The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #25 Duct Taped to a Chair with Ahri Findling

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Ahri Findling joins us to discuss the downside of having grandparents that survived the Holocaust, not going through puberty until he was 18, a middle school rumor that he only had one testicle and Gianmarco takes one of the most poorly timed commercial breaks of all time. You can also see full video of this episode HERE. Join The Downside Patreon for TWO bonus episodes every month (AUDIO & VIDEO) without any awkward commercial breaks + the good feeling inside that you're helping keep this thing going. Watch AHRI FINDLING's half-hour comedy special Follow AHRI FINDLING’s tiktok, twitter & instagram Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I remember this too. I'm going to go one, two, three, snap to your respective cameras. Oh. One, two, three. Ooh, that was synchronized. All right, welcome to The Downside with Jamarcus Oresi. I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels. You okay? Yeah. A little loud for you?

I think my level is too loud. It feels like you're screaming in my face. Okay, well, we're using this take. Ari finling is our guest today stand-up comedian uh ari finling thank you for joining the downside thank you for having me my level's perfect oh good you're listening to the downside with john The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Ooh, it's hot. Woo! Hot day. We are recording this a little bit early, but I'm sure it's still hot when this comes out.

This is the day before JFK is about to do a parade in Texas. And we're going to go to that and see how it goes. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for being here, Ari. We'll get to you in a second. I'm having a tough... What? What's wrong?

So it was Tova's birthday, my girlfriend's birthday, this last Sunday, and there was things with... I took a spot I shouldn't have taken during a time frame. I shouldn't have taken it, which I'm sure I can talk to Atari about. You took it on her birthday.

It's more complicated than that. No, was it on the date of her birthday? It was, I thought an arrangement had changed where another part of the time I was supposed to keep open and I was okay to do a spot the other time. And I, and all the funds from this show went to a very nice dinner and a very nice

breakfast. And, but did you let her know that? Well, there was a, there was a, they, so I'm shut up.

I like, okay. I, I, that's just so funny that you, what time of the show did you think would be okay to do in the prime time of hanging out going to dinner that sort of thing I want to you have like a morning show I want to be careful because you know this is unfair Tova doesn't really get to share her oh no I would there's no scenario where I'm not taking Tova's side so I'm actually doing her podcast after this yes yeah it was. It was like, oh, there will be an event the night before. And originally I was going to take the birthday off. But then the night before, Saturday night, that became something important.

So it was like, okay, you can take a gig on Sunday. And so I took a – well, you see, there we go. There's my foolish – that was not a real offer. You thought the big friends thing that she arranged was gonna be adequate for you to take off

she I was given permission here's the thing I was given permission to take a spot I think that was it was a on Saturday

no no I was supposed to be there for Saturday and then Sunday which was the birth the actual birthday day I could take she said I could

I could do a spot if it came up i took a midday spot i thought oh it's like in the park it was like some new york laughs event at 2 p.m but in fact that was even worse because she wanted the day oh see i'm actually on your side here and i didn't think i would be. Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, come on. I mean, we can't block off the whole day. Two days. Really?

Two days. Thank you. Thank you very much. Here's the thing. I don't have, I don't have, I'm not a standup. So I can see what you're saying. I can see how you maybe thought there'd be an hour where that's okay. And I, and it does feel better that it's in the afternoon and not in the evening. But that's why I was wrong.

The evening would have been better. That's where I was incorrect. Yeah, no, I know. Well, okay, one thing going against the evening is it is a Sunday night. So maybe, you know, you're less inclined because Monday work. I don't know. I feel like I have to take Tova's side because I don't want three of us not taking her side.

And I do think you should just take it. It's Ari versus everyone else right now. I take Tova's side. So I've just, and you know, we went to, she went to the show, it was in the park and I got the whole group of eight year olds.

I was hosting to say, happy birthday Tova. Oh, you were hosting? And that made up for everything. Oh, John Marco. Hosting. Hosting.

Hosting. It wasn't a quick gig. Doing a check spot on her birthday. Kidding. Kidding. So I was, I'm trying to get her like a gift and it's very hard. She's an excellent gift giver. But people kept giving her things that she thought I had given her.

So like, we have this joke. I have this big head of my face and she puts it in her window. And so someone sent her a big head of her face and she thought I must have gotten it because what a smart, cute gift for me to get her the thing that we always joke about all the time.

So she called me, she'd be like, I think I opened your birthday gift. And then she was so like, and I was like i had to for a second i thought i'm gonna claim it's me i'm gonna claim that i did send this in fact but no it was a friend of hers and then she always thinks she finds she believes some spirit is always leaving dimes for her dimes dimes and so she kept finding dimes and she texted me she's like did you leave a dime she kept thinking like i was like playing a long game with dimes so i kept having to refute her that no i am not thinking of you or giving things

to you also if the dimes one no one would have been trying to claim that you could have easily said that that one was you yeah it's also like that's her level of what you're going to give her is a big hit in her face and dimes on the ground? You don't want to go, my sweet, sweet boy. You're leaving dimes around the house for me? So then I decide she dated a guy once who gave her jewelry that had coordinates of where they met. And I always joke about how I'm not the romantic guy. So I thought, I know what the romantic guy. So I thought, I know what I'll do.

I'll do this. So I was like, I know what I'll do. I'll like do, I'll get her jewelry with, it's going to come out after I give this to her, so it's okay.

I'll give her jewelry with coordinates on it. But I wanted to make it jokey. We have a jokey relationship. So I decided in the moment that I would do the coordinate. She always joked that she saw me record my stand-up comedy special, Shelf Life, available on Amazon and Spotify.

And she said that she went there before we were dating. She wanted to lose her crush on me. She wanted to see me do stand-up, and hopefully I would be bad enough that she'd go, I don't want to touch that. What's the Jewish for penis? Schwanz? I would be bad enough that you go, I don't want to touch that. That, that what's, what's the Jewish for penis? Uh,

Schwanz. Yeah. Schwanz. I don't want to touch the Schwanz. There's a lot of Jewish names for penis, but Schwanz is one. That's a good one. Yeah.

Uh, and she saw me and then, you know, the rest is history. She's just like gone the show. I didn't saw. So she went to the second taping this so she um show so i was like i know i'll get the coordinates of where she first saw me do stand-up

comedy that's a funny funny gift that's a funny gift cruising for a bruising buddy so i i like get it i think it's funny i run it by a friend of hers, a close friend. She thinks it's funny too. And then like the day of, then we have, you know, this talk about standup comedy and our relationship and time. And I was like, this is looking like an increasingly bad joke to make for the birthday gift. So day of, I'm like, oh, I should do the coordinates of where we always meet on the corner between our two apartments yeah yeah and so like mid-birthday i'm like hey so you're not getting

your gift today and i cannot get a refund it's not the most expensive thing in the world but it's it's something yeah and i'm just literally going to buy a new one and give it to her what are you gonna do with the old one i Yeah, what's the old one? I really don't know. Throw it out. I mean, who will? I mean, yeah, no, I know. Does she listen?

She doesn't listen to this podcast. I think she does. Okay. She listens. So she's going to know that. No, no, this is going to come out after I've given it to her. Got it, got it. But she's going to know.

This is my way of letting her know that I got her two gifts, kind of. Well, if anyone wants it, if anyone saw Shelf Life, maybe this is a really big memorabilia. But here's what's worse. So the coordinates, there were only so many coordinates that fit on this piece of jewelry. And I was like, oh, we'll just round up. It's not even accurate.

We'll just round up. So I looked up. As I was figuring out the new piece of jewelry and checking the new coordinates and making sure everything's right, I look up the coordinates that I had done. And with the rounding up, it's somewhere in the atlantic ocean so it is not even shelf life where i recorded it's not the corner we lived in it is just a place in the middle of the water can i give you a piece of advice and that's what i'm getting from listen

i've been in a relationship a long time i'm married i got a kid i'll give you a piece of advice when you are buying somebody a gift and you're at the point where you are looking up coordinates, it's the wrong gift. So this is a stolen idea from an ex. No, no. But the idea, the point is she doesn't think I'm romantic. It's an inside joke. She doesn't think I'm romantic.

Yes. And I am not. I don't believe romance is for people who cheat. I'm not a romantic. She doesn't think I'm romantic. And I'm not. I don't believe romance is for people who cheat. I'm not a romantic. Interesting. I understand the logic. You understand what I'm saying? I'm saying a lot of the men who do a lot of the things, I think they're either

covering up their tracks or... Virtue signaling. It's virtue signaling. Relationship virtue signaling. I like that. Or, you know, maybe they are so moved maybe they are so romantic you know what happens with that with the romantic impulses when they're alone in an elevator with someone else they find out they have sex and they cheat anyone who's a romantic i don't know about that would you consider yourself romantic i think uh times but i i feel

like whenever it's i feel it comes from a thing, it's not all the time for sure, but I feel like I've had genuine impulses to do a nice gesture. What's the most romantic thing you've done for Nicole? I don't know. Put it on the spot. I don't know. What do you mean? You write a poem?

You write a sketch for her? No, no, no. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. What's the most romantic thing you've done for your wife? No, no, no. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. What's the most romantic thing you've done for your wife? I gave a couple surprise parties with her friends that she didn't expect.

See, but that's not romance to me. Romance to me is something about, this is what you mean to me, or your beauty. Okay, I'll tell you the most romantic. But see, you have a different definition of romance, then. I don't think that's romance. I think I can do the parties. I think thoughtful, like for instance, when Nicole came into town

Sunday night, she got in late. I had like made a big nice dinner, like cultivated a favorite cocktail. So like did a thing. Like so when she came home,

everything for the week, I bought all the groceries for the week. I did the, like everything was like ready, like in a way of like things are going to be easy for you the next few days you were traveling.

And I prepared this really nice meal thing. So I feel like that's a romantic thing, even though it's just being a decent human being. But I think you're thinking, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Tell me if this is romantic. If you define this as romantic,

I would define this as romantic. Okay. First weekend away from with my wife. When she was my girlfriend, we go up to uh woodstock we get a hotel room we go to like a dive pizza place great we get stoned i get way too stoned and think the fbi is outside the hotel room it was bad we getting we get engaged in my apartment i proposed to her and then i i rented a car and we i didn't tell her where we were going

and we went back up to Woodstock. I got the same hotel room that we are in. We ate at the same pizza place. Surprised her, didn't you? You got just as high. Very, very, very high. Just as high. This time on crack.

I think our things are so similar. When I proposed, I did our very first date where we had our first kiss. I recreated the first part of the night and then threw a surprise party for our friends. You read the same blog that I did. Same thing. So if I got the same audience for the same comedy special and performed the exact same

set. That's exactly what we're saying. Totally. 17 years from now. When you're ready to propose. This is the downside. If you're new and you somehow made it this far, great. This is a show where we, again, we break down the things in society.

Oh, romance. We say no. We say yes. What's underneath here. We find the negatives. We celebrate. There seems to be a lot of Jews that we interview, including today. There's a Jewish underbelly to this podcast.

I don't know if I should use that term, underbelly. There's a Jewish lining, a beautiful silver lining. This is a podcast for people who love to complain. I'm so happy. I love doing this podcast, and I hope you're digging it. Just so you know,

we have videos. I think we're going to start releasing full videos of every episode on YouTube. Just look up my name, JoeMarcoSorrezi. And even better, if you really love this show, join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash downside. And you get two bonus episodes a month with video of all that. You get special little goodies. It's a good time.

I need help. get special little goodies it's a good time it's it's i need i need help i need to pay producers to help and someday pay russell so he can do more romantic gifts than prepare the drink she likes it's kind of like he just cleaned the apartment no no no no no okay it was it was more than that i felt like i really it was like a four course meal it was a thing with different drinks with each pairing. It was a real thing. There was coleslaw. That was number one. I got ketchup. But not just the regular ketchup. I got the mayo chip.

I think we went to a nice breakfast. We went to a nice dinner. I have work to do. I come from two loveless households. I did not have many role models in terms of loving gestures. And I think I did not have many role models in terms of loving gestures. And I think I did an okay job

first birthday out. And the sky is the limit. Or we won't make it to number two. So we'll see. Ari. What a pivot. I'm so happy to have you. Me too.

I'm so happy to have you. You are a stand-up comedian. And you make very funny videos and TikToks, and you write. Yeah. You were about to be the writer of a network show before COVID hit. Are we allowed to speak about that? Of course, yeah. You, right before COVID hit, what did you have? I was writing on a show on E, a late-night show on E, that got picked up for 14 episodes and we were ready to go we shot one

episode we were about to shoot the second episode and covet hit we started writing from home for like three weeks and then they were like fuck it oh and we just got shit cans in a way covet affected you the worst the worst more than anybody else more than tom hanks more than somebody's grandmother your grandmother right now somebody's grandmother oh aton's grandmother oh yeah yeah we're just bringing up other people's dead grandmas this could be a long listen let me get that new york times article of everyone sure yeah it's like 9 11 let's just read the names out for three hours yeah um well i'm sorry to hear that that's okay i mean that was just sucked it sucked it was it was horrible i mean every you know when you're not that it was my first thing but it felt like you know the first like bigger thing that i'd gotten and uh it's just

like what like what are the fucking odds like I would have no problem if they would have canceled us because we fucking sucked. Yeah. I would have loved that. That would have been great. I would have been like, ah, fuck the network. You know, we're fucking better. Whatever. But this is like a freak once in a billion cancellation.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was like the first fucking thing. And it sucked. Yeah. And it was like the first fucking thing. And it sucked. And like coming out of like the six months prior, like I had my kid.

I got dropped from my manager. I'm so sorry. Two weeks after having my kid. Oh, wait. Did the manager know about the kid? Of course. Oh, what'd they say? Monstrous.

I mean, they can't say that that was it. No. I think, well, I mean, listen, when a comedian has a kid, more often than not, it's bad news did they monstrous i mean they can't say that that was it no i think well i mean listen when a comedian has a kid more often than not it's bad news for the comedy career because really i think that that's people's perceptions of people having kids i also feel like there's the opposite of like oh this comedian's needs to make it happen now i mean that's what that's kind of what happened to me i kicked my ass in gear it was great it was the best thing that ever happened to me yeah um so but no she was like i we want different things like i at that time i was making i hadn't even gotten the writing job yet i was making all my money from like road dates and stand up and that kind of stuff and she just didn't care

about stand up really and it's not a lot of money in it no you have to be there's like eight people that make serious money like fuck you money in stand-up in the world yeah it's very tough it's like like i you know i have a stand-up agent person but like there's like a level of gig that i'd love to do i'd love to headline bumble fucks in new jersey and they're like bumble fucks is good we don't we don't even we don't know who runs bumblefucks because our commission would be 20 right so that's very scary yeah two weeks is really rough yeah i hadn't even bring the baby to her and say no no it was over the phone i mean listen we were friends like i i honestly don't have that much animosity because we were not right for each other sure and you know when you like get

it's kind of like when you start dating somebody my biggest attraction to a woman when i was in my late teens early 20s was that she was attracted to me that was it she could have been a horrible person looked like adolf hitler and as long as she was into me i would have been like well i'll try it out and that's like what it was with like a with representation if they like liked me i was like okay i'll go with them until i have a better option and it just wasn't working out so it was like it was a shitty in the moment but then it was like this is the right decision now when you had this kid yeah were you were you scared as a stand-up comedian? I mean, what does your wife do? She's a career advisor at a college, at a university. Good job?

Good, but not a high paying. I see. And did she advise you on your career? So she hired me. She was the recruiter at a company that I used to work for. She hired me for the job that I took. That was how we met. And there were times where in our relationship

she would be mad about how much money I made. And I'm like, motherfucker, you negotiated against me. What the fuck are you talking about? And I was making decent money. And she's like, well, it'd be nice if you could make more money. I'm like, you told me I shouldn't when you hired me. So wait,

what was the job that you had? I used to work for Models Sporting Goods. Okay. At their office. I've shopped there many times. Yeah, not anymore. They're all burnt down. Are they all gone?

Is it going to go completely? Yeah, it went belly up. Oh, fuck. So I got fired from that. I'm skipping around. I'm sorry. No, it's fine. What was your job at Models?

I was a buyer. You were a buyer. So you bought bulk shorts. I did all the. I'm sorry. No, it's fine. What was your job at Models? I was a buyer. You were a buyer. So you bought like bulk shorts. I bought, I did all the license stuff. Okay. So I did all the license stuff for eight years. Then in 2018, comedy was going pretty good. And I'm like, I'm going to quit this job.

I don't want to fucking do it anymore. And they're like, don't quit. And I'm like, I don't want to work here. You're like, you're a tough negotiator. Fine. They're're like, don't quit. And I'm like, I hate, I don't want to work here. You're like, you're a tough negotiator. Fine. They're like, they're like, please don't quit. We need you. I'm like, I, it has nothing to do with you guys. Like, I don't want to work this job anymore. It's not just you. Like, I don't want to do, I don't want to be in this industry. And they're like, is there any way you can stay? I go, okay, how about this? I'll work three days a week. And they're like, I don't know if that's

going to work. I'm like, cut my salary in half. I'll work three days a week. And they're like, I don't know if that's going to work. I'm like, cut my salary in half. I'll work three days a week. And they're like, okay, fine. So I did that for two years. I worked three days a week, two years. It was great. I took as much road work as I wanted. It was fucking freeing.

And then in February, they were going out of business. I get fired. I have a, Fawn can attest to this because i had i got fired our producer i got i fired the morning of one of her shows i went on stage had a like full breakdown would but like a super funny breakdown yeah you're good at that so that was like on a wednesday thursday i go to wisconsin and on my flight to w, I get a call from Nikki and

hired me on that show. Two days later. Who was the writer of the show? Yeah. The star of the show. Two days later. Crazy turn of events. Yeah.

Oh, so you were fired that recently. I was fired from what? Models? Yeah. February 2020. Wow. Oh my God. What a wow.

And then you're like, okay, it's fine. I have this show. Like I literally, I was like, okay, I was going to give two weeks and then two days later I get this other job and I couldn't even, cause I had to start the writing.

Yeah. So I didn't even get, I didn't even stay the two weeks. I stayed like two days. Holy shit. Yeah. Are you scared? You have this daughter.

How's your daughter now? She's going to be two in September. Two in September. Like, is it a scary thing to you? Like, comedically or as a father? I think,

I'll give you both. I think as like, as like, you know, standup comedy like has these huge ups and downs. Yeah. And like, I,

I only think of it in terms of myself. Sure. And like, if I have to reduce my meals, so they're very basic, like I can do that. I can make them boring. I can strap in the belt.

Yeah. But with a kid, and it's cool. It's harder. So I think this is what convinced me to have a kid. At every point in my life with comedy, I had these fears of is X, Y, or Z going to affect my comedy? So when I was single, I was like, okay, if I get into a relationship, it Z going to affect my comedy? So when I was single, I was like, okay, if I get into a relationship, it's going to fuck with comedy.

That never happened. I got into a relationship, there was no issue. Then I was like, okay, well, if I move in with her, that's really going to fuck up my comedy. Didn't happen. If I get engaged, didn't happen. Married, didn't happen. So I'm like, every time I've been scared of it's going to

affect comedy it's never come to fruition so i'm like whatever fuck it i i it's it's a it was a huge leap of faith i mean it's still fucking scary like you're doing well at the casino and we're like all right yeah you're doing so well and then you're like no put it all on red yeah put it all on baby put it all on baby yeah and it all on baby, yeah. But it's fucking hard. I mean, it is exhausting. It's fucking tough. I can't even imagine being a woman, like in general being a woman, but being a mother and trying to be a comedian is an impossible task.

Any mother, any comedian who is a mother deserves uh an hbo special every year and the congressional medal of freedom i mean it's insane how much how fucking hard it is on that do you see this there's some comedian she'd always she'd wear her baby on stage really yeah she'd like put like you know the bjorn yeah yeah like a real one though yeah it was real that was like that's a weird prospect like a bit just a fake baby being a mother's stuff yeah um well you're you're you you had the baby with lots of time quarantining do you think that was nice that you'd like stand up was over so you got to like that it seems like that first year i don't know what's the toughest i just saw my friend lind Lindsay and their kid is like two. Yeah.

And this, the energy, and this kid was moving in a way where I'm like, you're gonna die. Every time he, he was jumping and climbing and I was like,

you don't, you don't understand your mortality and there's corners everywhere. They don't care. The world is filled with corners. They have no inhibitions. They are just like, my daughter will just,

if she were standing on the couch, she would just jump off were standing on the couch she would just jump off face plant into the ground and not think anything wrong of it all the time i did the word like playing with this kid and like he just wanted me to chase him for a long time yeah a very long time back and forth this one hallway yeah and at some point you know i like pull his feet and like rookie move like i i pull his feet while he's like on the ground and his head smacks back into the floor. And I'm like, oh, no, I killed him. The worst noise, right?

The worst noise. That like, dink, it fucking sucks. And he was like, mommy, mommy. And I was like, oh, no, no, they're going to be mad at me. They didn't give a shit. No, I mean, when you're like, when they're so young, you're scared and you don't know what to do. But then once your kid bangs the shit out of their head 10 or 15 times, you're like, it doesn't fucking matter. Kids' heads are so hard. Nobody talks about that, how hard kids' heads are.

You could bang it off with a fucking bus. I think it would be sketchy if you brought it about at a party. Do you guys know how hard a kid's head is? Watch this. I've been dropping them. Watch this. party do you guys know how hard a kid's head is i've been dropping them watch this um so all right i could where where did you where were you born jersey jersey ridgewood new jersey ridgewood new jersey and any downsides to growing up in ridgewood new jersey i didn't grow up in

ridgewood i grew up in fairlawn new jersey which is the next town over and i fucking hated it growing up why because i had no friends why do you think that is because i multiple reasons one i was uh uh made fun of merciful mercilessly mercilessly mercilessly not mercifully what about mercifully that's not even a word that's even longer than mercilessly i mean i know it's longer but is it the contextual right word mercifully mercifully that's not a word mercilessly mercilessly mercilessly cut that it doesn't sound like a real word anymore right it sounds like super california you guys how are you made fun of um were there jews there there were jews but most of my friends were not jewish i had like jewish It sounds like super California. Who are you made fun of? Were there Jews there? There were Jews, but most of my friends were not Jewish.

I had Jewish Hebrew school friends growing up, but once I got to middle school, I was hanging out with, I was in the cool crew. But then I had a huge falling out. What happened? I got, this is a long story, so I'll make it as short as possible. I know you have a, I know we're on a six hour podcast, but it's like, I'm not going to give you the whole thing. Okay.

Okay. So I go to this, I go to a sleepover. Okay. Okay. My friends and I back as most, we probably all did when we were in middle school. If you make little sketches you film stuff done videos i'm so nervous right now right i don't know what's gonna happen okay so we used to have this sketch reoccurring sketch that we would film and show nobody but we would just film them called

uh it was like a talk show like a jerry uh springer type talk show so they uh i'm like i'm like a a panelist on this talk show they bring me out all of a sudden out of nowhere they all start duct taping me to this uh chair like duck like a like i was like a terrorist being waterboarded and out of nowhere i had no idea and then uh you relax i'm fine i'm'm stressed. I know. But you guys are both looking at me like I pulled my dick out. It's fine. We're looking at you like, put the duct tape away. Don't do that bit.

Don't do that bit. Please don't do that bit. Please don't do that bit. So they're like, all of my best friends are like duct taping me. And it's not like fun. Fun. Are you yelling? Stop.

Screaming. Screaming my. OK. me and it's not like fun fun are you yelling stop screaming screaming my okay so finally the i from all of my you know screaming i wake up his mother and i like run home like i lived a couple blocks away i like run home did she cut you out or like how did you yeah they like how old exactly middle 12 13 somewhere in that eighth grade. And apparently what the plan was, it was January. They were going to not waterboard me, but pour water on me

and then push me outside and leave me outside. What? What was the temperature? Fuck. January, so cold. Freezing. Yeah.

And they filmed the whole thing. Why? Kids are fucked up. I don't know. So they filmed. So the mom comes down she's grabbed scissors or there's enough room to rip it off of you i mean i i don't remember the exact tension on the tape it was a traumatizing event of course yeah so you you said you you ran home escaped you ran home yeah i went home yelling at these kids is she like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Did you tell your parents?

I told my parents, like, maybe later, later the next day. Maybe, like, 5 o'clock the next day. Because I was just like, what just fucking happened? These are my best friends. Like, where did that come from? And they, like, imagine going to school the next Monday. I mean, I was, like, fucked beyond repair. And were you guys, like, prankstery friends,

or was this a strange move? Not like that. It was a big leap. Like a jackass type. It was like if, like, okay, let's make a video of everybody ball-tapping people, and then the next video is Johnny Knoxville kills Bam Margera's father.

Like, it was just, like, a big leap in logic. Okay? So going to school the nextay was like fucking hard so if they like i was made fun of like for that from that eighth grade until like junior year of high school made fun of just like being a little bitch about it yeah like you're the kid that got tied up there was also this scurrilous rumor okay when I was in fifth grade. Is this even what this podcast is about? How do I know this is great? All the downsides of your childhood.

Wait, so this is pre the duct tape. Pre the duct tape. Okay, fifth grade. I have a hernia. Hernia in my belly button. You've heard me tell jokes about this. I got that from Deadlift. Parambulical hernia. And then I had a hernia in my crotch, okay? So when you have a hernia, like a lower abdominal hernia,

your small intestines goes into your scrotum, okay? And it basically looks like you have one gigantic soccer ball-sized scrotum, okay? So I'm telling this story to my friends in, like, the sixth grade, and I used the phrase, like, it looked like i had one testicle okay huge rumor you know uh telephone game goes around middle school ari has one testicle okay going all over the place now if that if you had spread a rumor amongst the comedy community that said ari have one testicle i would just pull my dick out anytime somebody said and be like I will show you two testicles

but I would ask first can I prove this rumor false right now I would like everybody to sign a contract that I can prove Joe Marco's rumor false everyone kept saying Louie had one testicle on the chest

I'm just awkwardly defending him. No, obviously I wouldn't pull my dick out. Wait, just so I know, because it went into your scrotum, it did look like there was not a division between the two balls? It was just like a... Well, if you look...

If one's giant... There are points. I don't know what your scrotum looks like. I don't want to find out I have not signed the contract yet but there are points in which in the life of your scrotum where it doesn't look like two segmented testicles I don't know if maybe you have a very saggy sack or something but I do think I have bigger balls the most but go ahead okay so there's this rumor going around in addition to that I did not go through puberty until I was 18 years old.

So there's this- 18. 18. College. Freshman year of college. I graduated high school, or I started senior year of high school. I was 5'3". My freshman year of college, I was 6'1".

Oh, my God. Crazy gross part. Can I just... So, you weren't jerking off in high school? I was. But you pre-puberty? Of course. I thought you had to go through puberty before you could cum and whatnot.

You're talking about the actual liquid? Well, what happened? You just jerk it and decide when you were done? You never jerked off? All right. Enough of that. No, there was a time period. You can jerk off prior to actual semen coming out of your penis.

Can you get hard hard before you go through puberty? Of course. A baby can get hard. Some babies are born with hard dicks. I have no factual evidence. I have no factual evidence. This baby is stuck. What's going on? this baby is stuck what's going on all the time this baby is stuck right now he's cut oh is he is he baby think of your grandma dying we gotta get you out of here now oh is is a cord wrapped around his neck no he's got a raging boner

so like i couldn't it's his head no no. I couldn't refute the rumor. That was like the issue my whole middle school and high school. I could never refute. And it bothered you. Of course. Oh, it did not bother him in middle school, high school. Sure. It's just so straight.

Like, just the fact that you had genitals could have been embarrassing enough. I mean, like, it's like, you know, it's all embarrassing. Yeah, but i mean listen when did you go through puberty i think i went through i definitely by seventh or eighth grade there were hairs down there i mean i imagine you were that weird mustache kid right like don't you see him like seventh grade and just having like a just a thick mustache and people were just like why is he gonna shave it no i think i went through well now i don't even know what to define puberty as for me it was always like pubic hair was like

the thing i remember seeing a boy in gym class at the biggest bush in sixth grade and i was like what is going on like i that was like way far from what was happening for me at the time they're definitely something and i was like it was big bush like and i had never seen that before so it was very alarming i remember you know how there's kids you ever run to kids where they would have like they'd grow one strand of hair in the back of their head that they never cut and like so there was some yeah but there was some hair at the end that like essentially was their first hair like their baby hair like that would just be fun for pubes just one strand just to grow your pubes out just one though but i think with pubes that they only grow to a certain level like the hair follicles are not like your hair where it would grow forever i've always been

curious about that i mean i i trim it very sloppily. I mean, judging by what I'm seeing right now, I can't even imagine what your pubic hair looks like. I just remember that the first time where you just take a pair of scissors and you're like, all right, I'll just, I'll just trim it like this.

With scissors. Yeah. Yeah. And now I have a, what is it? A buzzer. A buzzer. Yeah.

It's the only way to do it. Yeah. That's the only way to do it. Yeah. That's the only way to do it. But I remember the scissor cut. Oh. It looked like my dick was going through chemo or something. It looked like a really. Just loose, vague hairs.

Yeah. So, okay. So people thought you had one testicle, but you're still part of the cool kids. Yeah. And then like. And then this is horrifying. Do you think this prank was like, they resent, like you weren't, you were the kid they didn't like, or was it just a crazy thing that happened?

I think that part of it is a crazy thing that happened. I will admit that there's probably some thing like I could dish it out, but I couldn't take it. But I do think that kids don't really understand that um did she got like mean insults or like were you duct taping kids too no no never never i was never no but i would like i would bust balls but kids don't really understand the nuance of busting balls like it like it'd be like hey uh you have a weird haircut and then you'll be like, well, your mother's a fucking or something like that. Right?

Like they don't understand. Is that, can you, I don't know if I can say that word. Can you say that word? I don't think so. Can you bleep it? Yeah.

Fucking A. You know how much, you know what a pain in the fucking ass it is to have a bleep? Well, I said it, I should say. I'm saying no more slurs for the rest of the podcast recording. That'd be great.

In some ways, it's probably going to sound worse than it was. Can you please bleep it? I will bleep it out. I will bleep it out on the audio and the video and the fucking everything. I will bleep it out. No, there is that scene in Pen15 just like that, where they're doing the fight, and then she's just like, your dad's dead doing the the fight and then she's just like your dad's dead and it's like that thing where kids don't understand how to like fight

and be mean because it's so mean well that sounds very horrible have you ever uh asked them about this i'm now friends with one of them again after all these years is that how you found out the second part about the water thing? Like, how did you find out about that? I found that out, like, pretty soon after. I mean, they were watching the video for, like, years after. Oh, my God.

Like, horrible. Like, I didn't go to my 10-year reunion because I just, I wasn't emotionally ready to see some of these kids. Really? It fucked you up that bad?

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's still to this day. you up that bad oh yeah i mean it's still to this day like it's not like a it's not like a an active fuck up thing that happened but you don't hear the sound of taping no but i like i would say in all of my friendships now i unfortunately put trap doors into all of my friendships so that I can get out whenever I feel like the walls are clowing Closing in on me, which is not a healthy thing in friendships with just it's how it sounds like you really have like a post-traumatic stress

So the friend that you have reconnected with yeah, have you guys talked about of course all the time? Okay? Yeah, he may mean Like talking about the the incidents don't bother me at all i mean i'm that part i'm at perfect peace with um but we'll we he joked we joke about it all the time like anytime like we're in the same room and he sees like a thing a duct tape he'll give me like a hmm truly maybe you get in the chair for all time sake and you start crying. I start crying, yeah. Where is this video? I don't know. It's out, it's probably there. Would you want to see it?

The only reason I want to see it is because, you know sometimes when, not necessarily a traumatic event, but any historical memory in your brain, it's not 100% accurate. Yes. So I want to see it just to see if there's things that i've altered

like like there's a a two percent of me that is like did this even happen did it even happen like like obviously it happened but like there's a part of me is like maybe i've fucking created this entire uh a beautiful mind world in my head that doesn't really exist it's just like three hours of him calling them slurs yeah and then like they're like i didn't say a slur i didn't say a slur stop referencing that i said a slur if he's gonna believe it he didn't he didn't he didn't he didn't say a word that's on the line of like is this okay if we're quoting an imaginary figure? Look, that's,

I'm just, I want to see it so badly. It feels like you should find it and do a one-man show called Tapin', something with the word tapin'. Tie me up. Tie me up, let me out. Tie me up, let me out.

Sounds like I'm coming out of the closet. It does. Now, can I ask about, is this bit true that I saw that when you were 13, you came out of the closet to your father? Yeah. Not 13, but I told my dad that I thought I might be gay. At how old? Like 10, 11, something like that.

So this is pre-puberty. You're just bored. You're like, I don't know when I'm going to find this out. I don't think it was because of boredom. I'm bored. Well, must be gay gay so what made you think that though there was another kid at school you're like when they duct tape me i like to there was another kid at school who was getting bullied but he was getting bullied because he was gay i was also getting bullied and was like maybe i'm gay maybe that's why they're bullying me that was the logic in my

brain it made sense in my head were you a feminine boy never fucking masculine as hell dude fucking look at this shit dude come on you're jacked no uh never sports the whole thing so you went to your father i it wasn't even like dad i need to tell you something it was just like dad i am i gay i think i might be gay and he's like why do you think you're gay and i need to tell you something it was just like dad i am i gay i think i might be gay and he's like why do you think you're gay and i explained to him this bullying thing and he's like well do you fantasy like my dad is like a bro he's born in israel but like a brooklyn like fuck you how you do it like that kind of he goes well do you fantasize about having sex with men and i'm like no and he goes you're not gay and that was it we never talked about it

again until i bring multiple women home and he was like okay well i guess you're not gay so your father was born in israel yeah mom american yeah have you been to israel recently uh not recently 2012 2012 was this birthright or do you go there often birthright no birthright yeah fell in love and on birthright that's wow wait that's where you no no no no fell a different love i fell in love i fall in love i'm a listen i i know you're not a romantic but we are we're romantic shut the fuck up um okay so uh dad what about any anything interesting about uh having a father's born israel any strange things he did as a dad well i would say the bigger is the grandparents who survived the holocaust that is who survived the holocaust yeah that was not fun i mean

talk about post-traumatic stress i mean crazy they were horrible my my grandmother to this day wakes up screaming i mean terrible terrible my god oh the worst wakes up screaming like if she's staying over or she doesn't she's not allowed to stay over but she would she like used to scream she used to scream yeah and you you were a little kid and they had to explain it to you yeah i mean for years they wouldn't talk to me about it my grandparents yeah and then in like uh maybe like ninth grade i took like a world history class and started to learn maybe earlier than ninth grade i started to learn about stuff and they finally told me you know all the shit that and it's a fucking insane crazy story i mean my grandfather escaped from two concentration camps broke his arm jumping off of a moving train,

like insane, insane, insane. So he never would talk to me about it. I go through, I take this class, I start learning about it. He finally opens up to me.

He tells me, I start talking to him about the whole thing. I asked him about his liberation when he left the concentration camp. I'm like, what did you do? What was the first thing that you did? And he's like,

well, I hitchhiked my way back to this small little village in Poland that he was from. And he dug up all this money that his family hid in the ground because they didn't know what would happen when they left. And he dug up all the jewels and all the jewels. Is that a thing? The coins, whatever. The pirate chest, the booty.

The pirate chest, the booty. And he went to a brothel and fucked like six prostitutes because he was a virgin going into the and i i was like maybe if you go to a concentration camp and you're as a virgin the moment you escape you're like well i'm not waiting i know oh that's life i was like maybe we don't talk about the holocaust anymore maybe we just stop it is so right if you ever write a movie, the idea of you have him speak at your school, and then he goes into the prostitute part, and the teacher's like,

what are you going to tell us? And then the Russians came, and I went and fucked a hooker. How did he escape? They used to transport prisoners from camp to camp. We're going to take a commercial break. After this commercial, we'll find out how he escaped the concentration camp.

It's real. And we're back. Alright, thanks for sticking through that. Now... It is real. That is where the commercial will be. How did he escape? Hold on. I just need to address

that I'm about to launch into this. Like my family's tale about my father. Listen, in your life, if you lived to 95, both of you, if you lived to 95 years old, and you talk to somebody who you'll never meet another guy whose parent escaped from a concentration camp, and you took a fucking commercial break in the middle of the story? My wife's grandfather escaped from Auschwitz. Well, fuck me, then. I mean, listen, I have one unique story.

One. That's it. I want to hear yours, though. It's not my grandfather, though. So you're right on that account. Okay. They're transporting him from camp to camp on a moving train with a

bunch of other prisoners he like gets out of his restraints and jumps off of a moving train and then like hides into the in the brush for like weeks and or not weeks like days he gets to he like finally like finds a like a town and he uh he's like in this guy's backyard, the guy comes out, uh, of his backyard and he's like, what are you doing? And he's, he explains like,

I'm a Jew. I, uh, escaped from this concentration camp. I, I need to eat. I haven't eaten in days. What country is he in for this?

Uh, he's in Poland. In Poland. Okay. So, and the guy's like, fine, no problem.

He goes and he gets him a sandwich and he gets him a a ham sandwich and my grandfather this is the craziest thing about the whole story in my mind because i'm not uh i'm more culturally religious now he gives him the guy gives him the hand sandwich and my grandfather he hasn't eaten in days oh my god he says i can't eat it oh my god he says i can't eat it imagine can you imagine i can't i can't even imagine if you're the guy and you're like this fucking guy i go out of my way i'm saving this guy's life by giving him a hand sandwich and he can't fucking it's like you know every you ever try and give a homeless guy food and they're they just like they're like what is it and you're like it's tapas and you're like he's like i don't want we have a friend, Chris Cavera, once tried to give someone bagel chips.

And they're like, I don't like bagel chips. And he was like, what? Are you serious? He said, it's really good bagel chips. But it's crazy. I can't hold on to God for whatever reason now. How he's able to do it is insane. I was once at a deli, like a Jewishish deli and i wanted milk with my coffee and

they're like we can't do that and i literally like not thinking i was like yeah i know but can i just can i have the milk though with the coffee like i was like yeah yeah yeah all the jew stuff but can you can we just do it yeah and i mean it's just i mean that's it's i can't imagine can't so he said no he said no and then the guy said okay i'll get you another sandwich and what did he come back with? Shellfish no, no, no, I can't I Think just brought him regular bread. Yeah, I'm like, okay, you get a bread sandwich now. You get nothing in between these two pieces.

Chips and this, you know what? Like a little kid can't eat a hamburger. He just has like a chip sandwich with Fritos in between two pieces of white bread. Especially after all that. If I stub my toe, I'm like, well, God was not looking out for me. Right? It blows my mind how there are a lot of people,

like I don't know if you've read uh victor frankl man search for meeting like there's a lot of people who uh lost their faith in that and i anybody who kept it is uh cra it's crazy to me i can't wrap my brain the only other version of it is like to get through something that difficult you're like let me hold on to something. Sure, yeah. I mean, listen, you have to, my idea or my stance on religion is it's a very logical thing. Like people think of it as this mysticism

or whatever, this high power thing. It's a logical, there's a reason behind it. So like in my brain, five, 10,000 years ago, whenever you think there were people existing, my brain, five, 10,000 years ago, whenever you think there were people existed, there was no order.

6,000 years ago. Exactly. Whatever. With the dinosaurs. There's no order, right? People are murdering. People are fucking shitting in the street.

So you invent. There are no streets. There are no streets. They're shitting in whatever was a street. Okay. Yeah. There. So you invent this thing that you can't refute because it doesn't

exist and you say okay this thing called god doesn't want you to do all of these bad things and nobody can refute it so it creates some sort of order when you look at all the shit that like jews do it's very easy to see why they do it the hand washing one is my favorite where there's something where you'll take a cup of water and pour it on one hand, one hand, one hand. I'm like, oh, you're washing your fucking hands. It's like, okay, yarmulkes, okay.

What is the weird coincidence that the place where the yarmulke goes also is the number one place where men go bald? What are the odds that that is? You think that was it? Of course. It's that simple.

That's it. People are going bald. They said, God wants us to have these things right in this exact spot where I have no hair. Why can't we eat pork? Because people didn't know how to fucking properly store and cure meat. So they were eating filthy, disgusting, disease-infested meat. Tova's going to hate this.

No, Tova's like kosher, but she's not closed off to the idea of maybe eating meat. Of leaving God. I'm pulling. No, no, no, but it's just one of these things like she kind of wants to maybe try oysters or try ham, but it's so deeply

ingrained in her first we got to make sure there's no allergies especially with the right the oysters and whatnot but like i was like for like bacon you know i said bacon's the way to start if we're gonna go ham i don't like a ham sandwich i would have turned it down too frankly uh i love him well that means that you and my grandfather identical you just just have the same life. So your grandfather, so eventually he opens up and he tells you like, I mean, it's got to be a story that could take nights. Everything. Like you sat down, like a story time almost?

No, I mean, my grandfather did an interview with the Holocaust Museum in like the early, early 90s where they tried to just, the Holocaust Museum just tried to interview as many survivors as they can so that you know people were dying off at that point they were in their like late 70s yeah and they just tried to get everybody's stories as much as good so he did like a five-hour interview which is on the internet i can watch it whenever i want and that's like if i ever sometimes i go back and watch, it's fucking heavy. You have your grandparents passed away? My grandfather died.

Your grandfather died. My grandmother is still alive, but really wants to die. Really wants to die. Hates, hates her life. Has never, like everything after. She's always like depressed. Yes. Yeah.

How long were they married and then when did he die? He died in 2009. So were they married pre? No, after. Post. After. They met in Israel, yeah. Was he more cheery than she was?

Always. It sounds like, really. I mean, listen, immigrant parents, the trope is they're not very loving, they're distant. That was there. They were distant compared to my other grandparents. But my grandfather 100% was the more loving one i mean my grandmother never assimilated she never learned how to drive she never got a job like she cannot provide for herself one time she um we went over to her house my father and i and we're like the fridge is broken the fridge

is like foul like everything is spoiled in the fridge she's like how long has it been like that she's like two weeks i'm like what have you been doing for food and she's like i haven't really eaten it's like what are you what are you talking about like this this is like this is the shit that people did to you fucking 70 years ago what are you doing yeah and she just it doesn't even like she doesn't even like comprehend in her brain that she needs to like actively take care of her life sounds like a like it would sound like clinical depression yeah and did they get a did they get along i mean were they happily married you're

yeah i mean happily it's tough to as kid, you can't make that judgment, but they were married until, yeah, he died. And she doesn't talk about stuff as much. How many Holocaust survivors are there in the world right now? I think there's a hundred thousand left. A hundred thousand. Yeah. I mean, it's going to, certainly if we, if we. In our lifetime though.

In our lifetime. They'll be gone. Yeah. I mean, in the next 10 years, like it's not going to be long. They'll all be gone. It's crazy that that is a thing that's going to happen. Like it's not a thing, you know, there are events that just will die off in memory, which is why they tried to do those like huge long interviews to try and document it.

Can I ask, because I saw i saw luke monas over the weekend and it was very interesting like how do you feel about when a comedian uses the holocaust as a in a joke do you feel an emotional funny funny funny funny funny funny funny whatever i i really if as long as it's funny i don't really care it's like he said and i think i'm not i think this is okay we're talking about some joke that i thought was really funny that involved the holocaust and he was like yeah you know what i'd like to take him to auschwitz and show him around just walk around and it was very interesting from a comedian i was like wait that's his line that's what he said he was saying like that it just rubbed him the wrong way something about it rubbed him the wrong way and he was like i would

like to to take him take him to take him to auschwitz and walk around listen and i was like oh okay there are like funniest funny is not a gift i know right this is starbucks it's crazy um it is now do you know what camp they your your grandfather was at yeah he was at i mean he was at a couple but he was at auschwitz uh my grandmother was at bergen my grandmother was at a death camp. So her literal job for like a year was to carry bodies from like one place of the camp to the other. It's nuts. She's like a tiny,

frail, like if she weighs 80 pounds, I'd be surprised. Jesus Christ. Yeah. I think the thing I believe was at Auschwitz. I think it went to two D it was at Auschwitz, I think it went to Dachau and Auschwitz. The thing that I think was the ovens.

There was one room where there were two oven type things. That was the thing that stays with me forever. Yeah, I mean, listen, is any joke about the Holocaust okay? Probably not. But more often than not, I don hear the horrific horrific holocaust jokes i think i think the case to be made against like joking about things like that is that will will we then be able to take it seriously when we need to like when we talk about problems with you know hate crimes and like making laws like we all have to engage in a way of being like this is a serious

thing and people it causes horrible pain right and so when people joke about things too much i think kind of the fear is if we don't have any space for the sacred or any space for the like we should be serious about this will we ever be able to talk about it seriously and i get that i would hate for everyone to be a comedian right i think that um i mean that's a a not a comedy problem that's a worldwide problem anytime that like you know look at i don't want to get too deep into politics but like anytime that uh you have a a particular thing that people are like oh this is this is not serious it's not a a joke eventually so there are some people it's not not a joke sorry um there

eventually there are some people who believe it as a joke sorry um there eventually there are some people who believe it as true and then that gains enough steam that it becomes true right queuing on that like people pooh-poohed queuing on it's a fucking made up blah blah blah but then look at all these crazy people who are following it right so that's the the fear about you know the similarity with the joke structure and that kind of stuff i have no problem if a jew or somebody who has an experience with the holocaust wants to tell a joke about the holocaust but if you're telling a joke about the holocaust for the sake of telling a joke about a holocaust sure it's not for me i'm not i'm not saying you can't do it but it definitely has to be funny if you're gonna do

it yeah i think it's just like like the same way adolf hitler at other events don't say anything bad about adolf hitler no you would date a woman who looked just like him the jury's still out where it's just like it's the holocaust is the is the uh uh oh what's the it's just like the pinnacle of what badness is it's like the worst event in the world it's this hitler is the worst person in the world. That's why I have so many jokes and I'm trying to like be like alright start losing these

or come up with something else where like Hitler is just what you use because it's like the worst case scenario. Right. It just is easy to use comedically.

The same way Applebee's is used too many times because it's like the most commercial American commercial place. Isn't it crazy to me isn't it crazy to you that like it's been

80 years since the holocaust and hitler is still the worst like that like there's nobody that's replaced how bad but i also think like there to a certain degree it's like that's part of the american when i say propaganda that's not just saying that hitler was actually good but it's more like you there are other people who have done terrible terrible things but like nothing you know you don't you don't fully associate it with him like hitler takes all the weight as opposed to the americans who turned away the jews or the or there's other people have done or christopher columbus i mean i think read in the book, the people's history of the United States was like, I think it was 8 million Native Americans that were killed when people came here.

What we did to the Native Americans is horrific. Yeah. But it's just, I just think like, Hitler is narrative wise kind of fits as the perfect pinnacle. Yeah, because you can pin it on one person. Yeah. That's the problem with, I know I'm going all over the place, but we

don't consider ourselves, United States is not at war right now, right? Because there's not like, countries don't attack countries anymore, okay? It's just like factions of people within a country that's not technically associated with that country country so it's not easy to pin on something and say okay we're in war right now but we've been in fucking war for

22 years with just group different groups of people on the same fighting the same shit so it's like if you can pin it on somebody it's always going to be the worst case scenario like that's why you know there's nobody else really at the top of the nazi party that you can pin it on except for him that's why it's so easy to say it's the worst and justifiably so um now uh did you think there would be this much holocaust defend hitler anymore listen i've always wanted to see his paintings i've always been curious about it well i got news for you. Dottie, come bring them in!

It's like a George Bush scenario where you're like, oh, well, it's pretty good. Yeah. I'm sure you've seen a Hitler painting and not known that it was a Hitler painting. Like, where would I have seen that? Blazes. Blazes.

That would be a good prank, though. Like, that would be a good prank though like that would be a really good like you find out some politicians are painting and then you find out it was actually hitler it would be a good prank to play on somebody else where you're like hey i got you all these you know somebody gets a nice house and you're like i'm gonna get you let me get you let me get you a housewarming gift you know and you just get like a huge fucking six feet by six feet picture of hitler's dog and they have no idea and then like you know two years later you're like you got a fucking hitler picture motherfucker um i want to briefly you have a you have a a younger brother yes how much younger five years five years yeah and he's in comedy too he's a comedian and a

writer yeah do you feel like he's a comedian because of you we started the same time like almost i did it like a week away from each other really who went first uh i did he was in high school so does that really count maybe not are you guys close like are you guys close i mean yeah five years not years. Not growing up. Not growing up. Because I was like out of the house when his brain checked on. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, like when he was 11, I was like 16 about to go to college. So we didn't really become friends, friends until he graduated. Like when he went to college. So I was like 25 and he was like 19. And he's in LA now. He's in LA. I mean, he's in New York at the current moment, but yeah, he's in LA.

Do you miss living in the same place with him? No. You like this space? Yes. That's good. Yeah, I mean, we used to write together. We used to be writing partners. We wrote maybe, I don't know, 10 pilots over the years.

That's amazing. Listen, I'm a prolific writer. It's fine. And we started to like, just there'd be a lot of, not argument, but there was like, we're too close. Because, like, you know, I'm sure you and I have talked about this with like, you've asked me like, because you're dating somebody who's in comedy, I'm married to somebody who's not in comedy. Like, how do you escape? Can you escape? That kind of thing like

when you're you're working all day with somebody in comedy and then your best friend is also that person it's tough to like escape problems and like it just became like a little bit too much sure so the distance is great for that it's the best siblings i mean that's why i think they can be good artistic partners but you can be ruthlessly honest with your siblings i just think like siblings like you can talk in a way to your siblings you know that they're not going to leave you yeah so sometimes there's just like it can be yeah you can say whatever you want go fuck yourself yeah just like that i would never say that to like if i had a different writing partner ever i would never like there was a point where like well this is so stupid we were like arguing about a scene and we got into a physical

altercation amazing like we were i was like i don't know 25 and he was like it was nothing but like we got into like a fit i remember like my neighbor called the doorman and was like, I think there's some sort of like issue fight burglary going on. And I'm like, no, just we're trying to argue about whether or not our main character is justified the previous scene. So everything's fine. Oh yeah. I, uh, who won the fight?

I did. I'm so much bigger than him. Well, you're older too. I'm older. I'm more masculine. I've got huge muscles. I've got one testicle. I mean, things are really...

How did you get those hernias, by the way? I was born with both of them. They just got progressively worse. Mine was right around the belly button. And I even got an ultrasound. And they didn't think it was a hernia. They thought it was some lump of fat or whatever. I don't mine was right around the belly button. Yeah. And I even got an ultrasound, and they didn't think it was a hernia. They thought it was some lump of fat or whatever. I don't even know what they thought it was.

And then one day I'm like fidgeting with this bump, and then it pops back in, and I'm like, that's a hernia. Yeah. How old was this? 26, 27. Recently. Yeah. I don't know how old you are. I'm 27 and a half.

Yeah. I was doing a single rep deadlift. This my crossfit phase god i hate crossfit i was i was strong that that may could have beaten me up even with the hernia i live next to a crossfit gym and it annoys me so much so embarrassing it just is like one of those things where why it just seems like you can't just do it quietly yes you have to like be loud and proud and like and like a part of the community and it's like so this is his same complaints about the the pride parade you had to be loud and proud and part of the community it just seems like you can't casually or quietly do it it's like you're all in you're on the website you're on the instagram you have to share it it's just

every promise i was i was having every crossfit gym is in like an old fucking auto garage or a fucking dismantled lighthouse like there's just never normal gym situations there's never fluorescent lights they just have random light fixtures whatever they left from the previous owner i live next to this fucking thing i swear to god every day they're like go run outside just fucking go run around the building that's all like it's so stupid just fucking you pay to do it be in the gym these people run around my fucking building with stupid hand wraps on with fucking talc powder running a muck all over my goddamn streets. Work out in the gym. Yeah.

Sorry. So you have IBS? Yes. I love your pivots. How is that? Any downsides to that? I mean, I shit 14 times a day. Really?

Every day. Yeah, I mean, like, I took an Imodium before I came here so that I wouldn't have to... And what is that? It stops you up? No, it have to and what is that it stops you No, it speeds it up. Yeah, it stops me from shitting Maybe it maybe it slows down it Appears the poop inside you magically but like what is it? What does it do chemically slows things down?

But like, what does it do chemically? Slows things down. What am I? Dr. Fauci? Well, John Margo, look at my chart here. You'll see the chemical makeup. I would know a little bit about what the fuck's going on with all the poop. I mean, it just blocks you out. When are you going to be able to poop again?

In a couple of hours, probably. I took it at like, let's see, what time is it? It's 5.30. I took it at like 3.30. So when you have to poop, you have to poop now? Is it always now? Immediate. Immediate.

Immediate. And never, like not never, but they're very rarely like a solid. They're some version of frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt on a hot summer day, frozen yogurt in the winter, frozen yogurt, the machine's broken and it's just pure liquid, that kind of stuff. And you take this pill. I mean, this pill sounds like a lifesaver. No, I take the pill when I know I'm potentially going to be at a place where I can go to the bathroom when I need to at any point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like on a plane ride or like if I'm doing a show, I don't know when I'm going up on the show or if I know the bathroom situation is going to be bad, I'll take it. Are you supposed to not take it too often? Like is it not good? Well, I'm supposed to alter my diet

and I don't do that. I mean, that's the reason why it's so bad. Like I eat, I'm lactose intolerant. I eat cheese, pizza, fucking ice cream all the time. You're not going to change your ways? I mean, not that I'm not going to change,

but I like ice cream. I really like ice cream all the time. You're not going to change your ways? I mean, not that I'm not going to change, but I like ice cream. I really like ice cream. I like pizza. So that's what it is. It's just that it's the cheese. If the cheese went away, you'd be pooping. I would not. It would be more normal.

How many times do you poop a day? Two, usually. Sometimes three. But usually two. Sometimes it'll just be a two. Very rarely one. Once in a while. I eat a lot of spite. I have Tabasco and everything. Yeah, I put Sriracha on everything.

Oh, Sriracha. My wife will sometimes go days without pooping. When someone's like, I haven't pooped since, and they say any day that's more than two. If you go more than an hour, to me, it's abnormal. When I travel, my body, thank God, my body seems to get like an eight-hour plane ride.

We're not going to poop. But when I get home, it's like the body just... It's amazing how the body just seems to be like, we're doing it now. Yeah, I mean, the amount of times I've shit my pants as an adult is alarming just so many times like full shitting pants all the time do you think about that like always having would you ever have a white pair of pants or shorts or you're like no no but having nothing to do with shit i would never wear a fucking pair of white pair of pants i'm a 35 year old man with a kid i would look like a fucking idiot i just got confident enough to wear a white shirt in public i mean the white pants is i need to become a scientologist or something

yeah um all right we're gonna move on to our next segment this has got to stop this has got to stop do you see the email by any chance i did of course i read every email don't say of course i mean most people they're like what are you talking i? I show up early, if not. Yeah, quite early. In fact, pre my shower. Pre your shower. But I said, what did I say? You said. Don't say what I said.

Don't say what I said. Because I'm going to be made to look really bad on this podcast. It's too late for that. We've been recording the whole time. Slur onwards. I didn't say a slur. He did not say Slur onwards. I didn't say a slur. You didn't say a slur. And you can't tell.

We bleeped it out. We bleeped it out. We bleeped it out. You're no longer booking JFL. That's for sure. That phase of your life is over. What else is new? So this has got to stop.

Do you have a this has got to stop? I got a hundred of them. How many? You want me to go just one deep one? We'll start with one. Yeah just one deep one we'll start with one yeah one deep one and then okay yeah we'll see all right this is this is the the one that really bothers me lately because i'm a father a lot of my like wife's friends are all having kids this bothers me more than anything people will name their kids something and then call them

a totally different name not even a nickname nickname. Okay. I had a friend, uh, had a daughter named Rebecca. I went and I met her and I, I was like, I was like, hi Rebecca. And then she was like,

we're calling her Joey. That's not even a nickname. Like why? This is a real example. I swear to God. What was the reasoning? It's an, it's a name that they,

they're like, we just want to call her Joey. I'm like, then fucking call her Joey. Name her Joey. There are approved nicknames for Rebecca, Becky, Bex, Reba, Ray, Ray, Ray. There's a long list of names that we've approved, and Joey is not one of them. It pisses me off to no extent. I've never heard a girl

Call Joey Maybe that's why You've never seen Dawson's Creek? Oh my god Oh, DeMarco No, I haven't seen Dawson's Creek Jesus Chad Michael Murray?

Was that Dawson's Creek? No! That's One Tree Hill! So This is now the downside with Ari Finlay So your Your daughter's name is what? Guess it.

No. Sophie. Sophie. And you call Sophie every time? Soph. Sophila. Sophila. Shushy.

Shushy? Shish. You know, I just guttural noises. But like if I were to introduce her to you, I would not say this is my daughter. She she I would say this is my daughter Sophie yeah, not even like it wouldn't even I cross my mind and then cuz then you Is the kid gonna carry that for the rest of their life? That's the thing is like we all knew those kids in school and the first day of school They go through the fucking list and they're like Jamar go here Ari here Russell here and they're like joe marco here ari here russell here and they're like rebecca and they're

like actually it's joey and guess what every one of her classmates fucking hates her now because it's a crutch it's like it's like a this is a fun little anecdote about me yeah and they they rely on it and it's not interesting not interesting fun you what's the story you joey my parents named me this and then they said no you're this yeah right ruined my life and it ruined her fucking life the other thing like you ever did anybody in your like school change their name like try to change their name i i went through nickname trying to change nickname phases for sure nicknames but never like a real name no who tried to change their name there was a kid in not so there was three kids getting bullied me the gay kid and then this other immigrant that is

his name was yuri okay right off the boat russian immigrant uh midway through high school he goes guys i changed my name i'm going by jeff now oh Yuri. And for the rest of high school. The kids stopped bullying him from then on out. He became president of the school union. He was a valedictorian at Harvard. No, they didn't call him Yuri. They didn't call him Jeff. They called him Jeff Yuri for the rest of fucking high school.

I see him a couple years, like maybe three, four years ago. I see him a couple of years, like maybe three, four years ago. I see him on the streets of New York and I go, Jeff, how you doing? I, it's been forever. And he goes,

it's Urie. And I'm like, he went back to it. It'd be funny if he had changed his name from Urie to American Jeff. We had, you know, Alan Fuchs he's a stand up comedian

and his last name is spelled F-U-K-S yeah and like he changed it and then he changed it back to Fuchs yeah and got a nice little NPR

podcast yeah I knew a guy his last name was Slutkin and he changed it to Suskin Slutkin kids are fucking yeah mercifulous merciful I knew an an actual i knew the callback in college

i knew an actual michael hunt and i you know that's such a joke name yeah that you were like like what was going on with his parents like they just never had heard that that has to have been around for decades you know but his name is mike hunt you know so uh but no they that's what he went by naming kids is surprisingly harder than you would imagine like i it's easy like you know hindsight's 2020 but like every name that i would pitch my wife she knew some asshole with that name yeah yeah so it's not easy to name a kid but you shouldn't do shit like that you know and uh like they're like people always get mad about like celebrities naming them like fucking north and it's like yeah well apple never fucked my best friend so why do you think i'm naming like

that's why people name that's like the the inception for why people named inanimate objects. I don't, I think you should. I don't get the way we have to name the kid right out the gate. I kind of agree. No, I agree with you too. I want to feel it. Test out a couple of things. I think mainly it's just like, it would be more work for you.

Cause you'd have to be like, uh, like you, I don't know. I think this is bait. And your friend's like, well, I don't think you can leave the hospital without a name. Yeah. Cause you have to fill out the birth certificate before you leave the hospital. That is a lot of pressure to do quickly. You, you knew what you knew.

We had four names we had, so we didn't know what we were having. Uh huh. And we only agreed on one boy's name and we had four girls names. What was the boy's name? Not saying it. You're not going to get it out of me. My parents'

Holocaust, my grandparents' Holocaust story. What were the girls' names? Sophie, Hannah, Lucy, and Charlotte maybe? Yeah, Charlotte. I think it was Charlotte.

You're just going to wait until you saw and be like... I mean, honestly, here's the thing. If anybody's married or about to have a kid, you don't have to be married to have a kid, but if anybody's about to have a kid and you're a husband and you really care about the name, you got to decide before the delivery.

Because after your wife, you watch your wife work husband and you really care about the name you got to decide before the delivery because after your wife you watch your wife work fucking four or five hours to push this kid out of her vagina whatever she can have whatever she wants you know what i mean like if i couldn't at that point she was like well i want to name her hannah and i'm like actually her name's gonna be it's like I have no jurisdiction anymore yeah do you ever whisper to your daughter like your name's Charlotte there are times where I look at her and think that she's not a Sophie

but I don't but it's just my comic brain I think yeah sometimes you have to like be like is this my comedian brain or is this a normal human thing well let's go into our final segment Sometimes you have to be like, is this my comedian brain or is this a normal human thing? Well, let's go into our final segment.

You better count your blessing. You better count your blessing. We've had a great, very depressing episode. It got dark. I don't think it was overly depressing. It wasn't overly depressing. I mean, I guess maybe you don't understand how significantly terrible the Holocaust was. No, he's pro-Holocaust.

Jesus. You're pro-Hilary. Pro-believing in it. Pro-believing in it. That's the official stance. It happened. It happened. The official stance of the downside.

I don't care what you think. I had my doubts, but then I talked to you today and I learned some things. My blessing, it's very hot. You can feel it. I can feel it in my bones. It's very hot.

There is a man who is doing snow cones by my corner. Yeah, Puerto Rico. It's a little bit strange. I get no flavoring. I like the texture of the ice i like ice i like how it melts i like when you get to the second half of it it's kind of slushy and i like it melts in my mouth are you buying ice from a man on the street well let me further furthermore he i i say like i'll pay the regular price and he's like just pay whatever you want and i pay the regular price usually and uh it reminds me i went to a summer camp and he's like just pay whatever you want and i pay the regular price usually and uh it

reminds me i went to a summer camp and here's what i used to get now this isn't as weird i went to a summer camp uh like all boys you know archery and all this shit i hated it but there was a snow cone man there i'd get snow cone with melted marshmallow on the top of it so it'd be like plain ice with melted marshmallow on top oh my god i want to unplug the microphone and leave so bad. What are you talking about? These are. This is not food. This is my blessing.

And I'd eat it with the spoon. It's like a wooden, you know, it's like a. I know. We know what spoons are. It's like a special like. Does it have a curve? Like, is it like a. No, there's no curve. It's like the flat.

It's like a popsicle stick type thing that you eat it with. Okay. We were wrong because we were both. You were very wrong. And I would love to have the marshmallow, but even without the marshmallow, I really, I love,

I love plain snow cones. I even have a snow cone maker. Are they close? It's a lot of work. Nevermind. Sorry. Keep going. Yeah.

Snow cones. So that's my blessing that I'm really grateful for. And I, I, what's yours, Russell? Well, it's also related to the heat.

So I feel like half the time i come on this i am thankful for my neighbor barbara but i am thankful for my neighbor barbara my heat or my air air conditioning went out yesterday afternoon brutal and it was uh it was real hot last night and we couldn't get anyone to come till today so So our neighbor Barbara, she's like, I'm going into work anyways. You and my wife and my cat, we all went to, we got to work in Barbara's apartment today and be in the AC. While ours is being, it's not going to get fixed till Friday. So we're like scrambling, trying to find places to stay between now and Friday. But Barbara's letting us work and be in her apartment during the day. What was her DJ name? She had a DJ. BJ the DJ. BJ the DJ. Thank you, Barbara. friday but barbara's letting us work and be in her apartment during the day what's her dj name

she had a dj bj the dj bj the dj thank you barbara you are the best neighbor in the world yeah you like know your neighbor very well she's like she's sweet she's she's lived in new york her life she's crazy stories um and i love old new york women oh yeah so she she she's been lived all over the city we're very sad she's moving out at the end of next month. But we've been in this building for five years with her. We hang out with her all the time. Where's she going? She's moving in with her boyfriend.

Barb and Ken moving in together. Wow. But yeah. Do you think you'll stay in touch? Do they understand the connection of that? Or you don't think so? No, they do. We've talked about it. Barbie and Ken. I don't know. You know, old people. You think you're the'll stay in touch? Do they understand the connection of that? Or you don't think so? No, they do. We've talked about it.

Barbie and Canada. I don't know. You know, old people. You think you're the first one to notice? Listen, you fucking had marshmallow melted on top of a snow cone. Also, you keep calling it snow cone when it's just fucking shaved ice. Okay, shaved ice. Sorry.

The terminology. If you put tomato sauce on a slice of bread, is that pizza? I think you could. could no it's tomato sandwich bad it's a bad you know tomato sandwich it's a sauce you think that was the second sandwich they offered your grandfather they said fine it's just tomato wow bleep that out believe it bleep the whole sentence yeah um uh our family do have us well ac was gonna be mine but i'm i'll pick it i have a backup okay great uh my teeth i'm i you take for granted your teeth okay i had to get a tooth removed and it's the fucking worst it's the it was the worst experience the health care

fucking dental health care it sucks and literally they like i can't i haven't enjoyed a meal in three weeks i'm like terrified to eat what was wrong with the tooth it was dying you know it would just it it wasn't they tried to do uh they multiple crowns they were like we're gonna we can do a root canal but it might not work i'm like just fucking yank it out yeah and now i just have a whole fucking gaping hole in my mouth sure it kind of looks like a vagina what i'm told all right i've never seen a vagina but uh-huh okay i see it yeah yeah i don't know what your wife's pussy looks like but that i what i would say is like maybe like when you have like a guest on and they have like a wife

and you're like you want to reference the guest wife's vagina which is fine but like if you want to you have to say vagina yeah right you don't you can't you definitely can't say pussy for sure okay like because i don't think you've met her which is fine but like you can't say someone to someone else's wife's pussy yeah i don't think you can say that but like we're friends so like it doesn't bother me at all like i'm not gonna judge you i would not want you to say my wife's yeah you know my wife and he's your cause yeah we're like barely friends yeah you should have said wife's anatomy yeah genitals yeah so you're thankful that your teeth have otherwise been yeah i mean you take like you know when you're a kid like i have to brush my daughter's teeth right now which is like ridiculous like

it's not brushing i'm just like feeding her fucking toothpaste yeah but like you don't do good dental hygiene as a kid you know you're just like her toothpaste i love that yeah just kidding like i she doesn't have the like a she can't do it but even if like she can't pay attention for two minutes enough to for me to brush her fucking teeth so i just hand her the toothbrush and she just eats it she not only she eats the toothbrush she bites the bristles off the fucking toothbrush so like when your whole childhood you're just vaguely brushing your teeth you don't really care sometimes you go to bed multiple days you don't brush your teeth you get older and they're just like you have perfectly white teeth you have gray teeth i'm just lucky though it's so much genetics. There's part of it like the brushing must only count for like 20% because I brush

if I'm being honest, this is kind of gross. I'm a night brusher. I'm just a night brusher. You don't brush in the morning? Maybe once every... I probably brush 1.3 times a day average. How do you get the marshmallow covered ice off

of your teeth without brushing. I floss every day, but I've only had little minor cavities and I'm like, you know what? I just got good fucking teeth. Well, I don't think it's just... I honestly think it's just the luck of the draw. You get whatever you're dealt. I remember I had to struggle. I had to get the electronic

one where they said you're brushing too hard. And there was part of me like, I'm like, no. I can do it too hard now? This is during crossfit days during the crossfit days i'm just jamming in there um well i hope you're are you gonna get a new tooth put in i don't know you know how much what do you what do you think a new tooth costs probably like between two and three thousand dollars fifteen hundred four grand for one tooth one tooth so i go i'm like do i have to get it and he's like you don't have to get it but you're gonna have a hole in your mouth if there's one tooth to lose and not replace it's these two bottom back mowers yeah

but what they are scared of is like the the top tooth that like would have met that one if there's nothing to meet it it could slowly start to like slide down it like just become like longer than all the other tooth you know like your toenails or your toe yeah but I don't think at this point I'm gonna get fucking four grand it's like how much my car cost no that's crazy wait till the next writing job i mean if that i need to wait until i i need to wait till i'm like second third season wga writing job um well uh thank you for joining us do you have anything you want to plug yeah you uh follow me on tick tock very funny tick to. You make great videos. They call me Ari. Ari's about AHRI.

And then- This is coming out July 13th. July 13th. Okay. July 13th. I'm going to be- July 23rd, I'm going to be in Flemington, New Jersey. Doing a long set there.

And then August 14th, I'm gonna be at soul joel's comedy dome for two shows that should be august 14th with bonnie mcfarland great comedian great comedian anything you want to uh this will be after uncle function well the next uncle function then uncle function friday august 13th at asylum nyc 7 30 p.m and uh i'm headed to la this friday when it comes out uh la so if you're in la look at my instagram for some shows and july 27th that's a tuesday i'll be headlining headlining tiny cupboard 9 p.m show doing an hour so come on down it's always tough to get new york when you're doing like a big show in new york and it's like oh make sure you come to this one or

see me 10 other times tomorrow i know i'm not gonna promote these other shows that i really really want to promote i'm gonna promote this other show that i don't want to promote because it's i'm the one doing the long someone gave me they were like you didn't share the show on your Insta story and I was just like no one's coming to anything in New York that I'm posting. Guys I watched

Jamarco's Insta story and now I want to come to every show this week. It's like no one has ever said that. No offense no one has ever said that. Some people write me sometimes and they're like

hey man when's your next show? You never they like intimate that like I never post about upcoming shows and I'm like what are you

talking about? It's Jeff Goldblum impressions and fucking comedy promotion that's it that's your whole instagram i've never done jeff goldblum i'm joking the vice presidential debates but like people like they bring me up on stage they're like this guy's just a jeff goldblum and i'm like i can never do this again no i mean stand by it because people just want to fucking put you in a corner mike racine wrote me today he said i should do John Mulaney doing Bad Boys for Life. Who's Martin Lawrence. He said you should do John Mulaney doing Martin Lawrence bits.

John Mulaney doing Martin Lawrence bits. Like something like I don't know Martin Lawrence. Girls you need to wash your ass. Wash your ass ladies. That's a Martin Lawrence bit. Wash your ass. To me honestly the funny but here's the thing. I a Martin Lawrence bit. Wash your ass. To me, honestly, the funny, but here's the thing.

I like Martin Lawrence. Most people aren't going to know Martin Lawrence stand-up. That's the thing you're going to run into. Do you know the SNL thing with Martin Lawrence? Do you know the SNL thing? No. He went off script for this monologue. He was banned from SNL because he was at the peak of his fame,

and he was doing his monologue, and he started going a bit about like ladies need to wash their asses and like they, you can't even watch it now. Like NBC took it down. They're like, we can't even air this.

But he got in big, big trouble. That's pretty badass to piss off Lorne Michaels enough to get banned. Listen, I've done it. It's a hard thing to do.

Well, that was the downside. Again, check out the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside and uh uh like ari's tooth we will one day all uh be removed from this sad mortal coil this is the downside Downside. Downside. Downside.

Downside. Downside. Downside.