Hello, it's Chris letting you know. I have some stand up dates coming up this week. Actually Wednesday, February eighth, I will be.
At Suba's in Chicago.
February tenth through twelfth, I'll be in Saint Louis at Helium Comedy Club. And then February fourteenth, that's Valentine's Day, I'll be at Helium in Indianapolis. Go to Chris Fairbanks dot com to find the links for tickets.
Thank you and you're welcome.
Are leaving? I you wanna way back home? Either way, we want to be there.
Doesn't matter how much baggage you clayankive us time and a urman on engaye.
We want to send you off in style. We want to welcome you back home.
Tell us all about it?
We scared? Or was it fine?
Malcoorn?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride?
Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?
Do you to ride?
Do you need with Karen and Chris welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris Fairbanks.
And this is Karen Kilgarra.
Hello, my friend Karen.
Hello Chris, how are you.
Let us speak in song like tones.
It's not irritating.
It will ever be irritating. Now.
Our fans love it.
They do.
They as much as they love us chewing into the microphone.
They love singing songy dialogue.
One of the worst mistakes we ever made on this podcast was when I ate a rice crispy tree.
From Starbucks into my love in the car.
Yes it was. People do not like SMR as much as they think they do.
No, we lost fifties of listeners.
Yes, but we did get all that foldy work. Yeah, I'm I'm. I have a new microphone in case I sound amazing.
Yeah, you do, and you look amazing from your hands are way up by your ears.
Give me just gesticulating wildly. I don't.
We all have to use our zoom box with our like as much as possible with our hands. Today we are in honor of Chris's new mic stanes.
Yes, it's gonna be just riddled with jazz like hands and lots of measurements that are about two feet wide. We can do anything, so many visual things that you can't appreciate on an audio podcast.
You almost actually irritate you on an audio podcast.
Yes, but yes, yeah, especially we'll do it.
We address them so more singing and gesticulating to come, and you will love it.
I'm very excited. You and I met.
Our guest today at the same time when we were doing the more fun of the Zoom shows.
I've ever done, the most fun.
I think it's one of two Zoom shows I did, and then I said that's enough for me.
We liked our guests today so much that we had to call each other and say, hey, I really liked that person.
Yeah, what are your thoughts?
Didn't you didn't I see you liking him on that streaming comedy attempt that we made in early quarantine.
I think that's what I asked you.
Yes, yes, that's exactly how you worded it.
We're both huge fans. Yes, this is a person who what was it Quiplash?
It was quick the game. I don't remember the rules.
I remember being frustrated and kicking myself off by not having glasses on and pushing the wrong button, and then I'd punish myself by doing chin ups, which I am doing again. I was I received an Apple Watch for Christmas, and it tells me when I need to get up and stop sitting, which would be annoying to most people, but I use it as an opportunity to do frustrating chin ups.
So I've been doing more of that and.
Soon great, good hopefully, and we see it today.
Oh yeah, my physique, Yeah, I'll show it.
We're mid intro right now.
Yeah, yeah, I tend to do that, don't I.
Yeah, you basically stop and we're introing. Think of three other topics.
Just mention a watch. We were smoothly getting into Jason.
We were on the brink. Actually, some would say, and.
Now I've done the worst thing ever where I said his first name.
Yes, I know, I should take it from me, Karen.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are thrilled to tell you he plays clubs and colleges all over a lot of colleges.
Please welcome Jaye Jerden.
Hey, what's up y'all? Hey, yay, very happy to be here. Tons of colleges. The last college gig I did was at a place where I went to grad school, and that was interesting for real.
Yeah, wait, they do.
I didn't realize that they book like comics. Was it a nooner at a grad school?
No?
So I went to the University of Alabama for grad school. And that was the last college gig I did, and I did it in this summer of twenty twenty one, late summer of twenty twenty one.
And how long had it been since you were in that school? Just a matter of years, right.
Oh, I left there in twenty fifteen.
So where they're familiars, that'd be so fun to see.
Some familiar some familiar faces. It was also it's like it was part of their welcome week for like the freshman class for that year. So it was like it was well attended and they were smart and fun and weird and masked and probably vaccinated.
It was just.
Everything was so everything was so good. I was very happy I got to do it. But because you tell people you're going to do a college show in Alabama during the pandemic and they go, well, Jay, it was nice knowing you.
Yeah, yeah, see you later.
Yeah.
There's usually did you get to do a.
Lot of local jokes that like really played in the room because you knew you.
Don't want to talk about the restaurants on like the strip for like what's going on in the square. You want to be like, oh, yeah, I can't wait to see y'all. I can't wait to see y'all. I don't know like mos after this, but if you want to like drop a if you want to like drop a reference, they'll get it. It's also it's very funny because college kids are uniquely and like very aware of everything now in a way that like I guess started when I was in college, but has only like progressed and gotten
even faster. Like they're aware of everything. They set the trends for everything, they dictate everything.
Uh.
Yeah, I'm the older I get the more and more I'm impressed by young people to where I think it's ridiculous that people used to complain about young people.
It's like, oh, and I get rid of these old like old people, and this is the crazy old people like have to ask them for things like there's no way you can exist without young people. I say, this is a person who's thirty three. I'm on the other side of it. There's a person at my job. I was like this, I'm scared if I post this it's and it look weird. It's stretched out. Do you know
how to make it not stretched out? I had to go to like the guy who was part of the digital content strategy whatever that job that exists not only because of young people. I was like, it looks like it's going to be stretched out? Is it when I post it? Will it be stretched out? I'm worried?
And was he nice about it?
Or was it was so kind about it? He was like, Okay, i'll send you another file and I'll send it to you these ways too. And I was like, oh, I was a work Yeah, I had that.
Does that happened to me one time I started a job.
This is when this was right to the end where I had to stop caring because I already don't like computers and didn't realize they were going to be like seventy fives.
I'll tell you something. They don't like you. They don't like you a mutual computer. No, we are all going to be the Thomas Jefferson of computers, all of us, every human. We've taken advantage of these things. They are slaves, but we also like love them like it's it's gonna be bad. The AI recognition will spare none of us.
It's so true.
Well, I had the writer's assistant came in and saw the contact sheet that had been put together, and he came in and shut the door and went y'ah email address, no girl, no, And I was like what why really, who cares? And he's like, we have to sign you up for Gmail right now, Like he was mortified for me. And that was like the I think the last that was the last string and strand I was holding on to.
And then I just said I can't I can't care because I must be doing this all day in every way, had you no idea if.
It would have been hot mail, you wouldn't even got the job. They would have threw it in the garth.
For real, like who is this hermit that's been living in a cave and still using Yahoo? Email? Was just so easy in twenty two thousand and three or whenever I got it. It was just like they MA made it easy for me.
Is how I met my Nigerian prince fiance and we've been very happy.
I love that.
I love that man.
I love giving him tens of thousands of dollars a month.
Yeah.
My favorite thing is because my sister was born in nineteen sixty nine. She just had her name sixty nine at Gmail and I had to tell her, like a lot of people and I know why you put that, but a lot of people are going to think, you know, six And it's almost as if my sister wasn't familiar with it as a sexual position, but.
She sense changed it very very embarrassed.
Chrisy, I love that you said, and lit Sis, I know why you put it. I know why you put it. I know why you put it. I know why. Let me stress, I know why. Yeah, it's not for the reason I'm about to say.
Yeah, right, putting the nineteen the nineteen in there before it would be such a different message for everyone.
That's how sexual our society is. We can ruin numbers.
I wouldn't have said anything if she wasn't a teacher of young people.
You know, their imaginations.
They get all the information they know, you know, they've seen all the porn that the kind.
Of porn Bury in the woods.
They have it presented to them, and they they have all the information, good and bad.
So they're all making it now.
You just can't.
They're just not viewing the porn judgment free zone. They're just not viewing.
They're ignoring.
They know it's out there, they're ignoring it. But they're a sixty nine passive kid.
These days.
They're critiquing the porn. They're writing reviews, they're.
Directing, they're directing.
Point they're producing their crowd sourcing.
Yeah, they're raising the money for very adult films.
They're just kids.
They've set up Yelp pages for each individual porn.
Yeah, they're discussing it.
They talk about, oh, well that's not realistic, that's not nearly realistic enough.
He doesn't love her. That's my criticism of every porn. Yeah, you know, I think he's using her. I think he's just using her emotion.
I think all seven of those guys might be using her.
The one keeps making eye contact, that's nice, but the other one, well.
Yeah, it's weird during it.
And I know there's a better phrase than gangbang, but it's always weird when you see that one of them is in love and he's just kind of in the background. He's not really participating. Maybe he's a sound guy that actually comes into comes into frame accidentally.
But that's maybe. But maybe he represents the viewer. Right, there's a cinematography there, Chris, Somewhat, a narrative is established.
You got to relate to one other character.
Still, I want to see the porn. That's the point of view.
Of every guy that's standing in that circle kind of Rasamon style. What was it like for you? Where did you come from this morning? What are you going to do after this?
Do you guys just to all love?
Just a bunch to slice the life. And it's where all these characters had it. Oh my gosh, it's like, okay, it's the modern family Pilot. This is what you want. They all were going to the orgy.
Oh my god. Then they all do a take to the camera. Can you believe this?
Cake? HBO?
Max will greenleave back? That will get green lit. It's coming.
We have to This is a poor man's copyright where we have to say we did this on purpose.
This was our collaborative idea. We get the best.
Time for us to come up with good ideas or invent things because it's documented and it's better than a patent clerk, which you can't even find anymore, yes, trying to find a patent clerk or a notary public.
Just someone with a very specific stamp. That's what you need, just ink and rubber on something.
On a very like made to order. It took eight weeks to get it right stamp.
You see those stamp, those ink wells were so big. There was a pad with the sponge. It was like red or blue. They had the words the lettering in reverse because that's important for some reason on their stamp, and they would put it in, but then they would do that little wiggle and make sure it gets all in there. They take your document and just hold on to it, press down for dear life. And these people
they played no games, these stampers. Yeah, any person who was part of a bureaucratic thing like that.
You're right, No one need think.
It's a very serious moment when they're stamping anything.
Anyone more so when the stamp goes down and say it's red. But then they take a blue ink pen and right in the date onto the stamp where the blank line is yes, like that's official. You have now bought that house, you have now married that person.
If that person is doing all that, then they also have like the finger wedding station for patents. They have like a they could spit is ineffective, They're going through too many paper. The volume alone would ray their mouth out. No, no, no, they have the finger wedding station.
I just to go over there.
I want to elaborate on finger wedding station because I don't know what that is. It made me think of when you're at a wedding and a bunch of people put their thumbprint on a tree to let people know that they were at the wedding.
Am I wrong? There? Is that? Not what you're talking about?
Never been on that kind on a tree?
Yeah.
So it's a great idea, and you can do it for a party or something. It's better than signing a guest list. There's a drawing of a leafless tree, just dry branches and then the leaves.
This is fun. The leaves are everyone's fingerprint.
What are you thinking of kindergarten?
No, I'm thinking of the first time I was arrested. No, I've never been. You know, I stay within the law.
I have a friend who just became a notary public and the money's great.
You're kidding.
Really, it's a really good job to have.
Yeah, all right. It's also one of those words that you have to say very intentionally and explicitly. You are a notary public, right ye? Because together notary public? What it's like a what republic?
Yeah?
What wonder?
Yeah?
A lot of people let it just fly off the tongue and they say, note the Republic.
Yeah, yeah, what are we telling the Republic?
What do I put on this note? I'm very confused. I shouldn't have this job or this stamp.
I just like the idea that people who were into like stamps of hearts and kittens in the eighties or whenever they were into it when they were young. This is if they were truly passionate. If you had like a box of stamps or that's how you expressed yourself, you could actually go on to make bank with what you love stamping? Jay, what's going on in New York? Anything to report these things?
It's so the past three days it is it's die of exposure cold. It was it's forty seven degrees right now, and I went outside and I knew I had been abused because I was like, this is great, forty yes seven, What hold on, mama nature, I'm about to act up forty seven girl. I might not play socks on just ound in my house, shoes to walk my dog. But no, it was it was bleak for it's this past weekend. It was one of those like nine degrees feels like
negative to in New York. Everyone has gone from like cute coats to very functional coats to you know what, both of these can be on at the same time. I went to a brunch on Saturday and they had like an inside outside situation where there's a roof that's
covered and heated, and we were gonna sit there. And one of the people in this group text said, oh, it's it's we have outside seating, and I said outside, question mark, I will turn around because I thought they meant like outside, and I was like, no, I'm not. I will never. So it's been cold and now it's halfway decent and it'll get cold again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
It was like one degree in Montana when I was home for the holidays, and then it did. It jumped up immediately to forty six or something, you know, because of al Gore. And then everyone, Yeah, they're all just wearing shorts outside. Everyone dressed like it was summer. They're walking around with surfboards. But you can tell, you can tell secretly there.
The zinc oxide on this.
Yeah, some zinca on your nose.
I went when I lived very briefly in New York for like a year, I think it was twenty ten, and so I'm from California, life long and never like we would go to snow after it had snowed in Tahoe and you'd be like, I can't believe it. But
it was not really serious winter. And there was one day it took the subway to work and when I get out of the subway, it was ten degrees and I could not stop laughing because it felt like I was It felt like I'd been submerged in listing and I was just breathing, like it just didn't make sense. I'd never experienced it. It was so insane, which I loved. It was really fun and exciting.
Hear someone saw you laughing, Yeah, the cold.
They don't care.
It's something I can tell you Jay about Karen a bit. If there's any trauma or everything horrible is about to happen, maybe a mushroom cloud in the distance.
Karen reacts by laughing maniacally.
I can't help it, Like you planned it, like you press the button.
Yeah, it appearance that way.
Well, sometimes it's like that, and sometimes it's like there was a time where my friends and I were in a car and my friend was driving way too fast on like the five South, and it was like nighttime and he was truly going like over ninety, but it was trafficky whatever, and his girlfriend was kind of like you have to slow down and all upset, and then all of a sudden he changed lanes and there was a stop truck in front of us, and he had to basically get over again without looking, and it was
this insane like we were about to die and write.
It before it happened.
I started laughing, and once we like once we got into the lane and you know, the girlfriend start was like god, damn it. It was all mad, and then we all calmed down. My friend who was driving, is like, that was so fucking creepy, Karen.
I'm like sorry, sorry, I'm.
It's like I started laughing. I was like, this is it.
I can't fucking are you a joker?
Oh my god, I understand laughing right afterwards, immediate relief just indorphins, but right.
Before death possible death.
To laugh maniacally, then that's it.
I I've definitely sometimes my boyfriend will say look at me and tell me why this is like this in the house, and I'll just have to because I know it's me and I've done it. Like it'll be something like the like dog food is not where it's supposed to be, and I will just like start laughing, like that's how I It's always like Jay, what is this? And I go, OK, it's it looks crazy because it is And those are definitely someone shoes in the fridge. But here's how that happens.
You're gonna love this story.
That's when I like uncontrollably laugh.
Now, are you the kind of person that does stuff like that? Like do you get up in your head? I sometimes do that where I know I've actually been like fighting with someone for twenty minutes in my head and then I look around and can't find what I was looking for or something.
Is it one of those?
I am very I'm usually pretty. I know where everything is, I know where things have to be, this is where this should be. But I will get caught off guard. So every now and then there is a moment where it's like, oh, I'm supposed to do that, and then I run down two flights of stairs and it's like Jay pants, and then I run back up. Like in the summer, sometimes you'll be like this is the temperature, I'm pants. I've done I've done that in my.
Building you gotten to the front door, not.
To the front door, two flights of stairs. I've never like gotten all the way down.
And we're talking. You're just you were wearing boxers, not all the way of swinging.
Yeah, just like or just like whatever I was like sleeping in not yeah, I'm not nake?
Sure?
Sure is this pre COVID or quarantine?
This?
This is like pre COVID Whenever you would like run out and do stuff. Now there's a whole ritual. Now there's like mask and yeah, I'm aware of like, but I've also I also think that like those like little moments like me laughing at shit, like I can either laugh where I can be like, oh this is terrible, you know, and people you can tweet about and be like my day was so stressful. Yeah, or you used to be like that's kind of crazy, that's kind of funny, that's hilarious.
Yeah, it has to be well.
And also I think it would be really great to go all the way somewhere and then be like I'm wearing pajamas.
That would be kind of amazing as.
A story, Like wouldn't that open up a bunch of variables for you and the interactions you might be able to have with the people that would normally.
Pre do people in college. A lot of people win everywhere in pajamas. It is.
I was just in I did shows with Reggie Watson Bozeman. Were both from Montana, and he made a comment that I love this town. You can just walk around and see people wearing pajamas when it's thirty degrees it was even colder, and.
I was like, it was funny to me.
But then the next day I noticed, if so, I was taking pictures of people wearing pajamas, just flannel plaid with Surrell like snow boots. So many people in pajamas, and I guess that means, yeah, they're enrolled in some sort of college.
Oh yeah. Undergrads are notorious for like how can I wake up right?
Yeah?
Not no no margin for air.
Yeah.
It used to be so fun for me to go in between classes. There'd be like three hours and I would, even though it was not worth the drive, go up snowboard for one or two runs and then come back. And I feel like my motivation was to go to class in my snow pants, like somehow.
That was cool. Oh, I was just up being rad.
Oh but now I'm ready for social statistics.
It's so funny that is a young person that.
Hey, oh I'm I'm sorry. I was just doing the opposite of.
Oh what you guys all are comfortable and dry.
I pulled a one eighty. Can you believe my range? Anyway, I'm taking that. Stop talking about I'm taking notes.
Yeah, I get pretty, I get pretty big air, massive air actually, but we need to focus on.
My eyes off, my snow pants, eyes forward. I respect that both of you went to college. Jay, you went even more.
You went double college.
Too too much college, too much college for me, I think my mom was a teacher. Academia was like a fun, kind of like nurturing place for me to be in. I would always find a way to like kind of like hustle and make like have like I like worked at the business school when I was in an undergrad. I worked at the business school. Never took a single
business school class. So people, parents, prospective students will come up to me at the front desk in the business school and ask me what courses the teacher and I'm just like, oh, this school, it's I don't know, like all the statistics, all the rankings, I'd be like, knowing it was established, they'd be like, yeah, what about this teacher. I'd go, oh, I'd take theater classes. I'm I'm just the face. This is all I got.
Oh, that's great. I did the same thing.
I had a girl when I first moved to Austin to start doing stand up. My girlfriend was a teacher at UT and it was in the radio television building and I would go use the computer lab because they had brand new photoshop and I was doing a lot of illustration stuff.
But I had.
A edu a UT edu email, and I was there every day and same thing.
People were do you know where a professor? Oh?
Yeah, they're in drama right. I don't remember where the building is. I was always fielding questions.
I don't know.
Why people asking because I was wearing snow pants.
Maybe in Austin, yeah why not?
Why not?
You gotta Chris was giving guided tours.
And again that's the tower where a lunatic shot folks. Any other questions, there's.
You see that, you see that cow? What kind of horns? So long you are? Do you want to give the tour? What are we doing?
Like this guy confrontational?
I thought I was gonna say it's a short horn.
It's like we always say, it's the same we have in Austin. Keep Austin strange.
Pardon me, I think it's weird you're out of the tour.
I think it is weird that you would try to correct me.
Do you go too here?
We actual point about it being weird.
Are you're you're from Mississippi, right?
I am from Mississippi originally.
So I'm from Montana. The thing those dates have in common is they were always in a dead heat for the lowest income in the nation. And I think that what a lot of like people moved to Montana now to become fly fishermen or you know, they're always complaining about Californians moving in and I experienced that when I drove up with my license plates and people were threatening me.
But I think that's the only reason it's been off to that.
But we're, yeah, we're That's all I know about Mississippi, and I have to force it into conversation.
Whoa was sus Well, no, because you're the statistic hides a fact that the reason they're time for the income. The Mississippi Party said is because Mississippi has like the the highest number of black people of any state in the continental US, and black people suffer from power already at a disproportionately high rate of Mississippi, so it drops everything down. And so it's because Montana has more space.
In Montana, it's a high number of Native American reservations, so that yeah, so it's probably not the same thing, but it's I think, I.
Know, I think they're connected. And the other thing about Mississippi, Mississippi whenever it is, whenever the topic is brought up. I I love the dance of like me shitting on it and then me make it like kind of taking up for some of the people there, because there are so many things to make fun of from like a big perspective, and there's something you're like, oh, well, okay, well like this kind of sucks because historically these people
have been like disenfranchised. But also Jesus Christ, you put that flag away, my god, yeah, like the the Confederate until I got I got a hat with the new flag on. But until last year, they were like, we gotta do something about this flag. And they're like, yeah, you you're a state legislator, you can't. Well they don't like you tell what to do. Who's they you make the laws?
People in their pajamas.
Yeah, yeah, it was hundreds of years.
It was like the last is the last state. It was the last state that still had like very visible Confederate iconography on their flag, like Alabama tries to hide it. Florida tries to hide it, like they took the crossing pattern and just changed the color scheme and took out the stars, which is like that's part of the American experience. If you see it, then you can see. But Mississippi was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna imagine leaving your Christmas tree up for a couple of hundred for like one
hundred and fifty years. Oh, I know, it was Why why didn't you tell us?
We didn't realized.
Did you ever see that video of the woman who comes out front step and the person it's like a handyman that pulls into her driveway and has a Confederate flag the size of the truck.
The size of the truck, yeah, like waving behind and.
She just she does this thing where she just is like absolutely not and then the husband right has to come out and we're sorry, we're not going to be using your services, like what in the living fuck I want to.
Know, does that person hate working?
Does that person hate every experience they have outside of their house?
As a conspiracy theorist? What if? What if they're like they keep turning down these gigs? Oh no, you know It's like there is the Curb episode with the hat that came out recently where it's like almost like a de buff like you go, oh, well, yeah, I sure would hate it if someone took offense to this flag, because then I wouldn't get the day off. I was like, are you using racism to get out of doing this work? No?
No, no, no, no.
I have so many people I can't stand of the list, the list of people I don't think should be Americans.
Yeah, whenever I see that flag, I don't ever accuse that person of being a workaholic, you know.
Not Sonan, not Sonan. It's awesome, but also, yeah, what the fuck do you think people are going to do? Even like, there's so many people that would not agree with that, where you're just like, it's not even we can't go it's a bumper sticker, And I don't like that vibe. It is a flag flying like it would be on the top of a fucking high rise.
But it's just on your ram truck.
And it's like, then people drive. But if that black family less that happened, then people drive. If that black woman is like, what's wrong with you, he's like, oh, it's actually my dad's truck. I'm just I'm I'm so sorry, and then she goes, okay, well just do the job. Then to me, the funny thing is her friends would go court, what's going just trucking her job? When she goes, no, it's his dad's truck. And then someone else comes by and goes, ma'am are you being are you okay? No, no,
it's his dad's truck. There's just a lot that day.
Would have to house.
You would just start laughing.
Okay, oh yeah. If I lived in that house, I would be like, I think we went to Old miss together.
No, so do you still have family? Do you go back?
I do? I was in Mississippi twice in twenty twenty one. I went in July after I had received all of my shots, which is a funny. We used to say that about other countries, look at US America. And then I went again for a wedding in December, and that was the last time I went, So I do have
some friends who live there in my family. My mom still was there, my brother and my niece, and my nephew and my brother's wife still live in my grandmother, So I have like enough family there that usually go every year.
At December wedding.
Right, Wow, it must have been indoor. I'm used to everyone just getting married off in the woods.
It was.
It was in like a wedding space that was kind of a refurbished, very very southern barn but nice. And then yeah, but it was still nice weather in Mississippi and December it was in the fifties.
Okay, Yeah, What is there something you wish people knew about Mississippi of how great it is or what you like about it? Oh, like that people might not know if they don't go there and see it themselves.
Well, the easy thing to point to is without Mississippi. For America, without Mississippi, you probably most certainly don't get Delta Blues. Without Delta Blues, you don't get Chicago Blues. Without the Blues. In general, you don't get rock and roll. So a lot of America's cultural significance and legacy is rooted in Mississippi. That's like a big that's like a big idea that I wish more people kind of go, oh, that's crazy, and then you don't have the voice of
God without Mississippi I e. Morgan Freeman. Those are like fun, fun, silly things that people just don't know about. You don't get Oprah Oprah, you don't if you don't have Mississippy. Don't get Oprah. People go to Chicago, But Chicago is where she went afterwards.
And Mississippi made her.
Yeah, yeah, I think there. I think that more people should realize that the South is full of people, and people can be flawed, but places like don't hate on places, you know, and it's beautiful and it's green and it's lush, and it's like undeveloped in spots and it's really kind
of like Memphis little sister in spots. If you want to have a fun, like downtown experience, I think it's great and it can I mean just like every place, and like all the places that are getting more credit and not like Texas and Florida should be made fun of, and they are, but Texas and Florida should be made fun of just as much. And Mississippi has a rich cultural heritage. That's all I would say.
Do you ever go back and do stand up there? Or is there?
Oh? Oh god, no, no, why would I do that? I didn't stand up? Are you kidding me about it? I don't like it.
I don't like what I'm saying.
You like it?
Wait, we're off right, I'm gonna hit me, I have. I think I'm gonna end up doing stand up there next year for the University of Mississippi. I think I'm gonna end up doing stand up for another another college, I think next year. And I've done it in the past, And there is something very fun about airing your grievances about other people's take on your state while in that state. Yeah, so that, I mean, there is a very very specific
amount of home cooking you can play with. But they're just I think they only have two like comedy clubs, like rotating headliners in the state. So also, the comedy city in Mississippi is so tiny and so new, like new new, new, new new, like the there's one room in Jackson that's like a spinoff over room that was already in Memphis of a club that was already in Memphis. So like it takes like that. And the place in
the south of the state. I want to say that Jamie Arrington runs It's there because of his connection with New Orleans and so like it blew up a little bit because Hannibal Burris would come whenever he was going to go through New Orleans, he would go through Hattisburg and do that room. But yeah, it takes like I mean, it would have to build, like really build a comedy scene.
Is that where you started?
Though?
No, I started. I started comedy. What's the easiest way to answer this question for people because you don't want to Yeah, no, I I really want to say I started in New York, but I've done it in Mississippi and Alabama before I moved to New York. But New York was a place where I got the majority of my reps in.
Yeah, but there were You did some comedy.
Clubs, Yes, I did. You would do like an open mic night at bars in college towns is the first place that you ever get to do stand up which it was like as a theater kid, I liked it. It was probably so much closer to one man showy than like good stand up, But like I liked it. People were always it's very easy to be funny when the next person is going to have a guitar and not be like you know, you know what. And then if you're hosting the thing, if you set the thing up,
you can do whatever. So yeah, it was fun.
Yeah.
That's why I really like storytelling shows, because because my only goal is to be like, make people laugh, and when someone just tells, even if it's an amazing story, it's so fun to go up after them and just do stand up.
Oh yeah, you cheat, you're cheating. Oh we get to be fun dads.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, I'm.
Gonna be done.
Dad.
Look at you. Oh man, what are you weighing now? Yeah? What are you beating this? Boy? You got me in.
The people in the Yeah later, I've never changed a diaper.
I just watched your Comedy Central featuring and you you have so many punchlines for minute. I don't know if that's a goal of your I've always tried to be like in a panic, I don't like there being a moment of silence, and so I even if it's a joke I'm not proud of, or it's something I try and hammer out as many as possible. That's I do it in like a panic, but you're doing it in a very controlled way.
I like flourishes, you know, because when you're on stage doing comedy, you just did the hardest thing possible. Because a person before you just told a bunch of people who are skeptics because they live in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. They say, hey, this next person is funny. And sometimes crowds go you keep saying that, Yeah, you keep saying that, and sometimes they
can get one overall us. But most of the time I'm sitting here with my arms crossed waiting for them to surprise me.
Yeah.
And so I think those people have paid money and they pay time, so they should you like, you know, when the lunch lead would give you like a big scoop, that's me. I want to be that. I want to be the I want to be your friend that works at Chipotle that goes don't say anything. I'm gonna just so like I'm gonna pretend to do one and then I'm gonna go, oh, and then I'm gonna give you two scoops. Don't say you got two scoops. Don't say you got two scoops when you go to the counter,
because then I'm gonna get in trouble. That's what I try to do with the amount of comedy I give someone because audiences will go, oh yeah, I loved it. But he like he kind of just chilled out for a little bit during that, Like at one point he just was kind of like, I don't really know what do y'all even care about? And that can there's a level of fame and a level of smoking indoors that afford you that luxury where you can break all kinds of rules and just say you don't give a fuck
and mean it. Oh the amount of fucks I give so many, so many fucks.
But I have to And this is a real I have.
I'm just old and haven't been in the stand up circles in a long time, especially.
You know, the n y LA whatever. But when we did that quip last show.
With you, you were just so impressive out of the gate with every answer where I was just doing that thing where I'm like I don't know and I'm not I'm just like sitting in my house like not feeling anything, and then you.
Whatever years would get revealed.
It would just be like the most beautiful diamond of comedy where I'm like, wow, he's really fucking you just killed it and killed it both of both of you did that on that show. But Jay as like a person that I had never seen you before. I was just like, oh shit, here we go, Like it was so exciting. I love when young comics are like above and beyond funny, and you really are.
I really I like. I like it as like you're like an artisan and like you whittle away at things and you go, oh is this fun? Oh where does this go? There's like a fun construction the comedy that I feel like can be used to really really like answer questions or create new questions that you have hypothetical and fantastical and sometimes facetious answers to. And then maybe those answers like are on the edge of like a
real answer. But whatever comedy isn't taken seriously and I don't mean taken seriously and like this is the I'm like a real comedian. I just mean taking seriously and in fact there's a care and a courtesy for the audience. Then it can lead to people thinking that comedy is just you like saying evil shit or saying like you are you saying like pointedly and like intentionally contrarian shit.
And what happens is that people get very turned off because you you know, what's more fun than someone getting on stage and spewing a little bit of poison? Is you seeing an old lady fall down some stairs and that shit. That's just let me tell old lady down the stairs, baby eating dog food. That's gonna win every time.
I can't oh, oh, I can't wait to see that you give a baby a dog street.
That baby don't know, That baby doesn't know anything.
Wait, no, you're when you're talking about the spearing poison on stage? Are you talking about my acts specifically?
Because I do feel like that was.
Absolutely I thought around about me.
Are you talking about No, there's this thing.
Maybe it's because I've seen a new reaction that people yup people younger than me, young people like late teens, mid twenties, late twenties are like going to shows now in New York. Shows have started to skew younger, and people are amazed and kind of like bewildered that stand up and these people's sensibilities have changed, and these people's worlds have to change, and these people's parameters on what's progressive, what's regressive, what's transgressive, what's funny, what's kind of like
not funny anymore, what's creative? All that shit has shifted and everyone got funnier. In the early it's like two thousand and ten, maybe it was two thousand and eight, everyone knew about comedy. Whenever comedy blew up and people were like, oh, yeah, that's a callback, And I was like, everyone knows what this shit means. Everyone knows the land of the land. Everyone knows people's.
Like, like, right, in the last ten years, if I find myself having an open mic or I'm just watching a show, I'm impressed.
Everyone is pretty good. Now, Yeah, they know how to do it.
There was a sensibility that, like, this is a skill set that people can work on, and so comics had to get really good. Comics have to be very good now, and you have to be multidisciplinary, and you have to be like sometimes you have to be topical, and then you also have to be individualistic and evergreen. So it's the world has made me. Having to come up during all of this, I think has made me a better
comic and also my approach to comedy. I really, I really really want it to be good and of good. And I say that I wanted to be crafted well and I want people to leave there feeling like full but also like amazed and kind of like trying to keep up. I'll I'll like even tell people, I'll go, okay, now that I like, y'all, we can go slower, but I want to. Sometimes I'll be like, I'll train your ear. I'll be like, comedy happens at this speed. You're not
from Mississippi. You don't have an excuse to go so slow, Like come on, yeah, you can, I promise, just listen, don't focus on what you're about to drink. So it's fun, it's real. It's really fun. And I talk about it like I'm one nerd because I am a weird little nerd about it. It's fun.
It's the coolest. It really is.
It is.
And I think I totally agree with you that because I kind of saw it as I dipped out of.
Stand up and did more. I just had a full time job.
When I would watch it was like so clearly this next generation of comics were people who had studied, They had gone to shows they they made it there. You know, they went to colleges where they had like sketchwriting as a as a class.
Or a memberager like they were.
They were fucking serious, those Emerson people where they're just like so and so went here, I'm going to be like that, and they were like as opposed to me, who truly in the beginning, I always wanted to be a comic, but I also always wanted to be drunk. So I was like, this is perfect, this is like and it was about what I wanted, and I hated
the audience and it showed. And it was that era of like bring your notebook and talk about your feelings or whatever, which club comics hated, Alternative comics like got real self indulgent about it.
Then it's patantic alternative comics and regardless of whatever how you ever feel about the picture on New Year's Eve, like Paton went from aught to mainstream yep. Yeah, And he didn't. He shifted slightly because he got older and because of a number of life experiences, but the parameters shifted, yes.
And he basically just I mean, he was always at the top of his game. I started with him in San Francisco and He has always written those chunk jokes where.
You're just like, how have you thought about this this much?
And with another metaphor, yeah, it's brilliant. And we were also competitive that there was this kind of like you wanted to at least be decent if you were going to be on a show with Patten or Blaine or.
Any of those guys. It was real competitive.
But then I kind of love seeing that the next generation was not only that competitive, but then they also were like, and we're also gonna do fucking puns, do whatever the fuck we want. Like they took comedy like it's it's our thing now. It was great and it just keeps happening.
It's also really really fun because people will be like, I just like people are discovered stand up because the view shifted to front facing comedy and TikTok videos and like without judgment you can say okay, So those were prioritized. So then when people see stand up in real life, they go, what is it?
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa?
What what is this?
Yeah?
I just recently got into TikTok, So it works both ways.
Right, And I have to I have to like swallow my pride and like have silly fun. On TikTok, there's like a there's a cross cultural exchange chronologically. Seriously, it's one hundred it's one hundred percent like a Thanksgiving that's just digital where it's like, will you teach me how to use the land? I don't know how to work the land. When should I plant this video seed? Well, I have a good harvest young people? Yeah, exactly, young people.
Like well, comments are just as important as like, I mean, like what I didn't know? Comments were just as important as like if not more? If not more? Well, aren't you posting at the same time every day? I just posted? I feel like, what are you a rookie? I am?
You gotta set an alarm?
There's I mean with stand up, And this is part of the reason I do love it is you can fold those things also into stand up. Stand up can be both like a presentation and a reflection, So like that's always fun to me too, Like the fact that now you can go from making you can talk. You can reference TikTok on stage, and its cultural impact is big enough that it's not niche, so like it's refracting back into the art form that it did replace in
some aspects and driving on that medium stand up. So it's it's crazy and it's weird, and like, if you complain about it, then you just grow more gray hair. That's what happens exactly.
That's why I that's why I started paying attention to it because I had these sopranos wings on the side of my head that started.
Great, just walnut wings and look it's gone away.
Nice, you're part of it now.
So wait, Jay, we should definitely talk about because it was really fun to watch this kind of play out on social media.
At least that was my point of view.
You got a writing job working on John Stewart's Lewis show The Problem.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Congratulations because that packet and that whole remember when that happened and people that's all people could talk about on social media?
Yes, who got the invite to do the.
Packet and whose packets being read and dah dah dah, and it was like it played out real time.
Well, it was insane to me that it was a blind submission. That was the first time anyone had ever chosen to do that. And Chelsea, the head writers, she read through twenty four hundred packets, four hundred of them. It even made its way into non comedy Twitter, like Splenda made a joke about packets and they posted like a splend the packet, which means someone at Splenda's team was like, should get like a written drink? Can we get a mock up of John Stewart on a splendid packet?
And then post because kids are talking about packets on Twitter for some reason?
Yes, and whoever was Area, whoever does the Twitter for Splendor, you know they wanted to write for John Stewart too.
Yeah, you're like, maybe this will get me some attentions.
That's a very good point. And I it's my first staff writing gig. I had, I had representation. I was going through like the traditional routes of like they're looking for people right now, or this packet is due. Like so i'd done packets before, I had not gotten past I think round two for any of them, and so this one was kind of like, I'll do this one. As a geriatric millennial, I'm very aware of his work. He is like the first person that made in high school.
I would never see middle school because would kill me. But middle school too, But in high school, in high school. I made to joke to him two weeks ago. I was like, oh, yeah, it was Craig Killbour on and then it was Trevor Noah and then something was in between. But Craig and TV. When I think Daily Show, I think Craig Kilbourne and Trevor Noah. You know what, I also think Roy Wood Jr. But those are the That's what I think about all.
The current, all correspondence from the past.
I was like, yeah, I don't know, sam B. Sam B was there for a little bit.
Remember there.
I sent my package in and then I got to round two and then the process like there were like three rounds and it was really fun. But it was one of those weird things where like Twitter kind of did help me get that job. Twitter helped me get that job. Twitter helped me be aware that that was happening. Twitter helped make that job a more equitable process for some people. And it produced a writer's room that is varied and comes from different walks of life, but everyone
is at their heart a very good comedy writer. So that, I mean, that's insane, and that's kind of the world that we're living in, and no one we get in trouble for this joke. But no one. I don't think any of my classmates went to an ivy. I mean any of my co writers went to an I Yeah.
It's okay.
That's a good sign, especially if it's if it's a blind. It was a blind, you know, that's good.
That's yeah, And we have nothing against I have nothing against like a path that is traditional when it comes to like going into a writer's room, but like just make sure that other people give access to things too well.
And also John Stewart could have had anyone and that's I think that's the coolest part that kind of no one could believe. It's like he really has won so many goddamn Emmys and know so many people. And the choice he made was exactly the choice you make when you want to be of the current world, which is, don't use your old connections in your musty old stuff that like isn't you know, be get the kids now that are like hungry.
And want to be a part of this. It's so smart.
Yeah, it's another reason to like that guy.
And what is equivalent to saying you went to Harvard, the fact that you were a published McSweeney's writer, to me.
Way better, cheaper, and better for.
The past several decades.
If you wrote anything for McSweeney's, it meant you were so intimidatingly smart that I can't be in the same room.
Oh I'm I'm mcsweeeny's. McSweeney's was really really one of those things. I was like, holy shit, Oh it's crazy because I went it went mac Sweeney's and then like the two things for The New Yorker. But also when you do stand up, it's not that it doesn't help, is that people are like, are just gonna get up there and say a bunch of like s A T words and you're like, oh no, no, I'm I'm gonna talk about penises.
Yeah, yeah, let's not get into that.
Quit judging me and go do a storytelling show. Yeah, what did you write about in McSweeney's.
My mc sweeney's article, the one that worked. I think it was I did a list of things that black people like more than Donald Trump, because it was right after he said black people would he have to lose? And it was a list of things that black people hate, just just a list of things that black people demonstrably dislike as a rule, culturally, just things that black people are like, No, we don't, we don't have we don't want that at all.
Well, I should have read it before this podcast, but I'm going to read it after because I do a lot of my work.
I'm always I'm always learning.
It was fun. It was a lot of fun.
Are you're currently like you're me? How do you write for John Stewart right now? You're like this meeting. Yeah, we're zooming.
We were in the office, now we're zooming more. We have an office, we've shot episodes, we take you get tests, you get swabbed all the time. Yeah, so that I mean, it's been a very very kind of like learn as everyone goes process in regards to starting the show, not like having the structures in place already, but like starting the show during all of this. Yeah, but they've been very kind and very safe and everyone has been on
top of things, which is all. That's literally all you can ask for because it's so touch and go and you figure out what's gonna work, what's not gonna work, whenever it does, whenever it doesn't.
Yeah, it's lucky to be doing. Uh. We all have jobs that you can do remotely.
I always think, especially in the beginning when we're all still quarantined, are you used to get I couldn't let myself think about like bus drivers or like you know, people, it's just so upsetting where it's just it's just unfair.
You'll get because you'll go, oh my god, yeah, I the city would shut down.
Yes, but that means they have to take the hit. Like it's so just that imbalance and how you know from the beginning, I don't know anyway, it's like every time I get on a zoom, I want to complain about the timing is awkward and it hurts comedy and blah blah blah. But ultimately it's like it means we're the luckiest people because we.
Have Yeah, and I liked I liked zoom comedy in the sense that I think it just gave you a lot of free camera work, very aware of what works and what doesn't for the camera.
I think, yeah, yeah, the best thing to come out of this is I now own a ring light, right, And yeah, if we were because Karen and I were the bus drivers of podcasts, we used to drive around in a car. I don't know if you know that, Yeah, then we otherwise would never have New York comics or be able to have you on.
So that's like the best silver lining.
Yeah, we get to book people from from wherever.
Whenever, whenever I think of like the concept, though I have had those. I've had really great experiences people picking me up from the airport and take me to gigs, and I've had some experiences where I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, you definitely have dogs, all right, Okay, this is wow wow wow wow wow.
Oh yeah, we Karen and I will no longer go to LAX.
We've decided that you can't. No one can't.
Like if I know people that are some for some reasons flying into Los Angeles, I'm like, honestly, unless it's two thousand dollars extra, you've got to go to Burbank because you're you don't understand you're flying into a grid locked area that you will remain in for three hours.
And it's crazy.
I just realized we did do that to our guests a lot, because Karen did indeed have dog hair throughout her back seat, Oh my.
God, and I had it was a haunt of fits.
So uh, the seats were made of like that kind of sticky felt, so I go back there before we would record with like a sticky thing going back and forth, like a little bit like sweating. It doesn't like it weaves in and it becomes like a.
Tweed of dog hair.
It was so disgusting I would put a sheet over it. People will be like, what's up with your sheet?
Back here?
Oh I just murdered someone.
Yeah, I've smothered them to death with dog hair in the backseat.
I feel like a bad person that James taya, I have to like leave around.
We've kept you so oh no, no.
No, no, not at all.
Yeah, our internal clocks were about to the alarms were about to go off, the high pitch ringing in my brain.
I hate it, but I.
Was that's uh, that's long COVID Chris, you know that.
Yeah, that explains why I can't taste any of these hot dogs.
Your ears bleeding?
Oh again?
No, no, no, and he just both have mic stand.
Time to put on what I've been referring to as my gauze hat.
All these bleeding ears of mine.
Jay, do you have any plugs that you want to get out? Real quick?
Oh?
You go, No, you can.
Anyone who listens to this number one, Thank you. Number two. You can find me on social media. It's Jay Jurden. I think I'm the only one of me in existence, except I can't get Jay Jurden the email. It's I don't know who has it. It's someone whose name probably isn't really j But I'll figure this out. I'll find you. That's actually what I want to say. Whoever, whoever the fuck.
I don't know if you're.
I don't know who it is. They're a liar, that's who they are. And you know what, and they are blocking any and all career success I could have. That's what's happening.
We're taking it.
They're probably hiding emails from Marvel that they sent. Oh my gosh, I'm getting they have.
You considered a Yahoo email account. What I'm saying, if no one wants it, so this will not happen.
To you, yours, Karen on you yours.
Your name, your name was sixty nine. It's an easy solution.
Okay, yes, And you know what. It lets people know that I'm all in favor of reciprocity. That's that's or or that I'm a cancer, isn't that.
Yeah, Yeah, that's what it's about.
And then when that means all kinds of things.
No, but you can just follow me on social media. It's been more than a delight to talk to y'all. And this has been such a pleasurable car ride. I'm so glad I asked for it.
Yeah, just leave you here at this corner then.
Yeah, yeah, so just uh I'll do it. No, no, I'll I know, just out roll when I hop out.
Yeah, okay, great.
I will break then I just okay, keep going in the.
Movement class insert car doors sound effect here.
Thanks Jay, you've been.
To Thanks Jay, is great to see you and talk to you. That was so fun you've been.
You've been listening to Do you need a ride?
Y in they are?
This has been an exactly Right production.
Produced by Analise Nelson.
Engineered by Stephen Ray Morris, mixed by Ryo Bown.
Theme song by Karen Kilgara, artwork by Chris Fairbanks.
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Thank you and You're welcome, mapp.
The more we do that, the more ridiculous I find it.
To be really good.
We can never stop, We can never stop