Chapter 1: What upcoming events are mentioned in the podcast?
hey everybody hope you enjoy the episode today golden retriever of comedy tour still going strong this week dallas you sold out you sweet sweet beautiful city houston we're gonna be there friday oklahoma city on saturday dan sorter.com for tickets and the tour keeps moving along huntington beach we added a show in long island dan sorter.com for those and then i will see you in charlotte durham
Cleveland, Columbus, the cities that keep on coming. DanSoder.com. All the shows are listed. Go buy tickets. Before we tape this hour, I hope you get to see it. This has been easily the greatest tour time on the road I've ever had in my life. So come check out these shows. DanSoder.com. Enjoy the episode.
Chapter 2: How does John Oliver feel about his recent experiences?
John Oliver was really cool. Also a huge Garbage Time fan. We didn't get it on camera, but he popped when he saw Katie's hat, and that made me very happy. My dog has this favorite treat that's like a brain game for her. We just start recording. My father-in-law bought her this. It's like a ball that you put a treat in and then they figure out how to lick the treat. It's great for dogs.
They love it. Like a brain game? Is that kind of improving? Yeah, it stimulates her in a way. We live in an apartment. She doesn't have a backyard. She has to find ways so that she's not like, I want to jump out of this fucking window. And you get to get a sense of whether your dog is, I'm going to eat all of this. I'm going to find a way to digest whatever this is. It's pure primal motivation.
Okay. Of her going, I'm gonna get this treat. This is the most delicious thing on the planet. So we loved it. My father-in-law bought it, and we're like, Mike, this is great. You know, you refill it. Problem is, it sounds like a truck stop blowjob. So when you're in the room with her, all you hear is like...
And I was very excited you were coming on the podcast, and I was doing a little, all right, what do I do with Myrtle during the podcast? I don't want her bothering people. And I go, I'll give her a treat, and then we're going to get you. And I just hear her like, and I'm like, I can't have that. It's the background noise of me and John Oliver talking.
Because when you're that specific about a reference, that is not something you can ever forget. You can't forget. And that'll stay with you. I'm talking about a working truck stop. I'm talking about a lot lizard. Before they automated the trucking industry. I'm talking at its peak. Can you please deep dive into what's going to happen to lot lizards with an automated truck?
It's going to be a problem. There's going to be a period of adjustment. I need you doing 35 on lot lizards.
like in any industry there will be a period of transition and you need to take care of the baseline workers who are not expendable that's the thing yeah these women can't drink oil that's gonna kill them you can't have them sucking off robot truck drivers they'll die that oil will erode their their esophagus their stomach they will die you have to it's like any workforce they need to be protected do you
This is why unions exist. This is, hello? Hello, unions? Ring the bell. I'm tired of saying it. Where are you, unions? You protect the hookers.
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Chapter 3: What unique dog training technique is discussed?
They've always protected the hookers. The barnacle on the ship of unions are our sex workers. Don't tell me that the oldest profession in the world cannot survive automated trucking. Because I don't think that's going to be true. Could you imagine if sex workers actually unionized and became as strong as the Teamsters? They've tried. There have been moves towards it.
I wonder if OnlyFans put the money in a place where they go, we really have to unionize this. Maybe. Because that's what unionizes anything. When a lot of money comes into it. Like with stand-ups, right? When they tried it in L.A. ? And they tried it here too. It didn't work. It didn't work at all. Because here's what they didn't, just like sex workers. Yes.
There's always a comic willing to take less. That's the problem. You are dealing with two groups with a lot in common. The Venn diagram of sex workers and comedians. Both think that the other group is not an ideal way to earn a living. Both are right and wrong in equal measure. Nothing will hurt your confidence more than just a streetwalker in Indianapolis going, what are you doing? That's right.
50 every year. I heard that set was rough last night. Hey, hey, hey. We're both standing outside a steak and shake, but only one of us is going in for a Frisco melt. Yeah, it is. That's, I would say, my problem with the standup of the last 15 years were how many people overinflated its importance. Oh, how do you mean? Like, people going like, no, the world needs stand-up comedians. Oh, my God.
That is, sure, that's an overinflation well past bursting point. That's what I mean. It's like, no, they don't. It's never been a need stand-up. Most of the time, we were just there... As a way before we got executed. Yes, that's right. You don't see cave paintings and a guy standing at the side saying, what is up with those mammoths? He's like, fire, bad.
And other cavemen are going, Zach, I've seen the fire, bad. We all know that. You've just got the confidence to say it to people. Oh, yeah, the sky God chose you. Sure, sure, sure.
the industry yawn the saber tooth when you last week tonight uh you know i mean i've i've known i got to do your stand-up show which was great yeah which was uh thank you for that of course i think new york city there's a generation of new york city stand-up comedians that genuinely in fact you know who i was on the phone with today nate bargetzi and he said john oliver got it before a lot of people
How so? About his stand-up. People weren't booking him to do stand-up on TV. Oh, sure, sure, yeah. And you put Nate on. And I think that was like, that's what I mean. There's a whole generation of us where I think Comedy Central might have not really warmed to the idea of us doing a lot of sets. Well, sure, and it was a push at that point. It was not always an easy sell with Comedy Central.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do comedians face in the current landscape?
I remember in that first season, I think they had some pushback to Maria Bamford being on. I think, if we're going to argue about this, we're about to have some really rough arguments. Because there is no discussion to be had here.
Well, what I liked about it is a lot of the times, and it's so different now because there is no industry, or the stand-up industry has fallen to people doing YouTube and making their own. where there really isn't that person that goes, there isn't the Caesar's thumb. There isn't the, yes, they can be on TV, no, they can't be on TV.
What you did and what I loved about the show and being a part of the show was it was unrestrictive in a way that late nights weren't. Yeah, for sure. That was what was always great about the Edinburgh Festival in the same way, because all the international festivals, there is a seize a thumb involved. Like you get invited to Montreal.
I think that barely functions as a festival in the true sense of that word, right? Melbourne, much closer to like that festival atmosphere, but still curated internationally on a large scale. There is still a person saying yes or no. Edinburgh, it is an open door policy and you'll get all the good and all the bad that comes with that. And the bad makes everything better.
And I got to do my first Fringe in 2019. And the advice I got from every comedian was go watch shows. Yeah. Because there are going to be times where you feel so insecure and horrible. And then there are going to be times where you're like, I don't think we're in the same field. Yeah. Where you just watch it and you go, what did I sit through?
But it was something that I had been underexposed to UK comedy. And what I saw there really opened my eyes to like, it's kind of the way that New York used to shit on LA all the time. When I moved here, we're like, LA, they suck. They don't write jokes. And then Colin Quinn was like, they perform their asses off. And you don't appreciate it.
And then you see it and you go, oh, they're way better performers than we are. And they should be. They're where TV and films are made. Sure. It makes sense. That's right. We're in a tight room writing jokes. Yes. In New York City. And I think the extreme on the other side of that is what was happening in the UK, certainly there, where there is almost no polish to a fault.
It's almost like... There's some jagged pieces of wood passing themselves off as shelves there. It was... One time, Katie and I were at a concert in Brooklyn, and we were looking for a restaurant, and we went to this place that looked like a very nice restaurant. And we said, hi, can we see your food menu? And the guy gave us a menu and went, I want to let you know all our food is fish in cans.
And we were like... Why would we eat here? You're just gonna hand us a fucking King of the Sea and then I gotta drain it? Like, what is this? Just push a grade C rating across the table. It's crazy. They go, if it's sick, it's really your fault you opened a bad can. But I had a feeling like that when I went to the UK and I was like, oh, you guys are just putting raw materials on stage.
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Chapter 5: How has stand-up comedy evolved over the years?
Definitely. And I think it becomes so, there's different ways to treat it and there's different ways it's being treated. Either as a launching pad, it can function for a very few people for that, but it will definitely get your learning curve steeper. And there's nothing you want more when you're starting to have comedy than that. You just want to get better faster.
Yes, and it is a speed run on you running an hour. Michelle Wolf, though, because her and Michael Che were the two people I was closest to that had done it, and she was like, when you come back, you're going to feel like a superhero. And I came back, and the first set I did, I was like, oh. I was like, oh, my God. Because UK audiences listen.
there's a weird thing that they do that that fucks you up as an american whereas americans you're fighting when you come up in the clubs here you're fighting uh chicken wings uh drink specials buckets of beer yes you guys don't fight buckets of beers but your audiences are going see it out i remember reading about what do you call it the check check spot oh that's how i came up here
That's how I made my bones in New York. Yeah, that really does put you in your place as a performer, saying, let's clear these checks before you finish. So if you can allow for the transaction taking place, that is the bedrock of what we're getting here. A full transaction.
transaction you're bringing american express in a visa mastercard they're getting involved you might be splitting a check at a table dude i can't tell you john how many times i watched people split like three buckets of beer and it was me just bombing in front of patrice o'neill when he's waiting to go up this is the thing though isn't it like you say like this goes back to you saying people putting stand up on a pedestal like this is the most important profession really no really i'm not sure other key professions are dealing with a check spot
No one is going, hey, as we plan our invasion of Venezuela, I want you all to look at your cable bills. I've got all your cable bills. We didn't have a bucket of this. And then what's funny is now, even with the check spots, now comedy clubs are doing a thing where they're going, put your phone in a bag.
So now we're watching the American public education system fail in real time when people have forgotten long division. Oh, sure. Because they don't have their phones and they're going, 40 divided by four. You go, divided by four. Come on. We're standing at it. It's just a decimal point over. Guys, what is this? That's where the disappointment lies.
That's where I could have told you our educational system was on the rocks 15 years ago. I'm watching the math in the room. This isn't... There you go. Stand up functioning as the canaries in the coal mine or the observers of the canaries. And this thing, if you can't slide the decimal point, we're in trouble as a society. We are the lunatic that runs into the saloon.
When that solar flare knocks out electronics. The purge is not going to take a business day. But I will tell you how much we can split it by. I'll show you the old school division ways of doing that. I mean, I think, oh, the weather's getting warm. Somewhere between, you know, it's getting not short sleeve shirt, but it's getting like, this is nice. It's getting nice. Well, guess what?
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Chapter 6: What insights does John Oliver share about the media industry?
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When you go from The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight, and you start doing these in-depth pieces, did you watch... the people around you start recommending things that they want you to see? You mean like recommending stories? Or like recommending someone, like your uncle being like, hey, what's up with this bill? Take this apart. I will never forget.
this i was doing stand-up somewhere and this woman came up on a plane so i've got an idea for a show that is the thing where you think what exactly are we doing here you should really look into child protective services and like my instinct is i don't know man that's real dark she starts talking about it like three minutes later going i will look into that also that is such a i need to hear more because which angle are you coming from
because they took my kid yeah and they shouldn't have taken my kid and you know i don't think you want a story how are you smoking on the plane yeah she goes oh i got a whole theory i got names i mean that's that's what i think um you know what's great is you guys write it so well and it's so funny and it's so funny that that's what i think is like um what journalism has to do now
is like find a new way, like a candy coating for- That can send you in some dicey directions though. I know. I don't like it. That is not journalism area to make it entertaining. And it wasn't, the fourth estate was supposed to be boring, but so was policy. So we're the majority, the vast majority of the time, we are aggregating the work of good journalism to then build something different.
To try and put a whole bunch of stuff into one place and then write jokes on top of it. But in doing that, you might be interested in this. We want to put the writers in a position where it is possible to write jokes. And we've got better at that. Like the first few years, occasionally we were giving writers just... the worst ingredients for story and saying, so write jokes.
And you can see the point of saying, I can do this maybe four times. Then I don't know how you think there is nothing I can work with here to get to something funny. So we try and make sure that we're at least giving them material like an episode of Chopped that could. Yeah. could make a joke without you faking it.
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Chapter 7: How does the conversation shift to the topic of social media?
yes i want him to be boring absolutely absolutely i want him to go like here's how we're going to fix health care and you go i just can you just fix it yeah my tolerance for the president being cool has got pretty pretty low now and it was like going back and looking at it it's like that scene in interstellar where matthew mcconaughey is like screaming at the bookcase that's how i feel when i see that clip of clinton playing sax on arsenio i'm like no
No, you're trying to make them cool. And then he's just kidding. He's like, I'm going to get my dick sucked in the White House. You never want, even with some of the Obama stuff, you never want to, you don't want to be part of that group. And they want to try and suck in. celebrities and people in the arts and people from sports. You just, you never want to be that close.
You want to be at a, as a personal remove. Personally, I like a remove in general, but also you just don't want to be in a position to be charmed by someone that you are eventually going to have to criticize. You're putting too much cheese in it. It's like where every American restaurant goes, we added cheese.
It's like the new Applebee's thing where they go, we cut our hamburger in half and then we just let it sit in a soup of cheese. And you go, it's too much cheese. That's how I've always felt about when actors try to get political. You go, you're a professional liar. You're a liar telling me which liar to pick. I don't like any of that. That's too much cheese. Right.
Can I get a fucking... Can I get a salad? Feels to me like you're working out a... A cheese bit? A cheese bit in real time. I go, cheese! That's too much cheese. And then I look to the camera. That's your hamburger. Oh, I wish I had a hamburger. John Oliver, if I had a hamburger, I would be saying, that's just too much cheese. That's too much cheese. That's, out to the crowd, too much cheese.
Good night. If you think this episode's not going to be called Too Much Cheese, you're fucked in the head. Because that's... Too much cheese. I know. And the problem is it will haunt you because you'll think you've moved past the too much cheese bit, but that crowd ain't going to be ready. No, no, no, no. You come back and you do the too much cheese.
And then I get into a war with Kraft because they don't like where the new album's going. But I got too much cheese and I want to know where the cheese is coming from, man. What does the too much cheese guys talk about? I have.
absolutely no idea it's a Pavlovian response ding-a-ling-a-ling all I know is I've eaten so much cheese I'm diabetic and I can't have fucking that's right yeah I'm trying to put I'm big cheese is behind my catchphrase how's Dan he's a prisoner of his own success you'll see Oh, the cheesecake? Just look at his new poster. He's huge in Wisconsin to a problematic extent.
If you ever get to fly out to see his house that he bought with all the cheese money, it's in Daly City. It's a gigantic house, and he is not happy in it. No dairy. No dairy allowed in it. Don't say the word. Dairy. He'll find dairy. My question that I love asking, especially comics that are from a different country that come here, is... When it's done well, it's very refreshing.
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Chapter 8: What conclusions are drawn about the future of comedy and society?
I had a different relationship pretty early on with the country because I knew that I wanted to stay here before my immigration period. status made that a certainty or even a probability. So I was talking from a slightly different position, not as a tourist, more as like someone who was trying to take ownership.
And as a British person saying that taking ownership of a country historically has some red flags attached to it. I don't know what you're talking about. It doesn't matter. No, there's a whole reason that a continent a full world away worships your queen or your king now. I remember last year when Trump was talking to the president of Liberia and saying, it's amazing that you speak English.
And you go, oh, there are historical reasons for that dude that you do not want to get into and you will deny after being presented with the fact. Buddy, you're going to find that the last 200 years, the English has been pushed in a way that we're not too comfortable with. Teaching English as a foreign language to a genuine fault.
That's always like when one of my friends goes, why are there so many Mormon Samoans? And you go, let's not. Do you want to? Do you want to? Because it can't be a short conversation. I don't think it's that they thought they were cool. That they got caffeine sucked too. Yeah, so I got, I found that I wanted to come here not just as a, not just as a,
external critic but a critic from the inside so I started changing the way that we were writing those chats at the daily show often went for the first year or two it was often you you and the jokes were pretty reductive coming from you're doing this and I then gradually changed that to we because I've been there for long enough that you can't really play that card anymore I remember talking to Ronnie Chang and saying when he first got here saying it'll take about a year
for you to like understand after doing standup here a lot, what position that you are occupying in terms of talking from, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, that's, that's fascinating because you know, I think when I went over to the UK and I was in, I did some shows in Ireland and I did some shows in London and then fringe finding that like, yeah, it's very tempting to come in there and go, definitely. what the hell are you guys doing? And by the way, I'm guilty of it.
If you were at any of my shows at the Soho Theater, there was like me going like, you guys run out of ice? And it's like a very American, you know. But of course, I think that's just a function of being in a place for a short amount of time. And you realize, and whether you're asking questions of like, why do you do this? In any kind of good faith of being interested in the answer.
So that's where it gets much deeper. Yes, because I've also seen, Just people come here and then they go so hard in the paint against our government and don't let up for so long that you go, you're almost like snap out of it and you go, motherfucker, you don't vote.
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