Really? no, Really? with Jason Alexander & Peter Tilden

We originally wanted to title this episode "How the worst day of life became the best day of life", but we realized it was better to let Pete Holmes explain everything that happened to him leading up to his stand-up career and the creation of his HBO show, Crashing, that he made with Judd Apatow. On this episode of Really? no Really? Jason and Peter do a deep with Pete on how an incident liking catching your wife in an affair with another man can not only serve as comedic and artistic inspiration, they also delve into how you respond or handle such a situation. That's where factors like therapy and spirituality come into play and emphasizes the need for comedy in our lives. We'll also discuss comedy justice, Simpsons jokes that didn't get cut, those College Humor Batman sketches and why we all need a Larry David in our lives.
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When comedian Rick Glassman was first diagnosed with autism, he loved talking about it in his act because it was a new discovery for him. But then he became more self-conscious about it because of people's preconceived ideas of what being on the spectrum is. On this episode of Really? no Really?, Rick explains to Jason and Peter how he found himself in these positions where he was teaching, explaining and selling something that didn't leave him feeling comfortable and didn't want to talk about it for a long time. Now, Rick is back on the other end where he's comfortable talking about it. However, Rick also explains this is a journey into his form of comedy involves an autism diagnosis and isn't exclusive to it.
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Steven Cyr, long time Las Vegas casino host, Vegas Insider, and a man who spent decades standing at the intersection of money, addiction, psychology, ego, luxury, and absolute human madness. That's a six way intersection, by the way. On this episode of the Really? no, Really? Podcast, you're about to hear the secrets of Vegas revealed, including whether casinos use coolers. The cooler. That's the thing I got to know to stop a player from winning big. We've seen that in movies. A guy quitting and the table is running too hot. They bring in a guy, a dealer to to take over the blackjack table. The cooler. Steve's going to tell us this guy can't manipulate the deck.

Steve's job wasn't just booking suites and handing out show tickets. A casino host becomes part time therapist, a concierge crisis manager, and part adult babysitter for billionaires. I think pretty sure he's dealt with whales, celebrities, compulsive gamblers, mob adjacent characters, and people so rich that they treat losing $100,000 like normal people treat a banana.
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Chad Maisel and Neale Mahoney, authors of the report, Taking On The Annoyance Economy, explain why every app, website, airline, pharmacy, streaming service, grocery store and parking meter now feels like it's determined to break you on this episode of the Really? no Really? Podcast. We used to think companies wanted loyal customers. Now it feels like companies want hostages. Everything is designed to wear you down. The unsubscribe button is hidden like it's a nuclear launch code. Chad and Neale sit down with Jason and Peter to delve more into this $165 billion economy that's made of hidden fees and junk fees and what steps consumers are doing to fight back.

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Jason had an emergency this week and could make this episode but Peter held down the fort. With the Olympics heading to Los Angeles in 2028, the issue on how cities bid to hold the Olympics is one that drives Peter crazy. On this episode of Really? no Really? Podcast, Peter speaking economist, Andrew Zimbalist, author of the book, Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, breaks down how the bidding process works and the aftermath these cities have to deal with.

You see all these executives flying around the world and behind closed doors, always bidding for the Olympics. And then you look up the fact that the Olympics arrive in a city, zoning laws disappear, environmental reviews are rushed, homeless are moved, areas are renamed, cities that had the Olympics are paying off debt after 20 years. They bid these things out and you're told, "Oh, it's going to be $7 billion to do this." And it turns out to be $170 millionThey're always underestimated. The real question though is is it all BS or is it intentional?

As time passed in, the Olympics got bigger and bigger, and you had to build more and more stadiums and do more and more infrastructural work and so on and so forth. And it became impossibly expensive. We're still doing that same system. And the system back in 1896, which was a time when we didn't have international telecommunications, we didn't have international jet service. You basically had to move the games around every four years to get as much of the world participating in in the Olympics.
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