Belzer, B.O., Karma
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In Part Two with special guest Jeff Ross, Sarah and Jeff discuss their favorite roast rituals. They also deep dive into the backstory of Jeff’s solo show, ‘Take A Banana For The Ride.’ Later they hear from callers like a woman who’s nervous to restart her comedy careers after a hiatus, and another who wants to know how to deal with online harassment.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Speaker 5, Cab, Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Sarah Silverman, Jeff Ross, Brian, Amy
Sarah Silverman 00:14
Hi everybody. I’m not alone. I’m with my good friend, Jeff Ross. We’re on the road for basically (a year) and I look fine. But I always gain weight and get really thick, because you get off stage and you’ve been sleeping, resting all day, or traveling all day.
Jeff Ross 00:36
Yeah.
Sarah Silverman 00:37
There’s nothing’s open because you’re in some small town and you’re just eating mini bar garbage or you’re eating 7/11 pizza. It’s just really hard to.
Jeff Ross 00:49
I always say that. I’ll just be there backstage just going, “I think Beyonce eats a Meatball Parmesan before she goes on, right?
Sarah Silverman 01:04
There’s the Echelon that brings a chef or has like meals, but it just when you’re on the road, it’s just really hard to eat healthy.
Jeff Ross 01:14
Yeah, or be healthy. Whatever your thing is, it’s gonna happen on the road. It’s good to be aware of that, whether it’s food, sex or drugs, whatever your thing is.
Sarah Silverman 01:25
You’re not home, so you’re doing everything you can to comfort yourself – comfort food, comfort drugs. It’s very hard to stay.
Jeff Ross 01:34
Luckily, the only thing you’re gonna overdose on is a bathtub in law and order.
Sarah Silverman 01:39
I know. Well, I don’t go out after I do stand up. I go straight back to the hotel, and I can’t wait. But I do, put out. I get just a little stoned and I put out a smorgasbord. Is that how you say it?
Jeff Ross 01:56
Smorgasbord.
Sarah Silverman 01:57
Whatever I can find.
Jeff Ross 01:58
Right?
Sarah Silverman 01:59
Eat it. Find law and order, and watch it.
Jeff Ross 02:00
How many law and orders are there?
Sarah Silverman 02:03
I don’t know, but I’ve seen all of them.
Jeff Ross 02:05
Doesn’t it drive you crazy that you know what happens?
Sarah Silverman 02:09
No.
Jeff Ross 02:10
What is it?
Sarah Silverman 02:11
It’s comforting. It keeps me company, just like softcore murder.
Jeff Ross 02:17
Have you tried CSI? There’s lots of those.
Sarah Silverman 02:20
No, it’s too much.
Jeff Ross 02:21
Interesting.
Sarah Silverman 02:23
I don’t like the real stuff.
Jeff Ross 02:24
Right.
Sarah Silverman 02:25
Like cold case. I just like general reenactments of ripped from the headlines.
Jeff Ross 02:33
Love it and the bells.
Sarah Silverman 02:36
Well, as for you. My favorite joke I’ve ever told. It a roast. It was another, it was a Friars Club roast that wasn’t on TV, and I didn’t write it. I can’t remember who wrote it, but it was the best. It was Belzer was onthe dais. The joke was Richard Belzer is the third funniest one on SVU after iced tea and rape.
Jeff Ross 03:10
So good.
Sarah Silverman 03:10
We laugh because we can’t cry. Now, we can cry.
Jeff Ross 03:14
I miss those old days when you get down and dirty at the roast.
Sarah Silverman 03:17
I know.
Jeff Ross 03:20
You didn’t give a fuck, you would rip people. You were the best at that. People have kind of grabbed thatmantle since then, but you really did that first. […] it’s just like that part of your life that was such a fun.
Sarah Silverman 03:39
Maybe I would do a roast again someday. But really, I just love. My favorite part of the roast is just getting lunch with you, and you reading all the jokes you have so far and watching it.
Jeff Ross 03:51
Yeah, I used to come over. We’d go to.
Sarah Silverman 03:55
Joan’s on Third.
Jeff Ross 03:55
One of your restaurants.
Sarah Silverman 03:57
Yeah.
Jeff Ross 03:58
Whether it was New York or L.A, I would just read you the jokes, and you would be dying laughing, then I put a check mark next to the ones that you were laughing at.
Sarah Silverman 04:09
Just the best.
Jeff Ross 04:11
You replaced Buddy Hackett for me. When Buddy Hackett died, you were my test.
Sarah Silverman 04:15
I always thought of myself that way as like working man’s buddy, Hackett.
Jeff Ross 04:22
Young man’s buddy, Hackett.
Sarah Silverman 04:23
One of my favorite jokes of yours was the Bob Saget roast, and you referenced George Carlin seven words you can’t say on TV.
Jeff Ross 04:34
Yeah.
Sarah Silverman 04:34
Do you remember? Because I’m gonna fuck it up if I do it.
Jeff Ross 04:37
I remember it because I’ve used the joke about Diane Warren, and she quotes it back to me all the time, because she’s always getting nominated for Grammys and never wins. Well, Bob Saget, at that point, wewere coming off the heels of the aristocrats, which you were one of the stars.
Sarah Silverman 04:57
Oh, right. And that was a huge revelation for coming like the public that America’s dad was a very dirty stand up.
Jeff Ross 05:04
Right. I do a tribute to him in the banana show, and one of the things that I talk about in that is that he was America’s dad like Bill Cosby. So, Bob would put people to sleep the old fashioned way by talking about his charity work for the Scleroderma Research founder. But Bob was becoming known for like, bawdy dirty (they called it dirty daddy). He had a book or a special called “Dirty Daddy”. And people were finding out that the America’s Funniest Home Video Guy- the full House dad, was actually this like crazy nightclub comic.
Sarah Silverman 05:40
Yeah, but also the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful, mensch.
Jeff Ross 05:46
That’s how he got away with it. He had obviously adored you, he was one of my best friends. I was like,”Wow, you got all these comics roasting a comic. It’s gonna be very dirty”. Gilbert, you know. Artie Lang was supposed to be there, but he didn’t make it at the last second. Then Norm Macdonald was going to be there.
Sarah Silverman 06:05
Sure. Already had a good excuse.
Jeff Ross 06:06
Yeah, he had a great excuse. I was like, “Man, if I just go dirty, I’m not going to be able to out dirty everyone”. Gilbert and Bob will be dirtier than me no matter what. So, let me just not curse see if I could just be as funny as them and not curse. That’s what I did. I wrote this, my whole roast didn’t curse. It was like edgy, but I didn’t use curse words and sex. I go Bob at the end, and George Carlin had just passed away. So I said, “Bob, you may have noticed, you’re the king of the dirty comment. But you may have noticed, I didn’t curse at all”. In the spirit of George Carlin, seven dirty words you’ll never hear on television. Here’s another seven words you’ll never hear on television.
Sarah Silverman 06:55
Oh, here’s the seven words you’ll never hear on television, yeah.
Jeff Ross 06:58
The Emmy goes to Bob Saget.
Sarah Silverman 07:02
When you realize that was seven words, were you so happy?
Jeff Ross 07:05
So, shout out to Bob. It was his birthday this week. Good guy. I miss him. Anytime you go through a breakup, he would show up with a pastrami sandwich and a pep talk. Everybody should have a friend like Bob. I know you talk about friendship and all that stuff on this podcast, and Bob was the guy that checked on you, that told you he loved you even when you were to fight with him, he was just that person. He had three daughters. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen where the ex wives become best friends because they love him and the daughter so much.
Sarah Silverman 07:46
They’re grown women.
Jeff Ross 07:49
And wonderful family.
Sarah Silverman 07:51
Yeah.
Speaker 1 08:09
Hey, Jeff and Sarah. I am curious about dating celebrities, and your feelings on that as celebrities. Did you date celebrities? As celebrities dating other celebrities, non celebrities. What are the rules, the weirdness, the power dynamics and all of that stuff?
Sarah Silverman 08:32
No, I don’t know.
Jeff Ross 08:35
Dated one celebrity.
Sarah Silverman 08:37
Speaking of.
Jeff Ross 08:40
She was massively famous. I didn’t like that, I didn’t lie. It was only for a few months, and it was a long time ago, so it wasn’t a big deal. But, I didn’t like that.
Sarah Silverman 08:56
You like to mix it up with the peoples.
Jeff Ross 09:00
Yeah.
Sarah Silverman 09:01
She must have been very like driver, very kind of protected and shielded, not really like you. We do like acomedy festival, you are out in the crowd, walking around, like to hang out with people.
Jeff Ross 09:15
It was an adjustment for me, but I kind of liked that she had her career in her own business and her own thing, that was hot. I found to be a big turn on and I was sad when it didn’t go on. But, I don’t have that much experience. What about you? Have you really done that much? Just maybe one?
Sarah Silverman 09:38
No. Jimmy was on the man show when we started going out and I was like a stand up on talk shows andstuff or whatever.
Jeff Ross 09:49
Great question, bro.
Sarah Silverman 09:52
Yeah. Sorry, that was really a dud.
Speaker 2 09:54
Hey, Sarah. You did something really nice for me once we were at a wedding together in Sun Valley, Idaho. You, of course had all the pot, and I was informed to go to you after the ceremony to get some weed. We went and we smoked to join together in the guest house that we were staying in in Sun Valley,Idaho. You rolled a joint and we smoked it, and then you rolled another one, and you put it in my tuxedo pocket.
Jeff Ross 10:30
Wow.
Speaker 2 10:31
I said, “What’s this for you?” Said, “Don’t smoke that. You’ll know when”. Later on that night, a bunch of people came out of the wedding tent, there were a lot of comedians and what have you there, and people that you would know.
Sarah Silverman 10:48
Yeah.
Speaker 2 10:49
Smoking a joint in a circle, and the weed ran out. I think it was Jeff Ross that said, “Does anybody have anything?”. You looked at me. We made eye contact, and you made this like, now’s the time face. I pulled out this joint, and I was the schmuck from Brooklyn who wasn’t famous, who had the weed for therest of the party. Made me feel like a hero in that moment, and I tell that story to anyone who will listen. So, thank you.
Jeff Ross 11:20
That’s great.
Speaker 2 11:22
Love you.
Sarah Silverman 11:22
Oh, that makes me so happy.
Jeff Ross 11:23
Everyone’s listening. It’s a great story. I love it. You gave him some backup weed.
Sarah Silverman 11:29
Yeah. I always like, maybe it just my dad, he’s a good karma guy. I remember this, he got his tricycle stolen. I had to get a new one. The day it got stolen, he said, “Well, I’m sure whoever took it needed it more than me”.
Jeff Ross 11:50
Right.
Sarah Silverman 11:50
But, that’s how he though. I was just paying the meter the other day. I always put it in for two hours, the maximum. And he’s like, “We’re only going in for a minute”. I’m like, “Yeah, but I don’t know”. I always put it in for two hours so that the next person is like, “Oh, Psych.
Jeff Ross 12:06
That’s a good reason. I always do that, too but for different reason, which is like, you never know. You might start talking to somebody whatever you don’t want to worry about.
Sarah Silverman 12:15
Yeah.
Jeff Ross 12:15
Your philosophy of, like pay it forward.
Sarah Silverman 12:18
Just like easier it’s on to. Instead of putting the minus to save like, 75 cents, just make it two hours.
Jeff Ross 12:26
That’s how they get you.
Sarah Silverman 12:28
Who’s getting me? It changes my life zero.
Jeff Ross 12:31
Right? I love that.
Sarah Silverman 12:34
All right. What else? Great call about me being great?
Jeff Ross 12:37
Yeah and me being a stoner.
Sarah Silverman 12:40
Yeah and not having weed that doesn’t […].
Jeff Ross 12:42
But, shout out to John and Carly Kimmel for that wedding story.
Sarah Silverman 12:45
Still going strong.
Jeff Ross 12:46
Doing good.
Sarah Silverman 12:52
Yeah.
Cab 12:53
Hi, Sarah, it’s cab. I just wanted to know if you thought that 90s cut jeans, that knew that those are cool because they’re coming back. The wide leg, straight cut, baggy. It’s all the rage now, with all the kids they love the 90s. I was just wondering, because you wore those in the early 2000s and comedy royalty. What do you think of baggy jeans now, or that they’re coming back to you? Do you have a pair of baggy jeans? I actually just got a pair of baggy jeans, and they’re so fucking comfortable because I forgot that the 90s, that’s why we wore that shit, because it was so comfortable.
Sarah Silverman 13:37
I’m wearing some now. They’re so good.
Jeff Ross 13:41
Are they vintage?
Sarah Silverman 13:43
No.
Jeff Ross 13:43
They’re soft.
Sarah Silverman 13:45
Just like they’re kind of mom jeans, but they’re so comfortable.
Jeff Ross 13:48
You always sort of make old things new again the way you wear them. You’ll mix a new thing with an old thing, and it looks cool.
Sarah Silverman 13:55
I have the same closet I did for years and years. I still wear the same shit over and over again. But, I I try to add some new things, but also I’m trying not to buy new things too much because.
Jeff Ross 14:08
Because why?
Sarah Silverman 14:09
Because there’s like an ocean filled with fast fashion pollution. I watched that documentary on a plane Brandy Hellville. And I was like, “Oh my god, I’m just gonna shop on eBay”, but I still did get some other things. I’m wearing some wide leg jeans. And boy, I’m ready to tie a plaid shirt around my waist in good town.
Jeff Ross 14:35
I see a lot of people in their 20s – super cool people, sophisticated people wearing 90s vintage sweatshirts, T-shirts, jeans, and they look cool.
Sarah Silverman 14:49
I wore 90s stuff in the 90s, but I also wore, like tons of 60s and 70s stuff in the 90s because you always love 20 or 30 years before. So I was like, “Oh, I love the way people dressed in the 70s”. I remember I’d wear my hair like that girl in New York. I used to curl it at the ends and I’d go to use Andy’s Chee-Pees and get, like a 60s dress for 20 bucks or something.
Jeff Ross 15:20
Your clothes might change, but your color schemes are consistent, right? You seem to like certain colors and patterns, I think.
Sarah Silverman 15:29
Well, I used to wear all black for a lot of it, but I can’t anymore, because I’ve dogs. They just gets all over everything.
Jeff Ross 15:37
I like popped onto your special when I dropped the other night, and I was like, “The background looks like Sarah’s closet”, like the clothes in the closet. So I feel like, you know your colors.
Sarah Silverman 15:50
I bought that. What I wore was like a combination of stuff I bought while I was on the road, because we were just on the road the whole time, but I got this inspiration for the look of on my special. I’m wearing like jeans that are kind of flared and a plaid shirt under a brown short sleeve sweatshirt. This sweatshirt I just bought on the road somewhere at a vintage store, and this shirt I had. To me, I don’t know why, but the inspiration was, and it kind of ties in, I guess because it’s like, transition and all that stuff. But, I wanted to look like a woman in the late 70s who’s single and moving. She’s moving, on moving day.
Jeff Ross 16:38
I like that.
Sarah Silverman 16:40
That’s how I felt, like I looked. That was just the vibe I wanted.
Jeff Ross 16:43
I like that a transition, a movement. You’re an orphan now. You know, Sarah and I used to (I’m talking about you), but we used to go shopping a lot. I guess we probably still do once a while, but we used to go shopping a lot. Sometimes I would buy stuff, but it was really fun watching the people in the store try to help Sarah. Then, of course, I would always go, “What about this?” I would either get the look like I was belonged in a nut house. You’d be like, “What I’m not wearing that”.
Sarah Silverman 17:07
Never wear that.
Jeff Ross 17:07
Right? Or it would be like, “Ding, ding, ding, I nailed it”, and you’d buy three of them. One for New York, one for L.A, one for the stage. For some reason, there’s a fine line that I don’t always like. It’s either perfect or are you fucking crazy?
Sarah Silverman 17:37
I don’t even know how to say like, “I like this. I don’t like that”. Like, there aren’t hard rules. It’s just I know when I see it right.
Jeff Ross 17:46
Right. Your merch?
Sarah Silverman 17:49
Yeah, my merch.
Jeff Ross 17:51
Stuff you would wear.
Sarah Silverman 17:52
It’s all stuff I would wear. I realized I can’t really wear it. I mean, I wear my Silverman sweater, but it’s obnoxious when I’m out and about in a Silverman sweater, but it does just look like a college or something.
Jeff Ross 18:05
I think it’s cool. You should wear your merch.
Sarah Silverman 18:07
And my dad would be head to toe in that merch.
Jeff Ross 18:10
Oh, yeah.
Sarah Silverman 18:11
I know sarahsilverman.com. All right. What else?
Jeff Ross 18:19
Fun.
Brian 18:20
Hey, Sarah. Brian, again here. So, I’ve been putting some content out there on Instagram, all in good fun.Pretty above the board although it’s edgy. I’m a liberal, so it is little left leaning, if you want to say that. But, I’m starting to get death threats. I know from your comment, you’ve been like a very edgy comedian for a long.
Sarah Silverman 19:03
How can a question about death threats be this boring?
Brian 19:08
By the way, not for me. I just fucking love you. But, what do you do about that? Because it’s starting to freak me out. These are deep waters that I have not dived into yet. So if you can give me some advice, that’d be great.
Sarah Silverman 19:34
Okay.
Jeff Ross 19:35
Scary out there on the streets of Instagram, if you put up anything political or social commentary. It’s terrifying.
Sarah Silverman 19:43
Yeah. I mean, listen, I’m not really sure what to tell you. I would tell you I would have two pieces of advice that you could take or leave.
Jeff Ross 19:49
You’d be good. You should help this guy because you’ve been there.
Sarah Silverman 19:54
Listen. One thing I do know is do not answer them. Don’t acknowledge them. Do not give it attention, because that will exacerbate it. You just have to pretend you don’t see it. You’re not affected by it, nothing. The other option is take your comments off. Just undo their comments on Instagram. You might be bummed because you might be living off the dopamine rush of seeing comments, but it’s safer just to not have them. If it’s safer to not have them, don’t have them. That’s hardcore shit, a death threat.The same time, chances are you’re going to be fine.
Jeff Ross 20:44
I get the rationale of wanting the comments on because if someone wants to kill me, I want to know about it. I don’t want to go to the diner and then the guy’s there waiting for me, you know.
Sarah Silverman 20:54
Right.
Jeff Ross 20:55
So, you want to know who hates you. But then again, it’s also this negativity that you’re letting into your life, and then into your creativity.
Sarah Silverman 21:03
Then people who do this are not well. So you know, you don’t want them to fixate on you.
Jeff Ross 21:09
Right.
Sarah Silverman 21:09
You just do not respond.
Jeff Ross 21:14
Death threats is a certain thing. But as far as like haters, this is another Bob Saget thing about staying positive. He didn’t say, I don’t do negative. We would argue about this one issue, which is, he would block haters.
Sarah Silverman 21:29
Yeah.
Jeff Ross 21:30
And I go, “Why do you letting them know you saw it?
Sarah Silverman 21:35
Don’t do that.
Jeff Ross 21:35
I go, ignore it. They float out to see that they don’t know that they got to you. Why give him the satisfaction?
Sarah Silverman 21:42
Yeah, because people go, “Look a good blocked by”.
Jeff Ross 21:45
Right. But his answer was, “I don’t want to entertain bad people. I don’t want them to see my content. I don’t want them in my audience”.
Sarah Silverman 21:54
Yeah. This is one thing I’ve done, is you can remove them as a follower. That might be new, but sometimes I’ve done that where I just remove them as a follower, or I’ll just mute them because they don’t know if you’ve muted them, and you could just take them out of your life. Whatever they want to say is fine, and they won’t even know that you’re not seeing it. But also I don’t, I don’t see a lot of comments.
Jeff Ross 22:23
Death threats on social media. What is Ryan? What are you posting? I guess it doesn’t take much these days.
Sarah Silverman 22:33
It doesn’t. All right. What else?
Jeff Ross 22:37
I have a song in my show called that I’m nervous about because I haven’t really taken it on the road.
Sarah Silverman 22:43
Oh, I know that. I can’t wait to see how […].
Jeff Ross 22:46
No, I’m wondering. There’s a lot of non-political Jewish but, Jewish pride in the show. And I’m like, “Am I gonna have haters show up?” So, I am kind of prepared for that.
Sarah Silverman 23:00
If you have haters for what you are doing in that gorgeous show, then that’s.
Jeff Ross 23:08
I have a song in the show called, “Don’t fuck with the Jews”, and people kind of sing. It’s really not about Jews.
Sarah Silverman 23:17
It’s funny and joyful.
Jeff Ross 23:19
I had a room full of non Jews singing it the other night, because it was a Friday night. There aren’t as many Jews there. It’s so silly, and it has not that much to do with being Jewish, but it’s just about my working class roots and my family back in Newark. So, that’s really what the song’s about.
Sarah Silverman 23:37
Well, it is about being Jewish and it’s very much. It’s very American. It isn’t about any international things, right?
Jeff Ross 23:44
I’m an expert on world affairs, so I wouldn’t be able to write a song like that, but I am an expert on my Uncle Murray, so I was able to write a song called “Don’t fuck with the Jews”, and it’s about him. During the Newark riots, standing on the steps of our catering hall with a rifle to make sure it didn’t get looted. You know, tough Jews. He was an Army medic during World War Two, helped liberate a concentration camp. So, old stories come to life but I am kind of prepared for just weirdos coming at me. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I’m also like, “Okay, I can handle this heat”.
Sarah Silverman 24:21
Jeff, can you give us a little teaser of the song? No, brochure.
Jeff Ross 24:26
Let me think for a second. Well, it comes from something. The story is about my great grandma, Rosie, who was this sort of powerful woman in the 50s. Here’s how I set it up in the show is basically about her catering Hall, how she would run this business with her three sons. My grandfather, Pop Herb was the band leader. My uncle Murray ran the kitchen. My uncle Albie cooked the books. Great grandma Rosie would run these big, elaborate weddings. She’d work in the kitchen all day and night. She’d go upstairs, put on a gown, put a rose in her hair, and make brides dreams come true. Judy Blume wrote about Clinton Manor in her novel Wifey, every young girl’s dream to grow up and have a big, fancy wedding at Clinton Manor.
Sarah Silverman 24:27
I think I masturbated to that book.
Jeff Ross 24:27
Very well, could be or on that book.
Sarah Silverman 25:11
Read it. I ruined it. That’s a Jeff Ross deep cut. Did you read my Playboy magazine?
Jeff Ross 25:39
Did you see the new play way with Pamela Anderson? Read it. I ruined it. One of my oldest jokes. I think it was on Letterman in 1995, April 13. But who remembers?
Sarah Silverman 25:51
I rememberwatching it with Mark Cohen and Bonnie McFarlane, a bunch of people in L.A.
Jeff Ross 25:59
What I say in the show is great grandma Rosie, she didn’t just like keep our crazy family life. She taught us right from wrong. One time, she was driving down to Florida with my great grandfather and this guy, Lee, that worked in the catering hall with them. I remember Lee, he was a great guy. They stopped in South Carolina to rest for the night, and the hotel wouldn’t let them check in because Lee was black. So my great grandma, Rosie, went back to her car, got her gun and killed everyone at the hotel. “Don’t fuck with the Jews”, that’s what she would sing to us at bedtime, don’t fuck with the Jews. So, it’s made up silly.
Sarah Silverman 26:38
But, what really happened?
Jeff Ross 26:40
What really happened was everything except the killing. She got back in the car and she wouldn’t stay there, she gave them a stern talking to as legend has it.
Sarah Silverman 26:48
Yes. So, I believe they were going to take the Jews, not take the Jews.
Jeff Ross 26:56
I don’t think they knew.
Sarah Silverman 26:57
Oh yeah.
Jeff Ross 26:58
Whatever passing cares like jerks. Growing up, they said, Jews were wimpy. I never really got the like, nebbishy. Woody Allen, nerdy Jewish thing. My uncle was this tough guy – this world war two vet, got a purple heart, a Silver Star. My sister’s a special ed-teacher. My cousin Steve is an emergency room surgeon in a really rough neighborhood. My nephew Jared, who was with me all weekend, fights wild fires. He’s a firefighter. So, don’t fuck with the Jews. Like I’m a black belt, like tough working class Jersey roots, and that’s kind of what the song is. Don’t fuck with the Jews, unless you want your ego badly bruised. Never again. Fuck with the Jews. And everybody sings it – the blacks, or the Mexicans, or the Muslims, or the Puerto Ricans or whatever the fuck this guy is. I point to someone in the front row, peace on earth and everybody claps. It’s kind of sweet.
Sarah Silverman 28:01
There you go. You heard it here first.
Jeff Ross 28:03
You heard it here first. So, the Sarah Silverman, we’re coming up top of the hour on the Sarah Silverman podcast. We got traffic on the 101 is heating up, and we hear Sarah with the weather.
Sarah Silverman 28:15
I always think of that Mike Sweeney joke. Remember when he used to host at the cellar and he had a joke about the big earthquake in San Francisco during the World Series.
Jeff Ross 28:26
Yeah, what was it?
Sarah Silverman 28:27
And all these sports casters had to talk about the earthquake. He just said, like, “That guy just got killed by molten rock and Bob, you know that’s gonna hurt”.
Speaker 5 28:52
Hi Sarah, it’s your friend in the UK. My problem that I’m having, I’m sort of feel I’m standing at a precipice at the minute because I want to start doing live comedy gigs again at the age of 38.
Jeff Ross 29:14
Cool. So loving.
Speaker 5 29:17
I used to have a comedy career. I had moderate success. I had an acting career that was going pretty well, and then I had my kids. I don’t regret that at all, and I wanted to be really present with them.
Sarah Silverman 29:37
That was amazing.
Speaker 5 29:38
I feel really lucky to have done that, but I also don’t have a career. I guess I’m scared about the leap into the live circuit again, starting from the bottom and being like the old lady.
Jeff Ross 29:58
I love this question.
Sarah Silverman 30:00
It was good.
Speaker 5 30:01
I wouldn’t mind being the oldest in the room if I had a career that was great. But yeah, now I’m just gonna be the sad old lady who’s trying to do comedy.
Sarah Silverman 30:14
You know, you’re calling into a show of a woman who’s much older than, right?
Jeff Ross 30:20
But, you started very young. In fairness to her, you were like a teenager.
Speaker 5 30:25
I love the show. I listen to it.
Sarah Silverman 30:30
There she goes. All right, what do you got?
Jeff Ross 30:32
Well, here’s the thing. First of all, two kids, just get a Tesla, put it in dog mode and leave the kids in the car. You can do comedy. I’m sure you have strong opinions about this, and I don’t know if this is enlightened. This is my personal observation 35 years of doing comedy, and she’s talking about her having kids. Guys don’t talk like that about having kids in their career. So, I will talk about a woman who’s 38 in comedy from my personal observations.
Sarah Silverman 31:07
Well, first of all, there are many male comics that talk about having kids their whole act, the second theyhave kids their actor. Listen, […] Tom, Papa.
Jeff Ross 31:20
Sorry, what I’m saying is they don’t go, “I can’t do comedy because I had two kids”, they would never bring this up. So, she’s concerned about that.
Sarah Silverman 31:31
Yeah, they don’t leave their careers.
Jeff Ross 31:35
Right? I don’t know your name, but you have to dismiss that from your head. That’s not a disadvantage or an advantage
Sarah Silverman 31:46
You have so much to draw from.
Jeff Ross 31:48
Right.
Sarah Silverman 31:48
You so much material.
Jeff Ross 31:52
My personal observation, having not just done comedy with moms or women when I knew you, you were 20, and now decades later, you’re funnier, or as funny. I would say, funnier than you’ve ever been. So the fact that you’re 38 is not a disadvantage, it’s an advantage because you have something to talk about.
Sarah Silverman 32:19
Joan Rivers said she didn’t feel like she found her voice in comedy until her 70s.
Jeff Ross 32:27
Susie Essman on Curb, Judy Gold, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, what I’m saying is my experiences 38, your first gonna be funny. You may not even been in that funny when you were 25, you might have just been okay, but you have all that life experience that’s pushing you to get back on stage and that’s the reason. It’s just not the love of the game. It might also be because you want to talk about those kids. You want to talk about your relationships, failed relationships, good relationships, whatever that is. You have this wealth of experience going from girl to woman, from boy to man.
Sarah Silverman 33:09
You’re right and get on stage if that’s what you want to do. But, so much in that question was what you think other people will think of you.
Jeff Ross 33:20
Right.
Sarah Silverman 33:21
Throw that shit away. You’re already losing. Like, “Oh, what are they gonna think of me being 38?”. Guess what? You’re the youngest, you’re ever gonna be again. So, fucking love 38. I love your 30s. So, if you want to do stand up. You want to go back to it, or you want to do it in a whole new way, do it and do it for yourself and work on the craft. Write and get on stage. It’s none of your business what other people say or whatever. I mean, we just were saying like you are, who you think other people. What you think other people think of you? Nothing good comes from that, you’ll just be riddled. Listen, so much of comedy is the survival skill of being funny, making the fat joke before the kids call you fat or whatever. But what you’re do, you’re too old for that shit. You’re a grown woman. It is. This cannot be about what other people think. This business already eats you alive, objectifies you, and all those things. Don’t do it to yourself. You have to be your number one hype man. I don’t mean like pushing yourself out on Instagram or whatever. I mean you now are in charge of raising yourself. You’ve raised your kids. Gotta raise yourself so meaning you have to go, “I got you, we got this”. Let’s try some jokes. I wrote some jokes. I’m gonna try them be. It’s fine to be vulnerable. But to just go like, “I’m old, I’m ugly, or I’m whatever”, that kind of insecurity at this age, that’s where I’m saying you are too old for that shit. Believeme, people go much farther in age and are riddled with that, saddled with that bullshit, but it’s exhausting to be around, and it just means nothing. Write jokes, perform them, see how you feel about it. Keep going. Keep your head down. Do it. Make new friends. If something’s gonna come of it, it will happen, but your job is the art, the jokes, the writing and the performing. Focus on that. Don’t focus on what other people are gonna think, or that young people are gonna call you old. When I was a 19 year old comic, I thought 29 year olds were old. I was embarrassed for them. What I thought did not matter at all.
Jeff Ross 36:07
Right. I think this person will first be the most interesting you’re ever going to be, is going to be now.
Sarah Silverman 36:14
Yeah. I heard a lot of like, “I was”. Don’t was, be.
Jeff Ross 36:23
I like that.
Sarah Silverman 36:25
Sounds smart, but don’t was, be. Put that on the t-shirt.
Jeff Ross 36:30
That’s really good, ctually. That’s very good advice.
Sarah Silverman 36:33
It did makes sense when I said it.
Jeff Ross 36:37
Don’t was, be.
Sarah Silverman 36:38
Yeah, you are who you are now. You raise your kids, you don’t regret it. That’s right. You’re getting back to it with all this new skills. I read something where someone was like, “Women take time off of their job for 15 years and raise kids, and you see this huge gap in their resume”. Run to hire them because they can organize. They can run their producers. They’ve had all those years of basically what a producer does. Getting shit done, figuring out the schedule, making sure it happens. Leap towards hiring women who are getting back in the workforce after fucking raising children. I didn’t have kids, I couldn’t even imagine doing that job. But, it is just interesting. There’s always still a double standard. Things are the best they’ve ever been. I mean, current administration aside, and all the detritus that’s everything in its wake of women and rights and stuff. I mean, women are kings of comedy. Killing it in the creative field, or whatever. I don’t remember what I was saying because I’m old.
Jeff Ross 38:00
I think it makes a lot of sense.
Sarah Silverman 38:02
Age especially you’re in it, sounds like you’re in England. Sounds like you’re British. I mean, look at the women that are dominating British comedy now, and for the past 30 years, you’ve got French and Saunders, Jennifer Saunders doing the show after that. That’s huge. I heard it might even come back, or they might do a movie. What’s the one? Absolutely fabulous. You have so many women dominating the field of comedy in Britain.
Jeff Ross 38:25
Here too.
Sarah Silverman 38:34
Do your thing. It’s you do it because you have to do it. If you don’t have to do it, maybe don’t, but it sounds like you do so do it. All right, I think I’ve yelled at you enough.
Jeff Ross 38:51
Good inspirational, motivational talk.
Sarah Silverman 38:53
All right. What else?
Cab 38:54
Hey, Sarah. It’s Cab again, your best friend. I heard a blip on a podcast earlier today that you said you were wondering if people would want to be told if they had BO. Let me tell you, as somebody who’s been pulled aside at every single job they’ve ever had on the first day and been told, “Hey, you have extreme body odor”. I can tell you, it’s embarrassing and makes you want to crawl into a hole. Also, I don’t know what to do. I shower (I must not be), I don’t know maybe my clothes. Don’t wear the other, I don’t know. The point is that I would prefer a service, perhaps some sort of singing telegram or barber shop quartet to stop you on the street and be like “Your family still loves you and wants you to change, take a bath”.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
This is like a real pattern. If every job you’ve ever had has told you you have BO on day one, like “You have BO doll”. There are many things it could be. It could be, wash your clothes. A lot of men, their mothers wash their clothes their whole lives, and they just never learned how to do laundry and didn’t realize it was being washed for them. Wash your clothes. Wash your body with soap. Maybe try a new soap. Are you taking any meds? Are you taking any vitamins regularly that those can be? If you know the kind of smell, ask people what it is. Is it like a poopy doody smell? Is it like a metallic smell? Is it a fishy smell? Then Google what does it mean to have a metallic smell, or however they describe it. Maybe you’ll get to the root of it if you’re doing all the basics and you still smell. Thoughts?
Jeff Ross 38:55
Well, sometimes guys will leave a shirt in a closet for four years and then just put it on, like, “It’s okay”. Sometimes it’s just like, “Oh, it smells like it’s been in the closet, musty”. So, you got to watch for that. You have to brush your teeth. Something that Sarah told me, that disease comes into the gums.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
Death creeps in through the gums. You have to floss and brush.
Jeff Ross 38:55
Sarah’s definitely giving me gum. Said, “Hey, you want a piece of gum, you get it”. It’s an unspoken.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
Hey, you want a piece of gum?
Jeff Ross 38:55
Now, immediately.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
Yeah, it wasn’t “Hey, you want a piece of gum?”. It was “Hey, you want a piece of gum”.
Jeff Ross 38:55
Right. It’s also like, what friends do.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
Yeah.
Jeff Ross 38:55
That’d be a great app that you could just stick your phone under your armpit and go, “How am I doing today?” Phones like, “Oh, better take a shower”. What’s the question, exactly?
Sarah Silverman 38:55
He didn’t really have one. He was saying he’d like to be told with an Irish quartet.
Jeff Ross 38:55
Yeah, that would be good.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
You smell like a barrel of fish. Hey, you smell like you sat in some shit. That does a rhyme, adjacent rhyme.
Jeff Ross 38:55
It’s not just the moment of that having. It’s like people will not want to talk to you, and then your whole life’s affected.
Sarah Silverman 38:55
Yeah.
Jeff Ross 39:15
So, it really is a thing that you have to fix.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
Listen, how you look doesn’t matter, how you present doesn’t matter. But, you really need to control yoursmells, because that’s like noise pollution. There’s nose pollution.
Jeff Ross 39:21
I had a girlfriend once who was vegan, and for whatever reason that mixed with some aspect of her meds or something, was giving her bad breath. It took a lot of courage to tell her.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
How she handle it? Is this you telling her, no.
Jeff Ross 39:21
No, it did improve, but it definitely affects kissing and conversation. It’s a thing you really have to be aware of. I would want someone to tell me.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
Yes.
Jeff Ross 39:21
You have to get over the embarrassments. It’s worth the embarrassment to be able to hug, kiss, see people, talk to people and whisper in their ear. “Hey, great to see you”, you know.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
I was thinking Todd Glasses joke about when someone has bad breath and he’ll just go in front of them go, “Wonder what 1000 Tic Tacs would taste like”.
Jeff Ross 39:21
What was your your breath? Well, you had a joke like that about your breath.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
That was the joke I wrote in high school.
Jeff Ross 39:21
Yeah.
Sarah Silverman 39:21
I did it when I first was doing stand up, and then I stopped doing it. Coincidentally, years later, Todd Glass asked me if I still did that joke, and I said “No”. And he goes, “Can I have it?” And I said, “Yes”. Then,of course, he took it but mine was I wrote it in high school was, like a one liner. He made it into this 10 minute, brilliant piece. I wrote it in high school. My friend asked me, “Does my breath smell like tacos?”And I said, “I don’t know. Do you put shit in your tacos?”
Jeff Ross 44:23
So, Cab, what I do, just in case I have a spare shirt in my car at all times. If it’s hot out and I unexpectedly walked or sweat, I keep Tic Tacs around and that kind of thing. Shower even when you’re not in the mood, it’s not a bad idea before you go out, just little things. If it’s none of that cure shit, and itmight be something that you should talk to a doctor about.
Sarah Silverman 44:55
Also just lather your body, head to toe. It’s so nice then ran. It feels good. It’s good to exfoliate. You’re shedding skin, and see if you see a change. There must be a face people make that. You go, “Oh, they smell me”.
Jeff Ross 45:21
Some people are not aware of that at all.
Sarah Silverman 45:24
Yeah. Like you might not be aware that, like, “People don’t really talk like this in real life. They’re just holding their breath”.
Jeff Ross 45:31
You know what I do, if I don’t know the person well. I’ll be like, I blame it on myself. I’m like, “Can you back up a foot? I don’t see well close up. I can see you better if you back up a little bit”.
Sarah Silverman 45:47
Keep going, one more step.
Amy 45:52
Sarah, you have another bad breath joke.
Sarah Silverman 45:56
I do?
Amy 45:57
It was about duck. It’s as if all the farts in all the lands pass through my grandfather’s teeth.
Sarah Silverman 46:07
Yeah. I think that we are miracles.
Sarah Silverman 46:14
Doc, R.I.P. Speaking of R.I.P, “Dad, wherever you are in time space”. That’s what I learned. It’s called time space. This is the time of the podcast where I say, send me your questions. Go to speakpipe.com/theSarahSilverman podcast. Also subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you haven’t yet, now is a super time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com for bonus content you won’t want to miss. That’s lemonadapremium.com. Thank you for listening to the Sarah Silverman podcast. We are a production of Lemonada Media. Isabella Kulkarni and Isaura Acevesproduce our show. Our mixes by James Farber. Additional Lemonada support from Steve Nelson, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Our theme was composed by Ben Folds. You canfind me at Sarah Kate Silverman on Instagram. Follow the Sarah Silverman podcast wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your prime membership.
