8:00

on behalf of the reader, right? And

8:02

as opposed to on behalf of themselves

8:05

or on behalf of the intelligentsia of

8:07

comedy, let's say. But like, but

8:09

yet the economics of

8:11

comedy right now run in direct

8:13

contrast with who writers

8:17

like you are writing about. So like, in

8:19

other words, like if you look at who,

8:21

if you look at that like pole star,

8:24

like it's Sebastian Maniscalco, it's Theo Vonn,

8:26

it's this person, it's, you know what

8:28

I mean? And that is the popularity,

8:30

the mass popularity of comedy. And

8:33

I feel like, is it possible

8:35

that the intelligentsia of comedy, which you're a part

8:37

of, is missing it right now with that stuff?

8:40

I think we talk about it a

8:42

lot, me and some of my

8:44

coworkers, and it depends, right?

8:47

It's like the biggest movies are

8:49

Marvel movies or whatever, and movie critics tend to

8:51

not write about those movies this month, right? It's

8:53

not unusual for there to be this sort of

8:55

divide. Right. And

8:57

I've interviewed a lot of those people who are top pole

9:00

star number people. I interviewed Sebastian, I interviewed

9:02

Bert Kreischer. Sure, yeah. So like that is

9:05

a way. I think it is

9:08

somewhat hard to write

9:10

about a comedian who

9:13

continues to do a pretty good job in

9:15

the same exact way they've always done it.

9:17

Okay. And I think

9:19

on the other hand, audiences, a

9:21

lot of audiences go to see a comedian because they

9:24

want them to do a pretty good job of like

9:26

recreating the thing they've seen them do before. Sure. And

9:28

I think that creates a somewhat of divide. But

9:32

I think if anything, my job is to

9:35

the audience who learns to like comedy

9:39

because of ex-comedian, and it was like, I'm really

9:41

into stand up, who are other stand ups? Help

9:44

them explain, help them understand the comedians

9:46

they might not naturally understand at first.

9:48

They might be so confused if they

9:50

see Sebastian who's so physical, and then

9:52

they see someone like Jacqueline Novak, let's

9:54

say, who's like so wordy and there's

9:56

so much going on there. They might

9:59

not have an... that

12:00

they're doing great, where I think they're not holding themselves to

12:02

the scrutiny that I would hope they

12:04

would to keep on doing better and better work.

12:07

But then like when

12:11

Shane hosted SNL, when Shane Get The Girls hosted

12:13

SNL, you sort of were

12:16

very critical of it. You said he bombed. I

12:18

think I was not reviewing his material,

12:21

but reviewing how he responded to the

12:24

nature of his material. Because I think in that piece,

12:26

I say like he tends to be better at this

12:28

than he did at SNL. And I think he came

12:30

off quite nervous. Oh, interesting.

12:33

I think Shane's a better comedian than he was on SNL.

12:36

I think he came off as what it

12:38

looks like when people haven't been on TV that much. Do you

12:41

think Shane's one of the best comedians in the world? One

12:43

of the best? I'm trying to

12:45

think of how many comedians I include to include Shane. Top

12:48

100. Yes. Interesting.

12:50

Top 50? Yes. Top

12:53

20? That I know. 50 I can take

12:55

off. That's a wrap.

12:58

We're done here. I

13:00

think his potential is tremendous. He's a wildly

13:02

charismatic person certainly. And he's really on and

13:04

really good. And there's parts of both his

13:06

specials. And I'm like, this is as good

13:08

as people are doing. I think he,

13:10

as any comedian as they keep on getting bigger,

13:13

has the danger of an audience that is not holding

13:15

him accountable. Not in terms

13:17

of ethics, in terms of just like not resting

13:20

on the perspective that they just want to

13:22

see. Do you think

13:24

critics, you know, you're sometimes

13:27

a critic, sometimes not a critic, et cetera, but

13:30

do you think you and your fellow

13:32

journalists of comedy are

13:35

taking moral stances on comedians in

13:38

ways that no one did

13:40

on Richard Pryor, for example, Bill Hicks,

13:45

countless other comedians in different generations? I think there's

13:47

a few things. One, there

13:49

really weren't like active comedy critics at that time.

13:52

But like the example I was saying in the book is that the

13:55

Eddie Murphy thing, people like now

13:58

be like, it's so hard to watch Eddie Murphy. You know it's

14:00

a different time. It

14:06

is a little bit of being like, I

14:12

try not to do it because I don't think I'm

14:15

good at it. Me

14:18

personally. I

14:23

don't want to speak for other journalists or whatever. I

14:31

think I try to be more of a formalist and try to analyze

14:37

why, you know, like the

14:39

Dave Chappelle thing, right? So this is probably the most favorite

14:41

example. I

14:43

feel like the chapter I talk about Dave

14:45

Chappelle is not being like he shouldn't

14:47

do this. It's immoral to talk about these things. That's

14:50

not the perspective of that chapter. I'm saying

14:52

that like his reliance on shock comedy and

14:55

like hot button issues has made it. So he's

14:57

a lazier comedian than he was when he wasn't

14:59

doing that as much. And

15:02

I think Chappelle is so charismatic and

15:05

so able to kind of get away with anything that

15:09

his audience has misconstrued what he's doing

15:12

as being sort of important or interesting

15:14

when he just is inherently feels important,

15:16

feels interesting where I feel like if

15:18

anything, so

15:21

that's the line that I personally draw because I

15:23

think that is my place in writing this book.

15:26

Sure, I'm sure my morals and my perspective come

15:28

through this book. Like the book is not, I'm

15:33

not saying it's like a nonpartisan book,

15:36

but like it's my book, you know? It's

15:38

my book. Like there's

15:40

only so much you can do to remove yourself from

15:42

the book. And then at some point I was like,

15:44

well, it is my book. Like people should read it

15:46

and be like, this is a person writing it. Well,

15:49

it's so funny because Adam

15:51

Gopnik said critical things about

15:53

it in The New Yorker, which I

15:55

like Adam, I like his writing, I

15:57

like him personally. I disagree with his

16:00

criticism. of your book. His criticism of

16:02

your book, and I'll boil it down,

16:04

is you didn't cover the whole of

16:06

history of comedy, and you

16:08

didn't cover Nichols and May, and this and that, and

16:10

Chequi Green, and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah,

16:13

man, but the book literally

16:15

states in the prologue, this

16:17

is about 1990, this

16:19

book is about 1991 through 2020. It's

16:22

like, you can't criticize someone's

16:24

book for not being the

16:27

book you wanted to read,

16:30

yeah, I mean, the thing that I found so odd

16:32

is that he made a list of the comedians I

16:34

didn't mention, and those

16:37

are just the comedians I didn't mention. I mentioned more

16:40

comedians in this book than I think probably

16:42

most people have ever known at any time,

16:44

I know, and including Richard

16:47

Pryor, Shelley Berman, you know, like there's

16:49

comedians I reference of the past 70

16:51

whatever years. I just didn't reference Bob

16:53

Hope, and so he clearly, because

16:56

the second chapter is history, the

16:59

second chapter is like, here's the entire history of American

17:02

live comedy performance, condensed

17:05

because there are books that

17:07

cover that part, and the original draft

17:09

had it much longer, and readers like, this is boring, can

17:11

you make it tighter? And I was like, yeah, I can't

17:14

make it tighter. Otherwise, you're just

17:16

making a list of every single person and what they did,

17:18

which is a thing I have done, I've done two lists

17:20

of 100 jokes that shaped

17:22

modern comedy, which are my attempts at doing a sort

17:24

of history. Did

17:27

it hurt your feelings to have a critic

17:29

criticize you? It not, I wasn't saddened

17:33

by it. I

17:36

was like annoyed because it

17:38

did feel like an unfair criticism, and I

17:41

didn't like the idea that people read The New Yorker

17:43

and they think this is what the book is, and

17:47

then I specifically didn't like the idea

17:49

that Steve Martin would read the article

17:51

and think. And then you felt mischaracterized

17:53

or misconstrued. I've had negative criticism that

17:55

I like quite a bit. One of my favorite comments

17:58

on the book was a negative review on Goodreads.

18:00

It essentially said it had first book problems and

18:02

first it was just nice that they thought of

18:04

me as an author that like will Have books

18:06

it had first book problems and it essentially says

18:08

they said it was too much There's

18:11

too much in it. It was an

18:13

I go interesting exactly exactly That

18:16

like it's actually it was I read that review

18:18

and it's actually around the same time I interviewed

18:20

Jacqueline Novak on my podcast and I and I

18:23

saw her a similar desire to be like I

18:25

want to Maximize to the audience. I

18:27

want to give as much as I have I have all of

18:29

these things I've been storing up and I

18:31

and I'm going to try to figure out a way

18:33

to make the book as readable as possible while including

18:36

every single thing possible about me every You

18:38

know my both my search sense of humor and

18:40

the nature of who I am as a writer

18:42

and basically every single opinion I've had So

18:45

when they said it's too much. I was like Exactly,

18:48

like it should for the people

18:50

who like the book. It should feel borderline overwhelming

18:52

But not so for that to be the case

18:54

some people need to be like whoa, whoa, whoa

18:57

Whoa, but I didn't want to write that time

18:59

that way the book is edgy. Yeah At

19:02

being nerdy. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we're like,

19:04

whoa. This is provocative. Yes Too

19:06

much information. Yeah. Whoa, I did

19:08

not a shocking amount of knowledge

19:11

So that was that was like this person gets me

19:13

almost more than the people who just sort of like

19:15

the book. Okay, that's great I

19:18

feel the same way about reviews. I I

19:20

had one review once where Someone

19:24

in a very prominent publication said something about

19:26

my work That was

19:28

widely read That was just

19:30

an ad hominem attack of my life And

19:33

I was kind of like based like loosely

19:35

based on the show Yeah, and I was

19:37

just like this hurts my feelings like you

19:39

just clearly don't like me I

19:42

do think that reflects this one the hard

19:44

things about like reviewing stand-up, which is like

19:46

it's the person right? It's not like there's

19:48

not tons. There are people work on it,

19:50

but often you're reviewing this

19:52

person and their personal ideas and they're expressing it

19:54

and you know if There's

19:57

something even being like when you're reviewing I

24:01

think, I mean, like it would be harder for me to

24:03

write like a regular pan because I know so much more

24:05

about where you're coming from than if I were

24:09

to come in cold. I think if

24:11

I had a piece that I thought was interesting

24:13

to write about why you're bad, I would consider

24:15

writing about it. If you did something that I

24:17

thought was less, that's

24:20

the thing about in terms of how I approach the

24:22

idea of like writing criticism about comedy at all is

24:24

that it's more about like, because

24:27

there's so many specials now and

24:31

so many people just want to know that they exist. Like we're

24:33

still at the point where people don't know they exist. We're not

24:35

at the point where everyone knows the big movies that are coming

24:37

out of the big TV shows. That I

24:39

think a lot more of my work is sort of

24:42

contextualizing and explaining what things

24:44

are. It's why the bigger comedians,

24:46

it's fair I think for them to get

24:48

criticism because they are bigger and everyone knows,

24:50

everyone's like going to the Chris Rock, Dave

24:52

Chappelle special. So if you

24:54

did something lesser, for whatever reason, it's hard to

24:56

know. I'm gonna have to imagine what your worst

24:58

hour would be. I would have to

25:00

figure out what is the angle and what is the

25:02

point I'm trying to make by doing this. What's

25:05

your overall criticism of me in the

25:08

last decade? Like where

25:11

my comedy is lesser than what

25:13

it strives to be. Oh,

25:17

here's a question I was gonna ask you. And well,

25:19

I feel like when I first saw the new one,

25:22

you cried at the end. Oh my God, Jesus,

25:24

yeah. And it was really powerful. It

25:26

is a thing I think about almost every single day.

25:28

You cry at the end where you say through the baby's

25:30

eyes or whatever. And truly I think about it as a

25:32

new father. I think about it all the time. On

25:35

the Netflix special, it's

25:37

kind of like a little light joke at the end,

25:39

same line. I get choked up actually.

25:42

I've seen the footage really tight. But it's

25:44

not as intense. Yeah, early on

25:46

it's raw. Yeah. And I do, and

25:48

this is more of a question I would ask than

25:50

like a you need to be raw, right? It's just

25:52

a question of like, is there a thing that you

25:54

lose in the performance or is there something that an

25:56

audience would gain from being a more raw version of

25:59

it? Yeah, I think that that's

26:01

fair. And I think it's something I'm confronting right

26:03

now because I've been talking recently about my relationship

26:05

with my dad, his health has been failing. And

26:07

I've had moments where I've cried on stage recently.

26:10

And that will probably fall away over

26:13

time. And I'm never

26:15

gonna contrive that. Yeah, that

26:17

would be worse. That would be insane. To

26:19

me, that would be sociopathic as

26:22

if you can contrive to a

26:24

fake crying situation. But

26:27

yeah, I get that as a note though, essentially

26:30

how do you bring that emotion to

26:33

the next stage of the show? That's

26:36

a good note. It is a thing that, because

26:38

I think there's so much gained in what you

26:40

do and how you do it, right? Like I

26:42

think when you see one person

26:45

shows or hours in general that people don't put as

26:47

much time in as you, there just

26:49

isn't a, it

26:52

doesn't all feel as intentional and you don't feel

26:54

as sort of like you're following the story and

26:57

you feel comfortable and you don't feel

26:59

as if it's a whole piece in the same way and as

27:01

a result, you don't impact in the same way as they do

27:03

when people watch your shows. Yeah. But it

27:05

is a thing of like, you don't get

27:09

the other thing that sort of the vulnerability that a comedian

27:11

can get from just like, here it

27:13

is. I'm not gonna present it to

27:15

you so raw that it's like somewhat

27:18

dangerous, but I do wonder if there's,

27:20

that's just a question, I don't know.

27:22

Well, Durod did a great job of

27:24

capturing it in a moment. So with

27:26

Roth-Anuel, he filmed it basically

27:28

on 30 performances. And as

27:31

opposed to me, I work on these things for two, three

27:33

years. And he was opening up about

27:35

a thing that was deeply personal to him.

27:38

I can say this because people who listened to

27:40

this podcast probably know, he

27:42

essentially came out of the closet in the

27:44

special in real time publicly. And

27:48

I had a thing recently where I went back

27:50

to Walla Walla where I jumped through a second

27:52

story window sleepwalking 20 years ago, and I filmed

27:54

a lot of footage of me

27:57

performing. And was pretty emotional

27:59

actually. Yeah. I'll be interested to see

28:01

when that comes out, what you're thinking

28:03

because it's terrible. Well, no, it's precisely

28:05

the thing you're actually saying, which is

28:08

where's the giraffe at all? Where's the

28:10

rawness of, he hasn't done this a

28:12

thousand times. Like I'm only going a

28:15

wall, a wall at once. Yeah.

28:18

Twice. First for the jump, second

28:20

for the recap. But

28:22

like, but it is that. It's

28:25

interesting, like I find the discussion of

28:28

the Chris Rock stuff enthralling because I similarly

28:30

am fascinated by Chris Rock's

28:32

process. I've watched him at the seller probably

28:34

30, 40 times where

28:38

he's doing the thing you were describing the book,

28:40

which is he takes away the Chris Rock affect

28:42

that's so famous, the Chris Rock voice that's so

28:44

famous. And he just goes, what else?

28:46

What else? And he like literally reads from

28:48

an Oak card and you hear

28:51

him do the material without an effect. And it's

28:53

quite remarkable. Well,

28:56

especially if you only know of him as the person who

28:58

kills harder than anyone has ever done. If you know

29:01

what bigger and blacker looks like, the

29:04

hardest anyone's I think ever killed in a special

29:06

is bigger and blacker. Unbelievable. And then you just

29:08

see a person bomb harder than you could ever

29:10

imagine doing it. Cause he's, even

29:13

if a joke is good, he's stepping on laughs, right?

29:15

It's like wild. It's wild.

29:18

And he just will do it for, the

29:20

one I write in the book, he did for a

29:22

full hour. After a full, it was the end of

29:24

a show. He goes on a night train, which was

29:26

at Littlefield and he just for a full hour.

29:28

Yeah. Code on. Yeah, yeah.

29:32

No, he's code on. Yeah, you said he had his puffy coat

29:34

on. The, so

29:36

what you acknowledge in that section

29:38

is that standup comedy is one of

29:40

the only art forms where the

29:43

art form process is taking place

29:45

with an audience. Which

29:48

is why I got frustrated when you

29:51

reviewed Mulaney in process. Because he pretty

29:54

explicitly was like, hey, don't review this.

29:58

So you want me to defend that I did that? I

30:00

don't know if you would or just

30:02

be silent. Sure, I'll be silent. I was

30:04

defensive of him both as a friend and

30:07

as a comedian. Sure, I debated

30:10

it. I

30:13

didn't go into it planning on

30:15

it. I trusted the judgment also

30:17

of people around me who

30:21

I think have a clear sense of like

30:24

what is

30:27

journalistically appropriate, right? Because

30:30

comedy is new in this sort of way where

30:33

it's sort of like, I

30:37

think if I remember correctly, Jason Sandeman is

30:39

like, he tries, he tends

30:41

to review people when they're doing big shows or whatever, or if they're

30:43

in New York or something like that, then that counts as a big

30:45

show. But I think

30:47

the main thing I thought about when I wrote it is

30:50

I don't

30:53

know who else was there. I don't know

30:55

who's going to Night Two or Night Three of

30:58

those shows, what they're going to write about it.

31:01

They are more likely

31:03

to write just pulling,

31:08

they're just gonna be like, they're gonna be

31:11

more likely to be like a tabloid, more

31:13

of a tabloid angle, right? This is what he said about

31:15

this part about this way. It's just a factual. This is

31:17

what he said about the divorce. This is what he said

31:20

about his addiction, et cetera. And I

31:22

found myself there with an

31:24

opportunity to help, and if anything,

31:27

I do think it's maybe even immoral or

31:29

like journalist complicated, because I was trying to

31:31

be of use in some ways. I

31:35

did think I wanted to contextualize people as

31:38

they see more of these shows. Because I

31:40

think people had a certain expectation for John because

31:42

he's John, right? He

31:44

not only is his fans, but

31:47

I think he's just always been so good. If you've

31:49

ever seen John ever, he's just always so good. And

31:51

I think there's a sort of burden. And

31:54

I think I wrote about that predicament that

31:56

one would be in. And I think I

31:58

was trying to help. people

32:01

understand what this thing is. More

32:03

so than say if this thing is good or bad. I'd

32:07

have to go back and read it. I mean, I

32:09

re-did part of it for the book because I think

32:12

at a larger point, even in the book and

32:14

whatever, but I think that was sort of my

32:16

justification for doing it. I don't

32:18

think you

32:21

are gonna do that very often with The Comedian.

32:23

Like there is a, ultimately a

32:25

news value to this. This has been deemed

32:27

news that John was doing this. Same

32:29

thing like, you know, when

32:31

Chris Rock's first shows back after the slap, like

32:34

people went to those first shows and just wrote what

32:36

he said. So I think that was sort

32:38

of my justification for it. I really

32:41

am proud of it as a piece of

32:43

writing. I think the

32:46

response I got from

32:48

it, I feel has

32:50

helped me come to terms justifying

32:53

doing it and so much as

32:55

it really, people

32:57

really liked it and in a way that

32:59

was like, I

33:03

think they found it, how would I put it? I think

33:05

people were worried about John. I

33:07

think they read that and they felt a

33:09

little bit more understanding. And I think that

33:12

helped people understand what the shows they were

33:14

gonna go see are. I know reading on

33:16

Reddit, like people that were talking about like,

33:19

oh, this is kind of what to expect. Don't go in wanting

33:21

X, Y, and Z. And

33:23

I think that's what I'm saying. I like I'm writing for the audience in that

33:25

regard because I do think if

33:28

they're going in, in a more salacious angle, I don't

33:30

think that's for the best of standup. I

33:32

think some people in the comedy community, I

33:35

think myself included, find it to

33:37

be one of the more craven journalistic

33:40

choices in comedy writing the last 20

33:42

years. That piece. Yeah.

33:46

It's interesting. I've got other responses from people in

33:48

comedy who like the piece. Name names. I

33:51

don't remember as a while ago. I

33:55

think that is unfair to what

33:57

the piece was. and

34:00

ignoring what then happened the days

34:03

afterwards. There's other

34:05

articles that came out that day. I

34:13

believe Rolling Stone or someone wrote about it. What

34:16

would happen if there was no, it

34:21

would just sort of, here's the things he said, mind

34:27

was an attempt to try to keep it in the perspective

34:29

of someone working on something and trying to understand it. But

34:31

I understand, I mean, like, if

34:36

comedians real, I don't know, like, do you feel

34:38

like there's many comedians have held it against me?

34:40

You still talk to me, you did the documentary.

34:42

Oh yeah, I don't hold it against you other

34:44

than that I clocked it

34:46

as something that made

34:49

me concerned about what I would say

34:51

on stage in the confines

34:55

of 200 people in an audience, which

34:58

I think is a concern for comedians is, okay,

35:02

if people can write about this,

35:04

well, maybe I won't say the most candid version

35:06

of this. Yes.

35:10

You know, even there was a joke

35:12

that I made on a show that

35:14

you booked, that was a benefit that Padma

35:16

Lakshmi had recently at the Bell House, which was a super fun

35:18

show, where I had

35:20

just come back from visiting my dad, who

35:22

had struggled with his health, and I made some jokes that

35:24

were wild, and

35:27

someone was filming it. And

35:30

I was like, oh, actually don't

35:32

film, you know. And I said

35:34

to them, I go, this is for this group of people. Yeah,

35:38

yeah. And that's special, and that's what's cool about all

35:40

of us being here in the room at the same

35:42

time. And I'm just very pretty, very pretty. Yeah,

35:45

I think there is, it's interesting, because

35:48

it is a complaint, that sort of,

35:50

especially the filming, it is a complaint

35:52

that, specifically the biggest comedians of the

35:54

world have complained about, like,

35:58

tangles, and like, 10

36:00

years ago, right? Yeah, yeah. Like Kevin Hart,

36:02

Chris Rock, especially were like, and.

36:05

Pouches, putting, people putting phones in pouches. And you

36:08

sort of didn't believe it when they were complaining

36:10

about it. You're like, how can this be a

36:12

problem? Yeah. And I do

36:16

think as

36:18

generations go on, and people have

36:20

less of, where

36:23

their phones are more connected to them and their understanding of

36:25

what the experience is, is even more and more about filming

36:27

it. It just becomes more normalized and they

36:29

wouldn't know the difference. I

36:32

do think or

36:35

hope that my piece

36:37

is, if anything is

36:39

on the same side

36:42

as the people who are against the

36:45

filming of things. In so much as

36:47

like, I

36:49

don't think the audience knew, right? I

36:53

was at that show. There's audience members there who did

36:55

not know how to behave. And in

36:57

many ways, I think if I remember in the piece, I

36:59

call out the people's bad behavior. And

37:01

I think it's because there are

37:03

people who, yeah, there are people

37:05

in the audience who kind of cheered on his drug

37:08

use. And

37:11

I do think I was like, okay, we need to

37:13

sort of, that's,

37:16

it goes back to like a better informed audience

37:18

of what is happening in the process. Like where

37:20

he is in the process, right? Like I do

37:22

think part of the piece was just telling people

37:24

what this is. So

37:26

they know how to engage in it and know that they shouldn't

37:28

be filming it. I didn't write at the top, don't

37:31

film it. But that,

37:33

because it's like the thing that you said to not

37:35

film, you're working on something. It's something I know. When

37:37

did I learn that? How did I learn that? Well,

37:40

I'm a freaking giant nerd. I've listened to every single

37:42

comedy podcast like 12 years ago and heard a million

37:44

comedians say that. Not everyone's

37:46

doing that. They haven't listened to

37:48

it. If anything, they're not going back 12

37:50

years to listen to early episodes of You Made It Weird where

37:52

that was talked about a bunch, let's say. So

37:55

they need, they'll get this information where they

37:57

get it. And possibly. that

38:00

me writing about it will have them

38:03

take this early stage more seriously. Maybe.

38:07

And maybe not. I don't think I normalized writing

38:09

about it because it was news. I think ultimately

38:11

the biggest comedians in

38:14

the world, almost anything, Pete Davidson,

38:16

when Pete Davidson does anything, there's

38:18

people who write about it. In

38:21

stand-up shows. It's terrible. He

38:24

locks up his phones, people still get around it. It

38:28

really sucks. Being really famous is not helpful

38:31

really for your comedy in a lot of ways. There are some ways

38:34

it is helpful because you can counter a public image

38:36

one has in yourself, which is like Richard Pryor is

38:38

probably a great example. But

38:41

yeah, it's really hard. I can understand not liking

38:44

that it happened. I can understand

38:46

being like, this is raw and someone's writing about

38:48

it. I obviously care about the writing process. I

38:51

know it's a sensitive space. That's part of when

38:53

we made the documentary about you, I knew it was asking

38:55

a lot because I do think the creative process is a

38:57

sensitive space. If anything, I was hoping

39:00

to capture that it is a sensitive space. Yeah.

39:03

I put a lot of faith

39:05

in you and Eddie Schmidt and Seth Meyers and

39:07

the whole team that made that documentary because I

39:09

was very self-conscious.

39:12

Even I was nervous watching back what it

39:14

would be. I said this

39:16

on Seth Meyers' show the other day, but it's like, it's

39:19

kind of super cut of me eating fries. I

39:22

guess that's what Mike Perviglo is all about, just

39:24

eating fries. He's always eating fries. Because that's the

39:26

control you have as the editor of someone else.

39:30

I'm usually the editor of myself. Yeah,

39:32

I mean, I think we, in some ways, I think it might have helped that I

39:36

also had so much more control over when I do the podcast. I

39:39

come with questions and I also go through

39:41

the edit and what is

39:43

essentially edited in the episodes are the things that I say

39:45

to edit. Though I am a producer on the thing, I

39:47

was not holding the cameras. I wasn't necessarily telling people where

39:49

to shoot. I did do a lot of the interviews, but

39:51

there are parts that I didn't. I

39:55

was like, what is the tone of this thing going to be? Yeah. So

39:58

I do think there was a... I

40:00

think it helped that we're all

40:03

gonna figure out what this thing is. We

40:06

don't have control over it. Ultimately, I

40:08

did realize that the best parts,

40:10

a lot of the best parts are things that

40:12

could not be controlled or this feeling of not

40:14

being controlled. Or when you let

40:17

it slip or whatever. I mean,

40:20

there is things also I saw in that that I think

40:22

was really interesting in terms of one thing about you as

40:24

a comedian. Because there's one show where you're so loose, looser

40:26

than I've ever seen you. Because we've

40:28

filmed nine shows. We shot so much. It was

40:31

nine shows. It was so much. And there was

40:33

one where you're so loose. And

40:35

I was like, and it's beautiful, but I was like, oh,

40:37

I wish more people could see this. Yeah,

40:40

I mean, it's funny you should say

40:42

that. That's one of the things Melania

40:44

always says to me is that he

40:47

wishes that I filmed myself doing just

40:49

an hour of stand up with no

40:51

narrative arc. Because I think he says

40:53

people don't realize sometimes that I

40:55

do that too. Yeah. And

40:58

that aspect gets into all your

41:00

shows, but it's very deliberately used.

41:02

And again, it's great and artful.

41:05

But it is just sort of like, it's

41:08

the hard thing to film is all specials. The thing is the thing

41:10

that you're able to do there is almost, it's

41:12

so hard to film for anybody. Which is

41:14

this feeling of it all

41:16

makes sense because we're all playing together. It feels the

41:18

most of what it feels like when stand up is

41:20

like improv. Let me pick that apart. So you're saying

41:23

I seem looser. Can

41:25

you have a specific example of anything

41:27

I said or like, or did where

41:29

you're like, oh, that would be cool

41:31

if he transplanted that energy into the

41:34

final version? No, I

41:36

wish I could. No, that's okay. I know

41:38

it was, there just was. Because

41:41

I've been trying for years to figure out

41:44

how to, my wife Jenny

41:46

calls these shows that

41:49

you're talking about where I'm being loose, the

41:51

working at our shows, as she

41:53

calls them affectionately, the Jim Morrison

41:55

shows, where it just doesn't feel

41:57

like there's any rules. Yeah. riffing

42:00

and being dumber than I think you

42:02

normally are. And there's

42:06

something about not good jokes

42:10

that if done well, and if the audience

42:12

knows that you are able to do good

42:14

jokes, is a beautiful thing. And

42:16

it's more like how people talk to each other.

42:19

It's like human beings don't have perfectly crafted jokes.

42:21

Well, it's the great inside joke of stand up

42:23

comedy, which you talk about also,

42:25

this idea of as an audience,

42:27

we're all in on the inside

42:29

joke of the comedian, what the

42:31

comedian's creating. Yah,

42:37

pretty good thought, yeah. The

42:49

Sandler thing really interested me because you're like,

42:51

I love Sandler and

42:53

you're like, critics, didn't get it.

42:57

This movie was 30% on Rotten Tomatoes,

42:59

this movie was 20%, Jack and Jill

43:01

was 10%, whatever. Sure, yeah. And

43:04

I agree with you. I

43:06

think Sandler is like one of the

43:09

crown jewels of comedy who has been

43:11

underestimated for years and years and years

43:14

and critics have really missed it. And the war shows

43:16

have really missed it. Who do

43:18

you think it's possible we're missing it

43:20

with right now? It's

43:23

a great question. Oh,

43:25

it's actually quite obvious. Kevin Hart. Oh,

43:28

Kevin Hart's hilarious, I agree. The

43:31

amount of times a thing like,

43:33

Kevin Hart is not funny trends

43:35

on Twitter or something like that

43:37

is remarkable to me.

43:41

There was a Washington Post article about how Kevin

43:43

Hart's not funny when he won the Mark Twain

43:45

prize. I didn't read the article because it was

43:47

just like, Kevin Hart's not funny. And I was

43:49

like, I've read this type of article about whoever

43:51

before. And I do think one,

43:54

for that person, part of the issue is

43:56

by the time mainstream white people learned who

43:58

Kevin Hart was. He already had proven himself

44:01

quite a bit in terms of his stand-off

44:03

specials and whatever. So by the time they

44:05

heard about him, he was already making huge

44:07

blockbuster comedies, which are not what

44:10

critics tend to like. And

44:12

I think he is so big

44:14

that you forget that ultimately he's

44:17

very good at the job of it.

44:19

He's very funny. He is trying his

44:21

hard to do interesting material. I

44:24

think a comedian of his size, which is as big as a

44:26

comedian has ever been, really could phone

44:28

it in and still do it. And

44:31

I think he's trying his hardest not to. Well,

44:33

he wakes up before him and does calisthenics. And

44:36

he has people help with his material, but ultimately it's

44:38

not going to be like when he's first breaking through.

44:41

There's an urgency to that. And

44:43

he had more personal stories then because those were the

44:45

stories of his childhood. And he used them up. But

44:49

I think he's good and I think

44:51

we'll look back and I think people will be like,

44:53

oh, he kind of maybe underrated this person despite, again,

44:55

he's doing quite well. But the same thing happened with

44:57

Adam. He was so, so big, it

44:59

was easy to be like he sucks because who else

45:01

are going to say he sucks? Who do you think

45:03

is the next, who could be the next person? Who

45:05

is that? Because people always say to me, and I'm

45:07

sure they say this to you with your podcast, people

45:10

always say, thanks for introducing me to Maddie

45:13

Weiner, for example. Thanks for

45:15

introducing me to Joe Firestone

45:17

or whoever it is. And it's like, who do

45:19

you think that might be? It's

45:23

like trying to think of the exact level of person.

45:25

And you have that with even just your podcast, where

45:28

people's feedback is, I didn't know about

45:30

this person. I mean, I remember

45:33

introducing people to Matt and Bowen, Matt Rogers

45:35

and Bowen Yang, before Bowen

45:37

was on SNL and then Matt has gone to

45:39

success. You discovered them. You

45:42

discovered Matt and Bowen. Yeah, I get

45:44

all the credit. I helped usher what would be

45:46

their guaranteed success. It seems to be

45:48

the Catherine Cohen when I had her on. I

45:51

mean, Jay Jordan, I think, is going

45:53

to define quite an audience for himself,

45:55

Brittany Carney. I'm very excited to see

45:57

where Rosebud Baker goes. Who

46:01

are comedians? I remember when I saw Taylor

46:03

Tomlinson, I was like, well, you'll play stadiums

46:05

if you want to play stadiums. Oh my

46:07

God, yeah, same. Immediately, just like, wow, this

46:09

person, it's just like a joke writer extraordinaire.

46:12

Yeah, and it's just sort of like you,

46:15

you tap into a thing young people

46:17

have that you just can't

46:20

recreate. You can't fake. You

46:22

can't fake that. What are

46:24

your pet peeves of comedians that drive

46:26

you crazy? The number one is the

46:28

attacking the audience for not laughing at

46:30

a joke. I hate it. It

46:33

is. I hate it. It's

46:37

very frustrating because the,

46:42

they're giving you information that is useful, right?

46:44

So it's like, why would you be like that? The audience

46:47

is giving you information that's useful, which is we think this

46:49

is funny or we don't think it is. Yeah, so why

46:51

would you, so don't be mad

46:53

at. Here's where I think this comes from. And

46:56

I think I've taught it over the years.

46:59

I hate it when I do it, but I think it

47:01

comes from an combined insecurity

47:03

of I'm exposing myself, I'm revealing how

47:05

I feel about this thing. And the

47:08

audience is like, nope, and

47:10

that hurts. And so you want, the

47:14

knee jerk defensiveness comes in and then you verbalize

47:16

it because you have a microphone sometimes and it's

47:18

not fun. I also think

47:20

like bombing and starting so hard that

47:22

it is probably traumatic to some people and

47:25

the way people process that is to build

47:27

an armor around themselves. So

47:29

they go into shows defensively and I just

47:32

don't like that energy. Like

47:34

obviously some great comedy could come out of that. It's like

47:36

you're cornered and as a result, you have to think of

47:38

something funny to say and then your brain comes with something

47:40

you might not think otherwise. But I

47:42

do think it also results in a sort

47:45

of knee jerk. They didn't laugh, they're wrong.

47:47

There's like a famous maybe apocryphal line from

47:49

Colin Quinn, which is, you know you're a

47:51

real comedian when you're killing

47:53

and you still hate the audience. Which

47:56

I don't agree with, but I think it's hilarious. Like

47:59

in cap. The exhalation of a

48:01

certain type of worldview. But

48:04

I want to say, this brings up a larger

48:07

question for me about the nature

48:09

of provocateurs. Because often

48:11

I will say, people will be surprised,

48:13

who are your favorite comedians? And I'll

48:15

go, Doug, Santa Hope, and Maria Bamford.

48:18

And they'll be like, eh? Those

48:20

two people are of a certain

48:22

DNA. I actually think Maria and

48:24

Doug, though they talk about completely

48:26

different things, are of the same

48:28

DNA. And that DNA is strapping.

48:33

This is gonna be wild. Like

48:36

when you watch Maria Bamford live, there's nothing like

48:38

it in the world. When you watch Doug, Santa

48:40

Hope live, there's nothing like it in the world.

48:42

Either of them, I don't agree with

48:44

this view, this

48:48

view, this view, this view. I could go one by one. Is

48:51

it possible to be a provocateur

48:53

in this era as a comedian,

48:55

that to be your genre? And

48:59

have critical acceptance? It's

49:02

interesting because I think it's a question

49:04

of what are you provoking? And what

49:06

do you do with those provocations? I

49:09

think all these sort of questions that are in this

49:12

space, it's a question of like, what do you mean

49:14

by possible? So it's like, let's say you're like, Dave

49:16

Chappelle, well, he's a provocateur, but he can't

49:18

do that now, except for he can, he's doing quite

49:20

well, or Bill Maher or whatever, right? These people are

49:22

the most successful comedians working. But

49:24

I think you're saying in terms of critical, I

49:27

think there is a lot

49:30

of people who just ultimately,

49:33

their value system does not think

49:35

that is the most valuable thing a comedian can

49:37

do. Like,

49:40

for example, I talked to Rami on my podcast recently

49:42

about, and he was saying essentially like, we don't really

49:44

need Bill Hicks and George Carlin

49:47

anymore. So

49:49

we can be provocative. Like that was at

49:51

a time where there weren't spaces for people

49:53

to be provocative. And

49:56

now there are spaces for people to be provocative. And

49:58

I think that gets at a large. question

50:00

of at

50:02

a time when there's so much content, what is

50:04

the role of the comedian? Right? And that's

50:06

the same thing why I write about in the book in terms of being getting

50:09

laughs, right? If the comedian has no one job

50:12

to be the purveyor of laughs in society, it's

50:14

like well if so there are

50:16

other purveyors of laughs right now that people

50:18

seemingly approve which is staying at home and

50:20

looking at their phone and laughing at the

50:23

dumb stuff they like on their phone. Which

50:26

sucks, right? I don't think that's

50:28

better, but it is the truth.

50:30

So the comedian probably

50:32

needs to be doing something more. Right.

50:34

It has to be, well it certainly has

50:36

to be funny. Yeah. And it

50:39

certainly has to be something that

50:41

you take away something more than

50:43

you came in with which is,

50:45

there's, Andrew Scheldt

50:47

said this to me recently, it's really interesting,

50:49

he goes we're living in like

50:51

hot take culture right now. So

50:53

in some ways by telling personal

50:55

stories it's kind of

50:58

like all you can do because everything's a take.

51:00

Yeah and I think there are, I'm

51:03

fine saying Dave Chappelle's name, he doesn't know what exists so

51:05

it's fine, but like I think Dave Chappelle is, the

51:08

problem with almost all of this was that he like, what

51:10

matters to Dave Chappelle? Like I feel like we have losing

51:13

the sense of who he is as a person and

51:15

sometimes this stuff, these provocations feel like

51:18

guards and ways to distract. It's

51:20

a magician being like look over here and don't look over

51:22

here. This

51:29

has been a fascinating conversation and your book is

51:32

great. Thank you. Congratulations. I mean I've known you

51:34

for a lot of years and I was so

51:36

happy for you that you wrote this fantastically

51:40

thorough book and thoughtful book

51:43

and and even

51:45

though I disagree with some of

51:47

your choices over the years, I I

51:50

love that there's other choices. I do appreciate

51:52

you as a writer and thanks

51:55

for writing this book and we

51:58

always close with working out for a cause. organization

52:00

you like to contribute to. The

52:06

same organization we were raising money for with

52:12

Padua Malashmi. We

52:19

are going to link to them in the show notes, encourage

52:24

people to contribute as well.

52:33

That's going to do it for another episode of

52:35

Working It Out. You can follow Jesse David Fox

52:37

on Instagram at Jesse David Fox. You

52:40

can read his writing at Vulture.

52:42

He has many, many articles that

52:44

I think are extraordinarily well written.

52:46

His book is called Comedy Book at

52:49

your local bookstore. His podcast is

52:51

called Good One and the Good One documentary

52:53

is streaming on Peacock. Go to burbigs.com to

52:55

sign up for the mailing list. You can

52:58

watch the full video of this one on

53:00

my YouTube channel at Mike Burbiglia. You

53:02

know, we got a whole bunch of episodes

53:05

and basically all the episodes since

53:08

June. So almost exactly a year

53:11

of YouTube episodes. So

53:14

check those out. They're really, really good. Our

53:16

producers of Working It Out are myself along

53:18

with Peter Salomon, Joseph Burbiglia and Mabel Lewis,

53:20

associate producer, Gary Simons. Sound mix by Shub

53:22

Saren, supervising engineer, Kate Balinski. Special

53:25

thanks to Jack Andrenoff and Bleachers for their

53:27

music. Special thanks to my wife, the poet,

53:29

J. Hope Stein. Special thanks as always to

53:31

my daughter, Una who built the original radio

53:33

fort made of pillows. And

53:35

of course, thanks most well to you who are listening.

53:37

If you enjoy the show, rate

53:39

us and review us on our Apple Podcast.

53:41

We're approaching 4,000 reviews

53:44

on there. I thought that was really exciting. This

53:47

is a little project, as

53:49

some of you know that we started in

53:51

June 2020 and we have almost a 150

53:57

episodes now available for you free no pay.

53:59

You can go back, you can listen to

54:01

Ben Stiller, or Rosebud Baker, or John Green.

54:03

That was a good one. Chris Redd was

54:05

a good one. Check out our back catalog,

54:07

comment on Apple Podcasts, which one is your

54:09

favorite so people know where to start. Thanks

54:11

most of all the way you are listening.

54:14

Tell your friends, tell your enemies. So let's

54:16

say you're at your local bookstore and

54:18

you see the last copy of Comedy

54:20

Book by Jesse David Fox and you reach

54:22

to grab it and someone else

54:25

grabs for it. And all of

54:27

a sudden you're arguing with this person you're fighting. Give it

54:29

to me, give it to me, give it to me. Here's

54:31

what you do to sort of bring the

54:34

temperature down. You go, hey, you could

54:36

read that book or I could take

54:38

the book and you could listen to

54:40

a podcast where comedians work out ideas

54:43

with other comedians and creatives. It's called

54:45

working it out. And the person would

54:47

be like, I'm

54:49

Jesse David Fox. I

54:51

already know about working it out. And

54:54

it'd be like, I'm so sorry. And it'll

54:56

be relatively resolved. Thanks

54:59

for listening everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next

55:02

time.