My next guest, you know her
from her new special on Netflix.
It's a one-man show.
It's a special.
It's so much more.
It's called "Nate".
Natalie Palamides, thank you for being here.
Moses hey!
It's good to see you! My first candlelit interview
this looks like you're about to tell all.
I sure am.
Even without the candle I would, I would just spill
my whole guts, whatever you want to ask me.
I think you can relate to this,
a lot of our stuff has to do with the audience
and being able to, in your case, (sighs)
physically touch them Yes.
get up in their face.
A lot of the hee hee ha has are from
"Oh, my god! She touched that man."
I know that's my whole schtick!
And now I can't touch anybody.
Both my solo shows are just me like,
you know, swapping spit with people
and grabbing their knockers
et cetera, et cetera. You know?
And you too!
You know-- I remember... Yeah!
I mean I get a lot,
much more backlash for grabbing knockers. But...
You got to ask.
(Natalie laughing) Yeah, no. It is like,
I talked to the audience
and I think if you're a comedian
that's always just on like, one-liners,
or you don't need it then, you're fine.
You're able to roll into this.
But to not have the live feedback...
Oh, man.
I was worried that your show
was not gonna translate to a special,
And it really did! Oh, my god!
Because it is exactly like we were saying,
it is the live aspect of being in the room.
Me, personally, I was like,
"I hope she just knows me too good
that she doesn't call on me."
Oh. Yeah. I didn't call on you. Did it..?
No. Were you there?
Were you at the taping?
Not at the taping. No, I've, I think I've been to three
of the shows when you were work-shopping this show.
Oh, my gosh! Thanks for coming!
I remember very... very,
Every time I think of you
I think of this bit that you did with yarn,
where you were like, making a sweater
with the audience or something?
Is this accurate? Yeah!
I was gonna say I remember it very well
but then I was like, "Do I remember it very well?"
But that, that's how I remember you.
Whenever I think Moses, I think, making a sweater with
the audience. The yarn guy
The yarn guy. That's Catboy.
Speaking of bits I can not do in the lockdown,
it's, I'm connected to every audience member via a rope
and then they can pull me wherever and I try to
do like, a physical bit or whatever.
And then they're, Yeah.
They're essentially like a puppet controlling me.
They're manipulating you, it's genius.
It's genius, genius bit, beautiful physical comedy. Mwuah.
But not every venue appreciates big, physical
and even prop comedy. This is true.
Do you have any stories of venues that were mad?
'Cause I think about that now, like,
oh, when you watch a show, like some
some stagehand has to clean that up.
Yeah. Well, you know, I always try
to be very hands-on with my cleanups
and try to help like, the stagehands, you know?
But that sometimes doesn't always, you know,
make them less annoyed, but they're always pretty nice.
I remember at UCB Franklin,
which they've always been very supportive there anyhow
but I flooded the stage.
So in the Netflix special, I'm in a bathtub with the shower.
And, but in the live show that I just did myself, DIY,
I just used the camping shower
with the baby pool underneath it.
And this particular show at UCB,
I didn't pull the baby pool fully underneath the shower.
And I just flooded the whole underneath of the stage.
And the artistic director was very nice.
She was just like, "Hey, you know, you flooded the stage.
If you do the show here again,
you gotta make sure that the pool is catching the water."
And so I was like, that's, that's fair.
That's fair! And also I just Yeah. (laughing)
I do cringe 'cause nothing like, kills the bit
than like, apologizing for it.
I know. I know.
Yeah. But they are super sweet.
Is this something that you think
about now when your work-shopping something of like,
"Oh, I'm going to have to tour with this.
So maybe I can't."
Well, I mean, I've seen you breathe fire.
I was going to say breathe fire, but you've done that
Oh, yes!
In a very small venue that is made, if like,
the virtual is like, if you asked the fire department
to build an example of a fire hazard,
(laughing) It's low ceilings,
the dustiest curtains and..
The curtains hang low, too.
They hang real low.
Yeah, so, this is probably like a dick-ish way
to go about doing my stuff, but I kind of operate
with a "apologize later" kind of attitude.
It was, you know, probably, is not the best way.
You know, maybe it's like an asshole way
to go about doing things.
And like, if I had caught the theater on fire,
that would have fucking set like, I didn't
I didn't ask the producers if I could do that.
Right. But if you did ask them,
they wouldn't let you do it. Yeah!
I've ripped down entire curtain,
back, back rod of a curtain,
You did?! Hanging on that.
I've broken a clock on stage.
That looked expensive.
At what venues?
That was the Portland Helium.
And then at the Kennedy center
and it was all like, older people. (Natalie exclaims)
and it's like a six PM show. What?!
And I had the rope sweater thing that you're talking about.
Yes. And I, I took someone out,
like it went across her face that's, like a rope burn.
Oh no!
And I went back and they were like, they were--
She was cool about it.
And then I went backstage to kinda like, say thank you
to everyone that ran the venue
and kinda get, like, my pats on the back.
'Cause it went well. Yeah, yeah!
And I just overheard them before I went to the tech room,
they were like, "what the hell was that?!"
"What the hell?!"
"And I told him not to climb on that stuff!"
And I was just like, oh, it didn't feel cool.
It didn't feel like I'm an artist.
It just felt bad, for them.
Yeah. They're like, "what the fuck?"
Oh, my God.
Actually one time.
So, me and Courtney Pauroso do this bit
where I play a dolphin trainer and she plays a dolphin
That old bit, yeah! and we have this like,
That old bit. They have this toxic relationship.
And at the end of the bit, she's sick of him.
And so, I'm dangling a fish in front of her
for her to eat her "treat". And she grabs it out of my hand
and starts beating me with the fish.
So we're doing this show in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Have you..? Were you,
ever meant to do Edinburgh? No, you told me
to do it, but I was gonna do it the 2020.
You got to do it at the 2020!
Yes, exactly.
Okay. I remember this now, so...
You were the one that was pushing me to do it.
So essentially, you get to do your show every night
for 30-ish days.
Yeah, exactly.
I think you would kill it.
Anyway, I was just there visiting in 2019 and we were doing
like, a bit on a lineup show and, it was a midnight show
and everything in Scotland closes at like,
four o'clock or whatever, you know?
It's the height of the summer there.
I go to the fishmonger at like, four o'clock,
as late as I could, to get this fish for the bit.
And it's just sitting in my backpack all day, you know?
I think, maybe in some ways, it made the bit
a little more punchy. Mm-hmm.
It made it a little bit more effective.
It gave it like another kind of factor
that it smelled just like, rank.
And when she beat me with the fish that night
and we ended up going, they went ran way over.
We ended up going up at like, 2:00 AM.
So, this fish has been sitting in my backpack.
Scotland's summer since 4:00 PM, it's 2:00 AM.
She beats me with it.
Fish guts go flying everywhere all over the theater
and just like,
Is this a bigger fish? If it's got guts like,
what are we talking here? Yeah.
We're talking like, Scottish. Would you hold this up
in a photo? Yeah, you could hold it up
in a photo. Scottish mackerel, you know?
I think it's a good, like 10, 11 inches, at least.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it's just, you know,
we were apologizing profusely afterwards.
'Cause the theater just reeked of fish
and everybody does their shows in there,
like, the next day, all throughout the day.
And they were doing everything they could,
like blowing fans out the theater
and, you know, spraying Febreze everywhere
but it didn't quite resolve the issue.
It never went away.
And you want it to go away.
You go back in and you're like,
"Let me smell. It's probably fine."
Yeah.
It doesn't leave.
Yeah. You get it.
You get it.
Is there an entertainer that informed the way
you perform today?
Is there something you watched where you're like,
"I didn't know you could do that."
'Cause sometimes I watch your stuff and I'm like,
"oh, I didn't know you could do that."
And it just pushes me in a direction to
to experiment more, to try different things.
Oh, thanks Moses.
I think I would say the same thing about you, to be honest,
like, whenever I watch your Cat Guy, I was like, whoa,
think Brent Weinbach was actually the first person I saw
in Jon Daly doing the drunk Christmas tree.
Yeah.
I was actually interning at Conan. Summer, 2011.
And I just went to like UCB
and John Daley was doing his Sappity Tappity
drunk Christmas tree and my mind was blown.
I was like, whoa, you can like, just go be a character
and like interact with people and just be fucking dumb.
And then, I saw Brent Weinbach also at UCB.
And he was like,
doing some weird fucking bit where he was like,
grinding on people in the audience.
Not actually touching them, you know? But in their face.
And I was just like, "whoa,
these guys are weird! And they don't give a fuck."
So Nate is on Netflix right now.
The response has been great.
It's been cool to see people, see what everyone is seeing
for so many years of you doing your own thing,
carving out your own lane and now people are sharing it.
And it seems like it's doing pretty well.
Thanks, Moses.
I think people like it.
And like you said, I was also concerned
that it wouldn't translate, you know?
And then, you know, cut some bits for time,
which are also like,
(groans in pain)
You know? Just like, kills you inside but,
Yeah.
I think all in all, you know,
I feel like a lucky girl, you know, it's like, so cool.
And just to have it out there is awesome.
And I can't-- Yeah. It's, it's crazy.
It's crazy to go from like some black box theater
to like, on Netflix.
People in, you know, Chile can watch it and stuff like that.
How cool is that, you know?
The Chilean market for you has been insane.
They've hailed you as a deity there. It's been incredible.
I blew up in Chile.
I don't know what's going on,
but I get a lot of DMs from people in a Chile.
If you could say one thing to your Chile fans,
we got a lot in the comments right now.
Chile's going off.
They're actually wanting you to get involved with politics!
(laughing) They said to pick a side.
I don't know if that means anything to you.
I say, no comment right now.
No comment right now.
Every message is in here. I wish I knew how
to say that in Spanish, but yeah, no comment ahora.
And come back to me later.
Later. We watched the special, thank you, Natalie.
Hopefully, you can stick around for a little bit after.
But Nate is on Netflix right now.
Highly recommend it.
Thank you, Moses.