Black Moses and the Notable Alumni

Noah reluctantly sits down to talk about his dreaded task of the week, irresponsable left turn leadership, and how exactly to go viral on Instagram and play the algorithm. Ester unpacks a week with her parents and the passover seder sketch as well as revealing her ultimate goal which has to do with high school and wikipedia.

like, follow, subscribe, and share!

instagram:

@noahGcomedy

@ester.steinberg

@agaisnthiswill 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello, episode five. We're doing it against his will. Noah doesn't want to be here.

SPEAKER_05 0:05

But I'm here. I'm here.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_05 0:08

What a I love how you start every episode by welcoming me as if I'm the guest and not the co-host.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

You are dragged on as a hostage situation. It is a annoyed, reluctant man who's here against his will.

SPEAKER_05 0:24

The podcast has been fine. Today it's actually that I have a daunting day ahead. There's a task that I've committed to doing today that I've needed to do for the last two weeks.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Is having sex with me that bad?

SPEAKER_05 0:38

No, we can end the podcast right now and handle that. I have to clean the fish tank.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 0:44

I reluctantly became a fish dad a year and a half ago. It was like.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

You were thrilled.

SPEAKER_05 0:49

No. Well, what it was is it was Thanksgiving break with the kids, and we were so desperate to literally kill an afternoon. It wasn't even about a long-term let's give them something to do. We were literally like on day three or four of a school break, and we're just like, we need to do something this afternoon to keep them busy. Let's just go get fish.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Let's blow$200 on a fish tank, a filter, and a heater.

SPEAKER_05 1:10

Cut to a year and a half later. I'm an actual fish dad. I care about the tank. I monitor pH levels. The tank looks horrible. I need to clean it for two weeks. And you know those tasks, like we all have them, those random things that are like important to get done, but not so important that they become the pressing need. So it just kind of lingers, and then the longer it goes, the worse it gets. And so the tank has become unlivable for the fish. And today I'm going to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Kill the fish.

SPEAKER_05 1:37

I'm not looking forward to cleaning the tank. It's a whole undertaking. Undertaking. It's a whole undertaking. It smells bad. There's dirty water all over.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Maybe we need like a good playlist. Would that help? Like no.

SPEAKER_05 1:51

My you so here's what I'll say. You're very good at DJing. You're a great playlist curator. I'm never motivated to do anything based on a playlist. Music isn't something I put on to make sure I can do things, but I usually enjoy it when you put music on in the background.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Like if I had to clean the fish tank and that's something I would do, I would definitely put on like grease, like co wash, or like go grease. Like I would want to like theater, musical theater it.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

I take back what I said. Stay far away from my fish tank cleaning playlist. I don't want you DJing this afternoon. But uh what's up with you?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

It's been a week. We did Passover. A lot of it is for the kids trying to make memories. Yay! Um spring break. It's it's a lot of energy and work. And I definitely get restless where I'm like, okay, enough with the holidays. I'm not a holiday vacation person. I love a random Tuesday work week.

SPEAKER_05 2:48

We're on day three of eight of Passover. So if you're already annoyed by it, we got plenty left.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

I mean, yeah, but the big Passover starts with two giant annoying satyrs with weird food and really specific stuff. On the the rest is just deciding whether or not you want to ruin your ruin your uh digestive tract.

SPEAKER_05 3:11

So we're on the other side of the satyrs, though, which is a bit of a relief.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Yes, and there was a night that I was asked to put humor into the Seder for a whole temple, and it was like 250 people, and we're gonna make comedy happen.

SPEAKER_05 3:26

You were hired to write a funny Passover sketch.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Um, so I really put my all, thought it was a good sketch, and the actors were very limited. I mean, Noah, you are a good actor. I I'm a I'm a really enthusiastic actor. I like playing the old lady.

SPEAKER_05 3:43

Let me cut to the chase. The sketch bombed, but through no fault of your own.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Because blame the audience.

SPEAKER_05 3:49

We're professional comedians, professional writers. I have a good eye for what is a well-written, funny sketch. And when you sent it to me a week ago, I was like, this is hilarious. You wrote a funny Passover sketch when it came time to performing it in real time in front of 250 hungry, tired Jews, who, most of whom were on the other side of 65, 70 years old.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

It didn't play well in the room. And it wasn't a short sketch, it was like six, seven pages of typed out dialogue.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

So it also was a sketch.

SPEAKER_05 4:19

Well, but that's also like by page one and a half, you realize it's not hitting. Like there were enough jokes early on to know whether or not it was gonna work. And by page one and a half, I was like, all right, this is not going well.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

I mean, I heard a light cough.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

I thought you were gonna say, I heard light laughter.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

I heard like a cough laugh. I was like, there I there's a certain point where you're in front of a crowd that's giving you nothing, but you're like, I think they're then you start, I think they're enjoying it.

SPEAKER_05 4:50

Yeah, you start as a performer, you start to negotiate in your mind, like, well, they're not laughing, but I look out and I see them smiling. So maybe they're processing, they're just interacting with the material in their mind, they're thinking it through. So at least they're they're interested.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

And there's people who are just not going to laugh no matter what, and that's it's it was it was clunky, but I hired my dad to be the moderator, and he got to go on stage and he likes to perform or likes to tell jokes. He likes to tell jokes. I don't even know if he likes to perform, but so he's on stage and he's doing his moderator, not horribly, but the first thing he does is just kind of grab the mic, and I describe him as Mr. Magoo, and it really upset me.

SPEAKER_05 5:33

To set the stage, there were five people in the sketch, five seats, five microphones, one in front of each seat. So it'd be very obvious which microphone to grab based on which seat you're in. Your father sat all the way to the right and for some reason grabbed the microphone directly in the middle. And so I, second to the right, next to your father, had to grab another mic. I grabbed his microphone.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

So then you grabbed my microphone. So either way, your father's Noah's mic. Noah took my mic. And then as I'm getting ready for the sketch and I'm like already nervous and stressed out because there's people on stage that aren't really actors, and my dad, and now I have no mic, and Noah kind of looked at me like, we'll share a mic. And I'm just like, I don't want we're the only ones with lines that are we're okay. So I go to grab my dad's mic, which is all the way there, and then I crossed the wire, and then I started to sit weird. So I was like sitting like this and using the microphone. That's why the sketch didn't work, because of how you were it was already like, come on, just grab the right microphone.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

What's funny is afterwards, the person who hired us for the sketch came by and was like, hey, that was great. Uh, you guys did a really great job. Maybe next time let's talk to Esther's dad about not holding the mic down here. She's like, up here, not down here. And so I'm just laughing at myself. This poor 65-year-old man's seven, six, seven. This 67-year-old man who just flew into town to try to have the Passover holiday with his family and only wanted to help, got assigned the role of moderator. All he did was show up and do what he thought he was supposed to do, and he ruined two women's evenings by being inept with the microphone. He pissed you off by taking the wrong one. He pissed the organizer off by apparently not speaking in the microphone well enough, and it just goes to show no good deed goes unpunished.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Well, with my dad, there's always this like irritation. He's just means well, he shows up and does the thing, but then there's also just like the details are killing me.

SPEAKER_05 7:34

Well, that I I think you just get triggered by certain like everyone has that.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

He took the wrong microphone and I had to leap over and cross wires. Like, just open your eyes. It just you I love that you have his back and you're like, hey, he does he means well. And I'm just like, open your eyes and look around. Sometimes there'll be like there was a I don't know, a dinner where like babies were crying and everyone was screaming, and my dad's like, so how's your career? And it's like, look, look, look, what do you what do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I was like the baby's throwing up on me.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

You get very easily annoyed by your father, as most people just get very easily annoyed by their parents. I'm not saying your father's perfect or that he's not annoying at times. What I'm saying is you get incredibly angry at him for little innocent things that aren't a big deal, just like I get upset with my father for little innocent things that don't bother you at all because we're all triggered by our own parents in different ways. But speaking of triggered, I going back to the fish tank from earlier. I I realized something as I was driving back because I went to Pet Smart 9 a.m. opening to replace the filter. And as I said, we've got stuff to do. We're recording the podcast. I'd love to go to the gym. We have to clean up the house from the Seder. So there's a lot on the plate today. And so I was in a rush to get home, and I'm in the left turn lane, and I'm second behind the person who's in front. The light turns green to turn left, the left arrow, and he sits for like six seconds, and I gave a honk and he looked back as if I was crazy. And I'm like, I truly believe if you are first in line for a left turn, you have a social responsibility to be on top of it. If you're sitting in the left turn lane in general, drivers, we shouldn't be distracted, but of course, people are gonna be on their phone, they're talking to someone else, they're eating, they're smoking, whatever. If you are first in line in the left turn lane, you are obligated by society to keep your eyes on that light so the moment it turns green, you can go. Because if you sit on the left turn, it delays everyone in the left turn, and there's a limited amount of time that people can turn left and it fucks up people's day. Traffic, missing a light, that can impact someone's day. You have a social obligation to be on top of your shit when you are first in line in the left turn lane.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

As you're saying it, all I can imagine is like the roquettes like lining up on the wing and being like, and then the first girl's just like uh, I'm supposed to go. And it's like you've ruined the whole not cracker.

SPEAKER_05 9:57

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Uh like you're first. I'm glad you're on board with that because I thought you were gonna say that that's another case of me being like impatient or no, and if someone honked at me while I'm like on my phone and I'm like, oh, it's green, I'd be like, I'm so sorry. Like, I don't want to make eye contact, like I am the worst. Like when I screw up when I drive, which is once in a while, I am, I'm like, I just want to wear glasses that cover my whole face and be like, I'm nobody. Like, I don't want any indication of who I am. Okay, no, I'm going to be going to Florida to do a bunch of dates, and I was really excited because I'm like, I'm from Florida, I got this. And promoting and selling tickets is pulling teeth, and the situation I believe is multi-layered.

SPEAKER_05 10:44

Yes. Promoting is not fun, not easy.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

First and foremost, I'm talking about a Thursday and a Sunday, and like that's tricky.

SPEAKER_05 10:52

Not ideal. Well, Thursday is fine for comedy shows, Sunday not great.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

I was gonna say Sunday is good, but Thursday not great. All right, well it's just the two nights people seem to be very excited about is Friday and Saturday. Fine.

SPEAKER_05 11:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Then we're talking about an alternative venue without a built-in comedy audience.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

So you're not performing at comedy clubs, you're performing at a what audience.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

An alternative venue, music venue, black boxes. Yeah, I think it's a rock venue, and they're like, look, we've had comedy here.

SPEAKER_05 11:22

People also don't realize how important the venue is for comedy to succeed. Music venues are notoriously bad for comedy because the acoustics that make music great are the opposite of what makes it great for a comedian to receive laughter from a crowd.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

And I'm over here being like, hey, I've done comedy in a deli. I can do comedy in a laundromat. Like I'm positive Sally over here.

SPEAKER_05 11:46

So you gotta check in midweek that the promoter is not thrilled with ticket sales right now.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Yeah, and the question is, it they're like, What's your game plan or something? So we're I'm gonna go on the morning news in Tampa, okay? And we pooled St. Augustine as the date because it just doesn't seem to be a good comedy town.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Not the town for you, sure. Or anyone.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

People aren't buying tickets until the day before.

SPEAKER_05 12:12

That always there's always a bump. There's always the week leading up to the show, ticket sales are never where you want them to be. You're worried if it's gonna pick up, if you should even do the show. And there's always 24 to 48 hours before the show, an increase that makes you at least feel better about doing the show. It's not always as many as you want, but it's at least seeing the number going up after it's stagnated for like a week.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yeah, and the last tip of all of this tip of the Steinberg is Florida is not so conducive to comedy, and it certainly isn't perfectly conducive to my comedy. And I don't know why it's my comedy, but I do know why comedy in general.

SPEAKER_05 12:50

Well, you have to find small wins when you're doing comedy and doing comedy on the road. And one thing that I think could be a small win for you. You said you're going on Tampa Bay morning show to promote, right? Yeah. Now, you have for years been trying to get yourself listed as notable alumni on your high school's Wikipedia page. Plant high school has a few people on their notable alumni. You even put yourself on and then they deleted it, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Yeah, I got myself on it and I was there for like a week, and I checked in the next week and I was like, it's gone.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

But just to be clear, you wrote yourself in or you convinced someone who has access to the book.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

It was a friend of mine who's well versed in Wikipedia, my friend Steven, who went to Plant High School.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

So he got you on Plant High School's Wikipedia page under notable alumni, and then you went back a week later and it was erased.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Yeah, someone, I don't know who's in charge.

SPEAKER_05 13:39

Give me the physical feeling. You're excited, you're going a week later to check out the Wikipedia page. You see Azure Summer's gone. Does your stomach drop? Does your throat well up like you want to cry?

SPEAKER_03 13:48

It was like, no, it's going to the airport and you parked your car, and then you come back, you're like, where the fuck is my car?

SPEAKER_02 13:53

I was here.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

I was here. My car was here. I know it was, and I know it was, and it's not here. And I was like, let me read it one more time. And it's like Wade Boggs, Leo Gallagher, Lane Lindell.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

Well, what's funny about those three is Leo Gallagher is another comedian, and Lane Lindell is your childhood best friend. Yes. So of the three notable alumni, you have a direct connection to two of them. There's another comic and literally your best friend, and they deleted you.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Which feels like but so they kept Robert Marv, and I'm just like, what do? And I submitted articles. You have to get into Wikipedia. You have to be like, here's an article, here's the New York Times article about me. What more do you want?

SPEAKER_05 14:34

Well, so my point being, the small win is I think on Tampa Bay morning show, you can call out Plant High School on their Wikipedia, and if nothing else, regardless of whether or not that appearance helps sell tickets, it might help you become a permanent fixture on the Plant High School notable alumni, in which case the trip would have been worth it.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Okay, I'm more likely to win f uh like an election. Like, how am I gonna get being on the news? I can vent about it.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Yeah, it's a fun anecdote. So, right there, you have something to talk about, which is a lot harder than you would think when you do morning radio or morning news. It might actually accomplish the goal.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

I think Is there an angry PTA woman just being like, oh, here we go, Esther Steinberg, delete, delete, delete.

SPEAKER_05 15:18

Like, how many this is 100% a Steve Buscemi, Billy Madison type deal where there is like a weird kid from your plant senior high that did not like you and Lane.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

They can't erase Lane because if you don't like it, it's so crazy that my you know.

SPEAKER_05 15:35

Were you mean to people in high school?

SPEAKER_03 15:37

I was so ridiculously nice that it may have pushed people away.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

Oh, you were so nice that you became mean. You were so nice they thought it was fake.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

They're just like, fuck this bitch and her smile.

SPEAKER_05 15:48

So that whoever that is, when you say fuck this bitch and her smile, and you're picturing someone, that's who's in charge of Plant High School's Wikipedia page. That per that person is always in charge of things. That's exactly who that is the final boss of society that you have to get through when it comes to bureaucracy.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

It was I was told that I bounced through the halls and that when I walked, I had like a bounce to me.

SPEAKER_05 16:12

Well, you're bouncy in general.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

I'm very bouncy. I was bouncy in high school.

SPEAKER_05 16:16

When you sit at a desk, I sit in a chair, you sit on a bouncy ball, which is horrible for having conversations with you because I'm talking to a moving target the entire time. But so that feeds into something I want to talk about.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Can I say my very last Florida problem?

SPEAKER_05 16:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Florida is a place where people want to get drunk and stare at the ocean, and it is not the place where people want to get drunk and listen to jokes. And I think that comedy towns, like you know, you go to Canada in the middle of the winter, probably the most amazing comedy craft.

SPEAKER_05 16:50

I've actually done that. I did Edmonton in February a couple years ago, and it was great because everyone's just like drunk and looking for a warm place to be entertained. You're right.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

Well, Florida, yeah. I mean, Miami is notoriously an awful comedy city because the people there are too sexy and there's too much going on elsewhere. It's like a CNB scene type place. No one's trying to sit in a dark basement and laugh at someone else. North Florida, not great because all the reasons North Florida is just not great.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

North Florida wants to be the South, and the South is like, you ain't the South. And they're like, we'll try really, really hard though.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

What if we're even more racist than the rest of the South?

SPEAKER_03 17:26

And they're like, you have the racism, but you don't have the class, the history of the racism. You guys don't even have sweet tea, lemonade, and like cute accents, but you got the racism. We're good for the well.

SPEAKER_05 17:40

I hope the rest of your Florida trip does work out. Either way, I hope you end up on notable alumni. But talking about how difficult it is to promote in general, obviously, one of the things that works or is told to work for comedians trying to sell tickets is grow your social media following. I put out a clip that was relevant. It was from my 2016 Comedy Central Half Hour Special. So it is a decade old at this point.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Damn near perfect half hour.

SPEAKER_05 18:10

It was it was a great set, but the clip is a decade old, but in there I had a joke where I was just talking about how historically speaking, Moses probably looks more like Cat Williams than Charlton Hester.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

And we were going through old stuff just looking for like clips to post. It's Passover, so I was like, oh, this is a great time to post it. I was like, maybe a couple hundred Jews will get a giggle and I'll get a couple likes and ten followers.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Also, really good for social media when there's something.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Sure. Well, so that's my point is I have like three or four clips that have gone super viral, and the common denominator in all of them is a race war or religious war that ensues in the comments section. Any of my viral clips that have to do with race or religion go super viral because there are always people literally fighting out a race war or a holy war in the comments section. And so what I thought was going to be a silly joke for Jews to laugh about Moses has turned into a every black Hebrew Israelite on Instagram has found this joke and used it as proof that black people are the real Jews. And I think I now probably have two or three hundred new black Hebrew Israelite followers that if they knew me would probably not like me that way.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

But wait a minute, because a lot of your jokes have to do with black people, you're Jewish, you're you have there's a weird moment where I'm like, it kind of does make sense. Sure. And and listen diagrams, I know a garden sports is fans. I will say there's black, cool black people, there's cool Jews, there's white guys who go to Jamaica, which he was recognized by, and then there's this dot where you're like, black Israelites, you would think.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

But my point, if you go and read the comments, if you go see this joke on my Instagram, it's called The Truth About Moses. And if you just have a week and a half to kill, read through this comment section. The discuss like theological debates, yeah. Like the first couple of comments you get, like the cry laughy faces and lol, ah, I like this joke. Ah, this joke sucks. Normal behavior. We have veered so far away from anything even related to comedy or the joke itself, and now we're just discussing whether or not the ancient Egyptians were actually black, whether or not the ancient Jews were actually black, whether or not race is a social concept. Have I gotten to the pyramids? There's an entire subreddit in the comment section on the pyramids.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

I read, I once heard that the Jews did not make the pyramids, they made storage units, and in the Bible it says like storage units, not pyramids. It was like whatever. Pyramids are a are are a miracle in themselves, like the way that they're structured.

SPEAKER_05 20:50

I didn't discuss the pyramids. I'm not here to discuss ancient Egypt. I am here to say, in an attempt to try to sell a few tickets on a Florida tour or wherever else I might be going, DC, I posted a clip about Moses in time for Passover, and a race war has ensued in the comment section of my Instagram, which for whatever reason tends to happen every time one of my jokes goes around.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

And that's how you went from 7,000 followers to 34,000.

SPEAKER_05 21:14

35,000 now. Oh shout out to all the black Hebrew Israelites out there on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

The uh that is that is a trick. I've never I've always been a little slightly envious of the Jesus joke, the black Moses joke.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

My first joke that ever went really viral was the Jewish perspective about Jesus. And I remember after that, for like two weeks straight, you were racking your brain trying to write a Jesus joke. Because you like saw that I instantly jumped like five thousand followers, and you were just like, I need to have some material about Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Yeah, I had the the most I was like, we know that that Mary was a Jewish woman because if you look at the statues, she's holding a Michael Kors purse.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

Like I couldn't that's funny.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

My jokes are never gonna.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

Thought you were gonna go with the hack street joke of like we know she was a Jewish mother because she thought her son was God, God, yeah, and I was like, that's not even your joke.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

But no, I I am very envious, but the formula is biblical person, important biblical person that you can't really debate because who the fuck are you?

SPEAKER_05 22:20

Oh, but you can debate, but yes, that is the formula biblical person that's very important to millions of people. Question the Judaism of it, question the racial or religious undertone they're represented by, and then just let the internet go and then let the internet go wild. But what's funny is I truly both of those jokes that are still to this day being so passionately, passionate passionately, angrily, controversially debate in the comment section were truly written with the intent of being silly. Like of course, and that's the other thing is some people are appreciating the joke, be like, oh man, he's spitting, he's dropping knowledge, he knows some shit. And it's like, I was just being silly. I wasn't trying to like hide some kind of truth within jest. I was literally high one night and was like, wouldn't it be funny if Moses actually looked like Cat Williams?

SPEAKER_03 23:11

The problem is people don't have a sense of humor. So you tell them a joke and they're like, wait, Michael Cors wasn't invented when Mary, and it's like, what are we talking about?

SPEAKER_05 23:23

So anyway, uh I don't I don't know if these new followers. Yeah, I don't know if these new followers are gonna lead to ticket sales, but say all that to say whether it's Tampa Bay morning show, going on Instagram with an unintentionally controversial joke, no one knows what we're doing anymore. It's the wild, wild west. All we can hope is that people show up and have a good time if they show up to our shows.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

My newest thing I like to say, just to blanket the comedy, is that funny and ticket sales have no correlation now. It is a heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_05 23:59

That is very true. We know a lot of unfunny people that are selling out theaters. We know a lot of hilarious people that can't even get a headline weekend, let alone sell that headline weekend. But to be fair, there is also a cross-section in the Venn Diacron. There are a lot of very funny people that are selling a lot of tickets.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

And horrible people who can't sell a ticket.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

That's what I was it's all over the place. It's all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

We live in a new world.

SPEAKER_05 24:26

There is there is certainly not a direct correlation between the funniest people sell the most tickets.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Well, because I think it's the elimination of the gatekeepers.

SPEAKER_05 24:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

We now don't have gatekeepers, it's a strict uh consumer.

unknown 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:40

People find their audience and I'm working on that. I really think that's why I agreed to begrudgingly podcast with you, hoping that this two years from now is the reason we are selling out theaters.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Well, one thing we've gotten out of the podcast already is I did a show at the 80s cafe, and good for my friend Lee's is like, let's produce a show. So it was this wacky, produced show in Las Vegas, which I think we need more of, such a like fun little alt venue. And I went on stage and she's asking us to do fresh materials. So I brought a joke that we worked on here, the the Chuckle Fuctors with Janine Goroffalo.

SPEAKER_05 25:19

So jokeyard is working.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

The jokeyard I brought to the stage and it did really well. And afterwards, someone came up to me and said, I've always loved Janine Goroffalo.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

And I was like, just if this podcast has done anything, we have raised Janine Goroffalo awareness. Funny comic and surprisingly beautiful woman.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

But more importantly, the name is getting me a laugh. And that's what that's what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Um, but yeah, the joke yard and and bringing that up, bringing bringing some joy to people.

SPEAKER_05 25:49

And our and our youngest son's preschool teacher listens to the pod when we went to drop off. She's like, You guys are hilarious. And I'm like, Thank you for listening. Also, not sure if you're who we want listening, but Miss Heavy, thank you. Shout out you and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Well, welcome all.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Welcome, welcome all. Um, we are like a chabad. We will take anyone. Um, so let's get into the Vegas news.

SPEAKER_05 26:15

It's not really interesting news per se, but there was an interesting angle on it. I saw a news story that the Las Vegas Police Department is now working with the Greater State Patrol to raise distracted driving awareness. They are specifically running a campaign where they're going to have a more concerted police presence on the highways to try to scare people out of like not paying attention on the roads. Distracted driving being being on your phone, eating, talking to other people. What I found funny about the story is that they're literally running this campaign from April 3rd to April 20th. So the day that everyone is going to be the highest in smoking and moving forward is when they're ending the distracted driving campaign. Like that should be the day it starts. April 20th should be the beginning of the distracted driving campaign, but instead they're ending it.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

I never I always wondered how high driving is. Like drunk driving.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

What do you mean how high? You've driven high. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 27:19

I mean, I'm paranoid. I'm like, is the are the cops behind me? Am I going the speed limit? Are the cops like it's just a constant staring at my odd, waiting, like, waiting to see if I go one mile above when I was a huge pie head, when there was a time in my life where I was just high all day, every day, so I was always driving high.

SPEAKER_05 27:37

I certainly didn't feel like a worse driver. Like I don't think high drivers are speeding, and like, if anything, you're driving too slow, being a little overly cautious.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Maybe that was the guy in front of you.

SPEAKER_05 27:49

Yeah. We've gone full circle. Turns out the person who was waiting for everybody to turn left was just high at 9 a.m. in front of a pet smart. Actually, probably he's like, hey man, I need a new filter for my beta fish.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

He's just like, I got stoned on Thanksgiving, had to get a beta fish. Um, stoners and fish is a good, a good team.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

I don't know. So that was the news that I saw. I it wasn't the news itself I found interesting so much as the fact that they were ending the campaign on 420. I thought that was an odd day to end the campaign.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

As the month gets closer to the end of the month, that's when cops want to give out more tickets because they got a quota.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

And then I also feel just like the coming from Florida, they had traps. Like I'm kind of used to it. Like when you drive to Gainesville from Tampa, they do 20 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour, 60 miles an hour, back to 15 miles an hour just to ticket people. And so I've always grown up knowing about speed traps. Speed traps, but this would be interesting. I'm hoping that they bust the motorized bikes. I'm waiting for that.

SPEAKER_05 28:54

All right. Is there anything else in the news? It can be a depressing story or a crazy crime story. I feel like Vegas has to have something interesting going on.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Oh, there was a free marshmallow concert.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

Okay. They did like a what's marshmallow's big song?

SPEAKER_03 29:08

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_05 29:10

Because I I remember years ago just seeing a billboard of like a DJ called Marshmallow, and he's one of those that wears a helmet, right? So it conceals his identity.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:19

But then he was like responsible for some of the biggest songs. Okay, so anyway, he's putting on a free.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

He already did a free concert on Fremont, and like millions of people showed up. And I think this is one thing because a lot of times people He was doing like the outdoor stage in the middle of Fremont. Mm-hmm. And millions of people showed up. It was a free concert, which was exciting.

SPEAKER_05 29:36

Millions of people didn't show up. Fremont can't fit millions of people.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Okay. So many people showed up to the free concert. Now, sometimes a news story is like, oh, there's an EDM thing, and I'm like, that sounds fun. You're like, that sounds terrible. I'm gonna predict the both of us are on the same page. We want no part of a free concert.

SPEAKER_05 29:56

Oh, absolutely not. You get what you pay for. A free concert where anyone can just pour in in the middle of Fremont Street. No. No thank you.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

No, I don't want any part of the parking. I feel like when you say it's free, it's Was it a pop-up though?

SPEAKER_05 30:07

Was it like a big surprise? Because I feel like Marshmallow does residencies in Vegas. So that kind of screws over whoever has been paying millions of dollars for him to appear at their venue.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

Those are people who visit Vegas for 24 hours.

SPEAKER_05 30:23

No, I'm saying like the hotel that is giving him his residency is probably not thrilled that he's doing free shows in the middle of Fremont.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Unless like some contract went bad and he was like, I'll show you guys.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Oh, you think he was like, uh oh, fuck you. I was like, oh, then you want to end my residency? You don't want me here anymore? Watch this. Free concert, Fremont. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Yeah, and then that's gonna show a precedent. Adala's next.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

Marshmallow is playing chess, not checkers. Good for you, sir Marshmallow. Then tip over the marshmallow cap.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Whoever you are.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Uh all right, let's do jokeyard. Yeah, whoever you are.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I got a good joke.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I retired it, and I don't even know why I retired it. But here it is.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

I actually have a friend who's kind of kinky and he's single, and he just couldn't believe I had kids. He's like, Esther, how do you have kids? Like, I could never have kids. He's like, I'm having so much sex. And then he's telling me about his house. He's got sex swings, he's got a punishment room, he's got some aftercare. And I was like, excuse me, you got swings, you got a playroom, you got punishment. You're your house sounds like mine. Like, you do have you are raising kids.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

It's just this weird kinky guy.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

So there's something I like the connection.

SPEAKER_05 31:37

It's funny, but well, so first of all, when you say you retired it, did you retire because like d how often did you because I've heard you talk about this?

SPEAKER_04 31:44

I don't think I've ever seen you do it on stage. So, like, did you do it it worked? But then you were like, eh, I don't really like feeling I don't feel like talking about this. Did you do it? It didn't work, and you're like, I don't care about this topic enough to make it work.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

I think it was one of those things where I did it and it may have worked a little bit, and then I retired it because it didn't have that big talk.

SPEAKER_05 32:03

So my gut reaction is I think it's a really funny comparison you draw. I ultimately like where the joke lands, but especially because of where society is, there's a weirdness at the cross-section of like talking about sex and kids. Not that that's what your joke is about, but there's like a weird commonality between the two that might make people uncomfortable if they're not actually listening to what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Um could you could well, first of all, after that conversation, I was like, who molested you?

SPEAKER_02 32:34

And was we unpacked some childhood psychological trauma.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

But he was describing to me something kinky, which was after care. Which is when there's punishment and afterc. This is very, very, very kinky.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

And everyone's fine with kinky, but how dare a mother psychologically analyze this?

SPEAKER_05 32:56

Well, I I mean I think now it's not again. Yeah, now you just turn it now. You just turn it into a bummer. But that's you wouldn't get into all that on stage.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

No, on stage I would just make the comparison and be like, you don't want to have maybe it's I don't want to have kids because it's too much money or work. I don't have to I don't want to rearrange my house.

SPEAKER_05 33:16

Yeah, like you have swings. I get yeah, I think that's funny if you just actually take more time to draw the comparison in the setup before you make that connection. So before you hit the obvious, you are raising kids because look at all these things you just mentioned, really draw out what he says. I don't want to have kids because it's too expensive, it's too time consuming, it feels too difficult. All these things that everyone associates with parenthood before you get to the part of the fact that he's doing all these things for his sexual encounters.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

I was just gonna think I don't want to rearrange my house.

SPEAKER_04 33:45

Yeah. That's fine for children.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

And I'm like, you already have to do it.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

You have a playroom. Do you have a playroom?

SPEAKER_01 33:50

You got punishment?

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Couple G.I. Joe's in there. I might bring my kids over. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Um, maybe there's like a a funny sex toy that's all like now we're now it's prose. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 34:02

Yeah, well, that's the thing, is like there's a million ways.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Toys, punishment, right? There's things.

SPEAKER_05 34:07

There's so many commonalities that you can add to it that will make it funny, but you always have to make sure you don't cross that line where it does become gross or inappropriate in people's minds where they no longer want to laugh because now they're thinking about like inappropriate things with kids.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

So saying Can I do should I just do three and misdirect on a third? Like sure, rule of threes. You think I'm spending money on kids? You're buying swings, you're buying toys.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

And the third thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Whips are way more expensive than I no iPad.

SPEAKER_05 34:40

No, no, you can't go whips because then people think about hitting kids and no, I'm I'm saying my punishment is no iPad. I know, but that see, so that's funny. But that yeah, like my my version of punishment is take away your iPad for a week. You all that is funny. I think it's a great joke. I think what you always have to be mindful of is dodging that line where it gets weird or inappropriate unintentionally, like as you're stumbling across ideas.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Remember, I'm trying to sell tickets in Florida.

SPEAKER_05 35:06

True, okay, so don't farther. Okay, uh, for my joke, I realized that years ago I was really working on developing like a chunk about how my father wore a fanny pack.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

Throughout my entire childhood.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

And this is not just for the joke. It's a really No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

This is a joke birthed out of trauma for my entire childhood.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 35:29

My father wore a fanny pack. Me and my sisters always hated it. We were always horrified by it. We wished he wouldn't wear a fanny pack.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Was it neon colored or just?

SPEAKER_05 35:38

No, it was like a big black leather fanny pack, but it was a staple of my father. Like, it wasn't a thing he would occasionally wear. If you saw my father, he was wearing a fanny pack.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

And it wasn't Louis Vuitton.

SPEAKER_05 35:48

It was not Louis Vuitton. Well, and that's the thing is like, I think 10 years ago, fanny packs kind of came back full circle. There was a while where people were making fanny packs cool again, which is where I think I started writing this joke like 10 years ago. Because the origin of it was like all these years I was horrified by my father's fanny pack, only for it to become cool now. But I think part of what I was also getting at was like as a kid, I thought it was the lamest thing ever. But as I get older, I realize my father was wearing a fanny pack in the face of an entire society of people telling him how dorky it was. And so, in a way, my father was like, I don't give a fuck, I'm doing my own thing, which is ironically punk rock. So, like all these all these things that I thought my father was being so lame for was actually the most punk rock thing he could do, which was like, I'm wearing what the fuck I want, I don't care what you think.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

And then you swivel around with your furry tail and say, Yeah, dad, get it.

SPEAKER_05 36:45

I think I I wrote in my notes, like it was actually the most punk rock thing. So it turns out all these years, like I should actually buy him a leather fanny pack with like metal studs on it or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yes, but the problem is now the basic bitches are wearing fanny packs, so he's in the he's become trendy while trying to be punk rock.

SPEAKER_05 37:00

Well, there was one, so I was going through, I like I never had a full joke developed, I just had like a stream of consciousness, any kind of tangential thoughts related to it. One thing I read, I was like, I love my father more than anyone. My father is my role model. Also, two things about my father. He wore a fanny pack and he cries. And those things aren't necessarily connected except to say that I've seen my I've seen my role model cry while wearing a fanny pack.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Which made me wonder do I need a new role model or do I need to go get a fanny pack? So, like, I think that's funny. And I wanted, like, in reading that, I got excited about developing more.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

But I think, whereas earlier I was trying to maybe write like a funny fanny pack joke, now I'm thinking this might be like a six or seven.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Oh, this is a special.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

This might be it's called My Father in the Fanny Pack.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

And you're also forgetting, I think that third, he cries, he wears the fanny pack, and he has two, and he had two wiener dogs.

SPEAKER_05 37:54

Sure, maybe, but that's no.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

No, you don't think that fits in?

SPEAKER_05 37:57

Not at all. That's not what I'm going for.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Okay. Crying in the fanny pack is very cute.

SPEAKER_05 38:02

Yeah, I I just think that there's a chunk to be had about my father wearing a fanny pack. I'm just trying to do a one-man show. My father in a fanny bag.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Is there a way to introduce it to be like, you know, or part of the joke is like, do you know what it's like to get picked up from basketball practice by a guy in a fanning pack?

SPEAKER_05 38:18

Yeah, it's funny. Like, just more examples. And I think if I really wanted to go viral, I'd just say, you know who invented fanny packs? Black Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

That's not true. That's not true. Black Jesus, that's not true. And you're just only confirming what I believe about Black Jesus, which is wrong because you're wrong. I'm right.

SPEAKER_05 38:38

AKA sold out feeders in Florida.

unknown 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

I'm salt of Florida.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

Thank you for tuning in once again. Make sure to subscribe, follow me.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

So we plug your big shows.

SPEAKER_05 38:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

I mean the DC Comedy Law off Monday, April 13th. Then I'm flying back to Vegas the very next day, headlining with Wise Guys Town Square Tuesday, April 14th, and then shooting my special Wanna Bet in Denver, Colorado on April 23rd at the Elaine Wolf Theater.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

I will be performing with Noah on April 14th at Wise Guys. You gotta get your tickets for that. All the locals that always ask us about shows come out. And then I'll be in Gainesville on the 16th of April. Go Gators.

SPEAKER_05 39:24

I don't want to do it with the other hand.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

And the 18th, I will be in St. Petersburg, Florida. So come on down, Florida. Show your support and watch me on the Tampa Bay morning news on Friday.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

Play it high, show us respect. Come to the show and put it on your Wikipedia page.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 39:41

Uh yeah, and I think we're trying to figure out the best way to go about this on social and YouTube. Sometimes we post it to Esther's page, sometimes we post it to the Against As Will page. But follow both, subscribe to both. Either way, you'll get too much.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Tell your friends.

SPEAKER_04 39:54

It costs you nothing to hit the little subscribe.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Tell everyone. Send it to someone who needs a laugh.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

All right, I gotta go clean the fish tank. Thank you.