Is Jeff Arcuri Technically One of The Bachelors??

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Is Jeff Arcuri Technically One of The Bachelors??"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Chris Distefano Presents: Chrissy Chaos
• Host: Chris Distefano
• Episode Title: Is Jeff Arcuri Technically One of The Bachelors??
• Release Date: October 29, 2024

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Introduction and Welcome

In the recent episode of Chrissy Chaos, hosted by comedian Chris Distefano, the show dives into a lively and humorous conversation with special guest Jeff Acuri. The episode opens with Chris contemplating a name change for the show, humorously suggesting it might become Christopher Chaos—a change he immediately retracts, setting the playful tone for the episode.

Name Pronunciation Woes

The conversation kicks off with a lighthearted discussion about the frequent mispronunciations of Jeff's last name.

Jeff Acuri [00:27]: "I get a curry. Yeah, I've gotten some weird ones, like a coontie."

Chris empathizes, sharing his own experiences with name mispronunciations.

Chris Distefano [03:31]: "I remember I got introduced on stage once as Chris Destinopoulos. Kind of wild."

This segment highlights the common comedic frustration of having one's name consistently mispronounced, setting the stage for camaraderie between the hosts.

Comedy Careers and Stage Struggles

Both Chris and Jeff delve into their early days in comedy, recounting experiences of bombing on stage and navigating the tough crowds. Chris shares his struggles at venues like the D.C. Draft House, where poor ticket sales forced him to refund money, illustrating the harsh realities of stand-up comedy.

Chris Distefano [06:16]: "I sold, like, nine tickets the whole weekend, so I had to give money back."

Jeff adds his own tales of performance setbacks, emphasizing the resilience needed to succeed in the competitive world of comedy.

Family Business and Flowerama

A significant portion of the episode explores Jeff's family business, Flowerama, and the intricate dynamics within his family. Chris recounts his childhood memories of mustering up the courage to egg the Flowerama store every Halloween, a tradition seemingly mirrored by Jeff's family's interactions.

Jeff Acuri [10:15]: "How wild is that? This man who I looked at my whole life, fucking owned Flowerama. Unbelievable."

They discuss the strained relationships within Jeff's family, particularly between his father and grandfather, highlighting how these familial tensions have shaped Jeff's personal and professional life.

Jeff's Relationship and Engagement

The dialogue takes a personal turn as Jeff opens up about his five-month engagement to a reality TV star, sparking a humorous debate about the nature of modern relationships and the influence of reality television on personal lives.

Jeff Acuri [22:02]: "Yes, we've only been together for, like, five months."

Chris playfully questions the longevity and depth of such a swift engagement, injecting humor into the discussion about commitment and relationship expectations.

Chris Distefano [23:11]: "Like, this is gonna be so fucking bad."

Despite the teasing, Jeff expresses genuine affection and optimism about his relationship, sharing anecdotes about how his fiancée has positively influenced his life and career.

Jeff Acuri [34:10]: "I think she makes me a better person."

Comedy Styles and Cruise Ship Experiences

The conversation shifts to exploring different comedy styles, particularly crowd work versus structured joke sets. Jeff shares his transformative experiences performing on cruise ships, where adapting to diverse and often unresponsive audiences taught him the importance of audience engagement.

Jeff Acuri [59:22]: "I started doing crowd work in between jokes and it was like a little bit too much in the beginning..."

Chris emphasizes the necessity of understanding one's audience to refine comedic material effectively.

Chris Distefano [60:08]: "And the only way to do that is to do the crowd work."

Their exchange underscores the evolving nature of stand-up comedy and the skills comedians must develop to stay relevant and connect with varied audiences.

Navigating Success and Imposter Syndrome

Jeff discusses the challenges that come with rising success in comedy, such as imposter syndrome and the pressure to maintain high performance levels. He reflects on his journey from online comedy clips to performing in larger venues, highlighting the importance of structure and preparation in delivering a compelling set.

Jeff Acuri [53:30]: "The biggest thing is, like, not having the imposter syndrome of I don't want to go out there and be like..."

Chris relates by sharing his strategies for maintaining comedic integrity and avoiding over-reliance on impromptu crowd interactions.

Chris Distefano [55:09]: "It's the same thing comedians have been doing from the beginning..."

Closing Remarks and Future Plans

As the episode wraps up, Chris and Jeff continue their banter, touching on future plans such as Jeff's upcoming wedding and the potential influence it may have on his comedic persona. The hosts leave listeners with a sense of anticipation for Jeff's personal milestones and professional growth.

Chris Distefano [47:16]: "Are you going to become Jeffrey Dahmer?"

Jeff Acuri [47:28]: "I'm going to become the good Jeff."

Conclusion

In this episode of Chrissy Chaos, Chris Distefano and Jeff Acuri offer an engaging mix of personal anecdotes, comedic insights, and friendly ribbing. From navigating the early struggles of stand-up comedy to exploring complex family dynamics and burgeoning relationships, the duo provides listeners with a candid and entertaining glimpse into the life of a comedian striving for success while maintaining authenticity.

Notable Quotes:

• Jeff Acuri [00:27]: "I get a curry. Yeah, I've gotten some weird ones, like a coontie."
• Chris Distefano [06:16]: "I sold, like, nine tickets the whole weekend, so I had to give money back."
• Jeff Acuri [22:02]: "Yes, we've only been together for, like, five months."
• Jeff Acuri [53:30]: "The biggest thing is, like, not having the imposter syndrome of I don't want to go out there and be like..."
• Chris Distefano [55:09]: "It's the same thing comedians have been doing from the beginning..."

Listeners can stay updated with Jeff Acuri's upcoming performances and personal milestones by visiting chrisdcomedy.com and following him on Instagram and Twitter.

Transcript

[Chris DiStefano]

You have one new voicemail.

[Jeff Acuri]

Hi.

[Unnamed Female Speaker]

So you would be so proud of me. I'm hosting Thanksgiving for my friends, and I was stressed because I really wanted it to feel just like Michigan. But then I found the same stuffing mix that you use on Instacart, and I ordered instant gravy, canned cranberry. What else? Oh, I got everyone a little butter sculpture shaped like a turkey. All right, I should probably get cooking, but I miss you today. Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. Oh, and you should download Instacart. It's way easier than sending dad to the store. Download Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.

[Chris DiStefano]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to yet another episode of Chrissy Chaos. We're thinking about changing the name to Christopher Chaos. And when I say we're thinking about it, means I just thought about it, and I won't do it. We're coming to you live yet again from Austin, Texas, the state capital of Texas, who they do want to secede from the Union. They've made that their plans clear. And so right now, I don't feel like I'm in enemy territory. I do feel like I am in the United States. But little by little, kind of looking around, you know, I do feel if they want to secede, then I have my right to defend my country. And, you know, as I said last podcast, my country is tis of thee. And it's. You know, I like Texas. I really do. I really do like Texas. But I just want you guys to just be careful with the talk of secession for the United States. Just be careful, okay? Because, you know, dude, like, fucking. I'm one of the original founding members of this country. I actually am so American, I'm so from the 13 colonies that I still. I'm loyal to the British. And I send taxes to the queen who's dead. I send taxes to her gravesite every year because I'm like, I'm paying and I send it like they did in colonial times. I send a bag of coins.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's not even coffee, is it?

[Chris DiStefano]

No, dude, no. That's tea. That's British tea.

[Jeff Acuri]

Fish it out of the river.

[Chris DiStefano]

And as you can tell by my guest's accent, he's also from one of the original 13. We have the great Jeff Acuri, everybody.

[Jeff Acuri]

Hello.

[Chris DiStefano]

Not Jeff. Do people say it wrong all the time? What is. What's. What do you get?

[Jeff Acuri]

I get a curry. Yeah, I've gotten some weird ones, like a coontie.

[Chris DiStefano]

A coontie? Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Which feels a little yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's passive aggressive.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. Yeah. And then. But it's a curry or. Curry is a lot of it. But I'm not Italian enough to correct them.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

I mean, I have Polish and Irish in me that I'm like, it's whatever you want.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's the thing. A Curie is a very Italian last name. But then Jeff isn't.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yes. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Do you spell it? J, E, F, F. Yep. That's good.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. Because people spell it with the G. It's kind of stupid.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's weird. And there's no J in the Italian ways. It. There's no J in the Italian.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Alphabet.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. And then do you get constantly. I'm sure that when that movie came out. 21 Jump Street.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yes. Still to this day.

[Chris DiStefano]

God, how annoying is that?

[Jeff Acuri]

It sucks. Did you win? Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Thanks for doing. It's. It sucks because people do it and they're like. They look at you to be like, that's good one. Right? And I always just go, aha.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You ever get those with your name?

[Chris DiStefano]

What do I get? I mean, my name's Chris. What do I. Christopher.

[Jeff Acuri]

Do I ever.

[Chris DiStefano]

I don't. There's no, like, lines in a movie about Chris. I do get. I do DiStefano. People don't typically. Don't try it. It's usually, you know, distefano Di Stefano, which I don't care. But sometimes it'll go just wild. Like, I remember I got introduced on stage once as Chris Destinopoulos. Kind of wild.

[Jeff Acuri]

Wow. You went from, like, you went from Italian to Greek royalty.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, it's like Uncle Jesse's, like, from Full House. And so. Yeah, so I. I don't care anymore. I'm not, you know, because people. I mean, even, like, my last name is spelled. It's supposed to be D, I, capital S, T, E, F, A, N, O. But my S is small. I have the small S. I don't really care.

[Jeff Acuri]

So what? Because there is another. This Destefano. It's D. Stefano. Is it Mike.

[Chris DiStefano]

Mike Destefano was a. He passed away years ago. But, yeah, people. What I did get a lot from the older comics, older generations, is they would, you know, quite often tell me. Because, you know, everyone loved Mike Destefano. They would quite often tell me, you know, I'd just be sitting there, like, you know, trying to do comedy, you know, just be a. Be in the present. And, you know, Colin Quinn or Jim Norton or somebody would just come over unprovoked and just say, you know, we wish you died. And the other distant. I was here.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, shit.

[Chris DiStefano]

We just wish that. Just so you know, we wish Mike was alive and you were dead.

[Jeff Acuri]

Isn't that one of those things, like, one of those seller things, though, where you're like, oh, cool, I'm in now.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know, I mean, get razzed, like.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh. I mean. And I think. When did you start doing the comedy seller?

[Jeff Acuri]

March, 2022.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay, so that was, you know, like, years ago. Like, it was, you know, before. Like, you don't even have that. That back. I mean, Keith Robinson's had a stroke. You know, like. Like these. These guys. Patrice O'Neill is dead. Like, when I first. First. First got in, I mean, you would sit back there at that back table and you would get fucking demolished, and they would be demolishing each other, crushing, you know, crushing each other, whatever. And then it would come to you, and you have to say something.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And, you know, especially being young, being not knowing, being nervous. I mean, 95% of time I would say something that would fucking bomb. Yeah. And then you just wanted to absolutely die.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

I remember one time I had a spot. I had a spot at, like, whatever, 10 o'clock. We're sitting at that back table. Estie was there, who books the Comedy Cellar.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

Am.

[Chris DiStefano]

I was, like, going on next, and I bombed so hard just in the talk that she wouldn't let me go on. No, she took my spot away from me.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's serious. Oh, that's.

[Chris DiStefano]

Just let it. You. Dude. I. I've had some epic. Dude. One time I bombed so hard at. It was called the Washington D.C. comedy Loft or the D.C. comedy Loft. And I think, no, no, I'm sorry, it's Arlington DRAFTHOUSE, but in D.C. so the D.C. draft House. So I don't think it's a club anymore. But not only did I bomb so hard, but I sold so few tickets, and I had to give money back to the club.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, no.

[Chris DiStefano]

Like, my agent even agreed, like, this is the right thing to do as a human being because of just how hard I sucked at those shows. And I guess at the time, my agent, I don't remember who it was, like, said, like, oh, Chris is really gonna sell. And I sold, like, nine tickets the whole weekend, so I had to give money back. And it was just kind of like, that's just what happens. Oh, you know, the.

[Jeff Acuri]

I had a club one time. Tell me. They're like, you're 10 tickets away from hitting your bonus.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I was like, I'll fucking buy them. Are you kidding?

[Chris DiStefano]

If you.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, you're two away. I'm like, I'm not gonna go online and spend $30. Yeah, a lot more money. But that SD thing reminds me of, like, I remember one time. It wasn't even that long ago. I was probably. I've been in the cellar for like a year at this point now when this happened, and I said something at the table with Esti and like, a couple other comics, and she laughed. Like, everyone laughed. And I just went home. Yeah, I was just like, oh, gotta go. See you later. That's it.

[Chris DiStefano]

I gotta win, dude. I respect the shit out of Estie. She's Israeli woman, fought in the Israeli army. I respect her. When I had my first child, you know, she. I asked her to stop. You know, I said, hey, you know, this is like, whatever, 2015. I go, I go, you know, like, you give me like, these late spots, like a Tuesday night at, like, you know, 12:00 or Tuesday night at 11:30pm Whatever, you know, I have a small baby, like, you know, kind of we, you know, I help out as much as I can, you know, and I was like, you know, if possible, like, can I just get earlier spots?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And she was like, oh, yeah, sure. And so the next week. The next week she gave me a spot at like, 11:25. Yeah, like, you know, whatever. And then I go. I was like, oh, yeah. Like, you know, like, still, like, pretty late. Whatever. She goes, okay, okay, okay. You want the early spot? I go, yeah, yeah. She goes, okay, good. She goes, yeah, cuz, you know, it's. She goes, I get it, I get it. It's, you know, you need to be there for the baby. I get it. You have to. You have to do that. That's nice. She goes, you know, I. I fought in the Israeli army and I raised a kid by myself because my husband was killed in the war. But you.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

You're.

[Chris DiStefano]

You do comedy in America and it's tough for you, so. Okay, I see. I give you spot 11. Is that. Is that good? You know, and then you just fucking kind of, you know, just suck it up and just fucking deal with it. And then kind of just like on. Not on the outs, but you kind of like just in the doghouse for a couple of months.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, yeah, there's.

[Chris DiStefano]

And then I did a fucking joke. I shit on Palestine. She loved it, and I'm back in. Yeah, that's what it is. You just fucking take a shit on fucking Gaza. For the. For the Israeli owners, we Were joking about that.

[Jeff Acuri]

We were joking around when all that was going on, which is always. We were like, at the table. We're like, every time no one passed, we were just trying to be like, fucking Palestine. Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys.

[Chris DiStefano]

I know, I know. That's fucking shit. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. What I like, what. The connection. What a lot of people don't know about Jeff and I, other than both of us having heads that are too big for their bodies. Other than both of us having abnormally large heads, we. So I. Where I grew up in Ridgewood, Queens, my bedroom, my whole life, I faced. I could see Myrtle Avenue. It's a. It's a big, you know, avenue in. Where I lived in Queens. And I would look out my window and I would see this place, a flower bridal shop place called Flowerama. And they had the sign Flowerama written down the spine of the building. And that was a direct eye line from my bedroom. I would look at Flowerama every day and night of my whole childhood to the point where when I was like, when I get, like, tattoos, I'm like, should I get Flowerama tattooed? It's such a part of my existence. And I just, you know, whatever. It was just part of my thing or whatever. And then I meet Jeff a few years ago, and I just immediately kind of looked at him, and I felt like a child again. I felt like. I felt like a pre pubescent boy. I started getting horny. I felt I had no pubes. And I started saying, why am I so connected to Jeff? What is this? And then we started talking. And then he proceeds to tell me that his father owned Flowerama.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

How wild is that? This man who. I looked at this my whole life, fucking owned Flowerama. Unbelievable.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then what'd you say? You said that every year you egged that business.

[Chris DiStefano]

I did egg that. I was gonna leave that part out, but you. Yes, you as the family business. We did egg. We did. Kind of. Everyone kind of just aimed for the. Oh, in flower armor with eggs every Halloween.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And we would kind of just light it up.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I called my dad when we were at Rosemont Zany's when that happened, and I was in agreement that I called my dad. He's like, every fucking year.

[Chris DiStefano]

Every year we had to light that place the fuck up.

[Jeff Acuri]

My dad just some chubby guy with a mustache, just cleaning the eggs off every single year.

[Chris DiStefano]

Would you go to that business a lot as a kid? Like, go with your dad? To work type thing.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, I think twice. I went with my dad. And then my mom would make me hang out with my grandpa. Like it was one of those things. Like, my grandpa owned them all. Because there was a couple locations, right? And then. Or a few. And then my dad would bring me with me. Or my mom would be like, it's grandfather time. And he'd come pick me up, right. In his Jaguar, right? And then we'd go into the city. And I remember that was the first time I heard a slur was my grandfather was when we were telling what.

[Chris DiStefano]

Neighbor you're driving through. And I can guess the slur.

[Jeff Acuri]

I don't remember. I remember we stopped at a deli, okay. And we go to get sandwiches for deep. For going fishing. Some deli sandwiches to go fishing, right? And as we pull up in his Jaguar and he had a. Like a nice. It was a green Jaguar with tan leather seats. And we're in the deli by 20ft from the car. And as we're in the car, here's a smash. And he runs outside and a guy smashes window and took the car phone out and like, jacked the car phone out and ran away. And my grandfather yelled a bad word.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yes. And you heard it?

[Jeff Acuri]

I heard it. And I remember looking up and I remember thinking, that's the first time I've heard that word.

[Chris DiStefano]

And then you turned around and the deli counter guys were like, you guys get free sandwiches? And then.

[Jeff Acuri]

I haven't stopped saying it since.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's it. Yeah. You can check it out as work. But yeah. So it's such an interesting thing to me how, like, we're all kind of, like, cosmically connected. But you didn't grow up in Queens though, right?

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I was a Long island kid, Right. So I was like. Yeah, we lived in, like, Comac County.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh. Way out there.

[Jeff Acuri]

Nice house, too. Like, we came up kind of like with. With a little bit of money because of all that flower armor stuff. And then my grandfather kind of kicked. Like, they ended the relationship with my father, and he got. My dad got nothing out of it.

[Chris DiStefano]

So your dad and your dad and granddad stopped talking.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

What the fuck? Still to this day, he's.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, he's dead. So they don't talk at all?

[Chris DiStefano]

No. Now they are talking. They have the best relationship they've ever had.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. Well, I remember we found out, like he.

[Chris DiStefano]

We found your dad didn't get that Flowerama money.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, no. Yeah, that was the thing. That kind of like, that did suck because.

[Chris DiStefano]

But I Was like, way to go, dad. Now I got to get out of here. Talking to these fucking crowds, cutting up clips on Tick Tock and Reddit because your ass couldn't have a relationship with dad. Now I have to get out here like a fucking asshole.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, we found out he died like a week after the funeral or something like that. But it was bad shit. And I remember it was like, do not talk to that side of the family. Do not talk to.

[Chris DiStefano]

And still to this day, they're like, anybody associated with that?

[Jeff Acuri]

They're out kind of. They've, like mended some relationship.

[Chris DiStefano]

You're not getting tickets to the Paramount.

[Jeff Acuri]

No.

[Chris DiStefano]

You're at.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, no. They would. I still have, like, I still have like. I talked to my uncles.

[Chris DiStefano]

I actually respect that. Yeah. Why not?

[Jeff Acuri]

I have one uncle, his younger brother, that they didn't talk for a while. Now they do. And I'm really close with his son, my cousin, right. He comes to so many shows and same last name.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then my. My other uncle is a hippie. So this is kind of funny is like he's a hippie. Like, followed the grateful dead for 30 years.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And he makes tie dye.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so him and his. Him and my brother, My dad's brother opened up a tie dye shop together in Greenpoint.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, sick.

[Jeff Acuri]

And it's a tie dye. They like, work with Chubby Checker, like the guy that did the checker paints.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

Whatever that is. And they, like, succeeded with that and then they split because, you know, my family's businesses never work out. So my one uncle does tie dye out of the bus. Ever see the bus at McCarran Park? Yeah, tie dye bus. That's my one. That's my uncle. Wow, that's crazy. I remember we were walking to the Turkey's Nest to get, like, to watch a football game, and there was. My uncle was selling tie dye shirts out of the bus.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And my one friend was. Or not my friend. It was a comic who just goes, look at that guy. Huh? I was like, yes, my uncle. And he's like, okay. I'm like, no, it is. And he goes, what if I go fuck with him, like, because he's your uncle? And I go, that'd be mean. I don't know. What do you want me to do?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, by selling tie dye T shirts out of a bus? Because we couldn't get it together with Florama going through enough.

[Jeff Acuri]

They. And then they have like, they had competing. Now they have competing, like tie dye stores ones out of a bus. One's at the store.

[Chris DiStefano]

I mean, this is the show. This is the show.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. And it's. They. It's so funny because my one uncle is like, Italian, all business, and the other one's all hippie. So when you. When they work together, you'd walk in and he'd be like, which one of these crystals is talking to you? And the other uncle's like, two for 20, by the way, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

But that's good dynamic. You need that kind of.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, God. If only your grandfather was alive, man.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

See?

[Jeff Acuri]

What? For what?

[Chris DiStefano]

Just so he could. So we could. So we could just kind of patch it up and we could get that flowerama money. Yeah, we gotta get that. What's up, everybody?

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[Chris DiStefano]

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[Unnamed Male Speaker]

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[Chris DiStefano]

Rama money for you.

[Jeff Acuri]

I. I think it's funny because I think they did sell. They sold like that business or whatever, and I don't know who got that money.

[Chris DiStefano]

Dude, by the way, the flower, Rama, when you left, it turned into a Korean grocery store, which I think somebody lit on fire. And now, now it is just vacant, by the way. So that flower is vacant. So if you with your. With your comedic success, want to get back in there and fucking, you know, really kind of like reestablish your family's dominance in my neighborhood. You buy that, you buy flower on the back right now.

[Jeff Acuri]

Flower? I'm a comedy club.

[Chris DiStefano]

Debbie sick, bro Rich. I don't know if you know, Ridgewood, Queens is like one of the most up and coming neighborhoods in the entire Country.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, I got like, that Grove 34. Like Ridgewood.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sick. So, like, right now is the spot for Flowerama. If you want to go in on it, I'll do it.

[Jeff Acuri]

But I do think that the wedding, physical wedding industry is dying. Like, people aren't paying. Like, because that was what it was. It was like, you go there and you get your whole wedding done. Travel agency, wedding dresses, tuxedo rentals, videography, photography, one stop shop, everything. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Now it's like, you don't. They got an app for that. And you're also. I could tell your family your grandfather wasn't the kind of grandfather was going to be like. And it's no his and his. It's only his and hers.

[Jeff Acuri]

He would be.

[Chris DiStefano]

We're not doing two fucking grooms, okay?

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, I bet you. Yeah, I bet you.

[Chris DiStefano]

Hey, you stealing my car phone?

[Jeff Acuri]

You.

[Chris DiStefano]

What? Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Bad word. Yeah, yeah. Let's just say he wouldn't be happy about the Korean grocery store.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, yeah, I get that. I know. I shout out Korean people. By the way. I do love Korean people. And I do actually think, like, you know, everyone always makes, like, cleaners jokes. Number one, they're amazing at it and they're good at it. And number two, the best bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches in my neighborhood are the Korean delis. Really shout out to Korean people. They might be North Korean or South Korean. To me, it doesn't matter.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's the first thing I have people try when they come. Not bagels, nothing. It's a bacon, egg and cheese. Is from bodega.

[Chris DiStefano]

Well, it's like a bacon, egg and cheese. Like, you go, like, people don't. There's a place. I forgot. It's in some other country. Oh, Copenhagen. My neighbors were telling me about a place in Copenhagen. Guy lived in New York and then just moved to Copenhagen for, you know, some business stuff. And then that business fell through. She was like, you know what? I'm gonna. He started making bacon, egg and cheeses. Just regular New York cities from New York. Bacon, egg and cheeses. And he just was making them in his house for himself. And then he started giving them to his neighbors. And now he's got one of the hottest restaurants in Copenhagen because he just makes bacon, egg and cheeses because it blows their mind that this food even exists.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's great. A little bit of hot sauce.

[Chris DiStefano]

You like a little bit of hot sauce?

[Jeff Acuri]

A little bit of hot sauce, yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Interesting.

[Jeff Acuri]

Got my girl on it. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Bacon, egg and cheese with mayonnaise, too. Is something that the Puerto Ricans do. Really? Yes, it's a Puerto Rican delicacy.

[Jeff Acuri]

Doesn't sound good, but.

[Chris DiStefano]

No, but they like it. And I just want to say, muy biennial. So you have a girl?

[Jeff Acuri]

I do. Fiance now. Whoa.

[Chris DiStefano]

Fiance. You're engaged?

[Jeff Acuri]

I am gay.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, we've been together for 20 years. No, we actually. We've only been together for, like, five months.

[Chris DiStefano]

You. Five months? You just went all into it. This has got family business trauma written all over it. Dude, you're gonna want. This is so bad.

[Jeff Acuri]

I know. We joke about her, like, becoming a tour manager, like, coming with us.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, that's the worst idea ever.

[Jeff Acuri]

Do it, do it, do it. My friends are like, yeah, that's cool.

[Chris DiStefano]

Please do it. This is. Okay, so fine.

[Jeff Acuri]

Okay, let's.

[Chris DiStefano]

Let's go. This is fun.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

So five months. You met her five months ago?

[Jeff Acuri]

I met her, technically, yeah, I met her five months ago.

[Chris DiStefano]

You guys are engaged, Dude. Oh, yes. This is great. Dude. Hey, listen, dude, I'm fucking crazier than you. I met it, you know, when the mother, Jasmine, the mother of my children, we, you know, we conceived our first daughter. Like, you. Fucking month one. Like, really? We're fucking in. Yeah, dude. So. But this is. Dude, this is gonna be so fucking bad. Yeah, dude. Works. Yes. Five months in. Gate. Prenup. Don't do a prenup. Just go all in, dude. No, no, no. I would fucking get married tomorrow. Just fucking do it if you're gonna.

[Jeff Acuri]

I don't like the eagerness that you have right now.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's a five months in. Okay, what does she do? Let. Let me. Let me hear about her.

[Jeff Acuri]

She was the bachelorette a few years ago. Oh, my God. Reality star.

[Chris DiStefano]

I met her five months ago, Jeff. But this is what. This is what the comedians have been rooting for your downfall. Oh, no, I'm kidding. No, no, no. It's going to be good. It's going to be good. If only you had a family business that she could get her dress at.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, well, yeah, she will. It's going to be our business.

[Chris DiStefano]

Flowerama, though. But she would.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

She.

[Chris DiStefano]

Would you. Would you have put her through Flowerama if that was still there? You would be like, baby, you got to get your shit from here.

[Jeff Acuri]

I don't know the context. I think there's, like. If it was my family, My family still worked in wedding dresses and stuff. Maybe. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Wait, so what's the plan here? Where are you guys living? New York, Louisiana. What are you guys gonna do?

[Jeff Acuri]

It is long distance right now.

[Chris DiStefano]

She lives in la. Okay. I live in New York, so it's long distance. She's a reality star. Met her five months ago. Yeah, put a ring on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's. It's kind of like once you say it all out loud, you know.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. No, this is gonna be. Make no mistake, you're going to walk out of this podcast and I'm going to watch you. I'm going to watch you through the window for about 20 minutes. You're going to sit in the car and I'm just going to see you kind of looking at your phone and I'm going to see you like this and I'm just going to start seeing. You're going to start waving your hands and you're like. I know. Just. Just give me a minute.

[Jeff Acuri]

Just give me a minute.

[Chris DiStefano]

You know what, hon? I'll talk to you when I get back home. That's what it's going to be. And then, dude, what I've done, what I've done, my friend. I've planted a seed.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, no, this. Yeah, there's already a half. There's a little bit of a weed growing in there.

[Chris DiStefano]

I can see your whole posture change now. Now you're, like, on a roller coaster. You're, like, just going through the podcast. You're just holding both things.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I'm chilling. I'm really confident. I know, I know because I was. I just did Bobby Kelly's podcast and he ripped me up pretty good.

[Chris DiStefano]

He said the same thing.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, he. He actually was pulling up pictures of her making out with guys on the show.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, see? See how the old school class of comics are meaner than I know.

[Jeff Acuri]

And the thing is, the comments are all like, leave them alone.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, I'm like, don't. It doesn't make. It doesn't help that I'm. I couldn't defend my. But I wasn't. Like, comics rib each other differently than, like, it's. You take it as like a compliment all.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, you wouldn't. You. You also depend on. In. You know, we're doing jokes. Like, it's like how we kind of deal with. Because I know it's. First of all, it's stressful to, like, get married. There's a lot of pressure. I'm sure there's thoughts pumping into your head. So I feel like it's good for comics for us to just kind of say what's out there and then we just make fun of it.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's like, dude, so what? Get married. Hopefully you guys last forever. And if you don't, you fucking deal with that shit.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, I'm not worried about it. Just because I. You know, I've been in a lot of relationships. This is the first one that. When I started talking to her, we just mostly texted. The first, like, two weeks, I was. I was in the hospital. We were supposed to meet for a drink. I was performing in Hawaii, and then I was performing in San Jose.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so I went from Hawaii, and then I had, like, three days off, and then I was gonna be in San Jose. And the last day in Hawaii, I fell on the sidewalk. I was trying to stop somebody from falling.

[Chris DiStefano]

And then you fell?

[Jeff Acuri]

And I went to go, yeah, and I fell.

[Chris DiStefano]

I thought you just randomly fell. I was like, what are you, a fucking toddler?

[Jeff Acuri]

No, no, I was a girl. I was after a show. I was talking to this girl outside of the venue, like, on this sidewalk, Honolulu. And it was like a really high sidewalk, and some guy, like, bumped into her and she started falling off, and I went to go stop her from falling. And have you ever, like. Like, opened a door and you misjudged the weight?

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure. So you.

[Jeff Acuri]

Instead of pulling the door open, you just bring yourself toward the door?

[Chris DiStefano]

It happens to me all the time. I was just jamming my own fingers in my door.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. Yeah. So I went to go stop her from falling, and then I grabbed her and then she. I just went with her and we both fell and I put my hand, like, hand behind her so she wouldn't hit her head. And it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Feel that pussy?

[Jeff Acuri]

No, it's not where it is. It's down there.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh.

[Jeff Acuri]

And we. She landed on my hand and it split my finger open.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh.

[Jeff Acuri]

And because it's Hawaii, there's like, extra crazy bacteria. So my whole arm was, like, fucked up.

[Chris DiStefano]

Are you serious?

[Jeff Acuri]

From the small cut. So I was in the hospital for, like, three days.

[Chris DiStefano]

Like, your arm just started to get.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, bloated and red. It was.

[Chris DiStefano]

Felt kind of fucking Jack, though. Like.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, no, it felt bad. I couldn't. I couldn't close my hand at all. It was pretty nasty. And so I landed in LA and then in Hollywood. And then I was like.

[Chris DiStefano]

You flew on the plane with the. With the messed up hand?

[Jeff Acuri]

It was just a small cut, but I'm saying. But it was bloat. It was.

[Chris DiStefano]

Stayed in the Hawaiian hospital.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I didn't know.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, you went on the plane with.

[Jeff Acuri]

I just put a bandaid on. And then on the plane, on the way down, on the descent, I had fallen asleep. I'm like, this is bad. Like, I was like, red all up.

[Chris DiStefano]

In my arm and it was painful.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so I went to the hospital, and it was the Hollywood Hospital, like, right next to the hotel. I walked right over there. I just put my bags down and walked over. And the. I walk into the emergency room. It's about 120 people in the emergency room.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

I walk up to the desk, she goes, need to get him admitted right now. And really right back there. It was like 1am And I was there for like three days. And she hit me up. She's like, hey, I see you're doing a show at the Improv. We were supposed to, you know, hang out. I'm like, I'm actually in the hospital right now.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And we started texting that night when it started getting better, and we started texting that whole night. Like, it was great for me. I have adhd, so when we were texting, it was like a good first date because then I can go back and read the shit she told me that I was supposed to already. Remember?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I was like, oh, how are your two sisters? And we started talking and then just started talking on the phone a lot. And then it was like a month later, we met in person for the first time.

[Chris DiStefano]

Dude, sometimes when you know, you know.

[Jeff Acuri]

That'S really what it is.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Honestly, like, it was like, I've never had. I've never had a relationship like this where I was like, oh, it's actually like a best friend.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's actually somebody I want to talk to.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

And not like somebody who I think I would want to be with.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

Because I don't know about you, but it's just like, sometimes it's just like, oh, I like a pretty girl.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then the rest of it, I figure it out.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then three months later, you're like, oh, I hate talking to you.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right. But you don't feel that with. No, but it has only been five months.

[Jeff Acuri]

It has been five months. Five. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's the thing, buddy.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

It has.

[Chris DiStefano]

Jeff, listen to me. I'm with you. I'm supportive of you. But you gotta understand that you're saying shit like this, and you're like, she's the one that's connected. We don't even fight. I'm like, yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Cause you.

[Chris DiStefano]

You only just met last week. That's what it is. But, dude, I gotta be honest with you. I kind of like how you're doing this. You're like, go hard. Go home. I'm Fucking in.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And I respect. Because you've. You've dated other girls for five months and you haven't wanted to do this. So there's something different about her.

[Jeff Acuri]

I've only dated, like, this, been with somebody this long. Like, I've. My average relationship is like, two months, three months, and then, like, a break, and then, like, us talking again. Because a lot of women get, like, angry, right. With me, because I'll, like. I'll do stupid shit. I'll do sleep a lot.

[Chris DiStefano]

Like, what will you do?

[Jeff Acuri]

I was like, one time I had Oceanus girl, really nice girls, a spin instructor in New York.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, sounds like my wife.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I was like, in my. We were out of my apartment, and I was just like. I think I was. We were, like, drinking that night. We came home, we're just hanging out, and I was playing on a keyboard, like, just messing around, and she, like, got so mad at me because she's like, have you been listening to anything I said? I hadn't listened at all.

[Chris DiStefano]

You're playing the keyboard. You're tunes, babe.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so then she goes. I go, of course. I said, of course I'm listening to you. And she goes, name one thing I said in the past 10 minutes. And so I went on the keyboard and I went, dun, dun, dun, dun. And she got, like, physically mad at me. Not physically, but like a psycho.

[Chris DiStefano]

I think that's funny and cute.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. She goes, you fuck your piece of shit. Screaming at me. And then she walked out. I go, I don't know if that's me at all, but that's probably. That was probably the last straw. That wasn't the one thing I did that day. It was a bunch of shit. Yeah, but it's me for being forgetful and shit like that. But with her, it has been super easy. It's just like, we're both.

[Chris DiStefano]

She lets you play the keyboard around her?

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I'm not allowed to do a lot of things, but. No, of course. Yeah, yeah, no, she's good.

[Chris DiStefano]

Did you do that thing where, like, you know, Bachelor, like, you gave her the rose? When? With the.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I did get a big, fat rose tattoo. That's not for her, though.

[Chris DiStefano]

That isn't. That's just coincidence.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's just coincidence. The Internet fucking ate my lunch on that shit, dude. They were like, oh, this is like.

[Chris DiStefano]

A known thing about the. You with the Bachelor. You're public about this shit?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, she posted about it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay, great.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's known, so.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, okay. I understand. Now. And that's why Bobby Kelly was showing pictures video. Because all the YouTube show. She had to do it for the show. Dude, it's not.

[Jeff Acuri]

I know.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's all it is, bro.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's all it is.

[Chris DiStefano]

And some of those guys were probably fucking ripped and like, gorgeous.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, that sucks.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, it does suck. But that also makes me like, look at me.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, look at me. Old fucking Jeff Fathead got.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's my nickname. Starting now. Yeah, yeah. That was one thing that I hated was like, the thought of, like, I been talking about on stage a little bit, riffing with it, but the fact. The fact that this is what you get when you don't win. I'm waiting on the wings. I can't pick you up when you jump, but I can make you laugh.

[Chris DiStefano]

Well, I mean, what if it's beautiful now? Did you watch that episode of the Bachelorette with her in it? Did you know who she was before?

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I didn't know who she was. She followed me and liked. You know how you can see verified follows or whatever. It's like notifications come up, I guess. And it was like a bunch of things that she liked. And I'm like, who is she? Seems really pretty. And then I was like, if you're ever in New York, let me know. And she's like, new York scares me.

[Chris DiStefano]

You want to come to a show? You like comedy?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just.

[Chris DiStefano]

Wait.

[Jeff Acuri]

I forgot what we were talking about.

[Chris DiStefano]

I'm saying, like, you didn't. You didn't know who she was, like, at all. She was like, liking your stuff. But, you know, the Bachelorette.

[Jeff Acuri]

But then apparently my sister's a big fan of hers. Like, she like, loved that season and. Yes, sir. And she was also on like Fboy island and like a couple other.

[Chris DiStefano]

Your fiance.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sounds great.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's on a show called Boy.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, she's on Fuck Boy Island. I met her. I met her last week. She's my fiance. Do you think. What did your mom and dad say?

[Jeff Acuri]

They love her, right? The mom scared at all? No, my mom. My parents got married after like three months and they still live in the same house, you know.

[Chris DiStefano]

True.

[Jeff Acuri]

They don't make eye contact anymore. Yeah, I remember we were taking family photos.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And my dad and my mom, like, they're. They're like an old school couple. Like, we're married, like, you know, but we're like taking photos. And the photographer was like, all right, now just, you know, just Pat and Steve.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And he's like, all Right. He goes, all right, now turn to your wife and, like, look her in the eyes. And my dad goes, like, to the camera, goes. Looks at my mom. And he grits grimacing through his teeth, just goes, hurry up. Like that. And they both started laughing. And I'm like, I love that your common laughter is that you don't like each other anymore.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's great.

[Jeff Acuri]

I got him a VR headset and.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, sick.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. And he loves it. He uses it every night. My mom's like, three hours a night he's on that thing.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. He's cranking it to whatever VR porn there is.

[Jeff Acuri]

No. Next. She goes, every time I sit down on the couch, he puts the headset on. And, like, he just is on all night.

[Chris DiStefano]

He just goes into a life that he wishes he had. That's what it is.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I go. She goes, send me a picture. And I'm 90% sure there's supposed to be, like, a blinking light. It's not. I don't think it's on. I think she just sits down. He's like, oh, gotta go.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, he's just fast asleep in there. He doesn't care. Wow.

[Jeff Acuri]

I'm playing the snoring game. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Now, do you guys want kids? The whole thing, or.

[Jeff Acuri]

We're talking about it, you know, that was the thing that I told her.

[Chris DiStefano]

Because Pulling out right now.

[Jeff Acuri]

Youw know, I mean, she's on birth control.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay. Blast through a pill. I did it.

[Jeff Acuri]

You can blast through a pill?

[Chris DiStefano]

Hundred percent, dude. It depends how hard your swimmers are. Dude, my fucking guys were ready to go.

[Jeff Acuri]

Really?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, dude, they blasted through birth control.

[Jeff Acuri]

Every time she says her boobs hurt. I do get a little.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

But.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, but if you have. If she got pregnant right now somehow, you would Gladly.

[Jeff Acuri]

I'd be into it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know, I want kids, I think. But we also talked about one thing I did tell her was that's not, like, an expectation. So, like, we get married because she's 33. I'm 37. So I'm like, if we get married and then you're not, like, if something either of us were not able to, that wouldn't end the marriage. Like, that's not, like, the reason I'm marrying you.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, that's good.

[Jeff Acuri]

I think you. That's a good assurance.

[Chris DiStefano]

100%. That's good. You got you getting married for the. For the right reasons.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

She's like.

[Jeff Acuri]

She's like my best friend. It's so sick. We play video games together. It's the best.

[Chris DiStefano]

So, dude, I'm. I'm. You're turning me around on this. I'm believing in all this. Here we go. But I will say this, though. It is. I do believe in it. But it also does have, you know, Netflix documentary written all over it. Oh, yeah, it does kind of have, you know, kind of my crazy ex. Not my crazy ex, but, like, one of those ones. Like, you know, that show snapped where somebody. Where you just fucking kill everybody. You have fucking Chris Benoit written all over you.

[Jeff Acuri]

Really? Okay, so you're gonna. You're telling me on the recording that you think I'm gonna murder my wife?

[Chris DiStefano]

I think, yeah. No, no, no. I'm just saying. No, I don't think you're going to. I don't think you're going to. But I think that it's got the beginnings. Yeah, you're in. But you know what, though? But here's what I'll say about. About it is I think, and I'm not alone. I think me, along with many other women, think that's hot. I think that your passion for her and her passion, what it seems like for you is hot. And I'm kind of all for. Like, I said, go harder, go home if you're going to love. Don't fucking half ass it. You know? You know, you go Also at 37, it's like, you fucking know she's 33.

[Jeff Acuri]

Exactly. That's my argument, too, is like, we're not 23. Just going like, yeah, we like each other's vibes.

[Chris DiStefano]

No, no, no.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's. We kind of figured it out. We have the same exact. My deals and principles.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

And all that stuff that it's like, why wouldn't we do this?

[Chris DiStefano]

Were you guys gonna get married? What are you thinking?

[Jeff Acuri]

We were debating it, but we're thinking I told her to close her eyes and picture what it would look like because she was having a hard time figuring out. Her family lives in Washington. My lives in Michigan now. My sisters.

[Chris DiStefano]

While the Flowerama family left.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Michigan.

[Jeff Acuri]

It was like, once that ended, the relationship with his father ended. My dad was like, let's just move to Michigan where my mom's family is.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And we'll start over. He started doing real estate. Now he does tile. Oh, like lace tile. Oh, yeah, yeah. There.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

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[Chris DiStefano]

It's so whack.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

Why is it whack?

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh my God, you're putting me asleep.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

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[Jeff Acuri]

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to.

[Unnamed Female Speaker]

Raise prices due to inflation.

[Jeff Acuri]

They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year.

[Chris DiStefano]

Contracts, they said, what the are you talking about?

[Unnamed Female Speaker]

You insane Hollywood.

[Jeff Acuri]

So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month.

[Unnamed Female Speaker]

To just $15 a month.

[Chris DiStefano]

Give it a try@mint mobile.com Switch $45 upfront for three months plus taxes and fees. Promote for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month.

[Jeff Acuri]

Close full terms@mint mobile.com is tiled.

[Chris DiStefano]

Wait, so, okay, so Michigan or the state of Washington.

[Jeff Acuri]

State of Washington. Yeah. So we were. I told her to picture what she would want and then she. I think what we're thinking about now is like Northern California in the fall because she wants like a woods. She pictured the woods. So I'm like, that's not gonna be Michigan or New York.

[Chris DiStefano]

Ideally you can do a big one. You're gonna do a big wedding.

[Jeff Acuri]

Small, smaller the better. She doesn't even want a wedding.

[Chris DiStefano]

See, I like that. Yeah. She doesn't even want to blow the money on the wedding because it does feel silly to spend a lot of money on the wedding when you could just put it into a house or an investor.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's exactly that.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's good. So I like. That's marriage material.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, it's a lot of that. It's a lot of very like marriage. She's also literally everything she said to me that she's like, you should do this because I bet you this is gonna happen. It's 100%.

[Chris DiStefano]

She's spot on. And she probably is good also to she. What I like about this relationship is she feels like she's got like her own career stuff. She's not being with you because she needs to, she's being with you because she wants to. Yeah, that's the difference.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's. Yeah, that's the thing too is she does her own thing. She does like brand deal stuff and she does social media really well. Yeah, I don't really. I just post my clips and that's it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

But she's really good with all that. And like, I know I joked around with like the tour manager thing, but she would be a great help because she's very like, here's what we need to do, here's the itinerary. And I'm the opposite.

[Chris DiStefano]

You can't bring her into the business. You can't do it. I'm going to get. So dude, what gets messy then. Then you know she's fucking booking you in Kuwait. You can't do it.

[Jeff Acuri]

Not like booking me tour manager meaning just more like, hey, make sure everyone's down in the lobby by 9:00.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, but then she's going to. Dude, I don't think you could do. I think we got to separate. Separate. I'm a big believer. But you do whatever the hell you want, you know, I Know, I try.

[Jeff Acuri]

I take your advice. I do, because I.

[Chris DiStefano]

Thank you.

[Jeff Acuri]

I do agree, because there was, like, time. What was it? I did something stupid.

[Chris DiStefano]

Playing the key, not playing the keyboard. You're not allowed to do that.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, no. I forget what it was, but it was, like, something that I did where I just glossed over something that happened with her, and then I was like. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. But look what happened. Look at this guy. This guy gave me a T shirt on stage tonight. And she, like, was. She's like, can we, like. Can you just, for one second, like, listen to what I said to you? And it was one of those things where I felt off. It was like, one of the few times where I was like, oh, she's upset with me, right? And it, like, affected me to where I was going up on the second show, and I called her, and I'm like, I cannot have this right now. I cannot have the thought of you being pissed off at me right now right before I go up. And so the thought of, like, integrating that into on the road, where it's like, what if we get into an argument? And then she's like. She's like, backstage, like, right there, and I'm like, yeah, you don't.

[Chris DiStefano]

You don't want it, man.

[Jeff Acuri]

No.

[Chris DiStefano]

1. You don't need it. I think. I think, yeah, let her, you know, keep it separated. But I think. Mm. Are any comics gonna get invited to the wedding?

[Jeff Acuri]

I've debated that. Just because it's one of those messy things where it's like, if you invite two, that's intimate. But if you invite, like, four comics, you really gotta invite eight and might as well invite ten.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. I think. Are you gonna be the guy who wears your tuxedo with Jordan sneakers? Are you gonna wear Jordan?

[Jeff Acuri]

I cannot do that.

[Chris DiStefano]

Refuse to wear the shoes. Because a lot of guys do that. It's fucking stupid.

[Jeff Acuri]

I do not like that at all. I've never liked suits and sneakers in my.

[Chris DiStefano]

I've never.

[Jeff Acuri]

I think, just buy a pair of shoes. I would. I. I'm gonna get, like a. I'm gonna get a tuxedo. Classic. I'm gonna go. Because I told her. She's like, you're the only guy with. I could imagine wanting this, but I was like, I want to do. I want to see you in a wedding dress. I do want to see that stuff. Hell, she doesn't want the wedding. And I'm like, I do. But I'm also saying that because you have to do most of the Work.

[Chris DiStefano]

Do you kind of have the brain of a woman?

[Jeff Acuri]

A little bit.

[Chris DiStefano]

I think all of us as comics kind of do. We kind of all have women's brains. Right. If you. I mean, even, like, what we're doing, like, we're not real men. We're not. Like, this is like, not a man's job. Like, think about, like, an old school man being like, what do you do? You tell jokes.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

I do that shit on my fucking lunch break when I'm building. Building with my hands. I can do your whole career on my fucking coffee break.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Hey, you stealing that guy's car phone?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

So I. I think that we are kind of like women because what you're describing to me, you're describing the perfect wedding to me. Like, and what you want see you in a wedding dress. All these beautiful things. The moments, the connections above. But it's. It's how a woman thinks.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And you've. And maybe you found your counterpart. Yeah. In this woman because she has more of a man's brain. And you've connected with each other, even though you're. You're. You have a woman's brain and a male's body, and she has a man's brain and a woman's body. That's possible. I mean, she was on Fuck Boy Island.

[Jeff Acuri]

That is true.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

But she's. Yeah, there's. There's. There's moments there. There's so many moments where I'm like, oh, hell yeah. Like, what was it a few weeks ago? We're having an engagement party in Michigan because my. A lot of my mom, like my close family, like my cousins and shit, won't be coming to a destination wedding. So my mom was like, can you just do an engagement party here? What? Everybody there? And then, you know, I'll pay for the music or whatever. And I was like, all right. So we're organizing it. And she agree.

[Chris DiStefano]

The music. How much is the music?

[Jeff Acuri]

I don't.

[Chris DiStefano]

You could have fun. You know what I mean? Come on.

[Jeff Acuri]

Me and her, we're like, we don't want music.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. I don't need to pay for the. Everything else.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. So we were. She's gonna, like, organize this with my sisters and my mom, which. My sisters and my mom are really into this. And so she surprised them and me by flying to Michigan and working it out with my one sister. She picked her up from the airport and spent four days to get to know my sisters and my mom and organizing and look at venues. She just flew all the way there for Four days just to do that. And I was like. I was like, you need a heads up with my family.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

It was funny. She's like, my one sister has a chaos house. She has, like three kids, two dogs, two cats.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Insane. It's always loud. She would send me voice messages of like, just ambient noise. And you're like, ah. Like, it was. It was nuts.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's. Yeah, that's my.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, you need to give me a heads up when you go see my family because there's a lot of, like, prefacing I need to do.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. We got to tell him about your grandfather. There's a whole thing, I think, with this. With this wedding too, and this, you know, time in your life. I think that this is gonna. We're going to see who the real Jeff is over the next year. I think we're gonna see who is Jeff. Is it the Jeff that's been presented to us? Is it this guy who we love on the socials and who we're seeing. Kill it. You know, this flower on the Jeff, is that the real Jeff or is the real. Or is the real Jeff coming out post marriage? We don't know. And that's what we're waiting to see.

[Jeff Acuri]

Okay.

[Chris DiStefano]

I don't know. I don't know if marriage is gonna change you in a positive or negative way. I don't know yet, Jeff.

[Jeff Acuri]

How could it. How could it have changed? You mean negative? Let's just think hypothetically. Like, would I become short tempered?

[Chris DiStefano]

You could become. You could literally be. Become your father. And then you're sitting here 20 years from now, sitting next to your wife with the VR goggles on. They're not even connected. And you just want to get out of it. And then this happy. See this joy that you have on your face, that's gone.

[Jeff Acuri]

This is not joy.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's fear.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's it, dude.

[Chris DiStefano]

All you got to do is put a little mustache on and then you're your dad. And so is that. Or is this. Is this going to be. Is this going to make you a version of Jeff that, you know, like.

[Jeff Acuri]

I think she makes me a better person.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

More organized. I'm also like, I don't know. You've been single on the road before.

[Chris DiStefano]

I have.

[Jeff Acuri]

When it's just like, oh, you know what? Like, you. Let's go get. Let's go celebrate and get drinks afterwards. You know that I don't do as much because now I'm like, I'm going to go call my fiance and go back to my room and get a good night rest, you know, a lot more, which I started doing before I met her anyways. Like, just kind of chilling out and chilling out, not trying to, like, party every weekend, basically.

[Chris DiStefano]

Like, what I'm asking you is, like, do you think, are you going to become. Are you, you know, when you get married, is that going to push you to be, you know, the. The biggest, baddest version of you crushing it, or you're going to go insane? Are you going to become Jeffrey Bezos or Jeffrey Dahmer?

[Jeff Acuri]

Dahmer.

[Chris DiStefano]

Dahmer. Are you going to eat black men in Milwaukee? That's what we're asking here.

[Jeff Acuri]

Not a lot of good Jeffs that.

[Chris DiStefano]

Made me realize that, no, there's almost none. There's almost no good Jeffs.

[Jeff Acuri]

Well, now I'm getting married. I'm going to be the good Jeff.

[Chris DiStefano]

You. Why?

[Jeff Acuri]

I'm going to become the good Jeff.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah, there are. Yeah. Every. That's actually, I've never even thought about Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Bezos, Jeffrey Dahmer.

[Jeff Acuri]

Jeff Goldblum's good.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, Jeff Goldblum's good. Jeff Goldblum's. That's. There's one good one right there.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yep. Dj. DJ Daddy Jeff.

[Chris DiStefano]

Jazzy Jeff is good. Thomas Jefferson.

[Jeff Acuri]

George.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. Jefferson. Yeah. All right, all right. So I think. I think that this is. I'm interested. You know, I really. That. That really hit a. Hit a. Hit a place for me when you told me, because I didn't know. I didn't know anybody, because what I like to do. Because I only know you, you know, I know you as we know each other. But I. I don't like to. I'm not like, going on the Internet to, like, search for things with people that I know. Like, let's just talk honestly, and I'm happy to. Did you check with our good friend Jared Freed, who runs the Bachelor Bachelorette podcast and everything? He's the guy. Did you check with him to make sure that she's. Oh, she's okay. No, you got to check with Jared Freed, AKA J Train, to make sure he will know everything about. He knows more about her than you do. Yeah, just. Just check with him before you sign that paper. Just check with him and make sure he gives you the A. Okay, I'm sure he will, but just.

[Jeff Acuri]

Make sure I don't. Yeah, I never watched any of the shit, though. And I also don't think that's a good representation of who a person is, is who they were on reality tv.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

Because a Lot of that stuff is curated. A lot of it's produced.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I think there's a lot of List. The clips I have seen that Bobby Kelly made me watch. I was like, oh, that's not very.

[Chris DiStefano]

Funny that he did that.

[Jeff Acuri]

It was. I was like, that isn't really even her. I could see that she's, like. She's, like, doing what they said because she told me. Like, a lot of the stuff they do is they'll be like. They'll ask you a series of questions and to get your reactions out of them, but then they'll throw questions at you to make you cry. And then they'll, like, for example, they'll be like, so how did you feel the date went? And she'd be like, it was okay. Could have gone better. And then, like, later on, they'd be like, how do you feel about your dog dying last week? And then you're like, I hated it. And then they're like, let's use that answer for that question.

[Chris DiStefano]

They do like that.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. They'll get you crying and then be like, okay, now let's talk about this really quick while you're still crying, because it looks like you're upset about something that you were completely not upset about.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, I. I'm just not. They. They asked me to do Dancing with the Stars.

[Jeff Acuri]

Really?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. And I just said no because I was like, I'm not gonna. First of all, I don't want to dance. I have an Achilles issue. And second of all, I was like, I don't. I know that they'll, like, edit things. I'm like, if I want to. That's the beauty about, like, what we do here. It's like, we could just control our own edits. I. Why do I need you from fucking ABC making me look like a dick.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

You know, or, like, getting my family involved. Like, I don't want to do that at all.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's what scares me about, like, America's Got Talent.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. I don't want to do it. Did you do it? You didn't do a Man. Did you do any of those shows? You didn't do any of those shows? No. Yeah. You weren't on, like, America's Got Talent or. But not, like I'm saying, like. I know. I know that, but I'm saying none of those. Right. You know? Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

I. There's a comic I knew that did it. That was, like, the way they edit it. It's like, it can be. They can make or break you.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, dude, I don't I don't want any part of it. I don't, I don't need that. But I will tell you, if my tickets don't pick up, I will go on Dancing with the Stars next year.

[Jeff Acuri]

Do it.

[Chris DiStefano]

You think I should do it?

[Jeff Acuri]

I think you absolutely should do it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I bet you that they would probably come up with a dance that would, you know, appease your Achilles.

[Chris DiStefano]

I don't know, dude. I was just like, I can't dance. And then what? And then, and that'll be fun. That'll, by the way, that'll be great for a relationship. I'm fucking dancing with some smoking hot fucking Russian chick and I have to be with her all day. And I'm sure I'll be good at home. I'm sure, I'm sure I'll get friendly. FaceTimes.

[Jeff Acuri]

Show me the room. Show me the room.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah. Well, mine I know now my little 9 year old will know. Like, you know, I've just. I face. She has her phone now that only works like on the WI fi in the house. It's like, you know, just want to give her a little something. And she. So we FaceTime every morning, you know, she FaceTime me tonight. This morning at 6:15am woke me. I was drinking all night last night just fucking woke me up, you know, ready to go for school. She's like, look at my new outfit, dad. I'm like, you wear a Catholic school uniform, it's the same thing every fucking day. But so, but she's like. And then she's like, you know, just kind of like her mom, like her mom wasn't even there. Her mom was upstairs with my other daughter. And she's like, I'm talking to my daughter. I'm like, hey, honey, whatever. And she's like, why are the lights off? And I'm like, at 6:15 in the morning? She's like, turn on the lights. And I was like, but honey, they're all the way over there. She's like, why don't you want to turn on the lights, dad? And I was like, oh my God. I was like, just give me a minute. I was like, hey, you gotta go. And then I just turned, I just turned on the lights. And then, you know, and then my, my daughter was like, oh, I want to see the room. I'm like, I know what the fuck. You're like, no, you don't. I. What is this? And I was like, did you do your math homework? She's like, yeah, well, let me see your room.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. There better not be a one plus one.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. She's like, is there a hair in your toothbrush? And so. But that's what happens if, you know you have daughters and hopefully. Hopefully you don't.

[Jeff Acuri]

I had a woman's underwear in my laundry one time.

[Chris DiStefano]

In your laundry?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, boy.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I had a girl I was seeing at the time, and I had no explanation except that it was just from the laundromat. And to this day, I'm like, I'm not lying. I didn't have a song.

[Chris DiStefano]

What were they, Granny?

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, a bright pink thong. Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

I don't even know how you. She was. She's not mad at you because now you were like this. That's why. That's the part you leave out. You came on. You just. You had them up your nostrils.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, I just go, I don't know her.

[Chris DiStefano]

I don't know. Ew. Hell. I. Yeah, I. That can happen. By the way, that's a very actually good excuse, which I bet a lot of guys listening to this podcast right now are, like, writing that down. Like, oh, just. I should just send my laundry out. If I'm going to cheat on my wife, I'm going to send my laundry out the next day. I'm doing this for you, babe. I want you. You know, you're hurting your back in the washer dryer. But it's really. Just say, hey, if some random underwear is in my thing, I'll say, it's a. Not me, it's a fucking Korean.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. See, there you go, stealing that guy's car phone. It was a Korean. That was.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. No. Well, that's good. And then tonight, and then you're here in Austin, you're doing the theaters, and then how do you feel. How do you feel about your comedy success, Howie? Because I know that can be. It could be rough. You could mess with you emotionally.

[Jeff Acuri]

It does, man. I'm trying to, like, maintain. Like, I still want to feel lucky every day because I am. Like, I kind of. The. My trajectory was pretty quick. I'm trying to say I've been doing comedy for 15 years, but it was like, I went from, like, nothing to, like. I was like, let me just try doing social media and starting it. And then now it was like, I just want to do clubs for a while because I'm like, I don't want to go to theaters. But now doing theaters, I'm like, I still get chills. I try not to take it for granted.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

But it's. It's still. It's pretty nuts, like, coming out to that many people. The biggest thing is, like, not having the imposter syndrome of I don't want to go out there and be like. And have a mediocre set and people go, okay. It's just the online magic.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I'm really adamant about, like, doing at least an hour and having a structured joke structure. Like joker set structure to where I, you know, I have a call back to the. One of my first few jokes on my last joke.

[Chris DiStefano]

So it's not. When you do a theater, it's not all crowd work with the crowd is what you show online. But at the actual show, people know it's material as well.

[Jeff Acuri]

But, yeah, I still have people that will hit me up. Be like, I can't believe I just. You just do all crowd work. Like, I would just set your show and it was all crowd work. And I'm like, oh, beautiful. That's. You thought that I was just improvising that whole time.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

But it's not. I just. I think people are doing it now more and more. But it was something that me and Jordan. And I'm sure you've done. I've seen you do it before. Where. Maybe not, but me and Jordan were doing this at the Cellar when we became friends. Jordan Jensen.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

Where if you have a new topic that you're going through, like, let's say if you're like. Like, like pregnancy or whatever.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Anybody else pregnant or whatever like that, then you just ask the audience that you have a reason to bring it up because you have a full bit about it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

You ask how they pertain to it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then you move on and it doesn't need to be funny.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. Listen. The days of, like, you know, you just putting out hey. Where you're from and then like, cleveland, I gay, you stupid fucking asshole. That's not going to work anymore. You have to do now. Yes. If it's. I don't even call it crowd work. It's getting the crowd involved in the bit in a way. But it is the bit. You know what I mean? It is like. It's not like you said, you're asking them set up questions to get you into the bit.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Which is so it's kind of like. It's just. It's the same thing comedians have been doing from the beginning. Except the set, the crowd just gets involved with the setup, which is better because then the crowd feels like. That's why. I think one of the biggest parts of Matt rife Success was the crowd. You go to a Matt Rife show, you're gonna feel like you as an audience member are actually a part of the show, which. How many other. You know, none. That's. Not every. Comedians like that.

[Jeff Acuri]

No.

[Chris DiStefano]

You know.

[Jeff Acuri]

No, this thing is. I think that it's. It's important to integrate the audience, like, with my audience, especially because that's what they're there for.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's important to integrate them and segregate them.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, that's true.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yep.

[Jeff Acuri]

But I do like making them feel like even if they're not part of it, like, they don't need to be called on for it to be funny.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

But I do like to go into the crowd a little bit. But I also love to do my own jokes and structure my shit. That's what I love about the seller, is that I can go up there with like three minutes of ideas and then by the end of a week of spots, I have like a new 12 minutes.

[Chris DiStefano]

And then what's your thing? You put it all out in like one to two minute clip increments. Is that how you like what you think?

[Jeff Acuri]

For what?

[Chris DiStefano]

Like when you. When you're doing the seller and you're filming it all, do you put it out then, like on a weekly basis on, like your socials, like the shit you're doing that week?

[Jeff Acuri]

I don't put the bits out as much.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

Because, like, there was. What was it like the last two weeks at the Cellar? I was basically doing the same 15 minutes, which was a lot of. It's a lot of. About me talking about me and her. She recorded us having sex by accident.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, good.

[Jeff Acuri]

It was a fur ball. Like a cat camera.

[Chris DiStefano]

Nice.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so it's just a long bit about that.

[Chris DiStefano]

And it's just your fucking butt dimples just thrust in.

[Jeff Acuri]

You ever seen yourself have sex?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yes, I actually have. Yes.

[Jeff Acuri]

You make changes.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, you don't. You're not like, oh, this is awesome.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, I look, I'm on the diddy sex tapes.

[Jeff Acuri]

Squeak by.

[Chris DiStefano]

Fucking blowing Odell Beckham in the back of a club.

[Jeff Acuri]

Just angry at your posture.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, I'm just. People are still shitting on that. I have no legs and I skip leg day. I'm getting bent over by Meek Mills.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. But I was like, I had like a two minutes on that and then now it's become close to 15.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

Based on what I've asked audience members, I'll take what they said. Like, what was the bit? I have a bit now that I'm doing Where I. I kind of integrate it into mine. Where if you ever said something during sex, right. And then they ignored you, and somebody was like, I said, I love you.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

I was like, that's the end of that. You can't follow it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Like, did you hear what I said? Like, you can't. Like, it gets creepy. Like.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so I just take the audience interactions. Sometimes I keep them and I'll show them on the Internet. But then I write, put them into my bed.

[Chris DiStefano]

And the thing is, you were doing that 10 years ago. Like, that's always what you've been.

[Jeff Acuri]

Do you know what I was? Yeah. Well, I wasn't doing it. Like, when I opened for you, I wasn't.

[Chris DiStefano]

Hell just happened.

[Jeff Acuri]

My ring. I dropped my ring earlier.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, is that, like an aura ring? One of those, like, rings that.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's. It's a Tibetan healing. Rather cheap. They're like 10 bucks on Amazon. But I found it because I was. It was like, you know, I don't know if you remember this, but SD auditions people, and then, like, in two weeks, she'll, like, kind of come watch you, and. Sure, you're doing well.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so it was that second time she came to see me.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

I did different material than I auditioned with.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

I felt great. Like, I did great. And then I walk up stage, and she hugged me and goes very funny like this. And I was like, oh, I was chubby. Yeah. I walked right past her. And at the cellar at the McDougall Street, I stepped on this weird ring. It fits perfectly. I waited for the end of the show to see if anybody claimed it. I told the servers, and I love that.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's the real reason you got the infection in your arm. You just picked up a random ring on the floor and put it on. You're like. You're like. It was the Hawaiian dirt. I'm like, no, dude, he put a ring from the West Village on your.

[Jeff Acuri]

But this is the ring from the. From the cell I stepped on. And then I thought it was some, like, golden. Some amazing ring. And then Jordan Jensen was like, that's a Tibetan healing. They're like 12 on Amazon.

[Chris DiStefano]

She knows.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Her mom's a lesbian. She knows.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

But before the back to the crowd work thing is, I actually. What started me doing more crowd work was working on cruise ships.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

I did cruises for, like, a year and a half, two years.

[Chris DiStefano]

Well, where. So cruises for the. For the. For the fans that don't know is you have to go on. You're on the ship for how many days? Explain cruise ship comedy to like the people that don't know. Because a lot of people don't know.

[Jeff Acuri]

I just worked in the kitchen. I wasn't doing.

[Chris DiStefano]

You were working with the other Filipinos.

[Jeff Acuri]

You go on a cruise ship, you. It depends. So like pre Covid. I'll tell you how it works is like, like it would be a week. So like one contract would be five shows. Okay. So you would say idea. Like an easy. An easy contract would be a five day cruise, one show a night.

[Chris DiStefano]

30 minutes have to be clean.

[Jeff Acuri]

You have to have one PG show that's 30 minutes long. This is Carnival. Now with the other ones, you'd have to have two 45s, one clean 45 and one adult 45.

[Chris DiStefano]

Wow.

[Jeff Acuri]

But with Carnival, you just need to have one clean 30 and then two.

[Chris DiStefano]

Separate adult 30 minutes that are different material.

[Jeff Acuri]

All different material.

[Chris DiStefano]

You can have 90 minutes total of different material.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. Wow. So that's why some people like, oh, it's cruise ship comedy. And it's like, okay, that's still 90 minutes of having to work with the audience and figure it out.

[Chris DiStefano]

And the only way to do that is. Well, not the only way. One of the best ways to do that is to do the crowd work.

[Jeff Acuri]

So that's what I figured out was I was fine just doing my sets. I wasn't doing any crowd work.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

I'm like, it's a cruise ship. These people are like eating pasta, you know?

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, they're fucking fat slobs just floating in the middle of the fucking ocean, burning up fuel, being like, just, I, we should detonate those ships. There was fat people. Fuck Ozempic. Blow up the cruise ships.

[Jeff Acuri]

The worst people were the ones that had.

[Chris DiStefano]

Dr. Drew told me that. Sorry, sorry.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. So what I started doing was, I started. People would come back. So if I had to do five shows, I'd have to repeat the show and then repeat the APG show. And then I would be like performing and then I would like have another show. And it's. I'm like, hey, the next show is repeating the first one. And people would be like, oh, I liked watching it, so I'm going to watch it again. That's all.

[Chris DiStefano]

That's like music. Then it becomes like, they want to hear that song.

[Jeff Acuri]

But it sucks because then they're sitting there going, yeah, I heard that.

[Chris DiStefano]

And he's going to do that.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I'm like, I told you it's a repeat show. So that started getting to me. So I was Like I need to stretch my shit out.

[Chris DiStefano]

Why not? You're on a cruise ship, you got no windows, you're in fucking international waters, dude. Anything goes. Get on the black market it.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I started doing crowd work in between jokes and it was like a little bit too much in the beginning where I was just like, right. So I had a crazy day. Anybody else have a crazy day? It was like too much. But then I would try and write local and like to each whichever country we were going to or whatever, right. And it was a lot of fun. But I started stretching it out more that way. Was was just like taking my one 30 minute set and splitting in half and just doing 15 minutes but crowd working.

[Chris DiStefano]

Did you ever have a show where you ate it and bombed hard and then you just have to sit on the cruise ship with these people like a zero and then you just have to buffet like ran to show last night.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, it was like my second cruise ever. It was a retirement cruise where they're on the boat for like a month, right. And I get off, I was like, oh, this would be fun. Cuz I did one before, it was really fun. And the other guy that was on this cruise, I can't say his name, but let's just say it was like not a normal name. It was like Tom the crazy guy. You know, he had like one of those names where it's like girl last name.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, it was Tom the crazy guy. Cigar.

[Jeff Acuri]

But he had like, you wore like crazy looking suits. And he wasn't a comedian first. He was a cruise director that became a comedian.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

And so then he was like Burke Kreischer. He was, he was a great cruise director.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, that's what he's gonna wind up as.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. He would go around before my show, he walked around to my audience and was handing out his business card and be like, don't forget to come to my show. To come to my show. Yeah, it was a retirement crew. So the late show that I was doing was like 4:00 in the afternoon.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And I was eating, it was doing bad. I was like talking about. And everyone was just like, what are you talking? Like it was, everyone was 80, dude.

[Chris DiStefano]

With old people like that, if that ever happens to you again, you just, if you're a bombing like that, you just go into the story about your grandpa with the car phone and you say that word and then you get an applause. So what happens? You're bombing.

[Jeff Acuri]

I bombed hard.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then the guy comes up to me afterwards, he goes you got to know your audience, man. All right? They don't know what dating is. They haven't dated in 50 years. Real like you. I'll teach you. I'll teach you, kid. Yeah. And I was like, okay. I didn't want.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. You know. You know, he doesn't understand that, like you. That. That guy's like the last person you'd ever want to be.

[Jeff Acuri]

Right.

[Unnamed Male Speaker]

Or.

[Jeff Acuri]

Exactly.

[Chris DiStefano]

From.

[Jeff Acuri]

And then the. I just kind of bombed. I adjusted, but I still kind of bombed that week. And the thing is, we're still on the same ship for the next cruise. The next cruise was a spring break cruise weekend, three day cruise where you. To do five shows in three days. So it was like, dirty show. Dirty show.

[Chris DiStefano]

And like young kids, like. Yeah, break crews. Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

And he ate his course because he was doing his Joel Olstein impression, you know, like, he was doing like. Yeah. And it was just like, you ever go to church, just like, kneel down, stand up, kneel down? And these Christmas spring breakers were like, it's 11:30 at night. This is what the joke.

[Chris DiStefano]

They're like, we're sitting here with gonorrhea trying to laugh it off.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. And then I walked up to him after, he, like, kind of bombed. And I go, you just gotta kind of know your audience. And he was like, all right, I deserve that. And he was fine after that.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, that's good. At least he owned up to it.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

And then. And then. But so. So that's good. But see that, like, that's the thing. Like the beat, like the Beatles, like, we know they got so good because they, like, there's that story of them playing for, like, years at, like, this bar in Germany where, like, nobody was listening and they just cut your chops. And that's how you. That's. I never knew that about you, that you got good on the cruise ships. Because we all thought you were dead, dude, we. Nobody knew where Jeff Curry was. Years. But you were on the fucking. Just on the international water.

[Jeff Acuri]

I was just.

[Chris DiStefano]

It was performing for old people.

[Jeff Acuri]

Freeing, dude. I kind of loved it. There's no cell phone service.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

I was just running on the top deck. I just go work out. I'd meet the crew. I'd always hang out with the crew. Like, because it was weirdly segregated, a lot of casual racism. But, like, funny.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's international waters. Anything goes.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

It's pirate behavior.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, yeah. I've said things I could never say on land.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

Of course, dude. My father. My grandfather would be proud. No, no, it Was just like a lot of casual, casual racism. And like the crew bar was like dollar drinks.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I'd meet with the dancers and the singers and the guitar players and we'd all like drink till 1am Because I'm like, I don't have to work till I have one 30 minute set tomorrow.

[Chris DiStefano]

Must have been a sex fest.

[Jeff Acuri]

No.

[Chris DiStefano]

Really?

[Jeff Acuri]

Not really. No. Because you can't. You can't mess with the guests.

[Chris DiStefano]

You're not allowed to have sex with the guests?

[Jeff Acuri]

No.

[Chris DiStefano]

Is that a rule?

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

You cannot. Interesting.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, yeah. They check your penis every morning.

[Chris DiStefano]

Whoa. Yeah. Make sure. And you can't have sex with the staff.

[Jeff Acuri]

You can.

[Chris DiStefano]

You don't have. I would like to have sex with like, you know, an old school fucking Filipino boat captain.

[Jeff Acuri]

Oh, Bobby.

[Chris DiStefano]

Went through the war. Oh, sorry.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah, well, all this, all the staff was like. The officers were all Italian.

[Chris DiStefano]

Okay.

[Jeff Acuri]

They're all like speaking Italian, walking on the ship, speaking Italian.

[Chris DiStefano]

So there's no hot Italian babes on the boat there.

[Jeff Acuri]

The dancers and singers were attractive. So the dancers and singers would oftentimes date the officers because they'd be like these like. And they're like, I like to dance on the ship.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Were they allowed to bang each other? Well, can staff members bang?

[Jeff Acuri]

I kissed. I kissed the lady, you know, it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Was a staff member.

[Jeff Acuri]

I was on a ship for a.

[Chris DiStefano]

Month in the galley.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah. It was in the thing you got.

[Chris DiStefano]

She got fingered in the galley.

[Jeff Acuri]

It was like B deck. Oh, it was below deck, so it was below the sea line.

[Chris DiStefano]

Did you have. Did your room have windows or do you have below deck rooms?

[Jeff Acuri]

I got one ship at one time had a window and it was like I felt like I was royalty.

[Chris DiStefano]

You couldn't. But that couldn't have been fun for you to be like on these, these cruises. Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

I made the best of it. I was. I played like video games, but I set a schedule every day where I would read like two chapters of a book I'd write. I'd go work out and then I eat sensibly and then I'd just like relax the rest of the day. And then I just do my set. And I found my peace in the solitude.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right. See that? Having structure, that's the key. Because it was that we have a lies in that.

[Jeff Acuri]

I am saying it like I am a liaison.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, I know. I was like, yeah, you're wearing one of those hats. What are those things that the Muslim prisoners wear? Like those, they wear those hats. I forgot you're reading the Quran. I Don't fucking mind. Yes. That's what I was trying to channel.

[Jeff Acuri]

But it was like. It was a little bit of a prison. But I found. I found the structure.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know, I found. I found my Muslim religion.

[Chris DiStefano]

Shout out Muslims, man. I mean, Muslims, as people call them. I. I do like what they're about. I kind of like what they've been doing lately. I like that.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

I like the new movement, man.

[Jeff Acuri]

Top three things.

[Chris DiStefano]

They're coming out on Moose. What do I like? Ramadan. I mean, that's just intermittent fasting.

[Jeff Acuri]

So that is.

[Chris DiStefano]

And so, you know, Ramadan, you know, Puerto Rican women are just kind of like Muslims. And Muslim women look very Latina. They're kind of just like hummus Latinas, in a way.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's true.

[Chris DiStefano]

And. And what else, man? Just, you know, just kind of Allah being the Almighty is what I is kind of dope, dude. Whatever. Kind of, you know, Prophet Muhammad. I remember Mo Amer, good friend of, you know, Mo Amer, great friend of ours. Mo. I'm a great guy. He used to stay at my apartment sometimes. And when, you know, my daughter, she was three or four at the time, and I remember I slept in one night. My daughter was, you know, sleeping over and I slept in and Mo was sleeping on the couch. And my daughter woke up early and she liked Lush, called him Uncle Mo. She still loves him. And I come outside and Uncle Mo was, like, making her eggs. And my daughter's just sitting there, like, in her, like, little Minnie Mouse robe. And Uncle Mo is telling my daughter about how the Prophet Muhammad is the only real prop because he's the only one who ever lived in recorded history. And he's like, teaching my daughter to be a fundamentalist Muslim. And I'm like, this is pretty awesome. My daughter's just like, sitting there, like, trying to watch cocomelon, like. Yeah.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's like the second most popular religion in the world.

[Chris DiStefano]

What's number one?

[Jeff Acuri]

Christianity.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, I think Christianity.

[Jeff Acuri]

I was just looking it up because I think Christianity takes the cake because it also affects Asia. Pretty hard. Not a facts, but, like.

[Chris DiStefano]

Right.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know what I mean?

[Chris DiStefano]

We've infiltrated the Asians.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

You're Catholic or what? Yeah, just whatever.

[Jeff Acuri]

It's. You know, there's probably something. Because I think it's arrogant to think there's nothing.

[Chris DiStefano]

I do. I agree with you.

[Jeff Acuri]

So I think there's probably something, but I also don't. I want to hedge my bets a little bit.

[Chris DiStefano]

Sure.

[Jeff Acuri]

If it's like. If it's like, oh, it's a lie. I'd be like, Allah.

[Chris DiStefano]

Whatever, dude. You know, whoever it is, whoever it is, I'm cool with it.

[Jeff Acuri]

But I hope she's a gay black woman.

[Chris DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hope she is, too.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know, I love it.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah. I like. I'm trying to think, who's a good gay black woman? Michelle Obama. I don't know. Where could people swallow. Where could everybody see you?

[Jeff Acuri]

The Internet. Jeffrey carrier.com for tickets?

[Chris DiStefano]

Hell, yeah, dude.

[Jeff Acuri]

You know, that's pretty much sold out anyway.

[Chris DiStefano]

Bitch.

[Jeff Acuri]

That was gross.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, sorry. Would you cough up?

[Jeff Acuri]

It was just productive. Cough.

[Chris DiStefano]

At least it's productive.

[Jeff Acuri]

That's.

[Chris DiStefano]

Yeah, that's it. Good luck on the cruise ship again. Being productive.

[Jeff Acuri]

Yeah.

[Chris DiStefano]

All right. Jeff's got a spit in his mouth. Thank you for coming on the show. Christycomedy.com for all the dates. Whatever. Put out. Stand up every Sunday, 7pm Eastern time. YouTube.com Christy Comedy Putting out that week's material. So come check out his show. We'll see what happens. And we stay tuned for Jeff's wedding. See what happens.