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Sarah has taken to the roll of audible cheerleader in her Call of Duty games with strangers. Plus, she tells us a story about her niece’s vagina hand, gets creepy at summer stock theater, and rallies behind Hasan Minhaj. Pull up a toilet and enjoy!

Show resources:

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Jason, Sender 3, Mark, Sarah Silverman, Lona, Sender 6, Timmy, Aaron, Stephanie, Julie, Amy

Sarah Silverman  00:14

Hey everyone, it’s your old pal, Sarah. I’ve got to talk about what’s just the only thing I’m really thinking about these days. And I bet you could guess, nope, not that, nope, not even that. It’s Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, three which apparently no one else is really playing that I know, but I’m stuck in this world. This is the world I know, and I love playing it. I’m playing it with real people. I don’t know these people, but I’m not good. I’m not good, you know? I mean, I’m fine, I think, and I’m competing with only myself, meaning, when I’m looking at the amount of kills, I’m thrilled to see anything over, say, 10. Last night I got 24 kills. That was my lifetime highest score of kills. But my score is always the lowest of everyone’s. And you know you’re in teams, so it probably sucks for my teammates who possibly care more about, like, the winning aspect. And the truth is, I really, I don’t like disappointing people in general. So this is maybe a good exercise for me, because so far, I’m pretty sure I’m a full on disappointment to whoever team I’m assigned, you know, but then I was really making myself laugh, and this is kind of the emotional experiment of it. But I was really making myself laugh because I kind of like appointed myself the leader, which no one asked for, and is not a thing in Call of Duty, per se. But when we start a game, I’ll like make a little speech that when I would play with Rory, I would make like, I’d go, listen, this is a meat plant. I’ve been here before. It’s filled with hostels. You’ve got to take them out. We need to kill everyone we see. I know we just met now, but for this, we are brothers. Let’s go and have fun. It’s kind of like a almost like a radio DJ. Ramp up like, you know, they’re playing like Fleetwood Mac, and then while the music’s playing, he’s like, hey, this is wbcn. I’m blah, and you’re listening to the something that plays, and blah and here. And then just as Stevie Nick starts to play, he’s like, and take it away, Stevie ran, whatever. That’s not a good example. I didn’t I needed a few seconds to think this through, but I didn’t take it. And then also, like, if we lot, if we lose the match, sometimes I’d be on a team that wins, because, like, everyone’s really good on it, sometimes we would lose and then, like, if we would lose the match, even though they all have scores of, like, 70 kills and I have maybe 15, I’d be like, come on, you guys, we’re better than this. And just hearing their brains put together that the person talking is the one that blew it all is so fucking funny for me. And just as they’re like, wait, you’re the reason. And then they get cut off because the console is finding a new match for me to play as it assembles the next game, and I don’t know it was really tickling me last night, and then I started being like the team cheerleader, and that was really fun. So at the end, which also maybe drove them crazy, but some people were laughing, which made me so happy. At the end, I’d go, you guys, whatever score you got, you should be so proud, like I am so proud of every one of us. And it’s just so funny me saying it, one, because I’m a stranger, and two, because I have, you know, by many points the lowest score. It’s just funny that it’s coming from a stranger who sucks, but it’s been really fun for me, for me, all right, let’s take some calls.

 

Timmy  04:42

Hey, Sarah, it’s your friend, Timmy in Pennsylvania, I thought about you this morning, around 5am I had to go the bathroom, and I went in. I did what I normally do, I sat down. But I thought you and your listeners might appreciate knowing. Yeah, that I like to sit backwards at night, like early in the morning, or at night when I go.

 

Sarah Silverman  05:04

That makes sense.

 

Timmy  05:05

I sit backwards on the toilet, kind of like, you know, the cool coach who pulls up a folding chair and sits in an opposite way and gives a cool, rousing, encouraging speech to his top quarterback anyway, I I’m just saying it’s not emasculating, it’s super comfortable. You just put your elbows up on top of that tank, let it go pee. I don’t do the other one. Just pee, and, yeah, it’s amazing. So give it a you can try it out. See what you think. I’d be curious. Curious what you think. And any of your guy listeners who are self conscious about sitting down to pee. Try that, pull up a toilet, sitting it backwards and have a good old pee. So anyway, that’s all I want to say. Love you, love your show, and see you later.

 

Sarah Silverman  05:53

I mean Timmy from PA. I think that’s absolutely brilliant. I think for men whose fragile masculinity is tinged by the thought of sitting down to pee, for some reason, very masculine to sit down to shit, not as masculine to sit down and pee, pulling up a toilet and sitting backwards like the cool, like the hip teachers, like Shakespeare was the original hip hop artist. I think that’s amazing, and it makes sense, because you’re facing the toilet when you stand up to pee, it makes sense you would face the toilet to sit down to pee, and your penis is in front of you. My what’s the thing that our pee holes called urethra? We both have urethras. My urethra, that’s in the front too. I guess I’m gonna try it, but for some reason I feel like it’s gonna go back. You know, I’ve said this many times. I don’t I’m not sure where my pee comes out of, but I know it’s at least three to four places. So, um, no, and I probably I’m gonna try it. I’m gonna try it tonight, so you guys remind me to talk about it next time we record. Yeah, but that’s brilliant. I actually think that’s totally brilliant. I love it, thank you, Timmy from PA, do you live near the one and only anthropology home outlet? Because I dream of going there someday. I think it’s in Pittsburgh. All right, what else?

 

Lona  07:33

Hi, Sarah, it’s your friend, Lona, a godless Jew from New York. I’m calling about the discussion about kids in show business. I have been a theater and voice teacher my whole life, since I was a teenager. I’ve been in community theater my entire life, and I just wanted to correct something that you said, in my experience, there have been plenty of pedophiles and creeps that hang around community theaters as well as Nickelodeon.

 

Sarah Silverman  08:04

Right.

 

Lona  08:05

They know that in show business, in every level, kids are often left unsupervised while adults are doing their jobs. So when parents ask me if their kids should be child actors professionally, I always tell them the same thing, if you or another family member know that you can keep eyes on your kid every minute that they are working great. If that’s not feasible in your world, don’t risk your kids how happiness and health for fame, because they’re everywhere. They know where to look, and only you can rely upon yourself to keep your kids safe. People in show business have a job to do. They’re not watching your kid. Thank you so much. Love you. Loved you forever, love your show. Come back to Long Beach and do another stand up because I missed it last time.

 

Sarah Silverman  08:59

That is so true. You know, that’s the thing. If you want your kid to do something where they are around adult strangers, you need to be there supervising them. It’s not a daycare center. It’s a very good general rule, you know, I will say in the theater community, like the professional theater community, which I’m, you know, now being exposed to in the past few years, there are rules and guardrails. And I think in, you know, any kind of professional thing, as I talked about in the thing you’re reacting to the first time is, you know, every time something happens, more laws and rules are put into place but, you know, we were working on the show and I said, oh, I want to email Zoe to tell her how great she’s doing. And my co writer, who’s written many beautiful Broadway shows, Josh, was like, you can’t email her, she’s a minor, you to email her mother and she’ll send and, you know, pass it along or whatever. And I was like, oh, God, right, good. Yes, that should be how it is. But yeah. I mean, I did summer, I was an apprentice in summer stock theater in New Hampshire, and was not supervised. And crazy shit happened, and I lived in a cast house, but I loved it. I mean, I was innocent, you know, if you can believe that I didn’t lose my virginity until I was a comedian at 19 not that there were straight men involved, but there were a few actually, the guy who ran the theater was but, and I think he did fuck like, you know, a 19 year old or yeah, they’re gross, it’s gross I, you know, you know, I had a creep, grown up jerk off in front of me when I was first waitressing at my first waitressing job at La Cantina, and he was my boss. Yeah, it wherever your child is, you know, take a maybe watch after them, make sure you know who they’re around or don’t. Hey, you know, we had no guidance, but a lot of shit happened. I’m not gonna lie. And you know, in local musical theater, the guy who ran it and stared in all the shows took us to his summer house. I remember when I was 15, and it was the rest were like grown up New York actors doing summer stock, you know, and we shot a bunch of guns, which is very New Hampshire, and it was fun. That’s not the thing I was talking about, going to talk about. And then he talked about how the Holocaust happened, because none of the Jews fought back, and I was the only Jew in the whole group because, of course, New Hampshire, and I didn’t know, I didn’t feel confident enough in the history I had learned about it to or any confidence to fight him on it. And everyone was just like, yeah, you know, that must be true, because, like, the guy who’s playing both the Man of La Mancha and Harold Hill says so, which just feels like an analogy of so many things in today’s world, doesn’t it? I suppose that was a microcosm. What was the question? Did I answer it? I don’t know, what else?

 

Sender 3  12:20

Hi, Sarah, second time, long time I called about maybe a year and a half ago or so, asking you why you think my mother taught me to call my vagina a vovi butt. I thought maybe it was a New Hampshire thing or maybe a Jewish thing. So I finally just asked her, and she said that she just made it up. So that was what she decided to tell me to call my vagina when I was little. And the reason why I was calling it is because I don’t want to teach my daughter, she’s two and a half. I want to teach her the correct anatomical stuff. So I was like, do I want to say vulva? Do I want to say vagina? So I’ve just been using vagina. Turns out, doesn’t really matter, because recently I’ve asked, you know, and I’ve asked her if she has to go potty. She says, no, I don’t have any pee in my butt. So, yeah, I guess it’s gonna take a while to figure that out, anyways, so there’s an update for you. Love you, bye.

 

Sarah Silverman  13:19

I remember that volvy butt or whatever. Um, I don’t have any pee in my butt is just the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s so great I wouldn’t want to change it at all. I mean, eventually, you know, you’ll explain stuff. But um, you know, if she hasn’t already, she’s gonna discover her vagina, and then you’ll have that talk my niece, who’s a grown woman now, one of my nieces, was in the bathtub when she was like two, just digging into her vagina, and my sister came in, and she just goes, I’m lucky I have one of these. I think I told that story where, like, so she went on a shame, or, like, discovering her vagina, but she was, like, really discovering her vagina, like, all the time. And so Susie was like, you know, that’s okay to do that, but that’s private. And also, sweetie, just because if you touch there and then touch your glasses, you could get maybe an eye infection or something. And then the next day, she was doing it again, and she was like, Sweetie, what did I tell you? And she goes, No, this hand is for my vagina and this hand is for my glasses. And Susie had to be like, Yeah, okay, well, I guess that makes sense. So cute, she’s like a 28 year old woman now, so she turned out just fine. All right, what else?

 

Julie  14:51

Hi, Sarah, this is Julie calling from Canada, big fan, and my first time calling. I’m just listening to your podcast. And heard you speak about Craigslist for grandparents, and I couldn’t agree more. I fully believe it takes a village, and I think that there’s lots of older folks who maybe are grandparents, but their grandkids don’t live close. Or maybe they never got to be grandparents, or maybe they’re not even parents, but they love the energy and just joyfulness that young children bring. My mom used to volunteer in a nursing home with her dog, and would go around visiting the residents. And occasionally she would bring my daughter when she was much younger, and the residents had got such joy out of the dog, and my daughter and I just think that, you know, how great would it be if we could connect more people and create, you know, a vibrant village of people that care for our children anyway, more of a comment, not really a question. Just want to say, love what you do. Love your ideas, and keep on going, maybe one day you’ll be a chosen grandparent for some little one.

 

Sarah Silverman  16:05

Yeah, that’s my Rory and I, that’s both of our plan, you know, because we were childless and but we love kids, and so we just want to be like our friends kids, common law, not common law, just like uncles, aunts, how you call people your aunt or your uncle? We want to be young grandparents to like our friends kids, which is most of my friends kids are, they’re like young grandparent age with their kids comics. I think a lot of us have kids later in life, but now it’s really too late for us, but that’s okay. We really don’t want kids. You know, I’ve said this before, but you know, the only thing I love more than kids, because I love kids, is doing anything I want at all times. But we love little kids. We love having our neighbors, my you know, my best friend, tall John, lives like a few houses down, and they have two kids, and we love when they come over and swim and play and then leave. So that works for us. And I know as I get older, I’m gonna love it too, and dogs, all that stuff that’s that brings chemical joy to people, you know, connection anyway, thanks for calling what else?

 

Jason  17:23

Hi, Sarah, this is your old pal, Jason from New York. I was just wondering since you did that show, I love you America, and you had Jay Johnston on your Sarah Silverman program, and you seem so interested in people with very varying opinions about politics and everything else. If you’ve ever had a discussion with him since, since January 6, about why he did what he did, or what he believes in anyways, I’m curious. You may not want to talk about this, but I’m interested in it, love you.

 

Sarah Silverman  18:02

I would talk about it. I don’t, I sadly, don’t have a good take on this, other than I was really shocked, you know, like, I love Jay. I loved working with him. He was so wonderful on the Sarah Silverman program. He was so brilliant on Mr. Show, if you’re wondering who he is, and either you could see it in any episode of The Sarah Silverman program. But also, he stars in a sketch on Mr. Show that’s so epic. I think it’s called Mount Everest, or something like that. Jay Johnston, Mr. Show, Mount Everest, I guess you would Google it’s just it really shows his brilliance, his comic brilliance. You know, this seems to be a thing with people who are in show business and don’t seem to get what they want or what they think they deserve from the industry, and then they go find love on the far right, or something I don’t know. I also think he’s friends with a he’s maintained a friendship with an old friend of a lot of comics who went on to be very extreme right wing prominent person. But I you know, he had absolutely no politics was just a joyful, lovely, had his demons, but brilliant actor, and he’s a very sweet soul, and apparently incredibly malleable, and Brian Posay, and sent me the the tweet by the FBI saying, has anyone seen this man? And it’s a picture of Jay Johnston at January 6. And I just assumed it was someone who looked like him so I wrote, oh God, that looks just like Jay. And he goes, doesn’t it? And I sent it to our friend Rob, who directed all the created the Sarah Sullivan program with me, and he directed most of the episodes. And anyway, he’s working with Dan and at Rick and Morty, and I think Jay was involved at Rick and Morty, or did some voices, and I sent it to rob, like, oh my God, look how much this looks like Jay Johnson. And Rob said, that is Jay Johnson. And we got on the phone, and he was like, Yeah, I, you know, I hadn’t talked to him in like, 10 years. I had no idea. And he said, yeah, he, you know, he went to DC to stop the steal. A lot of people need a cause and they’re, they’re easily influenced, and they can put all their passion. And you know, you see it on the right and the left, where people are very passionate. They might not be totally sure on the facts, but boy, they’re passionate. No, I loved him, and I hope he gets better. I hope he fucking gets deprogrammed. You know, I don’t know where he was radicalized. I have a hunch. But, you know, these people probably look at progressives and say, where were they radicalized? Or, you know, I don’t know, whatever and what else?

 

Sender 6  21:19

Hi, Sarah, I recently had my heart utterly broken by a man I had known all my life, but we only became lovers recently. I’m 68 he’s 70, and we spent a wonderful time on a Greek island, after which he completely lost contact with me. My question is, I know they always say, oh, there’s always a new time. There’s always it’s gonna get better. There’s always another one. But I feel like grief for something that will probably never happen again because I’m old, so if you have any thoughts about this kind of situation, I would be so happy if you tell me something. Thank you, my dear, I love you.

 

Sarah Silverman  22:12

Oh, well, I’m sorry that happened, and it might happen again. And hopefully you’ll put yourself out there and risk that, but you’re not old. You’re 68 that’s not old anymore. I mean, unless you’re just live an old person’s life. But, um, you know, I can’t promise you, you’ll meet someone. But let me ask you this, have you ever predicted correctly what happened in your life? I’ll give you a hint. You haven’t, we’re looking through, as my therapist says, a tiny little pinhole of what we know is possible. So get on the edge of your seat, because you don’t know what’s coming, but certainly, if you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t get hurt again. But getting hurt is worth it, because it means you’re living and open and taking chances, and you’re not going to have love if you’re not open to love, and if you’re open to love, you’re open to being hurt, and that’s part of life, and I think you can handle it. I think lit, you can live your best life without another person as a partner, and get real good at it. Love your life, love your friends. Hang out with your friends, make plans with your friends. Do life, you have no idea what’s going to happen, but my guess is you’re going to have some adventures, and that’s good. You know, Joan Rivers said she didn’t even feel like she hit her stride as a stand up until her 70s. My aunt is seeing somebody now, but when she wasn’t, when her second husband died, she went on the apps. I mean, she’s 80, she was fighting him off. Get on those apps. Have fun, go on dates. Meet people through friends. Just go for it. But don’t put your life on hold until you find someone. One, that’s so much pressure on another person and two you’re wasting so many happy moments by yourself or with friends or with strangers and experiences. Just do stuff, go places. That’s all I got. I hope it’s helpful. I can’t imagine you wouldn’t give the same advice to somebody. Anybody else, but sometimes it’s it’s hard to see our selves. Good luck. Let me know how it turns out. Keep us posted here at the Sarah Silverman podcast.

 

Mark  25:12

Hi Sarah, this is your new best friend, Mark. You’ve been in my life for a long time and in the background, but more recently, with your podcast, you’ve come to the forefront, and I’m really enjoying it, but I have a question about some of your comedic norms. I read an article about Hasan Minhaj.

 

Sarah Silverman  25:40

Hasan Minhaj.

 

Mark  25:41

In the Atlantic about a year ago, and it exposed him for telling false stories about his life, supposedly hilarious stories or funny stories about his life. And I’m wondering how much comedians take license with experiences that happen in their lives, and how much you can get away with and what’s acceptable and what’s not so, just curious, like what’s real and what’s fake in comedy. All right, thanks, take care, love you, bye.

 

Sarah Silverman  26:12

It’s all fake and it’s all real. The show I’m doing is right now, is all true, but there’s definitely stuff I make up in little pieces, like there are some unimportant elements, you know, to explain the whole for instance. And this isn’t even in my stand up, but in the musical, the bedwetter musical that we’re doing, my dad’s store is called Crazy Donnie’s factory outlet, even though, in real life, it was called crazy Sophie’s factory outlet, why? Because we don’t have to explain why it would be called Crazy Donny’s factory outlet. His name is Donny, and we show in the commercials and the ads that they sell women’s discount clothing. But if we kept the truth, which is crazy, Sophie’s factory outlet. There are no people in my family named Sophie. My dad literally just made up a woman’s name. And he liked the name Sophie because it sounds kind of jewishy, but it’s, you know, not too Jewish. So he just picked it randomly, because it’s a women’s clothing store, so he wanted a woman’s name in it, that is an explanation that nobody needs to hear, that doesn’t matter, that affects the story zero. So we just changed it so that we didn’t have to lay pipe of explanation that does not matter in this story we’re telling. So in that way, yeah, like comedians don’t have to tell the truth, but if their truth, if what they’re talking about is presented as truth that happened to them, and it’s like involves racist hate against them, it really should be true. So let me get into this, because we’re talking about Hasan Minhaj. This article came out, and it sparked that conversation, because all of a sudden, comics have to tell the truth, but politicians don’t. You know, like we’re artists, we’re telling a story. It’s based in truth, maybe, maybe it’s not. Maybe everything I say is observational, looking out at the world, like Seinfeld, maybe I’m just writing jokey jokes like Steven Wright or Wendy Liebman or there’s all different things. And then there are people that speak really about their lives. Hassan, who’s lovely, this came out, and I was like, you know, it doesn’t matter, but with the material he’s doing and these stories which are about being the victim of racism and race, you know that kind of stuff happening to him and his family, that is fucked up, but I happen to be one of the unfortunately few people who watched his entire 20 minute rebuttal, which changed my mind completely, and I wish more people who have formed an opinion from a headline or from reading that juicy hit piece would also watch this because he was totally fucked. Honestly, I don’t see any reason to do interviews anymore. I really don’t. The interviewer needs clicks, and without the scent of scandal, it’s hard to get eyes on it. So the subject of the piece, more often than not, is gonna get fucked. Gone are the earnest, you know, long read profiles, certainly of anyone in pop culture, because fuck them, right? They asked for this. I mean, Hassan had the recording of the interview and played the parts where he says one thing, and the writer twisted and like every possible way, and it’s so shitty, like, that’s his livelihood, you know. I he was supposed to get the Daily Show, who knows nothing was, you know, in stone, but all of a sudden that went away, you know? And I’m really glad he recorded it too. And I think if I do another interview, I’m going to do that as well, if I think to which I won’t, because I always forget to be guarded at all and feel like whoever is interviewing me is now my best friend. But, yeah, I think he’s fine, you know, and very successful, but I thought he really got fucked there, and it’s because of the desperation in that realm of if you’d say, call it journalism or writing is desperate, is dying, is, you know, like all of our things in the arts going the way of the dodo, just desperation makes people do not nice things. All right, what else?

 

Stephanie  31:03

Hey Sarah, your best friend, Stephanie from Ohio, I was just listening to your latest podcast where somebody called in asking for advice, or their mom who was in an abusive relationship up until covid. I was a crisis intervention specialist at our local domestic violence shelter until it shut down. I just wanted to call in and say that, you know, if the caller feels like she needs more support, she is always welcome to call her local domestic violence shelter if she doesn’t have one in her area, the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Can be found at the hotline.org because I would say, even though she’s not experiencing the abuse directly, she would be considered a co survivor, right? So you know, they’re there to offer up support to people like her, and also if and when she has that conversation with her mom, she’ll be able to have the resources to show her, you know, all of the things and reasons that she says she’s afraid to leave. They can help her with court advocates, therapy, relocation, funds, things of that nature. So, like I said, it’s not just for somebody who’s being directly abused.

 

Sarah Silverman  32:32

That’s great, right, of course, like Al Anon, you know, like that. She’s a co survivor, so she’s, this is that’s great you that she can I hope she’s listening can call, we should maybe list it in our show notes, whatever her local domestic violence center and certainly, at least the National Domestic Violence Hotline, great idea best listeners, what else?

 

Aaron  33:00

Hi, Sarah, my name is Aaron, and I’m in Los Angeles. I think you’re super funny, you’re very pretty, and you seem like a genuinely, really good person, however, and I think you’re going to get a lot of messages like this. You are so wrong about See’s Candies, the best chocolate in the world, Amy is totally right and you are totally wrong on this. Sorry, but that’s how it is. Thank you.

 

Sarah Silverman  33:33

I wish you could all see Amy right now. What an asshole.

 

Amy  33:37

I’m going to organize another taste test. And if you have some thoughts on what I should throw in there from See’s, etc, please, we’re accepting calls.

 

Sarah Silverman  33:48

We’re accepting calls.

 

Amy  33:50

I’m gonna win this. I’m gonna win this argument in the end, and I’m gonna convert her, because it’s important in my heart.

 

CREDITS  33:57

Listen, you know, I’m a woman unafraid to be wrong. I’d love to be wrong, but it’s we’ll see, we’ll seize okay. Dad, wherever you are in time and space or the universe or the sky or in a single molecule on a piece of baby Bell cheese, who knows this is the part of the podcast where I tell you that we’re winding down, and I say to the audience, send me your questions. Go to speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast, that is speakpipe.com/theSarahSilvermanpodcast, and subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to this podcast, do that because that helps us, and there’s more of the Sarah Silverman podcast with Lemonada Premium, subscribers get exclusive access to bonus questions like one from a guy whose friend won’t stop asking to borrow money. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Sarah Silverman podcast, we are a production of Lemonada media. Kathryn Barnes and Isabella Kulkarni produce our show. Our mix is by James Sparber. The show is recorded at the Invisible Studios in West Hollywood. Charles Carroll is our recording engineer. Additional Lemonada support from Steve Nelson, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Our theme was composed by Ben Folds. 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.