Love in the workplace is not an unusual occurrence. Love and stand up comedy however can be a rare find and today we are going to explore the romances that have inspired some of our favorite comedy sets. I'm Sarah window.
I'm Alicia II. Welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring love to your ears every single day. I'm in love with love with you.
Alicia, you go to a lot of Stand Up shows right?
Do I live Danna?
I have been to one at a Ramada in Toronto.
Okay, well, that might not be the best. Who was it? Do you know?
I don't even remember. But it was actually pretty great. This guy made fun of America. And I was dying. It was hilarious. It was like the unvarnished view of a snarky 20 something year old Canadian guy just absolutely ripping on all of the America nonsense. And this was the early 90s. So there was a lot of nonsense. It was very fun. But I am not normally a comedy show goer, there's people there. First of all, a group of people is called a No thank you. And it's dark, and it's late. And it's loud. And my ears rang late. That's, that's my limit. Well, no one goes to stand up at like 130 in the afternoon. That's true. There's no stand up.
There definitely started like some definitely started to have it. But this is one of the best things about living in LA, I think is getting to go to shows. And to like, see shows that you like, or people that you only saw on TV or something like that, like, that's cool to me. And there is like, a certain charm, in and especially like one of my favorite places to go is called the Largo and it's one of those places where like someone famous will just hop on stage and grab a mic. And you know, all of a sudden you're watching like, you know, Pete Holmes or Bill Burr or whoever like it's like, yeah, it's very, like very casual. And it's where they go to like kind of work out their material. And a lot of these comedy clubs around here is where they work out their material before they go on to like Netflix or whatever their HBO special. So that is exciting. Because I like to see it before it's completely done. Because it is yeah, funnier. I think when some jokes land flat, and they're like, Okay, great note taken and they move on. And I just think it's such a cool workshopping part of stand up comedy, but I love seeing a comedy. I saw. Who's the most recent person I saw. Oh, I saw Hassan Minaj, which was oh, wait, no way. And I think it was one of the funniest shows I've seen ever. It was so so funny. So Oh, my God, I was dying, laughing like my sides are when we were out there. And I told Kai like, I like comedy, I think because it very much is a time when my brain can shut shut off. Like it's like a switch. Like, I can be like, Okay, that's, you know, I'm not worried about something. I'm not thinking about my books. I'm not anxious about something on my like, I'm focused on somebody else making me laugh. And it's like a service.
And also, it's a person telling you a story. Most stand up has a context. Yeah, it's a lot like Forgive me brain brain idea here. It's a lot like romance. Because if you're going to stand up, you know that the narrative is going to be short or shorter, or no one tells you a three and a half hour long story to make you laugh at the end of that. So it's going to be short. And you know, the goal is to make you laugh, so you can kind of know where you're going, and you're already leaning in that direction. So the expectations are already there. It's a nicer place to put your brain when you know, it's not gonna be long, right? The goal is to be funny, and you already know that person's material, you know, there's not going to be any surprise, like gut punches that you didn't see coming. I never
really went before I moved to LA because there was no real option for it. But this is like, I try to take advantage of this. Because who knows how long I can afford to live?
Well, here today to tell us more about stand up and the intricacies of love and serious relationships in the stand up comedy world is our producer, Gillian Davis. Hello, Julian. Hi, Jillian.
Hi. It's so nice to be here and be talking to you guys about this. Okay,
so tell me everything about your love of stand up comedy. How did you start? What is your your stand up love origin story.
I mean, there's basically two separate stories and one of them is barely even a story. But I when I was a child, someone had given my parents a DVD because we'd gotten a fancy DVD player for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Oh, and I can't say that I you know, loved all of the jokes and all the comics but like I just remember being upstairs like hearing my mom lose her mind laughing at some jokes. And I was like, What is like I had to go downstairs be like, Why is my mom laughing so hard. And so that was like my first intro to it. And then there was really like write a second wave where I really fell in love with stand up comedy. And that I do owe to Jon Mulvaney I Gosh, this was like 2016 2015 ish. And I was visiting a friend of mine in Memphis, and she was like, my sister just watched the stand up special. Like, we should probably watch it. It was a night in, and it was new in town. And I just had never seen anything that made me laugh as hard as new in town did. And I, you know, from then on, I actually developed a pretty big celebrity crush on him. And I was actually famous in my social groups. No, you understand it like I see this. I see this if he would get like an article. Oh, yeah, you see where this is where you see the car headed straight for the cliff heading toward a bad end, there was layers to this situation. And we don't have to go too much into it. But essentially, he relapsed on. He's told jokes about how when he was in his teens and early 20s, I mean, he was a raging alcoholic, he did a lot of drugs, and he basically quit. So for a long time, his jokes were about how sober and boring he was. And then in 2020, basically, he relapsed and had to go back into rehab. And what has also sort of come out of this, we don't really know the order of how things happened. But he divorced his wife, and had a baby with actress Olivia Munn. So it's kind of become like a really big thing in the fandom. And I feel like the conclusion that I've come to because I did see him perform his new comedy at The Troubadour like, right, as soon as things started opening, I mean, at the end of the day, he's still hilarious. He's really funny. But I don't necessarily give as much of my heart to him as like a celebrity crush figure that I did when I was in earlier in my 20s. And also,
to be completely clear, addiction is hard. Addiction is so hard. And if you don't have any good language about doing that, and being public and being public and struggling
with that, we don't know exactly what we don't know what that's like, Yeah,
but I can't thank him for introducing me to like the world of Stand Up Comedy because I, I feel like I basically just learned about everyone by following him on Instagram, he would talk about people, I would follow them on Instagram, I'd see them on, I'd see them perform on late night shows on Conan on all of those things. And I live in LA so it wasn't long before I started like showing up at clubs and whatnot to see people perform. So so that's kind of how I got started.
And I can understand falling in love with that even as even from a young age listening to your mom laugh there is something truly wonderful about Wait Wait, wait, hold on. It can be your job to make people laugh. Yeah, that's a job.
Really. It's a job and it's such a weird one because there are like it's so weird for weird so weird. It's just so weird to me that someone could be so good at something for such a long time and still kind of not be famous for it or not known for it it's it's all very weird.
Alright, so tell me the happily happily ever after love stories that you've brought us cuz I'm so excited. Okay, well, I for now.
I'm very excited for the happily for now. Well, I'm very excited about this too. So I want to talk in particular about two different couples that all of my speculation has come from their standup sets, which as we've kind of learned are not always facts. They are in fact stand up acts and their Instagram accounts, but I've done my best to try and put these together. So the first couple that I would like to talk about are Taylor Tomlinson and Sam Merle. So Taylor Tomlinson is actually a comic I've liked for some time and I feel like I connection to her because we are like exactly the same age, I think we're born like a month apart or something like from Southern California. Both of us lost our mothers when we were very young. And like now she's kind of like turned into like the stand up version of this. And I'm just kind of the like, civilian version of this. But you know, she has two really amazing specials on Netflix. The first is quarter life crisis. The second one is looking at you. And she kind of goes over this but essentially she is in a relationship with another standup named Sam Morel, who also has a very funny special on YouTube available to watch for free. And, you know, essentially they were like dating in private for I think, like, I don't know, like half a year or something like that. And then I think like, around the time, if not the day, her first special got released in 2020. They like released all these photos of them on Instagram and they were like we're dating. It's a thing. And then lockdown happened and she's LA. He's New York. It's a whole thing. She also has her own podcast where she talks about this so like you don't even have to listen to me about it talk about she does as well, but he basically moved in with her in LA during lockdown, and so they seem to be Doing very well. And then after a couple of months, it would appear as if some kind of breakup happened. Now, how do I know this? I'm so glad you asked. She posted a really cute bikini bathing suit photo on Instagram. And he didn't like it. He still Liesl followed each other. But he didn't like it. And that was like, I don't know, I just like because they'd been doing a lot of content together in 2020. And then all of a sudden, I really wasn't seeing him around that much.
So he didn't actually like the photo as in, click the little heart indicate that he liked it.
He did not heart the photo.
It wasn't that he said, he did not hard. So it's not like he said, Oh, I hate this, or I don't like that photo. He just did not
hard to know, he did it with his he did that with his actions.
I say, I do not know him that well, to know whether or not he liked looking at the photo. But here was the next thing. Here's the next thing that happened a couple days later posted, she posts a photo, she got bangs, like across the forehead bangs. And, you know, I thought she looks pretty cute with them. I'm a fan of the bangs. But I just I know what that means to be a woman in her mid 20s, who's just like trying really dramatic things with her hair. And I just like that felt like a cry for help. For me. That sounds like a cry for help. Yes, I was just sort of like emotionally supporting her listening to all our stuff. But then recently, I believe they have gotten back together. And like I said, you can listen to Taylor's other podcast sad in the city where I believe she has him on as a guest and ash about it. And they're trying it again.
I can't imagine like a long distance relationship during the pandemic. Yeah, that's hard. It's very hard.
And like, I triggered truly, like, don't even know half of the intricacies of this. But I imagine it's hard to date someone who has your exact same job. So they appear to be together now. And I mean, my whole thing is like, I hope that you like find your own happiness. So like if it's with each other for the rest of forever, I hope that they find that if whatever happens to them ends up being a different path. And that works for them. I hope they find that as well. But right now, I'm very excited to have sort of like a stand up it couple that I can follow because I'm just like a consumer of media and I love having a good couple you know,
so who is your other love story?
So the other love story that I would like to talk about and it's it's also just really an undying love. It is much more high profile Ali Wong and her husband Justin hook Kuta. He is not a stand up, but she is and she is very famous. I hope everyone you know, supplemental listening for this episode is her three standup specials, all of which she talks about how she met her husband in her late 20s at a wedding and locked him in because he went to Harvard Business School. She didn't want to work anymore her time. And it was just time to like lock him down so that she could be a stay at home wife for the rest of her days. And it backfired when her comedy blew up and she got so successful and now she's like a writer and actress a producer like all of these things. She worked so hard and he's had to quit his very high paying job, but he supports her full time on the road. He sells the T shirts at her shows. I saw her right before locked down at the Wiltern. No, she was hilarious. way he sells her stuff, he sells her merch he they are so cute together and so sweet. And they have two little girls. And her third special that's just come out on Valentine's Day is sort of like now she's in her late 30s. And she's got all these things and she you know, just sort of talking about like, how her marriage and her kids have like changed her life essentially along with fame. And it is really great. And really funny. And I've got an Ali Wong poster in my room and everyone should watch her. Oh.
Well, I think for this episode, you Jillian should share with us
your love to go. I think the lesson to be learned here is how we should just let the things we love grow and change. Because that's kind of how life is life grows and life changes you. And it doesn't mean you need to write off the things that you've used to love. It can just sort of change and pivot just as you're changing and pivoting every single day. And you know, don't be afraid to learn about some new comedy and some new everything. And laughter is good. Laughter is the best it is truly the thing that will get you through all things. Yes. Well if you'd like to make us laugh, and if you'd like to tell us a joke, or if there's like a new standard that we ought to know about. Send us an email to lovestruck daily at Frolik dot media. You can also follow us on Instagram and Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content. I'd also appreciate if you could leave us a review, subscribe and spread the word about our show.
Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little scorpions studios and Gillian Davis with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast. We wish you a very funny happily ever after with that I'm in love with you I'm in love with you
