The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #90 Calling Poison Control with Dani Fernandez

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Dani Fernandez and I commiserate about being the only ones into Dragon Ball Z at our respective middle schools, why suicidal people still call poison control, group therapy, leaving stand-up comedy, the alarming trend of funeral selfies, what to do about fanbase toxicity, and why I never liked Star Wars (space makes me think about dying) #RIP You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Follow Dani Fernandez on Instagram & Twitter Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's monthly show in NYC (first Sunday of every month) Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by 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

Do you think you could ever delete it? Yeah, for sure. Really? I think when I do delete it, it'll be because I book something big and y'all will be like, oh, that's okay. She's gone. Sure. Sure.

I don't. Like, I don't know why Chris Evans is still on there. Like, you have millions of dollars. Or Tom Holland. I'm like, you don't. Well, because they think like, oh, if I want to endorse a questionable political candidate really fast. I can do it like that.

It only causes harm at that level. I agree. You're not gaining anything when you're in multiple Marvel movies and you're making multi-millions of dollars. You don't gain anything anymore from being on Twitter specifically. Sure. Like Bette Midler. We're going to record whenever you want. Yeah, you guys are good. Good, we're recording?

Okay. Bette Midler, she steps in it all the time. Have you ever seen hers? Yeah, I've seen a couple of them. Oh my gosh, Bette. Someone take... Welcome. Thank you.

To the downside, everybody. Very excited to have you here. My name's Jamarco. I'm here in LA. I'm at Melrose Podcast rose podcasts it's a new studio the walls are made of liquid death sparkling water they don't sponsor us though so don't drink them yet if they start sponsoring us i will endorse them but i do enjoy them and i'm here with my guest who who came in last second wow uh danny fernandez thank you for being here but thank you

you you were my i never thought you'd be attainable. Wow. Out of my league. True, yeah. You do have to contact my manager to access me, so. I wrote you directly. I shouldn't say that because then everyone's going to write you being like, please do. No, my DMs are closed, so they absolutely can't.

Oh, good, good. You and I follow each other. That's why you have. Jay Jordan recommended you right away. I said, Jay, I need someone good. Yeah. And Jay, how do you know Jay? You know, from Twitter, from comedy I said, Jay, I need someone good. Yeah. And Jay, how do you know Jay? You know, from Twitter, from comedy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When all those celebrities did that Imagine video. Yes. Like, remember the start of the pandemic? I made a parody myself. I remember it fondly. Jay and I had one about thirst traps. And so where we were, like, talking very seriously seriously about it was a PSA for thirst traps.

Good. Like me and him go to battle. See who can put out as many thirst traps. I didn't see that one. I'll have to find it. Well, I'm very happy to have you. And I did more research. I mean more because I want to talk.

We'll get to it. I want to complain about my shit first. I had to talk. We'll get to it. I want to complain about my shit first. I had a fucking, I was in Arkansas for a headlining couple days. Have you ever been to Arkansas? No, but I grew up in Texas, and there's definitely Arkansasian places in Texas. For sure. So the vibe. Certain areas that you drive through are very yes so many signs

just said guns yeah and there was no store attached no like it's on sale like it was like it was the national motto and it was the is the state motto of arkansas and like the the the state bird was a dead quail it was just like is i i everything so the the uh owner of the venue picked me up and he goes i got a good news and bad news what do you want first and i'm like oh man i wish there was this neutral news right and i go i go bad news of course what do you pick when people say that uh i would just say good news only i should have said that and maybe the bad would have gone away that's so good vibes only like do i have to hear the bad news but he said bad news show tonight's canceled what the heck exactly in my head i said there's no good news no unless it's a private jet back to new

york city right now and it was good news uh was i'm still getting paid of course and i was like i was like bro yeah that's not i'm not in stand-up for the money that's just okay news that's not good i wouldn't even classify sometimes people approach i think that's interesting about art where they'll to them it's like oh this is your job don't you want time off and getting paid for time off but i'm like no i i only would travel yeah to arkansas to tell jokes for a room of people yeah but i guess what happened is walmart was having their walmart their founder grew up was born there or whatever and walmart was having me like sam whatever his name is okay i went to the walmart museum where they just it was like propaganda for sam like it was just about what an amazing guy Sam was.

They never talk about all the mom and pop shops that are closed. Yeah. And I guess they were having their shareholders weekend. And the night that got canceled, Christina Aguilera was performing for free. Oh no. For anyone who wanted to go. And so I guess that.

The shareholders? Yeah, but like I think anyone could go or everyone there is a shareholder wow the face I'm making knowing that I would also sell out too so I yeah yeah I'm like oh for Walmart they've done some shady stuff to employers unless you want to pay me a couple million and then I am also have the money and someone recognized me at a coffee shop from instagram and i said oh i have a show and they said in arkansas in arkansas because but they were visiting from new york in the walmart shareholder thing and this is how i know he's getting paid a lot because he said oh i can't make it to the show and then he just venmoed me

25 if you're venmoing just some person you follow on Instagram. That's you got money. Yeah. You just made that in the minute we were talking. Wow. So anyways, my Venmo is Danny. It works. My mind's in my bio. Once in a while I'll get a little something,

something. Yeah. I should do mine. I'm just weird, but I, I should. Yeah. So the,

the only upside is the, the owner took me. He had his own plane and he flew me as the pilot to a baseball game in oklahoma whoa now i hate baseball so much that if he had just flown me right back that would have been fine yeah you could have flown home but i was very scared like the moment he told me he had the plane i was like oh i know i'm going to do this but i'm going to go through all my anxiety for sure i googled how did kobe die how did that happen yeah how did alia die did you know this about alia you knew about alia dying in the plane crash yeah did you know that she didn't want to get onto the plane i think i

did know that yeah went to her limo and one of her people roofied her essentially and brought her onto the plane unconscious because she didn't want to get on. She didn't think it was safe. Yeah. I know John Madden like wouldn't ride a airplane. Did you know that? No. Oh my God.

Really? All of their football games. He traveled by bus. All of them. All of them. Can you imagine traveled by bus. All of them. All of them. Can you imagine? My dad is scared of flying. But, I mean, how many games are in a season?

You feel like shit. You're going, like, to Florida. You're going to, like, or, you know, that's crazy. And I have. Back and forth. I was scared. I was scared, but then the plane ride back, I fell asleep. That's how quickly I recalibrated.

But my dad is scared of flying, and he used to fly. I don't know if it was 9-11. I don't know if he just didn't do it for a while, and it got in his head about it. But he hasn't flown in 22 years. Wow. Is that that train live? Because I wish I was on that. Some trains look nice.

I will always take a train i really haven't taken a lot of trains there's not a lot for you for our purposes i mean they always talk about a super train system is it is it is it china does china have a great train system there's somewhere in asia that has an amazing train system and it's like that would be the train those like beds you like and it's like a little hotel in there. I have always said to be doing it. No one seems to agree with me for planes. Horizontal.

Get rid of these chairs. Yeah, I want to lie down. I'll lie down the whole flight. I don't want to sit. It hurts my back. You barely go back. Everyone horizontal stacked up bunk bed style. Wow.

OK, I don't know about that. Now tell me why no. Okay. But I did. I wanted to say, I wanted to correct you. I did lie down my whole flight to Greece. So you were first class? Yeah, I was first class.

That was the only way I was going to do it. Well, Dani, not all of us can swim to first class. It was the only way. I don't always fly first, but I was like, I am not sitting up straight for 11 hours. Are you kidding me? You paid for it or a gig? It was a gig or you paid for it? I paid for it with a gig money, I guess. I was in a writer's room since September and I was like, hell yeah, if I'm going to go to Greece.

What did that flight cost? I don't know. You know what's so crazy? I used a travel agent. Really? Can you believe that they still exist? No. One of my girlfriends is friends with a travel agent. Really? Can you believe that they still exist? No. One of my girlfriends is friends with a travel agent.

And so I used a travel agent. And she actually, like, shouted her out. She booked, like, all my hotels. She booked my flights and everything. And they get paid on commission. I think people think that they, like, you have to pay them. Sure. But they get money from all the places they book you.

So I didn't have to do anything. And you got to lie down. And you got to lie down. And I got to lie down. Full horizontal. Honestly, I'm not even kidding you. On our flight back from Greece, I had a meltdown thinking that they put me in the wrong seat. Like, I was like, I cannot. Because I also have health issues and stuff.

And I was like, I can't. I have a lot of inflammation. I have Lyme disease and also Hashimoto's. And so, like, literally, I'm like I can't I get I have a lot of inflammation I have a Lyme disease and also Hashimoto's and so like literally I'm like what's Hashimoto's Hashimoto's is a thyroid disorder okay I was gonna say it's not just a thyroid disorder it's an autoimmune disorder where your antibodies attack your thyroid I see so I do a lot for it behind the scenes to like take care of it because it affects like it'll make your hair fall out. It affects your heart rate.

This is all to say I was having a meltdown because I was like checking my seat and I was like this. I have to be able to I cannot sit up straight for like it's four hours. We had a four hour connecting flight and then 11 hour flight. So it was just sure I was we were 24 hours in the airport. I haven't done 11 in a long i think i did israel i went to cape town and i went to israel but someone gave me a xanax the only time i've ever taken xanax and it knocked me the fuck out so i i just have to get into i used to be very scared about ambient i started taking ambient now and then

and then like i was i always get very if I had a glass of wine three days before I stress okay and now I feel myself as I get older going fuck it I'm washing it down with wine I can feel and I'm like oh this is how it happens because I call my mom all the time because she's she's a sleep medication she's like yeah you'll be fine you'll be fine you want to know how type a i am a hundred percent called poison control when i yeah i took xanax which was prescribed to me so i was taking xanax which i don't take anymore because i didn't want to have to live through this took xanax and then uh oh no i had been out drinking i'd been out drinking and i got home and I was like, oh, I got to take my Xanax so I can fall asleep.

Took it and I was like, oh no. Yes. I was like, what if I don't wake up? Oh my God. Oh my God. And I remember I was dating a comic at the time. We're still best friends. But I remember he was like, you're going to be fine.

I'm like, please check on my breathing. You have to check on my breathing. I was like so adamant that he like put his finger and like can tell that I'm breathing through my nose like in the middle of the night called poison control they basically said the exact same thing you said they were like you're gonna you're fine really i think what if i'm not well the doctors i i the doctor's always talking this code that i think is so they never get sued a hundred percent i'll be like i'll be like hey so if i take an Ambien and I had two beers that night, is that fine? And they're like, most likely, blah, blah, blah. Exactly.

And I'm like, can you just say yes? And they're like, the only reason they can't is because one person once died from it. Yeah. Oh, so Xanax, you were prescribed that. I should get that. I don't take that anymore. So no, I can't speak for it. I'm trying to think if I've ever called Poison Control.

I called them again, too. They know me. I called them because... Danny, hello. Okay, listen. I know. I called them multiple times. I'm like thinking all the time.

Okay, so another time I called them, I think I had mixed alcohol, maybe a Xanax and an edible. And I had taken too much of an edible. I had taken too many. When did this one happen? The first story made sense. I don't know. Who cares? Maybe it wasn't a Xanax.

Maybe it was. I just remember I was freaking out. I called them and he was like the guy you could tell. He was so frustrated. He also sounded like maybe he had just gotten out of school. He sounded young. And he was like, you've really put me in a bad position. That's what he told me. What did he mean that he just didn't know how to advise you?

No, because he couldn't really advise me because I took something when you, when you, alcohol is different and, and Xanax is different. Edibles, which are not regulated the same way, alcohol is regulated to some extent. you know it tells you oh edibles just aren't you know oh maybe i'd take an edible shrooms i don't know it was a weird combo i think i i do take i do microdose shrooms i want to say my girlfriend really wants me to do shrooms i've never done them very scared i would have brought you some if i had known that's very kind if you're if you're ever on my side of town, I'll give you some. But yeah, so I microdosed shrooms, and I think that was it. Maybe I took a pot edible shrooms and something else, and I called him because I was having difficulty breathing, which was probably just me freaking out.

And I think my allergies were bad, so I was already like, well, I only got one nostril. What if I die? I was freaking out. And he was like like you put me in a real bad position because like if i did if something happened to me like that's basically what he was saying is like i can't help you you took something that's illicit uh-huh uh which xanax is not but you took something that's illicit how am i supposed to help you you know did he say anything or did he just go i gotta go basically i feel like all their calls are this yeah and every once in a while someone's like i just swallowed rat poison and they go guys come here we got a real one yeah we need to call oh i i'm a little bit of a hypochondriac you see it sounds like is that called would that be considered hypochondria if you're scared you're always poisoning yourself maybe yeah probably paranoia

i feel like the normal person doesn't care yeah yeah my girlfriend i remember when she took uh clonopin after drinking and i was i was freaking out for her and she was like i'm fine i need to just go to sleep and i was like baby that's death coming for you that comforting feeling that's death wrapping its dark caress around you um well i uh uh well good we we talked briefly before you're you're a positive person and i've had positive people before okay and by the end whoa my god they've broken the table they've cursed out their parents they've broken up with their spouse so we'll see if we get there i what i was so excited was i was a dragon ball z person hell yeah and my tattoos i was gonna ask i didn't know that's where they were that's wonderful did you get both at the same time yes now i i fear going too deep in dragon ball z because i just i feel this is part

of my problem where i'm like i have always had like eclectic interest in in a way where I don't know maybe 10 people who listen to this podcast like Dragon Ball Z because that's never been my yeah I almost want my I have a Goku shirt that I brought on this trip with me I have two wow so I my experience with Dragon Ball I was the only kid it always sounds like every every kid you wonder how are they all. There's so many of us, but there's just one in each school. Somehow they separated us so there's only one loser in each middle school. No one liked Dragon Ball. No.

Where did you grow up? Potomac, Maryland, near Bethesda. They weren't even comic book kids. So I don't know how I got into it. Toonami. Yeah. But I went and this was Dragon Ball Z. weren't even comic book kids yeah so i i don't know how i got into a toonami yeah but i went and uh this was dragon ball z for people listening let me just try this is an anime from japan

started as a manga which is japanese comic book and uh dragon ball z was was booming it exploded because of toonami and cartoon network i went on eBay. My dad was cool about this kind of stuff where we got bootlegs of all the Dragon Ball episodes and all the Dragon Ball GT episodes and all the Dragon Ball Z episodes not released in Japanese with subtitles, uncensored, which at the time was a big deal.

And I would watch the old Dragon Ball episodes and I had a list. I mean, i must have been in fifth grade fourth grade and the list was said like fuck shit bitch and i would uh count because i just was so fascinated by it how many times goku or vegeta would go fuck and i had like a list or how many times you saw ballmas titties right and there's a couple times more in dragon ball yeah and uh it was a magical thing that I wish I had a friend to share it with. Yeah.

My brothers were into it, so that's who I watched it with. Older or younger? I had an older brother and a younger brother. But it was very weird to like it. When I was in middle school, I was actually, this is before I moved to Texas, I was in Orange County. Orange County. And so kids were watching Laguna Hills. That's what people were.

What is that? Or the hills. The hills. Or whatever. Is that like OC? It what is that or the hills the hills is that like the OC it was before that what was the one before that before Laguna is Laguna Hills like the OC like that type of thing no but it was like the reality show that came before the hills no no no it came before I can't even remember now I'm like blanking um I did do shrooms earlier. I'm not even kidding. I microdose. Yeah. I microdose regularly.

How many milligrams? I don't know. I have to look at it, but I don't know why I'm blanking. But anyways, people were watching that people watching that and then Jersey shore and stuff. And so nobody was watching.

It was very weird to watch strong. You were a weirdo if you liked it. And then it's so funny cause it's mainstream now and everyone makes fun of it in like the anime community or they're just like oh wow you like that wow mainstream wow and i'm always like well akira toriyama who created it influenced a lot of the niche anime that's out there right now yes i also think i've not gotten into i visited the new dragon ball the super okay or whatever and the moment i saw frieza as like kind of the good guy i said no that's like for me that's like historical fiction where hitler teams up with it like it's like he's a bad guy he's still bad he's bad and i don't it feels like a betrayal It's one of these things. I'm just like, you know what?

I'm fine with this segment of my childhood. I'm going to start critiquing it as an adult or not enjoying it as an adult and it will ruin my old. Yeah. Do you still like the new Dragon Ball episode? Yeah, 100%. I do have to say that Goku canonically

has a history of making all of his enemies his friends. That's just his character. Some enemies can't be friends. How many people did Frieza kill? Genocide. How many people has Vegeta killed? That's his best. One of his enemies his friends that's just his character how many people did frieza kill how many people has vegeta killed that's his best one of his but i mean i guess people would say krillin is his best friend but krillin you move down the blue hair the red hair i can't you gotta give me more than the hair color changing at this point you might get that there's a new movie coming out you might get that i liked i like super saiyyan 4 in GT. I thought it was a cool design.

They're hot. Hot pants. Yeah, so really, I'm a hairy Jewish man. I love hair. And there's something about, like, they become more like, was it apes or monkeys? Yeah, they're apes. They're apes. Half ape. Well, now that we've lost the whole podcast relationship, Dragon Ball GT, Super Saiyan 4.

But were you a loser? Yeah, for sure. I was bullied heavily. Now, how how would they bully you? I mean, we're getting into some dark shit, I guess, if we're going to complain. I had someone in my PE class convinced the whole class to call me Shrek. That is a young middle school girl that had like thick thighs, they would call me Thunder Thighs.

Thunder Thighs was a negative back then. It was a name that someone called someone in my middle school. I remember that. Yeah, now everyone wants thick thighs. Where did it come from? Why Thunder? Because they clap together? I guess. I guess that makes sense. Yeah. So I played

soccer. I was thicker. And I got called, like, chubby. Yeah, for liking Dragon Ball Z. It was weird. I had, like, a, I still remember his name, which I guess I shouldn't say. Because people will probably dox him. But in Orange County, I had a kid in my middle school who was the classic bully. a kid in my middle school who was the classic bully like like i mean like a classic school like a movie villain where i would have my little dragon ball z cards in like a card protector

i don't know if you collected the cards i didn't i was a yugioh pokemon okay yeah i had those two but like sometimes they would have foil ones so i had these little card protectors and i had him at school and i thought it was so cool and he would go and he would slap them out of my hand. And he just was like, you know, you watch some of the movies and you're like, is anyone actually like that? And he definitely was. But he like lives with his parents now. So I feel and I'm a successful person in Hollywood. If you ever apologized, would there be any room in your heart for like, oh, you were a child or do you go, evil person he just seems i don't know i also dealt with a lot of racism so uh i don't know yeah i guess maybe i should be open to it i had it sounds like you had a worse than me but i do

remember playing soccer shirts versus skins and a guy coming up to me he was part of the marriott family and he came up to me and he i i can name that i've never heard that i've never heard anyone say that yeah marriott i'm a bonvoy member so if you want to give me a free free room for this and i'd appreciate it and he went up to me and he went up and i was shirtless and i i was kind of heavier chested and he went booby booby booby booby booby and like hit it like a like rocky wow and that hurt but but not shrek yeah there was a guy in my class that i had a crush on and that hurt extra bad i had a lot of i had a lot of stuff go down in middle school middle school was horrible in orange county so was it public or private public public and did any did you try

to get did any teachers say anything did your parents try to do anything anything? Were you just I'm going to do this on my own? There was a point in time where I was crying so much. My mom thought I was pregnant. So in middle school, because in Orange County, I mean, people were messing around. Plus, like we all looked like we were older for sure. Girls were dressing like they were like 16, 17. It's probably how people look at people now at 16 17 or like they look like they're you know 21 or whatever like we were we were definitely

like i said we were watching the hills it's wild i just i i because i went to a private middle school and i could just tell later in life oh people had wildly different uh experiences with sexuality because i remember seventh grade there was a rumor that one of the girls uh at a different high school the all boys high school had touched her boob and i remember it was the scandal of the century and i remember we were kind of friends but i remember being like what's are you okay is everything all right like that's how yeah and then i met other people they're like oh we were doing anal anal Jesus Christ that definitely was a thing that went around in my high school but yeah when I was in Texas it was a little different it was definitely not although you watch like I don't know varsity blues and yeah

people are people are doing it so So were you so you were crying? Your mom's like, yeah, she asked if I was pregnant because I was crying so much. Yeah. And and was it leaving? When did you go to Texas? What grade were you? I was like 12 or 13. And it was a great for me. It was a great experience because we ended up going to I went to Frisco High School was the only high school at the time that I was there. But then my grade actually split up and it was two high schools. Now there's like nine high schools.

But my brother played varsity football. He was the captain. So I was like, oh, sure. To be like popular by association went from being called Shrek to like people. I would have random football players like, hey, Danny, like, hi, Danny, like coming up to me because they all knew my brother. So I got to go to prom my sophomore year. It's like someone asked you. Yeah, someone asked me. A senior asked me. So I felt like, oh, I'm kind of popular here being from California. And then Texas kind of just became my home. I actually had even before that I had my dad has a ton of family in San Antonio. My cousins grew up in Dallas. My cousins went to

UT. I went to UT. My brother went to UT. So like my family was from Texas. It was just like a certain period. I also was in California. So so leaving that school in O.C. was just amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I would be a different person if i had stayed there i'm worried that i would have been like a cunt or something i would have been a horrible person i was around horrible people did you you have any friends back from that era or did you leave them all behind pretty much left them all behind but one girlfriend who she has a bunch of kids uh so we took very different routes but um i was in ralph breaks the internet i was in the wreck at ralph sequel and i was like hey it's me danny

fernandez they like animated me and she wrote me i'd not talked to her in like a decade from my middle school because she saw it with her kids so really one person from my middle school, right me? That's very cute. It's kind of insane. She has like six kids. She's a woman. I have had, oh, sure. I've had a couple old middle school people come to comedy shows. Sometimes it's, you don't know what to talk about. It's been so long. So you're like, hey, we knew each other.

I know what you look like at 12. Okay, good to see you. Right. Oh, you're not going to buy merch? Okay. We're done. We're done here, buddy. I will have people from my high school be like, hey, I'm in Orange County for a couple days.

And I'm like, great. It's wild. I've had. That's not where I live. There's this group from my high school that comes to my comedy shows when I'm in D.C. where I went to school. And I'm just like, we never were friends really and i'm i'm glad they come yeah and it's always interesting to see people later yeah but uh part of you is just like you never liked me when i was i'm that same kid yeah you never invited to the party so okay so you you moved to texas yeah things are going better you went to ut my

sister went to ut love it did you like ut i did enjoy it i did enjoy it i wish i had partied more i feel that same way too but i don't think i'm a partier i'm not but i did do shrooms before you came here that yeah but those are for depression. Heavily recommend everybody. Those are for depression. But yeah. You think there'll come a day where my therapist will be like, shrooms? Maybe. It's always Lexapro, Prozac.

It's never. Have you tried microdose? I think my therapist is happy I'm on them. That's good. So. I gotta try. Now, do you ever regular dose? Oh, no. You've never. No. OK, interesting.

I don't like that feeling of not being in control. I also have OCD. I like have clinical OCD and I don't like how that feels. The feeling I don't I don't like it. I've had it happen before. Kind of like, you know, that feeling where we were saying that you took Xanax and you drank and like you couldn't control you're about to pass out. Yeah. You might not wake up. I don't like that feeling. Sure. It's happened to me a couple of times. And so when you get too high, that feeling kind of happens and it's very triggering. How does your OCD express itself? I have obsessive intrusive thoughts. Me too. I have pure OCD. I don't have the compulsions really. Although I did tweet that I had a latte last night at 9 p.m. so I could clean because if things get too messy, I get even more depressed. but obtrusive obtrusive oh yeah obtrusive thoughts yeah that's i think i told my therapist once i said a lot of times when like a stove is opened i think about people being burned alive in the holocaust it is the thought that like comes to me and it's not it's yeah it's just like it flashes

and it's a flash yeah it's not like i'm like and i'm transported but it's like it flashes. And it's a flash. Yeah. It's not like I'm like and I'm transported. But it's like it just pops in my head every time. Yeah. Do you feel you can do something to – because mine will be when my eyes are closed. Like sometimes my eyes are closed. Something horrible will pop in. I can open my eyes and it kind of like dissipates a little. Really?

Yes. I'll try that. Yeah. I've had – I used to have – this went away. Sometimes things go away and you're like, well, I guess that's good. I used to have whenever I put my hands up for some reason, something about the exposed armpit. I thought like knives, someone would throw knives like just fucked up thoughts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Under the bed, a lot of under the bed stuff. I'm a stove checker for sure. Classic door locker checker. I will check that. All my knobs will eventually break because I do like four or five checks every time I leave somewhere. So you have the compulsive part. Yeah. That is it.

Yeah, I guess. But it's. You don't have the cleanliness. I don't have the cleanliness. But I sometimes think it's like to. I feel personally to claim OCD. It's so mild. My OCD is so mild.

Interesting. That my therapist called it. That what you described was not mild. Yeah, but you know what it is? I think it's like sometimes they, at least my therapist would describe it as like, does it get in the way? Does it prevent you from if i was running late to things yeah because i kept checking the doorknob gotcha then maybe i would own it more but like at most if i really gotta go if i'm running late if it's important i can go like it's locked it's locked and i can go and it's fine yeah do you

ever take medication for ocd i don't think so i'm on lamictol aside from taking shrooms um i'm on lamictol which is a mood stabilizer which is the only thing i've taken all of the things uh is the only thing that i really like it had the the smallest amount of side effects for me personally i know a lot of writers are on it it turns out like i would talk about it and like more people from our community be like oh yeah i'm on lamictal and i'm like oh okay so everybody's just when did y'all discover this were you gonna tell me about it i didn't i've never even heard of it mood stabilizer yeah it's technically an anti-seizure medication i think but you know they've discovered things where they're like oh also makes you feel better well that's that's when i was checking on antidepressants.

I think that's where I lost confidence in the whole system, where I went to see who prescribes the actual stuff. Psychologist, a psychiatrist, psychiatrist. And it was an older man. And he was like explaining to me is like, well, this sometimes it does this. And sometimes the cloud feels lifted. And I'm like, am i in an english class it feels like it's just metaphors yeah and sometimes sometimes weight gain sometimes no weight gain sometimes erectile dysfunction and i just felt like it felt so random and i felt very i feel very impatient like i'm not i felt like the idea of like let's take it for six weeks and see hate it

was like no yeah and for me if i'm being at the time i was more of an actor and so i was i had this fear that it would neutralize my emotions and i would be like a robot on set yeah uh but now maybe in in weight gain i think i would really be like this really upset if I felt like anything was was making me gain weight. Yeah. I would be I would be like, take take me off this immediately. Yeah. I've tried a bunch of different things and I had the same thing happen. To be honest, they also do that to us with birth control.

I've heard I've heard the birth control. It's a fucking nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Which sucks. It's such a horrible thing to be messing with your hormones or like all of a sudden your insurance doesn't cover it anymore and they put you on this other one and they act like they're all the same and they act like it and they're not and i remember once i like spoke out about it and everybody said i was like anti-birth control and i was like what

they thought you were like they thought i was like pro-life or some shit i'm like no i'm just saying like maybe use a condom or something. That's what I do. Like I'm not on birth control anymore because it fucked. I tried so many different things. Yeah. And also because I have health issues. I'm not even going to go into it because people aren't going to write me on this.

They're going to take it the wrong way. I'm very pro whatever the fuck you need to do. But just know it was severely affecting my depression. And people will be like, well, try this instead. And, like, it just doesn't for my body physically, like, rejects things. It's why I will never have implants because of my autoimmune condition. And so, I don't know. What was I saying?

Now, was IUD ever on the table? Because that's my girlfriend. I never, for a second, I was so scared. I know so little. Sometimes I fuck up the words I thought I, like, said, like. IED? IED, yeah. So the IUD, I just, my girlfriend sent me some kind of TikTok that, like, showed on, you know, some thing what it is.

And I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ. Or there's, like, TikTok videos where it's, like, someone is, they're taking a video of of themselves as they're getting it And you just see that they are in excruciating pain Yeah it's not for me But you know do you I'm gonna keep doing my methods Never been pregnant So You get a lot of people mad at you about medical stuff

I mean medicine is so You just we saw from the vaccine It's so imprecise. And then when you throw that into social media, you're going to get. I just can't speak up on it. I'm just not going to. Yeah, it's a it's a nightmare. But I will say that I, at least with my Hashimoto's, successfully put it in remission.

Some of my doctors said I never would. And I fucking did it. So there were a lot of different things that I did. did it so there were a lot of different things that I did I actually have a chronic illness group for women in the industry there's like over 150 of 150 of us I'm gonna said 150,000 over 150 of us in there after this podcast let me tell you this is I want to tell people the reason why it's not open it's very private is because we're talking about our literal medical shit people are talking about like their uterus and stuff in there.

And so but I needed a safe place for people to because I was speaking about it publicly and then it was affecting my employment, which is shitty and horrible. You heard like someone said. Yeah, no, literally one of I was hosting at Comic-Con. One of the companies I was hosting with said, are you sure you're even going to be able to do this and I was like oh you guys like this could be affecting my auditions this could be affecting my people hiring me um and you've only known me for a little bit but I'm I've worked everywhere like I'm pretty I hustle really everyone would tell you that works with me I'm like one of the hardest working people that they know and it really sucks that ableism that I'm not able to like speak more openly

about chronic illness without people thinking that, you know, I can't be a part of this business, but I was just in Forbes, baby. So that's, that's why we reached out to you so quickly. We saw you in Forbes. We said, we got to get her on here before, before it's impossible. This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance

Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. 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. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Now, do you mind if we talk about, was it in college, the stuff with the thing that ended up being the pilot that you wrote?

Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was that based on? What happened? Okay, yeah, that was after college. I had gotten married to someone that I met in Texas. We were young. We met when we were teenagers. And that's just kind of what you did when you graduated. You were so funny when I was in Arkansas, I was taking an Uber and this is where everything feels, I'm in a different world. And they, he asked me, you know, is, did your wife come down with you? And I go, Oh, I have a girlfriend. And he goes, his phrase was, how long have you been interviewing her for? And I was like, that's, that's wild. That's just, everything is within this framework of it's to conclude in a, in a

wife with children. And, and I just, I, I maybe had heard that in a movie maybe, but when he said it, I was like, that's crazy. That's how you view it. Yes. Yeah. And so when I graduated from UT, everybody, graduation night was getting engaged. It was just like, what happened? They were like proposing at the – Yes, at the ceremony.

Oh, I hate that. We have our big tower and there's all the fireworks and it's a big deal. And like, you know, UT goes all – Why would you want to combine moments like that? That's like wanting a birthday on Christmas. Separate it out. Be special two days a year. No, a lot of my friends that I was in college with

got engaged, except me. I didn't. And so I ended up, I was actually working in cardiac rehab. That's what I got my degree in. And so I was working at a hospital and all the little old ladies would be like, what's wrong with your boyfriend? Does he not want to get married? Does he, you know, and I'm like fucking, I don't know, like 21, 22. And so I'd come home and be

like, yeah, why? And so he ended up proposing, I don't know, like maybe six months later. Did he do it romantically or was it one of those, why? He said, fine, will you marry me? He did do it romantically, but I think there was a level of like, let's just think we didn't work out. I'm not still married. So it shouldn't have happened apparently. But we were in love at the time. And I don't know, we just ended up wanting different very different things having

different lives and um so anyways one percent i was going through a divorce that was after that he was a divorce the best good as it can i don't know it was who it was who he i thought i was gonna be with him forever we were the couple that dated all throughout college and you know that couple it's like they're at every party together. They're the couple. When you're going through a breakup, you turn to that couple. Of course. Of course. We were the couple that was always together.

And my friends were always like, I don't know, unsuccessful relationships, dating around, dating dickheads. I'm like, why are you doing that? I'm with this like king over here. And he still is. He is. Like he's a good guy. We just got married too young and not meant to be together. Um, uh, but anyways,

I was going through a divorce and I just felt like my whole life was falling apart. I was also working at, we had moved. Uh, so I was working at a call center. I wasn't even working at a hospital. What kind of call center? It was Oppenheimer, uh, which is a financial investment company. And so I was just dealing with rich people screaming at me. What were they mad like you misinvested my thing or the stock? Yeah, which I had no control over.

Sure. They would want to know about their stocks. They would want to know how much money they had. And then they would quickly, if the market was changing, want to move stuff over. Yeah. And we have, there's limits, limitations for, to protect us, to protect them. And if I couldn't move it over fast enough, they would freak out. And I would literally get calls from like Hawaii, like rich people that had bought up

land in Hawaii and they're on a different time zone and they're literally calling me. And I'm like, I cannot be, I cannot imagine being so miserable. You have so much money. I can look at your account right now. And you sound absolutely miserable. That is funny to know their net worth and be like, sir, do you know what I'm getting paid to deal with this shit right now? Like $12 an hour. And so I would cry like in the bathroom stall, like on my break, I would cry like

in my car. And, um, so I ended up having an attempt, a suicide attempt. Um, and that's how I wrote. And then I had to, I had to ask how you attempted. I feel like we're not supposed to talk about that, but I'm, I'm open to it. I've been open about it. But I've heard in the mental health community that you're really not supposed to tell people how because it gives them. We could say trigger warning right now.

Because it gives them like ideas, which by the way was not successful, so don't do it. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I guess it seems like that's wish, to me that's wishful thinking. Let's just say women historically have less violent ways that they have attempts. And so that's also, I think, like why we survive. Sure. So anyways, I woke up in the hospital. My husband woke up. Were you were you like, ah, damn it. my husband when you woke up were you were you like ah damn it I don't even know what I was thinking I was very out of it um I had no shoes I had no and they don't give you any

they don't give you any and I was wearing because they don't want you to leave maybe I don't know I mean I left with no shoes my husband was there like sitting across from me in a chair and I remember seeing I just remember the look on his face which was just the utmost sad sadness like it like nothing about our divorce mattered anymore it was just like I can't believe that this happened you know like just a pure look of did you feel shame I felt shame in telling my family and I later felt shame in coming out about it now I've been pretty vocal that I feel everybody knows I've had I've had an attempt that was not my first attempt unfortunately I had one in middle school from the bullying really yeah so I grew up too look at that I can't can't can't do

anything right including that um no God was like uh gosh. We said you're, you need to be here. Um, anyway, so he was sitting across from me very sad. And I think he was like, we have to get that. That was a breaking point. Right. I couldn't, I couldn't do my job anymore. I had to leave. And I remember telling them too, cause they were like, no, you're so good. They were like going to promote me at the call center to like manager I remember yeah and I remember I was good at all my jobs all my odd jobs I'm very type a and I like doing well I like getting the gold star and uh I was like look I've tried to take my own life I cannot be here um and so I went to Texas I went back to. I stayed with some friends for the summer and just was in therapy, worked on myself.

I later ended up getting to go to IOP, which is outpatient. So I was not inpatient. That's when you, the hospital released me essentially. So I didn't have to stay, especially I believe because my husband was there, but I didn't have to stay for like a week. Typically you have to stay an inpatient. You're staying in the hospital to get help. I was released. And then I later did, I mean, I did a ton of therapy.

Divorce is going on throughout this whole thing. We were very much like, let's not take anything. Like if you want something, you have it. If not, like we, we didn't go through the courts or anything. We signed that we both didn't want anything. And that made it really easy that we could just be like, Oh, the couch, yours, this, yours, you know? Um, there was no, there was no fighting. It was all, no, not after that. Um, and I moved here because I was like, why don't, this is the perfect time to pursue comedy. I mean, and you know why Roy Wood Jr. Who I, who I sold that show with, uh, who we now have the same

manager. He's one of my best friends, him and a couple of other comics before I even moved here said, like, you're funny. You should do this. How did you know him? I had developed at the time I had back when I was at UT, I had developed a following. I on Twitter and I would put like dumb sketches and I would put my dumb jokes on there. And a lot of people resonated with it. Several people checked in on me several comics were like are you this is really funny but are you okay which I wasn't and did you

think of yourself as a comedian or were you just like I'm just fucking around online yes I was just like no I'm depressed and where do you go when you're depressed twitter and so I made a lot of depression jokes a lot of depression jokes a lot of divorce jokes like a lot of stuff and so a lot of them started following me I ended up meeting Roy uh at Denver Comedy Works because that that's uh where I lived after Texas my ex and I moved to that's where I was at the call center in Denver and long story short he was just like no you're funny funny's funny and you're funny and um I was like And you're funny. And, um, I was like, I have to do, I ended up talking to a television writer because I always wanted to

be a writer since I was younger. Uh, in fact, I applied to the journalism school at UT and didn't get in, uh, or else I would be on a different track, but like I wanted to write, uh, whether it was comedy, whether it was fiction or nonfiction. Like I just always been writing since I was young. I was actually published in a teen magazine when I was in high school. Yeah. So long story short, I've done a lot of different jobs. And that's why I moved here. I moved here because they were like, you're young enough that you'll regret it if you never do it.

And I was. And I was super poor. I was coming off of a suicide attempt uh not a mere six months before and um and i got a job at the ice house comedy club being a hostess i was a hostess there and it's hard i think it's hard for me to imagine being suicidal and starting comedy. How many people have that journey, though? There has to be a lot of our friends. I see like getting into comedy and then getting suicidal and then leaving comedy. I feel like a lot of our friends have probably been suicidal and done stand-up. Now that I'm on the road, this first year I've been on the road, and I'm like, man, it's hard.

It is emotionally very hard. Yeah. It is lonely. it is dark it is you're in Arkansas and your show is canceled because of Walmart yes and there you all do you left stand up I did was that a hard decision no not at all was it a hard way did you go like you know what no more I was treading water and I still see a lot of people treading water and it was just like I moved here to write tv what am I doing you know and now I have also transitioned to acting but I was like what are I can't do all of the things because I'm not moving ahead um and I love the

years that I had stand-up because it helped tremendously in my writer's room it helped with all the hosting I've hosted for like every channel ever. And having a standup background does help, but I don't miss those hours. Like when I was dating the comic, I was dating, I'd be going to sleep at 11 and he would be showering to go out. And I'm like,

that's miserable. I don't want, I want to be in bed. Oh yeah. I know. I know. Talk to me. Cause,

cause you know, you, you host and I, I don't host like that, but I know that hosting is it's in my it's something I do here and there. And I'm sure it will be more a part of my life. I'm a depressed person. You're a depressed person. Sure. What do you think? Because the hosting, we have to bring a certain degree of cheer and energy and charisma to it do you think why it shouldn't make sense on its face it shouldn't make sense that if you're sad or you're depressed that you go out there and you like put forward this thing yeah you're you're positive you're you're front-facing positive yeah i'm very front-facing joking negative mm-hmm and I guess it's just interesting because sometimes I see positivity and I go especially in show business I go bullshit I there's something in me and this is me as a

cynical person I go no you're depressed no you're sad this is inside I don't comment I'm not one of the people who are like you're not one of my trolls wow you're smiling in this picture do you feel sad ever though did you forget you're gonna die someday somebody did that to my middle school picture i'm not even kidding when i had shared that i had an attempt and i shared one of my photos i had a rough childhood and i shared one of my photos and they're like well you look happy here I'm like sir if I could that's so funny I would go to jail right now uh I deal with that all the time here's the thing it's not helpful it's not helpful to be negative anyway that doesn't help me and I think a lot of people have started to follow me because I made this massive transition where I have done, I am not kidding you, so much

healing work. I've done all of the things. I've done EMDR. I've done brain spotting. EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization reprocessing. It's a huge, it's big in the trauma community. It's very difficult. It basically desensitizes you to your worst memories that's its job um very hard but life-changing for a lot of people brain spotting very similar it's adjacent to emdr i've done tms which is transcranial magnetic stimulation that's where they stimulate the understimulated areas of your brain. Heavily recommend this because you're not diving into your worst nightmares. What else have I done? I've done hyperbaric oxygen tank.

This is where all my money goes. Everyone's like, oh, you work. I work. I'm in all these writers rooms 24-7 writing scripts. That's where all my money goes is to my mental health. Any of it you do and go, oh, that was a scam? No, but not all of it is for me. A lot of the medicines that you listed weren't helpful to me.

I think some doctors are, let's say they're doing their best. I'll give them that possibly because I had the same thing where they were like, well, let's put you back on Wellbutrin. I'm like, but I've done it twice. I don't like it. If it works for you, great. It doesn't work for me. I don't like it. And they were like, well, we just can't think of anything else to give you. And I'm like, are you serious? I can think of other things to give me. I can think of other things. There's Google. Um, so that's definitely happened to me and i was like on shrooms and they were like well we can't uh we can't support that

and i'm like well good thing that i'm on them because you're doing the bare minimum um it's legal in they're illicit no nowhere i don't think maybe it was one state that made it legal or something that it was something state that made it legal. Portland or something. It was something like that. Exactly. Probably. They should be. They'll hopefully eventually. They really are life changing for a lot of people.

There's tons of documentaries and stuff. And I am a big believer in them. But yeah, I've done all of the things. Aside from all the talk therapy, CBT, DBT, checked into an outpatient program for six weeks where they taught us coping skills to not be suicidal basically everyone in there was suicidal it was you had to be actively in crisis in order to get your insurance to cover it you had to like write a letter being like your doctor i barely finished this letter how do you prove you're in crisis you don't have time to do the

crisis it was a very it was a great bonding experience being i mean like so anyways you were asking about one percent happy that's what i wrote it about i wrote it about a bonding experience i wrote it about a girl who woke up from a suicide attempt that she never thought she would um and what happens when you get the second chance you know and uh as someone who's never i sometimes i i sometimes go are you really depressed here marco you've never tried to kill yourself there's some degree of like sometimes i i this is obviously delicate but there is a degree of like i go i get scared of someday

being suicidal but i think if i'm in my heart of heart my fear of death i don't know if i've never been suicidal but my fear of death or or like there is a hard wall that it's gonna take it would take a lot to penetrate it. It's a fear of death. Okay. And it's like, and so sometimes I wonder, it's like, oh, is my depression less than I might think it is? Or some people feel severe depression, but don't, it doesn't translate into suicide, I guess.

It's hard to know. Yeah. I just like, I've never truly felt in my heart that I'm suicidal. But I think it's because my fear of death and my desire to still live forever, despite being very depressed, is so strong. Yeah. So unflinching. That's like a survivor, like, you know, your body's fighting like that's that's a natural human yeah and that's why a lot of people that are suicidal depressed when something happens like say me i accidentally take a xanax and a drink like all of that i call poison control immediately exactly because your body actually has a reaction of like oh crap like uh no actually i need to live it's like you're you're um

instinctually trying to keep yourself alive yeah but i'm not suicidal anymore i want to say um and i mean just the sheer amount of my therapist and i've had a lot of different therapists my therapist is like you could basically therapize yourself at this point. And I did. I took a break from her for like six months because I was like, I don't want to talk about the same stuff anymore. Sometimes you just need a break. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's a loop. It's a repetition.

But going back to my need to be positive, I have to. I just have to. I have to be in a different mindset. I can't be that old Danny. She doesn't even exist anymore. She's, she's done too much healing work. She's done too many things to, to go back there. So I definitely have rough days. I have days where I'm really bitter. I used to be really bitter about the amount of therapy I had to do because of other people, like because of how much i was bullied to the point that i yeah that i try to kill myself as a kid that's fucked up yeah that's my whenever you

hear a kid kills himself you go that's one where where i understand as you get older you're there is part of me i'm like oh i see oh i see how someone could get to a place they go you know what i'm out of here yeah but when a kid does you're like god damn yeah because it takes it just takes like a new thought i i don't think when i was a kid i even conceptualized the idea that i could possibly even do that so yeah um and then my i had really abusive family members um and that was really really hard i think that affects you know that's something we learned in therapy with attachment theory. So you build basically how you go through life the rest of your life with your relationships is built the first five years of your life. And it was so funny in my group therapy.

They gave us a pamphlet on it and basically said, like, this is impossible to change. And we're like, oh, cool. Good to know. Yeah. Your attachment style um not you can but it takes a lot of work and so the ways that I was spoken to as a child the things that were said about me all the way through adulthood really messed with my head and And so I've had to do a lot of work to undo that. That's also why when people see that follow me, I post like thirst traps.

I post like that. A lot of people are like, I wish I had half the confidence Danny has. I get those comments all the time. And it's because of how much I was called basically like a piece of shit, an ugly and chubby and bought like all the horrible things sometimes by my own family that I'm like I got to a point where I'm old enough where I'm like fuck y'all I'm going to post whatever the hell I want I'm not getting any younger and one day when I'm 80 I hope I'm still posting thirst traps when I'm 80 but one day when I'm 80 uh I will look back your grandkids will be like I will look I'll look back and be

like yes thank you my tits looked great my ass looked great thank you um so I do I do big up myself a lot a lot I have to can you enjoy the movie Shrek or is it ruined for you I do you do I do I don't even I don't even think about it i don't even put it in relation to me but when i think of middle school i think of that track yeah and being called that now group therapy i've i i've never done group therapy i think it would be hard i'm i'm i i'm doing a couple's counseling and it's it's just a different dynamic because in my therapist i'm kind of very i push myself to be as honest as i possibly can including lots of thoughts that are mean yeah and then like you introduce more people there and you're like well now there's you know i i just feel like i would suddenly be uh censoring myself in a way where i'm like is

this counterintuitive therapy do you like did you like the group therapy? I loved it. I mean, there was a lot of drama. I think people think it's just like you're passing around Kleenex and like crying and that's not it. People would get in fights, which I found fascinating. Did you ever ever swing hands? I know, but I got really mad because we had – I actually don't know if I'm supposed to be talking about this. Well, it's anonymous, so no one will know. But we had a girl that was really religious, and people were really hard on her. And I thought that was really shitty. I'm not religious, but, like, I think that's really shitty.

I wouldn't be – but I remember – So, like, basically what I'm saying is she thought she was a sinner for all the things she was doing and that fucked with her head sure so she would feel suicidal about a lot of the sins and to all of us we're like we're out here like you're you know whatever like sleeping around doing that doing drugs like whatever and so everybody would give her a hard time and I'm like but in her head y'allall, you're not helpful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And so. If you got bullied at group therapy, that would be brutal. I know. I was like, this is a safe space.

Clearly to her, it's important. I don't care that the rest of us aren't religious and we're all going to hell or whatever. Like, you know. But anyways, I think if you did it, you would find that you related to a lot of people. And that's what felt good. Yeah. Was people saying something. You're like, yes, exactly.

Thank you. You know, it was a lot of that. Yeah. Now, before we go to our final segment, I did want to because the one downside I want to talk with. You deal with a lot of, you know, you do the comic cons and you do kind of the nerd culture and kind of the downsides of fandom yeah and particularly i know i'm not in the star wars world at all i'm not in it at all even when i was a kid i don't know why i never connected to space honestly i think space makes me feel existential in a way that makes me uncomfortable i don't like looking at the stars i all i think is all i think is the universe is expanding and and it's all nothingness out there

and it's very it makes me very sad what's your sign now i have to say up front i have to say up front because i'm required i i don't i deeply don't believe in astrology clearly clearly we can tell. Now, I'm going to say it. And Leo, I'm born in August. And yes, I do the things. So Star Wars. Okay. You see these fandoms like the toxicity of them. And what do you think the... I was interested because I saw your tweets.

Well, so right now there's a new cast member. Yeah. What's her name? Moses. Moses. Ingram. and she's getting all sorts of uh star wars has been a notoriously racist fan base is that is that a fair assessment to say no i would say that it's a vocal minority i think that's in every fandom i think it's a vocal minority so they just seem really loud but they don't actually make up yeah yeah but it was like the series at least the first three movies was a striking in its lack of diversity despite being

intergalactic yeah i mean three yeah the it was just uh i don't want to make excuses for them at all i just uh sorry i was looking up something um I don't want to make excuses for them at all. But, you know, I'm excited for the future of Star Wars. It's very, one, I was just literally on a panel about Latinos in space. Because we're, I don't know if you saw that Vanity Fair cover, but we're like all over it. We have Pedro Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Diego Luna. We have Oscar Isaac. We have, we're in there. Yeah. So I'm, I'm excited about it, but no, to answer your question, I think all fandoms have a certain toxic, unfortunately side, but I really think that when I was at Star Wars Celebration,

there were so many good people, like so many people that showed up that were cheering on my friends. My friend, Christina Ariel, she's a, she's a host for them now and they were like cheering her on they were cheering on Kelly Marie Tran there were so many cosplayers that dressed up like Kelly and so for her her character Rose so I do think it's moving in a good direction I just think just like it is with comedy you focus on the, even though the whole room is laughing, even though there's all these great people, you see the one person in front who's being a cunt and you focus on that.

And so I'm not saying not- Do you think the property owners- Yeah. Do enough to protect their diverse stars who in some of these, and if you, you know, you work with a lot of these companies, so i certainly

don't want to put you in an uncomfortable position but like could could more be done from the powers that be to protect their stars knowing that when they make a when they diversify or they cast it they know that they cast a lead of a new star wars thing and that person is not a white dude there's going to be some kind of pushback from a minority of the community and they're going to harass online. And they're going to like, could more be done? I'm sure more could be done. I do like the fact that they've been they they spoke up for my friend Christina. They spoke up for Moses.

You know, we also got to Ewan McGregor himself, like wrote a thing that was basically like you're not a star wars fan which i agree with uh-huh if you because that's the whole thing about a lot of these fandoms it's like how can you call yourself a fan when you don't even follow the own morals of your sure unity sure sure like i was saying like you know even with uh i'm in dc now which i love gotten a lot of love uh being in the dc family but I'm like if you're saying if you're like telling me like go back to your country like are you a fan of Superman because you know like not only is that not his morals he's also literally an immigrant um but like are you paying attention whose side were you on in Star Wars um and so yes of course i i think i think there can always be more i think that uh hopefully now that we know that this is taking place my biggest thing is like these communities a lot of these

discords a lot of these youtube channels allow that to fester you know i imagine that someone hopefully on like the star wars side or whatever has mods that are deleting the comments blocking people but there are a lot of other channels and stuff that don't yeah and so i think that's what needs to happen is i need other fans especially if you look a certain way uh you know you relate to maybe straight white people more than the rest of us do you need to tell people hey we're not going to put up with that. You need to get them out of your community. You need to be blocking them. Like, don't put it on the actors to be doing that.

Yeah. You need to make them feel uncomfortable. No racist should feel comfortable in Star Wars, in Star Wars fandom. It's so wild that it's put on the actors. It's just such a misunderstanding. One of my favorites was, I think, Taylor Swift got mad about some line in some Netflix show. like someone said like you date more guys than taylor swift and taylor swift did something about like how could you do this on international women's month

and people went after the actor who said the line the actor who said the line that's rough and i'm like this poor actor and i just you know i would hope netflix would send a whole crew to her house and protect it and take care of everything yeah because it's just it's just horrible um great we got negative i think we did i think we got there a little and now uh let's go normally have music cues i i you know it's not the home studio but now this is this has got to stop this has got to stop danny something has got to stop hashtag funeral i'm not kidding funeral selfies um selfies i'm i'm just as confused as you are uh but yeah if you look up that's a real thing if you go on instagram and look up hashtag funeral there are uh people posting uh fits, their funeral fits.

Now is the body in the background? Sometimes it is. Yes. The casket. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Well, first of all, I don't think I'd have for a loved one at least. I wouldn't have a viewing.

I don't need to. I don't know. Do you want to see your loved one one final time as a as a corpse it's a weird closure thing sometimes psychologically that people need my girlfriend i got in a fight once because i i said if i died would you like uh like kiss my cheek or something or like pet my head and she was like she was like no i'd be like and it really something into me it made me feel really abandoned yeah it makes sense though i mean i can barely touch a dead mouse and you're like this is a whole dead person yeah but in my mind there's always like the goodbye sweet prince uh but

yeah funeral selfies are weird it's it's i will always remember i had an older friend and she posted on instagram her friend had died and she took a picture in the hospital room he was dead and like you but and like this was not unlike some like you know showing off their fit like she meant this sincerely which made it maybe even worse where she was like you know goodbye she did she did hashtag r.i.p bury my friend like that's gonna trend and when you see are these like la funeral people showing off their looks it's not just la but they definitely find their way over to like twitter and stuff i feel people end up like dragging them so i just want to give you a heads up like don't do it I guess they're with their friends maybe they haven't seen their friends in a long time sometimes it's

grandma a lot of times it's grandma or something like R.I.P. grandma and it'll be like their but that is the thing would you would you have maybe not for Instagram but do you think you'd take pictures at the funeral that's so weird to me I don't know. One thing that I do know is when I die, I want my friends posting the hottest photos of me. And if they don't, I will hex them from the other side. They know too. I know Jay would want that. I know of Jay Jordan, our friend Jay Jordan. Like you better be posting. It's like your birthday. You know, sometimes some of my friends for my birthday, they'll post photos where they look good and I don't.

I'm like, I'm not retweeting this. How dare they? Yeah, how dare you? But I know. I know the ones that my friends think are hot because you can tell because they posted it or they'll post it multiple times. I'm like, all right, let me boost this. What if it's too sexy? I think I could see going like, well, this is too sexy.

The person just died. They'd be like, look at Danny's cheeks. Okay. That's the caption too. Hashtag Danny. Danny, my friend. RIP. That's a good one.

That's a good one. So please stop taking pictures of funerals. Now we move on to our final segment. Oh my God. I normally have the music. I forget the title. It's blessing. Okay.

We say a blessing. I have a blessing. And I like to do this when I normally have the music. I forget the title. It's Blessing. Okay. We say a blessing. I have a blessing. And I like to do this when I have a good weekend. Shawna Blake, my opener in Arkansas. Sorry the Thursday show got canceled. I couldn't compete with Christina Aguilera. But Shawna had a car. She took me some places. We went to the Walmart Museum together.

Wow. And she lives near Tulsa. So book her, please. Love it. Great comedian. Very good opener. And I hope to work with her again. So that's my blessing.

OK. And I'm in L.A. My mom's here. Always goes out to my mom for letting me stay with her and her boyfriend. I love that. Do you have a blessing? My blessing, this might sound cliche or I don't know, but all the people who follow me really help me a lot.

They support my work, which I need. They retweet. Every time I want to delete Twitter, it's like, okay, but I have this comic coming out, and they've shared it. People show up for me. You just had a comic come out. What was it called?

What day is this? Oh, it's going to be in a little bit. Okay. Well, I did have a comic come out, DC Pride 2022. I wrote a Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy story, which you can still get in comic book stores. But my Star Wars panel, people showed up for it. Like people are showing up and I know this. People have showed up for me and some people have been following me for years.

And so, you know, they really look out for me and I appreciate that. I appreciate people who take the time to follow me and my work and share it. Is it ever anxiety inducing? I just did a Bray improv and I think I sold about 93 and i was backstage and it was the first time in a while where i was just like jesus these people gave their sunday for me and i was like i was looking at some new jokes i wanted to work on i think that was also part of it where i'm like this one's probably not going to work this is going to be a 10 rough minutes and i'm like oh they gave me their sunday it can be it can be overwhelming to see people to feel like oh i need to i need to uh

make them feel like their love was worth it i need to live up to their expectations yeah and i could see how that could be exhausting yeah but i do feel like i give back a lot. You know, I feel like I'm constantly on panels talking about how I broke in. I, as you know from following me, feel like I'm constantly tweeting out positive things to try to, like, get our community to get back up. Because I feel we're just constantly down. We're just constantly bombarded with horrible things at all times. And so a lot of times when I tweet honestly every time I tweet something positive it's something that I personally needed to hear but a lot of times people will be like how did you know this is like

exactly what I needed to hear or like I'm crying in my room and this was like the sign I needed um to hang in there and so I do try to give back quite a bit. Well, good. That was lovely. I realized even as you're saying your blessing, I was I was like trying to challenge your blessing. And that's a horrible, horrible. I the the comic was well received. Yes. It's gotten a lot of good reviews. I'm really excited.

I'm really glad. I'm really glad people love it. Is it is is comic books? Is it like a gay friendly space? Like Jay loves X-Men and Jay post shit. All the X-Men fucking each other are just very homoerotic. And I'm like, wow, there's a I didn't know this was part of the D.C. world. Well, that's Marvel. But oh, boy, here we go. Well, yeah, I mean, D.C. canonically, I mean, Wonder Woman canonically queer.

She's from an island of women. They're not all virgins. I can tell you that. Yeah. And then Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy. Like they're literally fucking each other on HBO Max. So you can see them do it when when they make a movie where instead of Batman versus Superman Batman loves Superman when they make that that's when we're please write him not me please oh no I'm gonna get doxxed um okay so this is coming out June 28th. Is there anything you want to plug specifically? No, yeah, just follow me on my socials, at Ms. Dani Fernandez, M-S-D-A-N-I-F-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z.

Know that mental health is a journey. I do not have all the answers. I do not speak for literally anyone but myself. So if you're like, this thing really helped me, I'm glad. Because just find what works for you and know that it's a process um i have all the answers and life is a nightmare and you know being upset makes a lot of sense to me i will be in nashville july 1st uh july 9th i'll be headlining Bonkers in Orlando. July 14th through 16th, I will be in Denver, Colorado.

And July 22nd, 23rd, I'm in Toronto for the first time performing in Canada. Please come out to that. I always like to end this on some kind of negative way. Wow. If you're reading comic books, grow the fuck up. Wow. This is The Downside.

One, two, three. Wow. you're reading comic books grow the fuck up wow this is the downside you're listening to the downside with john marco cerezi