The Watch - Non-'Thrones' HBO Content and a Conversation With David Cross | The Watch

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

On the night that “Battle of Winterfell” aired, it was ‘Barry’ that contained the best action sequence (1:00). The final season of ‘Veep’ seems like it might be falling victim to Thronesian pacing (13:30). Plus, a conversation with David Cross ahead of the premiere of his stand-up special, ‘Oh Come On’ (31:03). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Alison Herman and David Cross Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Mayo Q? Mayo must. And cranch. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at Thringer.com.

And joining me in the studio, it's my perpetual running mate. Allison Herman. What's up, Allison? Great introduction. Thanks. I try. You know,

Today we're going to be talking a little bit about Veep and Barry. And later in the show, I have my conversation with the comedian David Cross about his new stand-up special, Oh, Come On. But first, Allison and I are going to talk about non-thrones HBO television. Is this the subcategory? It exists. Yeah. People may not be aware of it, but it's around.

Can I ask you a general question? I know that you and I are not reliable narrators in this conversation because we are firmly, not only are we inside the bubble, we are like, teamsters making the bubble. in this case. Yeah, we're puffing up the bubble. But it does feel like this, all shows going up against Game of Thrones are like footnotes right now, right? Like it's interesting that Barry, Veep, and Killing Eve and a couple of other things

are kind of forced to deal with these scraps of pop culture leftover after DeNaris blog number nine. Oh, absolutely. And I think you can also tell that the rest of television has kind of cleared out of the way. Like, you know, Mind Hunter and Succession are coming back in August. There's a whole bunch of stuff coming in June. In case, Chris Ryan's month. Yeah, it's Chris Ryan's month and Allison's trial, I guess, is what we can call it.

But. Triumph, like, on back. Exactly. But, yeah, no, I definitely think you can tell that there was a tactical decision on a lot of schedulers' behalf that we're going to hold our big swings until a little later. Especially Netflix, it seems like there hasn't been like a really marquee Netflix show in the last couple weeks. Am I right? Dead to me?

Yeah, Dead to me is the biggest one, but Dead to Me is kind of Thrones counterprogramming. Yeah. It's very low-key, realistic-ish, I guess. But, you know. Newport Beach real estate porn. A little bit of Desperate Housewives in there. Yeah, I was just thinking about that because, I mean, obviously, you've been doing the recapables with Kate and doing a great job with killing Eve this season. But I literally don't have time to talk about it, much less keep up with it.

Like, I think I'm one episode behind on Eve. But for something that was so well regarded last year, do you feel like it might have been a little bit of a mistake to put it at this exact time of year? this year? I mean, it definitely is effective counter-programming, I think, and I do think simulcasting it on AMC makes a difference. I also just last year, the same thing happened where when it was airing live, there was very little buzz about it, and then it hit on Hulu, and all of a sudden it became a thing. So I could also see AMC networks just kind of thinking to themselves. It doesn't necessarily matter when we air this, because so much of the audience, according to them, comes in iTunes sales and streaming and other non-traditional ways in.

Yeah, it's interesting because when we had Brian Raftery on the pot a couple of weeks ago and Sean and I were talking to him about his book, Best Movie Year Ever, you know, there's a bunch of those movies that were made with an eye towards the home entertainment market, like figuring, okay, we'll do X amount of business in the theater, but maybe in the future we'll be able to recoup some of our costs with, like, a healthy DVD sales. And obviously movies like office space, like kind of live off of that or lived off. lived off that. I kind of feel like that's almost happening with TV now a little bit more,

where it's like, obviously we don't really talk about ratings nearly as much as we did 15, 10 years ago. But for something like what you're saying with Killing Eve, where they're like, yeah, we're going up against the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the decade. So obviously there's going to be a little less attention paid on it. But they are counting on like, when you're done Thrones, binge Eve, right? Yeah, we'll be right here. I also think killing Eve this season, this is such a weird thing to say about an espionage thriller because obviously there is a ton of plot. But I do think it is a show that you go to for the vibe

and to spend time with these people and people aren't exactly distraught that they're missing out on the very latest developments in this cat and mouse game. It's just like, okay, whenever I want, I can go hang out with my best friend's Sandra O and Jody Comer, and that's just waiting for me whenever, whereas with Thrones, there's the urgency

if you need to watch it right now. One of the things that I've always sort of been fascinated, I'd love to go back through the years and kind of look at this. I know the HBO's numbers are a little bit different, but obviously lead-ins are very important on television, and Game of Thrones functions as maybe the best lead-in you could possibly have, although this year with the extended episodes,

I do wonder whether that's affecting whether or not people have the emotional and mental fortitude to go into an episode of Barry right after it? Yeah, I don't know if those are the best juxtaposition. It's not like, oh, I'm really down after watching half the people I know die. I really should just... Let's watch Hader Kill People and then watch Joan Orion lobby against Vangestown. Of America with chicken pox. Let's talk a little bit about Barry.

The tenuous but somewhat their connection that I'd like to make between that and Thrones is this idea of the narrative accordion, like compression and expansion of how much time is passing, what's going to be happening in these episodes. And I thought Barry really expertly tackled what to do with your second season. Because it really did feel like of a piece of the first season, a lot of the tensions and a lot of the questions from the first season

are still being sort of teased out in this season. But I do feel like it still has enough to surprise you on a week-to-week basis to keep it. It doesn't feel road. It doesn't feel like they're just kind of playing greatest hits. Totally. I actually wrote about this at the beginning of the season. But just in terms of the big picture questions that someone like me has going in in terms of how does the season justify itself,

I think thematically it was an incredibly smart evolution of the question is very good, bad person and the answer is no and then it realizes that there's a whole extra question to be asked after that, which is how long is it going to take for him to admit to himself that he's a bad person? Right. And then I think the thing that I underestimated, which is just, you know, you need that conceptual underlying question to drive the show. But then on top of that, it's also just incredibly well made and super funny. And a lot of that comes out of them knowing exactly what they're doing at a conceptual level.

So the example I would give is they did this amazing bottle episode. I believe it's Ronnie slash Lily. Ronnie slash Lily. So good. Weirdly, the connection with Thrones is not even that tenuous because a lot of Twitter jokesters, myself included, pointed out after the long night, which I know you don't agree with this, but I thought was very disappointing. Yeah.

Was kind of like, oh, actually the best action sequence that you can see on HBO was Barry and not Thrones. But it's an action sequence where the joke is totally rooted in Barry's character. So, for example, it's hilarious when he walks in in this ski mask to this dude with a Taekwondo metal. And it's like, you know, my boss really wants me to kill you, but I'm actually going to help you escape to Chicago. And as a viewer, it's hilarious because of course that's not going to happen. You know it's not going to happen. It's so stupid and futile that Barry would think it's going to happen.

But it's that dramatic irony of this character diluting himself into thinking he is a way out when he obviously doesn't. I'm glad you brought up Rodney and Lily because it's my favorite episode of TV this year. Yeah, that's entirely fair. You know, I mean, I would call it Tarantino-esque, but usually what people mean when they say that is it's got tough guys, violent characters who are making pop and culture-infused meta-commentary about themselves or a sense of humor about themselves. And obviously, like, Tarantino is capable of a lot more. It's like the narrative, you know, formal structural stuff that he does. But that's usually what people would mean when they say Tarantino-esque. but that episode of Barry felt Tarantino-esque

in that it was a lot like that the Marcellus Butch part of Pulp Fiction where it basically feels like an expert storyteller telling you a story at a party and you're just completely gripped and have no idea what's going to happen next but not in like a twisty-turning way more like I'm completely at your mercy

as to where you want to take this and television can feel really wrote like you can have like these three sets and you just keep returning to them over and over again, because that's the economical way to make TV is to, like, have a place where you're setting a show and kind of cycle through these environments. I didn't know where they were going to go that night.

I didn't know, like, it was in that guy's house for a while. I don't know how long they were going to fight for. I thought, I'm going to fight for, like, 30 minutes. And then it kind of, like, wanders throughout that neighborhood, and it goes to the supermarket. It was just such an amazing adventure. And it's super funny because the supermarket scene is actually the profile of Bill Hader

that ran in the New Yorker in advance of the season. And yeah, they report from the shooting of that scene. And I remember reading it and thinking, oh, no, I don't really want the plot details of the new season to be spoiled for me in advance. And I basically forgot about it. And then they're in the supermarket. And I was like, oh, my God, like, that's that scene. And it's so incredible when you read the interviews that Hater did in terms of how they came up with it. And they literally hit on this concept because their stunt coordinator was just like, hey, if you ever need her, I just know this little girl who's insanely good at this because her parents are both stuck.

coordinators and she's really schooled. And they just kind of were spitballing in the writer's rooms about things that Barry could do and people he could kill. And then eventually they were like, oh, yeah, we can use this kid. And it's just one of those happy accidents of television production that you hear about where they didn't have it in their minds ahead of time, but it just turned into this total series highlight. Yeah. And I thought it was really interesting in that the highlight of Barry's last season for me, and, you know, who knows, we could still see some amazing stuff in the remaining two episodes. But it was that seventh episode where Barry's struggle for his soul comes to a head along with the acting piece of it. And it's a very decisive, like,

storytelling thing that meaningfully changes how you view Barry's character. And I thought this was interesting in that not necessarily a whole lot happens from a plot point of view or even just like our understanding of Barry and Fuchs is pretty much where it was when we started except we give a little more of an idea of just how bad Fuchs is and how unsalienable that relationship is. And where in his life he's kind of come in.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I thought it was interesting in that the episode doesn't necessarily shift that. It just takes this preexisting dynamic and comes up with this incredibly vivid and hilarious way to illustrate it. Yeah, I love how they've basically, Barry is trying to sort of atone

for the things that he's done by like playing the same. game but playing with one hand tie behind his back. It's like he's not going to fight with the Chechnins, but he's going to train them. You know, or the, you know, he's not going to fight with Noho Hank's guys, but he's going to train them. And when he goes to go assassinate the Taekwondo guy, he's like, but I've come up with this new plan for you where we can just take you to Chicago.

Yeah, the mental gymnastics are truly impressive. Yeah, but that really does fit with a guy who's like, I'm trying to make up for these incredibly, you know, like these sins that I've committed. by like these small little adjustments rather than like a wholesale life change. Yeah, and that one big refusal to actually approach self-knowledge comes. Basically, you end up with all these just blatant lies that he's telling himself, like the idea that Gene Kousenau is going to accept him. When he's told him this like one relatively minor part of his bigger war story

and Gene cannot let go of it. And rather than internalizing that because Barry is in this bigger self-deception, He's like, oh, no, no, no, like Gene understands me because he needs to convince himself that he is a life raft who is not fuchs. I could literally listen to Winkler say, we shouldn't do that because you killed a man and gone over and over again. Also, wonderful story that apparently Henry Winkler read the famous James Panoazek, New York Times. I don't know if this should have a second season and like went to Bill Hader and Alecberg and was like, guys, what are we doing? Should we be doing this? And they were like, calm down.

Hater talked about that with Bill where he was like, it's really like. a weird feeling when people are coming up to and be like, man, Barry, don't need any more of that. You nailed it. He's just like, thanks, like, I guess. But, you know, I think that they, you know, one of the things that's sort of been driving everybody slightly out of their minds

with Thrones this year is this feeling like we're weirdly being robbed of something here because of the speed at which the plot is moving. I'm assuming that Hater had some idea that three was going to come to so that he was going to get to do a third season. And I think that they're pacing appropriately. I think that they're exploring the world, but they're not, like, getting out ahead of

their skis at all. Oh, I totally agree. And I'm just so excited to see more and to see what's going to happen in this world. And I do think, like, two to three is a easier conceptual leap for a lot of people, including myself, to make, than one to two. Absolutely. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about VEP, which comes to a series finale on Sunday and has been, man, I don't even know how to describe, first of all, like, it is deep is like the most pleasurable 30 minutes of my, life every week probably. Oh, wow. Just to get the, like, now I'm going into this weird world where, like, it's just, like,

pure jokes for 30 minutes like this. And I think that you could make the argument that this season of Veep is not one of the best seasons of Veep in the classical idea of what this show is capable of being. But it is definitely, like, they're, like, emptying all of the, like, joke barrels. I mean, speaking of Thronesian plot acceleration. Yes. did not realize until literally yesterday that this final season of VEP is going to be just seven episodes.

Yeah. Not eight, not 10, seven. So I was just totally like, oh my, I thought we were just heading into the final stretch. Well, that was like, I think ordinarily, we probably would have had like a week or two of like what VEP is meant in tribute to Julie. I mean, we probably will in some capacity. I mean, you're writing about it next week. But they've kind of like not flown under the radar, but I think that they have been. kind of just quietly going about this last season

and next thing you know, oh my gosh, it's going off the air after that next Sunday. Totally. And in terms of how it measures up to past incarnations of VEB, I've been revisiting older seasons. Yes, that's what I was to ask a little bit about. Yeah. Well, I'm not even sure if I would characterize it totally

in terms of like quality, whether this is better or worse. Although I can probably be up front and say I prefer the earlier incarnation of the show, but it is a different incarnation. It is literally changed how it was. works on an almost molecular level. It's just a totally different series in a really interesting way.

So can you tell me a little bit about how without stealing from your own piece, I guess? Oh, well, basically, I'm brainstorming. Okay, good. That's good. I'm just spitballing out in front of a microphone. But, I mean, so obviously the first four seasons were under Armando Junucci and the last three have been under David Mandel. I think, you know, the characterization of Selena is definitely different.

I think in earlier seasons, you can, she's a little more, you can tell that she is personally principled. and then she's slowly been worn down. But I think you could argue that's more of a series-long arc is like she starts as a better person and ends as like a total shell. Yeah. I just think what happens,

and I don't even know if you could just, I don't even know if you could characterize this as like American comedy versus British comedy, but it gets broader and bigger and faster. And I think the eunuchy era in the show would have these borderline pretty serious workplace office plot lines that were just kind of punctuated occasionally by these incredibly lewd one-liners.

but they would, you know, things were given more space to breathe. And I actually think the biggest, like, big picture dynamic on the show that's changed a lot is VEP used to be a show about powerlessness and indignity and futility and being marginalized within this bigger, you know, system. And you just inflate these totally picky mistakes. Like, the season one thing that was about frozen yogurt. Sure, sure. And now I think Selena doesn't necessarily have real power, but she is usually the most powerful person in the room. Like she is just kind of the captain of her own mini-universe, and that's allowed her to become worse and to become more overtly abusive to everyone around her. But I think it's really changed the underlying dynamic of the series.

And I do think what's thrown me off the most about the last season is everything we've been told until now is basically Selena Meyer has never, except for, I guess, her seditorial career, gotten like democratically elected power in her own right. She's only ever like fallen ass backwards into the vice presidency and then the presidency and then she lost her real campaign. And now she's in this primary, and I guess part of it is the whole foreign interference thing. Yeah. But it's like all of a sudden she is sort of popular. And there's just no understanding of how she interacts with the American electorate in a way that can make me make sense of her as a national political figure. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that the best way to probably like sum up is like everything is now done for the bit of the show. So like even a character as extreme as Jonah has not. now like pushed through the final frontier of any kind of grounding and is like absolutely

the funniest thing like I've seen in years is just like watching Jonah this year. And yet like it's it is weirdly divorced almost from like early season Jonah. If that makes any sense. Yeah. Or something will happen like the revelation that Lloyd played by John Carroll Lynch's his real dad. And then like he and his wife after the revelation that they are actually half siblings just kind of continue on like nothing is happening. Is that a game of Thrones joke? No, it's just that the show, everything on HBO is the same show. I know.

And, you know, like Amy becoming Kelly Ann Comedy, basically. Yeah, Flash Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But just, like, in the space of an episode. I also just, as comedy, I find the punchlines a little more predictable, which is one of the things that I can definitively say I like a little less about the current version. That's fair. Like, they have this recurring comic device with Selena where she'll just say something and then immediately contradict it, like that bit that was in the truth. where she's like, you know, I'm very persuasive. And then Kent and Ben are like, no, and then she's like, you're wrong.

And they're like, yes. And it's like, that's funny in the moment. But I can, like, as soon as she said that, I knew where the scene was going. Whereas I think the Yunucci aspect of it was a little more like, I just have no idea what's about to come out of anyone's mouth because it could be a totally normal, grounded emotional response. Or it could be dancing something disgusting about a girl he had sex with in college. Like, anything can happen.

Oh, yeah. But then now it's like the heights of Dan's evil are something I also appreciate. The Dan, the OBGYN and Amy. The OBGYN who did Amy's abortion is inspired. I do enjoy it. It's just really interesting to see like almost gradually how much the show has transformed. Yes. Yeah.

I think that even like the Jonah's wife becoming an opioid addict in like 12 minutes is sort of like and to rehab. Yes. Like we literally learn that she is taking these pills and then he's like, My hot wife has gone to rehab, like six minutes later. You're like, okay. But see, I feel bad, but I'm laughing. I mean, I laugh.

It's just, it's always interesting to see in television, like, how much of an impact a showrunner leaving is going to have. We've obviously talked about this with Killing Eve. And I think with Veep, there was that, like, transition zone. I think season five was pretty in line with what VEP used to be. And then once she leaves the presidency in season six, and it's in the post-presidency zone, and they're in like truly unprecedented territory plot-wise, I think that's where it started to like really recalibrate.

Can we just do like a couple quick minutes on Thrones? Sure. The reason why I ask is because you and I traded places over the last two weeks. Yeah, it's quite the twist. After long night, I was like that ruled. And then over the course of the week was like I accept people's military strategy critiques apparently and like all these other things and why maybe there were some problems with the episode. Yeah, not military strategy.

I would frame them as more, you know, series-long thematic defining questions. But there were a lot of people out there being like move the trench five feet back. Yeah, I just don't think that would have been as abrasive to people if the character work had felt consistent with what the show had previously been. So I enjoyed Long Night and you were like not so much. And then this last episode, this is always the most fascinating thing. So just so people know, like basically like I watched the episode in something of like a vacuum. So did I. Yeah, I watch it.

Then we go do the show for an hour afterwards, and then I look at my phone, and it's always interesting to kind of see how it's being interpreted by people. And you were like, that's my favorite episode in years, this last episode, the last of the Starks. And it was then, that kind of got raked over the coals for a while. Totally. And it was really, it is like less to the extent that you guys are because you're literally in a studio making something.

But I did do the thing where my focus group was just like the four or five other writers and editors I was talking with when we were refining our angles. And all of us immediately, like Andrew Gurdadarro and Riley and I were all like, that was way better than the long night. Name them and shame them. Yep.

Please at them as well as me. I need to spread the impact. But yeah, it was, we were all in pretty solid agreement that this was a good episode in the sort of later Thrones landscape. And then I wrote my thing and then everyone, you know,

vocally disagree. But I do think part of it was I wrote my piece about Tyrion and that's a character. I really care about and has been really mishandled, I think, over the last couple of years. And this was, like, his most important and best episode in a really long time. Part of it was, I think you could also sense, at least on my end, that people have complained that Benny Off and Weiss don't really care about the fantasy elements, and they do care about the

political power elements. And I would rather have them spend time on something that they want to spend time on, which... That's really good advice. Yes. Which is what I perceived this episode to be, where it's like, okay, if you're going to get the white, walkers out of the way, then we should at least see what you were getting them out of the way for. So that was interesting to me. But I do think I'm actually, this is another piece I'm writing for the site that's going to go up,

I think, tomorrow. But it has been fascinating to watch, like, the critical apparatus around Thrones has just no consensus about, I mean, the last two episodes, I think, are the most extreme example, but really the whole season. Something like, are you choosing to have sex with Gendry? I was one of the people who was like, oh, this is a really great, interesting idiosyncratic moment for this character who hasn't gotten to be fully human and a long. time. But then I know other critics who were like, this was really mishandled because we haven't

had any time to see her grow and be an adult. I've gone back and forth on Jamie and Brienne. I've gone back and forth on Ari and Gendry. I've gone back and forth on whether or not there. That conversation between Sonson and the Hound, I thought was really interesting. That I think is a little more of an example of people just are not in a place to give Thrones the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how to handle sexual assault. And especially with that character. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's been a fascinating experience this year. I mean, obviously, I don't think that we will It'll be a long time before we find a show that's under this kind of critical scrutiny

and it's interesting to show the limits of what a TV show can kind of withstand I think in some ways. Although I do think that they are making some unforced errors for sure. It's just interesting. I was talking with somebody about like, I wonder what would happen if you went back

to season three or four and you were like watching it with this level of intense scrutiny but the entire thing is just like at three and four you were like this show is going to go on. for like five to ten more years, so I'm not worried about that. Well, and three and four, that was when it was backed up by the books, so people sort of,

A, knew it was coming, and B, had, like, had time to sort through what that thing was. I mean, the answer I landed on in terms of why no one can seem to agree over what makes good or bad Thrones anymore is we used to have a pretty solid rubric for what Thrones was, both just literally in terms of the books, but also, you know, the books were all about subverting fantasy as something dictated by, you know, heroic tropes and happy endings and making sure, like, the consequences grew out of what came, or actions grew up, were consequences of what came before them. And you could only make the critique that Thrones isn't like that anymore so many times until you realize that's just, like, not really what Benny Off and Weiss seem to be

aiming for. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I can take my issue with as an overall creative decision, but then you're like, okay, what is the show they're making? What are they trying to do? What is the thing that we're going to focus on? And I think for some people, like, you know, you and Andy talked about this in the long night. It's just the absolutely incredible feat of production that it takes to do. I do think that part of it is like they wanted to make several blockbuster movies. Yeah. And whether you call that training for Star Wars or whatever it is, but it does seem like when you watch those after the episodes, they're just like, we fucking made a big production here, man. Like we really did it. Look, we built Winterfell, you know? Yeah. And that is really, you know,

awe-inspiring. And I think some people are kind of like, okay, I can deal with the plot shortcoming. if I can, you know, see this really unprecedented level of TV scope. And for some people, like my read on it, which is why I enjoyed the last episode so much, is I'm really in it for, like, these small character moments. And you don't really have space for that when there are, like, millions of screaming whites outside. So the battle wasn't amazing for that. You were talking about how the dialogue is just, like, grunt, horse-naying, whatever. Go!

Exactly. And, like, if you can give me an episode that has multiple scenes of Tyrion and Varus in a room, debating what makes a good ruler. Like, that is what I go to this show for now. Or just like seeing these actors cook and like giving them the stillness in the room to just bounce off one another.

Like, I actually like the bronze scene. I do think it should have been longer, but... I think in retrospect, I just feel like it felt a little tonally off for the rest of the episode. Oh, yeah. No, I can definitely see that. It was just more, like, he enters the room and I was immediately like, it makes no sense that he's here. Yeah. Just travel time wise,

winterfell security-wise, whatever, but I am just so glad to see, you know, Jerome Flynn and Peter Dinklage and Nicolae Kosterwaldow bouncing off one another. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that I'm not necessarily that concerned with the logistics of it. And, but, you know, for some people, that's not what they're looking for either. And, or they want that to be undergirded by like plot logic or what have you. Sure. And it's just really interesting to see everyone kind of like sift through Thrones for the glimpses of what it used to be that they can seize onto or just trying to grapple with the new status quo and see, you know, what the final mission is before we actually get to see it in the

finale. Yeah, I'll be interested to see how these next two play out for obvious reasons, but I think that we're going to get one of each. You know what I mean? Like, I think we'll, I think, five will be like three. Yes, five we have been told is going to be a really big battle episode. And six, and six, I think, will be this really interesting Coda. And it will, it'll honestly, you know, it'll define the legacy of the show in some ways. I don't think it will affect people's enjoyment of the show. I'm sure it will be something that people continue to rewatch over and over again in the binge mode style. But the level of satisfaction people take out of that last episode will definitely determine how they feel about the series itself.

Yeah, I think the show, it's very interesting to watch the story have to go from, this is all Realpolitik. It's not prescriptive. It's just like what would happen towards like. one of the things you have to do when you deliver the ending to a big geopolitical struggle is they're going to have to, you know, provide some vision of what they think a good ruler is, what they think a good, you know, Westerosy regime is. And you can see certain people start to chafe at that when they have the, you know,

Varus and Tyrion concluding that John is going to be a better ruler and people being like, wait, do we really have evidence of that? Is Danny really so bad? Is Westeros really like this misogynist? Like, we just don't know. And it'll be interesting to see if, like, the show is setting Tyrion and Varus up Show me the U-Gov polls. Yes, exactly.

Electability. It's really a pressing question. Yeah. Okay, Allison, thank you so much. So Veep wraps up Sunday. Allison's piece on that will be up on Monday. It will.

Game of Thrones. We have the penultimate episode on Sunday, Allison's piece about the critical discourse around the show will be up tomorrow. I think so. Fingers crossed. And yeah,

we'll have you on soon to talk about, I'm sure, all these shows. Well, Fleetbag's coming out next week. That's right. Gird your loins, people. All right, Allison, thanks so much. We'll be back after a quick word from our sponsor.

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David Crossman, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. This is kind of a thrill for me. I think I got, I mean, obviously was familiar with your work, but hearing your voice is a weird, like, sense memory because I remember, I used to work at Mondo Kim's

in the early 2000s. With the one in the East Village? Yeah, on St. Marks. And we used to listen to shut up your fucking baby over and over and over again to kill time during shifts. I was at, a lot.

Yeah. I mean, I probably were there when we were listening to it. Yeah, could been, yeah. Well, that's cool. That's cool to hear. Yeah. Yeah, that store was great.

And so few of those kind of things left anymore. I know. I don't even know what that is anymore. It was like, I think it was like a massage parlor or like some of day spa for a while. Isn't it a noodle place? Is that?

I think it's a noodle place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a bunch of things. As a lot of those, like half of St. Mark's is, you know, left over from the seven. 70s and 80s, and then half of it is constantly changing.

It's like Trash Vaudeville is almost like an UNESCO historical site now. Well, it should be. I got stuff that I wore in high school from Trash and Bluffer. Did you really? Yeah, like this chartreuse jacket that I put pins on, a pork pie hat. It was very kind of like new wavey, punky kind of thing. Oh, and I had a shirt that, again, this is like 1981. 1980, so it was all like, you know, new wave style, and it was black.

It was like kind of short shirt. The material was like a little silky-ish. Yeah. And then it was black, but then on either side in kind of right down the center of thick, like a big one, a kind of orange, crushed orange velvet type of stripe down, thick stripe. That's been lost to the dust. I have no idea where it is, yeah. Yeah. Oh, come on comes out this week. I loved it. Oh, thank you. And it was very cool. There's this brief moment in the beginning of it.

So Lance Bangs directed this one. And he catches you. It's like probably like a 10 second shot or something. But you're kind of going through these sort of like, it's almost like a pregame ritual. It seems like you're going through like these gestures of like in your head. Maybe you're doing material. I don't know. What? You're just kind of like kind of like punching your handle. We got like some like a little bedo hand going like a little bit.

Is that what it's called? I don't know. It is on this spot. But I was wondering if you do have a pregame ritual that you are aware of. I'm going to guess that what that was, because of the beginning where you hear the audio. Yeah, it's cut to black. Okay, so I'm going to guess that that was me listening to the music. because the intro music is also the

the outro music in the special because it all comes around on itself so when I leave during the encore okay that's it thank you we start the music starts but the outro music is also the intro music so it becomes the intro and that was I had Will Arnett

do this thing he was the intro voice that comes on over what a time to be alive by SuperChunk Yeah. So that was, I'm guessing, is a long-winded wigs. But that was me sort of to the being, getting ready to be introduced. Okay. That song would always pump me up and I'd, you know, and I'd play it loud.

Like we had loud house music, and it's one of my favorite parts of touring is I make all the house music that people are coming into that's playing as people are being seated and getting drinks and all that stuff. That's all me putting together, like, you know, compilation stuff. And then that gets played pushed really hard and the lights go down. And so that's me getting, I'm guessing, me getting, you know, hyped up for it. Hiped up and getting ready to go on. Is it, is the preparation different

when you know you're going to be filmed versus you're still kind of like just doing any other night kind of date? No, yeah, it's not really different. Pretty much same thing, you know. The flow of the show, which I think you've, in other interviews, talked about, like you're kind of, you have like these buckets for lack of a better term

that you kind of like have where maybe it's a they're like these tight jokes there's anecdotes and then there's maybe more like politically charged you know in observation

do you write to those things or do you find that that's just like a good balance for like an hour long set I've found probably going back three or four

tours or sets whatever that the recipe that works for me that I feel comfortable with That I want, that I desire is, you know, roughly a third is jokes that have no, you know, political bias to them. You can just whatever you think, whatever you love, whatever you believe, you can enjoy that joke because it has nothing to do with anything. It's just a joke.

So roughly a third of that. Mitch McConnell's just like, great joke. Yes. He loves it. He loves my early stuff. He used to come in to Kim's all the time. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Straight to the Japaname. And then roughly a third is political, religious, and then roughly a third is anecdotal kind of personal stuff. So I just feel like that's a good mix. I guess that's what I would want. Like I've always said, I find zero interest in, you know, an evening of gay comedy or Jewish comedy

or feminist comedy or black comedy or whatever, you know, fill it in. That just seems terrible to me. And I would rather, I just want to keep it sort of well-rounded, I guess. And I also don't like to jump into, you know, hard stuff. I like to ease into it. And part of that is I want, I want to know, even if I walk people. And I know in my heart, like, I gave you an hour or 45 minutes of good. stuff that you were happy with until I mentioned the Trump stuff. You know what I mean? Like,

I know I gave you that. So if you walk out of here like, fuck this, man, you know, I had no, I didn't know he's going to talk about, whatever, I know that I gave you 45 minutes, you know, of stuff that has nothing to do with anything. Walkout still happen? Well, too, I mean, this is a different set. This special is, I mean, because of, you know, a big chunk of the subject matter about being a dad. it flavors it in a way. And it's kind of cool because it's the only set I've done

that feels like it has a... It feels more fully realized than other sets where I'm happy with that material, but those were bits, and they are all, you know, you sequence some of you put them together, that's your show,

but this one has a kind of a vague feeling of a thread through it. And that's new. It has like a coherence, like a narrative coherence almost too. Yeah. Do you think that that's a product of it coming so, not quickly, but so soon after the last one?

Like, do you think that you're just like, you were in a groove or that you were able to, like, iterate off of it? No, I'll tell you what I think it was. Again, obviously having a kid and that informing so much of the other material, or at least that material that would have been there regardless whether I had a kid or not, now has a different feeling because you're contextualizing it as this is the, this is the, world and bringing a child into. But I think it's more of a product, and I'm guessing here, I haven't really thought about

this, but I think it's more of a product of how I put this set together, how it came to be, which I've never done before, which is starting from scratch. So all the other tours, there was like a five, five and a half year period in between them because I was working. I was doing, you know, TV shows and I just had no time. But I'm always doing stand-up. So you have days off and stuff and you're doing, you know, friend shows and hopping on shows, doing benefits, things like that. So I would have literally five years of material, and I would just sort of cobble it together and take a guess, and I'd try to structure it, and I'd go to UCB and do an hour there and try to figure out what the set is because I had too much material and how do you sequence it?

And this time, because it came so quickly after the last one, with the exception of one or two bits that I hadn't ever aired, but I'd done like as encore pieces or stuff. I mean, I was starting from scratch. Yeah. And so I think you're, because I was building an entire set, that's how that came to be, I think, as opposed to, you know, oh, I remember this bit, this is good, this will fit nicely with this one.

You know, it's, it's like almost like, like an album versus a playlist or something like that, like the playlist being like you have all this like scraps of stuff and you're just fitting it together. There's a definite flow to this. And I was, you know, I was writing this stuff as I was just putting it together as I was writing it

as opposed to vice versa. And did you do a lot of the writing in England? Because I know that you were sort of like in that limbo where you had made Blit the first series of Bliss, right? Yeah. I was doing sets a bunch when I could. But man,

yeah, I was working my ass off on that thing because I was, there wasn't a whole lot of free time. But Bliss had aired. I came out to L.A. to do arrested. So we finished Bliss, sent it in, turned it in, whatever. And it was also for Sky, which is a big, huge thing. And they're akin to doing like a network here where they are ratings.

So many of the things I've done, ratings don't matter as much, you know. And ratings matter to them. and so we had to wait till it aired to find out to get an idea of whether they were going to pick it up. But even before that, my gut was telling me, I'm not so sure about this. And so I was out in L.A. to do arrested, and we were contractually assigned to and paid to write a Bible for Series 2 for Bliss and then write the first two episodes. Okay, great. We'll do that, occupy our time. but we still were going to have to wait. Yeah.

Like half a year. My gut was telling me they weren't going to pick it up, and I just decided, you know, I'm not going to sit around and wait with nothing, you know, if they do decide they're not going to pick it up six months from now, now what do I do? I'm going to be starting over. So why don't I just start doing sets and start putting together a new hour and a half, and if they do pick it up, then I've got all that material in my back pocket,

ready to go. And if not, then fuck it, boom, push the button, June 1st, we're going out on the road. So that kind of coincided with moving back to New York and not having that time in my kid. It's one of the greatest pleasures I've had was putting the set together because I literally would get on my bike or walk to one of three venues, not far from my apartment in Brooklyn. and from January, we went out in June, but literally from like the second week of January until June, I was doing, on average, three sets a week, and I go up there with notes and record it. And that was at night. My kid would be go to sleep. I leave.

And I realize, and I'm very appreciative of the fact that I got to spend so much time with my kid in her first two years, It was like that 95% of American fathers don't get to do. And I was with her a lot. And it was a great experience and also kind of informed the comedy. Good material there. So, yeah, it was starting from scratch, which I had never done before. And I feel like I've been rambling for like 10 minutes. I don't even know what your original question was, and I apologize.

I mean, I was curious to do. Did he even have anything to do in comedy? She definitely did. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the differences in the political material between 16 and now. Between making... Sure. Yeah, because I think that everybody, regardless of your political affiliation, but for a lot of people probably listening to this podcast,

like they've gone through various stages of grief, acceptance, denial, rage, whatever, but also as a comedian who's looking at this in terms of material, I'm curious about how your relationship has changed from your subject. You're very, like, forthcoming about, like, he's kind of... There are no bits for him. Well, I think he is the bit. I think that's the key to, first of all, it's what I'm interested in, and I'm not really interested in things, jokes, observations about Trump the person.

They've all been made. And, you know, all the late show, late night comics, you know, late show, whatever, and the people with strip shows are doing that well. They're making jokes about the thing that he said today. and there's nothing more to be said about the person. And what I find infinitely more interesting and have more longevity to it is about his fans, about the people that like him.

And that's kind of what I did in Making America Great special. It's a little less about Trump. This one's much kind of less about him and more about the zeitgeist, where the time we're in and the people. And there's a bit that I dropped fairly early on because I'm always writing on stage

and coming up with new stuff. So, you know, the shows, by the time I taped the special, you know, it's 25% different than when I started and then the CD that'll come out. And the CD is Birmingham and the special is Asheville.

Yeah. Okay. Or the special is filmed in early August. The CD was taped in early November. Oh, okay. So, and there's, you know, that's different than the special just because I keep riding and dropping certain things. But there was a bit I dropped that I really like.

It just felt like it was too much. And as I said, I don't want to do too much political stuff. I want to keep it. I have a sense of when it's feeling a little like, okay, let's move on. But one of the bits I have was that whole idea of, you know, what's the term for, you know, liberal tears or, you know, own in the libs or whatever. and what people, the sacrifices they make that they're not even aware of for the feeling of owning the lives. And I basically do this, I'm not going to do the whole bit because I'm going to use it at some point. But this guy who's just basically, you know, burned down his house and done all these,

because he's all these products that are sponsoring, you know, or pulled their sponsorship from, you know, Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham or whatever. And he's just this, you know, naked guy. He is so much to be good. But he's owned the lives and he's really happy. That to me is more interesting than, you know, oh, Trump's a liar and he, you know, whatever. It's not him. It's like what he's done to us kind of

or what he's revealed more. Yeah, and what people are okay with. Has your cultural consumption changed all in the last couple of years? Like, do you find yourself looking for more escapist stuff? No, probably less. I rarely watch TV. in fact, one of, I don't really watch that many shows and one of my favorite shows

that I have the DVDs ready to go, but I just haven't had the time to dedicate to it is the last season of Better Call Saul. And I was, you know, I saw, I mean, religiously, you've watched them, they were great. And I have them ready to go, but it's like, I have to find the time. Also, partly I should say that my wife hasn't seen it, so I can't watch it.

Of course. Yeah. So that determines a lot. But I'm almost never able to, and I don't, I just don't feel like taking it all on. I'd rather spend, you know, the hour and a half playing Destiny or something like that. So that's more escapist for me. And, you know, reading. Was TV ever like a big, were you ever like, like during Sopranos?

Were you like every Sunday I'm watching? No, I mean, going way back. I remember the, the, first kind of thing was, as an adult, was Twin Peaks, and that was huge, and we all gathered to watch it. And I really, the only kind of binge shows that I stayed with were Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, and The Wire. And there have been comedies I burned through, like Penn 15. Yeah. I mean, oh, that is just the best.

It's so good. It's on so many levels. Oh, I love that show. Yeah, for sure. I was just kind of wondering, I mean, like, I think that, you know, Andy, who's usually here, we often talk about, like, things that are coming up for anniversaries, lots of times with albums or movies or something like that. And we've just done, like, a kind of massive amount of stuff this year already about the movies of 1999 and the kind of, like, central. What was 1999? Matrix, Fight Club, Three Kings.

That was the year, American Beauty won. That is the most overrated movie in American history. American Beauty? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I was saying that from day one. Like, this is so bad. I mean, it's almost camp.

It's verging on camp and it's just terrible on so many levels. Yeah. Okay. Well, David, man, thank you so much for joining me. Everybody can check out David Cross' new stand-up special. Oh, come on. It will be available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, and most major satellite providers,

including Comcast, Cox, Charter, Dish, Time Warner, pretty much everywhere on May 10th.