Episode 10 - Sam Lipsyte / Matthew / Eddie Pepitone
Guest 5:Lock the gates!
Guest 3:Are we doing this?
Guest 3:Really?
Guest 3:Wait for it.
Guest 3:Are we doing this?
Guest 3:Wait for it.
Guest 3:Pow!
Guest 3:What the fuck?
Guest 3:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest 3:What's wrong with me?
Guest 3:It's time for WTF!
Guest 1:What the fuck?
Guest 1:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, what the fuckers, thank you for coming.
Marc:I'm glad you're downloading my podcast.
Marc:I'm glad you're all enjoying it.
Marc:If you're on the treadmill, be careful.
Marc:If you're on public transport, try to stay clean.
Marc:Do not get sneezed upon.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I'm very excited about the show because we're going to take a little departure from what we usually do and talk to my friend Sam Whipsight, who is a brilliant writer, a novelist,
Marc:I don't know if you've read his books, but you should.
Marc:He's going to be here.
Marc:Also very funny.
Marc:And we're also going to be talking to Matthew because Matthew's sitting here right now and he's going to try to keep his mouth shut until a few with Matthew comes.
Marc:We'll see if he does that.
Marc:All right, look, I've got this problem and this is a what the fuck problem because I've been doing it all of my life.
Marc:I've been doing it since I was a little kid.
Marc:When I was a little kid, my grandma used to take me to the mall and I would go to bookstores and I would spend hours in bookstores because I loved bookstores.
Marc:I think she thought it meant that I was going to be a smart child.
Marc:I learned a lot of things in bookstores, which is not necessarily where I'm going with this particular little bit of information I'm sharing with you.
Marc:But here's a couple of things I learned in bookstores, all right?
Marc:The primary thing was I found a book in a bookstore, in a Walden Books, when I was a child, called Very Special People.
Marc:Very Special People is a book about freaks.
Marc:It was about circus freaks.
Marc:It was about the history of circus freaks.
Marc:It had pictures of the mule-faced lady,
Marc:Of Prince Radian, the guy who had no arms and no legs and lived in a bag.
Marc:Of Johnny Ick, who had no legs but could walk around on his hands.
Marc:And also he was a conductor and did other things.
Marc:Of Siamese twins.
Marc:And it blew my mind so far open, I couldn't even manage it.
Marc:And I became obsessed.
Marc:with circus freaks.
Marc:And I think one of the reasons is, is they were people that couldn't help, but be marginalized, couldn't help, but not fit in.
Marc:And some part of me emotionally resonated with that.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So it got me so obsessed to the point where most of my life, I was sad that I wasn't going to be able to see a circus freak.
Marc:And then the miracle happened.
Marc:The Albuquerque state fair.
Marc:When I was like 12 years old or 13 years old, Ronnie and Donnie, the only living Siamese twins, uh,
Marc:I was going to have my moment where I could go see them.
Marc:They were at the Midway at the Albuquerque State Fair.
Marc:And I bought my ticket and I walked up and it was like a living room in a trailer.
Marc:And you just saw these two heads that were kind of tilted funny like that, like Tommy's twins.
Marc:They were just watching TV.
Marc:And I felt like I should get more than that.
Marc:Like I felt like maybe I could knock on the window and say, come on, show me where you're connected, do something.
Marc:But they were just watching TV.
Marc:So it wasn't very satisfying, okay?
Marc:And then they had the elephant footed man, the man with elephant feet.
Marc:And I'm like, well, this is good enough, not as creepy, but I'll check it out.
Marc:And I go in and there was this little man.
Marc:He must have been as big as Matthew, small man.
Marc:He was a small man and he's pretty thin, but he had these horrendously disgusting large feet where the toes are all deformed and sticking out at weird places.
Marc:And he was wearing a loincloth and he was talking to people while you stood there.
Marc:He's like, you want to touch him?
Marc:You want to touch him?
Marc:Just go ahead and touch the toe.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm not doing that.
Marc:But I thought that was a pretty real freak.
Marc:And then I go to see... This is where I learned my lesson about freaks.
Marc:I go to see the wild woman of the Cajun swamp.
Marc:It said on the banner.
Marc:The wild woman of the Cajun... Wild pygmy woman or something of the Cajun swamp.
Marc:And I go up...
Marc:And I walk in, you know, you walk up a ramp, and they're usually in a trailer.
Marc:Literally, I walk in, I look in, and there's a woman making her bed.
Marc:This little woman is just making her bed.
Marc:And I felt like I was imposing.
Marc:And she turned around.
Marc:She had long hair.
Marc:She was short.
Marc:She was like dwarfish, you know.
Marc:And she was wearing like some sort of like loincloth, the outfit, which seems to be the common way that freaks dress if they're wild or whatever.
Marc:And literally, I was standing there watching her make her a little bed.
Marc:And she turns around and looks at me almost like, oh, OK.
Marc:And then reaches into a box and pulls out a snake and turns to me and goes.
Yeah.
Marc:And I literally felt like, oh, you know what?
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I really didn't mean to bother you.
Marc:So that was what compelled me from a book that changed my life and that ended that particular trajectory.
Marc:And then the other thing I learned from a book from the humor section in Walden Books was they had a history of underground comics.
Marc:And I was like 11 years old and they had a sex section in the history of underground comics with our crumb, Spain and other people from the underground comics world who did these panels about sex.
Marc:And there was one panel and I'd never seen or understood or even really fathomed how the penis went into the vagina.
Marc:It was just because I had no real clear concept of what a vagina was.
Marc:looked like as a receiver of a penis.
Marc:And there in this cartoon book was a penis entering a vagina, and it fucked my head up good, but really blossomed my ability to masturbate properly.
Marc:Now...
Marc:Moving into the present, my current problem with books is, and this is a relative what the fuck, is why the fuck can't I stop buying books knowing that I have the same experience with books?
Marc:I read Chris Hedge's book.
Marc:I interviewed Chris Hedge's.
Marc:I read Empire of Illusion.
Marc:He keeps referring to this book in there called Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.
Marc:He was a Russian novelist.
Marc:who wrote this huge book, like Love and Death, or what is it, More and Peace, and I'd never heard of it, but Chris Hedges keeps referring to it, basically insinuating that it has all the answers.
Marc:Like, all the answers are in this book.
Marc:And I have felt that way about many books.
Marc:I've bought many large books
Marc:with big titles that I can't understand thinking that all the answers are in them.
Marc:City of Courts by Mike Davis, okay?
Marc:A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault Books, Spinoza's Ethics.
Marc:When I see them in the store, I have a moment where I'm like...
Marc:I got to have that book because then everything will make sense.
Marc:Not realizing that there's no way I can assess what's in that book.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:When I buy it, I feel good.
Marc:I bring it home.
Marc:I'm excited.
Marc:And it was this behavior that made me realize that I'm addicted to
Marc:To books for a very specific reason.
Marc:Because I underline, I engage, and I have books where I get the highlighter out, dude.
Marc:I have a copy of Plato's Republic from college.
Marc:I think everything but the pronouns was underlined.
Marc:So I get into this book and I'm underlining and I'm underlining and I've got hundreds of these books with these big titles, big fat books, and they're on a bookshelf in my garage.
Marc:All of them have bookmarks at page 15 to 20.
Marc:Now the arrogance of that is twofold, if I can use the word twofold.
Guest 1:You just give me the finger?
Marc:No, I said twofold with two fingers, Matthew.
Guest 1:But the middle was more prominent.
Guest 1:Twofold.
Guest 1:All right.
Marc:Am I being sensitive?
Marc:No, I'm giving you the middle finger because you're nodding your head and you're just like, okay, Mark's doing his thing.
Guest 1:Yeah, I'm waiting for you to.
Marc:Yes, listen.
Marc:I'm going to.
Marc:All of them have that bookmark at page 15 to 20.
Marc:And the arrogance of that moment is that is the moment in a 400-page book where I said, I get it.
Marc:I get this.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:There's no reason for me to read the rest of this book that may have taken 15 to 20 years to write.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:I've got enough.
Marc:I read everything like a self-help book.
Marc:It doesn't matter what it is.
Marc:And then I realize that I'm addicted to books because I don't retain much.
Marc:I just look for things to spark my little brain, right?
Marc:It's not that little.
Marc:You don't be nice to yourself.
Marc:But what I'm saying is that while I'm reading it,
Marc:OK, it feels like I'm thinking it.
Marc:And that's enough.
Marc:That's the high.
Marc:But still, I have all these books.
Marc:I walk into bookstores now and I walk into my garage and I literally feel like I'm being bullied by my books.
Marc:If I walk into a bookstore, literally, it's like, hey, stupid.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Take me home.
Marc:I got all the answers.
Marc:What's up, dummy?
Marc:That's how I feel when I walk into a bookstore and I get exhausted.
Guest 1:I think that stores- You know the books aren't really saying that to you, though.
Marc:No, of course not.
Marc:But I feel this way.
Marc:I feel overwhelmed in stores.
Marc:Like, I think that they should have a cot at Home Depot, that there should be a place available for people who are maybe just going in for an outlet or an extension cord.
Marc:And you walk in, you're like, oh my God, the possibilities are overwhelming.
Marc:I'm exhausted.
Marc:They should have like a, like, you know, at concerts where they have the tent where you go if you take too much drugs, there should be, what is that called?
Marc:Brown acid tent.
Marc:No, it's got another tent.
Guest 1:Hospitality?
Marc:Yeah, they should have one of those at Home Depot.
Marc:Just the overwhelmed amateur tool guy tent.
Guest 1:I just want to say something.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest 1:I'm 5'9".
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:It's not that short.
Guest 1:It's average.
Marc:But you're shaped.
Guest 1:Shaped?
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:But what sort of shape?
Guest 1:You're kind of roundy.
Guest 1:Round?
Marc:Not fat, but round.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest 1:Would you say I'm pudgy?
Guest 1:Would you say husky?
Guest 1:How would you put it?
Guest 1:How would you put it?
Guest 1:If you looked like me, how would you hurt yourself?
Yeah.
Marc:I have looked like you.
Guest 1:And so how did you hurt yourself?
Marc:I called it fat.
Guest 1:You know, I've been skinnier.
Guest 1:I've also been fatter.
Marc:But I don't say, I'm not saying that you're fat.
Marc:I'm saying that when I've, what are you saying?
Marc:I'm saying that when I've been where you are, I've thought I was fat, but I would say you're just pudgy.
Guest 1:No, I think I'm fat.
Guest 1:I don't think I'm unattractively fat.
Guest 1:I still get women.
Guest 1:Maybe it's a certain caliber of women.
Guest 1:I don't know.
Marc:You work it.
Guest 1:Yeah, I work it.
Guest 1:I make it work.
Guest 1:I'm also funny.
Guest 1:At least that's what they tell me after I apologize for not satisfying them.
Guest 1:They said, well, at least you're funny.
Marc:No, I think you're funny.
Marc:And I think that you have a persistence that women probably find sympathetic.
Guest 1:Oh, yeah.
Guest 1:Okay.
Guest 1:I think that probably accounts for something in this world.
Guest 1:You know, I want to say something about the circus freaks.
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:I really feel like that gives me some insight into you.
Guest 1:And I think it's beautiful that that was the sort of epicenter of something for you.
Guest 1:Because if you think about it, you basically became a circus freak, except for that you're fascinating deformities on the inside.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:So you kind of reached your goal.
Guest 1:Your dream is true.
Marc:My inner lady is bearded.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest 1:And we've met your inner lady.
Guest 1:We have?
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:This is so gay.
Guest 1:At least you haven't requested that I be a woman yet on this episode.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do you want to show me your feet?
Marc:Your feet are regular sized.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm 5'9".
Marc:Look, it was just something that happened to me when I was a kid.
Marc:I was just using you because you were in the room as an example of size.
Marc:The guy was actually a little smaller than you, and he was thinner than you.
Guest 1:But nobody can see that on the podcast, Mark.
Guest 1:I just explained it to him.
Marc:Do you want me to touch your feet?
Marc:You want me to touch your feet?
Guest 1:Actually, my feet are freakishly small.
Marc:Well, there you go.
Marc:So you're completely different than whatever I said.
Marc:All right?
Marc:I have high arches.
Marc:That part is true.
Marc:Well, then you're a freak.
Marc:Do you need help, Sam?
Marc:There, it's ready.
Marc:They're ready.
Marc:That's good.
Guest 2:Sorry, man.
Marc:It's okay, buddy.
Guest 2:It's been a pretty long day.
Guest 2:Has it been a long day?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So long that your phones are puzzling?
Guest 2:They're just like a Rubik's Cube or something.
Marc:I didn't mean to challenge you right out of the gear.
Marc:Come right up to the mic, too.
Guest 2:All right.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:You speak right into the machine.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:All these puzzles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You want me to open that water for you?
Guest 2:Yeah.
Marc:No, I can do it, I think.
Marc:My guest in studio is a dear friend of mine and somebody I respect greatly because he lives a noble life.
Marc:I believe that being a novelist and being a dark comedic genius, I know you don't want me to say that.
Marc:I'm just a big fan.
Marc:Sam Lipsight is here.
Marc:He is the author of the collection of short stories Venus Drive, the subject Steve, the novel Homeland.
Marc:He is sitting here with a galley copy of his new novel that is called The Ask.
Marc:The Ask.
Marc:That's a good title.
Guest 2:Thank you.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:That means something in like gangster talk.
Marc:What is the ask?
Guest 2:More like corporate gangster talk maybe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What is it though?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest 2:Well, I could actually, well.
Marc:Just tell me how you came about it and why that title.
Guest 2:Well, the narrator of the book is a development officer at a university, meaning his job is to raise money for buildings, fellowships, all of those sorts of things.
Guest 2:And his job is to talk to rich people and get them to give money and...
Guest 2:When they're talking about either the person they're asking or the amount they're asking for, they refer to it as the ask.
Marc:Okay.
Guest 2:And that's where you get that.
Guest 2:And so if I were asking you for money for some sort of project, I would probably refer to it as the Marin ask.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Marc:To other people not to me.
Marc:How's it going with the Marin ask right?
Marc:That would be the people you work with we're saying how where are we at with the Marin ask?
Marc:Can you give us a timeline right and you would say I don't think Marin has much to give right and that's the other thing you would make a give and
Marc:Right.
Marc:So there's the ask and then the give.
Guest 2:There's the ask and the give.
Marc:Now, I've talked to you about novels before, and certainly everybody should read Homeland by Sam Lipsight because they don't realize that Sam Lipsight, my friends, lives like a real writer.
Marc:He writes books.
Marc:He's not out there doing the Oprah thing.
Marc:He's teaching kids how to write at Columbia University and writing the books.
Marc:There are guys that write real books, and then there are guys that just write garbage.
Marc:Now, we don't have to mention names, but there is a certain literary element to book writing that is rare these days, is it not?
Guest 2:Well, you know, I don't know if it's always been rare or it's just sort of a little off the radar, maybe.
Marc:Like reading in general?
Guest 2:Well, people are going to read Mackenzie Phillips' book, right?
Marc:When's that come out?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I can't wait.
Marc:Sounds sorted.
Guest 2:Seems like we've got what we're going to get.
Marc:Really?
Marc:But I don't think there'll be scenes and stuff.
Guest 2:You want scenes?
Guest 2:Of course I do.
Guest 2:I'd rather imagine them.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I just want to know what age, because at some point his liver was giving and it just wasn't sexy at all.
Guest 2:Where were we?
Marc:We were at literature.
Guest 2:Well, I wonder if maybe, I have a fantasy that 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you went to a party, say.
Guest 2:I fantasize about these parties, too.
Guest 2:All the things that happened at them.
Marc:The ones 30 years ago?
Marc:But not the one where Mackenzie and her dad were at.
Guest 2:Well, they were upstairs.
Guest 2:It was a mix of artists and musicians.
Guest 2:And everyone was like, where's Phillips?
Guest 2:Where'd he go?
Marc:And then there was a lot of like, shh, just be cool.
Guest 2:Exactly.
Marc:Seems wrong.
Marc:You're kicked out of the party.
Guest 2:So at that party.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Downstairs.
Guest 2:Downstairs.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:You know, everyone's talking about the latest record or movie of Consequence.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:And also the book.
Guest 2:Right.
Guest 2:And I feel the book has sort of fallen off the shelf there.
Guest 2:No one really needs to talk about the book at the party anymore.
Marc:Well, I think Consequence in general has fallen off.
Guest 2:Maybe that's true.
Marc:I mean, what the hell they determine Consequence on?
Marc:It seems that once everyone became so astute and in tuned with the business element of all these different...
Marc:And mediums that, you know, that has infiltrated the dialogue of what consequence means.
Marc:It's like, even if it's an indie movie, people are still going to be talking about numbers.
Marc:Nobody really talks about literature in a lofty way or film in a lofty way, except for my friend Matthew, who we'll talk to later.
Marc:I mean, they talk about books and movies you've never seen before or heard before.
Guest 2:Right.
Marc:And that used to be important when I was younger, but it should be important to everybody now.
Guest 2:Well, and I, you know, I want to say this with the caveat that I think it is important to a lot of people and a lot of people I teach and work with.
Guest 2:There was a time very important.
Marc:Right.
Guest 2:But there was I'm talking about an industry that that sort of.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But what I'm saying is at the same the same time as that party, this wouldn't be unusual to hear.
Marc:And now tonight on the Johnny Carson show, Norman Mailer.
Marc:Right.
Marc:exactly where how come you're not doing david letterman i don't know i'm the only one in this room not doing david letterman i haven't done it in a while but uh but like i think that you write in a way that the weird thing is i think a lot of people don't like the one thing i borrowed a book of yours once you didn't buy it
Marc:No, not one you wrote.
Guest 2:Oh, okay.
Marc:It was actually a book.
Marc:It was Sabbath's Theater.
Marc:Oh, yeah, the Philip Roth novel.
Marc:The big book about the radical puppeteer who had gone off the deep end as he got older.
Guest 2:Hadn't he turned down Big Bird?
Guest 2:Yeah, right.
Marc:It was a pretty genius bit of satire.
Guest 2:Out of integrity.
Marc:This book's got about 400 pages in it, and Sam lends me this book.
Marc:And in a 400-page book, there is one sentence underlined.
Marc:One sentence.
Marc:And I said, Sam, there was one sentence underlined in the book.
Marc:And Sam goes, well, that was really the best sentence in the book.
Guest 2:I wish I could remember it now.
Guest 2:I know.
Guest 2:It would be so good.
Marc:But then when I talk to you about how you start your process, it's not unlike that.
Marc:It's not unlike you start, I've asked you when you've started novels, what's it about?
Marc:You're like, I don't know, I'm working around these two sentences.
Marc:And that's where it sprouts from.
Marc:How does that process work?
Guest 2:Well, I don't use outlines or anything like that.
Guest 2:I just sort of start.
Guest 2:I really believe that you get to weird places by not trying to plan ahead.
Guest 2:I think we spend most of our time thinking about what's going to happen in the future when you get to the party.
Guest 2:Right.
Marc:Or the one we missed 30 years ago.
Guest 2:That's the past.
Guest 2:That's the other half of our thinking life.
Marc:So the active part of writing the novel is not knowing what's happening.
Guest 2:Well, for me, the first draft is figuring out what I'm writing.
Marc:Right.
Guest 2:Figuring out what it is, what it's trying to be.
Marc:And these characters sort of sprout as you write them along, and they do things where you're like, that's sort of surprising that he did that.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Guest 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm always a little leery of the, oh, the character just ran away with the book.
Guest 2:Yeah, yeah.
Guest 2:But yeah, things start to happen and then you take a lot of wrong... In this process, you take a lot of wrong turns and you slam into walls and you lose years of your life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have to actually say, like, apologize to your character as you delete chunks?
Marc:I'm sorry, man.
Marc:I couldn't have you in that situation.
Guest 2:It didn't work out.
Guest 5:It's awkward.
Yeah.
Marc:So the new book is now Homeland.
Marc:I don't know how you would describe Homeland because it was a hilarious book to me because it was about what was the first sentence of Homeland?
Guest 2:Well, it sounds really egotistical reciting the first sentence of an old novel, but it's confession time catamounts.
Marc:And then he says, doesn't he declare that I did not pan out?
Guest 2:Right, exactly.
Marc:And it's about a guy who didn't pan out, and he's living at his parents' house in New Jersey, isn't he?
Guest 2:No, he did get out of his parents' house.
Guest 2:He's kind of a border with this strange Holocaust-denying woman.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:It's a celebration of a type of disappointment that is very common to all of us and what comes from that.
Marc:And this book is, is it that guy now older?
Guest 2:Well, I don't know if that guy could have gotten to this place, but maybe that guy is a roommate, college roommate or something.
Marc:And this takes place at a college?
Guest 2:Well, part of it does.
Guest 2:Most of the action doesn't take place at the college at all, but...
Guest 2:His job is to raise money for the arts program at this college.
Guest 2:And he loses his job in the first chapter, but he has a chance to win it back if he can land this big ask, who it turns out has sort of orchestrated the whole thing for him to work on the ask.
Guest 2:It's his old friend from college who's enormously wealthy and manipulative.
Marc:So he's toying with him?
Guest 2:Well, it seems as though he's toying with him, but there's actually a darker reason.
Marc:Oh, I just did a Merv Griffin.
Marc:Oh, that sounds wonderful.
Guest 2:I'm just really summarizing what's on the back.
Guest 2:Publishers wrote that.
Marc:So are you going to read now for us?
Marc:Do you feel like doing that?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:What part of the book is this going to be from?
Marc:The middle, the beginning, the end?
Guest 2:I could read a bit from the very beginning.
Marc:Let's read the whole book.
Guest 2:That would be great.
Guest 2:We could take turns.
Guest 2:America, said Horace, the office temp, was a rundown and demented pimp.
Guest 2:Our public's whoremaster days were through.
Guest 2:Whither that frost-nerved, diamond-fanged hustler who'd stormed Normandy, dick-smacked the Soviets, turned out such firm emerging market flesh.
Guest 2:Now our nation slumped in the corner of the pool hall, some gummy coot with a pint of mad dog and soggy yellow eyes, just another mark for the juvenile wolves.
Guest 2:We're the bitches of the first world, said Horace, his own eyes braziers of delight.
Guest 2:"'We all loved Horace, his clownish pronouncements.
Guest 2:He was a white kid from Armonk who had learned to speak and feel from a half-dozen VHS tapes in his father's garage.
Guest 2:Besides, here at our desks with our turkey wraps, I did not disagree.'
Guest 2:But I let him have it.
Guest 2:It was my duty.
Guest 2:We were in what they called a university setting, a bastion of, etc.
Guest 2:Little did I know this was my last normal day at said bastion, that my old friend Purdy was about to butt back into my world, mangle it.
Guest 2:I just figured this was what my worst teachers used to call a teachable moment.
Guest 2:Horace, I said.
Guest 2:That's a pretty sexist way to frame a discussion of America's decline, don't you think?
Guest 2:Not to mention racist.
Guest 2:I didn't mention anybody's race, said Horace.
Guest 2:You didn't have to.
Guest 2:PC robot.
Guest 2:Fascist dupe.
Guest 2:Did you get avocado on yours?
Guest 2:Fattening, I said.
Guest 2:Don't worry, baby, said Horace.
Guest 2:I like big women.
Guest 2:"'What about hairy ones?'
Guest 2:I said, parted my shirt to air my nipple fuzz.
Guest 2:"'Horace let me be a Cretan with him.
Guest 2:"'You could call him my infantilism provider, though you'd sound like an idiot.
Guest 2:"'Otherwise I was ostensibly upstanding, a bald husband, a slab-bellied father.
Guest 2:"'Gentlemen,' said our supervisor, Vargyna, coming out from her command nook.
Guest 2:"'Did you get those emails about the Belgian Art Exchange?'
Marc:That was Sam Lipsight reading from his upcoming novel called The Ask.
Marc:That is how men write.
Marc:That is how things are written.
Marc:Can I tell my wife that?
Marc:Yes, you can.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That has everything in it.
Marc:See, that's the thing, Sam, and that's the thing that just pisses me off, is that there was a time, God damn it, where men wrote books, where they bent language into beautiful things and funny things.
Marc:Like, who are your heroes?
Marc:I know some of them.
Marc:But let's share it with some of the people that listen to this podcast who may not read the books that you refer to in the sentence you're about to say.
Guest 2:What is the sentence?
Guest 2:Who are your influences?
Guest 2:The sentence I'm about to say.
Guest 2:I guess I came up reading people like Barry Hanna and Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth, and
Guest 2:Let's see.
Guest 2:Early Don DeLillo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, what's he been doing lately?
Guest 2:I don't know.
Guest 2:God damn it.
Guest 2:I don't know what the... Oh, it was Falling Man, a book Falling Man.
Guest 2:Oh, right.
Guest 2:About 9-11.
Marc:Yeah, I couldn't get through that.
Marc:But I mean, I remember like you gave me your you gave me a reading list and I read a lot of them.
Marc:But I remember when when DeLillo first came out, when I was I must have been in college when I read White Noise and that excitement of reading.
Marc:Like there's two kinds of reactions you can have to a book.
Marc:You can have a reaction to the story or you can just like like with someone like you or Donald DeLillo.
Marc:It's just there are certain sentences or paragraphs.
Marc:You're like, what the fuck just happened to my head?
Marc:And you got to go back.
Marc:And I mean, that experience is so spectacular.
Marc:Like the end of white noise.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where that dude just like shoveling those pills into his mouth, you know, hail of bullets.
Marc:I mean, we're in the same with the stuff that you write.
Marc:And there's moments in Homeland and certainly in fucking Venus Drive where it's just like, it's just spectacular that that you can wrench those out of the out of the fucking nowhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That wasn't very articulate, but I get excited because I don't read a lot of fiction, and I don't read fiction as entertainment.
Marc:So when I do read it, my expectations are very high, having you as a friend, and they don't always meet it.
Guest 2:Well, I mean, that's maybe the problem also.
Guest 2:It's the same with movies or any medium.
Guest 2:I mean, there may only be, in a given year, a few really good things, but they have to keep pumping garbage up.
Guest 2:Well, garbage or just mediocrity, whatever it is.
Guest 2:But those people and more – I guess I've always been interested in writers who could be funny and dark and meaningful through language rather than just trying to kind of tell a story that maybe could be better told in a movie or a television show.
Guest 2:I mean why read that?
Guest 2:Why not make a movie or a television show?
Guest 2:But people that can do it through language, through the sentences –
Marc:Right.
Marc:They can write.
Guest 2:They can write.
Guest 2:They can write.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Sam.
Guest 2:Sorry, I was teaching earlier today, so I'm just in the, you know.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's okay.
Marc:My brain is degenerating.
Marc:Like, when I write text, like, you are is you are.
Marc:The letters you are.
Guest 2:Oh, you're doing that now?
Marc:Well, that's the thing I respect about you, but also I find irritating because if I do email you, God knows how long it's going to take for you to get back because I don't know if you know how to turn your fucking computer on.
Guest 2:Well, if it's texting, I mean, you can be sure that I'm standing on a street corner for about 20 minutes just trying to work the thing.
Marc:Well, why don't you play along and get a new fucking phone?
Guest 2:Okay.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:No, you don't have to.
Marc:But Sam doesn't have a website.
Marc:He doesn't Twitter.
Guest 2:He doesn't text.
Guest 2:They tell me I have to do all that stuff now.
Marc:So who are they and how are you responding?
Guest 2:Well, I haven't really responded yet.
Guest 2:And they are the people publishing my book, FSG.
Marc:They tell you you have to do all that?
Guest 2:No, they suggest it.
Guest 2:They can't order you to tweet.
Guest 2:But what are you going to do?
Guest 2:You can't.
Guest 2:It's not that kind of society yet.
Marc:it's soon though it's soon there's an unspoken force saying it's always right there that's a great thing about the big brother ideas that you know big brother is watching us we internalize the command right that's what we pay him for like i didn't want to tweet i didn't want to get a i didn't want to get an ipod but eventually all that spite that you have towards people with white headphones becomes what am i missing yeah
Marc:I got to get involved in this.
Marc:And then you can't stop and it would eat up all your mind.
Marc:But I do want to tell people that you did get a Guggenheim.
Marc:What does that mean to a writer?
Guest 2:Well, it meant a lot to me because I don't have a lot of money.
Marc:But that is a grant that is awarded to people.
Marc:Right.
Guest 2:Well, it's in the arts and also in academics.
Guest 2:So you can get it as a scholar or as a painter or as a writer of fiction or a poet.
Marc:And you also are teaching at Columbia pretty full time right now.
Guest 2:Very full time for the last four years.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Marc:So in other words, Sam Lipsight is living the life of a respected author of real books.
Marc:And you can you should be commended for that.
Guest 2:When I'm sitting at home, it doesn't really feel that way.
Guest 2:So.
Marc:Well, that's why I have you on the show to make sure people understand.
Marc:I want to validate Sam Lipsight on my podcast and celebrate his genius.
Guest 6:You know, people who have listened to this from the first episode might not realize that Sam has made a cameo appearance in a story that you told.
Guest 6:And this might be a time to connect it and hear the other side of the story.
Guest 6:But you mentioned that you cried on the night of the Chevy Chase roast.
Guest 6:And Sam was there.
Guest 6:I was there.
Marc:You know what I remember the most about that night was that, like, I had known what just happened.
Marc:Because I was on the dais.
Marc:There was, you know, it must have been 1,500 people in that room at the Hilton.
Marc:They had two big screens.
Marc:you know, showing the roast and I, you know, I was just bombing and I know that I know how my face works.
Marc:So I know on those two big screens, me not being able to find a way to get a laugh could not have been great to look at.
Marc:And I just remember that like I got off stage and you were there and we went and I looked at your eyes and you, you just looked horrified.
Marc:You're like, like there was no comfort really.
Marc:There was just sort of like, what, what,
Marc:What happened?
Marc:What do we do now?
Marc:It's basically the feeling that I got.
Marc:And I'm like, let's get the fuck out of here.
Marc:So we go up to the room and you sat there while I basically went like, I can't do it anymore.
Marc:I mean, I was breaking down, wasn't I?
Guest 2:Yeah, but I'd like to believe that I gave you some comfort in that.
Guest 2:No, I did.
Guest 2:Sort of like gleefully watching you melt down.
Marc:No, it wasn't a gleeful thing.
Marc:What it was was that we've known each other long enough to be very sensitive to each other.
Marc:And I just knew that whatever I was feeling, that it was a new situation for you.
Marc:But you know it didn't go well.
Marc:Right.
Yeah.
Marc:And no, I was very happy that you were there, but it was an ugly moment where it was one of those dark nights of the comedy soul where I was like, I can't do it anymore.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:And I think we probably went to the Carnegie Deli or something like that.
Guest 2:I just remember sitting at a table with Gilbert Gottfried's sisters and...
Guest 2:We've had better times.
Guest 2:There was a guy who had a Richard Bay.
Guest 2:Was that his name?
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:And he was sort of hitting on this other guy's girlfriend.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:It was like almost a fight at the table.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:And then I was talking to some other guy out in the lobby who said he wasn't going in because there was too much Rockefeller trash in there.
Guest 2:And I just still trying to figure out what he was talking about.
Marc:This is clearly not the party 30 years ago that we had fantasized about.
Guest 2:No Phillips people in sight.
No.
Marc:We've had some good times, though.
Marc:Sam and I usually get together once or twice or three times a year to do a Carnegie Deli thing, and we sit and do what men do at Carnegie Deli.
Marc:And then he later takes segments of what I've said and puts them in his books.
Guest 2:I have stolen a lot of things you've said.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:We don't need to go over it, but it happens.
Marc:I like to be surprised.
Guest 2:Well, actually, the last time we were at the Carnegie Deli, you did something.
Guest 2:I don't want to describe it here, but you were doing something.
Guest 2:And then you looked up and said, you should put this in your book.
Guest 2:And I did.
Marc:When the book comes out, I'll share what that is.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Do you know when it's coming out?
Marc:Did we already say that?
Guest 2:Yeah, it's not coming out for a while.
Marc:Is it going to come out in hardback and then softback?
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:Or did they say paperback?
Guest 2:They're going to reissue Venus Drive at the same time.
Marc:Oh, that's fucking great.
Guest 2:But yeah, it's not coming out until March, I think.
Guest 2:So we've got a lot of lead time here.
Marc:So how are the kids?
Guest 2:They're doing great.
Guest 2:Wife is good.
Guest 2:Alfred just started kindergarten.
Marc:I wonder if he still remembers the fire truck I bought him.
Guest 2:He still plays with them there.
Marc:Anything you want to say to the people?
Marc:The what the fuck army?
Guest 2:The what the fuck army?
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 2:You're listening to the right man.
Marc:Thank you very much, Sam Lipsight.
Marc:Oh God, I don't know what it is today.
Marc:I got, I don't know.
Marc:I'm just, God, I just can't shake this.
Marc:Like some days the weight of the world.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I guess everybody gets that.
Marc:I can't just shake it.
Marc:I'm sitting here trying to shake it, but I just, I feel heavy hearted.
Marc:You know, I need to call somebody that, that always makes me feel better.
Marc:Do we have a, can we call Eddie Pepitone?
Marc:Do we have his number?
Marc:Let's call Eddie Pepitone.
Marc:I haven't talked to Eddie Pepitone in a while.
Marc:He always makes me feel better.
Marc:Hello?
Marc:Eddie, it's Mark Maron.
Guest 4:Oh, hi, Mark.
Guest 4:I'm so glad you called.
Marc:I'm so happy to talk to you.
Marc:What are you up to?
Guest 4:I'm cooking cow.
Guest 4:And I don't know, it's bringing up a lot of issues.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So you're trying to fight it, huh, Eddie?
Marc:You're trying to fight back whatever it is that's eating you.
Guest 4:Exactly, man.
Guest 4:Exactly.
Guest 4:I'm just so tired.
Guest 4:I'm so tired of being the guy who doesn't get picked to do things.
Guest 4:I want to be the guy who's like, wow, look at that guy.
Guest 4:Look at that guy.
Guest 4:So I'm sauteing kale.
Guest 4:I'm measuring the amount of protein I have.
Guest 4:And I'll tell you, Mark, I still cannot – Christ, I can't find God.
Guest 4:Can I talk about this for a second?
Guest 4:Yeah, bring it, man.
Guest 4:No, I really want to talk to this.
Guest 4:Go ahead.
Guest 4:I really want to mention this because, you know, you're a smart guy.
Guest 4:I consider you a smart guy.
Guest 4:Yeah, okay.
Guest 4:And I cannot find God.
Guest 4:So if I can't find God, okay, and I call God the big pleasure, okay?
Guest 4:That's the big pleasure.
Guest 4:No, because if you find God, tell me if you're not going to find peace.
Guest 4:Of course you're going to find peace.
Guest 4:Now, I can't find God, so all I have left...
Guest 4:are the little pleasures.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:Okay?
Guest 4:Because God is the big pleasure.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:They can't find God.
Guest 4:So now, I, you know, my doctor told me I was pre-diabetic about a year ago.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:So now, so now the little pleasures are gone because I can't have a pudding.
Guest 4:I can't have a pudding.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:Do you know that I feel like I've raped someone?
Guest 4:a child if I have a pudding late at night.
Marc:No, I didn't know that.
Guest 4:Yes, yes.
Guest 4:It's like I'll have a pudding and I'll be like, oh my God, I'm a bad person.
Guest 4:Am I really a bad person because I had a pudding?
Guest 4:Or is someone who's a world leader in some South American country who's raped children at gunpoint, which I've read, I do a lot of reading.
Guest 5:Sure.
Guest 4:If he does that,
Guest 4:Who really is the bad person?
Guest 4:Like, where does my guilt come from?
Guest 4:And how come God isn't going to take it?
Guest 4:And this is what's on my mind today.
Guest 4:Plus, I'll tell you what else is on my mind, is the new fall season has got me a little pissed off.
Guest 4:And one thing that's really getting to me is the vampire bullshit.
Guest 4:Mark, I can't take it.
Guest 4:I can't take it.
Guest 4:I live in L.A.
Guest 4:I don't know where you live.
Guest 4:You're very elusive.
Guest 4:I live in L.A.,
Guest 4:I drive around, all I see are billboards for vampire shows.
Guest 4:You know what, Mark?
Guest 4:What?
Guest 4:You want a vampire?
Guest 4:You want real vampires?
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:You go to my family.
Guest 4:My father, who I call Colonel Kurtz of Staten Island, okay?
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:He lives in a fucking house in Staten Island.
Guest 4:He's a renegade schoolteacher who went bad, real bad, Mark.
Guest 4:He went against orders.
Guest 4:He's fucking living in Staten Island now.
Guest 4:I had to go visit him like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now recently when I went to New York.
Guest 4:You know, he just sits there in his house in the suburbs, you know, and everybody who's got a house thinks they're King fucking Lear.
Marc:But did he sit there and go, the horror, the horror.
Guest 4:No, that's what I wind up doing after spending five minutes with them.
Guest 4:You know, you don't visit enough, you know.
Guest 4:It's just so hard, Mark, especially with all the vampire shows around because these vampire shows, they are, you know, they really are sucking the life.
Marc:yeah out of everyone i think actually am i wrong eddie in thinking that you know la is filled with a different type of vampire that there's psychic vampires that drain you of your life force and you don't even know it till you left the office like say every time that that little eddie pepitone goes in for a little movie part and they say we love you you're very funny and they go look we'll be in touch and they don't be in touch you don't think they didn't take a little bit of little eddie's life force
Guest 4:They do, Mark.
Guest 4:They do.
Guest 4:And I just had that recently where it was a movie called Love and Other Drugs was the name of the movie.
Guest 4:How are you not perfect for that?
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:No, but check it out.
Guest 4:The part I went into audition for was a comic who has Parkinson's.
Guest 4:And he's giving, I swear to you, he's giving his routine.
Guest 4:He's doing his routine.
Guest 4:to Parkinson's people, and it's very dark, you know.
Marc:Can you give me a little taste of that, Eddie, please?
Marc:Can you hum a few bars?
Guest 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:Okay, so I come up, and I'm like, hey, how you doing?
Guest 4:Fuck soup.
Guest 4:Fuck soup.
Guest 4:Fuck two, and this is their lines, okay?
Guest 4:Fuck soup.
Guest 4:These are the lines they've written, and you go into these little casting offices, and what kills me, Mark, is how nice they are.
Guest 4:Oh, hi, Eddie.
Guest 4:Hi.
Guest 4:Oh, we're sorry you were waiting.
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah, we're sorry.
Guest 4:No, we don't validate parking.
Guest 4:Yeah, could you do this role that, you know, you're not going to get now?
Guest 4:Yeah, you just do it first.
Guest 4:My name is Vicki, and I'm very soft-spoken, and I don't respect anyone unless they're a name.
Guest 4:So, hi, Eddie.
Guest 4:Yeah, just do your little bit.
Guest 4:So I did my bit.
Guest 4:Fuck soup.
Guest 4:Fuck jewelry.
Guest 4:And then after I do their lines...
Guest 4:She says, now do some of your stuff, Eddie.
Guest 4:Do some of your stuff as the Parkinson's guy.
Guest 4:And do you know I blanked on my material?
Guest 4:It's in those little rooms with the soft-spoken casting person on Melrose Avenue where there's no soul.
Guest 4:Now, you know there's no soul on Melrose, right?
Guest 4:I try to make it in acting, and God, you send me for these parts on Melrose Avenue where people don't give a damn, God.
Guest 4:So let me ask you very pointedly, God, how long is the humbling process?
Guest 4:I can't have cake.
Guest 4:I can't have sugar.
Guest 4:And I have been told I shouldn't even have flour.
Guest 4:So I don't have pizza.
Guest 4:I don't have pasta.
Guest 4:I'm eating kale now with four ounces of protein every night.
Guest 4:Let me ask you something, God.
Guest 4:What is up?
Guest 4:Hold on.
Guest 4:I've got to stir the kale.
Guest 4:I'm cooking the kale here.
Guest 4:And, you know, I'm real nervous going over there.
Guest 4:You know, Mark, when you go on these auditions, because part of me is like, maybe this won't be the break.
Guest 4:And before that, I'm YouTubing Michael J. Fox to get the movements down of Parkinson's.
Guest 4:And as I'm doing that, I wind up YouTubing a Russian street brawl.
Guest 4:And I watch fights on YouTube.
Guest 4:Hey, God, what's going on?
Guest 4:Why do you fill me with such violence?
Guest 4:Why do you fill the world with such violence?
Guest 4:Why is there so much violence on YouTube?
Guest 4:Yes, there are cats playing the piano, but there are more street fights on YouTube, and I'm drawn to them, and I'm drawn to them big time.
Guest 4:So I go see a five and a half hour opera, try to relax.
Guest 4:I see Siegfried over here in L.A.
Guest 4:I see Wagner's Siegfried.
Guest 4:Oh my God, did that speak to me?
Guest 4:And I don't know why.
Marc:I think that what you're not doing is looking a gift horse in the mouth here.
Marc:I think that you wait a few weeks, go to a cable network, and you pitch fuck soup.
Marc:You've got talk soup, you've got web soup, and you just walk in and you say fuck soup.
Marc:Do I have to say any more?
Marc:Fuck soup.
Marc:I got Marin attached.
Marc:And that's all I'll say.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Fuck soup.
Marc:And it's just it's just me.
Marc:I'm hosting a show and I'm running YouTubes of Russian bar fights.
Marc:It's called fuck soup.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You got fucking cats.
Marc:Fuck soup.
Guest 4:You know what?
Guest 4:I think you have straightened me out.
Guest 4:Thank you.
Guest 4:Because this was turning into a bad night.
Marc:I love you, Eddie.
Marc:Enjoy the kale.
Marc:We're going to try and... Thank you.
Marc:We'll work with you again in the near future.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Don't hurt yourself.
Marc:Bye.
Marc:I want to thank Sam Website for coming by.
Marc:It's always a pleasure to see someone who is that brilliant and also doesn't Twitter or Facebook or any of that.
Marc:How weird is that?
Marc:It's like being in the room with a freak.
Marc:And, of course, Matthew.
Marc:And I'm glad Eddie Pepitone was there for me as well.
Marc:I will be in San Francisco October 8th, 9th, and 10th at the Punchline in San Francisco.
Marc:Did I say San Francisco enough?
Marc:Did I say the Punchline?
Marc:Punchline in San Francisco.
Marc:Talk to you next time.
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