Jay Jurden Explains How Millennials Made Comedy an Industry

Summary

Good One: A Podcast About Jokes — Jay Jurden Explains How Millennials Made Comedy an Industry
Release Date: November 6, 2025
Host: Jesse David Fox (Senior Writer, Vulture)
Guest: Jay Jurden (Comedian, Writer, Actor)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jesse David Fox sits down with comedian Jay Jurden, whose new Hulu special “Yes Ma’am” drops November 7th. Together, they dive deep into Jay’s approach to stand-up, the evolution of joke-writing in the algorithm age, generational shifts in comedy consumption, the economics and ethics behind new comedy platforms, and how Jay’s identity and background shape his craft. The conversation is fast, joke-dense, and blends serious industry insights with the joyful nerdiness of two friends obsessed with comedy as both art and business.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Algorithm vs. The Craft

• Jay acknowledges the paradox of “algorithmically-focused” comedy: While much of today’s stand-up is tailored for viral, short-form clips, his own structure is equally strategic — but with a focus on tight joke density and live crowd reaction, not just internet numbers.
• Jay Jurden [02:32]: “You just have been inundated and flooded with shit that is a bit more algorithmically focused. And guess what? My shit is algorithmically focused too, but in a different way. People… I’m very punchy, and I’m very 15 second to 30 second punchy. My metronome is like, I try to get a joke every 10 to 12 seconds.”
• Jesse and Jay discuss how crowd work and “transgressive” comedy as seen on platforms like Kill Tony fuel an arms race for attention—often at the expense of lasting, craft-oriented stand-up.

2. Millennials: The Comedy Industry Generation

• Jay asserts that millennials transformed comedy into a genuine entertainment industry, popularizing stand-up, sketch, and digital content as serious career paths rather than curiosities on the cultural fringe.
• Jay Jurden [72:50]: “We’re the generation that made you become better at comedy. There is no comedy boom without millennials. So if you want to get famous from standup, from sketch, from Internet videos, millennials are the only reason that is an income source for you.”
• Jesse bemoans the loss of communal comedy discovery (“turning on Comedy Central and watching whatever’s on”) and the narrowing effect of algorithm-driven taste.

3. The Changing Nature of Comedy “Beef” and Transparency

• Jay observes that the current wave of comics naming names (e.g., Taylor Swift/Charlie XCX, Andrew Schulz calling out Andrew Santino) is both performative and engagement-driven, echoing early-2000s hip-hop beefs.
• Jay Jurden [11:47]: “People recognize there is a little bit of money and clickbait and engagement in beef. … Sometimes a good beef can really make people pay attention to you, and if you have something to say afterwards, they'll love it.”

4. Craftsmanship, Stewardship, and “Gatekeeper” Energy

• Jay compares his dedication to stand-up to Kevin Durant’s obsession with basketball: both see themselves as “stewards” of their craft who call out disrespect, laziness, or misrepresentation by others.
• Jay Jurden [07:11]: “If I see someone who's not being a good steward of this thing that has changed my life… I feel it is my duty as a good standup to call this shit out.”

5. Economics and the Streaming Special Dilemma

• Jay candidly discusses the enormous cost and risk of producing your own special for YouTube—versus selling to Hulu, Netflix, or HBO.
• Jay Jurden [35:58]: “If we tell everyone to be independent, what you're doing is telling everyone to have enough money to do it independently. And not everyone has enough money to do it independently… I wasn’t enthused at the prospect of having to spend $150,000 just so I could say I own it.”

6. Identity on Stage: Queerness, Blackness, and “Not Shrinking”

• Jay explains why he was never closeted on stage and how his intersectional identity both sets him apart and sometimes paints a target for hacky crowd responses.
• Jay Jurden [28:29]: “I made a very conscious decision to never be in the closet on stage. I said, I'm always gonna talk about queer shit. I'm gonna talk about gay shit from the beginning. ... If this is a straight mic, I'm gonna stand out.”

7. Joke Structure, Word Economy, and Musicality

• Jesse and Jay dissect how rapid, relentless joke-writing (every 10-12 seconds) creates a “musical” set, with carefully calibrated act outs, callbacks, and narrative throughlines.
• Jay’s act-outs merge traditional structure with Family Guy/30 Rock–style density and tangents, with an underlying “trickster” sensibility.
• Jay Jurden [61:12]: “I love a triplet. If you watch the Special… Sometimes I'll give you a quartet, but I love a triplet because for people who don't study comedy, they go, oh, I like that. Because it resolved and they don't know why… The music.”

8. Being a (Self-Aware) Traditionalist in a Disrupted World

• Jay still believes in “the system” (networks, late-night, agents), even as his peers and younger comics abandon it for direct-to-audience models. He’s honest about why: “Because I'm an idealist. I'm a bit Pollyanna. I'm also. I'm gullible. And I also. I really do think that people like good stand up.”
• Jay Jurden [33:30]: “I want to try it this way. As one of the last people on the sinking Titanic, I want to try it this way before I went the other way.”

9. Advice and Influences

• Cites advice from Roy Wood Jr.: To survive stand-up, you need to tolerate relentless rejection, know the difference between a joke and a point, and withstand early “no’s” from bookers and audiences.
• Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde as touchstones for queer, acerbic wit—melding intelligence, wordplay, and stage presence.
• The importance of being willing to “get mean” when jokes require it, without losing empathy or specificity.

10. Joke Dissection: Structure and Tagging

• The episode features detailed structural break-downs of Jay’s jokes, including memorable bits about face tattoos turning millennials into boomers, “cuckolding” as a pitch-perfect industry TV joke, and the “antisemitic 50 Cent" act out.
• Jesse highlights how Jay’s over-tagging, risk-taking (even riding jokes past the audience’s patience), and rule breaking (“getting away with one”) build a signature comedic forcefield.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

(With timestamps)

On Stand-up as a Service and Respecting the Audience:

• [34:16] Jay: “It’s my job to give them their money’s worth. Because if not, I don't look at comedy like I get to scam people. There's so many people right now who they have a very scammer mindset… I don't want anyone to think that I'm out to scam them. I want people to go, Jay put on a good show for us.”

On the Algorithm and Joke Density:

• [02:32] Jay: “My metronome is like, I try to get a joke every 10 to 12 seconds. My laughs per minute, it hovers around there because I go, guess what? I can clip this up.”

On Millennial Comedy as Art & Industry:

• [72:50] Jay: “We're the generation that made you become better at comedy. There is no comedy boom without millennials... You have to thank us for creating a landscape that both focused on comedy being popular and made comedy better.”

On Taking Risks in Joke Writing:

• [48:29] Jesse: “[The audience] does not know, but you should. Not that. That joke was… it’s nice that’s in the special because it’s like, oh, that’s what it’s like seeing Jay. Every part he goes. You’re not allowed to do that.”
• [48:36] Jay: “And then, as a comic… you want to get a bunch of laughs, and you want people to go, stop, motherfucker, stop. That’s actually—”

On Comedy “Beef” and Transparency:

• [13:16] Jay: “You gave a bloodlusted, ravenous crowd a little bit of red meat because you were calling out hypocrisy. And guess what? They're smart enough to go, wait a second, this feels hypocritical.”

On the Craft as Sacred (“KD energy”):

• [07:11] Jay: “If I see someone who's not being a good steward of this thing that has changed my life… I feel it is my duty as a good standup to call this shit out.”

On Comedy’s Musicality:

• [61:12] Jay: “You give them one, they go, okay, that was great. If you give them two, they go, oh, could you give us one more? If you give us three, they go, the music.”

On Coming Out On Stage:

• [28:29] Jay: “I made a very conscious decision to never be in the closet on stage. I said, I'm always gonna talk about queer shit. ... If this is a straight mic, I'm gonna stand out.”

On the Real Cost of Specials and Industry Realism:

• [35:58] Jay: “If we tell everyone to be independent… not everyone has enough money to do it independently. …. I wasn’t enthused at the prostitute, at the prospect of having to spend $150,000 to sh this special out of my pocket just so I could say I own it. Yeah, that wasn’t something I wanted to do.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:32: Jay on algorithmically-focused stand-up and his style of joke writing
• 02:07: Discussion of fashion, “Black Ivy,” and comedic persona
• 07:11: Jay on comedy as craft and duty to defend it
• 11:47: The engagement value and history of “beef” in comedy
• 17:58: Why comedians chase transgression instead of pure funniness
• 28:29: On always being open about queer identity in club comedy
• 33:30: The dilemma of self-producing vs. selling to a streamer
• 35:58: The economics of stand-up specials
• 42:58: The Bomber jacket epidemic and stand-up show fashion
• 56:23: Joke structure example: The “cuckold”/industry joke
• 62:50: The “face tattoo”/millennial-turned-boomer act-out
• 72:50: Millennials and the contemporary comedy industry
• 76:59: Stand-up as a competition and art form; the value of “trying hard”
• 77:01–79:33: The role of Jay’s mother and faith in his life and comedy

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Overall Tone & Conclusion

Despite deep dives on comedy industry mechanics, internet beefs, and the brutality of making it as a comic today, the tone is playful, nerdy, and affectionate. Jesse and Jay both treat the art of joke-telling with reverence, believing that comedy can embrace both tradition and reinvention, sincerity as well as irreverence. Jay’s approach—fast, musical, sharpened by life experience and generational perspective—exemplifies the best of what millennial comedy has built: an industry, a community, and a playground for risk.

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Listen if you want to understand:

• The real mechanics of joke-writing and set structure for the modern comedy world
• How generational and identity politics fuel both conflict and innovation in stand-up
• What it costs to make a special in 2025 (and what most internet fans may not realize)
• Why “trying hard” is an act of rebellion, and why it’s also hilarious

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Recommended Segment for New Listeners:
The deep dive into joke structure and the generational “face tattoo” act-out (62:50–68:39) offers a funny, technically brilliant, and revealing look at what makes Jay Jurden a defining voice in stand-up today.

Transcript

[Jesse David Fox]

You know those recruiter texts you get?

[Jay Jerdan]

The ones offering you a ton of.

[Jesse David Fox]

Money for basically no work? Base pay is $2,000. You'll receive $750.

[Jay Jerdan]

You know it's a scam, but ever.

[Jesse David Fox]

Wonder what would happen if you actually responded?

[Jay Jerdan]

This is where.

[Jesse David Fox]

If I wasn't going into this, eyes wide open. This is probably where, like, the red flag starts showing up. This week on Explain it to Me where those texts come from and where they just might take you. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Jerdan]

If they were gonna zig, I'm gonna zag.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

And right now, what is funny is that so many people go, oh, Jay, I've never seen stand up the way you do it. And I go, yes, you have. You just have been inundated and been flooded with shit that is a bit more algorithmically focused. And guess what? My shit is algorithmically focused too, but in a different way.

[Jesse David Fox]

This is good one. I am Jesse David F. Senior writer at Vulture and author of Comedy Book. My guest today is Jay Jaradin. I've known Jay since 2021 when I helped create a Vulture stand up show at Brooklyn's Union hall, my favorite venue anywhere. Jay co hosts the show with Zach Zimmerman, and it's every other week. You should go. It's the best for me. Getting to go has been one of the great joys in my career as I've been able to see Jay develop as one of the strongest, most dynamic joke writers working today. For anyone who's seen his multiple Tonight show appearances, you know, Jay's writing is dense, it's musical, it's impeccable, thought out, just special jokes. Speaking of specials and jokes, Jay has his first ever stand up special on hulu out on November 7th. It's called yes, ma'. Am. So here is Jay Jerdan. I'm here with Jay Jerdan. Thank you for joining me.

[Jay Jerdan]

Thank you for having me, Jesse.

[Jesse David Fox]

I dressed up for you. You dressed up for me?

[Jay Jerdan]

Yes, of course. I sent you the article. Ties are back. Ties are back. That's what GQ says because they want to sell some ties, but the ends fall. I went knit tie because it's fall.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I have a knit tie. I consider it, but I want this.

[Jay Jerdan]

I love it. Very preppy. This is within my wheelhouse. I love a take on prep.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yes, that's what this is. Literally a Yale tie.

[Jay Jerdan]

Exactly. I love it. Well, but I like a take on prep because Black Ivy to me is a very fun. It's a very fun kind of subversion of both respectability, politics and kind of playing with and against expectations. So like an oxford with sneakers. An oxford while rapping. I think young DRO probably did the best when he became obsessed with polo and he. All his raps were about polo and now he's kind of back. But like, that's when I think about like the early 2000s.

[Jesse David Fox]

We got. We'll talk about fashion later.

[Jay Jerdan]

Later.

[Jesse David Fox]

Like the 30 minutes of the conversation. Table this. I have a lot of overlapping opinions, but we start here.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

What's the funniest thing that happened to you this week?

[Jay Jerdan]

Funniest thing that happened to me, it happened three days ago. I had a four hour delay at the Dallas airport because I was flying from Kansas City to Tulsa. So I had to go through Dallas. I had to change gates four times. Not funny to me, but funny because it happened to me now that I have a bit of distance from it. Hilarious bit. Hilarious bit. Gate 8, Gate 18, Gate 20, Gate 3. Cause by the time I got to Gate 20, I went, this is it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

They put Tulsa on the screen. It switched. It said lax. I said that. They said, okay, you guys, we got one more gate change and I promise it's not going to happen again. At this point, I'm fuming. I'm the most mad I've been in public in a long time. And the gate agent goes, you guys, you know what, run it back. Let's do it one more time. I'm able bodied.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

A lot of these people, it took, you know, so it was funny now that I can look back on it, but God, I was pissed. And it's probably pissed to see me. It's probably funny to see me that pissed. So it was funny.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's interesting. I'm now thinking there could be a really interesting, like study if you study the history of airplane jokes, right? Because like air comedians disproportionately take airplanes. And then like talk about it.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then, so then it's like, how has the nature of the joke changed? Because I do feel like in the last 15 years it's been about sort of like corporate breakdown and the inability to like provide the service, opposed to like, the food's bad.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. Nathan McIntosh has an amazing joke about Boeing that he does that. I think that is kind of what you're getting into, which is like now because people have a bit more class awareness. People are a bit of like corporate overlords. People are aware of the Boeing conspiracies now people have jokes about that. And then there's another path that people take once you make just enough money where you just kind of joke about how there shouldn't be all this riff raff in the lounges. And those are two divergent paths and people love that stuff. And there are parts of me that go, oh, this is like naked classism. But also it is kind of funny because it went from being like making the joke about seeing people in first class judging you, to becoming the person in first class judging people, to becoming the person at the lounge judging people who haven't been in the lounge before.

[Jesse David Fox]

I do feel like of the first class jokes, the pinnacles is Hannibal talking about just doing first class for one. The small part of a two, two part flight. So then he's sitting in coaching the second part. And I was like, yeah, yeah, you.

[Jay Jerdan]

Get the full experience.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. So I was thinking about you. I was like, who is Jay? Like. And I go, oh, I know. Yeah, it's Kevin Durant.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. Okay. Whoa, whoa. I love this. Can I say something OKC related? I think I'm a little bit close to KD and sga primarily because SGA won a championship and an MVP last year with a mid range jumper. And if there's one thing I love is it's a joke that if it was a boxing analogy, it would be a jab. If it's the NBA, it's a mid range jumper. Because guess what, it's a guaranteed two. You have to respect that and you have to respect the three. And you have to respect if I'm a slasher, if I'm going to the bucket. So I love that.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. So like the thing about Kevin Durant and you is master craftsmen really believe in working on the craft in a way. That is the thing about Kevin Durant that's weird is that he really loves basketball.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

So he just like every. He's just playing basketball for fun. And I mean, the famous example is him in the club shooting. Practically his fault.

[Jay Jerdan]

Jesse, that is very funny. But he's also like at the top of like what kids call scaring the hoes energy. Cause it's like we're supposed to be in the club. Katie, you don't care about nothing else. You don't care about brushing your hair. You don't care about putting on something new. You don't want a bunch of baby mamas and kids. All you care about is basketball.

[Jesse David Fox]

So the other half, there's similarity is both you and kd. Your two loves are your craft. And then every day signing up to go into the mind of whatever the discourse is, fighting it out.

[Jay Jerdan]

That's right.

[Jesse David Fox]

People always make fun of Kevin Durant and goes, I love doing this. Yeah. And you are similar. How do these things relate in so much as your love of being a comedian and craft and your jokes and your love of just being in the mix?

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. Well, if you actually love standup, you love it, you respect it, you protect it. If I see someone who's not being a good steward of this thing that has changed my life, this thing that is the only reason I've been able to go to all these states, this thing that is the only reason that I can pay for my apartment, this thing that is the only reason I've, quote, unquote, made it in New York. If I see someone doing a shitty job or telling a lie about this thing, I. I feel it is my duty as a good standup to call this shit out. And not for nothing, there used to be a world where if you knew ball, if someone didn't know ball, you had to say, wait a second. I don't think you understand how this works. So now if someone says, oh, stand up's not good anymore. And I go, what do you mean by that? They go, oh, well, you know, the only people I watch with Dave Chappelle, I go, just so you know, what you're saying is the only big you watch is Shaq.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

And you watching Shaq on the Celtics or the Cavaliers, you aren't even saying, Orlando and La Shaq are the best shack I'm ever. Because guess what? I'll agree with you if you want to talk about killing him Softly. If you want to talk about. For what it's worth, I agree with you. Guess what? That's my comedy origin story. But when you start saying shit like, oh, we don't have comics no more. Do you watch games? Do you watch game footage? Because if. If you don't say that, yeah, it's.

[Jesse David Fox]

You're literally exactly the same. Where it's like, people like, why is Kevin Durant fighting with nobody? He's like, he really believes, and people should be taking basketball seriously.

[Jay Jerdan]

That motherfucker is obsessed with basketball the same way I'm obsessed with standup. Because it creates an avenue for people to not only tell their stories, but also, like, do everything else. Everyone who you think of is, like, oh, super famous from standup. They had moments in standup that got them there. So people go, kevin Hart's a movie star. Kevin Hart became famous kind of NBA related because of Shaq's All Stars. But because of laugh at my. Kevin Hart, to me, is a perfect example of if you do stand up, if you do stand up very well and the right things happen, at a certain point you can open up restaurants.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

Because you go, damn, y' all like this. Okay.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, Kevin. I think Kevin Hart is an interesting example, partly because I believe a lot of white people only knew him once. He already was a movie star. Yeah. So they're like, he's whatever. He's just like. It's like, no, he was very good at stand up. And he did like really, like an interesting mix of like Eddie energy wise, but like self deprecating, but also storytelling and like, fairly honest about like the nature of his life. Just by the time you knew about him, he kind of already talked about like all the hard things.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. People don't understand. Kevin Hart was talking about his mom dying. Kevin Hart was talking about his dad's addiction. Kevin Hart was talking about losing, and not just losing the stuff that people complain about now, he was losing. He wasn't doing well. He was going through a divorce. He had all this shit that was happening to him. And even when he got famous enough to make it around famous people, he made sure to still understand he had a pebble in his shoe and he was still a loser. So then when he hangs out with Dwyane Wade, he comes up with one of the funniest jokes where he goes, there's been NBA money. I go, oh, you see the way my checking and savings is set up? I gotta move it over. Kevin Hart was a master of being like, guess what? I'm gonna lose. And through me, losing, the comedy is gonna be richer. And people who are aren't making as much money as me, people who aren't as successful as me, they're still gonna relate to me. And he had that. I mean, you talk about one of the best scenes ever in a Judd Apatow movie. Kevin Hart in a Jamaica shirt arguing with Romney in 40 year old virgin. That's. To me, that scene belongs in the American movie comedy canon. That's one of the best scenes. That's one of the best black scenes in a white movie ever.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And I believe Judd was like, just do a scene.

[Jay Jerdan]

I love that scene so much.

[Jesse David Fox]

So you're on this podcast a few weeks ago speaking of Kevin Durant, and we're talking about the Riyadh Comedy Festival, and you sort of ended on a note which is like, say people's names, talk about it, and there's not necessarily. There's a stigma of, like, don't actually say anyone's name. And I do feel like in the weeks since we talked, more people were doing it. I mean, the first was sort of like. Though she didn't say the name, it was like Taylor Swift released that song about Charlie xcx. Yeah. Yeah. Hayley Williams just said, this is what the song's about. Even like, Andrew Schultz.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

On the other side was like, here are the people talking trash about me personally, where everyone else still will talk vaguely. Right? It's like everyone's like, oh, Austin's like this.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Austin. People are like, yeah. LA comedians are like that. And like, Andrew Schultz was like, andrew Santino's not being good to you, Joe.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And. And. But like. And Joe's like, yeah, I had him on.

[Jay Jerdan]

He's my.

[Jesse David Fox]

Whatever.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Do you think there's a trend going forward where it comes from?

[Jay Jerdan]

I think that people recognize there is a little bit of money and clickbait and engagement in beef. I think that's always been the case. I went to High School. 2003. The most famous rap in 2003, 50 Cent and 50 Cent's first single, People think it's in the club. It wasn't in the club. It was Wangsta. 50 Cent had a ja Rule pull string toy in Wangsta where he was making fun of Ja Rule and Aftermath and G Unit and Shady Records said, this is our lead single. And I was like during all the mixtape stuff. So I think sometimes a good beef can really make people pay attention to you, and if you have something to say afterwards, they'll love it. I think right now, when it comes to, like, the comics who are mad at each other and people who are, like, popping off a little bit, you get to pop off as much as you can if your shit is good. So when it comes to, like, Andrew Scholz versus Andrew Santino or Scholz is mad as Stavi still, guess what? The tale of the tape is what's really going to set it apart? And if your fans agree with you, it's really tough to say no one cares about Riyadh when all of your fans care about Riyadh. That's the hardest. It's really tough to be like, I didn't know. People get mad and you have a thousand comments going, I'm mad.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And all these guys clearly look at their Reddits because their Reddits are constantly holding them to a certain standard, which is wild. But, like, that's the thing I think most People don't know about certain comedians is like, their Reddit page is almost 100% critical of every single move they make.

[Jay Jerdan]

Well, because you know what it is? You gave a bloodlusted, ravenous crowd a little bit of red meat because you were calling out hypocrisy. And guess what? They're smart enough to go, wait a second, this feels hypocritical. So as you can love Bill Burr and still go, whoa, let's look at what his fans are saying. And his fans aren't happy. And. And that's something that he has to contend with.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. The thing I was thinking is, like, everyone talks about wanting Tough Crowd back. Tough Crowd being the Comedy Central show.

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, my God.

[Jesse David Fox]

Where everyone was talking shit about each other.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. And spoiling me right now because I love Tough Crowd.

[Jesse David Fox]

But the thing is, people, like, talk about wanting it, but then don't actually want to be tough. They want, like, sort of. They want the part of Tough Crowd where each person got to say what they thought, but they don't want the other part where they got made fun of.

[Jay Jerdan]

They don't want the part where that Phan wins last comic standing and Patrice says, hey, can your mom just do the show since you're gonna do an impression of her every five minutes. They don't want the part of Tough Crowd where people go, ooh, that's funny. But hey, man, do you remember when you did this? Like, they don't want. They don't want Dante Nero making fun of them. They don't want Grin Geraldo making fun of them. They don't want Lisa Lampanelli making fun of them because they have this, like, sort of like very rose tinted memory of the past. It's like the people who go, oh, like, I love stand up comedy. And then they don't know who David Tail is. And I go, whoa, okay.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I think everyone thinks the past was people saying whatever they wanted and everyone was fine with it, which was the past was people complained all the time about everything. It's just that at different times, the. Your ability to still say it was was different. Whatever the slur or thing is. And like, Tough Girl is a great example, which is like, it was not like these. These guys just said whatever. It's truly like the whole premise of that was a debate show where now it's like people are like, yeah, I just wanted to sort of.

[Jay Jerdan]

No, those guys fought. It would be essentially if you had a podcast with someone and there was pushback at every turn. It wasn't like we agree with each other. Because you're my boy, because you're my feature on the road, or because I produced your special. It'd be like if you had two people who were peers going, I disagree. I disagree. I've had disagree like that with people when it comes to crowd work. I've had people who love crowd work who I'm friends with, and they go, jay, don't you understand it's a valuable resource? And I go, yeah, but guess what? I never want anyone to come to my show and be mad. I'm still talking.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

And those are two legit points that you have to suss out through an argument.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yes. Gene Marco said your name when he was on this show. So you could say we're talking about.

[Jay Jerdan]

I love and you guys are friends.

[Jesse David Fox]

And I think that's an example of it, which is like, you have a disagreement. If everyone had the exact same opinion of what the art should be like and did it, then it would be the most boring. And I do feel like there is a tendency to people Want Ink Stand up to be the most boring art form possible to do exactly only the thing they want. And in every social media especially, they're essentially being like, yeah, be like the algorithm. Which just like, literally, just give me the thing that I want. Which, like, no, it's a. Because then conflict is allowed and makes it better.

[Jay Jerdan]

And because then how do you ever have any actual stamp on what your product is? How do you leave an indelible mark if you're in your 40s and Matt Rife does your club and you go, oh, Matt Rife's blowing up with crowd work, so I'm gonna do crowd work and film it now. Guess what? He's your daddy now. He's your daddy. You're his son. He is your dad. Do you want that? I don't want that. That you know, that. That to me, is something that has always helped me go, oh, okay, if someone's doing this, if they were gonna zig, I'm gonna zag.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

And right now, what is funny is that so many people go, oh, Jay, I've never seen stand up the way you do it. And I go, yes, you have. You just have been inundated and been flooded with shit that is a bit more algorithmically focused. And guess what? My shit is algorithmically focused too, but in a different way. People. I'm very punchy, and I'm very 15 second to 30 second punchy. My metronome is like, I try to get a joke every 10 to 12 seconds. My laughs per minute, it's around, it hovers around there because I go, guess what? I can clip this up. Also, I want the crowd to go, oh my God, he's bombarding me. I can't actually telegraph anything. I just need to release and laugh. And then if I'm ever quiet, if I ever make you wait more than 10 seconds for a punchline, you go, oh, is this important? And then I get to rug pull you.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, it is interesting. So, yeah, I wrote down your most recent thing that you've been talking about in the minds, which was, I believe you posted this only on threads, which is wild that you have different things to post on.

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh yeah, I'll be going all over the place.

[Jesse David Fox]

So you wrote. I would argue recently, too many people in stand up have focused on being transgressive instead of being funny. The ratios are all of when you think the quickest way to success is slurs for slurs per minute or slurs for a minute at a filmed open mic. Yeah, and I do think that is. So speak on that. Okay, so I think it's a fair point. But what made you feel like you needed to voice this?

[Jay Jerdan]

I think that because so many people think the only way to make it is through kill Tony now. I think that when bookers for tv, when bookers for clubs come up to me and say that they have been inundated with videos from important three letter agencies and from lower level people and smaller people who think that they can send them a minute of a person saying something they can never air, they go, I can't use this. If you had a great minute on Kilt Tony, make that the stinger at the end of your five minute tape that you send to these people. I think that because there's been an outsized amount of attention given to them via the Internet that people go, oh, this is the way. And I go, this can't be the way because it's not usable. It's such a specific niche skill set to say something crazy enough to get that crowd riled up in Austin that one night in front of that panel and then get shit on for however long afterwards. I think that is such a specific skill set that you have to recognize that's what that is there for in the that when I do a late night set, I know that 4 minutes and 50 seconds, I know that is not my set. That is a version of my jokes for NBC through standards and practices that me and Michael Cox agreed on. That is not my hour. That is not the whole sum of my comedic, like, resume. What it is, is what I can get away with on NBC. And Justin talked about this. I think he was quoting someone else when he said this. Comedy. And one of the big goals for me in comedy right now is getting away with it. I get away with telling the funny group sex joke on NBC. I got away with saying chlamydia on NBC. I got away with it. It wasn't. I didn't get in trouble for it. I got away with it. And that is what I want to do. I don't know what other people want to do, but that's what I like.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the. I have no idea what their argument would be against your. I mean, like, obviously they're like, well, we're outside whatever the mainstream is, but ultimately, it's. Can you adapt yourself to different settings? I imagine if you did kill Tony, you would crush. Because you. You know.

[Jay Jerdan]

But then, guess what? We talked about this earlier. My fans would revolt. People who love me would go, jay, why would you do this? Jay, why would you go there, Jay? And I'd say, oh, I want to get more famous. I'm fine. I like the path I'm on. I like the trajectory I have for my career. But, yeah, I could do it very well. There's a world. There's a world. And you know what? I'll manifest it. There's a world. Or for one of the Netflix's, a joke fest. If they have a good roast, I get either hired to write or I get on the dais.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, if.

[Jay Jerdan]

If Tony Hinchcliffe is on that dais with me? Do you not think I am salivating at the thought of him saying something crazy about me first or me getting to draw first blood because there's an actual faggot up there? Do you think I need it? I want it. That's the KD in me where I go, oh, please let me play. Please let me say something crazy.

[Jesse David Fox]

It is unfair that he got to be a surprise guest on that roast. So no one knew to make jokes about him.

[Jay Jerdan]

Well, guess what? That's a pussy move.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, well, they. The say it. Well, this is. This is less interesting, which was. I remember, you know, I've talked to Nikki once. I guess I can say I sometimes write jokes for Nikki, and I'm a very small part of a huge machine that she has been able to orchestrate into the pinnacle of comedy creation. But there's a thing that you notice, which is good jokes about people that are less famous don't get to work because people don't know who they are.

[Jay Jerdan]

It's the best. It's the best position to be in. Cause I love it when people go, who the fuck was that? Who was that? And Nikki is such a good example. Nikki Glaser is such a good example of that. Because if you know anything about comedy, you go, I love Nikki Glaser. Nikki Glaser. We love Nikki Glaser. There were still people in America who saw the rose of Tom Brady, who went, who is that pretty blonde lady that was so funny? She was so mean, but she was so funny. I go, nikki Glazer. Nikki Glaser. Nikki. One of my jokes about Marjorie Taylor Greene, I got so worried because it was so close to a very famous Nikki Glaser joke about Ann Coulter. And in my head, I go, no, everyone knows about the Kentucky Derby. There are multiple women who have horse faces. We'll be fine. But because I respect Nikki Glaser so much, in my head, I was like, okay, is this too close? Let me map this. Let me make sure there's aesthetic distance between these two jokes. Because to me, Nikki Glaser, once again, trailblazer, an icon. And being pretty, being funny, because guess what? We all want to be on tv. So everyone does want to be pretty. Everyone does want to be really funny. Everyone wants to have their fans who love the shit they did early and kind of expand that group. And that's what Nikki is doing right now, and I'm so happy for her.

[Jesse David Fox]

You are willing to be mean to people you don't like in your standup in a way that I think even if maybe this is a very Trump first, first term thing, which was you don't make fun of the people about a thing that a person who wasn't that person would hear and be like, that's an insult against me.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

But you are like, I think we just make fun of these people for the thing. And. And if. Well, I'll let you speak on it. Why do you feel like it's okay? You know, there might be a. This is the Martin Taylor Joe Green was. But I think the. The Elon Musk one is probably a better example.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Where there are people who maybe also be on the spectrum, be like, oh, wait, that hurts my feelings. Even though I'm not Elon Musk. Can you do it? Why is that?

[Jay Jerdan]

I think that the ability to be a little bit n and biting does not need to be removed from standup. I never have to be A Pollyanna. I don't think I have to couch all of my insults in all of these prefaces. So I'm being like, you should be nice to everyone who falls anywhere on the spectrum. Primarily because I think, you know, this joke is about Elon Musk. And you also understand that if you think I'm attacking everyone on the autism spectrum. No, because that joke is so specifically tailored to make fun of him. Because if his entire personality is rooted in kind of being this super mad genius, you have to take away the idea that he's smart to actually make fun of him. Because I don't want to make. I'm not making fun of people who are socially awkward. I'm not making fun of people who have, you know, who have developmental delays. I'm making fun of Elon Musk and his lie that he's this sort of super genius. And the fact that. And he's got a bunch of baby mamas and he's African.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. The thing that is interesting is you started stand up late in life. Late in life defined by how we think of when people start standing up.

[Jay Jerdan]

You know what? Breaking news. I'll say it. 2017. People don't know that.

[Jesse David Fox]

People.

[Jay Jerdan]

I always used to lie. I used to say 2015. Cause that's when I moved to New York. But I didn't go to my first mic and take it seriously until 2017 after having lied about doing standup. Cause I'd done a one person show that was pretty heavy on the funny. When I was in grad school, my instructor was like, jay, there's not enough pathos. I was like, my dad died. Anyway, so back to these jokes.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. So it's it. I do think of the people that started stand up later in life, which is still in your 20s, but ultimately not 21.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's like you, Michael, Che, Sam J. For some people. I'm sure there's lots of people start stand up at 28 and then it doesn't work for them. But like, it does you. Part of the first three years of stand up or five years of standup. Could be one. Who the hell am I? What am I doing with my life? And also how do I be comfortable on stage? And you just sort of like had a more sense of who you are and were more comfortable on stage. The thing that I was not sure of is. So you get. You have a bfa, mfa.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. Mba.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. But you know, and then you have a theatrical agent. You're in New York already when you decide I'm Gonna be a stand up comedian after doing this. What was that Weak life or whatever? Like, not even as much as, like, what was the opportunity? But, like, what were you like, why didn't you. Why weren't you just not a stand up when you were 20 or whatever?

[Jay Jerdan]

Well, book. I was in grad school. I moved New York when I was done with grad school. And I'd always written for. If there was, like, a senior roast, I wrote for those. There was a parody song. I wrote the lyrics for those. And make sure it mapped on the melody. If there was any sort of. Like, we had two standup sections in both of my theater training programs where we had to watch stand up, transcribe it, scan it, basically model it like it was a monologue, Find operative words, act it, lift it off the page, enrich it, and enliven it. So I moved New York, and I was still just like, I'm gonna be an actor. I'm gonna be an actor. Gonna be a personal trainer. And every now and then I was like, oh, maybe I'll get to do, like, something fun for tv, but I might have to tour a lot. And so I had booked a commercial. I was doing okay. And then I really was like, oh, I need to do standup. I love standup. I've loved stand up since middle school. The first standup I ever watched was Comic View. And then it kind of like, exploded. It was like, Comic View. That's why it's crazy. Whenever Godfrey says my stuff is good. Cause I go, I watched you when I was 14. Godfrey, he's a vampire. Y' all don't know. Breaking news. Once again, Godfrey's a vampire. Look at his skin.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

So I got to watch Comic View. I got to watch Last Comic Standing. I get to meet. I get to meet Tammy Pescatelli. And she goes, jay, I like your stuff. I go, just so you know, I love. I get to meet and make fun of Rich Voss. You know, there are people who I never thought I would ever get to see. And then we talking about, tough crowd. I get to meet Colin Quinn. So when I moved to New York, I loved stand up. I just was so scared to do. The first stand up show I ever went to New York was at Comic Strip. Comic Strip Live, because I was up. I live uptown, and I saw that, and I went, ooh. And I still, like, took a year before I ever did it.

[Jesse David Fox]

What were you scared of?

[Jay Jerdan]

I was scared that I wouldn't be respected because I was an actor. I was scared That I was a bit too theater y. And so in my first year, is.

[Jesse David Fox]

It code or just actual theater?

[Jay Jerdan]

A little bit of both.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

I was. I was also scared that there's an element of, like, grit that I didn't have. Because if you know anything about 2015-2017, Peak Louis, Peak Louis. Everyone, every white boy at that point was either doing. Was either doing John Mulaney or doing Louis. And some of them had started to copy Mark Norman because he was blowing up in New York in a way that, like, was crazy. So, I mean, if you have a.

[Jesse David Fox]

Brand like that, you're like, I can do those things.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then you kind of go to your first mic and you go, oh, what am I gonna talk about? And I made a very conscious decision to never be in the closet on stage. I said, I'm always gonna talk about queer shit. I'm gonna talk about gay shit from the beginning. Because if this is a gay mic, they're gonna love it. If this is a straight mic, I'm gonna stand out. And that was my goal. I knew that. It also was like, if you say gay shit at a mic and you go up early, there are gonna be three or four straight guys after you kind of make fun of you, and you just have to deal with that shit.

[Jesse David Fox]

And.

[Jay Jerdan]

And if you can chip back, they usually go, okay, you got it. If you kind of shrink and get scared of them. So I was also never scared. I was a personal trainer. I dealt with, like, a bunch of gym meatheads, both gay and straight. So I was always like, unless it, like, really becomes, like, physical, I'm going to say something crazy about you back.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

So I decided to do it. My acting agency, I sent them, like, three emails. I said, I think I'm doing. I think I'm pretty good at stand up. Would you come to. They didn't come. They didn't come to my Broadway comedy club Bringer show. They didn't come to any of my, like, shows I was doing at Vodka Soda with Phillip. Whenever I first started doing the standup, like, the most regular occurring, like, monthly that I did, they didn't come to any of that stuff. And then I won a competition and I signed with a touring agency because I was like, well, they don't. They don't care.

[Jesse David Fox]

It is interesting. There is that. That stigma of, like, an actor who tries stand up and then does stand up, which is interesting because I'd say, like, 80% of standups want to be actors.

[Jay Jerdan]

It's Crazy.

[Jesse David Fox]

Or were actors.

[Jay Jerdan]

Isn't it wild? Because I went from being an actor. You do set up good enough, then you get signed with the cool management team and the first thing they do is send you sides. And if you didn't, if you didn't do any actor training, you're scared. I, I mean, I was like, great.

[Jesse David Fox]

They're so. And there's like, most were actors in some way in high school or something, and then they become stand up and that, or they become stand up and then they realize they love actors. Sort of like. But also it's like, Richard Pryor want to be an actor. George Carlin want to be an actor. Joan Rivers wanted to be an actor. It's. It's not.

[Jay Jerdan]

And those are the people that people use as purist.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, there just is.

[Jay Jerdan]

I don't know, it's people getting mad at Starbucks. It's like whenever you see all the articles that are like, stavi's going to Hollywood and he's like, he comes in your pocket, says, I want to make people laugh in as many ways as possible. And for me, part of it is if you're a good actor, the reason you're good at stand up is because you can take your set. Your set, which is, which is set. It is a routine for a reason. You lift it and you can make it feel new and alive every time for that audience. And that's all acting is. All acting is. If the Stanislavski approach, if you want to use it, like what? Like, you know, kind of acting realistically under imaginary circumstances, behaving as if these are truths and lifting that and performing that for people, that's acting.

[Jesse David Fox]

It does reflect why probably so many standup comedians are good actors. Is one of the hardest things, at least for especially movie acting, which is like one of the hardest things is to take lines and make them seem conversational. And like, literally, that is the job of a stand up comedian.

[Jay Jerdan]

And you get to punch up on set. Other actors, they'll be like, actually don't do this. If you're a stand up, they'll give you two takes where the script supervisor goes, okay, great. And then they go, okay, play a little bit. Do whatever you want to do.

[Jesse David Fox]

The thing that's interesting, it's like, because you started later in life, you started like you're a millennial and. But so you still have a millennial's perspective on how show business should work. Or like you're starting around a lot of younger people who do not have a perspective on show business. And you are.

[Jay Jerdan]

Jesse's calling me a traditionalist, and I am.

[Jesse David Fox]

You believe the system will provide. I do. If you do a good job and you do not have to. To do things, you don't need to do podcasts, you don't do the crowd, you don't need to. Like, you are not trying to find attention shortcuts.

[Jay Jerdan]

And unless I really want to. There are so many moments, and some of them I filmed and posted where I'll have a fun crowd work moment. And my only thing is I just won't pin it to the top of my reels or pin it to my TikTok or, like, make it the most famous thing. Like, I just had a clip that went well because I was arguing with the guy who went to lsu. I went to Ole Miss, we had a little sec, blah, blah, blah. To me, that's funny. It hit a million. And I know why it hit a million. It's cause it's like, it's sports, it's semi straight. It's also the confusion of a gay guy knowing ball. It's me yelling at a crowd person. They see the comedy seller in the background. It's like all of these, It's a perfect storm. But that isn't gonna be what I continue to do. Some people, they see that, they go to hit a million. And then the comment section goes, oh, I want one of these for every SEC school. And I go, no. Cause there are enough guys on TikTok who put on a different SEC hat and go, this is what it felt like to be this SEC football team this week. That's their bag. If they want to do it, great. But for me, that was a fun little happy accident with the LSU fan in the crowd.

[Jesse David Fox]

How do you justify in 2025, believing in Hollywood, being able to provide you your career?

[Jay Jerdan]

Because I'm an idealist. I'm a bit Pollyanna. I'm also. I'm gullible. And I also. I really do think that people like good stand up. And the reason I think people really enjoy good standup, specifically the way I do it and the way a few other people do it. And I'm very happy to name the people who I think are doing it the right way and crushing it right now, but because they come up to me and they go, oh, my God, thank you so much. This was a really good show. My crowds enjoy the show. The staff at the clubs enjoy the show. These people who have to deal with so much stuff, guess what? If I come and I do a weekend, I'm giving you 50 minutes of jokes. I might give you 10 minutes of fun and, like, local stuff, but I'm giving you fastballs. I'm throwing them at you, and you're gonna get these jokes. And I want the crowd to go, thank God, because guess what? That crowd, they pay for a babysitter. They pay for Uber. They pay for dinner, they pay for tickets. They pay for two drinks. They pay for Uber home. They model. They might, they might have bought something in the mall. I, I, it's my job to give them their money's worth. Because if not, I don't look at comedy. Like, I get to scam people. There's so many people right now who they have a very scammer mindset. They go, ooh, I'm getting away with this. They go, ooh, let me run a multi level marketing scheme in Austin. Yeah. Let me put on a little game show called agt. Austin's got transphobes.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

Let me make sure. Let me make these people feel less than, even though my special got taken down from Netflix. Let me make these people feel less than, even though all of them go, wait a second, I don't have a favorite. Tony, Joe, shit like that. You're scamming people. And be truthful in that, but you are scamming people. I don't want anyone to think that I'm out to scam them. I want people to go, jay, put on a good show for us, and I'm so happy that I got to see him. And if you do that, in my opinion, you have a long fan base right now. Okay, perfect example. The special comes out, and I don't want people to go, oh, should I see the special? Or should I go see him live? I go, guess what? You need to do both. Because this hour is completely different. This is a different hour than the special because I was walking around with an hour 40 in my head. Cut it now stretch this new 40 into an hour so you get both. Because I want you to get your money's worth, because I respect you. This is the service industry. That's like the actor in me. I go make sure the patrons enjoy it.

[Jesse David Fox]

So it's like, how does it then relate to being like, this should be on Hulu. This shouldn't be on YouTube.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. So my goal was to get it on Hulu, Netflix, or hbo. And like, the hbo, that path kind of went away. Cause someone who loved me got laid off. And then I was lucky enough that comedy dynamics came to me and they wanted to film It. And they said, we'll film it and we'll try to sell it. I said, do your damnedest to sell it. Do your damnedest to sell it. And they did. And that also means I had to make some concessions as far as ownership. I had to make some concessions as far as, like, how much say I get to say when things drop, how much help I'm going to get. But for me, I want to try it this way. As one of the last people on the sinking Titanic, I want to try it this way before I went the other way. Because if we tell everyone to be independent, if we tell everyone to be independent, what you're doing is telling everyone to have enough money to do it independently. And not everyone has enough money to do it independently. I did very well this year. I was. I wasn't enthused at the prostitute, at the prospect of having to spend $150,000 to sh this special out of my pocket just so I could say I own it. Yeah, that wasn't something I wanted to do. Sorry, Do I. Because people don't talk about that. Because, like, let's say special. Let's say you get, like $200,000 for your special. You spend anywhere from 100 to $150,000 to shoot it. You make $50,000 if you sell it. If you don't sell it, guess what, you got to go back on the road. And you better make that money, because you just spent $100,000.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. I don't think people understand that. It's legitimately a lot of money to do.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yes. Well, it's six expensive cameras. It's a bunch of people filming those cameras. It's a set. It's a theater. You pay for the tickets. The people are going for free. Cause you didn't make those people pay to come see you film that special. It's every. So, like, I. And this is part of the transparency. People think when I talk about transparency, it's just me talking about how much I hate Tony Hinchcliffe and Joe Rogan. That's not it. It's also saying shit like that. Like saying, this is how much stuff cost. This is what comedy looks like. This is what you should be doing earlier in your career. I tell people right now, I go, hey, if your goal is to get good at comedy, go to as many mics that week that you can handle. Don't go to so many mics, it starts being diminishing. Return. Don't film your mics or your smaller Shows if they're bad? Because one thing you can always do is you can beta test your material with their front facing camera video and then do it on stage and go, okay, great, I know it's good. This'll get clicks and this will get eyes on you and that'll make you a pleasure in the room. And then people go, oh, come do my produced bar show. Like that. Cause sometimes you'll see people setting up tripods for shit. You go, this ain't gonna be the crowd that gets you over. Just so you know, this crowd, they.

[Jesse David Fox]

Ain'T gonna help you. And at minimum you might be like, you don't wanna set up a situation where it's like going fine. And in the back of your mind's like, oh, I really hope that someone goes crazy right now.

[Jay Jerdan]

Exactly. Do the Tonight Show. Michael Cox didn't ask for videos, he asked for audio recordings. When he's looking, when he's hearing your set, he doesn't. He. You could film it if you want. But the fastest turnaround is going to be, oh, give, give me this audio. So for the longest time, people have recorders. Then we have phones that have built in recorders. So record that set, be happy with it, polish it. But I don't think you have to take that shortcut.

[Jesse David Fox]

How many times have you done The Tonight Show?

[Jay Jerdan]

4.

[Jesse David Fox]

What is the secret to a good Tonight show set?

[Jay Jerdan]

The secret to a good Tonight show set is kind of what I said earlier, getting away with something a little naughty. You always want to add something that makes an audience go, what? He's saying this. What? The Todd joke. Group sex. Oh, what? He's making fun of straight boys. He's making fun of Jimmy. What? He's referencing that the Roots are laughing too much.

[Jesse David Fox]

What?

[Jay Jerdan]

For real, he's pointing at the crowd and making fun of Gen Z to their face.

[Jesse David Fox]

What?

[Jay Jerdan]

Like you always want to have a moment where the crowd at the show goes, oh, this is. Oh, this is happening in front of us for real. The other key, I think is rehearse. Some people don't like to do the rehearsal. I love to do the rehearsal. Cause in the rehearsal you do your set and if you actually do it 80 to 90%, the crew will laugh a lot. And once the crew laughs, you got your first laughs of the night. You feel so set when people don't do it. When people don't rehearse, I don't know how.

[Jesse David Fox]

So you have these nitro sets. How do you think of an hour?

[Jay Jerdan]

I think of an hour, basically. Now I go, ooh, okay. They kind of know who I am. But I still have to talk a little bit about introductory stuff. The hour I'm doing right now, currently, I open with a little bit of political stuff. And then I go back to me. I always think, reintroduce, reintroduce, reintroduce. And then you can get into whatever you want to talk about. And primarily right now, I think it's a fun mini evolution of the first hour where I'm still talking. I still talk about animals, I still talk about trans people. I still talk about my family. I talk about my family a bit more. I talk about history a bit more. I talk about race in a bit, in a more sort of, I guess, sociological way. I do that in the new hour, I also get a little. I try to get a little growth. Because if I think about this special, there were moments where I was like, a bit sanitized. And now I feel like on this second hour that I'm doing this current show, I wanna get a little gross. I wanna play a little grosser. Try to get rid of habits that I notice in my set from that first hour. I also try to evolve and have moments where people go, ooh, I've never seen Jay do this before. Cause when I first started stand up, I was like, I. This happens with so many black people and queer people and women. You try to like, shrink yourself and be very punch, punch, punch. And no sort of like act outs. And no sort of like character and personality. Because you think that all the straight white boys who do stand up are gonna say, oh, you're only funny cause you're gay. Oh, you're only funny cause you're so black. Oh, you're only funny cause you're talking about girl stuff. And then you sort of like, forget all those critiques. And you realize these are gonna be the things that make you different and make you individual. You would never tell someone from Philly, oh, you're only funny cause you talk. You say eagles a weird way.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, y.

[Jay Jerdan]

But like, that's the kind of battle you have in your head when you first start doing standup and it's a bunch of boys in dirty T shirts.

[Jesse David Fox]

You do. It's so funny imagining that that becomes. It's almost like a sketch where it's literally like a non white or non men comedians criticizing male comedians. The way the reverse happens.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah, that is. That happens. I mean, that's funny.

[Jesse David Fox]

So you cut. There are jokes that are cut that I imagine are new, but the joke That I kept on thinking was the run about how you're dumb.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Which includes many of my favorite jokes.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, that's in the current tour, but I cut it from that one.

[Jesse David Fox]

All right, so we don't have to get into it. So now we'll talk about clothes.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

So I'm sure you spent a lot of time thinking about how you want to dress for this. So let's back up, though. Generally, how do you feel about how comedians dress for their specials?

[Jay Jerdan]

I think I never wanted people to make fun of my bomber jacket and my sneakers. Do you know, you listen, Jesse. There was an epidemic where every male comedian went bomber and cool sneakers. And I just knew I didn't wanna do that. I knew I wanted to play with something that was fun but also, like, fancy, but still very me. So, like, I just. I didn't want anyone on, like, the side of menswear, both Twitter, TikTok and Instagram to go. Jay's wearing the comedian outfit.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

So that was my first goal. And then I wanted to, like, show. I was, like, cool. So I wore very big pants. I wanted to also show off my body. So I wore a mesh cardigan with no shirt underneath. But it was still nice, still classy. So that was my only goal, was to, like, look comfortable and also, like, wear the stuff I usually wear.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I think the best advice I heard was like, dress how you normally would, except for the best version.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Who made that shirt?

[Jay Jerdan]

Todd Snider.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's what I thought.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Mr. Todd Snider. Because I do think, think there is so many ways in which male comedians go once they have an amount of money. And we've talked about this before, which is like, a lot are like, oh, I guess I'll wear ald.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Without sort of any contact. So just, like, wear the hat and then they'll just, like, wear a sweatshirt. Yeah, like the same sweatshirt where you're. Because it's not. I think there's probably two reasons why you didn't sort of go the preppy angle. The first is, is you have a joke about lesbian shirts. Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

You needed a shirt that, like, seemed invoked in conversation with that shirt.

[Jay Jerdan]

So it's a short sleeve sweater that is sort of bowling shirt adjacent. And so I do have the lesbian fashion joke. And so I had to make sure I was close to that.

[Jesse David Fox]

But I do think you. I think a lot about how you dress for pretty. So we. Pretty major is a show that we've been doing for now four years, three Years. I don't know, Whatever.

[Jay Jerdan]

Five years. Next year.

[Jesse David Fox]

Five years next year. So which was the show during the hall? It's every other Tuesday. I producer, broadly defined.

[Jay Jerdan]

I don't really do my mind.

[Jesse David Fox]

And you. You co host with Zach Zimmerman. And every time it does feel like. It's not like every. It's like outfits. Yeah. They're not. It's not drag. But there are times where you're like, it is interesting to now see more than knowing your material. Time I see how you dress over time, it's like, oh, this time it's like gonna be this. This week I'm wearing mesh. Yeah. This week it's like I'm wearing a basketball jersey. Yeah. And it does seem like you have more fun dressing for stage and most comedians. I know.

[Jay Jerdan]

I love it because it's also an instant sort of comment that you can make one of my favorite jokes ever. And it's so funny that this is up there on my list. Tom Takar, in his special on Comedy Central, makes a joke about being Indian. But then he also has a wolf shirt, a shirt with two wolves. And he makes a joke how, like, you don't necessarily know what kind of Indian. Cause the wolf shirt is kind of. And to me, I was like, oh, that's perfect. I love that. And I love the fact that, like, I can sort of, like, make fun of myself about the clothes. There are also worlds where I can, like, make fun of something else based on the way I'm dressed. Like, as a queer man. If I'm wearing a Knicks hat, if I'm wearing a Pistons jersey, I'm gonna comment on, like, this kind of sporty, chic subversion I'm doing. So I have that funny joke where I say, like, oh, I'm not wearing this Pistons jersey cause I'm a Pistons fan. Or because I love Grant Hill. I'm wearing it because I love Tamiya, who is Grant Hill's wife. All right. That. I love that. That joke is super gay, super black, super sporty, irreverent, self deprecating, all in less than 20 seconds.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. So I want to talk about certain jokes and joke writing process. The first question I did wonder is, you write a lot of jokes and a lot of things sort of are piled on top. Yeah. Do you have Mark Norman brain comedy zinger? Like, do you have the. Like, you. Your brain's broken in a way where you, like, literally don't remember how normal people talk. You just literally are like. Like you hear a word, like, word association, like.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, Yeah, I know how normal people talk. But I also can flip the switch to just go in the full zinger mode, where you just listen for an opening. You just listen for an opening, and you go, okay, got one. You go, this. You go, okay, say it again. Great. Cool. It's basically. It basically is like you're not listening as you're not a good listener, but you are very good at going, what was that last word? Okay. You also kind of have to know word economy and just, like, really figure out some comedy math very quickly on the fly. And I love. I mean, I love the fact that, like, Mark Norman can't just go, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. But I also love the fact that, like, you can do that and stretch a little bit and play Brassard. Matthew Broussard was like, Jay, like. Cause I'll overtag. And he. I'll.

[Jesse David Fox]

Ooh, we'll get into it.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, I'll overtag. And you know, the best part is that, like, sometimes you'll go, that one. We're good. And sometimes you get to the fourth one and you go, you guys, are we still here? I put a joke in the special that I say, and it made in the final cut where I said, y' all can have that. That's just for y'.

[Jesse David Fox]

All.

[Jay Jerdan]

It's the 50 cent, the Jerusalem. I. I hate that joke and love that joke.

[Jesse David Fox]

That is a class. I was gonna bring it up. So there are things that do you. I booed you once in a major.

[Jay Jerdan]

I love a boo. I love you.

[Jesse David Fox]

You get too cute. Yeah. And that's the tension that you play with often. And then there's a time where I'm like, you're getting away with this. The audience does not know. Yeah, but you should. Not that. That joke was. It's nice that's in the special because it's like, oh, that's what it's like seeing Jay. Every party goes. You're not allowed to do that.

[Jay Jerdan]

And then. And then, as a comic, explain what.

[Jesse David Fox]

The basic premise of the Ja Jerusalem joke is. People also listening to be mad at you.

[Jay Jerdan]

Okay, so I basically, I have a joke where I say. Where I say, if you told me my favorite rapper from 2003 would end up being anti Semitic, I would have said, yeah, 50 Cent hates everybody. And that's the great joke. And I go, okay. Okay, you guys, since y' all laughed at that, this. And this is what it's like seeing me laugh. I go, since y' all laughed at that, let's do this. Let's play A game. Okay? This is a character I've been working on, and it's called Anti Semitic 50 Cent. Okay. This weather sucks. You know who I'm gonna blame? The juju jut. And then that's it. Yes, that should be it. And what I do, I double dip. I go, yeah, antisemitic 50 Cent hates Ja rules alone. And I love it because I gave you a great joke, a good joke, and then I gave you one where people, well, if you love me, you go, jay, stop this. Jay, you're actually being too silly, because that sometimes is the goal. You want to get a bunch of laughs, and you want people to go, stop, motherfucker, stop. That's actually.

[Jesse David Fox]

You didn't have to do that. I remember seeing Dave Chappelle once, and it was my favorite audience experience. Just because it was. I can't remember what it was, but for the most part, it was a decent set. And the. Because the woman behind me, her way of laughing was. Would be too quietly to herself go, you so stupid.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yes. That is the highest compliment from a black audience member is if they go, you dumb. You dumb. Stop being silly.

[Jesse David Fox]

I just remember being like, I want her to be at every comedy show.

[Jay Jerdan]

But also, I love. One time you came up to me, and you're like, jay, you love jokes. And also you love jokes with, like, a capital J where sometimes the crowd goes, this is too. That's too much of a joke. And I go, yeah, you wanna know why? Because this is all silly. All of this is jokes. And guess what? You gotta deal with these great ones. And the ones where I go, that one was just listen. That was for me.

[Jesse David Fox]

Mm.

[Jay Jerdan]

Cause the people who are scared to do that, the people who are scared to do that, they are still the liars who go, oh, this is just brilliance falling out of my head. No, you've done this hour before, and you might do it again. So don't pretend like you don't know what you're gonna say.

[Jesse David Fox]

How has Shakespeare influenced you?

[Jay Jerdan]

Ooh. I think that because stand up is essentially a monologue or a soliloquy, depending on how you want to think about it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Sure.

[Jay Jerdan]

I think that stand up is. We're in a world where you should be able to show how smart you are through your standup. And that's something that I took away from Shakespeare and from studying, like. And from studying Shaw and from having to do Oscar Wilde stuff. I still like a world where queer men get to be the arbiters of wit, and we've lost a little Bit of that because we've become Yorkies and clowns sometimes kind of in two separate camps. But I still like it when people go, that gay guy, that queer guy. God, he's a good writer, just kind of like an acerbic wit, like a rapier witness, like very pointed. But also he can be broad, he can be specific, he can be low. He can be high. I love that world. And that to me is the world of the Bard. That to me is the world of Oscar Wilde. That to me is kind of the one thing that was always missing. It's why I liked Mulaney, because he was the closest thing I saw to that from a person who wasn't gay, but was queer coded just cause he wasn't as sloppy as the rest of the boys.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think also part of the reason it works is like, if a person was listening to this far and didn't know, they'd be like, your jokes have angles. They're not just little things. And part of that is sort of the background. Speaking of traditional path, while it still existed, you worked for the. Whatever that John. The problem with John Stewart.

[Jay Jerdan]

The problem with Jon Stewart on Apple tv.

[Jesse David Fox]

What did you learn from Jon? Or what was a day on set where you learned something from John?

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, okay. So John was very. John was very clear that argument and logic were gonna be the kind of like the meat of the monologue. And you could always add jokes. My kind of. My issue when I first got there is I'm so joke, joke. I go get a joke, get a joke, get a joke. And sometimes I wasn't helping with the argument, sometimes I wasn't helping with the logic and the through line. And to be able to point out some of the inconsistencies in the logic and make that airtight is way more important than punch up. But because I was coming from standup and I was still doing standup every night when I left the office and I was still doing standup on the road when we weren't taping episodes, I was like, just joke, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, joke, joke, joke, joke. And so that's something I had to like, really sort of rewire in my brain. Because when I first got that job, my goal was to just make John laugh every week. And I was so unapologetically bold about it. One time we had a meeting, John said. And then he was like working on the house. He said, oh, I had to like, get rid of this wasp's nest. And I said, listen, John, I hate white people too, but we need to focus. We got a job to do. And so, like, I did Jay Jordan ass joke. Exactly. And I did that on the zoom. And so everyone laughed. And then that was one of the first moments. Cause our head writer at the time, Chelsea Devonta, said, don't be afraid of John if you're afraid of John. If you're quiet, if you're meek, it won't work.

[Jesse David Fox]

The other thing, other than Jon Stewart, I was wondering if talking about writing, I believe a story about, like, a note that Roy Wood Jr. Once sent you, can you talk about that?

[Jay Jerdan]

So when I first moved to New York and after I started doing standup, I sent Roy, like, a early clip of me doing a joke on one of the gay bar shows I was doing. And I said, hey, Roy, big fan. Just moved. New York, just started comedy. Just. Did you. Do you have, like, any advice? And he messaged me back, and he basically said that stand up. The only way it works, if you can withstand getting kicked in the chest and hearing no repeatedly, kind of in the most aggressive way, both from an audience and from bookers and from opportunities. And if you can withstand that, then you can do standup. And after all, that is, like, jokes and marketability. But you have to be able to handle so many nos so early. And I had these nos early on that would, like, wreck me. And I would think about what he sent, and I would go, okay, well, I gotta handle this. Like, I didn't get. As a comic, you know this, like, as a comic, when we talk to y', all, like, it's the shit you don't get. You remember? Didn't get Clusterfest. Remember that? Didn't get the Comedy Central 30. Remember that? Didn't get verified Stand up on Netflix. They made me host that. I walked into that, like, taping, and it was Rosebud, Dulce, Sloan, Jean Marco, Cerese, Nimesh. Who else? Who else? There was someone else there that, like, kind of made a face and was like, jay, you aren't. Are you on it? I said, nah. They said, what are you doing? I said, I'm doing what? And I'm hosting. And they said, why? I said, hey, hey, if we talk about that here, they ain't gonna want me on set, so let's, you know, let's be good.

[Jesse David Fox]

Didn't he also. I think he said, roy told you you need to know the difference between what the joke is and what the point is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

He also. There was more to that where he actually gave me advice. But, like, what the Joke is what the point is versus, like, what's funny. And what are you trying to say? Because those things can sometimes be combined, but sometimes they are separate. Because then, you know, those comics where, like, they say a joke, and then they kind of tell you what the lesson is, and then sometimes you reverse engineer and you go, hey, you guys, this. This. This. That's boring. Here's the joke.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

So there are ways where you can differentiate the two.

[Jesse David Fox]

So there. There are simple jokes in your special. There are more complicated jokes in terms of the amount of tags and sort of structure. We'll talk with a simple one, and you can talk about sort of how you think about it. So, like, the cuckold joke, can you explain what the basic premise is, which is, I think, simpler in its structure? Yeah, yeah. And I think it'll be a good example of that.

[Jay Jerdan]

Okay. I talk about. I say. I basically open up. This is pretty early in the hour where I say, me and my husband, we've been together for a while, so we want to spice up the marriage. So we started doing a little thing called cuckoldry. And then the crowd. There's a tag earlier where I said, do y' all know about this? Are y' all watching this? Are y' all watching people watch this? Which is a very kind of like, yeah, good cuckolding joke. And then I say, so cuckolding. If you don't know, that's what. Me and my husband together, we like to watch TV shows that did not cast me. And to me, that is perfect. That's a perfect industry joke. That's not an industry joke. It's a dirty joke. That's not a dirty joke, and it's a true joke. At a certain point of, like, comedy fame, you'll watch a TV show, you'll go, dialogue. I did this side. Wow. Yeah, you're right. I didn't get that. And it's related to. It's funny because it's all true. Except for the last part. The last part is that it's about Abbott. And I did get the Abbott pilot early. I did get to read for Gregory Eddy. And then I did see Janelle after, like, Abbott had blown up. But, like, Janelle was not like. I kind of.

[Jesse David Fox]

I know. Cause the first version of the time you did the joke, you'd say, Jordan. Jordan Temple, who's a writer for it. I said, jordan told me not to tell that.

[Jay Jerdan]

And because I was like, well, people know. I was like, people know, Ava. People know Janelle as a comic. Let me Switch it up. Because, like, there's a world where I could have said. I could have said a bunch of people who work on that show, but I was like, okay, Jordan. Because I was a little bit closer with Jordan at the time. But, like, you know, once again.

[Jesse David Fox]

So in the section about your husband, you lie.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

You. How dare you. No, it's. You talk about how you cheat on your husband. He doesn't like that joke. The difference. Whatever. I mean, they don't even go specific, but, like, you're. You're pretty. You know, you have material. Not in this special, but you have material on tonight shows or whatever about boyfriends and stuff.

[Jay Jerdan]

Fun, little open and close stuff.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. We don't need. But why lie?

[Jay Jerdan]

Because cheating is. And this is connected. Cheating is transgressive. So you get a laugh out of breaking the rules. And then you also get to play with. Oh, I don't know what to believe from Jay. Cause Jay, he talks about. He talks the. Cause it comes after all the Todd stuff, which is so funny that people still laugh at it. And in my head, I was like, does this map logically? I talk about all this group sex, wedding stuff, and then I say cheat, and they go, well, how can you cheat him? And I go, no, no, that's because. Cheating is a fun word. And it's because I wanted to get to this silly joke where I basically play with the. With the word Aaron versus Aaron.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yes. I also think it's interesting because it's the type of joke that 10 years ago, you would do the same, but, like, Hannibal would be like, I know I said, yeah, we had a threesome or whatever together, but in this joke, this is the case.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think people, for this point, you're going so fast that everyone's just sort of like, we're in it. All right? We're in the reality. And also, you build essentially, like, a lot of little structures. You're like, we're now in the structure of this. This is the benefit of a more structured comedy style is that, like, people know they're feeling like we're in the rules of whatever this joke is.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. I think that speed, for me, from a comedy standpoint, speed is so important. And when I say speed, I mean rhythm, the ability to ramp up and slow down. Some people, they go steady, and you really kind of have to write so well and really trick people so quick. I go fast. I can go fast, slow, fast. People go, is it going to go slow? I go, I'll go slow right now. And they go, Are you going to say? So I go, no. And then we speed up again.

[Jesse David Fox]

There's a part where you talk so fast, where you talk about how sand is gay dirt.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then you explain why and it's like, truly.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

You would have to like. Plus, it's the only shame of it not being on YouTube is you can't see where people rewind. I think people are like, why is it like gay dirt?

[Jay Jerdan]

Well, because those watching.

[Jesse David Fox]

Can you explain why sand is like.

[Jay Jerdan]

Sand is like gay dirt in the sense that. Oh my gosh, what do I say? I go, it's the sea at the beach joke. Where I go, santa's a lot like gay dirt in the sense that it always ends up in your husband's trunks. That's the end of it. Yeah, that's the end of it. Where I go, oh, it's malleable, slightly irritating. I go, santa is like gay dirt. And by that I mean it's malleable, slightly irritating, and somehow always ends up in your husband's trunks.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

And to me, I love. I love a triplet. If you watch the Special, Jesse know I love a triplet. Sometimes I'll give you a quartet, but I love a triplet because for people who don't study comedy, they go, oh, I like that. Because it resolved and they don't know why, because if you give them one, they go, okay, that was great. If you give them two, they go, oh, could you give us one more? If you give us three, they go, the music.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

They go, it ended. And with that one, I go short, slightly longer, longest, boom. And we're out. And then I give you a final tag where I go, and ladies, if your husband laughed at that joke, I'll see y' all at the beach.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I mean, it is like truly, it's musical. I mean, like, truly, you can. Having seen you more than probably any other stand up comedian in life, Cause I see you every other week. It truly is like, da, da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da.

[Jay Jerdan]

So, well, people talk about. Sometimes when people see me, they go, oh, this was like slam poetry. And I go, yes, in the sense that there's rhythm in music. But more so I want you to demand more from the comics, you see, who are sort of a rhythmic because there's a music that also helps you memorize your jokes in such a way that you know your melody, you know what note you have to hit. You hear a joke and you go, I'm not playing enough vocally. There are not enough pings. There's not enough growl. There's not enough difference in the way that I say things, because some people just don't even know that the words are also. You can. You can play with, like, the definitions of things. You can play with, like, joke structure, but you can also play with the words within those jokes.

[Jesse David Fox]

So the more. I think probably the most complicated joke in the special is the face tattoo joke, in that it's like a thousand tags, but it's somewhere in the middle. It's like, now you're actually a new part of a joke, but you're still. And I can only imagine watching it live, and you're like, when do I get to breathe? And then. So can you map out as much of it as you want?

[Jay Jerdan]

Sure.

[Jesse David Fox]

Because the thing about it that I think is interesting about that joke, and then also there's a Gen Z joke joke. It's like, I imagine you can do the joke without saying any words, right? There's like a kabuki quality, because every action is like, it's okay.

[Jay Jerdan]

This one's.

[Jesse David Fox]

This one. And then there's this part.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Can you talk? Just map out that entire joke for those who have not seen it.

[Jay Jerdan]

So we're in the millennial section of my. Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

You have a big section about.

[Jay Jerdan]

I have a big section about every generation. And actually, I want to say I apologize to Gen X, because now the Gen X stuff, it could be better. They were an afterthought for me primarily. I used to have a joke where Gen X would be like, you didn't do us. And I'd be like, well, you don't get a participation trophy. Sorry. Like, that was my joke. But in the special, I actually do something that is very not me, but fun, where I say, why were y' all so easy to molest? And the crowd laughs while I go. And I go, oh, yeah, okay, sorry. Drink it off. So in the millennial section, I say that we gave the world emo rat, and I say, I love emo rap. And then, like every comic, I go, I hate emo rap because emo rappers have face tattoos. And I like face tattoos because of what they do to me. They turn me into a baby boomer. And so then I do a whole act out where I become a baby boomer. And I have all these things that baby boomers say. Whereas I say. I say, get a job, pull up your pants, drink some milk from a cow, put on some stockings, and help me attach this PDF. Oh, by the way, the president Is a good man not calling me for a brisk walk around the mall. That's six things. That's a list of six things. And what I want to do in that moment is both do an act out, do a character and say funny things that basically, whenever you become in your mid to late 30s, you have the ability to start to become a boomer. You have the ability to start hating people for doing things differently than you. And I bump up against these kind of curmudgeon tendencies, and I wanted to make fun of that. And so in that joke, I'm kind of making fun of myself, but also making fun of boomers and getting to a fun act out. And then I stay in that character for a bit and I talk about old people. Want to remind you they still fuck.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. It's because I do think PDF is a lot of people might have ended as that. Pull up your, you know, drink milk from a cow, tag me in. But then you have the PDF which is like, oh, wait, now the world is being built where this person is asking things of you. And then president is a good man. And as you know, I. I personally miss. Yeah, Joe Biden is a good.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

What the joke used to be when Joe Biden.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, when Joe Biden was president.

[Jesse David Fox]

Because the way you said Joe Biden was exactly how the character would have said.

[Jay Jerdan]

I loved it when it was Joe Biden and that beta tested Donald Trump. People booed. People do not want you to say.

[Jesse David Fox]

Now they're like, like, ooh, wait, what this character?

[Jay Jerdan]

And I filmed it in April, and so the election already happened. And I still wanted to say the president, but I didn't necessarily want to say Donald Trump. And it was in New Orleans. And so I was like, okay, this I like the president is a good man. Is something that boomers think regardless of who the president is usually.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. The idea that the president is a man.

[Jay Jerdan]

Well, he's president. He got to be a good man. So that helped if Kamala would have won. I don't know what I. Was it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah. That completely withdrew. Oh, man. The way you. For those. If you had a time machine, go back to. I used to say Joe Biden. So then this man continues going, right.

[Jay Jerdan]

He.

[Jesse David Fox]

So bris. Walk could be the end. But then I'm doing an act out in the act out where you then act out walking and walk. Very funny.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. And then I go step a little bit for people who pay attention.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then you. Now he's talking about poop.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And you're like, Wait, now this is part of it. Yeah, yeah. And then so he goes into, we're spicing up in the bedroom. Yeah. And you then have a joke about Hitachi.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, Hitachi Magic Wand. Yeah, the Hitachi Magic Wand joke. There are two tags, and I used to alternate them. What it ended up being in the special is, I think, Hitachi Magic Wand. That sounds like a studio Ghibli anime is what I say sometimes. What I used to say on the road is Hitachi is that when the Japanese people cook the rice in front of you at Benihana.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's the one that's in the special.

[Jay Jerdan]

Okay.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's the Benihana one.

[Jay Jerdan]

Okay. And so what happens is that that sometimes if the crowd is weird enough, the studio Ghibli anime really hits. Sometimes if the crowd is just not super weird, because that is an esoteric tag that is hyper specific. I was so I was close to saying, you know, Princess Mononoke, but, like, that's not.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

The world we live in. So.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And I think. I think Ben High's. Because you still have more joke to go.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, you're still.

[Jesse David Fox]

And this is still, I think, would generally be called.

[Jay Jerdan]

Called an act out.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. But it's like you're now. You're 9,000 tags. Yeah. You've now completely pivoted to a new joke about if older women should be allowed to squirt.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Which is now. And so you then completely flip. Right. So explain that part of it for those who haven't seen it, because I don't want.

[Jay Jerdan]

So basically I go into, like, I become the boomer. And now I'm talking to you as my child about how me and your mother still have an active sex life, and I bought her her Hitachi magic wand. And it works well. It works too well. We had to put a towel down. Your mom's a squirt. And then I, I. And I'm in character up until I go, okay, by the way, that's a joke about your mom squirting. And just so we're clear as an audience, how do we feel about older women squirting? And it's the E. To me, I see it come from miles away. Maybe they don't. But the crowd goes, woo. I go, no, they can slip and fall. Is that what you want? You want to make this phone call? Yeah. And so then I become.

[Jesse David Fox]

And now the new scene.

[Jay Jerdan]

I go, yeah, we found mom. Yeah, good news. She looks peaceful. Bad news is stuck. So. So that to me, the sword in the stone situation.

[Jesse David Fox]

And now we're like. It's like all the way over here.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. So I morphed back into a different person, and that's just still in the millennial section of the generation.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's wild, man. It is wild. No one's doing it. No one's doing that.

[Jay Jerdan]

To me, that's an acting exercise. It's a fun old man voice. I get to kind of. You basically get to do a Family Guy scene cut away. Seth MacFarlane is such an influence to. Because I get to do a family got scene cutaway. But just with me.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, that's. So I didn't think about that. I was thinking about, like, what are the influences of this level of density and because there aren't tons of people that can easily compare to. And I was thinking, like, family guy. 30 Rock.

[Jay Jerdan]

30 Rock.

[Jesse David Fox]

Lonely Island.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, Lonely Island.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

Which is like, all influences.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And peak.

[Jay Jerdan]

Millennial stuff.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah. The other thing is this shows like, you're. You're a trickster, right. It's like you're old. You're the old man part of you, and then you're the part of you that's like, handling. You are a Loki like, figure.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah. Well, I'm taking off. I'm like taking off a mask and taking off a different mask. And they being like, what's behind you? And they turn around and they go, it's you. I go, it was me the whole time. That's a good. That's actually a very good. That's a very good example of what I think comedy really can be. Stand up. Because there are times when I get so strict on myself, but that is, like, immersive. It's joke dense. It's also an act out. There were years when, like, people would judge act outs. It comes from, like, Dane Cook, like, beef and whatever, and people thinking that you weren't writing enough. If you write really, really, really well and you perform really well, people's minds are blown. And so that's an example that I'm very proud of that.

[Jesse David Fox]

How did it just sort of like keep on going? Like, did you have the face tattoos Boomer concept? And then you were sort of played it out and then you're like, onstage, Rift kept on going.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah, a lot. You've seen multiple things become kind of. You've seen a couple of things get set. You saw the Echidna joke that ended up on Fallon. Start with the platypus joke at Union Hall. And then I had a throwaway line where I was like monitoring sweat milk. Yeah. Like a kid from the Midwest. And to me, platypus, first thought monotreme. Echidna is always second thought monitoring. So I went with echidna for the final version, and because I did see an echidna there. And then this one also started with me acting like an old man. One of the first times I ever acted, I want to say sixth or fifth grade, I got to pretend to be an old man. And I love younger people playing old because it's such a. It's such a critique of what you think old people are like. It's also fun because, like, I was 36 when I shot this. I was. I'm not old, but I'm older, and I'm old enough that I have a little bit of respect from people when I do comedy that I can do an old person, and they're not like, that's crazy. It's like, okay, well, wait a minute, Jay, you kind of old, so you're.

[Jesse David Fox]

Definitely old for a young person.

[Jay Jerdan]

Exactly, exactly. And I wanted to really capture all of that. And I also love. This is part of, like, my comedy origin story. I love throwing people off. I love misdirection. I love wordplay. But I really love a crowd. God going, I don't know, what. What is he doing? What's he gonna do next? People, they'll say, jay, you have two hours in there. And I go, yeah. I go slow.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. 100. I mean, this is. This is. The thing is, it's like, two is over 200.

[Jay Jerdan]

Laughs. I think it's like 200, but it's.

[Jesse David Fox]

Like, truly like this.

[Jay Jerdan]

It.

[Jesse David Fox]

The. You have it. There's only so many. Like, it's truly that feeling of, like, there's no way. If someone saw you, they could remember the jokes because they can't remember where it started.

[Jay Jerdan]

That's the key. I never want someone to know my joke verbatim. I like people to know my punchlines. I want people to go, how do you get into this? I like how. I love. My style is very traditional. But then there are moments where I go fully unorthodox. And that's a little bit of Katie, too, where I have a very. I have a very good game. But then sometimes I'll go goofy, and they'll go, wait, wait, wait, you can't do that. I go, yes, I can. What are you talking about? I can't go. You. You thought I couldn't go left. I'm gonna go left real quick.

[Jesse David Fox]

Defend being a millennial.

[Jay Jerdan]

Ooh, millennials. We're. We. We. We're the generation that made you become better at comedy. There is no comedy boom without millennials. So if you want to get famous from standup, from sketch, from Internet videos, millennials are the only reason that is an income source for you. So if you think a millennial cringe, comedy is terrible. Some of it is. Some of it is. But you have to thank us for creating a landscape that both focused on comedy being popular and made comedy better. Everyone's comedy acumen now is higher because of Millennials. So you have more discerning taste because of us, because of 30 Rock, because of those years at SNL, because of lonely island, because of the fact that late night shows started to be like, we have to be pretty good now. We can't just, like, have, have. We can't just have a guy come on with snakes all the time. We love snakes. But we have to. We'll have to write some sketches. We're gonna have to do. We're gonna have to do monologues like Jon Stewart. It was Millennials.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Jay Jerdan]

Millennials. And later. Gen X. Gen X. Gen X was kind of in front of the camera, but millennials kind of push.

[Jesse David Fox]

And we're having watched so much stand up, like, not having algorithms to be like, you like this. We'll get more of this. We've been like, I'm turning climb Central. I like stand up. Yeah. Watching all of it and being like, like, oh, Comic View has to stand up on after this is on. So I guess I'll watch comic. I was watching Comic View every night and look, and it was on every night.

[Jay Jerdan]

Every night.

[Jesse David Fox]

And not all of it was good, but it was. You're just sort of like, oh, comedy can be anything.

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And it's like millennials are the, like, believe it's an art form. They can be anything. Where I do think it's like, we. You and me, I guess. Yeah. We're fighting the fight of, like, there's. Let's have multiple definitions. We can fight Apple, which is the best. But, like, ultimately, I think that's the case.

[Jay Jerdan]

And all of this stuff. Does people get better? I want to be good enough at standup that I'm also good in a sketch. And you, as a sketch performer should want to every now and then be able to deliver an amazing presentation at an award show where people go, oh, my God, that was really fun. You know what I mean? The ability to stand and deliver is like standups, and the ability to perform with an ensemble is sketch and Making sure you have both of those skill sets is what make people go, oh, you're really good. There's a reason why people every month go, these are my favorite clips from 30 Rock. These are my favorite Key and Peele sketches. Because it's not going, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

No one's writing that dense. Like, it just does not.

[Jay Jerdan]

I'm trying to do it on stage.

[Jesse David Fox]

I know. Why are you so good? Like, why try this hard?

[Jay Jerdan]

I want people I love trying hard when it comes to stand up. I think that. And this is tied to the male loneliness epidemic. Trying hard is faggy. Trying hard is girly. Trying hard, studying, excelling, executing, standup. It's an art form, but also it is quantifiable because there's an immediate response that is measurable from a decibel level in the room right then. So it's not just an art form. It's dance, but competition dance if you want to. It could be snowboarding, it could be gymnastics, it could be diving. Because this is what happens. You go, this is what I'm going to do. The judges go, that's what you're going to do. You go, this is what I'm going to do. They're going to gauge you on how hard these things are, are. And how well you execute and how repeatable it is. And the judges, in this case, sometimes are literal judges, but sometimes it's the audience. And the audience goes, you excelled both in level of difficulty and execution. Execution is not flubbing your words. Execution is making sure you can make this. You can make this joke funny. Tonight, tomorrow night, in front of this crowd, in front of that crowd. You know this. The jokes I do at Union Hall, I do the same jokes in the special and at the subject. Sometimes I'll tweak, I'll go a little bit more specific. But when I go to Union Hall, I'll be like, ugh, y' all are straight. When I go to. And they'll go, no, we're not ha. When I go to the seller, I go, ugh, y' all are gay. They go, no, we're not ha. Like, they're easy, easy little fixes. And in the seller, I have an even better case. Cause I go, y' all are gay. They go, we're not gay. I go, you're in a basement in the Village. You gay. Okay. If this was the forties, you'd be arrested.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then the question I want to ask is, do you believe in God?

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, yes. So I've talked about this recently a little bit I used to be, like, super, super Christian. Cause I was raised in the church. My mom has to go to church Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Now I think. I don't think there's a guy with a beard up there. I think I've heard from people who I respect and really admire that maybe God is entropy. Maybe God is the scattering of all of these things in such a way that we are so lucky that it ends up being like this. Maybe God is the happenstance and the living luck that we happen to be in the habitable zone at the right time where we can even ask that question. Maybe that's God. Maybe God is love. Maybe God is the way that humans form connections that should just be electrical signals where we go, no, this has to be something more. Maybe that's God. So that's my answer when it comes to, like, do I believe in God?

[Jesse David Fox]

I ask because knowing you and knowing, you know, preparing for this, it's like you feel like such an extension of your mother's relationship to God.

[Jay Jerdan]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Can you talk about that and what that was like and how do you feel?

[Jay Jerdan]

Like, this is so beautiful. And I'm actually like, very happy. You asked my mom. Super Christian, super Christian, but loves her queer, bisexual, silly ass, loud, slutty son. Like, loves me in a way that, like, I don't know if I'll ever be able to really put in the words how much she loves me. I was so scared to come out to my mom, and she was so, so chill. And she didn't have to be. And she let me be me. She let me do theater. She let me change career paths. She let me go to grad school, There was never any push to be anything other than happy. And the mo. There are moments where I go, did she know? Did she know? When I was 4 and I went up to my teacher and I said, I'm fascinated by dinosaurs. Because that's a little gay thing to say. But it's also a little thing that you go, hey, guess what? If that little boy likes dinosaurs and he wants to tell you, let him tell you. And that's kind of like also where my animal stuff comes from in my standup, where my mythology, highly referential kind of zoo book stuff comes from. Cause I go, I love this thing. I want to tell you about this thing. So my mom's love for me, it really allowed me to get good at standup. And she let me move to New York. She didn't know what was gonna happen, but she knew I could be a personal trainer. And she knew I was a pretty good actor and she knew I was handsome enough to at least get a toothpaste commercial. And that's it. And so she's all, I love that woman so much.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean it. There's the. It does feel like, especially with the yes man being the name of the special. It feels like it's like dedicated to her. Do you feel like. And then we'll do laughing round and then it'll be fine. It almost made me want to start laughing around.

[Bella Freud]

Now they're outside.

[Jay Jerdan]

You almost made me cry.

[Jesse David Fox]

That was a hope man. Now he's gonna about to cry. We'll just do it. All right. So I was gonna ask about your dad, but next time around you can.

[Jay Jerdan]

Ask about my dad.

[Jesse David Fox]

These famous soccer players are outside.

[Jay Jerdan]

Hi, this is Bella Freud. Each week on Fashion Neurosis, I invite guests from the world of fashion, art, sport, music, and literature to lie on my couch and explore the connection between fashion and identity. This week on the show, I welcome the presenter and model Alexa Chung. To me, it's now funny me to dress in a more kind of kinky.

[Jesse David Fox]

Way because I think I'm more associated.

[Jay Jerdan]

With like dungarees and smock tops and a slightly more sexist, tomboyish vibe. Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bella Freud]

This week on Net Worth and Chill. We're diving deep into the world of private equity, the financial force that's secretly behind your morning coffee, your favorite restaurant chain, and probably even some apps on your phone. From understanding what PE actually is and how these firms make their money to breaking down the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of private equity's impact on everything from health care to your local gym. We're exposing how PE touches way more of your daily life than you probably realize and what it means when your employer gets bought out. And most importantly, get ready for real. Talk about whether private equity is the wealth building opportunity you've been missing out on or just another way for rich people to get richer. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com YourRichBFF Good noticings, Ashley. Good noticings to you, Claire, and to the listeners. Welcome to Good Noticing. What is in Kevin Federline's memoir? Who is Mel Robbins and why should we let her? Have you seen a wonder market popping up in your neighborhood?

[Jay Jerdan]

Have you eaten it?

[Bella Freud]

Why is it so disgusting?

[Jay Jerdan]

Who. Who robbed the Louvre?

[Bella Freud]

These questions and why we are deep diving into as we read all of the hottest articles about the buzziest cultural moments from last week, and we discuss them with you, our dear listeners. We read beyond the Head so that you have something to talk about at your next dinner party. Or if you're too tired from work to form an opinion, we'll come up with one, and you can take it as your own. This is good noticings, the podcast where we are looking around and noticing stuff. We've noticed that Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have a weird marriage. You guys noticed that one recently. You guys ever think about that? Cause you can think about it with us everywhere. You get your podcast.

[Jesse David Fox]

Now it's time for the final segment. It's called a laughing round. It's like a lightning round, but jokes. Do your favorite joke. Joke.

[Jay Jerdan]

Ooh, my favorite joke from me or from someone else?

[Jesse David Fox]

Joke, joke. Like a street joke.

[Jay Jerdan]

Ooh, a favorite street joke. Oh, God. What's the one Matt Rife did in his special? Okay.

[Jesse David Fox]

You have a short story of an interaction with a legendary comedian, living or dead, you're willing to share?

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, yes. 100%. Keith Robinson. Keith Robinson. I love Keith Robinson. I was really scared to go to the comedy Cellar table whenever I first got passed there. And Keith Robinson, he was there. And, like, it was after he'd had his stroke. And I just remember he was being mean to Mateo, and Mateo was like, he hates gay people. He was like, nah, I just hate you. And I was like, oh, okay, y'. All, this is fun. That's one. And then the other big famous one I did tonight show 2019. I come off stage, Adam Sandler and Lorne Michaels were there. So Adam Sandler was there promoting Uncut Gems, and he did an interview. He watched my set. To my surprise, Lorne Michaels was there because Tim Meadows was upstairs talking to Seth Meyers. And if you have all four of them, Lorne is, like, summoned through a portal. And so Lorne was there, and Lauren did not acknowledge me, and I was like, well, looks like I'm not getting the audition, but it was a good set.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. What's something that people think is comedy that you think isn't?

[Jay Jerdan]

Ooh, the call. Culture of cruelty. Currently. I don't think that making fun of people who need $50,000 that badly is comedy, Drewski. I don't think Drew ski filming people on different levels of the autism spectrum who just need money desperately auditioning for a fake record company. I don't think that's comedy. I don't think that making fun of people who have a different amount of limbs than you on stage in Austin is comedy. I don't think that these people driving a van from California to Texas on the hope that they can make it. I don't think that's comedy. That's desperation. And what you're doing is essentially Whack Pack 2.0. And Howard Stern stopped that for a. I don't think it's comedy. I think it's cruelty. I think it's. I think it's kind of part of our broken system when it comes to, like, how do you make it as an artist in this industry? But I don't think it's comedy. I think it's something sadder.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Last one. What is a joke that never worked, but you'll go to your grave and you're like, I was right there wrong.

[Jay Jerdan]

Oh, a joke that never. Oh, there's one right now that, like, it just isn't working. And I want it to. I say my husband fancies himself an amateur interior decorator, and I also fancy myself an amateur interior decorator, but that's just a lot of words to let you know, I'm a top. And some people like it, some people don't. It splits the room. Maybe it's too wordy, maybe it's too cutesy, but I. I love that joke.

[Jesse David Fox]

Thank you so much.

[Jay Jerdan]

Thank you, Jesse, for having me.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Matt, Neal Janowitz, and Ann Victoria Clark. Music composed by Brandon McFarlane. Write a review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I'm Jesse David Fox, and you can follow me essiedavidfox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York magazine. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we'll be back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.