W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell is a Peabody Award winner, 4X Emmy Award winner, documentary filmmaker, stand-up comedian, Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, Official Ambassador of the band Fishbone, self-proclaimed #1 Bruce Lee Expert…
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Kamau kicks off the episode by reconnecting with comedian and writer Guy Branum, noting they haven’t seen each other in person in a while but keep up via social media. Kamau gives Branum his flowers and recalls their time working together on Totally Biased. Kamau praises Branum for refusing to be sidelined in the entertainment industry despite having a law degree and facing industry bias against gay and larger performers.
The conversation turns to Branum’s solo show, “Be Fruitful,” which explores his place in the world as a gay man who will never “be fruitful and multiply.” Branum discusses taking the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the ongoing work of refining it. Bell shares advice about performing at Edinburgh, including the importance of acknowledging local culture for the audience.
They discuss Branum’s social media series “Old Gays Remember,” which grew out of filming standup clips in West Hollywood, and touch on the changing diversity of writers’ rooms in Hollywood since 2020.
The episode gets more serious when Branum addresses his public criticism of the film “The Whale” for its portrayal of fatness, and his broader experience of being overlooked for roles despite fitting the exact description required. Branum also shares nuanced views on the Israel-Palestine conflict as a Jewish man, emphasizing complexity over simplistic positions.
The episode lightens again with a discussion of Branum’s appearance on regular Jeopardy after 20 years of taking the test.
Donate to Lambda Legal at lambdalegal.org, the ACLU at aclu.org, Teens of Color Abroad at teensofcolorabroad.org, and to Black Voters Matter at blackvotersmatterfund.org.
Who’s With Me is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Chris Dowd. Distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Hey everybody, it's me, W. Kamau Bell. Welcome to episode 18 of my podcast, Who's With Me? With me, W. Kamau Bell. This episode is with me talking to comedian Guy Branum. Guy is an old friend of mine from the San Francisco comedy scene. Even though we're around the same age, when we met in the San Francisco comedy scene, I was more established than he was. He had just started. Very quickly, Guy revealed himself to be a big thinker, a good comedy writer. And shortly after he started, he was off to LA to make his name. He has worked as a comedy writer for years, most recently on the HBO show Hacks. He's also an actor. Just got back from Edinburgh with his one-man show, Be Fruitful. As we recorded this, he was about to go there. So he's been there now, and he's been actually social media-ing a lot about the fact that he's had trouble with flights getting back home from Edinburgh. So follow him on Instagram. But anyway, before we get too far in the episode... Let's remind you of my stand-up dates. Stanford, Connecticut, 25th and 26th. Stanford, Connecticut, at the New York Comedy Club. I'll be at Stanford University, October 1st. Bellingham, Washington, February 20th, 2027. Pre-ordered my debut children's book, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese. It's a book for young readers. It's a picture book. Beautiful pictures. Features my family. You can pre-order that now. If you pre-order it from Barnes & Noble right now, you get 25% off. And yeah, also, this whole thing is based on my sub stack who's with me, so go subscribe to my sub stack. It's the best way to keep up with me and everything that's going on. If you just follow me on sub stack, it's free, or you can throw me a few bones because I have three children. Uh, last week's episode was with Ken Jennings. Uh, yeah, that stirred up a lot of feelings. Um, we, we got aggregated, which, you know, every now and again, podcasts, this podcast has made a little bit of like outside of the podcast space news. And, uh, because Ken on the podcast talked about how, He's not going to let the fact he's the host of Jeopardy stop him from sharing his feelings about the state of this country. And he's pro-trans, he's anti-ice, and he's pro-intellectualism, which is clear because he's on Jeopardy. And so he shared a lot about his feelings on those issues. And it got aggregated into Ken Jennings goes at MAGA. I think one headline from the Daily Beast says Ken Jennings uses Jeopardy to go at MAGA, which is not what he said. I don't think we said the word MAGA in the show. I don't know if we even said the word Trump. But Ken is very clear about whose side of the line he wants to be on. He's with us. Podcast is who's with me. Ken Jennings is with us. And, you know, and so a lot of people turn that into headlines and sort of manipulate what he said. You know, as if he was somehow using Jeopardy as a platform to go after MAGA. He's not doing that. But the funny thing is, is that as we said in the episode, when you're pro facts, you're automatically like controversial and political these days. So that's how I got manipulated into being about MAGA. And then I shared a segment from the podcast on my Instagram where Ken talks about how his faith has helped him through his sort of wild success of not only winning Jeopardy and winning $ 3 million, but also becoming the host, how he has relied on his faith. He's a member of the LDS, a Mormon, if you call it that, which they don't call it that anymore. And a lot of people who think they're with me on social media really wanted to make an issue of the fact that he's saying that you can't be a good person without being religious. When what he was saying is, I rely on my religion to be a good person, which I think we should be okay with. And even if we don't think that that religion does the best whatever, if we don't like that religion... I find it is true that in every major religion, there are bad examples of the religion and there are good examples of the religion. It tends to be that the loudest examples of any religion tend to be the bad examples often or the examples, the loudest, most sort of publicized, the ones the media promotes. And so certainly when you are a member of the LDS church, there's been a lot of publicizing of the specific like Utah religion. mormons and the big love version of it and we sort of tear into the beliefs of what what how this religion believes strange things but if you tear into any religion they all believe they're they're all things they're like hmm maybe that was just a metaphor that people took too seriously you know and also if you're an atheist all i ask is don't be an annoying atheist i've i've talked about atheism before uh you know i'm i'm fine if you don't believe in god but don't be the don't be a bill maher atheist that's all i ask if you other people believe in their religion Let them believe in their religion. If it's not hurting you, also, if they say that their religion is helping them, then let it help them. This is when I really feel happy that I grew up in Alabama, spent a lot of time in Alabama, and spent a lot of time in churches as a kid, black churches, so I could see examples of religion and faith that were positive, so that even though I live on the West Coast, and people go to church out here, just to be clear. People like to think that people on the coastal elites don't go to church. A lot of coastal people are regular people just like the rest of the country and they go to church. But the idea being that like somehow being a person of faith or a person of religion means you're not, that you're sort of like not smart. And I think Ken is challenging that by his various existence. Cause the last thing we can call Ken Jennings is not smart. And yet he also is a person of faith. And I think it is very possible for those two things to exist in one body. Uh, Just like it's possible to be a smart person who's not a person of faith, just like it's possible to be a good person who's not a person of faith. It's, guess what? Life is complicated. Human beings are complicated. And this podcast is about finding those of us who want to be on the correct side of history and actually want to be engaged in doing something about it. Ken is that person. And if you don't think Ken is that person, then you're not with me. Last week was the 25th anniversary of 9-11. So last Friday was 9-11, 2026, 25 years since 9-11. It really sort of is amazing to me that it's been that long. I'm of the age where I was an adult when 9-11 happened. And it blows my mind that there are people who are adults walking around who don't remember 9-11, who weren't born when 9-11 happened. You're in an office in a professional setting and you're talking to people and then something comes out, oh, you're 25. You know what I mean? It also is so clear to me that when it happened, it felt like the nation would never be the same. We learned the wrong lessons from 9-11. We didn't learn the lessons of we should come together and be unified and that America is made up of lots of different types of people, but who all have the same goals and wants or should have the same goals and wants of like good schools, good protection, good policing, uh, good opportunities that we should all be sort of that we should, that's how we should stand up to the world is by being a country that is lots of different types of people who get along and have each other's best interest at heart, that that should have been the response to 9-11. But really the two responses to 9-11 that I remember the most, uh, one was, and if you're, if you're my age or older to remember 9-11, if you see something, say something. That was the first thing I remember from 9-11 happening is that because 9-11 was about these terrorists taking over these hijacking these airplanes, there was all this talk about why didn't anybody stop them or why didn't anybody know what was happening. But anyway, the idea being that you see something, say something. So we were all starting to police other Americans. If I see something, I should say something. But then the question is what becomes something? And as a black man, people always see black people and think we're doing something. when we're not, it's a regular occurrence. So that's a scary idea to be like, you're giving everybody even more permission to watch over me and to watch over us. Uh, so if you see something, say something, and that feel like it has led directly to the flock cameras we have now that the surveillance state became a thing we were all excited for. Oh, we just need more cameras to pay attention to everybody because we, so we can watch everybody. I'm so happy to see that like many communities around this country are rejecting the flock cameras. I think Albany, California right near me just rejected them. Um, and also, individual people are just getting up and taking them down. You know, that we're not, we don't want to be mass surveilled because one, there's no reason for it. And two, they often prove, they often accuse people of doing things they didn't do, even though the cameras are supposed to be right all the time. So yeah, so that's the first thing I remember from 9-11. The other thing I remember from 9-11 is our president, George W. Bush, saying in many different ways, the way to fix this problem is to go shopping. Prove to the terrorists that they didn't win by spending your money, by buying stuff. I don't know if it was the original retail therapy, but it's the first example I remember of like, oh my God, this sad thing happened and many thousands of people died. What should we do? And the president said, go shopping. I even found this quote that sounds fake, but it's in the New York Times, so I'm going to assume it's real. It says, this is from days after 9-11, George W. Bush. When they struck, they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation's war, again, this is days after 9-11, It's to restore public confidence in the airline industry. Is that one of the goals of the war on terror? Okay. It is to tell the traveling public, get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. He's doing a tourism ad. Get down to Disney World in Florida. He actually said Disney World specifically. Take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed. And because of the war in Iraq, that didn't make any sense because the terrorism didn't have anything to do with Iraq, not only did it have nothing to do with Iraq, but then the war in Afghanistan that went on. on forever and ever and ever until Joe Biden finally pulled troops out, and I'm not trying to give him too much credit, but I'm saying that George W. Bush was on the outskirts of society, even though he was the next president, and then Trump came along and then Bush got invited back in. And so it's so interesting that Trump did not go to the 9-11 memorial, the official 9-11 memorial in New York because he wasn't allowed to speak because they don't let people speak at the memorial. But the other ex-presidents did, and George W. Bush was there. And he can show his face again because of what this country has come to, largely based on Trump just walking in his footsteps, but in a bigger, more damaging way. Yeah, government overreach, surveillance state, the almighty dollar being the most important thing Demonizing our fellow Americans. We learned the wrong lessons from 9-11. Today's guest is Guy Branum. Guy Branum, as I said, is a stand-up comedian. He's a comedy writer. He's written for so many shows. He's got a real comedy writer's resume. I'm not going to go through the whole thing because it would take forever. But he's written for many TV shows. The TV show Hacks, which just wrapped up its run recently. He's written for Chelsea Lately. He's written for The Mindy Project. He's written for Fascist Policed. And he also is a writer on a little show called Totally Biased with Debbie Kamau Bell. So that's when I really got to know Guy a little bit better when he was hired to be a writer on my show Totally Biased. But we also talk about his career as a writer. We talk a lot about Guy because Guy is openly gay. And he also would describe himself as fat. So we talk a lot about what it is to be both openly gay and fat in show business. And how showbiz is not easy on either of those groups, but certainly not easy on that group when it's in one person. Guy sort of went viral a few years ago when he talked about his feelings about the movie The Whale, the Academy Award winning movie The Whale. Brendan Fraser won an Academy Award for that movie. And Guy talked a lot about how he just thought that he should have cast an actual person of size to be in that movie instead of putting Brendan Fraser into what Guy says is a couch to play a big person. While at the same time he recognizes that Brendan Fraser is a good actor and people are sure excited for him. that he'd gotten a role, that Brendan Fraser went through a lot in Hollywood. So it's a complicated tale. But Guy, the amazing thing about Guy is that he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, another smart guy, with a degree in law and was a practicing lawyer for years before he broke into stand-up comedy. So Guy can kind of lawyer himself through any issue. When you're a good lawyer, you have to be able to argue both sides of the issue. And in this episode, there's a lot of Guy sort of arguing both sides of issues by himself. Like, I sit there and take it in. And every now and again, I check in and go, wait, which, where are we at here? Where are we at here? And you really see it when we get into a whole thing about Israel's war on Palestine. And Guy is Jewish, and he's, I would describe him as a leftist, but he's able to sort of see that issue in a way that gets to, certainly free Palestine, and I'm free Palestine all day, but also is talking about, you know, his people, his Jewish people. I've never heard anybody talk about it this way, dig into it like this. So strap in, everybody. This is really a rollercoaster of an episode because Guy is super smart, and he's got the brain of a lawyer. And sometimes I was just holding on. But Guy is definitely with me, and I'm glad he was a guest on the podcast. Yeah, so take it away. Hey, thanks for watching an episode of Who's With Me. If you're on YouTube, please like and subscribe, share. Hit that hype button. I hear it makes all the difference. Please like, subscribe, share. Hit the hype button. Thank you.
13:45
Speaker 2
Guy Branum. W, come out and bow.
13:58
Speaker 1
I don't know when the last time we talked was. Do you know the last time we saw each other in real life? No, it's been a while. I feel like.
14:04
Speaker 3
Seen you a couple of times when I was in the Bay area, but of course you're always showing up on my television. And so that's exciting.
14:11
Speaker 1
You're always showing up my social media feed, but also I'm always like, well, actually the place I see you most is when you're calling somebody out for filth on threads. I think is the place I see you most when you're like, when you're doing a thread street justice.
14:22
Speaker 3
Look, I mean, we, we have to take the conversation somewhere. We have to inhabit threads. Um, are you more a blue sky guy?
14:31
Speaker 1
No, no, no, no. I'm a friends guy. I feel like black people, I know there's black blue sky or black sky, but blue sky, this never really hit for me. Whereas threads, I feel like black people really have rebuilt black Twitter in a more healthy environment.
14:43
Speaker 3
What I just miss is, was the period of time when you would find out that Eve's Bayou was on BET from Twitter.
14:49
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, when it was just trend. Yes. That's true. When you would actually, a bat signal would go up, or a black signal. Yes. It would say Eve's Bayou, and people would say, oh, thanks. Yeah, that's, we haven't captured that classic great Twitter era pre-Musk. Yeah. Before I get started, I start off every podcast by giving the people their flowers because I'm not just inviting anybody yet. I mean, maybe eventually, but right now it's just people either I know like you or people who I've admired who say yes to being on. So first of all, the first and most important flower I can give you is that Melissa, my wife, loves you. She loves your book. She talks about your book all the time. She's always like, can't you turn that into a TV show? I was like, it doesn't work.
15:31
Speaker 3
Look, what I'm looking for in a colleague's spouse with whom I am going to have holiday parties and such is a PhD in dance.
15:38
Speaker 1
Okay. Like that is.
15:40
Speaker 3
So when I was working for totally biased, uh, Melissa was always a valuable presence to have.
15:46
Speaker 1
Um, yeah.
15:48
Speaker 3
And it was really lovely to like, get to work with you at that time in your family, you know, it was like, uh, Just Sammy was around, and she was coming and visiting a lot. But I think Melissa was pregnant in the time that we were working together.
16:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, there was another one on the way at some point. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, well, thank– I mean, we can talk about that, tell you about it. I talked to– I had Kevin Avery. I interviewed at WE. I interviewed Kevin at WE. Now that I have a podcast, I'm at WE. Right. I interviewed Kevin Avery. But, you know, we're friends throughout for, like, years and years now, over 30 years probably now. Yes. Whereas you, Totally Biased was the time we really connected. And then I would say the end of Totally Biased was like the end of a Vietnam War movie. Like everybody sort of scattered to the hills and was just lucky to be alive.
16:31
Speaker 3
Like I took many amazing relationships with it, but also like you were a comedian that I enjoyed so much when I was starting standup comedy. And I think I, so much of the time, like as much as I think about the Totally Biased times, I think about your standup from, you know, 2003 and 2004. um getting to watch your evolution as a as a comedian has been really fun.
16:54
Speaker 1
Well thank you and i don't mean i'll just be giving you your flower okay i appreciate that too but i also again uh just to continue the the flower fest of giving you i've seen you work hard and demand to be in the spaces where showbiz is yes you know what i mean from like early days being on chelsea lately like you know you easily could be a guy who's like i'm sort of you know, you know, you're too smart for this business. You have a law degree that proves you're too smart for this business to be on the talent side. You can be, you know, but you've really like, you know, use your talent to get in these spaces. You write on hacks now, right? I've been writing on hacks since the beginning, right? No, since season three. Season three. Okay. So you write like, you know, this acclaimed standup comedy show and you've been on the show too. Yeah. So you've, I just really see you as somebody who's like, I refuse to be, you know, I refuse to be in the center of this business. Yeah.
17:43
Speaker 3
Yeah, like, at the very beginning, more so than now, there was a sense of, oh, you're a gay guy. You write for ladies. Like, you are not on camera. And also, I am a creepily gigantic guy, and so... Well, I guess you can call yourself creepily.
17:59
Speaker 1
I just want to... I'm also a gigantic guy. Yes, but.
18:03
Speaker 3
you know, like wasn't exactly what, what people were thinking about for on camera stuff. Um, or like, and I've just been like, no, I'm not going to play that game with you. Um, and then what I could, and there have been costs that come with that, but also it was worth it.
18:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I just appreciate you have, you have been the same. The only thing different between you that I met back in those early days when you first saw me doing standups now is that you're just louder. Like you're like, you're like back there. I remember you being quiet back then. Cause you were sort of, I think really like, especially the punchline back then, like, you sort of understood that like there's a hierarchy here. And even though I am smarter than these people, I should just keep it to myself for a little while. You know, it was a lot of watching and learning, you know? Yeah.
18:43
Speaker 2
Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 1
And I also remember the first time I really understood, like took you in as like a force, a comic that we know from back in the day, Ryan Stout said, Guy Branum has a joke file with 300 jokes. Like, so he was like bragging about the way in which you wrote so many jokes that you had like a file cabinet of jokes. I don't know if that's a real thing, but.
19:03
Speaker 3
Well, back then, when I had a bullshit day job, I was really good at writing all day long and just having a.
19:10
Speaker 1
Bunch of jokes.
19:11
Speaker 3
And sometimes I am like, do I need to work in a cubicle again so I can be a good writer?
19:16
Speaker 1
So I can be a good writer, even though I'm being hired as a writer. So yeah, that's my first memory of you is Ryan Stout going, he writes a lot of jokes and has a cabinet of jokes. And I remember the time, and I know he was like, but are any of them good? You can write a lot of words down. Look. A fair number of them.
19:33
Speaker 3
And I put some of these in my book was like one day at my law job, I just wrote jokes about the Hebrew calendar.
19:39
Speaker 1
And like those jokes are for no one.
19:41
Speaker 3
But then there comes that situation where you're performing at a JCC and you're like, baby, watch out.
19:48
Speaker 1
I have a new hour. yes i have a new comedy special for these 200 people yeah so yeah so i just want to say like i've i really admire the way that you've as because we sort of have that similar thing where we're like in this business but not always in not always finding our way to the center of it or sort of struggling about like, and also both being outspoken politically that like, you know, you're not afraid to be in the middle of the business and say the business is doing this wrong. Yeah.
20:12
Speaker 3
Well, I mean, that's been kind of annoying, but kind of fun to be like, you know, to not get bitter and keep hustling and keep understanding that there's a place for me here, but also to not be scared to say, maybe this could operate differently because like, I think, I have definitely seen over the 20 years of my career, the amount of space there is for people like me change, you know, and that's dynamic and in a good way, but in like a definitely good way. But there's also been the thing of like watching since 2020, the diversity of writers rooms expand and contract has been fascinating. And it is, You know, like, we're not in the world, when I first went into a scripted writer's room where you could bet that the only person of color would be the writer's assistant or the staff writer. We're in a much better world now, but there is also a way that, you know, those white guys who wrote on Friends, they are coming back for their revenge.
21:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's the most friendly way to put it. The most friendly way to describe white supremacy. The white guys who wrote on Friends are coming back. They want their writer's room back in their country. So tell me about Be Fruitful. So Be Fruitful is.
21:30
Speaker 3
A solo show that I knew that I wanted to write something about not fitting into evolution or religion. That there sort of wasn't a point for my existence.
21:44
Speaker 3
In these like two old school ways of looking at things. And like, I will never be fruitful and multiply. What does that mean for my place in this world? And it's like, one of the hard things about being a standup is like so frequently we write through iteration. We write through doing it over and over again. And so I did it like four or five times before. I have a joke in it about how if straight people honestly understood how gay people lived, they would be disgusted. And a friend of mine who's not a comic was like, but you tell what is disgusting about other gay people, but not about yourself. And that sort of like pushed me to a new understanding of what the show was and got it more personal. So yeah, it's a show that I'm taking to Edinburgh for the fringe festival.
22:28
Speaker 1
Oh, it's coming up. Yeah. This August.
22:31
Speaker 3
And I've been touring with it and figuring it out. And it's been a really lovely process. There's like, there's always the danger of not doing like, an hour of stand-up that we consider to be stand-up.
22:44
Speaker 1
But here's the thing. I love that you already started arguing against it. As I watch specials, I'm like, there's a lot of filler in there.
22:51
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:53
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So I think what you're talking about is that idea, and I had a solo show that was the show that actually helped break me into show business. W. Kamau Belker. Ending racism in about an hour. So I understand that. I remember talking to stand-ups at the time when I was in the Bay Area, and there'd be a sense of like, oh, you went that solo show direction. Right. So you're just going to tell your jokes slower?
23:11
Speaker 3
Right.
23:12
Speaker 1
Or somebody got cancer. That was always the thing. Somebody in your stand-up back now, you'll tell the cancer story.
23:17
Speaker 3
Well, and the thing that was hard about it was just having to acknowledge, like, I am at the place in my life where I am, and where I am in my career as a stand-up comic kind of has to reflect and acknowledge that. And generally, if you are on the traditional good path, you do your three silly specials and then you do one where you're really deciding to say something, but it's like, I have something to say. So we're gonna have to skip the three silly specials.
23:46
Speaker 1
Yeah.
23:48
Speaker 3
Um, and so it's been really fun, but it's also been very challenging to try to get something where it is a good time for an hour, but also I'm saying the things that I want to say.
24:01
Speaker 1
And do you like when you, just to be clear, like, cause I haven't seen it. Is it, is it like, cause there's sort of the, First of all, I think the UK does a better job of just calling it all stand-up. Yes. And some stand-ups, it's like 90 minutes of just one-liners. And some stand-ups, it's like they have PowerPoint and things. And some stand-ups are telling a sad story that's funny at the end.
24:21
Speaker 3
Did you see Jacqueline Novak's Get On Your Knees?
24:23
Speaker 1
I saw pieces of it. I haven't seen the whole thing.
24:24
Speaker 3
I mean, the fact that it was built almost entirely out of one-liners, but still makes a very beautiful argument about sex and agency in women's bodies, I was so impressed with. But mine is a PowerPoint thing. It's got a lot of jokes. There's a point up at the top where I just do a run of roast jokes about fruit just to prove to the audience that they should trust me as a comedian.
24:51
Speaker 1
I'm a good writer. Yeah. I'm a real comedian.
24:53
Speaker 3
I'm a real comedian because there is the ease of saying, well, you wouldn't be making a point about if you could just tell funny jokes and it's like, I got funny jokes.
25:04
Speaker 1
It's funny. I do find that with the bell curve, you had to like open for your own act to let the audience know, no, no, I have jokes. Yeah. I'm going to slow it down a little bit, but I actually know how to do this. Yeah.
25:13
Speaker 3
Yeah. Um, and finding that balance and finding what people want out of it. Um, and like just understanding the different ways that you're managing an audience's energy with that. It has been a challenge.
25:24
Speaker 1
So do you, cause I know you just said that the Netflix is a joke festival, right? So do you feel like it's, like, and maybe you don't have canisters yet. Do you feel like, Oh, it's basically done. Or are you still in the process of like iterating and creating it?
25:36
Speaker 3
Like, uh, there are three holes that need to be fixed. There are three holes that need to be fixed through writing. I mean, they function well as they are right now, but I want them to be better. And I have two months before I go to Edinburgh. And so I'm going to do the work of making them better. I mean, it is that hard thing with something of knowing when it's done, but I also think that the, Comedians can be really good at getting something 85% of the way done and knowing that they can use goodwill and performance skill to get it over the line. And I want this to be as good as it can be.
26:07
Speaker 1
And when you're working on it, are you doing the whole show? Do you run chunks of it? I mean, it.
26:13
Speaker 3
Started out from just, I had a collection of jokes that were in sort of these areas about my gayness and my fatness. And like it started from there. So that stuff I was able to work out on stage, but it has doing the whole thing, like understanding how the whole energy works together because some of the things are funny, but they only work after having gone through this other experience, you know?
26:39
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Have you done Edinburgh before? No. Oh boy. I did it 2000, actually right before about a year before totally biased. I did. 2010, I think, 2011. Uh-huh. 30, you know. What did you learn from it? So Edinburgh, you know, that's funny. So Edinburgh, you can go where you just sort of four-wall it yourself or you can be produced. So I was lucky enough to be produced. So I didn't have to do a lot of the like, you know, I didn't have to stand on corners and hand out flyers. Are you being produced? Yes. Okay, good. So that's good. All right, good. So you can do that if you want to, but you don't have to do it. Like I'd run into people around town who were sending my own flyers out. I'm going to do it, it seems like. Yeah, no, it seems like, yeah. Especially for social media, you might as well get some clips. But what I, so I was doing a version of the bell curve. And what happened with me, which is going to be different, you might have your own versions, but with me is that I got there, and it's Edinburgh, and it's Scotland. And so it's a lot of white people and a lot of Europeans. And they were, when I got there, I felt like they were like, oh, those Americans are always getting caught up in their racism. And this black guy, they sort of saw it as like me telling the woes of America. And then as I was there, a race, what they would call a race ride, happened in Tottenham because they killed a black guy, a cop killed a black guy. And so from that point forward, I was able to go, like right there, you know what I mean? So by the end of the run, I felt like I had sort of like fought back and sort of fought back for the show. And then they're like, great, when you come back five more times, you'll really be able to really make it here. And I was like, I'm done here. Like that.
28:13
Speaker 3
You know, I do worry and think about that, like, localization issue and what will seem like an American thing, especially talking about fatness, because it is something that people tend to think of as being, like, a uniquely American issue.
28:24
Speaker 1
Yeah.
28:30
Speaker 3
You see their system of race relations and you're like, this is horrifying and disgusting. How could anyone live like this? And then when you're at home, you're like, this is home.
28:40
Speaker 1
Also, I think they call, I feel like they don't, they think they don't do racism, but they do nationalism, which is just another word for racism. Like they do nationalism. They do classism.
28:49
Speaker 3
They do like, there was a bunch of religious weirdness that rolls around all of their racism. But then of course they just have racism.
28:57
Speaker 1
And then they have that too. But yeah, but they think, I remember at the time when I was there, there was a news clip that I actually used in the show of like an old, like sort of the oldest, most tea drinking white British lady on the news. And they interviewed her and she's like, there's just too many Muslims in this town. And it was just like, but they don't think that's racism. They think that's a woman who wants to fight for her country.
29:19
Speaker 3
How much have you paid attention to Kimmy Bodnock? She's the black head of the conservative party. She is amazing.
29:29
Speaker 1
I really got, I follow a, there's a new channel LBC that I got caught up in following for a while on YouTube. And so I learned, yeah, I got rich, Richie Sunak being the mistrust being this the prime minister as long as a head of lettuce or shorter than a head of lettuce yeah.
29:43
Speaker 3
But like kemi is just like she's a little bit batshit yes like she's doing terribly in the polls yes who knows how long she'll last but like she is hilarious yes like we're at a point where what it means is that SNL UK knew that they needed to hire a black woman so that they could parody her. But also she, they, she still hasn't come up as a character on this show.
30:07
Speaker 1
So I would, that's what I would, if any advice I give you is like, definitely if you have some things to let them know that you're paying attention to them, they will feel in that opening of the show and your opening sort of saying, I got jokes, a couple, a couple of Liz Truss had a lettuce jokes in there while you're roasting produce. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good point.
30:24
Speaker 3
Yeah.
30:24
Speaker 1
Just cause I think, they do like to know that you're like paying attention to them, you know? So, but enough, enough about me directing your solo show.
30:33
Speaker 3
Well, no, but there is just that thing that like, there is the temptation as Americans to just be like, everyone knows all of our popular culture and pays attention to us. We don't need to do anything to pay attention to them at all.
30:44
Speaker 1
No, for sure. So they will appreciate you paying attention to them. Do you have a director? I'm not offering my services, but do you?
30:50
Speaker 3
No, it was like something I was like, holding onto for like, this is what you get more famous people to do for you once the show has attention. And then it was like, now it's pretty much done.
31:03
Speaker 1
Fair. I mean, you know, and your, your analytical mind is certainly, and even having your friend give you advice that you didn't incorporate it. So you're, you're clearly thinking from the outside. It's been really, really great.
31:12
Speaker 3
The number of people who have come through like Bamford, Louis Katz, like so many people just sort of like giving thoughts and perspectives. I took a clowning class. a month and a half ago. And like, I truly came out of it with so many ideas for the show that I was able to implement very directly. And it was like, this shouldn't be a productive educational experience.
31:35
Speaker 1
And yet it was.
31:35
Speaker 2
That's funny.
31:36
Speaker 1
I mean, that's what you talk about, Melissa, being my wife, having a PhD in dance. Like she would often, early days of my standup, like, why are you shuffling in place? Either move or don't.
31:45
Speaker 3
Look, I got a choreographer next door. And so- We went and we did some movement stuff.
31:51
Speaker 1
To get it together. You're doing the right thing. You're doing the right thing. I look forward to this and definitely want to see it when there's a chance. Certainly you should bring it to the Bay at some point. Absolutely. I'll happily help you pack whatever house you're in.
32:03
Speaker 2
Thanks.
32:03
Speaker 1
Thank you. So the other thing I want to say about you is that I really also, like, you know, you could get that job writing and hacks, but you're doing standup and you're also doing the thing that we, that those of us of a certain generation have to do, which I funny as I look at it, I'm like, oh, we're closer in age than I realized. Cause I just, you know, when I met you, you were a young comedian and I was already established, but we're not actually that different in age. But like, I really like, uh, old gays remember, like sort of like we all have to figure out what's my content lane in this crazy algorithm where I can sort of find a way that I can sort of put myself out there. And so this is a segment I've been seeing on Instagram. I assume you put it up other places too. Yes, Instagram and TikTok. Tell us a little about Old Gays Remember.
33:02
Speaker 3
So 2024, I vowed to do 150 shows because I needed to have like in the year because I just needed to reset my relationship with standup. And like I came in contact with so many more comics and there was just a girl after a show, a comic who was like, how like invite me to a show, I'll record your set and I'll cut it up into clips. And she was pitching her skills as, uh, you know, a social media, uh, producer. Uh, and I was like, this worked great. And then we were doing stuff like, uh, some joke stuff and some men on the street stuff and all of that. But doing men on the street stuff in West Hollywood, I would stop her to tell her about some aspect of queer culture that I thought it was very important that she understand so frequently that she was like, you should do a thing called what the old gays remember. And I started doing it and people really connected with it. And it's been really fun to see the ways and approaches that like resonated and those that have not. And like, it is that thing about social media that's hard. I think particularly for Gen X people is like, you just have to do it and throw it up. And sometimes it will work and sometimes it doesn't and just keep going.
34:11
Speaker 1
You got to take the good, what we learned from the facts of life. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both. And there you have social media. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I've sort of doing versions of that myself. Like earlier this year, I went to Minneapolis to make some content for after Alex Freddie and Renee Good were murdered in the streets. And you just sort of like, I have to like, after working on United shades and see it in for so long.
34:33
Speaker 3
Yeah.
34:33
Speaker 1
And you know, you work on one episode for months before you put it out there. And now it's just like, no, I shot that yesterday. Here it is.
34:40
Speaker 3
Did we discuss the fact that you talked to a guy I was in FBLA with, Future Business Leaders of America, in high school for your episode about the Sikh community in Yuba City?
34:53
Speaker 1
No, but I knew you were from Yuba City, so that makes sense.
34:57
Speaker 3
You mostly ended up talking to Carm Baines.
34:59
Speaker 1
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
34:59
Speaker 3
Which is very funny because- You know, I knew him when he was driving an IROC and making trouble for the people around us. And now he is a pillar of the community and I believe a county supervisor.
35:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's one of the most of episodes I've done. That one really landed well in the Sikh community. And like, I hear about that one a lot and that's wow.
35:19
Speaker 3
Yeah.
35:20
Speaker 1
That was like, that episode really taught me a lot about how to engage with the community as an outsider. Yeah. How to actually, Tap them to go, am I saying this right? Am I doing this right? Right.
35:28
Speaker 3
Well, it's also a community that's, I actually did a murder in the Sikh community for Karen Kilgare, my favorite murder.
35:36
Speaker 1
And George R.R. Starks. I did a murder. I was like, wait, what?
35:38
Speaker 3
And so like, but just talking about the way that that community after September 11th, 2001, had to open up and like start a PR campaign to stop random white people from murdering them.
35:53
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.
35:54
Speaker 3
But also, I was just in Minneapolis for my law school reunion, and it was crazy to see how much that city has changed and been altered by politics of the last six years, from the George Floyd demonstrations through the ICE demonstrations this year. And I was at a very gay wedding with a bunch of Minneapolis Jews, and the extent to it, like the, the pride in their community and the understanding of the costs that had come with it was really significant.
36:31
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, this is one thing that you do that I do that does not, that like being okay, engaging in issues that aren't easy to mock and make fun of, and also showing your heart and showing that you care until you have an opinion. Uh, I feel like there's so many of our comedy brethren are just, uh, you know, just want to be funnels for whoever's in power and, you know, and, and, think it's weird if you care. Like I, I posted and we don't have to get into the details, but I posted about, I wrote a, I wrote a newsletter about the Kevin Hart roast and my issues with it. And I posted an excerpt on, on Instagram and so many of the Rogan's fear, right wing comedy bros, like I've never been called gay so much since like in my life, like I was gonna say since high school, but not even then, like just, not just cause I, as a way of saying you're soft or you're too sensitive, you know? Yeah.
37:18
Speaker 3
No, like it, And there is a path of comedy to just go to the, like, the easiest path, you know? Like, just do what people want. And some people do that, and that works for them. And I wouldn't have fun doing that. And, like, I really like that piece because, like, I do love roasts, and I do love roast jokes. But I also want them to be interesting, and I also don't just want them to be, like, racism math.
37:47
Speaker 1
Racism math, yeah.
37:49
Speaker 3
And it can defend to that, descend to that. And like, I hate the idea that like that's sharp and edgy comedy.
37:55
Speaker 1
Yeah. Um, and like, I do like.
37:59
Speaker 3
Just in like the last two weeks, I wrote some jokes for Chelsea Handler for, um, the Kevin Hart roast. I did a clown's birthday roast at the Elysian theater. This is like LA modern clowning, which is a weird thing. Uh, and then, uh, John Lovett, um, got married, uh, to his now spouse, um, uh, Ari Schwartz. Um, and they had, uh, like their, the first evening of their wedding was a roast of them and that I hosted. And it was like so much fun and like, like talk, making fun of the specificities of the people who you love most is really fun. And I don't think we saw like, Chelsea really did have personal stories and stuff in her, in talking about Kevin Hart. And a lot of it was just like, he is short and black.
38:48
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, as I wrote about in the thing about the, the, the, a roast that's in a back room amongst friends. Yeah. Is very different from a roast that is broadcast globally. And the company in charge of it is like, we need to hire the meanest, most scathing comedians to do this. And it becomes less about, family relationships or friendships and more about like comedians who know how to like go viral. Right.
39:16
Speaker 3
And like, it shows like a younger generation of people, an idea of this is what comedy is, you know? And I think one of the hard things about standup is so many people show up to their first open mics with an idea of this is what comedy is. And like, it takes some time for you to like, let go of what you were raised with and figure out what you want to be talking about.
39:38
Speaker 1
Yes.
39:38
Speaker 2
Yes.
39:39
Speaker 1
I am a person who sometimes publicly takes positions that are not popular. And yet I sort of go, here we go. We're going to, I'm going to do a four hour documentary about Bill Cosby and his cultural impact in crimes. I've seen you go out there on things. The, the biggest one I remember the first time I saw you really was with, was with Brendan Fraser and the whale. And I remember just being like, wow, he is how you knew you were going to take slings and arrows by doing that. Yes. And you're, can you talk about that? And what the, what the, what the, uh, guy Brandon math is when, you know, like, here I go.
40:11
Speaker 3
Brendan Fraser is a great actor. He is much beloved. And when he made the whale, it was so good to have him back. And, um, Darren Aronofsky is a much beloved director who is so respected. God knows we have the council of white guys who are now in their forties and fifties who can never be wrong, you know? And we love, we love as a community having those people who could never be wrong. And they made a fat soup movie based on what I believe is a bad play by a guy who used to be fat, you know, like not a level of fat like I am. about the experience of fatness that was all of the worst cliches. And I find very fascinating that we cannot tell a story about fatness without taking a person who isn't fat and putting them in a couch, essentially. And so it annoyed me. And the thing is, this is very directly something that contributes to the dehumanization of me and to people like me. And I need to understand that that shit being something we think about can improve my place in my career, you know? And so that was something where it's just like, no, like shutting up about this is accepting a level of dehumanization. And like part of me at least needs to know that I can say, stop it. And so I took a copy of the play of the whale on a trip to Europe with me. And then to Provincetown to just be like, you imagine that the only thing that can happen to a super fat person is they are who is gay. is they are sad in their apartment in Idaho. I am going to take the whale and let it have a better option at life. And I'm interested in the way that we talk about and represent fatness and what fat people are capable of. Basically, we have this harsh differentiation between a nice person who happens to be fat and a fatness that overwhelms someone's identity. And it pissed me off and I wasn't going to shut up about it.
42:12
Speaker 1
Did you... I mean, I would imagine you heard from people who were like, don't do this, or he's so nice, or.
42:17
Speaker 3
Well, yeah, people were just like that, and they were like, you just want that role for yourself. Like, you're a bad actor, he's a good actor, and they could only get a good actor to do that, and there aren't any fat people who are good actors.
42:30
Speaker 1
Or famous enough. Right. And it's their... I wonder why there aren't any fat A-list actors. It's weird how I guess none of them want to be. Well, I mean, like.
42:39
Speaker 3
Very similarly, like three times in my professional career, I've run into situations where there were casting needs for a black gay man. And the extent to which casting directors were like, how are we going to do this? It's just how it's going to be impossible. How are we going to do this? And I was at different points in my career along the way. But the last one that I got to, I was a writer on the show, a mid-level writer. And I went to my showrunners and I said, if they can't do this, can I try to do it? And they were like, yes. And I went.
43:14
Speaker 1
To lengths that I will have to talk to you about off camera. Sure. gay asian man and gay asian man again um.
43:30
Speaker 3
When they needed it when they needed they needed a black gay guy so they need.
43:34
Speaker 1
A black gay guy they were straight asian man at one point yes 100 okay i'm trying to make sure that i was understanding just.
43:40
Speaker 3
Having to have the conversation about why well the last time they needed somebody who was over 55 and had multicam experience and just sort of having to say like because you did not write the roles for this person to have He does not have the resume that you want. Let's look at the resume that he has and see if we can apply that to what's going on here. And it ended up going down to two people, both of whom were terrifically talented. But then also one of our stars shot someone on the set of a Western movie. And so the show didn't go forward.
44:18
Speaker 1
That's not hard math to do, I'm pretty sure. So that show didn't happen.
44:23
Speaker 3
Yes, but it is just that thing of trying to understand that my personhood is conditional in ways to people and the things that we're going to need to do to unmake that.
44:39
Speaker 1
And it's been really interesting in.
44:42
Speaker 3
A life to see the ways that that has shifted within gayness and it has shifted within fatness kind of in, you know, not equal directions.
44:52
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting to think about like, you don't have the resume to be hired to do the job, but you don't have the resume because we don't hire people like you. Right. So even if we write a role for a person like you, we're not going to hire you even though you're that person because we haven't hired you enough for you to have the experience to do the role we want you to do. So it's your fault. Like a hundred percent.
45:11
Speaker 3
Like two years ago, I, a director cast me in a movie and like the, then the studio was like, no, he is not famous enough. And it was for fat, they needed fat gay guy who was over 45. And then they ended up casting the hottest imaginable gay guy for the role because, and it was just like, well, yes, this is going to keep happening. And there's also, it's like, in judaism there's this idea of like well i guess it's in christianity as well of like moses seeing the promised land but not getting to go to the promised land and there are times when it is tempting to think like that that is how gay acceptance of media could be working for me and then it's like no i'm not going to take that i'm going to get to as close to the promised land as i can.
46:01
Speaker 1
Yeah another issue i see you talking about that is sort of very divisive and i understand the whole issue of uh palestine and israel yes uh as and you are a jew yeah i am a jew i just want to be clear to give you yeah.
46:14
Speaker 3
And the thing is is like um i i very strongly believe at this point in time that everyone is wrong about this like everyone is wrong about this and to some extent if you have clean or simple beliefs about it you are ignoring some dead children somewhere uh and it's something that has really taught me important lessons about, as somebody who was shoddy and political, of just sort of like be quiet, listen, and question the things that you were raised to believe. But like I, in October of 2023, like when things were still very, very fresh from the attacks that had happened in Southern Israel, like I found the Bezalel Smotrich plan he's a member of the Israeli cabinet for doing something so horrifying that the people of the West Bank are willing to accept like servitude essentially. And like that made very clear to me that for those actors in the Israeli government, like not using the word genocide is inappropriate. Like, and a lot of Jews got mad at me about that. And it's been a very hard situation to try to, respect the different perspectives of the people around me. And also sort of like, I mean, the thing is, is I'm sure that people will watch this and be like, well, he's terrible because he like won't call for this or whatever. And the thing is, is like, I have to be where I am, which is like, um, I understand the reason and necessity for Jews to have a place because I Things have been terrible for us and were horrible for us when we did not have a place. Israel was like, why am I talking about this? But also, we need to acknowledge these things. The Jews in Israel are the descendants of refugees. The Jews in Israel are, by and large, the descendants of refugees, not volitional colonists.
48:21
Speaker 1
That said.
48:22
Speaker 3
It is a country that was built on dehumanization of the population who were there. And this specific government is one that is leveraging that for political power and some sort of ridiculous idea of glory and expansion of the state.
48:37
Speaker 1
It's terrifying.
48:38
Speaker 3
And our country's politics and international relations have gotten dragged into that.
48:43
Speaker 1
And by our, you mean the United States of America? Yes. Yeah.
48:46
Speaker 3
And also, all of this has led to, I mean, horrifying death and violence and also a return of the kind of antisemitism that I did not think I would see again in my lifetime. And all of this is horrifying and generally why I try to not say something unless I have a really clear and definite, like, some strong degree of certainty that it needs to be said. I've tried to be quiet and listen and understand and question my own beliefs. But I have now, here, I expressed a bunch of things and I look forward to the comments.
49:24
Speaker 1
I guess this is where it comes. I mean, I feel like somebody watching this right now and he's going to be like, so wait, so is he okay? Is he free Palestine or is he, Israel has a right to exist or is he, you know?
49:35
Speaker 3
Like, I mean, to me, these things, like none of those people are going to go away. like Israel will continue existing. The people of Palestine must have safety and sovereignty and the right to protect themselves the way that Jews have been like so excited for the last 70 years to have the right to protect ourselves. Um, like what is going on is untenable and dangerous and will continue to be so like there must be a free Palestine and imagining that Israel will.
50:09
Speaker 1
Just stop existing. is also like, it is magical thinking. Yeah. I mean, you're right. There's going to be people in the comments. Yeah. But I mean, I feel like I experienced that all the time too. When I try to like have a sort of say, here's the nuance and here's how I feel about it. Also, I'm not the smartest person. Also, I'm working through, I mean, I, you know, like I said, for our documentary about Bill Cosby was trying to start a nuanced conversation.
50:35
Speaker 2
Right.
50:35
Speaker 1
And yet, you know, I was uninvited from a lot of cookouts for a while.
50:38
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.
50:39
Speaker 1
So I understand. I, that's what I say. I see, that in me that you know that thing that you're doing about like i'm just trying to understand and have a nuanced conversation here.
50:48
Speaker 3
Yeah and like also like as americans it's so simple to have big opinions and not follow them up by paying attention or learning about what's going on like it's why i try to have respect for people no one is going to be on the same page as me because like everyone's going to be in their own place on this and i try to really respect it. Like in Jewish situations over the course of the last year, a bunch of people have come up to me and been like, Hannah Einbinder said that at the Emmys. Did you tell her she was wrong? I was like, fuck you, no. Like she was standing up against a genocide and I respect her use of her voice in her moment and her politics. Like, yeah, like a hundred per fucking cent. But at the same time, if you come to me, like free Palestine, yes. But if like, Okay, why am I having this conversation come out? The thing is, I'm not gonna imagine that the seven or eight million Jewish people of Israel are just going to disappear. It's not politically helpful to think that these things are simple and that a snap of the fingers is going to solve this.
52:02
Speaker 1
Fair. Fair enough. I kept trying to sort of wrap you out of the conversation, but you had more to say. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. I can't have... Feel free to cut that down. Thank you. Part of the reason I want to have this show is to have these conversations. Yes, I respect that. And also try to bring nuance back. Or the other thing I say is I'm trying to make male comedian podcasting great again. So I'm trying to like, this is a part of that. I respect that. I appreciate you having the conversation. We can move on to a much lighter category. Guy, my brother, why didn't you just compete on Celebrity Jeopardy where you could have cleaned up? As a Celebrity Jeopardy champion... When I saw you on regular Jeopardy, I was like, oh, that's amazing that he got on real Jeopardy.
53:03
Speaker 3
I am so proud of you and Ike and Lisa and Walter. Like that comedy people, like was a non-comedy person this year, but that comedy people were really tearing it up. I really respect it and appreciate it. And it was just, I don't know that I was famous enough to get on Celebrity Jeopardy. But after like truly 20 years of taking the test, they finally were just like, okay, this year. Um, like they responded to me and I was excited to do it and it was so much fun.
53:32
Speaker 1
Well, I'm glad I appreciate the fact you were on it. And I, but I was just like, first of all, I was like, Ooh, thank God he wasn't on celebrity jeopardy when I was on. But also I feel like they need to give you a spot on celebrity jeopardy. I feel like that's what I would like. I would like to make my use, whatever celebrity jeopardy championship status I have to say, let's put him on celebrity jeopardy. With the rest of us.
53:50
Speaker 3
They wouldn't let me do Celebrity Wheel of Fortune this year because I had already been on a bunch of Jeopardys.
53:58
Speaker 1
That's so fun. That's funny. You've already opted into regular person status. Yes. As if regular people never transcend to celebrities. That's never happened. But it was like, it was really cool.
54:10
Speaker 3
To get to engage with that community and those people because I really think, and like studying for Jeopardy and preparing for it, it really made me think about the way that Jeopardy has an idea of what America is and a respect for institutions and has also challenged itself over the course of the last decade to expand that. And they haven't done the best job, but they have made a real effort. And I really respect that.
54:34
Speaker 1
Well, I know because I've been back. I went back for Tournament of Champions where my pride achievement is that I made it to Final Jeopardy in Tournament of Champions. I didn't end up with the goose egg in the walk-off stage like, just wait, come out. You don't need to be up there. Um, so I feel proud about that. And I did celebrity all-stars where I didn't win this year, obviously, but, uh, I've been, but I also did a category for jeopardy and I know that they, I can't remember his name, but there's a black writer in jeopardy. And it's one of the things that's sort of like, it's crazy that that's a big deal, but it's a big deal because they had a long time that, you know, as you say, those, those white friends writers were not, we're holding all the writing jobs down for.
55:07
Speaker 3
And also that's not a room that turns over those people who stay there for like 20, 30 years at a time. And most of them were hired at a point in time. when you thought of writer's rooms as a thing that are composed of white men, you know? And so getting change in those institutions is hard and important. But there is always that weird question of, like, can these reformed institutions ever do the job, or do you have to be trying to build something else, you know?
55:34
Speaker 1
It's funny. I was on Threads this week, and a Black woman, I guess I was in the Black section of Threads, Black Threads, and a Black woman talked about, I think it was a Black woman, but talked about the idea that, like, It is interesting that the way that Jeopardy has set up, that it's sort of, by the way that it's set up, it sort of is skewed towards white men feeling comfortable guessing. Oh, yes. In ways that the rest of us don't. White straight men feel comfortable guessing about things in the way the rest of us are a little bit, like, trained to second guess ourselves.
56:02
Speaker 3
Okay, so I did competitive trivia when I was in college and in law school. And just the way that in, so in, like, Quiz Bowl and stuff, there are toss up things where you are taking a risk and then there are bonuses where you have a question and you as a team can collaborate on it. And women were very, very comfortable participating in the bonus questions, but were far more likely to only answer when they were certain about something. And like that issue of, do I feel comfortable just taking a risk like that is like a real thing. And it's such a socially defined thing. And there are like, as like a gay male, gender nonconforming person. There are aspects of patriarchy that I don't benefit from, but that one, I 100% do.
56:50
Speaker 1
You feel fine to just say stuff. Right.
56:52
Speaker 3
And it is really interesting and it is that game. And I think there is a different way of building a quiz show that caters to different approaches, to different ways of knowing. But will I lose all respective people around me if I take a swing and don't connect? is like a thing that people experience differently.
57:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know? Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think that, well, first of all, I'm happy to help build that quiz show for you because I do think, and even the Jeopardy thing, they have like, you know, they have Pop Culture Jeopardy. I know the guy who runs it, Michael Davies, thinks there's more juice in the Jeopardy family in the franchise. And so I think we could, we can totally go to him and pitch a new Jeopardy. Yeah.
57:33
Speaker 3
I've been trying to figure out like a straight up quiz show for a while now. Like the talk show that I did, had like, you know, talk show, the game show, talk show, the game show had some game show elements to it. Um, but like trying to figure out something like that, because those are great. And we all love a format that you can sell internationally for sure.
57:52
Speaker 1
For sure. Yeah. Uh, I'm going to ask you about your TV writing experience. You've written for a lot of TV in your career, but I've, I want to specifically use these two points in your career. Uh, Hacks, where you are now, and a little TV show, the little TV show that couldn't, totally biased with W. Kamau Bell.
58:09
Speaker 3
But also a TV show that was full of the stem cells that created a bunch of TV that we have now. Like, it really was ahead of its time in a way that I am really proud of. And also, it was really cool to be a white writer on a show that had a strong Black character to it and to get to experience, like, uh, comedy and culture through that prism.
58:34
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, thank you for doing that. I mean, it was like, to me, that shows like totally bias is such a fever dream where there's actually a late nighters working on a retrospective on totally bias this year. Oh really?
58:44
Speaker 2
Yeah.
58:44
Speaker 1
So you'll be, they'll probably reach out to you at some point.
58:46
Speaker 3
Um, well, I think they did just for rights for the clips. Um, but like one of the things that has been odd in my career was that, and like having like women of color, uh, like come up to me and say, like, it was a show that showed me for the first time that like, I could be a contributing voice or something like that. Very, similarly like i wrote for the mindy project for several years and i didn't think about it but the number of black women and dark-skinned women who weren't south asian who said like it was a show that made me realize women like me like just seeing someone like me be beautiful and well-dressed and fabulous on TV.
59:29
Speaker 1
Centered.
59:30
Speaker 3
Centered was very formative for them. And it's so cool to get to be part of that.
59:35
Speaker 1
Yeah. So do I owe you any apologies for Totally Biased?
59:38
Speaker 3
No.
59:38
Speaker 1
It was a lovely experience. When I think about that, I think about, man, how hard that show was on me at the time. It's a hard job.
59:45
Speaker 3
And I think anytime your name is in the show, it makes you a little bit crazier.
59:49
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure.
59:51
Speaker 3
But yeah, Hacks is an awesome show to be on. I have written for a bunch of comedy ladies. And so that was one of the reasons that I got hired and, you know, I had experience with Chelsea Handler and Mindy and Joan Rivers and stuff like that. And so that was really helpful, but getting to do a show that is like really funny and like tries to tell real stories.
1:00:16
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:00:17
Speaker 3
It was really fun, but like totally biased was just fun because we were, recreating late nights in real time. And like we took a bunch of swings in a bunch of different directions and it was really fun. And it wasn't something that people were doing and watching, you know, like four or five years later when Samantha Bee and what's his name on HBO that.
1:00:45
Speaker 1
Kevin wrote for, John Oliver.
1:00:47
Speaker 3
Like all of these shows were really trying to do something that was very funny, but was thinking about politics a little bit more and thinking about social questions more, um, was really cool and fun. And then also like every writer's room I have been in since 2020 has just been more diverse because there were bigger thoughts about that and seeing like writer's rooms that looked more like the writer's rooms that we had in 2013 at like, uh, totally biased be something that, just is taken for granted now.
1:01:20
Speaker 1
No, we had a very small white heterosexual man section in that room. We had them, we had them.
1:01:25
Speaker 2
Yes.
1:01:25
Speaker 1
But it was certainly not the majority of the room.
1:01:27
Speaker 3
Yeah, and they were lovely and good. And the thing is that everyone's voice is changed by having more diversity present. Everyone thinks about things differently by having more diversity present. And I think that that's really valuable. It's not just what are... the people of color or queer people or women contributing to a room. But how does that change how the white man is going to work?
1:01:54
Speaker 1
And those white guys we had, Danny and Ned and TV's Frank Conniff. I mean, I really have a lot of love for those guys.
1:02:01
Speaker 3
And also, those were weird and goofy guys. And I really loved the very Bay Area character of what that show did and the weird.
1:02:13
Speaker 1
big swing goofiness.
1:02:15
Speaker 3
And also, you know, I got lots of quality time with Janine Frito and just got to watch her movie that she wrote with her wife.
1:02:22
Speaker 1
Oh, wow. That's great. Oh, that's great. It was really cool. I haven't talked to Janine in a long time. We texted, I think, during COVID. Like, I'm like, how you doing?
1:02:30
Speaker 3
That's because she disappeared to the hills to raise her disabled animals because that's what lesbians do.
1:02:35
Speaker 1
Good for her. Yes. So my penultimate question is, I ask everybody to come in here if there's a charity or a cause they want to support or let people know about anything that's going on in the world that you're like, I want people to pay attention to this. Because again, this podcast is not just about like the chitchat. It's also about my audience wants homework. So give these people some homework.
1:02:55
Speaker 3
I mean, I'm always going to pay attention to Lambda Legal and the ACLU. And it's like a weirder, harder time right now because... We have a Supreme Court that is very willing to take away rights.
1:03:10
Speaker 1
So I would say that. Lambda Legal. First of all, we didn't talk about this, but you are a lawyer. I don't know if you still have an active license. No, I don't.
1:03:21
Speaker 3
But Lambda Legal is a queer legal advocacy organization that does educational work, but they also do legal advocacy work. and the educational part is like a 501 three or 503 C like nonprofit.
1:03:34
Speaker 1
And the other one is like too political to be that.
1:03:36
Speaker 3
Um, but you know, it's like the people who are out there fighting for the legal rights that these communities need. And the ACLU, Louis Brandeis has been trying to make sure that everyone's rights are understood and represented in this country. But I also think right now, like anything you can do for, um, voting rights and voter participation after having the voting rights act truly decimated like it's it's easy to ignore the way that these things are going to change what politics looks like in this country um yeah.
1:04:13
Speaker 1
Yeah so there's a great organization called black voters matter that started out of georgia but out of the south but it's certainly doing the front lines of all this voters right work right now to try to help uh make up for the fact that the voting voting rights act was gutted.
1:04:25
Speaker 3
Oh but there's another charity i want to talk about oh great for um for what I was maybe going to do celebrity wheel of fortune. They were like, what's your charity. And I was thinking about it. And a couple of years ago, I got into a fight on Twitter with a guy. And then when I was figuring out who he was, he started a charity called, um, students of color abroad. And then I thought that that was awesome because it's an aspect of life that we don't think about. Like we're, we're so frequently trying to, uh, equalize the most basic aspects of education and opportunity and just the opportunity to go be in another country is something that like poor people in america people from the community that i was raised in and kids of color don't have and so i thought it's a really awesome program students of color abroad uh give money to them like they are great.
1:05:16
Speaker 1
So you got into a fight with him and now you're promoting his non-profit yes okay what was the fight over I literally have no memory. Are you guys friends now? You're friendly now?
1:05:24
Speaker 3
Yes. I was just like, I saw that and I gave 50 bucks to his nonprofit and then he saw that I had given 50 bucks to his nonprofit and he was like, thanks, I appreciate that.
1:05:36
Speaker 1
And it was just like, internet fights are dumb. Yeah, no, for sure. So everyone who.
1:05:40
Speaker 3
In the comments said that I was a monster or a traitor to the Jews and a capo I just want to say we could be friends.
1:05:52
Speaker 1
Let's see if we can get there. We can get there. We can work it out. My last question is the podcast is who's with me. So are you with me? Of course, always. Good, good. I figured you were, but I got to ask. Look, once on the team, always on the team, you know? Appreciate that. And Melissa will appreciate that again. My wife loves you. I love you guys.
1:06:13
Speaker 3
And I enjoy getting to work so closely with you. And I miss getting to see you as much, both of you.
1:06:19
Speaker 1
Same, same. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Again, that was me and my guest guy, Branham, a rock and rolling rollercoaster of a podcast. You can follow him on his social medias. He's on threads. He's on Instagram. Check out old gays. Remember on Instagram, maybe on YouTube too. Also again, pre-order my new book with Adam man's back rock, paper, scissors, cheese. All the links will be below in the show notes or wherever you get the show notes. Guy mentioned a few things. He mentioned a few causes that he wants to support. The ACLU, which of course I'm down for, the ACLU. Lambda Legal. Teens of Color Abroad. Three great organizations he mentioned. And then we talked about voting rights. I mentioned Black Voters Matter, which is a great voting rights organization. So you can check out those organizations. ACLU, which fights for our rights. Lambda Legal, which fights specifically for gay folks. Teens of Color Abroad, which sounds great, takes teens... color and lets them get out of the country, which hopefully they can get some passports. And again, Black Voters Matter, which is about helping black voters in the South, but also across the country and really working hard to restore the Voting Rights Act. And I also remember there was a point in the episode where we laughed at something that later I look back and go, that laugh is... Basically, when Guy mentioned the tragedy of Alec Baldwin, it came so out of left field that I laughed. Like, whoa, I wasn't expecting that. But I don't want anybody to think that me or Guy thinks that is a funny situation. So I also want to mention the Halna Hutchins Memorial Scholarship Fund. It's through AFI, the American Film Institute. Again, the Halna Hutchins Memorial Scholarship Fund, which just supports the woman who was killed in that horrible accident on the set of that movie. Again, just want to be conscious of what we're doing here. And laughter is sometimes like, whoa, that was surprising. That was that laugh. I don't want you to think that means that we don't take that tragedy seriously. So please support the Halna Hutchins Memorial Fund. Thanks to Rabogren Productions, Pushkin Industries, Who Knows Best Productions, which is me. Special thanks to Chris Dowd from Fishbone for the theme music. And again, this weekend is really important. Do something good for yourself, for your community, and for the world. Take care.
The Host
