Name: Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466
Uploaded: 2023-10-10T15:00:22.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-10. Transcript available.

Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466

Today's guest is a writer. He's a stand-up comedian. He has countless specials
on Netflix.
He has his own podcast called the Jeselnik Rosenthal Vanity Project that comes
out every
week. His latest special is Fire in the Maternity Ward. He's a one-of-one. You
hear that term a lot,
but I've never met nobody like this man, and I've always looked up to him and
admired him.
I'm really thankful to have him here today on the podcast. This is one of our
first times
sitting down and talking, so today's guest is Mr. Anthony Jeselnik.
Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you my stories. Shine on me. And I
will find a song I've been singing.
I'm going to step forward to you.
I used to do this joke. I was like, you heard what happened to the Fonz? He got
AIDS.
And how'd that do?
Well, I did. And I'd be like, no, he didn't. No, he didn't, guys, after.
I had this joke that I loved that was, my family was exactly like the Brady Bunch.
We might not have been perfect, but my father did die from AIDS.
And it would kill, in the beginning, the first 10 years of my career, it would
kill so hard.
People would be like, I love that joke so much. And then all of a sudden, it
just stopped working.
And I was like, oh, my audience has gotten younger, and they don't know about
the Brady Bunch.
They don't know the actor. So I was like, oh, I got to stop doing it.
Yeah, because I think my fear would have been that something, oh, people don't
love AIDS, or they're not, or they're, everybody's gotten on the side of, like,
against AIDS, you know?
Theo, people love AIDS. It's like, what other disease gets its own quilt?
Yeah, oh, that's a great point, huh?
Yeah, you don't see, like, an asthma, Afghan, yeah, nothing else has that hype.
Anthony Jezelnik, man, nice to see you, dude.
Good to see you, man. It's been a while.
Yeah, it has been a while.
Yeah. I mean, I would see you, like, at the store every now and again, like,
when we were doing the store, but now everyone's on the road doing stuff.
As your friends get successful and get busy, you just never see them again.
Yeah, is that, I mean, that's probably happened, because you've had a lot of
success for a long time.
Sure.
So did that happen, like, kind of, I guess you just noticed that, like, yeah,
it was, was it more fun before?
Was it, did it start to get more, like, lonesome? Like, what do you think?
It gets lonely, for sure, because you come up with a certain group, you know,
and you think everyone's going to make it.
There's, like, ten guys that you're with, and you're like, we're all going to
be stars one day, and then, like, half of them quit.
You know, the other half are just, like, become writers or something, and then
you're like, oh, now I'm on the road.
I don't see anybody anymore, and you get a different group of friends, and they
start doing movies and shit, so it's like, well, I love this guy, but we never
see each other, because I'm on the road, and he's doing movies.
So you just lose all your friends, always.
Yeah, and it's hard to have, when you're touring, it's hard to even keep up
friendships.
It's like, sometimes I get so, like, I hate to say exhausted, but, yeah, I get
exhausted with, like, whatever's going on or responsibilities, and then, even
if a friend texts me, sometimes I'm like, I don't have, I'm just not dropped
into a space where I want to engage in a conversation.
Yeah, or you're like, you're on the other side of the country, I'm not going to
write back right now.
Well, like, you ever, like, you get in a relationship, and you're dating
someone for, like, a year, and you don't see your friends as much, and then you
break up, and you don't have to, like, remind your friends that you're still a
person.
You know, like, oh, I know we haven't been hanging out, but you've got to start
calling me again.
Oh, yeah.
You know, like, you were on the road for a year, and you don't hear from your
friends for three years, because you'll see someone, and they're like, what are
you doing?
And you're like, I've been done, I've been around, like, why haven't you called
me?
You know, you just, you don't see people, and they're just out of mind.
Yeah, I think the road makes me feel like a bad friend a lot, I think, because
I'll come back into society, like, re-enter society or something, like a convict
or something.
You know, you kind of go through, like, a re-entry where you see what you have
in your closet, and you're like, holy shit, this stuff's been out of style for...
Oh, yeah, and all your stories are about, like, a driver you had that you didn't
like, and I was like, we don't, this is not a real life, we don't know, we don't
know what you're talking about.
Are you had a bad flight?
Okay, I'd love to fly somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd love to go anywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting, man, it's interesting as your career goes on, like,
what it's like.
I think what I thought it would be like, maybe, I don't know, I think sometimes
I think I stayed in comedy because it, I think I wanted something that you didn't
have any commitments, like, in the world.
Like, I always got to leave whatever relationship, whatever moment a girl was
like, what's going on?
You know, like, I have to be in, you know, Indiana, so we'll find out when I
get back, and then eventually come back enough, and that wasn't even there
anymore.
Yeah, I think a lifestyle is a big draw to comedy, almost too big a draw.
You know, you see the people who get into it for the lifestyle, and then you
watch them just destroy themselves immediately.
The lifestyle is attractive.
You know, people like the lifestyle more than the work.
Nobody gets to be, nobody becomes a comic because they want to sit and write
jokes all day.
They become a comic because they want the applause.
You know, they want to walk off stage and be like, where's the party?
Yeah, that's true, right?
Because, yeah, people don't realize it's just a bar.
It's, like, really just a bar.
It's a bar business with, like, a dancing guy.
Yeah, if you're like, I need to get a job, but I like to drink too much, become
a comedian.
Like, and you're set.
Yeah, two birds, man.
Did it, um, did you ever almost get married?
Was there ever a point where you almost got, where, like, that almost happened
for you?
Um, not, like, I, about the same as, like, me thinking about going to law
school.
You know, when you're, like, at a certain age and your friends are, like, doing
real things and you're, like, oh, like, maybe I guess this is where I just go
and go to law school and become a lawyer.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, oh, my friends are all getting married.
I've been in a relationship a long time.
Maybe I will.
And then I'm, like, oh, wait, no.
People just do it just because they think it's what they're supposed to do.
You think so?
I think a lot of people do.
Yeah.
You're just, like, oh, I get married.
That's what I do.
And then you're, like, 10 years in, you're, like, wait, why am I doing this?
And now, at this point in my life, getting married just seems like a terrible
financial decision.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's just, like, why?
I don't know if this makes sense.
So do you think a lot of people, they just feel like that's what they have to
do?
It's, like, I have to get married now.
It's just what I'm supposed to do.
It's, like, my responsibility.
Do you think it's to, like, family?
Do you think it's just, like, to society?
I'm just wondering because I've never had, like, that mindset, whatever that
mindset is.
It's just never been kind of whatever's in my head.
I think it's both.
I think it's family and society.
You know, I've got several married siblings, and they're always, like, when are
you getting married?
Like, people, when they get married, they want everyone else to join their crew.
You have a kid.
You want everyone else to have a kid, too, so you can talk about having a kid.
And it's, like, I'm not going to have a kid just because you did.
And maybe if I lived in, like, a suburb somewhere, and that was my life, and it
was, like, this is my house.
I'm staying in this house.
Then it's, like, all right, kids are, this is what I'm going to spend my life
doing.
Right.
This is my life's work.
There should be a kid in here.
Yeah, there's a place for a kid to be over here.
We could definitely put a kid in this area.
Yeah.
And I definitely don't want kids.
Really?
I even went through a phase where I was, like, if it happened, I've got money
now.
I could handle this.
But I had no real interest in doing it.
Do you think you'd even have bad luck having kids?
Because so many kids die in your material.
It is a thing that I think about.
Like, I've talked a lot about sharks, and so I would never go surfing.
Yeah.
Because if I get eaten by a shark, everyone's going to be like, see?
I know, huh?
This is karma.
This was his fate his whole life.
That having a kid seems terrifying.
And I think every parent goes through this once you find out you're pregnant of,
like, you know, so many things can go wrong.
Yeah.
You hear about the bad.
You hear about the good.
You know, you're counting the toes and the fingers, autism, like, all kinds of
different stuff that you're just, like, hoping.
That just, it seems, like, nice not to deal with that stress.
Yeah.
I don't miss it.
And sometimes you don't know if your kid's autistic for, like, a couple years
and stuff, I think.
So it's like, ah.
Dude, we both know people who are, like, for sure autistic, and they just haven't
told us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Undocumented autistic.
Get them out of the country.
Well, I think a lot of, I've had a lot of theories that a lot of the future
will be people, like, if you look at guys like Jeff Bezos, right, and Elon Musk,
and I'm trying to think of some other people that seem to me, if I'm listening
to them, they seem like they have some sort of autism.
Right?
Like, but they're also the people that are able to quantify things to, like,
another level, like, to where they can advance society.
Like, I think it's getting to a point where those are the people that are going
to have the skill sets to move us to the next space in the universe.
I think you're always going to need some of those guys who are, like, working
on the numbers and shit.
Right.
You know, you need some people, you need some people who can talk.
You know, you need some people who are, like, just sitting in the back there
crunching numbers.
But have you ever tested yourself for autism?
No, I know that they had, they thought I was Down syndrome when I was a child
for a while.
I had that because I was big for my age.
Oh, really?
So I was, like, people, I look like I was four when I was, like, one and a half.
Ugh.
And, yeah, I heard a lot.
I heard a lot of stories about me in the supermarket.
Especially in Pittsburgh.
Mm-hmm.
Especially in Pittsburgh.
Oh, yeah.
Because all the babies there are really small, you know, compared to me.
I was a huge, huge baby.
Really?
Yeah.
I was the biggest baby that had ever been born in Pittsburgh at the time.
Oh, my God.
And what did they, did they do, and what, did they put a, I don't even know,
did they give you, like, a statue?
What did they even do?
It was a sash they put on me, and then they put me in, like, a stroller.
It was, like, a bigger stroller, and they paraded me down the street, and
people would just, like, kind of wave.
People were wearing Jerome Bettis jerseys out there?
This was pre, this was pre-bus.
Oh, really?
So, like, Jerry Olshansky?
Franco.
I think you probably had a lot of Franco jerseys out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, Franco Harris himself tried to pick me up, but I was too big.
Dang, dang, dang.
Dude, I love Pittsburgh.
You do?
Oh, bro.
My friend used to work at Jack's Bar.
My friend.
Oh, yeah?
I know Jack's, yeah.
Was a pit, so he was a mascot.
He got busted hooking up with a, I think, a underage woman in, like, an
abandoned swimming pool or something.
But he, yeah, dude, I got pink eye over there one time, and I got.
And you loved it.
The first, 