Episode 314 · The Ben Avery Era
White Marble with Paul Virzi | The Tim Dillon Show #314
with Paul Virzi
Sep 4, 2022 · 1:14:00 · 339,000 views · 23 segments, 154 moments indexed
Tim Dillon and Paul Virzi talk parents having meltdowns at their kid's sporting events, how Paul spends money like an Italian and justifies it to his wife, and the last thing Tim will give up if it all goes south.
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- 3 min
Tim jokes with guest Paul Virzi about pulling up to the Comedy Store in a Bentley, then riffs on missing the era before people knew smoking was bad for you and how boomers like Jackie Gleason just enjoyed vices without guilt, before circling to Paul's new Netflix special "Nocturnal Admissions."
6moments
- Tim notes Paul Virzi arrived in a Bentley, which made him genuinely happy.
- Paul says the good news is he's at the comedy store and not in jail, after a rough few years in LA with people getting killed.
- Tim wishes he lived in a time when nobody knew smoking was bad for you, so you could just enjoy cigarettes without a death wish.
- People in that era really valued fun and letting loose, which society has done away with now.
- Paul admits his wife fights with him because he has too much fun—he'll have two White Claws and be up all night, then be a mess with the kids for two days.
- Tim points out Paul goes to Beverly Hills for a week while his wife doesn't have a Netflix special, asking him to wake up a little bit.
- 9 min
Paul and Tim discuss touring through the pandemic while other comics stayed home, the absurd hygiene theater (spraying packages, fake air filtration claims), doing shows the week before the 2020 election while Trump had Covid, and grappling with the idea that people may have gotten sick or died from their tours.
20moments
- Tim jokes he got COVID like he was waiting for a PlayStation to drop at midnight online
- During the pandemic era, Tim wonders if there will ever be a more interesting time to do stand-up in their lifetimes
- Some comics with full schedules claimed they were being responsible by not touring, but Tim notes nobody was booking them anyway
- Comics who went out early and got sick had to post warnings about shaking hands at meet-and-greets
- Tim explains he'd been doing comedy since late 2010 and finally had audiences wanting to see him after 13 years
- Now people claim the truth is that cloth masks didn't work and only N95 masks provided protection
- Hand sanitizer and wiping down packages turned out to be pointless—nobody needed to spray down delivery boxes
- Tim remembers doing stand-up the week before the 2020 election while Trump was hospitalized with COVID
- Tim told his opener they could find out the president was dead in the middle of the show
- They performed at the height of the pandemic with table partitions, masks, and some shows outside
- Tim asked his wife if it was okay to keep touring and told people to be safe if they wanted to come out
- Comedy clubs are infectious disease breeding grounds with people close together eating, drinking, and laughing
- Club owners said they recycled the air to justify staying open, but nobody knew what that meant
- Tim doesn't know how many people died from his tour but found out one guy got sick
- People could have died going to the grocery store anyway, so Tim decided to keep performing
- Some people made a conscious choice to attend shows knowing the risk because they weren't living in fear anymore
- Tim believes comedy is a live sport and must be seen live, not as livestreams or Zoom performances
- Rather than not do stand-up for two years, Tim chose to go out and tour to develop his material
- Being on the road allowed Tim to work on his special material live with his fans seeing him at his best
- Having fans see you perform live in your element is better than just watching clips
Donald TrumpBrett ErnstStan Sharer
- 2 min
Ad read for Established Titles, the novelty Scottish land-plot gift service that lets buyers call themselves lord or lady, plant a tree, and get a discount with code TIM DILLON.
6moments
- Established Titles lets you buy one square foot of Scottish land and legally call yourself a lord or lady.
- Tim notes you get a certificate with a unique plot number showing your exact land location in Edelson, Scotland.
- You can officially change your name on credit cards, plane tickets, and dating profiles to your new lord or lady title.
- Tim's buyers using his link will be clustered next to his plot within walking distance, creating a Tim Dillon Show kingdom.
- Tim received the certificate and finds it genuinely cool to have the title of lord.
- The appeal of buying a title instead of earning one: the best accomplishments are things you can buy, and they plant a tree with every order.
Established Titles
- 1 min
- 3 min
Paul talks about shielding his kids from the internet's dark corners, his daughter's push for TikTok, and the story of bribing his daughter Sophia with an iPhone 11 if she scored a goal, which she then did dramatically in the final game of a winless season.
8moments
- Tim's daughter asked for TikTok; he refused after learning kids on the platform are watching sexual content.
- His son watches basketball and YouTube but keeps his head down so much that Tim feels ignored, unlike how they grew up.
- Tim's kids seem happier than he and his peers were, but they're distracted; he's fighting it.
- Tim bribes his kids with cash and goods—the Italian approach—rather than negotiating rules.
- Sophia's soccer team scored one goal all season and never won, forcing Tim to drive to embarrassing tournaments across towns.
- Tim offered Sophia an iPhone 11 if she scored a goal in the final game; she didn't score in the first half.
- In the second half, Sophia starts running the ball, it ricochets to her, and she lofts it over the goalie's head to score.
- During the game, Sophia runs over to Tim in the middle of play and demands the iPhone 11 he promised.
- 3 min
Tim and Paul discuss out-of-control youth sports parents, including a story about two brothers who beat up a Little League coach on Long Island in 2007 after their kid got benched, and parents physically confronting umpires and coaches.
8moments
- Tim pays his kid cash for scoring 20 points and offers $300 for honor roll, plus sneakers.
- Parents canceled a game in Queens against an unbeatable team so they could go drink instead.
- Two types of sports parents when Tim was growing up: ones who didn't care, and ones who physically attacked coaches and refs.
- Two connected Long Island guys attacked a baseball coach on the field in 2007 over their son being benched for cursing.
- The brothers Frank Basile and Roger Bastille, who owned a restaurant called Hudson and McCoy, were arrested for beating the coach.
- Tim jokes about the brothers in the holding cell explaining they beat up a little league coach to keep their kids' coach in line.
- Another incident where a parent confronted an umpire, took his mask off, and left the field entirely.
- Tim notes this level of insanity happens constantly on Long Island.
Long IslandHudson and McCoyBellmore Ball Field
- 2 min
A story about a local coach who snapped and cursed out eight-year-olds over a soccer ball, resulting in him being banned not just from coaching but from being seen on the property at all, followed by musings on parental pressure driving coaches to the edge.
4moments
- Tim recounts a coach in his district who kicked a soccer ball at eight-year-olds and swore at them, getting banned not just from coaching but from being seen on the property.
- He ran intramurals once and learned to read which kids wanted to win, coaching them toward victory rather than projecting his own ambitions.
- The banned coach probably lost thirteen weeks straight and brought his frustration home, with his wife asking him to do something about it at breakfast.
- After the coach kicked the ball and cursed at the kids, the community decided he was never coming back, period.
- 3 min
Paul and Tim talk about how dangerous and decayed New York City has become, homeless people reaching breaking points on subways and in Austin, and their shared desire to live in wealthy, insulated communities away from public life.
7moments
- New York City has declined so much that Tim avoids taking his family there because of homeless people and hustlers who scare his kids.
- Tim witnessed someone in Austin have a breaking point and try to jump in front of a car, which he compares to the daily desperation on NYC subways.
- Tim's theory: someone trapped on the subway all day watching families laugh and leave for Westchester in a Jaguar reaches a breaking point.
- Tim specifies he doesn't want to live near people who fly commercial airlines—he wants to live in neighborhoods so wealthy that nobody's even home.
- Those ultra-rich areas are basically money laundering operations with Mossad-level security where people commit white-collar crime while summering in Paris.
- Tim has always been attracted to areas where people were so rich it was confusing, even as a kid before he had money.
- His comedy friends mock him for liking expensive restaurants and wanting to fly private someday, which he acknowledges is his actual goal.
- 8 min
A long riff on the addictive pull of luxury estacacy's concern about his spending on sneakers and first class flights, comparisons of American airport lounges to Qantas and British Airways lounges, and Tim's disgust at flying coach next to sick people.
11moments
- Tim flies first class and can't afford it, but says he'll sell the Bentley before going back to coach.
- Once you sit in first class, going back to coach feels almost insulting.
- Stacy kills him over his spending habits when he travels to cities and buys sneakers.
- Tim tells his wife he wants a horse, wants to dress like hypebeasts, and wants white marble everywhere in his house.
- Giannis redid his basement with all white marble, and Tim can't stop staring at it like a fly to a light.
- Tim flew business class to cities and had to upgrade to first after bumping a guy's elbow.
- Stacy asked to take charge of the money after seeing his spending, warning it could become a big problem for their marriage.
- Tim bought two pairs of Jordans at the mall, then walked past another sneaker store and bought a third pair.
- He's on a four-day trip with five pairs of sneakers that he has to ship home because they don't fit in his luggage.
- Delta Sky Club changed his life, though he admits American lounges don't compete with British Airways in London or Qantas in Australia.
- In coach you sit next to diseased people, and Tim describes being that person himself on budget gigs, blowing his nose in a ratty backpack.
Delta Sky ClubBrian ReganRon WhiteYannis PappasPete Davidson
- 1 min
Tim describes silently blessing coach passengers as they walk by first class, and Paul recounts feeling guilty turning down an upgrade, leading into ribbing Ben about not comping Paul's first class flights.
4moments
- Tim blesses coach passengers in silent prayer as he walks past them to first class.
- The guilt of flying first class frequently, then being demoted to coach when the upgrade costs a thousand extra dollars.
- Paul sits in coach every time and points back at Tim mockingly as Tim passes him on the way to first class.
- Tim clarifies that the business pays for Paul's travel when he comes to New York, so they're not bankrolling his first-class upgrades.
- 2 min
Riff on treating fine dining like a drug addiction, wanting the best seafood tower like Prince supposedly loved, and a dark joke about wanting to eat Michael Jackson's last meal before his fatal propofol overdose.
3moments
- Tim explains his obsession with expensive restaurants and rare meals stems from an addictive personality, comparing the thrill of seeking the perfect seafood tower to his former pursuit of high-quality drugs.
- He jokingly expresses wanting to eat the exact last piece of sushi Michael Jackson consumed before his propofol-induced coma, framing it as the ultimate culinary experience.
- Tim candidly admits to having used propofol recreationally and describes the high as superior to any food experience, joking about which sponsor might provide it.
- 4 min
A serious discussion of the Leaving Neverland documentary, the parents who allegedly handed their kids over to Michael Jackson, comparisons to Bill Cosby and Woody Allen, and how hard it is to enjoy an artist's work once you know what they did.
8moments
- Tim asked for his stance on Michael Jackson, admits he can't listen to his music anymore after learning about the allegations.
- True crime podcasts exploiting deaths of children for profit, particularly women-hosted shows like My Favorite Murder, strike him as immoral.
- Leaving Neverland documentary presents accounts from multiple accusers with matching details about Jackson requesting extended time with children.
- Parents allegedly allowed Jackson to have their children for half a year, which he describes as insane and fucked up.
- Michael Jackson is an incredible artist, but the allegations make it impossible to listen to his music without thinking about them.
- Bill Cosby told great community stories but drugged and assaulted women for 30 years, making it impossible to separate the behavior from the work.
- The tension between separating art from artist versus the difficulty of enjoying someone's work when they've done something heinous, especially for fathers.
- Being a father makes the Michael Jackson situation particularly difficult to compartmentalize.
Bill CosbyMichael JacksonWoody Allentrue crimeMy Favorite MurderLeaving Neverland
- 2 min
A tangent about how creepy and gross wedding/club DJs can be, including an awkward encounter with a DJ offering mixtapes, and a note that DJs should read the room for bar mitzvahs.
2moments
- Tim doesn't know any DJs because he's successful, joking about the social hierarchy between major and local DJs.
- Wedding DJs and event DJs from Long Island are gross, according to Tim.
- 3 min
Back-to-back ad reads for DraftKings NFL Week One betting promos and MeUndies underwear, with Tim plugging both as sponsors and noting he's wearing MeUndies right now.
3moments
- Tim reacts to DraftKings' early win promotion where you get paid instantly if your team leads by seven points at any point, even if they lose.
- The ability to deposit and withdraw cash whenever you want is the key feature that separates DraftKings from competitors.
- Tim endorses DraftKings and says he loves betting on sports and watching sports.
- 3 min
Back-to-back ad reads for DraftKings NFL Week One betting promos and MeUndies underwear, with Tim plugging both as sponsors and noting he's wearing MeUndies right now.
3moments
- Tim reacts to DraftKings' early win promotion where you get paid instantly if your team leads by seven points at any point, even if they lose.
- The ability to deposit and withdraw cash whenever you want is the key feature that separates DraftKings from competitors.
- Tim endorses DraftKings and says he loves betting on sports and watching sports.
- 2 min
Discussion of whether "woke" backlash to comedy is fading, praise for Netflix defending Chappelle and Gervais specials, and an anecdote about a trans employee's internal protest being dismissed by Netflix leadership, capped with a Casino movie reference.
3moments
- Tim credits Netflix for backing comedians with edgy material, saying they saw his special and decided it belongs there because it's funny.
- Netflix defended Chappelle and Ricky Gervais by publicly stating these are jokes, sending a signal to critics about comedy's purpose.
- A trans woman Netflix employee upset about the Chappelle special was throwing her weight around on Twitter, but the company sided with the comedians instead.
- 3 min
Paul plugs his upcoming London, DC, and Philly tour dates via paulvirzi.com, and describes wanting his next comedy hour to move away from topical material toward personal stories for a book he's writing called "The Boomer Guide to Parenting."
8moments
- Paul's live dates available at paulversie.com
- First UK show in London in October during the Giants-Packers NFL game
- Planning to take his family to London, then Paris or Italy afterward
- Doing smaller venues like DC Improv and Philly Punch Line to create and experiment with new material
- Loved performing at smaller rooms like the Listening Room in Grand Rapids with 200 capacity
- Next hour will move away from topical material that came from the podcast
- Writing a book called 'The Boomer Guide to Parenting' about his parents and growing up in the 90s
- Wants to focus on how insane, detached, and aloof his parents were and the terrible food they served
The Listening RoomNew York GiantsDC ImprovPunch LineGreen Bay Packers
- 3 min
Paul and Tim talk about the difference between the show's topical humor (like Hunter Biden jokes) and Paul's ambition to mine deeply personal material, referencing his door-to-door cable sales days in Queens as fodder.
8moments
- Tim wants to get super personal in stand-up, mining his own experience for funny material.
- The show does topical jokes every week, like late night TV, but stand-up should go back to where he started.
- Tim acknowledges he'll still be talking about Hunter Biden's dick for money on the show.
- Masters like Bill Burr had to keep getting better and sharper, taking the long road to the top.
- Going on tour dates and crowd work teaches you how to build bits and refine material.
- Tim grew up in the 90s hip-hop era and remembers door-knocking in Queens for cable sales at dinner time.
- He'd smell food from people's homes while asking to see their cable bills, sometimes almost getting killed but also making sales.
- That's the kind of personal material Tim wants to use in his stand-up special, and it's not easy to execute.
- 3 min
Paul explains his current approach to writing new material by just talking about real observations on stage (like a young-looking airline pilot) and trusting himself to find the punchlines, referencing the origin of his Nocturnal Admissions closer about his son.
6moments
- Tim explains how he's learned to approach his hourly specials by going on stage and trusting his instincts, building jokes from raw observations rather than pre-planned material.
- A young pilot in Grand Rapids with a baby face and wrinkled shirt looked so inexperienced that Tim couldn't believe he was actually going to fly the aircraft.
- His closer in Nocturnal Emissions features a story about playing basketball with his son, who curses at him and gets in his face during the game.
- Louis C.K. did something amazing by making his own movie and releasing it independently, which Tim says they're looking to do as well.
- Tim theorizes that talented people like Louis C.K. succeed because they have the mental capacity to absorb a lot of information and apply it to recognize emerging opportunities and technology.
- By seeing what Louis C.K. did with self-distribution and new platforms, comics like Tim benefit from having a blueprint already laid out.
- 3 min
Discussion of Louis C.K. self-financing and distributing his own movie as a model for creative autonomy, then a pivot to Paul's son wanting to be flown to Panama to fish after seeing a YouTube video, illustrating how spoiled/detached from reality kids can become.
5moments
- Louis C.K.'s model of full autonomy and self-distribution is where creatives are heading.
- Modern filmmakers shoot movies on iPhones; Tangerine was shot on iPhone in 2016.
- Tim's kids are spoiled by nice cars and leather seats, unaware of the jalopy station wagons their grandparents drove.
- Tim's son saw a YouTube clip and now demands to be taken fishing in Panama instead of the Long Island Sound.
- The kid bought a top-of-the-line fishing pole without actually fishing, just because he saw a video.
NetflixTangerine
- 8 min
Paul details his upbringing: his wine-salesman father and swim-coach mother, contrasted with his tough immigrant grandparents (including a grandfather who was secretly a pool hustler), and a broader theory that boomers were the first self-focused, most-marketed generation.
11moments
- Tim recalls eating out with his parents once or twice a month, mostly fast food and deli because both parents worked constantly.
- His father was a wine salesman in New York City running around restaurants with a wine bag; his mother was a swim coach teaching private lessons all day.
- The upcoming book is a funny assault on his parents' boomer parenting and their lives, and he wants it out while they're still in their early seventies.
- Tim's parents had a brutal divorce when he was five and his older brother Christian was ten.
- His father took him to see the movie Seven when he was eight because his father wanted to see it, exemplifying oblivious boomer parenting.
- Tim argues that boomers had a defining trait of being self-focused because their own parents knew real struggle but the boomers had it easier.
- Boomer food education was horrible—lots of fast food, using food as reward or restriction based on whatever diet his mother was on at the time.
- Tim's father loved commercials: the Budweiser frogs, the fat guy at Dunkin' Donuts, and cried during the Budweiser Clydesdale commercial after 9/11.
- His parents barely encouraged college, just saying he should go to community college, with no campus tours or guidance about which schools to consider.
- Tim's Irish grandfather came to the country broke, homeless, and died a multimillionaire through general contracting, and was a boxer and pool hustler before becoming deeply moral.
- Tim's grandmother's husband died young from an amphetamine and heart problem, so she raised two kids alone while teaching full-time and stayed very religious and community-involved.
BoomersBudweiserRay KumpMcDonald'sOscar Meyer
- 4 min
Paul recounts his parents' bitter two-year divorce mediation over having literally nothing to divide except beanie babies and lamps, describing it as a chaotic, unloving but oddly funny formative experience that shaped him into a comedian.
10moments
- Tim's parents created a comedian by doing crazy things, and he wouldn't be funny without what happened to them.
- When Tim moved around as a kid, he adapted by being funny to make friends in each new place.
- His parents were completely unprepared to have a child, and the whole situation was insane looking back.
- Tim's father spent Thursday nights at a men's club complaining about his wife while his mother went to a diner to complain about him.
- The divorce lasted two years; his parents couldn't afford lawyers so a mediator came to the house to divide their possessions.
- The mediator literally divided up Beanie Babies between Tim's parents because they had nothing else to split.
- Rich people fight over cars and assets, but Tim's parents had nothing and fought bitterly over that nothing anyway.
- Tim lived with his mother for two years during the divorce, then went to his father, and he doesn't think either parent cared much who got him.
- His mother fought for custody initially, then two years later told his father to take him because she was tired of dealing with him.
- Tim hopes his book about this dysfunction will be funny enough that people recognize their own family chaos in it.
War of the Roses
- 4 min
Closing riff comparing a stoned teenage memory of dodging a friend's mom's green Ford Taurus to childhood recklessness like throwing rocks at highway traffic, tying into how different unsupervised, imagination-driven childhoods were before smartphones, before Paul closes with his tour plug.
9moments
- Tim's friend Shay's mother had a green Ford Taurus, and there was only one other green Taurus in town—driven by the Chinese delivery guy.
- When Tim and his friends were high at 15, they'd see a green Taurus coming and pray it wasn't Shay's mom's car.
- An Italian kid suggested throwing rocks at cars on the highway going 80 miles per hour, which they actually did.
- A Cadillac full of Italian guys came back after being hit with rocks, forcing Tim's group to hide in pricker bushes in the middle of the night.
- Tim contrasts growing up without smartphones to the Stranger Things era, noting the difference in childhood freedom.
- Kids used to get lost and develop deeper bonds with friends because they had to use their imaginations.
- Modern relationships are transactional and immediate, trained by technology to work differently than before.
- Now when kids sit in a treehouse, their parents have to call someone to check on them, implying they might be up to something dangerous.
- Tim jokes that kids in treehouses now are on the dark web ordering bullets instead of just hanging out.