[SPEAKER_00]: That's a gay app name for a gay app podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brendan Scenel is making his gay ass podcast debut, Brendan.
[SPEAKER_01]: How does it feel to be on a gay ass podcast?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've got a fraught history with podcasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel today?
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel really good to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we had talked about me doing this many years ago and Matt Rogers once called me his most podcast resistant friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, I'm not really doing podcasts right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but now I am now I am, and I'm happy to be able.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I actually actually reached out to you and I said, can I do your podcasts?
[SPEAKER_01]: who did, and it was such a gorgeous message to receive because I have been a friend and see now.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are bread and skin else fans, Paul?
[SPEAKER_01]: Spinelli and scantrons.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're so what you're okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're in Edinburgh.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you pronounce?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you pronounce that Scottish famous town?
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of trail off and get really quiet at the end to because I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's Edinburgh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Edinburgh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Rahm triggered because I hated growing up when people either called you brod dude or just called you by your last name that always felt really sort of triggering, especially in a PE setting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's just me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of Adam Bra, you are there performing the abyss.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're stunning so those show after a sold out run of the Hollywood fringe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I'm going to talk about doing a solo show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about some global travels.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we go to sub-stack
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but before you do that, I do want to get into a quick hot take on traveling.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a joke about performing on a gay cruise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brennan Scannell, it is one of my dreams and fantasies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you recommend?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of your fantasies to perform on a gay cruise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because then after the show, I envisioned myself to sort of like eating the all you pay buffet and then potentially making up with strangers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a great time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cruise comedy in general, just kind of like a heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people who are so good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was with Ross Hernandez paired with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: on fire and I kind of just did okay and one night even bombed and the thing about the cruise is if you bomb then you go to the galley the next day and you see you think of them maybe like 150 gay men and two lesbians who might have been there who are looking at you like
[SPEAKER_01]: And statistically speaking, even though there might be thousands of men on that ship, the 100 who saw your show are going to be the only people you see the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to understand that that is how the universe works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the cruise, it went to Mexico, went down to PV.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never got off it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never got off the boat for eight days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And was that for, like, a emotional safety reason to do you have a fear of seeing the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've been to all the places in Mexico that it was going to and what was nice is when everyone got off the boat, the boat was empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would like go to the restaurants that I hadn't gone to and I would go to the gym and I would enjoy the facilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like my own lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which, by the way, I think a homalone gay edition actually sounds stunning and I think Brennan Skinnell might be the person for the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have, if I compare you to McColle Corkin, does a feel offensive to you or do you take it with stride?
[SPEAKER_01]: Kevin!
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a party.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're getting into lore.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're getting into, uh, homelom references.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's only fair that we ask the famous gay ass podcast question to Brennan's canal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that question is, who's fault is it that your gay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who do we blame, babe?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I blame the Catholic church, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was raised Catholic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I Irish Catholic, everyone I knew was Irish Catholic when I was a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because of that,
[SPEAKER_00]: I was surrounded by a lot of Irish Catholic kids, but then I lost a lot of Irish Catholic mons, and those mons became like my best friends, like my best friend going up her name was Susie, and she was like my friend Mark's mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think because of that, I just have always been, even as like a six year old was like a little gay man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you should get your real estate license, which by the way, I'm sure in come, I can only alleged that Susie probably opened up to you about things that she would normally not open up to a 10-year-old child about maybe about her career switches about her husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember her opening up about things that were probably telling the line of appropriateness?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she had two sons who were great, but she was their mom, so like, they were annoyed by her, you know, as like we all are sort of annoyed by our own mothers, but for me, like she let me call her she was like, you call me Susie, and so I was like, okay, great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're my best friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just picturing she loves to pour a white wine spritzer, and swive long billowy garments in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Brendan.
[SPEAKER_00]: He jays.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would sleep over there and she'd always be in like a big pajama.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I love a mom and a pajama.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something so special about a young gay boy's relationship to his friends and mothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could name off the top of my head, the gorgeous first names of so many of my friends and moms.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think though that it would not be a gay ass podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I didn't dive into the Catholicism of it all, did you, would you say that you survived unscathed from the Catholic school or did the idea of being told
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I definitely had to unpack that for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that I had this idea that my suffering was somehow related to some inherent flaw, you know, that we're all born with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, then I had to learn Buddhism and just learn that life in life is suffering and that's kind of it, you know, they're suffering at every hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Buddhists do say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, life is suffering or life has suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't take it personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the listeners are at this point probably annoyed to hear about my taunts of surgery, but since this is the day, you just got to call right before this.
[SPEAKER_00]: My god, for the listeners at home, we got in the Zoom and Eric answer to call and was like, this is my, this is the hospital.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so embarrassing as to why they were calling me because, well, two things happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually haven't talked about this publicly, but I feel like now it's the time Brennan's skinnel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So not only have I got swept throat enough time to get my tonsile surgery.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've, I got a three months in a row earlier this year with a nightmare, but on top of that earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: The road, strap throat, Brendan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could tell you, I was doing the most despicable things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I kiss a single man from more than 20 seconds, this statistical probability of meeting step-throat skyrockets, and I'm not the, luckily, I'm not the only gay guy to have experiences, a friend of mine, says the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sure if you do more, you might also get, but I literally, the last time I got a step-throat, I made out with a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that you said like when I kiss a single man and I'm like what if you kiss a man in a relationship?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way, that man wasn't a relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say classic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I shot him out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's, you know, good 10 12 out of 10 despite the strap.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I not only got strapped for the third month in a row, but earlier this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did get mono as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have not talked about it because I was almost a bit ago, start getting mono.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this adult dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did that feel?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did it knock you out for a full like four and a half weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like didn't socialize.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like was I would literally record these episodes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would take a nap.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would do more work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would take a nap.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would then watch TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would then go to bed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Guess what the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would record.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would nap.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would nap.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would go to bed for four weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: at like 4 p.m. last week when I was high after smoking a cork is showing it and I told them hey I smoked weed and I had mono is I can affect the surgery and the poor lady who was just like the front desk worker was like I can like pass your message along and that phone call that I just got was them saying yeah it's fine you're good so um surgery is on Brendan and thank you for thank you for bearing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surgery is no joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, your throat's really going to hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think because of grazing atomy and these TV shows, you're like, well, yeah, like surgery and then like the patient's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that all the time when like women have, I not only babies, but like sea sections, I'm like, now I just get out of earth, but you were just like truly cut and open and stapled and
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for saying that because we don't enough talk about sea sections on this podcast and I just want to announce to all the people who have given birth, whether it was vaginally or see sectionally, I don't know how y'all do it and I want to thank you for creating life.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we can't do, and my sister-in-law, not to overshare, but she had a baby and did the sea, and I just, I think, all the people out there say, did the sea, and all the people having children, I think, you know, while that's not my journey, I want to thank them and tell them that I don't know if I could do it, but I'm glad that they can.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you single?
[SPEAKER_01]: married with one child, which is a 12 pound attirure mix.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your relationship status?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am in a long term relationship, along seven years, seven years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so funny to say that we are going to over on substock.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to of course ask some of these questions about your relationship, but the one I want to ask here is, um, you know, people say to me, we've been married for it'll be it's seven years in October, and I'm so, uh, I don't have, I think my boyfriend's Jewish so I and thank you for your act.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm chosen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been chosen.
[SPEAKER_01]: way and your way this is wild because my husband grew up Catholic married a Jew year the Catholic with Jew um okay well so i'm loving where this is going already running on i think it's a good i think it's a good match it's like different sides of guilt and differing at least for us communication styles
[SPEAKER_00]: like he wants to talk about things and I sometimes and like we don't need to talk, everything's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sort of like anxiety, depression, circle, we kind of like balance each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some might say it's balancing, some might say that it's sort of the perfect situation for couples therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have found a leading couple of therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we found a couple of therapy here without a place of pride.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, no, we, when we first started dating, there was very much the, like, I over communicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he undercommunicated and I'm not going to say one of us was like we were both on the opposite side of the spectrum I thought I needed to talk about every single subject under the sun He would shut down so viscerally that it was like quite fraught and you know now it still happens, but Well, I guess my question for you is a so many dating into us What is a part of the culture that you Enjoy or maybe have even embraced would you say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I love Passover, Joe's family does like a big Passover every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I make Brussels sprouts, which, you know, they had in the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much, Lee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I, I really enjoy, like, finding the offie cone cone in and the offie cone in Obrine.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's offie cone, but you're so close.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was really in his family's kind of like LA,
[SPEAKER_00]: Transparent, Jewish people and so like there's a lot of like acoustic guitar You need to understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, jealous.
[SPEAKER_01]: I Just became because you know what I'm not picturing is a due to flight type playing in acoustic guitar and it's already Definitely a due to the light type running around the kitchen for sure What is that Joe's mom and answer another person?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think his mom is like, I think both of our mothers are very strong, sort of like leaders of their families, strong personalities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, but I'm not from LA.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I live there now and I live there forever and one thing I feel like I was missing that I have now gained is like a family in the place where I live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, because I kind of dropped back to my little four to escape in 2000.
[SPEAKER_00]: 13 and like drove out to Los Angeles with just like a couple friends and didn't know anyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, we've had a family out there cut to me fully weeping because I don't really I might have a great like community of friends here, but I do think I'm lacking like the Judith light types at a home
[SPEAKER_00]: making it really nice to just have parents around, even as a 36 year old.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, by the way, also 36, so I love that for us, but I, you know, kind of a dark, a dark side of tail that Brendan, I don't know what it is about you, maybe it's because you're usually anti-podcasts, and now I'm like, just wanting to make it work your while, but I'm going to open up about something that I also don't open up about outside of mono.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: a crazy friend break up like four years ago and she had a bunch of family in LA that I had seen from time to time and so that was like kind of a dark started breakup to lose that mishpuka if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think as a gay journalist because you were the guest to not me, I want to ask if you knew any Jews being raised in Val Parizo, Indiana.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, didn't, didn't know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I knew there, I, yes, a girl from my neighborhood Mia was Jewish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, in kindergarten, we did shout out Mia so nice, the most lovely, her mother was amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we did the trade-all in kindergarten learned about the, and also, like, as Christian people Catholic, there's like, in sort of like, you know, we did steal one of your books.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is like a significant portion of like our doctrine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I'm like familiar with the stories of your stories of your from the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I didn't like I never, I've never went to like a bot or bar mitts for anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know what, if Matt and I have children, oh, you know what, actually, Matt has considered the idea of converting to Judaism, and partially because he really wants a bar mitzvah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if my might spend if we throw him a bar mitzvah, I will make sure to get you your first bar mitzvah invite because I think I'm really, I think you would really, I'm slay by the way, for people who might not know, I just want to kind of like talk about your lore for a second, you packed up your which car was it did you say?
[SPEAKER_01]: Forty-skate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brennan Scanel packed up his fort escape, moved to Los Angeles, and then made a stunning career.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite credits of yours is of course bonding, which is a television show and Netflix set, is not only an amazing show, but also past guest, recent guests, the podcast Matt Wilkes, is a part of bonding, so we want to shout at him out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt Wilkes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love Matt Wilkes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was a fan for years, and then getting to chat with him was a very hot
[SPEAKER_01]: But you also were in the Heather's reboot in 2018 playing Heather Duke.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're again doing this amazing solo show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen you do stand-up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you really have a very exciting career, especially for somebody like me who looks up to gay comedians, like you who've created their own paths.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of bonding,
[SPEAKER_01]: outside of your eminomination for outstanding actor in a short form of comedy or drama series, which I want to say a huge muzzle tall of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people might want to know about the BTS.
[SPEAKER_01]: The show is originally not made for Netflix, then Netflix bought it.
[SPEAKER_01]: as somebody who likes the ins and outs of Hollywood, do you get paid extra when something gets picked up by Netflix?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what I've heard that like, it's not as, John Marcos Oresi had a tiny bit part on bonding and he was joking.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did, so go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's first TV credit, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was joking about what?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we met on set.
[SPEAKER_00]: We met on set in 2000.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must have been 2017.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and then all of a sudden, like I like checked my Instagram one day and like he was the most famous comedian in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, though, he really did that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I had done Heather's, I was just shot that and it had come out yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, went bankrupt.
[SPEAKER_00]: It, like, momentarily made like two television shows and made one show called pillow talk that Brit Lauer's actually in several times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was made, uh, created by Sharon Horgan.
[SPEAKER_00]: of so many different advocacy, bad sisters, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then writer, Doyle, pitched the story based off of his first job in New York City where he was the assistant to Adam and Atrix, two black pills and they greenlit it and I just submitted a tape to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember when my manager calling me and being like, so this is like a
[SPEAKER_00]: large web series.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the budget was like 750,000 dollars for the season and we're shooting over 20 days in New York and they were like you'd have to be a local hire to identify myself to New York and I stayed in my friend Sam Graceman's apartment in Brooklyn and um and I think I
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, which, you know, is just not very much fit at all once everything gets taken out of that, but I just loved the story and I had just done this job where I had made money that I thought was going to.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, I really thought, every single person had like whispering in my ear, like, oh my god, the Heather's reboot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's finally happening for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you're going to be so famous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, remember Riverdale was on the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this, these networking executives and marketing people at Paramount Network, they were like, we're launching Paramount Network.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually almost like induced a manic episode in me, the like weird, weird strange press that we were doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was seeing like, yeah, women's were daily and GQ and all of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but in the meantime, I shot this web series just because I loved the story and I loved the scripts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of just did it because I wanted to be in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that got bought by Netflix and ended up being like a much bigger success in terms of like people seeing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the second season was Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did we did get paid more for that season and got like proper residuals and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, when you talk about Heather's, I think this is really interesting BTS, you're getting all these people with spring near ear.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is it, baby, get ready for constantly being ushered to place to place in limousines.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're never going to have to worry about money again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Heather's of it all did not exactly go that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Will you sort of speak to what ended up actually happening with Heather's?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it isn't weird experience where, like, I think I was like a 25 year old or 26 year old, like, unsick, not successful stand-up comedian and improviser in LA and, you know, all this said and I was like, at the DNAs, like walking the red carpet, like, and all of that, was just to mentally sort of like a very strange, because I'm, oh yeah,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but then Heather's was supposed to come out and then there was like subject matter in it about school shootings like satirizing thoughts and prayers culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 2018 when it was about to come out, there was like a succession of Parkland happened and then there was a session of just horrific.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not to be like, that was a particularly bad year for school shootings, but it felt like there was really, there was just these horrible tragedies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, the network basically said the show wasn't sensitive to that, those tragedies, which felt like a real slap in the face to, at least the show,
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was just a good reminder for me that like, you're not really in control of anything other than the experience you have with the other artists that you're working with and there's no guarantees and, you know, now that was, you know, got was very common for things to be show to like,
[SPEAKER_00]: wait, they're shelving the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can they do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, yeah, it's it's too bad when this happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this can happen, but don't because they're for love, because I had sort of been promoting the show on my Instagram for like eight months.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just felt really embarrassed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I felt like I was had, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: become so foolish for starting to believe that something I did was going to be good or successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just there at this time, this kind of like pushy lesbian who was like in my ear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like lean in, take every opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like don't say no to anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then I felt extremely overexposed by that whole experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: that will also think about the age you were like that's a pretty uh while the of course you're not a child you're mid 20s you're still very much like cosplaying as an adult you're very much like uh believing what is told to you especially with the whispers of you've made it and then when they snatch it away from you that like
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that created such a vacuum of a questioning of like what actually is real and I think honestly despite anything that's always happened to you, it's just a testament to you staying in the business that shows like you're strength because that is not for the week of like to go from being a broke stand up to the VMAs to then you know back to not being a broke stand and
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw, like James Scully was in the original cast of Oh Mary.
[SPEAKER_00]: He played Mary's teacher in the original one, you know, and he's, you know, done a bunch of stuff whenever I like see James.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you know, I'm like, that's my sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like my sister in experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: James wasn't Heather's too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he was a JD that kind of, you know, the one who blows up the school and the Christian slators character also, yeah, we were sort of like bonded and whatever experience, but the bizarre experience that was that.
[SPEAKER_01]: wild and just give you like the weird more connections to you and I. James Scully, my best friend in LA is James Scully's manager, so I got to meet James and see him in a merry couple times and hang out with him and he did the podcast and just huge, huge James Scully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stan here and also just crazy lore to think about you both doing Heather's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we move on to some more heart-hitting questions, I just think Brennan Skennel giving us Heather's lore begs the question about you and high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where would you say you were sort of archetypically?
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you theater nerd?
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you mean girl?
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you banned to geek?
[SPEAKER_01]: What was Brennan Skennel's vibe in high school?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like a really high functioning kid, like, which then all of a sudden I was in my 30s and was like, why did I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why was I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I no longer functioning?
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I was like, I was definitely a theater kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: um, speech and debate, class president, I ran in a post, ran in a post, ran in a post, ran in a post, it will out, that's gorgeous.
[SPEAKER_01]: But wait, what was your high school?
[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone who did high school theater has a show at the time, they thought could transfer to Broadway, Brennan's canal, what was a high school credit that you were like, this is transferring.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was Snoopy and you're a good man Charlie Brown huge and all my friend's moms thought I was fantastic and you know was it Mark's mom who what was your favorite?
[SPEAKER_00]: Susie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah Susie loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure and I'm sure and I still sing the song separate time to my Snoopy whenever I kind of have this dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sapet, I love you, you're very united.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have considered it to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I did my first ever, ever, ever, ever theatrical experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that Jewish sleepboy camp?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a good man, Charlie Brown.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was so embarrassed to audition.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a song, so I sang like a whispered happy birthday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they made up a role for me and a few other young boys, which was Woodstock's friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: the yellow bird, they gave, they gave Woodstock circle of friends who don't exist in the script, but I didn't know what the show was about us by being in it, but I was hooked, Brendan, I was hooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's pretty common with that show where they kind of add a large chorus of what are they called the peanuts?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you go to the same Jewish people I can't every year for like eight weeks?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went for the first summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really young.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I mean, like 10 or like I was young.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went for two weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first summer loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second summer went for four weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Super home sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, definitely got a little bit gay bullied my second year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was with a bunch of like Broly Jewish boys who were trying to teach me how to walk less like a girl and that was pretty Damaging so then the next two summers I went to theater camp sleep boy camp for four weeks inner lock in in Michigan and
[SPEAKER_01]: I was also very homesick during those, but also loved to like wear a uniform and take clotter very seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at the time of four years of sleep, I can't, and I was the only one on my siblings to do it because I, you know, I've always, I think I've always wanted to like get out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my, yeah, be my own, you know, like, I don't know subconsciously one of my freak flack to fly even though I wasn't out until right before I graduated high school, but no, yeah, I definitely did the sleepboy camps.
[SPEAKER_01]: My, my high school rule, though, was my, like, thing that I felt was Broadway was I'm either fagging an Oliver or.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I mean, did you have the age make up on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only did I make up, I had like, I had no, I had like an anti-Semitic prosthetic nose, on top of my already big nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where was this?
[SPEAKER_01]: St. Louis, Missouri.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, that checks out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even realize that the time I'm only realizing really now and telling you this by judging your face that that's sort of problematic at the time I was like, oh my god, I'm getting so much hair and makeup and my wig was nuts and like and like you know shout out to the costume designer Teresa She really always pulled out all the stops, but I guess a giant prosthetic nose for faggin is um maybe not right
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, maybe a little bit caricature, a little bit Shylock the Jew, but is that character even Jewish?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't think so, but there's like, you got to pick a pocketer too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about like getting your coins in your money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, it's not, it's not looking good, but maybe because I'm Jewish, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was like an arrested and arrested development jogger something Yeah, this kid who doesn't know who's being a part of like a stereotypical sort of anti-Semitic trend like a proud voice production Yeah, literally of Oliver who produces the Westboro Popsis Church
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, wait, so we only have a few more minutes before we go over to Substack and so I want to make sure to get to oh, this was so okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Abyss your show is it sounds amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically an hour long descent to the depths of your brain where your Irish mother is a life coach obsessed with death.
[SPEAKER_01]: The show sounds great, Edinburgh sounds great, we're going to talk more about Edinburgh over on the subject side, but since you are so
[SPEAKER_01]: Vulnerably open about your past in this solo show, I want to ask about the ginger bent of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Growing up, ginger's got so much hate, I feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas now, I hope you feel in adoration, adulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who among us doesn't love a handsome ginger like Brennan Scenel.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with that, a controversial question to ask in this chaos podcast is the word firecrotch, a slur.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about the term firecrotch?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I haven't been called that probably since high school, you know, which I think that episode of South Park, where Ginger's don't have souls really fueled a certain type of boy in our generation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause you know, that's like how, you know, we as kids, especially boys like,
[SPEAKER_00]: bully each other or create comedy is just repeating things we watch on TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I would just like quote Will Ferrell and that was my idea of like comedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah I just think to remember that South Park episode about the ginger is coming out and it having a mark to affect on my ability to walk around this school.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel, I really feel for the ginger, the red heads as kids because, you know, simply for the fact that you're born into a ginger heritage, made you have a target on your back, and that is popped up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel, were you devastated to be redheaded as a kid?
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, I think I didn't like the attention that it gave me, you know, like I think that like women and mothers and grandmothers are particularly obsessed with the hair color, even now and like my adulthood, like I'll get like yelled at by women for it, like, ooh, great hair and so as a kid, I didn't like that it made me different because I didn't
[SPEAKER_00]: you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say I certainly wasn't like a traumatic experience being ginger, but I do particularly remember wanting to have like sandy brown hair like everyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I wanted to be
[SPEAKER_01]: Blonde hair blue eyed because of the air in messaging.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was given a mall like Sorry to really master rates, but like that is sort of what I was taught as a kid Do people this is more of a subset question, but I just can't help but ask do people fed it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do people fetish eyes you as a ginger person like or did they as you were like, yes?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish yeah, I don't I'm not sure I
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think my partner had ever dated a redhead before me, you know, I wasn't like a long string of one thing I do like is that like my boyfriend and I look very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we're not boyfriend twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're both short.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're both like five, six.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're like little guys next to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think people are like, yeah, you guys make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like we look quite different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can still hear clothes.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is one of the biggest benefits of being in a same sex relish or same size really.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think street people have their clothes have become more gender neutral because of the economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The recession indicator.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clothing becoming non-gender.
[SPEAKER_01]: The idea of boyfriend twins, I find to be sort of interesting, as somebody who like celebrates queer culture so much here, people really, really brushed up against that.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, one of the clips for Confession Hole, my glory hole talk show, is recently came out with Kevin McDonald, your friend Kevin is his handle, which he's been a bit of a divisive character in the
[SPEAKER_01]: section of the interview, saying how he is not a boyfriend twin with his boyfriend and then I just read the comments this morning actually and people are saying you are boyfriend twins as if it's like up like something he should be not only honest about but ashamed of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's like the twins just kind of feel like a slur.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it kind of feel like that's like there's not much
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, you look like yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand, maybe if there's like an embarrassment that you maybe ended up dating somebody that resembles you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, if you're a gay person, they call it same sex for a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the word same is in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's okay if, like, I, the guy that I got
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why you got strapped, because that's smite that you down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Smoked really good at Catholic school.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I, yeah, if anybody here is in a boyfriend twin relationship, you have my vote.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is all I want to say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: live loud at proud boyfriend twins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Put it on the fucking shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do our final question on the main feed before we cross over to Substack and that question is a tough one Brennan Scanell for if the world was ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could only save one character act trash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who would you save?
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, this is me saving my own people, but I would save Julie and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ginger's and support.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ginger's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ginger's United.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell me for Julie and more, which is by the way, a really, really great answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think everybody listening is giving standing elevations in their toilet of Prius, when you say Julie and more, is
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a Toyota Prius C, the compact.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had one of those for eight, eight years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I really just was the word, channeling, you're like a medium, if I was a first part of my career.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving, I'm getting Prius C. God, I wish I was a medium that could just name people's making models.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what's the, if you have,
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I want to go really niche.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the, CM2 gate to get a niche car reference?
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a RAV4 hybrid hybrid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Julian Moore, is there a specific film that really, you think represents her ability as well, or speaks to you as a gay guy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, I love the hours me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sort of this crazy gay guy who loves the hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the ones, the great thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, something you need about me is sort of this movie about three women.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love her in that movie and I love, um, yeah, I love her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I picture her like driving that car and
[SPEAKER_00]: feel like her quite a bit so y'all really respond to that character as somebody with like some inherent depression.
[SPEAKER_01]: You listen, that is so classique for a queer person, which is relating to Julian Moore's depression.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also speaking of sort of gay plot connections.
[SPEAKER_01]: The movie that I watched more recently than I would like to admit of hers is the kids are all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it came out in 2010, but that movie, I remember seeing it being like, where the fuck have I been?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it just,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also looking at the show now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I forgot that Josh Hutcherson is in that movie, which... Yeah, nice to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, she's not that Josh Hutcherson.
[SPEAKER_00]: That movie is great and Mark Welflose is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and that thing is obviously not touching it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I would say for, and you know what I would say if in a movie I could watch any time in the 20th century women.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, I just love movies about three women.
[SPEAKER_00]: First wife's club, hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, 20th.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gratitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go on my list.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never seen it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen 20th.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been and especially for a great soundtrack too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great amazing score.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, y'all we have some homework if any of us have not seen 20th century women like me will be watching that shout out to Greta Gerwig al-Fanning Um, an upending.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, the stunning answer, thank you for giving us the three woman film industrial complex Um, Brennan's canal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you, will you tell these listeners where to follow you?
[SPEAKER_01]: How they can get ticks to your studying at a brush show and anything else you would like for them to know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at bscan and my show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it currently in Scotland, depending on when this comes out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can, it's a very easy to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on September 9th and 10th, I'm doing it in LA at the Illusion Theatre.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then October 1st, I'm doing it at the Bell House Brooklyn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, very huge for us L.A. and New York Gurli's, I've linked Brennan stuff in the description.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go see his show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll, of course, here more stunning tales from a comedian actor that we are just so lucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came on to this gay as pod.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Brendan, we're going to now mows the other way on to the pay walled section of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you, uh, came on this podcast, I asked you if you might have any formative hookup or dating tales.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the reason why I bring this up now is because you actually,
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, wrote somewhere for better or for worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent a lot of my 20s and gay bars dancing, yelling about lies and manally making out and getting shit faced.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any memorable slutty tales from either your 20s or your past that you feel like you could share on this
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one thing that, I mean, I don't drink anymore, but I use to as any gay guy and LA probably knows if they ever saw me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd be like, that guy's drunk.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I definitely did my fair share of, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: waking up the next day with like six new numbers saved in my phone and then not realizing who they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes like now I'll do shows and like I host a show with Jolk and booster that a lot of gay guys come to and like I'll come out after the show and there will be like a group of guys
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we know each other?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are we friends?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, did we make out at some point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, should I know who you are?
[SPEAKER_01]: For the rest of the interview, head to sub-stack linked below where you will also find chats with Colin Braun, Rich Burns, Christopher Patterson, Rosso, Tyler Varvel, Sebastian Dino, Cody Silver, Johnny Sibly, Sam Altizer, and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at substack.com slash