Name: Max Silvestri joins the show! | You Made It Weird
Uploaded: 2025-12-10T15:01:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Max Silvestri joins the show! | You Made It Weird' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Max Silvestri joins the show! | You Made It Weird' from Pete Holmes on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-10. Transcript available.

Max Silvestri joins the show! | You Made It Weird

You made it weird, yes you did, you made it weird, yeah. You made it weird,
with Pete Holmes.
Yes you did, you made it weird, yeah. What's happening weirdos? This is Max Silvestri,
one of the funniest, most talented, and nicest people I've ever known, and I've
known him for
about 20 years, maybe more than 20 years. He opens for John Mulaney. He is a
murderer in his own right.
He's got a Netflix special you gotta check out. He also was the showrunner for
the amazing new show,
I Love LA. He's all over the place. He writes, he show runs, he does stand-up,
and he's a delight.
So I was thrilled when he, Max, sorry, Gabe, Gabe Leidman and Jenny Slate,
sorry, had to think about
that for a second, they're doing a new podcast, so they're going around doing
podcasts, telling people
that they have a new podcast, but it was really just a very nice excuse to sit
down with my old
friend. Talk a little bit about the old times, talk about the current times,
and I'm glad you guys
are here. Check out Max on all the social, all the social. Max Silvestri. And
in the meantime,
enjoy this chat that we had. Or, or before we throw to it, maybe I'm going to
plug my door dates,
just go to PeteHolmes.com. Go to PeteHolmes.com. I do a monthly show at Largo
in Los Angeles. It
always means so much when people come out. We got the Milwaukee Improv. We got
Brea. We got San
San Francisco, North Carolina, South Carolina, Miami, Michigan, Texas,
Wisconsin, and Denver,
Colorado. And thank you to everybody that's been coming out to all the shows.
It means so much to
see weirdos out there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hope to see you out at
a live show. In the
meantime, enjoy. My, my dear friend, the wonderful Max Silvestri. Get into it.
One, first and foremost,
is so happy to see you. I haven't seen you in, well, I think you tell me that
the last time I saw you was
when Mulaney was performing at some theater here in LA. The Orpheum? No.
I wasn't opening for him. Yes. That might've been the Orpheum, which might've
been like,
okay. I don't go to places called the Orpheum. No, but there's the theater
downtown. It's like a nice
big theater. You had people in the basement after? Yeah. Yeah. Conan was there?
No. Martin Short? No.
Either way, that's been a while because I... Orpheum? It's downtown. This is a
theater I've
performed that since. It's not a Mulaney theater. It's a regular person.
Like Largo? Similar to Largo, but probably three times as big as Largo, but not...
I like that the cadence of this is like, you know the answer and I'm guessing,
but it seems like you
don't know the answer. I don't. Neither of us do. I've also seen Birbiglia at
this venue. This is
like a 1200 seat theater. It's not called... If they call this the Orpheum, the
person was having
a really strong coffee. But either way, that's probably been like four or five
years. I mean,
maybe. That's all you really need to say. Yeah. And you did open. Yeah. Yeah.
And how dare you
think I would forget? Because you were incredible. Oh, I appreciate you saying
that. And I loved it.
But I used to see you all the time. You know, we both for a long time, you
still do,
had regular shows at Largo, but rarely overlapped. Are you not in Los Angeles?
I am. But Jenny, who did the show with us, is now fully on the East Coast. She
was kind of
splitting her time, but... Yeah. So we would do it when she was in town, but it
just became tougher
and tougher. And that's sort of why we jumped to podcast mode. Because it's
remote. Because you're
my friend, I was like going to warn you. I'm like, I don't know why I'm being
salty. And I was going to say,
so the next logical step was to start a podcast with Jenny.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
These scheduling conflicts said, let's keep going.
Weirdly, yes. Also, I will say...
Does she Zoom?
Yeah. And as does Gabe. We do it all Zoom. Because we consider doing Gabe Lieben
and me in person
and then like teleconference her in. But that would feel like we were like CNN
having like an expert
and like presentation. One person Zooming bad vibe.
No. So we're all Zoom, even though Gabe and I are just a few miles from each
other. But it's like,
let us have New York guests and LA guests. And it is not as good looking as
other podcasts because we
don't have a beautiful studio with art and decorations. But you get to see into
our homes.
Yeah. It's a give and a take.
Yeah. Sometimes hotel rooms.
Yeah. It's a give and a take. What is the name of the podcast?
It's called I Need You Guys.
I Need You Guys. Sweet.
And it's sort of a... You know, we take listener questions. But really, it's
about us getting
advice and help from each other. It's a little bit like plugging into our 20-year-old
group chat.
You guys are doing a riff podcast, but you're nervous. You won't have enough to
talk about.
You know, we felt great about it.
I told you I was salty today.
We would love...
To eliminate the call-in portion because you will three months in.
Ultimately. Ultimately, a format is friendly to both advertisers and our
network.
And getting it made.
Yes.
It's exactly like television.
So we were like, sure, we'll do these segments. But we don't need...
There'll be like 10-minute intro, 10-minute interview, 10-minute question.
But I'm like, you know, we could just talk for an hour.
Because you guys have been friends for 30 years.
This is what Big Terrific has been. It's like we get up on stage and riff.
But they're like, let's try to put guardrails.
By the way, this riff is the same for any podcast.
Not unique to you.
Yeah.
Meaning people are like, I'm starting a podcast.
Everyone tells me their favorite golf club.
Right.
And I'm like, okay, so you have a bullshit grab-ass show.
Yeah.
And you had to tell them that it's called four exclamation points.
Literally. Literally.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we do need each other.
That's the...
And sometimes we need our guests.
Look, it's all there.
It's all in the two paragraphs.
You'll have guests.
We have guests.
Because the three of you could just meet.
That's what Big Terrific...
I'm not changing your show.
I'm actually trying to give you a compliment that the three of you talking was
what Big Terrific was.
Absolutely.
And that was always fun.
We definitely don't run out of things to talk about.
Right.
But I mean, we waited a solid 16 years after first discussing a podcast to get
into it.
Our timing is incredible.
We wanted to make sure that the money was gone.
Make sure the market is flooded.
Absolutely.
The money is...
We actually owe money every episode.
We were so in the hole.
And it's just like the sky keeps getting smaller and smaller the more episodes
we record.
But we didn't want the money to be distracting.
We didn't want the potential of grabbing an unexploited area to be too
distracting.
Yeah.
So we...
But ultimately we did...
We can do it ourselves.
And we're all doing less stand-up.
So it's like we've always brought this energy together.
But I think guests are nice.
Guests are nice.
Because they...
Well, there's two...
Look, I'll talk about podcast series a lot.
Because I think it's interesting.
Valerie, my wife, and I do the Friday edition of this show.
And that's no guest.
And there's a different...
It's not better or worse.
It's just digging in the same direction.
Meaning mining the same direction every week.
Right.
And there's no guest to distract you from that.
Explo...
Not exploration.
I was going to say exploitation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean?
So you'll have episodes where you're in a bad mood and you just have to talk
about that.
Whereas if there's a guest, you just talk about their new HBO show called I
Love LA.
Yeah, yeah.
Which premiered last night.
Well done.
Yeah, it is.
It makes us like less...
I mean, you and Valerie being married.
Married, yeah, yeah.
Perhaps have...
Lovers.
Lovers.
Lovers for life.
LOL.
Have...
The O is silent.
Lovers of...
Lovers...
L.
Over, question mark?
L for L.
Life.
Lovers for life.
L for L.
But it's like you guys are...
We only see each other now, really, on the podcast.
That's a little bit...
Well, that's the other nice thing about it is it'll force you to be super
friends.
It's actually...
You know, we waited so long...
We waited so long to do it because a lot of the other paths through required
like a lot
more being entrepreneurial.
You know, a lot more like who's going to be the one that's going to book the
guests and
keep the, you know, okay, we've got to hire someone.
When do we have time to, you know...
All that stuff that we just kind of knew ourselves well enough after 15 years
of doing Big Terrific
or whatever, where we're like, it's going to probably fall on one of us, there'll
be resentment, there'll be, well, also all three of us will like flake on it.
So we kind of waited for someone to just say like, we'll do...
Oh, then like a network said, we'll do it.
We'll do it all.
And it's now like the best version of our friendship because we get a lot of
time together.
But it's without even the burden of, if you like go for a catch-up dinner with
somebody
every four months, there's kind of like a lot to get into.
And it's not always the most fun, the older you get.
It gets overwhelming.
Yeah.
You're just like, well, this is going on in life.
And I'm in my 40s.
Like this, this, this, my parents, you know.
Right, right, right.
This just like puts these like lovely little shape to it where we're just like...
And consistency.
Yeah.
Funniest stories and best times.
Well, and we can move on from the idea of podcasting because we are on a
podcast.
We need tips.
I mean, we're new to it.
No, no, it's not even a tip.
I just think there's something very beautiful about how the more things change,
the more they
stay the same.
So people just want to hang out.
Yeah.
And you end up using this, you know, the flavor of the times, podcasting, to
encourage
what you would have done in 1911, which is like gotten together and had a jazz
coffee.
Right.
Which was a coffee with a little opium.
A little bit.
Just a little bit of what?
Opium.
Opium.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just a sprinkle of opium.
A relaxing, a relaxing jazz coffee.
Let's go have jazz coffees.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I also think...
Like you and I wouldn't have hung out.
I'm not saying that in a bad way.
Yeah.
And here we are.
Here we are.
But we have a lot of shared history.
We understand each other, you know, like all that stuff.
If you, if you texted and said, do you want to get a coffee?
We could have made that happen.
You both know, we both know it would have gone back and forth.
Just like you're saying, Gabe and Jenny.
Yeah.
It's like, there'd be cancellations.
Yeah.
There'd be resentments.
Yeah.
Then you're out of coffee and you're like, there's a little bit of a, all that
for this.
You know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't define myself as like an anti-capitalist
activist, but there
is something, but I'm also not super pro.
There's something...
Capitalism?
You know, like, I'm not like, I don't, I'm not thrilled by it.
I don't like the way the engine rolls things over on its, you know, ever
turning wheel.
Yeah.
But I will say that the like...
You mean how we're going to die by the sort of progress over safety?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or that it's just like, it's a system that just can't keep expanding forever.
It seems.
It's cancer-like qualities.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Uh, but I will...
It is terrifying.
Yeah.
It is terrifying, but it is like, there's something honing.
I don't know that I'm using the word right about that.
Even like a hang, a casual thing, a jazz coffee with some opium is now sleek
and monetized
and efficient and has a format and...
You mean podcasting.
Yeah.
But podcasting, that's like also friendship, you know, it's, it's almost like
friendship
taken to a market efficiency level.
And you're saying there's a little bit of a sadness to that?
I think I'm like, from far back, I'm sad about it, but I'm like, oh, actually
it's fixed
some things that were, you know, like it is this way where it's like, oh, we
have this
