569 - Making Things Happen, Create on Command, Changing Direction with Asher Perlman

22:56Asher Perlman:And that's really great until you can hit a ceiling there where you're just so niched into your little thing and making these really niche references. And then when you go move to doing something like kids books or, you know, trying to appeal in a broader way or you're doing a tour across the country, you realize like, oh, that's a different step. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And especially with I mean, with other comedians, there's a strong pull to this kind of anti comedy. You know, the joke is that I'm pushing it beyond the point that people would expect me to that kind of joke, which I have.

23:35you know, no shade to that, to that style, but it is kind of a wake up call when you appear in front of a, of not a real, I, an audience of, of, of more average people. And you're like, oh, wait, they don't think that's funny because they don't know, like I'm breaking the form in a way that's supposed to be exciting. They don't know the form I'm breaking. So this isn't good to them. Just, this just feels kind of like strange or boring to them. So I don't know. I've, I guess you got to strike a balance like it's you know you don't want to lose the respect of your peers by just doing kind of boring stuff that only appeals to people on the cutting edge yeah but you know so yeah i think it's a hard balance to strike but especially when early on when you're still finding your own taste and and i don't know if you did what i did but i sort of outsourced my own taste to the audience and sometimes which i think is really you know understandable but kind of a dangerous thing to do.

24:30So I think to me, there's a, there's a real difficulty in outsourcing my taste to my peers. That's a bigger thing of like, what if I make a move that they're going to say, like we joked about, I don't know if it'll end up in the interview, but we joked earlier about me being pizza. When I adopted that dumb name, that was one of my concerns was like, I know all of my heroes would not do this. This is not cool.

24:59Asher Perlman:It's like, I'm instantly downgrading my level of cool here forever. If I accept this. Um, it's like, I think that, yeah, that like outsourcing tasting, I think it's so valuable because that's how you acquire tastes and you kind of, you open and you learn, but at some point you have to, I feel like you have to be like, I don't have to be at the cool table. I have to just do my thing. You know what I mean? I mean, I absolutely know what you mean. And I've always actually had kind of an aversion to the cool table in general just because, well, one, I'm drawn just in life. I'm drawn more to kindness and openness and these things that are kind of anathema to cool.

25:40Same. And but now that being said, I'm sure I've been victim to the pressures of trying to be accepted by the cool table. but I hope, I hope that as I gotten older, I've gotten better at not, not listening to those pressures as much. I'm working on it all the time. I can slip into it every once in a while. You know, people that you, especially if you really respect their work, then you're like, they start talking about like, what's good, what's bad. And you're like, Oh yeah, they're right. I need to, I need to stop doing that shit.

26:10Asher Perlman:Um, that kind of thing. Um, but I also love what you said about breaking the form. I hadn't really thought, like, I think a lot about that classic journey of learning the rules before you break them and how a lot of creative people want to run to breaking them for originality sake or even just like, for me, it was more like fear of not thinking I could even learn the rules. but I hadn't thought about it through the lens you just spoke about. Like, um, you are maybe so familiar with the form that what's, once you get into that scene and you're all nerding out with your peers, that you don't want to really go through the era of learning how to make everybody laugh.

26:54Asher Perlman:You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think a big part of it, especially with comedy is that comedy is surprise. So if the room knows kind of what the rhythm of this is supposed to be, if you follow that rhythm, then it's not surprising and therefore it's harder to be funny. You're kind of racing to break it faster than they can catch up to you. That's a good point. And like a general audience might just be slower to catch up to you so you have a little bit more time. But like, you know, if like you go up to any comedy person and you start a list and after the first two are normal, they know the third one's going to be a joke because they know the rule of threes as much as you do.

27:29So then you kind of have an incentive to break it on the second instead. But then that doesn't, but the reason the rule of threes works is because rhythmically that feels good. So I don't know, it's a tough thing to negotiate. But I think with comedy people, it's just, yeah, I think the challenge is how do you remain surprising to them? And that's hard. I mean, that's hard even with cartooning. the stuff that makes me laugh the most from my friends is very rarely the stuff that is going to be purchased by a magazine and run by the magazine because the magazine knows that it has to appeal to every subscriber not every they have to you know they have to appeal to the subscribers so i don't know this is also why i have no judgment to anyone who does a joke that feels quote-unquote hack i'm like i don't care like go for it i i know the game you're playing And I respect it.

28:23I have no shade to you if you do that. I have hack stuff I'm sure I've done. And that's like a personal thing we all have to negotiate just how hack we're willing to be. I also think like that kind of word is a dangerous word. It's one that's used in comedy a lot. I don't know how much everybody else is aware of it, but this idea of like, this is hack material. That is a dangerous word to let into your brain as a creative person. I think it can really, if you're, the reason why is because it's not specific. it's one of those things where it's like you know when you see it you're like do you though like i it just feels like the kind of thing that could really get in your head as you're writing oh my gosh i mean completely i had a joke in the mat in the new yorker a few years ago i'm going to paraphrase it so uh assume it's funnier than this but the joke was basically it was a woman sitting on a couch talking into her phone saying something like, sorry to cancel last minute.

29:27I was sitting here all day hoping you would. Something like that. And I remember at the time I was like, oh, this is fun. And then after that, I just happened to see John Mulaney had a bit about canceling plans, feeling really good. And then someone else had a thing about canceling plans. And then canceling plans kind of became this thing that you were seeing a lot of. And I was like, oh, I think in retrospect now that joke feels a little bit. Right. I mean, you're saying don't use the word hack, so I don't want to. But that was the fear. It was like, oh, is this kind of hacky now? And even though I think when I wrote it, it did feel a little bit more exciting.

30:06But seeing through the lens of where culture moved, I was like, oh, I kind of don't want to share this one anymore because it feels too easy. Maybe easy is a better word than hack. Is that better?

30:18Asher Perlman:Yeah, maybe. But also, like, I heard you talking about the cruise time on another podcast and how you were saying, like, one of the benefits of being in that show was to not shy away from the easy thing. Because this is the difficulty of the thing of hack and the pace of culture and online media. Like to be a cartoonist in the era of memes has to be so difficult because memes are memes because of their universality. Like they work. People like them. And you don't want to make stuff that doesn't work or that people don't connect with. So even that, it's just really difficult. It sounds like – I like that you said like as you wrote it, it felt interesting.

31:07That to me is the best marker. that's i feel like that's the best you can do is like was it your taste was it lighting up your creative taste buds and if it was that's kind of the right sweet spot i feel i i'm gonna totally steal your perspective and agree because it's so i know where do i find the courage i think that you know because jokes have such a short shelf life that if you look at anything you wrote a few years ago it's going to feel you know well some some stuff holds up there is some evergreen things. But for the most part, it's harder for comedy to hold up than it is for a great dramatic novel or something.

31:47So judging it on the moment you came up with it rather than the retroactive view of it feels like the only move. And it's so hard. And like, what do you what do you what else are you supposed to do? Like do like brain rot internet jokes for like, I don't know. I don't really know what to do with that. Like, I feel like it's like, I don't know. I don't know. So were you a full-time comedy writer when you started doing cartoons? Yeah. I mean, I started in earnest in the pandemic. I think I'd submitted one batch before that. At some point, I sort of erased that from my personal history. I feel like there are interviews, right?

32:27I just say I started in 2020. But I did have one, I think maybe in like 2018 or something. And they didn't buy me. So I was like, okay. And then I didn't have a lot of time, so I just kind of put it aside. And then in March of 2020, when the pandemic hit, all the live theaters shut down. I was like, OK, I need something to do that I can do in my room alone. And The Late Show was remote. So I was like, OK, let's see what I could. And then cartooning kind of was the thing that won out. I also started writing more short humor pieces, which I also really like those. But cartooning was the one that really felt like the clear winner.

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35:38Me being from picture books, I got really obsessed with storytelling. And my favorite kind of structure is about how the obstacle gives the character what they need. Essentially, the obstacle in the way of what they want gives them what they need. And that feels like a great example of that, where this obstacle of all I've been doing is like I've focused so hard on performing and all of a sudden here's a block and I call it like the block becomes the brief. The block becomes a creative brief. Like, what can I do given this? That's the constraint of the creative brief I've been given is I can't go outside.

36:16You know, what can I do given that constraint? I love hearing you talk about storytelling, by the way. I was listening to more of the pod before this. I just feel like you have such a good understanding of it. And I want to say it's sort of innate, but maybe you've just worked really hard to develop it. And so I don't want to give I want to give credit to your hard work. But it just feels like you feel it in your bones. And it's so cool to hear you talk about it.

36:40Asher Perlman:Thanks, man. But I totally agree with you. And it reminds me of of I feel like in the last 10 years of pop social science, we keep learning more and more how much people respond to. constraints and how choice is something that's really, really good to a point, but there's, there's a tipping point at which, at which time increased choices actually make life harder. And I feel like creatively, I really do subscribe to that. And I think it makes a lot of sense. And so I actually, yeah. So yes, I agree with you again, again, I agree with you again. I'm sorry. I'm putting some of that stuff out there.

37:19Asher Perlman:We're riffing on it, but yeah, I don't know that I'm going to have David Epstein on the show who wrote the book range. And then he has a new book about what you're talking about exactly, which is the power of constraint for creative thinking. Oh, cool. I think it's, I think it's a really interesting book. Do you feel like this time doing not just the cruise, but also just this time doing this performing, but maybe the cruise in particular, because I think your cartoons are so pervasive Like they have been, they just like, unlike most things on the internet over the past five, 10 years, I feel like you really are able to consistently hit a broad range of people.

38:06Do you feel like that time doing comedy and that experience informed the work that you do now? That, man, well, first of all, thank you. I think it has to have – I think there's something – I mean, also writing for something like The Late Show Every Day, which was – was. I'm using past tense already. But it was – that was a – I was writing jokes every day, and every day we were rehearsing them in front of a live audience, and every day they were going up on TV for millions to watch. I think that sort of even if I wasn't trying to I was I was I had to be strengthening that muscle and I don't think I ever brought that intentionally to cartooning but I think I think it has to have had an effect I hope I hope I don't know do you think that that I'm looking for the creative elixir from that creative journey that you brought in back home to this work that you're doing drawing and making cartoons, do you think that it's partially

39:12the intentionality of writing jokes? Because one of the things that I experienced and I know a lot of creative people experience is that a lot of creativity in the early part of your journey, and a lot of people just get, either stay here because they hit success or they get stuck here in this place of waiting for something to just fall into their lap, some idea, some thing like that. I'm guessing that's not how it works when you're doing comedy writing for a job. Yeah, you can't wait because especially on a show like the one I was on and the show I worked on before that was also a daily was daily.

39:48So you basically have between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. to produce a full script. And if you're waiting for inspiration to hit you, obviously, that's, you know, you don't have that. You don't have that luxury of waiting. First of all, I love that. I think, I mean, honestly, in the world of constraints, time is one of the greatest ones you can give yourself. This will be done by X time, regardless of quality, like I will be writing the end at this time. And then I'll go back through and refine it, etc. But I do think that as a creative person, time constraints can be the most helpful thing. Definitely.

40:28As far as constraints go, yeah. Did you, when you first started being in a scenario where you were really forced into a room and like told, be funny now, was there a period of time where that felt super unnatural? I think, I mean, at the late show, it felt really hard for me. And at the very first day, so the show I wrote on beforehand, the writer's room was very loose. So what we would do is we would come in, we would sit in a big room. we would talk about the news we would watch clips of the news uh coverage from the night before we would riff on it we would talk about it we'd find some jokes in the room we'd go off and write and that was a really comfortable setting for me because i came from an improv background where riffing and finding things together in a room was kind of what you did and then when i went to the late show i assumed it would be the same way but they actually had a very it was a more structured day where at the first meeting you were expected to pitch several jokes that you had written by yourself in preparation for the meeting.

41:31And that was new to me and not something I'd done before. So the very first day I sat down expecting this kind of like loosey goosey riff fest. And someone said, I have jokes on Trump imposing China tariffs or whatever it is. And I was like, oh, okay. And then I listened to them, you know, deliver like five bangers on China tariffs. I was like, oh, got it. Okay. So we're all sort of expected to bring more thought out ideas here. And after a few weeks, I, you know, I found my rhythm and was able to do that, but that was definitely a splash of cold water that first day. And, and that being said, once those jokes were out there, we all riffed on each other's things and there was still kind of a loosey goosey riff fest like I expected.

42:16But we sort of had a more solid base of written specific jokes that we were sort of going off of. I guess I have a couple different questions. But one is, do you feel like, do you approach your own cartoons that way? Do you do it? How much of it is this thing fell in my lap, just a random inspiration in the day? And how much of it is I'm going to go through the process of how to come up with stuff. I would say maybe, and I'm trying to be accurate, 2 % of jokes actually arrive in my head fully formed and the rest are the result of blood, sweat, and tears and following, I have like all these like little systems I adhere to.

43:03So yeah, most of it is brute strength and following creative brainstorming sessions. And it's great when it happens. It's sometimes not, not always, but sometimes the one that comes out of nowhere is magical in a way, but I'm also kind of suspicious of those.

43:22Asher Perlman:Cause I'm like, where did this come from? Like, this feels like not right. But I'm always, I'm always encouraging people on the show to, cause I feel like a lot of creative people get into it in an intuitive way. And then that's where they just stay there. And because it is scary to be like, I'm going to do this on command, which, cause you, you know, you can't fully, you know, it's a wrestling, you know, it's like all that kind of thing. But I'm always trying to encourage people to be, even if you're going to always be a fly by the seat of your pants person, to learn how to do the plot thing and having it in your wheelhouse and in your utility belt, I think is just a really good tool.

44:04When you say, you said you work through some of your systems. Do you want to share any of those? I'd love to hear some of that. Oh, sure. I mean, the current thing I'm doing is sort of an adjusted morning pages routine, which I'm sure you've read. I'm sure you probably have.

44:18Asher Perlman:I don't think I've read the whole thing, but I've read parts that everybody knows. No one's read it. No one's ever finished that book and everyone's done it. And I have done morning pages, and I do write every morning. I would say I need to adjust it too because the times that I've done it the most intensely and the most by the book, I feel like it ends up bringing out my neurotic side in a way I don't like. by the time I did it I did it like 30 40 days by the end I was like this is making me crazier than I am like I feel like I don't know I need to put some different constraints on this but that's so funny what happened I just think I was like my most intrusive thinking just started being like let's start with that let's start with your weirdest thoughts that you don't want to think let's go there and just like let let it go I'm like I don't want to be capturing all this what's happening.

45:09Asher Perlman:I think I needed a little bit more intention than just like, cause I just think my most persistent, annoying part of my brain was like, Oh, this is my space. Cool, man. I'm going to like, I'm going to go for it. Let's go. Absolutely. I mean, I'm trying to think of the number. If you were to add up the number of morning pages that of mine that begin with the phrase, I'm out of ideas. It has to be 75%. It has to be. Yeah, I get that. And then it becomes kind of this like rumination tool where you're just like writing over and over again, like, why can't I think of any ideas? It almost feels pathetic in the moment.

45:46But then also, I will say by the end of it, I generally I can't think of a time I haven't thought of anything. I think maybe like once or twice. By the end of the three pages, I actually have nothing. But also, well, not to be corny. But when I don't have anything at the end of those, I don't think that's, I still think that's useful. Like, oh, that, that was good. I went through all of that to not have anything. I needed to do that for whatever reason. That's what today is. And that's, so I try not to be hard on myself if I'm not incredibly productive. And then I compensate with, I compensate for those days with days when I come up with 10 ideas, you know, and so it all averages out, but basically I do three pages of explicit brainstorming, which I know is not morning pages.

46:32And Julia Cameron will sue me if I say it is.

46:35Asher Perlman:She is very serious about the rules. Like every time I've heard her talk about it, it's like this is the size of the page. This is like very, very specific. I think I'm probably breaking it in more than one way because I also do it on my iPad notes app. That's illegal. She said you can't do that. She said, why? Because she wants like the texture of the pen to paper feel? Sure. Something like that. Whatever. Get over yourself. She's probably right. If I had space in my shoebox apartment for a thousand notebooks, I would do it on paper. Yeah, good point. But basically I do that. I do three pages of brainstorming.

47:14I circle anything that I feel like could conceivably be useful. And then once I'm done, I go back and I grab all the circles and see if anything was. That's great. I think it speaks to also my experience is you have to be willing to do what feels like wasting time, but it's never wasted. It's literally just part of the process of doing it. And I think that to me, especially if you're trying to do this for a living, can be very painful because you feel like, I have that thing in my head of like, what are you doing? Go do the job.

47:48Asher Perlman:Why aren't you go answer that email? Like, what are you doing? Just writing stuff that's going in the trash. But it's literally the only way I know how to find interesting things. This is the process. I mean, isn't, I mean, this is life, right? I mean, this is, it's anything you're trying to get through. It's like, no, this is the, this is the thing. I remember I was, I, I, I met it. I try to meditate every day. Um, fail, but when, but there was, I was listening to a guided one not too long ago where, and this is not, I mean, this is like, well, well, established but someone said basically if you're feeling frustrated with yourself when you're getting lost in thought and returning to you know focusing on your breath or whatever it might be remember that act of getting lost and then returning that isn't a distraction from meditation that is meditation yeah and i feel like with creative work it's sort of the same thing where it's like oh i want to get to um like like why am i not producing the you know the final the finished product, whatever, whatever.

48:45It's like, no, this, this literally is the work. And you have to be able to find joy in that somehow, because it is the vast majority. I agree completely. And it reminds me of, there's this really famous study of architects, like the most brilliant architects of the day. This was, I think it was something like the fifties. And the thing that they concluded was in con that they all had in common was this idea of playing with the problem and it was like not rushing to solve the problem. And it reminds you of what you're saying. Like part of it is getting lost and not being too focused, but continuing to do stuff.

49:27Yes, I agree with you. And that playful nature is so important. And I think that's sort of the other side of the time constraint that I was advocating for earlier is you do need time to play also. So if you're in too much of a rush, then you're unable to find the most exciting thing. And so you have to like sort of build in the time to mess around because that's, that's part of the work too.

49:52Asher Perlman:Okay. We're going to go to the ADHD round. It's not a lightning round. It's not meant to be fast. It's just meant to be random. It's like, here's a bunch of questions I had that I didn't see any through line through. I just want to ask you them. So that's, that's what this is. Oh, I love that. This is a fun premise. So the first question is very serious. And it's, do you think being one of the few adults with the now extremely popular baby name, Asher, has given you a leg up in life? You know, what's funny is I lived the majority of my life never hearing my name, except, you know, in life. I didn't know what was a name until like three years ago.

50:32That's so funny. I mean, it's in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. but there's a song where they're listing all the names of Jacob's sons and one of them is Asher. And that was the only time I heard it. And then I think in like 2019 or something, I was walking down the street and I heard someone screaming Asher and I turned around and it was a woman talking to her child who was climbing something he shouldn't be climbing. And I was like, oh, whoa, that's interesting. And then that experience has become very frequent. Yeah. To the point that now I feel like there's like a million little Ashes running around and I'm sort of their unadorned king.

51:11I don't know if it's given me a leg up in life, but I do think it's given me a fun, interesting thing to happen, you know, to experience. A new experience.

51:20Asher Perlman:But I just think, you know, it's popular now. So there's something about it where people are like, oh, we like that. So now you hear that, like, oh, this is Asher Perlman. You're like, this guy sounds relevant. Like this, you know what I mean? Like there's something to it. He must be like 17 or something. What about that? yeah exactly asher roth you remember asher roth no who's that asher roth i'm gonna get the year wrong i feel like he was popular in maybe like 2008 or something popular he had one song the song was called i love college and college it was basically about like how much this guy loved drinking and partying in college and when i first got hired at the late show when i went down to uh The first time I had a full meeting with Stephen, he did say, Asher, like Asher Roth.

52:06And then I think he wrapped the entire song to me word for word.

52:10Asher Perlman:That's an amazing story. He has a really good memory. So I think he really might have known the entire song. Which brings me to another question. Do you actually have a photographic memory? I don't. I wish I did. Do you? No, I don't. I heard you say somewhere, but I could have been joking. but you remembered some specific thing. And I thought, do you have a really good memory? Oh my gosh. I would, I would kill for one. I've always wanted one. I feel like I have a bad memory. Yeah. I have a terrible memory. So you were unschooled until 11th grade. Do you feel like that? Did you feel like an outsider or were you in lots of groups and stuff?

52:50I'm wondering if that contributed to your observational comedy. Not everything you do is observational, but a lot of it feels that way to me. Do you feel kind of like you're looking at society in some ways, being a homeschooler? Yeah, interesting. I mean, I do feel like, I mean, I guess all of comedy in a sense is observational because even if it's not explicitly observational humor, like, you know, airport food is bad. It's still at its core, you're observing human emotions, be them yours or others and, you know, thinking about it. So I don't know. I've never tied that to, to my schooling, but it's totally, totally possible.

53:29I definitely felt like an outsider growing up, but never, never really in a bad way. And we were a part of so many little programs like youth theater and debate club and that kind of thing. Um, like when you went to high school, Did you feel that at all? Did you feel any like, look at the dynamics that are happening here. Like, was it, was it unusual to you? It was incredibly unusual. I think I was probably too distracted by the fact that I had a crush on every single girl I saw. Like, wow, there's girls here.

54:07Asher Perlman:That's what you're mainly thinking. There's so many. Whoa. But yeah, no, I mean, it was really overwhelming. I didn't know what I, I didn't know what I was doing. but I really was sort of smiling ear to ear. One of my friends, one guy who later went on to become one of my friends was like, man, that first day when you showed up, you were like a puppy dog running out. Like it was just so, you were so excited. And all of these kids had been in school for 11 years at that point, were kind of downtrodden. And their eye was on graduation. And I was just like, whoa, this is so fun. The bell's going off.

54:40I've heard of these bells. Let's never graduate. Yeah, it feels like that.

54:44Asher Perlman:Hold me back. That's hilarious. this is funny because i'm gonna ask this question this is my last question but as i go to ask it it's such a weird scenario that my brain is like this can't even be real how how is it like i'm literally second guessing like did i get this wrong somehow i know it's impossible but could you tell people about the dunk story you know what i totally understand is this real i literally was Like, did I dream this? No, this shouldn't be real, but it is real. So you are correct in your assessment. I recently started getting into watching basketball. Do you watch basketball?

55:23Asher Perlman:Not really, but I was forced upon me as a kid. So my little brother's name is Jordan after Michael Jordan. That's how much basketball was our thing. But I can't shoot. Incredible. Neither can I, and that will become relevant in a moment. But I didn't really do I didn't really follow sports at all as a kid. My parents never were never fans. Actually, famously, famously, famously within my household. When we moved to Wisconsin, there was one day my mom looked out the window and saw a bunch of people in red and white clothes walking by the house. And she said, what is happening? And then I think she's called them the blood clots because it was like, you know, red cells and white cells.

56:06but then someone said, Oh, that's the Badgers game. And she was like, what? And we live like three blocks from the stadium or something. So this happened all the time. But the first day she was like,

56:15Asher Perlman:her first like association is blood clots. That's something about that. I think. Yes. Yes. So that is, that is the, the, the, um, that is the reference level for sports that I had growing up. And then in my thirties, I started watching basketball here and there just as a fun thing to do with, with friends and I'm on a thread with a few pals. One of them sent this, a clip of John Morant who was on the Memphis Grizzlies at the time doing what I've since learned is a double clutch, reverse dunk. I'm getting it wrong. It's something like that. Double clutch, reverse jump with fake or something. Okay.

56:55But it's like this incredible dunk that again,

56:58Asher Perlman:this is the third fake fact that you're throwing in here. This is real. You just make kind of dunk. You're just seeing if you can get past me. Yeah, you definitely can't because I don't know anything about it. I mean, it's probably wrong, but not on purpose. But it's something like that, like double clutch fake, whatever. But it's the kind of dunk that I now know not only can most people not do it, most NBA players can't do it. So when he does this, this is like, most people in the NBA look at that and go, wow, I couldn't do that. So one of my friends sent it to the group thread. And then I responded just kind of half-heartedly.

57:33The specific way in which I'm crazy is I think I could do that if you gave me six months. And then, I mean, obviously I didn't think I could literally do it. But one of the people in that text thread is my then head writer's husband. So he showed her. And then the next day at the late show, she said, Andrew showed me the text you sent about. the dunk. I want to show Colbert. And I was like, Oh, okay. So then in the big meeting with, you know, with, with Steven and everyone, she was like, Oh, and I have something I want to pitch sort of like, you know, under the wire after we talked about all the news.

58:13And then she showed the dunk and then showed the text I had sent. And then she said, so I think we should make Asher try to do that for the next six months on camera. And for whatever reason, he bit off on it. So for So once a month for six months, I tried to dunk a basketball on the late show. And spoiler alert, I did not succeed.

58:36Asher Perlman:Yeah, that's hilarious. Did you get better? I got better. I did get better. I did get better. I learned so much. I learned so much about myself and about how to dunk. I got to the point where I could dunk a tennis ball. So like a small. That's pretty good. Yeah, and I could do a layup where my hands ended over the rim, but it was still like a dunk you want to go all the way over. So I got to the point that I could, I guess a fancy layup. I got to the point where I could do a fancy layup. That's pretty good. I respect that. I like what you said about it, about having a goal, like what your takeaway was.

59:18Maybe you could just share that a little bit. Oh, yes. In the final segment, so this is six months later, and at this point I've tried countless times I went to the uh St. John's is a school in in a is a college in um or university in New York that's very very very good at basketball their coach Rick Pitino is a former NBA guy and I went and trained with him I mean I did I did everything I could to try to do this and at the end Stephen asked me what I had learned and and I actually do believe this the um having that thing to strive for even though i was doomed for for failure was still worthwhile and i related it to um the don quixote song um the impossible dream which is actually my uh one my producer jonah myerson is the one who who thought of that song as a as a metaphor for my my stupid duck journey but basically don quixote is you know he's a knight who's tipping at windmills all that stuff and at one point he's confronted about his sort of pointless mission and he says the goal of and i i'm gonna i'm paraphrasing here too but he basically says the goal of a knight is is to try and to strive and having these noble goals themselves, that is worthwhile regardless of the outcome.

1:00:50And of course, in the story, he is literally a delusional person. But that specific message really does resonate with me, both comedically for the sake of the end of that piece, but also as a person, I think that it's, yeah, I buy that for real. Yeah, I completely agree. It feels very true to me as someone who has both types of ADHD and, you know, twice the memory deficit required for diagnosis that I've realized, like, I need, I've heard it, I've heard, like, this being described as a type of absurdism where it's like, you can't, you can't get rid of your desires and you can't really fulfill them.

1:01:38but there is some kind of joy in going after the desires that you can't fulfill. I mean, you are, you're, you're speaking my love language over here because I'm reading Camus right now, which it sounds like you've probably read as well.

1:01:51Asher Perlman:I know of it. You know, I know I've listened to a lot of podcasts. That's my main education. Well, that's, I mean, I think, I mean, I haven't finished, I haven't finished the book, but the myth of Sisyphus is I think where those ideas come from. But just this idea that we want meaning the universe doesn't provide it. The the interaction between that desire and the inability to get it produces this absurd feeling. We have to find our way to, uh, to move through that. And yeah, no, I, I, I completely, yes, I'm right there with you. Yeah. Your dunk story is very perfect. Sisyphus. You had to keep pushing that ball up the hill.

1:02:26Asher Perlman:That's right. Hey, this was so fun. Thank you so much for taking time. I hope we get to do it again. Um, one thing I was going to ask you about was you have a new podcast, right? I have a new podcast as of today. Yeah. Tell people what's the best place to find it. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, first of all, let me reciprocate and say, thank you for having me. This was so much fun. I'm a long time listener, first time caller. So keep doing what you're doing. It's, it's really, really good. Thanks man. And if you're, if your listeners want another podcast to listen to, I've just launched one with my friend, Michael Cruz Kane, who's a former late show writer as well.

1:03:01it's called but also with michael and asher and it's available on all the all the places podcasts are available um and it's basically a long-form conversation podcast where we talk about culture politics and everything else and we we talk with the guests each week and it's uh it's really fun and i'm excited about it so yeah no thanks for a good podcast voice oh my gosh can we clip that and put it out somewhere that's a testimony yeah that's

1:03:30Asher Perlman:It's testimonial. You do though. It's got a lot of like weight to it, I feel like. Oh my goodness. Okay. I'm going to be floating out of the room today. This is, this is so nice. Awesome. All right. Thanks, man. Thanks for spending so much time with me and hope to get it to do it again. I really appreciate it. Yeah. I would love that. Thanks so much.

1:03:57I'm back with our creative call to adventure. It's called Product of Circumstance. The idea of Product of Circumstance is that the thing you should be doing right now, it might be inspired by the wall that you just hit. It might be inspired by the circumstance you find yourself in. The next right project that you do might not be even the one you're most excited about. It might not be what you saw yourself doing. It might not be the most strategic move, but it is a product of where am I and what does this scenario make possible? In this episode, I loved how Asher was talking about his comics, his cartoons coming from this space of the pandemic and everything being shut down.

1:04:40And all of a sudden he had to ask himself, what kind of creative work can I do stuck indoors? Now we're not exactly in that moment anymore, but you're still in your own version of that moment. You are in a set of circumstances that you're not completely in control of. And this CTA is about asking yourself, which of the next paths that I am considering, which of them is the most ideal fit for the circumstance that I find myself in? That might be you who is a stay-at-home parent and you only have a few hours a day. Maybe the best thing to do is to focus on kids' books because this is the space that you're in.

1:05:17You're surrounded by it. Maybe if you are in a scenario where you are working full time and you only have 30 minutes in the morning or an hour at night, that determines which product, which process, which project, I should have called this project of circumstance, a riff on product of circumstance, similar, but yeah, we'll call it project of circumstance. What is it? What does this circumstance make possible? That's different to what you have been doing, the flow you've been in instead of just grieving it, which some, you do need to grieve it sometimes when you hit a block, when it gets abruptly pulled from under you in a way that you didn't see coming when the flow really stops.

1:05:56That, for me, there's a lot of grief in that. And having been in this for 18 plus years or whatever, I have had lots of times where this thing I loved is no longer possible. The jobs aren't there. The circumstance isn't there. The time isn't there. Whatever it is. And I think it's an interest, if you can flip it and be like, oh, this is not just a problem. It also is informing me of how to get through the analysis paralysis. It's telling me what is the next project. Where should I put that energy? And if you're like Asher and you're like me, you have a billion different things you want to do. Asher has so many different projects and types of creative outlets that it can be very overwhelming, I have to imagine, to figure out which one to do next.

1:06:37And sometimes you can allow your circumstance to be the brief that tells you what to focus on now. Massive thanks to Asher for spending so much time with me. I just had, I feel grateful. I just felt like, man, I like this guy. He's got great ideas. He's such an interesting, creative person. So funny. I'm really inspired by him and I just feel lucky to have got to chat with him. So yeah, go check out Asher's work. Go check out his books. Go check out his podcast. Don't forget about that. I'm having, I have a feeling it's going to be great. Massive thanks to Sophie Miller for being a producer and editor on this show.

1:07:15Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio edits, video edits, sound design, and animation. Thanks to Yoni Wolf, of course, and the band Y for the theme music and the soundtrack of this show. Couldn't be more grateful for that. That's just me living my dream. Like my favorite band's music is my show's music. Just completely awesome. Thanks to all of you for listening until we speak again, stay pepped up.

1:07:58What if doctors could detect Alzheimer's before symptoms appear or treat cancer with unprecedented precision. On the new season of Tomorrow's Cure, the chart-topping, and 2025 Ambie Award finalist podcast from Mayo Clinic, we explore how breakthroughs like these are already reshaping the future of healthcare. I'm Lindsay Siever, the new host of Tomorrow's Cure, and this season I'm joined by leading physicians, researchers, and Mayo Clinic experts exploring everything from AI-powered diagnostics to precision cancer treatments. Follow Tomorrow's Cure wherever you get your podcasts.

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