The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #53 Chaz Bono Jokes with Grace Freud

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Grace Freud joins us to discuss the optimistic underbelly of Rick and Morty, converting to Judaism, having uncle-supervised visits with your alcoholic father who still somehow had three girlfriends, a... Chaz Bono joke she wrote for ClickHole that didn’t go over so well on twitter, getting trolled by Harry Styles fans, and hairstylists instagrams that never seem to post the haircut they just gave you. You can watch 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 GRACE FREUD on twitter Buy GRACE FREUD's graphic novel, Swimmy and the Valley of the Last Song 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 TheDownsideWGS@gmail.com Produced by Fawn Sullivan, Paige Asachika, & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Spencer Sileo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Grace, could you say something into the mic? Hi, I'm Grace Freud. Perfect. This is going to be a great interview. Russell. Hello. Hello. And my name is Jim Marcus O'Reasy.
Starting point is 00:00:18 Let's play it back. Great. And here. Recording. Recording. Recording. Recording. Recording. Recording. Oh recording oh man it's so many it's five different things i fucked up recently um uh hello welcome to the downside my name is jimarco serrazi uh i'm here with my my co-host russell daniels hello i'm so glad you can make it uh with your busy sketch team rehearsal schedule. And we are here by a comedian, a writer, a Twitter star, Grace Freud.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Welcome to The Downside. Hi, everybody. This is a podcast about horrible things we've done. Yeah, this is The Down downside yeah i did the wrong button again did you here we go you're listening to the downside just just to clarify it doesn't have to be doesn't have to be horrible things you've done. This isn't like a confession. Could be horrible things that have happened to you.
Starting point is 00:01:26 Yeah, just horrible life, everything. Were you going to confess to a murder or something? Well, I was just going to talk about how I ask. I do this bit on stage. We did this bit on a Girl God show the other day where we have someone up and we try to teach them to do comedy. And I usually ask them to tell a story about the worst thing they've ever done and we had someone on stage who like sincerely was like i don't know
Starting point is 00:01:51 if i've ever done a bad thing like and i don't think she was joking she just was very sincere about it and then i swear to god like 30 seconds later she said tranny oh she has no self-awareness back in the audience heckling or like telling a story no we like jokingly we're like okay well um we'll we'll give you a story about a bad thing you've done great and april was like my other person and girl got this comedy duo um that i'm a part of was like, like, okay, so say,
Starting point is 00:02:30 so the other day I met this tranny and she just went immediately. So the other day I met this tranny, like no, no, no pause or anything. And then we were like, well, now you have to say faggot because you have to like prove that like,
Starting point is 00:02:44 you're also okay with saying that. And it's not just tranny that you're okay with saying wow this is you really fuck this this this poor woman over yeah and she did yeah oh my oh my god was she was she uh uh straight or was she was straight she was well was she of a certain age or she was straight enough you know she was cis she wasn't of a certain age she was like i don't know probably 25 wow yeah um and then you recorded this too this was this was not the album recording this was but someone someone did get a video of it. Wow. And you could just tell she was kind of proud of it. You know, she was like, ooh, look at me being edgy.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Oh, yeah. And afterwards, someone, a friend of mine, like, asked her, like, well, would you have said the N-word? And she was like, no, no, I wouldn't have said that. That's good. That isn't me saying that, like, any slur is, like, it's not, like, useful to't me saying that like any slur is like like it's not like useful to talk about like which slur is worse but like it's just interesting that she like tranny she was all in immediately like no coaxing just like bam and she said it like a couple of more to the story um when was there a time when that word was not thought of as a slur or was it a slur from the beginning i mean i think i think it's been i mean i think a lot
Starting point is 00:04:17 of people still don't think of it as a slur but i would say from my community, I think it's probably been a slur for many decades. For many decades. I'll say that one of my favorite books is The Will to Whatevs, which is a book by Eugene Merman. And it's just one of those comedy memoir sort of things. It's done in the style of a guide to live your life. And he casually says tranny in it. And this is not me saying eugene merman is a bad person or me trying to cancel eugene merman i love eugene merman but that was from like um
Starting point is 00:04:51 maybe 11 or 12 years ago and for sure no one was like whoa when that came out you know what i'm saying so i think like a decade ago it wasn't really a big deal if someone said it like on a wider scale maybe like if someone had said that to a trans person like they certainly would be hurt or whatever but i don't i think it was like not considered offensive nomenclature like like other slurs might be i mean you definitely stopped saying it a couple years ago. So this is the downside. For those of you first time tuning in, this is an interview show, but we talk about all the negatives in life. We complain. There's a Jewish undertone to it that I at least bring all the time.
Starting point is 00:05:42 Are you Jewish? I'm converting. Really? Wow. converting. Really? Wow. Yeah, my partner's Jewish. My partner comes from this big Jewish family. Their immediate family is just, like, culturally Jewish, but, like, all of their, like, aunts and uncles and cousins, like,
Starting point is 00:05:58 were mitzvahed and whatnot. So they're getting mitzvahed. They've gotten, like, more into it, and as they've gotten more into it, I've also. Now, what have you related to? I'm a very not religious person. Yeah. And I struggle with embracing any aspect of Judaism, frankly.
Starting point is 00:06:16 My girlfriend would like me to do more. Yeah. So what about it appeals to you? I grew up very religious, actually. I grew up Presbyterian and I grew up in a church that was actually like a very like queer accepting. And like there's two like versions of Presbyterianism in the U.S. And I always mix them up. But it's like Presbyterian Church USA and like Presbyterian Church of America, like very different, like very similar.
Starting point is 00:06:42 It makes sense to mix and the one that i was a part of like doesn't believe in how like uses like she her pronouns for god like very progressive um basically is like well jesus died for our sins so everyone goes to heaven but also views heaven is like not a paradise but like being one with god so to me that's actually pretty jewish like with God. So to me, that's actually pretty Jewish. Like the way that like they view that. And I don't know if Jews refer to, I don't know if any part of Judaism refers to God though, as a woman. No, but I mean like the concept of like the, like what is after death, if anything is not like a utopia,
Starting point is 00:07:20 it's like a oneness with like God and like a like a oneness with uh like you're you are doing good in life to do good and because god wants you to do good and not for salvation you know yeah and i think that i really appreciate how like reflective judaism is as a religion and and how it's really like you treat people well because that is what's right and not because like you need to be saved and you're not or you're gonna go to hell and yada yada um you know let me just because I I we're gonna wait till later but since you do write for Rick and Morty one of the things about rick and morty that i i always that makes it sometimes harder for me to watch is it feels so deeply nihilistic sometimes and like it's about like pain i mean it's so much is about just like death and pain and the the in
Starting point is 00:08:19 infinite amount of pain in in a multiple universes that sometimes i watch it and if i'm feeling depressed or i'm feeling in a dark space or if i'm stoned sometimes i find it so depressing so i just find it interesting uh someone who writes for the show speak uh even kindly towards religion i think that the arc of rick and morty like rick's arc on the whole is to like like learning that caring about things is worth it just to care about them and um that the nihilism that's at the top of the show you know like at the top of the series when they like change realities and they're like everybody dies like get your bullshit through it i think a whole like rick's entire arc is deciding that he cares about the family and that it's worth it and that there doesn't need to be a grand cosmic reasoning to care about them. So I think it's actually a very optimistic show when you look at it in a greater arc.
Starting point is 00:09:18 For all the people that didn't die each episode short. And now that it's renewed for 10 seasons, that arc has to slow down. That's very true. What is the conversion process like? Are we talking like classes or is there some test? What is that process like in converting? You said a mitzvah, which I thought mitzvah was pretty... What is it?
Starting point is 00:09:44 I'm such a bad shoe it's there's like a when it comes to like not like orthodox judaism or whatnot i think like there's less of like a solid structure like there's queer shuls in la and like you take classes you like learn some hebrew you like it's very open, you know? And I actually have noticed that like a lot of queer and trans people are like converting to Judaism. Like it's like not an uncommon thing. It was, so when I did my birthright trip and I, I've told, I tell a standup version of the story for so long that I do not, I do not trust my memories. I don't remember if I was the primary mover in this story
Starting point is 00:10:25 or if I took it from someone else. But we had a rabbi, a Hasidic rabbi, who was also the tour guide. And he had actually, he wasn't raised religiously. He went on birthright and he converted after that trip, which I think to convert to Hasidic, I sometimes think, sometimes when i see
Starting point is 00:10:46 especially like people who seem a little bit out of place in the world i think it promises a lot like it promises i would i would if i'm gonna project i think it promised him a wife and a community yeah and like a family all these things but uh he things. But he was friendly enough. We were all like 26. Most of us were not very religious. And at the end, he said, we're going to play a game called Stump the Rabbi, where you can ask me anything you want about Hasidic Judaism. And I don't remember if I asked this question or someone else did. I feel like it was me, though, where I said, how do Hasidic Jews feel about homosexuality?
Starting point is 00:11:26 like it was me though where i said how do hasidic jews feel about homosexuality and it just like he came up with this long answer about like oh someone came to me and said i'm gay i i would hug them because life is hard and i was like a follow-up question how do hasidic jews and it it like someone started crying people left people were mad and it was uh that's obviously a much more strict but i guess it's all steeped in that for me it's all tainted i'm like start a new thing start a new thing with new words but don't you think i feel like everyone has their own personal relationship with it and they can make it their own thing why is the same branding like like let's say you're gonna start a new catholic church you're gonna call it the vatican you're gonna wear the same hats like start a new thing this thing is tainted it's a lot of work to build stories and you're asking us to hire graphic
Starting point is 00:12:16 designers you're asking us to like create a 501c you know you're asking us yeah but i think that's the struggle is that's why like people like i think people go back to these because there is a big uh an ip right it's kind of like there's a huge ip for each religion and it's like well there's a lot of there's quotes and there's books and there's rooms but it's like anything there's a such a wide spectrum where you're where i just feel like you're just looking for oh i, I kind of like this version of thing and it exists already. And even within that, you can be like, man, that's kind of bullshit.
Starting point is 00:12:51 But even that came from such a toxic... I know, but you're focused on an origin thing that it does evolve and change. But I feel like it just seems like a lot of work if you're gonna like create your own religion which always turns into a cult right like in 2021 if you're starting your own religion i there's no way it's not gonna turn into a cult you know terrian universalism are you you're familiar with yeah i have a few friends that were is it very structured though i mean i
Starting point is 00:13:22 feel like that's probably like it's it becomes so frazzled it doesn't mean anything every church like some of the churches are christian and some of them like do you know like teachings related to christ so i really think it's just like a place for people to have potlucks like i think it's just a place for people to like chill and be like we're trying to be good people, you know? Like, I think that it is, I think, well, maybe a lot of religion is that, but I think it's that in its most, like, base form. Like, we have constructed this community so that we can reassure each other that we're trying to be, like, ethical, good people and, like, shake each other's hands and be like, yep, good job. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:06 But have no like religious framework beyond that. Well, the Shabbat dinner, Tova loves the Shabbat dinner. And it definitely does seem like you make time for friends. Yeah. And it's nice. Yeah. It's very nice. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:17 I think I, as like, I, as someone who like celebrates the high holy days and stuff now, I think that they're a great framework to think of the past year and everything I've done that was fucked up and how I want to change going forward. And also to have time with family who's also doing that, which I think is unique. That's different from anything in Christianity. You know, like you're not like having a big meal or something in preparation to like just think about your regrets, you know, for a week. But have you told Tova this about converting? Yeah. Oh, she must have been thrilled.
Starting point is 00:15:10 I think in our first conversation, because I think the lockdown kind of happened right after I decided to do that. And then we've moved to LA. Did that not feel like a sign from God? Like, maybe don't do this? God sent a plague immediately upon you. You know, it's funny because my next door neighbor in Denver, where I was at when the lockdown began, big Christian guy, but also a big progressive guy, big kind of like guys at my old church and was really trying to get me to like zoom into his church services. So maybe that wasn't a mystery of God being like no you gotta head back to christianity
Starting point is 00:15:46 so oh so i was saying earlier before this is the downside uh negative celebration of negativity if you if you dig us please check out the patreon it's patreon.com slash downside we have early episodes two bonus episodes a month i think i I'm going to start throwing up some random cool... I just was at a friend's wedding and I did a stand-up show for them, but it was very personal to my friend, Kevin, who I've talked about on the podcast. I think I'm going to put that on the Patreon.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Why not? How many patrons do you have? How dare you? What poor manners. How dare you come in here? You never ask someone how many patrons they have. That's like asking me what's in my savings account. I thought this was the downside. I thought this was like a cynical podcast.
Starting point is 00:16:33 Yeah, it's definitely going down. I'll tell you that. There has been a real, the love I got from the beginning. Can I guess? No, please don't. Please don't. I'm going to guess. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:16:42 Do you have 27? Oh my God. Pretty good have 27? Oh my God. Pretty good. That's a good goal. Pretty good. I think we fluctuate between 20 and 25. Okay. But we're still new.
Starting point is 00:16:51 Okay. And now we're beefing it up. We're beefing it up. We just have to add stuff that makes it worth it other than listening to the podcast. Yeah. I think I have about 30 patrons on a Patreon I haven't posted on for a year and a half. So I'll tell them to head over you maybe we need to post less yeah oh boy um so what did i okay ask one more thing please how
Starting point is 00:17:13 much money do you have in your savings account jesus christ you just got back from hawaii right oh my god the money was just flowing out of i was was in Hawaii, and we went to a resort because it was my friend's wedding, and they were like, stay at this resort. And I guess I haven't stayed at a resort for a very long time, but I forgot that they are just – once you go to a resort, you are now caught in a scam. Everything costs money. Everything costs money. There's nowhere to get food. It's not like Maui. There is no grocery store nearby.
Starting point is 00:17:45 You got to eat at that restaurant every meal. And every meal is $28 minimum. And we rented an umbrella and a beach towels for the beach. Guess how much? $30. $85. Wow. For umbrellas and towels.
Starting point is 00:18:02 So what are you going to do? Can you just bring your own towels from the hotel? No, towels, you got to give them a card. It was more about the umbrella. And so you either, you're going to be miserable on the beach, you're going to get an umbrella. These are the only two options.
Starting point is 00:18:18 And believe you me, if I was not there with Tova, I would be sitting in the dark room. Scowling. Scowlingling counting the money i still had um uh but it was a very good time we're going to talk a lot about the the thing on the patreon yeah about the hawaii trip um i did want to because i so as my old middle school friend and it was it was it was very uh very cool very very very cathartic to connect with these old people. Like his parents, who I went to their house. And I saw them and I quoted their number to them.
Starting point is 00:18:52 You know how you remember those childhood numbers? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were like, oh. You've learned nothing since then worth keeping? Did you have a bad home life when you were a kid? Not a warm home life. Okay. Is this your podcast?
Starting point is 00:19:07 Yeah. I mean, God, if we're opening up that, then fuck it, yeah. Well, my parents got divorced when I was seven. But I did know, I wanted to bring up... Seven's not that bad. I wanted to bring up... I mean, my parents got divorced when I was two and a half. Two and a half?
Starting point is 00:19:20 Yeah. Seven days old. Yeah, seven days old. So two and a half. Yeah. But you don't remember it. Well, your parents got divorced when you were seven days old. Yeah. I days old. So two and a half. Yeah. But you don't remember it. Well, your parents got divorced when you were seven days old. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:27 Oh. I mean, that's why it's on stage. It was before I was half a year old. I don't know. Okay, okay. Two and a half. So you don't remember them being together? I do a little bit.
Starting point is 00:19:36 What are you talking about? You don't form memories until you're three? I swear to God. What do you remember? What's the memory you remember? My first memory is my dad beating my mom. Ah. I have a clear memory of it.
Starting point is 00:19:47 I have a very clear memory of it. And where were you in that memory? Describe this memory to me. It was night. I was in the hallway looking at the dining room, which was also part of the living room. And were you crying? Yes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:02 I can remember what I was wearing. I was wearing my Spider-Man pajamas. Wow. Yeah. I can remember what I was wearing. I was wearing my Spider-Man pajamas. Wow. Yeah. My first memory is also a traumatic. I think that's what it does. Yeah. I had gotten my dad's razor, and I thought I was playing with it.
Starting point is 00:20:18 All I remember is running into the living room, and my hands were just covered in blood. Oh, jeez. Because I cut up my hands, and I didn't know what was going on was it a straight razor no i think it was a regular razor i must have like i must have just like i don't know jesus christ i mean what was what was your first memory i don't know was it your fucking married parents hugging each other yeah it'll just no i i really don't know i i i don't feel like i my i don't like you said two and a half i feel like i have a hard time like i can remember kindergarten stuff but i have a hard time even before then like it's very i don't feel like i'm very good it was not traumatic i have a few memories from that
Starting point is 00:20:57 like very young area that are just so clear in my head um but that's the youngest for sure wow so your parents got divorced two and a half years old and did they have joint custody no my dad was a violent alcoholic so he well he got he had like supervised custody supervised visitation and what did that entail was she was your mom there or my uncle was there so his brother was there um really that's so interesting that the supervised involved his family so uh i think my mom was like comfortable with it because my uncle was like pretty on top of it um but like my dad would like do things like go out for a second and like take me and then all of a sudden like he was gone and my uncle would have to like hunt around the neighborhood um so your dad would take you yeah yeah was it like was it just to be a bit like uh
Starting point is 00:21:53 this is my kid i'm yeah for sure yeah yeah 100 yeah it wasn't like kidnapping every time it was just no i mean yeah it was just like he was just like going against the rules gotcha and then when i was there's like about a year when i was six when he got to see me without supervision. But I was still not like allowed to like stay over at his house. But that year he got a car and he had like 60 UI. So he wasn't supposed to have a car. And then immediately when the judge found out he had a car, the judge was like, well, you can't do that. And and he freaked out.
Starting point is 00:22:23 And then I just didn't see him until he died so how did they find out he had a car because i told my mom i wasn't trying to snitch i just was like sure i didn't know he wasn't yeah like he i mean he drove me around in it so i just my mom was like how did you get to the store or whatever? And it was like, oh, well, he has a car now. Did he ever say to you like, hey, don't tell your mom about this car? I think he might have. But I think it was pretty impossible for me at six to do that. There's nothing, as with divorced parents,
Starting point is 00:22:58 like if I could sit divorced parents down, I'd be like, do not ask your kid. Do not tell your kid a thing that you don't want them to share with the other person they're too young to bear this lie it's not fair to ask yeah was did your father sober up at any point he was sober i think for a few years on and off and then actually when he got to start seeing me like without visitation that's when he got to start seeing me, like, without visitation, that's when he chose to start drinking again. So that was coupled with the car. And then, like, oftentimes I would go over to his house and he would just be in bed all day. So I would just be, like, on his computer reading about Dragon Ball Z or something. Wonderful.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Dragon Ball Z. And so, yeah, it was just, like, it was. What was he drinking? Big bummer. I don't know know he didn't drink in front of me i know that like from the little i've been like told about his drinking that i didn't see uh i think it was like vodka because he would carry around a briefcase and have like liquor in it a man who like rarely worked or would like just have this briefcase with him
Starting point is 00:24:04 A man who, like, rarely worked would, like, just have this briefcase with him. Did you? Wait, did, uh, when did he die? Like, how old were you? I was nine when he passed away. Oh, okay. He also, um, once hid a bottle of liquor inside of the engine of our car, um, and forgot that he had done that. Um, and did remember before it exploded. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:24:23 But, like, so he, like, freaked out and was like, oh, shit. And then, like, oh, popped the trunk open and, like, burnt his hand, like, before it exploded. Oh, my God. He, like, freaked out and was like, oh, shit. And then, like, popped the trunk open and, like, burnt his hand, like, grabbing it out. Why was he hiding it there? I don't know. He hid stuff everywhere. Like, but it wasn't like you couldn't tell that he was drunk. Did you know at that age, like, oh, dad's drunk? I knew my dad was an alcoholic because people would call him an alcoholic.
Starting point is 00:24:43 And he would go into treatment. Like, he was in rehab all the time so i knew i don't know if i had a strong understanding of what drunk was but i did know that he was an alcoholic or like had alcoholism yeah because that was like very much in like in my face because he was like i would visit him at rehab so you know yeah did you like your dad i did while while he was alive i really loved my dad he i mean because like when i visited him until like kind of like the last like period when i saw him when he was drinking again and and like just like lying down most of the time it was like all fun like oh we're gonna go to burger king in the video game store we're gonna go to the comic book store um we're gonna go to the movies uh and he would joke a lot my mom was like constantly working all the time and
Starting point is 00:25:36 stressed out he rarely had a job he got disability and his dad who was like fairly well off um gave him money so like we just had fun like every time i saw him yeah um and we liked similar things like he'd let me watch the simpsons i love the simpsons he liked comics he was also like an incredibly charming person you know when he died he had like three girlfriends that were called before any other family members so on his emergency contact list those like three girlfriends were called he's like adding extra lines my dad was i mean my dad was an alcoholic poly icon there's gotta be some charisma involved for someone alcoholic no job carrying around a briefcase of vodka, which is so funny. And then three girlfriends.
Starting point is 00:26:27 That's wow. He was so charming. He's the most charming person I've ever met. There's a lot similar. There's a lot that resonates with my dad. My dad wasn't into drinking, thank God. Because you say many, many, many girlfriends. My dad, looking back, I'm like, oh, we hung out all the time because he was depressed but he let me watch seinfeld that was my simpsons yeah he didn't like comic books i once
Starting point is 00:26:50 made my dad see the cowboy bebop movie in theaters and i mean it it had to have been traumatic for him yeah to him it was the he once saw me watching yugioh and laughed like he thought it was just so so lame oh like it was something like yugiohGi-Oh! like, took out a deck, like, let's duel! And my dad just started guffawing at, like, someone taking out cards and being like, I gotcha. My dad truly, like, I mean, we watched a ton of movies together.
Starting point is 00:27:15 We, like, he exposed me. I think, like, the thing that I took most from him was all of the, like, pop culture that he exposed me to um like i got obsessed with comic books like even more so after he died and comedy just american comic books i assume no i was into manga too but he was into american american yeah yeah and i was into manga because like that was like the huge manga boom yeah i was i was there for the shonen jumps and i think when that faded my my interest faded for a while and
Starting point is 00:27:46 like now i'll read like some um but yeah i mean it was just a fun time with him and it's like the other funny thing is when so when he died it happened pretty quickly and that like dive i thought it was cancer for many years but but, um, and the, I was told relatively recently, his liver failed and his pancreas failed and he did have cancer, but it was, it was like an earlier stage. He just, he drank so much. Like the level that my dad was an alcoholic was it like he had a heart attack in his early 30s he um like you look at a picture of him in his 20s and a picture of him then in his mid-30s and he looks like he's in his 60s like he was an intense alcoholic and also like so he he would get seizures you know from withdrawal one time for a while he had an eye patch because he hurt his eye because he had a seizure while he was like cutting something he and so it's like he really looked
Starting point is 00:28:49 like shit and yet was still charming enough to three girlfriends oh my god and on top of that so three girlfriends one eye that's amazing i guess no one had heard from him in like a week or two and they found him in his apartment and his apartment was covered in shit and just covered in shit and then they brought him to the hospital and that's when it was like oh his liver is failing his kidneys are failing he has cancer his pancreas is failing and so the idea was he was gonna live for like maybe a month more but he died like five days later so it's just like crazy that again he was pulling it live for like maybe a month more, but he died like five days later. So it's just like crazy that again, he was pulling it in with an apartment covered in shit. I'm assuming that he did not fuck well,
Starting point is 00:29:34 while he had like post shit, you know, but like, um, apparently it was just like disgusting. I, so. Did you get to see him i didn't um that's something that kind of haunts me because
Starting point is 00:29:50 like uh but i also get it my family like my mom and my my grandpa and stuff decided that i shouldn't see him like that because he apparently looked so ill and they thought it would like disturb me and then my last memory of my dad would be him like truly like a shell of a person like just like a wisp of a person you wish that looking back do you i wish i had gotten to say goodbye 100 yeah i think that was the wrong decision but i get why they did it you're nine right nine years old do you have siblings no no just well there's a there there's a chance that i might might have half brothers uh you don't know i'm not i'm not sure um i i still haven't looked into it wow would you want to know that's kind of cool i don't know i honestly don't know your dna
Starting point is 00:30:47 would it be would it be from one of the girlfriend like girlfriends yeah he had one of them was kind of long term and at one point he claimed she was pregnant but this was during his like last year and a half which was a huge downward spiral a huge like calling my mom and threatening and like leaving threatening voicemails and stuff like that what was the threat that that he wanted that he wanted to see me and he was gonna like do whatever he needed to make it happen and um so yeah i don't know i i have i have some information about this woman and i could reach out to her and you know as soon as npr wants to pay me to make that a podcast yeah um and how's your relationship with your mom
Starting point is 00:31:33 i don't want to talk about that that's fair it's very funny that we talked about the shit covered walls of your dad um well this is a good time to take a commercial break kick off an exciting football season with bet mgm an official sportsbook partner of the national football league yard after yard down after down the sportsbook born in vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory?
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Starting point is 00:33:26 I'm just taking all that in. We've had a lot of, you know. A lot of dead dads. A lot of dead dads. I don't think it's surprising. We know statistically men die younger. But I think like doing this kind of thing where I'm interviewing people and talking about their lives. I go like, oh, yeah. Like a lot of people my age have lost their dad. Yeah. doing this kind of thing where i'm interviewing people and talking about their lives that i go
Starting point is 00:33:45 like oh yeah like a lot of people my age have lost their their dad yeah my dad just had a big surgery and there was a moment where i was like oh i'm about to be that yeah someone in their 30s who doesn't have a dad um i'm 27 just to be clear oh fuck you um all right so where did you grow up was it arizona no minneapolis minneapolis um i've never been but i'm gonna go i think i'm doing is there a helium comedy club in minneapolis there isn't there's an acme comedy oh acme well i'm not gonna be there yet but someday i dream god uh how do you like min like, is that where your mom still is? Is that where your family is? My mom is in San Francisco.
Starting point is 00:34:28 In San Francisco. Tell me about Minneapolis. Worth growing up in? Well, I grew up there and I grew up in Ely, Minnesota which is like way up north. I love Minneapolis.
Starting point is 00:34:36 I love the Twin Cities. I don't think I'd live there again just because I feel like I like did a lot of like learning or whatever. That's dumb. That's not interesting to talk about I mean it's got like this deep queer history this like deep music history this deep comedy history
Starting point is 00:34:52 so it was like a cool place to grow up for sure yeah deep comic history it's like a incredibly like complex like like branching thick uh like art scene there so what age did you identify as queer what age did you did you start coming out i i honestly think i like had a conception of myself as trans when i was like five because like i we would play house and stuff and I would always just like put on a skirt and whatnot. But I like got beat up for it. So like I pretty quickly had an idea of like, I shouldn't do that. That's not cool. And I have a memory from around then of like, like the local Fox station doing a story about this, like, like quote unquote boy who,
Starting point is 00:35:46 whose parents allowed him to wear dresses to school and how people were upset about it. And the tone of it was like, this is weird and fucked, you know? And so I was like, Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:35:56 All right. Let's, let's chill on that. Um, and then, you know, I, I was called like a fag and called gay and stuff a lot when I was like,
Starting point is 00:36:06 even in like second grade, you know, I was called, like, a fag and called gay and stuff a lot when I was, like, even in, like, second grade, you know. That's wild. Yeah, because I would, like, go up and kiss boys. Like, I would just, like, give them a little peck. And girls, too. But, like, I think I was just, like, a very, like, loving out, like, in that way. And I think it got really beaten out of me. So, you were talking second graders punching you? Yeah i got like thrown to the ground i got like called a lot of names i did
Starting point is 00:36:32 you ever fight back i did yeah um and i always got in trouble and they never did like truly truly 100 of the time when i act when i would throw a punch back or something I would get in trouble and I it was rare that the other kids would um you know uh but I remember like I learned the word gay because people had been calling me that and um my mom would put on the today show before um she had to like bring me to daycare every day um like daycare before school because she worked early and like the queer eye guys were on the today show and like they used the term like gay in that interview or whatever and i was like mom what's gay and she was like not us and the funny thing is i later found out my mom's like best friend, Rose, was a dyke who was like in a long term relationship with a woman. And I was at their house all the time.
Starting point is 00:37:32 So my mom wasn't like homophobic in that like, you know, like wouldn't hang out with queer people or wouldn't expose me to them, but didn't want me to have like much of a conception of it. but didn't want me to have like much of a conception of it so like i was like babysat by a lesbian who was good friends with my mom who my mom totally knew was a lesbian but like this weird like compartmentalization of it um so when you talk about this place with a rich queer history when when were you embraced when was it nice i would say i started like like openly identifying as like bisexual when i was like 17 um and then started kind of to explore the city in that way um and i but i think like really i felt like more like empowered not until like when i was like 22 and started to transition because i was really like confused about my sexuality because like everyone was telling me that i was like a gay man you know and i knew that i didn't like exclusively
Starting point is 00:38:40 like men but everyone was telling me that and i was like well that seems easier than transitioning so i guess i'll just lean into that yeah um so there was a few years where i was like okay i'll just be a gay man i've everyone's telling me that's who i am that's i guess who i am um and the those years were like very they gave me like a lot of like spiritual pain i would say because i was like why am i not feeling good about this like why can't i just do this and i knew i wanted to transition but i was like i should just be able to like like this should be good enough like this should be like a good do you have any close friends that had transitioned at that point i had close friends. I had friends that were like non-binary and I had a couple of trans mask friends, but I don't know.
Starting point is 00:39:29 I didn't really have any like trans women or trans feminine good buds at that point. And I think part of that was because it scared me. Like not like I was like, I remember when Caitlyn Jenner came out, it's weird to feel emotional about that. But like, I, I was, I remember being like thinking kind of like,
Starting point is 00:39:49 go don't like, cause this makes me feel like I'm going to have to, or like, that's so interesting. The prospect of like seeing like, Oh, like I could do this and not get murdered. Cause I was like,
Starting point is 00:40:02 I'm not going to come out. Cause I'll just like get murdered. Like I can't do this. I won't be able to work. Yada, yada, yada. But seeing that and seeing support and having friends that were trans women who lived
Starting point is 00:40:15 lives that were not this nightmare that I imagined, even though I didn't necessarily have any close trans women friends, was to me making me really anxious because it was like well i can do this and i guess i i won't die but i know it's going to be really hard you know um it was that the primary stopper i'm gonna die yeah for a long time it was like i'll get murdered i'll just get murdered i'll get murdered. I'll just get murdered. I'll get like, and, and like horribly, like just like,
Starting point is 00:40:46 cause that's what's communicated, you know? Like that's what you see on the news. That's what happens in boys don't cry. Like trans people get like mutilated and murdered. And that was, I was terrified. Um,
Starting point is 00:41:00 but when I saw that, that wasn't like when I saw trans people, like, like, you know, like I hate this word, but like like thriving that really showed me like oh i guess i guess like i i like it's gonna be a hassle but i can yeah i could do it that must be complicated with with caitlyn jenner given everything else she's done with her life yeah Yeah. Yeah. I think earlier on, like right when she transitioned, it wasn't that complicated.
Starting point is 00:41:28 Cause everyone was just like, yeah, that was before, you know, that caught like vehicular manslaughter and all of that. And I think earlier on, she was less open about her politics. Like she had been before the transition,
Starting point is 00:41:40 but I think she kind of rode on the good vibes for a bit before she was like hell yeah trump and yada yada who before caitlin was like the most publicly celebrity person to transition i'm trying to think because there were like a number of people who gained some fame for transitioning there was um a james bond girl like a bond girl who was trans but um i'm forgetting her name and i think she transitioned before she came into the public light interesting i guess like chas bono like at least in my life like i'm not trying to provide a definitive trans history here but like in my head in my life i remember chaz coming out um and and that being a big deal and that's maybe the first time i i have any knowledge of a celeb coming out and transitioning i actually got in a lot of trouble for me well not a lot of trouble but i had some trans people mad at me for making a jazz bono joke um on clickhole
Starting point is 00:42:45 years ago and it was when danica rome who is this virginia or west virginia state senator who's trans when she won i wrote a headline that was like um i'm gonna butcher it but it was something like trans woman wins state senate seat or it was like trans kids relieved now that trans woman has won state senate senate seat and they they and they they don't have to look up to chas bono anymore that's not the only like chance here they have to look up to or whatever um does click will have bylines no so people just just knew no people oh so when i say i got i meant i saw people were mad about it they didn't know they didn't get mad at me specifically but um and it wasn't a ton of people but i was like kind of like oh so trans people are getting
Starting point is 00:43:38 frustrated at this joke that i made but i will say trans people have gotten frustrated a lot of jokes i've made and when they've known it was me too and that's okay okay is it frustrating i mean i guess it feels like it like something to joke about and it's a community you're a part of so i imagine there's a lot of jokes that you want to make but there's kind of like a hey there's enough fucking people making jokes yeah about trans people you know we have to deal with i mean i've fucking we've all been hearing about chappelle for the last goddamn three weeks is it is it tough do you ever feel comedically that you're there's certain things you back off on well you know the chappelle stuff was
Starting point is 00:44:15 tough because me and my writing partner april you know wrote that whole special for him. It was really difficult to see so many people respond so negatively to those jokes that we wrote in our own community. Oh, fuck. That's so funny. So, yeah, that was tough. Yeah. So tell me about Girl God.
Starting point is 00:44:46 Yeah. April. April. How long have you two been performing together? Five days. Or four days. Four days? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:55 And you just recorded an album together. Yeah, our album recording was the second time. Well, no, no, no. I guess like a week and a half. Our first show together was on Halloween. And then our album recording was on Saturday a few days ago. How do you feel about the album? You feel good? I feel really good. Yeah, I actually feel
Starting point is 00:45:10 really solid. It's like 30 minutes of jokes that we wrote that we do together as a duo and then it's two 20 minute sets from each of us. That's exciting. When is it going to come out? What's your plan? Well, you gotta tell your girlfriend to sell it. That's exciting. When is it going to come out? What's your plan? Well, you got to tell your girlfriend to sell it.
Starting point is 00:45:28 That's how we're going to label it. Her clients come to me. I come to her at night. Hey, baby. Let's get this done. Tova is truly the best manager alive. She's great. So I'm sure she'll find a label for it.
Starting point is 00:45:42 She does love to hear. I think she... God, I i was really gonna say she cares but she really does she like i've always i i think i talk to tova like five times a week and i don't think like almost any of my friends talk to their managers as much as i definitely had a a couple like testing the waters with my manager. One of them's younger and like one of those like something funny happened. I think it was when Jeff Fisher got fired
Starting point is 00:46:13 from JFL. Yeah. And it was like a Saturday like 7 p.m. Like, hey, here are this. This is wild. And then I didn't get anything back. And I was like,
Starting point is 00:46:21 all right, not Toba. It's a different relationship. I'll email you something else Monday. But yeah, Tova's definitely accessible. Yeah, and she gets me so much work. It's great. I was going to talk to you about this, though. I really think you guys should break up so she can focus more on my career.
Starting point is 00:46:40 You think that's what's holding your career back, huh? Sure, sure. so let's see so you you uh writing on on rick and morty enjoyable fun yeah um rick and morty was a really good experience um i'm working on some other stuff now i don't know if i'll come back for another season because honestly it opened up so many doors. There's a lot of other stuff I'm working on, but I had a really good time. It was like, I learned so much from Dan Harmon, which like, I'm really, I'm truly not both bullshitty when I say that I learned so fucking much. Yeah. I mean, he's someone who I'd love to meet.
Starting point is 00:47:19 I mean, he just seems. Oh, um, he's really busy. he just seems oh um he's really busy oh uh i can't facilitate that listen you want me to break up with toga i'm gonna need something in exchange one coffee with dan um uh let's see let's see so you you uh you are a a big twitter person i don't know So you are a big Twitter person. I don't know if I'm a big Twitter person. You got in trouble with some Harry Styles fans recently? I did get in trouble with some Harry Styles fans recently. So someone came out to their mom supposedly at a Harry Styles concert.
Starting point is 00:48:03 And the mechanics are not super complicated, but a little bit. So she was in the pit, like she was right in front of the stage. Apparently her mom was in a different section, like at the concert, but in a different section. So she had a sign she was holding up
Starting point is 00:48:18 that was like, help me come out to my mom, Harry. And Harry saw that and talked to her for a quick second and then this is on stage he's yes yes yes and then was like linda your daughter she's gay like was so came out for like announced that she was gay at the stadium right and so some harry styles fan made a tweet about that like obviously very positive and i quote tweeted it not even thinking for a sec just making a quick joke i quote tweeted it with if my kid came out like this i wouldn't accept them
Starting point is 00:48:50 i got called homophobic so a lot of people were just like you're homophobic but my favorite which is crazy but my favorite response was she's just jealous she didn't get to have that experience with harry like that moment with harry um but they were vicious they were sending me a bunch of dms they said weird things about my body and like um and then another harry styles fan responded to some weird things someone had said about me being trans and was like, this isn't what Harry would want. So there was like some self-bullying scene. It was like. You should go to a Harry Styles concert with a sign, I'm getting bullied by your fans.
Starting point is 00:49:37 Yeah, I really should. And you call the stadium, knock the shit off. That would be incredible. Does it affect you at all, the Twitter stuff? Because you have a dark sense of humor. You have a dark sense of humor. I imagine you piss off people all the time. I really, I know people say this,
Starting point is 00:49:52 but I've truly been thinking about quitting Twitter because it... Can you wait till we post this episode? Yes. I'll retweet you. I'll retweet you. Don't worry. I mean, I'll'll keep it up i'll probably promo shows but like beyond promoing shows i've been thinking about not really being on twitter because god i said twitter weird i was like twitter i'm not really being on twitter uh just because uh of
Starting point is 00:50:21 people take things in such bad faith i mean i not saying anything new, but I feel like there's nothing I can gain from it anymore. Yeah, I just don't. There's truly nothing I can gain from it. Was it your video when your dads die, they turn gay in heaven? It was all dead dads are gay. Yeah. I didn't actually get much flack for that. Because it's true. true yeah it's really
Starting point is 00:50:46 true but i did get a lot of flack for um a video i put out earlier this year there's this a lot of discourse a lot of talk around kink at pride so a lot of people are like no kink at pride which which sucks because first of all like kink't, what they were saying is kink, they were like leather daddies, like, dressed up in their harnesses and stuff and, like, yada yada. Which is, like, part of pride, you know? And, like, if you, they were like, don't expose kids to that and you just want to fuck on the streets in front of kids, yada yada. And it's like, you know, like, have a discussion, if you bring kids to pride like have a discussion with them it's not like a gross thing you can like really just be like you know that is like something that like they're into and it like doesn't affect us and like you know just say that's not us um but i made a like and they went to like really like
Starting point is 00:51:42 extremes about like what they considered kink or whatnot, or kissing in front of people, just crazy stuff. Was Twitter leaning towards one side or the other? I think the no kink at Pride people were more vocal, just because they're little bitches. But I made a video called No Phones phones at pride and the concept of it was like don't bring your phone because you can watch porn on phones and what if you dropped your phone and a kid got it and then watch porn on it yeah um i was like if you bring a phone to pride you're a
Starting point is 00:52:17 pedophile and yada yada um and and uh people mad. They, they sincerely called me a pedophile. They said I was advocating for fucking in the streets, all this stuff. And the video was pretty innocuous. You know, the video didn't include anything like, uh, sexual or explicit in it. Um, I was just like making fun of a no kink at pride slogan. Yeah. Um, and people got incredibly mad. Um, it's worth threatening me
Starting point is 00:52:46 like threatening to dox me um so that was like that and the harry style shit and whatnot it makes me like i really there's nothing to gain for me on this platform anymore yeah i feel like too with twitter you're like it's not like the harry starr i feel like every pop star has that same equivalent yes where you're like it's not just harry you're great you can't make a joke or or or mention anyone without like there was god there's one taylor swift one that made me go fucking nuts where some tv show made a joke that was like she's had more boyfriends than taylor swift and she like retreated like i can't believe on women's pride no that was that was like she's had more boyfriends than taylor swift and she like retreated like i can't believe on women's pride no that was that was that wasn't amy poehler and and tina
Starting point is 00:53:30 faye made a joke with the golden her too and said there's a special place in hell in hell for people who make a joke about the most famous person in the world but this was also a netflix show oh the line was yeah she's had more boyfriends than taylor swift yeah that is it could not be more innocuous yeah and she was like on women's pride month that you would make this joke and so the fans descended on on the show writing no i'm the actor probably you know like actors and it's it's like it's one of those where it's just full she's she's just full shit yeah and then people kowow. I remember there was something where there was like a documentary about Taylor Swift where they used a line from Nikki Glaser. And, you know, Nikki Glaser made an off-color joke about Taylor Swift.
Starting point is 00:54:14 And Nikki Glaser kind of then apologized to Taylor Swift so publicly. And it's like, it's clear because Taylor Swift has all this power. You have to do this. Ugh. Ugh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And these teens, they're good at doxing they know how it works they know how to dox i've never been doxed but that is a scary it's it's terrifying i had a threat of it seemed like someone was gonna like put me on blast on a show and it was it was it really fucked me up yeah it's scary and i mean it's like you know i live
Starting point is 00:54:45 with my partner i live with my dog and i i mean i yeah it really freaked me out like the the idea that they would get hurt maybe over some dumb comedy video i made yeah and it sucks to be like i don't know bullied is the right word but like to to have that fear because of that it just it sucks so yeah i don't know i'll retweet this podcast and then audio final tweet um all right well let's let's go on to our uh this has got to stop this has got to stop this has got to stop where we talk about something that needs to stop and i actually want to go start with mine because i feel like it relates to this the king cat pride question where uh so i was at this wedding and uh uh you know people have kids they bring them to the wedding and we we go we go to the party and there's uh there's the dance we're starting to
Starting point is 00:55:36 dance uh-huh and uh someone's kid uh at the beginning you know taking up some of the dance floor very cute very cute Seeing a little kid dance. Doing the one move they know again and again. It starts to get later. Music starts to get going. This kid's still dancing. This kid does not leave the dance floor for four hours. And we all have to, like, you know, kind of circle around the kid
Starting point is 00:56:03 and accommodate the kid and occasionally cheer. I'd guess like four to six. Okay. And there's a certain point where I'm like, okay, kids off the dance floor now. No more kids on the dance floor. It's time for adults to dance out their fears of death and get drunk and just like not worry about stepping on anybody. You felt like people were being held back because of the kid. Yeah, just at a certain point I'm like, okay, kid's cute. Let's dance now.
Starting point is 00:56:32 Put the kid away. That was their make-a-wish. Yeah. The kid's looking great for being this. The kid was looking very good. I just think, especially when I think about I remember being at the pool and there'd be like kids out it's adult swim time.
Starting point is 00:56:48 Being annoyed as a kid, but now looking back, I'm like, yeah, get the like, yeah, you know what? Sometimes you need to get the kids fucking out of there. I was just on a 10 hour flight from Hawaii with kids and you know, you can't do anything about it. But dance floor kids, there should be a kids past a certain
Starting point is 00:57:04 point the kid needs to go. Also, anytime there's a wedding where there's no kids involved, like they tell you, there's always kids there still. Do you know what I mean? The closest kids are still allowed to come somehow. I feel like I've never been in a wedding where there's truly no kids. You're IDing young adults at the door like you're a kid. 14,
Starting point is 00:57:20 you're a fucking kid. I don't care. Teenagers in there. So that's my thing. Dance, there's kids, but it's the same thing with pride where I'm like, you don't care teenagers in there so that's my thing dance there's kids but it's the same thing with pride where i'm like all right you don't want you don't explain to your kid then leave your kid at home yeah exactly new york oh how did you explain to your kid the homeless guy i know on the fucking street yeah you didn't think about that it's just no matter what our our inability to talk about sex and our sex repression, we're going to keep bumping up against it until the end of America. Because it's just like—
Starting point is 00:57:50 Humans. Humans. But I imagine some places are more like, yeah, that person over there likes leather. It turns them on. It makes them feel good in their genitals. But here we just can't do it. No. My kid.
Starting point is 00:58:08 If I had kids, i'd be stressed i feel stressed like someone would be like i don't know i'd bring them to the parade and i'd be like this is fine what are you i think the fear is the kid's gonna like be like daddy mommy buy me a leather a leather thing and then you want i do it i my baby going to have a ball gag for when I bring my kid on the plane. We're going to give him a ball gag for that. Great. So that's my view with all this. I think Gianmarco's a pedophile. I think Gianmarco's a pedophile.
Starting point is 00:58:36 I don't support that. Okay. It is funny. Whenever you talk about pedophile in any joke that involves pedophile, people then go, oh, you're a pedophile. And I'm like, pedophiles generally don't make a lot of jokes about pedophiles online.
Starting point is 00:58:54 That's not how the priests were busted because they made a joke about pedophiles and they were like, oh, are you a pedophile? Boom. Catholic church goes down. Russell, what's your, this has got to stop.
Starting point is 00:59:03 Your guy's silence was really deafening, I got to tell was really as i talked about putting a ball gag on my baby you both just kind of shut down on me i wait what i wasn't silent i responded you responded i condemned it that wasn't silence that was condemnation um mine's also about kids um well pedophile over here uh yeah um so you know sometimes people have like a newborn and they um they like the newborns just like blob you know like it's not can't do anything yet it's like so new and i've noticed three times now in the last two months which is a lot i feel like people have a newborn and they they put like a cool costume or like a cool outfit on it. And then they'll, they'll caption it with like,
Starting point is 00:59:48 this kid's already way cooler than me. I was like, you fucking bought the clothes. You pick them out. You put it on a blob that doesn't, can't do anything. And it's just like this. I,
Starting point is 01:00:01 I just hate like dumb things that like then are in the zeitgeist and we're just like we just people just do it now do you know what i mean yeah and that's one of those things where they're like my kids already way cool and fuck you you're the kid's not cool it's just the kids aren't doing anything and you picked out the clothes so you're like weirdly patting yourself on the back while you're doing nothing you want me to be like wow that kid is cool where to get like what kind of costumes are you talking about okay this the i this wasn't for halloween it was like the one i saw today was just like a it was just like suspenders uh with like a like a cap do you know i mean like a like a newsy boy cap kind of thing and you're like cool do you know
Starting point is 01:00:41 i mean like like even if it was an adult wearing it, you're like, awesome. My baby's cooler than yours. I don't know. It just is annoying because you're like, you bought the clothes. So we're just giving you, you know, yeah, the baby's cooler. I don't know. It enrages me. What would be a better, like, is the caption like, don't thank my baby. Or like, have like a wardrobe by me, wardrobe by parents. You don't have to have a caption. We don't have't don't uh thank my baby or like have like a wardrobe by me wardrobe by
Starting point is 01:01:06 parents you don't have to have a caption we don't have to have a clever caption we could just look at this cute picture you know just put up a picture like i don't know you people want to show i get it please look at this i regret having to show the picture but like yeah you don't have to like come up with and it's not clever because we've seen it a million times we've seen people use that caption a million times so uh just put it up put the picture up you know own it and be like look at i i bought cool clothes for my kid that's it i'm gonna scroll through everyone you follow find this whoever posted this newsboy picture i hope they don't listen yeah uh do you have a this has got i do i don't think hairstylists should be allowed to
Starting point is 01:01:45 have instagram oh i i think it's i'm tired of i think i've been getting really expensive really shitty haircuts because like i will go to like a like a cool queer barber or something and this happened to my partner too and spend like 120 on a haircut and then they won't take a picture of it and so i'll know like oh this wasn't you didn't care about this one like and then i'll because like then i'll see because they put them on instagram and their instagram ones are always so much better they're always so much better and so i think that they should have to try just as hard for each one okay and not have an instagram i was so confused at first i thought you said harry styles should not oh no hair stylist we're getting him on twitter and we're getting him on
Starting point is 01:02:38 instagram hairstylist i don't think i heard and then i was like is this going to wrap back around to, okay, hair stylist. I was like, you go to Harry Styles barber. Wow. You are doing well. I'm like, yeah, they post his picture because he's a star. Wait, I feel self-conscious because I've never
Starting point is 01:02:59 had a barber take Oh, mine doesn't have an Instagram. Mine barely has a phone number barely has a pair of scissors yeah i mean we could tell yeah is uh uh yeah i wouldn't like that at all i wouldn't like that at all i would demand i'd say you have to post this now yeah yeah i think they should either not have an instagram or have to post every single haircut they do yeah that's a very good point i like that is is that i guess i go to aveda which i guess is a chain so they don't need to do that independent thing they have a big corporate
Starting point is 01:03:34 well i think still sometimes people at chains will have their own insta because you can like request a specific person still but how much are you paying though for yours i pay a fair amount what are you paying i pay uh probably 85 95 what are you paying uh well when i was in denver i had i really had a great um hairstylist uh and paid like 80 but the first time i went to this like trans barber shop i paid like 120 bucks with tip and i got the worst haircut of my life and it took like not like three minutes like i was just getting my undercut touched up but i also wanted it like you know like like there to be some volume and stuff added some layering it sucked and i couldn't believe because i wanted to support this like trans barbershop in denver
Starting point is 01:04:25 and like i uh i'm sure that a lot of the haircuts there are great and whatnot but i was like blown away by how quickly this person did this and how much money it was are there a lot of trans barbershops like that's that likes their specialty there's actually a really good um queer salon in la called folklore um and there is yeah i would say yeah there are there's um barbara and barbara in chicago um i'm sure they also kind of like if i showed up there would would i get like a look like or would it no no no no i think that you know they serve everybody but it's just like you know it's like queer owned or trans owned or whatever 120 bucks that's that's tough what do you pay for yours um can i guess i yeah go ahead 15 bucks no he also just clearly got a haircut um i uh i do it's uh i think it's 30 and then 30 or 35 depending on if i do the trim the beard and uh and uh and then so it's usually like 50 with tip
Starting point is 01:05:34 wow that's a nice generous tip i only go a couple few times a year i tried to you know yeah he's my neighborhood guy he's right around the corner from where I live the barber I had for a long time she quit because lower back pain I guess that's a big thing with barbers like whatever it is they have to do every day and she was like 40 too but lower back pain so tip your barber
Starting point is 01:05:58 and on that let's get to our final segment you better count your blessing you better count your blessing. I started working at the comedy cellar and there is something called new jokes night, which is like this rare opportunity right now at the cellar. I'm it's a material I'm slipping in one or two things here and there, but even that stuff's like, you know, still pretty tried and true and new joke night.
Starting point is 01:06:37 It's at the fat black pussy cat and you get to go up with notes. You get to do four, I think it's just four minutes, but you get to, you know, bomb. Yeah. And it's, do, I think it's just four minutes, but you get to, you know, bomb. And then I did it. The host is also Will Silvance. And you get to riff with him.
Starting point is 01:06:51 And he's very good at that. And then they gave me 15 bucks. You get paid to do it. And I was like, I didn't know you get paid. And for me, it was like just an open mic, a rare open mic at a space that I normally feel a lot of pressure at. And then when they gave money, it just felt like, wow. Wouldn't it be nice if more of the comedy world was like this? There was an audience there that paid.
Starting point is 01:07:13 They gave me a little bit of money. And it just felt really good. Nice. Just getting paid to do anything there, that's a nice feeling. Even if it was five bucks. Even when you give a comic, a new comic, five bucks, it means a lot. The email that I received said
Starting point is 01:07:28 it wasn't supposed to be actually something cool. The email that I received said it was supposed to be kind of ironic or something that you might not usually consider a blessing. Well, I'll do better next time. Well, I didn't know. Luckily, I had more chances. I'm just saying
Starting point is 01:07:46 I feel like I think why the email probably says that is because I think some people go music coffee I'm blessed
Starting point is 01:07:57 because coffee's great yeah when we're picking bad guests if they if that's where they go sometimes sometimes who's your worst guest who's our worst guest guests. I know. If that's where they go. Sometimes, sometimes. Who's your worst guest?
Starting point is 01:08:07 Who's our worst guest? I'll tell y'all. I'll tell y'all. Okay. All right. Russell. I don't have a blessing today. And you know why?
Starting point is 01:08:18 Because I was thinking about it and I was like, I could come up with something. I felt like it would be disingenuous i've been feeling kind of like uh like numb the last i just don't feel very jazzed about things right now um not to get too dark wow i'm but i i don't have uh i don't have one today um but there's lots of great things obviously in this world but I don't have like a clever or funny thing right now well then I'll do a second one
Starting point is 01:08:48 you have a wonderful wife I know well no I'm more than gonna use my wife I'm gonna like say you know like you just said that I couldn't use music
Starting point is 01:08:55 you know so sure okay great Russell I'll say Caitlin Palufo was a guest on the sketch show oh yeah Uncle Function
Starting point is 01:09:03 our sketch team I wasn't at the show, but Caitlin was our guest. She killed. She crushed. She did great, yeah. She crushed so well that you couldn't list it as a blessing because that's how good it was. She did kill. But I feel bad now that I didn't, you know.
Starting point is 01:09:16 Well, she's our guest on Thursday, and you can apologize right then and there. Grace. Can I just ask a question about the last name Freud? Are you related to Freud? I took my partner's last name. Oh, really? We got married a year ago. Oh.
Starting point is 01:09:30 Is your partner related? Yes. No way. Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. I'm not kidding. They're not a descendant, but their great, great, great grandpa was his brother. Wow.
Starting point is 01:09:42 Do they have anything like a pipe? A cigar? Some cocaine? his brother wow do they have anything like a pipe a cigar um i do okay i think that their grandma might have some family stuff um but not not that i've seen nothing that's so cool i would take that name too it's a tight name yeah i like i you know i don't have like really a good relationship with anyone in my family so i was like i want to ditch that old name um yeah so do you have a blessing other than yeah i guess like so i really thought you were gay until yeah i thought russell was gay until i have a very i have a gay energy and i i would say that like my blessing is that you turned out to be straight because i feel like i'm pretty good about that usually.
Starting point is 01:10:27 And it's fun to be reminded that life is full of surprises. Yeah. I have like a gentle kind of, I get that. You know, I, but yeah, I have a wife. Do you think if you had known that I was dating Tova, that I was straight? Yes. Is it just because you saw my apartment and the way i live yeah i mean um a lot of those cues give it away you i mean i think from twitter too i mean you have a very straight twitter really i think you fancy yourself having a
Starting point is 01:11:00 less straight twitter but yeah i feel i feel envious that you were perceived as gay. I will say this. I saw that Senator getting a vaccine video of you or something. That was the first exposure to you that I think I had. And I did think maybe you were queer after seeing that. But then I saw the rest of your tweets and I was like, oh, that's a straight man. Grace, anything you'd like to plug?
Starting point is 01:11:32 Girl God has a show in Chicago at Sleeping Village on December 7th. And I think there are still some tickets. So yeah, come through, come to it. See Girl God. Russell, anything you want to plug? Open Function, Friday, December 17th, Asylum NYC. I don't have the exact date of this coming up,
Starting point is 01:11:52 but headlining DC Comedy Loft, headlining Caroline's Comedy Club. I think this is going to come out after. Don't worry about it. I just headlined Caroline's. Where the fuck were you? You should have come, but I will be headlining DC Comedy Loft,
Starting point is 01:12:04 Thanksgiving weekend, Friday, Saturday, headlining uh dc comedy off thanksgiving weekend friday saturday headlining uh uh nick's comedy stop in boston december 17th and 18th i think and uh watch the comedy central set share it around um and i i guess uh you know remember whether uh whether there's all over the place when you are dying, you ultimately will probably shit your pants. Or as you tweeted once, if you're a good person, you should cum your pants. You should get to cum your pants. This is the downside.
Starting point is 01:12:39 One, two, three. Downside. Downside. day

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