Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hello Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news. My guest
Speaker 2: today is the very funny, hilarious John Marco sir RAIZI.
Speaker 2: He is one of Vulture's comedians you should know and
Speaker 2: will know. We talk for about a better part of
Speaker 2: an hour here. During the summer, he released a little
Speaker 2: something Special which is one of my favorite things of
Speaker 2: the year, very very funny, fifteen seventeen minutes something like that.
Speaker 2: But did Biden chunk in it?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: When Biden didn't have such a good debate and looked
Speaker 2: like he was going to drop out, John Marco was like, oh,
Speaker 2: let me get this thing out there now. So he'll
Speaker 2: explain to us how that came out. He also has
Speaker 2: a recurring show in New York City called The Silver Lining,
Speaker 2: which has been sold out consistently for over two years
Speaker 2: and theater adults the show coming up at Joe's Pub.
Speaker 2: He will explain what that is. I may have tried
Speaker 2: a little too hard here in the first couple questions.
Speaker 2: I just I try not to be like, so you're
Speaker 2: a comedian, huh, And I try and come with a
Speaker 2: different angle. So I'm not sure he was totally feeling
Speaker 2: me the first minute or so here, but then we
Speaker 2: really clicked. Sitting here and just making sure that I
Speaker 2: sent out the proper link of everything I'm clicking on
Speaker 2: an industry trade. This is totally random, but I figured
Speaker 2: it's hopefully more interesting than just going So what do
Speaker 2: you think of cancel culture?
Speaker 3: A press release?
Speaker 2: A comedian media store with over eighty followers is about
Speaker 2: to launch a podcast, So is that really good publicist?
Speaker 3: Or you know? I always set the bar low, so
Speaker 3: you got exceed expectations.
Speaker 2: So the big stress of my life today is what
Speaker 2: happens if the DMV calls me in the middle of
Speaker 2: this interview. I figured, let me just start with awkward things,
Speaker 2: So why would the DMV call me? Long story medium.
Speaker 2: I went to get my license renewed and a New
Speaker 2: Jersey was like, sorry, your license is suspended in New York.
Speaker 2: I haven't lived in New York in twenty something years.
Speaker 2: Twenty five dollars. Fine, I have to get a letter
Speaker 2: from New York and it's it's not like you click
Speaker 2: on the website and they send it to you. So
Speaker 2: supposedly the DMV's going to call me and no offense,
Speaker 2: love you. But if they actually call me, I'm going
Speaker 2: to have to bay otherwise, I my Chad drive.
Speaker 3: Me to work. Man. Sure listen, I hear about. That's
Speaker 3: a good excuse, so you keep me posting.
Speaker 2: I was catching up on your podcast. I enjoyed recently
Speaker 2: dropped a Patreon episode with some AI written Italian style comedy,
Speaker 2: some very hack comedy. I thought that was amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really because I don't talk about food. It
Speaker 1: was all about food. So really all the AI was
Speaker 1: able to do is they said, he said he's Jewish,
Speaker 1: they said he's Italian, and then let the stereotypes roll
Speaker 1: and it was all this food. I don't talk about
Speaker 1: any food in my app.
Speaker 2: There's at least one comedian that I can think of
Speaker 2: that could deliver that material. Now, I didn't think the
Speaker 2: material was particularly written for your wheelhouse, but I can
Speaker 2: think of one guy, if he had the crowd rolling
Speaker 2: and did it in his delivery at his stadium shows,
Speaker 2: could have performed that material. The materially itself, in the
Speaker 2: right environment, maybe could have flown.
Speaker 1: Are we talking Sebastian on a scalco You can go sure,
Speaker 1: sure he could act it out.
Speaker 3: He could take that.
Speaker 1: He could take a soft punch line and show him
Speaker 1: serve with the batsa ball soup or serve with a
Speaker 1: PASTRAVI he could make it work.
Speaker 2: I could see it. You've got the right name for it.
Speaker 2: I was thinking maybe you could do like a bobcat
Speaker 2: Gouldwaite thing and open for yourself, Like could come out
Speaker 2: and just you, really John Marco, and then you come
Speaker 2: out and do your normal act as a closer. Maybe
Speaker 2: give yourself a different first name for the second part.
Speaker 1: Listen if I leaned in, if I leand into the
Speaker 1: Italian thing, and honestly I would, It's just I wasn't
Speaker 1: raised like in an Italian community. My dad's a little Italian,
Speaker 1: so I just don't have that many jokes about it.
Speaker 3: Believe in me.
Speaker 1: I would be that comedian if I could. But my
Speaker 1: dad was making cup of noodles, not spaghetti and meatballs.
Speaker 2: But you grab three other guys with Italian sounding names,
Speaker 2: you start a tour, you go out.
Speaker 1: I've tried to think the Italian. It's got to be
Speaker 1: like the mob bosses of comedy.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm well ahead of you on the AI twenty
Speaker 2: minutes ago. I've got ten for you. You're ready, Here
Speaker 2: we go. Sure, some of these even for Hack or Hack.
Speaker 2: But the Gobbelgool Gang. I liked that they added the
Speaker 2: gg the Gobbegle Gang, you and three of the guys.
Speaker 2: This one is in Hack's Corner of hack Town. Boughta
Speaker 2: being Comedy jam though they had a jam. Sure, Pasta
Speaker 2: and punchlines pretty awful. The Canoli Chronicles, Oh, brutal spaghetti
Speaker 2: and stand up these are so bad. I like this one,
Speaker 2: Sauce and SaaS sure, the Forget About It Funnies is
Speaker 2: just awful. The Meatball Mafia awful, Manja and Mirth and
Speaker 2: the Mozzarella Mirth Tour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the short stuff is too on the nose.
Speaker 3: I just put it in now.
Speaker 1: The don of comedy sounds cool, but that it looks
Speaker 1: like that exists already. But listen, chat GPT is already
Speaker 1: good enough to replicate at least eighty percent of the
Speaker 1: stand up comedy world, and it's eventually it'll get better enough.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm quite a comedy snole. My daughter is working
Speaker 2: in a local theater and part of her job is
Speaker 2: to just research acts that they could potentially book. And
Speaker 2: she came home one day and was like, have you
Speaker 2: ever heard of this? And it was one of these.
Speaker 2: It was the Italian American Wise Guys of Comedy, and
Speaker 2: I just said to her, I go, there's no way
Speaker 2: that's good. It'll probably sell out, but there's no way
Speaker 2: it's good.
Speaker 1: Sure I did when I did Just for Lasts last year,
Speaker 1: it's last year. I did the Just for the Culture Show,
Speaker 1: which used to be called the Ethnic Show. And before
Speaker 1: the Ethnic Show, they had the Italian Show, the Black
Speaker 1: Comic Show, the Jews Show, and then last Society Guru.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, well combine the ball. Okay, We'll call
Speaker 1: Just for the Culture. And I was on the lineup
Speaker 1: with Judy Gold and I was like, oh, they think
Speaker 1: she's the Jewish one and I'm going to be the
Speaker 1: Italian the stand up in SaaS and they we really
Speaker 1: just ended up being a Jewish, very Jewish lineup between
Speaker 1: me and Judy.
Speaker 3: My name can be misleading. Do those nights still exist?
Speaker 2: I'm rusty, but LA used to have Asian Invasion and
Speaker 2: Chocolate Sundays was one of them.
Speaker 1: Those are still around, Chocolate Sundays, and I would say,
Speaker 1: crack them up. Comedy is also like the Black Show
Speaker 1: or the Urban Show at the Comedy Store. In the
Speaker 1: belly room. So those still exist. I don't know about
Speaker 1: the Asian invasion, but listen, I think of those theme shows,
Speaker 1: even they're not seen, but centered around identity, can bring
Speaker 1: in a lot of people who have never seen a
Speaker 1: stand up comedy show before because they go, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is geared for me.
Speaker 3: I guess, and so I had scripted.
Speaker 1: If you look at a lot of comedy club lineups,
Speaker 1: you might as well call them the straight white guy show.
Speaker 3: So what's fine? Maybe we need to create some special
Speaker 3: pockets of shows. Dude's a prep.
Speaker 2: But I always find it fascinating anytime I google you,
Speaker 2: there seems to be a fascination with headline writers. It's
Speaker 2: frequently Italian Jewish comedian or Jewish Italian comedian. And I
Speaker 2: look at that and I'm like, you know, are we
Speaker 2: booking Irish Catholic Jim Gaffigan coming to town?
Speaker 3: Like, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think people people think that that's going
Speaker 1: to give you everything you need to know about someone's
Speaker 1: comedic dialings. I guess to go, oh, Jewish, he's gonna
Speaker 1: be a neurotic again. I'll talk about his gil pig
Speaker 1: mom and then Italian it's like he'll talk about food.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to write about comedy in a
Speaker 1: way that has massive peel. What are you going to say,
Speaker 1: a mix of Anthony Jesslnik and John mulaney with a
Speaker 1: theater kid background. No one's find tickets to that show.
Speaker 1: They're going to say, obviostly Jesslink or John m'laney on
Speaker 1: their own. So I whatever they want to say, I
Speaker 1: think theatrical and dark are the words that I want
Speaker 1: to Then I think i'd want to get through just
Speaker 1: so just to deter someone who's very doesn't want anything mean.
Speaker 1: I think that would be the thing of it's not
Speaker 1: going to be it's not warm, that's not going to
Speaker 1: be the evening ahead of you. That's the only thing.
Speaker 1: But also that's not a great title. Eight come to
Speaker 1: see that not warm and fuzzy. John Marco SIASI.
Speaker 2: I never noticed the Mullany. You're in the same vocal range.
Speaker 2: You're not a mulleni clone. But if we put a
Speaker 2: suit on you and shaved and made you play Millennie
Speaker 2: in a sketch.
Speaker 3: You could do that.
Speaker 1: I think Mullaney musically, I think the way I have
Speaker 1: to limit how much I listened to it to him
Speaker 1: because I just think the way that he made it
Speaker 1: a little nasally and it just fits comedy, and I
Speaker 1: really do. And I'm sure apparently there was a comedian
Speaker 1: who works at the Seller, the Comedy Seller, named Dan Natterman,
Speaker 1: and someone told me that when mulaney started, people called
Speaker 1: him like Dan Natterman, ripoff or something like or he
Speaker 1: was imitating Dan Baderman. So I like to believe that,
Speaker 1: like the music of comedy, which I feel like it
Speaker 1: doesn't get talked about as much, just like the musicality
Speaker 1: of the way people deliver jokes, Milani's is just in
Speaker 1: a certain kind of range and register that I think
Speaker 1: is just feels right when I'm joking with my friends,
Speaker 1: if I'm trying to have riff off with them. It's
Speaker 1: just the place that I do. It's a little bit presentational,
Speaker 1: it's really clear. It helps you make a clear setup
Speaker 1: and you different to the center for the punchline because
Speaker 1: you change the often and it's fun.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So but I have the ear for this because I've
Speaker 2: worked in radio for my career in podcasting, so we
Speaker 2: always when you build a team, you want to make
Speaker 2: sure people aren't in the same range. So, for example,
Speaker 2: you and Malaney would not partner up on an audio
Speaker 2: only radio show, whereas you and Sebastin Maniscalco would because.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't be like, which one is talking?
Speaker 1: Sure, that's really cool, I've mad sense now that you
Speaker 1: say it, But yeah, you've got to there's podcasts where
Speaker 1: I go I still don't know which voice is which guy.
Speaker 3: It all just bleeds into one.
Speaker 2: After listening for two years. Right, yeah, how are you
Speaker 2: enjoying podcasting yourself?
Speaker 3: I dig it.
Speaker 1: I certainly wish we had more listeners, but the clips
Speaker 1: and the videos that we get out of it are enjoyed.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, when I started making the podcast, I had
Speaker 1: all these ideas, these high concept ideas, and I had
Speaker 1: a friend who was like, come up with something that
Speaker 1: you'd want to do, even when you're in a terrible mood,
Speaker 1: even when you don't want to do it. And ultimately
Speaker 1: it was like a looser concept the downside complaining with
Speaker 1: a good friend as a co host, And I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that I picked something that I not only loved,
Speaker 1: but also where the podcast could be notepad for ideas.
Speaker 1: I could talk about stories, I could talk about whatever's
Speaker 1: going out of the news, my family, my life, and
Speaker 1: I just it richens my work.
Speaker 3: I think I get a lot of joke ideas from
Speaker 3: that podcast.
Speaker 1: So I love it, and I'm glad that I prioritized
Speaker 1: kind of something I loved over maybe something with a
Speaker 1: clearer hook. Because it's so much work and the rewards
Speaker 1: are still minimal. It's financially devastating, but I love doing
Speaker 1: it and I love being able to see my friends
Speaker 1: on a regular basis and just choot the shit with him.
Speaker 2: So naively respectfully, you said it's so much work, So
Speaker 2: what is the difference between a perception of you just
Speaker 2: show up and riff for an hour and fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: and you go home and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 3: Sure, I think.
Speaker 1: First, we have guests for a lot of episodes, and
Speaker 1: I like to do my research. I like to if
Speaker 1: they're a stand up, I'll listen to their most recent special,
Speaker 1: I'll comb through. There are tweets, some interviews just to
Speaker 1: seek what they enjoyed, talk talking about what aspect of
Speaker 1: their life are they willing to get into the weeds
Speaker 1: and talk shit.
Speaker 3: And then there's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Post work where it's I built kind of the engine
Speaker 1: of my comedy career off social media and clips. So
Speaker 1: I go through a transcript of every episode. I'm picking
Speaker 1: out what's the clip that best catch is it, what's
Speaker 1: going to pop online? Send it to my editor, check
Speaker 1: the caption, schedule, all the posts. So it just becomes
Speaker 1: a huge And I think when we have a really
Speaker 1: great guest, the episodes can d of be two hours
Speaker 1: two and a half hours. So the better it's going,
Speaker 1: the more work it generates.
Speaker 3: And I think I'm going to make.
Speaker 1: Sure even though it is loose, I got to cut
Speaker 1: with my pockets filled. I had an acting teacher that
Speaker 1: always talked about coming to a role with your pockets filled.
Speaker 1: What happened that week, what do I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: what's a cool new segment, what's a little prank I
Speaker 1: can play on my co host? And I think the
Speaker 1: key to having all that looseness really work is you
Speaker 1: got to have kind of some hidden structure underneath.
Speaker 3: Does it work as a sort of workout room?
Speaker 2: Are you testing material or is it the opposite that
Speaker 2: a conversation goes somewhere in spurs an idea.
Speaker 1: I think it can be a workout room. My co
Speaker 1: host has a great laugh. Pete Holmes, he is his
Speaker 1: own last track on his podcasts. He provides it for me.
Speaker 1: That's slit. And it's my co host who's a laugher,
Speaker 1: and he is not. He's allergic to joke jokes when
Speaker 1: I love joke jokes.
Speaker 3: So I think it's not fully a workout room.
Speaker 1: And I'm saying what I would say on stage, but
Speaker 1: I think it's if we get into an idea that
Speaker 1: really gets him going, and really we start risks and
Speaker 1: I go, oh, there's something there, and then I got
Speaker 1: to do the work after the fact. So in a way,
Speaker 1: it is a workout room, but not as strict as
Speaker 1: let me run this bit. Let me try to sneak
Speaker 1: in this bit, because if my co host sniffs the
Speaker 1: manipulation around a joke, he's out.
Speaker 3: He's out. I beg him.
Speaker 1: I say, please, let me tell you my jokes from
Speaker 1: performing at the Fish Festival this weekend, and he's okay.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't It just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Like those old style horrible talk show guests. Hey tell
Speaker 2: me about podcasting. Never mind podcasting, let me tell you
Speaker 2: about the airport, the TSA. These those guys, I think.
Speaker 1: Codin O'Brien, Johnny Carson was very clearly like a Rodney
Speaker 1: Dangerfield panel interview and Johnny, I don't know how much
Speaker 1: prep they did, but Johnny was always really good at
Speaker 1: just like stay in that one line to keep it
Speaker 1: going and never screwed up a joke of Rodney Dangerfields.
Speaker 3: And then I think.
Speaker 1: Conan did a much more evolved form where Norm McDonald
Speaker 1: was there to tell his moth joke and Codin had
Speaker 1: to figure out like how to be frustrated that he
Speaker 1: was taking so long without disrupting the tension of the jokes,
Speaker 1: and Cody was so good at that.
Speaker 3: And I sometimes have guests on ZARNAGARV.
Speaker 1: I think is a perfect example, guests who like, she's
Speaker 1: got some jokes she wants to do, and she likes
Speaker 1: the old school panel style, and I can sense, I
Speaker 1: like to think I can sense when she's going into
Speaker 1: kind of a bit of a routine and I go, okay,
Speaker 1: how can I support this in the podcast sphere where
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel corny but she's supported and instead of
Speaker 1: been feeling like a punchline, it feels like the most genius,
Speaker 1: spontaneous thought a person has ever had. And that can
Speaker 1: be fun if you can pull it off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a big Bob Hope fan. A lot of
Speaker 2: people judge Hope by his last fifteen twenty years, but
Speaker 2: if you look at the entire work of his century,
Speaker 2: some really great stuff. But Johnny Carson hated Bob as
Speaker 2: a guest because Bob would basically declare, I'm coming on
Speaker 2: your show and it's NBC, and Bob Hope's the one
Speaker 2: person Johnny Carson can't tell to go hose yourself. But
Speaker 2: Hope would do what we just talked about and just
Speaker 2: sit down and Johnny go Hi, good morning or good
Speaker 2: at good night, and Hope would just go in as material.
Speaker 3: And Carson hated it.
Speaker 1: In a tourbiously, where as I haven't consumed that much
Speaker 1: Bob Hope, Like, where do you start? What's the thing
Speaker 1: that I would Is there an album of his best hits?
Speaker 3: I think if you can find video.
Speaker 2: So he had a very popular radio show, and then
Speaker 2: when television came along, all the radio shows became TV.
Speaker 2: So if I'm sure they're on YouTube, his very early
Speaker 2: television shows are basically a radio show with a camera
Speaker 2: in front of it, so he's standing up to stand
Speaker 2: up Mike and when the announcers going now from NBC
Speaker 2: the Bob Hope Show, and he's just doing the monologue
Speaker 2: and mugging for probably the camera guy. But you can
Speaker 2: see how quick he is. And this is probably I
Speaker 2: don't know Bob in his forties, maybe early fifties, not
Speaker 2: the eighty five year old reading off Q cards guy.
Speaker 2: But he was just so quick. So I would say
Speaker 2: that period of around I don't want to TV really
Speaker 2: come in, say nineteen fifty one Bob Hope just to
Speaker 2: throw a dart, and of course his movies. You got
Speaker 2: somebody who can sing with Bing Crosby and dance with
Speaker 2: Jimmy Cagney, and you got to give him some props there.
Speaker 3: But I digress. Oh can you just Carson's in my mind? Now?
Speaker 2: Can you imagine as a comedian if we go back
Speaker 2: it's fifty years now, what a huge spot that was,
Speaker 2: because now you can self markets there it's can I
Speaker 2: get on the Tonight Show and I've got I don't
Speaker 2: know what was it, five minutes eight? It was probably five?
Speaker 3: Right? You got a type usually think Johnny waves you over.
Speaker 3: That must have been insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about it a lot, because because sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be very frustrating what it feels like. Man,
Speaker 1: it feels borderline impossible to do one thing and have
Speaker 1: it like catapults your career. There are so many There's
Speaker 1: just a million little things you can do, and maybe
Speaker 1: something crazy happens that goes viral that maybe it boosts
Speaker 1: you a little bit.
Speaker 3: Be on the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: Now, I did Cordon, and I think maybe one person
Speaker 1: in my whole life has said to me after a
Speaker 1: show like I loved your courting, and I think it's
Speaker 1: this mixed thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: Cool that the Carson you go on there and your
Speaker 1: whole life would change, unless not cool if the booker
Speaker 1: didn't like your vibe or you pissed off whoever that
Speaker 1: guy was going to the comedy store and you never
Speaker 1: had a shot Carson. It definitely feels like it was
Speaker 1: just way too much power under this one kind of
Speaker 1: cranky guy who's asked you had to kiss. And personally,
Speaker 1: I've always struggled coming up with clean deaths that I
Speaker 1: like love, or at least by today's. I sent a
Speaker 1: set into the Tonight Show after New Faces, and the
Speaker 1: response I got was a holocaust joke. Yikes, And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, I'm not getting this, and it
Speaker 1: was like at the time, it was like that was
Speaker 1: and that was the centerpiece. I had this a joke
Speaker 1: that mentioned the Holocaust and I loved it. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if back then, if I would have been
Speaker 1: in easy to fantasize, Oh, I would have been in.
Speaker 1: I would have had that Tonight show. I would have
Speaker 1: killed it, got into the couch. But there's another world.
Speaker 3: Where he didn't like me.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the set, and then I would have
Speaker 1: been dying for Instagram to let me gradually build myself up.
Speaker 1: So I think it's there needs to be a middle grounds.
Speaker 1: I think that tonight soo when I hear about it,
Speaker 1: it sends a shiver down my spine because I just go, God,
Speaker 1: that guy controlled whether you had a stand up career
Speaker 1: or not, and that's not good.
Speaker 2: I just did a story for the podcast. Somebody else
Speaker 2: wrote a hot take. Joe Rogan is too powerful in
Speaker 2: comedy now, and I'm like, Joe Rogan's good for comedy.
Speaker 2: Not everybody likes Joe Rogan, that's fine, but he's good
Speaker 2: for comedy. He basically created a third Coast.
Speaker 1: Sure, I had my previous touring agent I had was like,
Speaker 1: you have three ways to succeed in touring. And this
Speaker 1: might have shifted a little since then, but it was
Speaker 1: like big social media, you're on TV or Joe Rogan's podcast,
Speaker 1: and I was like, geesus christ. I think I was
Speaker 1: saying this last night. I was at the Comedy Cellar
Speaker 1: and I was talking with Nathan McIntosh about so many
Speaker 1: people will come to shows and we'll say afterwards and say,
Speaker 1: this was my first stand up comedy show. I don't
Speaker 1: think that happens a lot with music. I don't think
Speaker 1: people at the end of concerts but this is my
Speaker 1: first concert.
Speaker 3: But like, stand up.
Speaker 1: Comedy is such an untapped market. There's so many people
Speaker 1: who don't necessarily know they would be into this. So
Speaker 1: there's a degree where I go, Yeah, Joe Rogan talking
Speaker 1: NonStop about stand up comedy makes a new generation of men.
Speaker 1: If we're speaking about Rogan and being honest, get into
Speaker 1: stand up comedy, and great. Maybe they get into that,
Speaker 1: and then there's tastes to expand beyond Joe Rogan's sphere.
Speaker 1: I think the fear is that Joe Rogan creates a
Speaker 1: specific kind of thing and that universe, that kind of
Speaker 1: really wants to see a white guy say a slur
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to say anymore, and that's their definition.
Speaker 1: That's the only fear I think of the kind of
Speaker 1: ideology of that general sphere. I hope it ex fans.
Speaker 1: I hope it intermingles. I hope all comedians start splitting
Speaker 1: up sharing lineups. But that's ultimately. I do think it's
Speaker 1: good for comedy that he exists. And I've had audience
Speaker 1: I remember an audience member years ago came up and
Speaker 1: they said, Oh, I saw you're working on new material.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Joe Rogan talks about how comedians and
Speaker 1: imes have to work on new material during the show,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know what, God bless if he's
Speaker 1: educating our new comedy fan as to how this all works,
Speaker 1: and you're into it.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 2: You talked about spheres, and it reminded me there are
Speaker 2: all these spheres that I guess don't touch each other.
Speaker 2: What came to mind was when Kat Williams went on
Speaker 2: Shannon Sharp's podcast and started throwing heat that surface to
Speaker 2: maybe a different audience. The whole Atlanta scene and the
Speaker 2: various beefs that go on in that sphere of comedy,
Speaker 2: and that probably doesn't cross over with the Rogan verse
Speaker 2: unless Gat goes on Rogan.
Speaker 3: I think ultimately.
Speaker 1: When you separate these worlds is it doesn't benefit the
Speaker 1: quality of the comedy because suddenly you're not dealing with
Speaker 1: the cream of the crop. You're dealing with the cream
Speaker 1: of your little sphere. And it's just the quality goes
Speaker 1: down overall whenever people are And it's the same with
Speaker 1: you could call it the opposite of the Joe Rogan universe,
Speaker 1: but like the Brooklyn world, like there is the world
Speaker 1: of you could call it old comedy or just left
Speaker 1: leaning comedy, where if you never mix with another world
Speaker 1: and the best from that world, it just gets worse
Speaker 1: and worse. And I think that's happened to a degree
Speaker 1: with the Austin scene. I think that's why New York
Speaker 1: is such a powerful is still, in my mind, the
Speaker 1: best place to keep doing comedy, because there's more colliding,
Speaker 1: there's more a mix, and that elevates everyone, that forces
Speaker 1: them to be good to continue to participate. And I
Speaker 1: have nothing. I don't know Austin well enough to have
Speaker 1: any kind of hard opinion about the Austin comedy scene.
Speaker 1: I just know from more secondhand and occasional shows that
Speaker 1: I do there, that I could use a little mixing.
Speaker 1: To put it politely, it could use a little mixing,
Speaker 1: and I think it will happen.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: I don't think these worlds can stay itsler forever. I
Speaker 1: think I think we need more panel shows, and we
Speaker 1: need those panel shows to be a mix and I
Speaker 1: think one day, I think kil Tony will get to
Speaker 1: a point where it does have some comedians that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think would do it now, and it will expand
Speaker 1: the vocabulary and show more people what great comedy can be.
Speaker 3: And I'm hopeful that kind of will come to pass.
Speaker 2: We did a show at Serious early in my run there.
Speaker 2: He used to run the comedy properties there. It was
Speaker 2: called four Quotas and it was basically a tough crowd
Speaker 2: rip off, except we just leaned into the four quotas.
Speaker 2: There was some gimmick that the government had passed the
Speaker 2: law you had to have a white guy, a black guy,
Speaker 2: a woman, and then the wild card position just to
Speaker 2: make the booking easier. And I look back one of
Speaker 2: those early episodes was Jim Gaffigan Lisa Lampanelli Asi's I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: and I forget who the fourth you thought about being diverse?
Speaker 2: That was a really fun show, a little too early
Speaker 2: in the runned series for it to take off. We
Speaker 2: talked about isolating one joke, and we talked about the
Speaker 2: civilians coming in, and I think there's something to be
Speaker 2: said for taking in an entire set. My wife will
Speaker 2: often come down. I will be watching a special and
Speaker 2: she'll show up thirty six minutes into it with a
Speaker 2: laundry basket, stand there at the TV for forty seconds ago,
Speaker 2: is this guy funny? And it's just I have to
Speaker 2: hit pause and it kills the whole room, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I can't go into you see that line
Speaker 2: There is actually a calling back to eighteen minutes ago
Speaker 2: where he set this up, and that was a headshake,
Speaker 2: like it's just is that guy funny?
Speaker 3: They what? First of all? I sometimes I have to acknowledge.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it'll happen, like when a clip goes viral
Speaker 1: and some people go, this guy is not funny at all.
Speaker 1: Some people don't like stand up and that's fine. And
Speaker 1: then someone who loves musical theater I know more than
Speaker 1: anyone that like if someone goes to see. Someone will
Speaker 1: see a Stephen Sondheim musical, the most agreed upon, the
Speaker 1: greatest composer of all time, and they'll go, eh, that
Speaker 1: was no good and it's okay. You don't like the
Speaker 1: form and that's fine. And it's the same for stand ups.
Speaker 1: Some people don't like those jokey things. But I agree.
Speaker 1: It's always hard with a partner when you don't love
Speaker 1: the same piece of art. Sometimes he fights could be brutal. Now,
Speaker 1: my girlfriend, she's a manager, she's a comedy manager, so
Speaker 1: she represents comedians, and she doesn't want to watch as
Speaker 1: much stand up as I do. And because sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: watching it, Okay, what's going on here? What's okay? What
Speaker 1: is the best amount of scalco talking about right now?
Speaker 1: What can I learn from the cameras? And our rule
Speaker 1: is when she can guess three of the punchlines, it
Speaker 1: goes off automatically and it happens a lot. And I
Speaker 1: do like to think that her bar keeps me sharp
Speaker 1: because I'm like, even in conversation, if I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be funny with my girlfriend, I gotta if she guesses
Speaker 1: three times, she's going to break up with me on
Speaker 1: the spot.
Speaker 3: So I gotta keep my comedy game high.
Speaker 2: So I found it interesting there how you explained how
Speaker 2: you're watching comedy and the cameras as I have a
Speaker 2: producer's breen. The night of the attempted assassination of President Trump,
Speaker 2: I clicked on CNN because it's what one does, and
Speaker 2: I knew it was six point thirty on a Saturday,
Speaker 2: so the d team was anchoring and I'm watching it.
Speaker 2: I'm like and I'm like, actually, she's doing a really
Speaker 2: good job.
Speaker 3: She's doing it.
Speaker 2: And I said to my daughter, I go, Wolf Blitzer's
Speaker 2: in a cab and somebody's calling Anderson Cooper in the Hamptons.
Speaker 2: Now going, dude, get here right away as soon as
Speaker 2: you can get there, And sure enough, top of the
Speaker 2: hour came, Wolf's in the chair. You wait another hour,
Speaker 2: Anderson's in the chair. So like, I'll tend to watch
Speaker 2: breaking news and not actually care about the news part
Speaker 2: and just look at all the what's going on behind.
Speaker 3: Oh, they got caught with their pants down.
Speaker 2: Biden stepped down at one forty six pm on a Sunday,
Speaker 2: so nobody's there to cover it, so they're stuck in
Speaker 2: an infomercial.
Speaker 3: I love that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really There was a very funny thing on
Speaker 1: Twitter because wolf Blitzer had just tweeted a picture of
Speaker 1: him like getting a martini called the wolf Flitzer, and
Speaker 1: he looked like really fun. And then an hour later
Speaker 1: it's him at the desk and he looks a little
Speaker 1: just oh my god, there goes my day.
Speaker 2: We all know you're buzz dude. All right, natural segue.
Speaker 2: You dropped a special because the President announced he wasn't rerunning,
Speaker 2: so you released Sorry, I dropped my notes here.
Speaker 3: I want to get it. What's the title again? I
Speaker 3: want to get it right? A little something special, A
Speaker 3: little something special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so walk me through that was that going to
Speaker 2: be part of a longer special? And he went, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this chunk just got.
Speaker 1: Need Honestly, it was like I was waiting on a
Speaker 1: couple different things to see if they wanted an hour
Speaker 1: from me, different streaming networks. Do you want an hour?
Speaker 1: Do you want an hour? Do am I going to
Speaker 1: release something on my own? Let's wait, let's see what
Speaker 1: they say. And I just have a chunk of material
Speaker 1: that felt I want to release this yesterday, and it
Speaker 1: feels like it feels just so on the pulse, and
Speaker 1: I go, well, if you know xyz stream or wat this,
Speaker 1: they're going to film it in five months, it'll be
Speaker 1: released in a year.
Speaker 3: Especially when you're not famous, famous.
Speaker 1: You you could record something and it could come out
Speaker 1: so far away. Your ability to be topical is more
Speaker 1: limited than I think if you were Chris Rock or
Speaker 1: John Lady and I think I just had these jokes
Speaker 1: and I was like dying to get out there. I
Speaker 1: felt like if they came out a year from now,
Speaker 1: they just wouldn't be quite as exciting to hear, And
Speaker 1: so very last minute, I just picked a weekend I
Speaker 1: was doing Comedy Connection in Rhode Island. I had a
Speaker 1: good one night or the year before, so I was like,
Speaker 1: this will be good. I guess my opener is also
Speaker 1: a great cinematographer and editor and producer. He basically put
Speaker 1: it together. We did three cameras, we flew in two people,
Speaker 1: and he could very scaled down version and I had
Speaker 1: a very specific I was like, I want to do
Speaker 1: this fifteen minutes. And it touched on mister Beast, It
Speaker 1: touched on trans writes, It touched on Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: being overturned at abortion rights, and then it opened with
Speaker 1: some jokes about Joe Biden versus Trump again, and just
Speaker 1: one particular joke was how I was able to recycle
Speaker 1: all my twenty twenty jokes about them going against each other.
Speaker 3: So I felt really good about it.
Speaker 1: I was going to just release it and then cut
Speaker 1: it up into clips, and I had a whole schedule
Speaker 1: planned for the end of August. I was going to
Speaker 1: Australia in August. I said, I'll come back, release this,
Speaker 1: do podcasts. And then one night it was my girlfriend's
Speaker 1: birthday and I wasn't watching the presidential debate, but I
Speaker 1: had a friend who is he's an independent, but he's
Speaker 1: he does not want Trump to be president again. And
Speaker 1: he was one of the guys who was saying, like Biden,
Speaker 1: he's got to stick it out. He's the guy who
Speaker 1: can win, and he's just an institutionalist. And he texted
Speaker 1: me in the middle of this dinner he said Biden
Speaker 1: needs to drop out right now. And I was like, oh.
Speaker 1: I was like, what what could have possibly happened at
Speaker 1: the debate and my girlfriend's birthday. Because I'm a workaholic
Speaker 1: and because her work is Tommedy, we had agreed that
Speaker 1: this why we weren't going to talk about work. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to talk about if it works things. And
Speaker 1: I get this text and suddenly my mind goes racing, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, all my opening jokes are about Biden
Speaker 1: being the nominee. And I watched the clips and I said,
Speaker 1: this is not looking good. And all the op eds
Speaker 1: came out and the next morning I said, they're in
Speaker 1: bed at eight in the morning. I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I have to release it today because I
Speaker 1: didn't know if it was going to happen that day.
Speaker 1: It felt so the first surge of Biden being called
Speaker 1: to step down was very intense that first day after
Speaker 1: and I thought it could happen that day, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I got to get this out now.
Speaker 1: And thank god, by editor, we had gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff done in advance. Sound was mixed, it was edited,
Speaker 1: it wasn't captured, it wasn't clipped. But I basically said, oh,
Speaker 1: I got the day wide open. Let's release it by
Speaker 1: three pm today. No podcast, no press. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's going to drop out. I don't want to
Speaker 1: cut the beginning of it off. I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to like be like, hey, guys, I know the
Speaker 1: beginning's a little dated, but check it out anyway, And
Speaker 1: we got it done, and by we by my team,
Speaker 1: my social media team, my editor, my captioner, my girlfriend
Speaker 1: was there to let me run even the clip captions
Speaker 1: by and I was so glad we did. And ultimately
Speaker 1: he stayed in the race, I think for three weeks after,
Speaker 1: maybe a month after. But I was so glad that
Speaker 1: we put it out in a time again where it
Speaker 1: felt topical. Although I will say it, if I ever
Speaker 1: record something like that again, I will be a lot
Speaker 1: more hesitant if it's a special to include political material
Speaker 1: that isn't very big picture, because that's the risk we
Speaker 1: run in comedy, and a lot of comedians the day
Speaker 1: Trump's assassinated, comedians now were.
Speaker 3: Like going, what's the joke? What's the joke?
Speaker 1: People are recording it that night, they're captioning it that night,
Speaker 1: and why because on social media, it can pop, It
Speaker 1: can get into the stratosphere, it can go viral, it
Speaker 1: gets featured in news, and there's a real struggle between
Speaker 1: are you just making the obvious joke? Are you just
Speaker 1: regurgitating all the natural jokes? That would come out of this.
Speaker 1: Do you need time to make a deeper joke? And
Speaker 1: have we ultimately made our humor more shallow by feeling
Speaker 1: like we need to immediately react to events. That used
Speaker 1: to be Late Night's job and they had a writing staff,
Speaker 1: And now it's every comedian the moment a tragedy happens
Speaker 1: or anything crazy in the news. We got to be
Speaker 1: like going up in twenty minutes, what's the joke? What's
Speaker 1: the joke?
Speaker 2: And I had a boss at Sirius who one time asked, us,
Speaker 2: how come we don't have our own version of the
Speaker 2: Daily Show? And I'm like, me and my staff of two,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're gonna give me twenty writers like you
Speaker 2: want us to bang out a half hour of top
Speaker 2: notch comedy four nights a week? Are you insen? But
Speaker 2: Late Night even now the new cycle so fast you
Speaker 2: recorded five thirty. By the time eleven thirty rolls around,
Speaker 2: there's three new things in the news you're not talking
Speaker 2: about in your monologue.
Speaker 3: It's really hard. I don't know what to like.
Speaker 1: I once had the thought, and I just don't think
Speaker 1: it really works in practice. But I always think to myself, Man,
Speaker 1: the best jokes. Twitter has made it in a way
Speaker 1: where like, the funniest jokes are in the moment, and
Speaker 1: it's because it's it's thousands of people taking a stab,
Speaker 1: and then the ones that go viral are the best,
Speaker 1: and you go, these Twitter jokes are better takes than
Speaker 1: a writing staff of five on the East Coast. And
Speaker 1: I always thought that when it be fun, if you
Speaker 1: have a late night show where somehow they were paid
Speaker 1: and they wanted to be a part of this, you
Speaker 1: could have. I think if you told me after a
Speaker 1: day's events that I could look at the best tweets
Speaker 1: and craft a monol out of those jokes, I think
Speaker 1: you could have a fucking electric in the moment monologue
Speaker 1: that night. Now, obviously would those people be into that,
Speaker 1: what would the pay system be, how would it work?
Speaker 1: But I do think there is something about telling a
Speaker 1: joke out loud to an audience that gives it an
Speaker 1: extra dimension. And I wish we could combine the kind
Speaker 1: of incredible power of social media making the best jokes
Speaker 1: rise to the top and live entertainment. Maybe someone will
Speaker 1: try it someday, Maybe I'll try it. It'll fail miserably,
Speaker 1: but that's the problem with topical jokes, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes stand ups in certain scenarios, I have to go,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't have the best joke about this,
Speaker 1: And if I try to always chase the topical joke,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to build the deeper joke that is
Speaker 1: more universal, reaches deeper, is more original. And I have
Speaker 1: to make sure I have a balance, because if I
Speaker 1: lean towards in the moment, I'm just going to create
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of fluff that expires the next day,
Speaker 1: and that's not what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I did want to ask you about feeding the beast.
Speaker 2: I don't want to bore you with a crowd work discussion,
Speaker 2: but it's got to be insane now just to have
Speaker 2: to constantly put up something on social media. And is
Speaker 2: that fight the development cycle of a proper routine to
Speaker 2: use an old timey.
Speaker 1: Word, Yeah, it's very I enjoy again, like I enjoy
Speaker 1: that I can put out a joke, I enjoy also
Speaker 1: the capacity I can put out a joke that is,
Speaker 1: I think it's a good joke, but I wouldn't put
Speaker 1: it in a special I think that's cool. Then I
Speaker 1: can still get it out there and get some kind
Speaker 1: of visibility awful thing that I like but isn't my
Speaker 1: final forms. So you can use social media, I think,
Speaker 1: to feed your creative process. And if some joke does
Speaker 1: better than I thought it, that I can go, oh,
Speaker 1: is there more there to explore? Can I bring this?
Speaker 1: Can I incorporate it into something else? But ultimately, You're right,
Speaker 1: it's incredibly exhausting, and I think it's very hard to
Speaker 1: decide how do I develop my quote unquote act with
Speaker 1: what I'm putting out there, especially the concept of burning material.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of comedians are we used to be.
Speaker 1: My friend Jay Jorden used to be We're comedy stops,
Speaker 1: and there was a degree off. You do it on
Speaker 1: your Comedy Central, it's burnt, or if you do it
Speaker 1: on your special, it's burnt, And then it's like if
Speaker 1: you release it on TikTok, then even if it goes viral,
Speaker 1: even if it's seen by millions of people, when you
Speaker 1: have a show at Banana's Comedy Club and Hasburg Heights,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, maybe there's one person in the audience who
Speaker 1: saw that clip, and do you get rid of a
Speaker 1: joke that's tremendous because that one person, or do you go,
Speaker 1: I'll never post my finest material, okay, but then you
Speaker 1: don't have any fucking fans because you didn't put enough
Speaker 1: out there to build up a fan base.
Speaker 3: I saw Mike Bribigley last night.
Speaker 1: At the Comedy Cellar and he was mentioning how he
Speaker 1: said there's some jokes from his first album I believed
Speaker 1: that he had done on a show recently, and he
Speaker 1: was shocked because nobody had heard them before. And there's
Speaker 1: this thought of, oh my god, why would I not
Speaker 1: do this incredible joke I worked on for so long
Speaker 1: and made so good, and no one in the audience
Speaker 1: knows it. And I'm not doing it because why Because
Speaker 1: that's the comic code, because there could have been two
Speaker 1: people who knew it. All those conversations I think are evolving,
Speaker 1: and I'm figuring out an hour that I want.
Speaker 3: To film, and I have to come up with my
Speaker 3: own rules. I did a set on Netflix. Not a
Speaker 3: lot of people saw it. Is it okay?
Speaker 1: If I use one line that's a really good bridge
Speaker 1: between my divorced material and my theater material.
Speaker 3: I've asked myself that in some cases, I go, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is a shit backit. Just do it.
Speaker 1: If it makes the hour great, do it. This is
Speaker 1: a lot of people's introduction to you. And then there's
Speaker 1: the other part of me that goes, I should move on,
Speaker 1: I should leave it behind, I should write something new,
Speaker 1: And it's every comedian is going to have to decide
Speaker 1: their own rules that evolve. And it does make it harder.
Speaker 1: It does make it a lot harder.
Speaker 3: But also.
Speaker 1: He gives me an ability to show my best joke
Speaker 1: to someone who's never going to watch a comedy special.
Speaker 1: If I have a joke about drag queens, it's going
Speaker 1: to get to an audience of people who will never
Speaker 1: see a comedy show, who will never go to Netflix
Speaker 1: to watch a comedy special. But they did get to
Speaker 1: watch a minute of me telling a joke that I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of. You win some you lose.
Speaker 2: So that makes sense to me, especially pulling out a
Speaker 2: line or two. And any artist is going to have
Speaker 2: their super fans. But oh, we heard this already. I
Speaker 2: liked him better when he was in the clubs. But
Speaker 2: I think that makes a lot of sense. And then
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, as you were speaking the other way, if
Speaker 2: it'd be very old now, but if sixty five year
Speaker 2: old George Carlin We're playing Carnegie Hall tonight and went
Speaker 2: into baseball and football. I'm not sure I'd be upset.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh cool, I get to hear carl
Speaker 2: and do that now. I would hope the rest of
Speaker 2: the hour were new. But if he went into that
Speaker 2: thirty years later, it almost like the stones dusting off
Speaker 2: start me up. I'd be like, Okay, I think it's again.
Speaker 1: I think someone told me that Louis c k back
Speaker 1: in the day after his shows, he would come out
Speaker 1: and say, are there any bits you want to hear?
Speaker 1: And he would like, let the audience request their favorite bits,
Speaker 1: and he would do it like that.
Speaker 3: I think there's listen.
Speaker 1: I think comedy is relative to music, is still a
Speaker 1: younger art form, and I do think there's room for
Speaker 1: us to figure out, like, oh, you know what they
Speaker 1: do like when I go into this chuck, they do
Speaker 1: like if I bring this thing back and maybe you
Speaker 1: do it as an encore, maybe you slip it in
Speaker 1: there a bunch amongst and a lot of other new stuff.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I do have that it's
Speaker 1: an old school impulse that was kind of taught to
Speaker 1: me of just if they know if they've heard it before,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna like it. And I just think the
Speaker 1: world is too fractured in terms of you have a
Speaker 1: special on HBO and nobody sees it. The world is
Speaker 1: too fractured to live by those old rules, because then
Speaker 1: what happens is if you're trying to churn out too
Speaker 1: much new material. And I struggle with this too, it
Speaker 1: doesn't become as strong. I have jokes that I can
Speaker 1: tell you when I first started telling a worse version
Speaker 1: of them five years ago, five years ago, seven years ago,
Speaker 1: and I go, it didn't reach its vital form until
Speaker 1: so many years. And with our current system, it's hard
Speaker 1: to think that a joke would live that long without
Speaker 1: being quote unquote burnt.
Speaker 3: So we're all going to have to navigate it.
Speaker 1: And I think I've seen a lot of comedians used
Speaker 1: to be very strict about levoz on comedy centrals. It's done,
Speaker 1: completely give up on that notion because that's just not
Speaker 1: what's supported anymore.
Speaker 2: Is there peer pressure from the back of the room.
Speaker 2: Look at John Marco's being lazy, He's just doing his
Speaker 2: good joke. You get that crap.
Speaker 3: I think a little bit less. I don't know what
Speaker 3: it was like. I've been doing comedy for ten years.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was like back in the day,
Speaker 1: if like comedians watched each other more or commented more.
Speaker 3: But no, unless someone like really does not ever seem
Speaker 3: to change their act at all, I don't think people
Speaker 3: go always doing that bit. Again.
Speaker 1: I notice the people who I go, Jesus Christ, you
Speaker 1: haven't changed a single bit of your fifteen minute set?
Speaker 3: Aren't you bored?
Speaker 1: But no, I think, and I don't think this is good,
Speaker 1: but I think comedians' eyes are more unlike how each
Speaker 1: other is succeeding in this career, more than artistically. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's good. But I think we're in
Speaker 1: such a doggy dog world. It's such a real ruthless climb.
Speaker 1: That's where people's minds are right now.
Speaker 2: I always found it as a civilian, not a comedian,
Speaker 2: never want to be a comedian, not claiming to be
Speaker 2: a comedian, not a performer obviously, but just as a
Speaker 2: guy in clubs. I always found that the comics either
Speaker 2: appreciated if one of their peers was crushing or eating it.
Speaker 2: They would find if you were eating it fun as well.
Speaker 2: It was that middle ground of you're not even trying.
Speaker 2: That tend to be the comedy snobbery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's times when I'm working on more news stuff
Speaker 1: and immediately I go, I'm not doing really well. Everyone
Speaker 1: watching here is things that I suck. And then I
Speaker 1: try to remind myself that when I see comics that
Speaker 1: I really admire working on new material, I can tell
Speaker 1: and I don't judge them for it. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you're using this Sunday night spot at the
Speaker 1: bar show for. And I think that impulse to crush
Speaker 1: is always there, and you have to fight it sometimes.
Speaker 3: I remember just seeing Bill Burr at a comedy club.
Speaker 1: And he was like he wasn't doing great, and he
Speaker 1: was very clearly like sticking on a topic and just
Speaker 1: hidden every possible thought he had on that topic. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure the audience, as they do with more famous comedians,
Speaker 1: went like, yeah, he was okay, but I.
Speaker 3: Knew from the back of the room as a comedian.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, this is his workout room, my
Speaker 1: hot Friday night show room at a comedy club in
Speaker 1: New York. For this moment, I need to use this
Speaker 1: because I'm doing Madison Square Garden tomorrow. I'm going to work,
Speaker 1: and I think the great comics and the prolific comics
Speaker 1: they have to fight that urge to kill every time
Speaker 1: and bombs sometimes if it means take a risk, and
Speaker 1: you see someone kill with the same set for years,
Speaker 1: I do think, I go, what's the point though?
Speaker 3: What's the point of killing on this random bar show
Speaker 3: right now? With jokes already work one hundred percent? What
Speaker 3: do you gain?
Speaker 1: And when I'm doing spots, I really like to gain something.
Speaker 1: I like to learn something, and if I don't, who cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always appreciate an artist going for it, even
Speaker 2: if it misses like I as a snob. I hate
Speaker 2: the sitcom with the dead that looks like me, that
Speaker 2: could lose some weight and has the hot younger wife
Speaker 2: and she thinks he's stupid, and We've seen the sitcom
Speaker 2: five hundred times and I'm like, you're not even trying.
Speaker 2: Whereas I appreciate something that is coming from a different
Speaker 2: angle aspiring to be something, which is my lead in
Speaker 2: to ask you about theater Adult, which I don't want
Speaker 2: to misdescribe, but as I read it, and I'd rather
Speaker 2: you explain it, here's somebody trying to do something.
Speaker 1: Basically, I came from this acting background and I have
Speaker 1: a lot of theater jokes related things talking about theater.
Speaker 1: I would have people complain about my podcast they go
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ another musical theater episode where you talk all
Speaker 1: about community theater and bad shows and teachers and all
Speaker 1: of that. That says to me is that, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: Like I have a very specific interest that I do
Speaker 1: want to cultivate. I'm drawn to and so it's okay.
Speaker 1: So where in my life can I create a vessel
Speaker 1: for all my theater thoughts, my theater jokes, my my
Speaker 1: theater just talking about it. So I made the show
Speaker 1: Theater Adult, and we're about to have our second one
Speaker 1: at Joe's Pub where I open it with some stand
Speaker 1: up and I get to go deeper into my theater jokes.
Speaker 1: Fred Armisson did a comedy special where it was for drummers,
Speaker 1: and it's like, if you never drummed, you're not going.
Speaker 3: To get most of the jokes.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is for all the people who
Speaker 1: this is for theater kids, this is for people who
Speaker 1: did theater, who do theater, who love theater, and I
Speaker 1: can go deeper into the those jokes get more specific
Speaker 1: and then I can do I do a lot of
Speaker 1: I do a lot of crowd work at my headlining shows,
Speaker 1: and I love talking to people about their theater disasters,
Speaker 1: the shows they did in high school and what do
Speaker 1: they do now, How does being.
Speaker 3: A theater kid.
Speaker 1: Does it play into their own life now? What are
Speaker 1: they like when they do karaoke? So I want to
Speaker 1: create like a show where I could open with my
Speaker 1: theater standup, go into my theater crowd work, and then
Speaker 1: from the podcast side of it, get someone who either
Speaker 1: used to be a theater kid and now is whatever
Speaker 1: a lawyer and just an actor, a comedian, or someone
Speaker 1: who is on Broadway but did theater when they were younger.
Speaker 1: I focus on that part of their life and I
Speaker 1: want to find out about the disastrous performances, the summer
Speaker 1: camps where they came out of the closet an acting class.
Speaker 1: I want to hear that story. I want to use
Speaker 1: the theater to talk about deeper things about their own life,
Speaker 1: their family, their romantic life, their dreams, their failures, and
Speaker 1: then just to make my dreams come true in fuse
Speaker 1: it with a little bit of singing, so I have
Speaker 1: my guests sing some songs from their old high school productions,
Speaker 1: even if they're totally wrong for it. Lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of non Jews who played Teva and sitting
Speaker 1: around the roofs and I go, here's a space where
Speaker 1: I give you permission you can do if I were
Speaker 1: a rich man. And then at the end I join
Speaker 1: in for a duet from my own theater past. So
Speaker 1: it's just like a space that I think I can
Speaker 1: infuse my comedic sensibilities with my love for theater and
Speaker 1: the nostalgia of a lot of us when we were
Speaker 1: in school, was I have a sports or theater that
Speaker 1: was just the division. And so there's a big swath
Speaker 1: of people out there who have this experience who, even
Speaker 1: if they don't love theater, now they did it and
Speaker 1: they can enjoy talking about it. And I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about just making it a more regular show in New
Speaker 1: York at comedy festivals where I can get a really
Speaker 1: cool guest that people are excited to hear about their past,
Speaker 1: use it to just have conversations that they haven't they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a normal interview circumstance.
Speaker 2: I think that'd be great for festivals, definitely great for
Speaker 2: New York. I love the feedback of stop talking about
Speaker 2: theater on your podcast. That's like, hey, Rogan, stop with
Speaker 2: the MMA talk like you know, you know. One of
Speaker 2: the things if you google you, theater kid tends to
Speaker 2: come up.
Speaker 1: Like Rogan like it's a and shouts people who go
Speaker 1: into Rogan ago, it's it's another it's an MMA guy,
Speaker 1: I'll skip this one.
Speaker 3: And it's yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1: That's fine too, And that's why Rogan ultimately he goes
Speaker 1: on the it does panel for the MMA and it's okay,
Speaker 1: you find a space for your interest too.
Speaker 2: I'll let you go because we're way over, and I
Speaker 2: appreciate you giving me so much time. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to ask you how much you enjoyed Australia. I was
Speaker 2: there in twenty fifteen. I just loved it, and it's
Speaker 2: not easy to get to, especially for a East Coast,
Speaker 2: but I would love to get back and just I
Speaker 2: want to someday in my maybe in my sixties. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna tell my wife I'm going away for three weeks.
Speaker 2: I want to rent a car and just drive around
Speaker 2: the entire circumference. Growing up in Queens, I'm always attracted
Speaker 2: to nothing. If I go out to Arizona or Nevada,
Speaker 2: I like going out in the middle of nowhere and
Speaker 2: being around nothing. So there's something about Australia that appeals
Speaker 2: to me because, all right, they're Sydney, there's Millbourne. But
Speaker 2: if I go thirty miles that way, I could be
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: That's very that's a you sound like an easy vacation,
Speaker 1: or that sounds like easy.
Speaker 3: It's the I loved Australia.
Speaker 1: I think first of all, the comedy was great in
Speaker 1: the sense that, like, they know so much about America
Speaker 1: that I didn't really have to adjust to what I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3: I was able to just play with with.
Speaker 1: Just American topics and they understood everything, and they're excited
Speaker 1: because they know this is the one time I'm going
Speaker 1: to be there, probably for two years maybe, And the
Speaker 1: audiences were just so just smart, and we're very much
Speaker 1: people who have known my work for years and there
Speaker 1: was never a chance to see me. So they just
Speaker 1: bring that excitement to the shows. And in terms of
Speaker 1: the country, it's the food, it's incredible, the views are astounding. Sydney.
Speaker 1: The bridge in Sydney was just so pretty, at night.
Speaker 1: I could never be that chill. The people there are
Speaker 1: very chill. Everything moved at a much slower pace, and
Speaker 1: I think after a week and a half I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, please, please, can I have a refol of
Speaker 1: my water?
Speaker 3: I'm begging you.
Speaker 1: But it was really it was a special trip and
Speaker 1: I want to go down even longer next time because
Speaker 1: it's just different world, dude.
Speaker 2: And I didn't make it to New Zealand. When I went,
Speaker 2: it was long enough ago that I used a travel
Speaker 2: agent to help me put this trip together. Sure, and
Speaker 2: the travel agent was like, you can't do Australia New
Speaker 2: Zealand in two weeks, you need that's a separate trip.
Speaker 2: But you hit New Zealand. How was it?
Speaker 3: It was fast and furious. The food was just so great.
Speaker 1: I just got there's so many There's just so much
Speaker 1: like Japanese food in New Zealand, and sashimi which I love,
Speaker 1: and fresh fish and I didn't I wasn't really into
Speaker 1: doing the Lord of the Rings thing, and it was
Speaker 1: at the end of the trip, so I was a
Speaker 1: little bit worn out. But just the food, just every
Speaker 1: single meal, you go, what are they feeding us in America?
Speaker 3: Because everything here.
Speaker 1: Is feels fresh, if the blueberries are bigger, and.
Speaker 3: Next time I hope I can hop around the islands
Speaker 3: a little more.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, shen Marco. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to seeing you on the Botta Being Comedy
Speaker 2: Jam during US Paul and then coming to to Netflix.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. Thanks, thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Shenmarco is a razy Thank you for coming on the show,
Speaker 2: repeat guest. He's really fantastic and he is one of
Speaker 2: Vulture's comedians that you will know and should know. And
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that list on tomorrow's podcast and see
Speaker 2: it then