Comedian Jerrod Carmichael is Creating His Own Truman Show

In just under a decade, Jerrod Carmichael has had a remarkably varied career. On the heels of his latest HBO special https://www.max.com/movies/jerrod-carmichael-dont-be-gay/797f6457-02b4-4309-8996-998dcf203d0d, we return to our conversation with Emmy-winning comedian. At the top, we unpack the origin of his deeply personal series Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show https://www.max.com/shows/jerrod-carmichael-reality-show/11b5ec86-3e42-4485-be70-d26b7a9a30fc (6:30), his early days making his NBC sitcom (10:57), and why he decided to broadcast a deeply intimate conversation on the reality show (13:00). Then, he unpacks his view of the camera as a vessel for honesty (17:10), the response from audiences witnessing Jerrod ‘Truman Show’ himself (21:30), and his three-decade history of storytelling (34:15). On the back-half, Carmichael describes the artists who inspired his work (43:00), a formative performance in his first HBO special Love at the Store https://www.max.com/movies/jerrod-carmichael-love-at-the-store/6607c437-df27-4d12-b674-f72d7f517afb (50:50), and the evolution of his comedy (57:37). To close, he reflects on the central truth he explores in this new series (59:30) and how he hopes this art will at long last set himself—and his family—free (1:08:30). Watch this episode on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP_Cnm8mzkk and subscribe to our new channel https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios in Los Angeles. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:21Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:38Sam Fragoso?

  Today, one of my favorite talks with Emmy-winning comedian Gerard Carmichael. We sat, I think, back in the spring of 2024, right after the premiere of that reality show he did on HBO called Gerard Carmichael Reality Show. Hopefully, by now, you've seen some of it or all of it. It was an eight-episode program that attempted to quote, and this is his quote, Truman Show himself, in which we watched Carmichael working through matters of love, sexuality, friendship, family, basically all the things most people decide and choose to work out in private, away from cameras and definitely away from an HBO audience.

• 1:22Sam Fragoso?

  But ever since Gerard left his NBC sitcom, The Carmichael Show, he's been kind of obsessed with how far he can push his comedy, and by proxy, the people closest to him. And those boundaries have never been tested more than in his latest stand-up special, Don't Be Gay, a title I was really hoping to avoid saying, especially during Pride. But if we can get past that, I think Gerard has, you'll find a stand-up act that's vulnerable, crass, and achingly human. It's also, I should say, very funny. Here's a clip from the new special.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  I'm learning what to do with anger in my relationship because I'm real sensitive and I get my feelings hurt all the time. Sometimes my boyfriend says stuff in a way that lets me know he's never been punched in the face before.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, it's a tone that he uses. Like, he's passive-aggressive sometimes, and like, passive aggression is white violence, I've learned.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  We're in an open relationship, which was his idea. My idea was to cheat and to live a secret life and let the lie weigh on my soul and come home and sit quietly in the driveway for a real long time, just like my dad. I still have to express my feelings and I have to tell him when he's hurt my feelings. And that's really difficult for me to do because that is really gay. Don't get me wrong, I'll suck his dick till the cows come home. I'm not gonna tell him he's hurt my feelings. I'm a man, goddamn it.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  I was trying because I was raised straight. And when you're raised straight, you know there's only one rule. Don't be gay. I broke the only rule, y'all.

• 3:31Sam Fragoso?

  That was from "Don't Be Gay," directed by longtime collaborator Ari Ketcher, now available to stream on HBO Max. As is this episode. I don't know whether you've heard it before or this is your first time coming to the conversation. This is about as wide-ranging and funny and messy as these get. I remember both of us in downtown LA, walking out of the Spotify studio in a complete daze. I think we were excited, we were definitely exhausted, and we just kept talking and talking and talking, in part about what we just talked about. You'll understand when you hear it.

• 4:13Sam Fragoso?

  If you want to watch this episode, we've decided to release the full video on our YouTube page at youtube.com/talkeasypod. That's youtube.com/talkeasypod. You can also just search Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on YouTube, and we've included the link to the page in the description of this episode. There are a handful of episodes uploaded on there from Seth Meyers to Francis Ford Coppola, Richard Linklater, Viola Davis, and a whole lot more. And so with that, I hope your summer is going well. I hope you enjoy this episode, whether you're listening to it or watching

• 4:57Sam Fragoso?

  it, with the one and only Gerard Carmichael.

• 5:10Sam Fragoso?

  Gerard Carmichael.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 5:12Sam Fragoso?

  Nice to meet you.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Nice to meet you.

• 5:13Sam Fragoso?

  How are you feeling?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  This is already great. It had like the Phantom Thread score playing. We've talked Harold Budd, we've talked Dave Brubeck. I feel comfortable. I have an iced green tea.

• 5:27Sam Fragoso?

  It's been a couple of years since you dropped Rothaniel.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 5:31Sam Fragoso?

  And for those who haven't seen it, it's this brilliant confessional standup special where you came out and talked candidly about your sexuality. And when people would ask you to explain the special, to essentially describe the premise, you said, "The synopsis of Rothaniel should really be, man who's afraid of heights jumps out of an airplane on HBO."

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was facing my biggest fear.

• 5:59Sam Fragoso?

  How would you describe the synopsis of the Gerard Carmichael reality show?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  I found more planes. I got more planes. I'm still afraid of heights.

• 6:12Sam Fragoso?

  You went to a hangar.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  I went to a hangar. So I, I, okay, in preparing for Rothaniel, I started, I was using the stage to deal with personal problems, to contend with problems. Coming out, obviously huge, I was closeted. So I was like, leading up to that special, I was coming out in like clubs around the country, like leading up to it, just like to, the shock of the audience, like over and over, night after night, a tour of coming out, there's yonder phone coming out. And people were respectful. People, I think only like one person like tweeted about it or something, but for the most part, people wouldn't say.

• 6:55Sam Fragoso?

  So strangers in the audience. Knew you were gay before your parents did.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  I came out to my parents and it was a negative reaction and then I spiraled for a long time. And dealing with that, um, I was dealing with that through Raffany. I was like really sad around Christmas time of 21. And I hadn't done stand up in maybe a year and a half, I want to say. I hadn't done it consistently in maybe two years. And I thought it was, I didn't think I was gonna do it anymore. And I went to the Comedy Store. I was, I was staying at, uh, my friend's house. And I was sad and I decided to just go to the Comedy Store. And I just went up and I can't, I just said I was gay.

• 7:46Sam Fragoso?

  Did you know you were gonna say that before you went on stage?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I knew I needed to use it as a tool. I needed to use it as a, as a way to deal with a personal problem. Uh, that's where it began. And then a, a really transformative set, uh, uh, Bo and I went to.

• 8:07Sam Fragoso?

  Is it Bo Burnham?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, we went to Flappers. This was like a week before Christmas in 21. And we were just in the car and, and he just told me to like, say something memorable. Like, cause he came to a Comedy Store set and I was just all over the place. And he was like, just say something that the audience won't forget. And I talked about not going home for Christmas. I said, I don't think I want to go home for Christmas. And it's a big deal for me, Christian boy from the South, very close to my family. It was the first time I ever, uh, skipped Christmas.

• 8:47Sam Fragoso?

  Ever.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Ever, ever in my life. That's, that's like unheard of. And I talked that out with the crowd. And me and Bo knew that night, we're like, oh, this is gonna happen really fast. This is gonna happen really quickly. And so then I worked on what became Rathaniel between Christmas and Valentine's Day. And we filmed it shortly after Valentine's Day of twenty-two. All that to say, I've been dealing with personal problems on stage in that way even since Rathaniel. I've been having feelings for a friend, questioning how, but my own ethics as a friend. Still issues with the relationship with my parents.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I got into a relationship, definitely dealing with relationship problems, things on stage all the time. And I was curious about, all right, what's the follow-through of that? So I got this deal with HBO.

• 9:50Sam Fragoso?

  The follow-through of man afraid of heights jumps out of airplane.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, cuz I kept jumping out of these planes like on stage. Like my sets would be, like, there would be material, but a lot of it would be rooted around like, like, uh, I got this text, or I had this phone call, or I have this problem. There was a lot of things I was in a closet about. I think everybody's in a closet about something. And there are different issues, there are different things that you may be afraid to face. And art, the stage stand-up was an outlet for me. So, okay, I have these personal problems I'm talking about on stage, that's not solving them. And at the same time, I had this deal with HBO. And I'd written a sitcom about my life, contending with things, talking about my family, kind of going around.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  But I'd started living more truthful than that. And that bled into my, my stand-up. And I figured, oh, instead of writing a show, fictionalizing my parents, fictionalizing my friends, fictionalizing my relationship.

• 10:54Sam Fragoso?

  What you had done on The Carmichael Show.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:56Sam Fragoso?

  A sitcom for NBC from like twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yes, I did the, the, the classic sitcom.

• 11:02Sam Fragoso?

  Norman Lear inspired.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, three-camera setup, audience. So instead of writing the show again, the fictionalized version of the show, I figured that.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Just doing it for real would be far more interesting. And I had a feeling it would still play out like a sitcom.

• 11:25Sam Fragoso?

  You think this reality show plays out like a sitcom?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  In a way, you you start with a problem. The main character has to contend with a problem. You try and learn something by the end. I never.

• 11:39Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe not a network sitcom.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Well, in in the network sitcom, I fought against like the unrealistic turn. You're supposed to take an unrealistic emotional turn at the end of.

• 11:47Sam Fragoso?

  They're supposed to learn something.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  You're supposed to learn something at the end of at the end of a.

• 11:51Sam Fragoso?

  He wants to do that.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and I was um, I I was definitely more of the Seinfeld no hugs. But we I still want it. You still had to move somewhere. There had to be movement. For me, the movement is the anxiety of the conversation that I'm facing. Having the conversation, sometimes there's growth from it. Sometimes it's just a clash and it ends, you know, silent, but I still had it. I still had it and and it's the journey to the conversation.

• 12:22Sam Fragoso?

  You mentioned that you had all these issues that you wanted to work through. For those that haven't seen it yet, or maybe only seen one or two. What are those issues? What are the top of mind issues you wanted to work out?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  So I told a a really close friend of mine that I had feelings for him. And we weren't able to talk about it.

• 12:41Sam Fragoso?

  Tyler, the creator.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But that was a difficult thing, you know, like, because it's awkward. Like, it's an embarrassing situation to be in. The feelings were unrequited.

• 12:52Sam Fragoso?

  Unrequited love.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And that's it was a really difficult position to be in because it wasn't just that it was unrequited. It was that we couldn't get past the awkwardness to have a conversation about it. The reason I wanted to talk to you on camera is that I kind of felt like a distance between us. I have an idea of what it is, but what I think. What do you think that is? It's because I told you I had feelings for you and you we didn't talk about it ever. That was like weird. I don't know if it was just too awkward to talk about or too.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. Like, it's just like, I feel like you left me hanging out there a little bit, like.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Like, when you said that, I think I replied with like something super mad, normal, regular, like.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  You laughed and called me a stupid bitch.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  I did.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I did.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  And I think I just like brushed it off.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  I know. I know.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Getting news like that and then avoiding it is a way to avoid

• 14:09Speaker 02

  change.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  So you were avoiding it?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  I never said that I wasn't. That was a lot to download. And now we're here.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  And I still don't know how to respond.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Like, it just kind of got dismissed. And that's a really tough place for me. That's how I feel with my family. Like, my family, like, I came out and then we weren't able to talk about it. And so the conversation with Tyler, similar to the conversation with my dad, was getting past the small talk into what's real, to the thing that I really, really want to say. When we're having a meal that I'm afraid to say, I'm really, really afraid to say these things because it feels like I could ruin the relationship beyond repair. And so I just don't say it. But I want to say it. And so then the relationship feels like a lie. And I was living in a few lies.

• 15:05Sam Fragoso?

  Does the camera embolden you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask in private?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  The camera encourages me to be vulnerable. I built up a shell, like a hard exterior to protect myself. I was closeted. There are issues in my life that I was afraid to face. I think a lot of it was rooted in my idea of masculinity. I was never really vulnerable. I needed to be right all the time. And after coming out, it forced me into a place of vulnerability that felt good. A sex therapist recently told me that I'm only submissive through my work.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  That, because we were talking about like topping and bottoming and I've never bottomed before. And, and, um, but, and I'm sure there's a lot of like reasons, there's a lot of psychological reasons. Why not? But the sex therapist was like, oh, well, you're really mostly submissive in your work. Like onstage, I'm submissive. When me and my boyfriend get into arguments, he says that I offer no concessions. Cause I, I want to be right and because he's smart and I want to prove how smart I am when I'm arguing with him. But onstage is where I offer the concession. When I get onstage, I'm able to say, I was wrong about this.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  I'm able to say, you know, this is where he hurt my feelings. This is where I feel afraid and that's my outlet.

• 16:43Sam Fragoso?

  Why can you do that so easily in public? And why is it so hard for you to do in private?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  I've been trying to figure that out. It, I, the cameras in the stage, two things that give purpose to the words. And audiences like cameras can always see the truth. When, when you're onstage, if you're performing, if, if you're nervous and you don't say you're nervous, the audience still knows you're nervous. They can see it. And so your existence is a lie until you state the truth. Like, and you're still performing nervous. And even if they can't put their finger on exactly what you're hiding, they know you're hiding something. Like they can see performance offered, like that's why good acting is like,

• 17:31Speaker 01

  people are offering truthful performances. I was just with Emma Stone in a movie and I watched her go to a really honest place before scenes.

• 17:37Sam Fragoso?

  The sport thing.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yes. And then I, I, I, I watched her show that, like show a very vulnerable piece of herself to the world. And it was so impressive, like have, watching someone. Have that level of skill, but also access to that level of vulnerability and, and the courage to show that. Meanwhile, I was like trying to be cool and so it could see that you're trying to be cool. You know, and it's, it's so it's not, the, the camera is a lie detector.

• 18:04Sam Fragoso?

  You seem more comfortable in this show than you did in that film.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. I, I wish that I'd filmed it after the show. The show completely changed my relationship to.

• 18:14Sam Fragoso?

  You could do a better job now.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. But it's definitely, I was always on the other side of the camera, trying to maintain control. Not being, not submitting. I, I was afraid to submit and for many reasons, industry reasons, because I was always the writer. I was always the producer. I was always the director. So I always had reason to be on the other side of the camera, worried about the whole thing.

• 18:37Sam Fragoso?

  You've said actors shouldn't be producers in their own films.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  They should never do that.

• 18:40Sam Fragoso?

  But you're a producer of this show.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  I, I'm not in the editing room. I'm not, I, I, I'm a producer by nature of like, it was an idea that I had. Yeah. It's an idea I have. I think especially, I, I've seen and went through the process with actors who are, because you get really precious.

• 18:57Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Same reason I'm not in the editing room is the reason actors shouldn't produce because you get really, really precious and what, and you try and build this likeable character.

• 19:05Sam Fragoso?

  You get precious about things that don't actually contribute to making a good piece of art.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  You take out the things that make it art.

• 19:11Sam Fragoso?

  That are thorny and.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, the things that make it interesting. I think that's what's shocking about the show is like, people can't believe that I'm presenting like at times unlikable characters. So people like, like trying to process it, like it's a lot of like moral judgment.

• 19:26Sam Fragoso?

  You saying people can't believe is like the understatement of the century.

• 19:33Sam Fragoso?

  People on Twitter. They've lost their minds a little bit watching this show.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:39Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, they're confused as to why you would cast yourself as. The kind of villain of this story, which I know you describe yourself that way.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, I think it's human, even more than it's a villain. It's like, it's, it's human. I think that's what is interesting about us. And I, I think people are used to being lied to.

• 19:58Sam Fragoso?

  In film or in life?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  In film and, and tell, like, all the, like, artists now, across all the forms of art, are all kind of running for president. And it's funny, because the only time you hear someone speaking honestly are the actual presidential candidates. It's like, the artists are running for president, and then like, Trump is speaking like an artist. It's kind of backward.

• 20:21Sam Fragoso?

  Why is that?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Money, fear of trending negatively, because it, it can hurt. You know, it's not, it doesn't always feel good. This rule and culture now that you are supposed to agree with the person you're watching politically, that it's not, I, I think there are other ways to process art. The art that I love, I, I have complicated feelings toward the person I'm watching. I mean, I don't like, watch The Sopranos, like, but Tony, Tony's killed people. Yeah, that's what, like, yeah, he's killed people, and he loves his wife, and he loves his children, and he's manipulative, and he's lying in therapy, and that's what makes him an interesting character.

• 21:02Sam Fragoso?

  People have complicated feelings about The Sopranos.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:06Sam Fragoso?

  No question.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:08Sam Fragoso?

  But I think when they're watching your show, they're going, this wasn't written by David Chase. James Gandolfini is not Tony Soprano. And so when they're watching you in therapy, and you having all these complicated feelings, and there being some deceit, there seems to be a lot of questions around, why would he expose the less than flattering parts of himself so publicly?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Because it's true.

• 21:38Sam Fragoso?

  And that, to you, is the most important, no matter what.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm trying to make art out of truth. That's the material that I'm playing with, like, all of me.

• 21:46Sam Fragoso?

  But the other characters are not played by actors.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, but I love that. That's actually what makes the show super interesting to me, because it's people you would never see. And they, they, they're not hamming it up for the camera. They don't have the desire, my boyfriend. Wants nothing to do with it. It's only through his love of me that he's on here. My, my mom doesn't want anything to do with it. My dad doesn't want anything to do with it.

• 22:10Sam Fragoso?

  Their love for you is why they're there.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:14Sam Fragoso?

  How do you feel now that people are taking these like very precious things in your life? That are your people and your relationships? And now it's like being run through the, the Twitter conveyor belt.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, a lot of.

• 22:28Sam Fragoso?

  How do you hold that?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  It is exciting.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  It is exciting and I'm not above saying that there are things that have made me feel bad, of course.

• 22:37Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, what's made you feel bad?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Um, I, I, criticism is sometimes hard to receive. A really more, being misunderstood makes me feel bad. Uh, uh, anytime people have incorrect information and run with it, that makes me, that makes me feel bad. Because I am offering so much truth that it's like, no, I mean, you can criticize and have your feelings toward the truth. You have that right, just as I have the right to show it. But it, it doesn't feel good to be lied on or lied about. That, that doesn't feel good. And some of the assessments I think are so correct. You know, I, I, I've been joking with my friends that I think like haters are my biggest supporters.

• 23:21Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Like just that the people that just.

• 23:24Sam Fragoso?

  What's the assessment that you've read that you've thought, okay, that's, that's onto something?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Well, like, why is he doing this? Like, because, because I feel like I relate so much to the average person on TikTok, on Twitter, on Instagram, who posts so much about their life in an effort to be seen and in hopes of being understood and like searching for community and searching to show themselves. But I'm like not showing, it's still curious, it's still a show.

• 23:54Sam Fragoso?

  That's right.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  But I'm showing things that most people hide. So in a sense, even acknowledging that makes me feel okay because you do see me. Like my parents don't talk about the show. My mom, um, we talked after episode one, they, they just don't talk about it. Because I, I show so much that they don't want to see, that it just goes unacknowledged. That feels worse to me than somebody on Twitter saying he's not a good person.

• 24:21Sam Fragoso?

  When your sitcom came out on NBC?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 24:25Sam Fragoso?

  Did your parents tell people to watch it?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  They told anybody who came to the house, anybody at IHOP,

• 24:34Speaker 01

  any, every, everybody. You know, a son got a show, LBC. Like, you know, we had billboards around town that were so proud of it.

• 24:40Sam Fragoso?

  They were the street team for it.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  They were the street team, so, so proud of it. They came by the set, just like, very, very, very, very proud of it.

• 24:48Sam Fragoso?

  And this show?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Oh, you can't get them to acknowledge that it's on.

• 24:52Sam Fragoso?

  They're like Max? I had a, never, never heard of that.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, I was, uh, home for like a, like a couple of months ago before the show came out. And I got my mom a new Apple TV. And she asked, like, she had me set it up. And she asked for every password except HBO. Like, want no parts of it. You know, because it's, it's a truth that it is a lot of true things in there that are very, that's the, the reason for the show is, like, they, they kind of show why I needed to make it in the first place.

• 25:25Sam Fragoso?

  Did you ask her why you won't download the app?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I asked, you know, even more directly, like, I, I asked, are you gonna tell your friends about the show? Like, are you gonna, um, you know? And they're like, no, no, they'll see it. They'll see it if they, you know, they'll come across it if they see it. Because it's, it's things that are uncomfortable. It's a very uncomfortable show. I show parts of myself that are embarrassing. And, and it's only embarrassing because it's things that my parents don't approve of. You know? That's hurtful. That, that, that hurts me. And so it does make me just go like, okay, well, let's just put it on television. Like, let's put the things that we can't talk about on, on, on TV. I'm trying to be as public as I live privately.

• 26:14Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  And as, as private as my parents have lived. And, and that's why I kind of take the right to tell the story. They both, they both sign off on it too. And I'm like, just doing it against their will. But it's therapy.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  It's a form of therapy.

• 26:31Sam Fragoso?

  Except you're being paid for it.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They're being paid for it indirectly. Actually, I'm being nice. So yeah, they're being paid pretty directly.

• 26:40Sam Fragoso?

  Socks for?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. At one point, I went broke. My parents had more money in savings than me.

• 26:45Sam Fragoso?

  And did they give it to the church?

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, weekly. Yeah, God gets a percentage of our money, I guess.

• 26:51Sam Fragoso?

  The nature of the show, we're talking about it in both like a micro sense and then a macro sense. I want to play a clip from the opening episode between you and your friend. We're gonna call him a Bo Burnham-like figure.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Were we talking about anonymous?

• 27:05Sam Fragoso?

  Anonymous, yeah. Where you two talk about the thesis of what you're doing here. Can we take a look at that?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  To me, these cameras, it's like there's fucking sarin gas in the room, and I'm masked up. Because I'm going, I'm not exposing myself to this shit.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  None of this is.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Dude, this is not a neutral eye. This is not truth. This is, this is narrative that will be edited by someone where the editing, those will all be choices. That's not truth. Like, and I have no access to that. So I'm like, fuck that. You don't get any of me.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I'm trying to self Truman show myself, like trying to let cameras be what like God is.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  It's exhibitionist.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what's wrong with that?

• 27:45Speaker 03

  There's public and private, and then there's masturbatorily public. I mean, there's public, which is like unnecessarily shooting a camera up your fucking asshole and broadcasting it to the world. You have a sort of self-destructive thing and you, that can be channeled into stuff that's exciting and alive. But like, I care about you beyond this thing.

• 28:05Sam Fragoso?

  In that clip, your anonymous friend equates the cameras and their presence to sarin gas. Like, the poison used in chemical warfare.

• 28:19Sam Fragoso?

  But you seem to view the cameras a lot differently. Like, are they a source of oxygen?

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Oh, it's liberating. The cameras are liberating because it's going to capture the truth. Listen, I was performing off camera. The gas in the room was Thanksgiving with my family. Like, that's when I felt like I was suffocating.

• 28:42Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Well, because I was just living in small talk. I was, I was avoiding anything uncomfortable because I was afraid. And I lived in that fear and I had no excuse. I had no, no way out. I felt trapped. And the cameras gave me an excuse to say exactly what I've needed to say for a long time. And that's freeing. Cameras are strange. I, I, I won't take that away. That's, it's a strange thing. I think it may become more and more common. The more I see people facing their camera, talking about their lives, like more and more.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I think there's a generation who won't know life without speaking to a camera. I see it in my niece. Like, she watched so many YouTube videos and, and, and learns the language. Like, like, just, hey, guys. You know, and, and, and it, there is a whole generation addicted to that. I mean, allow me to be the first person to say that.

• 29:47Sam Fragoso?

  Are you addicted to it?

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it is an addiction. The cameras make me feel really good. So cameras make me feel good. I, I don't know if that's an addiction as much as it's a release and an outlet and a place to go, be honest. I'm lucky to be old enough to think of the internet as a place that I went to.

• 30:11Sam Fragoso?

  Right. Not a place you were born into.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  I wasn't born into the internet. We had AOL dial up on Windows 95. And I visited until my mom had to get on the phone. Then I had to leave the internet and be in the world. And, and so I, I still kind of view it as that. But more and more, I'm definitely immersed in it and reading things about myself. And the Google alerts and the tweets and the TikToks. And sometimes I have to just like not do that. It's, it's not the healthiest thing in the world. It's entertaining, it's thrilling, it's very fun. It's like, it was like, oh man, a bunch of people are saying a bunch of things all the time.

• 30:54Sam Fragoso?

  But when those things are negative.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:57Sam Fragoso?

  And a lot of them have been in the last few weeks.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:01Sam Fragoso?

  How are you managing that?

• 31:04Speaker 01

  I, I, I think a lot of what, being called not a good person.

• 31:09Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Doesn't feel bad to, to me. Even in the Carmichael show, I, I always took the position, kind of like the assholes position. Right? In my standup, like the, the unlikable position. So I, I don't, I don't mind that as, as, as much. And, and I do interpret it as people trying to understand why? The reasons behind it. So a lot of, like, to me, like, I was like looking through Twitter earlier. To me, this is like a good Twitter day. It's just a lot of like, he shouldn't be doing this. Cause I've also seen what the internet loves. I was like, okay, I'm like, well, who do you like? And it's usually people who don't reveal the truth.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  They really love that. They like the, the, they want the star that they could project a truth onto or who appeases them. Like aligns with them politically. And I, I, I didn't sign up for that. And the, he's not a good person. I'm like, well, you know, I, I, I do think upon self-reflection, I think anyone could find things that the internet would call not good. And I think that's what makes it a compelling show. So I can kind of rest easy in, in, in those types of criticisms. Like even the, like the positive reviews for the show. Like there's like reviewers who are just like, you know, it was one, I believe it was Hollywood Reporter or something. Just like the Gerard Carmichael reality show.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Test its stars likability. I'm like, this is good. This is good. Like, I didn't, like, I didn't know you needed to like all the artists.

• 32:49Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  No one's saying that the show isn't well crafted. That would feel bad. No one's saying like this, this lacks. Like, people are saying that it's, that they haven't seen anything like it before. A funny criticism that I've heard is like, we didn't ask for this. I'm like, do you know the things you ask for? The things you ask for, you don't even watch.

• 33:14Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Like, you wouldn't respect, you wouldn't respect the things you ask for. I don't think that's my role as an artist or any artist role. So I, I'm, I'm definitely, I'm fighting for artist lived.

• 33:29Sam Fragoso?

  My concern is for Gerard the person.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  That's the show, the show is trying to figure out Gerard the person. Like, like, like, I, the internet hasn't called out anything that the show doesn't.

• 33:41Sam Fragoso?

  But your comfort with the camera, it seems to me that that dates back to your childhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Because even as a kid, your, your older brother Joe said, if I was playing ball, Gerard would be on the side with his camera, taping us, interviewing the players. What about the camera appealed to you as a child in Morningside?

• 34:09Speaker 01

  That was, that was the most personal, beautiful question I've ever got. I don't even know where you would have heard my brother say that. I don't know where he ever said that. You got my neighborhood, right? That, that's, that was very beautiful. I, I've been trying to understand that the camera gave things purpose. It gave me purpose. I felt like I was supposed to be capturing these moments. So they weren't in vain. I always tried to make something of the moment. I always thought that there was magic in little moments that often got overlooked. One of my favorite things when I was a kid was like breaking out the camcorder,

• 34:51Speaker 01

  just recording us, just doing anything, talking, singing, wrestling, and then watching it back immediately. And you always saw something that you're like, oh, this is the funniest thing in the world. Like, I don't even remember saying that. I don't remember you saying that, but now we're watching it back and this is gold. I, I, the camera is magical. It's a miracle to me. It's a technology I don't even understand, capturing your life and playing it back. So I can't, it's part of the reason I'm not on social media because I'm, I am precious about that. I'm like, I would, it's like, wait, you capturing my voice, my words? Like my organized thoughts? It's precious.

• 35:35Sam Fragoso?

  You would hear yourself every Sunday morning, leading the choir in church. But the thing I want to sit with, besides you having a good voice, which you're welcome to demonstrate for us at any time, is that on Wednesday nights, you would go to these prayer meetings.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Wow, like a psychic reading.

• 35:59Sam Fragoso?

  It's just a podcast.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Wow, this is the most like organized, thoughtful, please continue.

• 36:05Sam Fragoso?

  Well, it was there at these meetings. You were around all these adults, right?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:11Sam Fragoso?

  Were those groups your first real kind of audience as a comic?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  It's funny, I never thought of it as it relates to stand up, but in, in many ways, yes. I, I've often found myself in a room, fighting for what I believed.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Against everyone. Like, and, and I-

• 36:35Sam Fragoso?

  Making an argument.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Making an argument. I always traced like my stand-up origins to eighth grade. The first week of eighth grade, there was a class discussion. We were gonna have a debate and my teacher, Mr. Nairi, separated us into two teams. Like, he had us read this article about someone who had to, who stole something for a murky reason. And he said, who agrees with this person? And who disagrees? And when he asked who disagrees, everybody in the class raised their hand, but me. And then he said, who agrees? And then I raised my hand. And then for 30 minutes, I argued against the class. And it felt, and I believed it. And you have to believe it. That's very, very important, because otherwise it's just trolling.

• 37:21Sam Fragoso?

  Did you believe it for the sake of arguing? Or did you believe it in your heart?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  I believed it in my heart. It was a, I, I, I have to believe it. Otherwise, the argument is flimsy.

• 37:34Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Whatever crafted my perspective, like sometimes it can stand out in a room. In church, being in North Carolina, Southern Black Baptist church. At some point, my view of God changed. And-

• 37:51Sam Fragoso?

  How do you mean?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  It, it, it wasn't the God that I was taught. I believed in an internal power that we all have access to. And so I would argue with people who spent time on their knees praying, asking God for favor. And I believed that the power was always ours. That prayer wasn't asking, prayer was accepting. And you accepted miracles. You didn't ask for them. And that caused a lot of tension in, in church. I would constantly, I would go and I, they had a children's class downstairs, but I would be, I was like a kid. And I'd be upstairs with the adults, arguing.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Just arguing with the whole, all the people at Bible study, just like, no, no, I don't think that's what Jesus meant.

• 38:41Sam Fragoso?

  They're like, oh, boy, here comes the precocious child.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:44Sam Fragoso?

  Once again, is going to interrogate our deepest beliefs.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  They were entertained by it. It was funny because.

• 38:48Sam Fragoso?

  How'd you entertain them?

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Well, because I, I, I like to believe that they also wanted to agree with me. Like, and I felt this way on stage. And so that's why I guess it does tie to stand up. Like, what's fun, it's fun finding that pocket of something I really believe in and saying it. And the laughter, the laughter comes from at least understanding my perspective. Like, there, there's a bridge there, like, a bridge has been formed and the laughter is like, okay, all right.

• 39:21Sam Fragoso?

  It's not, we agree with you, but we hear you.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  We hear you. We hear you.

• 39:25Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:26Sam Fragoso?

  Which is.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  All I'm asking for.

• 39:28Sam Fragoso?

  In this show of yours.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:29Sam Fragoso?

  We'll get back to that.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Man, that was really good. It was very thoughtful. Thank you for that. That was great. That made me feel good.

• 39:36Sam Fragoso?

  We're not done.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  No, I know, but I'm just saying that, even if we were, that was, that's, that was great.

• 39:44Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, more from Gerard Carmichael.

• 39:53Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of us are going to spend the next few weeks looking for gifts online. And while I like finding something thoughtful for the people in my life, the process can get a little ridiculous. You've got a dozen tabs open, you're comparing prices, and you're trying to remember which store had that one thing you saw that has a deal and you flagged it and you saved it and now you can't find it. Anyway, that's what I like about Shop. Shop brings all kinds of stores together in one place, so you can search for what you're looking for across different brands while discovering new ones along the way, plus tracking all your orders without jumping in between websites. And just in time for the holidays, they're celebrating the all new shop.com with a pretty extraordinary giveaway.

• 40:34Sam Fragoso?

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• 41:10Sam Fragoso?

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• 41:55Sam Fragoso?

  so you can find something for just about everyone on your list. By working directly with ethical factories and cutting out the middlemen, Quince prices everything 50% to 80% less than similar brands. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Talk Easy. It's the best way to support the show.

• 42:37Sam Fragoso?

  Those are some of your early experiences performing and trying to persuade. But it's funny, because every time you do an interview, like going on the Rick Rubin podcast or the Marc Maron podcast, it's almost like a parody at this point. People go, who are your guys? Who are your influencers?

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:56Sam Fragoso?

  And there's three that you tend to highlight.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:01Sam Fragoso?

  First one is Sumner Redstone.

• 43:05Sam Fragoso?

  Who created Viacom and was like, once the chairman of CBS. Is a man born in nineteen twenty-three.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:12Sam Fragoso?

  Was a billionaire.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:14Sam Fragoso?

  Um, the second one was P. Diddy. Just gonna let that.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:18Sam Fragoso?

  Go.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 43:20Sam Fragoso?

  I don't want to talk about it.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 43:21Sam Fragoso?

  The last one is someone who we both loved, which is Norman Lear.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 43:26Sam Fragoso?

  I'm wondering, like, these are titans of industry.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:30Sam Fragoso?

  When you're watching Redstone's sixty-minute interview.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 43:33Sam Fragoso?

  Or the Behind the Music doc for P. Diddy. What about them appealed to you? Like, did their grand visions of themselves inform your own?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it was exactly that. They manifested a vision and, and I thought that was really cool. It's funny because that list, like, if I, if I were to, if I were to update that list in this moment.

• 43:56Sam Fragoso?

  Let's update it.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  My all-time is Jay-Z. Huge, huge, huge. Influential to me. My brother loved Jay-Z. I have a brother who's, uh, eight years older than me, eight, eight and a half years older than me. And he was in, what's the saying? An early adopter of Jay-Z's music.

• 44:17Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Really loved, like, he loved Biggie, but like Jay-Z, when Jay-Z was signed to Priority Records, like, in like ninety-five, ninety-six, when Reasonable Doubt came out, like, I, I learned all the lyrics by proxy. Um, and it, it was about the lyrics, it was about the words, it was about the truth of his words.

• 44:35Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And Jay-Z's just very smart, very witty and truthful and emotionally aware, which is rare in this field. And I kind of apply that to stand-up, like, comedians aren't, it's, it's like rap, a very masculine field, where being emotionally aware, being vulnerable in that way can be seen as, as, as weak. So comedians try and offer, like, you still need vulnerability for the joke, like, in that dynamic. But like, how it plays out in comedy, you'll hear a lot of, like, straight male comics do a lot of gay jokes, because being gay is vulnerable in society. So it's, in, instead of accessing their own vulnerability, I did it when I was closeted.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  I was like, it, oh, well, hey, well, they, guess what kind of sex they have? You know, like, instead of offering anything about yourself, because you still need vulnerability. You need to let the air out in, in some way. And, and so. Vulnerability in rap was also rare and Jay-Z was a vulnerable rapper. And so he's up there. But yeah, I would update that. Rick, I think about Rick Rubin a lot. He's a friend, but I just think about how open he is creatively and nonjudgmental he is. And I really admire that.

• 45:56Sam Fragoso?

  All of these people have a clear vision for themselves and how they see their future playing out.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:03Sam Fragoso?

  So inspired by them, I want to go to the moment where your sister gets you a one-way cheapo ticket.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Cheapo air.

• 46:13Sam Fragoso?

  To Los Angeles.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:15Sam Fragoso?

  You land August 8th, 2008.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:18Sam Fragoso?

  At the Friday.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:20Sam Fragoso?

  By Sunday night.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Beginning of the Beijing Olympics.

• 46:24Sam Fragoso?

  I didn't have that in my notes. I believe you.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27Sam Fragoso?

  By Sunday night, you're onstage at the Comedy Store.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:31Sam Fragoso?

  Performing at their open mic. Do you remember that set?

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I remember it because I spoke really, really fast. And I was, I was very nervous. It was daylight and the Comedy Store, I think they still have this, in the original room, it's a tough room. In the summertime, there's this giant window, the sun is shining through. There's no audience members at this open mic and I'm up first. So I'm up first to no one, comics in the very back of the room, sun is shining. I'm speaking really fast. I get offstage, it's a blur. I think I said the N-word 17 times somehow, just as a crutch. Uh, yeah, no, that, that was rough, but, but loving it.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  And then I, I really, I found a groove pretty quickly. I was actually thinking about this a lot lately because my boyfriend's a writer and he makes me appreciate the written word. And I've been reflecting on how important that's been to me in my career. And my maybe second or third open mic was at the improv.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  And I remember that's when it clicked. It clicked pretty quickly for me. Like, I developed this. I actually was sitting down. I used to sit down when I started. In part because I would always write my set. I would get really inspired and just write the set out all in one go. Either before getting to the mic. Sometimes I'd have to leave the room and I would just write out a set. And I would go up and I would just be essentially reading a new set. But the writing was really, really important to me and the structure. And I didn't know how to write. So I was like using, I would fold the notebook in half, keep it in my back pocket. But I would write it the way I learned how to take notes in history class in high school.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Just like a premise on the left side and then like punchlines and bullet points on the right.

• 48:32Sam Fragoso?

  And you're a lefty.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I would do that every set. And it really clicked. I kind of found a style pretty quickly.

• 48:42Sam Fragoso?

  There was something there.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:45Sam Fragoso?

  It's funny because like you're performing in Los Angeles. You don't really know anyone. You're in like a one bedroom apartment with four people off Gower.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, wow, yeah.

• 48:57Sam Fragoso?

  What are the dreams that you're writing down in your notebook?

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Well, pretty early on, I knew, I still have this notebook somewhere. I wrote, I will have a sitcom on NBC and a special on HBO. I might have set three specials on HBO. I can't remember if my first time writing it was how ambitious it was. But I wanted NBC because they made shows that I respected and shows that changed comedy and influenced comedy. And I just liked the network. It was, it felt prestigious to me. Same reason for HBO. And HBO is like the last of the prestige television.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  And by prestige, I mean, I don't even mean it in a snobbish way. It's just like a thoughtful, creative process.

• 49:51Sam Fragoso?

  Did you think it would happen as quickly as it did?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  I mean, in the moment, it feels like it's not happening quick enough. You're like, man, am I ever gonna make it? But I do, reflecting, I do know that my career moved pretty fast. It moved pretty fast. It was only like a few years after that that it started happening. In fact, my show got picked up on NBC the week I taped my first HBO special.

• 50:22Sam Fragoso?

  Can we watch a clip from that first special of yours?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Wow, I haven't seen it in a long time yet.

• 50:26Sam Fragoso?

  This is from Love at the Store by Gerard Carmichael, directed by Spike Lee. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine the worst time to forget your car keys would be as you're trying to abandon your family.

• 50:47Sam Fragoso?

  Like, think about it, like, you walk back in and the kids have been so excited.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  They're like, daddy's back. You're like, no, no, no.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Just forgot my car keys. I enjoy that act out more than the joke is worth.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Young kid.

• 51:12Sam Fragoso?

  What did you make of that?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Between Love at the Store and Eight, there was some growth as a comic, but the most growth has been between Eight and Rauthanial. But Love at the Store, I can see what Love at the Store has inspired in a lot of comedians. Like, each special, I'm trying not to sound like a completely arrogant asshole, but I can see my influence, and I can see...

• 51:46Sam Fragoso?

  Where do you see it?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Well, in that, like, I think that was like the best of the, like...

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Contrarian view. It's a style and it's, it's a lot of just like jokes, a lot of grenades just being thrown and challenging all the, you know, the sacred beliefs of culture.

• 52:07Sam Fragoso?

  A lot of straight men have adopted this personality in their life.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because it is, if I continued on that path, I would have nowhere to go. I would be stuck. And before we started dating, my boyfriend said what he thinks is important now are long form interior stories. And that's what I've switched gears into. At that time, it's just, it was a lot of jokes. And this is coming at a time, like Twitter is just getting started. Social media becoming the outlet and the path for comics is, is still sort of new. I mean, Dane Cook had a million MySpace followers before I moved to LA. But for the most part, it, it wasn't what comedy has become now, like more algorithmic and like trying to, you know, say the spicy thing that gets you a lot of attention.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  I, I got a lot of flack. I got a lot of hate for like my contrarian views there.

• 53:00Sam Fragoso?

  That special opens with a Trayvon Martin joke.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, just challenging, challenging culture. Like, how much do you believe the things that you're saying?

• 53:11Sam Fragoso?

  How much you really care?

• 53:12Speaker 01

  How much do you really care? Talent trumping morals. Michael Jackson, like, if, if, I, Michael Jackson is guilty, but if he, if he did that to me, I would have bragged about it at school the next day. Like, like, these are things that, like, I, I've heard people say later, like recently.

• 53:31Sam Fragoso?

  Lately.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Lately, yeah.

• 53:33Sam Fragoso?

  But the kid in that special, the one that you're like, ah, that's a young me.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Sam Fragoso?

  What do you see?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  I see someone excited about. His jokes, his notebook, that that's the conceit of the special. And I think it it didn't quite live up to its idea. Me and Spike got into battles over that special. But the idea was, it was just another, I just got passed at the Comedy Store. You're like, this is somebody's recording. I'm recording in the original room. No one ever recorded in there before. I'm doing it because I'm, this is the place where I perform all the time. And I wanted the special to be like that, like a night at the Comedy Store. Because that's where I was in my career. And I was a kid with a folded notebook and some jokes. And I thought I was like really good at like just telling jokes. And it got me enough attention to get a special.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  And, you know, I can see the mistakes. But with some time, I'm able to kind of reflect and go like, oh, that's fun. That was, that was exciting. That was an exciting period.

• 54:37Sam Fragoso?

  In this special, but then especially in Eight, which Bo Burnham directed.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:43Sam Fragoso?

  The jokes feel as if they're delivered from like 30,000 feet above ground. Like there's, there does seem to be some distance, some remove.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:56Sam Fragoso?

  Between the jokes and Gerard, the person.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Eight was a thing where the craft of the special was better than the material.

• 55:08Sam Fragoso?

  The directing of it.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  The, the directing, the decisions, like just, I mean, it, it really just birthed. Like, oh, no intro specials and like the, the, that same type of lighting and like kind of camera movement.

• 55:22Sam Fragoso?

  Opening on the tight close up.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the close up, which only makes it like, it has to make sense for the material. But anyway, I, I wanted to give a speech and I felt like I was giving a speech and like kind of adapting the jokes to that. But I was also aware of the importance of emotional connection to the words. And I wasn't saying, I was saying jokes that I liked, but I wasn't revealing anything. And I wasn't. Emotionally attached to the performance. So in between, we had two tapings. In between tapings, I got drunk trying to connect to some. I don't, I don't really drink like, like ever.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  And at that point, I, I don't think I, I ever, I'd never been drunk before.

• 56:10Sam Fragoso?

  You thought being drunk would help?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  I thought it would help me be emotion. Yeah, I thought it would help me be emotional and like, and, and feel and feel my way through the set. I was trying to reveal something. I was trying to pour my heart out and give the audience something deeper than just the jokes. But I didn't know how to do that. Like that took some time. I had to go and, and do a lot of work.

• 56:33Sam Fragoso?

  You were trying to access a more emotional, vulnerable part of yourself.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:40Sam Fragoso?

  But the material itself.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, that's a, it's an impossible situation to be in. I didn't know how to do it. I was afraid.

• 56:49Sam Fragoso?

  Did you feel stuck?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't, I wasn't gonna do stand up anymore. Again, before Rothernial, before finding what I needed to say, I wasn't gonna do it anymore. Cause I was like, oh, I'm just gonna like write more jokes about the president. I don't really care, I don't really care. But I, you know, I'm gonna do like topical humor for the town that I'm in.

• 57:12Sam Fragoso?

  What did you find?

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Myself, but doing deep work. Like I, also leading up to Rothernial, I was writing more than I'd ever written. I was reading a lot. I started reading. I started caring about structure. I started caring about, yes, this taught me a lot about storytelling. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, George Saunders book is a, is, the book is a class, but it, it's a masterclass in storytelling. It's very, very.

• 57:41Sam Fragoso?

  What did that book do for you in, in terms of crafting Rothernial?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  It helped me hold structure in my, in my head. Like I, I didn't have a respect for structure.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  In, in, in, in the way that I, I do now. You know, Rathanu is, is, it's stories. It's just, it's a compilation of stories and everything is very deliberate. Even the letting go. And I'm holding on to information and releasing information in, in a way that I hadn't done before. And, and I'm still learning it. I, I, I'm, I'm still trying to grow in it. But reading and, and like reading things, holding stories in, in my, in my mind helped me a lot.

• 58:24Sam Fragoso?

  In some ways you can track your evolution. If we were to narrow our focus for a second, by the clip we just heard from your first special. Which is about a father leaving who then has to come back to get his keys.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:40Sam Fragoso?

  And then we can go to eight.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Sam Fragoso?

  At the end of the special, the joke is, the only thing weirder than finding out that your father has a second family is finding out you guys are the second family.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:52Sam Fragoso?

  Then you end eight by going, what else should we talk about?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  The ending of eight, saying that, and what else should we talk about is me, it, it's, it's me try, I'm trying.

• 59:07Sam Fragoso?

  But you can't get there.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  It's effort. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying. I'm, I'm too young and too afraid.

• 59:12Sam Fragoso?

  But then you answer your own question in home videos. And Sermon on the Mount, and Rathanu, in this new show, what else should we talk about? That to me is, is just unbelievable that you can track it just by that one bit. Which is based on a central truth that you explore in this show, especially in episode four. Where you and your dad are having this conversation about this infidelity.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 59:41Sam Fragoso?

  That you're interrogating that reality. Something he wanted to long sweep under the rug.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Would you say you loved her or was it just like sexual or was it? Cause it was so. Long time, that's what like forty years of a relationship.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Was it hard every time? Did you feel like a bad person? Did you feel like you were two different people?

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  Why you digging into this so deep, son?

• 1:00:26Speaker 04

  Why you doing this?

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  What's, what's I?

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  I mean, that's, that then this is now.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  It's not then, stop saying it's also now, it's.

• 1:00:36Speaker 04

  I thought this trip was gonna be about you and I and bonding. Let's stop talking about my past and move on forward.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Okay, I would like to meet my brothers in the future. I'm talking about for, I'd like to meet them.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  You got hostility against me.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  I got feelings too.

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  The way that you don't wanna be hurt, I don't wanna be hurt.

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  Is this gonna be on your special?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Uh, maybe, probably, yeah, I don't know.

• 1:01:12Speaker 04

  This not to be discussed on, on cameras.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  I mean, but it's already public, it's public, it's, it's public, you made it public, you had.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  Not to make it public.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  You had children outside of your marriage, that's the most public thing you can do. Like that, that I wanna make clear, I'm not making it public, you made it public.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  No, and you made it public, girl.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  No, I, uh, but don't, now that's childish, that's childish, you made it public.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  I knew this was coming.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  I'm, I don't even wanna get into argument about it, I'm saying you being very defensive. You being very defensive over, over, and I know.

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  You're not even considering if it bothers me or hurt me or whatever. You hearing on what you want your dad to hear.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  How do you think it made me feel to be at a high school with my brother? And other people knew he was related to me and I, and I didn't know. How, how, do you, do you think that bothered me?

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Then you could've came to me.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was, I was supposed to come to you and say, dad, you.

• 1:02:11Speaker 04

  You coming to me now?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because you wouldn't, cuz you would never, so don't criticize how I come if you weren't gonna say anything. You weren't gonna do shit, I actually am doing something. Your, your option is no option, so don't criticize the way I do it, if the cameras help me, then they fucking help. But your way is nothing. Your way is silence, your way is death. I I'm not doing that. I'm being a man, I'm stepping up, I'm actually saying the things. These are your children and your grandchildren. These aren't my kids. I didn't fuck nobody. I didn't have no kids outside of my marriage. I didn't do that. You did that and you're ashamed of it. I get it and it's hard. It's really, really hard. I had things I'm ashamed of too, but don't come at me with that shit. And yes, I bring in cameras and yes, that's my way. And yes, I'm afraid to have these conversations without them.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yes, because I don't think you want to have these conversations. I know you don't. You have the iron fist and all these things. And so however I do it, I'm doing it. But you weren't gonna do it.

• 1:03:06Sam Fragoso?

  In those exchanges with your dad, what did you want out of that?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  I think I'm always trying to understand myself. I see a lot of myself in my dad, in my behavior.

• 1:03:23Sam Fragoso?

  You can see it on screen.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, in in mannerisms and and cadence. It's I am my father in in many ways. And I'm both proud of that and it scares me. And I want him to answer things that I I'm trying to answer. And so I'm asking these questions about like duality, like, you know, like, did you, were you having more fun with the other family? What what were you telling yourself? I want to know what what was going on inside of his mind in these moments. And and it's a scary place to go because you may say, I may get an answer I don't like, but I need an answer. And I do know that saying things out loud

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  eradicates shame. And my father's living with a lot of shame and I've lived with a lot of shame. My goal is to free my father of shame. I'm trying to drive him into the worst case scenario. It's a baptism by fire. Like, he's crippled by shame. It's affecting his life, his health, his posture. He's so afraid to leave the house because of what people may know about him and what. And so I'm like, well, hey, it's on HBO now. And I want him to say really scary things out loud because I want him to be free.

• 1:04:47Sam Fragoso?

  Because you know from experience.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  I know from experience.

• 1:04:49Sam Fragoso?

  That Rothernial freed you up.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. I, I know that from, I, I lived that. That's something I know for sure. Oprah says that and I've been borrowing that a lot in life, like the things I know for sure. I know that saying uncomfortable truths out loud sets you free.

• 1:05:07Sam Fragoso?

  Beau and, and some other friends of yours have said that you're creating chaos and destruction in your life by making this show. Right? And you've said, no, I'm trying to attempt to fix things, to heal things. Do you believe in your heart, the most effective way to heal things, to fix things? Is to address these private matters publicly?

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  I don't think it's the best way. And, and that's, that's never been my argument. It's the only answer I had. It's not the best way, but it's, again, I'm submissive and vulnerable in art. And it allows me to go someplace that I'm afraid to go in life, just day to day life. And

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I'm using art to try and solve my life's problems. It's unorthodox, strange, unethical, maybe.

• 1:06:11Sam Fragoso?

  Do you believe that?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, but I, I don't really, I don't.

• 1:06:15Sam Fragoso?

  You don't care?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  No, because the, the problem still exists regardless of the ethics or people's judgment of the ethics or the method. The, the, like, the problem still exists and I'd like to solve the problem. My, my father said in the episode, he said, I knew it. Like, I knew it, I knew it. He said, he says that around the fire. He says, I knew you wanted to talk about this. I knew it. If he knew, it was a phone call away before cameras are up. He could have said, hey, son. Hey, you want to talk about these things? Here, I'm open. Hit me. What, what do you, what do you want to know? I could have said it. I could have called him and like. Hey, but I was afraid to do that.

• 1:06:56Sam Fragoso?

  Why were you afraid?

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Because, I mean, a few reasons. It feels easier to lie. I, to be honest with you, I think the conversation, I know the conversation will go the same way even without the cameras. Like, I've had, I've since then tried to have difficult conversations with my dad.

• 1:07:17Sam Fragoso?

  But if that's the case, why do it with the cameras?

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Because it's true, and that's interesting. I, that is interesting. If it's, if, if, if we can't talk about it, but I'm gonna make this attempt, and if the result of the attempt is the same, then here, I'll show you me doing it. Because that actually gives per, like, okay, well,

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  I can show myself I tried.

• 1:07:46Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  I can show you I tried. That, that gives some purpose, some meaning to it. Then, like, if, if it's a, you know, if Evel Knievel's gonna jump over the bus, you might as well have the camera on it, because if he, if he misses, you know?

• 1:08:01Sam Fragoso?

  If you, if, if you know in your heart you're not gonna get a satisfying answer, then you at least want to know

• 1:08:10Sam Fragoso?

  that you got a program out of it.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Sam Fragoso?

  And that you made art of it.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I made something of it.

• 1:08:16Sam Fragoso?

  Is that enough for you?

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I, I, I don't know. I don't know if that's enough. I don't know if I, since the show ended, since I, I stopped filming, I feel like I have fewer questions.

• 1:08:33Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  I, I think this has definitely been a, a period of, like, a lot of questioning. Raffael is me asking for my mother's love and respect. The show is me questioning who I am and why I am the way that I am.

• 1:08:53Sam Fragoso?

  You had this quote in the New York Times Magazine, where you said, um, "With family, it's hard moving past the feeling that I'm owed something."

• 1:09:04Sam Fragoso?

  What do you think you're owed?

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Hmm. Unconditional love, respect, the love that I give, I want in return.

• 1:09:14Sam Fragoso?

  And they won't offer it?

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  They're doing their best, and I'm doing my best.

• 1:09:22Sam Fragoso?

  The first time you and I have been quiet.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:26Sam Fragoso?

  It's a lot to hold.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I, I love them a lot, and I'm thankful that they did it. I'm thankful they did the show. It was done out of love.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  But it is done out of love.

• 1:09:41Sam Fragoso?

  But it's not enough.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  No. At least, I, I wanted to fight for more. At, at some point, I have to accept, the same way you have to accept change, you have to accept lack of change in others. And so, that's okay. You know, and, and I don't mean that in an empty way, that, that is okay. And I'm learning that. But I, I mean, boy, am I fighting. I was fighting. I mean, that's the show. I'm fighting. I'm trying really, really hard. I'm fighting with everything that I have.

• 1:10:17Sam Fragoso?

  You know, you don't know this, but I've been making the show for eight years. And on episode fifty of the show, I had my mom on. And on episode a hundred, I had my father on. And, you know, my parents divorced before I was one. They remarried a few times over. And that was very much the subject of those interviews. And I put that out there.

• 1:10:49Sam Fragoso?

  The heartbreak in childhood, the, the heartbreak they felt with each other, the subsequent marriages, the divorces. All the thorny shit.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Sam Fragoso?

  That makes us us. And I remember people in my life going, why? Why are you doing this?

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  It's a very familiar question to me.

• 1:11:12Sam Fragoso?

  I know it is. But the answer for you, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but the answer seems to be that you just want acknowledgement.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:24Sam Fragoso?

  So I have to ask you before we go, like, at this point, having made this show, what would acknowledgement from your parents look like?

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  The ability to go there with me, to not ignore any parts of me.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  That doesn't feel good. And as my sexuality became more than just sex and moved into love in my relationship, acknowledging us has been really important to me. And that's felt really good. When my mother asks about Michael,

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  that feels really good.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  And I can, I can accept that.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  I, I, I can accept that. Whether she calls him my friend or not, that, that is something that I think I, I was really hung up on before. But, but that is movement for us. And that feels really good. I, I have to ask you, what, what did you get from having your parents on?

• 1:12:44Sam Fragoso?

  Well, it's funny, like, my, my mom came on first.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Sam Fragoso?

  And then my dad was like, well, I want to go on.

• 1:12:54Sam Fragoso?

  Never knock a better.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:57Sam Fragoso?

  The difference is, since I was a kid, I'd always ask the most personal, intimate, oftentimes invasive questions.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Sam Fragoso?

  Long before I had a microphone in front of me.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Sam Fragoso?

  To my parents.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:12Sam Fragoso?

  And they would share that openly. I'm sure not everything, but a lot.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:18Sam Fragoso?

  But when we did it on record, I think I just.

• 1:13:23Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know. I think a lot about the end, I guess.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Hmm, mhm.

• 1:13:30Sam Fragoso?

  It's funny, you, you, um, you interviewed Tyler for the Flower Boy.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:35Sam Fragoso?

  Record and you have a quote in there where you say, "When I begin a project, I like to start at the end. We're all going to die."

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:44Sam Fragoso?

  And work backwards.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:47Sam Fragoso?

  That's why I did it.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49Sam Fragoso?

  And I thought,

• 1:13:53Sam Fragoso?

  when they're gone, and it's hard because I know they're listening to this.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:13:58Sam Fragoso?

  I'd like to have a record of the things that mattered to them, to us.

• 1:14:06Sam Fragoso?

  So that's why I did it.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  It's very beautifully said. And I, I feel that. I, I, I, my biggest fear,

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  one of my, I have too many biggest fears. Narrow it down, Gerard, but.

• 1:14:25Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, give us, give us your top five.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But I, I thought about all of these things coming out

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  at my father's funeral.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  And I, I made my father tell my mother about the, the infidelity.

• 1:14:43Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Someone asked me recently, like, what the difference between my brother and I were. And my brother brought it up to my dad when he was maybe 12 or 13. And my dad denied it and like beat it out of him. He like beat my brother. Like, he, he never hit either of us. Like, but he beat my brother that day. And into not asking questions, into not using his voice. I confronted my dad.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  From a movie set in London. I had a little whiskey and I was just like pacing around, I was like, you gotta, you gotta tell mom. And I confronted him and-

• 1:15:23Sam Fragoso?

  Isn't the first thing you said?

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Don't lie to me.

• 1:15:26Sam Fragoso?

  This will go okay if you tell the truth.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Don't lie to me.

• 1:15:31Sam Fragoso?

  And what was the call?

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  The call was, um, there was a lot building up to it because I, I, I was really angry and I didn't know how to say it to him and I said, don't lie to me. And he, he listened and I said a lot of things and he said, okay. Said, okay, okay. He, he said, actually, I always knew you'd be the one. This is what he said to me. I, I, I say all that to say that without that, I, I kept playing out the scenario of just another family showing up to his funeral and things getting messy. My brothers wanting to fight each other.

• 1:16:13Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  People being angry, my mother being hurt and-

• 1:16:17Sam Fragoso?

  You imagine the funeral with the second family.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and that was so much worse to me than Home Videos, Sermon on the Mount, the dry Carmichael reality show. That's a far worse scenario to me. And we had different reasons for wanting to go on the record. But that's because so much of my life was off the record that I needed some type of validation. I needed to put things out.

• 1:16:44Sam Fragoso?

  You mean the part of you that you kept secret?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, the part of my family that we kept secret. I mean, this affected a lot. I, I, I kept a lot of my life, like my friends from school didn't come to the house. My, like, I, I kept so much of my life separate, compartmentalized a lot because I was always afraid of being, I was afraid of my father being found out because it's something I knew about and I, I was afraid of the embarrassment of that. I was like, it felt like the world had something on us. And now you film it, you release it, it's out, the world don't got nothing on us. There's a freedom to that. You don't have anything on me. Like, when I felt the weight of that my whole life, like, that freedom feels good. I'm trying to offer that to my family before the end,

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  before, I don't want these things to be a reflection after my parents are gone. And I feel like, you know, they got a lot of good years left where they can be free. They can, you know, they're retired, should be enjoying this. They should be out in the world confident, the head held high. You know, like, I want that for them.

• 1:17:54Sam Fragoso?

  I hear you. I really do.

• 1:17:58Sam Fragoso?

  It's just hard.

• 1:18:01Sam Fragoso?

  I hear the argument you're making. I hear this desire to want to

• 1:18:08Sam Fragoso?

  free them.

• 1:18:12Sam Fragoso?

  I just wondered, do they see what you're doing in the same light? Do they think that's what you're trying to do? Is that clear to them?

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  I've said it to them.

• 1:18:26Sam Fragoso?

  And what did they say?

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  I think it takes time. I think it takes time. I just know the worst thing has happened, right? Like, that's why skydiving is good for fear of heights.

• 1:18:41Sam Fragoso?

  Where we started, yeah.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Or you fell out of the sky.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  You fell out of the sky. You're afraid of heights and you fell out of the sky.

• 1:18:53Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  Like, my parents, both, they fell out of the sky.

• 1:18:56Sam Fragoso?

  It does seem like you pushed them out.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  You know, it was tandem.

• 1:19:01Sam Fragoso?

  There's a difference between you deciding to jump and one being pushed out.

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  I'm strapped to my father's back.

• 1:19:08Sam Fragoso?

  You're strapped to all their backs.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:11Sam Fragoso?

  But that's the thing. That is the thing I'm wrestling with, with you, which is, do you think it's fair that you're the one that gets to decide that?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Well,

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  somebody's got to take action. Someone's got to do something. I say that in the episode of my dad, that his way is silence and his way is death. Someone's got to do something and it's been a lot of years and nobody was doing nothing.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  And I offered an imperfect solution. But I offered something.

• 1:19:50Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, it is imperfect.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  It's imperfect.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  You know, people ask why. Let's start asking why not?

• 1:20:00Sam Fragoso?

  This is why I wanted to get into all this in a way that is not surface level with you.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. This has been maybe the most thoughtful interview of my whole career. Thank you.

• 1:20:10Sam Fragoso?

  The whole crux of the show is people saying, why can't you just leave the past in the past?

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Sam Fragoso?

  And we've been having this conversation about your career, about your life now, toggling back and forth between the past and the present, how the two speak to each other, how they inform

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:32Sam Fragoso?

  one another. And I can't help but shake this image of you as a young boy

• 1:20:42Sam Fragoso?

  dressed up in an Easter Sunday suit, where you delivered a presentation to your parents in order to get $20 to go to the mall. Do you remember this?

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I used to give presentations, like even pre PowerPoint. I gave a presentation to get a computer. Yeah, if you put on a good enough show, you could.

• 1:21:07Sam Fragoso?

  If you make an argument.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  If you make an argument, you'd be rewarded for it.

• 1:21:11Sam Fragoso?

  And you would do that frequently?

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was all a performance anyway. So, you know.

• 1:21:16Sam Fragoso?

  You have this quote, you said, "You could convince my parents about anything if you made a strong enough argument."

• 1:21:24Sam Fragoso?

  And as we leave, I wonder if you see this reality show as an extension of that childhood impulse, like, do you see this show as a kind of eight-episode argument to have your parents finally see you and themselves?

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. For, listen, can't state this clear enough.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  What I've done is insane. This is insanity. It's all, look at me, look at me, look at us. Dear God.

• 1:22:01Sam Fragoso?

  You're trying to persuade them.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yes. It's on, it, listen, it's on HBO. I, I, I, I still care about their opinion more than any reaction, any review. Like any, like their opinion still matters like more than anything. Like their, their capacity for change. That, that matters more than anything.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Them seeing me matters more. Them seeing me, that's why it hurts so much when they don't know it's the show. So, well, you know, it is custom made.

• 1:22:34Sam Fragoso?

  So is your argument not persuasive enough?

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, wait till you see season two, no.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  I know, but think about it, like, like, Raffanu was an argument. Yeah, my career is just speaking, it's all the continue, everything is a continuation of the last thing. It's trying to, it's finding me where I am. And these things can take some time. They can watch the show, it might be a year from now, it might be a couple of years from now. Maybe I'll get a call, you know, maybe not, I don't know.

• 1:23:03Sam Fragoso?

  The thing that you've always had, whether it was Jay-Z informing it or Norman Lear informing it, was vision.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Sam Fragoso?

  In the years ahead, what does that vision start to look like? The kid who wrote in the notebook. I have three specials. And an NBC sitcom.

• 1:23:25Sam Fragoso?

  What does that look like now for you?

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  The, the, the answer that comes to mind, I'm, I'm, I want to make sure that this is true. I'm trying to make things, make art, specials, television shows, movies, however it comes out, that I can recognize myself in, and the truth of myself in, for myself in the future, and in a odd way for myself in the past. And Rick Rubin said a thing that I really, really love. Make everything as an offering for God.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  And, and these things are offerings. And so I, how it comes out, right now, I'm thinking about how it plays out in stand up. You know, what do I want to say? What am I trying to say? I'm, I'm gathering those thoughts now. Whatever it is, it just has to be true. Uh, that, that's really important to me right now, that things are true. I have to show things I'm ashamed of, some things I shouldn't be ashamed of, and some things that I should.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Cause that, that's, that's, um, I think in response to certain thoughts and criticisms about the show. Like, it's like, yeah, look, I, I shouldn't be ashamed of being gay. I should be ashamed of letting my friends down. I'm showing, uh, uh, shame, every, every side of the shame.

• 1:25:02Sam Fragoso?

  There's a quote and a line from a song.

• 1:25:06Sam Fragoso?

  The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  I wrote that line.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  It was a good time in Wyoming.

• 1:25:22Sam Fragoso?

  You wrote that for Kanye, and I have to say, I think that is the best way to describe the conversation we've had.

• 1:25:31Sam Fragoso?

  And so, um, I thank you sincerely for, for doing that.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Thank you very, very much. This has felt really good.

• 1:25:39Sam Fragoso?

  It's been all right?

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  It's felt really good. I felt safe and excited to talk to you. I'm hoping I lived up to it. I, I, I would love to come back.

• 1:25:48Sam Fragoso?

  We'll do it again.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:49Sam Fragoso?

  But I hope you notice, you have lived up to it. And, um, it means a whole lot to me that you sat down in this room. And, um,

• 1:26:03Sam Fragoso?

  was open to being open.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  You made it easy.

• 1:26:08Sam Fragoso?

  Draw a Carmichael.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:10Sam Fragoso?

  Best of luck.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:45Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Gerard Carmichael, be sure to share it on social media, tag us at Talk Easy Pod. I want to give a special thanks to speak to Lindsey Krug, HBO, Mark Canton at iHeart, and of course, our guest, Gerard Carmichael. To learn more about Gerard, or to watch any of the work we discussed in today's episode, visit TalkEasyPod.com. For more conversations with other very funny people, I'd recommend Seth Meyers, Rami Youssef, and Natasha Lyonne. To hear those and more Lemonada Podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe to

• 1:27:27Sam Fragoso?

  Lemonada Premium for exclusive bonus content from Talk Easy. That also includes ad-free listening. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple, or head to LemonadaPremium.com. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janik Sabravu. Today's talk was edited by Andre Lin and Matt Sasaki, mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was recorded out of Spotify Studios in downtown Los Angeles. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations, as always, are by Chris Chanoy. Photographs today come from Julius Chu. This episode was made in partnership with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with another

• 1:28:12Sam Fragoso?

  episode. Until then, stay safe, and so long.

• 1:28:34Sam Fragoso?

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• 1:29:55Speaker 05

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together. We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats. I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there? There were 32,000 pounds of them. 32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:30:18Speaker 05

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.