There are so many heartbreaking things about this crisis and so in a way, this is like a marginal concern like who gives a shit but one of the things that does make me sad is like I feel like comedies going to be one of the hardest-hit forms of entertainment and industries because the audience is such an integral
part. Yeah. I mean, it's really sad because you know, a lot of comedy clubs throughout the country. We're probably struggling a little bit anyway, and I don't know if all of them will come back and of course you need people to have disposable income to even come to the show.
Oh and you know purse strings might be a little tight from for a bit. That's why again big fan of the universal basic income a little bit of discipline Isabel
money. You win for the comics. Yeah of human misery was not enough like do it for the comedy club in
Tucson. Yeah do it so they can go to bananas
past that fucking Universal basic income.
Recently, I caught up with the phenomenal Michelle wolf whose comedian TV personality. She performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner a couple years back. You might have heard about that Michelle and I met on the trail. She actually performed with Dave Chappelle for the campaign in Iowa. So Michelle and I became friends thrilled that she's supported my
Pain and we caught up while she was actually staying with Dave Chappelle because she was visiting him when we all wanted to quarantine. Dave said, hey Michelle rather than have to travel public transportation head back to New York City where you're from. Why don't you stay with me? So Michelle has been with Dave Chappelle in Ohio and they've actually been performing comedy in corn fields which are outdoors and very socially distant.
So that's a that's an image for the ages. You have world-class comedians performing in the cornfields of Ohio, but that's happening. And this is my conversation with Michelle wolf that was recorded a little bit ago a little bit earlier during the covid lockdown.
At the Chappell household. I'm I can't contribute to much but every once in a while try to make a festive salad day was very funny to point out that I did a salad with a carrot ginger dressing and he goes you're dressing.
You should totally make branded. Michelle wolf dress a carrot ginger. Oh my gosh. Can we announce that right now?
Yeah. Yeah, the Michelle wolf carrot ginger dressing when you open the bottle. There's a loud Screech.
So you're a Dave's house because you were performing in the vicinity when we all got a lockdown. Is that right?
Well, I was supposed to do this benefit for a school down here and the benefit got cancelled but Dave's amazing wife. Elaine was like stay I'd rather you be here than in New
York. Well, I'm sure that where you are is at least a bit more pastoral and natural and refreshing than New York City because I have friends in New York City right now and
And the high point of their day is just yelling out the window at 7 p.m. For the healthcare
workers. I mean, this is how bad of a person I am. I was joking around last night that I'm I'm glad we don't live near a hospital because just like seven o'clock every day we got to do it. I just banging pots out in the middle of the country so
someone can hear you.
Yeah.
Well, I think you've had such an incredible journey not I mean, I don't mean like, you know where you are right now, but you know just the fact that
Worked at Bear Stearns, and now you're this world-class comedian. Like I thought it was like, oh my gosh, like what a transition that is. So what I was most curious about is where you like Class Clown like Entertainer performer when you were in high school or or was it something that came to a little bit later.
I was I mean, I was always kind of like silly and weird but I like I mean, I loved S&L and I would like recreate the sketches in school. You know that
Monday or whatever, but I was never really like I don't know. I was really serious about school, you know, it was a nerdy insufferably nerdy. And so it never even occurred to me that comedy was an
option. Yeah. So when did you actually just get in front of a bunch of people and perform because to me that first set of experiences must be the most difficult and raw
informative. Yeah. I am just to know I started working at Bear Stearns in the summer of 2007 and
great timing
the perfect timing.
It was two weeks after two of their hedge funds collapsed and then March of 2008, of course the entire Bank
collapsed so so Michelle was this your
fault. I like to take I like to take some of the blame for it, you know, like even if I didn't do anything at least put the energy out there that it could fail, you
know showed up in your like mortgage-backed Securities. That's the future.
It's over build houses. Well, that's what you get for. That's what you get for hiring.
Someone with no economic or business experience. No, so I went to a taping of SNL. I've been such a huge fan. I wanted to know how people got started and it turns out that almost everyone got started with improv. So I signed up for a class and after my first class. I was just like, oh, I just want to do more of this. Wow. I think the first class was like a week after bear collapsed.
Wow what you went from there. You went to another bank so you
This Banker by Day comedian By Night lifestyle for a little
while. Yeah, you know we got swallowed up by JP Morgan and I was young and cheap relatively compared to a lot of my bosses. So I they kept me we use this Microsoft Access program that I kind of created and I was the only one that knew how to use so I made myself valuable.
That's a good job security tip invent some shit that only you can use head then they can't get rid of you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah, I got to keep my job why I got to watch everyone over the next year every Thursday people got fired. Wow, I think at that point when I was at Bear Stearns, I probably had like five vp's over me and it was just one of those things where it was like, yeah, there were too many people, you know, like some of them were going to have to go it would just it sucks seeing people get fired all the time. Even the ones I disliked.
You know, I kept the job and then I kept trying to do more and more improv two classes a week and trying to go to as many shows as I could and yeah that eventually turned into stand-up that was in like 2011. I started doing stand-up I was trying to do as many mics as I could have night and that's when I was like, oh I got to find a job. That's a little bit more flexible. Like I can't be staying until like 7:00 p.m. And make it to these mics. I need something that's going to let me out earlier, which is when I ended up getting a
When job at a tech company This research company, it was a biochemistry computational biochemistry research lab where I was a recruiter because I'm not smart enough to work there in any other capacity
their bio computational researcher yourself,
I could barely remember the pitch of when we're at Career
Fairs. So then you got to do how many open mics a night
in the role. I took they were looking for people that had outside.
Interest because essentially I was doing a role that I was overqualified for but you know, their policy was do your work do a really good job and will support your alternative activities outside of work. So it's literally the perfect job for someone pursuing something like stand up. So I worked there I got to leave it like whatever time I needed to get out as long as I got my work done and I was doing three mics and night sometimes four or five if you could fit them in and you know,
Brooklyn chirping and that's really kind of one thing started ramping up. That's also when you know, I think I first got on Twitter and 2012 and I would just sit and I'd write jokes all day while I was at work based off of the news a lot of them awful. You know, I was just starting out and I had like five followers at the time. So it was no harm no foul.
I was one of them Michelle know I wasn't I remember those jokes you were crying. So when did you decide to just bang?
It all on Comedy because I feel like it's a very big deal to actually go full time. And I know while you're doing these open mics they were probably paying you in like booze
you'd either get well, first of all, sometimes we're open mic. You'd have to pay you either have to buy a drink to even do the mic or you'd have to pay like $5. So at this point, I'm not really making any money in stand up. I think they just want to make you alcoholics in the beginning and they do a pretty good job. But so the other person that had my job
At this company he ended up leaving to go to medical school and instead of hiring someone else. They were like actually Michelle. We think you can do both jobs and at that point I had more responsibility at work and I was like, this isn't what I signed up for. So I made the conscious decision to try to get fired but like the company's so good that if I got fired they still pay me Severance, but I had to do it in a way that wasn't egregious. So I just did less and less work
overtime the sea.
Seems like some romantic relationships. I've been a part
of
like maybe I can thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. I made them break up with me, but it was actually really hard because I hate I'm not the kind of person that likes to like not get stuff done and
it was just like you seem like a very hardworking conscientious effective person. So being consciously ineffective for months must have been really difficult.
It was really hard. I hate getting
Trouble these people were nice, you know, the company was trying to do good
things. It was really
like they're trying to they're trying to find cures for like cancers and you know Parkinson's and there I am just doing less and less work so I can get Severance to quit my job. Overall. I'm a pretty bad person. So
I mean what that that story what that says to me is like people will do what Their incentives are, you know what I mean? I mean clearly you're not the sort of person.
Person that likes to disappoint people right? But if you set up a system where that's the rational thing to do then like a lot of people will do just that.
Yeah. I mean, I think I needed to do that. It was kind of my first lesson in the like, oh, yeah, sometimes you have to disappoint people in order to do the thing you want to do which I feel like I've done throughout my career pretty
well. You're like a Serial disappoint their it's like yeah disappoint someone else.
I like it. I
think the sooner I realized that not everyone is going to like you the more free my comedy became
not to skip ahead but I feel like the culmination of your freedom was the White House Correspondents dinner and 2018. We're like, I thought that was the most courageous set that I think I might have ever seen because you would just really like, you know, like you can almost see like the the resistance going up and you were just like plowing through it like a fireball.
It was so awesome and brave and I thought really profound really smart. Thank like, I think that might have been some of my first exposure to your work and I just was blown away by just how free you seemed.
Thanks. Yeah. I mean, I knew as soon as I got the call to do the dinner. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to execute it before I even said yes to it. I took a couple days to like try to write the type of jokes that I would want to write.
Someday, I'll put them out there in some fashion. But
you mean the ones that were left off the table or left
off the table where some of them are admittedly just bad jokes, but other ones were like even like my friend Keith Robinson. He's a comic at the seller and he he's known for saying and doing kind of whatever there was some other he was like, no, I don't I don't think you can do that one.
It's a very useful friend to have their Michelle.
Yeah. Yeah, but right before I started the speech my friend.
And Mark Normand who's also a comic and also a big gang gang fan. Wow. Thank you for me. He he texted me and he was like remember if you're if they're cringing you're doing well, so I held onto that and as soon as they started to tighten up, which was almost immediately. I kind of sat in it. And you know, I'd also had like a glass and a half of tequila at this point. So, you know, I was more comfortable sitting in it, but normally if an audience had been that cringey, you know, of course any
Comedy show I would have been scrambling to change but I was really having a lot of fun witnessing their
discomfort. Well, that's one reason why I thought it was so awesome and marks advice is so on point because you've been in front of at this point hundreds thousands of crowds in ordinarily as soon as it's not something starting to go south you course-correct like I did the same thing on the trail where if I felt I was going down like a road while I go people are really feeling that one.
Yeah any political speech is so
so close to what comedies like to you know, like feeding off the crowd and gauging their reactions and Dave's like annoyingly good at both serious engaging speeches.
I'm convinced that a comedian should run for higher office like President. Like I think Dave should run for president. I think that would be really fun and awesome and effective because I agree with you the parallels are uncanny.
Yeah. I mean, I think he would I think it'd be perfect for it because
The stuff he doesn't know he'd be the kind of guy that would hire people and put people in his cabinets and stuff that do know what they're talking about. But he would be I mean him is a mouthpiece is like he's going to tell you the truth. He's going to put things in a logical way and he's also I tell them all the time. It's like like will be at some occasion and he'll pick up the microphone to give a speech and I'm like, how do you always know how to say exactly the thing that should be said? It's
annoying dude this my gonna hate us for like maybe like game for president.
I think that did they make like a movie or others like it but I but I totally agree with I happen to agree with you
it first and fix a bunch of stuff and then Dave can come in and have some fun
one reason why I think someone who's like straight up truth teller would be great is because so much of our mishandling of these issues is that they bury the common sense in jargon. Like I feel like bear Stearns was an example where you had 10 layers of bureaucracy.
I'm like, oh this is way too complicated for you to ever understand Joe Q public or you know, Jane regulator or whatever it is. It's like oh no, don't worry. It's overhead and meanwhile, they're just doing course shit and just like covering it up and being like we're gonna call this one, you know mortgage-backed Securities. We're going to call this one collateralized debt obligation. It's like whatever it is and you know that something's going on in government to where if you had someone like Dave was president and someone tried to pull shit like that. He'd be like, what are you talking about? Some explain this to me?
English you know and like the same thing happened with the bailout it was like, oh we're going to quantitatively he's and it's like what does that mean in English? It's like we're going to just print trillions of dollars and give it to the
banks. I mean, I think you actually do a really good job at this too, but it's really like, sometimes you just need the logical explanation of what's going on. It might not be what you want to hear. But that doesn't mean it's not going
on. I agree. I think that was one of my learnings and politics where it felt like a lot of the politicians were just waging Wars of keywords.
As and symbols and gestures and I was like, I think we should give everyone a thousand bucks a month. I think we should measure our economy by how you're doing and why I'm doing it not how fucking Amazon's doing. Okay, whatever whatever the the move is and it felt like I was talking a different language than any of the other people in the
race. Yeah. I mean, they're all Buzz words. They're all that formulaic crowd tested. What's that word Focus?
Yeah, yeah, focus group. Yeah, the quarantine has my brain working at like 2% What is it normally at 10% But so now it's less it's less. But yeah, I mean like those really refreshing part of you is that you didn't sound focus group. You were like, no. These are my plans and my strategies and this is what it is. Well, thank you.
Who is your greatest film director of all time? If you're anything like me James Cameron might be at the top of your list and there's a podcast called Blockbuster that just follows James Cameron's life and career from the early days season to a blockbuster. It's like a podcast series about James Cameron when I think about James Cameron, I think about the Terminator aliens true lies.
Tar Titanic. I remember when they were making Titanic and as a human being I was like that movie looks fucking terrible and then and then it comes out and then it's like the greatest movie of all time. And I remember watching that movie being like I will never doubt James Cameron to get anything. He does is Magic and gold are his films had, you know, remember Bill Paxton's character and Aliens being like game over man.
Aah game over that was like pre GIF era but like me and my friends were just saying game over to each other for like months and months afterwards. So if you want to see what the heck James Cameron's life story and work were check out Blockbuster season 2 The Story of James Cameron available now for free on Apple Spotify radio.com everywhere you listen to podcasts like this one. You guys didn't know aissatou relationship with James Cameron, huh?
To rewind back to this, you know, you getting gently eased out of this job and like trying to break in and spending full-time in comedy. I felt like that must have been this enormous step where your parents are family freaking out at this point because you'd been like the excellent student got these cool sounding jobs and New York it like these firms that they've heard of.
Yeah, I mean well, so when I ended up leaving I had enough saved up and with the severance that I was getting I had enough saved up to
Work for a year and comedies really hard to explain like why you're doing it and how you're doing it to people that don't know it like saying that like no but I'm working really hard. I'm going to like a bunch of mics and night and they're like, yeah, but are you getting making money? Are you are you doing shows and it's like, well not yet, but I'm getting there and it has to become your life, you know, like you have to kind of live or at least I did I had to like live and breathe it and be doing it as much as I possibly
Possibly could and I think that's the hardest part to explain to family and friends because they're like, well you can't make time for me and I'm like right now. No, I can't I have to go after this with all I have I only have a year and it's just hard to explain why you don't have time for people.
I have no time for you. There are 50 drunken idiots awaiting my wisdom.
Yeah at some bar. That's like a 10-minute walk from the subway in Brooklyn, you know.
I think I can being second-tier to that.
So what was that year like and what was it like at the end of the year that you had hit a particular point where you felt like it was going to progress and take
off. I mean I was I was terrified and I think I needed to be terrified because I didn't have any net to fall back on. You know, like if I didn't work I was going to have to
Find another job and you know, I think that kind of would have been the end of the the dream. I started submitting packets for shows. You know, I did a packet full Colbert The Colbert Report, which was like one of my favorite shows back then and I towards the end of that year did a packet for Late Night with Seth Meyers, but that show it had didn't even exist yet. It was it was when it was first being created. I got fired in January of 2013 and I got hired at late nights.
In January of 2014 almost exactly a year later.
That's a big deal. So they hired you as a writer a performer.
They hired me as a writer, but all the writers were there was disagreement that like we would potentially be characters be able to do characters on the show. And yeah, I mean it was huge. It was I still remember I thought I bombed the interview because the interview was only about 10 minutes long from what I knew from being a recruiter.
Router you did. Well, if you stayed the whole day so 10 minutes, I was like, well, I didn't get it. This is terrible. I was so sad and then I just got a call and they hired me and I was like, I couldn't believe it
good that must have been the greatest call ever. You know, it's like right at the end of your year mark, you're like savings are evaporating like thinking well what
next it was amazing. I was like I couldn't I remember I was walking down the street and I got the call and it started to rain.
And I was like I was like this feels like the opposite of what should be happening. But
the heavens are crying tears of joy on you told you you have a career in comedy
down and working at Seth was, you know, of course he's funny and all that but he's he was such a great boss him and Mike Shoemaker who are the who's the showrunner? And they really just like nurtured all of us as writers and performers like you could suggest anything, you know, like you could try anything out they wanted you.
It suggests the craziest thing you could and if they didn't like it. They just say no but like there was no fault in being you know, suggesting something terrible and Seth could probably be the first one to tell you that before every good joke. I wrote there was probably 10 really bad ones, but you know, they had to get out before I could get I have a theory that your jokes are like stacked up into your throat. Like they're just stacked up. So you have to get you know, you have to get the bad ones out before you can get the good
one and rid of all the shit.
Anyone's and then I
can get a pringle in the middle of the
can actually won Golden Triangle and the kid one per container. So you're in your mid-20s at this period it sounds like what was the ratio of men to women at all these like Mike's you were going to
that was I mean there was probably like of the Mike's a lot of times. They're be like 30 people there and maybe five of us were women and it sounds bad what I'm about to say something that I know it sounds
But it's kind of one of my arguments when people say like comedy should be 50/50. It's like I don't disagree with that, but the numbers aren't there, you know, like when I was at Mike's it was five women to maybe 30 men. And so if that's who's coming up, you're not even going to have a pool of 50/50 to choose from and it's a lot of this with black women in workplaces in general like you have to be fostering them at a younger level and then over time there.
There will be a bigger pool to choose from and then you can get closer to a 50/50 ratio because when I worked with the tech company it was the same thing. We were constantly looking for women all the time. I personally wasn't too sad that we never hired that many because it meant I had my own bathroom real like this woman has some
stuff going for but I don't know. I don't know. She looks like a frequent bathroom goer
there were so few of us women working there.
We each kind of claimed our own bathroom. But you know, we also just like we couldn't get a lot of women to apply and what we should be focusing on rather than having 50/50 right now is making sure we're letting it be a space where women can be involved so that they can they can train they can learn and then they can get good at it and then they'll be undeniable.
I'm going to just guess or suppose that so
so these five or six women that show up and then they're like the 25 to 30 guys. I'm just going to guess that things were more difficult for the five or six women that were there and like ways minor and stupid and then more important ways. Is that
right? I'm not sure. I mean like I don't know if it was just the class of comics that I was around but like a lot of these guys became my good friends and are still some of my best friends and they were always just supportive of me, you know like at
Every Mike that I went to and I know that the situation isn't necessarily the same for all women and I think it's actually changed a little bit for the worse, but it was always fun. He's funny not funny. Not funny and everyone there was if you did a good joke, it was a good joke. It didn't matter if you are a man or a woman and then like any any men that were like, she's a girl the actual guys who are actually good who are still the working Comics today would be like shut up, dude. You're not funny.
I could do it you can't you know like they come to your defense. So like, you know, maybe I just got lucky that the the the guys around me were kind of good people. I mean some of them aren't necessarily good people but they're at least you know, they were they were Fair it was a meritocracy.
Well, they'd recognize a good joke like regardless of the source.
Yeah.
Well, I mean that's somewhat encouraging. I'm sorry. It sounds like it might have gotten worse since then though and one of the things I love about comedy and it makes me very sad. What's going to what's happening. Now with this coronavirus crisis is that no matter how good or successful you are famous or you know in your case of like a Netflix special, you know, like a TV show and everything but everyone still just goes to the club's to do the work and get that feedback and get that experience. Like there's no escaping it. Yeah, you know you could be
One at ATS exist level. It's like well, I just got to go to the clubs and work it out.
No matter how good you get. I feel like every once in a while. You'll get a gut punch that just reminds you like ya don't slip, you know, like you got to keep working at this like the audience is in generally even if you're really famous, they'll give you like a little bit of a grace period but after a while they'll be like, okay, where are the jokes, where are the jokes and they kind of keep you on your toes and keep you honest and like honestly help you get better.
Or in your case to like I can relate to aspects of this like you might have told a joke a hundred times, but then you'll still tell that a different time like the hundred fifth of the 200 time just because like you're like, well, I gotta try something out with this thing and then sometimes the experiment doesn't
work. Yeah, totally, you know, like any time you see a joke at a club. You don't know where that comic is with that
joke. It still could be in the oven. Yeah, they still bake. Yeah
shit and the harder the difficulty the more times you might have to say it to get it right, you know, like there's joke.
It I think Comics a hundreds of times before they're like that's the funny part. But all those hundreds times before they might have been terrible, you know men have been a terrible joke with like an offensive punch line and it's like, all right. I know I was just trying it. I don't know sorry. So instead of like I would like comedy audiences when they watch out at a club instead of thinking. Oh that's offensive. It's like, oh, I just won't laugh so they know that that way didn't
work.
To give the my focus group thumbs down so they can try a workshop or abandoned. So do you have jokes that you're just like really attached to even though they're not working and you're like, I'm just going to keep on telling this until I could figure it out. It's like something like project. We like resisting giving it
up. Yeah. Well, there's some jokes like that, but you have to know at some point it might be like the way you're saying it you might be missing a line. That's kind of like a logic line.
Need or you just might not be in the point in your career where that joke works like so much of Comedy is like being someone that they like trust with that sort of information. That's interesting. So sometimes you might just have to put a joke on a back burner and come back to it later. Just because you weren't ready to tell it.
Wow. So even now you're just going back to your now at this point vast compendium of jokes that you abandoned for whatever reason you're like. Oh some of these I can now revived
because I'm cooler now. Yeah, I mean
essentially like I after every time I take a special I always look back at the jokes that I like couldn't get to work to be like, all right. Let me see if I can try this one again and sometimes they end up working and other times they still fail miserably and I'm like all right back on the
Shelf. That's so interesting. So you become a writer on Seth's show Seth. I mean, I don't know him well, but like I've been on his show and like I met him a couple of times and tea.
Like a great smart really Earnest guy to me. So it doesn't surprise me that he was looking out for his people. So then what happened next?
So when I when I first started with Seth, I remember we were taping a promo for the show and in between takes he was talking to me and he goes so you still doing stand-up and I was like, yeah, but once the show actually gets into production, I'll cut back a little and he goes. Oh, please don't I don't want you to is if you can handle both do both. I don't want you to stop doing.
And up just because you're working here. And so I did I kept doing stand-up I would do stand up every night at work at the show every day. And then at that point, I'm not doing my ex anymore. I'm doing shows but I do shows every night. I got passed at The Comedy Cellar and then I started working there every night and just being there and doing sets there made me an exponentially better comic just because the people you're around the crowds because the Comedy Cellar is a sophisticated comedy crowd for the most part. I mean not all the time but for the most part
And they expect like a certain level of skills. So like you really kind of have to step up your game and I definitely credit the seller for making me a much better comic and also SD the woman who has been booking the seller forever. She is given me a million opportunities and you know like Chris Rock would be there and she go Chris go down and watch Michelle. She's really funny and Trevor came. That's the first time Trevor. Noah saw me. She was like go watch Michelle. She's funny like so she was really kind of always my
a cheerleader for me. But so I was doing more and more stand-up at Seth while I was working at Seth and eventually I'd been at Seth Rome has two years and Trevor had approached me. He Trevor worked at The Daily Show at this point was worked hosts. He's the host of The Daily Show.
Yes, I've heard of trouble. Yeah, you
worked there. He worked his way up. I'm getting up. So he's the host of The Daily Show at this point and he approached me and was like, I really love if you could come work on my show and also being
On-air contributor and you know after some discussions with him. I was like, I do think that would be a good move. It would get me on screen a lot more it be a little bit of a different writing skill, you know writing for Seth writing jokes for Seth is very different than writing jokes for Trevor. It's not often you can write Seth could tell a joke that a half black man from South Africa could kind of different points of view, which helped me as a writer, too.
And that was fun to be able to like stretch a different part of my brain. But yeah, I went over and I started working at The Daily Show. And yeah,
so you said something that I think is really interesting you said. Hey, I went from Mike's to shows like at what point does a comedian get like a slot on the billing. I'm sure after you were like they like now from you know Late Night with Seth Meyers and there were like Sting but like
but you never going to get more work than from other Comics other Comics are
Like they're the ones who recommend you for things, they'll put you on your shows and that's how it starts happening first Comics. Will they'll be like, hey I run a show at this at this bar. Can you do a set on it? And you do that you do. Well at the show other comic see you other Comics put you on their show. There's a couple like comedy Booker's that kind of work this circuits of shows throughout the city and they'll
I'll see you at shows they'll start booking you on these bigger shows and it's kind of just like a it's a waterfall effect after a while, but it is really just word of mouth and showing up and like killing. I mean you have to like continually, you know like it when no one knows who you are. You really have to kill at least for me. I really thought that I had to like try to knock it out of the park every time
so who are some of the comedians that then reached out to you and we're like hey, I really like you I think you're funny like you should join me on the show,
you know, there was a lot of people that
Just running a lot of bar shows of that time. Joel is would put me on his shows. But again Mark Norman would put me on his shows. This guy Jared Logan who is actually out in La now, you know, Dan Soder would recommend me to anyone who would listen. Let's see. Who else there's this one booger at the time Jeremy Levin Bob.
That's cool. I mean, you still remember them. I mean, I'm sure you'd feel really great about them.
Yeah.
Yeah, and a lot of you know, a lot of them are Comics who are still working and we you know, all those guys they're amazingly funny and good dudes and you kind of grow up with them, you know, and it's like it's a weird family but like like I definitely miss being on stage right now, but honestly like just hanging out with the comics is I miss that a lot too. I mean, luckily I have Dave but like hanging out with comics and just like talking and because they really become like it becomes
Just
family sure. I mean you're around them like that.
Tom would say Brotherhood, but I don't want people to think it's sexist. It's not sexist. And so it's just like, you know, it's a
family we definitely need a term for like fraternity across genders. It's like Brotherhood Sisterhood like smash
together exactly like every word I was thinking of people are going to be like see it is a boys club and I'm like, no it's not a boys club. It's just it's like a sorority
How did Seth take it when you were like? Hey, I think I want to go work for Trevor.
I actually when I told Seth I actually cried a little bit because I loved being there and he had given me so many opportunities and he was like you have to go you have to that's it's the next best step for you. So proud of you. I'm so happy for you. I'll miss you a lot. But you have to go so he was awesome. That sounds awesome. Again hands down the best. Yeah and in same with my shoe.
They were so supportive and they're still great people who I could reach out to it anytime and and they'd be there and they're nice the thing that like, I think the thing that sometimes gets misconstrued. Is that like a lot of the guys out there are trying to help women. I've worked for a lot of men and like everyone that's gotten me. Something has has been a man, you know, like Hannibal Buress recommended me to Chris Rock to write on the Oscars. Chris is first guy who
Me to Dave, you know like Neal Brennan offered to direct this SnapChat show. I did a long time ago. Like it's really hard for me to say that like it's a boys club when it's like yeah, I just named a lot of dudes, but they were also helpful and pivotal in my career. Like they they've all shouted my name to anyone who would hear it. I don't like that. That's not the you know, that that part of the story doesn't get
told. Well, that's a beautiful part of the story and you're telling
It right now and certainly I think a lot of people appreciate it. Like I know at least a couple of those people and they seem like that kind of human being it's like if they see someone who's talented and up-and-coming and they can help they'll
help. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, I know not everyone's good. But you know, I've had great experiences with them and you know, a lot of people like is it hard to be a woman in comedy and I'm like, well first of all, this is all I've ever been in comedy, so I don't know how it's
different you can have that second control.
Group B. Like it now here's Sam wolf dressed in drag do with the same stuff like in a deep voice like the the Moulin of Comedy
like but yeah, I mean, so and also, you know, like I've only been doing stand-up this is now my ninth year and I've had two specials several web series and an unsuccessful television show, you know, so like I can't say it's been harder for me.
Obviously everyone has different experiences but like I can't say it's been hard to be a woman in comedy on my end.
Well, you've been very very successful and you're mean you're immensely talented like, you know and brave mean I've seen your work and loved it before we had a chance to meet in person mean one of the things there are so many heartbreaking things about this crisis. I mean people are dying people are losing their jobs, like our entire country is being shaken to its core and so in a way this is
it is like a marginal concern like who gives a shit but one of the things that does make me sad is like I feel like comedies going to be one of the hardest-hit forms of entertainment and industries because the audience is such an integral part and you're at a point now where you know, you can like broadcast stuff or like put jokes out there and you've got like a big platform but it makes me really sad thinking about the next generation of comics that are trying to do what you did like go to the open mics and everything else because like when
Is the newer comedy scene going to look anything? Like it used to look like? What is that time frame look like no one knows but it's certainly not going to be today tomorrow next month. Maybe not even next
year. Yeah. I mean, it's really sad because you know, a lot of comedy clubs throughout the country. We're probably struggling a little bit anyway, and I don't know if all of them will come back, you know, so there's going to be less clubs to perform at which means it's going to be more competitive to get weekends at clubs and
That's going to mean less and less people get to kind of go on the road and work out an hour and try new things in front of different audiences. And of course you need people to have disposable income to even come to the show and you know, purse strings might be a little tight from for a bit. That's why again big fan of the universal basic income a little bit of disposable money. You win for the comics. Yeah.
Human misery was not enough like do
For the comedy club in
Tucson. Yeah do it so they can go to
bananas pass that fucking Universal
basic income. But yeah, and I agree with you. It is sad like, I mean, there's definitely been times in history where like there's been bad things that happen where you see one of the things that drops off is Art. Yes, because it's just it's hard to do if there's no money or free time or yeah, and that just like that is very sad,
you know, I mean, they're certainly going to
Be a lot of podcasts I heard there's been a real run on podcast mics, but but it's like a very different thing than someone going through The Crucible you went through because how many freaking sets did you do in person while you were figuring it out. It must have been thousands.
Yeah. I mean like it's there's nothing that replaces going on the road as a comic, you know, like doing those weekends at like small cities throughout the country just kind of like running it into the ground in like
Throwing stuff at the wall, you know, you really gotta like I'm using so many turns of phrase. There's there's nothing that replaces that and as a comic you have to go on the road you have to be able to have those opportunities to get better and there's no replacing that
well, I know you're right because the same thing happened to me on the trail running for president and like, you know, when I started out they would be the small group of people would be like you
There because they were just curious and no one really was paying much attention. It was almost the equivalent of like open mics. My Open Mic was I showed up to New Hampshire in a Subaru at this coffee shop and there was a grand total of one person there and I was like, hey, you're here to you here to see Andrew Young candidate for president and there were like, I guess I am I was like fantastic. So so it that those were like the lumps I took but
But you really evolved as a result. Like there is no way that I could have done what I did down the stretch when it's like hey, you know, here's like an arena full of like thousands of people who are not there to see you they're there to see Bernie but whatever but at that point it was like repetition number, you know, like mm. And so then you have different muscles like a different type of performer.
Not to say that, you know politician equals performer, but they certainly a performative element. Oh, definitely. Yeah, and there is no way you can get to point B from point A without thousands of Live Events and so it is going to be very difficult to replace that for the next Generation. Like I don't think that technology and podcast and Twitter really can replace
it. Yeah. That's why I get kind of I get kind of annoyed and everyone's like well the new Norm
All the new normal. I'm like no. No we shouldn't be settling for this as like a new normal. Like we should look for solutions that allow us to gather and socialize because that's what we should be able to do is creatures, you know, like that's the thing that scares me the most is like when you can't be around people different than you and you can't discuss ideas and have conversations. You become more and more divided and the idea that that is a like a real possibilities.
Is kind of terrifying I
think like, you know, it's one reason why I think the role of Comedy has really grown is that it seems like it's one of the few ideological meeting grounds in America today where like, you know, you could have someone say something and it doesn't fall neatly into a political Camp, you know, you could have people with different ideas or alignments. I like the same stage within 30 seconds of each other. I think comedies role is actually very important because of what you just said. It's like how the heck can you have?
Things of ideas or thoughts if you know where each in our own little bubble.
Yeah. I mean a lot of people, you know, I think because of the Correspondents Dinner people think I'm like a crazy bleeding heart liberal and I'm definitely a liberal but like I think to do your best in comedy you kind of have to live in the gray you have to be able to see everything at their face value and then because there's plenty of times when I'm like I'm like the rights not wrong on this, you know, like and you kind of have to let your ID Lodge logic
Value is kind of like go away for a little bit in order to see that and then to maybe put it in a joke form to point it out to the rest of the
world. Maybe you can point it out right in front of the president and their gang. Yeah. So what was your reaction to The Firestorm after The Correspondents Dinner that you probably knew was coming. You're like if I do my job, so there will be this like, you know Firestar mean some of it struck me as bullshit like that like some of the stuff where it was like, oh,
As you somehow like, you know anti-woman or you know by I thought I was like that that seems like a very strange reading butbut. Yeah butbut. What was your reaction
afterwards? I was first of all I was I was pretty shocked that they thought I made fun of Sarah's looks because literally two days before the dinner. I had a I had some look space jokes in there for kellyanne and I took them out because one of my friends who read it was like I think you should take out the jokes about looks because I have a
Feeling that's what the media will make it about. And I was like, you know, that's a good call. I was sad because I really loved the joke, but it was a good call and I was like, you're right. Let's do that. I took out the joke and then I was like wait, but I think you're still going to get mad at looks I should have told the joke. I really wanted to tell
I really like an earned it. I'm gonna hurt ya
these get mad at me for the right reason, you know, but that's when I was like, oh the media is even more like complicit than I thought they
were you know, like when like I think was like Andrea Mitchell and Maggie Haberman and Mika whatever your last brzezinski's and she when they they specifically, you know got mad at me and I was like, oh you guys either are willfully ignorant or you're trying to maintain some sort of access that you have and I tend to believe it was the latter because I don't think any of them are stupid enough to actually
That was a look space joke, but again as soon as a headlines written, that's the it doesn't matter what the truth is as soon as that headlines out there. That's what people believe one of the funniest things is that my manager he got all the headlines from because that was on like every newspaper the next day, which was a big shock to me. I didn't I knew it what I was doing. I just didn't know it would blow up as big as it did. I
had similar experiences my God continue.
So I'm
on my manager took all the headlines and he framed all the good ones and then next to it. He framed all the bad ones. So it's this great picture that has all the good headlines right next to all the bad headlines and it's just so hilarious how it can be taken into completely different ways. Of course people were going to say negative things that to me was a good thing like that. Honestly as it made me a more confident.
Stand up the fact that I was like, yeah, you know what you're going to do stuff that people are going to hate but I'd rather some people hate me and some people love me then a lot of people just feel about me. And
yeah, I mean as like an artist like if you try and avoid ever pissing anyone off then like that's a very very narrow Lane.
Yeah. Yeah, you're going to get you're going to get boxed in and it's not going to be at least for me. It wouldn't be that much fun.
But you know, maybe I also just like stepping on toes a little bit. But the thing that really like like warmed my heart was the fact that all of these Comics came to my defense like everyone even people that like maybe don't necessarily like me came to my defense, you know, like everyone was there like and people I had never met before but always held in such high regard like Letterman said great things about me Dave said great things and this is before I even really knew.
Dave like just people that I've always loved and held in such high regard and then also Comics at my level Comics below me all these Comics came to my defense and I was like, that's that's kind of the beauty of the comedy community like as long as you're telling jokes like
They should have your back.
That's really beautiful. That is the community and that must have felt great because people who you hold and really high esteem and you know, admire like the like, oh, look they like know who I am and they approved of my work mean that that really would be all you need.
Yeah. It was crazy. Like, I mean, I've never met David Letterman. I mean I watch the show growing up and like I never got to do stand-up on his show because I just wasn't ready when
Was still on the air but I would have loved to but then the fact that he saw it and liked it and said nice things about me. It's really cool. It was really cool for someone who never got the opportunity to meet him before.
Yeah, that would feel really good. And you do deserve it. I mean when I saw it, I was like this was really funny Brave excellent like and as someone who's like been in environments where like you kind of know which way the crowds going. I just like admired your fortitude. You're like
I've just got sit was so
awesome. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I had it. I mean I had a great time
plus the you know, the tequila help to
yeah.
So what do you have next because I know someone like you is like always working always creating. What are you working on that? We can look forward to
I have a new special that I'm ready to tape almost as soon as we get out of this I my last special came out in December of last year and then this one I was able to write it in like a month and I'm really excited about it. It's kind of its kind of all about One
topic is that
at topic Universal basic income
it is I use all your talking points, but do you did you notice that like everyone kind of stole like not stole but took all your ideas after you got out of the race and kind of peppered them into their own,
you know, I did see some of that I just took it as flattery, you know where it's like, yeah, I think I said I
Point it's like I'm either going to win or the other candidates are going to sound like me by the end. And so the fact that the idea is stuck, you know made me happy and proud because you know, I just wanted to see the solutions get across the finish line and if other people are talking about them and you know, I don't know if you got your stimulus but like millions of immutably made way too much but like
I didn't even apply
that millions of Americans got this check in the mail and you know, like have a feeling that this is here to stay.
So certainly would never wish this crisis. But yeah, I did notice that it seems like a lot of the campaign's ideas have born fruit and I'm grateful to everyone who supported the campaign including you and Dave obviously and others because I feel like we did our country a great service. We like Advanced really big important ideas right in the nick of
time. Yeah, you really it was very forward-thinking.
I've got this this newsstand upset that I want to do and then I'm also writing a couple things. I have a mini series that I'm working on that I'm really excited about and a couple other potential projects that who knows if they'll get off the ground or not, but they're things that are exciting and fun for me to do so, but you know stand up is always hopefully going to be my backbone because it's the thing. I love to do the
most know, what are the things we have to make sure happens that stand up continues to exist.
And comes back and I'm just imagining what it would take. A lot of it. Frankly is just going to be whether we have the right testing so that people have confidence like imagine if you if you went to a comedy club and you knew everyone in that club had been tested and is negative and you're fine. Then you're fine. You can relax if you don't know that then it's going to be really really hard because it'll be like, oh no like someone's breathing in my direction. You know, that's not exactly like a humorous
environment. Yeah, especially like, I mean the tables are close together, you know, you might be sitting with someone.
One you don't know and you know, you're laughing so stuff potentially coming out of your mouth. You know, like it's a it's a petri dish for sharing a airborne disease like that. But I really hope that we can figure out a way to do live events that people are comfortable. I do think testing is the big thing. I think also the move is going to be you know, smaller venues not huge crowd sighs, you know, like I don't think we're going to see Arena shows for a little bit for
Quite a bit longer and we'll see smaller venue shows, but that's totally fine with me because I'd rather play a club then a big space any day. Not that I wasn't playing a ton of big spaces,
but you were playing some big spaces. I mean, you know, it's like I saw you in like yeah, you know, one of the things and this is like something that is very practical and I'd have to ask you so imagine you're performing asset in a club, but the club has these like markers on the floor where
Like each person has you know, six feet around them and instead of it being a pact intimate Vibe where people are on top of each other and like drinking. It's like the equivalent of like 40 percent full. Like how does that sound to you? Because that might unfortunately be like the the reality and I know as someone who's You Know spoken in front of gatherings ordinarily speaking in front of a mostly empty venue is not like a positive thing, but like you're like energy or
It's our feedback, but that is like a an approach like how much would that impact you and other Comics if like you were performing to essentially like a third full
clubs? I mean it definitely would hurt your paycheck for sure. But then also you're going to have to get used to laugh sounding different, you know, because like part of the beauty of a comedy club is that you're all packed together and it's almost a contagious environment where you can I mean and maybe literally
Ali where you can get the laughs rolling and kind of like people feel more comfortable to laugh when they see other people laugh so it's like it creates an energy and an uproar but if you're that far apart, you're really just going to have to get used to things sounding different and being like, okay that joke worked even though the laugh seems about a third of what it normally would
Yeah, that mean that's true. These are some of the things that we're going to have to be looking at in the the days ahead especially for again for for people who are trying to be like you frankly because you know, you've achieved enough success where you have projects that aren't as dependent upon that economically but you know, I am thinking about how we can start to bring back every type of institution from comedy clubs to schools to places of employment.
restaurants because so many people's careers and livelihoods depend upon us eventually figuring out how people can have the confidence to come out and enjoy themselves
yeah I am I definitely like I agree that everyone should say home but I also am like what are we doing psychologically to people the fear of being in a crowd if you're being near people it's like how do you repair that damage how do
you repair that damage
yeah like what are you and then it's also like
okay we maybe we get a vaccine we get enough test everyone kind of either knows or if you you know if you get it there's an in Easy cure you know drinking Lysol perhaps but even after that's happened like are people going to be comfortable being that close anymore it's yeah it's going to be a
long road back and like the new world probably does not look like what we've been accustomed to throughout your life and
Lifelike 2019 2020 to is not going to look like 2019 in terms of people's attitudes of getting together. Even if we do have some of the vaccines and tests that we need and I agree with you to that stay-at-home flying the curve. Yes. Yes. Yes, but we do have to start evaluating how we reopen targeted parts of our economy before we have a vaccine because a vaccine could be 18 months away or more and it's not realistic to say to
We won like what we're going to be in the for that time frame. If you look at other countries, some of them are starting to try and reopen there are choices because if you reopen too fast like you could cause a Resurgence but but these are the questions we have to Grapple with you just can't take one extreme or the other Charlie the people who are like open everything. I mean, no that's super stupid and deadly but also it's like everyone stay home forever. Like that's not really an answer either like we're you know, we're going to we're going to have
take our heads out sometime
I do want the world to I mean maybe like over all be safer but like I do hope people are striving to make it look like it used to in terms of like Gatherings and things like that like I hope there's people smart enough working on stuff that can allow for the technology that and like medical advancements that we can get back to the life's we knew
there's something fundamental about a
cert a rally against erring like a night out I agree with you that if you lose that it's something very human where there's just something really important and profound about us being able to get together in that kind of setting and I agree with you that's what we should be aspiring for hopefully we'll get there you know before too long passes and I think our culture is changing through this but you know hopefully we can make it change in some ways
are positive I mean I'm deeply concerned about some of the damage that we're reeking on people's lives but you and I are going to be some of the people that helped bring people back and I don't know about you Michelle maybe you feel this but like I feel this responsibility to put good stuff out there because you know people just need more good stuff out there
yeah I mean like I'm I keep sharing you know video clips of old stand-up and things like that and it's a weird situation to be in where it's like I don't want to do stand-up on you know in
Instagram or anything like that because it's not the right way to do stand-up but yeah I mean I think keeping people entertained and positive and
distracted yeah
great
Now we all have our roles to play and certainly, you know, we just have to do all we can but thank you for taking this time. You know, I hope you stay safe there, please say hey to Dave and Elaine in the family, you know, I was supposed to visit the flights booked and the whole thing and then we all got sent home on lockdown. Like I didn't I didn't bother showing Dave like the tickets to Ohio just be like proof, but you should know that like, I don't know. I guess it's the case that if I was able to go there you probably would not have been there so it's not
Like I would have been visiting you.
Anyway, I would have been but you might have gotten this day in this beautiful guest Cottage.
I might have been in that cast the cast of The Michelle. They should name their house after you.
