Sept. 6, 2024

Nikki Glaser's Dark Comedy

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode, Johnny Mac delivers daily comedy news. Key highlights include Nikki Glaser's transparency about her dark comedic content, the Bob Saget Legacy Award honoring John Mayer and Jeff Ross, and Zarna Garg's unconventional start in comedy. The episode also features insights from comedians like Greg Fitzsimmons, Phil Wang, and Dane Cook on their comedy journeys. There's also a brief mention of Roy Wood Jr. and Nick Thune's upcoming comedy specials and an interview preview with Gianmarco Soresi

00:00 Introduction and Nikki Glaser's Dark Comedy
01:23 Bob Saget's Legacy and John Mayer's Tribute
02:29 Zarna Garg's Comedy Journey
03:47 Greg Fitzsimmons and Phil Wang on Comedy Beginnings
05:24 Dane Cook on Comedy and Cancel Culture
06:30 Dave Merheje on Palestine and Acting
07:04 Upcoming Comedy Specials and Events
07:50 Weekend Interviews and Wrap-Up

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WEBVTT

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Callaroga Shark media. I know Johnny Manhood your daily comedy

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news no Taylor Swift fan. Nicki Glazer tells any why

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I'm not a politician. I'm not enacting laws. My job

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is to be truthful to myself, and what's authentic for

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me is to share these dark thoughts I have. It

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really releases some of the shame I struggle with the

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morality that's put on comedians say the right thing and

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have the right take. We do have an influence, obviously,

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but we're also telling jokes. It's hard because the things

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I do think are so wrong and so bad, and

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there's fear of getting canceled for saying the wrong thing.

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But ultimately I know I'm a good person. I dealt

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with a lot of like, am I a bad person

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because these thoughts? And I'm really not. I could sleep

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well at night knowing that I didn't really say them

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to hurt anyone. I'm only as sick as my secrets,

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and so I try to release as many secrets as

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possible up there. I do worry about Nikki the more

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of these interviews I read. In her recent special Someday

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You'll Die, she ponders guns are easier to find than compassion.

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She then calls out the suicide lifeline nine to eight eight.

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Throughout the special Sedgy material, it took her a while

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to get to a point where audiences felt comfortable laughing

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with her right City Wire Glazer says, it becomes a

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challenge the suicide material stuff. I was getting a lot

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of pushback from audiences, and I thought, Oh, guess I

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can't really go there and talk about my suicidal thoughts

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and joking about how I'll probably kill myself some day.

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They're never gonna be okay with it. But I kept going,

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and I kept trying until I found a way that

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actually worked, and it was one of the biggest laughs

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of Mindsire said, that was really gratifying. I hope she's

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okay there. Bob Saggitt was friends with John Mayer, so

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no surprise that Bob Saggett's favorite charity will honor John

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Mayer with a special award at the Scleroderma Research Foundation's

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annual fundraiser, Cool Comedy, Hot Cuisine that's on October twenty ninth.

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The nonprofit will give John Mayer and comedian Jeff Ross

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the Bob Saggat Legacy award in honor of how they

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helped Sagat raise funds and awareness. Jeff Ross will host

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the event, which would feature additional comedians, TBA musicians and performers.

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Kelly Rizzo, Bob's wife, said, I could not be more

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thrilled to see the Bob Saggatt Legacy Award go to

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John Mayor and Jeff Ross. They were two of Bob's

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dearest friends and both in body's dedication to the cause.

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The reference ensure that Bob's impact continues, proving that laughter

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and music can be powerful tools in the fight against

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this disease and bring us closer to a cure with

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every event. After Saggot died in twenty twenty two, John

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Mayer paid for a private plane to transport the body

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back to California and later served as a pallbearer at

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the funeral. Earlier this year, on Bob Saggot's birthday, John

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Mayer posted a photo of himself with Saggot, saying, I

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miss you the most when I'm exhausted and I just

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want to talk to my friend. We all miss you.

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Lost me be out of our control, but remembrance is

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our active defiance and we will never Forget You. Zarna

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Garga got into comedy because of her teenage daughter. After all,

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mom sold funny stories. How hard could it be? Sarna

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jumped on stage in twenty nineteen. She'd never been inside

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a comedy club before. Then her children convinced her she

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was funny. She went up onto the open mic and

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was given half an hour. That's eternal. A half hour

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is endless. She didn't really have material, so she went

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with what she knew. Gark told post Media the thing

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is I discovered there's a big and vibrant audience for

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Indian mother in law jokes. I didn't know enough to

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have stage fright to be honest with you later around

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the op but Mike encourage me to go up there

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and talk about whatever I think is funny. I thought

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about a lot of things my mother in law said

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to me, so I went with it without thinking twice.

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I'm really glad I was ignorant of what it should

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be to be afraid up on stage because the vibe

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of just naturally showing up on stage and talking about

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life is also how I do it. Now. It's much

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easier for me to not overthink it and to treat

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every show like a big extended dinner party. Zarna says,

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you don't have to be part of my culture to

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know there are inappropriate people in everybody's life who say

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crazy things. They don't have to be Indian or even

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have a mother in law. We all have that friend

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or neighbor or uncle or aunt wherever that randomly blurts

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out completely inappropriate things. It thinks it's totally okay to

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do it, these things of all the one thing at

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a time. Once I understood what stand up comedy was,

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I hung out with comics, learned what they were doing.

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I'm immersed in that world of entertainment in the comedy format.

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Now in a minute, I'm very tuned what's going on

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in the digital space. It's very interesting. Once you decide

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you want to do something, you start learning before you

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even know you're learning. Greg Fitzsimmons said his first writing

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job was with Bill Maher. I was hired to do

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audience warm up but only been doing comedy maybe seven years,

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and he liked my warm up, so he offered me

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a writing job. I was with a bunch of guys

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who's still as writers twenty five years later. It's like

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a club there I didn't stay in that club. I

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got fired, but you know that just happens when you're

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write for TV shows. You get fired a lot. Usually

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a producer will call you in and gently let you go.

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But Bill sat down with me and did it himself

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like a man, and I'll always respect that. The South

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of China Morning Post is your home for comedy news.

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They caught up with Phil Wang, who said stand up

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is like alchemy, turning nothing into something. There's something mystifying

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about that. To stand on stage on your own and

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turn that nothing into a room of laughing people. I

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found that fascinating. It's not about I'd give it a go.

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The first gig I ever did was at school in

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Bath when the drama teacher invited people to do five

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minute open spots. To me and this other kid said yes.

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People were surprised, but I found I had a knack

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for performing. The jokes were mainly stolen from you, Twoe,

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but I had the ability to tell them the sense

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of the rhythm, the intonation, the punctuation, the musicality of it.

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Three years ago, Wang put out a book called A

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Side Splitter, a book about being mixed race and having

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grown up in Malaysia and then moving to the UK.

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Phil says it was awkward and confusing. I suppose in

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Malaysia I was sort of treated as a white kid,

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a bit foreign, but people mostly found that interesting. But

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I never really felt like part of the gang or

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that I was meant to be there, which is why

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I was excited when we moved to Britain and then

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at the school I was treated as the Asian kid.

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I realized that was gonna be the case wherever I am,

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so I might as well embrace it. And embracing it

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I found stand up. Phil has a degree in engineering

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from Cambridge and said going to Cambridge was important for

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the comedy angle. Although I was still half thinking I'd

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be an engineer and half thinking I'd be a comedian,

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but comedy overtook the engineering. The second year of engineering

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was the hardest I've ever worked in my life, and

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then I promised myself I'd never worked that hard again,

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and I have kept that promise. Dane Cook, how has

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your comedy changed over the years. That was a question

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from Boston dot Com and Dane said, well, anytime it

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starts to change, I go back to Boston and fix it.

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To get right back to exactly what I'm supposed to

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be doing in the first place. I'm a cut up.

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I'm supposed to say the thing that's wrong. I have

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to remind myself of that. What about cancel culture? After all,

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this is an interview with the comedian, and he got

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asked about that. He says, I don't pay attention. I

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don't care when Dave Chappelle spoke his mind on his

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Netflix special, if Shane Gills got cann from SNL, they

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made it come back. Tom Brady Roaston ever laughed so

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much in my life. I kept saying, I can't believe

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this is live. Comedy's back right now, right now, and

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they'll never take it away from us again because enough

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comics have gone through the ring of people dissecting their bits.

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Judging an excerpt of a comedy routine is like trying

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to defend somebody for crime, but you're only allowed to

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use a tenth of the evidence. With an excerpt, it's

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impossible to know where somebody's heart and soul is. They'll

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still be comedians who misstep, but as far as silencing

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or tampering with a freedom of speech of comics, that

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that's over. Dane's line, if it hasn't happened to me,

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if it isn't how I see the world, I ain't

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saying it. But if it happened to me and I

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experienced it, I'm saying it. That's my truth. As a comic.

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I believe that if you're observing and reporting on things

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that are actually happening, just like in journalism, it's fair game.

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I didn't write the story, but I'm telling you what happened.

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New Arab caught up with Dave or Hedge. Dave expressed

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his hurt and pain over the situation in Palestine. Dave said,

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I just feel like there needs to be more empathy

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and it's so sad what's happening. Palestinians deserve better treatment.

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I feel it's inhumane. We should be ashamed of what's happening.

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You feel helpless and it's just very sad. How are

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we arguing anything when children and humans are just dying.

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The conversation to talk to Dave at being cast in

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the twenty twenty three films, sometimes I think about dying,

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and Dave said, it's always great to be you know,

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cast or looked at for your skill set. I mean

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for me, to play many different types of roles and

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tell different types of stories. I think it's something I've

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always wanted to do. I don't necessarily have to play

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a Middle Eastern person all the time. Some comedy tapings

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this weekend, Roywood Junior. He'll tape a special at the

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Lincoln Theater in Washington tomorrow night on the seventh. Then

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on Sunday, Nick Fune. All of a sudden, hearing a

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lot of Nick Fune, I guess he's been opening for

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Nate and Nate is producing this new special. Nick Thune

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will be at Zenies in Nashville. Yeah, so this is

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really in the Burghetzi verse. If you're not familiar with Nick,

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he is a dead pan who mixes storytelling and one liners.

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Also on Sunday, Dean Delray. Guess who's opening for Dean Delray?

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Who's opening for Dean Delray? Bill Burr? Wow, this one

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is also in Nashville. So you're gonna have to choose

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which show you want to hit. This one's at the

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Cavern's just outside of Nashville, and Pellam at Tennessee Sunday Night.

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Dean Delray with special opener Bill Burr. And that's your

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comedy news for today right this weekend. Tomorrow, I have

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an interview with John Marcos Siraisi. We went most of

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an hour really interesting discussion, talked about some of his projects.

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We got into naty gritty of comedy. I was enjoyed

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speaking with him. And then on Sunday, I'll poke at

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the variety list of comedians you should know and will

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know as I can tell you since I already recorded Sunday,

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I only got to half the list on Sunday, so

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that might also be Monday's episode. But good stuff coming

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up over the weekend. If you enjoy the program and

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tell a friend about it, they might like it too.

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All right, see you back here tomorrow with Jamarco