The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #39 Getting Called a B*tch by Dave Chappelle with Jason Zinoman

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

New York Times Comedy Critic Jason Zinoman shares the downsides of being called a bitch by Dave Chappelle on Broadway, giving someone a bad review then finding out they live in your apartment, only having three columns a month to cover comedy in the New York Times, reviewing Pete Davidson, Louis CK, and The Fringe Festival, tv shows about rich people that aren't really critiquing them, and I somehow got him to call my podcast "necessary", a pull quote I will be using for the rest of my life. You can watch the full video of this episode HERE Join The Downside Patreon for early ad-free episodes the Friday before they're released on Tuesday, TWO bonus episodes a month (AUDIO & VIDEO), + the good feeling inside that you're helping keep my delusions alive. Follow JASON ZINOMAN on twitter Read JASON ZINOMAN's NYT articles here 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] Produced by Fawn Sullivan, Paige Asachika, & Gianmarco Soresi Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, welcome. Welcome to The Downside. I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels. My name is Joe Marcus-Arazi, and today we are joined by a New York Times comedy critic, author of many, many things comedy, Jason Zineman. Welcome to The Downside. Good to be here. Well, this is a negative podcast. Anything negative you want to report to us? Anything not going great right now? Finally, a podcast with comedians that complains a lot you're really breaking new ground here

there's uh let's let's all start there perfect perfect um you could hear you have headphones if you want them but we played our theme music just now okay no no it's perfect i love i love when people talk over it but then then I... Where's your headphone? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Joe Marco. Joe Marco, Cerezi. Come on. I don't need it.

We just did our first live show. So I took this whole studio over to the tiny cupboard. Have you ever been there? Yes. And this is the first time I've taken everything away and brought everything back. So I'm just going to plug it in and give it to you. What a shop we have. Here you go.

Wow. Thank you. That was still a perfect have. Here you go. Thank you. That was the perfect intro. There we go. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. I know every comedian complains, but... And as a podcast.

Yeah. I actually think that's the more cliche thing than the complaining. I mean, listen, I fought it. It took a long time. But when you go on the road and no one knows who you are, you go, all right, I guess I'll do it. You have to do it. You have to do it. No, I don't blame you at all.

I think I would do. I feel the pressure to do it as a journalist. Sure. I mean, to not have it is weirder than to have it. Yeah. Have you ever thought about it? I mean. Oh, yeah.

I've been I've had to turn down a lot. I mean, John Marco didn't have to turn down. Yeah, there's nothing I turned down. It took him five years to come up with the concept. I'm going to complain. Yes. Yes. You should have seen the pitch decks I had. And it him five years to come up with the concept, I'm going to complain. Yes, yes. You should have seen the pitch decks I had.

And it was originally going to be Kvetch. No, originally it was going to be, you had to read a book that someone recommended every episode, which would have been insane. I was trying to reinvent the podcast, and I was like, well, my listeners will read the book along with me, and then it'll be a book club. And thank God I had many people in my life that was like,

if I had to read a pamphlet this was enough you know yeah no i love it as a journalist it's the greatest thing in the world because you don't have to do any work you could just listen to these podcasts yeah that some of which very few people listen to uh and you can do a lot of your research that way so it's very convenient but i do actually have a i do wonder, my serious worry about comedian podcasts, I do have one. I don't know how serious. Please. Yeah, this is what I do worry.

I'm curious what you think because you're obviously a hardworking, you know, comedian concerned about their craft. Is it possible that we look back at this period when every comedian has to have a podcast and think that some of them have taken some of the time that they would have spent focusing on stand-up and instead focused on which might have helped their career but in terms of their skill as a stand-up yeah it would there's a cost that's the call i mean i i'll go further than podcast i'll say everything i i would say the the twitter the whole do-it-yourself system uh begs itself for a deterioration of product yes i mean just look at the way we look at specials now i mean less

i mean seinfeld was the one who said a special should be special that's why he's been doing the same material for 40 years but it's it's someday i'm gonna get too close too too close i'll be doing enough shows he's gonna bump like I gotta stop doing this shit he's gonna bump you at Gotham I think but I think I think of course I think the deterioration

of stand up is a huge bummer because the people who really crush it I mean who's touring right now to fucking stadiums

Tim Dillon Andrew Schultz these people are pumping out so much content that I think a lot of the stand-up shows start coming about seeing your favorite celebrity familiarity.

The joke structure goes downhill. I think it's a disaster for stand-up. Yeah. I'm a workaholic, so I think I fit in the time. I don't know how much more time I could do stand-up, but this is why so many stand-ups get bad, I'm sure,

which I wanted to talk about, how they get bad over time. How many stand-up comics really release their better work later on in life? I think maybe Mulaney now that, or I think also- Later on in life, though.

No, but I think like, because whatever happened in his own life, he's focusing on stand-up. Louis C.K., of course, which I've talked about, like, 2017 was a week special. And however you feel about him, now he's doing stand-up uh louis ck of course which i've talked about like his 2017 was a week special and however you feel about him now he's doing stand-up so full-time that it'll be like one of those rare i think it's tough for stand-up well we'll get to in a second but let's get back to

me for a second that's a fascinating subject i'm totally i have a lot to say about that because i think you're i think you're on to something yeah yeah well i think it's i mean it's it's it's hard i i i do the tick tock game i do the i do the game you gotta do the game you gotta like it i mean look there's no question this is not a question of whether you one should you gotta and in every era they've done the game the game has changed right yeah but they as you know better than that the game requires so much non-stand-up stuff now compared to when i started covering stand-up and what you always heard from you know just to say like you know nine years ago ten years ago is to say well you need you know seven eight years in the clubs yeah to get, right? Every standup would say that.

That was like, and they really were committed to this work ethic. Like if we were to believe them, right? If we were to believe that you had to single-handedly focus on being in the clubs, and then if you got good, and then these people who got in early with a sitcom, you know, they're cheating, right? Now, I think that was not always true for everybody,

but let's just, I believe that the fundamental of it is true right yeah that um then if tim dylan is making a fortune and making a living off of podcasting right of course he's gonna how could his stand-up not deteriorate and you know i think i've said the same thing to him and when i was and you know he rationalizes something you know some answer of course you have to yeah but i guess if you and you know you could say who cares about stand-up you know that maybe podcasting is more important to him right yeah but if you care about stand-up which i do right and and a lot of people do um then i kind of worry that a lot of the energy is going into podcasting into TikTok

and other things and you know you have to adjust I mean I cover I didn't used to I cover TikTok and Instagram and all the stuff

in ways that I didn't when I started I cover when I started writing about stand-up I made a big point of being like I cover live comedy

I only am going to write about someone if I see them live. That was an original idea. I think that's a great idea, but don't you think, so my argument to you is that, like, so right now especially, it feels like comedy clubs in general, and again, they're not all in cahoots together. These comedy clubs aren't like, well, how do we cultivate the craft? But I feel like there was a time where you went to the comedy club

because you knew they were going to give you someone who was funny. Now you go to the comedy club to see the person who's going to be at the comedy club, increasingly so. So most comedy clubs will put up any fucking TikTok, who could be very talented on TikTok, but will put them up for an hour

because they know they're going to sell out, they're going to make a shitload of money, and the stand-up sucks. So don't you feel like if you love the art of stand-up, like isn't part of a critic's in the overall formulation of like an art and the cultivation of its peak. The critic is the one who says, hey, just so you know, this is shit. This is excellent. Like opera critics. This is excellent. Like opera critics. I just think, I'm no fan of opera, but I'm sure they have kept this very tight line of what is good.

And if someone was popular on TikTok and went up at the Met, I'm sure whatever opera critic would tear them a new asshole. Then I don't know. I don't know what's your role in the continuation of stand-up continuing to be good and those good ones being supported financially by ticket buyers well i think two points one is uh i think also part of my job is to be open to new forms and to how the art evolves so for instance let's look at it from a different perspective all right bo burnham's new special yeah right is probably the the most buzzed about special of post pandemic right inside okay here's a guy who never believed that you have to go to the clubs to work for eight years in fact he did he started uh on youtube developed a completely different set of skills than everybody else at the time, right?

He was the first YouTube star, one of the first YouTube stars. And because of that route that he took, he was able, and you see it in this current special, he was able to make visual jokes using, you know, aspect ratio and cameras, things that most comics have no clue how to use. But would you call it a, at a certain point I go like, Yes. Why?

You could call it comedy, but a stand-up comic? I call total bullshit to any of this policing what is and was not stand-up comedy. In my mind, Do you see an opera and say this was a great stand-up comedy show? At a certain point,

there has to be a delineation. Opera evolves too. Do you think opera doesn't change? No, but I love Bo Burnham's Inside, but at a certain point, it's not a comic. Why? You're calling it a comedic, a musical comedic. Stand-up comedian. The reason you don't see it, and I think this is a flaw of comics, particularly from your

background, perhaps, which is that a lot, like people say, he has no jokes. Just because Hannah Gadsby had no jokes. I don't care about Hannah. Wait a second. Wait a second. A lot of, that special, he has no jokes. Just because he had a Gatsby, he had no jokes. I don't care about Gatsby. Wait a second, wait a second. A lot of, that special has a ton of jokes. It happens to be a lot of the jokes are visual. I agree.

I don't disagree with this. Is a visual joke less than a set-up punchline? Not at all, not at all. And I never claim that. So the goal is to try, from my point of view, not from your, from my point of view as a critic, is to judge it by its own standards. Like I'll judge you or anybody else by their own standards.

I'm looking at this and I'm like all right this is a you know is he good compared to other people working in this visual medium and yes that is in my mind the smart way to cover this not to say i have this one rigid notion of what stand-up is. It has to do with a mic and one guy on stage telling stuff. That, I think, is a road to oblivion, artistically. Okay, so my argument, first of all,

I love Bob Marley. I would never say it wasn't a, you can call, I don't give a fuck what you call it. I don't give a fuck what you call it. I don't care about any of that. What I think becomes sad is when I do think of stand-up

in terms of one person on a mic speaking, storytelling, punchlines, whatever. And the definition starts, it's, I don't care about the definition expanding.

I care. I'm talking about financially. I'm thinking about like comedy clubs exist in a way that allow an artist to continue practicing their craft. And it's a pipeline for people who like hearing someone talking on a mic to give money to support them and they can continue to grow and create great work. Right, right. When the comedy clubs start putting on more and more things that are outside the realm

of stand-up, many times just to get an easy buck, you start eliminating a way for people who, I think the art form of just speaking into a mic and it's spoken word, whatever you want to call it, is a beautiful art form. And when the venues stop supporting the cultivation of those great comics, when Stormy Daniels is your headliner for the weekend and that's your one of two female headliners on the road right i i that year then you are eliminating a space for them to thrive which is why i understand why i think stand-up comics start getting so sensitive about nanette and whatnot i don't give shit about what anyone else does artistically.

I think it's that they go, wait a second, what about this thing I've been working so hard at that sometimes people are great and it looks like everyone's looking at all the flashy, different art forms going, no, this is stand-up now. Yeah, but it's not. No, no, no, people aren't saying that. Well, first of all, I agree with you, let me just say,

about clubs have responsibility to support people, not just purely on whatever gets the most eyeballs and brings it. And I think that, that comedy clubs in particular have a particular responsibility. Yes. That said, it's interesting to me to hear you talk to say that, you know, you're not saying it's, it's bad. Why? It's not a zero-sum game. In fact, I would argue that if you, why wouldn't you want to, like me, have as broad a definition as possible of stand-up? Because as crappy as the economics are of stand-up right now, and don't get me wrong, what you're doing is hard. All artists, the economics of being an artist in New York are incredibly hard.

Try being an actor. Try being a are incredibly hard being try being an actor try being right being a set does you know try being a set designer it's incredibly incredibly difficult and there's all kinds of unfair things about show business a hundred percent right but the i would argue that the economics of stand up right now are better than they were 10 years ago stand-up right now are better than they were 10 years ago, precisely because the definition has expanded so much. Yeah, the economics are better if you expand the definition of where you can make money, but in terms of people who do stand-up.

I'll give you a concrete example. In the 80s, Eric Boghossian, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, and then in the 90s, Danny Hawk. These were all theater artists. You understand this. They did one-person shows. It was a theater genre. There was one person on stage.

People laughed. You want to say the character comedy, whatever you want to say. That was theater. If those artists started today, there isn't a chance in hell that they would be considered theater artists they are comedy artists that's a victory for comedy the fact that i exist at all not to pat myself on the back but is a victory for comedy that in the 80s there weren't critics on new york times systematically covering not just the bo burnhams but also people going to every night into the clubs to see who's there.

A broader, more flexible, more nimble genre is a healthier one, is my point of view. And even people who just have a mic in a club, in my opinion, it's in their interest to have as broad a genre as possible. Because it does impact, you know, part of my job is talking not just to club and club owners but to people at Netflix and Comedy Central. If they see this as a big genre, they put more money

and energy in it. So I would argue that, you know, Bo Burnham's success, although it seems not, is good for you long term. Well, just to be clear, first, this is a pro

Bo Burnham podcast. I've never been an anti- for you. Long term. Well, just to be clear, first, this is a pro Bo Burnham podcast. I've never been an anti-Hannah Gatsby. You're a theater guy, for God's sake. You should love Bo Burnham. Of course I love Bo Burnham. But I've never been

anti-Hannah Gatsby. I don't think she's a particularly good stand-up comedian in terms of, I'm a very, and this is me, my taste,

I'm a joke guy. I saw Douglas and I didn't see a lot of great jokes, in my opinion. But I have no problem with that. I just think the reason stand-up comics get really, and I feel like I want to speak for the comics here, it's that we're treated so shittily. I'll never forget, because you wrote a book about David Letterman, and there was this comedy store,

this really masturbatory comedy store documentary on Showtime. Oh, my God. Don't get me started on that. Do you want to be a downside? I could go on about that thing forever. There was this one thing about, like, yeah, Mitzi Shore used to make some of the comics eat her puss to get a spot.

Isn't that funny? And I was like, that's not funny at all. That was just Mitzi. That's not funny at all. That's a fucking, we've decided that's a crime. That's sexual assault. What are you doing? But David Letterman had this moment where he was like, you know, back then we performed for free.

No comic would ever perform at a club for free now. And I was like, you are so fucking out of touch. Yeah. You have no idea. And I think like stand-up comedy is is routinely uh yeah but you but he's right in one respect he's been he was out of touch back back then he was never much of a stand-up but uh but it is true that there was a time when no but no stand-ups got paid sure zero sure now it is not insane for a stand-up comic to perform in new york city and get some

money if we go in the reaches of history we're all doing so much better than we used to. But I think the reason stand-up comics were treated – I think it's just stand-up comedy is so routinely dismissed. It's not – hold up. Financially, financially dismissed, thought of as like – Compared to what? Compared to what? Compared to a coal miner? financially, financially dismissed, thought of as like, it's all, people use it as a- Compared to what? Compared to what? Compared to a coal miner?

I mean, what are you talking about? Compared to, there's, compared to a- No, no, we're talking in the arts. Someone in modern dance,

If we're going to talk about not the arts, we're going to lose bad compared to a doctor. I don't think there's a single genre of artist who is in this room right now wouldn't be rolling

their fucking eyes at you. If you're in dance, if you're in off-B're in dance, if you're in off-Broadway theater, if you're opera, there's something. How often do you see opera on the front page

of the New York Times? How often do you see people paying big money for opera artists? There's not a lot of lower-level opera happening. I think musicians

are more often paid than comedians. Pop music? Are you serious? Ever since Napster, the economic model for pop music has fallen apart. Sure. I mean, I would argue that the only, and I'm not sure I believe this, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I was looking back over the last 20 years.

The only genre of art that could make an argument that has gotten sturdier because of the internet is stand-up comedy. That in the late 90s, you literally couldn't make a living in stand-up unless you had a sitcom. Everybody knew that. There was no special. The idea that you would have a special, a career in making specials didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is such a new entitled idea that we should suddenly— I think it's very bold of you to accuse a stand-up

i here's but here's what it is as someone who loves the art of stand-up comedy i think it's it's a every every genre of art you could go the best doesn't automatically rise to the top there's lots of right but i think instead here's my argument is that in stand-up comedy, I think it's even more of a mix of excellence and mediocrity. Yeah. Brutal mediocrity rising to the top. I don't know. I think you can make that, though, with most art. With every art?

I mean, look at music. Look at actors. I feel like there's tons of people in every art form. Do you think opera has that? Painting. Painting. A famous meritocracy. Only the best painters i mean

do you have you ever had painting itself is a joke because i hate opera but i'm like i do poetry slams they're only the best poetry slam artists get rewarded the world is unfair the show business is particularly unfair yeah there's that's always been true you're right on that i feel you because you're in it. You're not wrong that the mediocrity is rewarded in stand-up right now for sure. And some of the reasons that you point out are 100% true. But you think all art forms are treated poorly equally, and I don't think that's true. As someone who is an actor, I think acting lives—

No, stand-up's better. What I'm saying to you— Get out of your mind! Stand think that's true. As someone who is an actor, I think acting lives... No, stand-up better. Stand-up... What I'm saying to you... Get out of your mind, stand-up better. I know. I will show you... Because you look at a much higher... I am in the sewers with the comics. You'll never write in your articles.

That's where you get the legit... That's not true. Shelf life... Here's an example, okay? I am the theater... I'm the comedy critic for the New York Times. Yes. Okay? I only write twice a for the New York Times. Yes.

I only write twice a month. There are thousands of specials that come out. Maybe many hundreds of specials that come out. Most of them that get covered get covered on major platforms, Netflix, Comedy Central, et cetera. If you look at any other art form, right, look at what the New York Times covers, right? Yeah.

If you're an opera, you're at the Met, right? It's not some guy who put out their own opera out to Alfresco. The opera singer on Times Square, this guy's saying. No, I did not review Shelf Life, okay? But I watched it and liked it okay now wait i'm not trying to get sets of them oh well there i just did i did but but you're not entitled to or everybody's not entitled to a review from the new york times most of the vast majority the vast majority don't get reviewed and i take that responsibility very seriously figuring out who to cover who not to and it is true, one of your early points,

which I want to agree with, because I feel like this is more contentious than I want to sound, but is that one of the tricky things is that when people start out, they aren't that good. And then when they get really famous and they're doing 50 other things, their quality declines. As a generalization, that's true. And so often,

the people who are the best at their art in stand-up are people who are actually in the middle, right? And it is true. I think this is a fair critique of the press, including myself, that we tend to cover the hot new thing, the newsworthy thing which is something different we definitely have a bias towards the new and the different it's a newspaper right and fame right there's no question that people my readership wants to read what chris rock's up to right if it's good bad whatever the i know it's between shelf life and pete davidson's new special and you said well you know i did i gave p I gave Pete Davidson a bad review. You did.

A negative review. But I did review it. Now, you could say, oh, I don't have to review Pete Davidson. Why should I do it? Right. Which is a totally legit. I wish if here's a good downside thing. I feel like the criticisms of critics are so particularly by artists are typically pretty bad.

Right. Like there's a lot. But there's a lot of good criticism. This is a really good criticism of me. Like, and I'm sensitive to it, and I think I fail sometimes more than I do. That, like, yeah, I wish I didn't live in a world

where I covered Pete Davidson and gave him a bad review rather than there's other people who did a, you know, whose stuff is better. But I will be honest. I was, oh, so go ahead. I had a question about that, though. Yeah, yeah.

Is there, is that on, all solely on you or is there, is there, sometimes I would imagine there has to be pressure from, from people to be like, you should cover this certain thing. Like how much of that plays into it? I mean, not that like, I'm trying to get you to be like.

No, no, I'm not, I'm going to take 100% responsibility, but that's because I've been doing this for a while and I know what people want and I know, but that's because I've been doing this for a while and I know what people want. And my job, as I see it, the people I write for fundamentally are my audience. And that's the readers, right? That's something where comics have in common with it.

Ultimately, that's your primary audience. Not my only audience, but my primary audience. And among other things, they're interested in people like famous people big name people right and they're uh so there is this balance to strike between covering who my reader wants to read about and who is the most artistically worthy people and it does take more work on a pitch level to convince my editors to cover the people they haven't heard about. I'm feeling this right now. I have like, send, but I'm like, all right, here are four people you haven't heard of.

But you have to justify that. Pete Davidson, it's like, it's Pete Davidson. That's how it operates. It's not like someone says you have to review Pete Davidson. It is real. It's a real thing. I was surprised at the negative review because – and maybe this is true. Tell me.

When an art form does not have a lot of critics or like stand-up, it's like it's not movies. Right. Or theater. That a lot of times criticism – it feels like there's a lot of just rah-rah comedy. Like I feel like – I mean Vulture in general, a lot of Vulture is just like, this is great. This is great. That is great. Ooh, look at this.

And it rarely feels like it's an interest, like a really poking, you know. But thanks for writing us up, Vulture. Yes, we did get a write-up. We did get a write-up. I appreciate it. Fuck you, Vulture. Please write about me. But it's important.

I think it's important every time. Because you want them to shit on. Not shit on. Wait a second. Be a real critic. No, no, no. You're seeing other comics who you think aren't as good. I'm not criticizing.

Sometimes. Sure. Look, in my experience, there's no one who's a harsher critic of journalists than journalists. There's no one who's a harsher critic of comics than comics. That's what I see, right? There is no one who's a harsher critic of journalists than journalists. There's no one who's a harsher critic of comics than comics. That's what I see, right? There is no one who's a harsher critic of journalism than me. No. That's not true.

The comics think that, and actors think that, but it's actually not true. Like, if you had me and five other journalists sitting around, because this goes to the point, which is that typically the criticism of critics is clickbait, resentful artists, jealous. Actually, you get a lot of criticism for being too negative, right? All those are bad criticisms. The criticism that you're leveling at me right now, to be honest with you, is a very good one for 2021. And that's something I do think about.

The issue is this. I only write about, you know, again, I have two columns a month, sometimes three. Okay. I have limited amount of space to, to write. And so is it a good use of my time to be slamming things that you shouldn't see? Right. It, it does incentivize. I, I, I guess this is probably super vulture too, it incentivizes you to write less negative reviews. The downside of that, because I am like an old school, I've been around, I've been writing criticism for a long time.

I think a lot of people don't even think about this, but the importance of negative criticism, and it's very important, one of the reasons it's important is that it establishes a trust with your reader. That if your reader could see you being like, oh, if you just say everything's great, then your reader's not going to trust you when you say something's good if you don't say something's bad.

So there is that. That's one of the many reasons. There is the traditional steamroller as has been said, purge of criticism, which is like if you take out all the bad stuff, which I think is ridiculous because we're not that important.

Yeah, yeah. But I do think that the, and maybe this is why your podcast is actually necessary and not so, yeah, there you go. There you go. You've been waiting for this.

You've been waiting. Unnecessary podcast. The New York Times says unnecessary podcast. Oh no. I've been taking out of context way worse than that.

What is Chris's quote thing? He says the Rolling Stones has no words for Chris Cafero. Yeah. But no to answer your question to some degree

how I justify the Pete Davidson thing is that yeah every once in a while I need to stay like I need to be like this. This is I don like, this is a negative review. Um, I'll, I'll give you another example. And you know, this, if you're around comedy clubs and alternative venues enough, you have a good sense of who's going to be a star. You kind of know, right. And one thing that's definitely prized in journalism, um, and by editors and stuff is if you're like the first person to be like, this person is going to be a star and they try to be a star.

That's like a feather in your cap or some people say. Right. Yeah. So there is now. I remember there was a time before Pete Davidson got in SNL when I was in the clubs and everyone was like everyone knew this guy's going to be famous. Right. For a variety of reasons. Right. And I remember going to see him and being like, he's guy's going to be famous right for a variety of reasons right and i remember uh going to see him and being like he's he's interesting there's you know i think actually he was better he used to be better stand-up and at least that i saw in that netflix special yeah and i was like it's interesting but it's not i think it doesn't raise to the level of me writing about of a unknown yet at the same time i knew this was a guy that was going to be big fast forward like a year right there was buzz about him getting on SNL right at this point I'm like all right I'm going to try

one more time and I went to I think the stand and I saw him and he talked about and I had I had to come up because again you have to work harder to get someone who isn't famous in the paper there was like around September 11th and so there so he was talking about his dad on stage. Oh, I thought it was around the September 11th. And I was like, Jesus Christ. He started really young. Much like right now. Much like right now. It was an anniversary.

It was September 11th. And so you could write about him talking about his dad in this way. And I went to see him. And again, I was like, oh, it's interesting. Then, whatever, two weeks later, SNL picks him him up there's a million stories about pete davidson every day on a pure new york times journalism level it would have been they would have liked me to have that piece in the paper and then forever i would have had the first pete davidson piece in the paper i had like a year before right and i would and people you know i could have introduced them to our readership and then that could have said but i still stand by that because that's what i just like i go see everybody

and i'm like all right this person is interesting or good and i'm not going to make my decision solely based on who's famous who's not famous that was an example of not writing about him even though i knew he'd be famous but the the maybe the writing about him later though I knew he was going to be famous but maybe the writing about him later I did more so because he was famous so it works both sides. Sure.

There's one thing there's one article that one thing I admired was your review of when Louis C.K. started touring again because I thought it was like again

and this is like the inverse of this like we're puff pieces like it felt like any review of it at this point, it's just like, well, this is a bad person and we should just be expressing how bad this all is. And it's like, okay, but if you're going to write about the thing that's happening in the world, it's kind of like if you're going to go cover a war, you know, you got to talk about it. And I thought like yours had, you know, one or two lines of, you know, I know this is complicated, but it was like it was a really when you wrote that because, you know, ultimately, like you're writing reviews, but you're also a means of drumming up PR. Anything you write is going to be a pull quote and anything you write about is going to bring people to the fact that he is touring. Maybe they didn't know about it until they saw it in the New York Times.

Like when you wrote that or when you thought about reviewing that, what were your, what do you think your responsibility is? That had to have been tough. That was, it's funny you bring it up because it's probably the hardest piece I wrote that year. Yeah. By far. And it got the most interesting feedback. I mean, I got like, it got both like harshly criticized, which I expect, but I also got like some of the like most effusive praise for that piece from sources that I was surprised

by. I'm not talking about like comedians, Iians talking about like in the world of journalism that was an interesting yeah period because um yeah how do you i'm a i'm a a critic who focuses on the art right and but i don't believe you can completely separate the art from the uh context in which it comes out. And part of your job as a critic is to contextualize it in certain ways. So how do you both write about this work and give it respect as a piece of comedy while not ignoring the context in which it arises?

For the most extreme example of anything, before the times wrote the story about louis there was no comic and people forgotten this but from like 2011 and you know 11 to 2015 there was no comic who the press gave more of the benefit of the doubt to by far than louis ck if he did something if he did a rape joke the you could find stories that rationalize it as being a feminist rape joke he talked about i remember when daniel tosh got in trouble for his you know crowd work rape joke and then there was this episode of louis where he has a he has a heckler and he's like i mean he's like i hope someone

rips you in the mouth and has aids like it was like a brutal and i just thought i was like well that was that was scripted. That was written down, and that went through a table read. Oh, yeah. And I know you did. Or that whole thing, that when Daniel Tosh, when that thing happened to Daniel Tosh,

Louis went on The Daily Show to talk about it. Why would Louis go on The Daily Show to talk about it? When that happened, when the Louis episode about Dan Cook was preposterous, Dan Cook didn't steal any of Louis' jokes. Really? That's ridiculous. I mean, we can go into the details of it,

but the point was is that everyone assumed Dan Cook was the villain because he got no benefit of the doubt back then, and Louis was this philosopher king who had every benefit of the doubt, right? Fast forward, post New York Times article, there is no comic who gets less of a benefit of the doubt. Now, you can argue if that's right or wrong right um but uh that so that is what the storm cloud that's above me writing that review and i'm trying to not be uh ignore the the context in which i'm writing while also keeping that trying to keep that separate from me engaging with the work yeah yeah and you also didn't i mean

there was this like uh there there was this idea and again like for any listeners who hate me at this moment i mean it's it's complicated but there was this like big narrative of like he's now he's now alt-right and i was like that's this that narrative and i've heard it repeated like that's clearly one that like clearly stuck yeah because he made one parkland shooting joke especially as a comedian you're like i've made shooting i've made i've made all sorts of jokes and that like one means that he was like pivoting to the alt right if you know or familiar with his work is an insane thing to say i'll take it even farther than that which is to say that when you actually look at Louis' life right now, the amount of pressure to not become an alt-right. Yeah.

Like, can you imagine how easy it would be? Like, if I was Louis C.K., you're never going to get back your old audience. Period, right? But there's this whole other audience right now, which has grown up in the wake, that's dying to love. Like, how much would Joe Rogan love to have Louis C.K. on his podcast? I'm sure he's big. How much would that entire audience, how much would Tim Dillon love to have Louis C.K. on his podcast? I'm sure he's big. How much would that entire audience,

how much would Tim Dillon's audience love to be, all Louis would have to do, like to do one of those things, right? He hasn't, I would argue he's worked very carefully to not court that while still doing what he sees is what he always did, which always was this kind of, you know, towing the line of transgression. Which I think would get lost is what he always did, which always was this kind of, you know, towing the line of transgression.

Which I think would get lost is that, of course, and you know this, but a lot of people who know Louis now only for, you know, sexual misconduct, is that his work was always pushing that line. I mean, I was just watching his SNL monologue about

pedophilia. There's never going to be another nationally, SNL monologue nationally pedophilia, there's never going to be another SNL monologue that's that dangerous. I think my general frustration with the way we react to society is we pretend that we weren't participants in that material. It's the same, I've always thought with the R. Kelly thing,

I'm like, we were joking about this. And that doesn't mean hugely this person shouldn't be punished. But no always thought with the R. Kelly thing. I'm like, we were joking about this. And like, that doesn't mean this person should be punished. But no one looks in the mirror and goes, you had him on all your playlists. Right. And you watched the Dave Chappelle sketch about it and laughed and laughed and laughed. But then the question is, what should you like? I don't. I agree with you 100 percent.

But I don't think the answer is like to never reevaluate. Right. Your reaction. But I think when people do the alt-right thing, it's because they want to create a narrative of like, this is the nexus of evil over here, and I never was. It's just as creating a world that's cleaner than it is. Totally, totally.

No, the portrait of, I mean, I saw recently that Louis showed up on a podcast, The Joe List. And Renan Hirschberg's podcast.'re not in Hirshberg and he was talking about movies. And I was like, he could be on, think of the podcast he could be on. Right. And the podcast he chose to be on, which couldn't be more under the radar,

right. Is to talk about Paul Thomas Anderson in this. And he was like, very interesting. Like I was like, I'd, you know, I'd like to hear him talk about Paul Thomas Anderson for a half hour, like hour like more than i want to hear him talk about you know a lot of things uh

and uh so i i agree with you that the that the it is one of the peculiar challenges of being a critic in this moment that now you have this whole class of people right who some of whom are you know are like you know finished some of whom are sort of like quasi shamed quasi not i mean there's someone i'm looking into right now which is it falls into that category where it's like all right how do you be fair to this person while also not ignoring what they did and the discussion around them um if okay if if uh and let me say also you know i am a critic but i'm also a reporter and i also i also am part of the new york times coverage of this stuff so i'm like i i am to a lot of things that aren't obvious to people who are reading like all right this this is like a piece of criticism and this is a piece of reporting.

And those distinctions do matter to me. Do you feel like that was kind of both, that piece? A mix of criticism and reporting? That piece I saw as criticism, but there were other things that we did around that time, which were more reporting, like when he returned for the first time, my byline's not on there,

but that was, and there's others, not on there um but you know that was and there's others you know even the even the original piece was something that like you know that is part of part of the job is being like all right there there there is a way to cover louis as a news story and there's a way to cover him as a critic and um you know it's important to, not to have firm, sharp lines, but in my mind, it's helpful to have some of these distinctions. Well, we look forward to whatever the Bill Cosby piece is someday.

So let me just check it real quick. So again, those of you here, this is The Downside. This is a very special kind of episode. We went right into theorizing about comedy. But if you're a fan, check out the Patreon. It's patreon.com

slash downside, bonus episodes, ad-free episodes, lots of extra goodies. But yeah, this has been, we're still doing more. I'm not ending the podcast.

I was just doing a little thing. Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charlesu about a struggling asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a crime in chinatown streaming november 19th only on disney plus bumble knows it's hard to start conversations hey no too basic hi there still no what about hello handsome who knew you could give yourself the ick that's

why bumble is changing how you start conversations you can now make the first move or not with opening moves you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. But Russell, you're good. I know. Congrats on the Texas abortion ban. I know you were really rooting for that one. Fun little game. His cat's name is Louie. Speaking of,

it's true. I told him, I said, you gotta put him down. I've known him for a long time. In that period of 2011-2015 where we were all um louis catcher i am big louis so so we we uh we went to the same high school which is a did you oh that's which is something i every pr person i've paid thousands to i said just so you know when you reach out to jason cinnamon mention that we went to the same high school. So you grew up in D.C.?

That's true, yes. And now your mom was an actor. No, she ran, she started a theater. And which, was it Studio Arena? Studio Theater. Studio. The year I was born. And the studio, I'm pretty sure, is she still around?

Yep. Is she still running it? No, she's now, she's retired and still runs an acting conservatory, acting school. Out of studio? No, she built, she just's retired and still runs an acting conservatory, acting school. Out of studio? No, she just finished building a new acting school, like a new physical space, like literally like a week ago. In D.C.?

Yeah, and she passed along to somebody else, so she's retired. I see. But she still teaches acting. I took some classes at Studio Theater, great theater. It's one of the reasons I think I really finally gave up on theater was I had an audition, then a callback for Hand of God. It was the of the reasons I think I like really finally gave up on theater was I had an audition, then a callback for Hand of God. It was the premiere at the studio theater.

And it was like one of the, it was fine. It was like, I've been in acting conservatories. I was an actor, full on actor. And I was like, oh, this is finally a script that's good. I've been doing horrible plays that either I wrote or someone else wrote. And I was like, finally a script I can stick. And I went to a puppet coach. I got a puppet.

I was talking. I don't think we knew each other. I was talking. If you'd talk to me, I'd answer the door with the puppet. Daniel Day-Lewis, this role. And then I went in. And again, they could have been lying to my agent. But they just said, and I should have known, too tall to play this high school kid.

They just told my agent, he's too tall. And I remember that moment being like, no i i can't do this anymore i like i was so it was one of those where i'm like this is mine i i'm i will destroy this part it's mine and then the feedback is too tall i said you know what this is no life for an artist i'm keeping the puppet welcome to being an actor. Fucking brutal. Brutal. I mean, that's the thing. When you say like, that's the thing.

I do almost feel like I'm just going to stick up for, because I covered theater for 10 years. You don't have to stick up for acting. I'm here. No. Let me tell you what happened after that. I booked a General Electric commercial and made six figures doing fucking nothing.

So yeah, it wasn't too bad. Well, if you sell out. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just mad at you. But I, but I, but yeah, acting is,

the fact that you could, whatever, too tall is crazy. Yeah. And they didn't say that at the initial, again, I mean,

talk about, casting calls. Auditions. I mean, casting calls are anything worse than a casting, like being in a group of like 20 people who look like you.

I was talking about with my reps recently because everything's on tape now. Yeah. And you don't even know if they see it number one but they if the union had power it would be auditions two pages max because they just they give you you know again for this play thing it was three scenes right yeah puppet but imagine this imagine this you study you go to juilliard you work for years, you get good at acting, then you get up for a big part on a show on Showtime or something, and they cast a fucking stand-up comic because he's got a social media following. You know how often that happens these days?

Sure. Well, I tell stand-up comics who shit on actors or actors who become comedians all the time, I'm like, you are dreaming of the day that you will sink a sitcom with your shitty 2D performance on a soundstage. It used to be rapper. You heard actors complaining about rappers.

Now it's comics. I used to do a bit. It became day to too fast for Aziz Ansari's show where he cast his parents to play his parents. I'm like, that's so cool. Unless you're, I don't know, a middle-aged Indian actor being like, holy shit, one of the three roles I got to audition for this year

and you gave it to your actual fucking parents? That's brutal. That's a good point. Hand to God, do you like Hand to God? Oh, I love Hand to God. I wasn't raised religiously. I think I just love

Angry Puppet. It was just great. It was funny. It was actually a genuinely funny so play new play it doesn't come around that often well i i did the theater for a long time and especially when it comes to comedy some playwrights just like no comedy and some especially doing stand-up comedy later you're like no this isn't a sharp enough joke this is just kind of generally so okay so your mom was she ever a performer she was just a she was an actor when she was young, but not for long.

She was a director, and then she directed like two plays a year throughout my childhood. And what did your dad do? He worked in the Foreign Service. He was a government job. Okay. And so we traveled every six years, I think. He had to go overseas.

So I lived sometime in Malaysia, and then I came back from Malaysia to D.C. My brother and sister were born in Thailand. Oh, right, and they're older. They're older, exactly. You were a mistake. I heard that on Marin. So what was the downside of having a mother in theater? Did you see a lot of shows?

Was it fun? Was it good? That was the huge upside is that by the time I got out of school, I had seen more theater than anybody my age because, of course, you can't, first of all, theater is very uncool. Yes.

Unlike stand-up comedy, it's very uncool for young people. And two, it's, you can't afford it. But I had seen everything. I'd seen, you know,

every, you know, all of August Wilson's plays, all of David Mettler's, all of Susan Laurie Park's plays. I've, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, these were things that were like,

I didn't have to work at it. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to go, you know, eat my vegetables. It was just around. It was around. It was, it was, you know, my mom basically produced like the off-Broadway hits of the year before the next year. So it was, it was new work. You know, she also taught Shakespeare, et cetera, but her brother was new work. So I had this incredible education. Also I had education in the process of making art where that um i think in

you know now i cover you know i i what i we've been talking about criticism but i also like covering the process of making a joke you know i've written those stories but you know the evolution of a joke or the evolution of a sketch or the evolution of making tiktok whatever did all this stuff and that i'm interested in that because I grew up around, all right, I'm blocking this play, and I'm struggling with where to move these people. And I remember my mom, her set designer would build a little model set, and she would use sometimes my little toy soldiers

to move around where to move things. And so I didn't think anything of it at the time. But in retrospect, I was was very very lucky and privileged to have this education which i didn't you know by which by the time i got out of school i didn't want to write about theater but i kind of it ended up coming towards me because i was better qualified as a very young journalist yeah arch journalist i was way more qualified than I was to read about film at like age 23. Did your, now,

did the theater have a good run? Did it ever have any points that was scary? You thought things were, I mean, was it pretty successful throughout? No, it was,

it did terribly for most of my childhood. In fact, we got bad reviews. I mean, that's the other thing. I had various. That's what I'm curious about.

Like, how did your mom feel about, did you have a different experience with critics? Did you, when your mom had a new play, were you invested enough that you were like,

how were the reviews? Oh yeah. She was, she was very, I mean, she hated critics, which also was very useful because I don't expect,

I don't expect you to not, to like me, right? Now you might, you might, you might not, but I sort of assume that

artists hate critics because that's what i grew up around and i understand it on an emotional level and also uh you know look if you spend uh a year working on something or if you spend you know five years working on something which i have you know i've written a book which takes five years and then someone spends a couple days working on this review that it's structurally unfair right i understand why you would be um i understand the the anger that people have over bad reviews you're saying how come you don't write people are most people get really viciously angry about reviews of course my mom loved when it was a good review of her play which made no sense right i mean i'll i'll give you because i've talked about this before but i'll give you a piece of advice that uh that you know once you've been being a critic for long enough, when people compliment you on a positive review you wrote about them, you don't believe it.

And if people criticize you for a negative review, you don't believe it. But there's a few artists in my lifetime who have complimented me on a negative review. And those are the ones that you really, really believe. Those are the ones where you're like, oh, wow. If I was a manager, I'd be like, do that. Because if you actually, because you never forget those people. Well, what is it? I mean, because you never forget those people. Well, what is it?

I mean, because you were on Marc Maron's podcast, which if you were covering a war, if he releases something, you've reviewed Marc Maron many times. You've grown up with him, seen him grow. If he came out and did a special and it fucking sucked, are you going to write that review that says this was bad? I mean,

this guy, you have a cell number. I'm sure. I've, I've done it. I mean, I, I panned my last apartment.

The guy who lived down the hall from me, not only did I pan his play, but I, I walked out of it and I wrote not a review a review but a like i was a very young critic but like a like a review about the ethics of walking out i mean i mean if you write if you cover theater in the city it's different than covering other forms you meet the people and i used to look for many years i didn't have this situation where i write two times a month i covered every you know i covered everything off-Broadway, everything Broadway.

So you had to write whatever you liked or didn't. You had to write about it. So you end up, of course, and you see everybody. They all live in the city. They all go to the same restaurants. And when you're covering theater, I've had people, I remember there was a composer I called once for reporting on something.

And I was like, is, you know, blah, blah, blah there. And he was, he started reciting the first, the lead of my review, which was a pan. He's like a well-known composer. And he's like, that is a, it's a tape to my wall and I was like okay I get it can I ask can I understand you're coming from you know I have a question or two and he's like yeah I totally asked me why and he was like and it was great like I have a lot of you know it was but that is not an

unusual situation so to answer your question no problem writing that's part of the job is to be I what are the problems of criticism today is like some people and you know the social media economy supports this people want to be liked this is not a good job for someone who wants to be liked yes yes is not that that you know it is a difference between comedy and criticism what's only this neighbor story really. So you were living in the apartment. Did you know it was your neighbor whose show you were seeing? No, it was, I reviewed it before.

I wrote the review several years before I moved in there. What play is it? Oh, it was in the Fringe Festival, which, you know, when I was young, I had to cover. I did the Fringe. You did the Fringe, you know. This play started at the Fringe Festival, less than 50%. Okay.

So I know those reviews, especially in the fringe we we went we made it to the fringe encores which at that point was was nothing not was truly which was doing a second less popular fringe but it's the bed they take the best shows and they put it in a show called fringe encores yes yes yes thank you and uh uh but those five days at the fringe i mean i worked so hard and those reviews of that first showing are very important yes they're very because in that people who are at the fringe festival they're very actively looking at the reviews as they figure out their month long well there's 200 shows so they have no they no one knows what to see yeah and it's a horrible journalistic job

Because you go like I remember I covered it the first fringe and I covered like the first five years where you have to review Like 25 shows in like four days or something yeah, and you're running it's burning hot it's the shittiest rooms in the city and And so you would go to like I actually kind of loved it and took it as like a point of pride to yeah I'm glad I did it once but I mean like you're, the amount of time you have for tech is twice the length of what your show is. And so our first show, thank God we got a good review. Who did you get a good review from? Oh, I don't learn critics' names on purpose.

No, I mean, but the show itself was a disaster. There was one scene entirely in dark. The lights didn't work. We had a futon-like bed, but the legs were only on one side. So twice I got up from this bed and my scene partner tipped over and fully rolled over. Like it was a disaster show. But what's cool about the Fringe is the bar is lower to a certain degree. It's like if it's interesting and cool, they will give you the benefit of the doubt of a lot of technical things if you're doing something interesting yes yes no

there's a lot of great work came out of the fringe uh and again what we're talking about p davidson if you take pride in seeing people early in their career which i do and which is one of the fun things about my current job um it's a great it was a great place once you went to i went to friend like the edinburgh fringe and and Canadian fringes, which are generally much better run that, that changes. But anyways, the point is I, I, I was on one of these like seven shows a day thing. And I saw this one show, which was about George, um, I mispronounced last name. Malayas was a guy who like one of the first filmmakers ever, the guy who made like the

first science fiction movie of like a hundred years ago. Yeah. And, uh, and, uh, yeah. And it was not good. And I walked out and this was when the Times had like a blog. This was like a blog era. So I wrote like a thing about the ethics. I probably wouldn't have done that today.

And he had a point. But then when I moved into this place, I turned out that this guy who, you know, he's middle-aged to older and this was like his big dream you know he wrote this he wrote this play um i don't know he really you know love this play and uh and uh yeah i mean i i'm what did you see him did he say anything yeah i noticed the name and maybe he came you walk out the middle of the conversation and then write a blog about the ethics of it he would be in the total, I wouldn't blame him.

I wouldn't blame him. I mean, on a human level, again, I grew up around this feeling. On a human level, I would understand that. He, like many artists, was like a total professional and a mensch about it and we became like friendly. I wouldn't say we were close friends,

but you know, I do think think and i'll say this i have been doing this job for a while now and yeah there are a lot of comics including big name comics who like loudly hate critics or i've been critical i've mentioned these minor i've had people much bigger michael chay famously is very very anti i had i wrote a review of wrote a review of Dave Chappelle when he was on Broadway. And it was, I would say, mixed to negative. And he turned the next four shows on Broadway about, among other things, about me. Really? And you had, just to let them know,

you wrote an e-book about Dave Chappelle prior to this. So you're a Chappelle. I'm a huge admirer of Dave Chappelle. I grew up, Dave Chappelle got his start blocks away from my mom's theater, his first comedy club. I literally was like, I'm around the same age. His teachers at Duke Ellington in high school

taught at my mom's theater. I wrote a book because he's also like, I know the world that he came up in. Yeah. And I'm a huge admirer of I think his sketch show is one of the greatest things ever. I think he's a you know, I think he's a brilliant stand up. But to give you example, I wrote a lot of raves and then I've written a couple of negative pieces about him, too. And but he you know, the reason I know this is because every night that week at 11 or whatever it came out I would get all these emails from like my wealthier friends because it's expensive because he did and and

being like Dave Chappelle called you a bitch ass blah blah you know and it was like every night what did he say what else like was he did he just call you a bitch for the whole time I mean it was like a callback I think you know it was like every night what did he say what else like was he did he just call you a bitch for the whole time i mean it was like a callback i think you know it was like a regular and uh um i think he you know it was at the time he was you know starting to get blowback for a lot of the trans stuff right trans jokes and i think his critique you know again didn't see it. I just heard about it every night. It was hilarious, because every night I would hear,

I'd get emails about it. But to the extent I could tell, he sort of lumped me in with, like, the sort of, you know, woke critique of his work. I think especially, I mean, my opinion in terms of, there's a lot of these older comics,

and it's usually around the trans issue that they, like, make, they feel like, well, I should joke about this of these older comics and it's usually around the trans issue that they feel like, well, I should joke about this. And my thought is that these people that are surrounded by very liberal people, they think they're fighting against the man

or they're bucking against the system or they're saying something really edgy and maybe within that circle. But I'm like, I was just in Austin, Texas and I'm like, go to an open mic in Austin, Texas and there's 10 guys doing this joke in a row

and you're watching it. I did this one show where it's like three guys in a row, three cis men in a row were talking about trans stuff and you're like, why are you all

obsessed with this? There's not even a trans person in the current room right now and you're all talking about it because you know it's spicy or that you can get it easy. And I think at that higher level, I imagine when you have a lot of money, you're with people who I imagine generally trans allies are not talking shit about trans people.

So you think you're being – and so I totally get when comedians are like – it's this very – I think it's one of the struggles right now with like being kind of an edgy comic is there was a time when George Conn talked against the Catholic Church and people were like, ooh, you shouldn't say that. But it's like the Catholic Church did deserve to be shat on and they were in power. They were in power. Go for it. But now like sometimes what is edgy – I hate the term punching up and punching down. It just gets so overexploited. But there's this thing of like, yeah, it's edgy, but you're also making fun of people who in general are suffering. It's harder to be edgy in that.

There's also just the artistic way, which is that, as you said, if everyone's making these same these same i'm gonna identify as a tomato jokes it's hack it's it's the new airplane food jokes like the can't cancel food trance yeah trance i would say more broadly like i will say this like if i if i'm watching a stand-up special and somebody mentions cancel culture i am not going to write about it like unless it's unless that's something they are the standard for how good it's got to be gets much higher not because of a political reason although i have opinions on that right but i if for it's just the most hack thing you that is the airplane food of our time which is talking about cancel culture i mean i remember uh uh you know there still are comics who think that is a new angle.

It's just not. It's a really, really old, tired angle. It doesn't mean you can never joke about it or you can never find a new angle. It's just the level of difficulty is way higher. Cancel culture is also just my money. It's just not specific. I think there's certainly oversized reactions to certain things fueled by social media and the twitter algorithm there's of course interesting examples everywhere but

cancel culture is a broad thing it it's it's it's also it's almost like kind of complaining about cause and effect it says like cause and effect jesus some of these effects are really big for small cause and it's like okay well let's get a little more specific. But even just the phrase, you're like, you hear it, and your brain is like, I can't. Like, it's boring. And you've heard it from every side, every fucking side. I think actually things are, comics are starting to change,

except for like the people whose money comes directly. Like if you're in the Joe Rogan universe, I don't think you can afford to give that up no it was really interesting though because shane gillis was on joe rogan and shane was so much more at peace with like his whole story than joe was and but the thing i think about is like it's it's a paranoia there's there's a i think of it's usually white people and white male comics there's a paranoia of, oh, I'm going to, everything is going to disappear. And so like Joe Rogan will talk about the cancel culture,

and you constantly go like, what are you talking about? You are the number one podcast. But it's this paranoia. I mean, it's almost like go see a therapist to talk about paranoia and anxiety. But I have a darker view of it, and I think we have to adjust how we talk about it. I don't think it's just paranoia. I think it's cynicism. I think it's the equivalent

of doing sex jokes in the 50s or whatever. You're going to get attention. It's cheap. It's now a way to make money. That's the reason. Now, some people genuinely believe what they're saying

about language. But there is now unquestionably money to be made through playing to you know caricaturing left-wing young people um and there's just like a career you can make huge careers on it and i think we need to almost think about it the way that we used to think about people who sell out by doing a you know by you know going to go to doing something corporate or doing a commercial thing it's like i've you have to do it sometimes you got to do your gm whatever it is like i i'm not like a purist on this you got to make money right yeah that's not your your deep chances are that's probably not what's in your soul

like that's and again that that is a cynical view and probably doesn't cover everybody because some people really do. Well, there's plenty of critiques to be made. I do think it's tough. I do think there is a certain degree of like in the liberal sphere, a sort of ousting if you don't. There can be an ousting of like you are not part of this. And I'm like, well, there's lots of jokes to be made about you. Yeah. Like one of the reasons I think like Tim Dillon, if you talk to any comedian, even the most liberal comedians would be like,

he's very fun. He's very funny. And part of it is like, he really comes at a very nihilistic stance that allows him to really attack some angles I would never attack. And plenty of times I'm like, fuck you. Or like,

what is this? Or like when he complained about the Lil Nas X music video, I was like, go. I was like, get get the out of here you played megan mccain talking about wanting to her dad's corpse shut the shut the up well about little nasa tim's most the interesting thing about tim is tim was never you know he never passed the seller he was an alt guy right he was an old he like i remember you, he is very nostalgic about the like, you know, big, terrific in a way like he was not part of this like cellar crew of guys.

Right. And that does give him a little bit more of an outsider perspective on some of these. You know, we're talking about the Rogan sort of line. Yeah. But, you know, it seems to me that also the dominance of the culture or debate in comedy offers up these huge opportunities that some people have figured out like for instance gary goldman all right like he is the same around the same age he's maybe a few years older than me he's a jewish guy he's he's gone through he was on letterman he you know the same background that a lot of people who are complaining about cancel. I have no idea if he actually deeply believes that like his defense of snowflakes and millennial culture. OK, or like, you know, I think he does probably. But put that aside. OK, the fact that his last special builds such a big chunk around this position I was watching.

I was like, you know, I have not seen this point of view in the comedy cellar before, just from a purely, like, why wouldn't you take advantage and argue the opposite point of view? Yeah, it was great. I think ultimately, the problem is with all these debates is like,

I think the bigger problem is internet algorithms that encourage a massive pile on, like, I think that's the problem yeah i don't care if some people think that my generation is snowflakes or or other people who think it's not but it's more just like we see these wild consequences in front of us people who get thrown to the wolves people who are ousted that that's the problem it's these internet that that's that's the issue that's the finance finan- It's consequences not matching actions.

And that's a financial, they're built to incentivize that kind of outrage. Yeah. And that's where they make the money. That's true. And that's the engagement. But all I'm saying is, what's interesting is now you, what's happened from a few years that people figured out ways to make money attacking woke culture. And now I think people are starting

to realize oh now that that's become hack there's actually there's all these new running rooms and comedians are so entrepreneurial and creative and finding new ways to be an outsider i mean that's the thing it's like larry david has still figuring out ways to make being like a rich la got famous guy still seem like you're an outsider, right? Comedians are- Him splitting. It was this season, the splitting of the private plane. There was this scene that, you know, he does it so well where you're like, oh, I can relate to this in splitting like an Uber, but it was a private plane.

Yeah. And that's what he does so well. It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's a lesson there, right? It's like, this should be the least relatable human being. He has nothing in common. And you see it with his daughter, the reaction to her,

like the hate when sort of the tide turned against her. It got so vicious. Yeah. But that's because she's young and it's new and it's you know it's it's it's very tricky to navigate this you know there's no question about it um anyways but uh i don't know how we got it's gonna be tough these days to have famous parents we i just did this snl showcase oh yeah and i heard at least from the la one and maybe this one there's just some people with last names it's just you hear the last name, you're like, oh boy, of course.

I mean, you got to be brutally talented if your parent was in the cast of Seinfeld. I didn't see this person, so I'm not talking shit, but I just know like, I'm not talking shit because I don't even know the person. I don't even know the person.

No, I get it. I mean, talk about unfair showbiz stuff. I mean, person. No, I get it. There's, it's, I mean, talk about unfair showbiz stuff. I mean, now. Yeah, I have mixed feelings because there is also this thing where like, some people are like, oh, none of these people are talented.

There's just sometimes, there's sometimes this automatic thing of if you have famous parents, I don't know. All I know is if I was famous and I had a kid, you think I'm not going to help my fucking kid?

Of course. Sometimes I'm like, well, nepotism makes fully it makes sense I think you're not gonna help your child the only time it's it's annoying to people for me is when it's like later on and you're finding out and and and there's a the narrative from them is like and you know my parents said I'm always gonna do this on my own and I was blah blah like I heard I read Anderson Cooper did it one time and he was like talking about you know they made it very clear and

at the time I was a Ralph Lauren model as a child and you're like it's fine like you're great you're doing what you can do you don't have to pretend like you came out of nowhere and that's where it's like I think you have to as an individual kind of convince yourself that you're worthy of it without that

and so I understand it but maybe just don't say it out loud well like ben stiller he was the one who got out of the flack where they're you know they were making a short film and three people involved stephen king's dad spielberg yeah but but like ben stiller's daughters yeah they're yeah they're getting it now yeah but but ben stiller like he did the thing and i get the reaction where he's like people were like freaking out about this short film that didn't matter yeah and Ben Stiller was like hey you know they're good they're good people and people were like fuck you

Ben Stiller fuck you fuck you how dare you and I get the impulse where he was just like oh maybe don't focus on these like three individuals like you can talk about the problem writ large but sometimes you just like point at Steven Spielberg's daughter. Fuck you.

Unless you're bagging a Trader Joe's. I don't want to hear about anything you do. And Ben made the mistake of as a famous person with a famous dad being like, hey, fuck you, Ben. Fuck you. All right. Let's let's go on to our next. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. Do you have a thing to stop this week?

I don't. Think for a second. Do you have a this has got to stop you want to do? Well, I have one just because your producer mentioned having something. Fawn Sullivan, thank you. Yeah, well done, Fawn Sullivan. I did have one thought, which is the, this is something I've been thinking about lately, which is TV shows,

this is a genre that's popular now, TV shows about fabulous wealthy people that also seem to pretend to be critiques of them, right? Like The White Lotus and Succession and to a less extent- Does Succession pretend to be, which do you think is guilty? Which show do you think pretends

to be a critique of them as opposed to just look at this interesting story i think succession definitely does and uh white lotus does as well billions less so and here's the thing um there's always been tv shows about fat when i was a kid you know beverly hills 90210 and before that was a dynasty and this kind of we always have. But those shows didn't pretend to be critiques of them. Right. And, uh, I've been playing with it. There's this idea, uh, one critic wrote this great piece many years ago about the idea of being, there's no such thing as an anti-war film that these people like apocalypse now Now, Full Metal Jacket, even the films that have the most, Fourth of July, the most harsh critiques,

in portraying war, you can't help but make it look romantic, and cool, to a certain, and eventually, like certain kind of dudes, will treat that the way that they do, like Walt,

like use it on Wall Street, so every war film is a pro war film, even Full Metal Jacket, and I start to feel like there's something to that about portraits of insanely rich people. I don't think anyone leaves the White Lotus thinking, I don't want that life. Or Succession thinks, I don't want that life.

And so my problem is not that they, that to make these shows or whatever, but I think there is something about it, which is, that we we have enough of those we have enough of those well i think it's i think that's very interesting as someone who loves succession i love succession and i'm like well sometimes it's my i'm like well what do you want art to do i'm like you you want art to do not you people want art to do more than it can like succession should after the credits that go this is the rupert ru uh rupert murdoch family and they are running the media we are consuming

and actually funded this show here's their address go bring a guillotine we need to get rid of them now because like because that's i watch I, I mean, I know it's loosely whatever, but I'm like, yeah, all these rich people. I mean, you know, I'm borderline anarchist at this point, but socialists are like, these rich people are nightmares. This is a nightmare. This is all, it's burning to the ground. But like, what do you want the TV show to do about it? No, no, I like succession balance. want the TV show to do about it.

No, no, I like Succession 2. What I'm saying is, why are all of our shows... What would be better is if we saw more portraits of middle-class people, lower-class people, as opposed to... Well, I'm writing a show about my life as a stand-up comedian,

and... No one's ever done that! No one has ever done that. Middle- class shit. Is Adam Driver going to play you? Is he tall enough? Oh my God. Yeah, I understand. I'm saying, look, I want to see everybody,

but right now there's no question there's a disproportionate amount of portraits of the 0.1% of the 1%. And to me, the interesting question, why is that? I like, the truth is I like all those shows to different levels. Even I like, you know, in some ways I like Billions the best, even though I don't think it's like,

as the writing's as great a succession. But I think it's interesting that if you look at the way the press covers it, it's like a biting critique. I was like, no, I think people have always had this thing, like vicarious thrill about watching rich people. It's just that now you can't put Dynasty on anymore, where it's like overtly romanticizing the soap opera of rich people.

I mean, unless Gossip Girl is that. I don't watch it. But now you have to have this veneer of critique, which feels to me a pretty thin one. it's it's i remember one moment i loved i think it was the pilot where was it one of one of the people who was you know helping them they either on the baseball field they wrote them a check for a million dollars if you can hit the home run and i think one thing because i've made some jokes about when rich people donate you know the small percentage that it is

and like there's so many people out there that are so programmed they're like at least they gave something and I'm like but it's nothing it's them going like this off their table with the crumbs and like I don't know it's just it's hard

how is a TV show gonna do that I hear what you're saying I like it I don't want to be misguided I get I like the show yeah yeah and I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a critique of wealth. I'm saying that there is a sense in which the critique can only be so harsh.

So let's have a portrait of a wider demographic of socioeconomic value. We definitely are real. We got our fill. I mean, am I wrong that that uh generally speaking twitter is skeptical of wealthy people right yes so why is it that all of the shows everyone's talking about are all about incredibly wealthy people is it because people just love to hate something maybe maybe but i don't think so because i think you end up rooting for those people on the show which are the rich assholes we're talking about on twitter yeah you end up rooting for uh people on the show which are the rich assholes we're talking about

on Twitter yeah you end up rooting for who's the guy who just betrayed his father the son yeah Kendall Kendall

yeah you end up like rooting for him and I'm like he killed he's a monster he's a drug addict who killed someone and covered it up

like we're like we want that guy yes you stuck it to dad you're becoming a man well the thing I think if you talked and I already just read the New Yorker profile

but yeah the guy who made Succession clearly thinks and you know look I'm all for not speaking down to your audience and he's like look he'd probably be like obviously I don't want you to like this guy and I don't want to beat you over the head with it right and I respect the fuck out of that I don't want shows to

I want them to treat me like someone who actually is paying attention and has level of sophistication. But I also want them to be aware that like, maybe, maybe it's impossible to not romanticize. Yeah. Wall street hotshots. If you're there,

the center, if they're the center of the story or, um, I think maybe make it more, I like the social network because inaccurate or not, it made me go, Mark Zuckerberg's a dick. It really talked about a real person

and I want to see visually more ways that maybe Jeff Bezos isn't the best. Right, right, right. Because then people might associate, I don't know if that's the way to do it but I just think like Bezos is so good he lands and he wears his cowboy hat and you're like oh this cool space cowboy

and it's like have a show that makes you go no he sucks the way to do it I think like again if more shows were as good as Succession we'd be fine but I'm the generation of like the wire is the greatest blah blah blah but the way the wire generation of like the wire is the greatest blah blah blah but the way the wire does it is it shows you the human impact yeah on you it humanizes people who

are not just in politics or in the police it also shows you the impact on the drug deal in the corner on their family all it takes you all these places that you tend to not see in the newspaper or on TV. And by doing that, it was showing the, and you're right. Succession did that with that one scene with that.

But if it did it more, it doesn't do it that often. Right. They should do a spinoff of the guy and he cashes the check. It bounces. No, he doesn't get the check cause he didn't get the home run. That's the whole point.

Oh, right. Right. Right. Right. This whole family was hoping that they would get this money and then he doesn't get it. And that meant nothing to them. It meant everything to the family. Like, yeah, but they don't this money and then he doesn't get it. It meant nothing to them.

It meant everything to the family. But they don't do a lot of moments like that. Right. And in White Lotus, there's the character. Do you watch White Lotus? Yeah. So there's the black female character. I forgot the actress' name.

Natasha Rothwell. Yeah. She wants the money to start her business. But even there, I was like, I want to follow this woman. I still feel like she's not as three-dimensional as some of these rich people we're supposed to hate. I agree. And I think that is telling. I feel like the artists behind these shows are actually really more fascinated with Rupert Murdoch than they are with the ordinary person.

Or they might know that story more as they're writing it. Also the pregnant woman in the thing, the pregnant woman that has the baby in the first episode and then we never, it was such a big deal in the first episode and then nothing ever happened with that again, which was strange. I just didn't know. I'm sure it reflects the writer's rooms

and it's just they're like, well, I don't know how to tell the rest of that story. It's totally a question of artistic empathy. Because you can make a good... Look, Shakespeare made great plays about kings and queens, and that's great. But he also made great work about ordinary people and drunks and people in the bar. And that's the difference between good and great art. And that's why I would say all these shows, those three shows I mentioned, are all good, but they're not great.

Yeah. I got to... This has got to stop. I have one. It's quick. This i got to this gotta stop i have one uh it's quick this gotta stop you changing the format of this thing because usually when we have a guest i don't do this has got to stop i do it on the patreon episodes and then i show up here in front of an important guest and you're you're you were like oh where's your this has got to stop and i haven't done one in months for this format.

So my This Has Got to Stop is you're going to tell me when I'm going to have to do one. You stop me anytime on the street. This Has Got to Stop, I got one. You got to start telling me what to do. You're right. You're right, Russell. Well, that was very good. This Has Got to Stop.

Fawn Sullivan should have written you. I know. Throw her under the bus. Let's not put this on. Go on. This Has Got to Stop. All right. This is my It's got to stop. All right.

This is my this has got to stop. And I feel like it's just related because I know it's not necessarily something you pick. There's a lot of lists, whether it be in Time Out. You worked at Time Out for a little. I did. So Time Out, New York Times. We're on a sketch team. Yeah. And, you know, coming up, there's always you want to be in the 10 things to do this weekend.

And having worked with PR people, I'm like, this is so driven generally by PR people. They are rarely in my, correct me if I'm wrong, word of mouth. There's a lot of these lists. I remember being on the fringe, all these fringe lists of, you know, shows you don't want to miss. I'm like, really? No one's seen it yet. And I'm on five of these lists. And it's because I paid someone money to write the person and they have a relationship.

And also the whole hiring PR, that industry is brutal. The amount of money some of these people take from young artists. Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting conversation about comedy because I feel like it's a new thing. There didn't used to be so many PR people. The moment I can hire a PR person for this. I mean, I had a PR person for Shelf Life that I, you know, ended up working greatly in my favor. They sent it to NPR.

NPR reviewed it on a podcast. That was a huge moment for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Fringe, I remember there's this one guy who scammed me. He got the second check, vanished off the face of the earth. Wow. Dale Heller. Hellerammed me. He got the second check. Vanished off the face of the earth. Wow. Dale Heller.

Heller Highwater. I know Dale Heller. Oh, my God. He vanished. Wow. Vanished. He robbed. And we were like writing back and forth.

He got that second check after a show, Fringe Encores. Vanished. Disappeared. I'm not speaking out of turn. He totally fucked us over. That's insane. And I was warned. That's insane. And I was warned. You were warned's insane and I was warned and I was warned you were warned about him

I was warned lightly and then like we met and I was like he gave me a discount we met at the Signature Theater place

he just took your money and ran with it and did you he got like a couple critics like you know who were gonna come and he saw the play

he wrote really good things and then I swear the night I gave him the second check, I wrote nothing and then wrote and then disappeared off the face of the earth. I thought he could have died. I thought, in my mind, when someone disappears like that, I don't have a lot of experience with them.

I'm like, maybe drugs, bender. But vanished. Wow, wow. Hell or high water. And their Twitter account was like, their Twitter account just started posting casino, like spam about a casino or something or other. But I think those lists in general,

it's kind of like when there's an article that's a branded article that's supposed to have a thing. Right. It should really say, five things a PR person told us to write about. And look, this is coming from our sketch team. We quote a Broadway World article that we wrote. Is this also true of the Just for Laughs?

Because you're hammering the press, really, here, which is not the only place that does lists. Just for Laughs is actually, people think, is really important. I'm trying to get new faces. There are two times that we... But I'm right in front of you and i'm in the press so i'm not gonna cover you no idea i'm just joking times that we have we've gotten on like a

like recently we're on the summer in the city new york times thing for our uncle function yeah and uh that's just solely because we do our own like we don't have a press person like you have to like send outreach and they don't do it every month, but they do do it once in a while. And I would also say that Time Out, I don't think, exists in terms of their list. When you go to Time Out's comedy thing, it's not. There's dead shows still listed there. The shows are, like, two years old now. It's a sad thing.

So it's like, you know, I don't know how much those lists do anymore. Here's how it felt being like being as someone who didn't go to nyu yeah uh as like a comedy team it felt like there was no way into timeout you either had a good pr person or you were friends with whoever was the comedy head there at that moment right playwrights horizons so it just felt like that element was and i also don't know how much effect they have and I'll argue because like it's not there's so much

it's just a funny I agree but there's so much of that I remember the first time you were in the New York Times you're like I was in the list and now you're like it's not genuine they weren't coming to see all these shows and ranking it every week I mean the city is it's a big city

there's so many artists out there i mean think about books right i've written a couple books right you got a publicist at the post which people tell you does nothing there's people who pay for other publicists right like you're all fighting for this tiny little slightest bit of press right and it's not fair it's not fair at all right it has to do with how big your you know how big i'm You're all fighting for this tiny little slightest bit of press, right? And it's not fair. It's not fair at all, right? It has to do with how big your, you know, how much your books sell for or whatever. And so I would say there's definitely some truth to what you're saying that a publicist in certain spheres can help.

It is interesting, though, because it doesn't, like, from your point of view, it's like you got your publicist and you get it. And it's funny because like, from my point of view as someone who's like fascinated by the world of publicist, I could talk about it forever. Like, and like sweet smile success is one of my favorite movies of all time. Have you seen it? Yeah. Okay. That was the time when publicists were really, really powerful. Right.

Yeah. Like change. And then you have like the period when I started in magazines, which was like the nineties when you had these LA publicists who really like were insanely pot, you know, like Tom Cruise's publicist, which would dictate what would be on the cover of Vanity Fair. The power of publicists has waned. Right. And it's still more powerful in Hollywood. I actually really like theater publicists, but they're, they, you know, there's money to be made there you're right that the people who run the theater public publicity firms they make like

if you rep repped rent you have a second home like you are doing well now comedy is a very fascinating moment because there was almost no comedy publicist when i started like 10 years ago and now there are yeah and it's an interesting question about like, I think no one's ever asked me, should I hire a, I mean, I like the comedy, I think it's, you have to have a healthy, you have to have a healthy skepticism

towards the whole thing. And I am lucky and privileged in that I am able to spend a lot of time seeing. I don't write about anybody because the publicist tells me. And I don't write about someone who I haven't seen. And I'm able to have the time to do it because, again, it's the benefit of only writing a couple times a month. But there's a lot of people, those people who make those lists,

who've got to pump out a lot more stuff. And there's no way they can be all over the city they might have to depend on a publicist more and that money could be well spent and for the record my wife is a publicist but not an entertainment publicist

a news publicist but it's just funny seeing her day to day because you're like being in the news you're like if her story isn't about one of the travesties happening that day it's very hard and their clients will be like why are we getting thing and you're like the world is underwater and like so it's just a very interesting thing because it's it's different it's not an entertainment but it is interesting to see her day-to-day experience. Who does she work for? Rubenstein. That's a huge one. Yeah, they're huge. So she's like a big deal. Yeah, yeah. And does she like her job?

She does. She has had to pick up more actual, like, she kind of before was someone who matched reporters with people at Rubenstein, kind of a matchmaker sort of thing. But now she's having to take more like clients in addition to that role just because of they've been busy and you know so she's taking new clients uh not you she's not an entertainment the podcast i don't think you can afford her not a rubenstein not a rubenstein

she's throwing us a couple a couple bones yeah she's throwing us where she can throw the bones yep um i have a lot of respect for good publicists. Yeah. It's actually a really hard job, and the people who do it well are, like, you know, great for their clients and for the form. Yes. Like, they actually are really, you know, there's all sorts of ways there's, like, to view them. But in comedy, we're still, like, in the prehistoric era with that stuff. I don't know.

We're still like in the prehistoric era. Yeah. I don't know. But I think we're, it's like I've, I think a lot of the theater, it's interesting that you had Dale Heller because I think the theater publicist should go into comedy. There's, there's, there's, there's two, there's so many theater publicists. There's a lot of kids with rich parents just waiting for you to suck them dry. Yeah. I, all right.

Just so you know, we're going to do a segment now. I know we do this one every time. The final segment. You better count your blessings. We got blessings. Russell, do you have a blessing? I do. I have a blessing that the roof and the basement were flooding last night, but I was able to fix it and it went down so quickly

and it was like going to be a bad situation in terms of water coming down the stair thing. The roof was totally flooded, but I was able to fix it and it was within five minutes. Now, this is the deal with your landlord where like you get the roof kind of for your own space, but you got to do maintenance? No, no.

It's like kind of a kindness thing. I mean, we pay a little extra for that for that private roof thing but uh but because it's we're the only ones that really it's our space if something's happening up there we i mean we have to deal with it yeah i mean i'm not gonna call the landlord and be like you gotta come here and fix so like it's flood you know yeah so but i was it was it was a situation where i was like oh this could this could in five minutes seeing some of the stuff on twitter and stuff to be like a very bad thing that in the water and went down it's good good good i uh well my blessing is storm

related for those for those who don't know we were recording this on september 2nd september 1st there was warnings on my phone hurricane tornado uh tornado. I was in Brooklyn. I did a spot on DeKalb, DeKalb Theater or something. And then I was supposed to go to LOL for a guest spot. And I'm going on the train, raining pretty heavily.

I'm like, and I'm not a dropper. I don't drop spots. And I was like, do I drop? It was an unpaid guest spot. And they're writing me like, are you close? And I decided, helped by my girlfriend, Tova, and one other friend I texted to drop the spot.

And as I got here, and like, let me tell you, thank God if I had went to that spot, it would have been the worst night of my entire life. So, yes, that was good. And I apologize to the club for lying and saying that my train wasn't moving. It was. I lied. That's a decent lie. I think they'll get it.

Yeah. That's a fair lie. Yeah, they all died in the storm. Jason, do you have a blessing? I guess the same thing. The basement of my building flooded, but I had this actually very similar story where I was going to go out to see a show.

What were you going to see? I was going to see something at Union Hall, and at the last second, I changed. I'm still waiting to see what the deal is with comedy clubs. I was supposed to be at Caroline's, which is underground. I'm going over the weekend, yeah. You're going where? I'm going to Caroline's over the weekend this week on Sunday.

I wonder how the jury is. Oh, you're there to see Rosebud. Exactly. Okay, yeah. Are you going there? No, I'm opening for Eric Griffin. Okay. Just last minute.

Gotcha. But it could be closed. Every comedy club is either in a basement, it's in tight spaces for COVID, it feels like. As if there weren't enough challenges to being in these places. It's pretty brutal. Yeah, what's it like to be,

are you like, what's your level of anxiety about Delta going into these places? I've moved forward. I just made a conscious decision to, I mean, listen, I made so much money off Zoom shows that if the world, if everything was stopped again, I'm not worried financially anymore. Zoom shows. Really? I'm saying like Zoom shows.

He was doing like seven a night. Are you serious? Oh, my God. I'm flying to, so I'm flying to do a college in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And, you know, I don't care saying the money, $1,600. And I'm like, oh, I made that same amount sitting where I am now doing a college for six people on Zoom. And now I'm flying to it. So quickly, I'm like, I have to go to JFK for this money.

Oh, my God. So you were doing seven zoom shows a night well december i i was part of a lot of companies many of which i'm sure are going under and are praying for the delta variant to spread where where there was all these holiday parties right so i was just tacked on to these bills as 30 minutes this holiday party that holiday party getting it paid anywhere from 200 to 500 for a half hour. And there was a couple days I had like five in a row, and it was not fun.

But I was just sitting here just making a shitload of money. Wow. Has that all disappeared, that whole economy? There's still some random Zoom shows here and there. I feel like I'm amazed anyone wants to do them, but older people, temple fundraisers a lot of jewish there's a lot of jewish zoom circuits right so i'm still doing them i'm still doing them occasionally the jewish zoom circuit the jewish like jews yeah yeah yeah yeah

uh but but i'm back i mean i was just in austin i was most scared i had i've recorded a set for comedy central it's my first like record for a network. Congratulations. Thank you. But the day before, there was a COVID test, and that was the part where I was like, oh, if I lose this because of this, I've never been happier than that moment when they said I was negative. But I went to LA.

I went to Austin. I'm going to Oklahoma City. I was just at a casino in Connecticut. I was making some vaccine jokes about get the vaccine, and I lost the audience because it was that many people not vaccinated, but we're, we're pro vaccine. Yeah.

We're going to go on a limb. Uh, so anything you need to plug? Where's uncle function? Uh, but I don't know when this is coming out. It might be after. Yeah.

Well, if this is before, uh, it's September 10th, go see uncle function. Go see uncle function. Um, I think,

I think this will be before I'm at the loony bin. I'm Uncle Function. 7.30. Go see Uncle Function. Asylum NYC. I think this will be before. I'm at the Looney Bin. I'm at the Looney Bin in September. September 22nd to 25th. I'm at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle, October 7th to the 9th. Those are the two big ones. And I'm headlining. Oh, this will be after that.

Well, I headlined the Albany Funny Bone, and it went great. Great. Check out the Patreon. Again, patreon.com slash downside. Two bonus episodes a month. Ad-free episodes. Extra goodies.

Only $5 a month. Jason, do you have anything to plug? No, I'm just... Your books? You can tell us about yours. Oh, that's true. I do want to read your Letterman book. I wrote a biography of David Letterman called Letterman, the Last Giant of Late Night.

And then I wrote a book, which is actually the 10-year anniversary of my this book called shock value about 1970s horror which has had like a good long life um is coming up and i actually someone i'm writing something about that about like what's happened since but uh so i should go on zac amico's do you know zac amico no he has a show it's on what is it called it's not he has a show about horror where you sit down and you watch

a horror film like he's into gore stuff which I do not like but it was something it was like called death it's like a fake documentary about death

and it's all the different ways you die but he's really into horror faces of death faces of death right yes the faces of death

yeah and horror horrifying and he just watches it with two comedians But he's really into horror. Interesting. The Faces of Death? Faces of Death. Right, right. Yes, the Faces of Death. Yeah. And horrifying. And he just watches it with two comedians. Comedians are, there's so many comedians who are really into and smart about horror. In fact, I have a pet theory that the comedian podcasts are better on horror and the horror podcasts are better on comedy. Because there's a lot of comedy podcasts about horror and there's there's a fine line do you love scare sarah squirm are you into that

sarah squirm is like yeah it's exactly like i'm fascinated by oh i can't watch it's so good but i'm just like it's so good that i can't watch it's gross it's like really gross well that's more like yeah there is an interesting thing i wrote a piece about gross out, and there's an interesting relation between gross-out comedy and gore. They work on some of the same pleasure centers. Yeah. Well, whether you like gore or not, what were you saying? Oh, no, no. Those books and my Twitter handle, add Zinneman.

Add Zinneman. Well, whether you like gore, humor or not, you will one day be gore and be eaten by the earth this is the downside