Episode 99 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Dinner Pig
Jun 6, 2018 · 1:07:50 · 18 segments, 137 moments indexed
- 1 min
Cold Open: Ray Kump's Family Thing in Long Island
#Tim opens explaining Ray Kump is absent this week for a vague family thing in Long Island.
1moment
- 0:14Tim announces Ray Kump is out at a family thing in Long Island and expresses confusion about what that actually means
- 4 min
Ray Kump's Long Island Family and Real-Life Forrest Gump
#Tim describes Ray's parents, brother, and their German restaurant dinners in Williamsburg, calling Ray a real-life Forrest Gump. This leads into a deep dive on the original Forrest Gump novel by Winston Groom, reading its shockingly different opening lines compared to the sanitized movie.
8moments
- 0:42Ray's family is interesting: big parents, a normal-looking brother with a girlfriend, they fight about economics at German restaurants in Williamsburg.
- 1:08Ray's mother makes really good brownies and has to break up arguments between Ray and his accountant dad about the Federal Reserve.
- 1:19Tim notes Ray has the aesthetics of a failure despite not actually being one.
- 1:38Ray is as close as you can get to a real-life Forrest Gump—a character John C. Reilly would play in a movie.
- 2:11The Forrest Gump book is much different from the film and sold only about 20,000 copies when optioned in 1987.
- 2:33In the book, Forrest is jacked and has sex all the time, unlike the movie version.
- 3:22Tim used to discover things on his own but now people send him content instead, which feels worse than having writers or joke theft.
- 3:59Tim and Ray look up the Forrest Gump book on Google and find the opening page, realizing a coked-out agent pitched this explicitly crude book as heartwarming in the 1980s.
Forrest GumpJohn C. RileyWinston Groom
- 3 min
No Book Is Funny (Confederacy of Dunces, Catch-22, Bourdain)
#Tim argues that no book has ever actually made him laugh out loud, citing Catch-22 and Confederacy of Dunces as overrated, and admits comedy has ruined his ability to find things funny. This drifts into discussing Anthony Bourdain's shows, which he never found funny either.
5moments
- 6:01Tim's stance: no book is funny, period—not a single one.
- 6:21Even Jack Handy's book, which Tim found hilarious, proves it's impossible to make a funny book.
- 6:33Catch-22, supposedly hilarious by consensus, is unfucking readable and boring to Tim.
- 6:48Confederacy of Dunces is as funny as a book will ever get, but that's not saying much.
- 6:59Bourdain's shows were always called hilarious by everyone, but Tim never found them that way.
Catch-22Anthony BourdainJack HandyConfederacy of DuncesForrest GumpStar Wars
- 4 min
Anthony Bourdain's Death and the Hero Narrative
#They discuss the sudden cultural canonization of Bourdain after his suicide, mocking the idea that eating fancy food abroad is a subversive act, and contrasting it with Subway's Jared as an alternate example of a food-based cultural figure.
8moments
- 7:50Bourdain was smart and a good guy, but his shows were never funny to Tim because they were self-important and serious.
- 8:13Tim wanted Bourdain to break the fourth wall and acknowledge the absurdity—like admitting it's ridiculous to discuss hummus while a family laments their missing daughter.
- 8:45Eric Kondabalu called Bourdain a hero, which Tim sees as emblematic of how his death became about people's desire to feel remorse.
- 9:03Consuming Bourdain appeals to middle-class people who think eating dessert on vacation is subversive behavior.
- 9:32Bourdain cared about poor people's cuisine, but most people just don't care about the people who make and eat burritos.
- 9:48To actually be subversive with food, become a bloated pay pig humiliating yourself on TV for 15 years like Subway Jared did.
- 10:13Jared destroyed whatever made him human and forced Subway to waste money protecting an active pedophile, genuinely subverting the brand from inside.
- 10:28If Jared from Subway died, that would deserve the "we lost a hero" treatment from Twitter and celebrity tributes.
Anthony BourdainJaredLin-Manuel MirandaEric Kondabalu
- 4 min
Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tweet and Trump/Alice Johnson Pardon Hypocrisy
#Tim rips into Lin-Manuel Miranda's tone-deaf tweet reacting to Bourdain's suicide by hanging, then pivots to media outrage over Trump pardoning Alice Johnson being framed as 'good but for bad reasons,' and broader hypocrisy about pandering.
9moments
- 10:47Tim suggests suicidal people should contact Lin-Manuel Miranda to see how quickly he dismisses them.
- 11:03Lin-Manuel Miranda's suicide prevention tweet about hanging was weirdly self-centered and poorly worded.
- 11:28Twitter users cancel people daily for disagreement, then the next day post about mental health support.
- 12:00During the Obama administration, ideology felt less fractured than it does now into tiny camps of five people.
- 12:57Vox's headline that Trump pardoning Alice Johnson is good but his reason is bad doesn't make logical sense.
- 13:16All politicians pander—the real question is whether the pandering actually helps people, and Trump's pardon of Alice Johnson did.
- 13:44Hillary Clinton gave lip service to the gay community 35 years late and everyone treated her like a hero.
- 14:20Suggesting people think logically about things has become an attack, especially when people behave irrationally.
- 14:37Comedians like Brandon Mordell blamed irony and their own comedy for Trump's election after it happened.
Lin-Manuel MirandaHillary ClintonDonald TrumpAlice JohnsonKim KardashianBrandon Mordell
- 5 min
Trump Broke Hollywood's Brain, and Celebrity Activism's Impotence
#Discussion of how the 2016 election seemed to break something in Hollywood and comedy, using Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression and celebrity anti-death-penalty campaigns as examples of celebrity activism accomplishing little, plus praise for Rush Limbaugh's unapologetic honesty.
10moments
- 15:30Sandy Hook marked a turning point where Tim had to step back and ask what the fuck was going on.
- 15:44Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression on SNL created the illusion that Hollywood could play a larger political role.
- 16:12Fey's sketch worked because she used Palin's actual words, making people believe in Hollywood's newfound power.
- 16:24Hollywood celebrities have always been impotent because they're trapped inside the system they claim to critique.
- 17:01Celebrity death penalty campaigns in the 1990s never actually changed anything despite massive star power behind them.
- 17:21People reject celebrity activism because they sense it's all pretend and the celebrities' lives don't mirror ordinary people's lives.
- 17:50Tim respected Rush Limbaugh for not pretending to be a good person—a fat capitalist in a mansion who leaned into what he was.
- 18:35Come Town works as a model because it skips creative direction and just aims for the stupid humor that made people laugh at twelve.
- 19:20Most comedy now starts at Yale with ambitious people trying to think their way into fame rather than starting with genuine dumb bullshit.
- 19:58The relevant model is independence—no advertisers dictating content, no standards and practices, nothing between creator and audience.
Rush LimbaughTina FeyCome TownBrandon MordellSarah PalinSandy HookHollywood
- 3 min
Come Town, Independent Platforms, and Ari Shaffir's Freedom
#They talk about the Come Town show's independence from advertisers and standards and practices, contrasting it with Comedy Central's censorship (refusing to call Richard Spencer a white supremacist), and praising Ari Shaffir's carefree lifestyle and copyright indifference.
8moments
- 20:19Comedy Central rejected calling Richard Spencer a white supremacist, asking him to use white nationalist instead.
- 20:42Tim refuses to dignify Spencer's preferred terminology, explaining what he actually believes in.
- 21:27Gas Digital has a legal team and confidence in their ability to respond to lawsuits.
- 22:01Living without a wife or kids gives Ari the freedom to disappear for months or move to a cave in Myanmar.
- 22:30Ari represents a successful model of doing your own thing independent of the industry.
- 22:51Independent comedians still need some validation from the system, not complete rejection of it.
- 23:01Tim wants recognition that he could write something with mass appeal, not just maintain Come Town's success.
- 23:30You still have to play the industry's game to some extent because crowdfunding a movie or pilot is difficult.
Richard SpencerComedy CentralAri ShaffirGaS DigitalLewis Gómez
- 4 min
Bourdain's Production Company, Celebrity Chefs, and a Pitch for 'Worldwide Dinner Pig'
#Tim jokes about his own project being produced by Bourdain's company and having to pivot to a lesser host, then riffs on the rise of celebrity chefs (Emeril, Gordon Ramsay) and pitches a fictional abrasive food show called Worldwide Dinner Pig that insults other cultures' cuisine.
9moments
- 23:44Bourdain's production company was being used for Tim's project when Bourdain died, creating awkward logistics.
- 24:06Tim jokes about the company having to transition from Bourdain's high-minded content to his own low-brow pitches.
- 24:24Tim suggests giving Parts Unknown to Mario Batali as a memorial to Bourdain.
- 24:48The concept of celebrity chefs didn't exist 20 years ago—Emeril cemented it.
- 25:17Celebrity chefs work because everybody eats, unlike niche professions like Finnish carpentry.
- 26:00Successful chefs get courted by investors who franchise their names and put them on everything from Vegas restaurants to Wawa's.
- 26:40Guy Fieri wasn't really a great chef—he was just a white guy comfortable eating other cultures' food.
- 27:04Bourdain's actual appeal was being a guy willing to travel and find other cultures interesting, not culinary expertise.
- 27:20Tim pitches a show where he travels to places and just complains about them instead.
Anthony BourdainParts UnknownMario Batalicelebrity chefEmeril Lagasse
- 7 min
Bourdain Didn't Teach Anyone About Culture
#Extended riff arguing that eating foreign food doesn't actually teach you about a culture, comparing it to human traffickers claiming cultural immersion, and mocking the Lin-Manuel Miranda tweet again along with Trump's pardon motives.
10moments
- 27:47Tim argues that Anthony Bourdain was treated as a hero despite embodying cultural condescension while traveling.
- 28:06The concept of an arrogant chef criticizing local food and causing diplomatic incidents could make a genuinely funny show, but modern comedy avoids that approach.
- 29:53Foodie culture's claim that eating other cuisines teaches you about other cultures is false—it's just eating.
- 30:41People cite Bourdain showing respect to dishwashers as his legacy, but he gave obvious moral advice that doesn't require consumption of luxury food.
- 31:30Tim argues against obsessing over whether someone's caring is authentically motivated if the action itself demonstrably helps people.
- 31:51Lin-Manuel Miranda's suicidal-prevention tweets are performative; he wouldn't respond to someone actually asking for help.
- 32:34Tim applies the same logic to Trump pardoning a nonviolent drug offender—the motive doesn't matter if the outcome is good.
- 32:55Shaming people as human garbage into stopping racism uses the same social pressure tactics you'd criticize in people you disagree with.
- 33:23Modern culture places more value on empty moral lip service than on actions that achieve real effects.
- 33:46Gen X slacker nihilism—people stoned on a couch—is more tolerable than people convinced they're changing the system by tweeting from their phones.
- 4 min
Tim reacts to a news story about two teens arrested for filming a mentally disabled classmate, praising honest cruelty over performative virtue, then riffs on talk radio psychics like John Edwards and the Long Island Medium, before pitching a fake show where he's a medium who talks to dead slaves for permission to say slurs about Trump.
9moments
- 34:27Kids filmed a mentally disabled classmate pulling his pants down at the urinal at school.
- 34:39Tim finds hope in the fact that kids are still just honest pieces of shit without moral posturing.
- 34:52Tim prefers the Rush Limbaugh style of cynicism—naked and unpretentious—over sanctimonious versions.
- 35:17He loved talk radio as a kid because all the hosts were psychotic.
- 35:31Delilah's advice to rape victims involved finding silver linings and playing Celine Dion.
- 36:23Before the internet, radio was the only way to access sociopaths like Limbaugh, Bob Grant, and Michael Savage.
- 36:58John Edwards, the crossing-over fraud, gets booked as an expert to discuss current events.
- 37:26Long Island Medium Teresa Caputo is treated as a legitimate spiritual advisor despite being provably fake.
- 37:56Tim pitches a show where he plays a medium who talks to dead slaves and uses slurs to attack Trump, with network approval.
Dr. Laura SchlesingerJohn EdwardsRush LimbaughTeresa CaputoBob GrantDelilahCeline DionDave Smith+6 more
- 2 min
Nick Mullen's Slave-Talking Pilot and Delilah's Sappy Radio Advice
#Callback to an actual ABC pilot Tim wrote on with Nick Mullen involving talking to slaves, then a tangent into radio host Delilah's absurdly saccharine advice and her habit of playing Celine Dion no matter the tragedy, and Steve Rannazzisi's fake 9/11 survivor lie.
6moments
- 38:35Tim wrote on an ABC pilot where Nick Mullen talks to slaves, getting permission from them to say the N-word when referring to Donald Trump.
- 39:05The pilot featured guests like Esther Koo, Ali Wong, and Reza Aslan coming to talk to dead slaves through Nick as a medium.
- 39:17Delilah's tragic loss of her son sent her into soft rock and elevator music as a coping mechanism.
- 39:37People complained about the elevator music on her show until it was removed, though Tim thought it was actually nice background music.
- 39:52Tim wonders if elevator music got ruined forever because it was playing in the Twin Towers during 9/11.
- 40:16Steve Buscemi supposedly made it out of the towers, though Tim has only briefly met him.
Nick MullenReza AslanSteve RanaziziEsther KooSam TripoliDelilahAli Wong
- 4 min
Quincy Jones III's Mesothelioma Special and the Psychology of Lying
#Tim gives his theory on how comedian Quincy Jones III's offhand joke about having a year to live from mesothelioma snowballed into an actual HBO special, and discusses how casual exaggerations and lies compound over time, including his own fake 9/11 survivor fantasy.
8moments
- 40:53Tim argues that lying is funny, and getting caught in a lie is especially funny.
- 41:05He describes making things up in casual conversation, like telling an Uber driver a false job.
- 41:35Quincy Jones was diagnosed with stage four mesothelioma and received an HBO special, though Tim notes the special itself doesn't cure the disease.
- 42:09Tim's read: Jones went to an open mic drunk after his diagnosis and exaggerated how serious it was for comedic effect, which comedians do constantly.
- 43:03He explains that Jones probably exaggerated on stage because that's what you do, and the lie spiraled when someone at the open mic took it seriously.
- 43:38The situation snowballed from that open mic moment into Ellen appearances and HBO deals, at which point Jones should have come clean.
- 44:14Tim doesn't think Jones completely fabricated his disease, but probably exaggerated it in a lie that stuck around.
- 44:40He describes the impulse to adopt a false identity, like claiming to have survived 9-11 just to tell that story from that perspective.
- 5 min
A Guy Who Lied About Beating Someone Up, and Attention-Seeking Cowardice
#Story about an acquaintance who exaggerated a fight story that snowballed through the grapevine, leading into a riff on why pursuing fame/comedy is inherently cowardly and self-serving, and mocking people who berate comedians online for 'wasting their lives' pursuing comedy.
9moments
- 45:35Tim recounts a story about someone who claimed to beat someone up, but the tale kept getting diluted through retellings.
- 46:09The original teller frantically walks back the story when confronted, revealing he only witnessed a sucker punch and didn't throw it himself.
- 46:41Tim brings up Quincy Jones as an example of someone who fabricated stories and got a whole special out of it.
- 47:21Anger at liars who succeed is really just jealousy that they didn't figure out the flaw in the system themselves.
- 47:59Big celebrities tweet back at struggling comedians asking if pursuing comedy was worth it, ignoring whether they have kids or other obligations.
- 48:31Pursuing any creative interest is cowardice—it's people crying and running away from their own mortality.
- 49:06Tim's favorite thing: people who say they don't want to pursue something creative because they just want to be famous, then cite celebrity harassment as a cautionary tale.
- 49:34Attention doesn't feel bad at all—it's great, even with threats and people knowing your address.
- 49:47The real reason people don't pursue creative work is fear of failing and fear of not having control over the outcome.
Joe ListPatton OswaltKim KardashianMartin OrmanQuincy
- 5 min
Narcissism, Internet Trolls, and Being Known Through a Podcast
#Discussion of how public scrutiny is a fair trade for narcissism, how trolls are mostly just bored rather than self-loathing, and how fans feel they know him through the podcast, including an anecdote about a fan asking about Nick Mullen.
10moments
- 50:03Most people have base-level narcissism that would benefit from having their personal life scrutinized the way celebrities' are.
- 50:20Tim says anonymous internet criticism about deep insecurities is actually good for his mental health.
- 50:54Being laughed at by hundreds of people online isn't that bad when you think about it.
- 51:07He's become friends with people who only know him through the podcast.
- 51:27When people ask what Nick Mullen is like, Tim responds by asking for orange juice and milk instead of answering.
- 51:46Internet trolls aren't necessarily people who hate themselves—a lot of the time they're just bored.
- 52:32Criticism used to make him angry, but he learned that one clip someone dislikes doesn't represent the totality of who he is.
- 53:07Tim thinks a lot of people who have problems with what they do are stupid and bad at comedy.
- 53:37He's only doing this because he's funny, not because he's a good person or wants to change the world.
- 54:03There's too much emphasis on whether people are good or bad—that judgment should belong to God or the church, not internet scolds.
- 4 min
Bringing Back the Church to Judge Good and Bad
#Tim argues morality judgments should be left to God/the church rather than internet moralizers, mocking people who call out racists but never volunteer, and his own failed attempt to volunteer at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.
10moments
- 54:58Nobody can be an expert in morality day-to-day—you can't do morality open mics for 20 years.
- 55:14When you suggest to these people they work at a soup kitchen, they look at you like you're insane.
- 55:27They just point out who's bad and say they shouldn't have a platform instead of actually doing charity work.
- 55:41Tim tried to work at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving but they said it was full and offered him a future date—he doesn't want Tuesday.
- 56:13People volunteer because they want to feel magnanimous, mostly just sorting trash bags in kitchens that smell like death with no interaction with the people they're helping.
- 56:38Some people are genuinely good and do missionary work—they're a different kind of person, almost divine, like his grandmother who was selfless because of the church.
- 57:21Nobody who gets on a stage every night is a great person, which is the issue with comedians judging morality.
- 57:49He learned from a documentary to move away from hyper-focusing on good and bad behavior.
- 58:00Making judgments about good and bad just gives people a way to elevate themselves above their peers—it doesn't rectify behavior or advance knowledge.
- 58:16All of this quest for knowledge is weaponized—people go in trying to prove others wrong rather than pursuing open-ended discovery of truth.
- 3 min
Where to Live, and a Real Poor-Person Parts Unknown
#Casual talk about whether to ever leave New York or LA given career constraints, then back to mocking Bourdain-style shows, referencing The Florida Project's use of real poor kids as actors and the ethics of exploitation versus dramatization.
7moments
- 58:46Tim's never left New York City and now regrets it at 33, locked into either NYC or LA by his job.
- 59:14The conversation pivots to a 'Parts Unknown' concept, but for actually poor people rather than wealthy travelers pretending to care.
- 59:46Tim mocks the irony of audiences treating poor people's basic meals as profound and subversive when presented by the wealthy.
- 1:00:07The Florida Project used actual poor kids from a real hotel complex, raising questions about whether the filmmakers helped them afterward.
- 1:00:40Laughing at something is worse than exploiting it for commercial and dramatic gain, Tim argues absurdly.
- 1:00:57Tim presents an extreme hypothetical: a rape documentary where actual rapes are filmed to show the effects, treated as legitimate art.
- 1:01:14Meanwhile, a fake Chinese accent triggers outrage and calls for execution, highlighting the contradiction in what society deems acceptable.
- 3 min
A Fake Rape Documentary and Delilah Call-In Bit
#A dark bit imagining a documentary that actually rapes women for authenticity, contrasted with outrage over fictional depictions, capped with another Delilah call-in parody about being raped for a documentary.
5moments
- 1:02:06Come Town is formulaic and incredibly juvenile, but Tim defends it as a great show with good dynamic and humor.
- 1:02:45Tim has become upper middle class and admits he's now a piece of shit who wastes money instead of taking the train home at 2 a.m.
- 1:03:33Success makes it hard not to take yourself too seriously, and Tim watches it happen to people all the time.
- 1:04:01Tim argues audiences who invested in him deserve to see his fall play out publicly, as they did with Anthony Kumia's downfall.
- 1:04:29People should see the entire narrative arc because audiences want to feel truly close to you through both rise and fall.
- 3 min
Whether Come Town Should Change, and the Inevitable Fall From Grace
#Tim and Ray-substitute-guest discuss whether Come Town needs new format ideas, how success and money quickly corrupt creative instincts, and how audiences deserve to witness a public downfall the way they witnessed the rise, citing Anthony Cumia as an example before wrapping the episode.
5moments
- 1:05:17Tim on the myth that failing repeatedly leads to eventual success—you fail a couple times, succeed, then fail again with no way to understand what worked.
- 1:05:40Guest argues the show's success came from specific elements—Tim and three others—rather than random luck, contradicting Tim's resistance to that kind of analysis.
- 1:06:12Tim predicts listeners would tire of Come Town's dynamic within six months; once novelty fades, familiarity breeds resentment rather than loyalty.
- 1:06:30Tim compares it to living with a woman: as she becomes familiar, every action irritates you, and when you're honest about that on camera, the audience witnesses the artistic descent.
- 1:07:05Tim dismisses the appeal of documentaries about what comedians or criminals are really like—nobody cares; they want the jokes or the action, not the artist's inner monologue.