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1:30

Hello and welcome to Good One, a podcast

1:32

about jokes. I am your host, Jesse

1:34

David Fox. This week's guest is

1:37

Hari Kondabolu, whose newest special,

1:39

Vacation Baby, is currently out on YouTube.

1:42

I think about Hari a lot when I find myself thinking

1:44

about comedy's potential impact. In

1:46

my upcoming book, Comedy Book, How

1:48

Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic That Makes It

1:51

Work, which is out November 7th, pre-order

1:53

now, there's a chapter, chapter five,

1:56

about political comedy

1:58

and

1:59

really... more so about the question

2:01

of what does comedy do? What

2:04

can comedy do? What can comedians

2:06

do? Can it change anything?

2:08

Should be expected to. And it's

2:10

a question Hurry has been wrestling with

2:12

his entire career and debating even

2:15

longer than that. Or

2:16

at least however, Hurry has started

2:19

spending less time

2:21

mulling that question and

2:24

in that area and he spent much

2:27

more time trying to be more personal on stage.

2:30

A decision as you'll hear directly related

2:32

to the aforementioned vacation baby.

2:34

We will start with a joke about naming

2:36

said baby.

2:37

So here is Hurry Conobolo.

2:44

Picking a name was of course

2:46

difficult right? I wanted like a strong

2:48

Indian name that like could be potentially

2:50

pronounced in this country. So I asked my mom

2:54

for suggestions and she's like hmm

2:57

have you thought about Vishvanathan? No

3:08

that did not make the short list. Okay

3:11

how about Chaturgan? Vikramaditya?

3:16

Girder. Girder? Girder.

3:22

You don't think Americans can pronounce Girder? Americans

3:25

can't pronounce Hurry. What are you talking

3:27

about? I'm just

3:29

trying to find a name for my kid that maybe doesn't

3:32

involve

3:32

him using a mnemonic device so people pronounce

3:34

it right. Some of you who

3:37

don't have Judeo-Christian names know this. You need to come up with

3:39

some sentence right to explain

3:41

how to pronounce your name to people right? Mine

3:44

is my name is Hurry. It's like Hurry was

3:46

a ha. It's

3:51

not that good man. It's not really that

3:53

effective. It's what I got. Well

3:57

it's funny you're a comedian. Yeah. My

4:01

best friend Justin's is, my name is Justin,

4:03

rhymes with nothing. That's

4:06

sad man, it's sad. Messing

4:09

with your self esteem, something like that.

4:13

When you think of Justin, think of nothing.

4:16

Sad, sad. My

4:18

dad's is the worst man. My dad's

4:21

is, my name is Ravi, like Ravioli.

4:24

You can't mispronounce the second word

4:26

dad. Dad,

4:28

you're just going to confuse people.

4:34

Ravioli,

4:36

is that an Indian thing? What is that? I

4:40

want to be sensitive, I just don't know.

4:43

A lot of men like to name their sons after

4:45

themselves, which I never quite understood,

4:48

you know, like naming a kid like a sequel, you

4:50

know. This never felt creative to me.

4:52

I would never do that unless my kid's name was like, Hurry, couldn't have

4:55

bullied too fast, too furious. Otherwise,

4:59

what's the point?

5:02

It's unfair to name a kid like a sequel, man, because

5:04

what do people say about sequels, right? Oh,

5:06

I hope it's as good as the first one, and it's like never

5:09

as good as the first one, with the exceptions

5:11

being like, The Empire Strikes Back,

5:14

right? And World War II. What

5:18

the fuck are you, what are you, offended by? What are

5:20

you, World War I survivors? How

5:23

on earth is that offensive? World

5:26

War II is the better war, we all know this. If

5:30

World War I was so great, there wouldn't have been a World War

5:32

II. And I

5:35

know what you're going to say, what about trench warfare,

5:36

Harry? Yeah, World War

5:38

I had trench warfare, some people say it was the last

5:40

real war,

5:41

but the technology and advancements

5:43

that came out of World War II affect us

5:45

to

5:45

this day, right? As well

5:47

as such things as the refugee regime,

5:50

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the

5:52

Covenant of Economic and Social Rights, and

5:54

you may disagree with these ideas, but you have to admit,

5:56

they came out of World War II, not World War I.

6:00

I'm so sick of having this argument with audiences,

6:02

every fucking joke. Let's

6:06

get off of World War I's dick, okay?

6:08

When

6:13

does this turn into a TED Talk?

6:19

I would never name my kid after me, mainly

6:21

because of ego, right? Because I like

6:24

being the most famous hurry-cundabolo in the world.

6:27

If my son has an amazing life, he might screw that up

6:29

for me. This is important to

6:32

me, I'll explain why, alright? My name is hurry-cundabolo,

6:34

but I sign my name hurry-k-cundabolo

6:37

because as a child, my mother told me to keep my

6:39

middle initial in my name in case

6:41

there was another hurry-cundabolo, there

6:45

wouldn't be any confusion. What

6:48

I find most disturbing about

6:49

this is she assumed if there was another hurry-cundabolo,

6:52

I would have to keep the middle initial in his name.

6:55

I would be the less famous hurry-cundabolo.

6:58

My mother thought I was gonna be the Michael B.

7:00

Jordan of hurry-cundabolo. I love my name

7:02

and hurry, I love my name,

7:08

I

7:11

fought for my name. They called me Harry

7:13

in elementary school, I fucking hate that name, it's a stupid

7:15

name.

7:16

If anyone's named Harry in here, I apologize

7:18

that you were given a stupid name. Hate

7:23

that name, I'd go to school, kids would be like, it's Dirty

7:25

Harry, it's Harry Harry. Harry

7:28

used to bother me, but I'm cool with it now. Oh,

7:30

my Harry Harry, is that right bald

7:32

Greg? Oh,

7:35

you're using Rogaine, that's cool. This

7:37

is good genetics and coconut oil. That

7:42

was a little South Asian dog whistling.

7:47

They said our hair was greasy because it was a coconut

7:49

oil bowl, we used to all have it.

7:51

Coconut

7:55

oil sales go through the roof. Hurry,

7:59

could it ball a new thing?

7:59

of parachute token of the

8:05

world.

8:08

Parachute, it's not just for cooking. I

8:10

remember

8:15

this one black history month, I

8:18

walked into school and this kid, and to

8:20

be fair, it was a stupid thing to say, but he was eight,

8:22

right? He looked at me and he's like, hey, look

8:24

who showed up? It's Harriet Tubman.

8:28

And he said it like an insult? Oh

8:31

no, not famed abolitionist Harriet

8:34

Tubman. What

8:37

am I to do with

8:39

that historical burn? Every

8:46

semester of college it was the same thing. I'd go over

8:48

my name with my professors, I'd be like, it's hurry, not

8:50

Harry, it's hurry, I'll accept Harry, it's

8:52

hurry, right? My last name is Kundabolu, we're not going to worry

8:55

about that right now. That

8:57

is a master's level course. Two

9:00

weeks into this one semester, professor walks

9:02

in, he's like, it's Harry here, I'm looking for Harry.

9:05

I'm like, what is this Harry business? We've gone over this

9:07

already. My name is Harry. All of a

9:09

sudden out of the corner of my eye, I see this other Indian

9:11

dude I've never seen before stand up. And

9:14

I'm like, whoa, two

9:16

roads diverge. Like

9:20

you know your name isn't Harry, man, you know it's Harry.

9:22

You don't need to assimilate for anybody, man. Be

9:25

who you are. Don't Bobby Jindal this shit.

9:28

Don't Nikki

9:29

Haley this shit. Be

9:32

who you are. Follow me.

9:34

I will take you to freedom.

9:38

I am Harriet Tubman.

9:48

I am here with Harry Kundabolu. Thank you so much for

9:50

joining me. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks for having me.

9:53

I want to start at you with the basics of your

9:55

process because I feel like there's a way traditionally worked

9:57

and this might have been different because of COVID.

10:00

whatever, but can you start with just sort of usually

10:02

your process, which I think is different

10:04

than American comedians, I guess? To some

10:06

degree, I think that when

10:09

I was living in the UK, and I used

10:11

to do a lot of stuff in the UK, and

10:14

I performed in the Fringe Festival in 2011, I saw all these British

10:18

comics doing an hour

10:20

of material to figure things out,

10:24

as well as an hour to polish off the

10:26

set before they went to the Fringe. And the

10:28

Fringe is based, like that's their year. Everything

10:30

is built towards this ridiculous festival.

10:33

And so at some point,

10:35

I'm like, let me try to build a room like that

10:37

for me. And I felt like the place

10:40

that was safest for me to do it was Seattle,

10:42

because, you know, New York and LA, you know,

10:45

I'm from New York, but I also understand

10:48

like,

10:48

you know, for all these big comedy

10:50

festivals and stuff, any day in New

10:53

York or LA could be an equivalent of

10:55

a comedy festival. You don't know who's going to be there.

10:58

You just want to work freely without thinking about

11:00

who might be in the crowd. And so when I do stuff

11:02

in Seattle, or sometimes in the Bay Area, I

11:04

get the chance to like, just

11:07

try a bunch of stuff out. And plus, you know, I like the

11:09

idea of writing towards an hour and not just random

11:12

bits. If I could take a bunch of bits and find a through

11:14

line, and if I can try

11:17

to write things in big chunks with

11:20

the hope of like trying to build somewhat

11:22

of an arc, I like that. I think it's useful.

11:25

And when I'm in New York, I can work on bits or

11:28

like trying to add tags to things. But as

11:30

a starting point, I kind of prefer

11:33

doing it that way. So you

11:35

have 10 bullet points,

11:36

and then you just go more than 10. It'll

11:38

be like,

11:40

like, maybe like 15 or 20. Some

11:43

are like old jokes I'm adding

11:45

new pieces to. Some

11:47

are things that have a couple of jokes I'm trying to make

11:49

into bigger things. Some things are like

11:51

old tweets or old notes that I feel

11:54

like I can draw if I actually put

11:56

the effort in. I mean, I've done things where

11:58

it's just tell that story. And

12:00

it's a story I've told friends a bunch of times

12:02

and now I'm like is this a joke or is this just a

12:04

story because of the context? So

12:07

it's a lot of stumbling. It's a lot of failing

12:10

and for the audiences that do come they You

12:13

know in Seattle I get repeat people

12:15

who come back as they want to see a thing develop when

12:17

I've done it in New York I feel like there's less

12:20

repeat which scares me a little bit

12:22

like oh these people will never come back I

12:25

keep coming. This is not my best. Yeah Yeah, you

12:27

know and it is nice when people say you know I

12:29

heard that years ago And it took

12:31

forever But you finally got that bit to work

12:34

and I'm like yeah or they see something on the special

12:36

and they were there at its Inception and I

12:38

know it's a fun part of the process and and

12:40

to me it's I mean when

12:43

I started writing jokes I

12:45

think a lot of comics who were I guess writerly

12:47

for like a better word like who

12:50

really believe in language

12:52

and and You know

12:54

that of course there's some magic, but that they feel

12:56

like What I write should

12:58

be what's on stage. I think I started more like

13:00

that and it

13:03

kind of Removes the audience

13:05

when you do it that way because you don't know when

13:07

they're gonna laugh and you're also restricting

13:10

the Possibilities that are gonna happen in the

13:12

room like when you're in a room where things are working

13:14

or even when things aren't working Like the instinct

13:17

is to improvise when things are going great You

13:20

you're like in a room of friends you haven't met

13:22

yet so, you know when you're in a room

13:24

with a friend and you're joking around you're more likely to think

13:27

of Thing yeah, yeah, cuz they're

13:29

laughing and everyone's having a good time and when you're in a room,

13:31

that's tough The defense mechanism

13:33

is to crack a joke and there's value

13:36

in that but when you go in like really tightly

13:38

worded You run the risk at least

13:40

early on of losing that yeah

13:43

And then the risk after that

13:45

is you try to repeat what you did the first day

13:47

and You can't because it you know

13:50

You're trying to repeat something as opposed to really being

13:52

in the joke Yeah, and it coming out a

13:54

way that's natural and eventually you have

13:56

to pick some wording you have to figure out

13:58

where it goes But in the beginning,

14:01

it should be a little expansive. At least

14:03

for me, it's allowed to kind

14:06

of just be something you play with. And

14:09

you keep adding new jokes or tags.

14:11

And you cut them, but you try new ones. And sometimes

14:14

I'll slip new stuff into an hour-long

14:17

set that isn't for new material.

14:20

And sometimes it works great, but sometimes it kind

14:22

of throws the set off because it's

14:24

like you've had this tightly worded set. And now

14:26

all of a sudden, there's something where, I

14:29

see a dent. Something is wrong.

14:31

Everything you've been in control of, why did you just go

14:33

of control? So it's

14:36

fascinating because the reverse also happens, right?

14:38

Where it's like if someone is just really in

14:40

it and then does material, an audience sometimes

14:42

could meld immediately. We're

14:44

like, wait, I thought we were connected. And

14:47

now you have a canned line? Oh,

14:49

it's tricky, especially because I think the best

14:51

way I found to start hour-long

14:53

sets is for that first thing,

14:56

if possible, to be about something in

14:58

the city, something observational, something

15:00

that lets the audience know that this is a

15:02

live moment and not a monologue, even

15:05

though it kind of is a monologue. But

15:07

the problem with that is if something hits too hard

15:09

up front, then all of a sudden you're like,

15:11

all right, enough of the guy you just saw that you liked.

15:13

Here's the phony version. And that's

15:16

kind of a tricky thing. Oh, no. I've

15:19

trapped them into thinking again for one person's

15:20

show about the album. Yeah,

15:22

yeah, yeah. Oh, man, he's really

15:24

picky. And that joke could be told anywhere. So

15:27

I feel it is a little tricky.

15:29

And

15:32

that's part of the process of, because

15:35

I will say, when you put a new joke that maybe

15:37

isn't raw, but somewhat

15:40

is getting into shape into an hour-long

15:43

set that has old jokes,

15:44

sometimes the old jokes become better

15:47

because

15:48

you don't know how you're getting into the old

15:50

joke from the new joke. You have to build that transition

15:53

live. Or all of a sudden, you're finding

15:55

new angles because this joke

15:57

that precedes or follows it has

15:59

opened. end up new avenues. So a

16:02

stand-up set is a very much a living

16:04

thing that changes. And to

16:07

me, when you print it, when you put it out there,

16:09

it's done, and then you try to create another living thing

16:11

with all these loose pieces. So

16:13

then that is the standard.

16:16

You then are working on this hour. Yeah.

16:19

Right beginning of the pandemic, you

16:22

have a kid that is also, all of this is happening at once,

16:24

which I assume changes your ability

16:26

to be like, I'm just going to go to Seattle for a while. And

16:29

also, don't gathering because

16:32

it's like, so how soon after

16:34

we were able to start doing anything? What did it look

16:36

like? This was, I mean, it was by far the

16:38

most deliberate process I ever used, the most

16:41

streamlined focused, both

16:43

because it had been so long since

16:45

I released something, partly because of the pandemic.

16:48

My life has changed so dramatically. I wanted to

16:50

talk about the pandemic. And if I talked about it too

16:52

many years later, it really won't have the same

16:54

resonance. And so the goal

16:57

was let me get myself going

17:00

as quickly as possible. Initially, I was doing stand

17:03

ups sets locally, just trying to bring

17:05

some old jokes back and then write like some of

17:07

the jokes, because I've been writing throughout the two years,

17:09

especially with the kid. And then it's

17:11

weird to sit on jokes you wrote for

17:14

a year to two years, wondering

17:16

if they work and then finding out this

17:18

joke you've been thinking about for two years, complete

17:20

nud, didn't have a chance in hell.

17:23

And then other things, surprisingly, like, oh,

17:25

this is the thing that takes off it, just like with any

17:28

joke writing process, except the

17:31

two years of waiting really builds

17:33

a lot. All of a sudden, this has more value

17:35

to you because you've been thinking about it for this long.

17:38

And some, you know, also when you're

17:41

running into territory that has been done

17:43

before, like having a kid, you

17:45

run the risk of being really excited

17:48

about stuff that has been done to death and you don't

17:50

know. So there's a process

17:52

of figuring out what are the new original angles,

17:55

what is a dad joke

17:57

but your version of it, which is incredibly

17:59

important. Like it still has to sound like you. And

18:04

then, you know, considering that I wanted

18:06

to put this thing out within a year

18:08

of getting back on stage, if not less, you

18:11

know, what would that look like? So first

18:13

thing, you know, first few months we're just trying

18:16

to figure out how to do stand up again. Beginning

18:18

of January or late December of 2021, I'm

18:21

in Seattle. I'm

18:25

doing a new material night. And I start

18:27

thinking what could this look like? And I

18:29

try to build some shape to it. And

18:32

then it was just touring from like, you

18:34

know, a little bit January, February, but March

18:37

to about June. Those

18:39

four months, I was really very

18:41

deliberate, really focused. Every

18:44

single show I would go through my notes,

18:47

every single show I was listening to the

18:49

previous tape, thinking, is there a better tag

18:52

for this? Was there a better tag for this? I brought

18:54

people with me who,

18:57

you know, are great writers that made me think.

19:00

Mahanadel Shaky opened for me fantastic

19:04

comic. And he was really hard

19:06

to follow every night.

19:07

And

19:08

to the point where I'm like, why am I booking this guy?

19:11

But that's what made me better because I, you know, his

19:14

last show killed so hard, the

19:16

room would just be destroyed. And

19:18

then I'd have to somehow get them,

19:21

like, keep some momentum while changing it

19:23

to my pace, right? So that

19:26

challenge, plus he's a great writer, so he had

19:28

ideas. Chloe Radcliffe, you

19:30

know, opened for me a bit. She was incredible.

19:34

You know, I brought a bunch of, Katie

19:36

Ellen Humphries, a bunch of comics, a lot of different voices

19:39

who all kind of added thoughts

19:42

or had me think about things a different way.

19:44

And it's not that I had a million tags

19:46

that they gave me, but it was more the conversations

19:49

about the bits, get your brain going

19:51

about like, oh, what if I went in this angle or that angle? And

19:53

that helped get this thing written a lot faster.

19:57

And then the reps, you know, you know, I don't

19:59

love doing it. doing clubs but the benefit of doing

20:01

club weekends. One is

20:03

that you get four to five repetitions

20:06

in three days of an hour long set.

20:08

Two in a night, which is more brutal for

20:10

me now than it was a decade ago, but

20:12

just having to repeat it and you're

20:14

getting the moments and you're noticing,

20:17

oh, this trend of an audience reacting this way seems

20:19

to happen every time. There's something here.

20:23

That's useful. Also, when

20:26

I'm in Richmond doing a weekend, that's

20:28

not the easiest weekend, which is

20:30

good because when I'm doing the jokes in Brooklyn, they're

20:32

doing fine. How can

20:34

I make this work here? How much of this

20:36

is more translatable than I think? How

20:39

much of it just requires context? How much of

20:41

it requires a

20:43

joke to kind of not

20:45

fix it, but this joke is for the people

20:48

who get it and this is for everybody else. Sometimes

20:50

I build in things like that. Again,

20:53

it speaks to this idea of when the crowd's with

20:55

you or not with you. I've always

20:57

seen it in terms of offense and defense.

21:00

When the crowd is with you, you're on the

21:02

offense. You're building on top of stuff.

21:06

You just feel like you can go anywhere you want. When

21:09

you're on the defense, you're thinking, how do I

21:11

save this? How do I fix this? How do I get them back?

21:14

Both those positions are really important

21:17

because one is leading to this level of creativity

21:19

that I think expands their

21:22

voice, and the other one kind

21:24

of is teaching you how to relate

21:26

to more people because you're in a defensive

21:28

position. You're trying to find a way like, how do I either

21:30

get you to understand this or find a

21:32

clever pivot or address the fact it's not working

21:35

here? That's all important. So doing

21:37

that over those four months, by the

21:39

time I got on stage at

21:41

the Bell House in Brooklyn, at the

21:44

end of June, early July, I was polished and

21:48

my only worry was that

21:50

it would sound stiff. That was

21:52

always the thing about my albums

21:56

and my specials. It's not

21:58

that they weren't stiff. They were polished

22:01

stand-up sets. They were done

22:03

really professionally. I'm proud of them, but

22:05

that I created a new material now I

22:08

do these things ready these new material nights and I recorded

22:10

a couple and put them out and The one

22:12

I did in San Francisco, which I did

22:14

not intend on putting out It just happened

22:17

the room was courting somebody else's recording

22:19

in the room. I had Two things

22:21

when put together sounded halfway decent. I

22:23

listened to that Recording and I think

22:26

even though the quality of the recording isn't

22:28

the best even though the jokes weren't

22:30

at their peak

22:31

The looseness I had the connection

22:33

to the audience the being present

22:36

in the moment

22:37

That's what I want. That's the

22:39

true experience. So I feel

22:41

like with this hour. I I'm Looser

22:44

than I am in any other thing I've put out I

22:46

feel like I'm really engaging with the crowd or

22:49

improvising when I see openings, which is good

22:51

and also this is something that

22:53

was both difficult but like

22:56

kind of Brought a lot of energy

22:59

to the set is that Rovi Wade

23:01

had had and had been overturned the week before and

23:03

I was in Chicago and I'm like

23:06

desperately trying to write something to

23:08

address it that felt like

23:11

it was

23:12

Covering it somewhat

23:14

and giving it some justice But

23:16

at the same time not being so topical

23:19

that I devote this chunk that then disappears Which

23:23

is a hard balance that you don't want it to feel dated

23:25

and it shouldn't because it's at that I

23:27

knew that when it finally came out, it wasn't breaking news

23:29

anymore It was something that's changed the paradigm

23:32

how we're you know What the fight's gonna look like

23:34

so that actually brought me to life because

23:36

all of a sudden I knew towards the end of the set I laid

23:39

out pretty well. I have this whole new chunk

23:41

of stuff that I had written the week

23:43

before and That

23:45

was stressful But it it made my

23:48

brain work in a way that it

23:50

wasn't because at a certain point I was like don't

23:52

screw up stuff that you've made that's really good Yeah,

23:55

now all of a sudden there's a thing where it's like I

23:57

was writing punch lines for that thing going Two

24:00

stage my opener Liz Milley was a good friend

24:02

of mine like she was giving me tags like I

24:04

was You know my friend aha may flail o'lew.

24:07

Oh who's doing the sound and who's worked

24:09

with me in all my records He was giving me tags like we

24:11

were all like throwing things out

24:13

there So yeah, it was definitely

24:16

the most I wouldn't say rushed

24:18

at the most deliberate most focused

24:20

I've ever been recording something you mentioned

24:23

the idea of balance and there's in a few ways and I think it's

24:25

something I was curious about because it's like You

24:29

have the people on board Yeah And you

24:31

offense right in the defense and then at some

24:33

point you have to make decisions as an

24:35

artist of where?

24:37

how What do you want the final product

24:40

to play for how you know? because when

24:42

you're in front of the people that you need to be defensive

24:44

in front of you Act accordingly

24:47

and when you're front of people off and then all

24:49

comedians are deciding some version

24:51

of this But I think you're probably more deliberate than most

24:53

about especially because the nature of the material you

24:55

do Where do you locate in yourself where

24:58

the spot is and I'm sure it's joke by

25:00

joke, but like

25:01

What is that

25:03

thought process? I assume which is just sort of like

25:05

where do we want to do it? How much do I want to spend

25:08

in my pandering if I do this way? Yeah, am I you

25:10

know, like it's it's Does

25:12

the joke still have me

25:15

in it? How much of it because it's

25:17

not to say when I'm being silly That's not me

25:19

as well but when

25:22

something is like in

25:24

this new hour I'm working on now a lot

25:26

of it is about My

25:28

desire to sell out both

25:30

in terms of being a stand-up

25:33

and being more accessible as well as Doing

25:35

whatever I have to do to feed my kid, right?

25:38

And that's that's I set that up pretty early in the

25:40

show. And so I talk about how

25:43

Easy observational comedy is you

25:46

just talk about stuff that anybody can relate

25:48

to and they probably would have made the observation But they

25:50

have real jobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah have all day

25:52

to think about things like this And so I tell a

25:54

series of jokes that are

25:56

obviously like not very good like

25:59

I'm arrogant going in

25:59

And I'm like just tanking these jokes and

26:02

they don't have my perspective in

26:04

them like they're about Starbucks But they

26:06

don't say anything about Starbucks. Yeah, just

26:08

like can you believe it with the blonde roast?

26:11

You know what I mean? They get the names

26:13

wrong on the cups every time they ruin more

26:15

names than Ellis Island like it's just ridiculous

26:18

shit and and

26:21

Then all of a sudden I you see me starting

26:24

to break and then I start telling punchlines

26:26

that you know Are my

26:29

voice like what's in a blonde

26:31

rose blue eyes and Aryan blood, you know,

26:33

like it becomes this You

26:36

see it break but

26:37

I think that part of that is is me

26:39

kind of speaking to my the process

26:41

of I Want to relate to people without

26:44

losing myself. Yeah, right like

26:46

there's nothing wrong with being relatable

26:49

There's nothing wrong with talking about things that have

26:51

been spoken about before, you know having

26:53

a kid my fear was Oh, am I gonna be

26:55

like a dad comic? Am I gonna be going over

26:57

ground? That's been covered before, you know

27:00

One I had the pandemic so immediately it's a different experience

27:03

But also like the way I'm gonna see

27:05

a kid Considering how

27:07

I view the global context is

27:09

gonna be different and it took work

27:12

to make sure it wasn't that but Already

27:15

I had a core of something that was relatable

27:17

to a lot of people While at

27:19

the same time ran the risk of people

27:21

not having kids being a little You

27:24

know hot and in this situation

27:26

it became less of the split

27:28

wasn't so much my core audience Political

27:31

versus other people it almost became who

27:33

has kids and who doesn't mixed

27:35

with the other stuff too and so that That

27:38

was like, you know when I when I was telling

27:40

a lot of those jokes some of them certainly about

27:43

the experience of having kid but a lot of them are

27:45

about more larger issues that you

27:47

know like being unmarried in having kids or

27:51

The ridiculous experiences that happened when

27:53

I was in the hospital With

27:55

the newborn and I think that's relatable.

27:57

Yeah, that's the stuff that a good story

27:59

tells It doesn't matter if you had the experience or not. You

28:02

can figure it out. So it allowed

28:04

me to

28:05

the kind of

28:07

Play slightly different songs

28:09

that still sound like me. Yeah. Yeah. Did

28:11

you think about us? Like

28:14

in a post baby cobra world

28:17

of being a male comedian talking

28:19

about having a kid. Yeah, we're So

28:22

rarely do comedians do comedy about comedy and she

28:24

did this one that sort of held up this fact of like

28:26

the privilege That dad comedians

28:29

have did you think about that as well?

28:31

It's like oh I've I'm

28:33

the one telling this story a sort of half of a thing

28:35

and What

28:38

do I do with this the privilege of having

28:40

sort of that freedom? I

28:43

mean there was a part of me that's like I should be addressing

28:45

her perspective more, but then

28:47

I'm like I'm not gonna do that as Genuinely,

28:51

I mean and the only things like I could

28:53

do well the one thing that people

28:55

would bring up is like We had

28:57

a kid Like, you know I did such

29:00

little work and I try to address the fact

29:02

that like, you know when people clap when I say You

29:04

know, I'm a new father It's like let's

29:07

not clap for seven minutes of work like at

29:09

least you know cheesy as it is It's an acknowledgement

29:12

of let's put this in the right context.

29:16

I am The father I have

29:18

an important role in this but at the same time

29:20

the bulk of the work Especially early was

29:23

not me and I think also there's a

29:25

joke early on where I talk about

29:27

you know, my you know the

29:29

mother of my child saying that this is The

29:32

greatest thing I've ever created and I'm mentioning I have

29:35

a Netflix special though You know, it's

29:37

still trying to create that person. Like there is still a

29:39

gap I think making sure

29:42

you own what you actually

29:44

can talk about, you know, I can talk

29:46

about Being and married

29:49

and being South Asian and how you know

29:51

immigrant parents could feel about that You

29:54

know, I can talk about You

29:57

know the experience of being in a hospital

30:00

hospital during the pandemic and

30:02

having to move cross-country during a pandemic.

30:04

And these are all things that are baby

30:06

adjacent while still not specifically

30:09

being about, you know, dad jokes.

30:12

You know, and I, you know, it

30:14

was tricky because I didn't want to lose the theme

30:17

of being a dad because that is the core of this thing.

30:20

And the way I tried to solve that was the

30:22

running joke, having a child during

30:25

a global pandemic is like, and

30:27

then I give in a, you know, buying

30:29

real estate right before Vesuvius explodes,

30:31

whatever, like the different examples I use. And

30:34

that runner meant that I could go into

30:36

different topics that have nothing to do about the pandemic

30:39

or having a kid, but it would always come

30:41

back to it. And plus by

30:43

getting, you know, the pro

30:46

choice stuff towards the end also kind of reinforce that's

30:48

what this is about. It

30:52

was a balance and I definitely had to,

30:56

I definitely felt like I had to find a balance

31:00

with keeping it thematic

31:02

without losing people

31:05

and without losing my voice.

31:07

Like that Tucker Carlson bit that I do towards

31:09

the end.

31:10

It's hard to say anything positive

31:12

about COVID, but I will say it was pretty amazing

31:15

to be able to spend every day of my child's

31:17

first year on this planet with him. It was like I had paternity

31:20

leave man. So I felt Scandinavian,

31:24

unbelievable. Last

31:26

year Pete Buttigieg and his husband

31:29

had twins and he took two months

31:31

of paid paternity leave off and a conservative

31:33

meeting got really upset about that. And Tucker

31:35

Carlson said, good

31:40

luck learning how to breastfeed. And

31:42

then he said a homophobic slur

31:45

in his head.

31:50

Tucker Carlson is

31:52

such a piece of shit. It's

31:54

not even a good segue. It's just what echoes in my

31:57

head constantly. All

31:59

he does is... is hurt the country.

32:02

He pushed that whole big lie that Trump

32:05

actually won the election, but it was rigged.

32:07

He kept pushing. They got people all worked up. January 6

32:11

happened, and all these people stormed into the

32:13

Capitol because the colonizers were getting restless,

32:15

right? You have all these people

32:18

that look like extras from Mad Max

32:20

and rogue

32:23

juggalos and maybe

32:26

some tourists that just got in the line. But

32:31

Trump wouldn't concede, even though he knew who he was. He

32:33

wouldn't concede. He's like, release the Kraken,

32:37

which is plural, I think, for Cracker. And

32:48

whenever I make jokes like that, there's always people

32:50

like, is that really helping? Hurry. Who

32:53

is that helping? Who is that helping?

32:56

Depends on who you ask. You

33:01

know anybody with melanin? It's

33:04

helping. I

33:06

mean, it felt really good to do that.

33:09

It like old you

33:12

of just like, I just got a job.

33:15

And I'm proud of the fact that I still talked

33:17

about it in terms of like, what is he talking about? He's

33:19

talking about immigrants. He's

33:21

talking about mixed babies. He's

33:24

talking about me, my partner, my kid,

33:27

and my family. Finding

33:29

those moments to build it back. But

33:32

it just felt so good. Because

33:34

up to that point, it's not that I'm not myself.

33:38

But I do like that version of myself.

33:40

I like the one that just comes out swinging.

33:43

And this one, the pacing was different. And

33:45

I intentionally put the heaviest race

33:48

stuff towards the end, because I'm like, I already

33:50

got you for 40 minutes. I mean, if you stop it now, that's

33:52

fine.

33:54

You've watched 40

33:56

minutes of that. And if you actually will give

33:58

me a little room.

35:06

Google.

36:01

So thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

36:05

Support for the show day comes from Apple

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on Apple Podcasts.

36:56

And we're back with Hurry Conobolo. So

36:59

I want to talk about the naming joke, which sort of has

37:01

three sections. There's the, you

37:03

go to your mother about names and sort of the larger

37:06

idea of Indian names, and there's

37:08

the sequel part and then a longer section, which

37:10

is kind of built out of your own relationship

37:12

to your own name. But in general,

37:15

where did it start? Did it start with

37:17

you

37:18

in the process of thinking of name being like, being

37:20

a comedian, be like, I'm having this conversation,

37:23

being like this? Well, I mean, every comedian

37:25

has their name joke. It seems that's a

37:27

common starting joke. And I've had a few,

37:30

one of them being the, you know, my

37:32

mom made me sign my name Hurry Conobolo

37:35

in case there was another Hurry Conobolo. The

37:37

assumption being I wouldn't be the famous one. I'd have to keep

37:39

the middle initial. And so I already had that going

37:41

in. So when you're having the kid, all of a sudden,

37:44

the things you've thought about in terms of your parents,

37:46

you're the parent. And, you know,

37:49

I just started thinking about, like, you know, there

37:51

isn't really a tradition of juniors

37:54

and a third in South Asian cultures

37:56

generally. So I always found it fascinating.

38:00

like just like you don't find it redundant.

38:02

It does not feel like I'm not even talking

38:04

about like George Foreman extremes of every

38:06

kid's name George regardless of gender

38:09

anything but like just

38:11

the idea of like don't you want this kid to be

38:13

on their own path. Yeah. And it's always like

38:15

almost always men right occasionally it's

38:18

a woman names their kid after them but

38:20

it's always almost men. Something about that in

38:22

terms of male ego I find fascinating.

38:25

So I mean that was a fun place to play

38:28

just thinking about why are we adding

38:30

you why returning people into sequels as opposed

38:32

to their own beings. The parents

38:35

stuff you know I was really

38:37

happy to talk about my parents and the kid

38:39

one because it's

38:42

a great moment for them being grandparents and it's

38:44

it's really new and I get to juxtapose how my

38:47

father treats me with how my father treats my son

38:49

but also for years I

38:52

tried to stay away from talking about my parents

38:55

or anything to do specifically

38:57

culturally. I would do it occasionally

38:59

and I the fear was always I would hear

39:02

white comics say of course that's what he's gonna do.

39:04

Of course he's gonna talk about his immigrant parents and

39:07

that stayed with me for years until I'm

39:09

like wait a second they're all

39:11

talking about their parents except when they don't when

39:13

they talk about their parents it's not their white parents

39:16

or their Jewish parents or their Irish parents it's just

39:18

their parents like this is it's just because they can't

39:20

do the thing I'm doing and which is

39:23

absurd so this is another like one of

39:25

those right I'm like I'm digging deeper so

39:27

I had the whole thing about like South Asian

39:29

names and trying to find one that could potentially

39:31

work in this country as well but at

39:34

the same time how much I love my name and the

39:36

fact that I forced people to say it right and

39:39

you know that that I love like that

39:41

ability to show that pride

39:43

while still trying to think tactically

39:46

about something it's not it can't just be a name

39:48

you like yeah it has that you have to think

39:50

about what this kid has to deal with after right

39:53

and so that was that

39:56

was just for me it was just incredibly fun

39:59

to write And you know my

40:01

favorite part is a lot of parts I love but

40:04

I think my favorite part of it Was

40:07

to one was was talking about

40:10

the mnemonic devices The fact I

40:12

don't want to give my kid a name that requires

40:14

him to use a mnemonic device Which

40:17

so many people relate to when their names aren't

40:19

John Mike Steve, you know I mean like all of a sudden,

40:22

you know and my friend Justin That's

40:24

literally what he does like he has to

40:26

do Justin like nothing and so Putting

40:29

him in it and also calling my father

40:32

out about the Ravi and ravioli and now that

40:34

doesn't work like it allowed

40:36

me to Do that and anytime

40:38

you mention a friend almost feels like an Easter egg

40:40

to you, you know And the other

40:42

part that I love it might be the

40:45

thing I love the most is the World War

40:47

two World War one references So

40:50

how it feels like it evolved so you have the sequence

40:52

its sequel thing and then you're like, okay Well, here's like a joke

40:55

about it, which is right naming a sequel to

40:57

yourself and then it it feels

40:59

like one time you mentioned World War two

41:01

and then It was like there were shows

41:04

where you talked about it for 40 minutes. Yeah, that's what

41:06

it felt like You're like, but so

41:08

how did it evolve? Did you did it? Yeah,

41:11

just talk about it. It wasn't tightly

41:13

written. Yeah, it was one of those moments

41:16

where I've always found

41:18

it interesting And me and my brother on our

41:20

podcast that we do. It's

41:22

a seasonal. Yeah, you never know when it's gonna drop

41:25

It's a pop-up podcast. It could be three

41:27

in a row. It could be two years between We're two

41:30

years now late with our next episode

41:32

But we've talked about World War one and World War

41:34

two in the fact World War one does not get discussed

41:36

yeah, and how brutal that war

41:39

was and The whole

41:41

like, you know stop and click aspect

41:44

of war starts with World War

41:46

two and World War one You're just still dealing

41:48

with I don't say bayonets. They might have

41:50

but they were trench warfare and like it's

41:52

brutal war You know with some

41:55

technology but minimal compared

41:58

still there's a lot of

41:59

you know, body parts flying.

42:02

When people are actively cutting off body

42:04

parts as part of war as opposed to people just getting

42:06

blown up or shot, like that's real

42:09

old school war, right? That's

42:11

like biblical war. That's the war

42:13

that people have had forever that changed World

42:15

War II when you had swords and stuff.

42:18

And so the fact that it always got ignored was weird

42:21

to me. Like, should we pay some? You

42:23

know? So when I was doing this thing

42:26

about sequels, I just loved

42:28

that, like, oh, this is an opportunity

42:30

to finally talk about this

42:33

very specific point that has

42:36

frustrated me for years that I can't

42:38

use in any context. And

42:41

this is the context. This is the perfect

42:43

context. And secondly, I have a master's

42:46

in human rights from the London School of Economics.

42:49

And people have asked me for years, how much of an

42:51

impact did that have on your stand-up?

42:53

And honestly, none.

42:56

Some would say it was a waste of money.

42:59

I haven't really used the skills

43:01

or the things I've learned.

43:03

And this was the first time I actually,

43:05

yeah, talking about the refugee convention,

43:08

the human rights convention and being able

43:10

to talk about it with some level of fluency.

43:13

I didn't need to

43:16

write that stuff because I knew that stuff. I wrote about that stuff.

43:18

So to be able to get deeper

43:21

into it in a way that I would

43:23

never be able to felt

43:26

great. It let me actually flex

43:28

my education in a way that

43:31

was really enjoyable. And because

43:33

it was such a

43:35

non-sequitur, it was

43:39

so far away from anything

43:41

we were doing at that point, it

43:43

just, I love the seeming randomness

43:47

of it. That's what's holding

43:49

you right now. You cannot get over that. But

43:51

yeah, that bit to me is...

43:53

I love it also

43:55

because I'm proud of the form.

43:57

I

43:59

often...

43:59

think that because I talk about things that

44:02

are quote unquote political or social

44:04

race or whatever, the, and I'm

44:06

proud of that, but like

44:08

the content sometimes

44:10

covers up how I did it. Yeah,

44:12

yeah. Like people don't appreciate the actual

44:15

magic trick. They just, they appreciate

44:17

the topic. And with this one, I had the

44:20

magic trick, but it wasn't about

44:22

a social thing, really. It was just me,

44:24

it was like, this is the actual tool. You

44:26

can see it more clearly. And that was

44:29

fun to be able to be like, yeah, I can

44:31

do this. That's interesting because you

44:35

seem to be,

44:37

how would I put it? You have sort

44:39

of like your politics that sort of is

44:42

broadly defined, let's say radical just for word.

44:44

Sure. And then you also have sort of radical opinions

44:46

about the form. And I think one,

44:49

almost no one ever notices anyone has any radical

44:52

opinions about saying up form.

44:55

And if they do notice, it's because they then

44:57

start complaining about it. Right? So

44:59

the kids these days, right? So

45:02

it's like set up and punchline. And I

45:04

was wondering if you felt, so it's like, I think of like

45:06

Hannah Gaspi's Nanette, which you are a

45:09

comedian who liked it and talked about it.

45:11

And I wonder if you feel like there's something about

45:14

you or just general about that

45:16

there's something about a person

45:19

who wants to make

45:21

political points, social points that marries

45:23

well with a person who also wants to make

45:26

formal arguments, but not either

45:29

explicit or implicit formal arguments. It

45:31

does because when you're talking about breaking down

45:34

structures, that's also what I'm doing

45:36

with the form. I'm very much and I've talked

45:38

about this, I feel like in any podcast

45:40

where I've talked about my influences, I'm

45:43

a Stuart Lee disciple. And I think

45:45

if you know his work, it's very clear that

45:47

like I've been heavily influenced by him. Stuart

45:50

would say copying him. So

45:53

again, differences of opinion, things translate

45:55

differently. Only when you have the air

45:57

where you kept on commenting on the jokes.

45:59

I

46:02

mean because the thing I mean he even talks

46:04

about in his books like it's not

46:06

that he created the things It's just that

46:08

a he ripped them off from people who are a

46:10

lot less famous And he put them in

46:13

his voice in the order he wanted to yeah but

46:15

there is something about like there's

46:17

all these different ways to write

46:20

jokes and to Comment

46:22

on what it is you're doing that adds a whole level

46:24

and the fact explaining the joke can be the joke

46:27

and That is so fun.

46:29

It makes everything usable. It

46:31

makes everything Potentially

46:34

funnier than it should be just on paper

46:36

alone and I love

46:38

that. I mean is it

46:40

Smart probably like

46:42

smart in terms of in a business sense probably

46:44

not You're taking material that already

46:47

is gonna alienate people and then you have whoever's

46:49

left and you might alienate a percentage of people Who

46:51

are left by like what the hell is he talking about get

46:53

to the point already? You know, I

46:56

love stewardly, but he gets to them and I'm a huge

46:58

obsessed van and even me when I

47:00

watch some of his stuff I'm like come on Stuart. Just get to

47:02

the fight. Yeah, I get it. You're chiseling a grave Can't

47:04

just just speed it up speed it up. But

47:07

like I think with Hannah Gatsby

47:09

We were so in this country. There's so many comics

47:12

who were talking about how this isn't stand-up.

47:15

This doesn't count and I'm like

47:18

It's a human and a microphone

47:19

It's the freest

47:21

art form available. There are no

47:23

production values. You can do

47:26

anything So why are you putting a cap

47:28

on it? And then you're saying it got

47:30

sad I got depressed in a series have you listened

47:32

to prior? Like prior is

47:35

the greatest comic of all time not only

47:37

because of the impact he made But you

47:39

know how they say with the Beatles like every Beatles album

47:41

created a different kind of band if

47:43

you listen to prior stuff He's an alt

47:46

comic. Yeah, he's also a race comic.

47:48

Yeah, he's a Storyteller

47:51

he's a sketch actor like he's doing

47:53

all those things Comedy is

47:55

not something that is singularly defined

47:57

and also when you're going after Hannah Gatsby for

48:00

the way she set up her show. You're

48:02

also going after all British

48:05

comedians, practically, who do the

48:07

exact same thing at fringe festivals. And

48:09

the only reason why I think they haven't destroyed

48:12

us is they don't have the business mind

48:14

to turn all those hours into recordings

48:16

that they sell. Like you have these

48:18

hours and you stop as opposed

48:20

to polishing them perfectly. And even

48:23

if they win awards and are great, you don't think about

48:25

recording them. I'm not going to move on. Got the next hour.

48:28

You're in debt from the last

48:31

festival. If they wanted to, they

48:33

could crush us. Don't you understand? There

48:35

is absolutely no reason to

48:38

restrict a form that

48:40

is available and open. And there's no

48:44

idea of like, well, it's not funny. You

48:46

can never say that because there's too many

48:48

human beings. There's too many

48:50

human beings for you to say something's not

48:52

funny. Because what you're basically saying is

48:54

what I think is funny is funny. And the

48:57

people that laugh at my stuff

48:59

are better than the people that don't laugh at

49:01

my stuff. And I probably share

49:03

that too. Like you kidding me?

49:06

I share that too. But still, that's basically

49:08

what it is. Is that part of why this section

49:11

and to go like this turn to a TED talk and TED talk

49:13

in my head, it's like a slur. Right. Right.

49:15

Now I use it as a slur. Yeah,

49:18

we just just because it's so

49:21

like, where does it where the laughs

49:23

are? Where the laughs go? You know, so

49:25

I was just acknowledging those

49:28

moments where I get really

49:30

in my head or, you know, I

49:32

get called professorial a lot, which

49:35

I have a love hate with that. I know it's

49:38

like it's a style that's mine. But is that

49:40

good? It's interesting because like,

49:43

you mentioned about how there's this

49:46

is formally kind of what you do, but with less

49:48

the distraction of topic, right? I think a lot

49:50

of people focus on what comedians say more than how.

49:53

And I think part of what's interesting

49:55

is anger is a big part of the sort of the

49:58

comedy of your comedy. And

50:01

as a result sort of faux exasperation

50:04

and an actual exasperation sort

50:06

of blur in a way that's paradoxical or whatever.

50:08

And here is like, there's

50:11

like the Paul Mooney party who's a big influence,

50:13

but also like,

50:14

yeah, but like not everything is that

50:16

serious. And that has always been part of it, but this underlines. That's

50:19

like, I like this. The

50:21

way you think I am about

50:23

Roe v. Wade, I am also like this thing

50:25

about World War One, World War Two. Or Weezer.

50:30

I mean, I think

50:32

when I started getting

50:34

more politicized post 9-11, I'd seen

50:37

Paul Mooney perform. And

50:39

I wanted to be Paul Mooney

50:41

so bad.

50:43

And you know, I went to college up in Maine

50:45

and I went from doing hacky Indian

50:47

jokes when I was 17, 18, 19 to all

50:49

of a sudden trying to be Mooney. But the thing is, I

50:52

was writing as if I was

50:54

Mooney without any of his experiences.

50:57

Like why was I talking

50:59

about like being

51:01

black in the 60s and 70s? Like it was like stuff

51:03

where I'm like, this isn't authentic. You

51:06

got to find it. Plus like

51:08

whenever you talk about stuff that's social

51:10

or political or whatever,

51:13

you run the risk of just being

51:16

like didactic without being

51:18

funny. You run the risk of sounding

51:21

like slam poetry, which you

51:23

know, not even good slam poetry. You know

51:25

what I mean? You

51:27

have to remember what it is that makes

51:30

you funny. And that's good joke writing and whatever

51:32

intrinsically you find funny. And

51:34

so learning to take that

51:36

kind of frame and way to

51:38

look at the world and analyze

51:41

what people say and do, which comes

51:43

from Mooney as well as Carlin and you

51:47

know, Rock, Chappelle, you know, all you know.

51:51

Mixed with like the uniqueness

51:53

of what I do. Like it

51:56

took a while to get there, but like

51:59

yeah, I mean it

51:59

It's

52:01

it's tricky because with Mooney because it's like you

52:03

feel empowered when you're up there saying fuck

52:05

you to people

52:07

You know just going up there I mean fuck you

52:09

white people and it feels good but at a certain

52:11

point is that really all I

52:13

am you know I mean because it's not all my

52:15

experience and and there's and not

52:18

to say it's all his experience But certainly

52:20

that was a major focal point for him, but

52:22

to me it's

52:24

you don't want it to be too predictable and

52:27

so showing the the

52:29

complexity of your you know your

52:31

like my friend Amanda once told me like

52:33

You're such a silly person Yeah, like

52:36

with your friends just so silly but on stage

52:38

like people never see how ridiculous you are

52:40

and that's stuck with me like

52:42

it really made me think yeah,

52:45

like I am a silly person and everything

52:48

isn't always heavy and You

52:51

know, I have other things I do that.

52:53

I really enjoy. Yeah, and so Weaving

52:56

that in also takes a lot of pressure went

52:58

off the parts that are heavy. It gives

53:01

the audience a break, you

53:03

know Yeah, I think it's really useful

53:05

to think of that way of like yes

53:09

What you're saying is something you want

53:11

to communicate, but you are somewhat there to

53:13

laugh at a person who's doing this Yeah, like

53:16

and not laughing just as the jokes, but

53:18

like literally laugh at that. There's a guy on stage

53:20

Yeah

53:21

They're

53:22

the most basic sense like a comedian can be talking about the

53:24

word the dumbest stuff and this is what he's talking

53:26

about He's so riled up and this is his

53:29

job ask in hot pot. Yeah. Yeah I mean that's

53:31

classic example, right the the whole chunk

53:33

ends with you examining sort of your relationship to your

53:36

own name and your history with your name and you

53:38

tell a story about Being call it

53:40

being college and realizing there's another hurry

53:42

in your class, but one who goes by Harry

53:44

Yeah, and it sort of reaches a

53:47

larger topical point and I feel like at the moment

53:49

that sort of perfectly encapsulates A

53:51

lot of where you are right now with this special

53:54

and I want to get into that But first can just tell me the sort

53:56

of general thinking behind that section.

53:59

I mean it happens

53:59

I was at an LSAT class in reality

54:02

in 2005 and the instructor had said it and

54:04

I was annoyed and

54:09

I looked up and there was another brown dude

54:11

who went by Harry, which as

54:14

somebody named Harry who by

54:16

the time I was in the sixth grade I had made up my mind

54:18

that I'm not Harry anymore. I'm not going

54:21

to do this. It's not my name. I hate

54:23

that name. Like I'm going to force people to say Harry.

54:25

I'm going to make it awkward because that's my name.

54:29

They weren't going to get the last name right so that Luis the

54:31

first gave me something. Coming

54:34

from that position and always trying

54:36

to get people to say my name right, for someone

54:38

to just seemingly lay down

54:40

and be like wave the white flag, Harry,

54:42

I didn't do anything obviously

54:47

but I was furious. We really

54:49

stuck with you. It clearly stuck with me and it's unfair.

54:52

It's completely unfair of me. People

54:56

have different sensibilities and people get through

54:58

life, especially when you're marginalized

55:01

in any way through a variety of mechanisms. This

55:04

dude's like, this is not a battle I want to fight

55:06

every day and I can deal with Harry, which

55:09

is upsetting because I really don't like that name.

55:12

I mean honestly Harry Styles has made it so

55:14

much cooler. That name really was a

55:17

name from the distant past and he really

55:19

brought it back. Yeah,

55:22

just the idea that

55:26

someone would just be willing to sacrifice

55:29

a big part of their identity to avoid

55:32

awkwardness. I couldn't stand

55:34

it. What I love about that joke too

55:37

is it wraps up really nicely with a callback,

55:39

which of course I love. I

55:41

also think sometimes

55:43

callbacks feel like cheating because

55:46

it's like,

55:47

all right, so I can't think of a better punchline.

55:51

But when they remember things that they heard earlier,

55:53

my goal is to stop that. I'm

56:00

doing this a year. At a certain point,

56:02

you gotta, you know, is it enjoyable?

56:05

Yes, people like it? Yes, is it a good

56:07

transition to the next thing? Yes, just do

56:09

it. But there are times where you're like, I

56:11

would trade some of those structural

56:13

games for one hard

56:16

joke. Quick to

56:18

the point, bruising, like

56:20

that joke I have, like I'm Hindu

56:23

as it's pronounced in America, Muslim. Short,

56:26

like just very economical. Just gets

56:28

a big laugh without much work. I

56:30

would trade so many of those games for

56:32

a few more of those.

56:34

So I

56:35

think what I want

56:37

to talk to you about, as it relates to sort of this,

56:40

is the idea of political

56:42

comedy or whatever. And I want

56:44

to take a sort of brief tangent to talk about

56:46

the problem with Apu, the documentary

56:48

you made in 2017 about the Simpsons character

56:51

Apu and the fact that he was voiced by a white

56:53

guy, Hank Azaria. Because I was

56:55

rewatching it and thinking about it. This

56:59

is a perfect encapsulation to

57:02

everything around it, to the question of what does

57:04

comedy do? What can comedy do? What

57:07

does tired do to society? What can a comedian

57:09

actually do? Which became a question

57:13

post Trump in a sort of weird way that you do not hear

57:15

for almost any other art form other than I think books. Truly,

57:18

no one was like, what

57:20

does television do to bring down

57:22

political parties? But for some reason, people

57:25

decided post, and

57:27

it's partly post John Stewart, where people

57:29

thought he was doing something. Yes.

57:31

And there's

57:33

so many ways where this sort of overlaps

57:35

with different arguments on sort

57:38

of

57:38

what it does or does not do, what it can do. And

57:41

I want to start to, I want to talk about this

57:43

for a while, but what is your thinking

57:46

of that? And in general, when you think about that

57:48

question, I don't know if anyone's ever asked you directly

57:50

what does comedy do. But as a person

57:53

who's in that space, how do you, where do you

57:55

currently sit with it? Or how, no, not as you currently,

57:57

how is your thinking on it evolve? I mean, I've. the

58:00

question ago or how can a

58:03

comedians effect social justice and set

58:05

of chains

58:06

and a year and i can be completely angry with

58:09

it because when i was in college

58:11

i spent my junior year at wesleyan university

58:14

and i took a sociology of pop culture

58:16

class i wrote a paper about scan

58:18

comedy effect social changes

58:20

and i remember going to the comedy cellar

58:22

and interviewing of mark marin

58:25

and robert kelly

58:27

and jim norton and

58:30

of god i didn't read doug stan hope

58:32

and said alexander

58:34

like it was a hell of a list of top papa

58:37

and ya especially as

58:39

and also the don't know women because there were no

58:41

women of companies the other way the weapon oh it right

58:44

at a slow and yeah that question

58:46

that contacts you can imagine the only person

58:48

who really you know the questions

58:50

were that and is is is

58:53

is a meritocracy everyone says

58:55

if is a meritocracy except alexander

58:57

the of course yes could send someone apartments

59:00

you like to kill me but yeah i think

59:02

i sympathize because i

59:05

was one of those people to and

59:07

you think about the fact well this is

59:09

what prior to in this is what john stewart was doing

59:11

so cool the has an impact but

59:13

that's true with any are near you

59:15

know every art has a range raid

59:18

their movies that shape you you

59:20

know and and that question or

59:23

reinforce what you are like and

59:25

you the expectation is every film doesn't

59:28

necessarily need to change your whole

59:30

world view or prospective are

59:33

you know those are some at some of the slums or some the greatest

59:35

yeah i'm also fall really flat like this as

59:37

you can do a thing it works but like

59:40

no one should be held to that standard

59:42

like at the bare minimum my a would be cool

59:44

if you didn't make life worse for all the apple

59:47

like that as a minimum standard and we were

59:49

not doctors would do no harm in earth's

59:51

philosophy of living isn't my thing and

59:53

necessarily a bad went to the best of your

59:55

ability it needs to sound

59:58

genuine and i mean when i this

1:00:00

stuff I say, it's because I believe it. If

1:00:02

you don't believe it, don't say

1:00:04

it. If you can't stand by it, don't

1:00:06

say it. At least, that's

1:00:09

my view on it. That's

1:00:11

one of the things that was really kind of freeing about

1:00:13

this last hour is that there

1:00:15

was a lot of stuff that had nothing to do

1:00:18

with social justice for

1:00:20

lack of another term, right? It

1:00:22

was just my life and what was happening, and

1:00:24

it was still me. And

1:00:26

I think that that's

1:00:28

ultimately what

1:00:30

you should be doing, because going

1:00:33

up there and being didactic without

1:00:35

jokes and without your heart being in it,

1:00:38

audience can call for shit. Like

1:00:40

the audience knows when you're trying to do a

1:00:42

thing, and they don't like it. They want to

1:00:44

laugh. I will say also,

1:00:48

I'm not going to say that it's wrong to make

1:00:50

points

1:00:51

and that it's wrong. The comedy isn't supposed

1:00:53

to be critical. I don't agree with that. I don't

1:00:56

agree with the clap-ter thing people

1:00:58

talk about. The clap-ter is this when

1:01:01

you get people clapping and laughing

1:01:03

at punch lines, and I'm like, there's

1:01:06

nothing wrong with it. You know who gets lots of clap-ter?

1:01:08

Chris Rock. If you watch

1:01:10

his specials, the biggest, hardest thing,

1:01:13

smartest points get clapping because

1:01:15

they deserve it along with. What you're

1:01:17

whining about is not clap-ter. It's clapping.

1:01:20

It's people clapping at a

1:01:22

point as opposed to laughing at them. That's not

1:01:25

clap-ter. That is clapping. Clap-ter

1:01:27

should be a goal. It means that you're

1:01:30

not only funny, but you resonated

1:01:32

with people in a way where they're like, respect

1:01:34

for that. And I feel like that's kind

1:01:36

of what it should be. The goal should be, at least for

1:01:39

me, is clap-ter. It's like,

1:01:41

that's funny. You get it, and

1:01:43

you not only get it, but this is cathartic

1:01:45

for you, and it resonated. That's

1:01:48

the best thing. Dae- It's

1:01:50

interesting because it's like the

1:01:52

documentary, which is a comedic

1:01:55

work, like you're making jokes or out of it, and you're like, no,

1:01:57

it's about comedy. It's a comedic work. And it's interesting.

1:07:13

Christians.

1:08:01

It was a Christian movement. It was, you know, the black

1:08:03

Muslim, they united over that identity, but they also

1:08:05

pushed for justice.

1:08:08

And so, you know, identity

1:08:10

politics is important. What I'm saying

1:08:13

is my film changed everything. It changed

1:08:16

everything. Have you watched

1:08:18

The Simpsons the last two seasons? Have you heard there's a renaissance?

1:08:21

I wrote a piece about it. Do you know who told me there

1:08:23

was a renaissance? It was Hank. Yeah. Because

1:08:26

Hank, he called a renaissance too? He didn't call it a renaissance,

1:08:28

but he... So I wrote a piece, I called it a renaissance,

1:08:30

and it was very funny because I'd say the word renaissance.

1:08:33

Yeah. And I said it to... Everyone's

1:08:35

like Jim Brooks and

1:08:38

Matt Groening had the same reaction, which was like, Well,

1:08:40

if we sense a renaissance, then in fact, there's a dark

1:08:42

period. Yes. Oh, okay.

1:08:45

And they all realized it. And so... I mean,

1:08:47

art doesn't have a win-loss record. Yeah. So

1:08:50

you can't prove it numerically, but... Apparently,

1:08:52

everyone was like, you know, it's better now than

1:08:54

it has been. Has he told you how it

1:08:56

is different? Because it is different in a way.

1:09:00

It's like they watched a documentary

1:09:02

and it was like, Oh, this is how we catch a special better, regardless

1:09:04

of like morally better.

1:09:06

There's a point that Dana Gould

1:09:09

makes, and the only writer who's willing to talk to you, because

1:09:11

it's like, hey, look, everyone's funnier when they're

1:09:13

just this one thing. Yeah. And

1:09:15

it's like, who's funniest because he's just this one person?

1:09:18

It's funnier when Smithers doesn't come out and be

1:09:20

closeted. And then these last couple of seasons, they're like,

1:09:22

maybe it's like actually more interesting if

1:09:24

we like allow these people to be

1:09:26

people. Well,

1:09:27

because before, if you did that,

1:09:30

it would be...

1:09:31

I mean, it would be... If

1:09:33

they had Smithers come out and all this, it would

1:09:35

be cool. Yeah. But like,

1:09:37

maybe it's unrelatable to a lot of people and they

1:09:39

would... You have to meet society where they're at,

1:09:42

and the Simpsons fell behind where society

1:09:44

was at. And so, which

1:09:46

is a shame because you actually have this incredible thing where

1:09:48

they never age. Yeah. You can do

1:09:50

whatever you want with the characters. You know,

1:09:52

the idea, what do we do about it? Like, they have kids.

1:09:55

There's a million ways. Like,

1:09:57

you've had characters die. Do you know what

1:09:59

I mean?

1:09:59

I mean and there's a million ways

1:10:02

to write like you're not dealing with actors you

1:10:04

know and even the voice actors can be replaced yeah you

1:10:07

know so I always have been yeah and they have been and

1:10:09

I've wondered that like why aren't like

1:10:11

don't they see like when they expand

1:10:14

characters they're actually building whole new worlds

1:10:16

I've never been right because they're

1:10:18

doing the same three or four plots I'm like

1:10:20

even a poo stuff on we've done this yeah yeah and

1:10:23

talking to hang you know and I will say Hank

1:10:25

and I are friends now and we've talked

1:10:27

a lot about not just the Simpsons but

1:10:29

kind of justice and race and identity

1:10:32

and it's really cool to actually have that you

1:10:34

know a relationship with him but he's talked

1:10:36

about how

1:10:38

you know

1:10:39

after that the film came out and

1:10:41

everything that happened after there was a movement

1:10:43

in animation in general where you

1:10:46

know voice actors of color

1:10:48

were actually being asked to voice

1:10:50

the characters of color that you know we're actually are

1:10:52

supposed to represent them and how that happened

1:10:54

on the Simpsons with Carl and yeah all

1:10:57

these characters which is great obviously

1:10:59

from the sense of like this is our culture

1:11:01

we should probably make some money from it yeah and

1:11:04

also he said it forced people to be more

1:11:07

creative and thoughtful and open up

1:11:09

new places they hadn't opened up and

1:11:12

hire younger writers and a more

1:11:14

diverse room and it led to these

1:11:16

things and he didn't use Renaissance but he was

1:11:18

saying like things have been very different

1:11:21

and whether you get the credit or not like

1:11:23

that documentary set this

1:11:26

show up in a very different way and he's he

1:11:28

talked about how much he's enjoyed that yeah

1:11:30

I mean a minimum for

1:11:32

you

1:11:33

you're like why do we have to have reverence

1:11:35

to the way it was happening yes like

1:11:39

the type of things that Simpsons made fun of at the beginning

1:11:41

of sort of like the stagnation of like TV

1:11:44

creativity yes that the show would become

1:11:46

that for no real reason where the whole thing about the

1:11:48

show was sort of how irreverent it was and

1:11:51

yet hook the non-identity

1:11:54

politics part of your argument which is like stop being

1:11:56

so reverent to a path idea

1:11:58

of the self like open your

1:11:59

yourself up and

1:12:01

that alone. It happened like Carl,

1:12:04

there's a Carl episode where you learn so much about his backstory.

1:12:06

It's like incredibly specific. I think I saw that because

1:12:08

he was adopted by a Swedish parent. He was

1:12:10

adopted by Icelandic parent

1:12:13

and then did an episode last season

1:12:15

or two seasons ago where he then did like

1:12:17

a finding your roots where he learned that his

1:12:20

black parents, his birth parents,

1:12:23

his dad was a cowboy and then he learns about the history

1:12:25

of black cowboys or whatever. It's just like,

1:12:27

well, this is an incredibly specific story, but like,

1:12:30

well, now they just have, he goes to the black side

1:12:32

of town, which is a joke. They

1:12:35

make a joke about how there's been another

1:12:37

side of Springfield that just literally has not been

1:12:39

visited. That's amazing.

1:12:41

Yeah, yeah.

1:12:43

There's tons of episodes that are like that and

1:12:45

I think it is,

1:12:48

it's that same thing that you have, which is like,

1:12:51

for some reasons people get into comedy because

1:12:53

they have, they push back on certain

1:12:55

things, but then eventually when they get established, they're like, well,

1:12:57

now, but it has to be exactly how it is. And

1:13:00

then it takes people who are like,

1:13:02

no, we need to continually have this sort of a reference,

1:13:05

which is

1:13:06

it's hard to,

1:13:11

there's a certain self-awareness that

1:13:13

has to happen. This is a classic

1:13:15

example to me of counterculture becoming status

1:13:17

quo. And

1:13:21

I'm a young, hip liberal that's

1:13:23

questioning how it works

1:13:25

and chances are 30 years

1:13:27

later, your positioning

1:13:29

might not look the same. You've also made a ridiculous

1:13:32

amount of money. A lot of those folks have made a ridiculous

1:13:34

amount of money off it. So for

1:13:37

the best interest of the show, you really do

1:13:39

need to get new voices, not out

1:13:41

of this sense of like diversity

1:13:43

hires and quota, even though obviously

1:13:46

more people should be given opportunities, but it's like, you're

1:13:48

going to get perspective to actually reflect what

1:13:50

is being discussed today. And that

1:13:53

keeps the audience potentially young. I

1:13:55

mean, when I was in, I didn't put this into

1:13:57

the documentary, but I was interviewing high school

1:13:59

students.

1:13:59

too.

1:14:00

None of them knew what The Simpsons was. They

1:14:03

knew what Apu was because they've been called

1:14:05

it. But they didn't know anything

1:14:07

about The Simpsons. They knew it was a cartoon that existed.

1:14:09

They knew it was still there. They didn't like

1:14:12

the idea that Apu shares

1:14:14

this like racist space with

1:14:16

all these the cartoons. But

1:14:18

like the show doesn't have resonance is sad

1:14:21

because the show should always have resonance.

1:14:23

There's no reason it shouldn't always have like

1:14:25

have resonance. So the documentary

1:14:28

ends with Hank not agreeing to be

1:14:30

interviewed and you say something to the effect of like, oh

1:14:32

it must be nice to have control over your representation.

1:14:35

And I kept on thinking about that idea of

1:14:37

controlling how you're represented because you

1:14:40

know this is a big thing to comedians. A

1:14:43

lot of people can get into it to control how

1:14:45

they are perceived. And you couldn't

1:14:48

have anticipated what happened especially

1:14:51

is a true TV documentary. But like this

1:14:53

ends up being how you represented yourself

1:14:56

to the world. I don't think I've listened

1:14:58

to an interview with you where that someone doesn't bring it up. I brought

1:15:00

it up. I felt the irony of

1:15:03

everything right like me making a documentary

1:15:05

about not being connected

1:15:08

with Apu and how I hate it and now

1:15:10

I'm forever connected. Yeah. That's what comes

1:15:12

with I didn't see that coming

1:15:14

to be perfectly honest. Yeah. I mean how

1:15:17

how have you how has the journey been

1:15:20

with that? Now it's been a few years. I'm sure the first few years

1:15:22

it was hard and people were very

1:15:24

in memory were talking about like you need extra

1:15:26

security. And now you

1:15:28

know as I said there as as

1:15:32

there has been changes or whatever how have you how

1:15:34

do you live with it now? It's more annoying

1:15:37

now as opposed to like it was never really

1:15:39

scary but it was kind

1:15:41

of frustrating you know. And

1:15:44

yet there is some like whoa

1:15:46

I made a dent just the shock

1:15:48

of how much was written and stuff.

1:15:52

And also now it's like nice

1:15:54

to like be able to connect with Hank and it's

1:15:56

that that really actually feels so much more

1:15:59

full circle. And we just. did a really great interview

1:16:01

together on NPR's Code Switch, where I thought

1:16:03

both of us were really open and honest about it. But

1:16:06

on a day to day, it's just like an annoying thing.

1:16:10

And part of it is like, who wants to be that

1:16:12

guy, to be a representative

1:16:15

of, this is what's wrong with

1:16:17

comedy, nobody has a sense of humor? I'm like, motherfucking,

1:16:19

you didn't see this thing. And

1:16:22

one thing about my standup historically

1:16:24

is that there's lots of cringy moments. They

1:16:27

often have some point to them. But I

1:16:29

actually like that the cringing

1:16:32

is the hole that you put

1:16:34

yourself in and then finding a way out of

1:16:36

it. That's fun for me. So

1:16:39

it's not even accurate. But

1:16:44

the thing is, that's not how it works. You don't get to choose what

1:16:46

your legacy is. You don't get to choose how you're seen

1:16:49

in terms of a career. You just keep

1:16:51

working, and you hope something else becomes

1:16:54

the next thing. But it's annoying.

1:16:58

I certainly am sick

1:17:00

of that

1:17:02

being the thing that

1:17:05

people know me for, as opposed to like, oh, I didn't

1:17:07

know you did standup. It's like you didn't see the documentary

1:17:10

either. It's in the documentary. The opening

1:17:12

scene is of me doing standup. So

1:17:16

you did WTF with Mark Maron a

1:17:18

month or two after you had a kid. And

1:17:21

it was a very interesting way to listen to your talk. Because

1:17:24

you're a month in, you're sort of not enough

1:17:27

sleep, so you're sort of open in a weird way into lyrics.

1:17:30

And you

1:17:31

talk about

1:17:33

things that I've never heard you talk about. You talk about sort

1:17:35

of struggles you've had with mental health

1:17:38

and considering quitting comedy and stuff

1:17:40

like that. And you said something. Oh, quitting comedy

1:17:42

was the least. Quitting, quitting

1:17:45

period. And

1:17:47

you said something to the effect of

1:17:50

doing

1:17:51

political work, for lack of a better term, and being

1:17:53

so strident was

1:17:55

defensive in some ways. It felt safer to have.

1:17:58

Yeah. To be talking about the same.

1:19:41

And

1:20:00

I heard you know, I definitely that was so made

1:20:03

clear But you know also I

1:20:05

didn't really talk about sex at home I

1:20:07

didn't talk about you know, those

1:20:10

things are just like that's just dirty and has

1:20:12

a turn into an adult you like Sex

1:20:15

is sex. It's it's essential part of being

1:20:17

a human being and it's worthy

1:20:19

of discussion, you know So but like

1:20:21

for longest I'm like just stay away from anything. So

1:20:24

there's you know, if you What

1:20:27

like the first couple of hours like they're

1:20:29

they're good but you can see like holes

1:20:32

and like oh, there's big things he's not really talking about

1:20:34

and There's there's things

1:20:36

that like, you know, if you really know myself, you're like, that's

1:20:38

weird He talks about it here, but he doesn't talk about anything

1:20:40

like that here Some of that comes with just

1:20:43

maturity and becoming an adult and

1:20:45

and all that But some of it is also just the

1:20:47

fear of embarrassing my folks

1:20:50

and it's just been really nice You

1:20:52

know, and I think we all forget this that our parents evolved

1:20:54

like my mom is like

1:20:56

it's your experience like you Say

1:20:58

what you need to say and it's your life and

1:21:01

she never would have said that before

1:21:03

and every time she says it You know,

1:21:06

I realize cuz she has seen my

1:21:08

art evolve too and she

1:21:10

she loves my Netflix special She still watches

1:21:13

it all the time. Like she's up. She's

1:21:15

so into the work I'm doing

1:21:17

and and has read so many things

1:21:20

she You know

1:21:22

She she doesn't say

1:21:24

what she used to say She's much more supportive of it

1:21:26

and to be honest, and I know maybe there's

1:21:29

something That isn't adult

1:21:31

like by saying that your my mom

1:21:33

gave me permission But there is something

1:21:35

without giving me permission. It felt like

1:21:38

that weight Wasn't

1:21:42

so so heavy anymore and it let

1:21:44

me release it a little bit more or even the mental

1:21:46

health stuff No for a long time.

1:21:49

She would also say like when you talk about that You're

1:21:51

exposing your weakness to other people and

1:21:53

if they have that they're gonna try to hurt you on a

1:21:55

deeper level which In

1:21:58

comedy. Yeah That is part of it. We

1:22:01

have a roast culture, right? So

1:22:03

yeah, totally, but at the same time, the good

1:22:06

that could come with expressing such things, like

1:22:08

the work that Aparna Nancherla does,

1:22:10

you know, or Maria Bamford, there's a ton

1:22:12

of people who talk about mental health in a way

1:22:15

that, you know, you see

1:22:18

their vulnerability and their pain, and it's

1:22:20

honest. And what it does is it

1:22:22

also brings people to the shows that

1:22:24

share that feeling. You

1:22:27

know, the bits I've done on mental health,

1:22:29

which I haven't done in a few years, that have gone

1:22:31

in different directions. Like, I'm going to try to... Sometimes

1:22:33

you just, like, a bit doesn't fit into the other materials,

1:22:35

so where does it go? But when I was doing that, like,

1:22:38

the reactions I got post-show, especially from,

1:22:41

like, South Asians and Asians who've had

1:22:43

mental health stuff and who's like, I can't talk to

1:22:45

my parents about this. Like, you know, the

1:22:47

idea that it's a medical thing and not just

1:22:49

simply sharing family secrets, that's

1:22:52

a really difficult, difficult thing. And so,

1:22:55

you know, I'm like 40 now

1:22:58

with a kid, and I, you

1:23:01

know, my parents are always my parents, and

1:23:03

I'm always going to be their kid, but there is a degree

1:23:05

of, like, I'm an adult, you

1:23:07

know, I don't need to prove anything anymore. And

1:23:12

I want to dig in deeper, you know? It's

1:23:15

hard because, again, there's a... I have

1:23:17

to remind myself that comedy

1:23:19

is therapeutic and not therapy, because

1:23:23

this is still stuff I should probably work through

1:23:26

in therapy and try to figure out. But

1:23:28

the stuff I have, like, both

1:23:31

during those times as well as just the thought

1:23:33

I've put in in the last decade or so, like,

1:23:36

that's probably worthy of seeing

1:23:38

the surface for people to actually be

1:23:41

able to connect to it. But again, like, there's

1:23:44

a vulnerability with that that

1:23:46

is so, like, for

1:23:48

me, saying stuff I find important

1:23:50

in the world and stuff, people call that

1:23:52

brave. That's not brave to me. That's,

1:23:55

like, because to me, it's like, well, I mean it, so why

1:23:57

wouldn't I say it?

1:23:58

And if you don't like...

1:23:59

Like that, it's kind of like you don't like the whole ideology

1:24:02

or the ideas behind it. When

1:24:04

I'm talking about like personal

1:24:06

stuff, getting heckled at 11 o'clock

1:24:09

on a late show at a club, like that

1:24:11

hurts in a different kind of way. It's,

1:24:14

it's, it's, you're, you're feeling

1:24:16

almost dishonored. Like I've embarrassed

1:24:19

myself. I've let the bully see my weaknesses.

1:24:23

And one, it's a shame because it also tells

1:24:25

you that's the importance of different types of spaces,

1:24:28

why I like to do theaters and rock clubs compared

1:24:31

to comedy clubs. It depends on what you're trying to

1:24:33

do. You build the, those

1:24:35

heavier bits in the theater or rock, preferably

1:24:38

a theater and the rest of it you work out in clubs,

1:24:41

the standup clubs. But like it's

1:24:43

scary. It's very scary. Yeah.

1:24:46

I, you also, it's scary too, because it most

1:24:49

times when you talk about things like

1:24:51

that, it requires degrees of silence.

1:24:54

So silence is scary to a standup and

1:24:56

to an audience that's expecting standup to be

1:24:58

a certain way. It's scary and it's confusing. Plus

1:25:01

it gives you a lot of pressure that you got to nail

1:25:03

the thing. Because you're talking about something

1:25:05

big and heavy and you've, you've made people

1:25:08

uncomfortable and you got to

1:25:10

nail it if it's going to be justified. Yeah.

1:25:12

Yeah. I mean, I, I write about this

1:25:15

in my upcoming book, comedy book

1:25:17

out November 7th, but like the

1:25:20

bravery in comedy is so often used for

1:25:23

people who are unafraid of hurting people.

1:25:25

Yeah. And I feel like it's actually what I,

1:25:27

I seems brave to comedians

1:25:29

about other comedians or at least to me is people

1:25:32

are doing material where they are

1:25:34

afraid of being hurt by people and

1:25:36

they feel are able to per, to per,

1:25:38

persevere with it, knowing it might

1:25:40

help or might bring some sort

1:25:43

of connection. Prior set himself on fire.

1:25:45

And then he was up doing standup about

1:25:47

it. He was talking about his, his weaknesses

1:25:50

of the human being. And you know,

1:25:52

one hand you could say, you know, he had a sense of humor about

1:25:54

it, but he was also willing to be vulnerable. Like

1:25:57

you know, like I was saying before, every prior.

1:25:59

Bit of prior creates a different comic

1:26:02

the comic we get most often is the one

1:26:04

that tells dirty stories Yeah, and

1:26:06

but that's that's underselling what

1:26:09

what prior was that has me to it And

1:26:11

I'm not saying that like that's what comedy

1:26:14

has to be But I hate

1:26:16

to think that people see it as less

1:26:18

than or not comedy to have tragedy

1:26:21

involved it's like with tragedy plus

1:26:23

time and you define what that time is

1:26:25

like the what you can do with

1:26:27

the art form like Shit,

1:26:30

I want you. I mean on a pure

1:26:33

Level as an artist. I want you to

1:26:35

remember what I

1:26:36

said Yeah, I want my work

1:26:38

to not be forgotten. I wanted to have some meaning

1:26:41

I think those moments where

1:26:43

you're able to deeply connect with somebody

1:26:45

do

1:26:46

you mean I mean that's

1:26:48

Like why are you close with

1:26:50

the people you're close to just because you have fun

1:26:52

when you're together Do you know I mean

1:26:54

yeah like the conversations you remember

1:26:56

usually are the ones that had some meaning or it was

1:26:59

a Pivotal time in your life like you know

1:27:02

Expecting all that from comedy is a lot But

1:27:04

I've seen enough performers that make

1:27:07

work where I'm thinking about it for a long time

1:27:09

after I Want to do that and

1:27:12

it's so scary Jesse. It's

1:27:14

frightening and Yeah,

1:27:18

I'm still working on that I Was

1:27:21

curious about how having a kid and inform

1:27:24

that and I think about

1:27:27

Baby's laugh at a in a much more

1:27:29

primal level they reveal like how

1:27:32

like chimpanzees last It's

1:27:35

like noises and faces that they did not

1:27:38

expect Their parent to do because

1:27:40

they've not made that no we haven't been cute as to

1:27:42

when to laugh how to laugh Yeah, it means yeah,

1:27:44

do you remember you know like? Two

1:27:47

months three months in you know you're

1:27:49

a comedian so this whole time like when's

1:27:51

this thing gonna laugh at me? Remember the

1:27:53

first time your son laughed and

1:27:55

did it change? It

1:27:58

doesn't have to be or even the feel I

1:28:00

remember the feeling because it was it

1:28:02

was his mom that did it. Yeah Like

1:28:06

still to the day. Oh like I'm

1:28:08

the opener. Do you know I mean I'm not the I'm not

1:28:10

the main act But you know initially,

1:28:13

you know your faces and ridiculous like I'm

1:28:16

in his face. I'm disappeared. I miss I disappeared

1:28:19

You know, there's I don't remember what it

1:28:21

was. It felt great

1:28:24

It also kind of reminded me that

1:28:27

there's something like

1:28:29

Comedy to us culturally

1:28:32

so Linguistic. Yeah, it's

1:28:34

about language. Yeah, as opposed like in French

1:28:37

at the clowning tradition Yeah, there's two

1:28:39

other weeks to just relax in Montreal if we don't

1:28:41

actually go to like there's a there's another

1:28:43

tradition there and I'm

1:28:45

not saying that the French are like babies. But what

1:28:48

I'm saying is I'm not not saying it but like

1:28:51

There's there's so much

1:28:54

that I guess

1:28:55

you know Babies aren't into

1:28:57

wordplay. Yeah, you know, they don't care

1:29:00

what neat observation you made of a popular

1:29:02

culture They laugh and they don't always know

1:29:04

why they laugh, but that's true with all

1:29:06

humans We don't know why we laugh at what we laugh with

1:29:09

kids. It's more of a mystery because they can't express

1:29:11

it And you're not like

1:29:13

consistent and part of that is because they're

1:29:15

discovering the world So everything is

1:29:17

new the idea of like

1:29:20

that's not the way it's supposed to be and that's why it's funny

1:29:23

They don't know what it's supposed to be. They don't know

1:29:25

what the trends are. They don't know what's consistent.

1:29:27

What's inconsistent. Nothing makes sense So

1:29:31

but there's something to that purity of

1:29:33

laughter. Yeah that like

1:29:35

you can't really get anywhere else Before

1:29:38

I get to the final segment. I want to ask you about a quote

1:29:40

because The only other place I've seen this

1:29:42

quote was you posted on Instagram I think when bell hooks passed

1:29:44

away, which was so bell hooks

1:29:47

was interviewed by the New York Times I'm not even sure what about

1:29:49

but they asked them faster about comedy

1:29:52

And she says we cannot have

1:29:54

a meaningful revolution without humor

1:29:56

Every time we see the left or any group trying

1:29:58

to move forward politically in a way

1:29:59

radical way, when they're humorless, they

1:30:02

fail. Humor is essential to the integrative

1:30:04

balance that we need to deal with diversity

1:30:06

and difference in building and the building

1:30:09

of community.

1:30:10

What does that

1:30:11

quote mean to you? I mean, first of

1:30:14

all, I was lucky enough

1:30:16

to be friends with bell hooks, which is still

1:30:18

one of the more bizarre,

1:30:20

amazing, greatest

1:30:22

things that's ever happened in my life.

1:30:25

I mean, one, humor

1:30:27

has some evolutionary advantage. Why do we still

1:30:30

have it? Like, what purpose

1:30:32

does it serve otherwise, right? Like,

1:30:34

the fact it's lasted this long means

1:30:36

it's essential. And when you're in

1:30:39

situation, we see how it works as

1:30:41

defense mechanisms. When you're part of a

1:30:43

political movement, a lot

1:30:45

of it is defense, right? A lot of it is,

1:30:48

you know, you're working against a force

1:30:50

that's pushing down on you. To

1:30:52

be able to survive this, especially when the victories

1:30:55

are few, you

1:30:56

get used to losing

1:31:00

more than

1:31:02

winning. So you celebrate

1:31:05

the successes because they don't come often enough.

1:31:07

But when you lose to find a way to bounce back

1:31:09

and still have hope and find joy

1:31:11

in the work you've done, I mean, humor

1:31:14

is crucial. And in terms

1:31:17

of diversity, people

1:31:21

will be—this is something people

1:31:23

have said before, but people are willing to

1:31:25

listen to you when there's a promise of a laugh. And

1:31:28

so you see all these performers historically

1:31:31

and even today who have brought certain

1:31:33

identities to the mainstream because

1:31:36

of their ability to

1:31:38

make audiences laugh. Like,

1:31:40

it's crucial.

1:31:43

So—and it's an accessible

1:31:45

way for people, you know. And even

1:31:47

when the film and television industry

1:31:50

and writers weren't being particularly generous to

1:31:53

the diverse range of humanity, at least

1:31:55

in this country at the bare minimum, there were

1:31:57

still comics, whether it was Margaret Cho

1:31:59

or a book. bunch of other people who were amongst

1:32:02

the first of their community to

1:32:05

break into this and it's something where you are

1:32:07

undeniable. If you are undeniable, they

1:32:09

got to let you on stage. If you're making money and

1:32:11

drawing people, they have to hear your voice. And

1:32:14

so,

1:32:15

you know, it

1:32:16

is this great opportunity

1:32:18

to connect human

1:32:20

beings to each other. I mean, what do we do

1:32:23

in social situations? How do you become friends? It's

1:32:25

a mix of like, I'm with you through the rough

1:32:27

parts, but I also laugh with you and have joy. So

1:32:32

now it's

1:32:37

time for our final segment. It's called the Laughing Round.

1:32:39

It's like a lightning round, but because this is a comic, I think

1:32:42

it ended with it because if

1:32:45

you started with it, it would have been a short interview. That's

1:32:48

why it's at the end.

1:32:50

Do you have a favorite joke joke? Street

1:32:52

joke? Dad joke? Oh man, it's

1:32:55

funny because whenever I get asked that question, I tell

1:32:57

myself to write it down and I never

1:32:59

do it. The

1:33:01

sub question is, is there any joke

1:33:03

you think of when I say, what's a joke that

1:33:05

you think of? I mean, I think

1:33:07

of some Paul Mooney jokes for like, because

1:33:10

Paul Mooney did jokes that sounded like street jokes. Yeah,

1:33:12

and they might have been. They might have been. I

1:33:14

love this one joke

1:33:16

where he says, um, God, I'm not gonna say that. I'm

1:33:24

gonna screwing up royalty.

1:33:27

The joke from comedy royalty. It's

1:33:29

like, uh, what

1:33:31

do you say?

1:33:33

He said something like, I brush my teeth every morning. It keeps

1:33:35

my teeth white. What is the, that's not it. That's

1:33:38

not it. There's a setup for it. Oh,

1:33:41

he said, oh no. Now I remember because

1:33:44

it has N word in it. That's why I probably lost

1:33:47

it. He's saying the N word a bunch and then he's

1:33:49

like, I say that word every morning keeps my teeth

1:33:51

white. It's just

1:33:53

a beaut. It's just short. Just

1:33:56

boom. I like that

1:33:58

to me is like. Such a it

1:34:01

has something to say it hits

1:34:03

hard economy of language

1:34:06

like Nothing

1:34:08

is wasted. Yeah, right That's

1:34:10

a great joke and then he had another joke

1:34:13

which I felt like a street joke He

1:34:17

talked about I'm gonna paraphrase

1:34:20

your I apologize to the ghost

1:34:23

of Paul Mooney and his estate How Little

1:34:27

white boy is in the kitchen. He covers his face

1:34:29

in chocolate And he goes up to his mom

1:34:31

and says mom look I'm black and then she slaps

1:34:33

him it says don't ever say that again and it goes up

1:34:35

to his dad and Says

1:34:37

the same thing like that. Look dad. I'm a viper and

1:34:39

then she slaps him Like don't you ever pretend to be

1:34:42

that again? Same thing with grandfather the

1:34:44

graph is like is it cool that black and then

1:34:47

he slaps him and then his mom's like Did you

1:34:49

learn anything today? It's like he's like yeah

1:34:51

I've been black for 15 minutes and

1:34:53

I hate you Paraphrasing

1:34:59

but more or less it but

1:35:02

that joke Still funny to

1:35:04

me. I could hear the rhythm of that punchline

1:35:06

and him saying oh, yeah Is there a joke

1:35:08

you wish you could steal? Oh Brother

1:35:11

you kidding me There was one

1:35:14

that I wish I would steal and I asked for permission and

1:35:16

I took it. It was from sheng

1:35:18

wang And he said

1:35:20

it once it might have been an open mic or

1:35:23

something or some show we had been doing where

1:35:25

he talked about being at a college

1:35:29

opening at homecoming and bombing

1:35:31

and Then he says and then

1:35:34

the the president of the school came out

1:35:36

after me and said so when's the comedian getting

1:35:38

here? And then I went

1:35:40

home and counted my money And

1:35:44

I asked him can I use that phrase that

1:35:46

I went home and counted my money in relation

1:35:49

to like a bad gig And he said absolutely

1:35:52

that certainly is

1:35:56

Is one that I did actually take with his permission

1:35:59

There

1:36:01

are jokes of Stuart Lees

1:36:04

where before I even knew his work, I

1:36:06

had started writing like the idea

1:36:09

of why political correctness is good

1:36:11

and here are the angles and there were just like fledgling

1:36:13

things that were the beginning. I remember watching

1:36:16

his stand for the first time and I'm like scratching

1:36:18

stuff off my list like, God,

1:36:20

he's covered all these things

1:36:22

in a way that I don't even have the tools

1:36:25

to. So there's a bunch

1:36:27

of his stuff that have

1:36:29

been like in my head and then I had

1:36:31

to get rid of them because he's nailed

1:36:33

them. I'm sure there's always a

1:36:36

ton of jokes where I'm like, God, I wish I wrote that.

1:36:39

I mean, like off the top of my head, I can't

1:36:41

think of one. Yeah. Do

1:36:44

you have a short story you're willing to share

1:36:46

of an interaction with a legendary comedian living

1:36:48

or dead? Okay.

1:36:51

I

1:36:53

mean, Andy Dick

1:36:57

comes a legendary comedian. You're

1:37:02

defining the legends here. I don't know.

1:37:04

It wasn't a great story. He wasn't

1:37:06

and to be fair, he wasn't in a great place.

1:37:09

Yeah.

1:37:12

Well, I mean, there's one I have on my Netflix

1:37:15

special. Is that okay? Sure.

1:37:18

I was in a club. Well, I guess

1:37:20

tell the non-joke version of this story.

1:37:22

Sure. It's very similar to the joke. Sure.

1:37:25

And it's more or less, I mean, you'll see if the person

1:37:27

I'm talking about, you don't really need to embellish.

1:37:29

Yeah. I'm in a club

1:37:32

doing stand up and, you know,

1:37:35

talking about what I talk about. And

1:37:37

all of a sudden I hear somebody yelling

1:37:39

in the back, what is he talking about?

1:37:42

He's like the Brown Sam Kinison. What's he

1:37:44

talking about? He's like the Brown Sam

1:37:46

Kinison.

1:37:49

And I'm like, who the hell is that?

1:37:51

You know, I get off stage. I realize it was Tracy

1:37:53

Morgan.

1:37:54

Tracy Morgan was heckling me in the middle of the show, which

1:37:57

made me feel better. Honestly, because immediately I'm like.

1:37:59

This is writing itself. Okay, I

1:38:02

go outside. I was about to head out To

1:38:05

who I to my the girl my girlfriend

1:38:07

at the time to her place Tracy comes

1:38:10

out and I'm like, oh, this is great and He

1:38:13

said let me give you some advice How

1:38:15

long you're into comedy at this point?

1:38:17

Oh, this was not Special

1:38:20

came up twice. It's not 2015 2015. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but he doesn't

1:38:23

know why I'm that's fine He

1:38:30

He's talking about How

1:38:32

like

1:38:33

about the way I looked and

1:38:36

he's like, you know if you went on stage

1:38:38

and talked about Eating a woman's

1:38:41

ass. That would be hilarious

1:38:44

just the idea of somebody who looked like me and That

1:38:48

was it that was that was the advice and

1:38:51

then he said hey you want to go to

1:38:53

this Patrice O'Neill benefit with me and I

1:38:56

said no because I Girl

1:38:59

I was dating at the time was see me and I've regretted

1:39:01

that part. There's another ten minutes

1:39:03

from from that But yeah,

1:39:06

I just just the absurdity of Of

1:39:09

all of that. I said Lewis Black on the

1:39:11

Netflix special, but it was actually Sam. Can you yeah

1:39:14

Brown Sam, Kenison? Let

1:39:17

me think of one more

1:39:26

I mean Chris, there's a lot of

1:39:28

stories and Don't

1:39:30

say any of them are Just

1:39:32

cuz like I used to come by the office all the

1:39:35

time like when when we had totally

1:39:37

biased Yeah, and it was weird because

1:39:39

like we'd be rushing to work on the show But then Chris

1:39:41

would come in and he'd tell us old

1:39:43

stories and everybody would stop working which

1:39:46

would put us behind Yeah, and also it

1:39:48

was like I know I got a work with Chris

1:39:50

rocks here He would he would

1:39:52

say things sometimes that were like You

1:39:55

know it almost there were moments

1:39:57

where it felt like he forgot who he was

1:39:59

she'd say like i got front row

1:40:02

seat to the next tonight like

1:40:04

he essay likely chris rock yeah exactly

1:40:06

and like what do you chris rock like it was like

1:40:09

he was talking about it as if he just lucked

1:40:11

out and as an incredible thing happened

1:40:14

and he would do that he would talk about things and

1:40:16

is normal ways and it

1:40:18

would be like yeah yeah

1:40:21

of course

1:40:23

i'm by yeah that that's a

1:40:25

little thing that's fine i'm

1:40:28

one of the best time ever bombed

1:40:30

oh sees let's

1:40:33

see what as well as retains

1:40:36

his mom so many

1:40:39

the best the best

1:40:41

time ever

1:40:44

bombed

1:40:46

ah it's hard i mean there was this one time

1:40:48

in austin

1:40:49

as at the south by southwest festival was pitch

1:40:52

black hose performing a one in the morning

1:40:54

the end of a bill that last that start

1:40:56

at like eight or nine which is one of those

1:40:58

as they are going but it's late i've

1:41:01

followed think i followed

1:41:03

kristen schaal and she did not have a good set

1:41:05

and that worried me because on my kristen

1:41:08

think prison bombs or in months like be

1:41:10

the limp wrist vs so i knew i was in trouble

1:41:12

so yeah i'm dying up there

1:41:14

and all of a sudden somebody yelled that

1:41:17

i'm going to cut your head off

1:41:20

a very specific and the thing was dark

1:41:22

so i didn't know where it was coming from and

1:41:25

i really want to get off the stage but there

1:41:27

was this comic part of me as yeah do you time

1:41:29

the of see get it's you said you were going to do ten

1:41:31

minutes ago these ten minutes and it was terrifying

1:41:36

but assets as one

1:41:38

example ah much

1:41:41

time that was like blink like looking back

1:41:43

on it was hilarious though he mean

1:41:47

the bomb on thing bar urge for the most part

1:41:49

things that were like fairly dramatic that a cat

1:41:52

for guess like that the as your toy

1:41:54

hilarious and or instructive yes

1:41:57

who's the best comic working whatever that means

1:41:59

you It's so hard

1:42:01

because there's so many... One

1:42:04

there's a broader range of styles

1:42:07

now than ever before and so many

1:42:09

different voices. It's so hard to... I

1:42:12

love Aparna Nancherla. Hannibal's

1:42:15

still Hannibal, Malaney's still Malaney. I

1:42:18

love Julio Torres. I think

1:42:21

it's just... Nobody is doing... It's just

1:42:23

so smart and weird and very

1:42:27

enjoyable to watch. Rory

1:42:29

Scoville, I've always loved...

1:42:32

Rory... He's our generation, the Robin

1:42:34

Williams in so many ways. He's able

1:42:36

to just... He's told me that his

1:42:39

goal in stand-up when he's headlining is to improvise

1:42:41

the hour. And if he does a joke,

1:42:44

it's almost like he treats it like throwing

1:42:46

a no-hitter or a perfect game. If

1:42:48

he tells a joke that was pre-written, it's like giving up

1:42:50

a hit. His goal is to just... It

1:42:52

has to be pure and in the moment. I've

1:42:55

seen him do things on stage over the... Got

1:42:58

almost 15 years that I've known him that

1:43:00

I've... God... He

1:43:03

used to visit Seattle all the time. There was a ladder

1:43:05

left on this stage, so there was a play

1:43:08

that was happening in the theater we were doing the show at. What

1:43:10

he did is he pulled the ladder out

1:43:12

and he would climb up in the middle of his

1:43:14

jokes and pretend he was talking to God. He

1:43:17

would just climb on top and look up and then he would get... It

1:43:19

was just the most... He

1:43:22

just pulled it off. I mean, he could pull off some

1:43:24

of this stuff.

1:43:26

He's definitely in the list.

1:43:28

There's so many people that I feel like are...

1:43:36

They're doing things

1:43:39

that either play with the form or

1:43:41

uniquely... A person like

1:43:43

Aparna wouldn't have existed a decade ago, 15

1:43:45

years ago, and the fact she does.

1:43:50

I'm sure it's just

1:43:52

so enjoyable to see people

1:43:55

get initially so confused.

1:43:58

It still happens.

1:43:59

to when she started, but like, like this

1:44:02

person looks like this and is saying this and then the

1:44:04

most brilliant stuff. But

1:44:06

those are those a handful of people. Do

1:44:09

you have any advice for an aspiring comedian?

1:44:15

Yeah.

1:44:17

Watch a lot of stand up obviously both live

1:44:19

and recorded, but also listen to it. Like

1:44:22

listen to audio without the visuals, because

1:44:26

it's a skill that is going to be necessary

1:44:28

because sometimes people don't have a good view.

1:44:30

The lighting's not good, whatever. And also, you

1:44:33

know, like killing him softly, like Chappelle's first

1:44:36

special. I didn't know it was a special because somebody burned

1:44:38

it on CD. I thought it was a record. And

1:44:40

the visuals I had in my head from what he was describing

1:44:43

were amazing. So when I actually saw it, it was

1:44:45

disappointing because, you

1:44:47

know, what he had created was so

1:44:50

hilarious just on words alone. So

1:44:52

I would say definitely like, make

1:44:55

that a habit, record your sets. And

1:44:57

I don't just mean for the sake of getting you

1:44:59

improvising and putting it on Instagram,

1:45:02

but actually like watch and

1:45:04

listen to what it is you're doing. Don't lose

1:45:08

tags that you improvise that you forgot.

1:45:10

Don't lose the perfect wording. Like make

1:45:13

sure you're paying attention and develop

1:45:18

a sick skin. You have to bomb. Yeah,

1:45:20

you have to. And you have to go to rooms.

1:45:24

It doesn't need to be, I'm not a believer in like, you want

1:45:26

to kill in every room. I don't believe that. I

1:45:28

think you want to be the best version

1:45:30

of yourself, whatever that means to you. But

1:45:33

you got to try different rooms. You can't

1:45:35

just play the safe rooms because you have to develop

1:45:37

like the defense. You have to be able

1:45:39

to prepare for things not going

1:45:42

well or people not understanding you. And

1:45:44

so much of stand up is about communication and

1:45:47

being able to explain something succinctly

1:45:50

and clearly. And

1:45:52

that gets harder to do when

1:45:56

people know what you're talking about without a set up. Yeah.

1:45:59

So you have to be willing to bomb

1:46:01

and know that's a regular part of it. And

1:46:05

the last thing is something like Chris Rock said,

1:46:07

which is like a basic piece of advice, but I think

1:46:09

he says like a lot of comics don't do it. It's like, you

1:46:12

guys do your sets and you leave. And

1:46:14

I get like you have other sets, but you

1:46:17

have to watch other people perform because

1:46:19

you're learning stuff, you

1:46:21

know, from them without, you

1:46:24

know, you know,

1:46:26

it's like you're literally because even a comic

1:46:28

that does something completely different, you're learning a skill

1:46:31

or you're observing. Oh, that's a way to turn a phrase

1:46:33

I haven't thought of. Or that's a way to set something up. You

1:46:36

know, and I've talked to friends about this, there'll

1:46:38

be comics, you see it open mics who are horrendous.

1:46:41

There's awful, but they got one joke.

1:46:44

They have one joke that no one's ever

1:46:46

done before. And it's absolutely

1:46:48

brilliant. Like there's something to learn

1:46:51

from everybody. So, you

1:46:53

know, I think as much as there's value to getting

1:46:55

on stage as much as you can, there's value in watching

1:46:58

and great standups, but also

1:47:00

people that you become friends with people

1:47:03

who are starting out because you're learning stuff.

1:47:05

Yeah, you're learning stuff from

1:47:08

their mistakes or from the jokes that are working.

1:47:11

And last one, I'm sure you'll have plenty of these,

1:47:13

which is, do you have a joke

1:47:16

that you really believed in has

1:47:18

never worked, but you'll go to your grave being

1:47:20

like, that was funny. I'm

1:47:23

right. They're wrong. Yeah. What

1:47:26

is it? What I'm thinking about what I'm working on now. There's

1:47:29

a few of those. There's

1:47:31

some I finally fixed. There's

1:47:35

this one bit I had in the first album, how

1:47:39

this woman had talked

1:47:41

about how Asians are so well behaved and we

1:47:43

were on a bus.

1:47:44

And I was thinking how,

1:47:46

like it fills the model minority stereotype. And at

1:47:48

the very next stop, Genghis Khan

1:47:51

got on the bus and chopped her head

1:47:53

off and

1:47:55

people never fucking laughed. I feel like

1:47:57

that one you then talk about Genghis Khan.

1:47:59

for a while. In my first special, I

1:48:02

end up using it

1:48:04

as a callback

1:48:06

where I talk about how this

1:48:09

is prejudice against mass

1:48:12

murderers of color. If

1:48:14

this was Hitler, you'd know the reference. Yeah,

1:48:17

and then I call it back with the Idi Amin joke at

1:48:19

the end towards the end. And that was one of

1:48:21

those where like, fucking funny. But the problem

1:48:23

is, you know, the one time it worked was at the taping, which

1:48:26

sucks. It was the one time it had to fail for

1:48:29

the callback to work. So we had to lower

1:48:31

the sound and the, you know, the cheated,

1:48:35

but it was like, you got to be kidding me because the audience

1:48:37

was too hot. Yeah, because they they're performing

1:48:39

being an audience. Yes. That's

1:48:42

the perfectly saying it. They're playing the role.

1:48:44

Yeah.

1:48:46

But that was a joke. I still think so

1:48:48

funny.

1:48:49

Usually the jokes that don't

1:48:52

work that find funny are very violent,

1:48:55

or, or they involve history.

1:48:58

And it just it just

1:49:00

kills me that people don't know what

1:49:02

the hell I'm talking about. It's

1:49:04

just like this. You don't think this Oh, I had a joke.

1:49:06

Oh, god, I had this joke. This

1:49:09

is from the I had to cut it because nobody was

1:49:11

getting it. But it was just, it's just

1:49:13

how, how like, like

1:49:16

having to go to school in Maine

1:49:18

and

1:49:19

for college and meeting white people

1:49:22

and learning about their customs and meeting their families

1:49:24

with their weird traditions of

1:49:26

eating together as a family and creating

1:49:30

boundaries. And,

1:49:32

you know, that's weird as an Indian person,

1:49:35

because, you know,

1:49:36

as you know, the only boundary we have is partition

1:49:38

and it didn't work out that well. And

1:49:41

if nobody knows what the fuck I'm talking about,

1:49:43

and I'm like, Oh, yeah, don't worry. He's just a small

1:49:46

group of several billion people that were

1:49:48

affected. It's only like a third to half of

1:49:50

the world's population. Not

1:49:53

like it's just a fringe group.

1:49:56

But I fucking love that joke. Yeah,

1:49:58

because then you just have to

1:49:59

Blaine what partition is which

1:50:02

how dare they yeah not know

1:50:04

it like it was one of the bloodiest events in Recorded

1:50:07

human history, but like it's it's

1:50:09

usually a history thing that just drives

1:50:12

me bananas Like this shit

1:50:14

is so funny and no Oh

1:50:16

the number of jokes about like Hinduism

1:50:19

that nobody knows the fuck I'm talking it drives

1:50:21

me nuts I've actually thought about like

1:50:24

just maybe I just need to tell the story Yeah

1:50:26

in order for them to know what I'm talking about when

1:50:28

I make the jokes later Yeah, because this

1:50:31

is ridiculous. It's like you're like, okay.

1:50:33

I put this album out of me summarizing

1:50:36

the history Yeah, I think everyone

1:50:38

listen to that ahead of time and then I did

1:50:41

that once I was so frustrated with With

1:50:44

people on getting it that I I had

1:50:47

notes On people's

1:50:50

like a little like a cheat sheet. Yeah, so

1:50:52

they could read it before I came out So I like

1:50:54

explain what the references mean. So when I made them on

1:50:56

stage I

1:50:58

should do that again. I did that like 15 years ago for

1:51:01

like musicals about time

1:51:03

periods. They'll do that. Sure Yeah,

1:51:06

like I feel like

1:51:08

In like or like Star Wars, I guess is another

1:51:10

version. It's different because with that There's the expectation

1:51:12

of the role before you come out which is it's

1:51:14

like I could do a whole hour about Partition

1:51:17

for them to want to do the research on it, you know, I'm not

1:51:19

gonna do a whole hour on partition But

1:51:22

come on, that's great like We

1:51:24

don't really do boundaries because the part that's that's

1:51:27

funny. That is exact

1:51:31

it's like Exactly

1:51:34

the joke to make but

1:51:36

demands Just a right

1:51:38

amount of fluency. You're just like yeah, of course that It's

1:51:42

like you're doing a math problem where it's like two plus two

1:51:44

equals four and you're like two plus two equals four It's like we

1:51:46

don't know the number right exactly We actually

1:51:48

only know up to the number three or that I've done it in

1:51:50

front of a crowd that was heavily South Asian

1:51:52

And I got a lot of people going. Oh

1:51:55

and those are the people that like they

1:51:57

they heard the thing They had they'd a gut reaction

1:52:00

Versus you're not even thinking about

1:52:02

what I'm saying. You need that per you

1:52:04

need an audio or two, right? World War two

1:52:06

is

1:52:07

the Holocaust but when you say World War two, it's almost

1:52:09

not all it's right, right? Hey, it's

1:52:11

this huge thing that people

1:52:14

don't oh my god it's just so and

1:52:16

people just grown because they don't know how to I You

1:52:19

need this perfect mix of people to have a fluency

1:52:22

To enough of a degree where they understand

1:52:25

the intricacy of a joke and this isn't like

1:52:27

a scary word You know, I mean it

1:52:29

has to be a word we know that we know

1:52:31

isn't scary because we understand the complexity

1:52:35

But also it still has some of the baggage of it

1:52:37

being what it is. That's that's the joke even That's

1:52:41

the kind of joke that'll end up on one of my new material albums

1:52:43

to be perfectly honest Yeah, that way and then

1:52:45

it'll be some people's favorite some people's favorite

1:52:47

jokes. I'll just have to find it Thank

1:52:52

you so much, thank you That's

1:52:54

it for another episode of good one stream vacation

1:52:56

baby on YouTube Follow her on social

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media at harikonobolu good ones

1:53:01

produced by myself and Jelani Carter Got

1:53:03

to machine did our theme song write a review

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1:53:14

Jesse David Fox and you follow me at Jesse David

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1:53:32

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