Episode 365: People Like Me Better When I Cry with Jena Friedman
Disclaimer: Adult language in this episode!
Comedian and writer Jena Friedman joins Forever35 to talk about her newfound joy in tennis, why she’s excited about her show at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest, the emotional response crying on stage evokes, and how she came to give a TED talk about AI.
Plus, a (positive) update from Elise on both Oscar’s recent misadventures and her biopsy, and from Doree about her hard-earned efforts at Sectionals.
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Transcript
The transcript for this episode is Ai generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,
Doree Shafrir (00:21):
And today we have a guest who is one of those people that I've been a fan of for years. And then Elise just casually mentioned her and was like, oh, do you know who she is? And I was like, do I know who she is?
Elise Hu (00:40):
I feel so bad. Yeah, I feel so bad that I wasn't more familiar because I had the exact same situation happen when I said, Hey Rob, I called home from Ted in April and I was like, I met this comedian and she's really cool and funny and I think we're going to be friends. And I told him who it was. I said it was Jena Friedman who is on our show later today. And he was like, what? Yeah, I
Doree Shafrir (01:05):
Love her. That's the appropriate reaction. Yeah. You were like, oh, I met this woman at Ted. That's exactly how I presented it.
Elise Hu (01:13):
But yes, just such a witty and deadpan comedian and an awesome human being. And we'll be talking with her later in this episode, but first we have a lot to catch up on. A lot to catch up on. We
Doree Shafrir (01:25):
Do. Elise, how is your dog?
Elise Hu (01:29):
Okay, my dog is alive. I think that's the top line. We are all alive here. My dog is alive. He made it through a very scary heat stroke incident while he was on his dog pack, dog hike with the dog walker that we hired to do it. And he's been walking with this dog pack for months, ever since he was a smaller puppy in order to help get his energy out. And the rest of the dog pack has been great, no incidents. But on Tuesday of last week, for whatever reason, two and a half miles into his hike, he basically passed out like tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and overheated. And by the time the rangers and the dog walker got him off the hiking trail and into the er, the emergency vet, he was like 106 degrees. And so there was an apparently acting neurologically inappropriate, but he is home now. He's a little out of it on a bunch of meds. And then his gastrointestinal system is a mess though. That has happened every time he's been hospitalized for foreign bodies that he eats surprisingly no foreign bodies in his stomach. I thought, oh, this must be, that is
Doree Shafrir (02:39):
Shocking.
Elise Hu (02:40):
Yeah, due respect. Respect. This respect must be complicated. Yes. By some object in his stomach. Is it a corn cob? Is it a plushie toy? They did find the nose of a care bear in his poop, but that wasn't the issue. The nose
Doree Shafrir (02:59):
Of a care bear.
Elise Hu (03:01):
Yes. His main problem was that he overheated, he had heat stroke, so he is home and that's good. And then I got my biopsy results back and it's just benign cells, just as my mother predicted. So yes, very good news over here. I still have to go to the doctor and maybe talk to a breast specialist to figure out should we remove it anyway or is it one of those cases of just, we'll just monitor it and we'll just have to come in for more mammograms and once a year, but at least we know it's not malignant. So that was good. Totally. I sent my mom a note and I was like, it's a cluster of benign cells apparently. And my mom was just like, she just sent me a thumbs up. I suck emoji because she knew all along. She told me numerous times, don't worry about it. No, no, no. I She was unbothered. Yeah, she was so unbothered. And so when I told her, Hey, I'm cancer free, she was also thumbs up.
Doree Shafrir (04:04):
That's really funny. I forgot to mention that. I actually took Beau in on Monday because he spent a week at his daycare, has boarded when we were away, his regular dog walker who sometimes stays at the house was not available, so he was there and on the last day I was like, could you please give him a bath because he's so gross. And then they called and they were like, Hey, our groomer is also a vet tech, and they felt like a lump under his ribs and we've also noticed that he's lost some weight. And I was like, he has lost weight. I just took him in to get some vaccines and they always weigh them and he has lost a few pounds. However, our vet had been like, he needs to lose a few pounds. So we had been very much more mindful of the people food.
Elise Hu (04:57):
So
Doree Shafrir (04:57):
I had been like, okay, that's probably why he's losing weight. So I took him in on Monday, I got an appointment three days later they had to do a biopsy and we haven't gotten the results yet. Now when dogs get older, and Bo is pretty old at this point, he's at least 10 if not 11. They do develop lipomas, which are basically just fat deposits. And she said it very well could be that, but I want to biopsy it just to be sure. So we are also waiting on the results of a biopsy. She was not concerned about the weight loss. She was like, this is not lower than he's been in the past. He just put on a few pounds. So he's down to 83, so it's a
Elise Hu (05:46):
Threshold question. Yeah, so it's not
Doree Shafrir (05:48):
Got it. Yeah. He's down to 83 now, but he had been at 90, which is, that's a little high for him. So yeah, so we are also kind of waiting and hoping that all that is benign. So I guess it's just the season.
Elise Hu (06:08):
I know it is the season. Well as my mom would say, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs
Doree Shafrir (06:18):
Up.
Elise Hu (06:19):
Indeed. Oh my mom.
Doree Shafrir (06:21):
I'll text your
Elise Hu (06:21):
Mom when I get the results. Yes. Meanwhile, we talked about this a little bit on the casual chat, which is available to our Patreon community, but if you're not part of our Patreon community, what are you doing? Of course you should join, but if you aren't part of it yet, Dory has an update from sectionals.
Doree Shafrir (06:42):
I do. So my 3.0 team, which is the other team of mine that made sectionals, we won. We won the whole freaking thing.
Elise Hu (06:53):
Yeah,
Doree Shafrir (06:53):
You did. There were a lot of dramatic moments. I wrote about this in my tennis newsletter court date, which hopefully by the time this airs we'll be out. I've been working on it court date.substack.com and yeah, it was just really inspiring. We were this small team and people had to play a lot of tennis and everyone really rose to the occasion. I think people surprised themselves. I surprise myself and it was just really fun. So now we get to go to nationals and Elise is going to come watch.
Elise Hu (07:30):
Yes, I am. I'll be in Scottsdale. I'm super excited. Rob was like, oh, great. We already have plans that weekend. Excellent. Just to already have plans, you had set as your intention the last time we recorded that you just wanted to play loose. You didn't want to be too anxious about it. You didn't want to worry about winning or losing. You wanted to focus on having a good time and thought that might actually be the unlock. Did you feel like you were able to just sort of let things go and play nice and free?
Doree Shafrir (08:01):
Yeah. The first match I played, I was not supposed to play, but one of our players got sick and so I had to move some stuff around and it turned out that the woman I played was just like, she just sliced everything back and I had a lot of trouble with her shots and it was kind of a bloodbath, and so I was a little demoralized and then I was like, okay, I just have to shake it off. And then I played another singles match against someone who, her playing style was much more aligned with what I'm familiar with and what I am good at sort of countering. And I beat her. I won the match and it was a two and a half hour match. It was so long. My God, I can't stay on a tennis court longer than an hour. Teammates, all my other teammates had long ago finished. They were all sitting there. Wow. I was just like, okay, here we go. But yes, I do feel like in that match I was definitely loose because I felt like it could not go any worse than it went on. Friday was just, it was so bad that, and I had seen the other singles players playing. No one else played like her. She won all her matches. I just was like, I just need another
Elise Hu (09:30):
One or people who's not.
Doree Shafrir (09:31):
Yeah. So I was just relieved to not have that again. But yeah, it went great and now we get to go to nationals, so excited and there's 17 sections across the United States, so there's 16 other teams. We'll be repping SoCal and yeah, so yeah, it's going to be fun. We rented a house excited. There's going to be like a team house, so that's going to be fun and
Elise Hu (09:59):
Yeah. Oh, you're all going to stay together as a team?
Doree Shafrir (10:02):
Most of us are going to stay together as a team.
Elise Hu (10:04):
Oh, how fun. It'll be like a giant sorority house essentially, because it'll be a lot of y'all, right? It
Doree Shafrir (10:09):
Has a tennis court.
Elise Hu (10:11):
Oh, how perfect.
Doree Shafrir (10:13):
Perfect. I think there's going to be nine of us staying there and then a couple people are doing, one woman is staying with her. Some people kind of doing their own things, but most of us will be in the house, which I think will be super fun.
Elise Hu (10:27):
Fun. Okay, good. Alright, well looking forward to that. And it's fitting that we're talking about tennis because Jena Friedman starts her conversation talking a little bit about tennis too.
Doree Shafrir (10:38):
Yes, but you know what, before I introduce Jena, I just want to remind everyone that you can visit our website Forever35podcast.com. We've links there to everything you mentioned on the show. We're also on Instagram at Forever35 podcast. Our Patreon is at patreon.com/foreverthreefive. That's where you get those casual chats. You also get our monthly pop culture episodes. You also get ad free episodes at the $10 level, so that's kind of cool. You can shop our favorite products at shop my us slash Forever35, and you can sign up for our newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter. And please call or text us. We love getting your voicemails and your texts. They're what power the mini apps. That's at 7 8 1 5 9 1 0 3 9 0. You can also email us voice memos at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And now Jena is an Academy Award nominated writer and comedian. She created soft focus on Adult Swim and true crime story indefensible on AMC Plus. She wrote Borat two subsequent movie films she has written on. Nobody Wants This on Netflix, the Connors on a, B, C and The Late Show with David Letterman. She was a field producer on the Daily Show with John Stewart. She's just, she's done it all. She has a great Ted Talk on comedy and AI
(12:08)
And as we speak, she's an Edinborough with her new, her third standup special mother Effer, and that's debuting in Edinburgh. So we'll be right back with Jena. We'll be right back. Jena, welcome to Forever35. We are excited to have you here. We like to start off by asking all of our guests about a self-care practice that they have. So is there anything that you do that you would consider self-care?
Jena Friedman (12:47):
I just got back into tennis. I played in high school and a little bit in college and I was kind of burnt out in college just having played so much. And so I haven't played in 20 years and I've started to play again and I've gotten really into it, and that has been my self-care.
Elise Hu (13:04):
How does it feel?
Jena Friedman (13:06):
It's cool. We went to Michigan, my in-laws lived there, and so we went there right after the fires in la. I have a toddler and we just wanted to get away for a minute and I started playing tennis with all of these 70 year olds at this tennis club and it was so fun. I was the youngest person there by 30 years and it was so fun.
Elise Hu (13:26):
Awesome. Well, we want to know what you're up to because you have a lot of projects going on right now. Tell us what you're up to and what your projects are all about.
Jena Friedman (13:33):
I'm heading to Edinburg, I don't know how to pronounce it. They always get mad when I say Edinburgh, but I don't know how to pronounce without sounding so Braveheart. I don't know. I have a new hour show that I am bringing to the fringe, and so I'm prepping that. So right now I'm in New York. I have shows here. I have shows in Philly to work out the show because when you go to Edinburgh, you're in a fishbowl. And I remember the first time I went with my first hour American cunt and I had 13 reviewers come to 12 shows, so hopefully I'll get reviewers this time. But they do tend to, I mean there are a lot more Americans than in 2015 and there are fewer reviewers than there were in 2015. So who knows? But you're kind of in a fishbowl and I really want to make sure I'm off book and I have the show the beats down, and so I have to prep before I go and then I'm going to go on, I'm doing the show 18 days in a row at this venue called the Monkey Barrel at like 4:15 PM every single day from August 8th to the 24th.
Elise Hu (14:32):
Are you so good at it by the time you're done?
Jena Friedman (14:35):
Well, that's the thing, some US comedians at Borough breaks them, they hate it. And those are typically people who do really well here. I've always done better in the UK when I've done political comedy. They have the appetite for it. They're not burnt out. They want to know what's going on in America from a liberal point of view or I don't know the term liberals, I'm so bastardized from a Democrat, I don't even know from a non fascist point of view, I don't even know what to call myself anymore. And so yeah, I mean this shows a lot more personal than my past shows, but I know by the end of the run I'll have a really tight show that ideally I can sell to a US platform if any of them still exists.
Doree Shafrir (15:20):
Yeah, that was going to be my question. What kind of is the goal of doing this at Enbr? Is it to sell a show?
Jena Friedman (15:30):
Everybody's goal is different. My career has always been, I worked at the Daily Show, I worked at Letterman, I've written for other TV shows, I have some projects I'm directing. Standup has never been my bread and butter, so I've never been a touring standup comic. And so for me, the last two shows I took there, I was lucky enough to sell them and recoup my expenses because I was able to really work out the kinks. And in one place with this is a festival with 3000 shows and tourists from all over the world.
(16:02)
And so if you do a good show, oftentimes it spreads via word of mouth and you just get audiences in every show. And then if you're doing the same time, same location, you really can tell which jokes are working and which ones aren't working. And for me, it has in the past really helped me hone my hour. And so that's how I use it. But everybody's different. I've been three times and also it has gotten so much more expensive than it ever was. So if I'm a new comic, I don't think especially you could just go do a podcast and whatever
Elise Hu (16:37):
To
Jena Friedman (16:37):
Get your fans, but if I were a newer comic, I don't think I would go potentially depending on things. But for me now it makes sense.
Elise Hu (16:46):
Edinburgh is where the protagonist in Baby Reindeer was, right?
Jena Friedman (16:50):
Richard Gad is a brilliant comedian. I saw his hour, baby Reindeer in 2019. That was the last time I was there. And it blew me away. It blew me away. He's such an incredible performer. But yeah, you can have a great Edinburgh or you can be performing to no one for 25 nights in a row. I mean there are 3000 I think last time, I don't even know what it is now, shows in the city over the month, possibly more. So you're competing, you're not competing against all these people, but audiences can't see every single show. So you are in a sense competing with these other shows and it's, I mean, it's crazy.
Elise Hu (17:29):
And the idea is to get lots of reviewers. The reviewers will write about it and it'll help all those audiences pick where they're going to spend their four o'clock on any afternoon on the festival and ideally go
Jena Friedman (17:39):
To you. Yeah, there are shows at all hours. And I remember in 2019 I had, and I wrote about this in my book, but I remember I had four reviewers come to my second show and they were British men and they just kind of didn't get the show. They were like, it's political. It's not really my vibe. And then I had this student reviewer, this woman, I'm blanking on her name, but she was from the student newspaper for University of Edinburgh and she fully got this show and she gave me the most glowing review. She gave me a five star review and she got exactly what I was doing. The show was about femicide and murder and it was heavy, but it was also funny and it was like no frills. I just had this crumpled up paper and a spotlight on me and I just kind of said what I needed to say and she loved it and the rest of the run sold out. And it just was so cool to, even if it hadn't sold out, when someone actually sees what you're trying to do. So clearly that's why I do it. It's so cool.
Elise Hu (18:39):
What are you trying to do with the next one?
Jena Friedman (18:41):
I don't know. This one's a lot more personal. The last show I think I was like, I wrote a show in 2015 leading up to the 2016 election. I wrote a show in 2019 leading up to the 2020 election. So those were very political and pointed and they were about kind of the moment that we were in leading up to these elections and kind of like a plea to not vote for Trump in both of them. Good job. Yeah, I did it. This show is not that at all. It's really a personal hour. It has some politics in it, but it's about the last two years of my life becoming a mom and also dealing with some pretty intense grief. And I think it's funny. And being on the other side of a very deep loss, I do feel like I have a perspective that can be helpful. I don't really think of the audience, no offense to the audience when I'm writing a show, I just kind of do my thing. But if people can come away feeling better than when they went into a show, that's really a goal of mine, especially for this project.
Doree Shafrir (19:50):
You mentioned motherhood, and I was just thinking about how it was James Corden that rejected your motherhood focus set after your son was born.
Jena Friedman (20:00):
It's so interesting that you mentioned that. So that was a little bit, I had talked about it on the Daily Beast podcast and then cracked, I think it's a comedy podcast, picked it up, but they took it out of context. The booker, that did happen, but not as drastically as it was portrayed.
(20:19)
I was a very new mom. I think I was two or three months postpartum, maybe less. And I was working out this new hour and the bit, and I really wish I could have done it was to have the baby on my body as I'm doing this set, which is like, I'm not sure if I want kids because I have one. It was just a five minute set from a new mom and we were working it out, and when you do these late night sets, you have to send tapes and it's like you could be working on a set for months. And so I was going out and doing shows and I would put my purse around my neck and be like, guys, just pretend this is a baby. I'm just going to run this because I didn't want to wake him up. I'm not a psycho, but it wasn't like I had a date set and they canceled it. But I was a new mom in an industry with no maternity leave and no HR trying to put this set together for him. And he was like, send me a recording. We're really interested. And I was like, I can send it to you, but I don't have it a hundred percent, but I promise you I will, whatever. And the tape that I gave him was a little lackluster because it was at an open mic that worked in my schedule with a bag around my neck, like a crazy person.
(21:41)
And he was like, the thing though that was annoying was, and he put this in writing, the note to me was whatever. That was truly what he said. I don't want to misquote him, but it was something to the effect of this is going to bum our audience out. And I was like, this is funny. Fuck off. And then I did Cavalier talk. I should find it for you. I don't want to take him out of context. He probably sounded worse than I'm even making.
Doree Shafrir (22:08):
It was, the show is ending and this just feels like a big F you to the audience.
Jena Friedman (22:14):
Yeah, that's what the quote was. And I'm like, whatcha talking about I'm a mom with my baby on me making jokes. It would've been great. It would've been an epic performance. And that was a moment when I really miss Conan because Conan took a chance. I did two late night sets, and both of them got me so much work, and I know that if I pitched him a five minute set with my baby on my body with jokes pulled from my special about how being a new mom sucks, it would've been hilarious. But I also, I didn't realize that Cordon also came under, which is also the more reason he should have done it, but he came under hot water because he was flying with a woman and the baby was crying on the plane and he put his headphones on him to just tune them out. And someone at first praised him, we love to praise men. And was like, that's how you handle a crying baby. You just put your headphones on and tune it out. And then they realized it was his kid. He wasn't being a hero, he was just being like a shitty dad, dad kid.
(23:23)
So that had happened way before I pitched this. So I'm like, oh, he's not necessarily new mom. He's not a friend of the moms,
Elise Hu (23:32):
I
Jena Friedman (23:32):
Guess. So I understand what the booker meant, but I was in a weird phase. I had just had the biggest loss of my life and a baby, and I was insane. So normally I wouldn't, it's not kissing and telling. I wouldn't disclose that information on a podcast, but I was just like, whatever. And I guess I'm still whatever because I'm still talking about it. But you did ask.
Elise Hu (23:55):
I did, yes. Yes. And so just to clarify, this is after your mom died?
Jena Friedman (24:00):
Yes. Spoiler alert. Spoiler. That's so sad. But yeah, I'm like, I don't want to ruin my show. But yeah, my mom died when I was eight months pregnant, nine months pregnant.
Elise Hu (24:11):
Has working out this hour and now performing it a few times helped you in your grieving
Jena Friedman (24:17):
Grief. I mean, okay. It's tricky because now it changes. I mean, grief isn't linear, so you think you just do it a ton, a ton of times and then you process it. I was too pregnant to go to her funeral, so there's a lot that I didn't don't want to cry at work, but I didn't get that closure. I don't know if you ever get that closure, but I just feel like it was kind of still open. And so I started doing standup shortly after she died and after the baby was born, my husband was like, just do it. So this show is a culmination in that it's from me just getting on stage and being like so not funny to then just making it actually funny. The show is actually funny now. And so has it helped? I don't know, maybe it has helped me process it.
(25:06)
Does it make me feel closer to her? Yes. There's sometimes that I do the show where I did it in Detroit the other night and it worked, but I was emotionally just not as connected. But then when I am fully connected, it's like you tap open a well and you can't stop crying. And then it becomes this weird performance art where then I also feel guilty for crying so much. It makes the show, the audience loves it, but I feel like a hack or something. And yeah, I don't know why. I think there's this dead dad trope in Edinburgh where when anyone has a dad die, they do this show about it. And then a friend of mine was like, there's a part in the show that is so insane. And she was just like, you're not a hack. And also, I don't know why I have that hangup, but it's like, look at my IMDB page. If I could cry on command, I would have a lot more work in the acting space. But it is weird. It does feel weird having done this for 15 years and having worked so hard to write these political jokes. No one likes how much people like you when you just cry.
Elise Hu (26:07):
This reminds me of that time when Hillary was running against Obama. Do you remember? In 2008, and she was in a diner in New Hampshire and she actually was exhausted and she started crying as she was answering a question just about, because somebody was just like, Hey, Hillary, how are you? And for whatever reason, it just tapped into her emotions, her soul, and she starts crying. And then this ended up being a two week multiple news cycle debate about whether women should cry and whether she's faking it. And is this a trope and you can't win?
Jena Friedman (26:42):
Yeah, that's actually Elise, that's a perfect way. I shouldn't be in my head because I'll never win. There's no way to play it or whatever. But I am in my head because I live in my head because I'm a comedian and I actually, I was running through the show so fast, and then I talked to a guy comedian whose comedy is whimsical. He is not a emotionally raw person on stage, but off stage. He's a comedian I deeply admire. And his father died when he was 22. And we had this conversation a couple months ago, and I just asked him, I was like, when did you just stop crying all the time? And he said it took him about five to seven years. And he's like, because when I think about her, you can tell right now. I just like all the time. And he is like, just lean into that.
(27:34)
So then the show I had after that, I just was like, it's crazy. But then the comic in me writes jokes. Now I have a bit where if I feel like it coming on, I have a prop that I used to get me out of it. And it's a joke and it's a funny joke. I don't want to spoil it, but it's like I find the more real the show becomes and the heavier it becomes. My brain just finds something to take me out of it. And then that's where the comedy comes back. I'm almost three years out of it, but it's nice to think about her.
Elise Hu (28:04):
Yeah, I remember reading your book and how you had a lot, I feel like this has been a few months now, but I feel like you wrote a little bit about your family and how they didn't get what you were doing
Jena Friedman (28:16):
When
Elise Hu (28:16):
You decided you wanted to go into comedy. Did your mom end up being pretty supportive of your career path?
Jena Friedman (28:23):
I mean, I dedicated the book to her as the funniest person I know, and I didn't know that she was sick. And then the galleys copy of the book came out and I got to read her the whole book. And this was a joke in my show, but this actually happened. So I found out she was sick. I taped the standup special. I went to go see her. I was catatonic. I'm 27 weeks pregnant. I had a surgical mask. I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'll just read her this book that she remembered every instance. I talked to her all the time. I talked to her every day, and I read her the whole book over two days. And I was trying so hard not to cry, and I had a surgical mask on because I still thought she'd be able to get treatment. I wanted to make sure I didn't give her COVID for my crazy show.
(29:01)
And so I finished in two days. I read her 252 pages of this book about my 15 years of being a performer. And she says, I finished the book. And she says, are you planning to do a book on tape? And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's the plan. And then she said, well, then you should hire someone to help you on the performance. Oh my God. Oh my God. I know, I know. So I feel, and as she was dying, she literally had my book on her bed. So I feel so lucky. It's taken me forever to write a book and I'm trying to write a second one and can't, I'm moving at a snail's pace. But just the fact that she got to have that a copy of something that gave her comfort and
Elise Hu (29:41):
Yeah. And she didn't ever stop being funny either.
Jena Friedman (29:45):
She didn't ever stop being, literally as she was dying, her palliative care person, Carla Carla's daughter, died in a car crash. I don't even know, that month or something. And as my mom is literally dying, she's like, check on Carla, make sure she's okay. She was the most giving, but she was also cty. She wasn't, yeah, she was running until the end real. She's a real person. Yeah.
Elise Hu (30:12):
Yeah. Well, this is awesome that you're going to be able to pay tribute to her.
Doree Shafrir (30:15):
So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Elise Hu (30:27):
I want to rewind just a little bit because you were talking about Conan and too bad Conan's not doing his show anymore, and then as of next year, there's not going to be Colbert anymore. What's the prognosis for late night, which is where you cut your teeth?
Jena Friedman (30:40):
I mean, I was a little worried about late night, but having been to Ted, I'm like, late night is the least of our problems. We're all going to die thanks to Palmer Lucky's autonomous nukes. Yeah, I love Colbert. And I think the franchise ending is heartbreaking, but again, after having serious loss, after looking at everything else that's going on, it's not like earth shattering. And I just said this to Sam, and I feel bad because I love Colbert so much, and I know he is going to do great and I want to have sympathy, but there's just everything seems like it's ending.
Doree Shafrir (31:16):
Well, you brought up AI and Ted, and can we talk a little bit about your TED Talk, which is about comedy and ai, and there's a lot of nervous. There seemed to be a lot of nervous laughter from the audience. They all seemed, I don't know, maybe I'm reading into it too much.
Jena Friedman (31:35):
No, I was supposed to speak on the panel, the robot panel with all the tech guys, and they moved me to some family panel, and that's how I ended up speaking after a pediatrician. They knew they had my transcript, they knew what I was joking about. I think it was totally an oversight. I don't think it was malicious, but when the person that goes on before you is showing pictures of babies and infants and infants and babies and babies and infants, and then you're like, oh, cool. What a great opening act for my jokes about abortion.
Elise Hu (32:07):
Tell folks about it. For folks who haven't seen it yet,
Jena Friedman (32:10):
See it, it's like seven minutes.
Elise Hu (32:11):
Yes, you should see it. It's seven minutes.
Jena Friedman (32:13):
No. Okay. So I got the privilege of being invited to speak at Ted. I didn't really know that Ted was still Ted talked. It's kind of not really. Not a lot of comics do it, so it wasn't on my radar. And so they asked me to, they wanted to go over my speech. I had a prep call and it felt a lot more formal for not being paid, frankly. I was like, this is an unpaid gig. Why are there seven people on the Zoom? So it felt quite formal, and the ask was just to do standup. And I was like, okay, I'll do standup. And then I realized that it was being recorded and going to live online in perpetuity with the word Ted behind me. So I was like, I can't just do standup now. I actually have to do a TED talk. And so to their credit, I put a TED talk together with a couple jokes that I had around tech that I couldn't actually find a place for. I think I put them in my last special and then cut them. They just didn't make sense to be there. And then the rest of the talk, I just kind of filled in the blanks and it ended up being really about AI and their headline, which I think is pretty good. It's like the jokes AI won't tell. And the larger idea is just that the more specific and maybe niche unlikable not profitable, your content is the less likely a machine will write it.
(33:38)
And that to me are my abortion jokes. I am never going to be an arena comic. I'm never going to get to a level where I want to write a multicam. I'm going to try, I have an idea for one, but it's just not my brand of what I've done for the past 15 years. So I think that AI and check DPT are totally going to replace my industry, just not the niche stuff. There's not going to be like an AI Nathan fielder, and if is, I don't know if people will care because you don't care about machines doing stuff like that,
Elise Hu (34:16):
But it's so much of what makes us human.
Jena Friedman (34:19):
Yeah.
Elise Hu (34:19):
Did you want to tell Jena about what you found at the end of her TED talk?
Doree Shafrir (34:23):
Oh yeah. I texted this to Elise. After you finish watching your TED Talk, you get a popup and it says key takeaways, and it's this AI summary of your saw
Jena Friedman (34:35):
That
Doree Shafrir (34:35):
TED
Jena Friedman (34:36):
Talk. I saw that. I was like, what the fuck? I saw that. And also it wasn't even, there was an AI synopsis and it wasn't even accurate. I almost posted about it, but then I can't,
Elise Hu (34:48):
I dunno if it bolsters the point, it kind of inadvertently bolsters the point that you're making in the talk though, that AI can't capture what you're doing.
Jena Friedman (34:58):
Yeah, okay. I'll post about it. Yeah, I saw that too. An AI takeaway from my talk.
Elise Hu (35:03):
Yeah. I was like, oh my God.
Jena Friedman (35:06):
I know, I know.
Elise Hu (35:08):
And it's wrong. And it's wrong. Alright. I know you have your kid to take care of and you're in New York preparing for your show, so we don't want to take too much of your time. You mentioned that it's pretty apocalyptic times. You are personally back into tennis as a kind of coping mechanism. Are you the AI synopsis after the podcast? Do I sound like one? And maybe there is a future for me after all, but so you are personally going back into tennis. Is there anything that you feel like has been helpful in this year of crisis and chaos and things could potentially get worse in terms of just the way you think about things or any practices that you have worked into your life to feel like, Hey, this is giving me some meaning and purpose and I'm not going to be so cynical.
Jena Friedman (36:06):
I mean, I think you can be cynical and I think I, the way I'm interpreting the question is how are you coping with what's going on? Yeah. I mean, my son has really been an antidote to my grief. I'm not saying he should have kids, but just that you're probably going to be forced to now that Trump is president. I'm not saying any of that. No. In earnestly, I think art helped me get through some of my grief art and then talking acupuncture helped with my heartbreak. Reading all the grief books, crying in H Mart, I can't even, that one was like waterworks.
Elise Hu (36:43):
But
Jena Friedman (36:43):
The books make you feel less alone. They help you process your grief. They help you just cry when you need to cry. And I think that's really, as someone who is an artist, I hate to be like, but I think sometimes you don't think about it as much from the perspective of a consumer of this stuff. But then as somebody who was a grief stricken Ricky dva show about loss, Sarah Silverman, I just watched Sarah Silverman special was so good postmortem, but just people dealing with these human things that we're all going to have to deal with really, really helped me talking to people who had experienced it also helped me. Those were the things, the main things. Acupuncture, I had heartbreak and it took it away. So I think heart in times of strife and chaos, like human made art is really helpful. And physical activity, anything for me, it has been tennis. Just my mom was such a part of my childhood tennis experience. She would drive me to tournaments. And so when I'm on the court, I feel her presence.
(37:46)
And so those are things that have personally helped me in this time, dealing with my own shit. And then dealing with the global shit and the local shit and the national shit. I mean, having perspective that we've been really lucky to have grown up in the time and places that we grew up and appreciating that and how that has shaped who we are today. And knowing that history is cyclical and stuff happens, and just take care of the people you can take care of and do your best. I don't know. I mean, I used to be way more doom and gloom after Trump 2016. I was like, oh my God. And now I'm just like, okay, we could be entering into fascism. Who do I need to take care of? But just taking care of people that are more vulnerable than you at times like this in times like this, I think that's a thing. That's a tangible thing. It's not on media, it's just helping someone who needs help in a time where they might need help. I don't know.
Elise Hu (38:42):
I love it. Great. Thanks. Alright. How can folks find you, Jena?
Jena Friedman (38:47):
I'm online. If you just type in ai, type in a chat. No, I mean, I post shows on Instagram and I have a website that my friend Ruth Gamble helps me out with. She's incredible. And so that's pretty much where I post information. Fantastic. Jennifer Friedman, thank you so much. Thanks for having me, guys.
Doree Shafrir (39:14):
Well, Jena was great. You're right. Thank you. Thank you, Jena.
Elise Hu (39:18):
She's so deadpan.
Elise Hu (39:20):
Love her.
Elise Hu (39:22):
I like it when I can't tell whether somebody's joking. I'm just like, wait, what's that? Okay. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Intention zone. It's time to revisit our intentions
Doree Shafrir (39:30):
Time. How did watching more tennis go for you?
Elise Hu (39:37):
Well, I started this intention the very next day after setting this intention and got to see my boyfriend, Ben Shelton, win his first Masters 1000 tournament. I was so excited. Yes, he doesn't know he's my boyfriend, but it's also, as I said, I feel bad about it since he's like 21, but he's so cute and he won his first big tournament and I'm really excited for the US Open. I feel like he's going to be entering the US Open on a high, and this week I'm watching a lot of the Cincinnati Open is back, and yeah, it's been a good time. That's so cool. I really liked this intention, but for my next one, I haven't exercised much, so I've got to put that back on the board, putting exercising back on the board board. I had the biopsy and then had to take downtime because of that, and then have been a little under the weather, but going to be intentional about increasing my exercise units. So I'm just going to have a unit per day of going for a walk or something. So what about you? We talked a little bit about your
Doree Shafrir (40:46):
Intention. We did. So last week I said I was going to just enjoy the moment at sectionals, and I did, I think I really
Elise Hu (40:52):
Did.
Doree Shafrir (40:53):
This week Henry is starting school, so my intention is to just kind of support him. I think he's a little nervous new teacher, first grade. A bunch of his besties are in his class though, so I'm happy about that. And I think he's relieved about that too. So yeah, so I just kind of want to start the new year off on the right foot for him.
Elise Hu (41:20):
Good, good.
Doree Shafrir (41:21):
Yeah. All right. Thanks everyone. Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir, and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Samee Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner's Acast. And we'll talk to you all very soon. Thanks for listening. Bye.