March 5, 2026

Memories: Marc Maron getting sent home from Australia, Dan Soder sucking on Conan

Memories: Marc Maron getting sent home from Australia, Dan Soder sucking on Conan
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Marc Maron recalled that he bombed in Australia in the early ’90s, was sent home from a three-week headlining run with only 30 minutes of strong material, and relapsed on the flight back.

Dan Soder describes a 2014 set shaken by self-doubt until Conan O’Brien told him the crowd “sucked.”

Nate Bargatze explains moving back to Tennessee so his now-13-year-old daughter would have a normal upbringing. Rolling Stone profiles Chris Fleming, who rejects being labeled “weird,” describes his surprising, stream-of-consciousness style, and dismisses virality and follower counts.

The Guardian reviews Maria Bamford’s energetic, economically minded set. Charlie Berens discusses depolarization and his Midwest-focused special. Minneapolis comedians respond to ICE’s presence. Other items include Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe at Knicks games, TJ Miller hinting at Deadpool, Mike Epps saying he’s tired of apologizing, and TMZ reporting Cardi B’s alleged SNL backstage meltdown over a Weekend Update joke.
 
00:21 Marc Maron Bombs Abroad
02:20 Dan Soder Saved by Conan
02:54 Nate Bargatze Goes Average
03:27 Chris Fleming Profiled Yet Again
04:39 Fleming vs Viral Numbers
05:01 Maria Bamford Reviewed
05:59 Charlie Berens Midwest Vibes
06:43 Minneapolis Comics Roast ICE
07:21 Comedy Survivor Voting Plug
07:36 Quick Hits Knicks and Deadpool
08:14 Mike Epps Done Apologizing
08:43 Cardi B SNL Meltdown
 

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This is the animal sanctuary mentioned in the February 10 episode.

WEBVTT

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Callaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your

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daily comedy news, A daily briefing on stand up comedy,

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comedians and the comedy industry. A sentence that I can't

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memorize for the life of me. But also the algorithm

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loves I'll keep saying it. Mark Maron once performed a

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comedy show so terrible that it cost him three weeks

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of work and forced him to fly on a twenty

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two hour flight around the globe. That's the headline from

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Entertainment weekly I love It. Maren was on Eric Andre's

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podcast and said I was sent home from Australia because

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I bombed so hard it was the worst. Apparently, Maren

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was booked to headline three weeks of shows plus one

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week of previews at a club in Australia in the

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early nineties, but the problem was Maren only had thirty

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minutes of decent material when he took the job, so

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he says, so I fled Australia. I get there, this

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is billboard of me, like a painted billboard of me

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with a fake quote about my act, like this guy's

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a star. So right away that's not true. And I

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knew it was gonna have to stretch, but I thought

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I could handle it. I don't even like being away.

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I was fringing out on all levels. Didn't have the confidence,

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didn't have the act. Do you not like to travel?

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Maren said he wasn't used to shows that have intermissions,

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explaining the first time you deal with that, you're like,

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what are you doing? You're stopping the whole flow. So

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I'm just sitting there watching the show going. I'm eft

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and I go out there the first night and struggled.

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It's okay. I stretched at the end, but it's okay.

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And I got through a whole week of previews where

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it's just getting worse and worse. I get out there,

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I'm the headliner and I'm smoking. You could smoke. Then

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some guy yells, where'd you get that jacket? And it

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was an America dude? And I was so effed up

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my head confidence wise. That just shut me down. There

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was a point where all I could hear in a

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room full of four hundred was the embers of my

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cigarette burning. It's not just a silence, it was like

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a suction to it, and I felt myself leave my body.

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It was literally like I'm gonna go watch from over there.

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And then I got off stage and the owner comes

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up to me and he's that look of someone who

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just saw an accident, and he's like, are you okay,

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And I'm like, yeah, I guess I'm okay. This is weekend.

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I'm supposed to do three more weeks. And he goes,

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I don't think this is working out, and I'm like, okay.

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He goes, I think maybe you should just go home. Wow.

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Andre asked if Maren got paid. Maren said, I don't

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even know. I don't even think I cared. I knew

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I had to play along and be like, oh, really,

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I think it'll get better. So I said that. By

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my mind, I'm like, thank god, less funny. I'd been

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sober for about a year and on that plane ride

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back got totally s face, totally relapsed. I just drank

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the whole way home. Dan Soda recalled having his confidence

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shattered during a twenty fourteen set, and the person who

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turned his night around was Conan O'Brien. Soda set of Conan,

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he did one of the coolest things that I've seen

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in the business. The second time I did Conan, I did,

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like my set didn't feel like it went well. He

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called me to the couch to sacod night. He did

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something cool where at the end of the show he went,

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all right, that's all my time. He thanks the guest.

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He's like, Dan, Soda, thank you guys, good night. Conan

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turns the soda. How do you think you did? Soda said,

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I hated that set, And as Soda remembers it, ConA

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looks at the crowd and goes, day effing sucked. Soda says,

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it made me feel so much better instantly. Nate Bergatzi

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explained to you people why he moved back to Tennessee

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ten years ago. He wanted his daughter, who's now thirteen,

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to have a grounded, average upbringing. Got to keep getting

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average in there. That's the whole brand, apparently, got to

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keep working that word in. Nate said, we live in

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a great neighborhood. We're in a cul de sac. No

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one who's really an entertainment lives there. It's people have

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regular jobs or friends. So everything that she's around now,

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she's not around this, meaning the entertainment business. She knows

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I do it, and I have her introduced me in

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my specials. So she sees sights of it, but overall

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she's going to school and living a normal life. Johnny Mack,

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you never talk about Chris Fleming. I know, did you

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guys watch the special yet? Did you stick with it?

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Did you trust me? Did you go through the whole? Hey,

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this is weird. Johnny Mack must be on crack. Why

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is he telling us to watch this thing? And an

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hour lady, We're like, oh, yeah, that was really good.

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Have you done that yet? Rolling Stone profiled Chris Fleming.

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Chris Fleming would like to make one thing clear. He's

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not weird, he said over zoom. I'm very normal. Maybe

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I'm insane, because I don't think I'm insane, but I

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don't see my work as weird. I like to keep

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things surprising, and I like to surprise myself in my writing.

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That's how I would view it as a surprise party.

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I would describe it as weird, but very very funny.

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Fleming tells Rolling Stone, my comedy is like hear me out,

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it's too frantic to describe. I had a locksmith whom

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I made the mistake of telling I was a comedian,

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and then he was watching my clips on his phone

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silently for the entirety of trying to fix my locks.

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In Live at the Palace, there's no thematic through line,

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rolling Stone writes. In fact, many times in the show

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it feels like Fleming is just hearing his own material

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for the first time. Sometimes he pauses in the middle

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of the act, noting punch lines that the audience doesn't

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laugh at, and redoing the joke with a pointed aim.

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Other Times he abandons a tangent altogether to point out

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an audience members laugh. The end result is a charming,

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surprisingly intimate look into fleming stream of consciousness. Fleming's not

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worried about the numbers, he said, we're focusing too much

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on numbers. Virality whatever, people can go viral and then

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they can't sell out one hundred seed venue. You could

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have one million followers and not be able to get

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twenty people to show up to a show. So if

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you can land in people's hearts, it's way more important

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f awards, f numbers, f viral. If there's something that

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I've done that you think about a feel later down

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the road, that's the key. That's what art should be.

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The Guardian went to see Maria Bamford. They gave Maria

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four stars out of five and describe Maria Bamford as

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an unflinching comedian in complete command of every joke and

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every step. Maria Bamford asks the audience why did Americans

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decide to elect a dictator for a second time? The

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answer money. She sounds like she's teaching my college classes.

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I tell them. No matter what question I ask you, guys, ever,

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the answer is always money. We are till Despite inheriting

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what she calls generational wealth after the early deaths of

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both her parents, Bamford still approaches the world with a

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fundamentally economic mindset. That's the idea on paper. In practice,

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Bamford has never been one for clean narrative arcs. Instead,

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she draws us in with bursts of manic physical expression.

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She runs in tiptoed circles before dropping fully outstretched to

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the floor, all while holding the mic. Bamford is a

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comedian in complete command of every joke, every step. Is

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this her most focused work? Probably not, but she remains

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a gloriously absurd and rapid fire presence. She tells the

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audience about being a comedian, this is a job. The

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New York Post caught up with Charlie Barns, who says

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there's enough polarization going on right now to or I

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don't have much interest in that. I have interest in

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finding ways to bring us together, like out to a

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club or to a theater or whatever. I think when

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you get people in the same room, and you get

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people who may not connect on other things, connecting over

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something just gives more touch points to know. They'd even

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have someone has an opposite view to you. They're not

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the devil, you know. You gotta have common ground. Barrens

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was raised in Wisconsin and has eleven siblings. He explains,

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my first special was sort of about the Midwest. The

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new one, Neighborly, is more about the world from a

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Midwest guys perspective. It also goes deeper to my family.

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I love gambling with my grandma. I love fishing with

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my family. It's just kind of a lot of stories

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about growing up. But I'm one of twelve kids, so

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I'm mass produced. I got that going for me. In Minnesota,

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comedians have been responding to the presence of ice up there.

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Ben Kantzener is one of three Minneapolis comedians who hosted

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a roast of ice. Had seen some videos of ice

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agents and Kassner said that could easily be me. There's

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no reason it wouldn't because all the indiscriminate nature of

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how our government, in our police and our agencies all

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out towards people of color and people in the community.

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So yeah, it's fear all the time. Another Minneapolis comedian,

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Comrade Tripp, said, when you're going down swinging, you're always

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punching up. It's the elephant in the room, it's the

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donkey on our necks. Janny's a Greenow talk to the

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Minneapolis Post and she said, I would have loved to

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have been a political comedian at a world where your

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politics weren't your sole identity. F ice can I say that?

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Don't forget to vote for Comedy Survivor. What you do

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is you go to the Facebook group Daily Comedy News

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Podcast Group. There you will find a picture of me

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extinguishing the torch of Kevin Hart. Write down the name

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of the comedian he would like voted off Comedy Island

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this week. No Knicks game tonight after two nights. Tracy

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Morgan is a big Knicks fan. He explained how he

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got Daniel Radcliffe to also become a Knicks fan. They've

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been attending games together, and Tracy gave some tips to

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Daniel Redcliff It said, Daniel, chill out, He's yellen clean

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that glass eye. RAF as soon as the referees missed

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a call, clean that glass eye, and I gave him

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that to yell out. DJ Miller is dropping hints that

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he could get back into these Deadpool movies. Said he

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had recently spoke to Ryan Reynolds, the guy who's at

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WRF Radio. Asked TJ Miller, all right, to you back

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in or is that chip sailed? TJ Miller said, it

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has not sailed. And that's all I'm going to say

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about that. Okay, Marvel gets so weird about this stuff.

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They're just like, don't talk about it, don't talk about it.

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Mike Epps is tired of apologizing. He was on Dion

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Cole's Funny Knowing You podcast. Mike said, look, I'm exhausted.

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I'm tired of apologizing. I'm a comedian, a crack jokes.

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Everything I say is not to be analyzed and put

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on blogs like I'm a bad person at crack jokes.

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It's funny. I'm a comedian. The stuff is exhausting. F

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off Man, it wasn't even a real story. It was

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a joke. No, I didn't leave a homeless family on

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the street. Did I meet a homeless family help them?

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Hell yeah, I helped them. Did I crack a joke

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and make a joke of it at the end? Yeah,

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I made it funny. Damn I'm a comedian. TMZ reported

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some SNL staffers were scared after a musical guest, Cardi B,

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had a meltdown over joke during weekend Update. The joke

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was about Nicki Minaj aligning herself with the President of

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the United States after hearing the Maga manage joke. Sources

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at SNL alleged that Gardi B destroyed equipment, punching a

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screen in the producer's office until it was broken. They

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also claim that the rapper threw her phone at a

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TV backstage after threatening to leave the show and not

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perform during the episode Wow. TMZ says the joke was

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then taken out of the show. That is your comedy

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news for today. All right, go vote for Comedy Survivor

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and meet you back here tomorrow.