Episode 1462 - Nimesh Patel
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening today?
Marc:Nimesh Patel.
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Marc:I didn't know this guy.
Marc:I'd heard his name, and I'd heard about some controversy he'd gotten into by being sort of pulled off stage, shut down after doing a joke at a college show.
Marc:He was at a college show for a group of, I think...
Marc:Asians in the college.
Marc:He was the guest for having been the first South Asian person to write on SNL.
Marc:And he did a joke at a college event that I believe is a good joke.
Marc:I believe the logic stands.
Marc:I believe its heart was in the right place.
Marc:But it didn't sit well with the organizers.
Marc:They felt that it triggered some people or it offended some people.
Marc:And I think it was...
Marc:a really a misunderstanding of a it was a you know it was a bold joke but he was uh he was shut down from the show and removed from the stage basically so i wanted to talk to him about that but also in in the uh course of getting to know his material i he's a great comic
Marc:Very funny.
Marc:He's got that New York thing.
Marc:He's got, you know, he definitely came up in New York.
Marc:I know what it looks like when somebody comes up in New York.
Marc:I can hear the tone.
Marc:I can hear the inflection.
Marc:I can hear the cadence.
Marc:I generally know if they're younger comics, where all those influences are and who they are, which ones of my peers they are.
Marc:So it was good to talk to him and get to know him.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:That is happening for you people.
Marc:Nimesh Patel soon.
Marc:I'll be doing five shows at Helium in St.
Marc:Louis, September 14th through 16th.
Marc:Then I'll be at the Las Vegas Wise Guys on September 22nd and 23rd for four shows.
Marc:And in October, I'm at Helium in Portland, Oregon on October 20th through 22nd for five shows.
Marc:Those shows...
Marc:are selling out.
Marc:I believe I have a show at Largo.
Marc:I do.
Marc:September 6th.
Marc:I'll try to get that up on the website for you LA people or people traveling to LA.
Marc:September 6th, a solo comedy show as I try to put together the hour or so necessary for touring next spring.
Marc:Is it spring?
Marc:Is January spring?
Marc:I'm going to be doing a
Marc:in the spring and fall because I'm a comedian and I'm still doing a lot of comedy.
Marc:So that's going to happen.
Marc:You know, something is kind of, I don't know if I'm on the wrong side of things.
Marc:I don't look, I don't, I do know that I got worked up in my car.
Marc:Looking at my phone.
Marc:Yeah, for a couple of reasons.
Marc:First of all, there's just this never-ending... Anytime a movie comes out that pushes any buttons whatsoever, usually there's just a tsunami of anonymous no-talents...
Marc:bitter about their lack of cultural agency, who just pile on the courageous work of artists and creative people.
Marc:I mean, that's just the nature of social media and of platforms and of clickbait press.
Marc:And it's just something we've gotten used to.
Marc:But sometimes the effect is detrimental.
Marc:To the sort of rising and celebration of tremendous pieces of work.
Marc:Storytelling, plays, theater, film, comedy, whatever.
Marc:It's just the way it goes now.
Marc:But then when it becomes more specific, I question that as well.
Marc:And like, for instance, I went to see Oppenheimer and I'm a relatively smart guy.
Marc:My I don't believe that my education was that good because I wasn't very interested as a younger person in much of the education I got.
Marc:But watching Oppenheimer, I had no idea that he was a Jew, which is crazy because I tend to know those things.
Marc:And I had no idea that there was a subtext to this story, which was really about Nazi genocide, a reaction to Nazi anti-Semitism and a reaction from a group of Jews who were scientists and physicists and engineers and
Marc:which was part of the incentive to creating a weapon that would stop Hitler.
Marc:Though, after all was said and done, Hitler had been stopped and the project moved on.
Marc:But for all intents and purposes, it was a reaction in many ways to not just anti-Semitism, but to genocide, to attempted genocide.
Marc:But my point is that it is a Jewish story.
Marc:And in watching the movie, I was thrilled to learn that being the, I guess, adult that I am in terms of that particular piece of history.
Marc:But I was excited to see it so well portrayed and well acted and well constructed as a film and as a story.
Marc:And after the fact, I had absolutely no problem with
Marc:that Killian Murphy played Oppenheimer, a Jew, an Irish guy.
Marc:I just, I didn't even really think about it.
Marc:And even now that I'm thinking about it, I have no problem with that.
Marc:Does that make me a bad Jew?
Marc:Am I not on the right side of things in terms of Jewish representation?
Marc:Do I have a deep problem when non-Jews play Jews?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:I know some people have an issue with non-Jews playing Jews in an overly Jewish way, that when you see a non-Jew taking on the tics and habits and stereotypical tics and habits of Jews, the, hey, I don't know, I would have to think about it.
Marc:I guess I could see that.
Marc:as what they call Jew face to a degree.
Marc:If, if it is not coming from a organic place or a studied place, if it is meant as a mockery and sometimes that kind of thing can be a mockery without meaning to be.
Marc:And I, I get that, but there seems to be this pre it's not, it's not even out yet.
Yeah.
Marc:this movie Maestro that Bradley Cooper did about a specific time in the life of the composer Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:Now... Or Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:Did I non-Jewitt?
Marc:Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:Now look...
Marc:I guess there was an issue with the nose.
Marc:I guess that some people, some Jewish groups, before the movie is premiered, had an issue with the nose.
Marc:And Bradley Cooper decided to use a prosthetic nose to look more like Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:And right now, I don't have a problem with it.
Marc:Does that make me a bad Jew?
Marc:Am I on the wrong side of things?
Marc:And of course, that argument probably deepens into like, why couldn't they have got a Jew to play Leonard Bernstein?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I know there's plenty of Jewish actors.
Marc:and actresses.
Marc:I don't know if they necessarily would have been good or bad at playing Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:There's only a few Jewish movie stars.
Marc:There's only ever been a few Jewish movie stars.
Marc:I could probably name them.
Marc:Over time, there were more Jews back in the day doing the big movies than there are now.
Marc:But I mean, you've got your Sandler, you've got your Stiller, you've got your Paul Rudd.
Marc:But ultimately,
Marc:I just, it kind of baffles me that these are the sort of protest points or the crisis points, where the juice is around making a statement about anti-Semitism.
Marc:I mean, the world is dying culturally and literally, and you want to nitpick about the intent of
Marc:of a nose as, as an anti-Semitic statement.
Marc:I mean, come on.
Marc:I mean, it's clear that Bradley Cooper immersed himself in this story.
Marc:He thought it was an amazing story to be told about one of the great composers of the 20th century.
Marc:There's no doubt that this is a tribute and an homage and an interpretation of the genius of a great artist that almost all people believe
Marc:that almost all people of all ages know nothing about.
Marc:Zero.
Marc:An American genius.
Marc:Okay, you know he wrote West Side Story, but this guy was an important composer that changed the popularity and focus on classical music.
Marc:And I don't think that Bradley Cooper going into it
Marc:decided like, you know, I got to Jew this up.
Marc:I got to put on a Jew nose and Jew it up.
Marc:I don't think that was his intent.
Marc:It couldn't have been.
Marc:His intent was not anti-Semitic.
Marc:Why would he do that at the center of that movie?
Marc:And whether or not he could have found or chose to even look for a Jewish actor to play Leonard Bernstein, would it have gotten the same attention of Bradley Cooper doing it, telling this part of this story of this great Jewish composer?
Marc:You know, sure.
Marc:I mean, maybe you could have got a Jewish actor to to do it for National Geographic miniseries.
Marc:But am I being am I not responding to the wave of anti-Semitism that is enveloping the world properly, something I talk about constantly and push back against constantly by not becoming obsessed or focused on.
Marc:Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose for his portrayal of Leonard Bernstein for not focusing on the fact that Bradley Cooper, as far as I know, is not a Jew.
Marc:Am I, am I on the wrong side of things or am I okay to be excited to learn more and see more of the interpretation of this great Jewish composer's work done by an actor and director and writer who obviously is, is,
Marc:obsessed to the point that he thinks it's an important story to be told?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe my heart's in the wrong place, but my innate reaction, same with Oppenheimer.
Marc:It's like, look, I thought Oppenheimer was a great Jewish story.
Marc:And the fact that Killian Murphy wasn't Jewish, even in retrospect, doesn't bother me because now I know that story and that portrayal was real.
Marc:It was an honest portrayal done by a great actor.
Marc:And I'm happy that story was told about a Jew.
Marc:And that it made his Jewishness an important part of the story.
Marc:Even looking at, well, I'm going to get into trouble.
Marc:Even looking at pictures of Oppenheimer, I'm not like, well, there's a Jewish guy.
Marc:And there are certainly plenty of Jewish actors in Oppenheimer.
Marc:But again...
Marc:I'm excited to see Maestro.
Marc:I've been excited about it for the first I heard about it.
Marc:I thought, what a bold, weird story to tell for Bradley Cooper, a guy who can make a movie and can act his fucking guts out.
Marc:I was excited to learn about Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:The fact that Leonard Bernstein's family, his kids, had to step into the fray and defend Bradley Cooper's nose.
Marc:Defend Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose as honoring their father and even speaking for their father and saying he would have been fine with it.
Marc:That that had to happen.
Marc:It's just crazy to me.
Marc:It's crazy without anyone having seen the movie.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I just don't know.
Marc:Maybe I'm wrong about this.
Marc:Maybe I have to do some deeper thinking about it.
Marc:Maybe I'm even pronouncing his name wrong.
Marc:Maybe it's Leonard Bernstein, but I think it's Leonard Bernstein.
Marc:See, am I a bad Jew or just a dumb dumb?
Marc:So listen, Namesh Patel has a comedy special, the one I watched, and he's got a couple out there and some other footage.
Marc:It's called Lucky Lefty.
Marc:I don't want to spoil it for you, but he's talking about the one ball he had left after having one removed...
Marc:because of testicular cancer.
Marc:You can watch that on YouTube.
Marc:His Fast and Loose Comedy Tour is now underway.
Marc:Go to FindingNimesh.com for cities and tickets.
Marc:This is me meeting and talking to Nimesh Patel.
Marc:But yeah, I'm trying to figure out, like, I didn't see you, like, you're, like, I'm now old enough to realize that there's at least two generations after me that I missed entirely.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So, like, I don't, I never saw you in your nascent stage.
Marc:No, I started in 2009, so... Oh, no, like, I'm long gone.
Marc:And that's what...
Marc:But like I watch a special and I watch the other things, some of them.
Guest:But like your Jersey guy?
Guest:Jersey, born and bred, Parsippany, New Jersey.
Guest:Parsippany.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:My producer's wife comes from there.
Guest:Yeah, it's a great town.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Ranked number 13th best place to live in like by the New York Times, like 2010 or something.
Marc:that's a long time ago yes you're like one of those restaurants that never takes the sign out of the window if i if if my restaurant got a michelin back before a michelin yeah how about just an a rating yeah yeah zag it rated right there you go 2010 sure yeah it's been through three owners but you know it's still fucking mean something chef's dead but like yeah obviously but like like what was uh but your your parents didn't weren't born here
Guest:My parents were born and raised in Gujarat, India.
Guest:They came in 79.
Guest:Gujarat?
Guest:Yeah, so it's a western state.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know about India enough.
Marc:And I do this with most people who come from India.
Marc:I'm left to only talk about bread and food.
Marc:I'm happy to talk about that shit, too.
Marc:But is this dosa territory or curry territory?
Guest:It's neither, really.
Guest:It's more like...
Guest:Pure, like a lot of vegetables.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of rice dishes.
Marc:So is it vegetarian?
Guest:Yeah, I mean Gujarat is a dry state.
Guest:It's where the Prime Minister's from.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Guest:It's probably one of the most popular states in India.
Guest:A dry state?
Guest:Yeah, no alcohol.
Guest:You can get it, but it's not legal necessarily.
Marc:And what is the line with vegetarian versus non-vegetarian?
Marc:That's still house to house depending on the religion?
Guest:Yeah, it still has house to house on religion.
Guest:Like I grew up,
Guest:My dad grew up eating chicken, but beef and stuff was never in our house.
Guest:But my mom is the daughter of a Brahmin priest, which is like the highest.
Guest:If we're going to talk about the caste system, it's like the highest caste you could be.
Guest:And so there was never any meat in that house.
Guest:It was all purely vegetarian.
Guest:A Brahmin priest.
Guest:Yeah, which is like the...
Guest:You were like, it's like above like doctor and all that shit.
Guest:You were like the holiest person you could be.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're the community leader in a way.
Guest:And he was, you know, he was, uh, my grandpa was, you know, that guy, my grandpa.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was, uh, he passed away in 2021.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But he was, uh, uh, like the headmaster of his school, teacher of his school, like, and my grandma taught English to like, like to like third graders, fourth graders.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had a huge community around them.
Guest:They were leaders in the community for sure.
Guest:My grandpa was in the government from what I'm told.
Guest:One of my regrets is never fully asking him all about all that stuff in my age when I could remember it.
Guest:But you were born here?
Guest:Yeah, I was born in Jersey.
Guest:They came over in the 70s?
Guest:I think my dad came in 79 and my mom came in 81 or 82.
Marc:What was the reason for that?
Guest:What do you think?
Guest:Opportunity here.
Guest:The opportunities, I guess, there in India for what they were doing were not as abound and wonderful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my grandpa came here first.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:On my mom's side.
Guest:The Brahmin guy, he couldn't leave.
Guest:No, the Brahmin guy came over here first.
Guest:He did?
Guest:He came here...
Guest:I don't even recall the years.
Marc:So how do you, like, are you that high up in the community and that important to a community, and you're just sort of like, I'm done?
Guest:I think it was a function, his brother came.
Guest:And his brother, a bit more educated, got like a very good job.
Guest:in pharmaceuticals.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so he was like, come over here, it's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's like, all right.
Guest:Yeah, and so he's like, all right, the whole family's going.
Guest:And so like piecemeal, my mom's oldest brother went, or my mom's youngest brother went, and then my mom's older sister came.
Guest:And why Parsippany, you think?
Guest:Well, they ended up in Newark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In, I guess, the late 70s, early 80s.
Guest:It was heavy in Newark.
Guest:It was heavy in Newark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the family lore is that one day my grandpa was in the elevator,
Guest:in his apartment complex got punched in the face and robbed.
Guest:And it was like, all right, well, time to leave Newark.
Guest:And then they literally... That's probably a common story.
Guest:It was literally like, what is the widest place we can go?
Guest:And it was...
Guest:Indian flight instead of white flight, but it was like, they were like, okay, where's Parsippany?
Guest:And they were like, okay, Parsippany is like the real estate agent showed them a nice house by the lake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were like, it was within budget.
Guest:The whole family moved.
Guest:They're like, that's it.
Guest:And they still have that house.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there wasn't a big Indian community.
Guest:No, there wasn't.
Guest:I think we might've been some of the first Indians in Parsippany for sure.
Guest:What about now?
Guest:it's it's edison 2.0 if you don't know edison new jersey it's fucking it's all indian yeah it's all indian it's now i mean parsippany is so you guys put the word out i mean that's how that's how indians ended up here in the in the in the world like yeah i'm doing a bit about it now but it's i haven't figured it out yet but you know what's the angle it's like who was the first patel in in the states
Marc:It's like a biblical story?
Guest:Yeah, because, you know, I've read this book called Life Behind the Lobby, which is a book about, you know, how Indian Americans ended up owning like 40% of the hotels and motels in this country.
Marc:Yeah, and also the Dunkin' Donuts.
Guest:Yes, and also the Dunkin' Donuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the story remains the same.
Guest:It's like, okay, it's an easy cash business to understand, and you can call up your family to work and stay at the place you're working at, save a bunch of money, and then venture out on your own.
Guest:And it's literally that story replicated against Dunkin' Donuts, against 7-Elevens, against hotels.
Guest:Is Hudson News Indian?
Guest:I know why you would ask that.
Exactly.
Guest:Because there's like Indian guys everywhere, but I'm not sure what the origin story of that is.
Guest:But I imagine it's one cousin who got a job and was like, yo, it's easy to get a job.
Guest:Like, this is what you got.
Guest:Fill out this paperwork, just put your name, live at my address, and we got a new job for everybody.
Guest:Same with taxis.
Guest:It's the same everywhere.
Guest:Our origin story is very unique and very similar in that it's hard to imagine another group of people contacting their family and causing mass migration, but that's exactly what it is for everyone, I think.
Marc:Well, I mean, voluntarily, I think that there was definitely an influx.
Marc:of certain types of communities.
Marc:And Jews were all sort of like, you know, maybe Europe's not for us.
Marc:Something happened there.
Marc:Once you get out of the camp, you're like, maybe it's time to... Go somewhere where we might be a little less unwanted.
Marc:But it's sort of fascinating, though, that you can track the sort of... the family nature of it.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It's a beautiful thing, but, like, the angle of the joke is, like, the first Patel must have been a liar.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Because it's like...
Guest:Yeah, come to Jacksonville.
Guest:It's awesome.
Guest:We'll get you set up.
Marc:It's going to be fantastic.
Guest:A lonely liar.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:We need a little more representation in Jacksonville.
Marc:Come to fucking Topeka.
Marc:But they did do that.
Marc:They did.
Marc:I learned from a guy that there is an organization with Jews coming over from Europe that literally helped them find homes spread out all over the country.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just so it wouldn't happen again.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:They were like, we got to spread out.
Guest:We got to diversify.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I mean, my favorite story of one of my friends told me is that her dad landed with like $8 in San Francisco, opened up the phone book, and just called the first Patel that he saw.
Guest:I swear to God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And was he a Patel?
Guest:Yeah, he was also a Patel.
Guest:And like that's in the Patel community.
Guest:That story is replicated a billion times.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that kind of bond of because back in the day when you were a Patel, you were coming from a specific part of India.
Guest:And like they always ask you, like, what's your gone, which is what's your village?
Guest:And that.
Guest:That enough was like, we have a shared experience together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We know what it's like.
Guest:We can help each other out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's at least try to make something of ourselves here.
Marc:But a lot of the Patels, obviously, they don't know each other.
Marc:No.
Marc:But what is the history of that name?
Guest:Well, Patel means landowner.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it's kind of like Smith, but it dictated...
Guest:what you had and where you were from.
Marc:Originally.
Guest:Originally.
Marc:So there's no necessarily blood relationship between all the Patels?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Unfortunately, unfortunately not, because then I fucked a lot of cousins.
Guest:But...
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Did you marry a Patel that was already a Patel?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:My wife is from Connecticut.
Guest:She was Jewish.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:How's that going?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:We've been together for 10, married for three now.
Guest:Sometimes I get flack from Indian people.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, just like, oh, fucking sellout Indian guy, married a white lady.
Guest:It's like, well, when I started a comedy,
Guest:There weren't exactly Indian women flocking to comedy clubs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, oh, who's the new hot fucking Indian guy doing check spots?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, you got to open for Russell Peters for that attention.
Guest:Shout out, Russell.
Guest:It was just like dating is such a function of proximity.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And she was a waitress.
Marc:And that was before it was a function of your phone.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So you got in under the wire.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She was a waitress at the cellar?
Guest:No, at a stand-up New York.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, and I just bothered her.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:For a long time.
Marc:That's the comedian tactic.
Guest:It's just like Costanza.
Marc:Yeah, you bother them until they're a little sympathetic and then you start complaining about the world.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And here we are.
Guest:It's basically my day every day.
Guest:Do you have kids?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Working on it.
Guest:We'll see what happens.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:With the one ball?
Guest:With the one ball.
Guest:The strong one.
Guest:You know, the doctor told me after I lost it that you didn't want that ball anyway.
Guest:That ball's juice was no good.
Guest:That was a bad ball?
Marc:Yeah, you'd be walking around with... So the cancer ball was not a juice maker?
Guest:No, I mean, it made juice.
Guest:It was just bad.
Guest:You don't want the... Bad ball juice?
Guest:Yeah, bad ball juice.
Guest:You get a bad ball kid.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:You just... The way the doctor put it is like, your sperm will be passing along...
Guest:DNA that would be more inclined to have cancer.
Guest:Because it would come from a cancerous ball.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Marc:I've known a couple people that had, maybe one specifically, Belzer had a fake ball, Richard Belzer.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm trying to think of other famous one ball people.
Marc:I think Hitler had one ball.
Guest:We got a lot in common, us and that guy.
Marc:But before the ball cancer.
Marc:So you got brothers and sisters in?
Guest:I got a younger sister.
Guest:She's 32, better than me in every single way.
Guest:She's a lawyer.
Guest:And then I got 16 first cousins.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:On what side?
Marc:Both sides?
Guest:I got five.
Guest:I got six on my mom's side and 10 on my dad's side.
Marc:So all their siblings are here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all their kids are here?
Guest:We all grew up within, say for one pair of siblings, all grew up within like
Guest:30 minutes of each other.
Marc:That's good, though.
Guest:It's the greatest way to grow up.
Marc:To have a relationship with your whole family.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, we're all on group chats.
Guest:We're still bothering each other.
Guest:We're still going out.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, you talk about that in the special, which I should say the name of.
Marc:Lucky Lefty or how I lost my right nut and all I got was this stupid special.
Marc:Yes, thank you.
Guest:The whole thing must be said.
Marc:But I mean, but I'm sort of fascinated by it all because I think like a lot of immigrant communities like we're like that because I grew up in New Jersey.
Marc:But my both my parents were from I didn't grow up there, but my parents did.
Marc:Both of my parents from Jersey.
Marc:My dad's from Jersey City.
Marc:My mom's from Pompton Lakes.
Marc:Oh, Pompton Lakes, not too far.
Marc:Yeah, and so their parents were there, and all my aunt and uncle and cousins were all over.
Marc:And when I was a little kid, before my parents ran away to New Mexico or wherever the hell we ended up, you know, first Alaska, you know, everyone was at my grandma's house.
Guest:So it's just the way it was.
Guest:I think I...
Guest:Right now, I look at that as, like, the perfect way to grow up because the way my family's going, it's like, you know, everyone's having kids.
Guest:I'm like, I want to make sure that I have a kid now so that my family, my kid can participate in that large way I grew up.
Guest:But then I also look at, like...
Guest:I need chaos.
Guest:Chaos.
Guest:Yeah, because that's how I grew up in chaos.
Guest:But not toxic chaos.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:But just like... Kids everywhere.
Guest:Kids everywhere.
Guest:Noise.
Guest:People always stimulated.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's a huge problem.
Guest:Not a huge problem, but a problem nonetheless of like... Yeah.
Guest:I...
Guest:do not know how to be bored yeah it's such a problem if i got nothing to do i'm doing a million things exactly and i'm just like why are they why do i feel like this it's because like at any given moment me or three of my cousins were doing some stupid shit like hitting a bee's nest or playing basketball yeah it's all kind of dumb shit well for me like i don't even know like i and it's a weird thing uh about
Marc:about being a comic is that we do, you know, for whatever reason we got into the life, the life is the life.
Marc:And we, you know, we do have a lot of time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like I've been talking about on stage where I'm like, you know, I don't know what makes me happy.
Marc:I don't know what my hobbies are, but I think food shopping might be one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I'll go to three or four supermarkets just because I fucking want to buy shit at different places.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:It's like I can't.
Marc:The point I was trying to make is when you're self-employed,
Marc:No matter what you do, you kind of consider it work.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah, as long as you frame it that way.
Marc:Like, I did something today.
Marc:Well, there's that, but also, like, as long as you got your pen and you're out.
Guest:Am I taking my notes on my Evernote?
Marc:Right.
Guest:I did something.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Do you think like that?
Marc:Do you have that work ethic that you need to have in place in order to justify your life?
Guest:I...
Guest:I've been trying to get better at enjoying my free time and not making it about getting something out of it.
Marc:Yeah, how are you doing with that?
Guest:Bad.
Guest:But then I was talking to a friend of mine, and he reads a lot about productivity and stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:derive value from every single thing that they do yeah so elite yeah like the jordans and the bezos's of the world they they derive what value out of every single thing that what's value mean so like okay today i'm gonna read this book yeah and i'm gonna read the book uh and it's gonna help me it's freeing up my brain to do some writing stuff but also whatever i'm getting from reading the book the book about the patels yes exactly whatever it is
Marc:No, of course.
Marc:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:But like those guys like Bezos, like, you know, whatever the fuck skill set he had in place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you talk about value relationship to that guy, he's thinking about like, oh, if I add this button, you know, I can make another half a billion dollars.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bezos, bad example.
Guest:But like the people who are maybe the unsung heroes of the productivity world, people who are just very good at what they do, they don't feel bad if they're not doing something.
Guest:that is not directly related to the work because they think that the thing that they're doing is, like, helping them some way.
Marc:It's fulfilling something.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But with us, that's, of course, because, like, all we're doing is waiting for something to talk about.
Marc:Yeah, I need something to happen to me at all times.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, like, you don't, but, like, what's your process?
Marc:I mean, I am a talker, so I write on stage.
Marc:Are you, like, an Attell guy or are you a talk guy?
Marc:I'm a both guy.
Guest:More so writing.
Guest:So you write jokes.
Guest:I'll be on my iPad just trying to crack shit out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, oh, okay, this is funny.
Guest:I'll write down premises and ideas.
Guest:I'll write a full joke out.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Because I've always done better doing that way.
Guest:When I do the talking method, like I'll find a tag or I'll find.
Guest:Space it.
Guest:Yeah, but I cannot, if I write it, like I'm better at iterating so many times.
Guest:And that's really the process, right?
Guest:It's just iteration, iteration, iteration.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's repetition, iteration, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I guess like, you know, for me, it's just, it kind of renders itself down eventually.
Marc:Like the stuff that, you know, is, and I'm doing long form shit, you know, and I'm looking for things to come back around and whatnot.
Marc:But ultimately, I got to explore on stage because I don't,
Marc:Like if I have to sit and write a premise and then go like, how am I going to tag this?
Marc:Like, I don't know.
Marc:But if I'm on stage and I bring up the premise, which is funny enough on its own, and I just put myself in the position where I have to be funny, then the tags get delivered magically.
Guest:That's interesting how your brain works like that.
Guest:You got to deliver on this or you're going to feel bad at all.
Guest:I know I'm funny so that thing I'm not afraid and I'll put it out there and a lot of things I'll come up to the end of the funny premise which is kind of funny enough and the tag won't be delivered and I'm just sitting there like a fucking idiot but whatever I have faith it'll come eventually that's like I've operated that way but my process since I shifted it to be like okay let me put it on paper this is the premise or this is the punchline like how can I expand because my my
Guest:The skill I'm trying to work on now is trying to build out slightly longer things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or like just longer jokes.
Marc:We did that with the special.
Marc:I mean, because there is a through line.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you had this through line.
Marc:You had you had testicular cancer.
Marc:So you're like, that's a setup.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The setup of all setups.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So you know eventually you're going to get a new ball.
Marc:And there's, like, you know, it's a deep well.
Marc:You know, anytime you're talking about balls clinically or any other way, you're going to get jokes.
Marc:There's a lot, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but then on the sides of it, you're able to do all the other stuff that you're thinking about and then just sort of return back to the through line.
Guest:This is, I mean, I thought a lot about the special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, not like afterwards, but like while it was being crafted, there was a lot of... Right.
Guest:like, how the fuck do I want to present this in a way that... That isn't a one-person show.
Guest:That isn't a one-man show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That isn't just me doing dick and ball jokes for 45 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also trying to turn on its head the idea that I've learned anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because... From the experience of cancer.
Guest:From the experience.
Guest:And, like, to me, that was the biggest joke.
Guest:Was that like, you know, how did it change my life?
Marc:It did not.
Marc:Zero change.
Yeah.
Marc:So you wanted to have a narrative arc where the main character doesn't change at all.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But the worst possible thing that could happen happened.
Marc:Yet you caught in it in enough time to where you were able to sort of like just get through it without changing.
Marc:Cancer.
Guest:Give me something easy.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so like that took so long for me to get to as a punchline.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, because you had the stuff evolving, you had the jokes, but you didn't... There's a balance because you knew that... I wish you could see what you're doing with your hands.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm holding balls.
Marc:But there's a balance, but you knew the ball stuff was going to... Whether it was dick and ball jokes or not, they were elevated by the fact that they were cancer balls.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:So it's not as crass as it could be.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you wanted to have this...
Marc:core sense of, like, you know, the funniest part of this is, like, I'm the same guy and I'm not even effective.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You know, like, maybe I changed a little in that it reinforced my confidence.
Guest:Like, yeah, I can fucking do anything.
Guest:Watch me do 45 minutes on my balls.
Guest:No problem.
Guest:Next comedic challenge, please.
Guest:And that was really, that really kind of,
Guest:uh asked a lot of my process yeah because the first special thank you china it was like the i was cobbling it together as i was on the road and it was observational it was observational some personal political yeah some political and that was just the function of the fact that i was thrown into the fire that is having club dates on my calendar uh without having done uh
Guest:an hour for more than like 12 times.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Oh, so that, okay.
Marc:So I was like the baptism through fire.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But luckily I knew how to structure a set and I had enough material where I could structure a set and that like helped me be like, okay, this is a long form thing.
Guest:I mean, a long set.
Guest:Here are the jokes I want to do.
Guest:How do I tie them together?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:A little easier.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when I came off the road in January of 2022, I had nothing, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, okay, I got... You mean after you did the first special?
Guest:After I did the first special, I had nothing.
Marc:Yeah, that's where I'm at, yeah.
Guest:I had nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And... Thank God you got cancer.
Yeah.
Guest:That's really it, man.
Guest:That's really the truth.
Guest:It's like, thank God I had cancer.
Guest:You're reading books.
Guest:You're listening to your friend talking about productive people.
Guest:And you're like, fuck, what am I going to do?
Guest:I got no bits.
Guest:My agents got me on the road for another fucking six months to a year.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And the cardinal sin is not to repeat.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:To the audiences that already saw it.
Guest:I'm going back to a lot of same places.
Guest:Columbus is going to remember what I talked about.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And at this point, though, do you have...
Marc:Are you pulling the Indian communities everywhere you go?
Guest:No, that's the thing.
Guest:It's very interesting.
Guest:For better or for worse, Indian people are usually late to comedy.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Usually it's such a community bonding event when they know one of their own is doing something.
Guest:I've offended a lot of Indian people for sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:How so?
Guest:Well, there was a religious group that I shat on.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:BAPS.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:It's a Hindu sect that I made fun of for some shit I read in the news.
Guest:And that spread like that.
Marc:In India?
Marc:No, in the States.
Marc:Because who's that guy I just talked to that got in big trouble?
Marc:Deirdas?
Marc:Yeah, Deirdas I talked to.
Marc:But he's an interesting guy because he was like this movie star.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, he's crazy.
Guest:That guy's nuts.
Guest:His career is fucking bananas.
Guest:But for me, like, but also not just that.
Guest:Like, I don't want to say I was canceled by proxy by the Babs community or anything like that.
Guest:It's more just...
Guest:My distribution method of TikTok and Instagram and all that, it just hits people.
Guest:I don't know the algorithm.
Guest:It just hits people, and some of them don't happen.
Guest:A lot of them aren't Indian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of it's also a function of the fact that a lot of my material isn't focused on how I grew up or specific Indian stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's coming, though.
Guest:It's coming for sure.
Guest:I got nothing else to talk about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I can feel it, man.
Guest:The Patel book.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's by design.
Guest:Here comes the big Indian show.
Guest:But it's also like I don't mind the slow burn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, of like, let me demonstrate to myself, to the comedy fans, and to the comedy buyers that this isn't just a...
Guest:No, no novelty actor.
Guest:He's not just talking to his own people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I feel like my comedy can relate to everybody.
Marc:No, I feel like, yeah, you've got that.
Marc:You know, you've got the chops of a guy that came up in New York, you know, in this hour specifically, because, you know, you're surrounded by, you know, these guys, these old timers from my generation.
Marc:I mean, you can't avoid the impact of a tell.
Marc:No.
Marc:In New York.
Marc:No.
Marc:Like, you know, there's... I think back in the day, there were dudes that would just outright do them, basically.
Marc:But I think there's a whole generation of you guys, and maybe the guys a little older than you, that sort of integrated his discipline.
Marc:But, you know, like Norman and Morrell, and guys who clearly are influenced by the Attell craft.
Marc:But I think more than anybody else, you know, his...
Marc:his style and his disposition, it's a constant when you're coming up there.
Guest:It's like you kind of love, you look forward to when Dave is right after you because you know he's lurking, smoking a cigarette, talking shit about something in the hallway.
Marc:And he's always going to want to win.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So it's just like every day he's churning out these new jokes.
Marc:You can't stop watching the guy.
Marc:No.
Marc:Especially when he's competitive.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Like if he's wasting time, it's funny, but like if he feels like he's got to fucking do it, you're like, oh my God.
Guest:You're fucked.
Guest:It's such a sight to see.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I think there was a phase, I don't want to say a phase, but there were a few times I saw him with like a...
Guest:a flutophone on stage.
Guest:He was doing this whole flutophone thing, and I was just like, wait, he must be bored.
Guest:He must be like, man, I'm too good at this fucking shit.
Marc:Well, you do get that feeling because he's such an amazing joke craftsman that sometimes he has to distract himself.
Marc:I remember years ago, there was this... That's what it is.
Marc:Yeah, because you know he can do it with his back turned if he wanted to.
Marc:And he has.
Marc:I remember there's a period there where he thought he needed to do a character, so he was doing some kind of gym instructor.
Marc:I don't remember what the fuck it was, but it was just a tell with this conceit that didn't really stick.
Guest:I mean, it's so fun to watch him.
Guest:But yeah, like that—
Guest:Having him watch... Yeah, I hated it.
Guest:I hate it, but I also feel like, okay, if Dave tells me I'm a funny joke writer, then I'm fucking made.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Yes, he's a very good joke.
Guest:I'm like, thank you, Dave.
Marc:When I was starting out there, I used to make him leave the room.
Marc:I'm like, look, I have to figure out how to talk to regular people.
Marc:I can't worry about you sitting there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Good one, Mark.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I love Dave.
Guest:But yeah, like that...
Guest:So with the special and with the process of it all, I'm very conscious of who I'm talking to.
Guest:And I'm very encouraged by the fact now more Indian people are coming out.
Guest:But that first run, that 2021-2022 run, and even the 2022-2023 run, this run, still not overwhelmingly Indian.
Guest:Which is great, because that means, for me, there's a huge untapped market of people that will be able to play to my show.
Marc:But it seemed on this new one, the Lucky Lefty, there were a good—must have been about a third of the room, right?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
Guest:It's like in the bigger cities where it is a large Indian population—
Guest:But just by function of the fact there's more Indians in the town, there will be a lot of Indian people.
Marc:But it gives you an opportunity to find, like, I really appreciate that, this sort of, like, I wouldn't say it's pandering, but community identification.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Because, I mean, that was part of early comedy.
Marc:I mean, the Jews, you know, they've got to figure it out, how to, you know, be accepted as normal people.
Marc:And even the Italians, I mean, you listen to...
Marc:Pat Cooper, like these early records where he's like literally getting on stage just like, who's doing the Sunday sauce?
Marc:And you're like, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:But it was a way of defining the community within America.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:And it still happens.
Guest:It is important.
Guest:And it's to me, like growing up in Parsippany.
Yeah.
Guest:when i was of age when i was a teenager being indian was not abnormal right so it was never in my head to be like let me talk about indian stuff because it never felt other really you never felt other no i mean i felt other in the sense i didn't feel like these indian kids because uh you know my parents my biological parents divorced so that was like another thing oh really yeah my how old were you i was two
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know the guy.
Guest:Your dad?
Guest:My biological father, yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, never met him.
Guest:So who'd you grow up with as a dad?
Guest:My dad.
Guest:My mom remarried when I was four, I guess.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And I just found out, like, why they got divorced.
Guest:Was he a Patel, too?
Guest:No, he was not a Patel.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my dad is a Patel.
Guest:My father was not a Patel.
Guest:He was a Brahmin guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So my mom married, like, outside of her caste, quote-unquote.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, like, had its own set of... I thought her dad was Brahmin, no?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, her dad was Brahmin, but my dad is not.
Guest:My biological father is, but my dad is not.
Guest:So my biological parents were arranged.
Marc:So she was divorced and, oh, it was arranged in India?
Guest:Yeah, it was arranged.
Guest:It's a crazy story.
Guest:She was dating the man that she's married to now, my dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she had to go to India for her sister's wedding.
Marc:Okay, so they're already in the States.
Guest:Yeah, her older sister's wedding.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:Uh, she gets there and unbeknownst to her, my grandpa has arranged for her to meet and marry this other guy.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:My father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Biological father.
Guest:Biological father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they get, she's like, oh, okay.
Guest:Like you don't, you can't be like, no, you can't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was just not one of those.
Guest:So she married him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when she came back to the States, it was like, sorry, Sanjay.
Guest:Like I gotta, I gotta see this thing out.
Guest:And it didn't pan out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So did that guy come to the States?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Came to the States.
Guest:They moved to, I forget which town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They moved to the States.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tried to make it work.
Guest:Had me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was not working out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Divorced.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my mom started seeing my, Sanjay again, my dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he hung out.
Guest:He hung out.
Guest:You'll be back.
Yeah.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:And so like that was how I felt other.
Guest:And my dad had a liquor store, you know, like and that was never.
Guest:Patel did.
Guest:Yeah, Patel did.
Guest:You don't know the other guy.
Guest:I don't know the other guy.
Guest:And he's still in the States.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Wild story.
Guest:Why don't you know the guy?
Guest:Never reached out.
Guest:And I never reached out.
Guest:And I think like.
Guest:Dude, this is the show.
Guest:The longest.
Guest:This is the show.
Guest:You got to reach out.
Guest:No, I can't.
Guest:I refuse.
Guest:I don't think I have it in me to be like.
Guest:Because I think about a lot like if and when I become a dad.
Guest:Okay.
Okay.
Guest:I cannot fathom a scenario where I'm not around.
Guest:Regardless of what happens with me and my wife.
Guest:And it scares me.
Guest:this is the first time I've articulated it, that, like, what if... One of the things that I have a fear about having kids is, like, what if I am the same and I don't have that capacity for love?
Guest:Like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Like your biological dad.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Which is crazy to me to think about.
Guest:But, like, that is fucking...
Guest:So that's what is part of what keeps me from being like, no, fuck that.
Guest:I'm not going to reach out.
Guest:That's crazy.
Marc:But your self-awareness around it implies that that's not the case, number one.
Marc:And number two, I don't know that you need to frame that as genetic.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:yeah i don't know it's probably not but it's uh i mean i think it's certainly not but yeah because you were young enough and and clearly the patel dad gave you the love right yes yes yes that's but that's also like a lot of it is when i was younger and by the younger i mean like 10 years ago um
Guest:when I first had a conversation with my friend, a friend of mine about this, it was just like, I, part of me is fearful that if I reach out to father, that it implies that I'm not happy with how I was brought up.
Guest:And I never want that to be the case either.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I thought you were going to say that it would somehow infect me.
Guest:There we go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As soon as you shake his hand, you're like, Oh no, it's in me.
Guest:Fuck it.
Yeah.
Guest:Fuck my wife.
Guest:I'm living in an apartment by myself.
Guest:No, it's just that.
Marc:But you don't know nothing about the guy.
Guest:No, I mean, I know he was an engineer, and I know some other stuff.
Guest:It's probably some religious shit.
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think it's more than I want to get into now.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But all that to say, like, I always felt other in that sense.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I never felt other in the sense like, oh, there's fucking 30 of us, 40 of us in my high school class, you know?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, but...
Marc:So you were a community and you'd never felt like some weird tension, like you were intruders or... Exactly.
Marc:Or like, you know, what are they doing here?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it was just like... Me, I'm sure we got made... Some of us got made fun of and some of us experienced like, you know, the hacky kind of racism that you experience when you're a teenager, but...
Guest:Low key Jersey racism.
Guest:Low key.
Guest:Like I remember when nine 11 happened, nine 11 happened.
Guest:I remember it distinctly.
Guest:The, the, the high school, my high school bully at the time, uh, just like push me.
Guest:It was like, you're fucking people, man.
Guest:I was like,
Guest:what are you talking about my people we're all here you know it was just like that kind of bullshit happened but i never we never felt other otherwise because it was like i said 40 in my high school class like yeah yeah it's hard to be like oh yeah it's so difficult struggle yeah yeah yeah sure we had some idiosyncrasies like our food was different yeah and uh on saturdays and sundays we would
Guest:go party with only other Indian people and we would have like religious events but I'm sure the Irish and the Jews had their own shit popping off too we just didn't know about it yeah yeah what religion Hinduism yeah yeah but ultimately your parents were supportive all the way through comedy wise yeah
Guest:Well, I went to NYU.
Guest:I wanted to be a doctor probably until my sophomore year of college.
Guest:They wanted me to be a doctor.
Guest:So you're doing pre-med, biology classes?
Guest:Pre-med, finance, chemistry, biology, all that bullshit.
Guest:You're doing well?
Guest:My freshman year, I had a 4.0.
Guest:Sophomore year, I think probably like a 3.8, 3.7.
Guest:But junior year, I got a C-plus in organic chemistry, and I was also going through my relationship.
Guest:The girl I was with at the time had a lot of impact on my psyche.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Like, what do you mean?
Guest:Like, we were always on and off.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it always fucking bothered me.
Guest:So there's the chaos.
Guest:Yeah, there's chaos with that.
Guest:And so, like, I wasn't the best student at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I got, like, a C or C-plus in organic chemistry.
Guest:And I realized, like, it might have been just the malaise of...
Guest:Like, all of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, man, fuck this pre-med shit.
Guest:And, uh, I dropped it then.
Guest:And... Stayed in school, though.
Guest:Yeah, stayed in school.
Guest:I still had a finance major to get.
Guest:Um...
Guest:But that dropping that pre-med, when I told my mom, you would have thought I died.
Guest:Like, it was when I called her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like fucking, what the, like a scream.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Mind you, I'm in the apartment that they're paying for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On the cell phone, the plan that they paid for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm telling them that all the money they just spent for me to go to this fucking school is for nothing, effectively.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, that dream is dead for my mom of calling her son a doctor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh...
Guest:But in the special, you make it pretty clear that there's plenty of Dr. Patels.
Guest:Yes, there's plenty of us.
Guest:I got plenty of cousins I could call right now.
Guest:And it's about time we branch out into the arts.
Guest:So I graduated in 08 with a finance degree, which was the funniest thing you could do at the time.
Guest:I had this huge ego shock, right?
Guest:Because when I went to NYU, I graduated...
Guest:near the top of my class in high school.
Guest:And I went to NYU thinking I'm hot shit.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm getting good grades.
Guest:I got a hot ass girl.
Guest:I'm cool as fuck.
Guest:I can drink.
Guest:Fast forward four years later, all my peers are
Guest:going to med school or are finance guys and finance jobs and I'm doing neither of those things.
Guest:Now I got this huge shock to my ego.
Guest:Like I thought I was a shit and I'm nothing.
Guest:And you're, you're mostly responsible for it.
Guest:And I'm, it's all my fault.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I dropped pre-med.
Guest:I was dumb.
Guest:I was chasing pussy and that didn't pan out either.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And,
Guest:For, like, a year, I was, I don't want to say depressed in hindsight, but, like, I was just really, and I never articulated it to myself at the time, but just, like, mad at myself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And disappointed in myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I had accomplished nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my...
Guest:friends like my older friends my cousin's older friends would call me the future like oh you're the future man like yeah you're like it's not good it's not good man I need an internship or something can I get a $10 an hour job something please yeah and so for like a year I was unemployed and underemployed and uh I thought you know for a while I had some moments of clarity was like what do I like doing I like writing
Guest:And I never had stage fright.
Guest:So I took the shitty writing class at NYU was sappy talking about, you know, my dad coming home drinking that kind of shit from his liquor store and how that impacted me.
Guest:And I was like, none of this shit is funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's getting high on his own supply.
Guest:A hundred percent.
Guest:You know, like, but that's the thing.
Guest:I never knew about the trauma he was going through.
Guest:What was he going through?
Guest:I mean, he's been shot at and like that will have a huge impact on your psyche.
Guest:Even if you deny that it does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, at the liquor store, at the liquor store, you know, like it was in Irvington, New Jersey at the time, which is like a terrible fucking neighborhood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You talk about that a bit on the special.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Did, were you at the store a lot?
Guest:No, no, we were, I was not allowed to go there.
Marc:So, but was that, how did he end up in that business?
Guest:Well, when he was 17, when he came over, his older brother had a store or was working at a store and said, hey, why don't you come work at the store with me?
Guest:A liquor store.
Guest:Yeah, a liquor store.
Guest:And the model is just work there, live in a tiny apartment with your entire family, save up enough money to then eventually maybe you and your brother and someone else can go in on a store together.
Guest:And then you build enough equity to get your own store and hope that pans out you become a trillionaire.
Guest:He didn't.
Guest:It was just like a one-store guy, which is a good middle-class income.
Guest:Still got it?
Guest:The Irvington one is gone.
Guest:That was, I think, after a man came in and put a gun to his head for $400.
Guest:He was like, okay, that's enough.
Guest:I cannot do this.
Guest:But that was, if I correlate it like...
Guest:the decline in the business and that traumatic experience is directly related to his drinking and his self-medicating for dealing with that kind of shit.
Guest:Is he sober now?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, he's not an alcoholic, but he was definitely drinking more than he should.
Guest:Traumatized.
Guest:Yeah, traumatized.
Guest:And yeah, he's definitely cut out alcohol or cut down definitely for health reasons.
Guest:Yeah, wow.
Guest:But at the time when that was going on, I was so...
Guest:Also going through my own trauma of like, obviously not being shot at, but like having this ego get destroyed.
Guest:And now I'm like, oh, what the fuck am I going to do?
Guest:This writing shit is corny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like laughing, and I'm good at talking in front of people.
Guest:I used to be the roast master at our lunch table, just shitting on fucking seniors when I was a freshman.
Guest:So I was like, I could probably do this.
Guest:Stand-up.
Guest:Stand-up.
Guest:But you weren't going to stand-up shows or anything?
Guest:No, I never.
Guest:The only live comedy I'd seen at that point
Guest:The first special I ever saw was probably like the Dana Carvey Chopping Broccoli, that one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was just on Comedy Central forever ago.
Guest:I remember watching Chris Rocksberger and Blacker and quoting it in high school.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then 2004, Russell Peters' YouTube special leaked.
Guest:And my only other Indian kid on my floor at NYU brought me into his dorm room.
Guest:He was like, yo, we got to watch this.
Guest:And that was the first subconscious planting of Indian people can do stand-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first live stand-up I ever saw was at The Cellar, 2004.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is before The Cellar is what it is today in terms of always sold out.
Marc:Yeah, it's back when I was around.
Guest:It was 2004.
Guest:I was definitely around, yeah.
Guest:Winter 2004.
Guest:I get barked in.
Guest:And this is right when Chappelle's show was either off the air or Chappelle was just having his enigma moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like Dave Chappelle's on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dave Chappelle's not on fucking stage right now.
Guest:Get out of here.
Guest:Why would he be here?
Guest:Not only is he on stage, but he's on for two hours.
Guest:And it's 20 bucks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can go watch it right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's 12 people in the room.
Guest:Go in.
Guest:Got my backpack.
Guest:Got this beard.
Guest:And Dave's like, sir, we're going to have to check your bag.
Guest:Your skin's a little too olive.
Guest:I'm like, what?
Guest:Dude, that's crazy.
Guest:Sat down for like 20 minutes.
Guest:Like, I got to go study.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was my first live experience ever.
Guest:And then 2009.
Guest:And like comedy was never a thing that I was like looking at or watching or anything like that.
Guest:I'd seen Human Giant, Aziz's show.
Guest:I was like, oh, that's cool.
Guest:The Indian guy's doing some shit.
Guest:Over at UCB?
Guest:No, I'd seen the sketch show he did on TV.
Guest:Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I didn't, like, stand-up comedy in 2008 or 2009 in my world was not...
Guest:the rockstar shit it is today sure it was just a like a still off the beaten path arts thing yeah and so in 2009 i was like okay well where can i go do stand-up and i just googled it or whatever yahoo searched it and uh
Guest:Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Guest:Vinny.
Guest:Vinny Brand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had that bringer mic on Wednesdays, August 19th, 2009.
Guest:Brought myself and a bunch of Patels.
Guest:A bunch of Patels, my 16 first cousins and their friends.
Guest:And just went up and did three terrible minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought it was five.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:did well it's terrible in the sense of what was written and all that bullshit like my performance was awful all that but like it worked yeah and I was like got laughs yes yeah and I was like how hard could this be and uh so now that was that was the bug so to speak and uh did you go back and do Bran's room a lot or no I mean I did Vinny's room quite often because I didn't get a job in New Jersey in New York until
Guest:probably mid-2010.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I discovered, you know, badslava.com, which has the list of all the open mics.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, like, that was a key resource.
Guest:And I was like, oh, there's so many in New York City.
Guest:I'll just take the bus to New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just did that.
Guest:for like almost every day for a year and a half open mics open mics just wherever wherever anywhere that would have me poetry open mics yeah I think at one point I was like let me see how many I can do in a day recorded that yeah Tuesday I think I did 11 you could really yeah I mean I asked all the spots of can I I'm doing this thing can I try to do 11 and
Marc:And some of them were like at 5 in the afternoon, right?
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:So that's how you could get them in.
Guest:You could do the 5 o'clock, you could do the 5.30, do the 6 o'clock, put your name down to everyone.
Guest:The hosts would be accommodating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't like I was brand new.
Guest:I was probably like a year in at that point when I tried that shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was just, that's how I built these chops up.
Guest:Yeah, before you got the big opportunity to work a real club.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think the first club was Stand Up New York.
Guest:I got check spots there thanks to my friend Jared Freed, who, shout out Jared, but yeah.
Marc:So how long before you decided to audition at The Cellar?
Guest:The Seller audition came about because I got the Chris Rock writing job.
Guest:It was, you know, when- What did you write for?
Guest:The Oscars, the 2016 Oscars when he hosted.
Guest:You know, it was- So you were around and you were a known guy.
Guest:It was, I don't think I was known.
Guest:It was just, I ran this show.
Guest:Maybe I was known in like the comedy community, but like not in this world.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:Enough for him to know you were a writer.
Guest:No, it was just... I used to run a show with Che, Michael Che, and our friend Mike Denny.
Guest:So Che's of your generation.
Guest:Che is my closest friend in comedy, and we started probably like two or three months out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He started like three months after me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:We ran a show together with our friend Mike Denny.
Guest:And in 2015, Chris ended up at that show.
Guest:And I did well enough that he was like, you're really funny.
Guest:I was like, you're fucking Chris Rock.
Guest:And like three months later, he got the Oscars gig.
Guest:So I was like, you want to write?
Guest:I was like, yeah.
Guest:I was like, sure.
Guest:And then so that was my first writing job.
Guest:And I think like.
Guest:people knew that i got that job yeah and then one day i was on walking down the street and i saw a female comic friend of ours um and she was like hey you want to audition at the cell i was like who was i know that yeah send me a tape i was like sure and i sent her a tape got the audition in uh june of 2016 and then that was it and that was passed at the cellar sd pasty sd pasty she's like very funny i was like yeah
Guest:Now, can I sit at the table?
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:No, next week you send your avails.
Guest:Then you can come sit at the table.
Guest:I was like, oh, I remember that.
Marc:Okay, I'll just go sit at one of these other tables.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:I'll just wait my time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Go back.
Guest:How do I send avails again?
Guest:So that's not even that long ago.
Guest:No, I'm fucking, it feels like yesterday, but then I go to the cellar now, I'm just like...
Guest:Who the fuck are these people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like an old guy, but it's like.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Already?
Guest:I mean, like, because the staff is so new, like, you know, the staff turnovers, like, pandemic hit and, like, a lot of staff, like, bounced a bunch of places.
Marc:That's weird.
Marc:When I was going there, the staff was, there was always a couple of stalwarts that were always there.
Guest:Yeah, no, I mean, I'm not sure if you know Val or Alicia, some of the managers still there, Jose, but a lot of people have changed and left since I was there, since I started there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How's Esty doing?
Guest:Great.
Guest:I haven't spoken to her or seen her in a few months, actually.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because road stuff I haven't been.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, if I'm off the road in New York, like, I don't even, comedy's just out of my brain.
Guest:Where do you work here?
Guest:You work in the store?
Guest:No, I can work the store.
Guest:I've done the improv.
Guest:I love the store.
Guest:It's the best.
Guest:The OR is great.
Guest:It's so much fun.
Marc:It's like that's my home club.
Marc:It's the only place I'll work, and I'll just go there because I can get the time in.
Marc:It's like a gym.
Marc:I'll work out, do new shit, and then I'll go to Dynasty and do a residency for a month.
Marc:I just did it last night and just work out the hour.
Marc:I did like an hour and a half last night.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:About an hour of it was salvageable.
Marc:A half hour of it was just uncomfortable for everybody.
Guest:What's your process in terms of I'm going to put the new right here and I'm going to do the... Well, I mean, like you, I mean, I had that special drop a few months ago from Bleak.
Marc:You shot it at Town Hall.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And, you know, so now, like, it's just the way my brain works.
Marc:Now that material is, like, dead to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I did have...
Marc:The way I do it, like two weeks before I shoot a special, I'm usually doing like an hour and a half.
Marc:So I got to drop a half.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And in retrospect, I realize, well, that's the best way to do it because then I find the through lines.
Marc:I get out the redundancy.
Marc:And, you know, I do that within the week before I have to tape.
Marc:So that sort of makes everything fresh again.
Marc:Yeah, it's interesting.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Because you're pulling shit out and you're moving shit around and it kind of gets your brain into that present trip.
Marc:Not unlike you, it seems.
Marc:I leave room for improvising.
Marc:I don't mind that.
Marc:I'm not afraid of it.
Guest:I know how to do crowd work.
Guest:I've been struggling, at least with the first Thank You China special and the Lucky Lefty special.
Guest:What I don't like about special crafting is kind of the tightness of it.
Marc:Well, yeah, well, that's a way around it.
Marc:You know, that's the way I do it.
Marc:You know, it's like because I know I got to get it down to 65 minutes because it was HBO.
Marc:I'm not, you know, I don't have the confidence with my following to do just dump a YouTube special.
Marc:So I like being, you know, sponsored.
Marc:And it was a real honor for me, the HBO thing.
Marc:But I know...
Marc:you're going to have to get it down.
Marc:But the last three specials, that's just the way I did it.
Marc:And then things happen that are new.
Marc:I guess I've been doing this most of my life.
Marc:Isn't that crazy?
Marc:It is crazy.
Marc:So I can do the thing where I like to have callbacks.
Marc:I like to have a through line.
Marc:And in the middle of that special, I was talking about heavy shit.
Marc:And I had that, not unlike with the cancer, is that you know that you're
Marc:You've got a sad thing there, but you lived through it.
Marc:So you've got to balance.
Marc:Like, the sadness is... Or the tragedy of it, or the heaviness of it, that's a given.
Marc:So then you've got to find this weird balance, right?
Marc:You know?
Marc:But I find that the reason I do that is I'm addicted to not knowing.
Marc:And I'm addicted to writing on stage.
Marc:An adrenaline junkie.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Not really, because I don't... Like, the laughs, it's not...
Marc:I like getting laughs, but I like discovery more.
Marc:If they can come together where I'm surprised and they're surprised, that's the best for me.
Marc:You give yourself a little pat on the back.
Marc:Yeah, you're just sort of like, wow, make note.
Marc:That's just the way I've grown to do it.
Marc:Right now, the risk of it is...
Marc:As opposed to being out on the road and just sticking shit in the middle.
Marc:I'm working a small room.
Marc:My fans know what I'm doing.
Marc:There's only 150 people there.
Marc:And they're willing to go along with it.
Marc:So I just risk failing.
Marc:And I'm not afraid to fail.
Marc:It's not going to take the wind out of my sails.
Marc:But there's going to be awkward moments.
Marc:And that's all right.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:That's just the way I process it.
Guest:I...
Guest:Envy that fear.
Guest:I don't really have a fear of failing.
Guest:I think it's more just like a lot of times it's a fan that's come to the show.
Guest:All right.
Marc:You can disappoint people.
Guest:And then it's like they brought someone who was like, you've got to see this guy.
Guest:And I'm like, well, I got notes, and you didn't pay enough for me to be flawless.
Marc:Yeah, but if they're real fans, they should enjoy the process.
Guest:Yeah, but that's the thing.
Guest:It's like for...
Guest:at least my generation of comic, it feels like we're introducing a lot of people to comedy for the first time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They don't, like, TikTok is how I made this stand-up career happen for myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, or at least accelerated the rate at which I'm doing shows and stuff.
Yeah.
Guest:It's a lot of first people's ever experience.
Guest:And do you post most, are you a crowd work clip guy?
Guest:Yeah, it's like, I mean, I've posted both.
Guest:I've chopped up the specials and put them out, and I've also, the way I was able to hit the road was putting out, I think a lot of people have come to know that I've done a lot of crowd work stuff on TikTok and stuff, but before I had crowd work, I had
Guest:three four years of seller material yeah because a seller was ahead of its time is ahead of its time in the sense of like having a camera hd camera ready to go yeah and filming sets and like oh i want that set and then when pandemic happened i put my first hour out jokes for quarantine which is something i'd shopped hbo in 2019 and said no yeah it's like well i i did all this let me just put it out there pandemic happened that shit took off i was like oh shit i should probably feed this machine some more yeah and i had a bunch of material
Guest:So I started feeding the algorithm.
Guest:My wife was like, you should get on TikTok.
Guest:She worked in social media at the time, and I didn't listen.
Guest:And then three months later, one of my friends who had some success on TikTok was like, you should get on TikTok.
Guest:And I was like, okay, sure.
Guest:That's usually how it is with wives and listening.
Guest:And once I did that, I started seeing a lot of traction on just my material.
Guest:Once the material ran out, I was like, okay, well, I got all this crowd work shit, too.
Guest:So I'm putting that out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't recall which clip it was exactly or what exactly did it.
Guest:But at some point, it became very apparent that TikTok was getting me the most views I'd ever had on anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:the stuff that did the best was the crowd stuff yeah because it was so novel to a lot of people it's for whatever reason it and also and also it's in the moment you know like my like i know how to do crowd work and i can improvise but i don't i don't lean on it because like from my school of thought you gotta be careful with crowd work because you're gonna have to follow it eventually with your own shit yes and that's that's but like i come from the
Guest:The crowd work school of Patrice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where it's make them think you're talking to them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you're really just doing material that you think is going to work.
Guest:And I think what's cemented in my brain, I saw Kumail at comics in New York.
Guest:I'm not sure if you remember comics.
Marc:Yeah, they paid you way too much money.
Marc:It was too high scale and no one went.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Great facility.
Guest:Yeah, 14th and 9th.
Guest:So you saw Nanjiani when he was doing it.
Guest:I saw Kumail there, and I remember he said something about, someone like interrupted him, and he said, sorry if you think any of this is spontaneous.
Guest:And that like really stuck with me, because it was kind of pulling the, what's it called, the curtain away from the magic, revealing the magic trick.
Guest:And so like when I put stuff out that seems like crowd work, it's usually just me getting into a bit.
Guest:And that just yields something fucking ridiculous because again, people, it's their first time experiencing comedy.
Guest:And so getting back to the fear of failing things, I have a fear of like,
Guest:okay, like this is someone's first comedy show.
Guest:I can't let them think it's only crowd work.
Guest:I can't let them think it's only me bombing with some stuff I'd never done before.
Marc:But you can bounce back from that with crowd work.
Marc:As soon as the thing shits the bed, there's your crowd work.
Guest:Unless the crowd work shits the bed.
Guest:Well, then you're in a bad room.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Now I got to change.
Marc:So what was this, like, you know, I talk a lot about this sort of, the tribalization of comedy and anti-woke hackness.
Marc:Because I identify it as hackney.
Marc:I think it's the new hack.
Marc:Is that, you know, someone who labels themselves anti-woke or I'm going to get canceled.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That, you know, they're really fighting for the right to talk about things.
Marc:the same three things in a different way than any other ones.
Marc:But there is this idea of things you can and can't say.
Marc:But I watched that event you performed at Columbia where you were stopped 20 minutes into an hour set or whatever.
Marc:By the students that were running it because, you know, in my perception, they were just, you know, triggered by like language and didn't understand the joke.
Marc:So but to your credit, it seems politically you are a relatively progressive person.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And understand that, you know, you really are allowed to say whatever you want.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And I think watching that tape that you knew from the beginning.
Marc:The one thing I can tell as a comic is like at some point.
Marc:Because you kept saying it.
Marc:It's like, eventually, I'm going to say something.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I don't think you knew it was going to be that one.
Guest:No, I think that whole incident, I look back at it.
Guest:It's five years ago now.
Marc:Right, but like you were given, like I assume, well, let me just set it up.
Marc:What was the event?
Guest:The Asian American Alliance, I don't know, I forget the exact specifics.
Guest:The Asian American Alliance put on this cultural event at Columbia University.
Guest:And I was billed as the headliner for the program.
Guest:Because you were a writer?
Guest:First writer of Indian descent on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:How long did you have that job?
Guest:One year, sadly.
Guest:I wish I had a much better tenure there.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:A lot.
Guest:I felt redundant, I think, if I put it politely.
Guest:It was just one of those times, and I also had no idea what the fuck I was doing when I was there.
Guest:But at the time when I got the gig, it was like,
Guest:April of 2018, we're still at the show.
Guest:And they're like, we're putting this event on in November.
Guest:This is our year-end planning session.
Guest:We'd love to have you.
Guest:You're the first Indian of SNL at SNL.
Guest:Come do stand-up at our show.
Guest:I was like, all right, yeah, for sure.
Guest:And I get there, and I've already had a few colleges under my belt.
Guest:I already know what they are.
Guest:They're kids.
Guest:They're children.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's also...
Guest:not a comedy club.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's an auditorium with, it's a fucking hall.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also with a lot of people that wouldn't necessarily go to a comedy show or understand, understand the context.
Guest:Brights are, lights are bright.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I just, I'm following poetry and break dancers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is always a good opening act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I get there and I knew immediately it was going to like, right before I get on stage, one of the organizers said something to me, which I haven't revealed and I'll tell you off, off, off the record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:that indicated to me, oh, this is going to be a little strange.
Marc:Yeah, that's the worst feeling.
Guest:And I was like, okay, thanks for that right before I get on stage.
Guest:Get on stage, I let them know.
Guest:And, you know, to my fault, I was a little too cool for school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I didn't learn anything about myself from the incident, then I haven't really learned anything.
Guest:Then that incident happened for no reason.
Guest:But, like, I was like—
Guest:A little too casual.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm better than these students.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did get rejected from Columbia.
Guest:All of you are here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I had that like chip on my shoulder kind of thing going on.
Guest:And here I am taking your money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And 20 minutes in, you know, I said the joke about being gay can't be a choice because no one chooses to be gay if they're already black.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The premise was like, I know that being gay is not a choice because there are black gay people.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:No one's choosing to be gay if you're black already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good joke.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:In my head now, I've been told, oh, all the comics have said it.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, okay.
Guest:I've never heard it before when I thought of it.
Marc:Well, that's at least your problem is being accused of parallel creativity.
Marc:But the issue was in that moment that it is a joke that you have to process for a second.
Marc:For a second.
Guest:And really what's left out of the talking about that joke is...
Guest:The real punchline, let me take a step back.
Guest:I'm crafting an hour that I want to shoot for HBO to send to HBO.
Guest:And so I'm stringing together all these different bits that I haven't done in forever.
Guest:That joke at that point in 2018 was probably six years old, five years old.
Guest:But I had revisited it because I was talking shit about Mike Pence, Mike Pence's sexuality.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:And I did a huge epic closer on that.
Marc:Oh, one of my special.
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Marc:He blows Jesus.
Marc:I went way over the top.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not I'm not accusing you of anything.
Guest:I just said I said.
Guest:The end of that joke is just like, the only person that chooses to be gay is Mike Pence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He chooses to not be gay every day.
Guest:And like that, that got a laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But to me, that was the core of the joke.
Guest:Like the other part of it was just fucking preamble for that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then after that, I start talking to this girl because after that chunk is closed, I'm going to start talking about how my dad had a liquor store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all the stuff that came with it.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm going to be pitching a show about my dad's store.
Guest:Like, I want to talk about this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But to get, like, the way I work is, and the way I've worked before is, like, if there's someone in the crowd that's close by and seems engaged, I'll talk to them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just so I can pivot into my stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I'm talking to this girl for probably like three minutes too long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's uncomfortable because I don't have this sense of mind to be like, let me not ask prying questions to a girl who's not at a comedy club who's just like here.
Guest:In college and these are their kids.
Guest:These are her peers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't have a sense of mind to like not probe.
Guest:I'm just like trying to fish so I can pivot.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:that is uncomfortable and at the same time i clock these three organizers yeah who then come on stage like in the mint in the middle of my like not doing well with this crowd crowd work lady and then they come out they're like you're we don't think you're entitled to say some of the jokes i said which one specifically well they said at first that like the tech guy left yeah i think i appreciate them trying to make it seem like not a thing yeah exactly yeah and uh
Guest:But I'm looking at the tech guy.
Guest:He's right there.
Guest:It's like 8.15.
Guest:That's a weird time for anything to shut down.
Guest:It's not on the hour.
Guest:And so that's going on in my head.
Guest:And I was like, which show specifically?
Guest:Like the gay black one?
Guest:I'm like, paying the audience.
Guest:There's like maybe two black kids there.
Guest:They seem to be having a good time.
Guest:And I'm like, who?
Guest:What about that am I not entitled to say, how do you know I'm not black?
Guest:How do you know I'm not gay?
Guest:But I didn't say any of that.
Guest:I was just like, am I...
Guest:To my credit and to my detriment, I was almost too composed in that moment because I was trying to be.
Guest:I felt flush.
Guest:I felt embarrassed.
Guest:Like, what the fuck is going on right now?
Guest:But in the moment, I'm like, I'm 30, what, 33 at the time?
Guest:I'm talking to a 19, 20-year-old about what I'm entitled to do and not...
Guest:say and you know I clocked that one of her shoes is mismatched but I'm not saying any of that I'm just like I could I could make fun of you or I could say something crazy I could make this really bad yeah I could make this uncomfortable I could end my career right now if you wanted me to um but as I'm and that my biggest regret is that I wasn't funny enough in that moment all right because I was like in hindsight I'm thinking of all the stupid shit I could have said I could have
Guest:what I could have done yeah but I didn't I was just trying to not get cancelled quote unquote for something like say something like oh you're all like yeah yeah yeah yeah you didn't want to push it exactly and uh so I tried to save it with the joke I'd done on Seth yeah uh about how like Asians we gotta be you know there's a war going on in America a race war Asians gotta choose a side and that bombed and uh
Guest:then they cut my mic and that was it and it was such a you know flash forward weeks months years later it still feels like people want to make me a victim of something right and they can point to that as like see this is a real thing that's going on in this country I'm like like Tucker Carlson like
Guest:six months ago three months ago that he did a documentary for fox news yeah and they took a clip of mine from rogan when i'm talking about the same thing yeah and trying to make it seem like a my career has been compromised and be that like this was a victim this is a this is indicative of woke culture on campus exactly it was just three young people who thought they were doing the right thing yeah
Guest:then just happened to be wrong you know but that's interesting though because to in your to your credit you didn't leave going like damn you can't say anything and these yeah it was a misunderstanding it was just like i can you at the risk of alienating france yeah you can say whatever the fuck you want as long as it's funny
Marc:Right.
Marc:And if you have to think about it and realize, well, there might be consequences, you have to be willing to take those on.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:People get fired all the time.
Guest:That's just what happens.
Guest:There's consequences to your actions.
Marc:But it doesn't mean you can't do it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But that's the challenge of it.
Marc:Ride the line.
Marc:Don't beat up on people that are already beat up if you can.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's the whole thing.
Marc:I was at the comedy store the other night, and there were two comics in two different rooms talking about trans people.
Marc:Do you know the ratio of trans people to other people in this country?
Marc:There's like four of them.
Marc:Where are they?
Marc:Yeah, it's like this is the theme that has to be revisited over and over again.
Marc:And it's not even a punching down thing.
Marc:It's just sort of like, what is that?
Guest:Yeah, look for another well of material.
Marc:Yeah, that's why I call them, I think, that's hacky, because that's the definition of a hack.
Marc:That there's this whole generation of comics going, here's my trans shit.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's just, well, you...
Guest:I think, and this was me very early on and probably until a few years ago, was that I grew up loving Chris.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And loving Patrice.
Guest:And Patrice I came to know and love when I started Comic.
Guest:I didn't know Patrice before that.
Guest:But Chris was like, is my goat, right?
Guest:And...
Guest:I aspired so much to be like Chris in the sense of this man is talking about the world, society, what everyone else is talking about in the best way possible.
Guest:And I will try to give my attempt at talking about that.
Guest:And so like for the comics that are talking about trans stuff or whatever the fuck that's in the ether, I think is just an attempt to emulate the people they admire.
Guest:But we're never it only took it.
Guest:It took so long for me to become personal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It took Thank You China and Lucky Lefty for me to be like, you know what?
Guest:There's so much more depth to be had.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Talking about myself.
Guest:And it was something that Chris said to me.
Guest:It was that the more specific you get, the more universal you become somehow.
Marc:And also the less likely it is for people to take it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it's like if you can distill from your experience growing up the son of a liquor store owner who drank and how you being Indian felt different than every other Indian and how your ego was shattered as a 22-year-old college graduate.
Guest:If you can distill what you felt from that,
Guest:then someone watching it will just take however they felt at another similar moment in their lives and glue that onto that, and now you become the most universal comedian there is because everyone goes through that similar ego-shattering thing.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Everyone has a dad that they wish were more around in their lives.
Guest:Everyone has a mom that has their own trauma.
Guest:That is where you're going to really find comedy that is...
Guest:talking to people in a way that you want to talk and your own yes and and the it's only when you've achieved that that you can have the gravity to talk about trans people or school shootings you know like that that school shooting bit that chris did in fuck after columbine yeah i got on the elevator and two high school white boys tried to dive on with me and i just
Guest:Dove off.
Guest:Y'all ain't killing me.
Guest:Like that remains the best school shooting bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like only when you've talked about your life and how you work for minimum wage and how your dad drove a truck.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Only then in doing that, you earn the gravity and the skills to talk about something with such depth.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And I think that's correct.
Marc:And I think, though, even given the situation at Columbia, what you're really dealing with is.
Marc:You know, a hypersensitive kind of elevated empathy to others that is happening with young people.
Marc:And they just couldn't grasp the joke.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's really what it was.
Marc:I just didn't get it.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And that's my fault as much as it is yours.
Guest:I didn't make it as funny as it could have been.
Guest:And maybe I was going for it.
Marc:No, but to somebody in their 20s or to somebody that is formed and has their own opinions and understands the sensitivity of the joke.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, it's not, it's not, it's nothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, Oh, that's an interesting point.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:It's exactly right.
Marc:So before we wrap it up, I forgot to ask.
Marc:So how, how is it with the Jewish in-laws and your parents?
Guest:Uh, my Jews and Hindus are very similar people.
Guest:They're loud.
Guest:They complain about each other's food, but they all get along.
Guest:They all get along.
Guest:Everything's super nice.
Guest:You know, uh,
Guest:I think like very early on in my relationship with my wife, but she was my girlfriend at the time.
Guest:I think only like two months in, my dad was like, so white girl.
Guest:And he's like, what about the culture?
Guest:I'm like, I'm Indian.
Guest:Let's not forget.
Guest:You know, I'll be carrying this Indian torch.
Guest:And he's like, all right.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:And then like, I will never forget it.
Guest:You know, my parents invited her parents to our house, like meet and hang out for the first time.
Guest:And my wife's dad,
Guest:Who I got shot him out Jean who?
Guest:I'll tell you story in a second who came to my house in shorts and like a Hawaiian shirt or like a Beer like a Yingling shirt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad was like I like this guy
Guest:Because, like, if an Indian family goes to, like, someone else's house, they're, like, dressed up to the nines.
Guest:Like, oh, we got to make a good impression.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:My father-in-law came with the shorts, cargo shorts, just had a beer.
Guest:And he's like, my dad's like, you know, and they have this, like, bond where they, like,
Guest:They talk without talking kind of thing.
Guest:It's like, oh, yeah, good day.
Guest:And they laugh.
Guest:It's so funny to see.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:But my father-in-law, Gene, he wanted to do stand-up in the 80s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then had his daughters and had to kick that to the side of the road.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in 2020 pandemic, he started like right before pandemic, he started going open mics again in like Poughkeepsie there because he's from Connecticut.
Guest:It's like a 40 minute drive.
Guest:And now sometimes when I'm on the road in like Bridgeport or wherever, like he'll come up and like do 10 before me.
Guest:And it's so much fun.
Guest:You know, it's the best fucking time because like...
Guest:He's a 70-year-old white guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some of the shit he talks about, I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:Where was that?
Guest:Bro, you don't bring that up at Thanksgiving at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just like raunchy shit about him going to the hospital and his wife having sex.
Guest:I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ, bro.
Guest:I don't need to know any of this.
Guest:Does he do well?
Guest:He's done poorly once or twice and he's done well once or twice.
Guest:He crushed at my wedding.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Like fucking destroyed.
Guest:That was the important gig.
Guest:It was like I had a comics table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And only one of my friends knew him, my friend Mookie, who opens for me, directed my Lucky Lefty special.
Yeah.
Guest:Mookie opened for me in Bridgeport Connecticut and Mookie has a closing joke implying that uh the principal of his school fucked his mom yeah and so my father-in-law went up right after him yeah he goes uh he goes not only am I Mookie not only my uh Nemesh's father-in-law I'm also Mookie's principal they fucking leveled the room then but in uh at my wedding he goes uh
Guest:And now I'm nervous because I know he's got the chops, but I know he's got 12 of the funniest people on the planet watching him, and I know he knows that.
Guest:He goes up and just...
Guest:lavishes his daughter with praise that she deserves, and then just fucking destroys me.
Guest:Everyone's like, and I'm drunk, and I'm like, we're going to make you a star.
Guest:You're going to be famous.
Guest:You got that on video?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I got to put that shit out.
Guest:Everyone, my whole family's just fucking...
Marc:mean and funny everyone destroyed at my wedding it was really annoying oh that's sweet yeah good talking to you man you too man thank you very much again his comedy special lucky lefty is on youtube and you can go to finding the mesh.com for tickets to his fast and loose comedy tour uh hang out for a minute
Marc:For full Marin listeners, we posted an archive deep dive this week that goes into detail on some past WTF episodes that could be considered problematic today.
Marc:The point that we have to make around these episodes, and certainly around Patrice, and even in light of a non-controversial episode, but a revealing one, the Robin Williams, is that many of these interviews, I would say most of them,
Marc:that I do function as fairly accurate and revealing portraits of a person.
Marc:So it's like an aural portrait.
Marc:And all of them are of a time in whatever point in these people's lives that we record them.
Marc:But you can't hide for an hour, really.
Marc:And even if you're hiding from me in that hour, that's going to reveal something about your character or your personality.
Marc:So what you're hearing and another reason, I wouldn't even call it an argument, but another reason why these have to remain available is that they are that.
Marc:They are historical portraits of these people done in an audio fashion.
Marc:For all the weekly bonus episodes, as well as every WTF episode ad-free, sign up for the full Marin by clicking on the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.
Marc:Next week, we have comedian Amanda Seals on Monday and writer Andrew Leland on Thursday who has a new book called The Country of the Blind about his progression of losing his sight.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:I guess what I'm using is not a quick track, but it's just a metronome, but I think it's helping.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey, LaFonda, Cat Angels everywhere.