Garage Monologues with Jay Swanson

[01:00:00.05] - Speaker 1
creators or artists, you're still wolves, and your fur is fucked up, and your lifestyle is scary. But sometimes the dogs on the other side of the window in the air conditioning are watching you and going, wow, look at him run, and I can run like that too. I'm of that, I'm from that. And I think now more than ever, it's so important to remind governments that we're still fucking wild and you will not control us.
[01:00:32.06] - Speaker 2
One of the things that shocks me the most when making these podcasts is seeing how many people listen versus how many people actually subscribe. If you look at the statistics, it's a significant jump between the two. And maybe you're watching these and you think you're subscribed, but you're not. It is the simplest and most straightforward way of supporting the show. If you don't mind just taking a moment, hitting that subscribe button, it lets the algorithm know that you are interested, you're here to watch, and it helps us to reach an even broader audience. And I promise that I'll keep doing my best to bring you interesting stories from Paris as a result. Welcome back to Garage Monologues Season 4, the very first episode. For those of you that have been here before, you know what's going on. For those of you that have never watched or listened to one of these episodes, I have been doing this podcast for a few years. I did it for 3 seasons where I would release it early for my patrons and then out into the wild. I've taken a year hiatus. It comes from, and the name comes from, when I started vlogging daily in 20— 2015, 2016, I would end up not having enough content for my vlogs.
[01:01:29.11] - Speaker 2
And I would go out into the garage and I'd set up my camera just to kind of recap the day. And what would happen is I would set up my camera and I would talk and I'd go and I'd sit to edit and I would hear myself and I'd be like, "That is not how I wanna see the world right now. That is not how I want to feel about this. It's not how I want my perspective to be." And so I'd go back out and I would monologue again, trying to keep in mind like, "No, let's try and change our perspective." in this moment. And that's where Garage Monologues originally came from, and we're going to be carrying it along in this season with transitions. We're following some interesting people like my friend Tamara here, my friend Jane, my friend Paul, maybe one or two others who are all going through interesting transitions at the same time that I am. If you're familiar with the series, it used to be one friend— every episode alternated between one with a friend and one with the— where it was just me talking to camera. This year is going to be a little bit different because we have such interesting stories going on, and instead of doing different friends every episode, we're going to follow these 3 or 4 friends as they go through their own transitions.
[01:02:27.09] - Speaker 2
So Tamer is in a new country, new language, new marriage, and a new branch to his career as a comedian as he pursues doing an entire show in French, starting from zero French spoken to being a stand-up comedian on stage making people laugh in French. Our friend Paul, a stand-up comedian as well, is actually trying to run every major marathon before he turns 40 this year, which is insane. And my friend Jane got accepted to Station F, which is an incubator here, the most famous French incubator. She's 50 years old and she's running a femtech AI startup from scratch.
[01:03:02.09] - Speaker 1 So cool.
[01:03:03.01] - Speaker 2
After, this is her third career. She was a banker, she started a cooking school here in France. She's been very successful at both, and now she's launching into something very unique and very different. So we're gonna follow all of those stories over the course of this season of Garage Monologues, which is why I'm so glad that you're here. This is the last episode we're doing in my apartment. So if you watch the first 3 seasons, each episode was actually filmed in this apartment. Not all of 'em. We, we traveled a little bit for some of them. Uh, but for the most part it was filmed in here. And the transition I'm going through is hopefully going to be into a new podcast studio. We had a little bit of a, of a setback at the beginning of, uh, this whole process. We thought this month we were gonna be transitioning into it literally in July. And we would be doing this first episode here and then going

straight to a bare-bones atelier, which is a workshop or an artist's loft, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the French word. And 12 hours before we got it, they pulled it out and, and we didn't end up getting it, which we're going to trust is going to be all for the better.
[01:03:55.21] - Speaker 2
But it was definitely a huge gut punch at the time. And so we're just going to follow these guys as they do their thing out and about in the real world. So this should be the last time you see us here. But Tamer, thanks for joining me today.
[01:04:06.23] - Speaker 1
Dude, thanks so much for having me. And Jay, lemme tell you something, Mr. Swanson.
[01:04:10.12] - Speaker 2 Yes, sir.
[01:04:11.03] - Speaker 1 I love this premise.
[01:04:12.04] - Speaker 2 Thanks.
[01:04:12.14] - Speaker 1 This is so cool.
[01:04:13.07] - Speaker 2
Tamer, why are you in France? What's going on?
[01:04:15.17] - Speaker 1
It's a very funny thing. I was married and I came to Europe during the pandemic, went through kind of a rough marriage, got divorced, and then I was like, okay, I think I'm gonna go back to New York. America wasn't as crazy as it is now.
[01:04:29.22] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:04:30.17] - Speaker 1
And when I went back, I found out that I, I knew what I went back to was a shadow of what I once had. Yeah, New York had changed dramatically. Yeah, I mean, all my— a lot of my favorite places had closed, a lot of my favorite people have moved. The energy was different. It just didn't feel like home anymore. And then I had a friend who passed away while I was there, and it just made me really like go, what are you doing? And what do you want to do? And it made me look at my mortality and stuff. And then I I did a mushroom trip, um, accidentally did way more than any human being should have.
[01:05:07.08] - Speaker 2 Accidentally?
[01:05:08.07] - Speaker 1
Yeah, it was, it was an accident. Yeah, it was, uh, because the guy who, uh, created the experience for us, he actually had a bottle of, uh, iced tea with mushroom pieces in it.
[01:05:18.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:05:18.23] - Speaker 1
And he goes, I'm going to put much more in mine because I do this all the time. I go, no problem. He's also— he wrote a J on his and a T on mine.

[01:05:25.06] - Speaker 2 Oh no.
[01:05:25.18] - Speaker 1
Um, we drank half and then we went up to a different part of the forsten Berlin and drank the other half. And at the end he just starts laughing, and I'm like, what's so funny? He's like, I never realized how much a J looks like a T. And then I was like, oh no. And then I was like in a cartoon. Yeah, I was like, holy crap. And I remember looking into the woods and seeing the first ever advertising sign I'd seen that made me want to work in advertising as a writer. And it was a tiny man on a trail in the distance and it just said, "There is no finish line." And then it said Nike. And I was like, oh my God, it's what I'd been thinking about. Like, what am I gonna do with my career? New York is no longer home. It's where I had my career and my fans, and Europe no longer felt like home. And then, you know, it just said, "There's no finish line. Just enjoy the run." You know, I told my friend, and he goes, "What would you do if you were in a marathon, there was no finish line?" I'm like, I think I'd run a little bit slower.
[01:06:20.11] - Speaker 1
And I'd appreciate the fact that I was able to run. And he goes, exactly. And that's when everything changed for me, and I went back to Europe with both feet in.
[01:06:28.01] - Speaker 2
You left a career in New York, you went to Berlin. I know that there's a through line of the whole story of how you ended up leaving New York, but from like a career perspective, why wouldn't you stay in a place like New York where it feels like to me the opportunities would have been much larger?
[01:06:44.19] - Speaker 1 Oh sure.
[01:06:45.10] - Speaker 2
And the scene is at the forefront of what's happening.
[01:06:49.05] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:06:50.04] - Speaker 2
Uh, what is the appeal of going to Berlin or landing in Paris and starting in French?
[01:06:56.01] - Speaker 1
Okay, so here's— there's a great quote that I like where it said, England invented football, but Brazil made it the beautiful game. Okay.
[01:07:02.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:07:03.03] - Speaker 1
America invented stand-up comedy.
[01:07:04.21] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:07:05.07] - Speaker 1
What I've realized is the best comedians for me now are the people who are leading the most interesting lives.
[01:07:11.17] - Speaker 2 Yeah.

[01:07:12.06] - Speaker 1
And the people that I meet in Europe, for my particular taste, are more interesting than some of the people that were doing comedy in New York.
[01:07:21.10] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:07:21.22] - Speaker 1
When I was in New York, I remember going back and being intimidated because when I was in New York, I was doing 10 sets a night. I had a proper fan base there. I was at literally the biggest clubs. I was in the Cellar every week.
[01:07:33.01] - Speaker 2
Uh, 10 sets a night is nuts. Yeah, easy. Yeah.
[01:07:36.10] - Speaker 1
I remember one night, no joke, I said, I'm not going to perform tonight, and I did 7 spots.
[01:07:40.13] - Speaker 2
Okay, just from being close to the club and you're just hanging out and somebody's like, hey, you're funny, get up here.
[01:07:45.10] - Speaker 1
Literally, that's exactly what was happening, right? And then I remember going back to New York and thinking, I'm not even doing 10 shows a week and these guys are doing 10 shows a night. I'm gonna get buried.
[01:07:56.04] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:07:56.21] - Speaker 1
And but they remembered me and they, and you know, they put me up on the showcase show. I was comedian number 4 out of 5. And I remember watching these killers, every one of them just killer, killer, killer. And then I went up and there was something different in between the jokes. Yeah, the room was silence in between the jokes, and then when I hit the punchlines, it was a big pop.
[01:08:15.19] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:08:16.04] - Speaker 1
And what I realized is I was the only comic that had a different subject matter. All the punchlines they did were amazing, but the premises were all the same.
[01:08:25.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:08:26.00] - Speaker 1
And then when I went up, I had a different life.
[01:08:28.19] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:08:29.07] - Speaker 1
And when the show was over, qualitatively, I could see it. I was surrounded by a larger amount of people than all the other comedians combined.
[01:08:37.14] - Speaker 2

Yeah.
[01:08:38.03] - Speaker 1 And I was like, holy shit.
[01:08:39.21] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:08:40.09] - Speaker 1
I'm— this intimidation that I felt, this insecurity that I felt was completely false, as is most— as are most insecurities. And I just had to keep going and believe in the art and, and do— keep using love as a fuel. And then I'm like, okay, I need to have a balanced life. I want to be able to write great comedy, and the way that I can do that is by living a more interesting life, period. It's not just by going up on stage again and again and again and then having an entire comedy set about auditions. Right, you know?
[01:09:10.16] - Speaker 2
Is that what most of them— they were, they're basically talking about like actor life, comedian life, subway, different neighborhoods, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mom, Donnie, Trump.
[01:09:20.18] - Speaker 1
Yeah, it was the same thing over and over and over. Yeah. And it wasn't bad, but I was really impressed. And to me, at this point, comedy's like— there's a musicality to it, and I appreciate a rhythm and a pacing, a timing. New York has that like nowhere else. It's still the greatest comedy in the world, Comedy City in the world. But I genuinely believe that some of the, some of the grapes that I'm seeing in Europe are going to make a phenomenal wine.
[01:09:46.05] - Speaker 2
What is it that you're trying to accomplish here?
[01:09:48.22] - Speaker 1
Ah, okay. So, um, my lifestyle in the past, because I'm an English-speaking comedian, I had to be in multiple countries every month in order to reach the amount of people that could become fans. Then when I decided that there is no finish line, I'm dropping anchor and I'm creating a home with my wife, I said, okay, I have to pick a mother tongue, a mother language in a country where I don't have to be on airplanes all the time. And when I compared the screenwriting for TV, cinema, even theater, France was just blown everyone away. Yeah, even England, to be honest. Like, I just felt like the level of writing and the topics, the courage behind the topic selection was so high in France. For example, there was a film called What Did We Do to God?
[01:10:35.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:10:35.23] - Speaker 1
And it was basically about a Catholic French family who had 4 daughters. One had married a Muslim, one had married a Jew, one had married a Chinese guy.
[01:10:47.07] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:10:47.15] - Speaker 1
And then the last daughter was like the one they had hope in, that she'd marry a good Catholic.
[01:10:51.23] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:10:52.10] - Speaker 1

And so she did marry a good Catholic, but he was from Ghana and he was Black.
[01:10:56.15] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:10:57.09] - Speaker 1
And just the, the the conversation that that created. Yeah, having a Muslim son and a Jewish son, a Chinese son, and a Black son, and the courage that it took. And so I just like— it was films like that, and I love that because that's what I've always been. I've always been a mutt of cultures and races, and, and that's where I'm most comfortable in this culture clash. So we came and visited and had just the best time.
[01:11:21.21] - Speaker 2 That's good.
[01:11:22.13] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I just feel really at home right away.
[01:11:25.01] - Speaker 2
It's really good. In moving here, you told me that you specifically had a goal, like for— I don't know if it's for this year or for how long it's going to take you.
[01:11:33.08] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:11:33.17] - Speaker 2
That I think is incredibly ambitious, especially for somebody who's learning a language.
[01:11:37.13] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Listen, Jay, I wrote this thing down the other day because I'm a comedian. I write down silly things.
[01:11:41.18] - Speaker 2 Yeah, as you should.
[01:11:42.13] - Speaker 1
And I said, becoming a great French speaker is like becoming a great stripper. You don't get good until you stop being embarrassed.
[01:11:50.15] - Speaker 2 Yeah, that's good.
[01:11:51.13] - Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a real truth to that. Yeah.
[01:11:53.06] - Speaker 2
You know, this is why I'm still not a good stripper, actually.
[01:11:57.09] - Speaker 1
But there's something— shame is a wildly underexplored emotion. Yeah, someone said online somewhere, and, and I think that there's a ton of truth to that. Yeah, you know, like last night I had a milestone where I was at a club. I had two shows in the same night, and I'm not practicing French in front of a boulanger. Yeah, I'm practicing French in front of 60 French people, and I'm saying jokes.
[01:12:18.23] - Speaker 2
Yeah, and, and when they're coming there with the expectation that you're going to make them laugh, 100%. And so they're like, we're here at a funnyman show, be funny, man.

[01:12:26.00] - Speaker 1
100%. Yeah. And with comedy, it's precision in vocabulary is quite important. But then I realized, you know, I was like, look, I'm not, I can't look at this as I have to learn to speak French perfectly because that's not a funny situation. The funny situation is the reality. I'm an American comedian who's been doing comedy for 17 years. And all of a sudden I'm trying to learn to do it in French. And so that last night, I hit this moment. You had to be—
[01:12:55.21] - Speaker 2
yeah, you said you had a landmark. You crossed the landmark.
[01:12:58.16] - Speaker 1
100%. I, I was at this club and it was great to do 2 sets because you can correct your mistakes.
[01:13:04.22] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:05.05] - Speaker 1
Observe your mistakes, correct your mistakes, and then immediately try them again.
[01:13:08.04] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:08.14] - Speaker 1
So that your brain doesn't learn it but your body does.
[01:13:11.03] - Speaker 2 Oh yeah.
[01:13:11.16] - Speaker 1
And the first show I struggled a little bit, and I'm not used to that at 17 years. I get— I'm used to getting pretty big laughs, right, at the punches.. And then the second show I said, you know what, just tell the truth. And so I opened my set by saying, hey, tonight is the second time I've ever performed in French.
[01:13:30.01] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:30.19] - Speaker 1
And the audience was like, oh wow.
[01:13:32.21] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:33.13] - Speaker 1
And then I go, and I've been a comedian for 17 years. I never thought I would leave New York City.
[01:13:37.08] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:38.00] - Speaker 1
And I go, but I fell in love with a French woman, and so I'm here, and now I'm starting over at zero.
[01:13:43.03] - Speaker 2 Wow.
[01:13:43.12] - Speaker 1

In French. So that wasn't just a set, it was a story.
[01:13:46.14] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:13:47.05] - Speaker 1
And now every joke was a part of the story of this person who is an adult but is speaking like a child and who fell in love and gave up everything to be here. And now the jokes had so much more meat behind them and so much more understanding and connection behind them. And I just killed. To where even the guy at the soundboard was like, "Come here." And he goes like that. Because he saw the set before and it was like, an epiphany. Yes, that, that's what we are. We are storytellers at the heart of this.
[01:14:20.16] - Speaker 2
And you're looking to connect. Like, what, what is the point if not to connect with people? And you're building out this show. How long is it going to take you to get to 10 minutes? How long do you think it's going to take to get you to an hour? And how are you going to actually portion your life out so that you live in a balanced fashion? Yeah, in that time, because I get the feeling that you actually are living a balanced life.
[01:14:42.11] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:14:42.19] - Speaker 2
I clearly don't live a balanced life. Teach me, Tamer. How are you going to do it?
[01:14:47.21] - Speaker 1
I was really lucky. I worked at an advertising agency called Shyatt Day.
[01:14:51.08] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:14:51.22] - Speaker 1
And the nickname was Shyatt Day and Night because we worked our asses off.
[01:14:55.12] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:14:56.04] - Speaker 1
Extremely difficult ad agency to get into. We literally were called pirates. And, you know, they— thousands of resumes a day. If you work there once, you're— it changes your career. Yeah. Every job I got after that was because I worked at Chiat/Day, and because of that, I studied creativity. Yeah, like I got paid to study creativity. And one of the biggest epiphanies for me was that creativity is not like a factory where the more coal you throw into the machine, the more product comes out. Yeah, that's more like accounting. If there's 8 hours of accounting, I want to see 8 hours worth of work.
[01:15:29.20] - Speaker 2 Yes.
[01:15:30.09] - Speaker 1
Whereas creativity is not like that. And so for me, what I remember is when I was at my most creative is when I was bored. And our boredom is under attack because of social media. I don't even remember the last time I was bored until I proactively made it a part of my, my daily routine.
[01:15:46.12] - Speaker 2 Yeah.

[01:15:47.05] - Speaker 1
And it has benefits in multiple other ways where 3 hours a day I have a time block that literally in my calendar says be bored.
[01:15:54.18] - Speaker 2
Yeah. How do you be bored intentionally? Here's my question.
[01:15:57.09] - Speaker 1
All technology. Okay. I have a notepad and a pencil and I go and sit in a park.
[01:16:02.11] - Speaker 2 I love that.
[01:16:02.22] - Speaker 1
In a park, I watch people. And you would not, some of the best stuff I've ever written has come out of that. And it's peaceful and it's calm. And it gets out these things that I call emotional contagion. Right, like if someone's sick and they sneeze on you, you get sick. But if someone's emotionally in a bad mood and they say something shitty to you, you might catch the virus. To me, like meditation or having these moments of boredom where I just sit with my thoughts, it doesn't take away shitty people, but it's a windshield wiper because if people keep sneezing on your creative windshield, you, you can't see. That 3-hour window of boredom that I give myself is a sign that I made a promise to myself. Like physically, I made a promise to go to the gym a certain amount of time and emotionally and psychologically, I made myself a promise and it's that 3-hour block of boredom and that's helped me so much and it's made me make sure that I have time where Virgilie and I still have romantic dates once a week, that we still have romantic getaways once a month, and that my fuel stays in love, not in anything else.
[01:17:16.14] - Speaker 2
How do you, like, are you doing that 3-hour block every day?
[01:17:19.13] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:17:20.23] - Speaker 2 That's amazing.
[01:17:22.18] - Speaker 1
Even if I have to stay up an extra hour at night.
[01:17:25.16] - Speaker 2
Let's take this back a step because like you've talked about how you're doing this for 17 years, and my goal would be that those people that are listening um, today. Your goal is to do a full set in French, right? Yeah, like you want to do the full thing.
[01:17:37.05] - Speaker 1
Well, there's two milestones, okay, from based on the research that I've done. Okay. Fortunately, I had, um, I used my American experience to make friends with some French comics who are professional high-level comics, and the advice they gave me is like, once you have 10 minutes, like a killer 10 minutes, you have a career in Paris. Of course, the goal is to then build, build, build to an hour But, um, my set last night was 8.
[01:18:01.15] - Speaker 2
Whoa, you almost have a career already.
[01:18:04.03] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm close. Yeah, I'm close. And the other advice I got, which was— I'm really excited about, is a friend of mine goes, look, in Paris, he's like, I'm sure it's similar in LA, there's A clubs, B clubs, and C

clubs, right? He said, because you don't— he's off course— you want to perform in the dark at the C and D clubs. He said, but you don't want to have too much video of you there.
[01:18:25.02] - Speaker 2
'Cause you don't wanna be co-branded with the places that everybody looks down on, yeah.
[01:18:29.08] - Speaker 1
But you know what, those places are critically important because they're bomb shelters. And so then I told him, I go, just answer me quickly without thinking, if you were me and you were in my situation, you had my experience, you know how to write a joke, and what would you do? He said, well, for me it's different. And I go, just tell me. He said, well, my brother lives in Marseille, so I'd go to Marseille. And I'm all, that's the second biggest city in France. And he goes, yeah. And I go, and it's the second biggest comedy scene. And he goes, yeah. And I go, how long is the train ride? He goes, 3 and a half hours. I go, dude, if I lived in New York and I could be in LA in 3 and a half hours, the second biggest comedy city, yeah, all day. Yeah, all day. Because that— you know what being a content creator is like? I thought about this the other day.
[01:19:06.20] - Speaker 2 Do I? No.
[01:19:07.20] - Speaker 1
It's like, it's funny that Paul's running marathons because I think of content creation like, imagine running a marathon.
[01:19:13.03] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:19:13.21] - Speaker 1
But everyone on the sidelines is yelling mean things or discouraging things like, what are you doing?
[01:19:21.01] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:19:21.17] - Speaker 1
You're running a marathon, you're on mile 10, and people like You're gonna get cramps.
[01:19:25.11] - Speaker 2 Your shoes aren't very nice.
[01:19:27.04] - Speaker 1
Do your parents know you're doing this? This isn't a real sport.
[01:19:31.07] - Speaker 2
You look better when you're not sweaty.
[01:19:33.01] - Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.
[01:19:34.14] - Speaker 2
Molly and I have been talking about this a lot, um, the last couple days, and people say this all the time in the creator sphere: you have to work your ass off for 10 years and then you can get started.
[01:19:45.12] - Speaker 1 That's very true.
[01:19:46.03] - Speaker 2
You have to work, and I think that comedy's got to be the same way. You got to grind away.

[01:19:49.12] - Speaker 1 It's literally the exact same.
[01:19:50.13] - Speaker 2
You got to grind, grind, grind for 10 years And then, and that's just to get started. So like, you're, you're not crossing the finish line and somebody hands you a career. You're crossing the, like, you're opening the door to get started. Yeah.
[01:20:04.07] - Speaker 1
Now the possibilities are there.
[01:20:05.10] - Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
[01:20:06.06] - Speaker 1
It gets you into the nightclub, but you still got to meet the lady.
[01:20:08.11] - Speaker 2
You still got to be funny. And now the competition's higher. Absolutely. Everything's leveled up and your problems have leveled up with it. Theoretically, you know how to handle it and you can push through.
[01:20:18.02] - Speaker 1
It's, it's through scars, not through wisdom or wisdom that came from scars.
[01:20:22.19] - Speaker 2 It's more like a warrior king.
[01:20:24.18] - Speaker 1
Than a king. Because a lot of times when people say, what is finding your voice? It's so mysterious. I go, it's not mysterious. Your taste is way up here and your ability is below that.
[01:20:34.03] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:20:34.17] - Speaker 1
And closing that gap to where your taste and your ability match, that's when you find your voice.
[01:20:39.16] - Speaker 2 That's amazing. Yeah.
[01:20:40.18] - Speaker 1
But it's funny because, and I say this to comedians all the time, don't have a favorite comedian because that's not going to guide you to your taste. That's going to guide you to your favorite comedian. But have favorite jokes.
[01:20:51.03] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:20:51.14] - Speaker 1
And the point of intersection between jokes from like 3 different comedians.
[01:20:54.12] - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's your voice. I think when I started out, especially with writing, I actually tried to remain as ignorant as possible because I wanted, I wanted it to come from me. And I was like, I don't have inspirations. Like, I don't need— I don't, I don't even read, basically. Which isn't true. I read a lot, but

like, I really kept that out. So when people would ask me, well, what are your inspirations? I'd be like, oh no, it's all from in here, which is a lie. I'm lying to myself. And then lying to them because I'm clearly inspired by other stuff.
[01:21:19.09] - Speaker 1 Of course.
[01:21:19.18] - Speaker 2
And I think that forced ignorance actually made me— was what made my early attempts at writing really derivative because I was basically just wholesale copying stuff because I wasn't admitting to myself that I was even drawing from that source.
[01:21:34.05] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:21:34.14] - Speaker 2
And I think that the faster that you can get to that place where you say, hey, find the things that you love, go towards those, build towards those, and in along the way you're going to find your own voice. Yeah, that's such a more— that's a healthier and, and such a happier way of going about it than being like, no, no, you have to come up with something completely brand new from scratch. Don't look at anybody else's source material.
[01:21:52.22] - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're, you're absolutely right, and it is— I mean, that's what creativity is. It's— what's that old saying? Every great painter painted flowers.
[01:22:02.03] - Speaker 2 How's the affogato?
[01:22:03.22] - Speaker 1
It is gone, my friend, from Belén. That is so good.
[01:22:07.20] - Speaker 2
So this is from Belén, which is like the bakery in the 16th that I love the most.
[01:22:11.18] - Speaker 1
Honestly, that, that is probably the best I've ever had.
[01:22:16.12] - Speaker 2
Whoa, shout out to Belen. Yeah, let's take a quick break. Sitting here chatting about changes and new adventures makes me reflect on my own adventure here in Paris and some of my business decisions, many of which have been good, many have been questionable. But one of the best that I ever made was spinning off all of my Paris recommendations and videos about how to do Paris into its own separate brand, Paris in My Pocket. When people came to my vlog for Paris advice and then would find a story about my life here, or maybe even me just sitting there being like, "I'm sad," that didn't really make a whole lot of sense. And so splitting those two into separate things has been one of the best choices I've ever made. If you happen to be coming to Paris for your first time, or maybe you're returning, my base guide is actually loaded with tons of articles on how to get around, where to go, how to do the city if you happen to have mobility issues. That one's free on our website at parisinmypocket.com, actually. So feel free to grab that from the blog. And in that base guide comes what you might want regardless of how many times you've been to Paris, and that is over 500 of my personal recommendations to the city of Paris when it comes to eating, drinking, and having a good time.
[01:23:19.09] - Speaker 2
These are all places that I would go back to personally for one reason or another, and I try to be as direct and honest as I can. And since it's behind a paywall, you know I can be as honest as I want to

be. And we're calling it regularly. We regularly check in and see which of these places deserve deserve to be there and which ones we should cut. And if you want to go even deeper, we have our Guide Plus, which adds a bunch of pre-made itineraries so that you can pack in a day in the Marais, a day in Montmartre, or perhaps a book lover's day walking through Paris between the Right and Left Bank. Go to parisinmypocket.com right now, grab my guide, use the code GARAGEMONOLOGUES at checkout for 10% off. And thank you so much for listening to my podcast. With that, let's get back to the conversation. One of the things I love about the museums in Paris is they will do these kind of versus matches of like artist versus artist.
[01:24:07.15] - Speaker 1 Cool.
[01:24:08.04] - Speaker 2
Where they will put their work together so you can actually get a good look at each. They don't bill it as versus, but you can see the line that goes back through them.
[01:24:16.23] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:24:17.13] - Speaker 2
And you find a root in it where you're like, oh wow, they all got the same idea from this one person, but it blossomed into 15 different things.
[01:24:26.14] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:24:27.06] - Speaker 2
And this goes back to my own pride as a kid, um, and as a neophyte creator, neophyte writer, letting go of all pride and just be like, let's dig in and find just that source, that source of truth, that source of beauty that's at the root of everything we're doing. And once you tap into that, okay, well then how do you turn that around and express it yourself? And in your case, it's going to be like making people laugh in a new language.
[01:24:49.11] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, it's really funny because I've had, I've had my share of naysayers.
[01:24:54.01] - Speaker 2 In this project?
[01:24:55.14] - Speaker 1
Oh really, you wouldn't believe it. Like, it's insane.
[01:24:58.05] - Speaker 2
What's the number one thing you hear when people are like, nope, you're not gonna do it?
[01:25:01.09] - Speaker 1
It's literally, it won't work, um, you'll never be able to speak the way French people speak. I'm like, that wasn't the goal, but yeah, making up a random goal that I never had. Yeah, um, you'll never eat enough cheese, they'll never understand it, comedy is different from place to place. I'm like, it's so strange to me, like, people who aren't even comedians would be like, oh, jokes don't work from one country to another. And I'm I'm a professional comedian.
[01:25:23.15] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:25:24.05] - Speaker 1
And you, you read jokes on the toilet. What are you telling me? Like, I know, I know what I'm doing a

little bit.
[01:25:30.11] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:25:30.17] - Speaker 1
But of course, look, like, if you were running that marathon and people were yelling negative things, yeah, those things wouldn't bother you the first 10 miles, but the last 10 miles when you're tired, yeah, that's when they start to leave dents on the outside of your spaceship, you know what I mean? And so I think I had to like just keep having faith and just keep going. Look, as long— I'm always safe as long as my fuel is love. As long as like, I'm doing this because I love this, I'm so bulletproof. But if I'm like, I'm motivated to do this because I'll show you, yeah, then the dents are big.
[01:26:05.07] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:26:05.19] - Speaker 1
And then the negativity affects me. But I'm so like pointed true north with this. Art is art, and being in a place that respects art where art is a part of the DNA of Paris ensures that it won't be ripped out.
[01:26:20.05] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:26:20.14] - Speaker 1
The way we're seeing it in our home country, in a way where they're removing arts from schools, they're removing the significance of artists, the significance of creators, and it won't happen here in that, in that way.
[01:26:33.22] - Speaker 2 No.
[01:26:34.17] - Speaker 1
Uh, and I think that inspires me in a big, big way because it makes me keep focused on the art, the art, the art.
[01:26:41.08] - Speaker 2 It's really good.
[01:26:42.02] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:26:42.16] - Speaker 2
You also said something really important in there that I think is good to circle back to for people that are— for all of us, I think, because we all want advice at different times in our lives. We all are looking to get a little bit of comfort or maybe a little bit of redirection. And it's really important never to ask for advice from people who don't have what you want. Like, you don't even make jokes for a living, or like, you're not even funny. Why, why am I asking you how comedy is going to work, right?
[01:27:06.19] - Speaker 1 So weird.
[01:27:07.03] - Speaker 2
Because we do need to listen to somebody.
[01:27:08.20] - Speaker 1 Oh, 100%.

[01:27:09.15] - Speaker 2
But like, how do you choose who you listen to?
[01:27:12.14] - Speaker 1
You choose the ones that feel good. This is my new perspective on things. Like, you know, the idea countries had in the beginning is this blind faith of its citizens, even to the point where we would give them our kids to go to a war. You know, that's what countries wanted initially. And then I remember having this epiphany. I go, the thing I like about being an expat is it's very capitalistic, the positive side, in the sense that I'm gonna go to the country that treats me best. That's the way it should be. Because the power at the end of the day is in our hands. That's why these big powerful people that seem so much more powerful than we are are spending so much time, attention, focus, and money on trying to influence the way we think. Because the way we think matters. And what we think matters.
[01:27:55.10] - Speaker 2
How do you end up living this balanced life? Because you still are very busy between writing, learning French now, which is its own element to all of this. But then, you know, content creation, all the things that go into the career haven't necessarily shifted How do you live that balanced life while still being a full-time comedian? Because it's not like you can like go back to part-time and then get a part-time job kind of a thing.
[01:28:17.17] - Speaker 1
And I mean, it's really funny, I feel like my tolerance for workload is exponentially higher, um, than if I had a 9 to 5. Yeah, you know, it's like even when you're full, there's room for dessert. Yeah, you know what I mean? And my menu is dessert. I get to do what I want to do. So even when I do feel full or exhausted, it's not hard for me to keep going. Like, I genuinely do love making people laugh. Um, it comes from a dark place a little bit. Like, when I was a kid, I grew up in East LA in a predominantly gang neighborhood, and I kept getting beat up, and I didn't know why until a friendly gang member said, yo, you live on my street, this is getting embarrassing. Either learn to fight or stop smiling.
[01:28:58.03] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:28:58.13] - Speaker 1
And I'm like, what? He's all, that's why they're beating you up, stupid. You keep smiling all the time.
[01:29:03.00] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:29:03.11] - Speaker 1
Stop smiling. It pisses people off. And I learned something psychologically too, is you can trigger people if you have something that they want to have, even if it's freedom.
[01:29:12.14] - Speaker 2
Is that what it was? They were like, that kid's happy. I want to take that from him. Yeah.
[01:29:15.09] - Speaker 1
Okay. So then in Mexican culture, they get— they always give you nicknames. It's the opposite of what you are.
[01:29:19.18] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:29:20.05] - Speaker 1
I stopped smiling and it worked.
[01:29:21.20] - Speaker 2 Yeah.

[01:29:22.01] - Speaker 1
And I stopped smiling for so long that my nickname became Joker.
[01:29:25.06] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:29:25.23] - Speaker 1
So there's this period in my childhood where the happiness garden hose was pinched. Yep. And nothing came out. And then when I became an adult and, um, I started pursuing comedy.
[01:29:38.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:29:38.23] - Speaker 1 That hose opened up.
[01:29:39.22] - Speaker 2
You know, I've never heard of gang-related nominative determinism before, or gang-induced, you know.
[01:29:45.21] - Speaker 1
There's a lot of wisdom from gangs. Like, I grew up in a neighborhood where gangs were not an all- negative thing. A lot of people don't realize this with Bloods and Crips. Crips were a community neighborhood organization. It stood for Community Revolution in Progress.
[01:29:58.17] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:29:59.02] - Speaker 1
But then they kept catching gang members and taking their drugs, and then they're like, hey, we could sell this. And then they became a gang. Yeah, but there is kind of a communal protection, uh, capacity to gangs that you never see on TV or in movies. But I, I did feel safer, and I am appreciative for a lot of the things that I got from gang members in my neighborhood. I know that sounds terrible, but that's That them's the truth.
[01:30:26.21] - Speaker 2
Learn the lessons where you learn the lessons.
[01:30:28.19] - Speaker 1
I got an email one time, yeah, that I almost thought was like, uh, junk email because the message was so long. And then I realized it was from a prison.
[01:30:37.01] - Speaker 2 Oh yeah.
[01:30:37.13] - Speaker 1
And the title said, "No way, Joker is a comedian." And I opened up the email and it was a message from a dude that lived in my neighborhood who was in prison. And he said, "Hey man, I think it's great what you're doing. I watch you on YouTube all the time. I, I tell the dudes in here that we we grew up in East Los together, and he's like, and I hope you're doing comedy in LA in a year and a half. So I think that's when he was getting out.
[01:31:00.14] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:31:01.02] - Speaker 1

I've never had someone give me an 18-month RSVP.
[01:31:04.11] - Speaker 2
That is a long time. You should have sold him a ticket on the spot. Really? Yeah, man, I should have, man. $30, here you go.
[01:31:09.11] - Speaker 1
It was amazing. There's going to be times where your creative compass is like, work now.
[01:31:13.04] - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.
[01:31:13.14] - Speaker 1
And that's— but once that, that period of sprint, sprint, sprint happens, It's really important to then do that deep boredom.
[01:31:21.15] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:31:22.00] - Speaker 1
Like there was a guy at Chiat/Day named Lee Clow who was like the creative's creative. Like the list of ads he created were, they weren't ads, they were pop culture. They were digital hieroglyphics carved into the American, inside of American pyramids. You know what I mean? And his process was he would receive a creative brief that said, here are the business objectives, here are the communication objectives, here's what all the competitors are doing. Here's how the consumers feel and think and buying patterns. He absorbs all the research and then he goes, bye. And he would just go away and sit on a boat. And then he'd come back with brilliance. Because he would fill up and then just relax. And just let it organically, it's almost like dropping seeds and having faith that plants are gonna come out.
[01:32:08.15] - Speaker 2
Absolutely, but that's so much of what the subconscious does too, right? Like this is why I think, in my life, I crave something a little bit more manual. Growing up, I had lawns to mow, walls to paint, sure, stuff to do with my hands. Yeah, that I— even doing the dishes for a full— a whole family. Yeah, gives you 15, 20 minutes with just like something mechanical to do. And every time you find yourself behind a lawnmower, your brain is going everywhere else.
[01:32:34.01] - Speaker 1 Yeah.
[01:32:34.19] - Speaker 2
And you— and it's not, it's not proactive thinking, it's not problem solving, it's a form of daydreaming. Or you are focused on the thing in front of you and the wheels are in the back of your mind, and stuff comes together in ways that it cannot if you're sitting and focused on it. Yeah, I need more boredom in my life. I know, and I've known this for a while.
[01:32:53.07] - Speaker 1
We're just like— like, I know we have like business goals, of course, because those are like—
[01:32:57.12] - Speaker 2 have to eat—
[01:32:58.02] - Speaker 1
tangible landmarks that we have to eat. But I think it's really important to, to keep your artistic goals there too. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's what really feeds me, is especially now, like the algorithm and comedy is it makes it almost competitive, you know. There's a numeral involved in it. And I remember the guy that mentored me in comedy, he found out that I used to box competitively.

[01:33:19.00] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:33:19.12] - Speaker 1
And he comes up to me and goes, listen, um, I'm really torn with you. And I said, what do you mean? He's, you know, the waiting list to get in this class is 2 years. He said, I brought you in because I love your comedic taste. He's, I think you're very funny. He said, but I didn't know you were an athlete. And I'm like, I don't understand. He goes, don't This is not a sport, comedy. It's an art. And I go, okay. He's like, it's a different state of mind. And I go, okay, explain. And he goes, sport is I want to be the best.
[01:33:47.03] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:33:47.08] - Speaker 1
He said, but art should be I want to be the only.
[01:33:50.11] - Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.
[01:33:51.06] - Speaker 1
If your goal is I want to be the best, you're gonna spend too much energy looking over your shoulder.
[01:33:55.02] - Speaker 2 Yeah.
[01:33:55.16] - Speaker 1
And you're gonna create bad energy in this room when other people come up with great jokes.
[01:33:59.14] - Speaker 2 Absolutely.
[01:34:00.02] - Speaker 1
He's like, so you have to tell me right now. He's like, I'm gonna write a contract and you have to sign it. And it says that this is art. And I'm like, I'm in. I love that. I love that. And he's like, so you agree with me? I'm like, I like people that are a little bit nuts. I think you're a little bit nuts.
[01:34:14.01] - Speaker 2
A contract to swear that I won't be competitive? Let's go. Like, can I sign it faster than you can write it?
[01:34:19.09] - Speaker 1
Dude, he's amazing. This is Jerry Katzman, by the way. Shout out to him. He's the one that made me a comedian. He literally told me, you cannot be back in my class until you go to therapy.
[01:34:29.00] - Speaker 2 Good for him.
[01:34:29.23] - Speaker 1
He was— and, and it was one of the best things that's ever happened.
[01:34:32.12] - Speaker 2 That's amazing.
[01:34:33.09] - Speaker 1
Such a generous and incredible comedy instructor.

[01:34:36.23] - Speaker 2
But also good on you for taking the challenge, like, both to sign that. And because I think what I expected you to say, and I think it's aligned with that, is like, it's not about being the best, it's about being yourself.
[01:34:46.16] - Speaker 1 Yes.
[01:34:47.07] - Speaker 2
And I think that art— I, I keep circling back to this because for me I struggled with it a lot, and I didn't realize this is what I was doing. Like, if we were to actually look through my books, it is a chronological, uh, fictional version of me like dealing with my own psychological problems. But at its root, the point of life is to know ourselves, right? Like, the point of life is just to actually know yourself before the end, which is a lifelong journey because you'll never fully know yourself. And that's the beauty of it. And then I, I've come to believe that the point of art is to clearly and with no varnish express that.
[01:35:23.04] - Speaker 1 100%.
[01:35:24.15] - Speaker 2
So if you can just bring yourself to the table in a way that then carries someone along and helps them to resonate with that That, that is— it doesn't matter what you're doing. You could be knitting, you could be on— you could be a comedian, you could be anything, any, any— as long as that's at the root of it and you bring someone along for your journey, then you've accomplished what I believe art ultimately is.
[01:35:45.12] - Speaker 1
Dude, there's a nobility in it that I was almost ashamed to talk about before. There was a therapist of mine who came to my last show in LA, and he said this thing that I love. Um, I was leaving LA, so he said, I can finally come to a show. So he came to the show and he got a little bit buzzed. And I don't think he meant this as one is better than the other, but he goes, I think I understand the dynamics of comedy now. And I'm all, really? And he goes, yeah, he's like, you see, everyone in the audience is kind of like, kind of like a domesticated animal in the sense that they live in a house, they have food and shelter and social protections. And in exchange for that, they have to give up some of their freedom. They have to wear a tie that looks like a leash on a dog. They, they have to speak when they're spoken to and not bark in the office and follow rules. And because they have bills and an HR department and responsibilities, they behave well and they get to live indoors with no fear about what— when the food's gonna come.
[01:36:43.20] - Speaker 1 He goes, but you—
[01:36:45.02] - Speaker 2
I was gonna say, speaking of domesticated animals in cages, poor Cooper.
[01:36:48.13] - Speaker 1
And then he goes, but you creators or artists, you're still wolves, and your fur is fucked up, and your lifestyle is scary, and sometimes you have to eat dead squirrels that were run over in the street.
[01:37:03.13] - Speaker 2 Yeah, he's—
[01:37:04.04] - Speaker 1
but sometimes the dogs on the other side of the window in the air conditioning are watching you and going, wow, look at him run. Yeah, and I can run like that too. I'm of that. I'm from that. And there's something about doing this and speaking the things that we want to speak about that reminds people

you're wild too. And I think now more than ever, it's so important to remind governments that we're still fucking wild and you will not control us. Yeah, so that's the noble part of this.
[01:37:33.03] - Speaker 2
I think that's really good. Tamara, when people are here in Paris, where can they find you to come watch you perform?
[01:37:39.18] - Speaker 1
I'm so like tickled by this, man. Like, I started a new, um, Instagram account. It's called Tamer Catan en Français.
[01:37:47.23] - Speaker 2 Yep.
[01:37:48.16] - Speaker 1
And so I'm gonna be doing a mix of both. I'm doing French-speaking comedy and English-speaking comedy. The best place to see is on my Instagram, and I have a website that I'm working on right now that I'm just updating, and then I'll have all my shows and information there. And once a month I'm gonna be in Marseille doing shows there too. 3 French and 1 English every week.
[01:38:10.08] - Speaker 2 I think we—
[01:38:10.22] - Speaker 1 once we—
[01:38:11.07] - Speaker 2
can we tag along and do one of these episodes in Marseille?
[01:38:13.20] - Speaker 1
I would love that. That'd be so fun.
[01:38:15.12] - Speaker 2
I want to do that. And then I was going to say also, yeah, we'll have all— check the liner notes, you'll find links to him. Be sure to follow him in whatever language you do speak. He is really, really funny, really fun to have along. We're going to keep following him on this journey through this entire season. And hopefully no more episodes in this hot box. We've sweated it out. We've made it through. Thank you so much for watching and putting up with that. And if you haven't yet hit the follow or subscribe button, please make sure to do that just so that you don't miss any of these episodes as they come out. Fresh my life, fresh my life, fresh my life.