February 5, 2024 • 58 mins
Join Stacey Cay and Agnes Berry as they engage in an unplanned but entertaining conversation about their lives, passions and experiences. Broadcasting from Agnes's living room, this impromptu yet eye-opening conversation includes topics ranging from Agnes's adventures in the New York comedy scene, her thriving online presence, and her insight into the challenging yet rewarding life of a stand-up comedian.
Agnes openly discusses her journey of becoming a successful transgender stand-up comedian, from the realities of establishing herself in an intensely competitive industry to the rewarding process of defining her personal version of comedy. The chat also encompasses personal discussions about bisexuality, hormones, transitioning, and advocacy for transgender rights.
Adding an unexpected twist to the conversation, both Stacey and Agnes dive into the world of NBA, revealing their deep-set fandoms and opinions on their favorite teams. Listen to their exciting debate on the Knicks’ shortcomings, the need for more inclusivity in sports, and much more.
In this engaging episode, Agnes and Stacey converse about their respective transitions, the stereotypes they’ve encountered, and the peace they've found in accepting their true selves. Life-altering decisions, professional challenges, personal fulfillment, and their shared love for comedy span the heart of their discussion.
Finally, uncover insights in a discussion of their passions and the icons in the comedy industry that have shaped their perspectives. Between the lines of their candid conversation is a celebration of individuality, demonstrating their positive outlook on life, the power of comedy in shaping their identities and their experiences as transgender women carving out their paths in the entertainment world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, it's time for the morning stand-up. I'm Stacey Kaye and I'm joined here
by my good friend Agnes Berry.
Hi, Stacey. We're streaming live from her living room.
This is streaming? No, I mean we're not recording. We're recording.
Okay. As you can see, this is a mirror.
Yeah, she said that we could do it in front of the mirror, but she didn't have
any lighting to go across the mirror. I just said that there was a wall with mirrors on it.
(00:23):
I didn't say what we were going to do with them. You implied that we were going
to film, because that would have been very visually interesting. Are we not?
Are we not filming it? It's right here. You can see it. Well,
I guess. You can kind of see.
But I feel like it would be so cute if you could see the back of our heads on
the, we're really selling the video aspect of this podcast, aren't we?
Don't worry. Most people don't watch it on YouTube, so. That's great. That'd be fine.
(00:49):
So, what brings you to New York this time? Doing comedy shows.
There's more stage time out here.
And it's like more important out here. So that's cool.
I'm getting ready for my show March 9th. Is it at the stand?
No, it's at Chelsea Music Hall. But it's like through the stand.
Like the stand books Chelsea Music Hall. But it's a bigger venue. We'll break a leg.
(01:12):
Yeah, I'm hoping. They say, like if we sell this out, then we've sold out like a bigger arena.
And like we've proved ourselves more to other people.
I don't even do stand up anymore. You don't?
You did stand up like two months ago. That's more than most people.
Sure. I've dedicated all my creative juices to late stage live and being a menace
(01:34):
on the internet. That's it.
Yeah. I mean, that's probably more worthwhile than stand up most of the time.
You know, most stand up comedians, like, I mean, I'm sure you know that.
Kill themselves? I did know that. Yeah.
But like a lot of, a lot of stand up doesn't fucking go anywhere.
You know like if you don't like have a plan
with it or if you don't have like some kind of online
(01:56):
i or content you're making or i mean
you if you can kill it and go with stand up if you're like
already in these kind of clubs that like where people matter like but it's hard
to get there in the first place so i like writing i don't necessarily love stand
up i just like writing so i'm going to continue doing that for online web series
and whatever will help promote my my other ventures, meeting friends, and et cetera.
(02:22):
Agnes does a show called Late Stage Live with Ella Yerman. Yeah.
We all started that like three months ago.
Something like that. Maybe back in the late fall. I saw y'all had like 10,000
followers on Instagram. I wasn't expecting that.
We're nice. We're nice with it. We're making strides.
I did a, I've directed and edited like a sketch for about like how you date
(02:44):
five transgender people.
That one, that one like popped off more of all the stuff, right?
And then I didn't, I didn't film a bit for the third episode,
but for the fourth episode, I'm planning something special about how every transgender
person either has a software developer job or unemployed.
Played yeah pretty much but that's you're gonna have to wait for that one when
when is that coming out next month next month very cool when's the next one
(03:07):
filming so that's like the end of february.
We're doing a black history month special and then a little bit of uh why trans
people can't get any better jobs and reselling clothes on depop,
reselling clothes on what depop i don't know what that is depop poshmark fucking
ebay like Like, those jobs don't give you insurance benefits.
(03:27):
Like, we have to, every, I mean, myself included, I have, like,
four different gig jobs.
Like, that's not, I'm not going to build a retirement plan with that.
But I'm not going to build a retirement plan at all because I was born in the 90s.
I can't, you can do it. You can, you can bang rich dudes.
I have been banging rich dudes and it really still doesn't even pay me enough money to do that.
(03:51):
You have to pretend to love them and then they'll marry you and then you know kill them and then,
i don't get their money i i look
like the world's biggest lesbian right now no one would ever believe that
i wanted to marry a man i'm wearing double flannel
couldn't sell the you turned me straight narrative not dressed like this well
don't wear flannel whenever you're trying to pull tricks like this i don't want
(04:15):
to pull tricks i want to i want to i want to fall in love love yeah with a rich
girl that would be preferable i think i'm like five percent bisexual.
Top shelf top shelf straight it's like it's like women and colin farrell i'm
gonna try it yeah i i'm i'm pretty picky on on both ends like i'm only attracted
(04:42):
to like a a small percentage of women,
but also an even smaller percentage of men.
Or as they say in the community, women in twinks.
I don't know. I don't know if I'd say I'm attracted to twinks.
It depends what you mean by a twink.
As in, I can believe he's a woman from behind.
(05:03):
Because we get along really well if he shuts the fuck up.
Okay. We have different tastes in men.
I will not talk to a dude. You do that? If he's a twang.
I just like something about seeing a man and I can respect that he's handsome
(05:25):
or rugged if he's like covered in hair and has muscles.
But i can't get hard i'm still attracted to the right kind of boy but like he
has to believably not look like one from certain angles.
What i mean i i fucked a cis man last year i really liked it but he had no body
(05:47):
hair it was aerodynamic and he had hair like a dolphin and he had hair down
to here so i could realistically pretend that he's whatever gender i need him
to be at the moment But he was a cis guy.
He's not an egg. He was just effeminate. I don't know if this even counts as 5% bisexual.
That sounds like 100% lesbian to me.
I only like guys if they look like girls.
(06:10):
Based. Based, exactly.
I'm just kidding. I only like guys if they're rich. Or NBA players.
Which usually means rich, too. Did you fuck an NBA player? No,
I haven't. But I'd be down for it.
I don't like hang out where NBA players hang out
so well that's because they don't
(06:30):
let you into the practice facility I'm not gonna be one
of those girls wait out front of the practice yeah
no that's not that's not gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna meet an NBA player by talking
shit about them on Twitter I don't know the New York Knicks are talking about
building a practice facility in Manhattan as opposed to Westchester and I that
(06:51):
could be the best thing for me because because then I could just bag one.
Because I'm not willing to go up to, I don't know, north of the Bronx.
Wait, wait, wait. I thought you said you weren't attracted to dudes because they look like girls.
Who in the NBA looks like a girl? Kelly Oubre.
Really? No, but I would do it for the bag, of course. Yeah.
And it would be so much easier to cruise out front of the practice facility
(07:13):
in Manhattan than Westchester or Rye or fucking New Paltz. I don't have to go all the way up there.
Nice. Well, I'm sure a lot of people think the same way.
I mean, it didn't work for them, but it could work for me.
Am I allowed to vape on camera? Yeah, you're fine.
Have you been watching NBA lately? Yeah, I mean, now that my team is good,
(07:35):
I'm a Knicks fan. We won nine straight before losing to Braun.
How long have you been a Knicks fan?
Since I moved here, so just eight years ago. Eight years ago?
And they were bad. So that's how I know I'm a true fan, because they were bad
when I moved here. They're still bad, honestly.
Yeah, they're not going to make it out of the East. But they're the third seed,
which is a respectable exit.
The Knicks frustrate me. If we lose to the Bucs or Boston, we will have tried our best.
(08:01):
We're probably going to lose to both, either of them. But if we made it that
far, we're a better team than the Cavs.
We're probably a better playoff team than the Sixers, given that Joel Embiid is injured.
It's it's a but no there's we don't know
yet it wasn't a tournament meniscus flap whatever
was dislodged some people can come back quickly but
(08:23):
i mean when westbrook got that done he because
you can you can get the meniscus taken out the meniscus is a
little like ligament on your knee and
some players just get it completely taken out like if
they're old and about to retire yeah but it beats young
i'm sure it was who met a world peace who one
time he tore his meniscus and he played another game
(08:45):
the next week because he got it taken out because it's a
quick recovery but then your knee can degenerate over
time so younger players don't really want to do that when westbrook had his
meniscus torn by fucking patrick beverly after a timeout had been called fuck
that guy he cost us a championship you're no kc fan yeah you guys weren't gonna
win the championship we totally would have won the championship that year i don't think you would.
(09:08):
Dude no dude i remember that team
they were good they were that good they were that good when they were
healthy they were that good they would have had to go through lebron they wouldn't have
won what they wouldn't have won they would have crushed lebron
every time they played him the problem was the warriors and
they crushed the warriors every time they played them is that when they lost the
3-1 lead no that was the year after that so
(09:29):
i mean i still think we were the best team then but
you know we choked at the end but the year
before that there's like like two years before
that we had abaca and westbrook were
out like into playoffs but i think
that we we could have you could have done it without abaca you think
no no no we needed we needed abaca durant and westbrook and you know both of
(09:52):
them got hurt but and then i think it was the year before when westbrook towards
meniscus and it was in it was like right before the playoffs or something like
that and then katie had to go by himself well he's a hustle player that's all
he's really ever good for Beverly.
Guard defense doesn't matter in the NBA I don't care if Marcus Markup is the
defensive player of the year or not you need switchable wings and a reliable
(10:15):
big guard defense is secondary but like that's a someone's got to guard Steph Curry,
I don't know we're not winning games because of Jalen Brunson's defense so I'll
tell you what I don't watch the Knicks so I don't know what to tell you,
You went and saw Wimbinyama. I saw Wimbinyama's first game in New York City.
(10:35):
They lost, of course, because the Spurs are not that great. But it was before
they learned, if you pass the ball to Victor Wimbinyama, you can score points.
It was before they realized that. It was a good game.
I don't like Julius Randle very much. I think all he does is inhale rebounds.
Who got traded on the Knicks? We traded R.J. Barrett and Quickly for O.J.
(10:57):
Ananobi and Precious Achua, who are really fucking good and everyone was super
down on the trade when that happened but OG is straight up better than RJ Barrett
and we needed a backup big because Mitchell Robinson got injured.
I really like our team. I think that we have a bunch of what 6-5 guards who
can shoot and play defense I think that we're a piece away from actual contention
(11:21):
but we used to be a piece away from a piece away.
We're in in... I don't know what he wants. The Knicks are so close.
They're just this close to greatness.
Julius Randle doesn't have any trade capital. No one wants him,
but we're stuck with him because we decided to pay him a lot of money after
he had one all-NBA season. How big is his contract?
I think he has two more years in an option. We just signed him back when he
(11:44):
was first-team all-NBA, but I can see right through that.
He's a stat powder, and I don't think that he's reliable in the playoffs.
Jalen Brunson, though, we got him for the cheap, and he is incredible.
I just think that we need a big that's not Julius Randle.
So i'm a okc fan and what's it like having a pedophile on your team.
Sorry allegedly allegedly there's no
(12:06):
actual accusations but you know i
mean i would cut him if i was in charge to be
honest he's just not playing well right now i mean
he's not like one of our best players like you're just
you're good in spite of him but he's not the reason your team is good
he's just a player on the team our best three are shea
chet and williams and we've
(12:28):
got a good we got a lot of people like they're all
just like pretty good and interchangeable they can all shoot
threes they can all play defense they're all pretty long they got long arms
and stuff like that just like our whole team that's why that's why og
is such a good pickup for us because he's our jaylen williams he's
does he he's a he's a stopper he's a
stopper and he's super athletic does he see good like
(12:49):
uh can he score iso points like he's he's not a shot creator but he can play
with the ball in his hands he can shoot him in rain shots as opposed to rj barrett
who could not do that i don't understand how players in the nba don't learn how to do that,
yeah oh my god all right god rest his soul he's not dead but we're remembering
(13:12):
him fondly rj If you looked up an R.J.
Barrett highlight reel, it would be him scoring putbacks and transition buckets
and corner set shots from the corner.
That's not a shot creator. He's just like, yeah, oh my God, R.J.
Barrett highlight. He hit two threes from the corner.
That's not an exciting player. And he's also not good. He's an elite from three anyway.
(13:36):
So I'm happy to have OG. Last night I tried to go to, the Knicks were playing the Lakers.
And I was like, I should go to that. And I looked it up and the tickets were,
the cheapest one was $600.
And this is for a mid-season, two teams that are kind of okay.
Knicks fans are insane. It's the brand. I know.
(13:59):
I know. I don't get it. Because, okay, so OKC, it's in a shithole, all right?
Okay she's a terrible place but the stadium is
a is a safe space where tickets are like fucking
cheap like i i get i can get like lower bowl seats or
like club seats for like 120 bucks something like that and okay see like i don't
(14:23):
know like hearing knicks fans talk about how they're going to turn this shit
around and like become a competent franchise or whatever um is It's funny to
me, because Knicks are so rich.
Yeah, Knicks are rich. They're the most valuable NBA franchise.
And they're in the coolest city in the world. And they can't put together a competent team.
(14:45):
I don't know how OKC does it, and the Knicks don't. What is the difference there?
It's because of the boy genius, Sam Presti.
Mr. I-have-7,000-picks. Why can't the Knicks find someone like that?
Is it just because they're stubborn? I think James Dolan is a stubborn man.
And he doesn't like being told what to do with his team.
And people have tried to wrestle control out of his hands for a very long time.
(15:11):
It's him. I wish I could own an NBA team, man.
If I had one wish from a genie, that would do. I want to own the Knicks.
And we're going to do a rebranding campaign. Because the Knicks rebranded terrible.
You didn't know they were the most valuable for your guys. I would come up with
some pretty cool jersey ideas.
(15:32):
Maybe have a gay pride jersey for June.
The Knicks, I would wear a gay pride Knicks jersey.
I'd have to see it first because you could really make that ugly if you got all rainbow-y with it.
Why don't we just do pink and blue for trans awareness? Well,
yeah, but that's a different thing than pride.
(15:52):
You're right. It's cooler. cooler it is and it's
a more coherent color scheme than all the rainbows
i don't like any flag that's my hot take
about you don't like any pride flag or flags and
i don't think that any of the any of the pride flags they
don't look maybe the intersex one looks cool because it has a circle on it but
bars with colors is it's not revolutionary and if it's not revolutionary why
(16:15):
do we need it we only ever needed one flag which was the rainbow flag we only
ever needed that because it represents everything yeah but then some people
use that flag and don't mean trans inclusion.
Well, that's their problem. Why do I have a gray and white flag with a green
stripe for someone who's gender fluid? Those are far cries.
(16:38):
They don't have that much significance other than one colored line. Yeah.
The thin blue line flag is, in many ways, so much more poetic than any of the pride flags. What?
Just in terms of visual imagery, there's a thin blue line. Obviously,
it stands for cops, but the visual metaphor is there.
You're going to sit in here and defend sports because... The asexual flag is
(17:01):
just straight up boring.
It could have been more... It could have been... There's a big difference.
There's a lot of gray area between... Quite literally, because they're gray
flags. Who wants a gray flag? They're boring.
I don't support cops. It's just
like they have a better flag than us and that should make us feel bad.
Well, they fucking ripped off the American flag. That's treasonous.
(17:23):
You're not supposed to recolor the American flag like that.
I'm not a big fan of the American flag either.
But you don't think the American flag is good? Designed well?
Oh, in terms of aesthetic design. Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
We're not talking about liking thin blue line people, right?
We have 13 stripes because of the 13 colonies. No, that's a dumb visual metaphor.
(17:47):
We had this thing that we took from Native Americans.
What it all means, but just like how it looks. looks
like uh yes lines and squares are
are decent but like insignias you
know has a really cool flag is the philippines well let me see it pull it up
it's it has stripes on it but it has a big sun that represents the sun because
(18:10):
the sun is wonderful that's it
that's the that's the metaphor it's already cooler than america let me see,
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I kind of like the American flag.
I don't know. Shout out to the Philippines. Thanks for birthing my mom.
See, I feel like that one would be, the American flag was designed to be able
(18:33):
to be made in like fucking the 1700s, whenever we weren't that great at sewing stuff.
Betsy. We had to do like a little triangle like that. Shout out to Betsy.
She was coloring my numbers.
Right. What else were we going to talk about today? The Knicks were on the docket.
We have a bigger list of stuff not to talk about.
(18:57):
There's been a lot of drama happening in New York City. But then again, when hasn't there been?
Oh, yeah, one we can talk about. Shane Gillis, right? Shane Gillis. What are your thoughts?
He's fine. He's fine. Yeah, he's not reinventing the wheel.
But his special is cool. I like the bit about gay Vikings.
(19:19):
That's Honestly, very solid joke. The Jackie Robinson joke is a very solid Robinson
also loved in his previous special he did a bit about About the Crimson Tide and have in Alabama.
Yeah, how the reason Paul Bear Bryant which was he's the number one.
He's a big He's a coach who won all the championships for the Alabama and Nick Saban.
(19:40):
No Bear Bryant was like from the 70 So he won like 10 championships or something
like that And he made out, put Alabama like really on the map like that.
But the only thing, the thing he did was like, all right, let's let black people
play like was it like and then they just started winning a bunch of championships.
And he had a bid on that. And that was really good. But he's he got fired from
(20:02):
SNL after he got he got hired to SNL for like, how long did it take to get him fired?
He was fast, right? He worked for SNL? Yeah, for like a week.
Why did he get fired? Because they found his old racist podcast stuff. Did he say the N-word?
I don't know. I don't know the specifics. Or did he just make racial jokes?
(20:23):
Oh, well then. They're racial jokes. They were pretty edgy, but they're still jokes.
Edgy is not a cancelable offense in my mind.
Well, I mean, yeah, but SNL fired him though, so. So SNL isn't funny. No.
Unfortunately for SNL, they have
pedigree and they have a legacy that they currently are not living up to.
(20:44):
I don't think that anybody writing for SNL right now is that cool.
Except for my friend Asha. Shout out to Asha Ward.
Good comic. I don't think, I mean, SNL is a weekly show that is on national
television, like a big, and there's like a lot of things that they like can't,
they get scrapped, like that you can't really joke about. out in that environment.
(21:07):
And I think, I don't think that, like, whenever people criticize SNL for not
being funny now, like, if they watched episodes from 30 years ago, like,
There was times when SNL wasn't funny. Of course, you can't be on all the time. Right.
But they're having Shane Gillis host in two weeks. February 24th,
I think is what I heard. So they're letting him host.
(21:27):
Yeah, so they fired him and now they're letting him host. He'll probably have a joke about that.
He's got to. He's going to have the opening monologue.
No, I don't have anything contrary or edgy to say about Shane Gillis.
I think he's actually a good comic and good for his recent success.
I just don't think that he's the next chosen one.
Because i know i know what you feel like comedy is looking for a chosen one
(21:49):
i think that it appoints one every once in a while when when
somebody is really that good at comedy i know that what you feel about chapelle and
i personally don't like his recent material either but for a while he was the
best comedian in the world yeah like a long time ago obviously louis ck is contentious
but for a while in the early 2010s he was the best comic in the world i don't
think that sheen gillis is stepping up to that mantle yet i hope that i'm wrong
(22:09):
because he is funny i I just don't think he's the funniest man on the world yet.
Five specials before people started to really be like, well,
this dude is maybe the best.
And say what you will about his comedy, but he was actually just really good
at crafting a joke. Yeah, and they were all unique.
You wouldn't hear Louis doing material that other people had done.
(22:31):
My favorite, people think about Louis now that he's been canceled that he was all edgy or whatever,
but like he's my favorite of his jokes was like stuff about
like his daughters like so he and he
and shane gillis are interesting because they have a commonality where shane gillis
this whole thing is i'm a dopey fat dude bro who tells like i'm the funniest
(22:52):
guy at your house party kind of vibe and louis ck is i am a pathetic shitty
middle-aged guy who's a dad and those are very common like points of reference
for an audience member to attach to them they're successful because they're.
Everyman kind of comics in a way and shane gillis can if he's smart and i think
(23:14):
he will be smart about this just coast off of yeah i'm relatable because i look
like you and i sound like you and i'm telling jokes about things that you would
tell at parties i'm just telling them better,
right i think one of my my the things that hampered my stand-up career or have
been hampering my stand-up career up to this point is that i don't really look
like a lot of people One, I'm trans.
(23:35):
Two, I can't really get away with self-deprecating jokes because obviously I'm a model of sorts.
People wouldn't believe a shitty self-deprecating story I told about myself
because of what I look like.
And also, hot girl humor is punching down. I don't want to get away with punching down.
(23:57):
Yeah, it's different whenever you're a woman and a trans woman.
I always feel like I have to address that I'm trans, at least at some point
in my stand-up, because I sound different than most people who look like me.
And maybe it might be a dysphoria thing, but I feel like if I don't address
(24:17):
it, people are just going to be like, why does that girl talk like a guy?
I i've been told by an audience member i don't believe you when you say that
you have that you strike out because i had a joke once about like striking out
with a woman she was like they didn't believe you that she said you're too pretty
to to have struck strike out like,
everybody strikes out if i were a more sympathetic figure i probably could get
(24:40):
away with that joke my sympathetic i'm at more average looking yeah average
looking yeah i'm also not saying that i'm I'm the hottest woman in the world.
I'm just strongly implying it.
I would never say something like that. Because that's, that's egomaniacal.
It is very different in like how you have to cry.
I was having, I don't know, I get this advice a lot, but like people are like,
(25:02):
you should do material that like has nothing to do with you being trans.
And that sounds good in a vacuum, but like, it's hard to not like mention it
or because because it influences so much about my life and also the way the audience is.
Understanding my jokes because it's all
(25:24):
coming from me so i maybe they're right
in that i can just do completely different material
which i i am actually working on stuff that has
absolutely nothing to do with me being trans and i used to whenever i
first started doing stand-up i was like i'm not going to mention it at all
but consistently jokes about being
trans are the ones that fucking crush everywhere
(25:45):
so yeah what do you
have in common with the average audience member well you
you're trans and they're probably watching you because you're trans i
i think i've found success by making jokes about
being broke because everyone in the world has been broke at some point
right like relationships how
much you hate your boss like those are all things that people can
(26:06):
latch on to my jokes about being trans do better in
cis rooms than in trans i mean they do all right in
trans rooms but they almost work better whenever
nobody in the crowd even like knows a trans person i think the ones that i always
connect to with audience members is how weird sex is sex is strange sex is weird
right now being scared of pussy because you're secretly in denial about wanting
(26:31):
bottom surgery is like a joke that i think has worked for me.
Wait what i have i have a joke that i always lead off with was before going
to a small trans rooms This is usually in whatever room it's where I have trans
as a joke, but I start off the joke like I don't really want bottom surgery.
I'm not scared of pussy. I'm just terrified by it.
And then I go into a small diatribe about why I don't, but really strongly suggesting
(26:56):
that I do want bottom surgery.
Question still remains at the end of the of the set
which is why it's an effective joke it just makes something for a second oh
let's uh let's talk about you for a little bit okay so
where did you grow up i grew up in
the dmv which is the dc where did
you live in maryland uh southern maryland on the
(27:16):
the border between there and dc proper i grew up
that's the thing there's no real town i
i moved in like five small individual small towns
i don't know i was born in a town called rockville what is
it called the dmv area because there's really
a blur culturally between northern virginia
southern maryland and dc it's almost like the same place but it's
(27:39):
not the same state the dmv d stands
for like dc district in virginia yeah which is contrasting to baltimore because
baltimore is not part of the dmv it's a it feels like a different place baltimore
has a lot more country people i do comedy in the dmv area i'm including baltimore
baltimore is It is geographically different because it has more country.
(28:00):
Okay. Because Maryland is still a southern state by many metrics.
Considering, I mean, relative to the northeast, it's a southern place.
Relative to the south, it's not southern.
I've always liked Baltimore. I like Baltimore, too. It's just not the DMV. Yeah.
Anyway, so you grew up in the DMV. When did you come out here?
(28:23):
Graduated from high school in 2015, and I moved up here to go to school.
And why you I did go to NYU what's
the mark of the beast I majored in recorded music
and music was that before or after they turned you trans way before
so funny story about my my trans coming out journey
I switched to Agnes in
(28:44):
2017 I wouldn't
go on hormones for another three years really yeah I
just I was a non-binary person named Agnes I
didn't know that hormones were a real thing nor did any
of my transgender or queer friends really encourage me because i don't know
maybe they had a mentality like you shouldn't tell other people what to do but
(29:06):
i really would have appreciated the nudge if someone told me that was possible
that's why i always nudge people i'm like i'm gonna try i'm gonna try any estrogen
it tastes good i've it would have saved me a lot of,
fucking acne scars that's for sure because if i had started estrogen earlier
i would have Get your skin up. Get on that styrofoam and give you good skin.
Anyway, I ended up transitioning in 2020 like a lot of other people do when
(29:26):
they're cooped up in the house and you realize, oh, I'm just getting uglier every day.
Yes, I remember that. I started at 24, and what really made me get it was because
I started thinking that my hairline was receding.
I'm like, nope, I'm just going to grow boobs instead. I started at 22.
22 is when I started transitioning.
(29:49):
It's it's I have no regrets other than I wish I could have started earlier,
but even still, it doesn't make or break me because I ended up really liking
my body afterwards anyway.
Yeah, I turned out pretty hot, too. I do wish I could have started earlier,
though. Yeah, I mean, I have my my breast augmentation consult next week.
Let this be a little time capsule for me before I have gigantic tits.
I think I'll have them before 2025 if I'm lucky.
(30:12):
What what wait times they have once you get a consult?
Within within like a nine month span. band so if i have the consult next week
it's likely that i might be able to get a get in before.
2024 is over basically that i
and transition what transitioned
had to make a bunch of new friends ended up meeting a small
community of trans women who live in brooklyn and queens and
(30:34):
i've been living here basically doing gig
work i did a little sex work and i'm
working in the entertainment industry nightlife music raves music
licensing all those kinds of kinds of things and i'm not working in
that television show like stage live what'd you say you majored in again music
business media business did you finish it yeah i would agree it's just about
(30:57):
like business i do i mean if you want to know about the music touring structure
agents managers labels 360 deals Does it transfer to comedy?
It doesn't. Not at all. Because people just pay like cash in hand at comedy.
They do? I don't think I've been in any kind of comedy situation where I've
had to sign a contract yet.
We have an LLC for late stage just in case anyone gets injured moving equipment,
(31:21):
but that's basically it.
Well, you can also deduct all show expenses so you can like buy shit and it'd
be tax deductible. Well, right now we're working in a public access place where
everything's free anyway.
Well, you can always spend fucking more money, dude. yeah cameras you can get
we have we have the option to in the future we're just not using it yet.
The LLC is interesting. We're going to join the union eventually if we ever
(31:45):
get picked up by anybody else.
But for now, we're just comfortable writing our show and putting it on public
broadcast access TV in New York City and also YouTube.
Wait, so does it actually go on public access TV? You can watch it on the website.
New York Public Broadcast's website. The archive of our videos online.
I haven't actually watched a full episode.
(32:07):
We can self-nominate for an Emmy.
You can? man. We're not going to get nominated, of course, because there's only
eight slots and there are people who make, I don't know, real stuff that gets
seen by the city of New York. But we're technically eligible.
That's cool. It would be all 12 of our votes versus the rest of the world.
(32:27):
Y'all could do it. I wanted to do a show like this.
I was talking to Ella about it like three months before she started doing Late Stage or whatever.
But then my venue fell through and and my life kind of fell apart,
so I had to not be in New York as much.
Wait, a show like this or a show like Late Stage? A show like Late Stage.
It was exactly what I wanted to do, and I was going to do it at the Tank.
(32:51):
And it just all fell apart for several reasons, but I'm glad that we got a show
like this working. Yossi knew it would be doing really well.
The genius of the show is Ellie Ehrman, because without her,
we would not have been able to do a show like this.
The fact that she's so she's like a fucking juggernaut if
you've ever seen her do any of her takes just goes through
(33:12):
fast doesn't mess up anything and we would just work around
her she's like the engine of the show we all write for it
but she's like it's she's able to carry the workload that's
cool i don't think i could have done the show by myself even if i wanted to
a show like this is a big project like there's no way somebody can do that without
she's this she's the spirit like the inspiration of why i even want to write
(33:34):
a joke at all is because i i write them for her and i still have my own like
personal writing interests but it's because hey
ella will be able to carry the joke i like being
a writer i was telling you about how i don't like stand-up i just i don't i
like performing music live i don't like doing stand-up live something about
it just doesn't tickle me the same way stand-up is more vulnerable than music
(33:55):
yeah but i still like writing to respond to audiences and stuff like that but
whereas music you can and do your thing, you know? Mm-hmm.
I like formats. I like writing within a script.
End up as contextless oh i mean this
isn't stand-up related but i helped write a play that i'm
going to be starring in at least maybe hopefully before
(34:16):
the end of the year but i just
like to write i'm i've i'm a half what
playwright for my friend who's doing an autobiographical
one-act woman play of how she
got bottom surgery and what it took to crowdfund for it and she's
is going to be i'm going to be cast as the person who's
going to like play her i love being
(34:38):
in conduit for other people's creative you got the range for let me
see a picture i got the
tucking tape in my backpack yeah i like being
conduit for other people's i don't even
i'm a grower i i don't need tucking tape yeah
i have a tiny penis you okay
but like you're gonna wear like a thong
(35:01):
like on the fucking beach like
you would wear tuck tape right or you
not wear shit like that no i don't think i wanted to people see
my balls so what i thought you said you had tuck tape i.
Was kidding oh okay i will do i use
um the 3m oh i
forgot what's transport that's what it's called 3m transport get three
(35:23):
inch one and it's like there's like surgeon
shit like it does shit it holds and you just get get it wet and everything it's
fine what i was saying is that i like being a conduit for people's creative
endeavors i don't have to write my own story i like helping people call theirs
and also that you have a small penis and that i have a micro penis that's not true.
(35:44):
Okay let me give me the stuff that people said on on instagram okay we'll walk through that.
Okay, Stacey, here you go. Okay, first, this is from deleted user.
Is there a link between trans and smoking weed?
Yes, it's very strong and it's causatory. If you smoke weed,
(36:06):
you're very likely to become trans, just like a 60% correlation,
right? I don't smoke weed.
I'm afraid of weed. It makes me scared. He doesn't do any drugs.
He's going to shoot. I didn't say that. I just don't smoke weed.
All right, any comedy idols?
Yeah, Chappelle. unironically no i think that his early stuff i don't think
i've ever seen anybody make a sketch funnier than day chapelle i think in terms
(36:29):
of what i'm interested in with like filmmaking and sketch work he has set a
rubric out i think that key and pill are better than chapelle ever was.
I don't think that there's a better sketch than
the racial draft it's comedy sketch yeah that one was that
one was really good he caught yeah bill
burr is also funny he caught lightning in a bottle it's hard to stop that
(36:49):
yeah that was a great that was a great sketch i'll admit
that my comedy so i i've talked
about this before but louis ck was the guy who inspired me to
want to do more comedy until i found out that he was doing this
stuff and i was like i can't do that anymore now now who
i look to the most is robin tran because she's trans
like me and she has like a similar a little bit similar voice
(37:11):
to me like we have very different perspectives but
i like the the way i want to be more like her basically oh
and also shout out to girl god shout out to april clark and
grace for it they're the best i've never seen them live i've seen
their shit on twitter i've i've seen almost every single one of
their new york shows they're good how often they come are they
based la yeah they're based in la but turns out
you don't actually have to tell trans jokes to be a comedian uh
(37:35):
you can be trans and do slapstick and be funnier than most of the people they
do slapstick now and it is fucking great there's a
comedy chemistry they're good
they're like a duo like they're a duo and they're they're great
writers the grace used
to write for rick and morty huh grace used to write for rick and morty oh really
yeah one of the better some of the better episodes are does she still write
(37:58):
for does rick and morty still show yeah i think so oh i did not know that roland.
Is gone but they i haven't seen the new episodes i think that if they come up but.
All I know is that Grace's episodes were good. Okay. All right.
Next, next one. Wait, what was her episodes?
I can't remember off the top of my head. Oh, come on. I don't watch that show.
(38:20):
Okay. I follow you from North Africa, from Libya. I wish you success.
That's, that's not a question, but I do appreciate it. Thank you.
You guys watching out in Libya.
Recommend on transition? Just do it, Nike. We're not sponsored.
We're not sponsored. Just do it. Don't. Yeah.
We didn't, we weren't paid to say that. I was.
Yeah, we're going to do this. No, this is Nike. Fetus top and Nike bottom. I mix streams like that.
(38:46):
What are some key ways you've noticed that are effective at empowering the youth?
Empowering them to do what?
Well, let them know that you can break free from capitalism by becoming leftist.
So one, teach your kids to be leftist. That's how you can...
Anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, you know, Maoist, who cares? Just start on the winning side.
(39:07):
I would say clean your room delete facebook oh yeah also clean your room it's so liberating,
it's so liberating to make your bed every day i started doing
that it is so good i don't do it it gives me
structure i do wish my room was more clean
but the bed i like it kind of like unmade unless
(39:28):
i'm taking pictures it's like more nested in
whenever the oh no i get and i only use is
i only use like one blanket like i don't like sheets or anything i
just want like one blanket to curl up in like a caterpillar i
got four blankets i got seven pillows jesus
you sleep under four blankets every night oh no
i just like having them okay and then folding them what do you sleep under though
(39:49):
i have one duvet and one furry blanket nice oh why are you so gorgeous god made
me this way also surgery i haven't had surgery yet you can still be beautiful
with that surgery. Stacey just makes it look really good.
Surgery can make you worse, but, you know, if you make good choices,
(40:10):
good surgery choices. Get surgery only if you want it.
You don't have to have surgery to be beautiful, but you can be even more beautiful.
What is this PBS bullshit right now?
What's up with girls and their cats? I don't know. I'm not a cat person.
You're not a cat person? I grew up with a chihuahua. I like chihuahuas.
You ain't fucking for real right now? You don't like cats, but you like Chihuahuas.
(40:33):
Oh, no, I don't dislike cats, but I would never adopt one.
Because you don't like changing letterboxes or what? You just don't like their
personalities? I would rather have a small dog.
Really? If you gave me a choice to have any kind of pet, I would probably get a Chihuahua.
I kind of like dogs, but I don't really like small dogs. I've not had good experiences with them.
My roommate's got a poodle, and that's cute. I like that dog. It's a big dog.
(40:55):
But all the small dogs that I've known have been very hyper and bark a lot.
But maybe that's me stereotyping.
The next one is Kitty, not a question, just a declaration that fits in with
what we were just talking about. Yeah.
Do you think as a stand-up comedian you have been recognized by the people?
(41:17):
Who are the people? In my personal underground transgender community in Brooklyn
and Queens, I get recognized a lot.
It makes my life kind of difficult because people assume that I'm going to be
a certain way in real life, erratic or outrageous or audacious.
I can't really live up to those expectations that people set for me.
(41:40):
This is my resting energy level most of
the time so when i'm not doing some sort of
crazy sex joke that people know me from the internet like they're
like oh well you're kind of boring i'm like
exactly the same as i am on stage yeah actually you are which makes people think
that they like know me from my set and i have no yeah whereas whereas i'm an
(42:04):
asshole on stage but in real life I bake and I go to church.
I'm not really that exciting. I go to church, too.
I know, but I'm boring, is what I'm saying. You're not boring.
You mean low energy in the morning? No, I mean traditional. I just do the same shit all the time.
I cook, I clean, I go to church, play video games. It's not interesting.
(42:30):
I play video games, too. Okay, do you like to drive?
No, that's why I wanted to know. No, I've been in like three or four car crashes in my life.
I've had car wrecks that have just like really set me back. I had a hydroplane
down a hill once when I was 17.
I've never felt in control in any of my car wrecks. I can just kind of freak
things that happened, and I don't like being on it.
(42:51):
And I swear, New York is the best city in America just because you don't have to drive here.
Yeah, real shit. That's kind of why I moved here. All you need is the subway,
and it's the best city in the world because nobody else has it here.
Here dc has a little bit of one but i've heard
you gotta drive there yeah you do like it's it's people
in dc are like the metro is so good and it's like it
(43:12):
does not take you everywhere like it does in new york it's different yeah
i lived off the end of the end of the red line but i still
had to take a car from the end of the red line to my house okay where
do you get your ideas from god he tells
me the dream i'm very inspired by seeing
other people who are trans and just observing their
her life and noticing what's funny about it you just stealing material
(43:33):
from the community like that witnessing someone do something
is not stealing jokes basically the
same thing there was this one time when you know
how like your queer health clinic will ask you demographic information about
who you're sleeping with when you're on prep my doctor once asked me so who
(43:53):
are you sleeping with just like casual but i didn't understand that that question
was for prep i I didn't understand that he was asking me demographic information.
I just told him my friends. And he was like, excuse me? And I was like,
I'm sleeping with my friends.
And he said no no this is
something i have to ask you for prep are you having like i'll
(44:14):
just write down her friend he was just asking me like do
you have sex with people who have like get like do anal receptive sex because
that's an important question when you're on prep i did not understand that that's
what he was asking me point is i drew a joke from that and it's been really
funny to tell that story ever since that's what i mean when i'm stealing my
jokes from so you're stealing it from From the medical community.
(44:36):
I'm stealing it from doctors. Yeah, exactly.
Why do men smell worse after starting E? This is not true. That's not true.
I don't actually think that's true. Men?
First off, they're not men anymore. Okay. But second, like E, I am a fairy person.
I admit no odor. I can wear the same pair of underwear for a week.
(44:58):
Okay, that's an exaggeration. but like but i
can like wear my shit that i don't smell
very much like i'm i'm sure dogs could pick up on me but humans don't ever be
like yeah i stopped i stopped i stopped smelling as bad when i was on e i think
that they don't smell worse yeah they smell better crazy i don't know how that
(45:20):
happened how is kansas for trans people i know you talked about it in a bit
my move to Kansas City for school.
So Kansas is terrible for trans people, but Kansas City is pretty cool for trans people.
You're not going to want to move. Don't change your ID to Kansas or whatever,
whenever you're here, because they don't recognize trans people anymore.
(45:43):
But where are you going to go to school? Are you going to go to school at UMKC
or KU, something like that?
It can be a good place to go to school, but don't plan on staying because of
the direction of the politics of both Kansas and Missouri.
Because Kansas City is a border city and both sides want to kill you.
So why are you such an OKC Thunder fan?
(46:05):
Because I lived in Arkansas and Arkansas is close to Oklahoma.
Yeah, they count. That state claims OKC. Yeah.
I mean, it was either a cheer for them or cheer for the Grizzlies.
You're geographically closer to OKC than Grizzly territory. Well,
no, because I live in the center of Arkansas. So technically Memphis is only two hours away.
(46:28):
OKC was four hours away. way i mean like in terms of states who claims written
nba teams well that's what i mean by,
geographically you're in a state that he's better so that's why a
lot more people started cheering for okc than the grizzlies did a couple years
where the grizzlies were good they were never like like the grizzlies ceiling
was never they didn't have like kd or even west oh i i thought you meant like
(46:52):
as in like two years ago no i mean just like overall you mean from like 10 years ago Yeah.
And then the OKC, they were the Seattle Supersonics and they got bought and
moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
And I would go to Oklahoma City a lot for basketball tournaments because I played
basketball and I could go to their games and they were bringing in like some
(47:14):
of the best players in the world to Oklahoma City.
So it was hard not to cheer for them
after that but it is hard being a
fan of a team of such a horrible city like oklahoma
city the only good thing they have there is the thunder
so yeah i don't want to visit
like it's a five-hour drive into nothingness it's sad but it's a good it's a
(47:36):
good bowl organization for sure if if a turf saw a post-op trans woman and trans
man having sex would their head explode i don't think so because i think that
they've definitely watched this.
Like that's what turfs do right like do do they do you think that boy pussy does go crazy though so,
(47:59):
you think that they would yeah i know you heard that all right what's the square
root of fun love i don't know it's a trick question bullshit is that love yeah
it's gonna save us all Okay.
I'm trying to apply math logic to this. I don't know how you can.
It's my worst subject in school. Don't ask me any math questions.
(48:21):
Square root of fun. This is a nonsense question. I don't know how to answer it.
Next one. Yep, next one. What illegal pet would you own if you could? I want.
Well, there's a lot of illegal pets that I want. Gila monster.
A gila monster? Yeah, those are highly venomous.
Are they? They're not illegal, are they? You can't own a gila monster.
(48:44):
Are you sure? It will kill you if it bites you.
Well, don't let it bite you. You can't legally own something that has poison in its glands.
No, there's... You can own poisonous animals. Gila monsters?
I don't know about gila monsters. I haven't looked them up specifically.
For me, I want a giant African land snail. Okay?
(49:04):
A slime rabbit. They're huge. They're giant. And they're very cute.
And, I mean, have you ever seen these guys eat a cucumber? cumber but
they're they're very illegal in the u.s because
once they start putting like once
they start laying eggs they're like impossible to get rid of like
they're very and also their shells are so big that
(49:24):
they can break car tires yeah so it
would be an invasive species but they're not illegal in britain so you have
british friends you could get a giant african land snail and they could send
you like some eggs to the u.s and you could do bioterrorism I heard a story
a couple months ago about somebody who was arrested for growing illegal raspberries.
(49:47):
Where?
Just in Brooklyn. You can't grow... Apparently there's certain things that are technically illegal.
And when they were having their house searched for some other reason,
they found these. And they're just like, hey, you can't have these berries.
What were they doing? Like looking for cocaine and then they found some raspberries.
It's just like, ah, you can't have this.
Just like a, I don't know, a different kind of breed of raspberry.
It wasn't even poisonous. I just think that they're not allowed to have them. Weird.
(50:09):
Very cool. all right when did you know that pigs are illegal in new york they
get really big yeah they do well i mean there's small pigs too but like pigs
you okay when you have a song in your head,
where do you hear it between my ears as in like i hear it in my head yeah i
(50:32):
don't it's in my brain can i rotate a song in my mind is what is that what you're
asking i i always have songs in my head and they're just always kind of there.
It's in my central thought processing cortex.
Not a brain surgeon what are your thoughts about the rise of the molten economy
during the napoleonic wars i do
(50:54):
know where malta is and i also know who napoleon was i do not know about,
do you know about i don't know anything about the economy 18th century french
politics i have no idea malta 19th is malta french malta is a country that's
like a it's like it's between france and And France is somewhere. I don't know.
(51:18):
So I don't have much thoughts about the Malta economy. I'm pretty sure that
Malta is like between France and Italy.
And Dora is between France and Spain.
But that's not Malta. Yeah, I don't think so. So we don't have many thoughts
on the rise of the Malta economy.
I do think that Napoleon was cool. I didn't see the movie because I heard it
(51:40):
was terrible. What's your Roman Empire?
The roman empire for sure and i
think about it a lot yeah all the time my favorite
thing about the roman empire is i
like their military dogma i think that it was
really revolutionary for the time and they
they really got away from hero belief of
(52:03):
how you win battles you know because like there was
like you hear about like legends about like like a
really good fighter going out out there and killing a bunch of people and and the
romans were like the first country to really like weaponize like
everybody's like the same we're all just like ants like
everybody should be able to do everything and like it's all about like
numbers and logistics and all that kind of stuff and that's why they they conquered
(52:26):
the world like that so so thoroughly militarily i think it's just really cool
that you can have a boy who will carry your towels for you romans definitely
if If they didn't invent it, they definitely perfected that one.
What is your favorite game right now? The game I'm playing the most...
Okay, the game I'm playing the most is Marvel Snap, but that's not...
That's because it's on my phone.
(52:46):
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3, which is fun.
Even though everyone has an English accent in it, I'm so tired of all of my
media being infected with English accents.
I can't get away from it. I really wish we could have a fantasy game where everyone doesn't poke look.
I'm into survival horror games. I'm right now playing the remake of Resident Evil 4.
(53:09):
And I was playing Silent Hill before that. Silent Hill 3. Horror games,
man. They gave me 10. And Dead by Daylight.
It's too much. Do you play Dead by Daylight? You're one of those kids?
I'm really good. i have like 1600 hours in
the game is that game like still like have a vibrant community yes
it does it's crazy that that game on large there's
a large transgender community and emo like
(53:31):
the people who play it are people who like murdering
i guess yeah somebody said
what podcast it's this one you listen to dumbass
let's see
oh we were supposed to say something about
mongolia shout shout out to our listeners who are mongolian i
don't even know where that is she doesn't even she thought that mongolian is
(53:53):
that nice new york no it's not i
know that mongolia is up you know up
in the mountains that the north of on staten island china and i don't know much
about i have a lot more chinese friends than i do of mongolian friends so i
only know about mongolia from the chinese perspective but you know y'all did
(54:14):
great back in the gang as con days i'll tell you that that much.
What the hell? Okay. Why is this?
This is like a thread. Okay. Taylor Swift, why wouldn't the Pentagon try to recruit her?
And even if they did recruit her, wouldn't they deny it?
But even if they didn't recruit her, man, what a good idea. President, maybe?
(54:35):
By the way, that was a pro-Taylor message overall, but worded to get you more engagement.
I think that if it is in the Pentagon's interest to recruit Taylor Swift,
that they would definitely do it because I think that she is amazing and would be good at anything.
You know, do you think that she would be a good Pentagon asset?
(54:56):
I only know one Taylor Swift song and it's Back to December.
Are you fucking kidding me right now? That song?
It's a good song. That's the only one you know of hers? Yeah,
I don't know any of those.
That is that's i remember listening to
that on the radio back in like 2010 was it
oh yeah that and like and i'm lying on a cool hard ground those are the only
(55:17):
ones i know that's the only ones you know do you should listen to some of taylor
swift's albums like some of her like reason this stuff is real good no thanks
i don't really care you should do a full listen i'm tired of seeing her on my
tv when i'm watching football you watch that many chiefs games.
The highlights i mean they beat my ravens i had to watch them oh you're
a ravens fan yeah oh my god don't even get me started oh you
(55:39):
knew they were gonna lose fastest fastest legs of the qb position they
had him stay in the pocket the entire game i'm upset well because
the chiefs were the chief come on they were pretty good there's a lot of i could
have escaped the pocket scrambled for an extra couple yards that he just didn't
do that game he was afraid to run i don't know what killed his playoffs man
oh so he would just rather lose the game than maybe run out of the pocket.
(56:04):
I mean, I feel like he lost the game because of the interceptions more than anything.
The officiating was weird. He threw a lot of deep balls for some reason.
I'm just like, Lamar, you're the best running quarterback in the league right
now. Just do it. Just run.
Whatever. I felt like that he was always pretty well contained.
The Chiefs always had somebody up there to spy. It was our easiest road to the
(56:25):
AFC championship that we're going to get in a while because Joe Burrow is going
to come back and then the Bengals are going to be kind of a problem.
To Joe Burrow that much of a powerhouse?
No, but he's going to be one more person we have to beat.
Right now, all we had to beat was the Chiefs, and we didn't.
The Chiefs are good, though. I know, but...
I know. We had a shot. We just didn't take it.
(56:46):
Anyway, now we're a football talker. We're already disappointed.
You getting sad? Yeah. I really liked watching Stabby's reels.
It's cool that they picked him up. Yeah. I met him once. He's actually nice in person.
Yeah. He's not a complete i
did a show with him it was it was fun cool dude i i uh he gives good hugs.
(57:08):
Yeah he gives good hugs he does seem like a guy who
would give pretty decent hugs i guess i i've
seen him naked so that you know because he posts naked
pictures all the time all right it's not he is a specimen he's
got a good body a lot of stuff that i would get banned for all
right it's not fair that men can get away with posting
shit like that honestly if god had a a
(57:29):
human informant but he would probably look like stuff that's probably
what jesus looked like okay i said i said women in twinks before
women in twinks and twinks and stavros and guys who
look like stuff like all right you hear that listeners if you're a guy out there
who who looks like fat men fat men and fat women hit my line look them up we'll
arrange we'll arrange a date we'll do something anyways we're done with the
(57:51):
podcast you got anything else you want to say tune into late Late Stage Live,
now available on YouTube.
And keep an eye out next month for the episode that I will be.
Next episode for this one. We're probably going to be on something around the 23rd of February.
Late Stage Live on YouTube. And thanks for listening. With Ellie Ehrman and myself.
(58:12):
Music.
Hey, it's time for the morning stand-up. I'm Stacey Kaye and I'm joined here
by my good friend Agnes Berry.
Hi, Stacey. We're streaming live from her living room.
This is streaming? No, I mean we're not recording. We're recording.
Okay. As you can see, this is a mirror.
Yeah, she said that we could do it in front of the mirror, but she didn't have
any lighting to go across the mirror. I just said that there was a wall with mirrors on it.
(00:23):
I didn't say what we were going to do with them. You implied that we were going
to film, because that would have been very visually interesting. Are we not?
Are we not filming it? It's right here. You can see it. Well,
I guess. You can kind of see.
But I feel like it would be so cute if you could see the back of our heads on
the, we're really selling the video aspect of this podcast, aren't we?
Don't worry. Most people don't watch it on YouTube, so. That's great. That'd be fine.
(00:49):
So, what brings you to New York this time? Doing comedy shows.
There's more stage time out here.
And it's like more important out here. So that's cool.
I'm getting ready for my show March 9th. Is it at the stand?
No, it's at Chelsea Music Hall. But it's like through the stand.
Like the stand books Chelsea Music Hall. But it's a bigger venue. We'll break a leg.
(01:12):
Yeah, I'm hoping. They say, like if we sell this out, then we've sold out like a bigger arena.
And like we've proved ourselves more to other people.
I don't even do stand up anymore. You don't?
You did stand up like two months ago. That's more than most people.
Sure. I've dedicated all my creative juices to late stage live and being a menace
(01:34):
on the internet. That's it.
Yeah. I mean, that's probably more worthwhile than stand up most of the time.
You know, most stand up comedians, like, I mean, I'm sure you know that.
Kill themselves? I did know that. Yeah.
But like a lot of, a lot of stand up doesn't fucking go anywhere.
You know like if you don't like have a plan
with it or if you don't have like some kind of online
(01:56):
i or content you're making or i mean
you if you can kill it and go with stand up if you're like
already in these kind of clubs that like where people matter like but it's hard
to get there in the first place so i like writing i don't necessarily love stand
up i just like writing so i'm going to continue doing that for online web series
and whatever will help promote my my other ventures, meeting friends, and et cetera.
(02:22):
Agnes does a show called Late Stage Live with Ella Yerman. Yeah.
We all started that like three months ago.
Something like that. Maybe back in the late fall. I saw y'all had like 10,000
followers on Instagram. I wasn't expecting that.
We're nice. We're nice with it. We're making strides.
I did a, I've directed and edited like a sketch for about like how you date
(02:44):
five transgender people.
That one, that one like popped off more of all the stuff, right?
And then I didn't, I didn't film a bit for the third episode,
but for the fourth episode, I'm planning something special about how every transgender
person either has a software developer job or unemployed.
Played yeah pretty much but that's you're gonna have to wait for that one when
when is that coming out next month next month very cool when's the next one
(03:07):
filming so that's like the end of february.
We're doing a black history month special and then a little bit of uh why trans
people can't get any better jobs and reselling clothes on depop,
reselling clothes on what depop i don't know what that is depop poshmark fucking
ebay like Like, those jobs don't give you insurance benefits.
(03:27):
Like, we have to, every, I mean, myself included, I have, like,
four different gig jobs.
Like, that's not, I'm not going to build a retirement plan with that.
But I'm not going to build a retirement plan at all because I was born in the 90s.
I can't, you can do it. You can, you can bang rich dudes.
I have been banging rich dudes and it really still doesn't even pay me enough money to do that.
(03:51):
You have to pretend to love them and then they'll marry you and then you know kill them and then,
i don't get their money i i look
like the world's biggest lesbian right now no one would ever believe that
i wanted to marry a man i'm wearing double flannel
couldn't sell the you turned me straight narrative not dressed like this well
don't wear flannel whenever you're trying to pull tricks like this i don't want
(04:15):
to pull tricks i want to i want to i want to fall in love love yeah with a rich
girl that would be preferable i think i'm like five percent bisexual.
Top shelf top shelf straight it's like it's like women and colin farrell i'm
gonna try it yeah i i'm i'm pretty picky on on both ends like i'm only attracted
(04:42):
to like a a small percentage of women,
but also an even smaller percentage of men.
Or as they say in the community, women in twinks.
I don't know. I don't know if I'd say I'm attracted to twinks.
It depends what you mean by a twink.
As in, I can believe he's a woman from behind.
(05:03):
Because we get along really well if he shuts the fuck up.
Okay. We have different tastes in men.
I will not talk to a dude. You do that? If he's a twang.
I just like something about seeing a man and I can respect that he's handsome
(05:25):
or rugged if he's like covered in hair and has muscles.
But i can't get hard i'm still attracted to the right kind of boy but like he
has to believably not look like one from certain angles.
What i mean i i fucked a cis man last year i really liked it but he had no body
(05:47):
hair it was aerodynamic and he had hair like a dolphin and he had hair down
to here so i could realistically pretend that he's whatever gender i need him
to be at the moment But he was a cis guy.
He's not an egg. He was just effeminate. I don't know if this even counts as 5% bisexual.
That sounds like 100% lesbian to me.
I only like guys if they look like girls.
(06:10):
Based. Based, exactly.
I'm just kidding. I only like guys if they're rich. Or NBA players.
Which usually means rich, too. Did you fuck an NBA player? No,
I haven't. But I'd be down for it.
I don't like hang out where NBA players hang out
so well that's because they don't
(06:30):
let you into the practice facility I'm not gonna be one
of those girls wait out front of the practice yeah
no that's not that's not gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna meet an NBA player by talking
shit about them on Twitter I don't know the New York Knicks are talking about
building a practice facility in Manhattan as opposed to Westchester and I that
(06:51):
could be the best thing for me because because then I could just bag one.
Because I'm not willing to go up to, I don't know, north of the Bronx.
Wait, wait, wait. I thought you said you weren't attracted to dudes because they look like girls.
Who in the NBA looks like a girl? Kelly Oubre.
Really? No, but I would do it for the bag, of course. Yeah.
And it would be so much easier to cruise out front of the practice facility
(07:13):
in Manhattan than Westchester or Rye or fucking New Paltz. I don't have to go all the way up there.
Nice. Well, I'm sure a lot of people think the same way.
I mean, it didn't work for them, but it could work for me.
Am I allowed to vape on camera? Yeah, you're fine.
Have you been watching NBA lately? Yeah, I mean, now that my team is good,
(07:35):
I'm a Knicks fan. We won nine straight before losing to Braun.
How long have you been a Knicks fan?
Since I moved here, so just eight years ago. Eight years ago?
And they were bad. So that's how I know I'm a true fan, because they were bad
when I moved here. They're still bad, honestly.
Yeah, they're not going to make it out of the East. But they're the third seed,
which is a respectable exit.
The Knicks frustrate me. If we lose to the Bucs or Boston, we will have tried our best.
(08:01):
We're probably going to lose to both, either of them. But if we made it that
far, we're a better team than the Cavs.
We're probably a better playoff team than the Sixers, given that Joel Embiid is injured.
It's it's a but no there's we don't know
yet it wasn't a tournament meniscus flap whatever
was dislodged some people can come back quickly but
(08:23):
i mean when westbrook got that done he because
you can you can get the meniscus taken out the meniscus is a
little like ligament on your knee and
some players just get it completely taken out like if
they're old and about to retire yeah but it beats young
i'm sure it was who met a world peace who one
time he tore his meniscus and he played another game
(08:45):
the next week because he got it taken out because it's a
quick recovery but then your knee can degenerate over
time so younger players don't really want to do that when westbrook had his
meniscus torn by fucking patrick beverly after a timeout had been called fuck
that guy he cost us a championship you're no kc fan yeah you guys weren't gonna
win the championship we totally would have won the championship that year i don't think you would.
(09:08):
Dude no dude i remember that team
they were good they were that good they were that good when they were
healthy they were that good they would have had to go through lebron they wouldn't have
won what they wouldn't have won they would have crushed lebron
every time they played him the problem was the warriors and
they crushed the warriors every time they played them is that when they lost the
3-1 lead no that was the year after that so
(09:29):
i mean i still think we were the best team then but
you know we choked at the end but the year
before that there's like like two years before
that we had abaca and westbrook were
out like into playoffs but i think
that we we could have you could have done it without abaca you think
no no no we needed we needed abaca durant and westbrook and you know both of
(09:52):
them got hurt but and then i think it was the year before when westbrook towards
meniscus and it was in it was like right before the playoffs or something like
that and then katie had to go by himself well he's a hustle player that's all
he's really ever good for Beverly.
Guard defense doesn't matter in the NBA I don't care if Marcus Markup is the
defensive player of the year or not you need switchable wings and a reliable
(10:15):
big guard defense is secondary but like that's a someone's got to guard Steph Curry,
I don't know we're not winning games because of Jalen Brunson's defense so I'll
tell you what I don't watch the Knicks so I don't know what to tell you,
You went and saw Wimbinyama. I saw Wimbinyama's first game in New York City.
(10:35):
They lost, of course, because the Spurs are not that great. But it was before
they learned, if you pass the ball to Victor Wimbinyama, you can score points.
It was before they realized that. It was a good game.
I don't like Julius Randle very much. I think all he does is inhale rebounds.
Who got traded on the Knicks? We traded R.J. Barrett and Quickly for O.J.
(10:57):
Ananobi and Precious Achua, who are really fucking good and everyone was super
down on the trade when that happened but OG is straight up better than RJ Barrett
and we needed a backup big because Mitchell Robinson got injured.
I really like our team. I think that we have a bunch of what 6-5 guards who
can shoot and play defense I think that we're a piece away from actual contention
(11:21):
but we used to be a piece away from a piece away.
We're in in... I don't know what he wants. The Knicks are so close.
They're just this close to greatness.
Julius Randle doesn't have any trade capital. No one wants him,
but we're stuck with him because we decided to pay him a lot of money after
he had one all-NBA season. How big is his contract?
I think he has two more years in an option. We just signed him back when he
(11:44):
was first-team all-NBA, but I can see right through that.
He's a stat powder, and I don't think that he's reliable in the playoffs.
Jalen Brunson, though, we got him for the cheap, and he is incredible.
I just think that we need a big that's not Julius Randle.
So i'm a okc fan and what's it like having a pedophile on your team.
Sorry allegedly allegedly there's no
(12:06):
actual accusations but you know i
mean i would cut him if i was in charge to be
honest he's just not playing well right now i mean
he's not like one of our best players like you're just
you're good in spite of him but he's not the reason your team is good
he's just a player on the team our best three are shea
chet and williams and we've
(12:28):
got a good we got a lot of people like they're all
just like pretty good and interchangeable they can all shoot
threes they can all play defense they're all pretty long they got long arms
and stuff like that just like our whole team that's why that's why og
is such a good pickup for us because he's our jaylen williams he's
does he he's a he's a stopper he's a
stopper and he's super athletic does he see good like
(12:49):
uh can he score iso points like he's he's not a shot creator but he can play
with the ball in his hands he can shoot him in rain shots as opposed to rj barrett
who could not do that i don't understand how players in the nba don't learn how to do that,
yeah oh my god all right god rest his soul he's not dead but we're remembering
(13:12):
him fondly rj If you looked up an R.J.
Barrett highlight reel, it would be him scoring putbacks and transition buckets
and corner set shots from the corner.
That's not a shot creator. He's just like, yeah, oh my God, R.J.
Barrett highlight. He hit two threes from the corner.
That's not an exciting player. And he's also not good. He's an elite from three anyway.
(13:36):
So I'm happy to have OG. Last night I tried to go to, the Knicks were playing the Lakers.
And I was like, I should go to that. And I looked it up and the tickets were,
the cheapest one was $600.
And this is for a mid-season, two teams that are kind of okay.
Knicks fans are insane. It's the brand. I know.
(13:59):
I know. I don't get it. Because, okay, so OKC, it's in a shithole, all right?
Okay she's a terrible place but the stadium is
a is a safe space where tickets are like fucking
cheap like i i get i can get like lower bowl seats or
like club seats for like 120 bucks something like that and okay see like i don't
(14:23):
know like hearing knicks fans talk about how they're going to turn this shit
around and like become a competent franchise or whatever um is It's funny to
me, because Knicks are so rich.
Yeah, Knicks are rich. They're the most valuable NBA franchise.
And they're in the coolest city in the world. And they can't put together a competent team.
(14:45):
I don't know how OKC does it, and the Knicks don't. What is the difference there?
It's because of the boy genius, Sam Presti.
Mr. I-have-7,000-picks. Why can't the Knicks find someone like that?
Is it just because they're stubborn? I think James Dolan is a stubborn man.
And he doesn't like being told what to do with his team.
And people have tried to wrestle control out of his hands for a very long time.
(15:11):
It's him. I wish I could own an NBA team, man.
If I had one wish from a genie, that would do. I want to own the Knicks.
And we're going to do a rebranding campaign. Because the Knicks rebranded terrible.
You didn't know they were the most valuable for your guys. I would come up with
some pretty cool jersey ideas.
(15:32):
Maybe have a gay pride jersey for June.
The Knicks, I would wear a gay pride Knicks jersey.
I'd have to see it first because you could really make that ugly if you got all rainbow-y with it.
Why don't we just do pink and blue for trans awareness? Well,
yeah, but that's a different thing than pride.
(15:52):
You're right. It's cooler. cooler it is and it's
a more coherent color scheme than all the rainbows
i don't like any flag that's my hot take
about you don't like any pride flag or flags and
i don't think that any of the any of the pride flags they
don't look maybe the intersex one looks cool because it has a circle on it but
bars with colors is it's not revolutionary and if it's not revolutionary why
(16:15):
do we need it we only ever needed one flag which was the rainbow flag we only
ever needed that because it represents everything yeah but then some people
use that flag and don't mean trans inclusion.
Well, that's their problem. Why do I have a gray and white flag with a green
stripe for someone who's gender fluid? Those are far cries.
(16:38):
They don't have that much significance other than one colored line. Yeah.
The thin blue line flag is, in many ways, so much more poetic than any of the pride flags. What?
Just in terms of visual imagery, there's a thin blue line. Obviously,
it stands for cops, but the visual metaphor is there.
You're going to sit in here and defend sports because... The asexual flag is
(17:01):
just straight up boring.
It could have been more... It could have been... There's a big difference.
There's a lot of gray area between... Quite literally, because they're gray
flags. Who wants a gray flag? They're boring.
I don't support cops. It's just
like they have a better flag than us and that should make us feel bad.
Well, they fucking ripped off the American flag. That's treasonous.
(17:23):
You're not supposed to recolor the American flag like that.
I'm not a big fan of the American flag either.
But you don't think the American flag is good? Designed well?
Oh, in terms of aesthetic design. Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
We're not talking about liking thin blue line people, right?
We have 13 stripes because of the 13 colonies. No, that's a dumb visual metaphor.
(17:47):
We had this thing that we took from Native Americans.
What it all means, but just like how it looks. looks
like uh yes lines and squares are
are decent but like insignias you
know has a really cool flag is the philippines well let me see it pull it up
it's it has stripes on it but it has a big sun that represents the sun because
(18:10):
the sun is wonderful that's it
that's the that's the metaphor it's already cooler than america let me see,
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I kind of like the American flag.
I don't know. Shout out to the Philippines. Thanks for birthing my mom.
See, I feel like that one would be, the American flag was designed to be able
(18:33):
to be made in like fucking the 1700s, whenever we weren't that great at sewing stuff.
Betsy. We had to do like a little triangle like that. Shout out to Betsy.
She was coloring my numbers.
Right. What else were we going to talk about today? The Knicks were on the docket.
We have a bigger list of stuff not to talk about.
(18:57):
There's been a lot of drama happening in New York City. But then again, when hasn't there been?
Oh, yeah, one we can talk about. Shane Gillis, right? Shane Gillis. What are your thoughts?
He's fine. He's fine. Yeah, he's not reinventing the wheel.
But his special is cool. I like the bit about gay Vikings.
(19:19):
That's Honestly, very solid joke. The Jackie Robinson joke is a very solid Robinson
also loved in his previous special he did a bit about About the Crimson Tide and have in Alabama.
Yeah, how the reason Paul Bear Bryant which was he's the number one.
He's a big He's a coach who won all the championships for the Alabama and Nick Saban.
(19:40):
No Bear Bryant was like from the 70 So he won like 10 championships or something
like that And he made out, put Alabama like really on the map like that.
But the only thing, the thing he did was like, all right, let's let black people
play like was it like and then they just started winning a bunch of championships.
And he had a bid on that. And that was really good. But he's he got fired from
(20:02):
SNL after he got he got hired to SNL for like, how long did it take to get him fired?
He was fast, right? He worked for SNL? Yeah, for like a week.
Why did he get fired? Because they found his old racist podcast stuff. Did he say the N-word?
I don't know. I don't know the specifics. Or did he just make racial jokes?
(20:23):
Oh, well then. They're racial jokes. They were pretty edgy, but they're still jokes.
Edgy is not a cancelable offense in my mind.
Well, I mean, yeah, but SNL fired him though, so. So SNL isn't funny. No.
Unfortunately for SNL, they have
pedigree and they have a legacy that they currently are not living up to.
(20:44):
I don't think that anybody writing for SNL right now is that cool.
Except for my friend Asha. Shout out to Asha Ward.
Good comic. I don't think, I mean, SNL is a weekly show that is on national
television, like a big, and there's like a lot of things that they like can't,
they get scrapped, like that you can't really joke about. out in that environment.
(21:07):
And I think, I don't think that, like, whenever people criticize SNL for not
being funny now, like, if they watched episodes from 30 years ago, like,
There was times when SNL wasn't funny. Of course, you can't be on all the time. Right.
But they're having Shane Gillis host in two weeks. February 24th,
I think is what I heard. So they're letting him host.
(21:27):
Yeah, so they fired him and now they're letting him host. He'll probably have a joke about that.
He's got to. He's going to have the opening monologue.
No, I don't have anything contrary or edgy to say about Shane Gillis.
I think he's actually a good comic and good for his recent success.
I just don't think that he's the next chosen one.
Because i know i know what you feel like comedy is looking for a chosen one
(21:49):
i think that it appoints one every once in a while when when
somebody is really that good at comedy i know that what you feel about chapelle and
i personally don't like his recent material either but for a while he was the
best comedian in the world yeah like a long time ago obviously louis ck is contentious
but for a while in the early 2010s he was the best comic in the world i don't
think that sheen gillis is stepping up to that mantle yet i hope that i'm wrong
(22:09):
because he is funny i I just don't think he's the funniest man on the world yet.
Five specials before people started to really be like, well,
this dude is maybe the best.
And say what you will about his comedy, but he was actually just really good
at crafting a joke. Yeah, and they were all unique.
You wouldn't hear Louis doing material that other people had done.
(22:31):
My favorite, people think about Louis now that he's been canceled that he was all edgy or whatever,
but like he's my favorite of his jokes was like stuff about
like his daughters like so he and he
and shane gillis are interesting because they have a commonality where shane gillis
this whole thing is i'm a dopey fat dude bro who tells like i'm the funniest
(22:52):
guy at your house party kind of vibe and louis ck is i am a pathetic shitty
middle-aged guy who's a dad and those are very common like points of reference
for an audience member to attach to them they're successful because they're.
Everyman kind of comics in a way and shane gillis can if he's smart and i think
(23:14):
he will be smart about this just coast off of yeah i'm relatable because i look
like you and i sound like you and i'm telling jokes about things that you would
tell at parties i'm just telling them better,
right i think one of my my the things that hampered my stand-up career or have
been hampering my stand-up career up to this point is that i don't really look
like a lot of people One, I'm trans.
(23:35):
Two, I can't really get away with self-deprecating jokes because obviously I'm a model of sorts.
People wouldn't believe a shitty self-deprecating story I told about myself
because of what I look like.
And also, hot girl humor is punching down. I don't want to get away with punching down.
(23:57):
Yeah, it's different whenever you're a woman and a trans woman.
I always feel like I have to address that I'm trans, at least at some point
in my stand-up, because I sound different than most people who look like me.
And maybe it might be a dysphoria thing, but I feel like if I don't address
(24:17):
it, people are just going to be like, why does that girl talk like a guy?
I i've been told by an audience member i don't believe you when you say that
you have that you strike out because i had a joke once about like striking out
with a woman she was like they didn't believe you that she said you're too pretty
to to have struck strike out like,
everybody strikes out if i were a more sympathetic figure i probably could get
(24:40):
away with that joke my sympathetic i'm at more average looking yeah average
looking yeah i'm also not saying that i'm I'm the hottest woman in the world.
I'm just strongly implying it.
I would never say something like that. Because that's, that's egomaniacal.
It is very different in like how you have to cry.
I was having, I don't know, I get this advice a lot, but like people are like,
(25:02):
you should do material that like has nothing to do with you being trans.
And that sounds good in a vacuum, but like, it's hard to not like mention it
or because because it influences so much about my life and also the way the audience is.
Understanding my jokes because it's all
(25:24):
coming from me so i maybe they're right
in that i can just do completely different material
which i i am actually working on stuff that has
absolutely nothing to do with me being trans and i used to whenever i
first started doing stand-up i was like i'm not going to mention it at all
but consistently jokes about being
trans are the ones that fucking crush everywhere
(25:45):
so yeah what do you
have in common with the average audience member well you
you're trans and they're probably watching you because you're trans i
i think i've found success by making jokes about
being broke because everyone in the world has been broke at some point
right like relationships how
much you hate your boss like those are all things that people can
(26:06):
latch on to my jokes about being trans do better in
cis rooms than in trans i mean they do all right in
trans rooms but they almost work better whenever
nobody in the crowd even like knows a trans person i think the ones that i always
connect to with audience members is how weird sex is sex is strange sex is weird
right now being scared of pussy because you're secretly in denial about wanting
(26:31):
bottom surgery is like a joke that i think has worked for me.
Wait what i have i have a joke that i always lead off with was before going
to a small trans rooms This is usually in whatever room it's where I have trans
as a joke, but I start off the joke like I don't really want bottom surgery.
I'm not scared of pussy. I'm just terrified by it.
And then I go into a small diatribe about why I don't, but really strongly suggesting
(26:56):
that I do want bottom surgery.
Question still remains at the end of the of the set
which is why it's an effective joke it just makes something for a second oh
let's uh let's talk about you for a little bit okay so
where did you grow up i grew up in
the dmv which is the dc where did
you live in maryland uh southern maryland on the
(27:16):
the border between there and dc proper i grew up
that's the thing there's no real town i
i moved in like five small individual small towns
i don't know i was born in a town called rockville what is
it called the dmv area because there's really
a blur culturally between northern virginia
southern maryland and dc it's almost like the same place but it's
(27:39):
not the same state the dmv d stands
for like dc district in virginia yeah which is contrasting to baltimore because
baltimore is not part of the dmv it's a it feels like a different place baltimore
has a lot more country people i do comedy in the dmv area i'm including baltimore
baltimore is It is geographically different because it has more country.
(28:00):
Okay. Because Maryland is still a southern state by many metrics.
Considering, I mean, relative to the northeast, it's a southern place.
Relative to the south, it's not southern.
I've always liked Baltimore. I like Baltimore, too. It's just not the DMV. Yeah.
Anyway, so you grew up in the DMV. When did you come out here?
(28:23):
Graduated from high school in 2015, and I moved up here to go to school.
And why you I did go to NYU what's
the mark of the beast I majored in recorded music
and music was that before or after they turned you trans way before
so funny story about my my trans coming out journey
I switched to Agnes in
(28:44):
2017 I wouldn't
go on hormones for another three years really yeah I
just I was a non-binary person named Agnes I
didn't know that hormones were a real thing nor did any
of my transgender or queer friends really encourage me because i don't know
maybe they had a mentality like you shouldn't tell other people what to do but
(29:06):
i really would have appreciated the nudge if someone told me that was possible
that's why i always nudge people i'm like i'm gonna try i'm gonna try any estrogen
it tastes good i've it would have saved me a lot of,
fucking acne scars that's for sure because if i had started estrogen earlier
i would have Get your skin up. Get on that styrofoam and give you good skin.
Anyway, I ended up transitioning in 2020 like a lot of other people do when
(29:26):
they're cooped up in the house and you realize, oh, I'm just getting uglier every day.
Yes, I remember that. I started at 24, and what really made me get it was because
I started thinking that my hairline was receding.
I'm like, nope, I'm just going to grow boobs instead. I started at 22.
22 is when I started transitioning.
(29:49):
It's it's I have no regrets other than I wish I could have started earlier,
but even still, it doesn't make or break me because I ended up really liking
my body afterwards anyway.
Yeah, I turned out pretty hot, too. I do wish I could have started earlier,
though. Yeah, I mean, I have my my breast augmentation consult next week.
Let this be a little time capsule for me before I have gigantic tits.
I think I'll have them before 2025 if I'm lucky.
(30:12):
What what wait times they have once you get a consult?
Within within like a nine month span. band so if i have the consult next week
it's likely that i might be able to get a get in before.
2024 is over basically that i
and transition what transitioned
had to make a bunch of new friends ended up meeting a small
community of trans women who live in brooklyn and queens and
(30:34):
i've been living here basically doing gig
work i did a little sex work and i'm
working in the entertainment industry nightlife music raves music
licensing all those kinds of kinds of things and i'm not working in
that television show like stage live what'd you say you majored in again music
business media business did you finish it yeah i would agree it's just about
(30:57):
like business i do i mean if you want to know about the music touring structure
agents managers labels 360 deals Does it transfer to comedy?
It doesn't. Not at all. Because people just pay like cash in hand at comedy.
They do? I don't think I've been in any kind of comedy situation where I've
had to sign a contract yet.
We have an LLC for late stage just in case anyone gets injured moving equipment,
(31:21):
but that's basically it.
Well, you can also deduct all show expenses so you can like buy shit and it'd
be tax deductible. Well, right now we're working in a public access place where
everything's free anyway.
Well, you can always spend fucking more money, dude. yeah cameras you can get
we have we have the option to in the future we're just not using it yet.
The LLC is interesting. We're going to join the union eventually if we ever
(31:45):
get picked up by anybody else.
But for now, we're just comfortable writing our show and putting it on public
broadcast access TV in New York City and also YouTube.
Wait, so does it actually go on public access TV? You can watch it on the website.
New York Public Broadcast's website. The archive of our videos online.
I haven't actually watched a full episode.
(32:07):
We can self-nominate for an Emmy.
You can? man. We're not going to get nominated, of course, because there's only
eight slots and there are people who make, I don't know, real stuff that gets
seen by the city of New York. But we're technically eligible.
That's cool. It would be all 12 of our votes versus the rest of the world.
(32:27):
Y'all could do it. I wanted to do a show like this.
I was talking to Ella about it like three months before she started doing Late Stage or whatever.
But then my venue fell through and and my life kind of fell apart,
so I had to not be in New York as much.
Wait, a show like this or a show like Late Stage? A show like Late Stage.
It was exactly what I wanted to do, and I was going to do it at the Tank.
(32:51):
And it just all fell apart for several reasons, but I'm glad that we got a show
like this working. Yossi knew it would be doing really well.
The genius of the show is Ellie Ehrman, because without her,
we would not have been able to do a show like this.
The fact that she's so she's like a fucking juggernaut if
you've ever seen her do any of her takes just goes through
(33:12):
fast doesn't mess up anything and we would just work around
her she's like the engine of the show we all write for it
but she's like it's she's able to carry the workload that's
cool i don't think i could have done the show by myself even if i wanted to
a show like this is a big project like there's no way somebody can do that without
she's this she's the spirit like the inspiration of why i even want to write
(33:34):
a joke at all is because i i write them for her and i still have my own like
personal writing interests but it's because hey
ella will be able to carry the joke i like being
a writer i was telling you about how i don't like stand-up i just i don't i
like performing music live i don't like doing stand-up live something about
it just doesn't tickle me the same way stand-up is more vulnerable than music
(33:55):
yeah but i still like writing to respond to audiences and stuff like that but
whereas music you can and do your thing, you know? Mm-hmm.
I like formats. I like writing within a script.
End up as contextless oh i mean this
isn't stand-up related but i helped write a play that i'm
going to be starring in at least maybe hopefully before
(34:16):
the end of the year but i just
like to write i'm i've i'm a half what
playwright for my friend who's doing an autobiographical
one-act woman play of how she
got bottom surgery and what it took to crowdfund for it and she's
is going to be i'm going to be cast as the person who's
going to like play her i love being
(34:38):
in conduit for other people's creative you got the range for let me
see a picture i got the
tucking tape in my backpack yeah i like being
conduit for other people's i don't even
i'm a grower i i don't need tucking tape yeah
i have a tiny penis you okay
but like you're gonna wear like a thong
(35:01):
like on the fucking beach like
you would wear tuck tape right or you
not wear shit like that no i don't think i wanted to people see
my balls so what i thought you said you had tuck tape i.
Was kidding oh okay i will do i use
um the 3m oh i
forgot what's transport that's what it's called 3m transport get three
(35:23):
inch one and it's like there's like surgeon
shit like it does shit it holds and you just get get it wet and everything it's
fine what i was saying is that i like being a conduit for people's creative
endeavors i don't have to write my own story i like helping people call theirs
and also that you have a small penis and that i have a micro penis that's not true.
(35:44):
Okay let me give me the stuff that people said on on instagram okay we'll walk through that.
Okay, Stacey, here you go. Okay, first, this is from deleted user.
Is there a link between trans and smoking weed?
Yes, it's very strong and it's causatory. If you smoke weed,
(36:06):
you're very likely to become trans, just like a 60% correlation,
right? I don't smoke weed.
I'm afraid of weed. It makes me scared. He doesn't do any drugs.
He's going to shoot. I didn't say that. I just don't smoke weed.
All right, any comedy idols?
Yeah, Chappelle. unironically no i think that his early stuff i don't think
i've ever seen anybody make a sketch funnier than day chapelle i think in terms
(36:29):
of what i'm interested in with like filmmaking and sketch work he has set a
rubric out i think that key and pill are better than chapelle ever was.
I don't think that there's a better sketch than
the racial draft it's comedy sketch yeah that one was that
one was really good he caught yeah bill
burr is also funny he caught lightning in a bottle it's hard to stop that
(36:49):
yeah that was a great that was a great sketch i'll admit
that my comedy so i i've talked
about this before but louis ck was the guy who inspired me to
want to do more comedy until i found out that he was doing this
stuff and i was like i can't do that anymore now now who
i look to the most is robin tran because she's trans
like me and she has like a similar a little bit similar voice
(37:11):
to me like we have very different perspectives but
i like the the way i want to be more like her basically oh
and also shout out to girl god shout out to april clark and
grace for it they're the best i've never seen them live i've seen
their shit on twitter i've i've seen almost every single one of
their new york shows they're good how often they come are they
based la yeah they're based in la but turns out
you don't actually have to tell trans jokes to be a comedian uh
(37:35):
you can be trans and do slapstick and be funnier than most of the people they
do slapstick now and it is fucking great there's a
comedy chemistry they're good
they're like a duo like they're a duo and they're they're great
writers the grace used
to write for rick and morty huh grace used to write for rick and morty oh really
yeah one of the better some of the better episodes are does she still write
(37:58):
for does rick and morty still show yeah i think so oh i did not know that roland.
Is gone but they i haven't seen the new episodes i think that if they come up but.
All I know is that Grace's episodes were good. Okay. All right.
Next, next one. Wait, what was her episodes?
I can't remember off the top of my head. Oh, come on. I don't watch that show.
(38:20):
Okay. I follow you from North Africa, from Libya. I wish you success.
That's, that's not a question, but I do appreciate it. Thank you.
You guys watching out in Libya.
Recommend on transition? Just do it, Nike. We're not sponsored.
We're not sponsored. Just do it. Don't. Yeah.
We didn't, we weren't paid to say that. I was.
Yeah, we're going to do this. No, this is Nike. Fetus top and Nike bottom. I mix streams like that.
(38:46):
What are some key ways you've noticed that are effective at empowering the youth?
Empowering them to do what?
Well, let them know that you can break free from capitalism by becoming leftist.
So one, teach your kids to be leftist. That's how you can...
Anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, you know, Maoist, who cares? Just start on the winning side.
(39:07):
I would say clean your room delete facebook oh yeah also clean your room it's so liberating,
it's so liberating to make your bed every day i started doing
that it is so good i don't do it it gives me
structure i do wish my room was more clean
but the bed i like it kind of like unmade unless
(39:28):
i'm taking pictures it's like more nested in
whenever the oh no i get and i only use is
i only use like one blanket like i don't like sheets or anything i
just want like one blanket to curl up in like a caterpillar i
got four blankets i got seven pillows jesus
you sleep under four blankets every night oh no
i just like having them okay and then folding them what do you sleep under though
(39:49):
i have one duvet and one furry blanket nice oh why are you so gorgeous god made
me this way also surgery i haven't had surgery yet you can still be beautiful
with that surgery. Stacey just makes it look really good.
Surgery can make you worse, but, you know, if you make good choices,
(40:10):
good surgery choices. Get surgery only if you want it.
You don't have to have surgery to be beautiful, but you can be even more beautiful.
What is this PBS bullshit right now?
What's up with girls and their cats? I don't know. I'm not a cat person.
You're not a cat person? I grew up with a chihuahua. I like chihuahuas.
You ain't fucking for real right now? You don't like cats, but you like Chihuahuas.
(40:33):
Oh, no, I don't dislike cats, but I would never adopt one.
Because you don't like changing letterboxes or what? You just don't like their
personalities? I would rather have a small dog.
Really? If you gave me a choice to have any kind of pet, I would probably get a Chihuahua.
I kind of like dogs, but I don't really like small dogs. I've not had good experiences with them.
My roommate's got a poodle, and that's cute. I like that dog. It's a big dog.
(40:55):
But all the small dogs that I've known have been very hyper and bark a lot.
But maybe that's me stereotyping.
The next one is Kitty, not a question, just a declaration that fits in with
what we were just talking about. Yeah.
Do you think as a stand-up comedian you have been recognized by the people?
(41:17):
Who are the people? In my personal underground transgender community in Brooklyn
and Queens, I get recognized a lot.
It makes my life kind of difficult because people assume that I'm going to be
a certain way in real life, erratic or outrageous or audacious.
I can't really live up to those expectations that people set for me.
(41:40):
This is my resting energy level most of
the time so when i'm not doing some sort of
crazy sex joke that people know me from the internet like they're
like oh well you're kind of boring i'm like
exactly the same as i am on stage yeah actually you are which makes people think
that they like know me from my set and i have no yeah whereas whereas i'm an
(42:04):
asshole on stage but in real life I bake and I go to church.
I'm not really that exciting. I go to church, too.
I know, but I'm boring, is what I'm saying. You're not boring.
You mean low energy in the morning? No, I mean traditional. I just do the same shit all the time.
I cook, I clean, I go to church, play video games. It's not interesting.
(42:30):
I play video games, too. Okay, do you like to drive?
No, that's why I wanted to know. No, I've been in like three or four car crashes in my life.
I've had car wrecks that have just like really set me back. I had a hydroplane
down a hill once when I was 17.
I've never felt in control in any of my car wrecks. I can just kind of freak
things that happened, and I don't like being on it.
(42:51):
And I swear, New York is the best city in America just because you don't have to drive here.
Yeah, real shit. That's kind of why I moved here. All you need is the subway,
and it's the best city in the world because nobody else has it here.
Here dc has a little bit of one but i've heard
you gotta drive there yeah you do like it's it's people
in dc are like the metro is so good and it's like it
(43:12):
does not take you everywhere like it does in new york it's different yeah
i lived off the end of the end of the red line but i still
had to take a car from the end of the red line to my house okay where
do you get your ideas from god he tells
me the dream i'm very inspired by seeing
other people who are trans and just observing their
her life and noticing what's funny about it you just stealing material
(43:33):
from the community like that witnessing someone do something
is not stealing jokes basically the
same thing there was this one time when you know
how like your queer health clinic will ask you demographic information about
who you're sleeping with when you're on prep my doctor once asked me so who
(43:53):
are you sleeping with just like casual but i didn't understand that that question
was for prep i I didn't understand that he was asking me demographic information.
I just told him my friends. And he was like, excuse me? And I was like,
I'm sleeping with my friends.
And he said no no this is
something i have to ask you for prep are you having like i'll
(44:14):
just write down her friend he was just asking me like do
you have sex with people who have like get like do anal receptive sex because
that's an important question when you're on prep i did not understand that that's
what he was asking me point is i drew a joke from that and it's been really
funny to tell that story ever since that's what i mean when i'm stealing my
jokes from so you're stealing it from From the medical community.
(44:36):
I'm stealing it from doctors. Yeah, exactly.
Why do men smell worse after starting E? This is not true. That's not true.
I don't actually think that's true. Men?
First off, they're not men anymore. Okay. But second, like E, I am a fairy person.
I admit no odor. I can wear the same pair of underwear for a week.
(44:58):
Okay, that's an exaggeration. but like but i
can like wear my shit that i don't smell
very much like i'm i'm sure dogs could pick up on me but humans don't ever be
like yeah i stopped i stopped i stopped smelling as bad when i was on e i think
that they don't smell worse yeah they smell better crazy i don't know how that
(45:20):
happened how is kansas for trans people i know you talked about it in a bit
my move to Kansas City for school.
So Kansas is terrible for trans people, but Kansas City is pretty cool for trans people.
You're not going to want to move. Don't change your ID to Kansas or whatever,
whenever you're here, because they don't recognize trans people anymore.
(45:43):
But where are you going to go to school? Are you going to go to school at UMKC
or KU, something like that?
It can be a good place to go to school, but don't plan on staying because of
the direction of the politics of both Kansas and Missouri.
Because Kansas City is a border city and both sides want to kill you.
So why are you such an OKC Thunder fan?
(46:05):
Because I lived in Arkansas and Arkansas is close to Oklahoma.
Yeah, they count. That state claims OKC. Yeah.
I mean, it was either a cheer for them or cheer for the Grizzlies.
You're geographically closer to OKC than Grizzly territory. Well,
no, because I live in the center of Arkansas. So technically Memphis is only two hours away.
(46:28):
OKC was four hours away. way i mean like in terms of states who claims written
nba teams well that's what i mean by,
geographically you're in a state that he's better so that's why a
lot more people started cheering for okc than the grizzlies did a couple years
where the grizzlies were good they were never like like the grizzlies ceiling
was never they didn't have like kd or even west oh i i thought you meant like
(46:52):
as in like two years ago no i mean just like overall you mean from like 10 years ago Yeah.
And then the OKC, they were the Seattle Supersonics and they got bought and
moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
And I would go to Oklahoma City a lot for basketball tournaments because I played
basketball and I could go to their games and they were bringing in like some
(47:14):
of the best players in the world to Oklahoma City.
So it was hard not to cheer for them
after that but it is hard being a
fan of a team of such a horrible city like oklahoma
city the only good thing they have there is the thunder
so yeah i don't want to visit
like it's a five-hour drive into nothingness it's sad but it's a good it's a
(47:36):
good bowl organization for sure if if a turf saw a post-op trans woman and trans
man having sex would their head explode i don't think so because i think that
they've definitely watched this.
Like that's what turfs do right like do do they do you think that boy pussy does go crazy though so,
(47:59):
you think that they would yeah i know you heard that all right what's the square
root of fun love i don't know it's a trick question bullshit is that love yeah
it's gonna save us all Okay.
I'm trying to apply math logic to this. I don't know how you can.
It's my worst subject in school. Don't ask me any math questions.
(48:21):
Square root of fun. This is a nonsense question. I don't know how to answer it.
Next one. Yep, next one. What illegal pet would you own if you could? I want.
Well, there's a lot of illegal pets that I want. Gila monster.
A gila monster? Yeah, those are highly venomous.
Are they? They're not illegal, are they? You can't own a gila monster.
(48:44):
Are you sure? It will kill you if it bites you.
Well, don't let it bite you. You can't legally own something that has poison in its glands.
No, there's... You can own poisonous animals. Gila monsters?
I don't know about gila monsters. I haven't looked them up specifically.
For me, I want a giant African land snail. Okay?
(49:04):
A slime rabbit. They're huge. They're giant. And they're very cute.
And, I mean, have you ever seen these guys eat a cucumber? cumber but
they're they're very illegal in the u.s because
once they start putting like once
they start laying eggs they're like impossible to get rid of like
they're very and also their shells are so big that
(49:24):
they can break car tires yeah so it
would be an invasive species but they're not illegal in britain so you have
british friends you could get a giant african land snail and they could send
you like some eggs to the u.s and you could do bioterrorism I heard a story
a couple months ago about somebody who was arrested for growing illegal raspberries.
(49:47):
Where?
Just in Brooklyn. You can't grow... Apparently there's certain things that are technically illegal.
And when they were having their house searched for some other reason,
they found these. And they're just like, hey, you can't have these berries.
What were they doing? Like looking for cocaine and then they found some raspberries.
It's just like, ah, you can't have this.
Just like a, I don't know, a different kind of breed of raspberry.
It wasn't even poisonous. I just think that they're not allowed to have them. Weird.
(50:09):
Very cool. all right when did you know that pigs are illegal in new york they
get really big yeah they do well i mean there's small pigs too but like pigs
you okay when you have a song in your head,
where do you hear it between my ears as in like i hear it in my head yeah i
(50:32):
don't it's in my brain can i rotate a song in my mind is what is that what you're
asking i i always have songs in my head and they're just always kind of there.
It's in my central thought processing cortex.
Not a brain surgeon what are your thoughts about the rise of the molten economy
during the napoleonic wars i do
(50:54):
know where malta is and i also know who napoleon was i do not know about,
do you know about i don't know anything about the economy 18th century french
politics i have no idea malta 19th is malta french malta is a country that's
like a it's like it's between france and And France is somewhere. I don't know.
(51:18):
So I don't have much thoughts about the Malta economy. I'm pretty sure that
Malta is like between France and Italy.
And Dora is between France and Spain.
But that's not Malta. Yeah, I don't think so. So we don't have many thoughts
on the rise of the Malta economy.
I do think that Napoleon was cool. I didn't see the movie because I heard it
(51:40):
was terrible. What's your Roman Empire?
The roman empire for sure and i
think about it a lot yeah all the time my favorite
thing about the roman empire is i
like their military dogma i think that it was
really revolutionary for the time and they
they really got away from hero belief of
(52:03):
how you win battles you know because like there was
like you hear about like legends about like like a
really good fighter going out out there and killing a bunch of people and and the
romans were like the first country to really like weaponize like
everybody's like the same we're all just like ants like
everybody should be able to do everything and like it's all about like
numbers and logistics and all that kind of stuff and that's why they they conquered
(52:26):
the world like that so so thoroughly militarily i think it's just really cool
that you can have a boy who will carry your towels for you romans definitely
if If they didn't invent it, they definitely perfected that one.
What is your favorite game right now? The game I'm playing the most...
Okay, the game I'm playing the most is Marvel Snap, but that's not...
That's because it's on my phone.
(52:46):
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3, which is fun.
Even though everyone has an English accent in it, I'm so tired of all of my
media being infected with English accents.
I can't get away from it. I really wish we could have a fantasy game where everyone doesn't poke look.
I'm into survival horror games. I'm right now playing the remake of Resident Evil 4.
(53:09):
And I was playing Silent Hill before that. Silent Hill 3. Horror games,
man. They gave me 10. And Dead by Daylight.
It's too much. Do you play Dead by Daylight? You're one of those kids?
I'm really good. i have like 1600 hours in
the game is that game like still like have a vibrant community yes
it does it's crazy that that game on large there's
a large transgender community and emo like
(53:31):
the people who play it are people who like murdering
i guess yeah somebody said
what podcast it's this one you listen to dumbass
let's see
oh we were supposed to say something about
mongolia shout shout out to our listeners who are mongolian i
don't even know where that is she doesn't even she thought that mongolian is
(53:53):
that nice new york no it's not i
know that mongolia is up you know up
in the mountains that the north of on staten island china and i don't know much
about i have a lot more chinese friends than i do of mongolian friends so i
only know about mongolia from the chinese perspective but you know y'all did
(54:14):
great back in the gang as con days i'll tell you that that much.
What the hell? Okay. Why is this?
This is like a thread. Okay. Taylor Swift, why wouldn't the Pentagon try to recruit her?
And even if they did recruit her, wouldn't they deny it?
But even if they didn't recruit her, man, what a good idea. President, maybe?
(54:35):
By the way, that was a pro-Taylor message overall, but worded to get you more engagement.
I think that if it is in the Pentagon's interest to recruit Taylor Swift,
that they would definitely do it because I think that she is amazing and would be good at anything.
You know, do you think that she would be a good Pentagon asset?
(54:56):
I only know one Taylor Swift song and it's Back to December.
Are you fucking kidding me right now? That song?
It's a good song. That's the only one you know of hers? Yeah,
I don't know any of those.
That is that's i remember listening to
that on the radio back in like 2010 was it
oh yeah that and like and i'm lying on a cool hard ground those are the only
(55:17):
ones i know that's the only ones you know do you should listen to some of taylor
swift's albums like some of her like reason this stuff is real good no thanks
i don't really care you should do a full listen i'm tired of seeing her on my
tv when i'm watching football you watch that many chiefs games.
The highlights i mean they beat my ravens i had to watch them oh you're
a ravens fan yeah oh my god don't even get me started oh you
(55:39):
knew they were gonna lose fastest fastest legs of the qb position they
had him stay in the pocket the entire game i'm upset well because
the chiefs were the chief come on they were pretty good there's a lot of i could
have escaped the pocket scrambled for an extra couple yards that he just didn't
do that game he was afraid to run i don't know what killed his playoffs man
oh so he would just rather lose the game than maybe run out of the pocket.
(56:04):
I mean, I feel like he lost the game because of the interceptions more than anything.
The officiating was weird. He threw a lot of deep balls for some reason.
I'm just like, Lamar, you're the best running quarterback in the league right
now. Just do it. Just run.
Whatever. I felt like that he was always pretty well contained.
The Chiefs always had somebody up there to spy. It was our easiest road to the
(56:25):
AFC championship that we're going to get in a while because Joe Burrow is going
to come back and then the Bengals are going to be kind of a problem.
To Joe Burrow that much of a powerhouse?
No, but he's going to be one more person we have to beat.
Right now, all we had to beat was the Chiefs, and we didn't.
The Chiefs are good, though. I know, but...
I know. We had a shot. We just didn't take it.
(56:46):
Anyway, now we're a football talker. We're already disappointed.
You getting sad? Yeah. I really liked watching Stabby's reels.
It's cool that they picked him up. Yeah. I met him once. He's actually nice in person.
Yeah. He's not a complete i
did a show with him it was it was fun cool dude i i uh he gives good hugs.
(57:08):
Yeah he gives good hugs he does seem like a guy who
would give pretty decent hugs i guess i i've
seen him naked so that you know because he posts naked
pictures all the time all right it's not he is a specimen he's
got a good body a lot of stuff that i would get banned for all
right it's not fair that men can get away with posting
shit like that honestly if god had a a
(57:29):
human informant but he would probably look like stuff that's probably
what jesus looked like okay i said i said women in twinks before
women in twinks and twinks and stavros and guys who
look like stuff like all right you hear that listeners if you're a guy out there
who who looks like fat men fat men and fat women hit my line look them up we'll
arrange we'll arrange a date we'll do something anyways we're done with the
(57:51):
podcast you got anything else you want to say tune into late Late Stage Live,
now available on YouTube.
And keep an eye out next month for the episode that I will be.
Next episode for this one. We're probably going to be on something around the 23rd of February.
Late Stage Live on YouTube. And thanks for listening. With Ellie Ehrman and myself.
(58:12):
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