July 12, 2026

Pete Holmes on Screen Time, Jeff Arcuri’s Viral Fame, and Seth Meyers "Hilarious" Group Text

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mac shares daily comedy news, starting with Pete Holmes telling Wired he leaves 55,000 emails unread, uses an iPhone Air from 2025, and keeps screen time low (about 1 hour 15 minutes average), aided by a screen-time widget, no social media, grayscale display, and limiting color/sound. The LA Times profiles comedian Jeff Arcuri, who describes being widely recognized through Instagram Reels while still unknown by name, and says crowd work clips immensely boosted his career; he also discusses writing much of his Netflix special within a year amid his wife’s cancer diagnosis and later improved prognosis, noting their use of dark humor. Seth Meyers mentions an SNL-related group chat with Amy Poehler and Michael Shoemaker called “the tripod” and says Fred Armisen is the funniest texter. Just For Laughs Sydney 2026 (Nov 9–22) announces Gabriel Iglesias, Greg Davies, Bill Bailey, and Dara O’Briain. The Guardian highlights Edinburgh Fringe’s surreal Underground Monk Show and its dates. A Minneapolis Star Tribune review calls Michael Che’s set edgy and notes he avoided SNL talk.

00:13 Pete Holmes Email Detox
00:29 iPhone Air Hot Take
01:21 Screen Time Hacks
02:34 Jeff Arcuri Reels Fame
03:11 Crowd Work Career Boost
04:00 Writing Through Hard Times
04:56 Seth Meyers Group Chats
06:04 Just For Laughs Sydney Lineup
06:45 Underground Monk Show Explained
08:18 Michael Che Live Review

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Daily Comedy News with Johnny Mac is a daily podcast covering comedians, stand-up comedy, late night television, and the comedy industry. New episodes every morning. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

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

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

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comedy news. Pete Holmes wants you to know he's not

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reading your email. He caught up with Wired and said,

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you can make a living. You could have a life

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and leave fifty five thousand emails on Red with a

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big f off. Because this was Wired, they asked Pete

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Holmes about technology, which is kind of interesting. I like

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when you ask comedians about different things. What phone do

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you have, Pete Holmes? He said, it's the iPhone Air

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from twenty twenty five. I love this phone so much.

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The first thing I love about it is it didn't

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do well. No one bought it, and then when I

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saw it, I couldn't wait to get it. People often

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think it's an Android. People don't know what it is.

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I love all of this. I love having a phone

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nobody else has. I mean, everybody has the same ugly

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spider eyeball phone. Everybody's just getting the max the twenty

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eight hundred hour battery life. Get all that stuff out

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of here. The iPhone Air is the first iPhone I've

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seen it in a long time that looks like Steve Jobs

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out of say, everything else is just Apple playing catchup

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with Android. Apple mimick. It's something this saill Google do

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or whoever giving us a bunch of stuff we don't need.

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And the flex is that it has a short battery life.

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You see my phone to go. Bete must not be

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on his phone very much. There was a time when

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Apple was trying to make the eleven inch laptop. They

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were trying to make the future. They were trying to

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have things look clean, and now it's just like, here's everything.

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You look like you work at Silicon Valley. You look

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like you're a programmer. I want to look like I'm

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in Blade Runner. They asked Pete Holmes his average screen time.

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The answer one hour fifteen minutes. Pete said, it's dream

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of dreams to finally, if someone asked me in a

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public way, what's your screen time? I've been living for

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this day. So today it's two o'clock and I'm at

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twenty seven minutes. And every day I am for sub

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one hour. And I'm so aware of what a flex

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this is. I just got my screen report. An hour

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in fifteen minutes was my average for the week. And

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here's the punchline. That's still too much. I still feel

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stressed out by my phone. I can't even imagine what

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mine is. My phone's upstairs. I'll tell you some other episode.

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I'm still looking at it more than I would like to,

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and it still gets its closet me. At some points

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it goes higher if I watch a movie or something.

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If I've been flying, I keep the widget for screen

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time on my home screen, which is good hack. Trying

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to lose weight, you have to weigh yourself, and if

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you're trying to get your screen time down, put the

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widget on your phone. Pete says, there's no social media

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on my phone. It's not natural to be in line

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at the airport security and finding out everything from every

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corner of the globe and having your own personal life

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just constantly. I found that if you step away, people

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get the message pretty quickly. You have to tell people.

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A lot of my texts start with sorry. I'm not

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a big text person, and my phone is in black

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and white. It's a nice little hack. Your phone is

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like a slot machine, so the more you can limit

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its color and sound, the less it can lull you

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in a lot more there. We'll save that for summer weekends.

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As we go, there's a lot more there. I am

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scrolling down as I babble to you here. Jeff A.

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Kuriy has a pretty good special on Netflix. The La

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Times profiled him. They said, let's talk about the weird

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level of fame you've attained right now. You're the guy

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everyone sees on their Instagram reels at the same time,

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like who's that guy? Jeff said, one hundred percent my

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uber driver on a forty five minute ride here. We

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talked the entire time. As soon as I get in,

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he goes, you do comedy? I go, yeah, man, we

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start talking. He's asked me questions. We're talking about comedy.

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We pull up and he goes, what's your name? By

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the way, he was quoting videos of mine the whole time.

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Then I wrote it down for him. I was like,

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special comes out July seventh, to give it a watch,

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and he's like, all right, man, I only have YouTube.

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I was like, all right, you don't have to say that.

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You don't have to lie in the airport. I get

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a lot of people squinting, and then I'll see them

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look at their phone and try to figure out how

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do I know this person? The La Times ask Jeff

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for curi you I have your crowd work clips on

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social media changed your career, he said immensely. I think

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it was the only way for me to put out

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as much content as I could and still perform live.

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I get to show my improvisation and yet still work

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on the written part personally, and it gets to repeat

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that joke for your touring, as opposed to a crowd

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work moment it happens, it's done. There's a lot of

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bad crowd work out there, just like there's bad editing

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else fledgling or whatever rookie stuff. I think it's died down,

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if I'm being honest, I think the main reason for

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the hate is because a lot of people start to

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try it. They weren't doing it, and so there's a

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lot of people that try it because they saw the success.

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I was fortunate enough that I was already doing it,

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and so I just applied it to social media. No

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point in my career did I say I'm going to

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start talking to the audience. I've always done that. It

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makes me cringe when I see comedians complaining about crowd work.

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Why you're worried about what you're not doing. Do your

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thing and then succeed. Don't try and latch on whatever

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the success is and then complain didn't work for you.

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Change gears aget a little more serious here after Netflix

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called what was the first thing you did to prepare

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for the special? Jeff said, So, that's kind of hard

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because last year was a big year healthwise for my wife.

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She was diagnosed with cancer and everything, so it's a

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lot of adjusting on the fly. We found out about

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the special within today or so, finding out that she

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was misdiagnosed and her cancer was actually in a better

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place than we thought it was. So it was a

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great week for us. So it was very surreal. But

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then to switch to prepping for special because I'm not

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going to record a special talking about my life prior

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to that, it felt weird being able to talk about dating,

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talking about sex, life, things like that when I just

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got married. So a lot of special, I would say,

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at least half was written within a year of the

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taping on the road that year, going through what I

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was going through with my wife. There's jokes she's made

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throughout the year that I would do on stage even

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after clearing it and saying, my wife said this and

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she has cancer, and here's the joke. And I still

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get people like, oh, come on, don't make that joke, dude.

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I'm like, I didn't, she did. I'm just telling you

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what happened. We want to let people know that we

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make dark jokes about her life, about our cancer, about

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our situation, and not every joke, just like every couple,

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not every joke is meant to be for everybody. Seth

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Myers was on the Hey Jonas podcast curious about his

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correspondent with former SNL cants mates and asked if there

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are any group chats and who's in them and do

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any of them have a funny name. Seth Myers said,

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the group chat with the funniest name, Okay, this is

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Seth Myers, who has the twelve thirty show on NBC.

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I don't think it's that good. The President of the

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United States and I are a line that we need

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to make twelve thirty great again. But Seth Myers is

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doing his thing every night at twelve thirty, getting slightly

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more viewers than I have listeners. And Seth Meyers said

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the funniest group chat name belongs to one with Amy

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Poehler and producer Michael Schumaker and the very funny group

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chat name is Seth Meyers said, we're the Tripod, the

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three of us. That's sort of a lovingly supportive one.

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Oh my god, that's funny, the Tripod. Hello, oh show,

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are you kidding me? Man? That's the funny one. Meyer said.

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The other group chats don't have funny names. Hey, Seth

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Nioth is that one. But they have some funny people,

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you know, Andy Samberg, Fred Armison and Bill Hayter, those

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guys on one. I will say the funniest texture independent

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of a group is Fred Ormison. Just for Laugh Sydney

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twenty twenty six has been announced. Now I saw some

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reports that said this is the first JFL Sydney, and

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I'm like, I'm pretty sure that existed. And this article

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I'm Kribbigoff says it's the fourteenth edition. Now I'm pretty

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sure it existed because when I was working with the

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Just for Last Folks AD Serious a decade ago, I

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was trying to figure out a way to scan my

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way to doing business travel to Sydney. Never pulled it off,

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So that's why I know like this existed before. So

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for its fourteenth year, they've already announced Gabriela Iglesias Task

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Master star Greg Davies, comedy legend Bill Bailey, and mock

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the Weak icon Dara O'Brien Just for Laugh, Sydney, November ninth,

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Through the twenty second The Guardian wrote about The Underground

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Monk Show, Edinburgh's fringe cult comedy of the highest order.

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They tell us deep within the cavernous Banshee Labyrinth in

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Edinburgh's Cowgate, robed monks stand ominously on stage after midnight.

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It's twenty twenty four, halfway through the fringe, and nobody

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knows what's happening. But in this dungeon like sweat box,

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we're about to experience a work in progress that's equal

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parts to joyous and utterly unhinged. Two years later, Underground

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Monks Show is back. So what's this about? Co creator

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John Norris said, it's so funny because that's what we

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constantly ask ourselves. If you were an attempt to explain it,

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you might say the show follows whimsical monks who, over

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the course of an hour, experience a spiritual awakening, spurred

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on by a magical body of water that turns their

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visions into reality. There are flashbacks, dream sequences, and a

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portal into another world. One night, the monks latched onto

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objects from members of the audience. A poor man in

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the front row lost his cap for the entire show

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when accompanied by Gregorian Chance and Coral Masses. The monks

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deemed it sacred to their cause. See I love this stuff.

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I know some of you were like, what just tell

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us about Bill Bird? Dude, I love this weird stuff.

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Co director Corey Podle said it had nothing to do

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with monks or nuns, but we were just stressed that way.

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Then from there John just kept being like, what if

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we were all just like monks? He said, At enough time,

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I guess he manifested it. Norris Hope's audience has experienced

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a nice little escape for an hour. The Underground Monk

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Show is at Assembly George Square Gardens in Edinburgh August

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fifth through the thirtieth, then in London at the Soho

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Theater January eleventh through the twenty third. How we doing

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on time? Little short good? Because I had kicked a

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story the other day about Michael Chay. The Minneapolis Star

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Tribune went to see Michael Chay and said, Chay proves

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he's one of comedy's sharpest bad boys. Jay jumped from

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one politically incorrect subject to the next, using language that

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would never be allowed on NBC. At one point, he

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mused about the chances that Abraham Lincoln was gay. The joke,

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told much better by Michael Chay, was he was shot

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in the theater. That's a pretty gay way to die.

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Weird told Chase. Material is just as edgy as anything

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Dave Chappelle or Matt Rife has ever uttered. Is Matt

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Rife edgy? I don't think Matt Wife's edgy? Is he?

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I don't know? Is it sire? A backwards baseball cap,

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sweatshirt and sweatpants. Wait, that's almost what I'm wearing. No

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cap today? Showered, Well, not on Sunday. I didn't record

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this on Sunday morning. John didn't go to the doctor

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on Sunday. No. I went to the doctor on Thursday

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when I recorded this, So I showered. So I'm not

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wearing a baseball cap. But it would not be absurd

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if I recording the show wearing a baseball cap, a

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sweatshirt and sweatpants. Maybe in July it would be, but

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in November probably what I'm wearing. I digress. Michael Jay

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wore a backwards baseball cap, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. He even

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indulged spectators who felt it necessary to comment. Jay said,

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this is why I don't do crowd work now. In

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the past, during these summer shows, Shay would like hint

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that he might not return to SNL. He did not

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comment on SNL at all this time, so maybe he'll

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be back. That is your comedy news on a summer Sunday.

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See you tomorrow.