September 25, 2025 • 19 mins
Gianmarco Soresi waited five minutes in Zoom purgatory to talk to John about Gianmarco's latest special, 'Thief of Joy,' which is available on YouTube.
Soresi discusses the technical difficulties experienced during the setup of the interview and the decision-making process behind releasing his special on YouTube instead of other platforms. He explains how this choice allows him full control over the timing and distribution of his material. GS emphasizes the importance of adapting his content for various social media platforms to reach different audiences. He also reflects on the evolution of his joke-writing, balancing between fast-paced comedy club material and more nuanced storytelling.
The conversation touches on the challenges of releasing a special in a constantly changing news cycle and handling topical material.
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Soresi discusses the technical difficulties experienced during the setup of the interview and the decision-making process behind releasing his special on YouTube instead of other platforms. He explains how this choice allows him full control over the timing and distribution of his material. GS emphasizes the importance of adapting his content for various social media platforms to reach different audiences. He also reflects on the evolution of his joke-writing, balancing between fast-paced comedy club material and more nuanced storytelling.
The conversation touches on the challenges of releasing a special in a constantly changing news cycle and handling topical material.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/daily-comedy-news-with-johnny-mac--4522158/support.
Become a premium subscriber! (no ads). For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which says UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING and the bonus “DCN8” show.
You also get 25+ other series (it’s only $4.99 a month with a free-trial month)
Contact John at john@thesharkdeck dot com
Media Thoughts is mcdpod.substack.com
dailycomedynews.substack.com
DCN on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@dailycomedynews
https://linktr.ee/dailycomedynews
www.buymeacoffee.com/dailycomedynews
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello again, I'm Johnny Mack. My guest today is John
Marcos s Raisi his new special, Thief of Joy. You'll
find it on YouTube. It is up there for best
special of the year. It's right there with Maren. I
love this special the more I think about it. So
behind the scenes here John Marco was doing me a
favor as he was traveling around. I'm friendly with his
(00:30):
bubble System'm like, he got a couple of minutes, and
he had a couple of minutes, but literally, he's in
a car here, so I didn't use my usual setup,
and this is phone quality.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The reason I'm bothering you with that is because the
poor guy was in the virtual waiting room for five
minutes while I'm bothering his publicist going hey, I don't
like he's there yet, and then she's like, he's in
the waiting room waiting for you to let him in.
So then I let him in, and then I couldn't
hear him, and I finally figured out what was wrong,
and it was me that was wrong. So this guy
who's having a moment is kind enough to talk to me,
(01:00):
I make him wait for five minutes and then I
make him wait for two more minutes as I figure
out the tech. So John Marco, Sirasi, thank you so much,
and I hope you come back again sometimes because I
always liked talking to you. So all that is the
preamble too, that I didn't go along here with him.
I wanted to respect his time. I hit the questions
I wanted to hit. Could I have talked to him
about other things? Of course, of course, but by design
(01:23):
I had five questions written down and we just flew
through him. And here's in a car. John Marco, SIIESI.
So I wanted to ask you on today. The real
question I had you on is a sandbag question. Did
you cancel Disney Plus? Or are you supporting fascisms?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I think I've been using my girlfriend's sister accounts, so
I am morally.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Free of Eddie guilt. I'll tell her she should cancel it,
and I hope she doesn't.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
No, no, we don't hope she doesn't because the parent company, Hulu,
they're going to bring out money for Hulu specials.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So we love.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Disney, Yes, we love him.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
We love him.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's listen to These platforms are so good. It's they're
doing good and bad, so we're kind of stuck. So
I wanted to ask you why you went with YouTube
and not the others. And then an hour before we
were scheduled to talk, I saw the answer on a
V club.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They did a great profile with you. So I know
the answer. But can you just tell everybody why did
you pick YouTube?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I mean, listen, I'm not gonna I'm not going to
pretend like everyone was like knocking down the door for
the special. But the bottom line is like I needed
to release it on my own time. And you know,
a lot of these places they schedule stuff out far
in advance, and I have so much material, I write
(02:42):
so much, I have so much like new stuff that
I wanted to move on to that when I was
ready to pull the trigger, and and when we decided
on the Allegian Theater, I was like, we just got
to do it. We got to do it the next
weekend available, which was February Valentine's Day, as my girlfriend
likes to point out. And then when we were ready
to have it released, you know, I just I just
(03:05):
needed the control I needed to be able to release
it on my own timeline, with my own touring schedule
sooner than later because I had already found Oh, like
I I kind of retired all the material and I
want to report another special next year. So I was like,
I was like, let's have the full control. I don't
I don't want to have to run and buy additional people.
(03:28):
Between my executive producers and me, I felt confident in
the artistic integrity of the writing and the show. And
then the bottom line, as I said in that AV
Club article, is that I think we all know that
traditional media has become shattered and broken and and and
the audiences are everywhere. You know, there's there's audiences out
there who don't know who Sebastin Menascalco is. He is
(03:51):
the number one touring comedian two years ago, one year ago.
And it's like, that's how fractured things are. And my
goal as a business person, because I kind of see
myself also as like the CEO of the company that
is me, is I want my jokes in every corner
(04:13):
of the Internet, in every corner that people get their
entertainment from. And that isn't limited to one network. You know,
some of these networks are surely very far reaching. Others, though,
are not. Others others are cost prohibitive, others don't air
in certain countries, and I want to be able to
take the hour Special, which I want people to watch
(04:34):
in full.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I think I really was.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Determined to make a piece designed to be watched in full. However,
a lot of my joke writing has come at the
time of the Internet, so I do write in a
way in chunks that can become clips, and I want
to be able to take my hour Special and break
it up every which way.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
For every social media.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Platform sex currently exist, that will exist, whether it's vertical, horizontal,
or some new fucked up shape that will need to
be made. Whether someone will make a video player that's
in the shape of a star, I'll be ready to
do it, and I'll do it on my board in
my own rhythm that fits my career. And there may
(05:19):
be there may be future times where I go, oh,
going with a platform is worth it for the validation,
whether it be self validation or public validation. But right now,
my goal is to make my work known to the world,
and I went with the avenue that let me control
(05:42):
the material fully. So so if if if there's some
airline in South Korea that is looking for comedy specials, Boom.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I can. I can give it to them for.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Free if I want to, in the hopes that I'll
tour South Korea someday. If if, if I find out
linked In is a good place to start posting flips, boom,
I'll put it there.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
You know, people go to so many different places.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I'll see something on an injure Imgur, which I've never
visited on my own accord, but you'll see like someone
makes a comic strip out of a joke there and
it has ten million views, and I go, okay, I
want those ten million people that use injure for their
entertainment to know about me, and I hope that the
(06:29):
goal ultimately is to see me live, and that when
I come to your city, you want to pay the
money to leave your house and trust me to entertain
you for an hour or more.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I'm happy here. You're working on another special. As I
watched this thing, there are so many jokes. I'm going
to say jokes per second because I don't want to
get into the Dane Cook laughs per minute metric. But
you literally subscribe to Bobo theory of you know, tell
enough jokes in a minute, and some of them might land.
And I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment because
(06:59):
they land. My friend, like, oh my goodness, the amount
of jokes that are just per minute laughing. I wrote
a note as I was watching, and I'm like, he's
got to have nothing left in the can because he's
used so much material there. So you are prolific.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I mean, you know, some of these jokes, you know
that they've evolved, but some of the some of the
real bangers were cultivated when I was working at really really,
really bad comedy clubs and your your sign just had
to just explode or you would lose the audience. And
(07:39):
in a way, I think there's this kind of dual
there's two sides of it, where there's one version where
you want to evolve out of that horrible comedy club
space so you can share bigger thoughts, you can explore
with more nuanced the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That, like, you know, if you.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Listen to a story from an entertaining friend, you trust
them and you will listen to the whole story, maybe
get some more details.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
At the same time, I do believe in that like
Razor Sharp boom boom boom boom, boom. Have you worked
on it so much that every sentence, if not two
sentences pops. And I really try to I try to
have both. I try to have my cake and eat
it too. And I set bar for myself of like
how funny a joke needs to be to stay in
(08:26):
the act. And that's you know, like that that art
surgery which I close about to spin about my dad's
put up a bypass.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
You know those some of those jokes could be traced
back to.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Year what and they've evolved and I learned how to
stack them and thread them in and incorporate them. But
each one of those jokes, like I could, I could
write a passage about the journey of those jokes. And
and I really try to take both worlds of like
the club comedy every time needs to pop, and the
(09:01):
idea of wanting to weave a narrative and tell his
story and really hold myself to account to combine them
both at all times.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I don't want an answer to this one because I
don't want to ask the magician, you know, how to
just sell the lady in a half. But there's a
moment in the special where I was like, huh is
he play acting. Is this a real moment? I couldn't tell,
don't care, don't want to know, don't tell me. But
as I was watching it too, I started to think
about your physicality, and for maybe like two seconds, I
(09:30):
was like, is this physicality help selling the material? And
I quickly landed on no, you're just a physical performer.
As we're recording this, you're in a car, even just
speaking to some idiot with a podcast, You're very physical
as you speak. Yes, So I don't think at all
that the materials being propped up by the way you
were moving around the stage using the physical space. I
(09:51):
closed my eyes just to test this theory and the material.
This thing is great, this special, and you're seeing the
pressure getting everybody. What are you saying that this is
a great special? So congratulations on this.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Thank you. I feel really I feel really proud of it.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I think I when I was a little kid, I
used to dance in the living room and I this
is how either narcissistic or just entertainery I was. I
told my parents, I was like, we need to get
this living room onto a stage so people can watch
me dance. And in a way, I feel like I've
done that to a degree my physicality. It's really like
(10:29):
how I how I I have trouble dancing at a wedding,
but when everyone's looking at me, I feel like I
come to life. And so I really at a certain
a certain point, I was like, oh, yeah, the way
that I want to move, I'm allowed.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
To do that on a stage.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
In fact, I've picked one of the only professions where
I can just let my body naturally express itself. And
I certainly, like in the last couple of years, have
have challenged myself to like feel free, to to like
have a physical body that naturally just moves along with However,
I want to tell a joke without choreographic.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Jen Marco's a specialist called Thief of Joy. It's on YouTube.
More coming up.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I was joking with your publicist, Now, as great as
your comedic timing, is no one better your marketing timing.
I'm gonna leave something to be questioned. You had that
great Joe Biden chunk that you had to put out
rather quickly because the new cycle changed, and then you
go and your release one of the great specials of
the year. You know, it's between you and Maren. I
(11:33):
think at this point in the race for who we're
going to give the award to, and you just decided
to drop that, And then Jimmy Kimmel might have slightly
stepped on the news cycle.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, listen, it's it's it's really hard. There's you
can't control any of that stuff. The Biden the special
last time that opened with like a big Biden chunk
for those who don't know, it was like we were
going to release it, you know, two months later, and
then Biden had the debate and I saw it and
(12:06):
I was like, I thought he could drop out like now,
like that night. And obviously he delayed it three weeks,
but I was like, it's over, and if he drops,
the beginning of this special feels dated. And by the way,
I will never make that mistake again. I will never
open a special. You know, I assumed. I guess in
(12:29):
my mind that well, certainly whoever's the president will be
the president in a month. Not in today's world, we
cannot be we cannot be so trustworthy of society. So
you know, you drop a special, something else is happening
in the news.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
He can't control it, you know.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
For all I know some people they want to get
away from all the noise and drama of the political
world and lean into escapism. You just this is kind
of my point of like, I go, I want to
control things on my own because because you know, the
same way you could you could drop a special on
(13:08):
HBO and they decided for the same week as The
New White Lotus and it goes viral or some other
movie and you're just not part of the conversation. And
I think I had faith that, you know, if anything,
the thing I was most scared of was Caleb Huron
had a special coming out that same day, and we
have we have a ven diagram.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
This is a much bigger circle.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
But I thought, like, oh, all my fans, they're they're
all my fans are probably Caleb here on fans. They're
gonna watch his special first, and you just go, I
can't control it. I believe the quality of the product,
and I believe it's doing well now. And the thing
with the internet is like it it could do well
next week, it could do a month from now. I
wrote this special to be as evergreen as possible, and I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
You know, I believe it will continue to have a life.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
And I also believe that the American political drama is
probably never going to settle back down to a nice,
peaceful spot.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So you just have to accept that as an entertainer
that you're.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Always going to be competing with something Trump did in
terms of creating a released special, so different than being
in the room.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Are you pulling a closer and moving to the front.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I've seen Bert Krascher and some other comedians talk about
for a Netflix special versus.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I worked with the.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Carolina State for a while and they explained how Carlin
will come out and do rat attat tat jokes, then
the big arc and then let the audience breathe and
go back to rat a tat tat. But Kreischer saying
he's pulling his closer and putting it up front.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
What are you releasing?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
I honestly like I always chomp around with sets as
I start getting closer to like what I'm going to do,
Like most of my headlining sets will usually be between
seventy five to ninety minutes, and I'll jump around, But
I generally I do like an opener that really sets
(14:59):
the stage. And this opener particular, like I was using
this for a while and I just wanted to find
tune it so I would never you know, I could
start with heart surgery, which is how I edited a special,
and really test out like how it works, and I
throw things around. But sometimes when I find an opener
that I love that I think sets the stage, I go,
(15:22):
let me rehearse this into the fucking ground, so I
can articulate the wording and the musicality in multiple circumstances
until it's the best that it can be. So this
opener about my family, I kept it for at least
three months prior to and I do think experimenting can
be good.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Always, always good. But I also think that if you.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Keep the same opener in different environments, whether it be
a club spot, a headlining set, headlining set in the South,
the headlining set overseas, you will learn even more nuance
of that one joke.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Then if you are always moving it around.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
In a week like this, where there's the Kimmel story,
which is really a larger story, do you feel the
need to address that or do you just go sitmash
the miniscalco and say I'm here to tell pasta jokes
like which where do you go?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
If I have good jokes, I will always address it
It just depends if I have time, and I don't
want to be preachy. But like with Kimmel stuff, like
you know, there was some stuff that came to mind.
Twitter is my writing pad, and I had a couple
jokes and I fine tuned it.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It felt so topical.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I released it the next day, and then beyond that,
I said, well, a lot of the fans, if they're
at this next show, they probably saw what I posted,
so I drop it, and you know, it's it's just
kind of luck of the draws.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Then is go see me and I'll be talking about
what's going on.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Sometimes I just put out something because I want to
stay on the edge and.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You're just gonna get a show. But but you know,
I always try to.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
It's just things evolve so quick, and I don't want
to be mediocre in my jokes. I'm either going to
have a really good joke about it or I'm not
going to have a joke at all.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Last time I spoke to you, you busted into a
really good, spontaneous John Mulaney impression, and then I wanted
to share back with you. Somewhere between then and now,
I saw somebody on threads or somewhere say the best
way to get into a poor man's mullaney is to
do Fred Schneider from the B fifty two singing love Shack,
(17:27):
And that has just stuck with me, and I think
this is a really good way to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I've tried to do it. I can't do it. You
probably can.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I'm not asking you to do an impression, but I
just wanted to share that back with you. I so
love shack the like love shack. Yeah, it's a ema,
it's tough. I'm driving a car. It's as big as
a whale. That being like the way into a breeting.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
You said you couldn't do it, You just did it.
That was incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Please get out of here.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Final question, as you're doing press and you're talking to
dumbass podcasters who can't get their technology together, how do
you put up with that crap?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I think it's like just I try to answer questions
freshly each time because the time that I used to
have to sit down and write has gotten more and
more limited, and I have to view, whether it be
podcasts or interviews, as a space to explore my own mind,
(18:22):
and so I try to break away from the rote
answers and just answer something from where I'm at any
given moment, because I'll often find ooh, some idea sprung
into mind, and I have to, especially at moments of
a lot of press, see it as a creative adventure
(18:43):
as opposed to a chore, because that's the only way
I can continue churning out new material.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, I appreciate you always coming on.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I forgot to mention it when as I was watching
the special, I thought I was going crazy because I'm like,
why do I know these two jokes? And I was like, oh,
because he was at Montreal and so were you, and
that's where you heard them, and that's that's where you
know them.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Troblem.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I was like, oh, okay, again, you're clearing in a
car and you probably said he's running around. It'd be
kind of have to give you a couple of minutes.
So I've taken my couple of minutes. I will let
you go.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I hope we can speak again in the future. But
big fan, thank you
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Absolutely, thanks a lot, man, Have a great day.
Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello again, I'm Johnny Mack. My guest today is John
Marcos s Raisi his new special, Thief of Joy. You'll
find it on YouTube. It is up there for best
special of the year. It's right there with Maren. I
love this special the more I think about it. So
behind the scenes here John Marco was doing me a
favor as he was traveling around. I'm friendly with his
(00:30):
bubble System'm like, he got a couple of minutes, and
he had a couple of minutes, but literally, he's in
a car here, so I didn't use my usual setup,
and this is phone quality.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The reason I'm bothering you with that is because the
poor guy was in the virtual waiting room for five
minutes while I'm bothering his publicist going hey, I don't
like he's there yet, and then she's like, he's in
the waiting room waiting for you to let him in.
So then I let him in, and then I couldn't
hear him, and I finally figured out what was wrong,
and it was me that was wrong. So this guy
who's having a moment is kind enough to talk to me,
(01:00):
I make him wait for five minutes and then I
make him wait for two more minutes as I figure
out the tech. So John Marco, Sirasi, thank you so much,
and I hope you come back again sometimes because I
always liked talking to you. So all that is the
preamble too, that I didn't go along here with him.
I wanted to respect his time. I hit the questions
I wanted to hit. Could I have talked to him
about other things? Of course, of course, but by design
(01:23):
I had five questions written down and we just flew
through him. And here's in a car. John Marco, SIIESI.
So I wanted to ask you on today. The real
question I had you on is a sandbag question. Did
you cancel Disney Plus? Or are you supporting fascisms?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I think I've been using my girlfriend's sister accounts, so
I am morally.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Free of Eddie guilt. I'll tell her she should cancel it,
and I hope she doesn't.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
No, no, we don't hope she doesn't because the parent company, Hulu,
they're going to bring out money for Hulu specials.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So we love.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Disney, Yes, we love him.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
We love him.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's listen to These platforms are so good. It's they're
doing good and bad, so we're kind of stuck. So
I wanted to ask you why you went with YouTube
and not the others. And then an hour before we
were scheduled to talk, I saw the answer on a
V club.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They did a great profile with you. So I know
the answer. But can you just tell everybody why did
you pick YouTube?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I mean, listen, I'm not gonna I'm not going to
pretend like everyone was like knocking down the door for
the special. But the bottom line is like I needed
to release it on my own time. And you know,
a lot of these places they schedule stuff out far
in advance, and I have so much material, I write
(02:42):
so much, I have so much like new stuff that
I wanted to move on to that when I was
ready to pull the trigger, and and when we decided
on the Allegian Theater, I was like, we just got
to do it. We got to do it the next
weekend available, which was February Valentine's Day, as my girlfriend
likes to point out. And then when we were ready
to have it released, you know, I just I just
(03:05):
needed the control I needed to be able to release
it on my own timeline, with my own touring schedule
sooner than later because I had already found Oh, like
I I kind of retired all the material and I
want to report another special next year. So I was like,
I was like, let's have the full control. I don't
I don't want to have to run and buy additional people.
(03:28):
Between my executive producers and me, I felt confident in
the artistic integrity of the writing and the show. And
then the bottom line, as I said in that AV
Club article, is that I think we all know that
traditional media has become shattered and broken and and and
the audiences are everywhere. You know, there's there's audiences out
there who don't know who Sebastin Menascalco is. He is
(03:51):
the number one touring comedian two years ago, one year ago.
And it's like, that's how fractured things are. And my
goal as a business person, because I kind of see
myself also as like the CEO of the company that
is me, is I want my jokes in every corner
(04:13):
of the Internet, in every corner that people get their
entertainment from. And that isn't limited to one network. You know,
some of these networks are surely very far reaching. Others, though,
are not. Others others are cost prohibitive, others don't air
in certain countries, and I want to be able to
take the hour Special, which I want people to watch
(04:34):
in full.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I think I really was.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Determined to make a piece designed to be watched in full. However,
a lot of my joke writing has come at the
time of the Internet, so I do write in a
way in chunks that can become clips, and I want
to be able to take my hour Special and break
it up every which way.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
For every social media.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Platform sex currently exist, that will exist, whether it's vertical, horizontal,
or some new fucked up shape that will need to
be made. Whether someone will make a video player that's
in the shape of a star, I'll be ready to
do it, and I'll do it on my board in
my own rhythm that fits my career. And there may
(05:19):
be there may be future times where I go, oh,
going with a platform is worth it for the validation,
whether it be self validation or public validation. But right now,
my goal is to make my work known to the world,
and I went with the avenue that let me control
(05:42):
the material fully. So so if if if there's some
airline in South Korea that is looking for comedy specials, Boom.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I can. I can give it to them for.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Free if I want to, in the hopes that I'll
tour South Korea someday. If if, if I find out
linked In is a good place to start posting flips, boom,
I'll put it there.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
You know, people go to so many different places.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I'll see something on an injure Imgur, which I've never
visited on my own accord, but you'll see like someone
makes a comic strip out of a joke there and
it has ten million views, and I go, okay, I
want those ten million people that use injure for their
entertainment to know about me, and I hope that the
(06:29):
goal ultimately is to see me live, and that when
I come to your city, you want to pay the
money to leave your house and trust me to entertain
you for an hour or more.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I'm happy here. You're working on another special. As I
watched this thing, there are so many jokes. I'm going
to say jokes per second because I don't want to
get into the Dane Cook laughs per minute metric. But
you literally subscribe to Bobo theory of you know, tell
enough jokes in a minute, and some of them might land.
And I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment because
(06:59):
they land. My friend, like, oh my goodness, the amount
of jokes that are just per minute laughing. I wrote
a note as I was watching, and I'm like, he's
got to have nothing left in the can because he's
used so much material there. So you are prolific.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I mean, you know, some of these jokes, you know
that they've evolved, but some of the some of the
real bangers were cultivated when I was working at really really,
really bad comedy clubs and your your sign just had
to just explode or you would lose the audience. And
(07:39):
in a way, I think there's this kind of dual
there's two sides of it, where there's one version where
you want to evolve out of that horrible comedy club
space so you can share bigger thoughts, you can explore
with more nuanced the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That, like, you know, if you.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Listen to a story from an entertaining friend, you trust
them and you will listen to the whole story, maybe
get some more details.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
At the same time, I do believe in that like
Razor Sharp boom boom boom boom, boom. Have you worked
on it so much that every sentence, if not two
sentences pops. And I really try to I try to
have both. I try to have my cake and eat
it too. And I set bar for myself of like
how funny a joke needs to be to stay in
(08:26):
the act. And that's you know, like that that art
surgery which I close about to spin about my dad's
put up a bypass.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
You know those some of those jokes could be traced
back to.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Year what and they've evolved and I learned how to
stack them and thread them in and incorporate them. But
each one of those jokes, like I could, I could
write a passage about the journey of those jokes. And
and I really try to take both worlds of like
the club comedy every time needs to pop, and the
(09:01):
idea of wanting to weave a narrative and tell his
story and really hold myself to account to combine them
both at all times.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I don't want an answer to this one because I
don't want to ask the magician, you know, how to
just sell the lady in a half. But there's a
moment in the special where I was like, huh is
he play acting. Is this a real moment? I couldn't tell,
don't care, don't want to know, don't tell me. But
as I was watching it too, I started to think
about your physicality, and for maybe like two seconds, I
(09:30):
was like, is this physicality help selling the material? And
I quickly landed on no, you're just a physical performer.
As we're recording this, you're in a car, even just
speaking to some idiot with a podcast, You're very physical
as you speak. Yes, So I don't think at all
that the materials being propped up by the way you
were moving around the stage using the physical space. I
(09:51):
closed my eyes just to test this theory and the material.
This thing is great, this special, and you're seeing the
pressure getting everybody. What are you saying that this is
a great special? So congratulations on this.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Thank you. I feel really I feel really proud of it.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I think I when I was a little kid, I
used to dance in the living room and I this
is how either narcissistic or just entertainery I was. I
told my parents, I was like, we need to get
this living room onto a stage so people can watch
me dance. And in a way, I feel like I've
done that to a degree my physicality. It's really like
(10:29):
how I how I I have trouble dancing at a wedding,
but when everyone's looking at me, I feel like I
come to life. And so I really at a certain
a certain point, I was like, oh, yeah, the way
that I want to move, I'm allowed.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
To do that on a stage.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
In fact, I've picked one of the only professions where
I can just let my body naturally express itself. And
I certainly, like in the last couple of years, have
have challenged myself to like feel free, to to like
have a physical body that naturally just moves along with However,
I want to tell a joke without choreographic.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Jen Marco's a specialist called Thief of Joy. It's on YouTube.
More coming up.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I was joking with your publicist, Now, as great as
your comedic timing, is no one better your marketing timing.
I'm gonna leave something to be questioned. You had that
great Joe Biden chunk that you had to put out
rather quickly because the new cycle changed, and then you
go and your release one of the great specials of
the year. You know, it's between you and Maren. I
(11:33):
think at this point in the race for who we're
going to give the award to, and you just decided
to drop that, And then Jimmy Kimmel might have slightly
stepped on the news cycle.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, listen, it's it's it's really hard. There's you
can't control any of that stuff. The Biden the special
last time that opened with like a big Biden chunk
for those who don't know, it was like we were
going to release it, you know, two months later, and
then Biden had the debate and I saw it and
(12:06):
I was like, I thought he could drop out like now,
like that night. And obviously he delayed it three weeks,
but I was like, it's over, and if he drops,
the beginning of this special feels dated. And by the way,
I will never make that mistake again. I will never
open a special. You know, I assumed. I guess in
(12:29):
my mind that well, certainly whoever's the president will be
the president in a month. Not in today's world, we
cannot be we cannot be so trustworthy of society. So
you know, you drop a special, something else is happening
in the news.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
He can't control it, you know.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
For all I know some people they want to get
away from all the noise and drama of the political
world and lean into escapism. You just this is kind
of my point of like, I go, I want to
control things on my own because because you know, the
same way you could you could drop a special on
(13:08):
HBO and they decided for the same week as The
New White Lotus and it goes viral or some other
movie and you're just not part of the conversation. And
I think I had faith that, you know, if anything,
the thing I was most scared of was Caleb Huron
had a special coming out that same day, and we
have we have a ven diagram.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
This is a much bigger circle.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
But I thought, like, oh, all my fans, they're they're
all my fans are probably Caleb here on fans. They're
gonna watch his special first, and you just go, I
can't control it. I believe the quality of the product,
and I believe it's doing well now. And the thing
with the internet is like it it could do well
next week, it could do a month from now. I
wrote this special to be as evergreen as possible, and I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
You know, I believe it will continue to have a life.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
And I also believe that the American political drama is
probably never going to settle back down to a nice,
peaceful spot.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So you just have to accept that as an entertainer
that you're.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Always going to be competing with something Trump did in
terms of creating a released special, so different than being
in the room.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Are you pulling a closer and moving to the front.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I've seen Bert Krascher and some other comedians talk about
for a Netflix special versus.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I worked with the.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Carolina State for a while and they explained how Carlin
will come out and do rat attat tat jokes, then
the big arc and then let the audience breathe and
go back to rat a tat tat. But Kreischer saying
he's pulling his closer and putting it up front.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
What are you releasing?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
I honestly like I always chomp around with sets as
I start getting closer to like what I'm going to do,
Like most of my headlining sets will usually be between
seventy five to ninety minutes, and I'll jump around, But
I generally I do like an opener that really sets
(14:59):
the stage. And this opener particular, like I was using
this for a while and I just wanted to find
tune it so I would never you know, I could
start with heart surgery, which is how I edited a special,
and really test out like how it works, and I
throw things around. But sometimes when I find an opener
that I love that I think sets the stage, I go,
(15:22):
let me rehearse this into the fucking ground, so I
can articulate the wording and the musicality in multiple circumstances
until it's the best that it can be. So this
opener about my family, I kept it for at least
three months prior to and I do think experimenting can
be good.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Always, always good. But I also think that if you.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Keep the same opener in different environments, whether it be
a club spot, a headlining set, headlining set in the South,
the headlining set overseas, you will learn even more nuance
of that one joke.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Then if you are always moving it around.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
In a week like this, where there's the Kimmel story,
which is really a larger story, do you feel the
need to address that or do you just go sitmash
the miniscalco and say I'm here to tell pasta jokes
like which where do you go?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
If I have good jokes, I will always address it
It just depends if I have time, and I don't
want to be preachy. But like with Kimmel stuff, like
you know, there was some stuff that came to mind.
Twitter is my writing pad, and I had a couple
jokes and I fine tuned it.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It felt so topical.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I released it the next day, and then beyond that,
I said, well, a lot of the fans, if they're
at this next show, they probably saw what I posted,
so I drop it, and you know, it's it's just
kind of luck of the draws.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Then is go see me and I'll be talking about
what's going on.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Sometimes I just put out something because I want to
stay on the edge and.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You're just gonna get a show. But but you know,
I always try to.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
It's just things evolve so quick, and I don't want
to be mediocre in my jokes. I'm either going to
have a really good joke about it or I'm not
going to have a joke at all.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Last time I spoke to you, you busted into a
really good, spontaneous John Mulaney impression, and then I wanted
to share back with you. Somewhere between then and now,
I saw somebody on threads or somewhere say the best
way to get into a poor man's mullaney is to
do Fred Schneider from the B fifty two singing love Shack,
(17:27):
And that has just stuck with me, and I think
this is a really good way to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I've tried to do it. I can't do it. You
probably can.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I'm not asking you to do an impression, but I
just wanted to share that back with you. I so
love shack the like love shack. Yeah, it's a ema,
it's tough. I'm driving a car. It's as big as
a whale. That being like the way into a breeting.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
You said you couldn't do it, You just did it.
That was incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Please get out of here.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Final question, as you're doing press and you're talking to
dumbass podcasters who can't get their technology together, how do
you put up with that crap?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I think it's like just I try to answer questions
freshly each time because the time that I used to
have to sit down and write has gotten more and
more limited, and I have to view, whether it be
podcasts or interviews, as a space to explore my own mind,
(18:22):
and so I try to break away from the rote
answers and just answer something from where I'm at any
given moment, because I'll often find ooh, some idea sprung
into mind, and I have to, especially at moments of
a lot of press, see it as a creative adventure
(18:43):
as opposed to a chore, because that's the only way
I can continue churning out new material.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, I appreciate you always coming on.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I forgot to mention it when as I was watching
the special, I thought I was going crazy because I'm like,
why do I know these two jokes? And I was like, oh,
because he was at Montreal and so were you, and
that's where you heard them, and that's that's where you
know them.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Troblem.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I was like, oh, okay, again, you're clearing in a
car and you probably said he's running around. It'd be
kind of have to give you a couple of minutes.
So I've taken my couple of minutes. I will let
you go.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I hope we can speak again in the future. But
big fan, thank you
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Absolutely, thanks a lot, man, Have a great day.
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