The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #27 Imprisoned Father-in-Law with Christian Finnegan

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Christian Finnegan shares the downsides of having an imprisoned father-in-law, still being recognized as the guy who gets choked out on Chappelle's Show, open-heart surgery, making a sex playlist with CD's, and being a master impressionist but only of NY1 news anchors. I also complain about the two new La Croix flavors (Beach Plum & Limoncello) because they're disgusting.  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. Follow CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN’s twitter Visit CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN's website Watch CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN's set on James Corden Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello! Welcome to The Downside. How are you doing, Russell? I'm sweaty, but good. How are you? I'm a little bit of a mess. And we're here, we're joined today by stand-up comedian, and many other things, but stand-up comedian, as I know him, Christian Finnegan. Thank you. I am increasingly fewer other things as the years go by. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi.

Well, thank you for joining us, Christian. Pleasure's mine. We'll get to you in a second. Drinking Mountain Dew. I haven't had, oh, Diet Mountain Dew. I haven't had a Mountain Dew in so many years, and every time I have one, I forget how good they are. It's my morning beverage

i don't drink coffee and so really usually start my day with uh either that or coke zero harder to find diet mountain dew many places but uh this has always been your your ways a little bit a little bit it's uh there some people have the mistaken idea that i might be like classy or something uh-huh because i try to speak with diction or whatnot. But no, it's garbage. I'm trash. Is it super caffeinated? More than a coffee? No, I just don't like coffee.

Interesting. I don't like coffee, but I need that caffeine slap like everybody does in the morning. So usually I get that from my little DMD. I want to try it. I used to love Code Red Mountain Dew. That, see. That is trash.

I mean, that's like toxic. How is that trash? Because it's a different color? It's not green? I mean, it's got to be way worse. I think just the fact that Code Red is like, this is dangerous to drink. Like, it's very 90s, like radical, dude. You know, it's very X Games.

Does Mountain Dew go by like the terrorist scale for New York City? You're making terrorism on your body. I'm drinking. This is one of my downsides already. Every time there's a new LaCroix flavor, I get it. You got plum. This is beach plum. And I got a whole fucking case of this and lemon chela.

Oh, I love the lemon chela. Oh, take them all from me. Okay, I'll drink one. Stop drinking the planes. I like the lemon chela. Oh, take them all from me. Okay, I'll drink one. Stop drinking the planes. I like the planes. Oh, sorry. I just, I want to get a sponsorship. I'm sorry.

I'm still bumping on the phrase beach plum. Well, I was confused. Is that what plums are? Is that when you take a dump on the beach? Is that a beach plum? I don't think plums grow on beaches. Well, I, this, this is going to come out in a couple weeks and so i'm fair i'm free to say this the thing i'm complaining about right now

i work at a comedy club in times square i won't say the name but you know it's it's when you say you work you perform one of the clubs you work at yeah yeah i didn't know that yeah and it reopened you know and uh but but the pay has not been the same. It's been less. And if I were to attend this club, would I be enjoying myself in an out loud fashion? Would I be laughing out loud? You'd be laughing out loud. You could do anything out loud and no one would stop you.

Okay. No one would stop you. And the pay did not go back and I... Wait, the pay did not go back and i wait wait the pay did not go back to normal to normal rates even even as everything got back to full capacity and frankly audiences were pretty full and i was also agreeing to do a lot of guest spots i probably done 50 spots there since covid everything came back yeah i've been paid for two of them and $20 each. So it's bad. And I was of the mindset, I just want to work.

I just want stage time. And then my money dipped below a certain point. Now I'm like, we got to do something about this. So tonight and tomorrow, July 2nd, July 3rd, everyone who is decent is not performing there. Oh, you're going to do like a walkout kind of thing? Yeah, yeah. We all said no to spots.

Oh, okay. So you're not scheduled. They know you're not coming. We're not scheduled. So yes, it's not a total stab. Basically, some of the older comics reached out, tried talking, getting a discussion going. Nothing was happening.

So everyone's saying no. And the hope is, you know, this is a club that's not worried about its Yelp rating. They want people there once. It's a tourist spot. But the hope is that when it's packed, if you have comics going up who don't know how to work that kind of room that they'll start walking en masse how many people are in doing it like i don't know for sure but i think they covered their bases because we have like an app uh and i get email notifications and yesterday was just like all these open spots and i know i'm gonna get a call today like hey

can you come in and uh i'm gonna to say, I'm going to stand strong. You're going to answer. I'm going to answer and say, I'll be right there. Please. You're going to cross. I'll do the whole set. You're going to cross. You're going to be a scab.

I know it. You're going to be like, oh, it's the John Marcus and the Rezzy show. What if they offer you like a lot, a lot of money? What, like $30? Yeah, yeah. That would be them going like, fine, fine. Have you ever been part of one of the strikes? We talked to Ted Alexandro about his kind of...

Yeah, his comedy activism alongside Tom Shalhoub, which seems hilariously weird now, given that Tom would break any strike in the world. I mean, Tom's like a Fox News radio guy. But yeah, he and Ted were headed up one of those initiatives. The problem with the various comedy strikes or the comedy unions that have tried to develop over the years is the gatekeeping aspect of it. How do you determine who is a quote unquote comic? A lot of people play clubs occasionally.

They get one spot a month or they do the open mic. And I'm not trying to belittle a younger comic or whatever but you know the there's no way of demarking who is kind of in the club and out of the club like if you're a welder you can either you're either a welder or you're not yeah with comedy there's so many gradations that I just think it becomes really difficult. And also, comedians, I think, are by nature sort of mercenary in their approach to things. And collective action is not really... If we were into collective action, we'd be fucking improv weirdos. Exactly.

You know. And to your first point, there are an increasing number of clubs, especially in New York City, where it really is like it's not important that it's a good show that it's just like it's just gotta just barely be good enough but like there's certain clubs they don't care if every person leaves going that sucked they don't care yeah and that is that is not good do you feel pretty uh nihilistic about oh yeah i mean i there's one club uh that i a i am i don't know if I'm banned. I won't go back, so it's not an issue. But I went on a podcast once years ago and kind of talked some smack about one particular club and the owner heard it or didn't even hear it. Somebody went to the

general manager, like a typical comic. This is you know mercenary uh crap that one of the young comics who kind of hangs out and and they said to the manager they're like hey uh if a comedian stabbed you in the back would you want to know about that and because rich was a manager at the time who was a guy i knew like told me that this happened oh yeah and so anyway it got to the owner and he is a big baby and he started, I saved the email. It's just all caps, 1500 words. It's so hard. I feel like I'm trying to push myself to be like, talk honestly on this podcast.

And then of course, there's that fear in the back of my head. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. I don't mind. It's not a bridge that exists for me. Sure. Like by choice and by their choice, whatever. Yeah.

But I don't want to. No, no, I know. I know what it is. I'm going to reach out and say, hey, you want to know if someone stabbed you behind your back a second time? Let me tell you, he did it again.

I'm your friend. One of the problems I had with this... One of the things I said on the podcast is just like, they're constantly just telling people in Times Square that famous comedians are going to be there.

And at the time, I would have been considered on the very lowest rung of that like i was on tv quite a bit or whatever and and so i would get emails from people being like hey i heard somebody said you were going to be at this club and we showed up and it sucked and you weren't there and then i have to be like i'm sorry i had no control over that and so i said that and i and i said on the podcast is like i feel like they're doing a disservice to comedy in general.

Yeah. This club's existence. And that got back to him and blah, blah, blah. And then whatever. A couple of years later, I don't know if we mended fences. I started playing the club again. But then I still would get these people saying, like, they said you were going to be there and you weren't.

And whatever. How do they get your email? On my website. There's a cf. CF at Christian Finnegan. Sure. I forget like who's on those flyers. Like, do you think like Roseanne was getting those emails to like Roseanne?

They would say like Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle. I mean, they, I think now with the internet, they don't, they can't be quite as shameless, but,

but man, you know, 10 years ago, not that there wasn't the internet then, but it, you wouldn't just immediately pull out your phone and Google it the way you can now. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, when I get home, I'm going to get on my computer and check this out. You know, so in the early 2000s or whatever, people would just, they would just flat out lie.

Be like, oh yeah, Jay Leno, Bill Maher, you know, whoever. Rodney is going to come back from the grave and perform. I remember visiting the city when i was like you know 1920 and doing just that like being in times square and seeing a sign and they're like chapelle you know they do the whole thing and you're like you go there and you're like i like it's not that they must have they get paid no they have not they have no impetus to stop that practice. I understand. For one, every somebody like me who kind of is determined to consistently injure myself by standing on principle, who complains about it, nobody else is really complaining about

it. And like you said, they're meant to come there once, then they're gone. It's just, we got your money. It's a get them in the tent thing. And the street teams don't care because they get paid according to how many people cash in those tickets that they give out yeah you know and so it's a there's no there's no reason for this particular club owner to stop doing that because i would say you guys stop it's like it's a street team i have no control over them it's like dude they're selling tickets to your club you have control over this you don't want to exert that

control but i i tried doing it once. When I first was thinking about getting into comedy, I did the barking, and I couldn't sell tickets to save my life. I'm the worst. I'd be like, hey guys, there's a thing. You're not going to like it.

I know. You're not going to like it. If you're just looking for a bathroom to use, I guess $30. I didn't want to rip them off either. Because the ticket people, if you can sell them for whatever you want, you basically like, the tickets are going to be the ticket people, if you can sell them for whatever you want, you basically like,

you know, the tickets are going to be $15, but if you're a bold motherfucker, you could sell them for 50 bucks a pop and just make mad money. These dudes are making money. The one club that I work at, I mean, he has like a light that just flashes like to get tourists' attention,

just an aggressive light that shines in their face. it's very barbaric oh yeah and the whole thing is kind of based on we couldn't get tickets at tkts to the thing we wanted yes and we're already in the city and this was our big vacation dad and you've ruined it by not buying these tickets in advance and and whatever and so it's like fine we'll'll go here. So we can say we did something in Times Square. It's very funny because also like at the Lantern in Greenwich Village, there'd be a lot of like, we wanted to go to the cellar. There's a lot of like mad audiences.

They couldn't get into the cellar. The Times Square, they couldn't get to the Broadway show. That other one down the road on McDougal, which is owned by the same guy. Oh, have I made it obvious yet but yeah the entire audience is slightly disappointed before the show even starts because it's like this isn't what we had planned on you know that's why the club i'm talking about where uh where i don't know if you heard bill burr tried to come by and the floor manager didn't know

who he was and gave him the email to, to email his tape. And I was like, you motherfucker, if you got one picture of Bill Burr on this stage, you could, you'd make t-shirts out of it. You could use this to, for the next decade.

Yeah. But they didn't know who he was. That is so funny. Yeah. I mean, that, you know, not that I am Bill Burr by any stretch of the imagination,

but that was one of the things that sort of happened to me when I was on this VH1 show in the Paleolithic era. I went, I have a weird thing with the Cellar, which is, of course, kind of the most famous club in the city. I think it's because I went to NYU and so I lived around the corner from it or whatever. For a long time, I just never, I never bothered to audition audition there even when i was doing all the other clubs or whatever and it was just a weird part of is i don't like trying to fuck the prom queen uh-huh there's a part of me that's kind of like you know what it's a stage and a mic like i don't need yeah i want to succeed without doing like that was my dumb which was hurting nobody but myself but yeah it was about 20 years that i did that um but uh the main reason is is like in like 2004 or something i went by with another comic to just watch or whatever and i got the hand in the

chest from some you know israeli bouncer guy and just really and i just walked and i was like you know what no i was right to not want to come here like i and uh after the dude kind of told me i couldn't come in somebody in line for the show asked for a picture with me and i was kind of like sure hilarious and again they don't care he this dude is doing his job he's been hired to not let people in or whatever i get it but at the time i thought I was really pissy about it. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, I finally got over that and then finally started doing the seller in February of 2020. And then the pandemic hits. And so now I'm kind of back to scratch.

Fantastic. Um, I should say, I always, you know, I always wait probably too long to say, this is the downside with DeMarcus. This is a podcast where if you couldn't tell,

we embrace the negative. We complain. Uh, uh, Russ is a little more positive if you couldn't tell, we embrace the negative. We complain. Russ is a little more positive than me until he gets drunk. And then he's a mean motherfucker. We're going to do a drunk Patreon episode one time soon. Speaking of, guys, as you heard, I'm not getting paid a lot for these spots. So please join the Patreon. It's patreon.com slash downside.

You get bonus episodes, video bonus episodes. Patreon.com slash downside. It's a lot of fun. Support my dreams. And yeah, back to this. Did you ever have a podcast? I've tried a few times. I did a podcast for like a year, but it was a music podcast.

And the problem was is that it was you know back a long time ago and it was like didn't really fit in the music section because i'm a comedian so it was kind of a funny music podcast didn't really fit in the comedy section and i just uh i kind of i'm the kind of person who needs somebody to help me with things like i try to do i over the pandemic i tried to do another music podcast just because that's i I don't really listen to comedy podcasts. No offense. Uh, no, I, I don't really, I don't really want to hear it. Honestly, I get the most part.

I only have one that I listened to. I understand. I listen to music podcasts almost exclusively because I have no connection to them and I can just enjoy them fully, you know, either that or news podcasts. But, um, but yeah, I, i never have really done it the right way i've always either tried to do it myself i i did the the broadcast i did originally was with uh the creek in the caves old network and then they stopped doing their podcasts and deleted all of my episodes without oh brutal strange brutal process i don't i hadn't recorded one in a few months and i

think they needed the hard drive space i guess or whatever and so it's kind of like all right well i guess that means i'm not doing this anymore oh i don't need more than one reason to stop doing something yeah now when you say music podcasts what do you what is that like do you talk about music or you play music no i talk about it mostly i a, I'm like, it's a thing that has become increasingly useless in the 21st century. Like I was the dude, like I want a car on a game show once for knowing 80s music videos. It was a VH1 game show called name that video. And I was like that dude who watched MTV like 10 hours a day growing up. And, uh, and I was like, I was the dude who expressed his love

in high school by making mixtapes, you know, like that was, I was that douche. And, um, so the, the podcast that I did was called audio spackle. And essentially it was like every, uh, week there would be a theme like, uh, songs for irrational exuberance or songs to play when you get dumped or whatever. And I would have a guest in and we'd make a little playlist or whatever, but it was really labor intensive. And so I never really got the idea of what makes a podcast work, which is a simple concept that people can understand immediately that does not require your guests to do a shit ton of work. Yes. Speaking of playlists, I need, I got to figure out, I got to make a sex playlist, I've been realizing.

I'm not going to say my girlfriend's name on this episode because I'm going to talk about it. Okay. But did you ever do a sex playlist? It's always like a long thing with Alexa where it's like Alexa, R&B, and then it's something I'm not up to. Yeah, no, you got to have a little more control. And then we do poolside, i think is what we do or chill

that's our we alexa play chill playlist yeah see i'm of a different era so to me it was you would have to have the proper cds loaded into your six cd changer uh-huh if you thought you were maybe hooking up that night um so when i was like out doing the bar thing in the late 90s, early 2000s, I would have a six CD changer in my stereo, and I would load it up with the first Portishead album and Mazzy Stars, So Tonight That I Might See, and Astro Weeks by Van Morrison. I had like six, and I would just have it ready.

You needed all six loaded in there? Yeah, it took me. You're going to come back. You're going... You needed all six loaded in there? Oh, yeah. It took me... You're going to come back. You're going to maybe have a nightcap. You're going to talk, you know, who knows. Exactly. He can't just like... Options.

The moment penetration is happening. Well, and there's... And like I said, like, you know, not every sexual experience might be a Portishead type experience. It might be more of a Van Morrison type thing. So you're looking at her and you're like, hmm, Van Morrison this one, I don't know. You just got to have options.

I mean, that was our version of playlists back then. It is tough. You have to really commit. You have to, because there was a mid-session playlist change recently. Because what? Just a song came on and I was like, this is like, this is.

Exactly. What's your music for for silence no Alexa shut the fuck up stop stop um no I uh yeah I think it's like I don't actually I don't think of it a lot but it's like it's probably like it's like a chill thing do you run it do you run the show no you know usually it's not me running it it's probably like it's like a chill thing do you run it do you run the show you know usually it's not me running it it's usually nicole i guess i'm making it sound like we're like but yeah uh i don't think and i do playlists most in most other areas of my life so that's interesting um so kristen i of course wanted to talk about uh you recently had open heart surgery i did congratulations on thank you thank you i did it on myself which is really the real accomplishment you should do a podcast about that yeah uh the how to a diy heart surgery podcast yes uh on

wednesday it'll be six weeks congratulations Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. What was it for exactly? I had what they call an aortic aneurysm. So actually my heart itself was totally fine, is totally fine. It's the aorta, which is the tube that comes out the top of your heart and then kind of goes around. It's like the main artery that comes from your heart. There's the aorta. And mine, right at the stem where it meets the heart, was enlarged and getting larger.

And if that were to be left unchecked, if it ruptures, you're dead, essentially. It doesn't rupture that often. You usually have some time. I wasn't rushed to the hospital. I was able to plan my surgery. How did you find out that you have this to begin with? Ever since the pandemic started, I had kind of a sporadic pressure in the top of my chest that I would feel that was different. Like I could just tell. And at first I thought it was COVID because

when nobody knew what COVID was like, but I had a COVID test and it was clean and whatever. And it just started to get worse and it seemed to be kind of stress-related. How long would it last? The moment you said that, I was like, I've felt an occasional pressure in the center of my chest. You know, a couple hours, a few hours at a time. Or sometimes I wonder, like, am I feeling this all the time? Maybe I only notice it when I'm stressed or whatever.

And I have, like, a real history of heart shit in my family yeah both my brothers passed away from heart stuff and my mother oh my god and so yeah so it's like i kind of knew to take it seriously it only took me nine months to get to the doctor to check it out uh well because it started it started off as just kind of an occasional little thing and then every around it's funny that the time when i event originally i'm sorry when i finally was like all right i gotta check this out was the day after the insurrection uh when everybody was like flipping out like watching the news and like what the hell's gonna go on and and i tweeted some shit about comedians becoming shitty right-wing podcasters and that started to make the viral rounds or whatever yeah and

some started you know and all that sort of comedy squabble shit and i was really feeling tense and uh and i was like all right this doesn't feel right whatever's going on right now and so then i eventually made an appointment with the cardiologist and then they took an ekg and blah blah i don't know how you separate the anxiety i feel from a twitter twitter kerfuffle is probably very similar to having a heart attack. Well, I just felt very localized. Like I could feel specifically. And what I found out since then is that usually your heart valves, it's supposed to look like a Mercedes symbol,

like three flaps that sort of open and close. And that's what it looks like, like a peace sign essentially. But some people, that's called a tr like like a peace sign essentially uh but some people that's called a tricuspid valve what i have is what they call a bicuspid valve where there's only two of those flaps which in and of itself is not a bad thing but it results it occasionally results in these aortic aneurysms it's more like a black and white cookie exactly exactly yeah yeah kind of kind of kind of a little bit like that and And so, like I said, my heart itself was fine, but they had to saw through the chest to get to it.

How old were your two brothers when they passed away? My younger brother was 19 and my older brother was 37. My younger brother had a heart transplant when he was like eight. And so he had been sick his entire life. Like he wasn't supposed to live like more than three years. And so that was not really a huge shock it was a long grind kind of thing whereas my older brother just had a heart attack at 37 and just died and then my mom just like five years ago uh had basically almost the same surgery she was having a valve replacement and she died uh during the surgery which you know she was obese and she was older and there

were things that were mitigating circumstances. So it wasn't like, you know, I knew when I talked to the surgeon about the surgery, you know, he's like, it's a really high success rate. This is a, you know, I'm doing five of these this week. Like this is not a crazy complicated surgery other than the fact that you have to saw through your chest to get to it. And I was like, yeah, but you don't understand that my family is cursed you know what i mean so it's like uh so that was sort of my feeling about it is that he kept telling me how safe it was i guess but you don't understand that like the finnegan family is you know this dark

cloud over it and but then i made it through a fine so i've realized that uh my family wasn't cursed uh my brothers and my mom were just weak i do you when like did you go into it did you write out a will did you no i mean we have a i don't do we have a living well i'm not sure uh i really should be on top of this uh we did go to the bank and make sure that my wife had access to everything that there was a coin wallet all that stuff yes exactly you know me big bitcoin guy sorry you don't know me well enough to know how awful i find that world but um uh i did you know we made sure that financially there was there were no barriers like we took i think the money that she didn't have access to we kind of opened a new account jointly that she had had access to. And I did write a couple of beyond the grave emails,

like scheduled a couple that I hastily deleted when I woke up. But just in case, you know. Yeah. Just in case. I've done every once in a while if i'm on a plane and i'm feeling really stressed i will send out an email and it's usually just like i love you to like a person like scheduled that like if the plane crashes and my phone gets like uh access as it's falling to the ground it will send out you want you really and you know if you're being honest i don't know

i don't want to speak for you but i speak for myself a lot of it is you know, if you're being honest, I don't know. I don't want to speak for you, but I speak for myself. A lot of it is, you know, I love my wife and I want her to know that I want her final thought for me. But really what I want is to create a fucking moment. Do you know what I mean? I want this to be a devastating fucking Cameron Crowe movie. Bittersweet moment. Do you know what I mean? And my email is also to your wife. It's just like so weird.

It is so strange. It was strange because I was asking for spots. Which is seems really weird for a beyond the grave email. Can you imagine someone giving like a full eight minutes? They bring you on stage. We're going to have eight minutes of silence.

It'll be no different from when he normally performed. Judy Gold told me once, great comedian Judy Gold, and I won't say the other comedian's name, but she said her mom had passed away and this comedian wrote or called her immediately and we found out and he's like,

I'm so sorry that your mom passed away. And if you need anyone to cover your spots for the next couple of weeks. Oh my God. Oh oh that is so funny so perfect though have you ever heard that joke there's a great joke and i'm paraphrasing it you know um a a guy opens fire in the middle of a comedy show pulls out a gun and murders 50 people and there's blood everywhere and you know it's tragic just dead bodies strewn everywhere and afterwards the the police is they're interviewing people and they're interviewing the the the host and uh and they say so let me just get this straight you were

the mc of the show correct and he goes usually i feature love. What is that from? I don't know. It's just a joke I've heard sort of apocryphally, but it says it very well to me. It's a horrible, horrible career. How's your recovery going? You feeling okay? Oh, God. Oh, no.

I am good. I am solidly in the annoyance phase of this. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's just, you know, sleeping sucks because like I usually sleep on my yeah where it's just you know sleeping sucks because like i usually sleep on my stomach and it's really you sleep on your stomach i do yeah too yeah on your stomach yeah yeah it's like the only way or my side but i'm really comfortable on stomach yeah i'm a stomach dude wow i'm gonna try it tonight i love it um and you can't i mean now i'm starting to be able to but it it starts to get uncomfortable.

You know, first of all, just the incision. And yeah, it just it's not comfortable. And so I wake up like 10 times a night and I I've never been a snorer really. But when I sleeping on my back, it's happening. Yeah. Which wakes me up and I refuse. I just fucking refuse to do a CPAP ever. I just can't.

I know that it's something that people... My girlfriend is snoring, and the thought of a CPAP for her is just a no. Yeah. I mean, I know it's kind of become normalized in the past five years or so, that it's no longer just something that your weird uncle has to do. It was my uncle who had it first. Wait, this is the machine, right? The mask that goes over your face.

And I think that they're coming up with other solutions. There's something I saw. I'm doing an ad right now. Inspire, I think it's called, where they actually insert something under your skin that then when you go to sleep, you press a button. And I think it's probably like like a nuva ring or something like it it opens up your nasal passages or something I'm gonna get that

for Tova for the next birthday I think you have something your teeth smile real quick oh shit they just yeah yeah yeah no yeah talk of us a dangerous I don't have almonds before I go on stage it's's like a really bad habit, and then I go on stage, and they just come out of my mouth during the whole. Do you see it? I don't. Oh, yeah, I see it. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Did you get it? I don't think so. Smile. It's still there, right? Yeah. I mean, if you're fine with it, it's pretty small. I don't think you're going to zoom in. I'm fine with it.

I have floss here. Look at that. Look at this. How about you guys talk for two seconds? We'll talk for a second while Chris is flossing. You get it now? Look at that, huh? Perfect.

Perfect smile. Now I'm just looking at how off my teeth are. So I was also curious because, you know, of course, like many white boys who went to private high schools in 2006. I knew who you were before I was even into stand-up comedy because of Chappelle's show. Yes. Are you so tired of people bringing it up? No, I don't really have a feeling about it one way or the other. I mean, I generally...

This was the real world. Yes. What was it called? It was called The Mad Real World yeah one of the best i mean episode three yeah i watched it with toe she had never seen my girlfriend i'd never seen uh chappelle show ever really and i just was watching it in comedy i know it was just you know very strange i mean it was a long time ago i mean yeah i mean she's younger when i was in high school chappelle show like you came in the next day when he did the little John doing what?

Okay. Yeah. All everyone did at the school. And it was just so fascinating because I went to this private school. It was diverse. But like, you know, there's just this huge white fan base who didn't probably like grow up in a community with a lot of black people. And we're watching Chappelle's show. And it's a show that like is about like a culture that is like foreign to a lot of people but something about it just fucking

well that's that's i mean that i think that was kind of the secret sauce of not only that chapelle show but of chapelle in general i mean in addition to the fact that he's fucking hilarious and a genius and all those things but that he grew up you know his two parents are college professors you know he grew up in you know white you know i think he spent some time going to like a predominantly white school and so he kind of i mean code switching is not the right term but it's like he he exists at that nexus between white culture and black culture like you know i don't know if you saw floating around on the internet last week, him singing radio head with food fighters. Like,

that's a great point. Dave Chappelle, there's not that many black comics who are of his age who would automatically just be able to sing creep by heart, you know? And so, but he, of course he was,

you know, a massive hip hop head and all those things too. But I think that because he sort of exists at that intersection, it spoke to everybody at once. And, you know, Comedy Central, all the shows to me, in my mind, that really made Comedy Central so successful in the 90s and 2000s were those shows that would kind of find that intersection of of black white of rich poor of smart dumb do you know what i mean like that kind of you know south park you know that kind of the smartest person you know loved it and the dumbest person you knew loved it you know yeah and so yeah i mean i i felt very lucky like i i feel very honored to have been a part of it like

i generally feel like i kind of caught a home run ball. When it happened, was it like, was it a big deal at the time? Or was it like a fine gig and it just, the show exploded? Oh, it was a big deal to me because I loved Half Baked. And I, you know, Killing Him Softly was one of the things that got me into doing stand-up. One of the best. That's what made you one of them. Were you growing up in D.C.?

No, I grew up in Massachusetts. But you, like, no. I remember once you recommended me to the D.C. Improv. Yeah, that's probably the club I play the most. That's my favorite road club. They didn't get back, but I really did appreciate it. You gave me that rec very early. I did, yeah, back when you were doing that show at UCB, I think.

At the pit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even worse. Hey, the pit still exists, doesn't it? Kind of. Sort of. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the few last standing.

Yeah. The loft does. Yeah, the pit loft, which is like where we started. You started the pit loft and then you upgraded to the pit underground, the pit striker. And then we moved all the way to UCB and then it all collapsed. It all collapsed. Who'd you do that show with I did with Jay Schmidt

and he doesn't really do stand up much anymore yeah that's the way things these things go that's you know when one of the sort of my class of comedians I always think of you know comedy in terms of yeah people always break it down like you know in terms of the people you came up with the ones you were doing open

mics with all of my good comedy friends all went the writing route. Very few of the people that I kind of hung out with in my early years of comedy stayed in the stand-up world. And so I often feel a little bit, lonely is not the right word, but I don't know, like when people ask, like, who are your peers? Like, who do you hang out with in the comedy world?

It's like, I mean, I'm friends with with everybody but very few of the people that i did open mics with are kind of you know ophira you know it kind of isn't my you know we did a lot of the same shows uh early on but most of my friends like a lot of the conan staff were dudes i started with and um and i kind of started more in that alt world, which at the time was a more defined line between like club world and alt world. But anyhow, this is all very exciting. No, no. Comedy saturated nerds. Now you when you having this theater, your wife owns the theaters.

She owns QED. Yes. Was that it's always so tough when like a comic is involved i'm sure people asked you hey i'd like some spots here it's a little weird i mean i i've kind of you know life is long and it changes in weird ways and i stopped kind of questioning things uh you know for when i when it first started i felt like a little stressed about like like what is this doing for my profile as a comedian like does it make me feel yeah does it make me look does it diminish me somehow to be involved with my wife's club or to be identified with that like as as kind of not a real comic anymore that i you know and i'm sure in some people's minds

it does and that's fine i don't i don't care anymore. I really don't. There's so many comics, not everyone's going to be your fan or your friend. Yeah. Yeah. It's just you can spend a lot of time stressing about it or spend no time stressing about it. And the result is the same. So. But, you know, in a way, I mean, I a lot of I probably spend more time doing QED related stuff than I do working on my own stand up, which is a bad thing.

But especially right now, there's just a lot of work to be done in post pandemic. There's not a real staff. And so I'm helping out with a lot of things that I wouldn't ordinarily ordinarily help out with. And but there's something really super clean about it that i love that you know uh the garbage needs to get taken out i can do that you know i can uh there needs to be a run to the beer distributor to go pick up a new keg i can do that you know it's it's very tactile and real as opposed to sitting in front of my laptop working, which is basically scrolling Twitter for three hours. And I'm really proud of it. When I first started, I was in a sketch group with two other dudes,

and I had such an easy time promoting that sketch group. You know, we only existed for like not even two years, but I had a really hard time promoting myself. And I have a super easy time talking about how great QED is because it's, it's not me. You know what I mean? Yeah. And there's something kind of like,

I'm, I'm super proud of, of, of the community around that club and, uh, or venue, whatever you want to call it. And,

uh, I'm super proud of my wife for having created it. And I love the fact that there's like a class of comics, you know, and you know, of which you might even consider there's like a class of comics you know and you know of which you might even consider yourself that like years from now you know you're all going to be sitting at a bar somewhere in la probably because you're awful but uh i resent every comic who moves to la just because like because i never did but uh i love the idea that people will sit around

and be like, do you remember that night at QED? Like, I love that. Like, I love that in a generation of near comedians' minds. They will remember this place. You know,

maybe it'll just be that it sucked. Hopefully it won't be like the club you play in Times Square where it's like a negative connotation. QED is definitely like a higher grade experience.

Or just that I just love that. I love the idea. There's something real. There's a legacy there that I've never felt with my own work personally. Yeah. If that makes sense. I understand that. It is also, it's always nice to promote sometimes something else.

You can do it really, because when you're promoting yourself, you know, you sound like an asshole because it's you. And so when you get the chance to promote something else else you can do it really because when you're promoting yourself you know you you know you sound like an asshole because it's you and so when you get the chance to promote something else you're free doesn't seem to be a problem for a lot of people sure sure well it is like we were just talking about this the other day that with stand-up too like in theory a lot of times there's so many shows that it feels like how do i do this in any way that's meaningful because i'm just like throwing up the dates you know so you're like it sometimes with like a sketch show or something it happens way less frequently so you're like I don't know you you can it just feels a little less how do you make it meaningful and yeah

and it just feels cleaner and clearer in my mind sometimes in my career which becomes this sort of weird fog of hope and disappointment and although you know what I mean where it's just like oh no like the backyard you know we when we were doing shows like whatever the backyard wasn't ready to have a shows and now it is because of the work I did or the stage needed to be painted and I painted it and and so you know there's it sounds dumb but yeah as I've gotten older and I think that during the pandemic, especially, I think my like happiest days in the pandemic is when I would clean, like clean the apartment or clean QED or whatever, put on some music and just clean. If you want to do some more of that when we're

done here and I'm not a clean person, I'm a filthy person, but there's something, the control, you know, like I'm doing something. It's tactile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of, I have a, I filmed a sort of DIY special in the middle of the pandemic, which has taken me forever to sell, but I finally have. You have? Congratulations.

Oh, congratulations. And it's, there's a lot of reasons it's taken so long, but we just turned in all the artwork and everything. We turned everything in yesterday. And it'll probably still be a few months before it actually comes out. But there's some doc elements in it. And it's kind of about what I'm talking about. It's called Show Your Work. And it's about during the pandemic, we actually lived at QED for a few months.

There's a shower there. No, I had a foot operated camping shower that I would go down in the basement. Oh, my God. Yeah. And so there's it's kind of just about making lemonade out of lemons and sort of just doing what, you know, playing the hand you're dealt and and doing a show because what the fuck else do I do? You know? Yeah. And I'm super proud of it.

And, uh, but that's kind of, this stuff is front of mind right now because it's kind of what I've been swimming in for the past couple of months, getting the special ready. That's it. It's called show your work.

It's called show your work. You're not, you can't say where it's going to come out. No. I mean, we sold it to a distributor who will then place it. Okay, cool.

And so I don't exactly know i mean we talked earlier in the pandemic we did yeah about yeah and that in in many ways i kind of wish i had maybe gone that route because it would have been out already and all those things but let me tell you we mine had some very uh pre-election i'd like them to be heard pre-election jokes and then like you submit it to amazon and they say it'll take two to four business days unless they catch an error or it's like i heard horror stories all of a sudden that some people took months and the way that we did it we got one press thing on pix 11 and we wrote like amazon's pr team the amazon you know they you can't reach them normally we reach out to their pr being like hey you know there's a lot of press around this thing getting released you don't want the blowback and like but

i'm saying like it was like listen amazon uh you're gonna get some deep shit it's the same way that like if you want to reach the airlines don't go by the phone go by their twitter account like there are just weird entry points for all these fucking bureaucratic bullshit companies yeah and we barely got it out like a week before but it was yeah i have extremely it was very stressful i have some pre-election material in this special as well and i was like do we need to cut that or whatever and but nobody seems to have a problem with it and you know some of it i even address in the specials like you know i'm filming this before the election you know by the time you watch this this will have already happened you know like how was the great awakening you know yeah yeah

that kind of thing yeah and so i i kind of frame it as if it's going to be seen after the election but it is a little weird to be talking about like you know man these trump voters you know i mean or maybe it isn't do you know what i mean because they're still with us yeah um speaking i was hoping you're going to bring up that my special was nominated for an emmy russell and didn't force me oh yeah yeah oh so sorry congratulations no it's fine i had to do it for what uh a new york emmy date new york emmys it got for for performer director and set design how did that i mean not saying how did it happen like i'm shocked but like like how did that come surprising to everyone submitted you, the insane submission fee. I forget how much it cost, but it just like, you know, whatever category it fit, which was like.

Who are you against? I don't even know. I didn't even look. People are like, you're going to go to the award. Our friend Chris was like, how can we watch? And I was like, I don't want you guys to watch me lose. The first thought I had was like, let's just take this as a win and move on. I don't want to experience the loss yeah after being nominated i'm fine with having me nominated who are your fellow nominees i think it's like all over you

know this is like um mid-form entertainment between 11 and 50 minutes and there's like a someone who does announcer work for the new york jets and me and and someone who did a documentary about 9 11 20 years later like it's a lot of different yeah you're definitely gonna lose um uh who wait oh wait what's his name announced it wasn't that was kind of funny what uh what's oh uh sandy uh he does the taxi cab tv where he's like i'm sandy dada here's the review of cat oh i know which one you're talking about the new york one dude yeah it was just funny that he was i was so happy he was the one who said my name marco cerisi shelf life there's a couple of those new york one we said i don't we we cut the cord um but i miss new york one i

missed i missed i'm dean meminje he's got that weird voice and then there's a guy who oh i don't remember his type either but he talks like this uh yeah i missed i missed the voices more than anything i think that i'm sure there's like there's a niche audience that could appreciate all you've seen who've mastered all the impressions those are both very good i have said if i was going to do another podcast and it would appeal to nobody but i would enjoy it i want to do a podcast where every episode addresses a different commercial that plays on Sirius XM uh because I listen to Sirius XM a lot uh and they play the same 30 commercials in rotation and so I know them by heart and they're all these dumb startups I don't know what it is about these like tech

startups that every fucking CEO of a startup thinks that they should be the one to do their commercials. You know, like I'm, I'm Cassandra from moo.com or, you know, and, uh, you know, Hey, we make socks and, you know, people say to me, why did you start a sock company? Or like, no one gets like, you're not interesting. I know you have surrounded, you're, you're some rich kid who got some VC money and you surround yourself with people who laugh at your jokes. But you're not a voiceover artist. No one cares. Like, oh, wow, you're the guy who created Bombas?

Ooh, tell me more. Do you do a lot of voice? Your impressions, you just showed off four great impressions. Well, yes. If you know Dean Mamenjay. No, it's funny. I remember the first sort of industry person I ever dealt with at all. I was doing like, I had just graduated from open mics to book shows.

And one time after I'd been doing comedy, maybe 18 months or something like that. And a woman came out to me after a show and she's like, I'm a voiceover agent and I would love to start submitting you for things. I didn't really know what that entails. I was like, oh, my gosh, she picked me. I didn't realize that would just be like a name that she would just send out with a thousand other people. And I remember thinking to myself, like, it begins. The rocket ride starts now, you know. And so she sent me out on one audition.

one audition. And then 10 days later, she calls me and she's like, I just want to let you know, I'm actually going to be leaving the voiceover business. And I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, oh, okay. What do you think you're going to do? And she's like, I'm thinking of bartending. Oh. And then I was like, oh, you're the person who I pinned all my hopes on. And I feel like that kind of... Oh, that is so funny. I've always remembered that, that it's like these people who you think of as being the pinnacle, like the decision makers,

they're just idiots trying to struggle their way through life as well. You know, they're these overeducated, underskilled people who wind up in the, you know, the biz end of this world. And, you know, they're just idiots yeah there's so many stories i mean i've heard so many stories of like that of like people you know yeah no more idiots than us nobody they're just not getting out of it leaving you know they're not some elite crew

of people that have these specialized skills no yeah they can learn it later but like i talked to my girlfriend told me was a manager and like like she learned like how to analyze you know legal documents like on the job like it's you know you read a contracts and i'm like i don't know what the fuck i'm looking at and she had to like learn that while she was in charge of them at the same time exactly figured it out but i'm like how yeah how did you do this without going to school for it with a thing like uh yeah yeah and and did the people you were representing, were they aware that you were Googling these phrases? Sure, exactly.

And I just felt like I had an agent who left like early on. It was like a new agency and I was super excited and then she left. And I was like, can you throw like a Hail Mary? Like if you're gonna leave the industry, if you really claim you're gonna leave the industry, write that cast director and say, you have to see this person or i will kill myself and then leave yeah if you really believe you're gonna leave this business burn all the bridges help your clients out one last time with with suicide threats if they don't see you for an audition

that's what i would like i've just i would do anything if they really cared about the craft that's what exactly um i uh before you go on to our last thing i want to talk about uh you know cambrie's father who so much interesting stuff well you talked about him on stage oh yeah which i thought so cam so so could you would you mind telling us why it's so interesting uh well um my wife actually wrote a memoir that was a New York Times bestseller like 10 years ago, which you can read all about. So it's not like a secret. My wife grew up in the deep woods of Texas to deaf people. Her mom is technically hard of hearing. She's legally deaf.

But if she has both of her hearing aids in and you can get her attention, like you can get her attention, then she'll read your lips and she sounds like, but her dad was what they call profoundly deaf, which is, you know, could only sign and things like that. But they were very poor and she grew up in a trailer that got repossessed and they had to move into a tin shed,

like literally a corrugated tin. into a tin shed like literally a corrugated tin and uh you know uh and then her dad uh tried to kill her mother uh and then but then her mom didn't want to press charges and then years later wait i'm sorry for a second tried to kill and my yeah like he tried to kill camry what did he try to he uh strangled her and camry was there and like called the police and it was like a three-hour sort of hostage situation ordeal uh and but then he went to jail for trying to kill another woman when she was uh in her early 20s or mid-20s i guess uh he uh cut a woman's throat and stabbed her five times i don't know if it's five could be eight i can't remember the exact number, but, uh, were they, uh, seeing each other? It was like, it was either his third wife or a second wife because it was never really clear whether he had officially divorced his second wife. It was a,

it's a fucked up situation clearly. And so he was, uh, uh, sentenced to 20 years in jail. And that's actually where she kind of rediscovered a relationship with him, you know, cause he wasn't allowed to drink anymore and things like that. And she kind of became his link to the outside world, what he would call the free world. And they would write each other constantly and, you know, cause they couldn't talk obviously. And, you know, we would go down to visit him occasionally and we started dating right pretty soon after he he went into jail and so it was kind of a you know i've known her kind of through that whole process and he was paroled last year he was approved for he wasn't he was not released he was approved for parole but the way

texas does it because they're fucking pieces of shit like you know all these sort of reintegration courses you have to take you know anger management and you know substance abuse courses they don't let you take those courses until you've been approved for parole so even though he'd been sitting there for 20 years, cause he had been denied parole a bunch of times and he was basically going to fill out almost his entire sentence. And I think the only reason he was maybe approved is they, you know, cause of COVID they wanted to start trying to get people out or whatever. Anyway, in that time it was discovered that he had late stage cancer and he was given like a few months to live

and we were hoping that he would get out in time, that he could at least be out in the free world for a few weeks. He ended up dying five days later. It was a really kind of nuts situation. And it was so awful the way they did it. In the hospital, they of course had to bring him to a hospital.

They would allow him to have one five minute conversation with Cambry. And it was on an iPhone, which he had never seen before. He had, you know, he, the guy had been in prison for 20 years. And so he's fucked up on pain medication or whatever.

And somebody is holding this rectangle in front of him and his daughter's face is in front of him. And he's just like, like Cambry, is that you? And, and there's literally a woman being like three more minutes two and a half minutes two minutes you know even though this guy's he's dying he's clearly dying he's basically got no teeth he's like 100 pounds for a guy who's

like six four like it's it's uh it was just a really awful you know it it really i never really thought much about the criminal justice system or whatever and i'm not going to pretend i'm any expert now but kind of having seen it through her eyes you really wonder like what are we doing with these people who are in jail because i clearly are not trying to rehabilitate these people you know so you know they're gonna one of cambrie's sort of bugaboos that she would always get on before he passed away is like, these people are going to get out someday. The vast majority of these people will be your neighbor at some point. So shouldn't we at least try to, you know, make them members of society?

If not, just execute people summarily when they're convicted. Right. just execute people summarily when they're convicted right because like when i did that that prison gig uh uh last year pre-covid it was the first time going into like a kind of prison and part of me is like how could anyone if i was here for a week i'd i'd go nuts like it's just there's nothing about it that is like well this is gonna help yeah it's all so let me ask so when you when you first start dating her because she obviously has a connection as her father did you have any thought like were you like are you of the moral mindset where you're like oh he did like a crazy thing i'm sure he was fucked up and drunk or did

you judge did you go like oh this guy he's a bad man um at the beginning at the beginning you know it all seems so remote 20 years back then you know i think she'd only he'd been in there for like a couple years when we started dating or maybe less than that but so it all kind of seemed like something i was never gonna have to deal with you know and obviously in the early part of my relationship i was like oh this would be another few months and then we'll move on you know oh sure either she'll dump me at a certain point and this won't even be a factor i think you're gonna say it's gonna be another few minutes for well and i was like yeah for sure you get through that van morrison cd then i'm out of here call back um i mean yeah i mean i've met him a few times

you know we would go down and of course i couldn't communicate with him directly but cambrie would have to translate doing asl and um you know i kind of had a pretty clear image of who the guy is you know very charming you know he was kind of like a deaf fonzie like he was very charismatic like even even though he couldn't communicate the jukebox at all though yeah no no no jukebox like but just like a real swagger to him it was kind of a ladies man when he was in the free world and uh but just a really angry drunk and uh a lot of rage because he had been like dumped in a basically a prison essentially a deaf a school for the deaf when he was like four years old like his parents like left him there with the suitcase yeah and and so it basically

been institutionalized you know and as often happens when those people then get out into the real world, they don't have any social skills. And so they act out and then they end up back in prison like he had been in prison periodically through her life, you know, or jail, not necessarily prison, but like small short sentences. But, you know, I I always I knew how much it meant to her to have a relationship with him. And he loved her very dearlyly like he would draw her these you know little pieces of artwork you know and and draw her birthday cards and things like that and so they had a real relationship um i was definitely you know we we talk now about how it's obviously it's tragic for him that he was not able to at least experience a little bit of time out in the free world before he passed away but we acknowledge that we kind of dodged a bullet um uh because

camry has a brother but her brother's mentally ill and has issues and so it would have fallen on us you know did the brother have no relationship with the he had a he had a relationship but it was it was a it was they would have been a bad influence on each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, and he'd had some run-ins with the law himself or whatever. And so it really would have fallen on us to sort of take care of this guy. And so we were looking at like trying to get him a house upstate, you know, or something. And we're going to have to basically take care of this Rip Van Winkle guy who has no experience in the 21st century. And so, you know, it was, Cambry was like, I'm going to film a documentary about it, you know it was camry's like i'm gonna film a documentary about it you know and it probably would have been a fantastic documentary but it was not something i was like as sort of the husband in it i was kind of like yeah that'll be fun you

know yeah and so i mean and she acknowledges that in many ways it was a lucky i don't know lucky is the right word yeah that there was an upside to the way it all went down but um you know i don't know what can you say what can you say yeah i i ran out of things to say and she she got she was able to at before he passed like the most she got was the five minute on a phone yeah i think they had two five minute or, or maybe even one, but, you know, I love you. But he was completely doped out of his brain anyway. I mean, the thing is, they knew they loved each other. It was not one of those, there was nothing unsaid between the two of them.

Had they ever seen each other in person pre-COVID? Yeah, we'd go down at least once a year to visit. And when you went down, were they able to touch, hug? Once, when we were still dating there had to be glass between us once we got married uh we were able to be in a i think only once i only met him like three or four times but camry probably went down 10 times in the time that we were together uh she would just go down for herself for a weekend or something you know a few days um and they were able to have a contact visit and i think i only had a contact visit with him once and he stabbed me which was really jesus christ christian and you're like i don't know if he's

quite ready yeah that's not the kind of contact i was hoping for. A nice hug would have been fine. Should I tell the board about this? The pro board? Oh, boy. But yeah. Yeah, it's... I mean, I don't know how deep down this rabbit hole... I know we're coming to a conclusion with this. But I got it.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, everybody has their own shit. you know come into a conclusion with this but uh i got it yeah but um but yeah i mean everybody has their own shit you know like when our very first date i didn't really have a particularly strong relationship with my mother like we were estranged for a number of years and we even when we weren't estranged we weren't like the kind that would call each other a lot and things like that and my mother's was severely mentally ill and she had borderline personality disorder. And when we had our first date, I remember, you know, I would constantly worry when I went out with women that the topic of my mother would come up because a lot of women will judge a guy

according to his relationship with his mother. And, and so when she brought it up and I was like, well, we have a weird relationship and she's like, don't even worry about it she was like let me tell you about my dad and i was like oh okay this feels much more comfortable now that is nice i think tova and i my current girlfriend we both have like challenging relationships with our parents and i always found people i'm connected to have something strange with their parents there's a reason why we ended up doing this of course people who are like close with their dads like our friend Chris, I'm like, what the fuck's going on? Well, I always say it. Funny people who had a good family

become improv people, and funny people who had a bad family become stand-ups. I love that. Let's move on to our This Has Gotta Stop. This Has Gotta Stop. Christian, I know you read the email. This Has Gotta Stop.

I read the whole paragraph. Thank you. What's your This Has Gotta Stop? I appreciate you. The phrase, I appreciate you. Interesting. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Appreciate you.

Any variation of the appreciating you as opposed to I appreciate that. Cannot stand it. I find it arrogant and condescending. When are people saying this to you? Well, you'll see people do all the time i think it kind of started as a hip-hop thing that has kind of then just worked its way into sort of the white person vernacular like like you know oh uh hey i got you a coffee appreciate you appreciate you you know like that yeah okay yeah i'm getting it it's it's a it's a

thing you hear people say it's like a slightly cooler way of saying thanks you know like hey appreciate you appreciate you and you find it condescending i find it enragingly annoying oh really you appreciate me oh what an honor i feel so honored that you appreciate me because like i appreciate that it's like okay yes i thank you for doing that thing that you did but to say i appreciate you you're putting yourself in the position of someone whose appreciation is of massive worth to me do you know what i mean i understand what you say where it's like it's not being like i i really appreciate this yeah it's like if you're gonna use that word it's like you know if if you like before i go under for surgery i go i you know i grab you by the face and say i appreciate you like that exactly that's the worth of that word exactly

yeah okay and yeah there's a sort of power dynamic to it it's like you know hey i just want to let you know like you know uh don't don't you were i acknowledge you so congratulations on that i used to do a bit a long time ago about people who point at other people in photos and it's the same principle is the the principle of being like uh hey I know that you think I'm awesome, but don't, don't forget this guy's cool too. Do you know?

And I, I, it, it's that sort of attitude of sort of like, you know, I know you were wondering, I want to, I want you to relax.

I appreciate you like, Oh, thank you. Oh, you, I hate it. It's got to stop. It's got to stop.

Go back to thanks. Let's go to our final. It's got to stop. Go back to thanks. Let's go to our final. You better count your blessings. This is where we say one positive thing. Russell, do you have a blessing?

I do. I have a real one. Good. I was hoping. I feel like I do real ones. But I have a real one. My friend who had this horrific accident months ago. Yes.

Lost his legs. Lost his legs. He took his first steps this week. He got his first prosthetics put on. And I saw a video yesterday of him taking his first steps. What do the prosthetics look like? I mean, they're basically for a while. He has to do like kind of pretty basic prosthetics. I mean, they do the prosthetics look like? I mean, they're basically, for a while, he has to do kind of pretty basic prosthetics.

I mean, they look like prosthetics. But I think after a certain amount of time, when he gets used to those, they move on to a more elaborate kind of thing. I remember the running is like some special... Yeah. I saw one where it looked just like... They weren't trying to look like legs, basically. No, no, no.

These look like... No, they... No, they're not trying to look like legs basically no no no look like no they they they they no they're not trying to look like legs the the ones that he has right now um but uh so exciting but yeah he was you know he's at physical therapy and does it look hard like is he like is it balanced is it yeah it's a you know you're on the bars and like you're having to like it's a whole new thing and like turning and stuff like that so but uh he had always said he wanted to by july because his he's his wife's pregnant she's about to have a baby he wanted to be standing and blah blah and so july 1st he took his first step so yeah it's very exciting yeah that's a very sweet one um i'll i'll tie my blessing back to i don't know if this you know you this this very soft

strike is gonna work but it did feel good for a moment with these other comedians in a workplace to be like let's all do something together we're all being treated poorly together i don't know if it's going to work but it felt like it felt nice for them to be like you you know you got to join us because the club will be okay if you work there and it's so for a moment you're like okay do they have some worth. Is the club aware that this is happening? Or are they, because you're doing it

on 4th of July weekend, do they just think that everybody's out of town? I, I'm pretty sure that like it's going to be a gradual message. I think, I think it will become apparent

or it is becoming apparent. Maybe you're right though. At least you're being passive aggressive. That's the important thing. Yes. That's, that's. You have plausible deniability yeah yeah i revoke my blessing christian do you have a blessing to close us out uh sure i i we moved into a new apartment recently and i think i have a good

deli guy which is a big deal that is a big deal he makes good sandwiches he cool he makes good sandwiches but like is unflappable like you know he's not he doesn't get overwhelmed and flustered and he knows like the proper ingredient ratios you know what i mean like you just sometimes you walk into a deli and like you know you're in good hands yes you know you're in good hands and other times it's like oh this guy's a fucking mess that's how i would be if i worked at delhi i'd be a fucking mess like i'd be like oh i'm sorry what mayonnaise too like i this guy he gets it i like a little uh balsamic vinaigrette drizzled on my chicken salad which i highly recommend uh and he he understood he was like balsamic vinegar you know sometimes you get people freak out he

got it immediately can i just get a little bit of balsamic vinaigrette on that and perfect perfect amount too he understood just put a little bit do a stomach vinaigrette on that? Perfect. Perfect amount too. You understood. Just put a little bit. Do you know his name? No. Great. All right. Well, thank you again. Again, if you like this, please check out the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside.

Anything you want to plug? Well, yeah. Keep your eyes peeled in the next few months, I guess, to show your work, which will be available on various platforms, I guess, for Show Your Work, which will be available on various platforms, I hope. And I have four albums on iTunes and Spotify and a couple specials out there, so just, you know.

I listened to them all this week for the second time. Find me, JoeMarcusSerezi online. I'll post everything. We should say QED, too. Go to QED. Go to QED. One of the best venues in New York. And if you don't like the grungy kind of comedy club where you feel like you're going to get STDs

just from walking on it, go to QED. It's a little less down and dirty dive club and a little more kind of... There's a bookshop in the first. You want to hang out there. It's kind of midway between a club and a bookshop.

Russell, I think Uncle Function Show? There's a bookshop in the first. Yeah, come on. You want to hang out there. It's kind of midway between a club and a bookshop. Yes. And Russell, I think Uncle Function Show? Yeah, August 13th, I think, whenever this is coming out. Yeah. It'll still be August 13th, the show, no matter when it comes out. That's true. August 13th. 7.30 p.m.

Asylum NYC. At Asylum NYC. Yeah. And remember, you know, whether you're in jail or not in jail, we are all imprisoned by our mortality. This is the downside.