
Gonads, Divorce, Pussy Jokes
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Sarah had a change of heart and bought not one Stanley tumbler but two. Plus, she lists her all time fave comedians, psychoanalyzes mothers who act like they want to marry their sons, and offers advice on whether or not to trip on mushrooms while grieving the loss of a friend.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Doug, Sender 7, Amy, Rebecca, Erin, Sarah Silverman, Sender 4, Sender 3, Deborah, Nick
Sarah Silverman 00:14
Hi everyone. It’s me, your your old pal, Sarah Silverman, I got busted walking in here, and I’ll let Amy […] fill it, fill you in.
Amy 00:25
Well, there’s not much to tell, except that Sarah walked in with an obscenely large Stanley style cup after doing an entire monolog about said cups.
Sarah Silverman 00:41
Yeah, you know this isn’t again. This is not a news program. I did rail against these giant sized cups, of which you can probably hear the ice inside. It contains so much, so much hydration, and then the straw, I don’t like this, like plasticky, rubbery straw, so I put a metal straw inside it, much like the process I recently learned of docking in gay sex culture, I put this metal straw inside this rubber straw.
Amy 01:14
I don’t want to conflate the two. Can we just put a pin in docking and come back to it?
Sarah Silverman 01:20
Yes. Um, so yeah, I’m a hypocrite. I this giant, giant, ridiculous cup that’s become a craze has, um, infected me with hydration. Listen, you know, Kulap Vilaysack, who is of the Lemonada family, she’s one of the hosts of Add To Cart. So Kulap years ago, years ago, on Twitter, and this must have affected her reading it, I said some cunty thing about, you know, these women who, like, you know something about women wearing shorts and heels I shit on. It’s not something I would do today, but I said something about, you know, this weird epidemic of women, highly educated women, wearing, like, short shorts with heels. And she’s given me ever since, because like, that’s become, like, my kind of go to like, you know, is shorts with tights and maybe a combat boot, actually, but maybe with a thick, you know, two inch heel or something. I love it, I feel super hero-i. It’s like a look that is like, I feel good in. And for years, I’ve been wearing it here and there, and every time I just I can hear Kulap in my head going, well, you tweeted that, that was lame or whatever. Yeah, I don’t know. I was probably jealous. I don’t know where my head was in that moment in time when I send a tweet shitting on outfits. I don’t know. It’s not really what I do now, although I do on um giant, um thermoses like apparently, and now I’ve come full circle with that. So listen, uh, I’m a I’m a human being that changes my mind fundamentally on things. And there you go, any anything else to adds, V?
Amy 03:23
I did want to just point out that you were carrying the obscenely large one and then a second one for your warm liquids.
Sarah Silverman 03:32
That’s right.
Amy 03:32
So now you are that person who’s like, got multiple it was like, you didn’t just go, you fully committed.
Sarah Silverman 03:39
I’m really, really, first of all, as you know, I lost my voice completely last week, and had to cancel a bunch of shit and so I’ve been drinking tea ever since, tea with honey, by the way, which I just read in the back of it, it isn’t raw, but it isn’t pasteurized, so that probably didn’t help me heal, because raw honey, I’m allergic to it, but, um, I’m drinking hot liquids that’s nice on my throat with a little lemon. And then I got the ice cold liquids, which is what I need as a woman of my age. Oh, yes, but then also I’ve got this little sugar free Red Bull too, because I need it as like a drug.
Amy 04:25
It’s safe to say you’ve got a bevy of beverages.
Sarah Silverman 04:29
God, you’re good. All right, let’s take some calls.
Doug 04:48
Hey, Sarah, this is Doug in San Diego. I’ve been a fan of yours since you were on Mr show with Bob and David way back when. And that is also my favorite sketch comedy show, although I love the Sarah Silverman show as well. So anyway, my favorite comedians top three in order would be David Cross you and Anthony Jeselnik. And I was just wondering who your favorite comedians are and who inspired you to get into comedy. Okay, that’s all, hope all is well. Love you.
Sarah Silverman 05:25
Oh, I don’t have a good answer for that. There’s so many. I mean, I, you know, I’m the product of so many brilliant people in my that I’ve met and that I’ve come across in my life. But I love Cross and Jeselnik as well, wow and but you know, when I was a kid, I Steve Martin was my number one. I also loved Robin Williams. I remember having his cassette tape of him at the Met. But I had everything. Steve Martin, I had everything. Albert Brooks, my mom had the Woody Allen double album, and so that was the comedic nourishment I was raised on. And, you know, I started out with amazing comics. You know, when you do comedy, you kind of think like, when you start, you’re a freshman, and then there are, like, the seniors. And the seniors when I was a freshman, were like Ray Romano and Louis CK and Dave, Dave Patel and I started with like Todd Berry and Caroline Ray and Wanda Sykes and God, I’m so many people. And then I came out to LA and I met Doug Benson and Brian Posehn and and Janeane Garofalo was huge influence, and Bob Odenkirk and David Cross and that whole kind of Margaret Cho who, boy, you know, I’ve crossed paths with her again recently, a lot, and man, her stand up, her stand ups always been so brilliant, but it’s like she is so good man. She should be like, hosting award shows and stuff. She’s so kick but, yeah, so many I don’t even I know I’m forgetting a million, you know, I mean, yeah, then I come, came out here, Zach Galifianakis and, and too, and, and then I met Tig she, she was kind of like a freshman when I was a senior. Now she’s a senior to new people, you know, and and on and on and on. So many brilliant comics right now looking at the roast of Tom Brady. I mean, I like planned my whole night around it, and it did not disappoint. God, it was good. I thought Kevin Hart was maybe the best roast MC I’ve ever seen. Jeff Ross I mean, my expectations were extremely high, but he blew them out of the water. I mean, he’s just, he is the roastmaster general, my God. And then Nikki Glaser had the set of the night. I mean, one of the greatest roast sets of all time. It was really awesome. And that that it was live, it shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t work, but it did, and it still felt tight. It was three hours, not a boring moment. I just thought it was so good. As someone who considers herself retired from roasting and an art form I love so much. I loved it. I loved it. What else you know, they, they, you know, who directed it, and that was the smartest move, was Beth McCarthy, who comes from Saturday Night Live and boy, she knows live TV, and she killed it. I mean, it was just, I’m so blown away by how they did that and that it was live. It’s so insane. So much of a roast is the editing, and there wasn’t any, and it was great. All right, anyway, what else?
Rebecca 05:25
Hi, Sarah. It’s Rebecca, your best friend in Chicago, fellow foul mouth, 53 year old brunette he but many people have told me, I remind them of you, which I always take as a compliment. Love you, love your podcast, and thought it was interesting the other podcast when you were talking about not really being able to drink. And I, too suffer from that same aversion to really being able to just get down alcohol, and I just really can’t drink it. I have a few friends, all from a Jewish sorority. We were on that same boat. And recently, I heard something on NPR, or someone was being interviewed and saying there’s a genetic mutation, especially in Ashkenazi Jews, where it’s called the ADH two times two, I believe, and it’s something that causes the alcohol not to break down properly, or something that breaks it down. One that makes it so you just can’t keep drinking it. But it’s an actual genetic predisposition they are still studying, which is why a bunch of Jews can’t really drink and our alcoholism rates are actually low. And you’d think with all the anti semitism in the world, we’d be drinking ourselves under a table, but no, we are not, and that is why so much more research needs to be done, but thought you should know that it’s not just you and it’s not just your 10 year old palette. Thanks. Have a great day, and love you and to your crew.
Sarah Silverman 10:31
This is interesting to me, and myriad reasons, not myriad, maybe two. Isn’t that also true for I don’t know if it’s Asian people at large, or Chinese people or Japanese people. Listen, this is ignorance you’re listening to. But isn’t that also true with alcohol, with some Asian persuasion?
Amy 10:57
It’s an enzyme deficiency, is what I’m hearing in this room.
Sarah Silverman 11:03
So if, if that’s something similar with Ashkenazi Jews, it does remind me of, um, former friend and current piece of Robert F Kennedy. I like to call him as friends. Call him BFK because he’s Bobby. No, I just made that up. Remember when he was caught at that dinner with rich people saying that the coronavirus is a biological weapon designed to affect white people and black people, but not affect Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. He said it like it was this really interesting scientific fact, and that’s why he’s a. But, um, I did used to do a lot of benefits for him, for clean water. God, so which way is he gonna sway those he gonna take from Biden? As you’re going to take from Trump? Or both, because he’s that sweet spot where wellness people meet far right lunatics, that where that Venn diagram crosses over kind of also where anti semitism is starting to shake hands in that Venn diagram. Anyway, back to Jews and alcohol. Historical inbreeding I’ve heard, or maybe just that alcohol is literally poison. Who knows?
Sender 3 12:38
Hi Sarah. I’m calling in response to the caller who’s looking for support with her kid as she gets a divorce. And I am a child of divorce. My parents got divorced when I was four, I went back and forth every week. It’s literally the only life I knew, and there were a lot of parts that were hard about it, but I want to say first of all that I agree with every piece of advice that you gave, how much easier it would have been for me to stay in one place and my parents to move Jesus age. But that’s not always possible for everybody. So the one nugget I will give in this 90 seconds is don’t talk about the other parent to your child. It puts the kid in such a difficult position. Kids are not your counselor, go talk to your friends or your therapist or your new partner, or call your ex and have it out on the phone, but don’t talk about them to the kid. It just makes everything so much harder. They have to start being in the middle and, you know, handling all of that. I actually read something recently that said, when you talk badly about your partner to your child, your child hears that they are bad, yes, because they are half that person, and you don’t want your kid receiving that message, so just hold up. Do not, do not talk about the other partner, true child. Can you tell that that happened to me a lot, lol, and I feel passionate about it, okay.
Sarah Silverman 14:09
The great exit. That’s such great advice. And I understand that it’s really hard to heed when you’re in the heat of it, the feelings, the bitterness, the rage, the whatever feelings that happened during divorce often. I mean, listen, my parents were horrible about that. They were horrible they they told us everything all the time. And it was, it was self obsession, and they’re both really were guilty of it, and it’s horrible. And I could go, well, I turned out great, yeah, because I had to spend my life figuring it out in therapy and continue to and, you know, even I’ve seen people who know not to talk about their partner, but they do in energy, or they do when they know their kid is in earshot, talking to someone else. Be real about it. Be you know, kids pick up on all that energy. That’s their sponges. So yeah, you’re so right. Find another outlet for your anger. Don’t bring that to your kids, and it’s really hard not to. And you’re a hero to not, but you’re an too. You know it’s like when someone finds a wallet and returns it, they’re like such a hero, but the alternative is being a scumbagger, right? There’s no in between. It’s the right thing to do, all right? What else?
Sender 4 15:55
Hello, Sarah. I am calling to ask, I know that you call yourself godless, and you have a sister who is a rabbi, and I always thought that was very interesting, and you, you come across as having a good relationship with her. I grew up in a Presbyterian household. My dad was a pastor, and my sister is a pastor, and I’ve actually had really good conversations with them. Faith is really, not really a part of my life anymore. I would consider myself agnostic, and I’ve had good conversations with them about, you know, whether God does exist, or what role religion plays in our life, and, you know, the doubts I might have. And my dad’s response really surprised me. He said, you know, it just sounds like you’re becoming a mature, thoughtful person, and you’re asking really good questions, and I was so grateful for his openness, because I was really scared to reveal that part of myself to him. I’m wondering if you and your sister have had any conversations about that, and whether there’s any tension given given her career and your your godlessness. Anyway, love you. Hope you’re doing well, bye.
Sarah Silverman 17:01
Yeah, we were extremely close, actually, and she was just visiting, and we actually talked about it, because, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve talked about the fact that she’s a rabbi and I’m godless, and I think I would maybe say I am an agnostic. I can’t imagine that there is this, this God would but also, what is the notion of God? It’s like, it’s such a fluid kind of, well, not for some people, of course, you know. But like, I would tell a story about how, you know, I would be so cunty and say to Susie, Rabbi, Susie like, oh, you, you think there’s a man in the sky, you know, and that she had this such a disarming response, which was, well, I like to live my life as though, as though there is one and and so I told that story, actually, on that night when I had an interview, when I when I did that live interview with Dave Letterman, and she was there, and afterwards, she said, you know, I don’t believe there’s a man in the sky, but I believe in God, in that. I believe that God is in all of us. And she wasn’t being defensive about it. I mean, this is like how she is a rabbi, that she sees holiness in community, in us, and, you know, all these things. So not to say, like, no, she doesn’t believe, you know, she is a, she’s a god person. But the way in which people are God people runs a really, really wide spectrum, of course. And, yeah, we’re very close. What we do is not wildly dissimilar. You know, she, she gives sermons, she writes thoughtful pieces about life, and and, and I tell jokes and jokes, all right? What else? Right?
Nick 19:01
Hi, Sarah. My name is Nick. I have loved you for many years. I’m a huge fan. I’ve loved you ever since Jesus’s magic. I am a gay man in my 30s, and my mother and I have had a very, very weird, strained relationship for many years now. We’re at a place where she is accepting and tries to be a loving mother to me, but there’s still a lot of animosity and tension that builds between us from time to time, and I’m just wondering, what kind of advice would you give to somebody who has a mom that just cannot see the truth for what it is, and is just very stuck in her ways, and just refuses to believe in being educated about certain topics that you know she has been brainwashed on, or just does not know the whole truth about it’s kind of hard, and it just makes it harder to have a healthy relationship with her. I’m almost just wondering what your advice would be, love you.
Sarah Silverman 20:12
Oh, well, I’m sorry. It’s it cuts. It really cuts when it’s your mom, you know. And listen, most likely your mom does not sound like she lives an open minded life like you’re she’s not open, she’s closed, right? So most likely your mom is not going to change. But what you so the change has to be in you don’t be gay anymore? No, I’m just kidding. You’ve got to recalibrate your expectations of her. That’s what you are. You laughing from what I said, you have to recalibrate your expectations of her. That’s what you have to do. That’s that’s the change you have to make. This would be entirely for the sake of your own happiness, because otherwise you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I think you know that now, right? I’m curious where the animosity comes from. I think you’re implying it comes from you being gay, or your quote, unquote gay lifestyle or something. Even though she accepts it, she’s, I don’t know. You know, moms are crazy sometimes, sometimes moms are straight up crazy in that they want to marry their sons, and they get angry and jealous whether the partner is a woman or a man, or that you’re gay. So she’s out of the picture, even though, of course, she’s out of the picture, she’s your mother. Sometimes there’s a weird kind of essence of that. I don’t know if that’s the case with your mom. Like, I know that sounds so up that your mother would be scorned because she can’t have you. But there is some sort of element of that, I think was sometimes with people I know, with men of Jewish women that can sometimes be a thing. Does that resonate to you at all, or with you? Does that resonate with you at all? Because I do think it’s a thing. Sometimes, if she’s being passive aggressive or saying comments, you don’t have to take it. You can lay down boundaries, of course, like, hey, when you do or you bring up, or you make comments about X, Y or Z, I’m not going to engage with you on that. You’re going to lose me there. So you know the relationship you have with me, you can say something like, look, you know the relationship you have with me is up to you, but if you are going to behave this way, I am pulling the ejection cord, and we can try again another time when you are feeling better about yourself, because that’s what it boils down to, really, ultimately, right? So much behavior is a result of what your self esteem is, just like so many of the ills of our country boiled down to the Citizens United ruling of 2010 root causes, baby, look into them. That was a very odd analogy, but I think actually sound so much of us being horrified by our mother’s or father’s behavior is actually ego, because they represent us to us in some way. But when you see that base, that same behavior in someone else’s parents, you can go, oh God, well, they’re trying or, oh, it’s cute, or it’s sweet, or it’s it doesn’t affect you as much. You can accept it more like you just have to accept them as they are. You have to meet them where they are. They’re funny, it’s funny. They’re not going to change, you can see all that when it’s not your parents, and it’s really hard to see when it’s your parents. But if you can get that distance that you have organically with other people’s parents, you know, or strangers, it can help you in being closer to them in an odd way, I think.
Erin 24:16
Hey, Sarah, my name’s Erin. I’m a huge fan first time caller. I’m calling. I lost my best friend a year ago tomorrow, May 3, 2023 in the shooting Atlanta, Amy was at a doctor’s appointment on her lunch break, I she was a mother of two. I’ve known her since high school for 25 years, but for the last 10 she’s been my closest confidant, my most trusted advisor, and truly the funniest and smartest group person I know. My question is, in regards I listened to your episode recently about tripping on shrooms. I’m not new to psychedelics. It’s something I did when I was a teenager, and in my early 20s, I’ve thought about experimenting with it again, but as a new mother, it’s been something that I’ve kind of put on the back burner. Now I’m afraid. I know you recently lost your parents. I think of you sometimes. How was grieving and tripping? That’s my question, love you.
Sarah Silverman 25:48
I don’t know that that’s a good combination. I don’t know that it’s a bad combination. It could be cathartic, it could be, you know, a massive breakthrough. It could be lots of good things. It could not go well, I don’t know, I don’t know. You know, you kind of tripping is a great a bit of a grab bag, but I will say, more than ever in this scenario, you really should do it with a guide or with a partner who has tripped a lot, especially recently, it had been, you know, probably 20 years since I had tripped. That would be key, just somebody that you trust who can keep you on a positive track, so that if you start going down and spiraling, and it’s something that isn’t helping you, and you know that they can go, hey, you’re okay. This is fine, you know, and that really helps you bounce back. It does, but if you’re interested, obviously, you know, you drop the kid off with your parents or someone for, you know, 24 hours or something, just to give yourself space. I mean, the thing to really, really remember, I think, when you’re tripping is that this is this state of mind is temporary, and you will 100% get back to normal. Because I remember having to remember that when I was tripping like, oh, this isn’t forever, just for a few hours, because it felt like this is the world now. This is now my state, and it’s, it’s, you know, so it really helps to have that person go, you’re fine, is this fine? Or, you know, this is all gonna be over in a couple hours, or whatever, and then you can truly just enjoy it. And that’s what Rory gave me. I was able to really just enjoy it. But, yeah, if you’re interested in doing that, you you should do it, you know. I mean, I guess the worst thing that happens is you don’t enjoy it, but be with someone, be in a safe environment, and turn your phone off, all right, and I’m so sorry about your friend.
Sender 7 27:59
Hi, Sarah. I’ve been listening to your podcast for a while now, and I think you’re pretty fantastic, but your recent discussions about men and their emotions and their inability to express anything besides anger, etc, that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as a man, as a more or less straight man, so I’ve done my best to be more emotive and to be more communicative about my emotions, and it’s work in progress, but I’ve never had a problem being subversive, so, you know, them. I don’t care. But something that occurred to me a couple of years ago, I think, is that one of the things that is so compelling about sports fandom in the US anyway, and probably in Europe and beyond, when I think about that style of football, is that when watching a sporting event, that’s one of the only safe spaces that men have, especially in the company of other men to express emotions other than anger. There’s some anger expressed there too. But if you watch a man watching his favorite team play a game, you’ll see a whole range of emotions besides anger, happiness, sadness, etc, that you wouldn’t see otherwise. So that’s my message, love you, and I’ll keep listening.
Sarah Silverman 29:26
It’s so true. That’s like they’re allowed to have feelings around that. It’s really It breaks my heart when I see it, and you see it in boys as well. And what makes me so happy is, you know, I see stuff sometimes on Instagram with, you know, men talking to boys about what they do with their feelings and how they can express them. And it’s really, really special. I’m really seeing people wake up to to that, you know, to this way that we’ve all participated in toxic masculinity, which breaks my heart for for men. You know, my and you see the places in which they’re allowed to be sentimental. And you know, it should be every place, but it’s very interesting, and it, it’s, it’s a cycle, you know, my father’s father beat the out of my dad. Just beat him up. Not only that, my dad had to call him Mr Silverman. My dad had to call his dad Mr Silverman. But that same guy, my grandfather, my dad’s dad, would be a total SAP, a total sentimental weeping, you know, guy about other things, like that kind of stuff, sports or whatever, and it’s just, it’s so much misplaced emotion. It’s just bizarre. But yeah, thank you for calling in and just saying much more eloquent things than I just did about about that stuff. And because the more we talk about it, especially men like you, straight ish men like you, which I also like that when you said, like, I’m predominantly straight, or whatever, it’s like, we’re really finding out that gender is a construct and that sexuality is pretty fluid. And, you know, people like what they like, but they also are starting to realize what they’ve been told to like, you know, and not asking themselves, what makes me happy? What am I into? What I you know, anyway, blah, blah, blah, I’m I’m really digressing a lot today.
Deborah 31:52
Hi Sarah, it’s Deborah from New York. Deb I love your podcast. I love everything you do. Once a year, I listened to the Great Schlep and get a little teary remembering how political discourse was so much simpler then. Anyway, I really love when you turn the phrase get a pair of balls into get a pair of lips, or grow a pair of lips. And then I was listening to a podcast called Gonads from Radiolab, and it talks about how gonads are actually a term for not just balls, not just testes, but ovaries too. And I thought that you should know that. So it’s called gonads, and this mini series is about is called Primordial Journey. So thought you’d find that interesting. Okay, love you, bye.
CREDITS 32:52
Radiolab, so great, as you say that that sounds a little familiar. I feel like at one point I learned that, but I forgot about that. That’s great. Nads, nads, nads is non binary. Grow a pair of nads. Thanks for the hot tip. Go nads and dad, wherever you are in time and space. We are winding down. This is part of the podcast. When I say, send me your questions. Go to Speakpipe dot and, by the way, they could also be comments. Go to speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast. That’s speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast. And subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. You hear that at the end of every podcast, but really hear it. Subscribe that helps us right rate if you aren’t going to give it a high rating and review if you like it, wherever you listen to podcasts, that helps us stay on the air. And there is more of the Sarah Silverman podcast with Lemonada premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus questions, like one from a guy whose friend became very distant ever since his brother took his own life. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Sarah Silverman podcast. We are a production of Lemonada media, Kathryn Barnes and Kryssy Pease produce our show. Our mix is by James Sparber. Additional Lemonada support from Steve Nelson, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Our theme was composed by Ben Folds and you can find me at @SarahKateSilverman on Instagram. Follow the Sarah Silverman podcast wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.