WEBVTT - Stand-Up Pt II 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.020 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.450 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, 0:00:14.490 --> 0:00:17.130 and Jerry's here, too. And we are kicking off part 0:00:17.230 --> 0:00:21.520 two of our two-part episode on stand-up comedy. And I 0:00:21.620 --> 0:00:23.520 think if I remember correctly, Chuck, it was a couple 0:00:23.540 --> 0:00:26.500 of days ago, but you said something about alt comedy. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:28.380 We were going to talk about that. 0:00:28.780 --> 0:00:29.280 That's right. 0:00:29.380 --> 0:00:30.200 What is that? 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.090 Alt comedy is something that came about in the early 0:00:33.750 --> 0:00:39.650 90s with a group of comedians performing in. And I 0:00:39.670 --> 0:00:41.690 don't know if that's where the term comes from, but 0:00:42.229 --> 0:00:44.130 performing in alternative venues. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:46.420 They weren't performing. 0:00:46.500 --> 0:00:47.780 And, you know, of course, they would all go to 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.300 perform in a comedy store and all that kind of stuff, too. 0:00:51.350 --> 0:00:53.830 And comedy clubs, but they were well known for performing 0:00:53.890 --> 0:00:57.370 in like piano bars or like bookstores. 0:00:56.810 --> 0:00:57.570 And things like that. 0:00:57.850 --> 0:01:03.070 And, you know, people like Jeanine Garofalo, the great Dana Gould, 0:01:03.110 --> 0:01:05.790 who is a wonderful comic and human being still. 0:01:06.370 --> 0:01:06.970 Yeah. 0:01:07.110 --> 0:01:10.150 They started out at performing at a place called Big 0:01:10.170 --> 0:01:13.950 and Tall Books in L.A., the Luna Lounge in New 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.440 York and Largo, the original Largo in L.A. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.020 Were all sort of home bases for these comics. 0:01:20.980 --> 0:01:21.120 Yeah. 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.480 We did a show in Largo. Was that the original Largo? 0:01:23.780 --> 0:01:26.060 No, the original was like this little piano bar. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:26.970 I see. 0:01:27.670 --> 0:01:30.470 Uh, but the, the new Largo is great too. It's awesome. 0:01:31.130 --> 0:01:34.690 For sure. Uh, so I mentioned Mr. Show before, if 0:01:34.709 --> 0:01:38.050 you're familiar with Mr. Show with Bob and David, um, 0:01:38.830 --> 0:01:43.390 that is essentially alt comedy at its core. And most 0:01:43.410 --> 0:01:45.150 of the people associated with the show, if not all 0:01:45.190 --> 0:01:47.710 of them were alt comics of the time, early, early 0:01:47.750 --> 0:01:54.600 mid nineties. Right. Um, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Mark Maron, PFT, 0:01:54.860 --> 0:01:57.280 the great Paul F. Tompkins. Yeah. One of the funniest 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:02.260 people alive. Mary Lynn Raskub. 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:03.020 She's great. 0:02:03.220 --> 0:02:04.720 Yeah. I was like, who is that? And I went 0:02:04.740 --> 0:02:06.560 and looked her up. I'm like, oh, OK. I had 0:02:06.620 --> 0:02:08.680 no idea that she started out as a stand up. 0:02:08.780 --> 0:02:08.980 Yeah. 0:02:09.220 --> 0:02:13.190 But she was great on Larry Sanders as the booking 0:02:13.220 --> 0:02:15.730 assistant to, I think, Janine Garofalo, right? 0:02:17.030 --> 0:02:17.230 Yeah. 0:02:17.350 --> 0:02:18.390 Janine Garofalo was on that show. 0:02:19.389 --> 0:02:24.230 And she's probably more well-known by mainstream America as a 0:02:24.310 --> 0:02:27.510 character on 24. She was on 24 basically the entire 0:02:27.710 --> 0:02:29.550 run of the show. I'm not sure what she did, though, 0:02:29.570 --> 0:02:30.440 because I didn't watch it. 0:02:30.669 --> 0:02:32.410 Yeah, she was great. She was part of that crew. 0:02:32.430 --> 0:02:35.589 I know you mentioned Maria Bamford, but if you've never 0:02:35.630 --> 0:02:38.950 seen Maria Bamford's comedy, please go see it because she's 0:02:39.330 --> 0:02:43.160 still one of the most original comedians working today, for sure. 0:02:43.660 --> 0:02:47.100 Yeah, and you said still, because most of these comedians, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.660 the ones who are still alive, are still working and 0:02:50.710 --> 0:02:52.370 still doing stuff, and a lot of them are still 0:02:52.389 --> 0:02:57.370 doing stand-up. Like David Cross, he's had some Mondo TV hits, 0:02:57.450 --> 0:03:00.490 like he was on Arrested Development, he was on Mr. Show, 0:03:00.550 --> 0:03:03.160 he's been on just tons of movies and just killed 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.280 on all of them. He still does stand-up pretty regularly, 0:03:06.340 --> 0:03:09.660 as a matter of fact. Oh, yeah. Does Patton Oswalt still? 0:03:09.860 --> 0:03:10.080 Oh, yeah. 0:03:10.740 --> 0:03:13.100 Okay, yeah. So these guys are still doing stand-up, which 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.750 is Really, to their credit, because most of them, I mean, 0:03:16.790 --> 0:03:21.730 Patton Oswalt was on what? Was it King of Queens? 0:03:23.050 --> 0:03:23.550 I don't know. 0:03:24.510 --> 0:03:26.870 I don't remember either, but he had a huge role 0:03:26.910 --> 0:03:31.880 in like a major network television show. Like, I just 0:03:31.900 --> 0:03:34.320 think it's amazing that they're still doing stand-up because as 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.980 we've seen, people like Steve Martin and Robin Williams and 0:03:37.020 --> 0:03:39.400 all that. It's like once they became huge, they left 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.520 stand-up behind. The early 90s alt comics did not. And 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.700 they had some other there were some other characteristics besides 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:51.410 just appearing in small like alternative clubs, too. 0:03:52.010 --> 0:03:55.530 Yeah, for sure. You know, it was, I guess, sort 0:03:55.550 --> 0:03:56.810 of an alternative point of view. 0:03:56.910 --> 0:03:58.610 And this was in the 90s at a time where 0:03:58.670 --> 0:04:01.010 alternative music that was just sort of the buzzword for 0:04:01.090 --> 0:04:04.690 anything that kind of broke from the previous mainstreams of 0:04:04.750 --> 0:04:05.350 the 80s. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:06.460 Yeah. 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.460 So a little more like they were making like insider 0:04:09.500 --> 0:04:14.400 references more. A little less like set up punchline and 0:04:14.460 --> 0:04:18.000 more sort of observational, like wry humor about life and 0:04:18.220 --> 0:04:20.669 telling stories about their lives and stuff like that. 0:04:22.070 --> 0:04:22.390 What else? 0:04:23.850 --> 0:04:29.710 They eschewed the racism, generally homophobia. Essentially, if you if 0:04:29.730 --> 0:04:33.430 you're familiar with Don Rickles, imagine the antithesis of Don Rickles. 0:04:33.990 --> 0:04:34.150 Yeah. 0:04:35.950 --> 0:04:38.270 One of the alt comics from this time, too, is 0:04:38.450 --> 0:04:40.739 very sadly no longer with us because he was also 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.100 one of the funniest people around. His mind was just 0:04:43.779 --> 0:04:48.340 a national treasure, was Mitch Hedberg. Yeah. Were you into him? 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.800 Yeah, he's the greatest. We've talked about him on the 0:04:50.820 --> 0:04:53.969 show before. Mitch Hedberg is very, very sad that we 0:04:53.990 --> 0:04:56.490 lost him because he was just kind of getting started, 0:04:56.510 --> 0:04:56.969 I feel like. 0:04:57.930 --> 0:05:00.950 Yeah, he really was. I came across, I think, a 0:05:01.029 --> 0:05:07.860 BuzzFeed list of 275 people. Of his jokes ranked from 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.940 worst to best. And there really was no worst one 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:13.680 on there. They're all just wonderful. 0:05:13.940 --> 0:05:14.919 God bless you, BuzzFeed. 0:05:16.380 --> 0:05:17.180 Would you like to hear one? 0:05:17.700 --> 0:05:17.920 Sure. 0:05:19.740 --> 0:05:23.020 Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only disease you 0:05:23.050 --> 0:05:24.429 can get yelled at for having. 0:05:25.210 --> 0:05:26.450 I think I remember that joke. 0:05:27.029 --> 0:05:31.790 And his like delivery too was just... just amazing. Yeah. 0:05:31.850 --> 0:05:35.110 His whole act was great. So, yeah, I'm sad he's 0:05:35.150 --> 0:05:35.529 gone too. 0:05:37.050 --> 0:05:41.650 There was a thing though with alt comedy where some 0:05:41.670 --> 0:05:45.469 like club comics would sometimes sort of deride that scene. 0:05:45.550 --> 0:05:49.200 I know Bill Burr in 2012 called it that scene 0:05:49.540 --> 0:05:50.760 like you were in a comedy womb. 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:51.800 Yeah. 0:05:52.100 --> 0:05:54.339 Like it was a real safe place to go and 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.060 you weren't just going up in front of like a 0:05:56.540 --> 0:05:59.870 potentially hostile. I think there's like This idea that you 0:05:59.910 --> 0:06:02.240 earn your stripes by going in front of hostile crowds 0:06:02.250 --> 0:06:03.840 that might hate you and might heckle you. 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.400 And you got to earn your stripes that way in 0:06:06.420 --> 0:06:07.119 the comedy world. 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.380 And I think that all comedy scene, there were some 0:06:09.420 --> 0:06:12.460 comics that thought that that was probably not going to 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:13.100 happen there. 0:06:13.260 --> 0:06:14.720 So it was a little too easy. 0:06:14.740 --> 0:06:20.870 Yeah, he definitely thought that. And I think his point was, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.090 if you took those comedians and put them in a 0:06:23.150 --> 0:06:27.679 regular club, they would. not do very well because they 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.060 hadn't gone through heckling or something like that. And I 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.780 think more to the point, I read the transcript of this. 0:06:34.860 --> 0:06:38.839 It was on some podcast, a comedy podcast. And he 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.080 was saying that one of the things that really rubbed 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.930 in the wrong way was that if their jokes bombed 0:06:44.940 --> 0:06:47.450 or something like that, they just told the audience that 0:06:47.470 --> 0:06:50.650 the audience was too dumb to get what genius they were. 0:06:51.339 --> 0:06:53.040 And I was like, as I was reading that, I 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.500 was like, totally. I could totally see most of these 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.800 alt comics that I've mentioned telling the audience they're not 0:07:00.860 --> 0:07:03.380 getting it, that that's why they're not laughing, that it's them. 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.440 And he called that out. And I was like, okay, 0:07:06.490 --> 0:07:07.950 I kind of get that. It was a little more 0:07:08.010 --> 0:07:09.430 nuanced than that. Yeah. 0:07:09.610 --> 0:07:10.170 Yeah, I think so. 0:07:10.590 --> 0:07:12.970 And I never thought I'd be standing here defending Bill Burr, 0:07:12.990 --> 0:07:13.530 but you know what I mean. 0:07:15.750 --> 0:07:18.250 Uh, you know, with the rise of podcasting, you talked 0:07:18.290 --> 0:07:21.070 earlier about, uh, comedy podcasts, and that's such a huge 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:22.810 thing now. Like most of the shows I listened to 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:27.020 are comedy shows. And, uh, Mark Maron's WTF, of course, 0:07:27.060 --> 0:07:30.120 was an interview show. Uh, and the Joe Rogan experience, 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:31.580 you know, Joe Rogan started out. 0:07:31.540 --> 0:07:35.480 As a standup. Um, both of those shows were created 0:07:35.500 --> 0:07:35.610 in 2009. 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:41.260 And, um, You know, before Joe Rogan experience became like super, 0:07:41.300 --> 0:07:44.420 super political, it was much more of a and I 0:07:44.460 --> 0:07:46.550 think he still does some of that stuff now with 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.690 this little comedy crew. But it was much more of 0:07:48.950 --> 0:07:51.530 like a Marin, like let's just have comedians on kind 0:07:51.550 --> 0:07:51.770 of thing. 0:07:52.350 --> 0:07:57.750 Yes, he he very frequently referred to it as the craft. 0:07:58.030 --> 0:08:01.600 And I don't think I've ever seen a commenter online 0:08:01.940 --> 0:08:04.460 talk about him saying the craft and not deriding. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.740 It is a craft. I guess you just can't say 0:08:07.780 --> 0:08:08.420 that out loud, huh? 0:08:08.970 --> 0:08:09.450 For sure. 0:08:09.550 --> 0:08:10.610 Yeah. 0:08:10.830 --> 0:08:14.270 There was a great takedown video of him by another 0:08:14.330 --> 0:08:19.640 stand-up when he did that recent live stream comedy stand-up 0:08:19.660 --> 0:08:20.820 show Joe Rogan did. 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:21.280 Okay. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.020 Apparently it didn't go all that well. All right. And 0:08:24.060 --> 0:08:28.020 this stand-up basically just disassembled it and pointed out all 0:08:28.060 --> 0:08:31.580 the reasons why, and it was very funny. But supposedly 0:08:31.770 --> 0:08:34.470 Joe Rogan used his clout to get it taken down 0:08:34.550 --> 0:08:36.530 at YouTube, which is not super cool. 0:08:36.870 --> 0:08:38.390 Interesting. Yeah, I didn't hear about that. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.420 But no matter what you think of Joe Rogan, his politics, 0:08:42.460 --> 0:08:45.679 the people he has on, his views, his opinions, it's 0:08:45.780 --> 0:08:51.230 indisputable that he's had an enormous impact on comedy of 0:08:51.300 --> 0:08:55.370 all kinds in the 21st century because of how huge 0:08:55.390 --> 0:08:59.790 his podcast is and because of how often he'll use 0:08:59.830 --> 0:09:04.230 his platform to bring on up-and-coming comedians. But because of 0:09:04.290 --> 0:09:11.099 the politics, most of those comedians are like, at least center-right, 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:16.820 if not full-on right-wing comedians. And it's a huge, yeah, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.400 it's been a huge shift. I mean, you know, in 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.680 the United States, it's been an enormous shift. And Joe 0:09:22.700 --> 0:09:24.920 Rogan's a huge reason why that's happened. 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:26.330 I didn't know that, actually. 0:09:27.210 --> 0:09:28.750 I guess I don't keep up with the comedy scene 0:09:28.790 --> 0:09:30.050 as much, so I didn't know that was sort of 0:09:30.090 --> 0:09:30.370 a thing. 0:09:31.090 --> 0:09:36.270 Well, let's talk about that. So, yes, those same alt-right 0:09:36.370 --> 0:09:40.950 comedians are often criticized in the same way that the 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.330 early 90s alt comedians were. That was like Bill Burr said, 0:09:44.350 --> 0:09:46.949 it was a comedy womb that they weren't exposing themselves 0:09:47.150 --> 0:09:51.120 to what club comedians normally did. And the same thing 0:09:51.170 --> 0:09:55.100 is with the alt-right comedians today because they start out 0:09:56.020 --> 0:10:00.300 on podcasts usually. Right. Not even necessarily as stand-up. They're 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.699 just funny guys on podcasts. And they go out and 0:10:03.820 --> 0:10:06.120 they get nothing but love on these podcasts. And then 0:10:06.140 --> 0:10:10.610 they go out. They've generated enough followers on Instagram or 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.350 whatever to automatically get booked in a club. 0:10:13.470 --> 0:10:13.650 Yeah. 0:10:14.530 --> 0:10:19.130 Apparently, I read somewhere that 250,000 followers on Instagram is 0:10:19.170 --> 0:10:22.230 like an automatic yes for a weekend at a club, 0:10:22.350 --> 0:10:27.030 maybe even headlining there. But some of them have zero 0:10:27.100 --> 0:10:32.640 experience doing stand-up. And so the criticism is like, that's 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.140 not good for the person coming to see you because 0:10:35.179 --> 0:10:37.820 they paid that money and they're expecting a good stand-up 0:10:37.860 --> 0:10:41.369 performance when you're taking this funny guy on the podcast 0:10:41.710 --> 0:10:43.890 out of the conversation and all that stuff. And it's 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.640 just that person on stage. 0:10:46.860 --> 0:10:47.060 Yeah. 0:10:47.140 --> 0:10:50.380 It doesn't always go very well. They don't always necessarily 0:10:50.420 --> 0:10:53.820 become a good standup because they're funny on a podcast. 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:55.860 And just the same way we're like that, that funny 0:10:55.900 --> 0:10:56.520 guy at work. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:57.100 Right. 0:10:57.500 --> 0:11:00.240 Wouldn't necessarily do very well as a standup either because 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.420 it's a totally different context. 0:11:02.660 --> 0:11:02.910 Yeah. 0:11:03.630 --> 0:11:04.290 Yeah, for sure. 0:11:04.309 --> 0:11:08.209 Uh, you know, or they might like I always encourage 0:11:08.250 --> 0:11:11.450 funny people to try it because you never know. And 0:11:11.670 --> 0:11:13.230 we'll get to that at the end, like kind of 0:11:13.250 --> 0:11:15.910 the best steps for dipping your toe in that pond. 0:11:16.830 --> 0:11:17.449 But, yeah, you're right. 0:11:17.510 --> 0:11:21.109 I mean, the gatekeeping is different these days, of course, 0:11:21.130 --> 0:11:24.250 with social media and podcast. It's not like the old 0:11:24.270 --> 0:11:26.940 days where you would, you know, get up at coffee 0:11:26.980 --> 0:11:30.240 houses and open mic nights and then eventually maybe try 0:11:30.260 --> 0:11:33.309 and crack in to doing five minutes on like a 0:11:33.350 --> 0:11:35.070 local comedy night or something like that at. 0:11:35.050 --> 0:11:35.589 A real club. 0:11:35.610 --> 0:11:36.750 Right. 0:11:36.929 --> 0:11:39.480 If you have that social media following like you're talking about, 0:11:39.540 --> 0:11:42.880 if you have your own podcast, like you can bypass 0:11:43.420 --> 0:11:46.800 sort of what used to be locked gates. 0:11:48.300 --> 0:11:49.020 Mark Maron, shout out. 0:11:49.780 --> 0:11:55.370 And it's just a different scene now. I don't know 0:11:55.390 --> 0:11:57.050 if it's good or bad. I think a lot of 0:11:57.090 --> 0:12:00.069 the old school comics probably complain about it. But I'm 0:12:00.170 --> 0:12:02.069 not a stand-up, so I just sort of see it 0:12:02.110 --> 0:12:02.910 for what it is, I think. 0:12:03.650 --> 0:12:05.500 Yeah, and it's tough at the end of the day 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.080 to feel good about arguing about democratizing anything. 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:09.920 Yeah, true. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:16.579 I think the point is that there's more non-funny stand-ups 0:12:16.940 --> 0:12:19.260 potentially than there ever have been in the history of 0:12:19.300 --> 0:12:20.040 the world right now. 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:21.970 Yeah, agreed. 0:12:22.490 --> 0:12:24.670 That's not to say that all people who get their 0:12:24.690 --> 0:12:28.370 start on social media or podcasts aren't great at stand-up. 0:12:28.860 --> 0:12:31.940 Do you remember the girl and her boyfriend who was 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.960 hanging out backstage with us in Toronto? I think you 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:36.760 met them briefly. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:37.080 Yeah. 0:12:38.220 --> 0:12:42.380 That was Michelle Sui. And Yumi found her on Instagram. 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.500 And she is hilarious, not just like on Instagram, but 0:12:45.540 --> 0:12:49.090 also in person. She's like a very, very early on 0:12:49.130 --> 0:12:54.050 in her career stand up. But Party Hardiston, Patty, I 0:12:54.390 --> 0:12:58.860 can't remember her last name. You know, Party Hardiston, she 0:12:58.900 --> 0:13:01.720 appears on Tim Robinson's stuff sometimes. 0:13:02.020 --> 0:13:04.760 I know her as an actor, and she is totally 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:05.860 weird and amazing. 0:13:06.300 --> 0:13:10.280 Yes. If you follow her on Instagram, she's just constantly 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.880 bringing the good stuff. So, yeah, it's not a total 0:13:12.940 --> 0:13:16.730 critique of social media or podcasts in general. It definitely 0:13:16.750 --> 0:13:20.910 has had a massive impact on stand-up comedy. Not all 0:13:20.929 --> 0:13:21.450 of it good. 0:13:21.770 --> 0:13:24.050 Yeah, agreed. Should we take a break? 0:13:25.850 --> 0:13:26.050 Yes. 0:13:26.070 --> 0:13:28.350 All right. We're going to take a break and talk 0:13:28.390 --> 0:13:31.130 about the transition to the one-person show right after this. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:44.420 Thank you. 0:14:05.570 --> 0:14:05.910 All right. 0:14:05.990 --> 0:14:08.770 I promised talk of the one person show. And that 0:14:09.070 --> 0:14:12.440 is it's sort of a thing where it's stand up, 0:14:13.020 --> 0:14:16.480 but it's skinned a little bit differently. And they're often 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.340 it's usually billed as like a one person show or 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.240 like an evening with or something like that. 0:14:22.660 --> 0:14:23.200 Right. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:24.240 And it's definitely comedy. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.710 But there can be very deep, sad moments of pathos 0:14:27.780 --> 0:14:32.619 and just sadness. There's usually a very well-crafted. kind of 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.420 arc to the show, like it feels much more sort 0:14:37.460 --> 0:14:41.580 of plotted out. Mike Birbiglia, of course, is one of 0:14:41.660 --> 0:14:46.860 the masters of this craft. Alex Edelman and his great 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.000 show Just for Us that ran on Broadway. Gary Gullman, 0:14:51.100 --> 0:14:54.200 one of my favorite comedians of all time, he has 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.020 kind of made that transition in the last few years 0:14:57.100 --> 0:14:59.000 to a little bit more of a one person show. 0:14:59.510 --> 0:14:59.830 Oh, yeah. 0:15:00.050 --> 0:15:01.540 Rather than straight up joke telling. 0:15:02.940 --> 0:15:05.960 And our buddy, John Hodgman, you know, John always calls 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.680 his stand up imitation stand up like he won't say 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.620 he does stand up. And it's definitely sort of a 0:15:11.700 --> 0:15:13.970 one person show. But it's all of this stuff is 0:15:14.090 --> 0:15:17.729 always very, very funny. It's just sort of slightly different 0:15:17.750 --> 0:15:19.730 than like a standard stand up set. 0:15:20.490 --> 0:15:22.990 Yes. And those are all great examples, too, not just 0:15:23.290 --> 0:15:28.650 of great like one person shows, but also great examples 0:15:28.690 --> 0:15:30.690 of why a lot of people are like, that's not 0:15:30.750 --> 0:15:35.670 stand-up comedy. That's different. That just seems to be like 0:15:35.710 --> 0:15:39.070 an unnecessary controversy. I don't think it really matters. But 0:15:39.590 --> 0:15:42.490 there are definitely purists out there, if it hasn't become 0:15:42.630 --> 0:15:46.220 clear yet, who are like, this is stand-up comedy. Everything 0:15:46.250 --> 0:15:49.000 else ain't. And that's one of the things that they 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.700 point to frequently is like, that's not stand-up comedy. One 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:58.990 huge target was Nanette. From Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby that 0:15:59.030 --> 0:16:02.190 came out in 2017 and was a massive like cultural 0:16:02.410 --> 0:16:05.670 tidal wave here in the United States for sure. And 0:16:05.770 --> 0:16:09.150 I think in a bunch of other countries too. And 0:16:10.390 --> 0:16:15.800 like there, it was mostly like gut punches with some 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:20.859 funny stuff carrying it between, but it was, And it 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.980 was not funny. And in fact, she almost kind of uses, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.420 if not directly, I haven't seen it, but I had 0:16:26.460 --> 0:16:29.600 to read a bunch about it. It seems like she 0:16:29.780 --> 0:16:33.970 uses or she points out that comedy can be harmful 0:16:34.390 --> 0:16:38.170 because it can take, you know, stuff that really needs 0:16:38.210 --> 0:16:40.790 to get out and just kind of keep it simmered. 0:16:40.830 --> 0:16:43.010 Like it doesn't let it out all the way. And 0:16:43.030 --> 0:16:45.290 so a lot of people are like, that's not, don't 0:16:45.350 --> 0:16:48.120 call that comedy. And it gets called comedy because Hannah 0:16:48.140 --> 0:16:49.740 Gadsby started out as a standup. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.940 Yeah, I think Seth Meyers coined a term called claptor 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.900 comedy rather than laughter comedy. And this it's like a 0:16:57.940 --> 0:17:01.950 show where like the audience will give applause in agreement 0:17:02.010 --> 0:17:04.450 with the person on stage and the points that they're 0:17:04.470 --> 0:17:07.950 making rather than like having people rolling in the aisles laughing. 0:17:08.790 --> 0:17:12.320 Yeah. And in the case of Nanette. It's like they're 0:17:12.340 --> 0:17:14.939 clapping like you're so brave for doing this. And she 0:17:15.020 --> 0:17:19.340 is indisputably brave for having done that show. But but yes, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.939 she's not really making people laugh or she's making people laugh. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.750 They're laughing out of relief because it's carrying them out 0:17:25.790 --> 0:17:28.510 of this horrific story that she's just finished, you know? 0:17:28.930 --> 0:17:29.650 Yeah, for sure. 0:17:30.830 --> 0:17:34.410 You know, Tig Notaro is a very, very funny comedian. 0:17:34.450 --> 0:17:37.470 And she actually had us perform live at her comedy 0:17:37.490 --> 0:17:40.220 festival yesterday. And is a wonderful human being as well. 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:46.250 But she– Tig is probably one of the biggest risk 0:17:46.410 --> 0:17:51.450 takers in comedy, I think. And also just from hearing 0:17:51.490 --> 0:17:56.250 interviews with her and seeing her work, like, seems to 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.840 care as little as any comedian I've ever seen as 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.800 to what people think about her and her stand-up. That's– 0:18:06.100 --> 0:18:08.959 Like just totally comfortable in her own skin, does what 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:15.100 she does. She very famously performed topless after her mastectomy 0:18:16.100 --> 0:18:17.820 and her breast cancer. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.580 So, you know, that's what Tig would do. 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.199 Or when she went, I don't know if you ever 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.240 saw when she went on Conan and moved the chair 0:18:25.260 --> 0:18:26.760 around for her whole act. 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:28.360 No, I didn't. 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.220 She went on stage and instead of doing comedy, she, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:36.090 I guess in rehearsals, I think as the story goes, 0:18:36.130 --> 0:18:39.690 she had a routine, but realized that this chair made 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:44.879 an awful, like, squeaky sound when it moved across the stage. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:47.340 And so she got up there and she moved this 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.060 chair around for five minutes. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:51.540 That was it. 0:18:52.940 --> 0:18:55.540 Like, was she talking while she was doing it? No. 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.520 So she just wasn't talking. She was just moving the chair. 0:18:58.859 --> 0:19:00.060 Moving the chair. It stopped. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:00.440 That's funny. 0:19:00.710 --> 0:19:02.050 Get a reaction. Move the chair. 0:19:02.130 --> 0:19:05.640 Conan is doubled over laughing like on the side about 0:19:05.700 --> 0:19:08.400 just the, you know, the chutzpah of taking the charge, 0:19:08.420 --> 0:19:09.240 doing something like that. 0:19:09.540 --> 0:19:12.920 Yeah, for sure. One more thing on Claptor. It doesn't 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.000 have to just be like brave or you're a risk 0:19:15.020 --> 0:19:16.870 taker or something like that. It can it can just 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.530 be as simple as like preaching to the choir. So telling, 0:19:20.030 --> 0:19:25.410 you know, Democrat jokes or Republican jokes to an audience 0:19:25.430 --> 0:19:28.270 full of liberals. That's Claptor, you know. 0:19:28.910 --> 0:19:31.659 Yeah, sure. Or like us on stage. 0:19:32.980 --> 0:19:36.520 Yes, for sure. That's why I'm saying I don't think 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.200 I would translate to a good standup because like talk 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.389 about a womb, like everyone who's there knows who we are. 0:19:43.450 --> 0:19:45.810 They listen to us. They came to see us expecting 0:19:45.890 --> 0:19:49.909 exactly what we're doing. Remember that group of women at 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.180 the casino in Ottawa? Yeah. 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:54.200 Yeah. 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:56.900 I have no idea if they thought we were funny 0:19:56.940 --> 0:19:58.940 at all. They had no idea who we were. They 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.600 just came because they got comp tickets by the casino. 0:20:02.100 --> 0:20:04.540 And it's still not clear to me whether they thought 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:06.439 we were funny or if they sat there because we 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.439 called them out at the very beginning of the show 0:20:08.460 --> 0:20:10.340 and they felt obligated to sit there now. 0:20:10.980 --> 0:20:12.120 Oh, I bet they had a good time. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:14.060 Yeah. I don't know if they thought we were like 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.050 the funniest comedians they'd ever seen, but they stayed. 0:20:18.030 --> 0:20:20.210 They did stay. You can't argue with that. 0:20:21.050 --> 0:20:21.250 Yeah. 0:20:21.890 --> 0:20:22.610 Uh, What else? 0:20:22.630 --> 0:20:26.210 Cell phones is a big deal these days because, you know, 0:20:27.070 --> 0:20:30.710 you can get famous and go viral for taking down 0:20:30.750 --> 0:20:34.790 a heckler on stage, which has nothing to do with 0:20:34.830 --> 0:20:38.540 your actual stand up set. It's always fun seeing a 0:20:38.580 --> 0:20:41.320 comedian take down a heckler. But in the days of 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.340 social media and people with their phones in the audience. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.050 You might become like super, super famous as a stand 0:20:49.090 --> 0:20:52.649 up for like somebody that like jumps up on stage 0:20:52.710 --> 0:20:55.409 and physically attacks you or something. It's an interesting time. 0:20:56.810 --> 0:21:00.350 Yes. Or the crowd work is all it's not even 0:21:01.510 --> 0:21:04.690 putting a heckler down like it's with a lot of 0:21:05.109 --> 0:21:09.710 younger stand up comedians today. It's like prompted like, hey, 0:21:09.770 --> 0:21:11.590 how are you doing? Are you here tonight? And then. 0:21:12.100 --> 0:21:14.600 instead of making a joke and moving on, that's like 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.220 five minutes of material. 0:21:16.619 --> 0:21:18.460 Like talking to the person on the front row. 0:21:18.830 --> 0:21:21.310 Yeah. And then moving on to somebody else. And it's 0:21:21.369 --> 0:21:24.130 not even necessarily funny. It might be funny throughout, but 0:21:24.310 --> 0:21:27.280 not all of them are really particularly funny. And like 0:21:27.490 --> 0:21:32.480 crowd work is the bulk of that, that, that act. 0:21:33.190 --> 0:21:36.390 And again, the club comedians, the purists are like, what 0:21:36.430 --> 0:21:38.950 are you doing? That's not stand-up comedy. You're not even 0:21:39.230 --> 0:21:42.109 writing anything. You're just sitting there riffing with people in 0:21:42.130 --> 0:21:43.170 the audience, you know? 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.120 I'm a sucker for crowd work. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.440 Well, okay. Well, then you would like this guy. I 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.920 discovered him from researching. His name's Big Jay Oakerson. I'm 0:21:50.940 --> 0:21:55.139 not sure his sense of humor is exactly dovetailing with yours, 0:21:55.220 --> 0:21:58.070 but I think it's enough that you would find him funny. 0:21:58.930 --> 0:22:02.630 But he interacts with the crowd by basically... It's almost 0:22:02.670 --> 0:22:05.510 like improv where he's like, what kind of joke do 0:22:05.530 --> 0:22:08.120 you guys want to hear? And somebody will say something 0:22:08.150 --> 0:22:10.899 and he just makes up a joke on the spot. 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:12.800 And it's not like a one liner necessarily. 0:22:12.900 --> 0:22:13.040 Yeah. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:15.280 Might even be like a little plot to it or something. 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.399 But it's pretty impressive what he's doing off of the cuff. 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:21.879 Well, I mean, Rory Scoville does that. He's probably my 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.260 favorite stand up right now. 0:22:23.460 --> 0:22:23.680 Great. 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.199 He and Gary Goldman. But Rory, I mean, he has 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.520 shows where he writes a set and does that. 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.930 And that's great. But he will also do these a 0:22:30.970 --> 0:22:31.350 lot of times. 0:22:31.430 --> 0:22:32.990 It's like five nights in a row in a city 0:22:33.550 --> 0:22:35.390 where he will tell everyone ahead of time, like these 0:22:35.450 --> 0:22:38.840 are improv stand up shows. And man, you talk about 0:22:38.859 --> 0:22:41.740 the guts to stand up on stage with no material. 0:22:42.100 --> 0:22:42.379 Yeah. 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:44.780 And just start making stuff up. And it's not a 0:22:44.780 --> 0:22:47.119 10 minute set or whatever. Like he's up there for 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.770 an hour just making stuff up. And it's so, so funny. 0:22:51.250 --> 0:22:51.470 Yeah. 0:22:51.530 --> 0:22:55.730 Well, that's the thing. He's funny. His mind is capable 0:22:55.770 --> 0:23:01.160 of doing that, you know? Yeah. So you mentioned Rory 0:23:01.180 --> 0:23:04.260 Scoville working today. There's a bunch of other people working 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:07.440 today that are great in addition to him. Kyle Kinane 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:08.399 is another good one. 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:09.119 Love Kyle. 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.420 My favorite, though, can I just go ahead and say 0:23:12.460 --> 0:23:14.760 who my favorite comedian of all time is, though? I 0:23:14.780 --> 0:23:15.500 think you might know. 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:16.660 I think I know, but go ahead. 0:23:17.580 --> 0:23:19.400 Anthony Jezelnik, is that who you're going to say? 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:20.139 That's who I was going to say. 0:23:20.660 --> 0:23:22.870 I don't know that there's ever been a funnier person 0:23:23.070 --> 0:23:25.010 on the planet than Anthony Jezelnik. 0:23:25.500 --> 0:23:26.000 He's great. 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.420 And we know some people who know him and he's 0:23:29.580 --> 0:23:31.400 he's he's a really good guy, too. Right. 0:23:31.660 --> 0:23:32.200 Yeah. 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:34.699 And he right now, I don't know if you know this, 0:23:34.740 --> 0:23:36.459 you probably do, but he's got a book club now 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:39.340 that he started. No. And like promoting literacy is one 0:23:39.380 --> 0:23:43.080 of his big jams now. And I guess sort of 0:23:43.140 --> 0:23:45.920 a joke around that was he was when he's promoting 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.980 this stuff and, you know, he has that delivery. And 0:23:50.020 --> 0:23:52.119 he said that, you know, people tell me they don't 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:54.330 like to read. And I always tell them, you're you're 0:23:54.350 --> 0:23:58.350 just reading books. books that are too long. So all 0:23:58.369 --> 0:24:01.510 of his books and his book clubs are like really short. Uh, 0:24:01.609 --> 0:24:05.310 and that's his, his argument is that like, uh, people 0:24:05.369 --> 0:24:07.590 think they don't like to read because they're, they're trying 0:24:07.630 --> 0:24:10.030 to read stuff that's too long. And so he's, he's 0:24:10.290 --> 0:24:13.240 genuinely promoting like reading, uh, literacy and stuff. 0:24:13.260 --> 0:24:14.100 It's, it's pretty awesome. 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:14.959 It is. 0:24:15.380 --> 0:24:17.760 That is the, that is the opposite of what his 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:21.479 persona is. Like his persona is, is insult comic, but 0:24:21.500 --> 0:24:22.540 also really dark. 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:22.920 Yeah. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:28.270 And really, um, Really egotistical and arrogant and yes, he's 0:24:28.310 --> 0:24:31.510 not really like that in real life But he's managed 0:24:31.530 --> 0:24:33.890 to keep that going that persona going for like 20 0:24:33.890 --> 0:24:37.310 years Yeah, he has I think three Netflix specials all 0:24:37.350 --> 0:24:40.710 three of them kill every time we've ever seen him 0:24:40.950 --> 0:24:44.520 in person It's just like you just like you said 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:46.800 we were like Conan like doubled over laughing like yeah 0:24:46.900 --> 0:24:49.540 laughing as hard as you ever have out loud the 0:24:49.580 --> 0:24:51.870 bunch of other people laughing and A bunch of other 0:24:51.910 --> 0:24:54.350 people who aren't laughing because they had no idea what 0:24:54.390 --> 0:24:57.270 they were going to see. And if you're not prepared 0:24:57.290 --> 0:25:00.590 to go see him, especially if you're sensitive at all 0:25:00.630 --> 0:25:03.110 to some types of humor, you're not going to have 0:25:03.150 --> 0:25:08.100 a good time. But I would suggest everybody go look 0:25:08.180 --> 0:25:09.340 up Anthony Jezelnik. 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:10.460 Yeah, he's great. 0:25:11.180 --> 0:25:14.220 And you can't do much better these days than Mulaney still. 0:25:14.260 --> 0:25:16.500 He's one of those that I think has sort of 0:25:16.540 --> 0:25:20.740 mastered the craft. such that he just can do no wrong. 0:25:21.900 --> 0:25:23.600 And he, next year, I tried to get tickets to 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:25.199 some of these, but have you heard about his Mulaney 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:28.939 takes Manhattan run that he's doing? He's doing seven nights 0:25:29.060 --> 0:25:31.660 in New York in a row. And he's starting out 0:25:31.820 --> 0:25:36.250 at like the comedy cellar. And then it's like comedy cellar, 0:25:36.430 --> 0:25:38.730 then Bowery ballroom. And then he goes up and up 0:25:38.790 --> 0:25:40.290 and up through Carnegie. 0:25:39.930 --> 0:25:42.590 Hall radio city. And then eventually Madison square garden. 0:25:43.530 --> 0:25:45.500 And all of those, you know, I signed up for the, 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.260 list to try and get into any of those shows 0:25:48.340 --> 0:25:49.959 and could not get into any of them. 0:25:51.300 --> 0:25:54.510 Yeah, I believe that, though, except for Madison Square Garden. Man, 0:25:54.530 --> 0:25:56.810 that's big time, dude, to sell out Madison Square Garden. 0:25:57.090 --> 0:25:59.489 Yeah, I mean, dude, I think he last year went 0:25:59.530 --> 0:26:01.850 on a run where he sold out like multiple nights 0:26:01.910 --> 0:26:03.230 in a row at Madison Square Garden. 0:26:03.270 --> 0:26:05.850 He's just crushing it. Yeah. 0:26:06.010 --> 0:26:08.430 I have one more anecdote about Anthony Jezelnik. 0:26:09.190 --> 0:26:09.889 All right, let's hear it. 0:26:10.270 --> 0:26:14.710 We went and saw him at Funny Bone. Which was 0:26:14.770 --> 0:26:16.889 the one that was on Roswell Road? I don't think 0:26:16.950 --> 0:26:17.530 it's there anymore. 0:26:17.810 --> 0:26:18.470 I think Funny Bone. 0:26:19.510 --> 0:26:21.690 Funny Bone? No, that was out in Roswell. This was 0:26:21.750 --> 0:26:22.390 the Punchline. 0:26:22.750 --> 0:26:23.070 Punchline. 0:26:23.150 --> 0:26:23.330 Okay. 0:26:23.970 --> 0:26:25.470 So we saw him at the Punchline, which is a 0:26:25.510 --> 0:26:27.670 really tiny club for any of you who've never been 0:26:27.690 --> 0:26:30.740 to the Punchline in Atlanta. I mean, like maybe a 75, 0:26:30.740 --> 0:26:35.540 maybe a hundred person seat club. So it was really small. 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:38.679 And this was the first time we saw him and 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:42.660 we were just laughing. But Yumi was like really, really laughing. 0:26:42.700 --> 0:26:42.940 Yeah. 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:45.060 I think the joke that got her, he was saying 0:26:45.100 --> 0:26:50.010 that his family scattered his grandma's ashes outside of the 0:26:50.130 --> 0:26:53.430 funeral home because that's where his arms got tired from 0:26:53.650 --> 0:26:58.130 carrying the urn. And just, it just got Yumi. So 0:26:58.190 --> 0:26:59.370 she's laughing, crying. 0:26:59.390 --> 0:26:59.750 Yeah. 0:27:00.170 --> 0:27:03.050 So much so that he stopped the show and asked her, 0:27:03.109 --> 0:27:05.770 he was like, what's your name? And she said, Yumi. 0:27:06.330 --> 0:27:08.950 And he goes, I want all of you laughing like Yumi. 0:27:08.990 --> 0:27:11.369 I want Yumi, Yumi, Yumi. 0:27:11.830 --> 0:27:12.560 That's great. 0:27:12.800 --> 0:27:12.990 Yeah. 0:27:13.340 --> 0:27:16.439 So that's how hard we laugh at Anthony Jeselnik. And 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:19.040 if you go check out Anthony Jeselnik and you're like, 0:27:19.119 --> 0:27:20.780 this is wrong, don't judge us. 0:27:21.140 --> 0:27:21.380 Right. 0:27:22.100 --> 0:27:22.780 No, he's great. 0:27:24.220 --> 0:27:24.619 I love that. 0:27:24.700 --> 0:27:25.520 I wish I could have seen that. 0:27:26.380 --> 0:27:27.280 Yeah, it was great. 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:28.820 Should we take a break? 0:27:29.200 --> 0:27:31.480 I think we should. Is this our first or second? 0:27:33.200 --> 0:27:34.520 I think it's our second break. 0:27:35.000 --> 0:27:36.560 Okay. Well, we'll find out in the edit. 0:27:36.820 --> 0:27:40.280 Yeah. We'll come back and talk about some less fun 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:56.250 stuff like the psychology of stand-up right after this. Thank you. 0:28:16.020 --> 0:28:18.180 Okay, we're back, Chuck. And as you promised, we're going 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:21.939 to stop talking about funny stuff. We're going to talk 0:28:21.960 --> 0:28:24.260 about the psychology of being a stand-up because there, as 0:28:25.030 --> 0:28:29.070 you can probably guess, there's a specific type of person 0:28:29.130 --> 0:28:31.720 who makes a Good stand up. And it's actually been 0:28:31.780 --> 0:28:33.400 studied a little bit here or there. 0:28:34.040 --> 0:28:34.960 Yeah. 0:28:35.060 --> 0:28:37.240 You know, I don't think it's any secret that most 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:40.360 stand ups will say that like their comedy oftentimes comes 0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:45.290 from pain. If you polled 100 stand ups, you'd probably 0:28:45.330 --> 0:28:49.030 be in like the 80 something percentile of people that 0:28:49.450 --> 0:28:51.450 weren't like, yeah, I had a great childhood. I grew 0:28:51.530 --> 0:28:53.010 up and I was just happy all the time and 0:28:53.030 --> 0:28:54.330 everything was awesome in my life. 0:28:55.450 --> 0:28:56.310 But they have studied it. 0:28:56.310 --> 0:28:58.330 There's a guy named David Webb on the all about 0:28:58.410 --> 0:29:02.610 psychology sub stack. who found some studies and found that, 0:29:03.410 --> 0:29:06.130 you know, as it bears out compared to population averages, 0:29:06.910 --> 0:29:11.400 stand-ups have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and emotional distress, 0:29:11.480 --> 0:29:12.820 which is not surprising. 0:29:13.740 --> 0:29:16.260 No. And actually, to kind of dig in a little further, 0:29:16.300 --> 0:29:20.980 there's something called the Oxford Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, 0:29:21.220 --> 0:29:26.160 or OLIFE. And there are some dimensions that pop up 0:29:26.200 --> 0:29:29.490 that comedians score higher on that. If you put the 0:29:29.510 --> 0:29:31.910 whole thing together, you're like, yeah, I can kind of 0:29:31.950 --> 0:29:34.810 see that's a stand up comedian. They score high on 0:29:34.990 --> 0:29:39.870 unusual experiences. So they perceive things differently, use magical style thinking. 0:29:40.900 --> 0:29:44.920 They make unexpected connections that other people might not make. 0:29:45.180 --> 0:29:45.380 Yeah. 0:29:45.880 --> 0:29:47.120 There's your jokes right there. 0:29:47.140 --> 0:29:48.320 For sure. 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:53.980 One of the other ones is cognitive disorganization. So a 0:29:54.020 --> 0:29:56.310 thought style that may be a little more scattered or 0:29:56.620 --> 0:30:00.020 shifting kind of quickly between things. A lot of times 0:30:00.060 --> 0:30:04.440 that can really be gasoline for getting great ideas, even 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:06.960 though it may not be the easiest thing like in life. 0:30:08.680 --> 0:30:14.590 No, I mean, living with a disorganized mind is very difficult. Also, 0:30:14.830 --> 0:30:21.070 so can introvert of anhedonia be difficult because you might 0:30:21.110 --> 0:30:23.750 have trouble making social connections. And yet at the same time, 0:30:23.770 --> 0:30:28.710 you want to. validation from people. So you go get 0:30:28.750 --> 0:30:30.540 it from strangers on stage. 0:30:30.650 --> 0:30:30.880 Yeah. 0:30:31.400 --> 0:30:34.320 You know, it's kind of lonely and you don't enjoy 0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:38.800 being around people. And that's a stand up comic if 0:30:38.880 --> 0:30:39.660 I've ever met one. 0:30:40.080 --> 0:30:43.400 Yeah, for sure. And then the last one was impulsive nonconformity. 0:30:43.480 --> 0:30:47.440 So, you know, someone who will break a rule, push 0:30:47.460 --> 0:30:50.650 a boundary, obviously someone who will say something that no 0:30:50.690 --> 0:30:52.190 one else would say, like in public, they would say 0:30:52.210 --> 0:30:56.450 it on stage. And it's not, you know, You know, 0:30:56.470 --> 0:30:58.250 this is like a Venn diagram when it comes to 0:30:58.290 --> 0:31:00.969 this stuff. It's like a combination of different things out 0:31:00.990 --> 0:31:04.570 of these lists will maybe make someone a little more 0:31:04.610 --> 0:31:06.500 inclined to do stand up or maybe be good at 0:31:06.540 --> 0:31:09.600 stand up. Yeah. But, you know, you have to be 0:31:09.660 --> 0:31:13.180 someone who's quick witted and make quick associations between things 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:18.310 and be comfortable not, you know, necessarily being a part 0:31:18.350 --> 0:31:20.850 of the middle of the road of life, you know. 0:31:21.530 --> 0:31:21.750 Yeah. 0:31:21.850 --> 0:31:24.010 You know, when I read this and think about it, 0:31:24.710 --> 0:31:27.410 when I see all those components broken out, I see 0:31:27.490 --> 0:31:31.310 Dave Vettel standing there as like the example, the illustrated 0:31:31.390 --> 0:31:33.210 example of the standup comedian. 0:31:33.450 --> 0:31:34.410 One of the all-time greats. 0:31:34.910 --> 0:31:37.450 Yeah. And he's like, he's like Norm Macdonald in the 0:31:37.490 --> 0:31:41.070 sense that he's like a comedian's comedian. Like a lot 0:31:41.130 --> 0:31:43.990 of people might not find them that funny. Sorry, Dave. 0:31:45.100 --> 0:31:49.260 But Pretty much every stand-up comedian, especially the club comics, 0:31:49.420 --> 0:31:52.460 are going to just say, like, that guy's a legend. Oh, yeah. 0:31:52.600 --> 0:31:54.340 And you can still, I mean, you can go see 0:31:54.380 --> 0:31:56.940 Dave up in the Comedy Cellar in New York on 0:31:57.020 --> 0:32:00.260 any given, like, random Tuesday. You know, he's still just like, 0:32:01.340 --> 0:32:04.160 I feel like guys like that and performers like that 0:32:04.180 --> 0:32:06.360 just love being on stage and doing it. And, like, 0:32:06.640 --> 0:32:09.680 it's not about, like, you know, Patton Oswalt's still doing stand-up. 0:32:09.700 --> 0:32:11.140 He doesn't need to do that kind of thing. He's 0:32:11.740 --> 0:32:14.530 made a great living as an actor. But they just 0:32:14.630 --> 0:32:17.190 love getting up there and telling jokes and making people laugh, 0:32:17.230 --> 0:32:18.740 like in being in a room with that energy. 0:32:19.360 --> 0:32:23.740 Who doesn't? Seriously, I mean, I think anybody would love 0:32:23.780 --> 0:32:26.020 to have all their jokes laughed at. But yeah, it's 0:32:26.060 --> 0:32:28.240 just whether your jokes are actually funny or not is 0:32:28.320 --> 0:32:28.700 the key. 0:32:29.100 --> 0:32:29.540 For sure. 0:32:30.340 --> 0:32:32.300 You know, if you're a stand up, like I mentioned, 0:32:32.320 --> 0:32:34.330 you might have had like a rough go as a kid. 0:32:35.330 --> 0:32:38.390 You probably had to not like found humor as a 0:32:39.360 --> 0:32:42.340 Maybe as a defense in life, like maybe you were 0:32:42.420 --> 0:32:44.660 bullied or maybe it was a bit of survival skill 0:32:45.140 --> 0:32:49.340 in your own family. Obviously, the worst situations if there's 0:32:49.380 --> 0:32:52.220 real abuse, but at the very least, just like maybe 0:32:52.240 --> 0:32:54.670 a happy, not so happy family with family tension. 0:32:54.730 --> 0:32:56.370 And it was a survival skill for you. 0:32:57.810 --> 0:33:00.770 Yeah. When you're being threatened to be beaten up by 0:33:00.810 --> 0:33:03.770 a bully, you'd say something like, take my lunch, please. 0:33:03.790 --> 0:33:06.270 And then the bully would just crack up and let 0:33:06.310 --> 0:33:06.770 you go. 0:33:07.130 --> 0:33:07.710 Classic move. 0:33:08.770 --> 0:33:10.530 There's some other things that don't fare well for being 0:33:10.570 --> 0:33:15.650 a stand-up, too. According to a 2016 study done by 0:33:15.790 --> 0:33:22.310 Australian researchers, the average stand-up comedian dies 10 years earlier 0:33:22.390 --> 0:33:27.190 than people in the general population. Yeah. That's a significant 0:33:27.590 --> 0:33:29.550 amount of time. Yeah. 0:33:30.150 --> 0:33:30.930 How do they explain that? 0:33:31.210 --> 0:33:33.650 Think about how much life you could pack into 10 years, Chuck. 0:33:34.150 --> 0:33:36.320 I know. I'm thinking about my first 10 years. I 0:33:36.600 --> 0:33:37.340 accomplished a lot. 0:33:38.950 --> 0:33:42.890 Exactly. But they looked at 200 stand-up comedians and they 0:33:42.930 --> 0:33:47.230 compared them to comic actors and dramatic actors. And stand-ups 0:33:47.290 --> 0:33:50.450 died younger than both, although not as much as compared 0:33:50.470 --> 0:33:51.730 to the general population. 0:33:52.130 --> 0:33:52.730 Yeah, for sure. 0:33:52.760 --> 0:33:56.700 I think 80 percent of those stand-ups still died of 0:33:56.760 --> 0:34:01.060 natural causes, but they were likelier to die from non-natural 0:34:01.100 --> 0:34:06.600 causes like accidents or obviously overdoses is included in that 0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:08.020 or by suicide. 0:34:09.590 --> 0:34:12.190 On a banana peel, which is the classic way for 0:34:12.210 --> 0:34:13.950 a stand-up comedian to die young. 0:34:14.780 --> 0:34:16.140 So what if you want to be a stand-up? What 0:34:16.160 --> 0:34:17.580 should you do? What are the steps you should take? 0:34:19.200 --> 0:34:20.600 Oh, there's a lot of stuff you can do. It 0:34:20.640 --> 0:34:22.460 turns out there's a lot of people on the internet 0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:25.759 who like to write blog posts about that. And we 0:34:25.800 --> 0:34:27.580 looked through a bunch of them and found that they 0:34:27.600 --> 0:34:31.080 all kind of generally fall into the same handful of categories. 0:34:31.940 --> 0:34:34.509 One of the basic ones, obviously, is come up with material. 0:34:34.610 --> 0:34:37.110 You say, duh. But there's some things you have to 0:34:37.150 --> 0:34:40.070 do to come up with material. I think most comedians 0:34:40.110 --> 0:34:43.000 suggest you start with a solid five minutes of material. 0:34:43.680 --> 0:34:46.560 Most of the reason why is because wherever you get 0:34:46.600 --> 0:34:49.540 like your shot at getting up on stage, especially as 0:34:49.600 --> 0:34:52.280 somebody brand new, you're probably going to get five minutes. 0:34:52.320 --> 0:34:55.319 So you just want to have that prepared and you 0:34:55.340 --> 0:34:58.300 want to prepare way more than five minutes of jokes 0:34:58.440 --> 0:34:59.680 just to start. Right. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:00.620 Yeah, for sure. 0:35:01.180 --> 0:35:03.980 Have you seen the latest Bradley Cooper movie that he 0:35:04.000 --> 0:35:05.360 directed with Will Arnett? 0:35:05.800 --> 0:35:06.480 Is this thing on? 0:35:07.800 --> 0:35:07.920 No. 0:35:09.230 --> 0:35:10.469 It was actually pretty good. 0:35:11.030 --> 0:35:13.080 You're the only person I've met who said that. 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:16.300 That said it was pretty good. Oh, I liked it 0:35:16.340 --> 0:35:16.739 quite a bit. 0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:21.940 It's about this guy who accidentally stumbles on stage for 0:35:21.980 --> 0:35:24.910 an open mic night. Just this, you know, dad and 0:35:24.950 --> 0:35:27.790 a family going through a divorce and it stand up 0:35:27.850 --> 0:35:30.090 ends up being kind of the thing that he loves doing. 0:35:31.190 --> 0:35:31.840 Yeah, I liked it. 0:35:32.650 --> 0:35:32.830 Cool. 0:35:33.410 --> 0:35:33.830 That's awesome. 0:35:35.920 --> 0:35:37.880 Who said they didn't like it? Everyone else that you 0:35:38.020 --> 0:35:38.670 spoke to about it? 0:35:39.160 --> 0:35:43.140 Well, people online, typically. I didn't see that it was 0:35:43.340 --> 0:35:47.219 very well. You're the only person I know who's seen it, actually. 0:35:47.840 --> 0:35:50.230 From my impression, it just wasn't very well received. 0:35:50.870 --> 0:35:52.070 Well, hey, buddy, I received it. 0:35:52.810 --> 0:35:54.870 Okay. Well, now you give me a reason to go 0:35:54.910 --> 0:35:56.710 check it out. If you thought it was good, you 0:35:56.730 --> 0:35:58.130 got good taste in movies. I know that. 0:35:58.150 --> 0:36:00.089 I appreciate it. I thought it was pretty good. But 0:36:00.110 --> 0:36:02.610 that was a sidetrack. After you have your material, you 0:36:02.630 --> 0:36:03.610 got to practice it, of course. 0:36:04.210 --> 0:36:07.169 Mm-hmm. Especially like you can get away with having notes 0:36:07.230 --> 0:36:10.390 on stage if you're like a super well-known comic and 0:36:10.410 --> 0:36:12.570 you're like workshopping new material and you can make a 0:36:12.590 --> 0:36:14.620 joke about like, oh, the notes are on my stool. 0:36:14.640 --> 0:36:16.540 But like you don't want to get up there looking 0:36:16.560 --> 0:36:18.660 at any notes if you're just starting out like that's 0:36:18.680 --> 0:36:19.439 a bad look. 0:36:20.440 --> 0:36:23.140 No. And actually, that brings up another Jeselnik anecdote. The 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:25.989 first time we saw him was at South by Southwest 0:36:26.130 --> 0:36:29.250 years and years and years ago. And he was part 0:36:29.270 --> 0:36:31.870 of like four or five other comedians. And he was 0:36:31.910 --> 0:36:33.989 like one of the last ones to get up. And 0:36:34.050 --> 0:36:36.100 all the other comedians had their little notebooks that they 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:39.180 were basically reading off of on stage. And Jeselnik gets 0:36:39.239 --> 0:36:41.779 up there, his stuff's totally polished and everything. And he's like, 0:36:42.300 --> 0:36:44.920 I don't have my notebook with me. I feel so unprepared. 0:36:44.940 --> 0:36:46.380 That's good. 0:36:47.100 --> 0:36:48.500 Then he proceeded to kill. 0:36:48.920 --> 0:36:49.480 Of course he did. 0:36:50.200 --> 0:36:52.940 So once you had that material, once it's practiced, you 0:36:52.980 --> 0:36:55.250 want to You know, you want to make it really good. 0:36:55.410 --> 0:36:57.210 And so that means you need to do it in 0:36:57.270 --> 0:37:01.170 front of people. So pick something very low stakes. Obviously, 0:37:01.210 --> 0:37:03.270 if you're someone who's never done it, you're not going 0:37:03.290 --> 0:37:06.009 to have any other choice but low stakes. It'll just 0:37:06.030 --> 0:37:08.509 be a local open mic or something like that. But 0:37:08.570 --> 0:37:10.390 that's where the rubber meets the road. And that's where 0:37:10.430 --> 0:37:13.070 you're going to figure out, like, not only what's funny, 0:37:13.630 --> 0:37:16.610 but like how you tell it. Can you tell it 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:18.799 in a different way? Can your timing be a little different? 0:37:18.820 --> 0:37:21.779 Can you stress a certain word? Or paste something in 0:37:21.820 --> 0:37:24.140 a little bit different way to make something that wasn't 0:37:24.200 --> 0:37:25.839 funny one night funny the next night. 0:37:26.610 --> 0:37:28.710 Yeah, and it'll also give you some real insight into 0:37:28.750 --> 0:37:31.569 how you should structure your five minutes, right? So what 0:37:31.610 --> 0:37:34.710 joke goes where? You want to start with something strong, 0:37:34.790 --> 0:37:37.910 often like a one-liner. Then you put your riskier stuff 0:37:37.950 --> 0:37:40.969 in the middle, which doesn't necessarily mean just like, you know, 0:37:41.510 --> 0:37:45.670 potentially tasteless jokes. But like weird jokes, maybe something that 0:37:45.690 --> 0:37:48.940 doesn't have a punchline. And then you follow with like 0:37:48.980 --> 0:37:50.890 your biggest joke, the one you know you're going to 0:37:50.910 --> 0:37:53.350 get the most laughs from because then you get to 0:37:53.390 --> 0:37:57.330 walk off stage to that applause while people are still laughing. Yeah. 0:37:57.590 --> 0:38:01.180 And not always, but oftentimes that last joke is a 0:38:01.260 --> 0:38:06.359 rejoinder where you might circle back to something from the beginning. Again, 0:38:06.380 --> 0:38:08.840 there are no rules, but that seems to be a 0:38:08.980 --> 0:38:10.660 formula that works pretty well. Yes. 0:38:11.700 --> 0:38:15.160 Okay, Chuck. Here's a really important question that I'm interested 0:38:15.219 --> 0:38:18.840 in exploring because no one's answered it and it's certainly 0:38:18.900 --> 0:38:23.440 not settled. But the question is as follows. Should there 0:38:23.480 --> 0:38:27.980 be any topic that's off limits for stand up comedians? 0:38:28.640 --> 0:38:29.480 What's your answer? 0:38:30.620 --> 0:38:34.660 Well, my honest answer is no, because it just feels 0:38:34.700 --> 0:38:37.839 to me like a medium that should just be completely 0:38:37.900 --> 0:38:42.060 wide open, but it's like that free speech thing, not 0:38:42.100 --> 0:38:45.550 free from consequences. If you wanna get up there and 0:38:45.640 --> 0:38:49.290 say awful things about a group of people or something, 0:38:49.410 --> 0:38:54.609 I think it should be allowed, but people may hate 0:38:54.670 --> 0:38:57.330 it and people may put up a big fuss and 0:38:57.370 --> 0:38:58.650 hate you because of it. 0:38:58.710 --> 0:39:01.950 Yes. Okay, well, you're in good company because basically every 0:39:01.989 --> 0:39:06.320 standup comedian on record who's gone on record about it 0:39:06.360 --> 0:39:08.660 is like, yes, or no, there should not be any 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:12.530 topic that's off limits for stand-up comedy. But if you 0:39:12.570 --> 0:39:14.970 dig in a little further and go one layer deeper 0:39:15.090 --> 0:39:16.830 and you say, well, wait a minute, do you mean 0:39:17.590 --> 0:39:21.230 that no topic should be off limits for any comedian, 0:39:21.830 --> 0:39:26.010 any individual comedian? Or you're saying that for stand-up comedy 0:39:26.050 --> 0:39:29.250 in general, no topic should be off limits. And then 0:39:29.430 --> 0:39:33.020 like a division. starts to come about because you reach 0:39:33.060 --> 0:39:36.459 the question like who can say what about who. Right. 0:39:36.860 --> 0:39:37.020 Yeah. 0:39:37.100 --> 0:39:39.540 And that's where the debate really starts to begin. 0:39:40.200 --> 0:39:43.279 Yeah. I mean, for sure. What do you think? 0:39:47.820 --> 0:39:50.799 I think it cuts both ways. I think that if 0:39:50.900 --> 0:39:54.509 you think that you have something very funny and insightful 0:39:55.450 --> 0:40:00.270 that you could make basically anyone laugh with that's offensive 0:40:00.989 --> 0:40:04.410 and you're willing to take the risk, more power to you. 0:40:04.530 --> 0:40:06.830 And I hope it is funny because something like that 0:40:06.850 --> 0:40:12.620 can just be groundbreaking. On the opposite side, if you're 0:40:12.660 --> 0:40:16.360 offended by a joke, I think that it's incumbent upon 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:21.020 you to stop and say, why am I offended by this? Like, 0:40:21.300 --> 0:40:24.880 what is actually offending me personally about this? Or am 0:40:25.020 --> 0:40:28.569 I being offended on behalf of some other people who 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:30.989 may not even be offended by it? And if you 0:40:31.010 --> 0:40:34.230 start traipsing into that territory, I think you should examine 0:40:34.250 --> 0:40:37.730 yourself a little further and your sensitivities, because I think 0:40:37.750 --> 0:40:40.299 that that's a, That's something that can help people in 0:40:40.340 --> 0:40:44.580 life in general, not just in taking stand-up comedy in 0:40:44.620 --> 0:40:46.420 ways that it can just make you laugh. 0:40:46.940 --> 0:40:47.719 Yeah, for sure. 0:40:48.460 --> 0:40:50.680 You know, there have been cases where there have been 0:40:50.700 --> 0:40:53.460 comedians with like certain disabilities that get up on stage 0:40:54.219 --> 0:40:57.029 and part of their act, sometimes a big part of 0:40:57.050 --> 0:40:59.509 their act is making fun of that disability in a 0:40:59.530 --> 0:41:02.690 certain way. So, you know, that's a case where obviously 0:41:02.750 --> 0:41:09.259 someone that, or, you know, like any sort of ethnic joke, joke, 0:41:09.320 --> 0:41:12.580 if someone is of that ethnicity, it's obviously going to 0:41:12.620 --> 0:41:15.120 go over a little bit less with less controversy. 0:41:15.620 --> 0:41:16.380 Yeah. 0:41:16.580 --> 0:41:19.259 If you're not of a certain ethnic group and you're 0:41:19.280 --> 0:41:23.379 making fun of a different group other than yourself, like 0:41:23.900 --> 0:41:25.780 I still say more power to you if that's your thing. 0:41:25.860 --> 0:41:29.660 But just be be ready if it's like not good 0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:31.009 or it doesn't work, you know? 0:41:31.550 --> 0:41:31.710 Yes. 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:34.200 I think the key, the through line here is if 0:41:34.280 --> 0:41:37.700 it's funny. If it's so funny that that group that 0:41:37.739 --> 0:41:42.500 you're making fun of or that is involved in the joke, 0:41:42.580 --> 0:41:44.420 even if you're not making fun of them, if they 0:41:44.460 --> 0:41:49.440 will laugh, then it's just legitimately, objectively funny, I think, 0:41:49.500 --> 0:41:50.040 at that point. 0:41:50.400 --> 0:41:52.920 Yeah. And it also depends on how much people love you. 0:41:54.500 --> 0:41:58.370 People generally kind of love Sarah Silverman. I know, obviously, 0:41:58.430 --> 0:42:00.609 she has people who don't like her, but she's sort 0:42:00.650 --> 0:42:04.810 of a beloved comic. And She has got a, you know, 0:42:05.210 --> 0:42:10.529 in her past, like some derogatory ethnic slurs in her routines. 0:42:11.530 --> 0:42:15.589 She's made very famously, had some rape jokes in her 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:21.240 past routines. She wore blackface. And Sarah Silverman always seems 0:42:21.340 --> 0:42:24.799 to bounce back. And I think it's because people like 0:42:24.920 --> 0:42:26.960 Sarah Silverman. And I love Sarah Silverman. 0:42:27.280 --> 0:42:29.940 She's very lovable. And the thing is, is she's not 0:42:30.000 --> 0:42:35.660 beloved by, you know— like racists, she's beloved by like 0:42:35.880 --> 0:42:38.960 the people who kind of lean social justice warrior. And 0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:43.279 yet she's extremely well known for telling racist jokes. The, the, 0:42:43.380 --> 0:42:46.980 I think the reason why she's able to, um, to 0:42:47.060 --> 0:42:50.440 traverse those very dangerous waters is because at the end 0:42:50.460 --> 0:42:55.060 of the day, her racist jokes are not putting down 0:42:55.080 --> 0:43:01.700 any group. She's actually pointing out this, like the, the, 0:43:02.530 --> 0:43:06.300 secret thoughts that people like her or in her group 0:43:06.380 --> 0:43:07.680 feel guilty about having. 0:43:07.719 --> 0:43:08.440 Right. Yeah. 0:43:08.480 --> 0:43:10.620 So it's not like she's putting down black people. She's 0:43:10.680 --> 0:43:15.839 pointing out how, you know, like white people like inadvertently 0:43:15.900 --> 0:43:18.720 think of black people and don't even aren't even aware 0:43:18.800 --> 0:43:20.200 of it. She points that out. 0:43:20.739 --> 0:43:21.740 Yeah, exactly. 0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:26.780 And it obviously also matters like the power structure and 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:31.589 the power dynamic as a comedian. So Ronnie Chang is 0:43:31.610 --> 0:43:34.070 a comedian. His last special was incredible. 0:43:34.210 --> 0:43:34.629 Yeah, it was. 0:43:35.010 --> 0:43:37.170 And he makes fun of white people a lot in 0:43:37.210 --> 0:43:40.009 that show because and he can get away with that 0:43:40.030 --> 0:43:43.220 because he's an immigrant to the United States who is 0:43:43.640 --> 0:43:45.819 in a position of less power than the white people 0:43:45.840 --> 0:43:50.219 that he's making fun of. So he's he's punching up. 0:43:50.520 --> 0:43:52.279 And you've heard of like punching up or punching down, 0:43:52.320 --> 0:43:55.460 like punching up is is almost always funny. Punching down 0:43:55.520 --> 0:43:57.000 is is usually not funny. 0:43:57.480 --> 0:44:01.270 Yeah, it's just really not. I mean, it's just not 0:44:01.370 --> 0:44:05.049 like textbook. It's not funny almost ever. 0:44:05.510 --> 0:44:08.610 Yeah. And I love Dave Chappelle, but he seems to 0:44:08.650 --> 0:44:10.509 have just gotten kind of mean with some of his 0:44:10.530 --> 0:44:12.989 stand up. And that's to me where it kind of 0:44:13.030 --> 0:44:16.840 crosses the line is like and it's just a personal opinion. 0:44:16.860 --> 0:44:19.000 But I don't know. I haven't found him as funny. 0:44:21.420 --> 0:44:23.500 I hate to say it, but I agree with you. 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:26.260 I don't think it's because he's being mean. I think 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:28.030 it's because he's turned kind of preachy. 0:44:28.370 --> 0:44:28.890 Yeah, maybe. 0:44:29.230 --> 0:44:31.569 And he's gotten away from jokes more. 0:44:32.010 --> 0:44:32.210 Yeah. 0:44:32.510 --> 0:44:35.069 I think he's just I think he's become so uncoupled from, 0:44:35.850 --> 0:44:38.450 you know, the average person because he's just become so 0:44:38.489 --> 0:44:39.230 vastly wealthy. 0:44:39.590 --> 0:44:39.810 Yeah. 0:44:39.989 --> 0:44:42.910 That it's hard for him to relate. And then also, 0:44:43.030 --> 0:44:45.930 I think he doesn't like being come after. I think 0:44:45.969 --> 0:44:48.250 that that's really like affected him. And so he's coming 0:44:48.330 --> 0:44:50.390 out offensively even harder. 0:44:50.430 --> 0:44:51.270 Yeah, that's true. 0:44:52.010 --> 0:44:54.450 But, you know, like like we said, it's like you 0:44:54.489 --> 0:44:56.810 can say what you want, but the audiences are the 0:44:56.890 --> 0:44:58.730 ones who are going to have the final say. So 0:44:58.770 --> 0:45:02.270 it's society who's going to. ultimately decide like what's funny 0:45:02.330 --> 0:45:05.210 and what isn't and who should be allowed to say 0:45:05.270 --> 0:45:08.430 what or not, you know, because that's what you're doing. 0:45:08.450 --> 0:45:11.200 You're getting up on stage in front of people and saying, 0:45:11.489 --> 0:45:15.759 judge me, basically. And people will judge you one way 0:45:15.780 --> 0:45:16.779 or the other. Right. 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:20.040 For sure. There's one other thing that really stuck out 0:45:20.080 --> 0:45:22.920 to me, too, was you had said I don't know 0:45:22.940 --> 0:45:24.910 if it was in this episode or the last where 0:45:25.320 --> 0:45:29.489 you weren't familiar with the alt-right comedy becoming a big thing. 0:45:29.870 --> 0:45:33.810 like around Joe Rogan. I saw a really good explanation 0:45:33.870 --> 0:45:37.660 for why that's emerged. And that was that back in 0:45:37.739 --> 0:45:41.460 like the 70s and 80s, America was very, very conservative. 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:45.839 And so it made sense for left-leaning, liberal thinking comedians 0:45:46.360 --> 0:45:49.300 to be huge because the comedian's job is to basically 0:45:49.340 --> 0:45:52.900 take on the establishment, to criticize the establishment. Well, if 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:56.760 you follow the arc of American society through the 90s, 0:45:56.830 --> 0:46:00.290 it got way more liberal and Way more politically correct. 0:46:00.730 --> 0:46:04.299 And so the people more on the outside of that 0:46:04.500 --> 0:46:08.259 type of society are right-leaning and they became the ones 0:46:08.620 --> 0:46:12.239 whose role it was to attack the establishment. That's the 0:46:12.360 --> 0:46:15.459 best example I've seen or best explanation I've seen for 0:46:16.219 --> 0:46:18.230 the rise of alt-right comedy. 0:46:18.630 --> 0:46:19.010 Interesting. 0:46:19.430 --> 0:46:20.589 I thought it was interesting too. 0:46:20.890 --> 0:46:21.069 Yeah. 0:46:21.890 --> 0:46:24.830 Hopefully these two episodes were interesting and people weren't just like, 0:46:25.630 --> 0:46:25.969 you know. 0:46:26.750 --> 0:46:27.250 I don't think so. 0:46:27.730 --> 0:46:30.370 Okay, great. Well, Chuck doesn't think you guys fell asleep, 0:46:30.410 --> 0:46:32.450 which I think means it's time for listener mail. 0:46:35.830 --> 0:46:38.660 This is we got shouted out in a book yet 0:46:38.700 --> 0:46:40.779 to be released. And so we're going to plug that book. 0:46:42.020 --> 0:46:44.760 Author Sarah Addison. Hey, guys, I'm reading an advanced copy 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:48.360 of Sarah Addison Clark's new book, Paper Ghosts. 0:46:49.280 --> 0:46:51.120 It comes out Tuesday next week. 0:46:51.140 --> 0:46:52.630 So I guess it'll already be out by the time 0:46:52.650 --> 0:46:53.109 this comes out. 0:46:53.390 --> 0:46:55.430 Sure. Y'all got a shout out in the book, guys. 0:46:56.450 --> 0:46:59.300 Uh, it's somewhere around chapter 18, although they may change 0:46:59.340 --> 0:47:01.340 since this is an advanced copy, but one of the 0:47:01.380 --> 0:47:03.779 main characters had been talking with her friend on the 0:47:03.800 --> 0:47:06.720 phone about the main plot line. And the next sentence 0:47:06.780 --> 0:47:10.160 is after they hung up Bailey queued an episode of 0:47:10.200 --> 0:47:13.670 the stuff you should know podcast, this one explaining chaos theory, 0:47:13.790 --> 0:47:14.930 which seemed appropriate. 0:47:15.790 --> 0:47:16.250 I saw that. 0:47:16.750 --> 0:47:19.330 Pretty great. Uh, Sarah Addison Allen. Well, wait a minute. 0:47:19.350 --> 0:47:20.170 It said Clark earlier. 0:47:20.190 --> 0:47:22.649 So I'm not sure if that was a typer or what, 0:47:22.690 --> 0:47:25.310 but the author is Sarah Addison Allen. Okay. It's from 0:47:25.370 --> 0:47:27.609 North Carolina. So a lot of her books, if not all, 0:47:27.660 --> 0:47:29.750 are set in the southeast. I haven't read them all, 0:47:30.190 --> 0:47:32.150 but I've enjoyed the ones I've read so far. So 0:47:32.170 --> 0:47:36.230 I thought I'd share. That is from Abby Sellers. 0:47:36.590 --> 0:47:39.330 That's awesome. Thanks for pointing that out, Abby. And thank 0:47:39.370 --> 0:47:42.730 you to Sarah Addison Allen, too, for including us. And 0:47:42.750 --> 0:47:44.770 by the way, you have great taste because that is 0:47:44.850 --> 0:47:47.150 one of our best episodes, the one on chaos theory. 0:47:47.410 --> 0:47:49.510 That's right. Everyone go out and get Paper Ghosts. 0:47:50.290 --> 0:47:54.130 Yeah. Great, Chuck. That was well done. And if you 0:47:54.210 --> 0:47:56.090 have seen us out in the wild and want to 0:47:56.190 --> 0:47:58.569 share a story about it, we'd love to hear that 0:47:58.610 --> 0:48:01.759 kind of stuff. It's thrilling. You can send it off 0:48:01.800 --> 0:48:08.940 to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a 0:48:08.960 --> 0:48:10.320 production of iHeartRadio. 0:48:10.760 --> 0:48:14.390 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple 0:48:14.410 --> 0:48:16.970 Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.