On Stage in NYC: Panel Show at the Comedy Cellar

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Education, Comedy, Comedy Interviews, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.5 • 905 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It was a sweltering evening in Greenwich Village as a packed crowd showed up at the legendary Comedy Cellar - the stomping ground of Seinfeld, Chappelle, and Robin Williams - for a no-holds-barred, live-streamed panel extravaganza. Is South Park doing more to resist Trump than the press, or is it part of the circus? What happens when podcasting becomes the default news source? Is "platforming" bad ideas dangerous or essential? Are we nostalgic for a media era that never was? And how do you choose between marrying Donald Trump or f**king Tucker Carlson? Josh welcomed Matt Welch and Kmele Foster, co-hosts of The Fifth Column, along with the owner of the Cellar, Noam Dworman, who has his own fiery podcast, Live From the Table. Blocked and Reported's Jesse Singal even swung by for a round of "Jew In The Hot Seat". The room was packed. The drinks were flowing. Enjoy the fun.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Goody, humans.
0:04.1	Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
0:06.9	This episode of uncomfortable conversations is the audio of a video live stream from the Zep's
0:13.6	live around the world tour, SubsTax's first ever live streamed global podcast marathon,
0:40.8	where I'm crossing two dozen time zones in a dozen days and circumnavigating the globe to sit down with some of the world's most interesting people in some new global capital nearly every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, streaming live in full high-deaf glory, not on smartphones,
0:46.7	mostly, to millions of subscribers across multiple publications, and you can join in at Uncomfortableconversations.subtac.com. Should you wish to do so? Or you can listen to this episode.
0:52.8	It's delayed to conform to this podcast's normal
0:57.0	twice weekly schedule, which is fine, but you could have seen it or heard it already on
1:02.0	Substack if you want to get ahead of the next one. If you're new to uncomfortable conversations,
1:07.1	this is a place for wrestling with the world's most consequential and controversial and divisive
1:14.2	issues in a non-deviceive, mostly non-uncomfortable way with the world's most fascinating minds.
1:22.3	We don't try to make guests uncomfortable, but the point is that the topics are subjects that normal people generally feel
1:29.7	uncomfortable disagreeing about, honestly, and we try to model how to do that in a courageous and
1:35.3	courteous and bullshit-free way. This particular conversation is just a preview. If you're a paid
1:42.7	subscriber and you're hearing this message, then
1:46.4	you're accidentally on the free feed, which you can fix with one click in the show notes,
1:51.4	either via Apple or via Substack, or you can just enjoy this excellent appetizer.
1:57.1	A reminder that if you get a paid subscription on Apple Podcasts, then you get the full episodes,
2:03.6	but there's no way to feed you the live stream or the video or for you to join the conversation
2:09.7	in the live chat on Substack or to get notified when we're live.
2:14.1	All that stuff comes with the Substack subscription, which is the same price as the Apple subscription
2:18.9	with more benefits. Some people are just committed to staying inside the Apple ecosystem, don't
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Josh Szeps, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Josh Szeps and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.