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- [00:01]
Jesse David Fox
Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea. When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back.
- [00:09]
Vir Das
You need Pure Leaf iced tea. It's real brewed tea made in a.
- [00:13]
Jesse David Fox
Variety of bold flavors with just the.
- [00:15]
Vir Das
Right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. You're left feeling refreshed and revitalized so.
- [00:20]
Jesse David Fox
You can be ready to take on what's next.
- [00:22]
Vir Das
The next time you need to hit.
- [00:24]
Jesse David Fox
The reset button, grab a Pure Leaf iced tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a Pure Leaf.
- [00:32]
Vir Das
With the Venmo Debit card, you can Venmo everything.
- [00:35]
Jesse David Fox
Your favorite band's merch.
- [00:36]
Vir Das
You can Venmo this or their next show. You can Venmo that. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. The card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted.
- [00:46]
Jesse David Fox
Venmo purchase restrictions apply.
- [00:47]
Vir Das
And they were like, hey, can I talk to the police officer in all these stations? And I was like, yeah, you can. Do you also want to talk about jokes? You know? And then they were like, should we send somebody on the day your special comes out? Do you think you'll get arrested again? And I was like, I hope not. And shouldn't you hope not as well?
- [01:10]
Jesse David Fox
This is good one. I am Jesse David Fox, senior writer at Vulture and author of Comedy Book. My guest this episode is Veer Das, the biggest English speaking comedian in India and frankly, the world. When I first interviewed Veer in 2021, he was filming sets on top of a mountain deep in the jungles of Goa because he was worried about a being infringed upon by the government and the police. He spoke ominously of what might be coming next. As if on cue months later, Veer performed a piece about inequality called Two Indias at the Kennedy Center. It went viral, but like, not in a good way. It led to a week of controversy in India and many, many police complaints. Everything was resolved legally, but Veer is still impacted by that moment. That story was turned into his last Netflix special, Landing. Veer and I talk about that controversy as well as his newest Netflix special, Full Volume, which was taped in England and New York. The thing is, six weeks before filming, Veer lost his voice and was told it might be seven months before he could ever perform again. What happened next? Watch to find out. So here is Vir Das. I'm here with Vir Das. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me so this is like how we like to start. What is the funniest thing that happened to you this week?
- [02:22]
Vir Das
I had a quintessentially New York experience. So I flew in from Mumbai, and I flew in on my miles, so I had to take, like, a longer thing, and it was 16 hours to JFK. And then I stayed in this. There's this TWA hotel in JFK which is like this. It looks like catch me if you can was shot in that hotel. And my flight was late, so I was in no show for the room. I just went in and quintessentially just a New York hotel receptionist. She was like, they fucking no showed you. I fucking hate this hotel. And I was just like, I don't know what to do with that, but I'm equally unhappy to not have a room. And then her manager came over. She's like, I don't even want to come into work today. I fucking hate this place. And I had to watch her and her manager have a fight about something that wasn't me.
- [03:12]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah.
- [03:13]
Vir Das
For 15 minutes. Handle their own crisis. And then I got a hotel room.
- [03:17]
Jesse David Fox
At least I got.
- [03:18]
Vir Das
She hated the hotel on my behalf, which is a very New York thing.
- [03:21]
Jesse David Fox
It is funny. To be like, their version of customer service is to also compl. To be like, oh, we should make you feel better. We'll feel better by both complaining about the same problem.
- [03:32]
Vir Das
I mean this with no offense, but I think America doesn't really have customer service. America has customers who are forced into doing service, but everybody in America is a customer. You would do well to travel to the east and discover that hospitality. That's customer service.
- [03:48]
Jesse David Fox
So, yeah, I think that's a good way to transition because you are a uniquely global comedian. And I want to talk about that for a little bit. Specifically, your new special cuts between three different cities. It's Mumbai, London, and New York. And I want to talk a little bit about Mumbai, because in the special, you say you move there with no contacts, no money, no comedy scene, and now there's a stadium. And I want to take you back to that moment to really convey to people what it means to move to no comedy scene, to start doing comedy. So can you talk about first going to Mumbai to hypothetically be a comedian? And can you set the scene of how little standup there was?
- [04:28]
Vir Das
It was this. This very posh South Bombay is kind of like our Park Avenue, if you will, if that's an upmarket neighborhood. Right. And, you know, there were guys who were like, 48, 49. Doing it for 55 year olds. And then I showed up.
- [04:43]
Jesse David Fox
Oh, what year, what year was this?
- [04:44]
Vir Das
This is 2008. 2009. To be a VJ. Do you guys have VJs in America? Right? So I'm just like, hey guys, this next song would like spiky hair and no sleeves and all of that stuff, which lasted two, two minutes. But I was just kind of there and I was like, I do stand up and there's, there has to be other funny people who are talking about their dicks and college and, and you know, all of that stuff. And so we started this open mic, if you will. It, it was brutal in that I would be the, the draw. So ten comedians would come and do two and a half minutes each and then I'd have to do 55 minutes of standing. And that was the ticket. So if you were, if you were an audience member, it was just, you know, a 35 minute shitty gateway into watching a show that even that wasn't that great. But the first open mic we did, I think 350 people showed up to.
- [05:42]
Jesse David Fox
Perform or to watch.
- [05:43]
Vir Das
To watch. Which is insane for an open mic.
- [05:46]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [05:46]
Vir Das
But probably even more insane for an open. Michael.
- [05:49]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [05:50]
Vir Das
You know, your first set is two and a half minutes in front of 350 people. And then that became a thing. We started doing it once a month and I just found like a tribe. And we started doing improv troupes together and sketch comedy together and we would write the big award ceremonies for big stars and it just kind of, you know, grew.
- [06:09]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, it's wild. I mean, like, you really get credit as one of the main people that brought what we think of as American style standup culture to India. You were exposed to stand up when you were living here. You went to college here. Do you have a story or moment that really captures how new it was when you were performing at the beginning.
- [06:28]
Vir Das
I think in the beginning people would get upset if they came and saw you and you did an hour. And if they came and saw you the next week and you did the same hour, they were offended because they thought you were just making it all up as you went along. So they're like, why are you doing the same show again and again? And I'm like, you don't understand. It took me six months to write this shit. But we're still a young comedy audience in India. We're a large audience. The average comedian can like in America, if a Comedy Special gets 2 million views on YouTube, people are like, congrats in India, you should retire. If your Comedy Special gets 2 million views in Hindi, like, new comics with 5 minutes of Hindi material are getting 36 million views. It is great to be an Indian comic.
- [07:13]
Jesse David Fox
I was just telling people that if you search Comedy Special on YouTube and sort by most views, it is all Indian comics. Yeah, like, not even close. It's like the top 30 are all.
- [07:23]
Vir Das
Indian comedians, but it's a young audience, so they're rounding their way to, oh, political comedy can be a thing, or really dark comedy can be a thing. And it'll all be passe, you know, in 10 years from now, I hope. But for now, the audience is seeing us try things that they're not accustomed to, I guess.
- [07:40]
Jesse David Fox
Imagine it's also exciting. Cause you get. You have so much power to teach the audience what stand up can be.
- [07:47]
Vir Das
I think so. But I also think Indian standup has to fall into a less detached role. We're very emotional people. Right. So there is a. There's this archetype of kind of the casual American comic, a British comic, beer in hand, you know, etc. We don't do that shit. You have to connect, you know, given the amount of choices that a Mumbai audience member has on a Friday night to pick you over a Bollywood movie, to pick you over a play, to pick you over music, if there's not a deep connection with the audience, we feel a little shortchanged, you know.
- [08:26]
Jesse David Fox
So as I said, this special also takes place in. So it's Mumbai, London and New York. Do you remember what inspired you to aspire to be a global standup comedian? To, you know, it's hypothetical. You. You go back to India, you've gone to acting work. You, Vijay, you're doing standup there. There's obviously enough people there to sustain a career, but you are, as I said, uniquely global in terms of your both approach and your success. So what was the sort of initial inspiration, do you think, to try to pursue things that way?
- [08:55]
Vir Das
I hadn't done standup in a while, you know, I was doing movies and I was doing this show called History of India, which was like a standup takes you through India pre independence and post independence. And I was just doing a bunch of shitty movies. And I think the final shitty studio movie that I did that crashed and burnt. I was like, okay, the phone's not ringing for a while and let me come to la. And some people from CAA were down and they were like, come to LA and take meetings, which means give money to Uber. And I ended up doing like a Tuesday night spot at the Laugh Factory. There's a comic who used to be in LA called Raj Sharma, who's a friend, and he hooked me up and then I went between, I think, like Whitney and Dane Cook, you know, and I killed, I killed pretty well on a seven and a half minute, you know, spot. And then Jamie Masada, who owns the Laugh Factory, he's like, bari, you're gonna be so huge, Bari. You know, And I was like, this feels good. Like I feel better about this than I did about the last two movies. And so then I took a year to like travel America. And what I discovered is that there is a really palatable version of an Indian that Americans like. And there are many local comics who present that palatable version very easily. And were I to come in all the way from Mumbai and not give you something that you hadn't seen, I'd be doing you and me a disservice. So then I was just like, all right, I'll just be who I am and it'll take a little longer and I'll have to explain it to you, but maybe you go home having heard something you hadn't heard before. Yeah.
- [10:35]
Jesse David Fox
You know, and what's it like? I mean, you. Can you capture what your tour is like? Do people imagine. I think the, the when people think of stand up comedy, they don't think of it as a global art form. They think of comedy as like, you know, the, the stereotype in for like American comedy movies is that they don't they play internationally. But you toured internationally.
- [10:55]
Vir Das
The last tour was 33 countries.
- [10:57]
Jesse David Fox
What looks like a normal week, like for a vir Das.
- [11:02]
Vir Das
No, look, it's, it's months, right? So it is, you know, America will be February, March, and we'll really take, take up, you know, there'll be a show every two days.
- [11:14]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [11:14]
Vir Das
In February, March. But then we'll do Europe. And Europe you can get done in like 15 days. And then, you know, Australia is a, a 10 day trip, you know, so it, it's in pockets. It's, it's never like, I don't know, American comics, hamster wheel a lot. You know, they're just like, you know, the next possible city and the next possible city and their agencies keep them on the road like hamsters. Just, you know, 45 weeks a year or 50 weeks a year. And, and I don't know if I could do that. You know, what I like is in America, maybe I have 16 cities where I can go. I don't have 47American cities that I could, you know, that I could do. And it's nice. I get to take the best of America before I kind of get truly lost in it, you know, so, you.
- [12:04]
Jesse David Fox
Know, I often say that standup demands a certain amount of an outsider's perspective in one way or another. You have to see things that people are just sort of in. And you. You have a memoir coming out later this year. It's called Outsider. And in it, there's various perspective on what it means to be an outsider, both sort of good and bad. And I was curious, what did being an outsider once mean to you and how's it evolved to sort of. How do you see it now?
- [12:29]
Vir Das
Well, check with me on a week to week basis and I'll let you know. Because one week it's outsider, and that's something to celebrate in the next week. I'm like, is this just imposter syndrome? And the next week it's self sabotage. But I. I'm not really from anywhere. Yeah. You know, born in India, raised in Africa, then to boarding school up north, then to Galesburg, Illinois, to Montgomery, Alabama, to London, to Mumbai. It's insane. Yeah. To have that kind of. So I will never be from anywhere, and therefore my material will never be very rooted or relatable to a particular community of people.
- [13:09]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [13:09]
Vir Das
So I was like, all right, fuck it. I just got to do what this is. And then you discover that that is a strange amount of freedom. Like, comedy in America is divided into, like, ideological silos. Right. So you are edge, bro, dude, Lord, you know, ice bath, you know, guy. Or you are pseudo intellectual, very nuanced, woke, pandery guy. And I get to come in and just be like, I'm not either one of these fucking guys. I'm just here and here's what I see. And I sometimes feel like I have more freedom to talk about America than an American comic, because there's no. I have no dog in the race. Yeah.
- [13:51]
Jesse David Fox
Ideologically and especially. You talk about there's a moment or on a plane where you're in first class and you literally don't know what's in your head.
- [13:58]
Vir Das
You said first class. Now nobody feels sorry for me. Sympathy is the key behind a comedy special. I'm kidding.
- [14:03]
Jesse David Fox
You're on a plane. Who knows where you're sitting, but you don't know where. Well, it's part of the tension of the bit. But, like, you don't know where you're going. And I think that's important. Can you walk through that moment, take me through what that was like.
- [14:14]
Vir Das
It was a year post the controversy where I had to leave, you know, and I traveled for eight months, which was a long time. I did 186 shows across the world. And I think there's a place called Earth in London. And we had put a last minute show on sale over there and it sold out in maybe three days. And so I bought myself a ticket. My last show, my 186 show was in Singapore and I was flying home and then I had to reroute to London and I woke up and I had no clue where I was. And the bit is that the guy's like, Mr. Das, this flight is to Singapore. And I'm like, this flight is to. To Mumbai. And when a brown man with a beard starts yelling a new destination for the plane, everybody gets a little on edge. But I legit blocked out 72 hours of my life. It's gone from my brain. And I was like, I think I've to much and I need to take a break.
- [15:11]
Jesse David Fox
So as you talk about your special, I want to start with what was the special that you were going to film? What did Netflix pay you to do then?
- [15:20]
Vir Das
I did this shit. Yeah, Netflix. And I sat down after landing and I got a good response, I got an award. And then they were like, let's do another one. And I was like, I feel like a lot of standup is joy posturing his edge. And let's just do a special about Joy unapologetically posturing as joy, right? And bring people together and give you warm fuzzy. Cause I felt like landing was a little sad, you know, and you don't want to be sad comic forever. You want to be funny immediately after you do the pathos special. And then I was in a hotel room in London six weeks before I just done the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We put tickets on sale. This stadium in Mumbai sells out in 20 minutes. I woke up without a voice and just gone. I get rushed to a vocal doctor in England. He puts his, you know, whatever the scope is down my throat. He's like, you have massive vocal nodules and cysts. So it's six months before the quality of your voice returns. And I was like, I just sold out this massive arena. I'm not canceling my special. And so then that was six weeks of just trying anything under the sun to get my voice back. And it didn't come back until 10 days before the special. But until the night before the special, I could only really talk for 30, 35 minutes at a stretch. So then to do three hours of standup is just pure adrenaline and not a very healthy way to do it.
- [16:57]
Jesse David Fox
So let's go through it bit by bit. Do you have any sense of why this happens or how this happened?
- [17:02]
Vir Das
It was vocal fatigue for sure, but it's something that Whitney Houston went through and was never able to recover from, or Adele went through and was able to recover from. There's this lady called Dr. Ruth Epstein in London who's like the world's best. And I kind of went and met her and she's like, I got Adele back to the Grammys. I'll get you back, no problem. But even she was like, six weeks is too short an amount of time. So me getting back on stage in Mumbai is a combination of like, vocal exercises, steroids, homeopathy, pundits, energy healing, chakra, guys, myofascial release. I tried everything. I was desperate. And somehow, you know, you spend six weeks in silence, you will discover what a shitty person you really are with your own thoughts and your intrusive thoughts. And it's much more mental battle than it is a physical battle. So I think when you stop thinking about whether you can speak, suddenly your throat opens up and your voice comes out. So I think that's what I learned.
- [18:06]
Jesse David Fox
What was the lowest point, if you.
- [18:08]
Vir Das
Can eight days before the stadium, where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna try and do a warm up show. I go to a club, and in 23 minutes my voice gives out. Because, you know, if you rest a muscle for six weeks and you haven't done anything with it, it atrophies, it fatigues, right? So I was like, how the hell am I gonna do two shows back to back? I called the doctor and she's like, look, you need surgery and you're putting off surgery. Now I can shoot you up with something and you'll get the show done, but you will damage yourself significantly more if we do that. So kind of maybe let's wait till 24 hours before the show. And there's 12,000 people coming for the show. I did a warmup show the night before at the stadium, and I did 40 minutes. And then the next day I did three and a half hours of standup, and I still cannot tell you what worked. Yeah, it was just some sort of adrenaline in me.
- [19:07]
Jesse David Fox
I mean, it. It's so directly compares to what often happens with NBA basketball players where they have small injuries and then they're like, it's the playoffs. And someone's like, I Think we can maybe get you through it. And then often they. They. That's how you get a lot of ACL Achilles tears. And you could have like, legitimately permanently injured yourself or could have.
- [19:25]
Vir Das
And I could have postponed as well. It wasn't a really healthy thing to do. But, you know, when you shoot a special, you're supposed to be tight. You know, you're 100 shows in this shit is. I rewrote this whole show in my mind in silence. So what you're seeing in the stadium is unrehearsed. Yeah, it's, you know.
- [19:44]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. So talk about this. So it's like you still have this date and in your mind you're like, I assume we're going to film it, then we're gonna do the show. I assume at some point you're like, at this point it's sunk cost because we can't get whatever money back from whatever the rentals and stuff like that. So something's going to have to happen that night. So you have a show that is done about joy.
- [20:05]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [20:07]
Jesse David Fox
Six weeks go through. I mean, you can go week by week. What has happened in your head is like, when did you realize, like, oh, there's a diff. What parts are you saving? What parts are you changing? How's it completely reframing the situation?
- [20:19]
Vir Das
Well, I think the first thing that you. When you lose your voice, the first thing that you think about is what you want to say when you get it back. Right. So if you go from, oh, I can talk unlimitedly and here's the things I would say to, oh, shit, I can only handle 22 minutes of speaking, all of a sudden you start thinking about what you really want to say in that moment. Right. Then you start thinking, oh, yeah, I'm making all these points, and they're kind of nice. Am I having any fun? And God forbid, I was never to do this again. Let's say this was my last special. I want to kind of dance and fuck around and enjoy myself a little bit on stage. Yeah. You know, so it instantly becomes sillier. Everybody around me started whispering to me. Right. And that kind of became a metaphor for the comedy scene a little bit where people are like, oh, my God, you've lost your voice. That's so sad. And I'm like, but you haven't. Yeah, but silence is contagious. When you see a broken, silent person, you're broken and silent all of a sudden for them. And that's kind of what authoritarianism is when it comes to comedy. So it Just maybe what this special is, is a mental health crisis just acted out on stage. But Netflix was sitting in the audience like, this is not a show about joy at all.
- [21:35]
Jesse David Fox
They changed the marketing material, but it's sillier.
- [21:38]
Vir Das
You've seen the show. It's. It's a very silly show.
- [21:40]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [21:40]
Vir Das
And I wanted to have fun.
- [21:42]
Jesse David Fox
Did you start shooting documentary footage just in case right away? Like, the fact that you have cutaways. You're like. Of all these little things, and maybe some you didn't post, but, like, did you, like, okay, we'll film this because maybe this will be part of it.
- [21:55]
Vir Das
I thought I would do, like, an Instagram reel at the end of this journey. So, you know the shit that you see. The cutaways in the special are on my phone.
- [22:02]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [22:02]
Vir Das
Yeah. You know, so it's not, like, great footage. It's not a docu shot. You see the. The scope go down my throat. We've blurred it, right. Because, you know, you don't want to show people massive nodules. It's triggering. And then we blurred it a little bit, but then be honest, it looked like a vagina. We're like, wait, we're going to be like, what scope did he get? And so then we blurred it a little bit more. There's footage of the vocal doctor, this footage of the homeopathic medicine. There's footage of the myofascial guy. So it's all, like, phone footage that I thought would make a reel. And then it kind of went into the special.
- [22:42]
Jesse David Fox
It was really interesting because there's a while where there are a lot of documentary specials where there'd be full cutaways, and it's like a. You know, it's like a full field piece. But this felt almost like you're like. It felt like it was internal. Like it felt like you were saying something. Then it flashed in your mind, opposed to.
- [22:58]
Vir Das
I'm very happy you got that. That's what I was going for.
- [23:00]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [23:00]
Vir Das
And that's why it's kind of grainy, and it just feels like a memory.
- [23:04]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [23:05]
Vir Das
You know, like, if I. If I talk about Adele's vocal doctor, you just hear her go, you know, that's it. Because that's what would pop into your mind. I think part of my team, some of them were dead against it because they were like, it takes you out of the special. And I was. My thought was, as long as my voice keeps you going, I think you'll stay in the special. And I don't think people would mind A quick cutaway to something else. I don't know.
- [23:36]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, it speaks to something I always really admired about you, is that you do not seem to carry the baggage about specials that a lot of American comedians have. Where a lot of American comedians, almost as a point of pride, want their special to look like shit. Like they. It's almost like they want to be like, the show is me. No one should look at anything else. And it does seem like you approach your specials as pieces of film like it is. It will exist on Netflix in the.
- [24:02]
Vir Das
Movie category next to a movie, same size box.
- [24:05]
Jesse David Fox
So what is it? What does it mean to approach that way? How do you think about it?
- [24:08]
Vir Das
Well, if you look at the filmic choices that we made on this special. Right. And if you want to talk about points of pride, let's do that. All right. You will see many are special where a comedian walks out to great strobe lighting and a fancy set. And really a celebration of the room. I have no set. I basically have no elevation on my stage. I have one light that is a focal point that I use as a prop in the show as well. Normally a comedian will put the audience in darkness. In Mumbai, you can see every single face. As in London, as in New York, they look like red infernos. London was a church. So I'm like, how am I not gonna show this church? You know? And then the cellar is this kind of raw, mucky, grainy thing. But to me, it's like this. The comedy seller is the, the docu talking head that kind of guides you through the story. And Mumbai is kind of this, just this bowl of heat. So I show every face, which is, I don't know if it's distracting or not, but it does make stand up harder to not have the audience in darkness. And I like that, you know? And the special has no trappings of ego. Think about it. There's no opening, there's no lights, there's no smoke machine, there's no set. And you see every audience member. Because part of the special and the learning that I had is how important the audience is and their sound is.
- [25:45]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. There's so much that I want to ask you about. Let's talk about the comedy seller aspect of it. Because I, I, I still trying to wrap my head around it, which essentially is you film London, and Mubai is like, this is the special. Is that these shows. And then you talk about those shows as the special. Right? That's. The special has an ending in Mumbai, and London and then there's still a commonly the comedy seller aspect of it. And I truly was like, what is the.
- [26:15]
Vir Das
I.
- [26:15]
Jesse David Fox
It's like, what is the piece where. How do you think of it?
- [26:17]
Vir Das
Did it disorient you?
- [26:18]
Jesse David Fox
No, I mean, I think I just. I've watched it twice and I was trying to think of. And then I was like, did he. When he filmed the comedy seller piece, did he do the full show or did he just write a through line? Was that always the intention? Did you think of that later?
- [26:33]
Vir Das
Like, I mean, the.
- [26:35]
Jesse David Fox
Imagine before the vocal loss that you would have film the comedy seller aspect.
- [26:38]
Vir Das
Not at all. It's. What happened was we did Mumbai, then we did London. Yeah, we did Mumbai, then we did London. And then I was hosting the international Emmys. And so I was in town in America for that and then post the Emmys. We did a late night show at the Cell and I just kind of walked in in the same outfit that I was hosting the international Emmys. Yeah, yeah. And talked about it. I wanted it to feel like a pop in at the Cellar where a guy walks out from the Emmy stage, goes down the basement, and he's like, you're never gonna believe this fucking story. I just shot these two things. But here's the backstory to it. So there is a little bit of time travel in the special. There are two timelines. And you have. It does demand more of the viewer. But I'd also. I'd never seen somebody at the Comedy Cellar be well dressed. Do you know what I mean? Like, I remember watching Chris Rock come in after like some gala at the cellar in the McDougall street room. And I remember just kind of taking school and watching. And it. It was a weird, cool visual. It was like, Chris Rock.
- [27:45]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [27:45]
Vir Das
In a fucking suit in the basement. You know, And I thought that was really nice visually. So I wanted to capture that.
- [27:53]
Jesse David Fox
It's so interesting. Cause you're right. Cause often when people film specials and the comedy seller, it feels like they dress down because the. The vibe they're trying to do is like, we're just in the club or whatever. Where there is a sort of otherworldly quality to this special because you are. It does feel like you're talking in the future. Even though it is hard to. It's really hard to explain if you have not watched it yet. But it really does feel like you're looking back upon your life.
- [28:19]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [28:19]
Jesse David Fox
Even though it's all the same piece. Like, it does feel like. And. And that's a really. Because I I'll say this, like, I often do not like specials that cut between different shows if there's not a reason to do it. And I feel like very often I. I actually do. I've not spoken to a comedian who has done it without reason, but I. I guess. And I will probably be like, what? All you're doing is showing how rehearsed you are and how not connected to the specific show you are.
- [28:48]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [28:48]
Jesse David Fox
Where there. It felt like each venue was doing a different part of the whole piece you're trying to do.
- [28:53]
Vir Das
It was. I mean, London was very much an Indian perspective to the world.
- [28:59]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [28:59]
Vir Das
So all of the international material goes out in London. And then Mumbai was what it meant to be a global comedian who comes home. So there's all of that material. I open by invalidating the Emmy in Mumbai and talking about being an English comic. Right. And then New York is just kind of the quote, unquote, inner monologue behind these two things. So I did write out the New York bits after I was done with the Mumbai show on the flight to New York. So those links. I did a full show in New York. Right. But I've kept none of it. The show only came from London and from Mumbai. New York is just the cutaways for the setup.
- [29:44]
Jesse David Fox
What. What does the comic seller mean to you?
- [29:49]
Vir Das
Many things. It's where you go to find out if you're good. Really. You know, there are 20 year comics, 25 year comics whose name you don't know because they don't have a popular show or podcast or film, etc. Who are assassins at the Cellar. And you have to go up after them and many, many big famous comics cannot. At the Cellar, it's credibility because comedians have to recommend you. I auditioned to go up at the Cellar after three Netflix specials and two world tours. I gave a three minute audition for St. At the Cellar. And her word meant the very world to me. You know, I. When I had a controversy and I was in New York and I'd done this speech called the two Indias and I had 14 police cases against me. I walked up at the Cellar and I was like, I'm being charged with sedition. And in New York, crowd was like, all right, what's funny about it? You know? And there was no sympathy. I remember I was sitting in the back of the Cellar in a comic. I was on the BBC on cnn, and American comic just kind of sits down. He's like, you know what the worst thing is? They're calling you a poet. Ugh. Which is just such a great comic banter. And a guy from India has never been on that wall.
- [31:06]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [31:07]
Vir Das
And I'm honored to be the first guy to do it from there. So it means very much. It is my comedy home outside of India. It means the world to me.
- [31:16]
Jesse David Fox
You mentioned the controversy and I want to provide some context and ask a little bit more about it, but specifically. So we first spoke in the spring of 2021. So it was only a couple back.
- [31:28]
Vir Das
When life was good.
- [31:31]
Jesse David Fox
It was a couple months after Munawar Faruki.
- [31:34]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [31:35]
Jesse David Fox
Finished spending 37 days in jail after being arrested for jokes he told about religion and the Indian government. And I asked you at the time if you were scared. And I'll never forget what you said, which was, I'm pretty sure my day will come. I don't say that to sound heroic any way, shape or form, because I am afraid, like every other artist in my country is afraid. I'm pretty sure there will come a day when I will say something wrong from the sim. I'm pretty sure there'll come a day when I'll say something wrong from the system's perspective. So then a couple months later, I performed the.
- [32:10]
Vir Das
I Can Use.
- [32:11]
Jesse David Fox
It was the centerpiece for Landing. But can you summarize for people who have not seen the basic. That you've told the story a million times, so you can tell the fast.
- [32:17]
Vir Das
Version, but I was in D.C. i sold out the Kennedy center and I was homesick. And then I on that afternoon wrote a piece called the Two Indias and went up with a piece of paper because I didn't remember it. It was freshly written. And my wife and I found a wedding videographer on Yelp and he showed up with like a 300 buck camera and shot it. And it was about the duality in my nation and the need to gravitate towards the light and to remember what makes us great. And then somebody edited it and put a bit of it on the news without context. And then life changed. Very much So I had 14 police complaints. I had to turned my phone off for about four or five months. And then I wrote a show about it. And that show was a pretty successful Netflix special. But I think maybe the lesson is don't use the Kennedy center as your open mic for new material. But yeah, in retrospect, I was right. My day did come, you know.
- [33:12]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. And then a year, almost a year to the date of two indies, you get, I believe, arrest again for plagiarizing yourself. Which becomes. Which is this special can you explain that one, because that's a, that that's even almost like a sillier example.
- [33:25]
Vir Das
I wrote two shows about India and I'm the author of both, and there were two different IPs, if you will. Right. And they had one common topic. Now, the thing with being quote unquote, a story or an artist whose story has become controversial is if you file a police complaint, you're getting a headline. It's just par for the course. And so sometimes people will file a police complaint because they've got their things to market. And so I got accused of stealing a joke from myself and I had to go take explain joke structure to the Mumbai police, where I was like, a joke is information, premise, punchline, and you can't copyright information. Right. And the Mumbai police guy was like, yeah, I get it. Totally. I don't know what you're doing here and I don't know why, but we kind of have to have this conversation. So, yeah, that's the closing bit of the special is me dealing with a very wonderful alpha male Mumbai police officer.
- [34:20]
Jesse David Fox
So earlier this year, after the comedian Kunal Kumara released a parody song criticizing a member of the Indian government, the venue that he performs in was vandalized and there was a police investigation opened up. So this is all three, four years since the, what we were just talking about. How is the situation now in terms of comedians being able to speak?
- [34:43]
Vir Das
I think it's better each day in that every time something like this happens, the absurdity of it is pointed out more and more and more. So these are, you know, the, the Indian voter is very wise and they understand that there's more important things to, to worry about. And I think, you know, God willing, everybody's going to be just fine. Process is the punishment. You know, that's, that's what ties you up is, you know, fighting police complaints is paperwork and summons and going to stations and lawyers and, you know, all of that stuff. That's the actual punishment.
- [35:18]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [35:19]
Vir Das
So tying a comedian up in that is a pretty way to slow down their voice.
- [35:24]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. You know, when we spoke, you mentioned there was a network of comedians who sort of all supported each other.
- [35:30]
Vir Das
We do, yeah.
- [35:31]
Jesse David Fox
Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like?
- [35:33]
Vir Das
Well, you get a, if I get a call from a comedian I haven't heard from in two years, anytime after 11pm I'm like, all right, what did he do? And then the standard advice is a news cycle is eight days. Please shut up for eight days. Don't scream into a Void or you'll give yourself another eight days. Do you need money? Do you need a lawyer? What do you need? And I think we also will go on podcasts and give media bites that protect each other. You know, I understand that when I talk about a comic and my words carry weight, I run the risk of putting them back on the news and they're just trying to get off the news, they shouldn't be on the news. So I mind my words when I talk about other comics, and they do the same for me, you know, so we, we watch each other's news cycles in, in that sense.
- [36:30]
Jesse David Fox
At the same time, am I making too big of a deal out of this? I asked this because in your book you mentioned that a very big American magazine wanted a profile of you. A magazine that would then go on to write an article about another comedian fact checking one of their jokes. And you also say, and you turn it down. You also say in the special, like, there's a publication asking, do a 9,000 word exclusive on how you're being silenced about your plight, in which you respond, my plight? Forgive me, madam, it feels like you need some sort of Eastern oppression story to feel better about where you live. And I say this to acknowledge that I have done that. Am I making too big of a deal of it? Am I making, you know, what do you want to actually, in so much as every other publication, maybe we'll watch this one answer. What do you want to actually say and communicate about it?
- [37:26]
Vir Das
I think you can tell our story without making it seem like our plight. You know, my existence is informed by way more things than just this one thing, you know, and so I think the word that really made me sensitive was plight. You know, in that interaction, it irked me. And the conversation was, you know, it was around landing, right? And they were like, hey, can I talk to the police officer in all these stations? And I was like, yeah, you can. Do you also want to talk about jokes? You know, and then they were like, should we send somebody? On the day your special comes out, do you think you'll get arrested again? And I was like, I hope not. And shouldn't you hope not as well? And then I remember we were having this discussion, me and this reporter, and at some point democracy came up. And I said, you know, we're a young country and we're a large country and we're figuring it out, but with all due respect, your president just refused to accept the results of an election. And there was a riot at your capitol because somebody wouldn't accept a lost election. Maybe we don't talk to each other about democracy with only you talking to me about it. Maybe let's talk about your democracy as well. That didn't go down very well. And so I remember calling my management, just being like, I don't want to be the poster boy for Eastern oppression. I feel like I'm more to that, and the story is more nuanced than that. And the two words that got me were sympathy and plight. You know, there's a bit where I talk about in the special where I'm like, there's a difference between sympathy and empathy. I don't think sympathy is currency in comedy.
- [39:12]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean, what always has interested me about it is you have to continue being a comedian for sure. That's. It's not that, like, this is what India is like. It's just that you have to figure out how to navigate this. You have to do these shows and be true to yourself as a comedian, but also figure out how to navigate it and how everyone else is doing it. And it's really interesting. I mean, like, how conscious of it. Do you feel like at this point you have figured out a way to say exactly how you want to say? Even if you have to, you have to avoid certain ways because, you know, your words will be taken out of context.
- [39:57]
Vir Das
I have to be nuanced for sure, and I have to be a little clever about it. I can't be like, fuck that guy, you know, I don't think I get to do that. But it's a creative puzzle, and I have to solve it. Much like if I was touring the Middle east, there would be another creative puzzle to solve. If I was doing the Dubai Comedy Festival or if I'm touring the south in America, there's another creative puzzle to solve as well, you know, So I think I'm not born with an entitlement of I deserve to have every feeling and thought in my head heard. I'm not raised with that.
- [40:38]
Jesse David Fox
You're not an American comedian, you know, so.
- [40:42]
Vir Das
So I have to put it out in a way that makes you interested in it. And, yes, I still have to go home at the end of it, and I have to take care of my family at the end of it, too. So it is a thing to figure out. I'm not gonna pretend like it's not. But I don't know if I choose anything else over it, you know, I don't know if I choose the. You know, I can Say anything. You can't cancel me, man. Wave of comedy. I don't know if that would appeal to me more than this.
- [41:09]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Honestly, you allude to it briefly in the special. Did the Landing experience result in some sort of PTSD for you?
- [41:19]
Vir Das
For sure. I'd look at the entrance of the auditorium as much as I looked at the audience. It took some. Some work to get through that. But what it indefinitely changed is all of a sudden, people were coming into a comedy show with a deeper connection than they'd ever seen me before. And some of them were like, hey, man, I fought with my family, WhatsApp group for you, you know, or you represent something that I don't say enough or that is said too much. And there was a deeper connection between me and that audience member. And I was like, oh, maybe I don't get to be shallow in the immediate future. I need to kind of honor this. How quickly they're coming out and how emotionally they're coming out.
- [42:04]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. I'm curious. You have. How do you balance that for you? The thing that I wrote down is how seriously do you want to be taken in so much as you'll do? What a lot of comedians do is like, I'm just a comedian. Don't take me so seriously. I'm a comedian. Blah, blah. But you also have a joke in the special where you deride someone who say, just make me laugh, bro. Don't make me think. Which implies you do want to make people think. How do you balance it?
- [42:27]
Vir Das
I think thinking is a. An aftertaste of a good joke. I don't think it can be the purpose of a joke, but I definitely think it's a welcome aftertaste, you know, and if you start out with the intention of writing a joke, but you are a deep person, or you have. You exist politically in a world. Why should you not put that into your material? You know, I'm in my 40s, you know, I read the news. I feel certain ways about the world, and I'm emotional and I'm Indian and I'm sensitive, and why would those things not be in my material?
- [43:06]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, you know, is it hard for you? There's another one. Put it different. Not hard for you. You are very good at talking at the basic thing of, like, oratory. Like, you can get on stage. You're a type of comedian who, if you talk for 30 minutes and didn't there were no laughs, it would take the audience a while to realize that because they're just listening.
- [43:26]
Vir Das
Well, there's laughs in my special.
- [43:27]
Jesse David Fox
No, what I'm saying, that's the point, which is you do have laughs, but is it something that you almost have to be conscious of? Because I do think there are some comedians who are so good at speaking, they aren't conscious of it and they kind. There's this almost. I wouldn't even say it's indulgence. It's almost like a. Maybe it's entitlement or just a laziness, or they're not even paying attention to what the audience is doing. Where you feel like it's clear that you're like, I know that I can just get up here and you'll listen to me. But it seems like you want to give them a sort of different experience.
- [43:59]
Vir Das
I do. I also think an Indian crowd is pretty ruthless in terms of, you know, my special averages a laugh maybe every 14 seconds, you know, or 11 seconds. And I don't think an Indian crowd is going to give you more than 60 seconds without a laugh. Like, the longest bit that I have in this special is kind of an ode to the audience, but it's a bait and switch, right? Because there is a pretty solid laugh at the end of it.
- [44:25]
Jesse David Fox
So, yeah, One of the things that I think you're really good at as a person who's like, before you're a comedian, you're an actor, and specifically you studied Shakespeare. Your goal was to study Shakespeare. And I feel like you have a really good understanding of how to modulate yourself as a presentation on stage and so much as like, the idea, the Shakespeare idea of all the whole world of stage or whatever. Like, you are not theatrical on stage.
- [44:51]
Vir Das
No, but you are.
- [44:52]
Jesse David Fox
You have a version of performed self in a way. Does that make sense? Like, where you are, you're not doing what a lot of American comedians do, a lot of comedians around the world do, which is almost like pretend to be more conversational than they actually are being. So there is this sort of disingenuous quality where they're like, you know, like, as you're saying, like, none of the nonchalance. It's all as if they didn't also decide what to wear today and go on stage with, like, it's all a performance. And I think you embrace that without necessarily making it sort of theatrical. Can you talk about how your background feeds into how you present yourself like that?
- [45:30]
Vir Das
Well, I. I think the best artist, forget comedian, shows you that they've made an effort and tries hard and sets up a mission at the top of the show and says, I want to send you home flying on a cloud, and I'll do whatever it takes. I don't gravitate towards artists who are like, I'm just here existing in the ether, et cetera. And my favorite American comedians know how to modulate and know how to. Richard Pryor sold the shit out of a story, acted the hell out of a story, did different voices, did different act outs, did different accents. Mike Bobiglia sells the story, has dips, has solid laughs, has moments of silence, has tension that he releases. Why not? You know, and. And by the way, why not at the Comedy Cell?
- [46:28]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [46:30]
Vir Das
Why only at the Beacon? Yeah.
- [46:32]
Jesse David Fox
It's like, yeah. Why respect the audience? To be able to. To listen. Which I think a lot of comedians come up and they're so. It's almost like they're traumatized from bombing or like not being good at the beginning that they can't trust the audience to pay attention. So they're just like, here are jokes, here's the rhythm of jokes so that they don't even have to think about everything is funny.
- [46:53]
Vir Das
I think maybe it also. Look, I don't know if I'm getting better or getting worse. I certainly don't like watching my work that I did last week and feel like I can be a lot better. So I'd rather give you the picture of an artist who's trying really hard to get better than someone who has, oh, this is what I am. And I will now say, il is who I am. No, I don't know what the fuck I am. And I don't know what comic I'm going to be next week. And here's me trying my damnedest. And maybe that's a different kind of connection with an audience member.
- [47:26]
Jesse David Fox
So you alluded to the speech about the audience and you say something in the special which I had not heard before, and I really loved it because I do think it flips on the head how we think of what political comedy is or how a comedian does. And you say the scariest thing to leaders is not the words that come out of your mouth, it's the sound that comes out of the audience. Comedians just say words. The audience tells the truth.
- [47:48]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [47:49]
Jesse David Fox
And I've never heard that perspective. And I was curious what that means to you and how did you come to that realization?
- [47:53]
Vir Das
Well, you know, it's a bait and switch where at the end of that I go, that's why the audience should be arrested and not the comedian. But I think that was the six weeks of silence, you know, where you Kind of. Do you ever watch the Big Bang Theory without the laughter? Have you seen those YouTube clips? Right. I think that's what that experience felt like to me, where I was like, this feels like I'm watching Friends without the laughter. And now that's a live audience. But I think comedians need to embrace how important that is. If you go through something like this, you might. A little bit more. You know, I think we. At least I would do well to honour how loud the audience's voice is, because I think that changes more and more with every passing year. You know, there used to be a. These are my jokes, and if you don't like them, fuck off. I'm off to the next city. This crowd was good and this crowd was bad, and now the audience has social media and a very loud voice and are coming in for collective experiences. You know, I think you go to a Madison Square Garden or a Radio City Music hall to feel like part of something, not just to see a guy. And why not honor that?
- [49:11]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. So you. You're obviously can speak now we're talking. You're using your voice. I don't know how much you've performed since the specials were filmed, but in general, how do you feel about having a voice when you perform now? How do you think about that? Your instrument or the. The way in which you communicate?
- [49:30]
Vir Das
I feel like I have to be more authentic a little bit. I have to have more fun, you know, So I. I tried to do that with this special as well. It's silly. It was terrifying to go up without rehearsal to 12, 000 people. But there's. There's an energy to it that I feel, or at least I hope comes up on screen. I'm comfortable being myself a little bit more. I'm comfortable thinking on stage a little bit more than I used to be. And I think I'm comfortable being an Indian in the world a little bit more than I was before. Sometimes I travel and I'd be like, what do they want to hear and what do they know about India? And I'm a little more comfortable going, I'm about to tell them things about India that they don't know and it'll take them a second longer. And by the way, an Indian crowd will wait. That's what's lovely about an Indian crowd is like, you know, there's a bit where there's a cuss word called benchot, right? Which technically means sister or something like that, but it's notionally it means many, many things. And when I explain that to a white crowd at the Cellar, you can kind of see the Indian crowd go, I want to see how he does this shit. You know, like, this is. This is interesting for me too. I want to see how this all ties up. So do more of that.
- [50:50]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, that's funny. You're essentially allowing. You're teaching the audience how to relate to the rest of the audience as comedians do, which is like, yeah, you this part of the audience watch. You can watch this part of the audience just like we do.
- [51:03]
Vir Das
And you're all. And that's why you should come in, is to be conscious of the other audience members as well.
- [51:13]
Jesse David Fox
Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from IMZ Pet Food. Welcome to Cat Chat, the only podcast for cats by cats.
- [51:23]
Vir Das
My name is Hiro. And I'm Pickle. How have you been, Hiro? Honestly, Pickle, I haven't been feeling like myself lately. I've just been so sluggish and I've.
- [51:33]
Jesse David Fox
Well, I've gotten a little chonky.
- [51:36]
Vir Das
Can I be vulnerable for a second? Always cat to cat, I was feeling the same way. Let's face it, as we get older, staying active isn't always easy. Did you know over 60% of US indoor cats are overweight?
- [51:49]
Jesse David Fox
That makes so much sense.
- [51:52]
Vir Das
But guess what? My human and I made some simple changes. Just two 15 minute play sessions a day helped get my zoomies back. Plus, she's been feeding me. I'm a healthy weight cat food. It's packed with protein and fiber to help me stay full. And it's got l carnitine to help support my muscles.
- [52:09]
Jesse David Fox
I thought you'd been looking fit. Thank you. Thank you.
- [52:13]
Vir Das
All right, let's take a break.
- [52:15]
Jesse David Fox
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- [52:38]
Vir Das
All you need to know is denim.
- [52:40]
Jesse David Fox
Should fit like this.
- [52:42]
Vir Das
My jeans need to check.
- [52:43]
Jesse David Fox
A lot of boxes fit first, trend second. They need to go with whatever I'm feeling. And Abercrombie Denim has it down. Whether I'm throwing on a tee or.
- [52:53]
Vir Das
Putting a whole fit together.
- [52:54]
Jesse David Fox
Shop Abercrombie Denim in the app online and in store. Close your eyes, exhale. Feel your body relax and let go.
- [53:06]
Vir Das
Of whatever you're carrying today. Letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class, I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
- [53:17]
Jesse David Fox
And breathe.
- [53:18]
Vir Das
Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order, 1-800-contacts.
- [53:32]
Jesse David Fox
So it's now time for the final segment of the show. It's called the laughing round. It's like a lightning round. Because it's a common podcast, they call it the laughing round. Do you have a favorite joke? Joke, like a street joke or a dad joke?
- [53:41]
Vir Das
A dad joke. I have a knock, knock joke.
- [53:44]
Jesse David Fox
That counts.
- [53:45]
Vir Das
All right. Knock, knock.
- [53:45]
Jesse David Fox
Who's there?
- [53:46]
Vir Das
Rude interrupting cow. Rude interrupting. That's my favorite one.
- [53:50]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Is there a joke you wish you can steal a joke from another comedian that you saw and go, I wish I had that joke. I wish I couldn't use that in my act.
- [53:59]
Vir Das
The Bill Burr black and white special. He does a bit about a guy jumping out of a helicopter and surviving is just. It's one of my favorite bits of stand up.
- [54:10]
Jesse David Fox
Really good.
- [54:10]
Vir Das
Yeah.
- [54:13]
Jesse David Fox
What's the best advice you eventually used.
- [54:15]
Vir Das
That I eventually used? Someone once told me, you're not gonna know what they want. And it changes every five minutes what they want. And this was more in a film context. They were like, you know, we were having a market conversation, and the market wants this and the market wants that. And he kind of said, if you're an artist, you're never going to know what they want, and what they want will change every five minutes. You just need to know what you have to say and hope that they want it.
- [54:48]
Jesse David Fox
Do you have a. Do you have a short story of an interaction with a legendary comedian, living or dead, you're willing to share with us?
- [54:56]
Vir Das
I was on a plane with Bob Saget once, and we were flying to the same city. And this is in that year where I kind of took a year to travel around America just to figure out, you know, do I have a place in this market? Right. Which I still don't know, but I'm figuring it out. And Bob Sagan and I were in the front row together, and I was like, sir, I'm such a fan. And he's like, are you gigging? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I was like, where are you gigging? And he's like, this fancy casino. And. And I was Like, I'm at this club. And he's like, yeah, that sucks. That club sucks. And he went on to say, I'm guessing the next three things you're gonna do are gonna suck as well. And I was like, I think so too, but enjoy your casino. He was a very kind man and he was kind of nice to me and gave me advice.
- [55:45]
Jesse David Fox
That's really funny. Can you think of the. The best tag a comedian ever given you?
- [56:00]
Vir Das
There's a bit on this special where I talk about getting into a fight with an alpha male, like a Punjabi alpha male in Mumbai. And a comedian at the French Festival was like, you know, you don't need to win at the end of the story. Like, you can lose at the end of the story. And I was like, yeah, that's interesting. And so I kind of applied that to the special as well. Like, you know, the special, this one begins with confusion about happiness. And at the end of the special, I don't win. A policeman does. And it's his victory.
- [56:40]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [56:41]
Vir Das
And that was a nice note from a comic where he was like, you shouldn't win. And I was like, great.
- [56:46]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, I do think that's very. I do think a lot of comedians do have so often argument stories. It's about how they. They won an argument. And there is something really nice about, like, you literally, like deify or. Yes. The guy at the end of the special. Do you have a Mount Rushmore of comedians?
- [57:05]
Vir Das
Yeah. Colin, for fearlessness and saying it as it is prior for vulnerability into comedy and performative vulnerability into comedy. Eddie Izard for making it look like he just made it all up on the spot, but he's actually written every single word of it. I think that's my top three.
- [57:26]
Jesse David Fox
Got it. Do you have a fourth? The matriarch Mark has four.
- [57:29]
Vir Das
Oh, it has four. I put Bilbo up there just for. Unapologetically himself.
- [57:41]
Jesse David Fox
Is there a joke that you have that didn't work, that you tried and didn't work, but he'll go to your grave being like, I was right there. Wrong.
- [57:48]
Vir Das
It's in this special. It's. The premise is racists are a marginalized community. And I do this whole bit kind of feeling bad for racists. And, you know, if you consider everything that comics usually say about racism, etc, etc, I like the fact that that's something not many people have come out and said. It's an angle that not a lot of people have, which is that racists are marginalized. So every time I do it, the audience is like, what the fuck are you talking about? This makes no sense. And I have to be like, stay with me. And I put it in the special, even though it is, I think one of the plateau bits in the special, but I'm still like, that's such a good premise, and I want it in there.
- [58:33]
Jesse David Fox
That's fair. Last one. What's the best time you ever bombed?
- [58:38]
Vir Das
The best time I ever bombed? The first America show I ever do when I come in through town and I'll get, like, a spot at the Improv, at the Comedy Store, at the Cello, I always bomb, always, because I've come off of, like, three months of world touring or three months of India touring, and I don't even know what it is, but there's this reset that needs to happen in your mind for an American audience. Same material, by the way, but the first spot up, I always bomb. And my first one was last night at the improv at the lab, and I went up and just kind of tanked for 7 out of 15 minutes and then got them back.
- [59:18]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [59:19]
Vir Das
And I'll go back tonight and do the same material exactly the same way, and it'll be okay. But the first America spot, I always bomb, and I still don't know why.
- [59:29]
Jesse David Fox
Thank you so much.
- [59:30]
Vir Das
Thank you, man.
- [59:31]
Jesse David Fox
That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Mack, Neil Janowitz, and Anne Victoria Clark. Music composed by Brandon McFarland. Writer, review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I am Jesse David Fox, and you can follow me esseidavidfox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com pod we'll be back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.