EP. 160 — Zach Zimmerman

 

[00:01:30] Jameela Zach Zimmemem. Sorry. I’m so stupid. Zach Zimmerman, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

[00:01:38] Zach Thank you so much. I am living, loving, laughing, learning, blessed and highly favored. Delighted to be here.

[00:01:45] Jameela Well, go fuck yourself, get off the podcast. This is not, this is not what we brought you here for. It’s not my vibe I’m British. So it’s not my vibe.

[00:01:54] Zach I’m hungover and enjoying an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts.

[00:01:59] Jameela There she is. God, they have good coffee. I can’t believe it. It’s some of the great coffee of the world, I believe.

[00:02:07] Zach And I can nurse it. My friends make fun of me because I’ll, like, work a medium cold brew for, like, four or 5 hours and just walk around with it. It just feels like a comfort

[00:02:16] Jameela Do you microwave it?

[00:02:16] Zach I would know ne- what? Microwave?

[00:02:19] Jameela Oh, suddenly very judgmental. I see.

[00:02:22] Zach Microwave my cold brew?

[00:02:26] Jameela No, I would never. I would never suggest.

[00:02:30] Zach Do you? Oh, but if I was a I’ve been known to take a hot coffee and re heat it in my home.

[00:02:34] Jameela I may have I may have heated a cold brew, you know, because I get to decide. I like to be in control.

[00:02:43] Zach You’re the queen of your own domain.

[00:02:44] Jameela This is starting really badly. Um okay. I’m thrilled to have you here.

[00:02:48] Zach We can start over.

[00:02:49] Jameela No, no, no, no. We’re not starting over. We’re keeping it in everyone deserves to know what an animal I am. I once microwaved scrambled eggs, and I realized, Ah, this is the low point. This is. This is rock bottom.

[00:03:03] Zach From from raw egg to scramble?

[00:03:05] Jameela Yolk. Yeah, from yolk.

[00:03:07] Zach I played that game. It sticks to the bowl.

[00:03:10] Jameela It sticks to the cup. Yeah, it destroys the cup. Yeah. I do it out of a tea mug. So anyway, welcome to I Weigh. I’m thrilled to have you here. I met you about a month ago when you were on my other podcast, Bad Dates, and you were very funny. And I fell immediately, madly in love with you. And then you told me about your book, which is called Is it Hot in Here? Or Am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth, which is truly, I think, my favorite title of any book ever. And I’m not always a huge reader, but I had to read this book given the title, and it has been such a joyous ride and it is so funny and so smart and so many things about it would resonate so deeply with my audience. And so I wanted you to come here today so we could talk about the book and you and and why you wrote it. So thanks. Thanks for honoring me with your presence.

[00:04:07] Zach Thank you for having me.

[00:04:10] Jameela So, okay, so tell people what this book is about.

[00:04:14] Zach Totally. My book is about my journey from straight meat eating conservative to queer, vegetarian, atheist, and all the drama we’re in. So I have approached it with some personal essays about my relationship with my conservative family and the tensions and drama that exists there trying to maintain a relationship, even though we believe fundamentally different things. I have some humor pieces along the way just to break things up um little lists, and pieces of satire to keep people laughing. I’ve poured my soul in terms of my romantic relationships as well, from being dumped on a plane to finding myself falling in love with a sauna hookup. And then the other core theme, family, love, is work. So I like tracking my relationship to work and sort of odd jobs I had in high school, to falling into an advertising career, to leaving it all to sort of pursue comedy and and writing. So I pack a lot, a lot into this bad boy. But those are sort of the, the core themes I went into it with.

[00:05:23] Jameela But it’s it’s so good. It’s so funny. It’s so funny that I was reading out to all my roommates today, just one of the chapters, and it made me feel like a funnier person. And I’m only reading your words, but it’s just incredibly fun and easy to read to other people. And then you feel like a comedy superstar. It’s just it’s it’s a very warm book. You’re writing about difficult subjects in a very divisive time, but in a way that feels like it is just it has to have come straight from your heart this book.

[00:05:56] Zach And it was a labor of. It was triggered by the pandemic gave me the time and the sort of space to face all my deepest inner demons and sort of get some of this insight on the page. And so it feels nice that I might have captured something right, something true in a way that can be spread and share to others. I love the idea of someone reading this to someone. If someone fell in love because of this book, that would feel cool. Like, sharing the story.

[00:06:29] Jameela Yeah like a baby making book.

[00:06:31] Zach Yes. Put. Put the audiobook on. Listen, while you’re making love, I promise conception.

[00:06:39] Jameela I wouldn’t recommend. Sorry, I wouldn’t recommend. So talk to me. Can we can we start with your upbringing and what it was like to grow up super religious and and in a con in a conservative environment? And given that that’s not what you actually now would identify with. When you were younger was there a feeling of like a, uh, a disconnect, or were you just all in?

[00:07:08] Zach I was very all in. I talked to a friend the other day who was like when he first heard about Christianity and sort of the stakes of evangelical Christianity, he was like, Yeah, that’s not for me. And I look back and I’m like, That was a choice. I sort of bought into the entire way that my parents were seeing the world. And unfortunately, that also involved me going to hell. So I had the worst of it in that, like I believed these were all the right answers. But since I wasn’t having this conversion experience that my dad had, my dad, like, heard the voice of God and he was a pastor and would tell me the story

[00:07:44] Jameela What did he say? What did he say the voice of God sounded like.

[00:07:48] Zach It was kind of a chanting and it was like, Jesus, Jesus, you need this. You need this.

[00:07:54] Jameela Catchy.

[00:07:57] Zach God knows a tune and he knows how to get in your head, but as a kid,

[00:08:00] Jameela Yeah yeah yeah it sounds like a Pitbull song.

[00:08:01] Zach But as a kid hahaha throwing down a beat.

[00:08:05] Jameela He ust likes to rhyme the same word with the same word, which isn’t really.rap.

[00:08:08] Zach Actually not a rhyme. No.

[00:08:10] Jameela No. Okay. So he he said that he heard the voice of God. You did not hear that same voice of God. So therefore you thought you were going to hell, right? You have the fear of hell.

[00:08:19] Zach Fear of hell. Oh, my God. It was so unpleasant. I once thought I collected Teenie Beanie Babies from McDonald’s. I loved Happy Meal Toys, and I once decided, like, Oh, I’m not going to heaven because I’m too attached to these. So I sat down with my brother, which is hilarious now. But looking back on my poor little Zach. But I opened them with my brother in this like ceremony I staged in my room that was supposed to get me into heaven, but alas, it did not. The only thing that’s gotten me into heaven is knowing that there isn’t one. And that took time to eventually conclude that.

[00:08:57] Jameela I mean, we have a great gay club called Heaven, which is so hilariously named in the U.K. It’s very iconic, and I think it’s a wonderful play on the fact that gay kids are told that they will never get into heaven. And so now they have a way of doing it every Saturday night in London. Yeah, you should definitely go. It’s amazing.

[00:09:17] Zach There used to be a gay club in New York called Therapy, and so we similarly young, religiously traumatized queer youth need therapy as well.

[00:09:28] Jameela Can you explain to people what the extra layer of the evangelical is in case they aren’t aware?

[00:09:36] Zach Hundred percent. So Christianity today has two big camps, Catholicism, which is sort of most of your big, gorgeous churches and across the world. And then Protestantism. Oh, my goodness, how deep am I going to go? The big Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther was sort of like, everyone has their own relationship to God. It doesn’t need to be mediated by a priest. So, like, everyone can have a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ. And then within Protestantism are evangelicals and fundamentalists who sort of take the Bible fully, literally, like the Earth was created in seven days. That’s not a metaphor. Jesus was the literal Son of God. And evangelical as a word means like spreading the gospel, too. So not just I’m a Christian, but I have to make you a Christian. And so that leads a lot of the colonialization and the domination that the church was doing in the past. And today, too. So. Oh, man. I hope I got most of that, right?

[00:10:38] Jameela It’s it’s steroidsy. You know, it’s the it’s the church of steroids.

[00:10:42] Zach Steroidsy?

[00:10:44] Jameela Yeah, it’s a little yeah, it’s it’s it’s it’s a it’s a slightly you know, the intensity is dialed up on it. And. And would you say that the shame is more intense within there because they’re taking the Bible so, so literally.

[00:11:01] Zach I, I probably so I definitely I’m no stranger to shame and sort of felt that a lot and even I mean. Everyone can have lots of nice relationships with different religions. But Christianity in particular, for me, putting a worldview where humans are sinful and are fallen and broken and beaten and need salvation to get out of that just doesn’t like promote the greatest things for me. Like I’d rather. I remember as a kid thinking like, Oh, I’m just like this innocent little kid, but I’m going to hell. And I’m like, Your default state is hell in the cosmology of Christianity. Like, can’t we build a better worldview? Can’t get can’t there? My version. I have a pitch for the afterlife, actually.

[00:11:50] Jameela Oh, please.

[00:11:51] Zach When we die, there is a God and there is a heaven. And there is a hell. But we don’t know who God is. God is one randomly selected person from Earth.

[00:11:59] Jameela So what if we’re. What if we’re dead already now and that person is currently walking among us? Who do we think it is?

[00:12:10] Zach I’m. I don’t know. That’s why you have to be nice to everybody. Because you never know who’s God and don’t make any enemies.

[00:12:17] Jameela That’s a great philosophy. I am fucked.

[00:12:20] Zach Don’t wrong me.

[00:12:22] Jameela I am so fucked. But you know what? I really enjoy a warm temperature, so I have no problem with that. Also, I want to be very clear. I’m not trying to shit on religion. I’m not trying to shit on anyone who wishes to participate within that sense of community. I totally get it. I think that we have been left with a void in our society where we no longer have those communities. I am personally not a religious person, but I am just kind of calling out some of the things that specifically, especially for queer people, can be problematic within certain very dogmatic religions. That’s all. Just to be clear.

[00:13:00] Zach And to be clear. There is no God. Religion is a lie. Everyone should abandon all churches. Burn them down. Now. If anything, in the past few years I’ve started to soften a little. So anyone who’s been through any kind of trauma might respond with like, anger. Like, I was really upset with my parents when I stopped believing all this. I was demanding apologies and only in the lalst few years.

[00:13:24] Jameela What was your moment? What was it like how did that how did it all unfold?

[00:13:28] Zach A lot of yelling.

[00:13:30] Jameela But what was the like? How old were you? What? What? Like paint me the scene of that kind of revelation.

[00:13:36] Zach It took it took I left my family and went to college, which I think separating me from that environment was the beginning stages. Like I the metaphor I like is I was wearing my father’s clothes. And they started to feel like they didn’t fit quite right. Like I was presenting the gospel to my fellow undergraduates and I was like, Oh wait, there’s other ways to see the world. Because I’d never left Virginia, I’d never left the country. And so I get into college first of my family to go to college. I even studied religion. I joke, I study religion and theater. It was a double major in lies. But it took I mean, religion deals with big themes like life and its meaning and death. And so it took a friend dying to sort of trigger me to realize, oh, there is no God or sort of for me, this is why I understood why religion exists was to sort of help me process this mourning. And that’s when I kind of rejected the church or decided, okay, there’s no God. I also randomly became a vegetarian then. Like I watched a documentary. I think when people make big shifts in their life in one category, they’re more likely to make other ones like you move, move to a new city, you start a whole new routine or you fall in love and you’re like, take up pickleball. I don’t know. But I decided to become not decided to, realized I was left, decided to realize I was queer, became a vegetarian, realized I was an atheist, kind of in what felt like a finger snap moment. And then over time, I sort of unlearn some of my behaviors and really started to grapple with that, explore my sexuality, explore my religiosity, explore my.

[00:15:20] Jameela Vegetables.

[00:15:21] Zach Vegetarianism. It’s essential to explore vegetables.

[00:15:29] Jameela And what was that like for your mental health? Right? There’s a kind of duality there in that it must be amazing to finally release yourself from certain things that you no longer identify with and feel like you’re living your truth. But also it’s a huge overhaul to then also divorce yourself from the person you have been up until now.

[00:15:52] Zach I didn’t fully process it till therapy when like five or so years later, like my therapist, literally, I’ve been with the same guy for six years and he changed my life. I understood. I started to process that like religious trauma, I learned how to describe emotions. I learned how to articulate myself. And there’s. You mourn who you might have been had things gone differently. And that’s very emotional because then it feels like wasted time. And we have such a finite life.

[00:16:29] Jameela As in oh so and so not the other version of you that stayed that way, but the version of you that like who would I have been if I hadn’t been forced down that path?

[00:16:38] Zach Yeah. Like if.

[00:16:40] Jameela That I’ve come to me earlier. Yeah.

[00:16:42] Zach Yeah.

[00:16:43] Jameela I feel that way about anorexia, where I’m just like, Oh, fuck. Oh, my God. If I hadn’t been like, weighed that day in front of my school, like, what would my life be like now? Like, it’s just the sliding doors of what an eating disorder can do to you. It’s. And it’s its own kind of cult or religion. The one of, like, thinspiration not to try, you know, to compare it to much on the nose. But there’s just I definitely, definitely identify with that.

[00:17:12] Zach That’s very apt. Yeah, I think. It’s never too healthy to, like, feel regret, I guess, of what it what could have been. But we are owed. I mean, if yeah, if that experience hadn’t happened to you, what are then the only insight you could take from it would be.

[00:17:29] Jameela I wouldn’t have this fucking podcast would I, I guess.

[00:17:33] Zach Oh, thank God. When I look at Twitter, it sort of tells me that I need to, like, cut my parents out of my life or like burn down their house every year. I’m sort of like it’s still my mom and my dad or it’s easier to what do I say? Someone else’s, like disregard for people’s humanity is not your excuse to do the same. Like, once you start seeing even conservatives as inhumane or unhuman or less than then you’re cutting off a part of the human organism that we’re all interconnected together. And I look, I would love if I had liberal parents and I could be like, fuck the Trump train supporters. I’m still a fuck the Trump train supporters, but I’m also like looking to get Thanksgiving dinner like once a year, I like my mom’s. I like my mom’s mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese. And I think loving them, which values the definition of love that I found in bell hooks, all about love, which is commitment to someone’s spiritual growth. Loving someone means giving them space to change, knowing that they will, being committed to helping them change. Like I could have cut my parents out of my life, which I did for like four years, which is powerful. And I think for a lot of young queer people, they need to sow their wild oats and cut their toxic family members out for a period of time. But eventually there can be a coming home in the right scenario. And I think my parents and I learning to navigate this is kind of the great tension of my life and holding them accountable, but also letting go. It’s just such a. Like you said, it’s sucks that it happened, but what a gift that had happened. Well, this is like change is how I see the world. Changes how I get scared about navigating the next year and a half, ten years, 20 years or my, my, my. A thing I have to tell myself is I see in my parents the tension between the talking points that they’re receiving from conservative media and the like love that their body feels like my mom loves me. She’ll say like, yes, books need to be taken out of Florida schools, and kids shouldn’t be learning about about sex or or queerness from a young age. But then she welcomes me home like her body loves me and knows she loves me. Her grand one of her granddaughters or my my.

[00:20:29] Jameela She tells you all the time as well that she loves you. You say in the book that she says it so often that it’s almost as though she’s trying to convince you, which I think is really sweet.

[00:20:39] Zach It’s maybe mean, but she does. She says, I love you unconditionally. And I had to ask her because it feels like she’s reading a script. Like that’s something the Bible says. But then I ask her, like, what does that mean one day and she’s like, She said, like, you could murder someone and I would still love you and not be happy. I think she said, I might not be happy about it. Or I’m like, Oh my God.

[00:21:05] Jameela Oh, that’s very sweet. I’m very with you. I’m very with you there. Like it’s I don’t like the current culture of of cut off of family purely over religious or political beliefs, because I think we we sacrifice the opportunity to be able to level with them and meet halfway. You know, I don’t think that it’s a healthy idea, I don’t think it is a good idea. People cut people’s family members off for all kinds of reasons. So obviously, do you I cut my family off for other things. But I think if it’s something that you feel pressured to do by social media or our kind of social culture of they are different. They are other. I think you need to be very careful because you are potentially cutting off a part of yourself that you actually want to be far away from. You’re doing it because you feel like you’re letting other people down if you don’t, if that makes sense, like there is such a social pressure of like if you you know, we saw Sydney Sweeney, that young actress in Euphoria, she posted a picture with her family at like a party and they were wearing like what looked like MAGA hats, but they didn’t say a MAGA slogan on them, but people just presumed because of where they’re from and the skin color and the fact that they even have the jokey red hats, that they must all be Republicans. And she got shat on for like three weeks for those photographs with no declaration as to anyone’s political ideologies. And people were just like, how could she spend time with these people? How dare she spend time with these people? Were canceling Sydney Sweeney just because she’s being photographed with her own family in what we presume could to be a Republican setting. And I just it gave me like a strong sense of ick because. I don’t think that that’s how we’re going to move forward as a culture. I don’t think that’s how they’re going to understand us and we’re going to understand them in the next generation of always got hugely clashing beliefs with the previous ones. And I think it’s vital that we we try. If if we have the time and resources to to make sure that we don’t dehumanize each other, then we have no hope at meaningful progress. And that is is then that then comes out in our elections. It helps no one interpersonally or politically. It helps no one for us to feel like this is the only way to move forward is via the dehumanizing and discarding. That’s all.

[00:23:40] Zach It only helps Mr. Elon Musk It only helps the creators of the platforms that want our eyeballs on them for hours and hours. So they can sell ads to us we’re just I mean, I’m, I’m a rat in the same cage being poked and prodded. And I play the game too, like I’m on these platforms and will make a joke when I can. But it’s definitely the Yeah.

[00:24:03] Jameela Well it’s the it’s the name of the game. The outrage and division is the name of the game. And I think it’s really great that you talk about ways to try to come to terms like, it’s fucking great that you took your space to establish your boundaries. And I imagine that made a big impact on your family. And that’s what, partially. Uh, well, I would love for you to talk about what you know, how that impacted your family and how that led to amending.

[00:24:29] Zach I think the power of a timeout is really powerful. That I didn’t go home for four years and then I started to dip my toes back in. A big insight I’m learning is sort of making new memories and experiences with them, sort of not giving up on them politically, but definitely picking our battles. Every phone call with mom doesn’t have to be, you know, when she mentions Chick-Fil-A. Do I use that as a moment to educate her about their donation history or do I move on? And we talk about like my niece and nephew, like there’s so many off ramps into the the hells of a political debate that won’t go anywhere or what I found quite won’t go anywhere. And so I think making new memories I’m learning we did family karaoke a few years ago for Thanksgiving. Like, my niece had a karaoke set and she busted it out. I don’t know if other families have weird traditions. This was not a tradition. No one had ever done karaoke in our family. But suddenly my dad’s singing, my mom singing. That’s the trick. If you don’t agree with your family, just stick to the published lyrics of pop songs and then you won’t fight. Just sing. Just sing these songs to one another. But it was a moment where I’m like, Oh, if we can. We get to pick where to focus. These are people for me that have memories of my childhood, have parts of me inside of them. I’m learning, unfortunately, how similar we are. Like as I get older.

[00:26:03] Jameela Like in what ways?

[00:26:05] Zach Oh, my dad’s really darkly funny and my mom is so, like, bold and out there, and I really am like their child. They’re really funny. Which I think for the longest time I wasn’t experiencing because I was choosing like two to do a CNN versus Fox News debate with them every phone call. But now I’m like, Oh, my dad is so darkly twistedly funny, and it’s kind of cool to have gotten both of their sensibilities and contain them both.

[00:26:44] Jameela And how has their journey been with accepting your sexuality, given their their upbringing, their beliefs. Do you feel accepted now and like?

[00:26:57] Zach Like enough. That’s the sort of thing I think I’ve learned to sort of settle with more. I’ve mentioned the name of an ex. When I visited home, I was at Cracker Barrel and I let John fall and my dad didn’t say anything. His mouth might’ve been bleeding from biting his tongue. I think they’re very selectively learning when to bite their tongue and when not to. But I’ve had moments where I’m like, Oh, they’re warming up. At the same time, I’m also learning a complete acceptance in terms of like I sent a copy of the book to my mom. Being like you, I want you be able to read it all. And then in hindsight, I’m like, Maybe you didn’t need to read about the three way or me getting.

[00:27:39] Jameela The twink.

[00:27:40] Zach Sucked off in a sauna or the twink like I’m like, Oh. Am I asking for too much? Or what are the right limits of of that?

[00:27:51] Jameela I guess that’s a lot for any parent. Evangelical or no evangelical. But that’s that’s hilarious. I think you write about your family very affectionately in this book. I mean, you write about everything. You hold people to account, but no one more so than yourself. From within this. It feels like it’s just like it’s just a it’s a it’s a a real dedication to self introspection. Have you always been that way or is that a more recent thing?

[00:28:23] Zach I think I’ve always been an overthinker and an over analyzer. I probably started from like analyzing my life, why was I going to hell? And now it’s turned into like analyzing my life. How can I find meaning? Be as happy as possible, sort of not be depressed and sad. But yeah, I’ve always the some there or Aristotle or someone like the unexamined Life sort of examining life is kind of why we’re here. And I definitely don’t mind my like himbo moments where I’m just like, you know, being dumb, dumb, smooth brain, enjoying life, dancing, drinking and those are important. I do think it’s worth I’m always craving like meaning and sort of I’m fascinated by how other people navigate this life. Do they think about these big questions or is it just because I thought about eternity from five years old?

[00:29:22] Jameela I was going to say. Can we talk just briefly about like where you’re at now emotionally, having gone through all of those changes, what has your mental health journey been like? Where are you at when it comes to things like confidence, love, self image, and as not just the way that you look, but the person that you are? Where are you at currently? What’s your journey been like?

[00:31:00] Zach For whatever reason, numbers are coming to mind and feel like I’m just at like 35% of 100% of what I could be, which is maybe sad. I wish I could say like I love myself every day and I’m amazing. I definitely know myself better than I ever have before. Like I know I learned that a person monologuing to me is like a big trigger because it goes back to my dad at the dinner table would give us this huge sermon about heaven and hell, and I would just sit there and cower in fear. So whenever anyone has kind of whenever I feel like I don’t contribute or can’t talk in a situation, I go back to that and I know that about myself. So I was doing like a promo event for the book, and I kind of felt like I didn’t have anything to say. And I started to shut down and I was like, Oh, this is this is little me. This is old me. And normally I might have been five years ago, like, spiraled for four days. Like, oh, I was so left out. That was so awful and not understood why. But now I’m like, Oh, I’m having a big emotional reaction this must just be touching like an old wound or sort of that’s I’m that was probably at two or three and I was feeling it like a ten. And so the blessing of that sort of level of introspection is like I know myself decently enough to be like, okay, I already know I’m going to be like, really sad in May, after the book comes out and the book tour is over and I’m kind of like coming down. Though a friend did say, Don’t preplan your depression for weeks out. And I was like, okay, maybe. But I am mindful like, I’m going to need a little bit of that. I’m going to need some alone time after a few days. I know my relationship to food, which could be better and substances, is going to affect how I’m feeling. And it’s sort of just like I like I have a decent sense of the landscape of my mind and where to poke and where to play and where to not. All that said, I do like surprising myself. I recently did like a skied skyscraper climb adventure in New York, which I’m terrified of heights I thought I would never do. But I, like leaned out over this skyscraper and it was such a rush and I felt so powerful for a few days. It was right before it was a week before I did my first, like, late night TV appearance. And so after I did that, I was like, I can do anything. I leaned over from a Skyscraper.

[00:33:20] Jameela That’s so genius.

[00:33:23] Zach I’m like, Oh, I’m not afraid. This is easy. I’m on the ground now. But I think at the same time learning a lot about yourself. Don’t close yourself off to like, discovering new parts of yourself, like things you may have never thought you could do.

[00:33:35] Jameela Yeah, I sense from the book and also from getting to know you that you are kind of entering a period of that boldness that you say that your mother emulates. You know what I mean? Like, it feels as though they’re there. It feels as though I’m I’m watching someone like, tip their toes in new waters and and and learning how to I don’t know. Not even just advocate yourself. Just show all of yourself. I think this book is an amazing expression of that. Like there is such a nudity to this book and also to your to your stand up comedy. It feels as though you, after so many years of feeling like you would not be allowed to be accepted. Now you are forcing people to see the whole of you so that if they accept you, they accept who you really are. You’re hell going self.

[00:34:25] Zach Yes. And those warm hugs are kind of those. Yeah, those mean more. I’ve thought about this in terms of I worked on a cruise ship for a while and the food on the cruise ship sort of has to be bland because it’s appealing to the largest number of people. It can’t be too spicy or can’t be too anything. And I’ve sort of learned in any interaction, whether you’re meeting someone for the first time or going on some show or doing some sort of project, you can sit in the middle and be kind of bland or make sure the interaction goes well. Everybody’s pleasant. Like when you’re meeting a lover’s parents or something, everyone’s on their best behavior, or you can show a little flash of who you are, and then you’ll find like the people who really like that or the people who don’t like, you’ll start to do a thing that divides people. Yeah. So it’s learning. I’m learning when and where and how much to share the beautiful, strange divine light within me and my strange, twisted personality unfiltered, no persona being my core self as honest as I can and seeing how people react to it.

[00:35:33] Jameela And how does it feel watching the way that people are reacting to your full self now?

[00:35:37] Zach Oh, it’s scary because you want everybody to like you. I want everybody to like me or I just want everybody to get along and also be there while they’re all getting along. So it’s a little I know I’ve been reading good reads reviews, which I really shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t even give attention to them. But the sooner you decide whether you’re like me or not, the better. Because if you don’t like me, please go away and never consume anything I create. This is not for you. I am not for you. That’s okay. Great knowing you. But if you like me, let’s go on a great ride. I’m going to write some books where I’m going to make some shows. Let’s. Let’s. Let’s create beautiful content together.

[00:36:17] Jameela One of the things that you kind of touch on here and there and and even in this conversation is like the way you feel about the way that you look. And it’s one thing that I have already discussed much with people on this show, but as a young queer person living in New York City, one of the lesser forgiving places for someone within the queer community when it comes to your own self image, where are you at with that? Is that too personal to ask you? But I always just wonder about this because I feel like there’s an extra pressure that doesn’t often get spoken about because there’s such an annihilation of women’s bodies that we we and it’s so out of control and egregious. But, but from what I see from all of my gay friends, there is an almost equal level of of pressure now building for men. It’s just that there’s less shit that we can sell them, especially so we don’t talk about it as much. It’s not in the Tik-tok adverts as much, but would you be comfortable talking to me about that and what your journey has been like with that?

[00:37:22] Zach I can talk about my experience there. I think it’s I mean, it’s definitely sad sort of the beauty standards that exist. Also, at the same time, I feel like I have terrible dysmorphia. I have no idea how I actually come across or look, I a thing I have discovered that’s kind of fascinating is what I call the pound. There’s a specific pound that I become like a sexual object to gay men and below it and then above it. I’m not. And this may just be I’ve created it in my mind, but my weight fluctuates probably between ten and 20 pounds, and I’m six foot four and I’m that yo yos throughout my life. And I’ve noticed sort of like the the, the precision with which the gay gaze like, well, will find me attractive or not.

[00:38:13] Jameela I have a theory about the magical pound because of course I used to have the same thing. Having had anorexia for such a long time, I believed I had a special pound, the pound, the permission pound. Right. It was the pound that gave me the permission to have a good day or to wear the thing or to, uh, to allow myself to feel any confidence. Do you know what I mean?

[00:38:34] Zach That’s heartbreaking.

[00:38:36] Jameela But it’s like that that daily at that daily weigh in that told me like a weather forecast. This is the kind of day you’re going to have today. It was the day of congratulations. And the restriction will feel like discipline and the days in which that very same restriction will just feel like punishment. And what I realized in the way that people were responding to me, especially people that I was sexually interested in, and I didn’t really have that much energy to be too sexually interested in anyone because I was dieting at the time. But anyone I was interested in, I noticed I got I for a while thought I was getting more attention because I was at the low pound weight. But what I realized when I gained a bunch of weight on medication and then went through a lot of therapy and I was 40 pounds heavier than I had been at my thin, fuckable weight, quote unquote. So I’d recovered from that from the anorexia, and I decided to accept my body much bigger. But I think I’d gained much more than that is that the pound is in your head and it’s because of what the pound means to your brain that dictates how you display your self, the confidence that you exude. And so it’s because you feel great, because you’ve gotten to your accepted weight that you are you are emanating a confidence that then other people are responding to. And then you see that as like confirmation bias, right? I’m getting more attention and I’m at the magic weight. That means the magic weight is working, whereas actually is just what the magic or knowing that you were the magic weight did to your brain that day and how it made you walk and how it made you dress and how it made you talk to people and move your body. It’s all in your fucking head. And now that I exist twice the size that I was as an anorexic person with a better sex life and more attention. And this time the other, I realize it was all a fucking lie. And it’s purely down to the way that I walk through this world. I know that sounds so cheesy, but I. But I have like, sort of hard data throughout my life to prove that. And, and I think a lot of people find the same thing eventually.

[00:40:46] Zach I feel like the universe sent you to tell me that because I’ve been living. I’m sorry gay twinks in New York. I thought you were looking by me because of my weight. I was actually feeling unconfident because I made myself think that I would be more attractive without a pound or two.

[00:41:02] Jameela Yeah, it’s the taxi light. You turn your taxi light off when you don’t feel confident.

[00:41:09] Zach Yeah.

[00:41:10] Jameela It’s you know, there are some people who sometimes talk about the fact I’ve got friends who are like, why is it always when I’m in a relationship and I’m all loved up, that suddenly now I’m getting attention from everyone? And we talk about it as though it’s this sort of like weird, unspoken Sex and the City phenomenon. But actually it’s just the fact that you feel really good about yourself. You feel sexy because someone is currently having sex with you all the time and wants to have sex all the time. So therefore you walk through the world with that taxi light on you and I feel fuckable. And therefore there is this energy that’s coming out of you that other people respond to. It’s so much of it is in our head and and it’s so frustrating that we’re imprisoned in the alternative belief.

[00:41:50] Zach That’s open relationships are lame.

[00:41:50] Jameela I promise you.

[00:41:51] Zach Like, I can’t compete in the sexual marketplace with people that already have full love from another person like that’s just not fair. They’re already loved. They’re out here. The taxi lights on.

[00:42:04] Jameela You’re not into open relationships? Too much work?

[00:42:08] Zach I’ve been I, I could be open one day, but for now it’s just like as a single person, like, everyone’s coupled up. They’re like 24 year olds that have, like, long term partners. And I’m like, What happened? Am I the only single person left in the city?

[00:42:25] Jameela You’ve just got to be poly. Now, this is a it’s a poly era.

[00:42:28] Zach Poly I wouldn’t mind like a lover in every port. A sort of, you know, a Chicago boyfriend.

[00:42:34] Jameela I see that for you I see that for you. I think that would be lovely for you.

[00:42:37] Zach Yeah?

[00:42:37] Jameela Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I. I think it was an I think it’s an important thing to say, and I think it’s I so identify with the. The fuckable pound. I so do. And and I hope that you continue to do that work on yourself to recognize that actually you’re really gorge. So gorge just a gorgeous six foot four cherub

[00:43:05] Zach cherub!

[00:43:06] Jameela It’s so fucking intense. I’ve seen Grindr. It’s like at the Olympics.

[00:43:12] Zach I say it’s a, it’s a sex video game where the coins are blowjobs and instead of extra lives you get the gradual decay of your physical form until you’re abandoned by the community you helped build.

[00:43:25] Jameela So when it comes to your your happiness and your relationship with shame and your relationship with yourself, what are the goals that you still have? What are the things that you still aspire to?

[00:43:40] Zach Oh, my God. I want. Yeah, I’d like.

[00:43:45] Jameela In an ideal world, like.

[00:43:48] Zach My friend Zack Noe Towers. I was getting coffee with him and he’s sober and has gone through AA and talked about like, looking for ways to help people. Like he actually wakes up and is like, looking for a way to help another person. And I’m like, That sounds amazing. Like, it’s secretly selfish because it actually gives you a big rush. But like, I’d love to get to a place where I’m, like, a little less worried about me, like the more I know my own baggage, etc., etc., and can start, like, helping others. Like, I wish I could flash forward to the phase of my career that’s like Zach Zimmerman presents. Like, I’d love to like, give six of my friends like comedy specials or start to help others because that’s always been part of who I am. I love connecting like powerful women. Like, I love having little brunches where I bring people together, like folding. I have lots of good one on one friendships, and I like folding them on to one another. And so I guess my goal for myself mentally would be maybe to like, decenter myself a little like. Shut up, Zach. You got to go, like, introduce these two folks or Shut up Zach, you need to, like, go get coffee with this, like, young comic or whatever. Like, yes, you have time. Like, go do it. That feels like a. Like a long term healthy thing to focus on. They say that, like execs later in their life are more likely to use we than I. Which is also probably because they’re not like doing the actual work. They’re like, we really need to get this report done by Sunday. But I think as you age, you think more collectively and maybe there’s less like self-obsessed, individualistic thinking. But I’d also like to I don’t know. I want like, what is called ozempic that the weird new.

[00:45:37] Jameela No. I’m going to kill you.

[00:45:39] Zach I don’t want it. I want it for my brain, though. I want some magic pill

[00:45:42] Jameela okay.

[00:45:43] Zach It perfects my brain. I want to ozempic for the brain. Science and research needs to find like a pill makes you happy or something.

[00:45:54] Jameela I swear to God. Such a violent response from me.

[00:45:55] Zach No it’s healthy.

[00:46:01] Jameela I just cant believe at the end of this like, loving conversation about mental health and, like, body image and this, that and the other. You’re like, Yeah. And I was like, you know, where do you see yourself when it comes to your mental health later on down the line? Like, what are the things that come up in this book? Like, you know, all of the kind of darker sides of the the inner struggle that you’ve gone through. Like, what are the things that you most hoped to heal? And you were like, I think I need some ozempic. My heart fell out of my vagina. You want a ozempic for the brain? Is that not just like a an antidepressant?

[00:46:38] Zach Probably you should probably explore some different ones. I’ve been on Lexapro for a year and a half now, which was actually there’s kind of like a weight connected story. I did it when I first went through a breakup and that was helpful and I came off it because I thought I was gaining weight from it and I was talking to a friend and he was like, Yeah, because what could be worse than gaining a few pounds? And I was like, Oh, you’re right. I should go back on this. I’d rather be sort of content. Like, that’s just what’s so toxic about the culture that we all uphold. I uphold it like I’m having to unlearn fatphobia in my own mind. And yeah, it’s just us. Life could be we could all be so much healthier and happier if we made some huge seismic changes to the world.

[00:47:27] Jameela Yeah, I’m glad to hear you say that. And I remember the first time you said that to me, how much I felt like I wish all of my friends could have heard that because it’s this incredible fear that people have that I completely understand I make complete space for. But the fact that their body is changing to save to save their lives sometimes for a while. But I think that’s I think it’s good that your friend said that to you. Zach, you are a joy and a light in this world. I have loved getting to know you. I hope everyone goes and reads this book. I hope everyone finds you online. All of the people who say that you are a beautiful rising voice in comedy are right. And thank you for spending some time with me today. Before you go, will you tell me in the least dramatic way, what do you weigh?

[00:48:12] Zach I weigh funny ness. I weigh kindness and I weigh smartness. Did I do that right?

[00:48:25] Jameela You did that right. There’s no wrong way to do it. It’s always different. And everyone always gets worried and self-conscious at the end. I concur with everything you said. Not that it’s any of my business. And everyone go out and buy Is It Hot in Here, or Am I Suffering For Eternity For All of the Sins I committed On Earth?

[00:48:42] Zach Thank you Jameela.