Full Comment - November 29, 2021


A trans person, a Christian and a feminist walk into a comedy bar


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

188.02853

Word count

8,516

Sentence count

559

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Mark Breslin is the co-founder of the Yuck Yucks chain of comedy clubs and has helped launch the careers of some of the top comedy figures in the English-speaking world. In this episode, Mark talks about the tragic passing of comedian Norm Macdonald.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:48.780 Hi, I'm Anthony Fury.
00:00:50.120 Thanks so much for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comment.
00:00:52.740 I am so excited about today's episode.
00:00:55.240 It's all about comedy.
00:00:56.700 There's a lot going on in the comedy world today that's making headlines,
00:00:59.240 and Mark Breslin, legendary Canadian comedy figure, is one of the best people to weigh
00:01:04.080 in on it all.
00:01:05.240 No stones unturned.
00:01:06.600 We're going to talk about everything.
00:01:08.300 Breslin is the co-founder of the Yuck Yucks chain of comedy clubs and has helped launch
00:01:11.920 the careers of some of the top comedy figures in the English-speaking world.
00:01:15.520 Very pleased to welcome him to the podcast.
00:01:17.380 Mark, hello.
00:01:19.180 Hello to you, too.
00:01:20.380 Great to have you on.
00:01:21.220 Thanks so much for joining us.
00:01:22.900 Well, maybe you should say that at the end of the podcast.
00:01:26.040 I was reading about Yuck Yucks in 1976, the year you co-founded that, 45 years ago.
00:01:32.940 Wow.
00:01:33.160 Hats off to you, sir.
00:01:34.520 Thank you.
00:01:34.980 Well, I was four, but I was precocious.
00:01:38.860 1976.
00:01:39.480 I think a lot of things that maybe we'll talk about on this podcast is maybe how things
00:01:43.800 have changed, you know, in the past 45 years.
00:01:46.820 I mean, I assume it's fair to say there's been a lot of things changing.
00:01:51.160 There's been a lot of things change, but, you know, I've always liked the French maxim,
00:01:56.320 the more things change, the more they are the same.
00:01:58.320 Um, some of the things that are happening now in terms of not the comedy itself, but
00:02:03.560 people's reaction to comedy, um, seems like it's completely new, but actually I'll, I'll,
00:02:08.600 I'll show you that, um, it's just things that have happened over the years in a different
00:02:13.700 guise, in a different face.
00:02:15.900 Right.
00:02:16.000 Oh, that'll be really interesting stuff to get into.
00:02:18.340 I know I wanted to talk to you about Norm Macdonald, and I thought there's no great place
00:02:22.920 to put it in the podcast, uh, to talk about the unfortunate news, of course, loss of such
00:02:27.420 a figure, uh, Norm Macdonald, you've spoken about him and his career.
00:02:30.780 I mean, what have you been saying when, when people ask you, what was Norm like?
00:02:37.320 Well, he was a sphinx-like creature.
00:02:40.160 Um, it didn't surprise me that he had cancer for nine years and told no one.
00:02:44.620 That was exactly in the way that Norm operated in so many ways.
00:02:49.640 His personal life was very much his personal life and he kept it personal.
00:02:54.040 Um, and if you think about it, um, of all the big stars that you can think of, Norm was
00:03:00.220 rarely in the tabloids, rarely did you hear about him, uh, and anything to do with his
00:03:06.280 personal life or anything about that.
00:03:08.480 Um, he loved his work.
00:03:10.860 His work was paramount.
00:03:12.240 And the reason that he didn't tell anybody about the cancer, um, I think is because he
00:03:17.080 didn't want that to get in the way of the way people appreciated his work.
00:03:21.780 Uh-huh.
00:03:22.040 Uh, because if, you know, if you see somebody and they're being funny and you know that
00:03:26.180 they're possibly dying, it completely changes the way that you look at, at their work.
00:03:32.060 And I think he didn't want that.
00:03:33.840 And that's why he kept it so quiet.
00:03:35.720 He loved his work.
00:03:37.260 He is, his work was paramount to him.
00:03:39.020 The most important thing in the world to him.
00:03:41.400 I know he had a child.
00:03:43.160 He had, um, an ex-wife and he was good to these people, but his work was his focus.
00:03:48.900 A lot of people going back and revisiting his work or discovering him, younger people for
00:03:53.320 the first time.
00:03:54.020 One of the things when I was reviewing a lot of his stuff online, uh, after he passed away
00:03:58.660 was his own show, lower production values, obviously not something that's getting like,
00:04:03.080 you know, top tier ratings on major networks, but you look at the guests and you go, wow.
00:04:07.280 I mean, he must've been such a comedian's comedian.
00:04:09.560 And I feel like, you know, you look at your phone, Norm MacDonald's calling, doesn't matter
00:04:13.460 who you are.
00:04:13.920 You answer it.
00:04:14.420 He says, come to my studio.
00:04:15.400 It seems like everybody said yes.
00:04:16.640 And they were there.
00:04:18.140 Yeah.
00:04:18.320 I mean, comedians loved him.
00:04:20.200 Comedians knew what he was doing.
00:04:22.100 Comedians knew that he was deceptively easy in his comedy, but actually what he was doing
00:04:27.040 was very, very difficult.
00:04:29.100 Um, he was honest to a fault and that's something that's really important for a comic, not all
00:04:36.520 comics, but it's important for most comics to be completely honest.
00:04:40.680 And he was honest.
00:04:42.280 Um, he got fired from Saturday night live for his blunt honesty and comedians love honesty.
00:04:50.100 And yet, is it becoming more difficult for that honesty, knowing that, I guess it seems
00:04:55.500 like people feel like they have to look over their shoulder a little bit more, but I guess
00:04:58.920 as you're saying it, that goes against the comics impulse.
00:05:00.920 Well, um, yeah, this, I mean, this opens up our, our whole world of discussion about what's
00:05:09.340 happening now and what has happened over the years.
00:05:11.600 And if you want to start with that now, that's, that's fine with me.
00:05:15.220 Yeah, for sure.
00:05:16.080 I, I mean, let's do it.
00:05:17.100 Cause I'm, I'm really interested in the idea that you've teased about how what's going
00:05:20.100 on is nothing new because we've gotten, well, let's start with the most high profile
00:05:24.340 one.
00:05:24.800 Dave Chappelle puts that special out on Netflix and no stone unturned.
00:05:28.680 He's making jokes about a whole lot of things that are out there in the news, transgender
00:05:32.220 issues.
00:05:33.080 Uh, you have people at Netflix, uh, do protests.
00:05:36.020 A couple of people resigned, uh, critics said, oh, it's the worst thing ever.
00:05:39.220 Don't watch it.
00:05:39.880 But then you look at the rotten tomatoes or whatever it is.
00:05:42.000 It's got a 94% rating.
00:05:43.640 I watched it.
00:05:44.480 I didn't laugh every second, every word, but who does for any act, but I liked it.
00:05:48.220 I thought it was a good act.
00:05:49.440 I thought it was good too.
00:05:50.760 And I had been defending it when it came out.
00:05:53.460 Um, but here's something that I think we have to have a little bit of historical perspective.
00:05:57.280 There have always, since I got into the business in 1976, there have always been forces, um,
00:06:04.120 that have tried to censor comics or tried to stop what they were saying or stop them from,
00:06:09.740 uh, performing.
00:06:10.860 And those forces have changed over the years.
00:06:14.020 Um, and what they were upset about has changed over the years.
00:06:17.540 When I first opened up, um, the big, big, big problem came, um, from the Christian right. 0.99
00:06:24.880 And all kinds of, uh, right-wing Christian organizations were appalled by what I was
00:06:29.860 doing, uh, because of two things.
00:06:32.600 One was the language.
00:06:33.980 The language itself was enough to make people, um, insanely angry because for the first time
00:06:40.460 on a Canadian stage, um, there was a show that had nothing but four letter words over
00:06:46.220 and over and over and over and over and over again.
00:06:48.780 Um, and that just drove these people crazy.
00:06:51.960 And the second thing that they hated, um, was that there was a kind of hidden agenda.
00:06:58.160 Um, I, I hesitate to call it an agenda because, um, you know, I've never been a political person.
00:07:04.000 I've always been more interested in the psychology of comedy than the politics of comedy.
00:07:08.840 Um, but, um, it's certainly, if you sat in, um, my club in 1978 and listened to what people
00:07:16.360 were talking about, it was a definite libertarian pro-pleasure, uh, agenda that most of them
00:07:22.820 were, uh, espousing because in that, in those days, Toronto was pretty uptight.
00:07:27.560 But if you listened to what the comics were saying in those days, it was kind of pro-abortion,
00:07:32.760 pro-sex, uh, pro-prostitution, uh, pro-drugs for sure.
00:07:39.920 Um, and that used to drive the, the Christian right crazy.
00:07:44.400 Now that eventually went away because we did not go away and things started to open up in
00:07:50.940 other areas.
00:07:51.480 And you started to hear the four letter words on the Sopranos at C on CTV at 10 o'clock
00:07:56.780 at night.
00:07:57.500 So the culture kind of moved a bit towards us, which took a lot of the steam out of any of
00:08:02.560 those arguments.
00:08:03.700 We were no longer the only people who were doing this kind of thing.
00:08:07.500 10 years later, roughly, I started bringing in, well, I was friends, very good friends.
00:08:12.720 In fact, I was roommates for a while with Sam Kinison.
00:08:15.820 And, um, I brought him in.
00:08:17.920 I used to, I started bringing him, bringing him into Yuck X, I'd say 1985 or so 1986.
00:08:25.400 And, um, he was well known enough by then that it created the ire of a lot of feminists.
00:08:31.740 And I had feminist pickets outside my club with signs that said, you know, feminists for 1.00
00:08:37.520 a healthy humor.
00:08:38.640 And I thought, hmm, they've obviously not read their Freud, um, and a Freud and healthy
00:08:45.600 humor. 0.79
00:08:45.980 That sounds as about as exciting as a sober orgy. 0.96
00:08:49.620 Um, so, um, they were, they were using a feminist agenda to say, you know, this guy 1.00
00:08:56.340 hates women. 0.99
00:08:57.080 Oh boy. 0.99
00:08:57.760 He did not hate women.
00:08:58.940 He worshiped women actually.
00:09:00.700 Uh, but, um, that was, that was happening then.
00:09:03.680 And they were trying to close him down, shut him down.
00:09:06.440 Now we go ahead to what's happening now.
00:09:09.260 Uh, and to the woke people and they want to create a better world and start with language.
00:09:15.820 Um, which if I were trying to create a better world, that's not really where I would start.
00:09:20.120 I would start with legislation and then maybe, maybe I would work my way down to something
00:09:26.520 as flimsy and as ephemeral as a comedy performance.
00:09:30.280 So it's not that new for me to experience this kind of, this kind of stuff.
00:09:35.820 One thing I find interesting about those comedy central roasts, I guess both the original
00:09:39.880 versions and then the new incarnations that Jeff Ross is doing is it's not one comedian
00:09:43.980 up there just saying their material out to the audience or, you know, out to the camera
00:09:47.420 recording, but it's everybody there ripping on each other.
00:09:50.980 And then you can kind of see that everybody takes their turn and it's all in good fun and
00:09:56.000 we can be friends afterwards.
00:09:57.240 I've always felt that's a nice dynamic to show people just chill.
00:10:00.500 Like, you know, we can do it and we can take the piss out of each other and it's okay.
00:10:04.500 Well, um, I would say that, um, if there's a problem with the ship, uh, can I use the
00:10:09.160 Chappelle, uh, show as this Chappelle special as an example?
00:10:12.480 Yeah.
00:10:13.400 Well, you know, to me, the problem with the Chappelle, uh, um, show that's Chappelle special
00:10:18.460 was not that Chappelle came on and said these things, um, making fun of trans people.
00:10:23.560 To me, the problem was the trans people don't have their own special. 1.00
00:10:27.240 To come back and make fun of Dave Chappelle.
00:10:29.260 Ah, um, it's an access issue.
00:10:31.640 And one thing I've always been proud of, at least in my own company is that long before,
00:10:36.460 um, you know, multiculturalism became this, uh, wildly important thing.
00:10:42.260 Yuck Yucks was always multicultural. 1.00
00:10:44.160 So, you know, in the early days you had a Greek comic, you had a Jewish comic, you had a
00:10:49.280 lesbian comic, you had a, um, a black comic. 0.93
00:10:52.140 And they would all take their turn in, uh, making fun of the others.
00:10:57.560 And so there was an equality.
00:11:00.000 Um, there was definitely an equality there.
00:11:02.020 And there was something else that I think was even more important is that there was an
00:11:05.300 acknowledgement that we lived in a multicultural society.
00:11:08.060 We weren't trying to pretend that the person living next to you wasn't black or the person 0.92
00:11:12.720 living next to you wasn't Jewish.
00:11:14.220 Um, you were articulating that and you didn't see that being articulated in many places, but
00:11:20.620 around the mid seventies, um, some things started to change in this city, at least.
00:11:24.800 And one of them was Yuck Yucks.
00:11:26.500 Another one was the Toronto sun and another one was city TV.
00:11:30.480 And all those, they, all those, these three institutions were critical in exposing people
00:11:36.580 to the idea that we now live in a culture that is not entirely white.
00:11:40.920 And that white culture is not threatening, but kind of boring.
00:11:46.380 Um, you know, so, um, those three things I think were important.
00:11:49.820 And all of those, of those three things, by the way, come from some different political
00:11:53.720 point of view.
00:11:54.620 You certainly wouldn't say that the Toronto sun was the same as a city TV and its politics,
00:11:59.200 but they were both committed to showing a different face of Toronto or a number of different
00:12:05.240 faces of Toronto and therefore the country.
00:12:07.380 You know, Mark, when you talk about inclusion and different voices, uh, there's lots of concerns
00:12:10.740 right now, for instance, that people are saying too much anti-Muslim, uh, comments online and
00:12:15.100 so forth.
00:12:15.540 And in general society.
00:12:16.520 And I noticed when I look at the lineup for Yuck Yucks, uh, you have a number of Muslim 1.00
00:12:19.720 gentlemen who are doing comedy acts right now.
00:12:21.580 And it maybe seems like, you know, is, is, is, is laughter the best revenge.
00:12:24.360 And, you know, these gentlemen are doing their own acts, poke and find it, I guess, maybe
00:12:27.460 their own culture and at other people's culture.
00:12:29.260 And they're just, they're, you know, they're getting into it.
00:12:30.800 They're going, here's, here's my space guys, you know, make room.
00:12:32.860 Um, well, um, you should know that eight weeks, you should know that eight weeks after, um,
00:12:38.320 9-11, I hosted the first, uh, Muslim comedy festival.
00:12:42.140 Um, and boy, did I get some, uh, did I get some blowback for that?
00:12:46.640 What was the blowback for, for providing a forum for, for Muslim comedians?
00:12:50.560 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:51.340 That was from, if I have to use left versus right, that was from right-wing elements.
00:12:56.400 Um, strangely, um, I got the most positive response from the Jewish community who felt
00:13:03.000 I was building bridges.
00:13:05.060 So, um, but it was very controversial and we had to have extra security in case something
00:13:10.160 happened, nothing happened.
00:13:12.540 But I also had to provide a space upstairs of the club so that the, um, the audience
00:13:16.820 could go pray at a certain, at a certain time.
00:13:19.760 And I certainly never had to do that before or afterwards.
00:13:23.100 That's interesting.
00:13:23.920 I, one thing when I was, uh, thinking about all the different comedy scandals or questions
00:13:29.140 we've had recently, I remember about 20 years ago, right after 9-11, didn't you bring in
00:13:34.680 a policy in Yuck Yucks about no 9-11 jokes?
00:13:37.700 No, I never had any kind of a policy whatsoever on any kind of a joke.
00:13:42.520 The Yuck Yucks has always been an absolute free speech zone.
00:13:46.060 Um, I have never told a comic what to say in terms of content.
00:13:49.200 I may have advised the comic what to say in terms of making their act smoother.
00:13:54.280 Uh, you know, better.
00:13:56.040 Um, but it's never been, oh, you can't talk about that.
00:13:59.140 Never would I have done that.
00:14:00.180 In fact, as I remember, I was probably one of the worst people coming up.
00:14:04.680 I wasn't performing at the time, but I was writing all kinds of 9-11 jokes on 9-12.
00:14:08.800 My apologies.
00:14:09.640 Cause I knew there was a scandal in Canada where a comedian made 9-11 jokes a few days
00:14:13.920 later.
00:14:14.220 And the club owner, and I was Googling around the other day and I thought, was this Yuck
00:14:17.200 Yucks, you know, what was the situation?
00:14:19.140 So it would never have been me.
00:14:21.100 My, my sincere apologies.
00:14:22.880 That's, that's fine.
00:14:23.680 It happened somewhere in Canada.
00:14:25.240 I remember that.
00:14:25.760 I wanted to talk to, talk with you about the issue, you know, of the whole tragedy plus
00:14:29.040 comedy, uh, equals time thing.
00:14:30.960 Did that play out in 9-11?
00:14:32.120 How is that playing out in other things?
00:14:33.900 Cause there are some people, and again, I couldn't find the story, but there was at least
00:14:37.600 someone who thought 9-11, uh, uh, we can't talk about it.
00:14:41.800 You would not put any of those sort of rules there.
00:14:44.640 You'd let, you'd let the comic explore.
00:14:46.840 Nothing, nothing.
00:14:47.940 And I'll tell you why.
00:14:49.820 Um, it's because the comics want laughs.
00:14:52.680 The comics are there for the laughs.
00:14:54.580 And if they don't get the laughs, then they will change their material.
00:14:58.080 They'll move it around.
00:14:58.900 They'll retire a joke.
00:15:00.100 They won't try the joke again.
00:15:01.920 There is censorship in the comedy business.
00:15:04.100 And you know where the censorship should lie?
00:15:06.020 With the customer.
00:15:06.740 If the customer laughs, then it's okay.
00:15:09.900 If the customer doesn't laugh, well, then there's something wrong with the joke, or there's
00:15:14.160 something wrong with the timing of the joke.
00:15:16.060 And the comic is the person who has to, um, figure out how to, how to change it or drop
00:15:20.880 it or, or whatever.
00:15:21.700 But it should never be at the level of the club owner to do so.
00:15:25.540 I mean, I'll go further.
00:15:27.440 Um, some people actually think that I should have some kind of, I should be providing some
00:15:33.480 kind of moral leadership, um, when it comes to material of all kinds.
00:15:37.680 And let me tell you the last person you want to provide moral leadership as a nightclub 0.84
00:15:42.500 owner.
00:15:42.720 You know, it's interesting, the idea of testing out material.
00:15:49.400 And I've heard those stories about you go to a small club or you're at Yuck Yucks one
00:15:53.980 night and suddenly this surprise guest, this mega famous person comes on.
00:15:57.520 You're like, Oh my God, I didn't know this person was going to be here.
00:15:59.460 This is, you know, made my decade to see this.
00:16:01.880 And they're there because they want to try out the new material and they want the sort
00:16:04.640 of quote unquote safe space.
00:16:05.860 And then to your point, they'll find, okay, this didn't get a laugh.
00:16:08.220 I'm taking it off and so forth.
00:16:09.480 But I guess increasingly, uh, we have people who are there with the camera or the recording
00:16:14.720 and so forth.
00:16:15.500 The comedian is just test the material.
00:16:17.440 That one didn't work, but then we got to go viral with that.
00:16:21.380 We got to crucify them.
00:16:22.920 Well, I don't think it would happen at Yuck X because we have a policy of no cameras,
00:16:27.420 um, unless, uh, the comic gives the okay to me or to somebody who's running the room.
00:16:33.080 So, um, if we see somebody surrepetitiously, um, recording, we get them to stop.
00:16:39.660 And I heard that anecdote from a friend of mine who in 2019 went to see Louis CK at a
00:16:44.840 Yuck Yucks club.
00:16:45.920 So 2017 Louis CK, he lost many gigs after the stories came out that he improperly exposed
00:16:52.100 himself to women.
00:16:53.100 Several women alleged lost a lot, but I must ask you the question.
00:16:56.520 What is a way to properly expose yourself to women? 1.00
00:16:59.360 Because I've been trying to figure that out for a long time.
00:17:02.080 Fair enough.
00:17:03.400 I'm trying to do the, the neutral preamble as to how the story's been discussed, you
00:17:07.940 know, you know what I'm doing here, but you were one of the first North American comedy
00:17:12.860 club owners to say, Louis, come on down.
00:17:15.640 Here's a safe space for you to do.
00:17:17.500 I know you did a series of shows with him.
00:17:19.080 They were sold out.
00:17:20.120 I remember my friend got tickets.
00:17:21.440 I said, Oh, can I join you?
00:17:22.800 He said, no, I could only get one.
00:17:23.940 I said, okay.
00:17:24.700 And then I know the phones were not allowed to be recorded.
00:17:27.100 A lot of people, what's he going to say?
00:17:28.420 What's he going to do?
00:17:29.160 You brought him into great controversy, but it seems like the series of shows was also
00:17:33.900 a great success.
00:17:35.620 Yeah.
00:17:36.140 You've summed that up quite well.
00:17:37.700 I mean, I've, first of all, it was kind of a, it was an unusual decision to make.
00:17:43.220 No other club owner made that decision with a, with an exception of two or three in North
00:17:48.320 America.
00:17:48.760 Um, I believe I was the, oh no, the guy in Winnipeg who runs rumors, um, which is the
00:17:55.560 preeminent club in Winnipeg.
00:17:57.080 He brought him in as well.
00:17:58.320 Um, after I brought him in, uh, but not that long afterwards.
00:18:01.140 I think the booking was done around the same time I, I had, I've always been a big fan of
00:18:05.120 Louis CK, which made the decision a little easier.
00:18:07.460 It's kind of hard to, uh, it's much harder to fight for free speech when you think that
00:18:11.740 the person has no talent.
00:18:12.860 Uh, but he's worth fighting for.
00:18:15.240 I also thought, um, that, uh, the case was the, one of the weakest Me Too cases of all
00:18:21.120 because, um, he didn't touch them.
00:18:24.540 Um, he seduced them and he actually just seduced them using his, uh, importance, um, in a hotel
00:18:33.140 room.
00:18:33.720 Uh, he was on these, all of these events always happened when he was on, uh, when he was on
00:18:38.580 tour and he would have an opening act, the opening act would be a woman. 1.00
00:18:42.100 And he, he'd say, come on back to my, my hotel room.
00:18:45.440 Well, first of all, let me say, um, you know, you have to take some responsibility for your
00:18:49.840 actions.
00:18:50.500 And I would never, even as a man, I would never go to somebody's hotel room ever, unless 0.95
00:18:55.760 I intended to have sex with them.
00:18:57.720 Um, always, I tell this to everybody, just don't go to the hotel room. 0.99
00:19:02.100 That's what all night Starbucks are for.
00:19:03.780 If you want to keep talking, but anyway, he went there, um, and after, I don't know,
00:19:10.140 some, maybe some drinks, maybe some pot, whatever, um, everybody, the two people were relaxed
00:19:15.060 and he said, here's what I like to do.
00:19:16.780 And there'd be a series of reactions like no way I'm leaving or, Hey, that sounds hot
00:19:24.020 or, okay.
00:19:25.280 It's weird, but okay.
00:19:26.900 And then later on, much later on, they regretted their decision and believed that they did.
00:19:34.740 They made that decision based on him improperly using his position as an important comic to
00:19:42.180 influence their decision.
00:19:45.560 Do you think Louis CK will make a comeback such that he is comparable to the stature he
00:19:50.560 was before he lost these opportunities?
00:19:52.680 Well, maybe not only because, uh, comics always have a kind of, uh, hot zone in their careers.
00:20:00.140 And he was certainly having a hot zone in his careers.
00:20:02.540 He'll come back.
00:20:03.720 Um, but it won't, it may not be what, what it was.
00:20:08.020 They may not be as white hot.
00:20:09.700 Maybe the venues will be smaller.
00:20:11.840 Um, you know, he played the Air Canada Centre before he played Yuck Yucks.
00:20:16.140 Um, and the intervening scandal was the reason.
00:20:19.480 So I'm not saying he's going to go back to Yuck Yucks, but he's probably not going to
00:20:23.400 go back to the Air Canada Centre.
00:20:25.040 Maybe he's going to go to, you know, a mid-size, um, venue rather than an arena.
00:20:29.780 But something that might change that is his movie.
00:20:33.420 The movie that has never been distributed.
00:20:35.880 Right.
00:20:36.480 Which I saw.
00:20:38.480 Um, I was lucky to be one of the few people to see it.
00:20:41.480 I think it's called, I Love You, Daddy.
00:20:43.740 And, um, it deals with a lot of these issues and the issues of male lust that kind of consume
00:20:51.580 him in a very, very intelligent way.
00:20:55.460 And, um, I saw it at the, at TIFF and then the scandal hit like, I don't know, a month
00:21:02.480 and a half later.
00:21:03.380 And he bought back the, um, the distribution rights from whoever the distributor was and
00:21:09.540 he's keeping it in his pocket.
00:21:10.800 This may be his ticket back because it's such a brilliant movie, but it's also controversial.
00:21:17.060 Those things are so bizarre.
00:21:18.280 The sort of the, the hidden product that just is kind of ghosted away.
00:21:22.520 I'd really like to see the new Woody Allen film.
00:21:24.720 It's called Rifkin's Festival or something like that.
00:21:26.880 I've seen it.
00:21:27.500 Wallace, Sean G.
00:21:28.140 How did you see it?
00:21:29.120 I'm willing to part with good money to see it.
00:21:31.220 And you just can't, I can't get it.
00:21:32.880 I can't see it anywhere.
00:21:33.700 A friend of mine, um, is Chinese and she has access to all these shadow, Chinese, Chinese 1.00
00:21:40.460 shadow sites and gave me a link and I watched it.
00:21:44.000 And it's big in Europe.
00:21:44.640 It's making a lot of money in Europe, but nobody wants to screen it in North America
00:21:48.060 or even put it online where maybe I can find somewhere to pay $34.99 for it.
00:21:51.560 I don't know, but I haven't been able to find it yet.
00:21:53.400 How's the film?
00:21:54.740 It's good, but it's not as good as the one that came right before it, which also had
00:21:58.680 issues, um, uh, you can kind of find it on Amazon prime.
00:22:02.500 If you poke around, it's called a, uh, rainy day in New York.
00:22:06.320 Right.
00:22:06.620 And, um, it's, I think that's the better of the two movies that have not been widely
00:22:11.020 seen, but certainly Rifkin's, uh, festival is, is worth seeing and anything with Wallace
00:22:17.040 Sean is Wallace.
00:22:19.000 Sean is the, uh, as the star is always worth seeing.
00:22:21.660 He's so funny.
00:22:23.280 We'll be back with more full comment with Anthony Fury right after this.
00:22:28.680 Mark Breslin, I know a lot of young comedians, they come to you for mentorship.
00:22:31.740 You've helped to assist the careers of many people over the 45 years of Yuck Yuck's history.
00:22:36.560 I imagine mentoring young comedians now though, is a little different than it used to be in
00:22:40.800 terms of what we're talking about, political correctness and censorship.
00:22:44.020 And I'm sure a lot of them have, have some anxieties about all of this.
00:22:47.320 I mean, do they, do they express it to you and how do you respond to that?
00:22:50.400 Well, um, I once saw, um, Bernardo Bertolucci give a lecture and somebody asked him the question
00:22:59.540 of censorship and he said, censorship has never been a problem for me.
00:23:04.820 The problem is when an artist self-censors.
00:23:08.520 And I thought, you know, I'm that, that lecture must've been 50 years ago, but it all, it just
00:23:15.420 stayed with me, what he said.
00:23:16.980 And I think it's absolutely true.
00:23:19.680 Um, you also have to figure, I mean, when we're talking about censorship, um, of comedians
00:23:25.220 that, uh, different venues are what's appropriate for one venue may not be appropriate for another
00:23:30.520 venue.
00:23:30.740 And I'll give you an example.
00:23:32.080 Um, Yuck Yucks is a completely free speech zone.
00:23:34.960 You could say anything.
00:23:36.120 You will not get fired.
00:23:37.240 If the audience laughs, that's great.
00:23:39.420 If it's not enlightened, if they're not enlightened, uh, and they laugh at a very unenlightened
00:23:43.580 joke, well, I might sit at the back going, no, that's too bad.
00:23:47.120 They'd like that, but it's their prerogative to like it.
00:23:50.920 Um, but, um, at the coffee, at the water cooler, the next day, um, you're not supposed
00:23:58.680 to tell that joke because that's not an appropriate place for it.
00:24:02.040 The framing is different.
00:24:03.200 Plus you're not a comic.
00:24:04.500 You probably won't even tell it right.
00:24:05.700 And I can understand why you're not supposed to do that at the dinner, these jokes at the
00:24:10.060 dinner table.
00:24:11.080 Um, long ago, um, I used to go to Friday night dinners at a friend's house when I was a teenager
00:24:15.880 and I was kind of outrageous all the way through.
00:24:19.260 And I would do this outrageous, these outrageous riffs at the dinner table.
00:24:23.780 And my friend's mother, who was extremely proper, would say, Mark, there are certain
00:24:28.840 things we don't talk about at the dinner table.
00:24:31.320 And of course, I realized my entire career has been telling those things you're not supposed
00:24:36.560 to talk about at the dinner table.
00:24:38.760 So it's all about where you, where you tell it.
00:24:42.180 Yuck, yucks is a very lucky sort of situation for me because I'm playing on a small enough
00:24:47.620 scale that I really don't have to worry about, um, too much, uh, blowback from people.
00:24:53.720 Uh, first of all, everybody knows what yuck, yucks is all about.
00:24:57.920 If you went and you ask people in the street, yuck, yucks, uh, do they do, um, nice comedy
00:25:03.420 there?
00:25:03.760 They probably say, oh no, it's wild.
00:25:05.440 It's, they'll say anything.
00:25:06.880 Everybody knows this.
00:25:07.860 So the marketplace becomes self-selective and the people who come know what they're getting.
00:25:12.460 In fact, they want that.
00:25:14.160 Here's another little tidbit for you.
00:25:16.300 Uh, just for laughs has their traditional nasty show, uh, which isn't really all that
00:25:22.360 nasty, but it's a nasty show compared to the other stuff that they have, right?
00:25:26.680 That show sells out faster than any other show.
00:25:30.000 They do eight of them, um, in a midsize venue to start off the festival.
00:25:34.480 And that is the hottest ticket.
00:25:36.240 So this is kind of what people want many times, not everybody, but this is, there are, there
00:25:42.840 are venues now in this city and probably in other cities where, um, it is censored.
00:25:50.040 Um, at least it's not, at least the, the comics themselves censored.
00:25:53.720 They know that they're going to a room which, uh, attracts a very downtown quote unquote woke
00:25:59.640 audience, um, that is expecting a certain kind of, um, politeness in the comedy, uh, uh,
00:26:06.920 tastefulness.
00:26:07.600 They don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, that those things are really important to them
00:26:12.060 and that will attract that kind of audience and that will attract that kind of comic.
00:26:16.440 Yuck Yucks doesn't do that. 0.96
00:26:17.960 Um, when you get bigger than a comedy club, then you start getting into the problem of
00:26:22.440 you're probably existing with some level of corporate sponsorship.
00:26:26.320 You're probably existing with some level of governmental largesse and, um, you don't want
00:26:32.260 to threaten that because they're answerable to the people.
00:26:35.780 I'm not answerable to anybody except my customers.
00:26:38.960 How have you been able to do this for 45 years successfully?
00:26:41.320 It's, it's, it's amazing, really.
00:26:42.800 It's a triumph.
00:26:43.940 Well, thank you.
00:26:44.700 But part of it is that I'm not, I'm not too big.
00:26:47.840 If I got bigger, um, and you know, if I had a thousand seat venue, then I, I would need
00:26:53.700 all kinds of sponsorship and, um, you know, government assistance and the things that everybody
00:26:58.760 gets.
00:26:59.160 And once you do that, then, um, you know, you're under the threat of, of having that,
00:27:04.500 that stuff withdrawn.
00:27:05.880 Um, this is why Netflix took Louis CK's, uh, specials off.
00:27:10.700 They weren't, I, I assure you they did not, they were not personally offended by what,
00:27:15.980 what, what he had, had done.
00:27:18.200 They're worried about boycotts and they're worried about social media.
00:27:21.980 When I brought in Louis CK, I had some pretty negative social media, but incidentally it ran
00:27:27.440 about a hundred to one in favor of what I did.
00:27:29.660 But even if it hadn't, what could they do?
00:27:33.240 What could they do?
00:27:34.420 Speaking of business struggles, Mark COVID-19, the pandemic, the government, of course said
00:27:38.620 you got to shut down.
00:27:39.580 And a lot of us understood why back during that first wave.
00:27:42.320 And then there's a lot of disagreement as to whether or not things should have, uh, been
00:27:45.940 shut in subsequent waves.
00:27:47.520 When should they reopen?
00:27:48.300 And so on, uh, how was the shutdown for you at Yuck Yucks and, and how were you feeling?
00:27:53.060 How are the comics feeling?
00:27:53.900 How was the audience feeling about let's just get back in a room and, and, and laugh together?
00:27:57.620 Well, the past 18 months were among the most horrible of my life.
00:28:01.820 And I went to high school, so it was, it was pretty awful.
00:28:06.700 I mean, um, from a psychological and spiritual point of view, um, I guess you've read King
00:28:12.620 Lear, you know, what happens when a King loses his kingdom, it's not pretty.
00:28:16.900 And, um, I spent an awful lot of time in the house, just staring into space because I couldn't
00:28:21.620 do anything else.
00:28:22.480 It was a miserable, miserable, miserable time for me.
00:28:25.520 Um, and for the comics, they had, they lost their income and they, even maybe more important,
00:28:30.620 they lost their ability to connect with the world because comics, um, this is how they
00:28:36.920 connect with the world.
00:28:38.000 Many of them don't have conventional or traditional personal lives.
00:28:42.040 Um, they live for their comedy and for the lifestyle that goes with comedy and it's gone.
00:28:46.420 It's all gone.
00:28:47.080 Now it's come back and since they took away the, um, capacity restrictions, now, uh, things
00:28:54.400 feel like they're getting back to normal slowly, but nothing makes me happier than going to
00:28:59.220 my club on a Saturday night here in Toronto, um, and seeing 225 people sitting in the room
00:29:05.280 laughing their heads off.
00:29:07.080 A lot better than when the capacity limits were limited to 90 in a 300 seat room and you
00:29:13.040 had to space the tables out. 0.88
00:29:14.700 Well, you know, comedy, uh, works best when you jam people in, uh, because laughter is catching,
00:29:21.360 right?
00:29:22.140 Laugh and the world laughs with you.
00:29:23.660 Cry and you cry alone.
00:29:24.980 So, uh, it's, it's been so much better now.
00:29:28.740 We're open in all our clubs across the country.
00:29:31.040 Um, but we're not necessarily back to the levels of audience audiences that we were pre-pandemic
00:29:37.160 that will happen.
00:29:38.620 I figure in the next three, four months, maybe as people think, well, I guess I have to go
00:29:45.520 inside and it's cold out.
00:29:47.940 Um, you know, that's the problem they don't have in the Miami clubs. 0.86
00:29:52.100 So I want to get your thoughts on another issue that was in the news recently, a Quebec comedian
00:29:57.160 going all the way to the Supreme court to say, I can make jokes about whatever I want, offensive
00:30:02.160 stuff.
00:30:02.600 I can even make jokes about a disabled youth who is something of a celebrity in Quebec
00:30:06.960 culture.
00:30:07.880 Mike Ward had been making jokes.
00:30:09.360 This is 10 years ago about a young boy who had a disability, who would do a lot of, uh,
00:30:14.000 public singing at various events with high profile figures in front of the Pope.
00:30:17.820 And I guess he was held as a major figure in Francophone culture in Canada.
00:30:21.620 And Mike Ward said, I want to deflate some of these various characters.
00:30:24.980 This young man was among it.
00:30:25.960 Uh, his family took Mike Ward to the Quebec human rights tribunals.
00:30:29.540 They awarded, uh, him $40,000, him and his family in damages.
00:30:33.960 Mike Ward said, I don't want to pay that went to the court and the Supreme court did rule
00:30:37.760 recently.
00:30:38.360 Yeah.
00:30:38.480 You can make these offensive jokes, but it was close.
00:30:40.580 It was a close split decision.
00:30:42.780 What did you think about that?
00:30:44.300 Mark?
00:30:44.440 And what were folks in the comedy world saying?
00:30:46.780 Well, obviously everybody in the comedy world was pro Mike Ward, um, myself included.
00:30:52.060 I met with Mike, um, to offer my support, um, somewhere during this process.
00:30:57.680 Um, you know, the, it's an icky joke, um, because he's a kid, but the joke wasn't really about
00:31:05.000 him.
00:31:05.400 The joke was about fame and how fame touches people and how, how people react to people's
00:31:12.420 fame, perhaps incorrectly.
00:31:15.040 Um, and, uh, because Mike Ward happens to be quite wealthy, um, he's a wealthy comedian
00:31:21.040 because in Quebec, he is a mega star.
00:31:24.120 He could sell out Place des Arts, 2,800 seats, probably for a week.
00:31:29.360 That would not be unusual for Mike Ward.
00:31:32.200 Um, so he had enough money to be able to, um, shoulder the legal fees, um, to go all the
00:31:38.760 way through the Supreme court to get the Supreme court to say, well, you know, maybe what you
00:31:43.480 said was pretty ugly, but you still have the right to say it, which I think goes back to
00:31:47.980 Voltaire, doesn't it?
00:31:49.720 I may not agree with them about what the man says, but I defend his right to say it.
00:31:54.560 Where are these things headed?
00:31:56.160 Is there, because what you've said basically is these things shall pass too, because you
00:32:00.180 give examples from decades before.
00:32:02.060 I've also seen different cultural shifts.
00:32:04.180 It was interesting, uh, to read Seth Rogen kind of renouncing his earlier work.
00:32:09.260 And I was like, what's that about?
00:32:10.680 And we went and we, we rewatched super bad the other month, his sort of first big breakout
00:32:14.500 movie from 2007, man, that's a funny movie.
00:32:17.860 I think it's pretty much his best movie.
00:32:19.320 It's one of my favorite, a favorite movies of his.
00:32:21.940 It is.
00:32:22.280 It's so great.
00:32:23.140 He has renounced it though.
00:32:24.320 And maybe he's, I don't know.
00:32:25.800 Is he indicative of a sort of new culture of, I know he's not a standup or at least isn't
00:32:30.160 anymore.
00:32:30.500 Like what's, what's going on?
00:32:32.160 What's, what's the future of all of this?
00:32:33.820 Well, I'm not sure he really believes what he said.
00:32:36.240 I think he wants to work.
00:32:37.380 Um, it's really hard to get a movie going because somebody has to trust you enough to
00:32:41.380 give you, you know, $20 million or more, 20 million is on the low end.
00:32:45.700 And, um, you know, this is the mood that's in the, uh, in the air right now.
00:32:50.240 Um, so I'm not sure I, I necessarily believe him when he renounces it.
00:32:56.420 And that's such a strong word.
00:32:58.220 I mean, if anything, he could say, well, some of those jokes that we put in that movie,
00:33:02.600 not sure I would do those jokes now.
00:33:05.000 That would seem to be sort of a more balanced reaction.
00:33:09.920 But I mean, there are jokes I told in 1978 that I wouldn't tell now, right?
00:33:15.420 But by all means, go ahead.
00:33:16.440 You have the floor.
00:33:17.480 No, no, no.
00:33:18.080 I'm not going to tell those jokes, but there, there, there, it was an innocent time.
00:33:22.520 And, and, you know, the fact that people would get, uh, maybe get offended or hurt, um, didn't
00:33:29.680 really matter to me.
00:33:30.700 I mean, in some ways it's sort of even better, but we had, but the important thing was it
00:33:35.660 was, there was access and whatever I might've said, the next person could go on and completely
00:33:40.560 denounce it.
00:33:41.440 But I want to make one thing very clear and it's this, and this guides me.
00:33:46.600 This is my lodestar.
00:33:48.140 However, the censorship of comedians, of artists in general and comedians in specific, um, is
00:33:55.400 never, ever the answer.
00:33:58.620 Ever.
00:33:59.560 That's never the answer.
00:34:01.940 What might be the answer is a more, or what I believe is, is a good thing, is a more critical
00:34:08.640 reading of popular culture so that when you're, uh, ingesting it, that you don't just take it
00:34:15.620 as face value, that you maybe question it a little bit, um, that you wonder why people
00:34:20.240 are saying this or that.
00:34:21.640 And, and it leads to a discussion and the discussion is enlightening.
00:34:25.180 Uh, but shutting down the debate, I have no idea why anybody would want to do that.
00:34:30.760 These are artists.
00:34:31.840 They're exploring these spaces between the official version and the way people actually think and
00:34:38.200 behave.
00:34:39.860 Okay.
00:34:40.260 Hey, I'll get off my soapbox now.
00:34:42.080 No, it's a good soapbox.
00:34:43.220 It's good.
00:34:43.900 Uh, well, I have something, well, I have something else to contribute to you that I, I don't think
00:34:48.200 I've ever said publicly because, um, I've just started to, I've just started to formulate
00:34:54.180 this as an idea and the idea doesn't make me feel or look very good.
00:34:58.600 Um, and I'll, I'll show you why for the past 45 years, I have been telling anybody who will
00:35:04.520 listen, especially my family, um, that what I do is really significant.
00:35:08.660 It has all kinds of important, important, uh, values that I'm imparting to the general
00:35:15.100 public.
00:35:15.560 And, um, I look, I want a, an order of Canada because of this.
00:35:20.500 I'm, I'm really important.
00:35:22.280 Comedy is really important for this.
00:35:24.480 And now as I think about it, I'm starting to think the opposite, that comedy's value
00:35:30.160 is precisely in its ephemerality, that it doesn't change people's minds at all, that
00:35:37.400 people come into a comedy club, uh, with basically the attitudes and biases and prejudices that
00:35:44.600 they, they have, they watch a comic, the comic might take them on a journey away from what
00:35:51.020 they believe, but then nine minutes later, when the routine is over and another comic
00:35:56.580 starts, they've forgotten it already.
00:35:59.680 And they're back to what they originally believed.
00:36:02.580 Now, the reason I say this is because I've had this happen a number of times where comics
00:36:09.380 will come to me and they, they'll tell me they got a festival and on a festival, you
00:36:12.960 might have, you know, 10 comics on and a big venue at any given time.
00:36:16.720 This could be just for laughs.
00:36:17.600 This could be the Winnipeg festival.
00:36:18.780 This could be the Vancouver festival.
00:36:20.680 This could be any number of festivals.
00:36:22.660 So they, the festival will book a comic known for their wokeness.
00:36:26.800 The comic will get on stage.
00:36:29.000 They will do the most woke jokes imaginable and the audience will be going crazy.
00:36:34.180 They'll love it.
00:36:34.900 They'll be applauding.
00:36:35.840 They'll be laughing.
00:36:36.720 And the comic will be feeling amazing because not only is it there, are they making them
00:36:40.520 laugh, but they're also nudging them to a political and social position that they
00:36:46.060 believe in.
00:36:46.620 They walk off the stage feeling like they're 10 feet tall.
00:36:50.360 Then the next comic goes on.
00:36:52.540 The next comic has the exact opposite political and social view.
00:36:57.040 And they get huge laughs, applause breaks.
00:37:01.420 They're right with them.
00:37:03.220 Completely contradicting what the reaction to the first comic.
00:37:07.700 And the first comic says, what am I, what, what, what's going on here?
00:37:11.820 And the truth is it's comedy.
00:37:13.980 It's not really to be taken seriously.
00:37:16.300 It's a series of what ifs.
00:37:18.020 And if a comic is good, he can get you, he or she can get you to go with them on whatever
00:37:24.400 their beliefs might be.
00:37:26.700 And then it's over.
00:37:28.100 They go back to whatever positions they had when they walked in.
00:37:32.500 It's, it's ephemeral.
00:37:35.040 It's weightless.
00:37:36.520 And I hate to say this because it kind of undercuts my life's work, but I think it's true.
00:37:42.920 But we keep coming back.
00:37:45.660 Meaning?
00:37:46.560 The audience.
00:37:47.440 We keep going to those Netflix specials.
00:37:49.560 We keep going to Netflix.
00:37:50.540 It's permanently ephemeral.
00:37:53.660 Of course.
00:37:54.080 But we watch them, but we don't take, we don't take comics seriously.
00:37:58.140 You know, Woody Allen once said, as long as you're doing comedy, you'll never sit at the
00:38:01.820 grown-ups table.
00:38:03.300 And, uh, of course, that, that's, that's a quote that can come and bite him on the, on 1.00
00:38:09.580 the ass. 0.99
00:38:10.180 But, um, it's just not, it's, it's wonderfully not taken seriously. 0.99
00:38:16.440 It's just not that important.
00:38:18.340 It's, it's a trifle.
00:38:21.860 It's a distraction.
00:38:23.000 It's a distraction.
00:38:24.920 Who would you say, because you've got your finger on the pulse of the next big thing,
00:38:29.360 who do we take seriously in terms of who do we watch?
00:38:32.840 Who do we look for?
00:38:33.420 Who are you excited about right now these days?
00:38:35.320 Well, um, hard to say, hard to say, hard, hard to say.
00:38:40.260 I'm, I'm very excited about, of course, Canadian comedians because those are the ones I work
00:38:45.280 with directly.
00:38:46.040 Um, I, it's, uh, it's, it's a good opportunity for me to criticize Hannah Gadsby, though.
00:38:53.140 Go for it.
00:38:54.260 All right.
00:38:54.840 So I watched the, the special, the, the Nanette special, and I, there's two parts to it, really.
00:39:01.060 The first part is her, um, being funny and, um, she's reasonably funny, but then she goes
00:39:07.280 into her, um, rant against comedy and pretty much against male comics, and she raises a
00:39:15.000 fabulous issue.
00:39:16.080 But I have to tell you, I disagree with her conclusions.
00:39:19.660 Her fabulous issue that she raises, and so succinctly, is what is the worth of a fantastic
00:39:26.740 artist if that fantastic artist treats people horribly?
00:39:30.680 Which is more important, the work that they leave, or the people whose lives they lay waste
00:39:37.340 to?
00:39:38.040 And as, um, an example, she uses Picasso.
00:39:40.980 And Picasso's a good example, because Picasso, um...
00:39:44.580 No big feminist. 1.00
00:39:46.020 Glad he's not around for me, too.
00:39:47.720 He should be happy about that.
00:39:49.080 Yeah, yeah.
00:39:49.780 I mean, Picasso, um, had a, had a very, um, Picasso did not treat women well, let's just
00:39:57.360 say that, including the 17-year-old that eventually committed suicide, um, after, uh, having a long
00:40:04.080 affair with him, uh, uh, but he did do Guernica, and if you've stood in front of Guernica, you
00:40:10.980 just don't think of how badly he treated individual people.
00:40:15.160 What you think of is, this is the most moving picture against the horrors of war that I have
00:40:22.420 ever seen, and everyone should see this.
00:40:25.720 But to Hannah Gatsby, you should avoid it.
00:40:28.920 So, I, I love the fact that she brought this up, because this is an issue that comes up
00:40:33.280 again and again and again and again, and it comes up in Me Too comedy issues as well.
00:40:38.520 Um, and that is, sometimes, or quite often, horrible people make great art.
00:40:46.600 And it's very hard to find, in fact, people who, um, make great art that aren't horrible
00:40:52.580 on some level.
00:40:53.820 And I'm not sure what, exactly why, because I'm not a psychoanalyst, but, um, if you want
00:40:59.620 to be consistent and you think that, you know, um, Woody Allen went, uh, went after relationships
00:41:06.740 with girls who were just underage, well, you better not listen, you better throw out your 1.00
00:41:10.760 whole record collection, because you know, the Beatles did that too.
00:41:13.860 I assure you, the Beatles were having, um, affairs with girls in Hamburg that were way
00:41:18.260 underage.
00:41:19.140 Um, uh, Led Zeppelin, throw those records out as well.
00:41:22.220 Throw out the Rolling Stones.
00:41:23.520 They all did this.
00:41:25.240 And so, that's that.
00:41:26.660 There's, there's an entire category gone.
00:41:29.440 T.S. Eliot is my favorite, my favorite poet of all time.
00:41:33.120 He was also a notorious anti-Semite, and yet, and I'm Jewish, and yet, uh, a year can't
00:41:40.300 pass without me reading the, rereading The Wasteland and, and Prufrock and thinking that
00:41:46.320 this is genius.
00:41:47.420 So, I'm able to compartmentalize what a person's personal life is and what their personal beliefs
00:41:54.600 are, uh, from their actual work.
00:41:58.120 Uh, Hannah Gadsby is suggesting, no, you shouldn't do that.
00:42:01.320 So, um, uh, I, I don't know.
00:42:04.800 Somebody told me once they thought that men have it easier in terms of compartmentalization,
00:42:09.760 that that's kind of more of a male brain thing.
00:42:12.660 That may be true.
00:42:14.140 I don't know.
00:42:15.400 But I can do it, and I do it every day.
00:42:18.920 Every day.
00:42:21.260 You know, I've always thought we had it easy, the fact that Adolf Hitler, who was a painter, 0.86
00:42:25.080 wasn't that great of a painter.
00:42:26.820 Wouldn't it be rough if he was actually, like, the best painter of the 20th century?
00:42:30.080 And you're like, uh, how do we talk about this right now?
00:42:32.460 It would be very, it would be very difficult.
00:42:34.900 Um, and luckily John Wayne Gacy, um, you know, the serial murderer drew pictures of clowns.
00:42:40.920 Um, and you know that there are people who collect those pictures.
00:42:43.680 They're very much in demand.
00:42:45.720 Oh, that's interesting.
00:42:47.660 A little odd.
00:42:48.200 Yeah, they're very much in demand.
00:42:49.120 They, they fetch high prices.
00:42:51.620 Wow.
00:42:51.860 Not Warhol prices, but they, but five-figure prices.
00:42:55.700 I'm saving up for mine.
00:42:58.700 Mark, I know you give a lot of advice, as we said to, to comedians.
00:43:04.840 What advice would you give to audience members, to regular folks who are seeing these schisms,
00:43:13.080 or whatever you want to call it, in comedy, and they're saying, look, I just want to enjoy it.
00:43:18.160 I just want to have the laughs.
00:43:19.240 Well, first of all, if you're thinking of going out to a night, a night of comedy, the internet is a wonderful thing.
00:43:25.760 Um, you can research the comic that's being advertised, and I never understand why people don't.
00:43:30.740 Certainly, you wouldn't go to a, um, a Cineplex and say, what's playing?
00:43:34.720 Oh, okay, that looks, what's the next, what's the next showtime of whatever you have?
00:43:39.520 You would research what movie you want to see, and you would decide you like the people in it,
00:43:44.020 you like the, you like the director, you like what it's about.
00:43:47.280 So, so you should do the same thing with comedy.
00:43:49.440 I think people should be astute consumers, and it's easy to be an astute consumer these days.
00:43:54.440 The second thing is, um, I admit that one thing I've always wanted, um, was to make people less sensitive.
00:44:02.000 It's always been, um, a goal of mine, even before all of this Me Too thing started to happen.
00:44:07.800 Um, I was always bullied and picked on, and all these things when I was a kid,
00:44:12.460 because I'm really small, and I was Jewish in a non-Jewish environment.
00:44:16.340 Um, and I just got tougher, and there's almost nothing that can offend me now,
00:44:22.840 nothing that anybody could say to me that would ever offend me personally,
00:44:26.200 and nothing that anybody could say that it would offend me theoretically,
00:44:29.500 which is why I guess I'm the right person for my job.
00:44:32.960 But I would like to see people, um, not made of glass,
00:44:37.400 because it feels like they're made of glass, and they shatter much too easily.
00:44:42.440 The right person for the job. Mark Breslin, this has been a fantastic conversation.
00:44:48.520 Really informative stuff. Thanks so much for joining us today.
00:44:51.860 You're, you're welcome.
00:44:53.180 All the best.
00:44:54.400 Thanks.
00:44:54.720 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.
00:44:57.580 I'm Anthony Fury.
00:44:58.700 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:45:02.680 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.
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