I buy things, it's like a hundred bucks there, a hundred bucks there. It's not a big deal. Okay. Yeah. And you're getting cash from the seller.

So she doesn't even know that money existed in the first place. I could be super discreet. I could be super shady with all this like cash flow that I have. Yeah, there's no way. If I wanted to just hide purchases, I could easily do that. Yeah. How does that work? The seller just gives you cash? Every comedy club just gives you straight cash.

Well, some people are doing Venmo now, and Dots is a new thing that some people are doing. But yeah, cash is usually for the real, the regular. It's some fucking Venmo ripoff thing. But the cash, it's nice to have. And then you have a lot, and you go, you hit a point where you're like, I got to take this to the bank. I'm going to right yeah how much we're talking here uh well there's a story

i guess if mark norman had 10 10 grand and got robbed oh god but he didn't have it on his persons if i'm not mistaken he it was like his apartment got robbed his apartment got robbed yeah i believe that's what happened but yeah you don't have like a hot weekend and you have 10k in your pocket no that's not what no oh my god i was like wow got it well apparently that's how andrew dice clay gets paid he gets paid uh in 50 you know a lot of money yeah but it likes that cash yeah he's old school though yeah he doesn't pay his taxes i think this to the downside with john marco cerezi it's just stressful day it's just there was also like it was like something like last minute decision that i didn't know i had to make of like do i want to put this door to take this money or put it into retirement and i i just

or whatever like something that in 30 years I'd access or whatever. And I just, there's a part of me that goes, I'm not making it. I'm not making it to that age. Give it to me now. Alive? Alive. Oh, wow.

I mean, like there's so many ways that I could die. Right. So many, especially right now, there's so many ways the country could fall apart. I don't have this like overall faith in the longevity of the world. And so I just go, I don't know, I hear the number 59 or 63 or 65 and I go, probably dead.

So I've had a retirement like fund for like nine years, almost 10 years now. And when I look at that, I think what I've years almost 10 years now and when i look at that i think what i've acquired in 10 years what's gonna happen like there's no way i guess i'm gonna live for three months after i retire do you know what i mean like yeah when you look at like how it's accruing and you're like you're gonna be trying to spend it so hard you're like oh that's a nice amount of money but then when you think about living you're like oh i've that's all i've done in 10 years that's all i've gotten short in 10 years well how am i gonna build more like it's not gonna be a lot of time for me to like

retire and then just die you know i mean like to live off of it what age do you think you're gonna die i don't know i don't want to talk about that what the fuck that's what the guest should be saying not my co-host my co-host is that i get on board um i i don't know to talk about that. What the fuck? That's what the guest should be saying. Not my co-host. My co-host is not get on board. I don't know. When I'm feeling pessimistic, I go, I guess I base it off my dad. He's still alive. I think he's 71 now. But I push it.

My life, the travel, the sleepless nights. When I'm feeling cynical, I go 68 and it's, it's 68. It's, and I jump. You want to, you want to get to 69.

Wow. And then when I'm feeling optimistic, I go, I go, I'm a healthy boy. I'm going to have to get a heart surgery at some point. Yeah. 93.

93. If I'm feeling optimistic. Wow. You're going to be old. Yeah? I can see. Yeah, you can see. We're old like in the bad way, like my dad.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. The last 15 years of your life are really depressing. Like really old, man. When you think about with your kids, I feel like if you have kids, do you feel like you think about your life in a bigger picture way, like in terms of how long you'll be in their life? Yeah, for sure. Kids make you look down the road.

Before I had kids, I was like, you know, I'm okay. Whenever I go, I'm happy to go. Really? That's chill. But now that I have kids, I think about where they're going to be in 16 years because I want to be able to play ball with my kids. I want to be able to run around with them. So that's how I look into my future. It's also more of a quality of life thing. I don't

want to have, I don't want to be old and living a poor quality of life. If I'm healthy and feeling vibrant at 70 or 80 or whatever, that's one thing. But if I feel like shit at 67, all right, let's cut the, you know, let's stop playing around. Sure. I mean, who knows? We'll probably have legalized euthanasia by then.

Yeah, probably. I was in Canada and they have, it's called MADE, Medically Assisted something, something. Can we look it up? Assisted. Medically Assisted. But it is a big debate. It is, yeah.

It's a big, because sometimes younger people want it. Medical Assisted Death, everyone. Sure. No, no, the MADE spelled M-A-I-D. I was like, what are you talking about, you idiot? Nobody's big. It's like it's controversial. Sometimes it's like a younger person and the parents say Medical assistance in dying is what it's called.

Medical assistance in dying. It felt like they really gave up on the end. It was like medical assistance in dying. In maid. It sounds good up on the end. It was like medical assistance in dying. In made. It sounds good with made. How do they do it? I assume it's an injection. It's amazing the first time.

Isn't there those pods somewhere? That's like in Sweden or some shit. That's what the retirement's for. It's so you can die in the nicest pod. Go on our pod. That's the cheapest pod. The downside pod. They either inject you with a substance that causes death or they let you do it. They let you inject.

Oh, they let you inject? I would not. What about a podcast co-host? Oh, I wouldn't want to inject. That would be too stressful to have to like put someone down, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Imagine it's tough. I'm just saying, don't ask. If I did it, if I said, Russell, Russell, mean the world to me, if you were the one who did it. Yeah. Would you do it? No. My dying wish? I guess so. I guess if it's your dying wish guess why would you want to put that on him yeah

that's i would say i want to be a random nurse i would say if i'm going to do it can i do it like like not the slit your throat like you want to slit my throat can i have the experience of like okay killing someone if you if you were to do it, would you prefer slip my throat? No, no, no, no. I don't want to, I don't want to push. No, I don't want to push. No, I don't want to do any of it. I think, I think most thing I'd want to do is close the garage door on you, you know,

like in the car, in the car, like you're sitting in the car and the car's on. And then you still get to watch me wave by. Yeah. How low would you get to say the final wave? Would you like it on your knees? No, I was picturing me from the house, like looking at you. Oh, you're pressing a button through a window. No, no, no.

I'm like, you know, like how garage doors are right by the door of the thing. And you're in the car. And so I'm like, bye. And then I close the door and that's it you know go to lunch yeah welcome to the downside this is a place where we as you can tell we get negative we complain it's nice to distract from the the darker things though that was kind of the darkest so uh listen if you're a fan we have a lot of viewers and i want you to do something for me real quick just go on your spotify subscribe to it

you never have to listen to it you can keep watching it but but but apparently the advertisers they don't give a shit about views yet they haven't caught on so just subscribe on spotify it downloads automatically it's using your wi-fi it's no cost to you and then one day we could get erectile dysfunction money um we're we're here with a phenomenal comedian leclerc andre welcome thank you for the show yeah um i i i i i uh we did a rough festival together oh yeah we did a rough festival together in grand rapids 2022 yes 2022 and it was was like, we can talk about it. We can be honest. Gilda's Laugh Fest.

Raises money for a good thing named after Gilda Radner. SNL, right? Yeah. And- All clean. All clean. Oh, all clean comedy. Yeah.

All clean comedy. Was she a clean comic? No. She wasn't a comic either. She was a sketch. She was a sketch, but yeah. Yeah. No.

But comedian comedian you know no i think it's just like it's a charity okay and it's it's a a lady and so they think it'll be it doesn't make sense no um and we were going to record audio for something and at first it was like going to be eight shows and then we got there they're like yeah it's just going to be four we're like whoa that's a big difference yeah and then all the shows were poorly attended except for the we thought they were gonna tape all of them we'd get the best of the all the tapes and turned it was just like one show that was packed right and god bless you better get it that time yeah okay that was a rough one that was a real switcheroo it was uh and it wasn't none of it was easy. The slow shows were hard.

Even the busy shows, they weren't hot, great audiences. You're still doing modified versions of your material and kind of a crowd that's a bit older, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm not being... No, they were older. Yeah, they were old. They were your age. There was no diversity.

It was just like... Well, Grand Rapids is very white when I think of it. How would you know that? I know three people well, Grand Rapids is very white. I think of it. I think of how would you know that? I know three people from there and they're all very white. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And like when they would tell stories, you'd be like, that's they had a very white kind of like and I did too, but like the way

there's just something about it that seems more white. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What were you about to say? it feels like you're holding something no i mean it's just i i don't know i didn't have much going into it from an expectation standpoint but the theater i have to admit the theater i like the space it was it was nice uh the the people who are working at the festival were also really nice people it's just that you know when you do these things you commit for this time you just hope that the shows are quality because that's what you're really the pay isn't

like phenomenal or anything like that you just hope that it's a good crowd you make a good connection but when it falls short of that it's like am i wasting my time what am i doing yeah but we got some good like we were there for a long time we got to hang we did there was it was a good it was a good lineup of people i think we all along. I don't remember most people's names, but they were all great. They were all fine. No, really. They were all fine. I felt like you find your people.

Anytime you go into a new space, you find your people. I got to know John Markle on that weekend. It was really fun. I had a good time. Yeah. You grew up in Maryland. I did. Now where in Maryland?

Columbia, Maryland. Columbia. And I grew up in Potomac, Maryland. Terrible. Boring. Awful. How far away is Columbia from that? I don't know Potomac that well.

Bethesda? It's close to Bethesda. Yeah, it's about an hour or so. Okay. Yeah, my brother lives in Bethesda. Oh, yeah? Yeah. What does he do there?

I think he's in sales. Yeah? Yeah. Close? Close enough. Tell me about Columbia. Did you like it? Did you dig it?

Columbia was okay. You know, it's a very insulated town community. I don't know if you know much about Columbia, but it's one of the first like deliberate, like it was made. It wasn't a town. A lot of places, towns are made because of like industry or whatever, but it was one of the first like government-made towns where it's like

it's going it's going to be diverse because we're going to make it diverse uh we're going to build schools they're going to be the best schools and it just that's kind of the community that i grew up in so it was one of the best public school systems in america to this day still one of the best public schools yeah uh and i never really dealt with like much, like, you know, friction from like a race, you know, a lot of places, especially all across America is like, if you're black, you're, you're very aware that you're black. Uh, Columbia was a bit different. Whereas like, yeah, there were, there were, there's diversity, but there wasn't much talk or even reference to race for a lot of my life growing up. So then how was it when you left Columbia?

Did you go, oh my God, I didn't know how good I had it? Yeah. I mean, I was lucky enough to, I went to a lot of these programs that were like sponsored by the church where you did like summer schools and it was like an all black summer school. So we would learn about black history. We would do all that. Was it billed as such or was it just assumed based on the flyers no it was billed as such yeah yeah absolutely it was billed as such they were i mean it was it was one of the most enlightening experiences as a young person just being around a completely black community and

just learning about black history because a lot of stuff just wasn't being taught in school. Like they talk about slavery, but it's like, Hey, this happened for like a couple of days. And then, you know, it was better.

We got over it, but that was one of the, that's the place where I went to the black blacks and wax museum. We talked about it on this podcast. I saw you that the night before at the cellar and I talked about going to that museum and just how good it was. Just how, just like, yeah uh just how good it was just how just like yeah for for those it was the rachel costar episode you were on it right yeah we just

talked about like i think the part that stuck out the i mean it all stuck out the whole thing stuck out but but there's a section where you go downstairs and there's like uh and it's it's not like a it's not that fancy like it was like there was a piece of paper and like a plastic thing that said uh minor should be accompanied by an adult right and i was always i was what i remember is like i was going down the stairs and like a very young black girl four or five like just ran down and then her dad followed her but i was just like i was like i heard her talking to her dad around the corner yeah and there was a a wax figure of um uh a pregnant black woman who had been you know lynched and like the the i mean sorry this graphic the baby like her stomach was

cut open or whatever or like a man and his dick was cut off and his jeans were down. And I'm just like listening kind of this dad, very without even the little thing that I've added to it now just tell her exactly what it was. And I thought, God damn, that's, is that what they taught at these camps where you like learned about the real black history or like do they go like hey we're gonna tell the harsh shit in a way that you're not gonna get at a public school yeah because i think without that you become very um and this isn't just for black kids i think that most americans are very uh they're just very ignorant

to the realities of our history. Like we hear about it, we learn about it, but there isn't the imagery. There isn't the stories. There isn't the experience to really, you know, make it real. So in those programs, like when I went to the Blacks and Blacks museums, you hear about lynchings, but you don't have a really, you don't have an idea of what that experience looks like. And then that was my first time actually seeing a photo, like a photograph of what a lynching was. And it was

just a man in the tree and they, they cut off his parts, his ears, his nose, his privates, his fingers, they auctioned them off. And it was very much an experience where like you would bring your family and this person will be hanging in the tree for hours, sometimes days, and people will be barbecuing. They were talking. It's just very much like pictures are smiling. It's just like, it's a back backdrop. And in the museum, you actually see jars where they have preserves of people's parts. They, they, they just save them and people will collect them all throughout the South. And it was just an experience that, you know, if you, if you read about lynching through public schools, you don't really come away with that. You don't really come away with that.

Oh, this is a really terrible practice that happened in America for generations, for a long time. You really just come away with it. Like, yeah, a couple of people did it a little bit. I think the clan did it mostly, but no, this is a couple of specific stories. right right like yeah right yeah but it was it's a crazy crazy that's where the i think that's what the term picnic comes from you know what someone corrected they said that that's actually not where it comes from oh okay yeah but i but i said the same i said it on the last podcast it's like actually this one thing yeah i heard that i'm sure but but um yeah and i guess i the excuse, the excuse would be just like, what age do you tell your children about the realities of the world? I think, I think when I, this is another thing, if I had kids, it's like, Oh, there's just so many questions that I'd have to, part of me is like, I wouldn't teach history until I was ready to teach history. Right. And if I were to delay that point, that's fine.

But I guess I look back, I'm like, what is the point of teaching a fairytale version of any of this? Yeah, right. What is the point of teaching a version where the founding fathers are just kind of like smart entrepreneurs and the queen is greedy or the England is, the king is greedy? Like, you know, the England is the king is greedy.

Like what's the point of doing that? And then later showing them that's wrong. It doesn't seem to make sense. I think the question is who does it serve? Right. I think when you're talking about teaching as a teacher, right. But I think that there's a lot of guilt that goes into that conversation. So the more you delay it, the more time it gives you to process that guilt that you have with it. So, but why I never understood. I've always been partly, I've always been, I've never like thought about my heritage in a really deep way. I don't really give a shit. And I think that's because I just come from a distant family and I wasn't raised.

I don't know my grandfather.. And I think that's because I just come from a distant family and I wasn't raised. I don't know my grandfather. I never met my dad's dad. Yeah. And I guess sometimes the concept of guilt, I never felt like a direct guilt. I look at the past and I go, thank God I wasn't there. Likewise. But I don't feel like, I have no idea how my grandparents got to the point that i wound up in potomac maryland or all these steps and i don't necessarily feel yeah the bad

the like but i accept what it is i mean do you know like the you're like the white people that like are quick to like want to defend something and you're like why what is your attachment to that you need your great-grandfather who's been a good person for i don't need that yeah i don't i don't know him i don't live in a culture where i pay respects to him or need to like synthesize it i'm fine just accepting the realities of the consequences of dead people's actions i don't know what he looks like you know i don't even have pictures you know i had one picture of him with mussolini oh yeah my great grandpa luigi so i know he's bad yeah there's no way he's good yeah but i don't feel i don't feel i don't go well mussolini at the time it was so she could i don't give a shit he sucked yeah but you're also at an age where you feel a

bit detached i think the issue with the generation before us is that in their lives, it really wasn't that long ago. It really wasn't that long ago. There are people who are alive today who remember lynchings. There are kids at those lynchings. It wasn't that long ago. So this idea is like, yeah, just tell them the truth. It's is like yeah just tell them the truth it's like if you tell them the truth if you show them those pictures you might recognize people in those pictures who are alive today that's the issue there was a guy who looked a lot like you in one of them yeah 101 years old no i mean your grandparents not you that wasn't implying that you were there. That's how awful. Like the lady who got Emmett Till lynched, she's alive today. She's alive. She's still alive.

She's still thriving. Is she thriving? I mean, she's alive. She's doing better than Emmett. You got to hope that sometimes people are mean to her. You would hope. I think it's always weird when you see, especially with Nazis,

where they'll find some old Nazi. And he's in court and he's got the folder over his face, but he's wearing an old man's sweater. I don't know what you do. I don't know what you do. When someone's so old, you feel like you could kill them with a push. I don't know whether you go, well, time will do this.

Nah, I don't know. I think you're better known. Yeah, I don't trust karma you go, well, time will do this. No, I don't know. I think you better know. Yeah, I don't trust karma. Karma is too slow. If you show me a 100-year-old Nazi and I'm in a room alone with him and he's like, I'm just going to go, you're dead. You're going to die. What, am I going to punch him?

So it's pity is what you're talking about. You feel pity because they're old. Is that what you're talking about? Let me think. Do I feel... Or is it just your detachment of like, I don't... No, no, no. It's not detachment like what you did, whatever.

Yeah. I just go... I think in my mind I go, I just go, I think in my mind I go, every atom of you is a different thing than whatever you were 70, what is it now? 80, 70 years ago. Sure. You are, the terrible thing that you did

fucking happened and fucking destroyed people's lives and nothing is to be gained in this moment other than you suffering and feeling a pain and just the creation of pain inside your body. And that doesn't do anything other than what the sense of retro, the sense of justice. I don't, I don't, I don't believe in the, in a universal deep sense of justice. The universe is don't i don't believe in the in a universal

deep sense of justice the universe is deeply unjust so i don't think it's like i don't think i'm doing anything the only other argument would be if you know if we fucking put you in jail does that discourage the next nazi person at 20 to be like oh i don't want to deal with that one i'm 80 navy probably not though i don't know if punishment has ever seemed to be a deterrent for any kind of human behavior. So I don't know. Hmm. You punched that Nazi in the face? I mean, yeah.

Yeah? Why not? I say that because I think most of us, when we see older people, we work on the presumption that people get better with age. But some people don't. Some people just become terrible people. They get better at hiding their crimes. They get better at getting, but some people don't. Some people just become terrible people. They get

better at hiding their crimes. They get better at getting away with things. And they just end up passing on those type of practices to their kids. They whisper stuff like, yeah, as long as you don't tell people, you know, it just becomes this thing where it's like, you let people get away with it long enough. They don't, they don't become better people they just be get get better at being slick nasty deceitful people so i this idea that like oh they got away with it well so much time has passed it's like but that's that's you're still a murderer or you're still you're still a rapist or whatever it is i this idea of like a statute of limitations is crazy to me but i guess that's that's how where history becomes so hard because I feel like if one were to fully teach the horrors of what like slavery was or anything in history was really.

Right. And any you you just would have to remove what is so deeply not just America, but every country, the sense of like you need to feel proud or good of how we got to where we are today. Because how if you really accept and look at look and take it in fully, especially at a young age, how could you talk about any president that owned slave without without full disgust without full just revulsion and and i think like all all countries teach some version of history that serves the kind of this idea of national pride and i'm not going to serve in a war for my country so yeah i'm not an ideal candidate right that's why i'm like yeah fuck the founding fathers i don't give a shit yeah yeah but maybe to have an army you do need to have people who think they come from some noble i don't give a shit yeah yeah but maybe to have an army you do need to have people who think they come from some noble i don't know i struggle with like when people talk about like being a patriot and being proud like i just want to question like what exactly is it that you're

proud of when people talk about the founding fathers like yeah i can understand like having an admiration and respect for the country that we live in today. But also, like, just be honest about how we got here. I don't see anything wrong with saying, hey, this is America. You know, it's great because of the freedoms that we have. This is what we had to do to do it. This is what we had to do, you know, to make sure that we can live the life that we live. I think there's nothing wrong with talking

about how the juice was made at all. I don't see anything wrong with it. And I think that when you have that type of transparency, it only makes people more appreciative. I think there'd be so much more patriotism from black Americans, especially in this country and Indians and people who have suffered the most in this country, if this country would honor the history and say, hey, this is what happened. We are not proud of it. This is what we're trying to do to make things better. We are never going to do it again. But that's not the attitude that Americans have.

A lot of Americans are like, yeah, it happened. But, you know, it was it was decades ago. It was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It's like, come on, man, just just be honest. I think if that if that type of transparency existed, I think more people would be happy and more patriotic in America. Those camps that you would go to,

were they, I mean, was it this, was they fun camps too? Or were they just like summer camp? Let's learn about the realities of America. Nah, they were gnarly, man. They were really fun. We would play sports. We would go to a bunch of like black historical places and more than anything we would build community it was one of the few places where

you could just be around like your homies and have so much similarities and history and just just go through experience and also it wasn't like one school that was doing it all the schools in columbia were doing it so like i would know kids from other high schools because of this program. That's nice. That was really cool. When you're playing basketball, I was like, oh, I know that dude on the other team is because we went to this program together.

So it was really dope. So you have an older brother? And a younger brother. And a younger brother. Middle child. Middle child. And your parents, do they stay together? My parents, yes.

They married, but my father passed when I was really young. Really? How young? I think I was maybe two. Oh, God. Two or three. I was really, really young. So do you have any memories at all?

No memories. Only a few pictures. Maybe two or three pictures like that. No videos? No, I don't think videos exist. No, no videos or anything like that. Yeah. How do you, do you, do you think about, did you try to like, like create him in your mind?

I didn't have to work too hard to kind of build, you know, this avatar in my head of who my father was. I know that every time we had family functions, people would love coming up to myself and my brothers and just telling us stories about him. He was such a cool guy. He was revered and people just loved him so much. So I learned so much about him through families and family and friends. Not my mom. My mom never talked about my dad. Really?

Absolutely. No, she never talked about him. Just makes her too emotional? Too sad? No, she just wasn't a person. She just didn't have a lot of language when it comes to anything family. She just didn't talk a lot. She was a very quiet person.

She didn't have a lot of words for anybody. Even with us, if I asked her a question, you would get slapped for asking questions. Oh, really? Yeah, she just wasn't very communicative. What kind of slap? We're talking about an open palm a back uh depends how hard work was but but no she just wasn't she just didn't and even when she did speak about him it was never like uh this great guy she was just like yeah it was he was how much older is your brother my older brother three years older so he doesn't have much, I mean, he has some memories.

No memories of him. No memories. No memories of him, yeah. Wow. And then so your little brother, so your dad died like right after he was born? Yeah. If you're hearing this song, it means we cut something out. Probably Russell being racist.

Shh. What'd your mom do? She works in schools. So she worked in education almost my entire life. That's exhausting. Shh. What'd your mom do? She works in schools. So she worked in education almost my entire life. Yeah. And it was tough, but also, like, I can speak on this as a dad now. Being a parent is really, really, of course, is really difficult.

And I'm saying that as a person who has a partner. My wife and I, we both work really, really hard to provide for our kids. She was raising three boys solo dolo. Yeah. And she was just way out of her depth. She was trying her best. She was overwhelmed. She was overstimulated and we did not make it easy on her. So yeah, I get why she was so short. I get why she was so temperamental. I understand how frustrating it was, but I remember she would always say this thing. She was like, this was never the plan like when she was having three kids she never imagined she'd have to raise all three of them by herself yeah she never imagined having to work two jobs for 20 years by herself you know so i i get all that frustration it makes me so much more sympathetic towards her was she so she was like

physical like oh yeah yeah that was her you know she didn't like resort to violence it was like physical? Oh, yeah. Yeah? That was her. You know, she didn't like resort to violence. It was like her first option. It was like, damn. Her go-to was like. Yeah. Plan A is slap the shit out of you. Was it just. Plan B is reveal deep, deep family dramas.

Yeah. Those are the two options. Yeah, absolutely, man. But that was always her first option. I don't remember many conversations, if I'm being honest about with my mom, when it came to discipline, she just never used language. She never communicated. She was just like, Oh, if you mess up, I'm going to tell you to do something. If you don't do it, you're just going to get hurt. So that was always her method, which is tricky because when you're raising three boys, I'm six foot six, 200.

Like I'm a I'm a big guy. So the window in which you can physically discipline three boys should be short. But it wasn't for her. Yeah. Like she really tried to stretch it. At one point, I'm towering over her and she's just looking for skillets. I'm like, Mom, the jig is up. It's over. Please stop doing please stop i got it right here yeah she's like please this is this it's over stop it um i know

did you said skillets as a joke though did it get that oh no oh no bonk on the head i mean she would she would try to get it in of course i'm not sitting there like up i gotta get it with this skill i'm not a cartoon you know but i get those legs going man i would just run and run but she would like it was the thing where she was just whatever she can find you know so was it ever too far was it ever like jesus christ i mean when you're a kid it's always too far yeah when you're on the receiving end of of corporal punishment it always feels extreme especially when like you can reason with the person that's the reason we don't hit dogs it's like yeah you don't hit them because they they don't know what they're doing yeah if you could talk to them you would do that that would always be the first option and if you hit them and you

can talk to them it's like well what's the what are you even doing do you even care about this person if dogs could talk and they were being shitty about it then you could hit him i think that's because so my my dad i think was like it probably hit i don't know any my dad's dad i think like monster at least you know what i gather but then he all screwed up in catholic school and there was nuns and rulers and whatnot my stepdad what he would do and not with me because my dad would have killed him but with my sisters he would go he would go present your hand and then he'd go and i don't even know did that hurt no i mean it wasn't great try again oh no no but but like it was i'd have to ask my sisters i'm sure it stung But it was more about The shame of the ritual Yeah

Than the pain Oh no But I remember When I was in I swear I have this memory correct But I was at my friend His name's Nathaniel And

I was at his house And His dad I was so young But I swear I remember it Where his dad said to him Nathaniel did you wash behind your ears? And Nathaniel said, no, and I'm not gonna.

And his dad who had a cane, leaned on his cane and kicked him under the jaw. And I was, I swear I remember this. And I was sleeping over there and I was shocked. I had never witnessed anything close to this. And I want to ask him to this day, became i mean he got he was huge became a football player at some point but man did that shock me wow and i don't you have kids now i have kids now uh it's so easy for a non-parent to weigh in on anything on this right honestly what what do you have a conversation with yourself

or your wife about like what discipline looks like yeah well my wife got spankings when she was a kid um and but i say spankings it's people use that language interchangeably with like people don't call spankings abuse and whatever but i just look at any physical contact i just kind of group it all in spanking like come over here my knee. Is that a spanking? That's what people call spankings, or maybe with a belt or whatever. But I just don't think it's necessary to put your hands on kids. I feel like as a parent, your job is very, very simple. It's to protect your kids. And I think it's really difficult to be seen as a protector if you're also an abuser. So just wear one hat. You know, if you want to raise your kids,

protect them, and be a person that they feel safe coming to, then just be a protector. Be a safe space for them. Be a person that you know they can trust you. So my wife and I, before we had kids, she got spankings when she was a kid, but her relationship with that type of discipline is very different than mine.

She doesn't look back at it like, oh, it was so terrible. I could never go through that. I would never put my kids through that. She just has a different relationship with it. So with her, I had to talk her. I had to bring her over to my side. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Of like, hey, let's just not do this at all. Studies show it doesn't help. Also, I have a bit of trauma associated with it. So let's not do this. Sure, sure. Did you and your brothers, did you ever have a chance to talk to them about what you grew up with?

No, not so much. I think that we experienced so much of it together that what's understood doesn't need to be spoken. Were you bonded though by it? Were you ever in your room together? You talked with each other? You're like, oh my God, mom's fucking pissed today. fucking pissed today yeah i'm sure yeah tons of that you know found the skillet we're all sometimes we get beat together for things that one of us did oh god i'm so mad

at that she's lined up one slap all three no no i remember one one time vividly uh somebody called the police i don't know i at the time i had no idea who did it but one of us called the police. I don't know. At the time, I had no idea who did it, but one of us called the police. On your mom, I assume. No, just to dial 911. We were that young. I think I did that once. I had a friend do it once.

School's always like, if there's an emergency, make sure. I just wanted to call. Somebody wanted to call 911. It wasn't just my brothers and I this time, though. My cousin was also visiting. So we were all lined up. They call back. They're like, hey, we got a call.

Is everything OK? And my mom's like, what are you talking about? And they're like, we got a call. And I won't call from you guys. And she's like, there's no emergency. It's fine. She lines us all up. She's like, who did it?

And I'm like, I truly, I was like, I don't know. I don't even know what you're talking about. She was like, who did it? No one confessed. She beat the brakes off of all four of us. And then we all go upstairs. We're all crying together. And now I'm like, who did it?

Like, I'm mad now too. I'm like, which one of y'all did it? And no one confessed years later by the way i thought my cousin did it i was like this i noticed i know this fool did it yeah yeah he's visiting yeah he got his little skin in the game he did it yeah he didn't think she would possibly hit him too yeah years later my little brother was like i did it oh my god piece of shit he's always been a lying piece of shit Oh my god The youngest child man

Forget about him What a waste man Did you and your brother ever get in trouble? Not like that We would fight It would usually start off as fun Did your parents do time out? Yeah you know

Go to your room go to your room that kind of thing yeah just can't leave your room your room is fine once in a while my stepdad he'd go like he'd go like sit like sit over there and stare at the wall tv basically meditation it's kind of funny you look back and you're like you could have used that time to really yeah get in touch with yourself yeah no tv no tv you know whoa. I didn't really ever. Yeah. I never had like a grounding. I was never grounded. Do you know what I mean? Sure.

Yeah. I think only once. And I don't like, yeah. Oh my God. Do you ever talk to your parents about like the way you were disciplined as kids? I was so, I was so not disciplined that I think I, if I ever had kids, I don't think I'd hit. But I think like, I just feel like there was a real aloofness

and not really caring. And I always, I got the things done. I got homework done. And I look back and I wish there had been a little more involvement. And I think it would have taken some of the metaphorical lumps to get that i'm not saying i'm not saying i don't go like damn this sounds fun yeah but i'm saying like they my mom

once later in life way later in life my mom like got mad at me and like spanked me and i was standing yeah and we both just burst into laughter no way it was so it was so pathetic and it was like way too late yeah it was like wait i'm like i'm a foot taller than you now that doesn't hurt yeah yeah yeah i it's been interesting seeing my mom and dad uh especially my mom in in terms of having grandkids and being like with eyes seeing how they just like because they have the grandkids a lot because of my brother and sister-in-law work and you know so they would like have the kids at their house like you know so um and being like oh my mom's really good at like at like working i mean she was a first grade teacher her entire career but watching her like

discipline and like manage kids it's like it really is like wow she's very good at it in terms of like it never feels like it's like you're getting screamed at or that kind of thing, but there's a seriousness to it, but she's just very good at it. And I was, I was like being able to see that. I was like, Oh, I think she was really good at it. You know, I never felt like I was, I, you know, I remember the feeling of getting in trouble, but I never felt like it was like, like, you know, a scary kind of like thing. But I remember feeling serious and being sure.

I would do. I know if I've ever had a kid, I'd be the kind of parent I'd go. I want to do a lot of research. Like, cause I feel like if you were, let's say if you could become a dog trainer, you'd, you'd, you'd take a class or read a book. And I know I'd buy a bunch of books and I wouldn't read any of them. And I would get like three pages into each and then just wing it.

But I'm always like, there must be, there's so many things that you could look up. Yeah. I mean, I think about, I think about food stuff because I think I'm like, you know, a healthy eater. But I do not know how I would, with a kid, apply that in any way that would not be problematic. I don't think I would even know how to, so like eating, I would feel like I would need to look it up. Discipline, I would need to look it up. Did you do research? Was there anything that you were like, like before you had a kid, was there a book? Is there a popular book right now? Yeah, I read the books. Before my wife and

I had kids, I think I read maybe two or three books about being a dad being an expecting father but it wasn't these books are not like in that they're just like really easy short reads a lot of it's about just you know giving grace and being patient a lot of it is also about your relationship with your wife and how that changes when kids get involved as well oh my god what were the, there were a lot of it was like, Hey, she's going to be moody. She's going to be impatient.

Hey, you're reading it. You're like, Hey man, like what? Oh my God. I read this one book and it was like, Hey,

sometimes she might forget to brush her teeth. Be nice. Or like, Oh, sometimes. Yeah. A lot of stuff like that. Like,

Hey, she's going to be working hard because she's breastfeeding and all these things. What do you think her books say about you? Don't murder your husband. But I read a lot of books about it. And I also went to therapy before having kids just because I wanted to make sure I was in a good space. And I tried to repair a lot of my relationship with my mom before I had kids and stuff. But, you know, it all helps, I think.

Did you? Is it all, your mom knows your kids? So what I did was I called, I called my mom and I tried to like, you know, in therapy, you know, you want to be generous. You want to be kind. You want to try to put yourself in their position. My mom had a hard go at it. You know, she's an immigrant.

She had to raise three boys. Where'd she immigrate from? Haiti. My family's from Haiti. So she had a hard go at it. She's an immigrant. She had to raise three boys. Where'd she immigrate from? Haiti. My family's from Haiti. So she had a hard go at it. And I tried to imagine what it would be like to be her in that position. And I know it's difficult. And I just remember calling her and asking.

I'm like, yeah, mom, I know that you spanked us a lot. But it's because of the way you were spanked when you were a kid. What was that about? And she goes, oh, I was never spanked. And I just that's all that's all me baby i just remember that was a mom original i came up with that one they use the pants for cooking oh that's so funny just assume like yeah i assume that you must have got your ass whooped the way you whooped my ass she's like oh no i never my mom would never touch me and i just remember hearing that and just like crying blood just like what the hell is going on just being mortified but yeah she was just like and she was

also very like uh indignant about the entire conversation she was just like really uh prideful and when i when i was like well why'd you hit us so much? And she was just like, Oh, I never hit you. Oh man. Oh man. I was like, I was like, excuse me. She was like, I never hit you. I'm sorry. She was like, I hit your brother here and there, you know, but I didn't really hit you that much. And I was just like, this can't even be a real conversation. If you're going to gaslight this hard, mom. Did you, did you push back? Yeah. She, at one point she goes, well, maybe you need to talk to somebody. And that's how she kind of like... Mom, that's how I got this conversation the first place. Talk to someone.

Yeah. And she just kind of like dismissed it. She was like, I think you need to talk to someone. And that's how she kind of just left it. That's tough. Did you go, of course, of course. What was I hoping that there was going to be a... I don't know what I was hoping.

If I'm being completely honest, I don't know what I was hoping for. I was hoping for the best. I was like, maybe she can take a little bit of ownership, maybe a little bit of accountability. But I just don't think she was in the space to really have that conversation. So I just had to take it for what it was and give her the space that she needed. But it was tough. It was tough hearing that.

Wow. Yeah. for what it was and you know give her the space that she needed but it was tough it was tough hearing that that's wow yeah yeah it makes sense it makes sense that you know as as you said earlier with the nazis people don't get older and become better no no they just find better ways of coping with what they've done yeah yeah and i feel like there's could be a very real thing in sometimes like a shame of like just fully convincing yourself that you didn't you know like that being like oh i wish i hadn't and like and then that just turns into the story in your head is that you didn't you know what i mean but she was a way of coping she was talking to me like i was wearing a wire though she was like oh my god she's like abuse i've never heard of abuse i'm'm like, mom. I have two witnesses, my brothers.

She's like, give me a hug real quick. First time you ever hugged me, mom. She's like, yeah, let me check for that one. Take off your shirt, my dad. Get in clothes, my boy. I'm like, mom, I'm not trying to get you indicted over here. My dad, he goes, he always, he'll like, he doesn't take accountability for the thing that actually mattered. He's always like, I know you were hurt that I gave more attention to your sister.

And I'm like, that's not what it is. That's not what it is. It's not her. He always goes like, I know your sister took it. And so it never feels, I don't know, you're never going to get the thing you want. Yeah. I think it's possible. I know that even if you got it, I don't know if're never gonna get the thing you want yeah I think it's possible I know that like but even if you got it I don't know if it would satisfy you anyway if I'm being honest no I agree

yeah do you so your mom's met your kids no never even never has never called has never like nothing at nothing at all she's very much like a very prideful stubborn like she just don't at all she's very much like a very prideful stubborn like she just don't she says that's wild yeah no it's it's a it's a bed that she's made how old are your kids one and two she's in maryland she's in maryland fucking a i know do your do your brothers have kids my yes my older brother has two kids and does she have any kind of relationship with his kids yeah she does um it's a it's a it's a work in progress um she had a progress. She kicked my older brother out of the house when he was like 16 or 17. Why? Oh, I mean, he was crazy. He got his ears pierced.

He was the one she was hitting. If you get your ears pierced, you got to be homeless as a teenager. So he was just a wild. It's crazy because at the time when it was happening, of course, I'm under her house. I'm playing by her rules. So he was doing these things that she was always talking about. I'm like, he was so bad because he grew his hair out. He got braids. He got earrings.

And she was like, oh, my God, he's going to prison. You would have thought that he was doing drugs and in a gang, but he just wasn't fitting the mold of who she wanted her children to be and that was enough she was like you got to get out if you're gonna get your ears pierced you got to get out you remember the day where did your brother say bye to you he didn't have to say bye he was just i just remember him packing up like two book bags and just leaving and and oh my god and he had to finish high school like staying at a friend's house it was kind of crazy man yeah uh did your mom i had in my notes did your mom make you do the scared straight yeah no she didn't make me do this it wasn't her idea

necessarily so the church that we went to uh the same church that put us in the summer camp also had this program where they were sending kids to prison to skip you know the scared straight program is is it known as the scared straight program is that like a particular tv show i'm always confused so the scared straight the scared straight television show is what popularized the program so they never called the program itself scared straight it was just like hey we take kids to prison yeah i always know that it is the prison thing to scare kids not to go to prison but every time i hear scared straight i think of it as conversion therapy like scared straight do you know what i mean like like i

always think of it that way and then i'm like oh no no it's the prison one but anyways that's how you know it wasn't made by like a good marketing team because they would have been like I don't think this is on brand for exactly what we're trying to do here you know but because I guess I never saw the TV show it just it was such a common punchline

because it's hilarious in theory we have like talk shows more and stuff like the kids would come on they'd be like i don't fucking care they'd come out and they'd be really and then they're like well guess what you're gonna care and then a drill sergeant would come out and like start oh sure you know and then they find out that they're all being taken to to a camp but like the the camp the the actual program itself wasn't as salacious or as like kind of like

or was it like a real like hey this is just a is just a, we're going to go here for the day to the prison. Well, what I learned is that there's levels to, to that program. So the ones that you see on TV, the scare straight television show, you see are the most extreme cases where they have kids who are like dabbling in gangs and kids who are already violent. They're hitting their parents. They're selling drugs. They're doing all that stuff. So they take those most extreme cases and take them to the most extreme prisons. So they have an experience that is more in line with what their actual trajectory is going to be if they keep going down that path. But for us, we were living in Columbia, Maryland, and they were just taking the black kids who were in this church program.

And they were like, hey, we take them to prison because a lot of black people are going to prison. Let's make sure that they don't go to prison. So they would take us there and they would just have like these inmates talk to us. So it was more like a prison seminar. Less of like a getting your face yelling, put on a jumpsuit, all that jazz. Did they say like, did they say, I'm in here because of this? Like what was it for them? Were they, were they, oh, the kids are coming by today.

I'm going to like, were they being nice about it or? No, it wasn't. It wasn't one of those things where I think just like any, these like prison programs, they get paid a little bit. There's also like, sometimes it's a community service thing for them. So sure. So there are incentives for the inmates to do it, but also, you know, that job isn't for every inmate. Like not every inmate has the decorum

or the skills to communicate their experience to a bunch of kids. So it wasn't a long list of inmates who could have been in that program with us. Did it leave, like, do you remember it? Yeah. I remember the smell. I remember the smell.

I remember the sounds. I remember the look on all the kids' faces when we were going through the program. And I also remember feeling like it was such a waste. Like such a waste of my time, such a waste, wasteful experience just because like, that's not where I was going anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but also like, I don't know how that benefited anybody, if I'm being honest. Sure. I don't, I don't know how it benefits. Like if you're a criminal, I don't think even, even kids who are committing crime at that age, I don't think they are even so dense to think that that's

not where it ends up you know they know they know part of committing i feel like committing crime is just it not thinking about the consequence right so it's like showing it i don't know i when i went to i did a show at not rikers but it was like somewhere in in chinatown where it's like that's where people are if not rikers or they're held there until they go to rikers like a halfway house no no i mean it was it was a it was a prison what the tombs i think that's what it's called is that what it's called um it was it was a fucking it was it scared me but period it made me it made it was just like i've went in there.

I was like, oh, everyone should have to see what prison is like, because I don't think this is right, what we're doing. Yeah, right. This was, I went with, we had to go through like three different metal detectors. And it's incredible. You just, it just kept feeling like you're going deeper and deeper into a building. Yeah. And it was me.

I'm going to forget everyone else who, I know Jason Solomon was on it. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, oh God, my name's slipping me. Onika McLean was going to host it. I mean, she was hosting it. This was at noon. Ooh.

But Onika quit on the way in. Smart girl. Because it felt very scary. It was not dirty. It was like a dungeon. Yeah. I mean, it was. I don't think of it like a prison.

It was like a dungeon, and it was dirty and grimy. And you go through all these metal detectors, and you feel just like once I'm in here, there's so many levels for me. There's no like running out the door right and and at least you we didn't ask certainly but i think in my mind i thought it'd be like more of a not a theater but a room maybe and there would be an audience but it was just more it was just like you're walking into uh their living spaces yeah and it's like uh a big open area and then two floors of their fucking their doors with with uh with the bolts and you look inside and the walls are covered in graphic porn yeah just really just like like women hold themselves open it was noon and and no no one was like no one was uh everyone was like nice enough, but you were just like, this is hell.

I'm in hell. If I, okay, if I had limited porn in prison, I wouldn't put it on the walls because then you're looking at it all day. It becomes less special. You know, I would still store it under the mattress or something. So don't you think that if you only have like 10 images, you wouldn't want it all day long? I would love you going to a prison show and doing like a Larry David-esque,

like the porn is on the wall. It's not as special. I guess out of convenience or it's already up, you know, you can just look at it. But, you know, I don't know. But it was so funny. It started to real. I'm talking about the horrors of prison and russell's like third the porn this is the wrong way to do it you gotta save it yeah but uh it was so funny because jason was about to do his dry bar

comedy special oh my god and so he was he he was like determined to the way that in the stupid way that a comic is where he was like i'm running my dry bar set. And it was about Spirit Airlines. Oh, wow. And I was like, these guys haven't been on an airline in 20 years. And it ended up being like a fun. I went up there and I just went, I went dirty. I saw that porn. I said, I don't care that it's noon.

We're talking about, and someone's showering behind me in a shower. But it was just like, it didn't scare me straight. I just went, oh, society is hell and we are torturing people and this is not and people don't know people don't realize how don't don't visually realize yeah people shouldn't go to prison for a scared straight people should go to prison to be like oh this is what we're doing as a society are we okay with this right yeah it's barbaric it really is yes yeah and that's crazy that people could watch you from their cells is that what is that what i'm understanding yeah

were there chairs watching too they were like like kind of more like park bench like a picnic table type like situations and then people were in their cells too yeah they didn't have to watch it wasn't like like someone was showering and you know it was a shower but like you know i didn't see them naked some guy guy was working out. Onika should not have been there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They would have been spanking it right in front of her.

Like from their cell or from the shower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she's a beautiful girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She would have went into that prison. They were like, oh, we hit the lottery with this one. She would have got a standing O. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know. Standing O might not have been the right. We'll get standing O's all right. Man, it was, it really. Red One. We're coming at you. Is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped.

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See terms at sephora.com for complete details. So, LeClerc and I work together a lot at the Cellar. Yeah. A lot. You're there a lot. Your weekends are intense. Yeah. Well, I don't travel nearly as much as, as you do. Um, which is great because I have two really little kids at home. So when I do travel, it's such a burden on my wife

and the family when I'm away for too long, but it's great when I can be at the, at the cellar all weekend and do club spots. How do you think about where you want your comedy to go in terms of headlining and traveling? I don't know, man. I really do enjoy going out, meeting new people, seeing new cities and stuff like that. It's just that I really rather spend time with my family. So I don't know.

I have to figure something out. I love doing stand-up comedy. It's the best. But I have to figure out. some comics haven't really figured out i know some comics who like they'll just fly out to one town do two shows in one night and be back the next day and it's like oh that's amazing and sometimes they bring the entire family with them and sure oh that's a such a sweet deal but that's like the high end of the high that's a lot a lot of money, man. Yeah. A lot of money. I mean, when Tova comes with me,

like we have discussed some times where it's like, am I paying for the flight? Right. Am I paying for this, that, or the other? And sometimes I'm like, baby, if I pay for it, then might as well cancel the weekend and stay in. I'm broke. Right, right.

And let alone kids. Oh yeah, it's so expensive. Yeah. I mean, the margin of profit for road gigs is so small. Sometimes I'll do Atlantic City for like the week. I'd like the Borgata. And that's a lot of fun. But if I bring my wife and kids, just them eating there.

Of course, lodging is paid. Getting there, we can drive. But just eating in Atlantic City for like five days is just so wildly expensive yeah um so yeah there just isn't much much margin for profit especially when you start bringing in your family and your kids and stuff so it's tough now did you stop uh trucking entirely yeah yeah how long were you doing that so you you were a truck driver a trucker yeah for like so i remember i went i started doing comedy full-time like right before the pandemic um i did a bunch of these i did a bunch of knackers and i just filled up my calendar with all these college gigs uh in 2020 2021 too

um how much did you get from um i i forget the number i just remember the amount of money i was making i was like there's no need for me to have any other type of job. This is going to be great. Yeah. And then I remember when things started shutting down, I got this one email from my agent. He's like, hey, this call's pulled out because of... I'm like, yeah, I completely understand that.

It's fine. And then that one email turns into seven emails. And then at one point, the last email he sent me, he was like, hey, I'm not going to give you, I'm not just going to keep hitting you up with every college that pulls out. We'll reconvene when things come back together. And some of those gigs like transitioned into Zoom college gigs, which was like, okay, I guess. But ultimately, I found myself in a space where like is comedy ever gonna come back I was like really at a loss I wasn't sure um I didn't have I didn't have I had a couple like first time weekends on the books that you know I was making 200 bucks right but I don't know what it would

have been like to have lost thousands and thousands and thousands it was a lot I had a I didn't have like by the way that was my first foyer like really jumping into the full-time comedy pool uh-huh so i was i was so i remember being so confident going into it and just feeling so deflated of course as that was as i was receiving all that bad news and then just like not being sure professionally if i was going to be able to continue to do comedy so i've started looking at i was like what else can i I was like, maybe I can do a little bit of trucking on the side because if I truck during the day, I can still do comedy at night. Yeah.

And I also want to start preparing myself financially to start a family in case, you know, we started having kids. So that's what the strategy was. How'd you get into trucking though? Well, at the time I was quarantining in austin texas oh yeah so i was just in austin texas it was like a big you know blue collar town and it looked like a fun thing to just be on the road and get a rig and just just haul product and not really have to think about it and also you could just turn your brain off i could write while i'm on the road and

do all that type of stuff you're writing as you drive in silence i never listen to radio or podcast or anything you're just thinking of jokes i only run material when i drive so oh my god yeah it was it was just it just worked for me if you're doing a 10 hour what's the longest uh uh that you went well i never did long hauls so all of my trips were like hey I'm driving for 30 minutes here or 40 minutes here, maybe two hours max if there's traffic. No music, no podcasts, just jokes. No music. I'm a serial killer in the car. So yeah, every time that I drive.

Kids are going like this and you're like, nope. I got bits, buddy. Knock, knock. Yeah. But that's how I like to drive. I also like to write when I'm doing an activity as well. Was it hard at all? I mean, I can't drive for shit but let alone with a big thing did you ever it's it's way however difficult you think it is it's it's even more difficult than that

it's it's so unorthodox it goes against uh like especially backing up that's the different the difficult part is learning how to back up because everything is reversed. So it was just a really long, slow process of figuring out how to back up these huge, wildly dangerous vehicles. Yeah. Holy shit, they're so dangerous. And they just take up so much room.

They take so long to break and slow down. They take so long to accelerate. When people cut them off, I'm like, you're playing with your life. These things are so dangerous. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of that was me just learning this completely new skill set and then getting comfortable with it. But it was quite the transition.

There must be a driving test, right? Oh, yeah. Like multiple driving tests. How long was that process of training and? I remember when I first like expressed interest in doing it, I just started studying up and reading about it. And then, you know, you could only learn so much from your books and tutorials. You just have to get behind the wheel and figure it out.

And then I did, I did a few classes and they're just super... A, they're really expensive. They make it really, really difficult to get those type of licenses. And then once you do get them, of course, there's plenty of jobs if you want to do that type of work. Is it the kind of job that you could fucking work again right away?

There's so many opportunities. Yeah, you can definitely work again whenever you wanted to. In an agency? Or you just... No, you just... I mean, it depends what you want to do. In an agency or you just... No, you just... I mean, it depends what you want to do. A lot of people, they'll do like...

I didn't mean like a talent agency. WME's got the trucker division. A lot of it is like a lot of people will just buy their own truck. They'll buy their own truck. They'll buy their own. Yeah, they'll buy their own truck. And then they will reach out to companies like, hey, if you need a load hold, I can do it for you.

So essentially, you're your own boss, your own CEO. If you want to go to Ohio, you just find somebody who needs a load taken there. You just go there, pick it up, take it and you get your money. So overall, it's part of the trucker lifestyle or is that just a you thing? It's I don't know. I know that for me, I was tired of like getting all my clothes torn up so i was just like let me just find some like durable just getting in and out of the truck and shit and sometimes if you have to like handle the product sometimes you'll have to like yeah so

for me i was gonna ask you just like pull up and be like yeah you have to do the unloading no sometimes like it depends on the job so like some jobs you literally go in all you do like pull up and be like, you have to do the unloading. No, sometimes like it depends on the job. So like some jobs you literally go in, all you do is back up your truck. They load it all for you. You take it to wherever it's going and then they unload it. But sometimes like while you're driving, a pallet might fall over or something might happen.

So you might have to like fix it up before you, before you have them unloaded or whatever. So I was, sometimes you get your hands dirty a little bit. Sure. before we got to our next segment the one thing i did want to because i was re-watching your very good tonight show set i did you did you take swimming classes i did yeah yeah i did and what was the what was the age of of the other people there so um they offer adult classes they do they do offer adult classes i wasn't in there with a bunch of toddlers i didn't be fine no but yeah i think that

um so when i finally did decide to learn how to swim it was a process first it was like asking my girlfriend i'm like hey you think you could i like, I was afraid of like going into a public setting and just being a novice at something. So, yeah, I saw my girlfriend's treading water. I was like, hey, how do you tread water? You know, and she would show me how to tread water. But this is after like years of me trying to figure out how to swim without learning how to swim. Did you ever get in a close call? Three times.

Yeah, three times. So I tell a story about how i was rescued um and pulled out of the water and that's a true story the thing is i don't mention how old i was in that story tell tell us the story so so i presented like this this 12 year old pulled me out the pool right she pulled me out the water which is true she did pull me out the water by the time i was seven oh. Yeah. So I'm telling the story as an adult, like this, this, this 12 year old rescued me, but she was also a child, but I was a much younger child and it was my first time ever going to a pool ever. I was in a summer camp program. I was in an elementary school, of course. And we go to this pool and the pool, the school just lets you find a chair and then they just leave you alone. So I saw all these kids playing in the pool. I've never seen a body of

water before at that time. So I remember just jumping in the pool, not knowing that there's a deep side, a shallow side, but I'm seven years old. All of it is deep to me. And I just remember hitting the bottom of the pool and just looking around like, ah, this is cool. And just seeing bodies, no faces, just bodies. And I was like, oh man, this is getting bad. And then somebody just pulled me out the water. And I remember just coughing and gasping and being scared to death.

I'm so confused because when you're teaching a baby, they always say, they always show it like you just throw the baby in and it just figures it out they do and i'm like what what changes when you get older that you can't intuitively just do it no that so what you're talking about those videos of babies who just turn around and just they've been trained to do that they were trained for months to even get to that point oh okay yeah it's like it is a It is a specific training thing.

Because I know I had classes when I was a kid, but it feels like I wouldn't even know how to tell someone. I'd be like, you just do this. No, and none of it is intuitive. None of it is intuitive. It's so weird. It feels so intuitive, but I believe that. I just think that.

The videos make it look like those kids are just, oh, they must have been born in water. Like they were just so, they figured it out, but none of it is intuitive. And it happened two more times? Two more times. Yeah. So the first time I nearly drowned, I was a kid. But the other two times I was at the beach, it was the ocean. The ocean is so dangerous.

The ocean is very dangerous. Oh my God. People like talking about, yeah, let's go to the beach. It's a scary place. Ocean's very dangerous. Oh my God. People like talking about, yeah, let's go to the beach.

It's a scary place. But I just remember being in Miami this one time and we're just like in maybe waist deep water. It was just fine. And then this riptide came out of nowhere. And I just remember getting up and just realizing, oh, I can't touch the floor. I just can't touch the floor of the ocean.

And I just start pad as hard as I can, just swimming back. I'm with my brother and my friend and this girl, oh my God, it was four of us. We all got swept out. And I'm swimming back as best as I can. I'm not a strong swimmer at this point, but I can paddle as I can do well. My brother, older brother was the worst swimmer of all four of us. And the other two could swim perfectly fine. So they're gone. The other two are gone and i'm swimming my best i'm swimming my best my older brother's five nine so by the time he could touch the ground it was like he had to go much further than i did to be able to touch the bottom yeah so i'm swimming i'm swimming i'm swimming and i

finally like i was close to giving up and i finally got to a point where I could touch the ground and I see my brother, like, his head's going under, his head's going under, and I just reach out and I grab him and he just, like, gives up. At that point, he's like, ah, you got me. And I pulled him back. But the other two were, like, at the beach. Like, they were just on sand, like, whew.

That was crazy. I'm like, we can't swim, you assholes. Like, none of them even looked back. The other two were just gone. And I was like, man, that was the point where I was like, we can't swim, you assholes. Like none of them even looked back. The other two were just gone. And I was like, man, that was the point where I was like, I should learn how to swim. How many lessons did it take?

It didn't take much. I think I was in a program for like maybe two weeks and it wasn't to like become a, like a really good swimmer. I just want to be able to like survive survival skills. So, and at that point I had been getting by, like I knew how to work my way around water. I can jump into deep water and swim like maybe 20 or 30, 30 feet.

But I wasn't a strong swimmer in that. Like if something bad happened, I'd be able to, you know, just tread water or like float for too long. So that's wild. Yeah. I did. I did. I did a little bit.

I learned, I hated backstroke because you always i had lessons you're gonna hit your head every year for like um there's fun toys torpedo under the pool you have like a torpedo toy you go diving you see oh it's a good time i had i was almost i did like the assistant lifeguard like training yeah and i could we had a pool uh in our could you do cpr on me if I oh no I didn't learn that you didn't learn CPR as a lifeguard no no no I wasn't a lifeguard I did like all the way up to what and then I would have

but I didn't do the lifeguard I think I they did CPR they taught me in high school I think if you needed it I'd give it a go I mean I've seen it on movies I know The Office I really would be thinking about The Office. Staying alive.

Staying alive. Well, we'll see once someday. You grew up with the pool? No, not. But we had a town pool. That was like two minutes from my house. So it was like, yeah, you know, high schoolers were the lifeguards, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's better.

Yeah. I had a pool, but it was like, you never use it. It's such a stupid- You had a pool and you never used it? We use it like twice a year, but it's better to have a community pool and you meet people and you talk to people and you have a world.

I think private pools are a disaster. I would use it all the time. I know, I know you'd use it all the time. I think you should go to a space. You should deal with the world. It's also different in Maryland. Like the season in which you can use your pool is much smaller than in other places.

My wife is from Texas. She had a pool and she used her pool almost all year round. It's different. But when you're in Maryland, it's like you got maybe two months. Fall comes and the leaves are everywhere. It's a disaster.

The freezing, the cover gets broken. It's a mess. Something's always broken. So many pools and you can't go in the pool. You yeah we're gonna fix it in three years it's great you sound like a pool owner to this day it's like oh the headache of having a pool oh just get a community pool um let's go to our next segment this has got to stop this has got to stop russell do you have a this has got to stop yeah real quick this has got to stop the discourse on whether the bear is a comedy or drama and i'm not saying it to have the discourse i don't want to hear about it anymore it's so

boring who cares just let's if you get asked the question if you think it's a drama or comedy just say i don't fucking care and keep moving because i can't i can't see it and can't talk about it anymore. Award shows, to look to award shows to somehow appropriately categorize art would be like looking to politics to figure out your morality. Yeah. Like it just, it's not built to do that. I think it's important to the people that matter

because they're like, well, our comedy can't get an award. Our comedy can't get an award because nobody sees the a dramatic monologue next to a comedic monologue and thinks the comedic monologue should get the award and that's the problem where they go people seem to have a natural inclination that if it's funny it's of less value or or just that's something where someone's teary-eyed that means more it deserves it deserves a piece of metal and that's the problem i get why i get why people care in that sense but you got to be really i think you need to be more clear about like i don't know it's never going to be solved i agree it should be moved i agree it should be moved only to open up the space for some

comedians to get an award yeah but i think the deeper problem is people just don't respect comedy. Yeah. And I don't know the solution to that. Me either. I think it's just stay in the comedy category. And I think it's just stay there and we should change how we judge comedy categories. It should be how funny is the show,

but we're having the discourse. And I said, I don't, I know, I know, but it's, I know what you mean though. They just,

they, they wanted a word. Martin short should get an award. And it's like, he can't get an award because you got some six pack actor crying about his mommy's cookie or whatever the fuck is in the bear. So I get it in that sense. It's just annoying,

but I hate how they ask. Here's, here's my, okay, I'll build on you. This has got to stop. Okay. Don't ask,

ask actors their opinion on it they're all lying to you they're all lying to you most of them don't even have a thought in their head they just know how to say lines well and second of all they're they all want to be on the bear yeah and the comedy yeah they're going to give you the biggest puff piece fucking bullshit answer that only serves their own interest you're not getting the real answer it's like again it's like talking to a politician you're stop asking them stop taking it seriously they're not telling you the truth if i thought there was a chance of me being on the bear i'd be defending it right now but right now from where i stand i'm not close it fucking sucks it's a boring fucking show i'd

rather watch a regular person cook than watch dramatized cooking and when they okay oh god we're having it now but when they do say i want to be like you laugh at that you laugh at that because some of them went on camera and said that it's very funny it's just you know and they described why and they had these like answers that would be in a like a in a new york times thing that is like very from the brain not from the gut and i'm like you laugh i want to be like you laugh at that that it makes you laugh yeah yeah are we thinking about the same person answering i'm sure yeah we are okay and here's the? I'm sure. Yeah, we are. Okay. And here's the thing. We're not going to say that.

We're not going to say that. Because we hope to work with that person someday. We would love to work with that person. Like the person. But come on now. Dude, this has got to stop. What's something that has got to stop? Oh, this is something I'm passionate about. Defending celebrities and politicians.

Yes. We do that. Like culturally, it's become very acceptable for acceptable for us like oh don't talk about trump it's like don't defend strangers how about that yeah yeah if it's a stranger you don't know these people if you don't know this person you have no skin in this why are you defending a stranger it's it's a wow i don't defend people that i do know. No. I don't.

And the fandom for both celebrities and politicians, it's crazy. Like the feeling of like you have to defend them or you have to like work on their behalf. They're not paying you. It's insane. They don't know you exist. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. People are just on TV like, I don't think R. Kelly did it. It's on tape. You're going to lose your job. Please

stop doing this. My brother... Alright, alright. My brother, I swear to God, he does stuff like that. I don't understand it. I'm like, why would you do that? People come up to me like, yeah, I think your brother lied to me. I'm like, yeah. Niggas be lying. I'm not defending him. He's an idiot. I have

nothing to gain from this. I just don't understand when people like when people attack these public figures and like yeah don't talk they had a hard day it's like you have no reason to defend this person yeah yeah what is going on why are you getting so passionate about this i don't understand it i don't know people need and this is what i think a lot of religion was it's like you just need something that you don't have to actually deal with yeah and you're able to look at someone you've never met and like see them as as some kind of holier figure not even wholly like in a religious sense but you're able to just view them

as like good yeah and worthy of defense yeah you just gotta let go part of becoming an adult is letting go of that yeah yeah i i by the way i support the sport like the good you know jostling the back and forth like oh let's defend these like playing devils i i'm okay with that like that's perfectly fine when people are like oh let's let's debate about this and you you pick pick a side that's fine but people are getting like really worked up about things that are happening in pop culture it's like you should not be arguing tearing your family apart tearing your family about blake lively being crude what are you doing right now you do not know this woman let her be an asshole why are you defending her yeah yeah and also the

idea that you would possibly have any level, any number of facts. Right. To like know any of this. You don't, you've been presented, two people, PR teams have concocted a story and you've decided one is correct. Right, yeah. They're all bad. You know less than nothing. Be quiet and just trust what the people close to them say. Yeah.

That's enough for me. You think she's nice, really? Yeah me you think she's nice really yeah you think she's nice get out of here you think the bear is funny you think the bear is funny get out of here when you brought the bear i thought you were talking about the social media like the bear the man that's that's the first thing like have you heard about that conversation it's like when women oh would you rather be in the woods with a bear? With a bear or a man. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a popular thing for a while.

Yeah. I don't know. What would you be? Would I rather be, I guess, a man? Because who says he's going to kill me, you know, in a bear? That's scary. That's how you know you're not a woman. That's true.

Let's go to our final segment. You better count your blessing you better count your blessing um uh i'm gonna do kind of a a little bit of a stretch of one i just have got some nice things from audience members i'm wearing one with someone i guess they took a they made a shirt out of the last time they saw me in tor. Oh my God. And this is me with my Moisture Crunchy towel. Wow. And this is the only time I'll ever be wearing this shirt, but I'm grateful to have it.

Yeah. And maybe I'll hang it up. I hope you guys wear it, but I hope we just keep going. A meta, we just do more and more levels. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then someone made, or they didn't make it just for me, but I guess it's Cards Against Human humanity, but it's for Tova. So it's for like people who used to be super Jewish or whatever. And it's, it's really intense Jewish. Like Yonkel, he's Taka. And I'm like, I don't know what those words mean.

I don't know what those words mean. Steckle then proceeded to whip. I mean, I don't know what any of these words. You're such a mitzvah boy. You deserve. Okay, let me just put one together really quick. You're such a mitzvah boy. You deserve checking rice for bugs.

This is going way over my head. Some of the answers, you know Cards Against Humanity, right? Yes. Some of them are, oh my God, some of them are really intense. Some of them are like contradictory advice God, some of them are really intense. Like some of them are like contradictory advice from the greatest minds of the generation. And then one will be like circumcising 10 babies in a row. And yeah, I'll find more. So yeah, just lots of good, a lot of nice things.

That's nice. I did a show in Appleton. There were some buskers in the crowd. They said they made six bucks that day from busking. And I said, do you want to play music for the merch line and i know you don't like music you said i'm just running jokes this whole time but but they played they played like music and it was like fresh and and you allow them to get money do they busk yeah only took 10 okay um i know they made they made some money yeah and I gave some money yeah but uh they made more than the six bucks

they made that day that's great it was cool so any buskers out there if you ever do if you're doing a show if I'm ever doing a show where you live

uh come by play music come by busk and and people usually at this merch they're buying all sorts of shit they'll throw some money in yeah

yeah that's great those are my many blessings that's great um my blessing is um we had an Uncle Function show last night and it was tell okay so ideally we get new listeners and okay sometimes they go what the fuck is uncle function okay new listeners uncle function is the sketch group that john marco and

i met on and uh and we've been doing it for nine years and we do it way less than we used to um and i did it before i was doing standup. Yes. And, um, we had a show last night. It was only four of the six of us. And I had so much fun, both at the show and in the, the rehearsal, we only had really a day of rehearsal, but I had so much fun. Um, and that rehearsal, it felt like the old, old Uncle Function days in a way of like, it had been a while since I've had a show where I felt really good about everything. And like everything just clicked. Everything was happening.

And I felt like last night was like that. And it was like such a good feeling to be like, oh, yeah, we're really good at this. And it was a really good show. People you've shared the stage with for nine years you know each other's like the the strengths and the music and we barely had any rehearsal together and it just like it just felt like we were such fucking pros yeah just pros and like i just felt like really i mean we went through each thing like one time in the rehearsal room and it was just like everyone's, every kind of stage thing, picture, it was just great.

It was really, really great. And it'd been a long time since I went away from an Uncle Functions show feeling that good about everything. That I was like, it was really needed for me. So, I love it. And Russell, he's open, next time we do a Downside Live show, we talked about maybe doing a sketch.

If it makes sense, if comedically it works, if it functions. Yeah. We have a sketch we did last night. It's just the two of us. So we might do that. Yeah. And it's long. It'll take a long time.

And it has props and costumes. Do you have a blessing? Oh, I do have a blessing. My blessing is that having a wildly abusive mom made me a feminist. Oh, yes? Yeah, because growing up, when I would hear about the patriarchy and how men are keeping women down and they're being abusive, I always thought, how can you abuse women? They're so strong. They hit so hard. They're so powerful. They're so mean. Like, how can you dominate a woman? They've been dominating me my entire life. So I always looked at that as a thing where I always had so much respect

and like admiration for women because the only model of a woman has been like this person who's been like super fierce, super strong, super stern. And I'm like, oh man, I can't believe men could mistreat a person like this. It sounds so dangerous. That's the best case for feminism. It is. Your mom or the bear? The bear every time.

This is coming out. Hold up. This is coming out. Oh, my dear fucking christ is that right October 15th anything you want to plug we are topical

October 15th oh yeah I'll be in Chattanooga Tennessee Chattanooga and Comedy Catch Comedy Catch I'm doing their festival on I think the 16th on the Catch. I'm doing their festival on, I think, the 16th. On the 17th, I'm doing the festival. And then I will be in Nashville, Tennessee, also on the 19th.

So, yeah, if you're in the Tennessee area, come by. I'll let you boy. Zany's? No, I'm doing an independent show there. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's on my website. I'll promote it sometime. Comedy Catch, that's a wild Chattanooga.

Yeah. Wild place. Oh, yeah. That's where there was a flat earther in the audience. And I was like, here we go with some good crowd. We're coming here. And then it was like, no, he really believes this. And we're not having fun.

Oh, yeah. I thought it'd be fun. Ah, flat earther. You know, you're crazy, right? He was like, no, the earth is flat though. And I was like, right. Of course he believes that. Yeah. I thought, I thought he'd be like, he thought he'd be a flat earther that was like, I know I'm cookie. I don't believe it.

I'm crazy. Uh, Russell, what do you want to plug? Uh, follow me at Russell J. Daniels on Instagram and uh, check it out. Well, there's an uncle function show coming up for new york comedy fest on i feel god i don't know the date it's november i'm gonna next episode though i'm gonna give a good real date next episode when it's passed um i'm gonna be in springfield missouri this weekend there's tickets available calling it now Weekend after that is anniversary, so I'll be off.

But then I'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina, Bloomington, Indiana, Indianapolis, and D.C. D.C. towards the end of November, weekend before Thanksgiving. Check it out. D.C. Join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash downside. The more patrons we get, the closer these episodes can be recorded to the release. And we're adding a computer. That costs money. we're adding a drink cart you know russell's

funnier when he's drunk so we're getting a drink cart we're decorating the walls spotify just subscribe just subscribe subscribe five stars do a quick little quick little right now just do it it's so easy i would really appreciate it and uh let's see let's let's take this out with one uh let's just pull a random uh you you read that and i will read an answer ravelville of nope nope go again go again something without hebrew here you go okay there's this great story i once heard about a mangled body with its to fill in perfectly intact this is the downside you're listening to the downside which on marco cerezi