Latest / It's Open with Ilana Glazer / Eliot Glazer

Transcript

Eliot Glazer · It's Open with Ilana Glazer

• 0:00
  Hi, welcome to It's Open with Ilana Glazer. Just warning you, there's going to be an outfit change.
• 0:02
  I'm recording this from the future. Okay.
• 0:06
  Anyway, so welcome.
• 0:08
  My guest today is one of my favorite people on the planet.
• 0:14
  It's my brother Eliot Glazer.
• 0:14
  So Eliot is my best friend.
• 0:18
  He's the best uncle I've ever seen, and my brother, but he's also a comedy writer, performer and musician.
• 0:24
  Eliot has written on shows like Younger, New Girl, and Broad City and been on Broad City, and he's toured the country with comedy and music.
• 0:32
  And now I am so excited about his new role as author in his new book, the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay.
• 0:39
  Please join me in welcoming and enjoying this episode with the one and only Elliot Glaser.
• 0:50
  Hi. Hey sister. Hi brother.
• 0:50
  Hello. How are you doing today?
• 0:55
  I'm good. I met my last day of my New York stay.
• 0:59
  Yeah, it's great when you're here and I'd like you to stay longer.
• 1:03
  I know, but when people ask if I'm going to move back here, I'd want to be close to you guys. Of course.
• 1:11
  But I think I'm just so overwhelmed by the city now, dude.
• 1:14
  I know.
• 1:15
  Part of me likes LA because having depression and anxiety, it's like I thought that the consistency of having the sun every day, which is not actually what it's like, but the idea of having sun every day would be too much to take.
• 1:32
  But it actually does help.
• 1:34
  It.
• 1:34
  Does with mental health.
• 1:38
  Yeah. Yeah. I'm really feeling cold and scared this winter, and I'm having trouble separating the onslaught of dictatorship from my real life.
• 1:53
  That's right before me. We were just talking about this last night, and it's also the social media of it all and the Instagram of it all.
• 2:01
  It's like worms in my brain. Shout out to RFK.
• 2:06
  I told you.
• 2:07
  The book that I'm reading Filter World.
• 2:09
  By.
• 2:10
  Kyle Chika, I guess is how you say it. I'm still early in it, but he talks about how the huge change, the thing that really changed everything on social media that then permeated into the rest of culture was the shift from the algorithm being chronological to being more mysterious, timeless and feet.
• 2:30
  And as you're talking about feeding you stuff that's going to make you feel huge feelings. And for some people that's anxiety, horniness.
• 2:41
  Hatred.
• 2:43
  But it's so much, the onslaught is so much that I don't know.
• 2:46
  I was saying yesterday, it's like living in here and everything being amplified on this screen just to you and your ears. And it could be anywhere.
• 2:57
  It's too much. It's.
• 2:58
  Too much With your niece and my daughter when she's watching tv, what I like about TV is it's up on the wall and you see the whole world around it, and we do the iPad for the plane and stuff, and I just don't even want her to hold the phone because you get so lost, you get so lost and you don't know, you really forget that there's I, I'm 38, I forget that there's a world outside that frame that's in my face on the subway this morning in my fucking train car there and back.
• 3:29
  I'm looking around and everybody's obviously on their phone.
• 3:32
  And.
• 3:32
  I'm just like, we are specifically being pulled into different realities.
• 3:37
  My algorithm is so different from your algorithm, it's so messed up.
• 3:42
  But that's a lot of what this book is about. Or at least just having started it, such a big thesis is the idea that everything shifted with that change, that mysterious change in the algorithm.
• 3:54
  And it's true because everything about that shift in change means you went from a chronological record of friends and family and their daily lives to something so much more nefarious and explosive, which is brands news news.
• 4:12
  I know I was struggling with this last night and you were reminding me, this is citizen journalism, and it's like you look at CBS now and it's so scary that what used to be.
• 4:24
  They were the gold standard in news.
• 4:26
  I did Goodnight. Good luck.
• 4:26
  That's like Edward Armillo.
• 4:29
  CBS is now this state sanctioned propaganda machine.
• 4:34
  At the very least, it's like having Barry Weiss, who's never been in a newsroom, I guess where she had the free press, I think, which was her own sort of gonzo, gonzo, weirdo libertarian. I don't know. The vibe is so scary.
• 4:52
  The vibes are scary, so rotten.
• 4:55
  I don't think necessarily that people even know day to day or maybe they don't even care. That's something like CBS this huge, I mean, they were the golden child of the news.
• 5:04
  That was Walter Cronkite. That was, but now that it's been replaced with Barry Weiss at the helm, it's so wild.
• 5:16
  So crazy. It's so crazy. And I'm like, there's supposed to be checks and balances.
• 5:20
  And we were also talking earlier about the New York Times, that there's still some good people eeking their way through to get their stories written, but publish.
• 5:32
  I still published, still trust them.
• 5:32
  The Times is still more reputable than, well, even with Mom sending us an article that she saw yesterday, and it was clearly not true. And so.
• 5:47
  A screenshot, it was a screenshot from a Facebook article, and you're right, it was like John Stewart gives $190 million to homelessness.
• 5:58
  Homeless people. And I was in a second, I was like, this doesn't seem true.
• 6:02
  I don't think that seems true, but the article itself was written that way, but it's in a Facebook post. And I'm like, who is?
• 6:09
  It says posted by US Citizen News.
• 6:09
  And I'm like, never heard of that.
• 6:13
  That doesn't sound real. I Google it. It's totally fake.
• 6:16
  And I got a little, I was like, John Stewart.
• 6:20
  I just don't trust.
• 6:21
  Anything.
• 6:21
  But you know what you said that was so true is that it's like mom bait, like leftist mom bait meant to confuse our elders.
• 6:27
  Yeah.
• 6:28
  I hate saying fake new news because it validates Trump's dumb vocabulary.
• 6:33
  But the idea of this fake news being real and heard, catching it and it being meant to sort of lighten up, I guess the progressive Democratic left the idea John Stewart, our patron saint, giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the homeless.
• 6:52
  And it's like a, it's not true.
• 6:52
  But also why is this there?
• 6:56
  And also the fake news thing.
• 6:59
  And they always say their own crimes at others.
• 7:03
  And it's like after Renee Good was killed by ice. All the, instead of fake news, let's just call it lies, all the lies that were stated about her and stoking people's fear and vulnerability. So I really am having trouble right now, feeling sane, feeling safe. It's just a fucking hellscape. And the algorithm thing, as you say, first of all, I was thinking about RFK earlier, and I'm like, why would he want to eliminate the measles vaccine? Really?
• 7:39
  What is the point of having all these children die and people die?
• 7:46
  And as you're talking about the algorithm, it used to be, at first it was chronological before Mark Zuckerberg bought it, it was just a cute app.
• 7:54
  He also used to have the Chan Zuckerberg initiative.
• 7:58
  He and his wife were pro-democratic organizers and donors for years before he took such a hard right turn.
• 8:08
  But I was thinking about the RFK thing.
• 8:11
  It just makes you think of a white man in a cult who's controlling a town just has crazy ideas.
• 8:19
  But why is this person placed in this position in charge of the United States America? And it's just to weaken people.
• 8:27
  It's just to terrorize, to control the general population and the Zuckerberg thing.
• 8:32
  I was thinking about the algorithm and it's like, okay, at first it's cute and it's a timeline thing, then it's selling us stuff.
• 8:39
  And brands toxic, but not as evil is what's happening right now.
• 8:45
  Just manipulating our emotions, just making us feel huge inflammatory feelings so that we're like, when you let a balloon go and it just.
• 8:58
  Yeah, it's.
• 8:58
  A mess. It's a mess. We're in a chaotic mess right now.
• 9:04
  I watch The View every day.
• 9:05
  I know it's really smart.
• 9:05
  It's really hitting me.
• 9:11
  That to me is mainstream news and mainstream discourse. Well.
• 9:15
  They're owned by a, b, C news, so they're legitimate that way.
• 9:19
  But.
• 9:20
  If anything, they're anti-Trump in a way that I think even they probably regret at the network.
• 9:27
  And having read about it, I think there was this rumor that they got a talking to once Trump came in and they had to cool down on Trump, but Joy Behar and Whoopi and Sonny Hostin, they're clearly liberal, but Joy is always the one who breaks through the noise.
• 9:46
  And.
• 9:46
  There's a clip that I saved on my phone of her.
• 9:50
  It was one of those weeks where it was like Trump did so much damage.
• 9:54
  Everything was so inflammatory and so violent, scary.
• 9:59
  The view is this cheery happy morning set. And she's just like, I don't know how we're going to survive the next four years.
• 10:06
  And her co-hosts the happy go lucky ones. Were shrugging it off. And she's like, I mean it. She's like, every day, every day he assaults something, some tenet of society.
• 10:23
  Every day he obfuscates or just there's some violent action every day that undoes or changes or attacks or minimizes. And she's like, I don't know how we're going to, she goes, I don't think we can survive this.
• 10:35
  And the other two hosts or a few of them were like, of course we can.
• 10:38
  It'll be fine. It'll be fine.
• 10:39
  They're trying to be morning show people and she's just not that.
• 10:43
  And she's like, I don't think so. It was so human.
• 10:46
  And.
• 10:47
  Pessimistic but real.
• 10:48
  It.
• 10:49
  Was such realism where she's like, I really, you could see it was like an existential driver where she's like, I don't know how we're going to survive this. They're like, oh, wait, wait, it's fine. It's fine. And she's like, no, I've been through Vietnam. I've been, I think she was alive during the, she's seen so much. And she's like, I've never seen anything like this.
• 11:05
  But even mom and dad always say, we never could have expected the world to look like this.
• 11:13
  These people are supposed to be motherfucking fringe.
• 11:16
  They're supposed to be fringe.
• 11:18
  Yeah. They're supposed to be freaks on the periphery.
• 11:21
  People.
• 11:22
  Who say crazy things, anti humanist things.
• 11:27
  That.
• 11:27
  They should just be cast aside. People who are like, oh, the Earth's flat, or we shouldn't vaccinate kids against polio, against these world changing diseases.
• 11:40
  They used to be on the fringe and I think with the internet, but especially social media feeding.
• 11:45
  And the algorithm.
• 11:46
  The algorithm feeding them, whatever, it feeds them, it validates their truth.
• 11:52
  And now their truth is technically the truth, even though they know it's their truth. It's like conspiracy.
• 12:00
  Conspiracy theorists have essentially equated their gonzo bananas, fringe ideology with the mainstream.
• 12:13
  And that's why you get RFK.
• 12:16
  Right. The machinery behind it. Instagram, the billionaire owned media companies have taken these fringe ideas and put them in the mainstream and the bell curve, those ideas at the bottom of the bell curve are filling the middle section of the bell curve.
• 12:36
  It's so dangerous and harrowing and disturbing and causing murder and destruction.
• 12:45
  So you and I grew up on Long Island, so we grew up not with Jews, we're Jewish.
• 12:50
  We were a minority among our community.
• 12:53
  We grew up around some Jews.
• 12:54
  A handful of Jews.
• 12:55
  Yeah.
• 12:56
  What Hebrew school did you land in?
• 12:59
  I landed at Temple Isaiah and then really finished out my Hebrew schooling.
• 13:04
  I just went to that secular Hebrew school that was held at the community college.
• 13:09
  It.
• 13:09
  Wasn't a Hebrew, it was very secular and almost cultural and not really religious.
• 13:16
  So it was that weekends only Hebrew school at Suffolk Community College. Yeah.
• 13:22
  So I went to that too. But then.
• 13:24
  You went to Isaiah.
• 13:26
  And.
• 13:26
  Actually studied the Torah for your bat mitzvah.
• 13:29
  Which.
• 13:29
  I didn't.
• 13:30
  Yeah, that's wild. We had different experiences there because that for me was my chance to be around mostly Jews and I loved it.
• 13:40
  And my current best friend, Annie, I was there with her and was at camp with her too, and I just loved it.
• 13:48
  It was such a good education, even though it was scary too.
• 13:53
  We learned about the Holocaust, we learned about it too young. It was so crazy.
• 13:56
  It was almost inappropriate.
• 13:58
  But also I was grateful for it because even though I'm a white person, I knew about these genocidal frameworks that could take anybody, could take any person and make them the scapegoat.
• 14:12
  So.
• 14:12
  Did you learn about the Holocaust at this super school?
• 14:16
  No, it was super, I think what I remember is just holidays.
• 14:21
  It's almost like it was just a space to be around progressive Jews.
• 14:26
  Yeah. I would think that that would.
• 14:27
  Make sense rather than learn the history.
• 14:28
  But I also think it was sort of like, I don't think mom and dad could afford a traditional temple Hebrew school at that point.
• 14:36
  So.
• 14:36
  This was a nice, I guess maybe a way for that made it affordable.
• 14:40
  So other than that, we grew up around conservatives.
• 14:44
  Which I didn't realize until college.
• 14:46
  Of course. No, that makes sense. I guess I was kind of, honestly, I think it was because of Hebrew school that I was like, I could recognize racism, antisemitism, homophobia more clearly, because I had learned about these systems of hatred leading to genocide, which I was really afraid of because.
• 15:07
  I.
• 15:07
  Remember this movie about the Holocaust, and it started with chicks on a conveyor belt going toward, and it was like chicks, like baby chicks, baby chicks. And it was like, we are the chicks. And it was so blunt, and we had a fake pogrom.
• 15:26
  What do you mean? We.
• 15:27
  Had a staged pogrom by two Ori and Orrin, literally.
• 15:33
  At the Hebrew school.
• 15:34
  Yes.
• 15:35
  Ori and Orrin were pulled aside to pretend to be Nazis, or at the time it was Polish, Polish soldiers or whatever.
• 15:46
  I tell the story in my first standup special because it's so unbelievable, and we didn't know what was happening.
• 15:55
  We didn't notice Ori and Oren were gone, and then suddenly they're like, we're coming in. Literally staged, invading, raiding us, raiding our Hebrew school room and turn the lights out without telling us or our parents at Temple Isaiah.
• 16:11
  Oh my God.
• 16:12
  And we were so scared.
• 16:14
  And Annie in fact was most scared, was most manipulated to think it was happening and ran outside in the dark and was like, sure that we were all being killed inside.
• 16:26
  Did you tell mom and dad?
• 16:28
  I think I did, but downplayed it as something crazy.
• 16:30
  Whereas Andy's mom called the school and was like, you're out of your fucking minds.
• 16:32
  You will never be doing that again.
• 16:36
  That is also ineffective learning.
• 16:38
  Isn't that? Oh my God.
• 16:39
  Crazy.
• 16:40
  That is insane.
• 16:42
  Psychotic, psychotic.
• 16:43
  Immersive theater. That's like scared straight.
• 16:48
  Truly.
• 16:49
  For Jewish kids. That's insane.
• 16:54
  Insane. And when I was in fifth grade is when Columbine happened.
• 16:58
  You were in ninth grade. This is seventh grade mass shootings had already begun.
• 17:02
  You don't fucking do that.
• 17:04
  No, that's so wild. They should have shut down after that.
• 17:11
  That's nuts.
• 17:12
  So crazy. So, so crazy.
• 17:14
  But there is so much of the fear that's been, I think very much pumped into us for a long time, which is like, they hate us.
• 17:22
  They hate us, they hate us, they hate us. It'll happen again.
• 17:24
  It'll happen again. So I mean, even though I didn't experience that, it's like I'm certainly, I feel like it was drummed into my head too, that it's never forget this because they hate us. They hate us, they hate us, and it'll do it again.
• 17:38
  So we worked at the golf club in our town.
• 17:41
  Which was more like a country club of sorts.
• 17:44
  I was so anxious about doing a good job, and I'm looking for you and you're looking like this.
• 17:50
  You're walking around their stupid fucking ballroom like this and walking and then walking around and you're like, and I was like, where are you going? What are you doing? And you were like, I'm just pretending to be busy. I'm not doing anything.
• 18:07
  I'm pretending to work and I have to go somewhere.
• 18:11
  I'll be on my way now.
• 18:14
  But I was also, I very protective.
• 18:17
  And there was a woman who was particularly mean to you.
• 18:20
  Because I messed up her crab cakes, messed.
• 18:24
  Up her crab cakes. And so she was a real bitch to you.
• 18:28
  And so I made sure without, there was not a doubt in my mind that I was going to get revenge.
• 18:33
  And so the very next time we went to work, I made sure to serve her drinks with a little bit of Visine in it to give her massive, massive shits.
• 18:45
  Let's hope so. Well thank you for that, Elliot. Thank you.
• 18:50
  There was once a horrible smell there. The second summer, I believe you were no longer, there was a horrible smell from behind the vending machines. And I was like, guys, something ain't right back here in this $30,000 ahead golf club, which didn't include food and drink. It was.
• 19:06
  Yeah, that was pay on top of it.
• 19:08
  How wealthy are these idiots?
• 19:08
  And I was like, there's something not right. And it was true. A rat had gotten stuck behind the vetting machine.
• 19:18
  This fancy, fancy fucking clearly, everybody was such a white supremacist.
• 19:25
  I was really a lit to the white supremacy, the antisemitism from a young age. I don't know. I just noticed it.
• 19:34
  But also that summer, I guess it was like oh four for me. Yeah, I think it must have been oh four because everything was about John Kerry.
• 19:43
  And.
• 19:43
  I remember that there were some books in the library there and there was Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken.
• 19:51
  And.
• 19:51
  I was fascinated by it, but people wanted to keep Fox News on.
• 19:54
  And so I'd keep Fox News and I'd be like watching it.
• 19:56
  I wasn't politically aware, neither.
• 19:59
  Was.
• 19:59
  That.
• 20:00
  But I knew from listening to Air America and reading stuff here and there that it was like, oh, this whole swift vote flip-flopper thing.
• 20:11
  It was such a circus.
• 20:13
  It.
• 20:13
  Was just so dumb. But people were just so allegiant to.
• 20:18
  But we watched the Fox News.
• 20:21
  They used to call it moderate news.
• 20:24
  Well, they called it Fair and balance.
• 20:26
  Fair and Balance. We watched these people become radicalized.
• 20:29
  We watched the moderate right, go all the way to Q Anon, our town's library board.
• 20:37
  This woman wanted to take all the gay and queer related books in the children's department off the shelves.
• 20:45
  And.
• 20:45
  The gay books.
• 20:46
  And they did.
• 20:46
  They did. And then Smithtown showed up.
• 20:49
  Up.
• 20:50
  And they immediately reversed it because it's not like sexualizing kids. It's about gay families.
• 20:56
  Which.
• 20:57
  Exist. And everybody should have exposure even if you have straight parents.
• 21:00
  But that's the brightness around it where it's like just because you don't like it and you don't like that things are changing. You don't like that.
• 21:06
  Things are different from you.
• 21:08
  Doesn't mean that you automatically throw a tantrum and win.
• 21:14
  You just don't get everything you want.
• 21:16
  And the only way to counterbalance that is to show up and say no. Yeah.
• 21:20
  No.
• 21:21
  Absolutely. Fucking not. And also it's like you don't have to be gay.
• 21:24
  Right?
• 21:25
  Nobody's making you be gay. Nobody's.
• 21:27
  Making you be gay. Nobody's making you have an abortion.
• 21:30
  Nobody's making you do anything.
• 21:32
  So leave everybody else the fuck alone and go fill your void.
• 21:36
  However you fill it.
• 21:37
  Find something else. That's my thing.
• 21:37
  It's like, go find something else.
• 21:40
  There's also a video from when we were kids of you. You're like, I'm writing a journalism and you're writing an essay on a chalkboard, and I'm monitoring you as you write it. But then as you read it, it's like you're reading it. It's about, you're talking about don't be prejudiced, don't be mean, don't be prejudiced.
• 22:00
  And.
• 22:01
  Then you go and you're in the Long Island exit and you go, don't bother people.
• 22:06
  And I think about it all the time.
• 22:06
  So simple. Don't bother people.
• 22:10
  Don't bother people.
• 22:11
  I mean, you must have been, I mean, not even five, maybe six. And you're like, don't bother people, don't be prejudice, don't be mean. Don't be racist, don't bother people. And I'm like, that's how I feel now. Leave people alone.
• 22:27
  The obsession with trans people, especially holy shit kids, and their genitals is Jesus, why are you giving a moment's thought to trans kids in their genitals?
• 22:39
  It's disgusting. It's disgusting.
• 22:43
  This person in government, Nancy Mace, she has a crusade against trans children, really against children.
• 22:50
  Let's just put it out there.
• 22:50
  Trans children are children, just a crusade against children.
• 22:54
  And had this bill she was trying to pass about having children's genitals inspected at school, which includes cis children or children who don't identify as trans.
• 23:07
  This is in my blurry memory, and I don't remember the exact bill, but some bill was, well, she's and connecting connected to her.
• 23:15
  And then meanwhile, she voted for the big brutal bill that took food off of children's plates.
• 23:21
  It's just cruelty. And it affects cis children as well, if that's your big weaponization or criminalizing trans children. Well, cis children will have their genitals inspected too.
• 23:34
  And also, but why is that on the forefront of your mind? It's.
• 23:37
  Disgusting. It's disgusting.
• 23:38
  And why is that? You're crossed to bear, and why is that the journey you choose to take?
• 23:43
  It's disgusting.
• 23:44
  It's so weird. I guess it didn't ultimately work, but when people started saying during the 24 election cycle.
• 23:50
  During coconuts era.
• 23:52
  When people started, people started saying, calling Republicans weird.
• 23:57
  I loved.
• 23:58
  It. It was so effective. It.
• 23:59
  Was so effective. Weird.
• 23:59
  You guys are so weird.
• 24:02
  You are so weird.
• 24:03
  Hyper focusing on the strangest things.
• 24:06
  And the thing of don't bother people.
• 24:06
  It's like, yeah, it's weird. Well, let's talk about your book. Okay, so you have a book coming out.
• 24:12
  This is my own first memoir style autobiographical funny essays. Okay.
• 24:18
  Tell us what it's called.
• 24:19
  The Terrible, horrible.
• 24:19
  No, good. Very bad. Gay.
• 24:24
  I love it. And Elliot, this book poured out of you.
• 24:27
  It did, yeah, because it feels like for years I've been trying to synthesize my feeling of isolation or feeling like an alien or a weirdo among other gay people. And I never felt fully out of it, but just there's been things that made me feel like I missed the first day of class.
• 24:50
  Just.
• 24:50
  Things that are like, wait, we do that and that happens? I don't know, and I just don't get it, but okay, we'll figure it out.
• 24:59
  So these essays kind of poured out of me because even though I've tried to synthesize these feelings in TV shows and just different types of projects, doing it long form and really getting to express all of it felt truly cathartic.
• 25:18
  And it just felt like, yeah, this medium that had been calling you.
• 25:22
  One example where you missed the first day of class was when all the gay guys from LA were going to Puerto Vallarta.
• 25:30
  We were on vacation, and I was.
• 25:32
  Looking.
• 25:33
  On Instagram and I'm like, where are all these guys?
• 25:36
  And they're guys that we both know. And I'm like, they're all on vacation together in Puo Vallarta.
• 25:43
  And I never put together that that was a thing, this post-Christmas destination for all these gay guys. I just didn't know.
• 25:51
  And you'd think, well, you'd think I would know.
• 25:56
  I'm an adult man in a city with lots of gay friends.
• 26:01
  And I'm like, where is Puo Vallarta?
• 26:01
  And so that was sort of the first, for whatever reason at an advanced age, I was like, oh, look at all this gay tourism. I knew about Fire Island, and I've been there.
• 26:15
  I know about Palm Springs. I've been there. But really seeing that, oh, Puerta, Vallarta, anos.
• 26:22
  There's different places that seem to just attract gay guys in droves that I was like, when did that happen? There's.
• 26:30
  Also this financial access thing that I always forget about. And you're like, oh yeah, they're rich. You know what I mean? Where you're like.
• 26:37
  Yeah, gay guys, I think overwhelmingly have more of a disposable income, especially without the pressure to have kids.
• 26:46
  Or at least the most visible gay narrative is being rich. Not even.
• 26:50
  That's not true across the board.
• 26:52
  It's.
• 26:52
  Just the most visible narrative.
• 26:53
  And that's where these gay tourist destinations, or I always see all these other gay guys in huge groups on Instagram, all of them on vacation together, taking these big group photos where they all look interchangeable and they're all wearing the same kind of bathing suit where I was like, wait, we all wear that?
• 27:14
  Just all these things that have just constantly been like no one told me.
• 27:18
  And part of me wants to be asked, but I know I probably wouldn't enjoy it anyway.
• 27:24
  But a little part of me wants to be asked.
• 27:25
  I totally get it.
• 27:26
  But that's where the book comes from.
• 27:27
  Where.
• 27:28
  It's like, huh, we do that.
• 27:31
  I love that little disparity.
• 27:31
  I do want to be asked.
• 27:34
  But that's a thing that I've had to contend with that's.
• 27:36
  And come.
• 27:36
  To terms with, I do want to be asked.
• 27:38
  Because I've watched you struggle with internalized homophobia that you spewed outward at the gay male community and things that make sense when.
• 27:50
  I was younger.
• 27:51
  And I get it too, pressures and whatever.
• 27:56
  And I guess I had a very strong sense of my values at a young age such that I was a feminist and I was anti-racist, dumb people when I was six years old. But I think where internalized homophobia and internalized misogyny, meat is sometimes where we would clash. And there used to be this thing of God vi JJ in the early two thousands.
• 28:28
  It was hard to be a teenagers in the early two thousands.
• 28:31
  Really.
• 28:32
  Fucking violent. Literally, Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking young white girls from at.
• 28:37
  Dalton.
• 28:38
  At fucking Dalton. The city rich white girls and gay guys were supposed to be hairless like.
• 28:47
  Skinny.
• 28:48
  Fish. And is you being not into women, but sometimes in a rude way, really bothered me. And I have one really salient memory of leaving my used tampons on a piece of computer paper.
• 29:10
  To get back at me.
• 29:11
  For something inside.
• 29:13
  My door, bedroom door. I don't remember what you wrote on it, but it was like, oh, great, cool. This is revenge a bloody tampon.
• 29:23
  Did it throw me not really your way to get back at me?
• 29:30
  Oh my God. And also, what did I want you to be attracted to respect vaginas, I guess respect vaginas.
• 29:38
  A big shift for me was, I remember when we were at your apartment in the slope in Park Slope, and I was like, oh, you got to watch Real Housewives with me.
• 29:48
  And you were like, I don't want to watch this.
• 29:50
  And it was Early Real Housewives in New York, which was genuinely so funny.
• 29:55
  But you were.
• 29:55
  Like, and I did watch some early stuff early, early until it.
• 29:59
  But then you said, but every scene seems to be edited with this unspoken dialogue that ends with you, dumb bitch.
• 30:12
  Every scene. It's like, this happens.
• 30:12
  This happens. Jill does this, Kelly does this. And the editors basically saying, you dumb bitch.
• 30:20
  And I was like, oh, oh, okay.
• 30:20
  You were right. It's like, oh, now I see it.
• 30:26
  It's even though it was a wink in editing at large, the idea of women in general being looked at as like, you dumb bitch, especially in the two thousands, it was like, oh, this makes sense.
• 30:40
  And some of them had humanity behind them and lovable characteristics, but the framework was always misogynist. And so it's so funny.
• 30:48
  It was petty and demeaning, but that's now how our government is.
• 30:53
  In my mind. I'm like, men would never be edited that way, but it's like they literally act that way in congressional hearings. They act.
• 31:00
  Like brats. Like divas.
• 31:02
  Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. It's too much.
• 31:07
  Actually to that point, one of the chapters in the book is about queer joy and how, I think last year you were like, where do you find your queer joy?
• 31:15
  And I was like.
• 31:17
  What can I tell you? I was like, what do you love about yourself that is gay?
• 31:22
  That isn't, because sometimes I've seen you struggle with it. And I'm like, but what do you love about yourself?
• 31:28
  Yeah.
• 31:28
  And you weren't sure what I meant, but I was like, even your music, your incredible taste in music, ability to consume and curate music and make music and sing and you dance so well. Yeah.
• 31:42
  But also to that point, it was understanding when you're talking about queer joy and my taste in music, I was like, oh, I didn't really put together what you meant.
• 31:50
  And then it was like, oh, I get it. There's an unapologetic, I have no apologies to make and never had for loving queer.
• 32:00
  Anita Baker.
• 32:01
  Anita.
• 32:01
  Baker at seven years old.
• 32:03
  Luther.
• 32:03
  Vandross as a child.
• 32:05
  But that was unapologetically queer.
• 32:08
  But.
• 32:08
  Then even as I got older, it's like I never, ever, ever made any sort of apology for really being into queer coded girly, pop girly music. Ultimately, I never thought I would have to apologize for liking Whitney Houston or Mariah or.
• 32:25
  So.
• 32:26
  I use that chapter to be like, oh, here are things that, here are other examples besides music where I'm doing gay, right?
• 32:35
  The rest of the book is how I'm often doing gay wrong.
• 32:38
  But.
• 32:38
  I do gay in terms of loving the first two seasons of the Real Housewives of New York. I'm not interested in The Housewives now.
• 32:45
  I find it all to be overproduced, and it's all self-produced and everything's a marketing opportunity.
• 32:51
  Whereas the first two seasons of The Housewives, they didn't know how to be on tv.
• 32:56
  They had regular teeth, even they had their old teeth.
• 33:01
  And.
• 33:01
  It's like they didn't know how to be on tv.
• 33:03
  And that's where True Camp lies to me.
• 33:06
  Not.
• 33:06
  Anymore. I don't care anymore.
• 33:06
  But also short shorts, I make no apology for wearing Daisy dukes. I love days. You're gorgeous.
• 33:14
  Dukes. You're fucking gorgeous.
• 33:14
  Literally, I'm even thinking the gym, you used to have such pressure on yourself and have such crazy body dysmorphia.
• 33:24
  It's so painful to really hold it. My sweet brother having this body dysmorphia, but now it seems like you're in your damn skin.
• 33:31
  Yeah. I mean, sure.
• 33:32
  You're gorgeous.
• 33:34
  I'm.
• 33:34
  Pulling you.
• 33:35
  But also.
• 33:37
  He got legs and he knows how.
• 33:40
  To Whos up? But the gay male, the fact that gay guy, again, this is something I learned later that gay guys referred to the gym as church.
• 33:48
  When I found that out, I was like, oh, that is such a bummer that our religion, our House of worship is the gym because vanity and body dysmorphia, it is paramount.
• 34:01
  And I'm a full 100% pledged devotee, and it's awful.
• 34:06
  It.
• 34:06
  Sucks. But you don't feel like, I admire your dedication to the gym. I admire that you work out.
• 34:13
  Five times a week. You say, I admire that. I admire that. And it's like, yeah, but it's couched in toxic body patterns.
• 34:22
  Still.
• 34:24
  Especially in la. But even so.
• 34:26
  Do you feel strong?
• 34:28
  I do feel strong.
• 34:29
  Do you feel hot?
• 34:30
  I feel attractive, but it does feel like, and I'm just saying it for myself, but I think gay guys in total would tell you that the pressure we put on ourselves.
• 34:40
  It's a burden.
• 34:41
  Is a burden. And so when you're like, I admire your health choices, it's like I would love if that were with the vocabulary I was using too, but it really is to just keep up with everybody else.
• 34:53
  Well, I feel like you have been a part of gay male culture opening up to a place where it's not, and also, no offense to the old queer eye for the straight guy, but it's, it was like this one way.
• 35:05
  There was homosexuals and Metrosexuals was this middle area or something?
• 35:10
  Yes.
• 35:10
  Where it gave straight guys the allowance and permission to have vanity or to care about their looks.
• 35:19
  Put a hair product in where V-Neck.
• 35:22
  Yeah. But then in the book, there is a whole chapter about when they did reboot the show, I got an email from my manager saying, would you be interested in submitting as a TV personality?
• 35:34
  And I'm like, huh? To do what? I don't cook.
• 35:39
  My hair's fine. My clothes are from Target.
• 35:42
  I don't know what expertise do I have? I don't even know.
• 35:47
  So I passed, which was so stupid, so because I'd be taking a private plane back to LA if I didn't pass, but, so there's a whole chapter about what my, I call it the lazy queer eye and what my lazy queer eye would look like if I applied myself to fashion.
• 36:05
  So funny and fashion and cooking and haircare and face regimen, skin regimens.
• 36:10
  But even that too, it's like.
• 36:14
  That's so smart. I.
• 36:16
  Knew until 40 that my friends were like, you have to use moisturizer.
• 36:21
  You have to moisturize. And I'm like, why?
• 36:24
  But it feels like another thing.
• 36:24
  It's moisturizing and face masks.
• 36:28
  I didn't know.
• 36:30
  And.
• 36:30
  Again, I'm like, nobody told me.
• 36:31
  And that sounds bratty like no one deserves to tell you, but I just was like, oh, we all do this too. I didn't know about face masks.
• 36:38
  My hair.
• 36:39
  I didn't know to put product in my hair because hair space is segregated, so no white people knew what to do with my hair to tell me, load it up with product. You have curls.
• 36:46
  I look like fucking great Uncle Harry.
• 36:51
  If I don't load it up with product.
• 36:53
  Was the weirder thing too, is I would always complain and say, I hate my Jew hair.
• 36:58
  Hate.
• 36:58
  My Jew hair. It was like bristly. I hated it.
• 37:02
  And.
• 37:02
  It's changed over time.
• 37:03
  But I used to say it to dad as to guilt him for having bristly hair.
• 37:09
  But then we also had grandma who would, when you were a child with curly, big, curly hair, she would go, your hair is wild.
• 37:16
  I know. And.
• 37:17
  It's like, why are you saying that?
• 37:19
  It made me be like, fuck, I'm a wild beast.
• 37:22
  Then when you would straighten your hair, I'd be like, it looks so nice.
• 37:26
  The fried ends sticking out.
• 37:26
  I look like Edward Hands.
• 37:31
  And people don't know. And nor why would they, but there is such a specific faction of Long Island girls, especially from when we grew up, who would flatten their, it was like crisp and it was such a specifically sating act.
• 37:52
  The girls know though, because it's like all different girls from all different backgrounds who poorly straightened their hair hoping it would have movement. It didn't.
• 38:00
  Have movement. There was no movement. It.
• 38:01
  Was just like two fingers pointed down at best, just downturn fingers. It was terrible.
• 38:08
  It was such a thing.
• 38:09
  But even the idea of the sort of ubiquitous male erotica that I see usually with older gay guys, but I've always noticed with anybody, with any gay guy in their home, I'm always like, huh.
• 38:22
  I would never.
• 38:23
  Think to have a man's armpit photographed. And it's never struck me. I don't judge it. I'm not mad at.
• 38:32
  It. I like it, and I kind of wish I had it.
• 38:34
  Yeah, you do. I just, again, it's just an observation.
• 38:39
  Am I supposed to have a giant photo of pubes because I'm gay? I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 38:48
  And so that's sort of the vibe of the book.
• 38:49
  That's so funny.
• 38:50
  Liz Lemon.
• 38:52
  A.
• 38:52
  Liz Lemon Introduction to What Gay Is and how I do it pretty bad.
• 38:56
  Yeah. That's awesome. I.
• 38:57
  Do it better than I used to, but it's still just like, that's gay.
• 39:00
  But I think doing it better than you used to just means being yourself.
• 39:03
  Yeah.
• 39:04
  We've been talking for years and years about Gayl, minstrel.
• 39:09
  Minstrelsy.
• 39:09
  Minstrelsy in the comedy scene, and it's like, there was this question for a while.
• 39:17
  Should I be leaning into that reductive nature? And it's just not, it just doesn't work when it's inauthentic and if it's authentic to that person, go with God. But.
• 39:27
  Even when I get casting calls and I get scripts and I'll read them and I'm like, so I got this because the character is gay.
• 39:37
  If.
• 39:37
  I was reading this. I would sound homophobic not in me to be like that bitch or to be like, honey, it people would be like, you're not allowed to say that.
• 39:53
  It would come off sounding bad.
• 39:57
  I can be a bitch or I can be, I can have that, but it doesn't sound right.
• 40:01
  Coming out of my mouth.
• 40:01
  It sounds homophobic.
• 40:03
  But.
• 40:04
  Even when I'm annoyed with, or just I feel ruffled by gay guys or gay culture in general. Even when I feel that way, I still feel so much safer with that community.
• 40:19
  There is safety there.
• 40:21
  And.
• 40:21
  There is community there.
• 40:22
  Even if I feel like I don't fit in or awkward or aloof, I still feel happy that I'm there and I get to participate in that.
• 40:30
  And how delicious and delightful was heated rivalry.
• 40:34
  Heated rivalry. I thought it was going to be too much hype, but early on I was like, it just seemed like the hype was getting so big that I was like, I don't know.
• 40:42
  I just didn't believe what it, I didn't necessarily go in thinking I would be as into it as I was immediately, immediately hooked. And not just because the show was remarkably hot and sexy.
• 40:57
  That obviously was its own thing that I think lured people in.
• 41:00
  But I was getting weepy at the tenderness and the romance, and it's like, oh, and the reason that it's such a huge hit is because it's not just the sex stuff.
• 41:12
  It is definitely because getting to see a shame-free, tender, loving, actual romantic connection between these two characters, even if they're having their relationship in secret is refreshing. I mean, I don't think it would work if those two actors weren't so good and had such chemistry. That's a lightning in a bottle too.
• 41:33
  That's right.
• 41:33
  But I'm tearing up during the sex scenes.
• 41:35
  Me too.
• 41:36
  Because it's so loving.
• 41:37
  Me too.
• 41:38
  Jacob Tierney really knocked it out of the park because it was all those things.
• 41:42
  But smart.
• 41:43
  Yeah, it was smart. And it was also tasteful. And the lighting is beautiful.
• 41:47
  The music is perfect. Perfect.
• 41:52
  That was so good. Thank you Eliot Glazer for joining me today.
• 41:55
  I love you and thanks to the whole tribe that made this episode possible.
• 42:00
  I want to thank my creative producers, Madeline Kim, Glennis Meagher, Annika Carlson, Kelsie Kiley, and David Rooklin. I want to thank our editor, Tovah Liebowitz. I want to thank the good people, the artists who made this show look and sound so damn good.
• 42:15
  I want to thank Kevin Deming for the lighting, Lexa Krebs, for the camera work and the cinematography, and Nicole Maupin for making it sound so good.
• 42:23
  Thank you to Raymo Ventura for the graphics and the opening musical sting.
• 42:27
  And thank you to the band Don Hur for this outro music.
• 42:32
  Please join our community. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for joining me.
• 42:37
  And if you'd like to follow us on its open pod on Instagram, subscribe to this channel and comment and be part of the community.
• 42:46
  Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. Have a good day.