Episode 1044 - Bashir Salahuddin
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is me, Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:How's everybody doing?
Marc:Is everybody all right?
Marc:Are you okay?
Marc:I'm obviously not in the garage right now.
Marc:I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Marc:I'm in a hotel room.
Marc:And I'm here doing a stand-up comedy show.
Marc:You know, I got a lot of emails from everybody.
Marc:I appreciate all the well-wishing and
Marc:Good thoughts and congratulatory salutations for my 20 years sober.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but it's a pretty big deal.
Marc:And I certainly liked hearing from everybody, especially the people that seem to have gotten some help from me being me and talking about what I talk about in terms of communication.
Marc:getting off the booze, changing the life.
Marc:It was really nice.
Marc:It's been great.
Marc:It's been overwhelming.
Marc:I don't always know what to do with the good things coming at me, but I am certainly happy to hear that I've helped out.
Marc:I am happy about that.
Marc:Last night,
Marc:I did a show Revolution Hall, which I don't know if you know about.
Marc:Why would you?
Marc:Revolution Hall is a venue inside an old high school.
Marc:The entire high school has been turned into like office spaces and they use the auditorium as a concert venue.
Marc:And I'm starting to realize because I've been there before.
Marc:I've performed at that place before and I felt a little weird.
Marc:And I'm starting to think it might be triggering.
Marc:It might be triggering to go into that place, which is essentially an American high school.
Marc:It looks like an American high school.
Marc:It looks like the high school I went to.
Marc:The hallways are just lined with lockers.
Marc:And the offices that are now offices, they look like classrooms.
Marc:And there's two floors or three.
Marc:The auditorium, the venue itself, this performance space is a high school auditorium.
Marc:And I started to realize on stage last night, maybe it's making me a little vulnerable.
Marc:Maybe it's making me not not in a good way, not in the intentional way.
Marc:Something something strange, some sort of trauma trigger of what it was like to be in high school, man.
Marc:I mean, I talked about it when I was on stage last night, but maybe I should give it a little more credence that it's a strange situation.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:When was the last time you went back to your actual high school?
Marc:I think I went back.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's probably been over a decade, but I'm really starting to think that because I felt a certain amount of insecurity, I felt I felt a little raw, a little weird, a little in need of a type of acceptance that I haven't really felt in a long time.
Marc:And I'm starting to I really think it has something to do with that structure, man, with the actual physical structure of a high school because they look the same.
Marc:Just those halls or lockers.
Marc:There's got to be part of your brain that kind of just clicks back into that.
Marc:Like, I hope I don't run into that dude.
Marc:Or I wonder if she's going to be at her locker today.
Marc:I think I'm going to walk down the hall again before class.
Marc:I wonder if I'm going to be late for class.
Marc:I didn't do my homework.
Marc:I think I'm going to ditch this class.
Marc:Why doesn't those people?
Marc:How come they don't like me?
Marc:You know, should I smoke the cigarettes?
Marc:Should I not smoke cigarettes?
Marc:Is it okay to get high at lunch or will that fuck me up for the rest of the day?
Marc:I'm too high to be in this class.
Marc:I better ask to go to the nurse so I don't sound like an idiot because when my teacher asked me to read, I couldn't read.
Marc:A lot of problems.
Marc:A lot of things happened.
Marc:Before I get too lost, I want to tell you who's on the show today.
Marc:Bashir Salahuddin is here.
Marc:I've worked with him on GLOW.
Marc:He's a great actor and a writer, and he's got a new sketch show out called Sherman Showcase, which he co-created and stars in.
Marc:It airs Wednesday nights on IFC.
Marc:He's also in season three of Glow With Me, which is now streaming on Netflix.
Marc:Some other business at hand, please go to Sword of Trust dot com to find out where that movie is playing.
Marc:It's doing well.
Marc:They keep adding theaters.
Marc:And I don't know what that means in terms of box office, but I know it's out there to see.
Marc:It's still out there in movie theaters, so you can go have that experience, but it's also on demand.
Marc:And as I said, you can go to Sword of Trust dot com to find that shit out.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for my tour dates.
Marc:I'll be in Dallas, Austin, Houston, Texas, August 22nd through 24th.
Marc:A lot of other dates coming up.
Marc:WTFPod.com slash tour.
Marc:oh man what is happening i uh there's plenty of reasons to be you know out of sorts and um but we we lost a a very amazing creative mind and artist um last week uh david berman um committed suicide last week and
Marc:It's kind of a rough one.
Marc:I didn't know him well, and I came to his work late.
Marc:I don't know if a lot of you know him.
Marc:He had a band called Silver Jews.
Marc:Early on, he used to perform and work with Stephen Malkmus from Pavement, and they kind of split ways, I think.
Marc:And creatively, and Malcolmus did Pavement.
Marc:But I enjoyed the work very much.
Marc:And he was always an interesting character to me, David Berman.
Marc:He wrote a couple of books of poetry.
Marc:Very thoughtful guy.
Marc:And he just had a record come out a couple weeks ago called Purple Mountains.
Marc:And it's a stunning record.
Marc:And he hadn't really put out any new work in like 11 years because he was wrestling with things.
Marc:He was a depressive guy.
Marc:He had substance issues.
Marc:He had a profound problem and almost mythic struggle with his father.
Marc:And the only reason I know this, again, I don't know him well.
Marc:But once I was introduced to his work and I found out he lived in Nashville and I reached out to him to do the podcast before I went down to Nashville a few years back to perform.
Marc:And he got back to me and he and his wife at the time that they came to a show.
Marc:And afterwards he said, I don't want to do the podcast, but why don't we hang out and talk and get to know each other.
Marc:So we went out to a place and had something to eat.
Marc:And we sat there.
Marc:late at night in nashville at a at a restaurant and he just told me the whole story the whole david berman story for a couple hours you know primarily focused on this struggle he has he had uh with his father richard berman who was sort of a public relations executive and lobbyist for like the worst of things you know alcohol firearms tobacco but it was just such a strain on on david and i i just remember
Marc:just really loving the guy just from not only his music, but then talking to him and just feeling the weight of this dude's heart, you know, and, and then, you know, realizing that the work kind of came through that heart and that, you know, he was one of the great sort of navigators of, of darkness.
Marc:Uh, one of the, a light, you know, and, and,
Marc:he just recorded this great record and, and I reached out to him.
Marc:I mean, I literally emailed him like in, on July 18th, you know, what is that?
Marc:Like just a couple of weeks ago, it's the 10th.
Marc:I think he passed away on this just a few days ago on the seventh.
Marc:And like, I just have this email exchange cause I, I love the record and, um,
Marc:Man, it's just, I just wrote to him and I said, you know, I said, all he said was the new record is great.
Marc:If you want to come on the podcast, it's an open invitation, Mark.
Marc:And on July 18th, he got back to me, said, Mark, I would be happy to do your show after a little more time has passed, say this winter or spring, when I've had time to reflect on what it's been like to jump back in the pool after 11 years sequestered inside.
Marc:I'll give you better material and be a more charismatic guest, no doubt, after I've had time to make these necessary psychic adjustments.
Marc:I don't want to show myself when I'm still in the process of making them.
Marc:DCB.
Marc:And that was just a couple weeks ago, less than three weeks ago.
Marc:And then, you know, like four or five days ago, he hangs himself.
Marc:It's hard, man.
Marc:It's hard if you're sensitive, if you're teetering or you're prone to depression or unstable in those ways in your mind.
Marc:And sadly, so much of that disposition lends itself to a type of creativity that has to resolve things.
Marc:existence in that darkness that has to find you need to to express yourself in order to get through it you know he was just i don't know this is a sensitive struggling sweet guy who really did some amazing work and it's just fucking heartbreaking
Marc:And that kind of, yeah, it's weighing on me.
Marc:You know, these suicides, there's been a few deaths.
Marc:There's been always, there's a lot.
Marc:But when somebody makes that choice who had such a gift and such a sensitivity and it just buckled under the weight of it, it's just, it's really kind of...
Marc:heartbreaking and I would like to I just I was going through some of his poems and I just go listen to the records really if you don't know David's work go listen to Silver Jew's records or just even if you just want to get that new one Purple Mountains I mean it's sadly you listen to it and in light of what's happened you can hear it but it's a beautiful beautiful record
Marc:And funny in some places, too, and catchy.
Marc:But anyways, rest in peace, David Berman, your genius and navigator of the dark places of the heart.
Marc:And I'll just read this small poem that I found.
Marc:I was looking around for one.
Marc:And this is a poem called And the Others by David Berman.
Marc:Some find the light in literature, others in fine art, and some persist in being sure the light shines in the heart.
Marc:Some find the light in alcohol, some in the sexual spark.
Marc:Some never find the light at all and make do with the dark.
Marc:And one might guess that these would be a gloomy lot indeed.
Marc:But no, the light they never see, they think they do not need.
Marc:Fuck, man.
Marc:Well, he will be missed and there's a lot of great work that he did.
Marc:And again, I highly recommend you seek that stuff out and honor this guy because he was the real fucking deal.
Marc:Don't mean to bum anybody out, but I needed to do that to honor an artist that had an impact on me.
Marc:So now...
Marc:Bashir Salahuddin is a great guy, talented guy.
Marc:I met him as an actor, didn't know much about him, worked with him on Glow, had a few small chats, then found out he used to be a writer for Fallon, that he's done a lot of writing in his own right.
Marc:He's also, you know, he's acted in a lot of different things.
Marc:He's in the new Top Gun movie, but I just didn't know a lot about him.
Marc:And then when it came up that he's got this new show out, I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to talk to Bashir.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:So this is me and Bashir Salahuddin.
Marc:That's a tricky last name.
Marc:I'm going to have to ask him about that.
Marc:I did ask him about that.
Marc:You know I recorded it already.
Marc:Anyways, his new variety sketch show, Sherman's Showcase, which he co-created and stars in, airs Wednesday nights on IFC.
Marc:He's also in season three of Glow with me, which is now streaming on Netflix.
Marc:This is me talking to Bashir Salahuddin.
Marc:You've never done radio.
Marc:I did The Breakfast Club.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like you were a regular guy?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I did it two weeks ago.
Guest:It was cool.
Guest:It was educational.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm just learning.
Guest:I don't do a lot of this stuff, so I'm learning.
Guest:What did you learn, Questier?
Guest:I learned when I did that show, and I did Questlove's podcast, too.
Guest:I learned the most important thing is that I have to pace myself because I came out trying to be, you know.
Guest:Funny?
Guest:Not even just funny.
Guest:I know enough to know that's a mistake and just embarrassing and the audience hates it.
Guest:But I came out just high energy and then I got tired and then the last 20 minutes they asked me the real questions they were there to ask me.
Guest:And you already spent?
Guest:Yeah, I was spent and my energy was down so I was being like honest.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You got that, Tom.
Guest:Let me tell you something.
Guest:And being honest is not necessarily conducive to a career nowadays.
Guest:You got to be careful about- Oh, really?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think you got to be careful what you divulge.
Guest:I think people-
Guest:especially if they don't know you, they kind of get to know us, the people I'm working with now.
Marc:They know me.
Guest:They know you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're spoken for quantity.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You make sense.
Guest:People get it.
Guest:They know what they're coming for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With new folks, I feel like you're kind of listening for a reason to cut it off sometimes.
Guest:I think there's so much stuff to look at.
Guest:There's so many...
Guest:Podcasts and videos and everything so the minute somebody says something that you're like I don't really I'm not really fiddling really then then I think people go all right That's my opinion about that person.
Marc:Well, what was oh I see what you're saying, but like what like what was it that?
Marc:Like honest about like so you're there.
Guest:I was I was honest I was I you know look I had a really traumatic
Guest:development process at HBO before we had our current shows.
Guest:I thought you were going to say trial today.
Marc:I was like, where are we?
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:And now it's just an HBO trauma?
Guest:We can get the trial and trauma too.
Guest:We can bring it all.
Guest:We can talk about all of it.
Marc:You got PTSD from your HBO experience?
Marc:I got a little PTSD from the HBO experience.
Guest:Dude, they ordered a series after four years of working on it.
Guest:Which one was that?
Guest:This was Brothers in Atlanta.
Guest:Oh, yeah, right.
Guest:They ordered it to series.
Guest:And then we had a writing room.
Guest:We were doing all this stuff.
Guest:So you're all set up.
Marc:You set up shop.
Marc:You're making a show.
Guest:We're literally in this beautiful office in Sherman Oaks.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We're there late at night.
Guest:You won, man.
Guest:We're playing the darts.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:We taught our grandmothers.
Guest:We sent them the- You're in show business now.
Guest:I made it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Baby, I made it.
Guest:It was hard, but it wasn't even excruciating.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then-
Guest:A couple months later, there was just some ... We could tell from the beginning that we weren't on the same page with them about the content.
Guest:What was the show?
Guest:It was a half-hour comedy about two guys who go to Atlanta to sing Back Up.
Guest:His life is in shamble, so he decides just to stay.
Marc:It's in current time.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Modern Maya Rudolph was in it playing this really funny over-the-top R&B singer who my character was a background singer for.
Marc:Like her mom?
Guest:Like her mom.
Guest:It was really nice for her.
Guest:She was actually excited to get to play a character like that because she doesn't really usually get to play that.
Guest:And so we did it, and we were like excited, and then the article, and we told our friends, and we were like, ha-ha!
Guest:And then it wasn't even like a fun, quick death.
Guest:It was like a slow, drawn-out, nine-month, no phone calls being returned, turning in drafts, not hearing notes for two weeks.
Guest:And then, you know, and it's just like that slow glacial death.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That slow Hollywood.
Marc:Like you don't know what's going on.
Marc:No one's really telling you.
Marc:No, you don't know anything.
Marc:And then one day you show up at work and they're like, oh, you don't, you didn't hear?
Guest:Well, you know, it's almost like everybody in town always hears before you, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it's like you get a call from your agent like, hey, how you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're like, why the fuck are you calling me with that tone?
Guest:Why are you calling me with the something is terrible tone?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:It went away.
Guest:They didn't even call us.
Guest:They called our director and he called us and said, look, the best part of it is we were developing it, the head of the network at that time.
Guest:Who was that?
Guest:Mike Lombardo.
Guest:He goes like, hey, man, this is really young and really black and really fresh and I don't even get this.
Guest:And that's what I love.
Guest:I love it because I don't get it.
Guest:And we were like, hell yeah, motherfucker, you don't get it.
Guest:And then when the guy called us to say they were going to not do the show, he's like, yeah, he just said he didn't get it.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was game over for me.
Guest:That was like my best Hollywood education.
Guest:But you got paid a bit, right?
Guest:I didn't want the money.
Guest:They gave us a little bit.
Guest:By the way, it was not a lot.
Guest:They gave us a little bit of like, sorry, we fucked you over money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm prideful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like an idiot.
Guest:So I told my agent, I was like, I don't want that fucking money.
Guest:Fuck them.
Guest:They can take their money and shove it at their ass.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:But then my agent is smarter than me.
Guest:And so two months later- He did not tell them that.
Guest:She did not, Nancy.
Guest:Two months later, she goes like, hey, so I still got that check here whenever you- And I was like, yeah, we should probably take that.
Guest:I should probably take that money.
Marc:It's one of those things where it's like whatever pride you may feel, you're not going to teach anybody a lesson there.
Guest:I watch too much TV.
Guest:I'm always like, oh, in 30 minutes, this is going to work itself out.
Guest:It's like, no, it's not.
Guest:This is going to be bad.
Guest:Sometimes in life as a grown-up, shit is just bad, and then that's the end of that storyline.
Guest:That just ends bad.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it didn't work out.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah, that's the thing.
Marc:It's like when people say, I had a moment with an editor once from a book I wrote where I was nervous about whether, because it was coming out at a weird time.
Marc:It was just after 9-11.
Marc:I'm like...
Guest:Are we sure this is a good time to launch?
Marc:Well, it was already on the books.
Marc:It was going to happen.
Marc:I wasn't expecting a lot, but I don't remember what I was talking to him about.
Marc:I just said, but this is going to be okay, right?
Marc:He goes, yeah, or it won't.
Marc:And it's just like that one added sentence.
Marc:Of course that's the other option.
Marc:And a lot of times it isn't.
Marc:And it's the best way to fucking... So true.
Marc:It's going to be okay bullshit.
Guest:It's like believing in magic.
Guest:It is like believing in magic.
Guest:And then the other thing that's bad is like...
Guest:You know, for me, I put so much of my personal joy into that show.
Guest:And then that was the other lesson, is you can't do that.
Guest:You really have to, and it's hard not to because you can't even get anything to go forward unless you're so passionate about it that you're willing to talk about it all day, every day to a million people.
Guest:But of course, you also have to be, can I tell you a messed up analogy?
Guest:So there's this thing.
Marc:What am I going to say?
Marc:No?
Guest:No, please.
Guest:I don't want any analogies.
Guest:We don't want a controversy on this.
Guest:Welcome to the analogy of Rezone.
Guest:Everything is direct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, what I was going to say.
Guest:By the way, this is fucking badass.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:This reminds me of my dad.
Guest:Oh, he had knives?
Guest:Yeah, I feel like when I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and I always feel like older men always had this.
Marc:Yeah, buck knife.
Marc:Some kind of buck knife.
Guest:We moved to Chicago.
Guest:I don't know what the fuck he used this for.
Marc:Yeah, who knows?
Marc:But they're around.
Marc:Yeah, we had knives.
Marc:My dad was into knives.
Guest:What do you use it for?
Marc:I just have it out there so people pick it up and say things about it.
Guest:Remember things.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:Mission accomplished.
Marc:Your dad had one of those.
Guest:Hell yeah, yeah, one of those.
Guest:I was just going to say really quickly, though.
Guest:The analogy.
Guest:The analogy, man, is I was reading this story about slavery, which is obviously something that is a charge topic.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But no, slave mothers actually used to not name or be affectionate with their kids.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because they didn't know if the kid was going to get shipped away.
Marc:And so they would purposefully- This is once they were here.
Guest:Once they had the baby, they would purposefully distance themselves because it was just too excruciating to give the amount of love that a normal mother intends to give and then to be like, oh, by the way, that baby that you loved- Yeah.
Guest:in Ohio, and you're still stuck here in Mississippi, and you're like, God damn.
Guest:So I say that terrible analogy to say that, unfortunately, I think in our business, that mentality can keep you sane, sadly.
Guest:To be able to keep some distance from the things you love because you just don't know some executive somewhere is going to be like, eh, I don't get this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's true.
Marc:I mean, it's obviously a little different, but I think there is some- Well, yes, it's a lot different, but at its core- Yeah, emotions.
Marc:It's the emotional connection.
Guest:The emotional connection.
Marc:Yeah, I get it.
Marc:Yeah, because you have to engage that part where it's like, well, this is a business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is a job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I am a creative person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I know I put a lot into this, but once you put it into the world of the machine- Yes.
Marc:then the machine all of a sudden has power and decisions, and that's that.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:And you can fight your fight.
Marc:But that's why I'm always hesitant about getting involved with movies, like independent directors.
Marc:I talk to them.
Marc:I'm like, sure, there's part of me that wants to direct a movie, write a movie, and direct a movie.
Marc:But then you talk to these people.
Marc:It's like I put six years in.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And we did festivals, and now I think you can get it on Hulu.
Guest:It's Vimeo.
Guest:I'm seeing you on Vimeo.
Guest:I'm like, what's that one?
Guest:You can go to Vimeo on a Tuesday morning and type all this shit in real quick.
Guest:Hold on, let me.
Marc:It's my life's work.
Marc:That's where it ended up.
Marc:It's discouraging.
Marc:It is.
Marc:You know, so I'm sort of like, I'll just keep an immediate.
Marc:So you felt bad on the radio show for talking about the business in a way that you were disappointed.
Guest:I felt bad for... I didn't feel bad.
Guest:The truth is I didn't feel bad at all.
Guest:But I felt like we have worked so hard to get to a point where we can show our work.
Guest:You and Diallo?
Guest:Me and Diallo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because at some point you just want people to see it you just want to be able to say you know what i did all this stuff i just want people to look at it let me you know let me know what what people think about it and you you know imagine you know i always liken what happened to me at hbo to be in like a college for four years yeah we were there for four years yeah and then on the day of graduation you're like getting ready to graduate somebody from school all right man you can get out of here
Guest:And you're like, well, the graduation's today.
Guest:And they go, well, you can leave.
Guest:I don't get to go to the ceremony and get to, like, nah, no, but you can get it.
Guest:But hey, it's been fun for a year.
Guest:And so there's just like this weird anticlimax.
Guest:And you just have to live in that.
Guest:There's no ladders out.
Guest:There's no doorway out.
Guest:There's no rope ladder down into the well.
Guest:You're just there.
Guest:And all you have is your loved ones and people who you really learn who cares about.
Guest:And you have a couple of scripts.
Guest:You have a couple of scripts, and you kind of look at them angrily.
Guest:You're like, I don't even want to.
Marc:Four years, though, I mean, that's not nothing.
Marc:But the writing room wasn't up for four years.
Guest:Writing room's up for like four months.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:That's camaraderie.
Marc:No, you went through the whole development process.
Marc:I've had deals before, and I've made, you know, I had deals where I wrote scripts with guys, and they didn't get shot, you know.
Guest:When they announce it, it's going to air, though.
Marc:No, no, that's bad, dude.
Marc:I'm not trying to compare.
Marc:I'm just trying to make you feel better.
Marc:It's a heartbreaking business, man, and it never ends.
Guest:It doesn't end, does it?
Marc:The only time when it ends and it's okay is when you got money saved, and you're like, all right, that's gone.
Marc:Let's move on.
Guest:That's kind of how I think about this whole business at some point.
Guest:I'm going to keep doing the thing because I love it, but also I really got to start looking at it as a business.
Guest:Are we getting money from this?
Guest:Are we getting money from this?
Guest:It sucks because I don't want to think of it that way.
Guest:I want to think of it as this beautiful, artistic, Picasso-esque life where I just sort of traipse around America creating content.
Guest:Being feted.
Guest:Is that not going to happen?
Marc:No, no, it sure can happen.
Marc:Even if it happens, it's probably for a short while.
Marc:No, that can happen, but there's not a lot of money in that one.
Guest:No, it's not.
Marc:I lived that life for years as a comic, just me and my little notepad.
Marc:But I was bitter and I was miserable.
Marc:I never got in it for the bread either.
Marc:I mean, I got in it because I thought I had something to say and I think I'd still do.
Marc:Same.
Marc:And it didn't really work out.
Marc:The regular channels of show business didn't work out for me.
Marc:It wasn't until I set mics up in my garage that everything changed.
Marc:Ain't that the way?
Marc:Yeah, I guess, but I didn't know it was the way.
Marc:I just didn't want to kill myself.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like I got to do something.
Guest:It's like you're trapped in this passion and then you hear.
Guest:And there's no way out.
Marc:There's no way out.
Marc:You can't because if you're a prideful guy.
Marc:Yeah, sadly.
Marc:There's no quitting, dude.
Marc:I mean, you're in this.
Marc:But, you know, you seem to like you're doing, you write, you produce, you act.
Marc:I mean, you've given yourself a lot of options.
Marc:I have.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For me, I was just a comic, and I never wanted to write for anybody.
Marc:So I was kind of limited, and I knew that, but too late.
Marc:I'm like, if I was a grown-up person and not a fuck-you person, I would have figured out how to work with other people when I was 25.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:I feel I've really, to that point, like, I think the other, you know, speaking of things that are really, that I don't bring to the table.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think American needs to know what I don't bring to the table.
Marc:I think they've been waiting.
Marc:I don't do, everybody says, what does he not bring to the table?
Marc:This is where it's going to get good.
Marc:Honey, you got to check this clock.
Guest:Come in here.
Guest:Listen, put the apron off, sit down.
Guest:Listen, I was a 50s household.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was just going to say- Glad you caught that one.
Guest:Well, I think American needs to know.
Guest:What do you not bring to the table?
Guest:I don't like the mingling at the parties, at the Hollywood parties.
Guest:And I feel like it's so important to our business that when you go to those fucking parties.
Guest:I've seen you at a few.
Guest:Yeah, I do all right.
Guest:You got to talk.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know.
Guest:I don't love it.
Guest:I think you got to go up to the people and small talk them.
Guest:And I don't enjoy it.
Marc:No, it's terrible.
Guest:Because a lot of times- But people who do that, I think their careers are better off sometimes.
Marc:It's most of the business, man.
Marc:It's one of the problems in a way, but it's most of the business.
Marc:Like if they remember you like, oh, that's that guy.
Guest:I like that guy.
Guest:Yeah, he's a good guy.
Marc:Yeah, bring him in.
Marc:You know what?
Guest:Let's not kill this project.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's that level of whim.
Marc:It can be.
Marc:I think it is.
Marc:Yeah, because it's like the money's not the same.
Marc:The risk is different now.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's true, but I don't like going.
Marc:See, once I get there, I'm okay.
Marc:Once I get there and someone's like, Mark, and I'm like, hey, I can lock in.
Marc:But the actual, am I going to go or not?
Marc:Like, I don't want to fucking go.
Guest:I remember, actually, because, you know, again, I tell you that our death at HBO was glacial.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I remember one time there was another party we had to go to, and this was after.
Guest:After the death?
Guest:As we were dying.
Guest:For an HBO thing?
Guest:William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were like, hey, come to this thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, of course, I was like, talking to my agent, I was like,
Guest:I mean, I'm so sad all the time.
Guest:I don't even want to go.
Guest:She's like, oh, just go.
Guest:You never know.
Guest:You got to talk to people.
Guest:It's part of the business.
Guest:And I'll never forget, I was in my room putting on my clothes and I just started weeping.
Guest:And then my wife came in.
Guest:She's like, what's up?
Guest:And I was like, we got to go to this party.
Marc:Weeping in your nice clothes?
Guest:Weeping in the tuxedo on the way to a party.
Guest:And I was like, this is not as advertised, Hollywood.
Guest:It's not supposed to be this way.
Guest:Did you stop crying once you got there?
Guest:Like right before we got out of the car.
Guest:And then I just like wiped my eyes and like went out there with a big smile on my face.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Show business.
Guest:Dude, you got to learn how to eat crow in this business.
Guest:And I think that is one of the things I've had to do a lot of, which I'm proud of, is that you do have to learn how to eat crow.
Marc:Well, I mean, where'd you grow up?
Guest:Southside of Chicago.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:83rd and Hall said 72nd and Constance.
Guest:For real, for real.
Marc:The whole journey.
Guest:I remember, yeah.
Guest:It's interesting because I feel like the city, you know, we have a show about it, but I feel like the city, I think it's slightly better now than it was even a couple years ago.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I feel like it was, there were some rough spots when I was growing up, and I think it got worse.
Yeah.
Marc:Were you involved with any, like, because I've talked to cats who were, like, there's a few guys, Deion Cole.
Marc:Love him.
Marc:Lil Rel Howery.
Guest:Yeah, he's on our show, too.
Marc:Yeah, like, those are all Chicago guys.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And I've talked to, like, I've talked to them about coming up in that zone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're very different.
Marc:Like, Deion, you know, is sort of like a nerdier guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But Lil Rel is like, you know, he was in it.
Guest:Well, he's a west side guy, too.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He has a south side.
Guest:Oh, he's not?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe I'm wrong.
Guest:I know rails from the west side.
Guest:What's the difference?
Guest:I don't know Chicago.
Marc:You know what it is?
Marc:I only know the part of Chicago where I eat pizza and I have a nice time.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Like a lot of people do.
Marc:Those restaurants are in my neighborhood.
Marc:I've heard there's a bad part.
Guest:You know, I don't even want to call it that.
Guest:No, I don't either.
Guest:I felt bad for saying it just then.
Guest:No, it's cool, man.
Guest:America's got to know the truth, guys.
Guest:Yeah, it's not bad.
Guest:Don't be.
Guest:You know what it is?
Guest:I heard this one time, and I think it's so true.
Guest:It's like,
Guest:The South Side of Chicago is a place with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of great people, and about 1,000 assholes.
Guest:And if you look at actually who is causing the problems, who's the one that is making it unsafe?
Guest:I feel that way about the whole country.
Guest:It's a small amount of people.
Marc:I feel that way about the whole country in the sense that, yeah, there's mostly good people, but there's these horrible assholes.
Marc:But they have friends and family that believe the same thing they do.
Guest:They do.
Marc:And it brings the number up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the sort of live and let live vibe that I think is so valuable is people don't feel that way.
Guest:Like, I always say, like, I'm not even on Twitter or any of that stuff.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Can't take it?
Guest:Well, I mean, at some point I'm like, well, I have 2,000 followers.
Guest:Does anybody care what I'm saying?
Guest:Like, come on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it doesn't really matter.
Guest:But also, two things.
Guest:I found myself...
Guest:looking at it for every, I would say for 10 minutes every hour, every hour, the whole day.
Guest:And I'm like, I don't think I'm getting anything out of this.
Guest:I don't know if this is improving my life at all, looking at these pictures that somebody took all this time taking for one eighth of a second.
Marc:Like I go on there, I don't really tweet that much because I don't want to fight.
Guest:I think you kind of have to be on at this point.
Marc:Well, I guess, but I got to a point after Trump got elected where I'm not going to engage with these fucking Jew-hating monsters over politics with two followers because I get triggered real easy.
Marc:So I just pulled out.
Guest:Smart.
Marc:And I pulled out because it's not going to be funny for a while.
Marc:And then once I did that, eventually I'm like, what do I need to do this at all for?
Marc:And occasionally I'll have these little flurries, but I'll always go check because I'm on there.
Guest:You want to see who liked it.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Or what people are saying.
Marc:And also you have to learn how to take the hits from the trolls, the troll hits.
Marc:It's like this weird thing that sensitive people have to learn how to acclimate to.
Marc:It's like, okay, that hurt.
Marc:Don't engage with it and move on.
Marc:It'll pass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, for me, I'm always like, do people know that there's such a thing as an unexpressed opinion?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not anymore.
Guest:Why should they?
Guest:But I think that's a lost art.
Guest:I think it's a lost art.
Marc:For fucking sure it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why you need me to know how you feel.
Guest:I don't need to know how you feel.
Guest:And guess what?
Guest:I'm not going to tell you how I feel.
Guest:And not even know.
Marc:I don't even know who you are.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You don't even have a name.
Marc:It's like I've actually said, and I kind of regret it.
Marc:I'm like, maybe it's not great that everyone has a voice.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:It's so true.
Guest:Everybody now is like the star of their own show and the most important person in their own, which I think was always the case with human beings.
Marc:But I do think that social media- But at least before it was delusional.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Marc:Now it's like active.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's out in the world.
Guest:People really do feel like, you know, I've seen guys online with like 27 followers being like, yo, man, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:I just got to clear some things up.
Guest:I'm like, no, you don't.
Guest:You don't have to clear anything up.
Guest:No one gives a shit.
Guest:It's not like he has a top story in the news.
Guest:It's like, hey, man.
Guest:Why don't you just call the 21?
Guest:Deontay Jones from Memphis, man.
Guest:Y'all heard about what happened at that party, right?
Guest:But he's going to be on today.
Guest:He's going to clear that up for us.
Guest:Guys, we're going to get some answers from Deontay.
Guest:And it just feels like what an odd time to live.
Guest:That's a funny bit.
Guest:I never expected it.
Guest:That's a funny bit.
Guest:I know, man.
Guest:I envy stand-ups because I've always admired it and I've never been.
Marc:Why don't you try it?
Marc:It's time.
Guest:It is time, yeah.
Guest:You know what's funny?
Guest:There's a little small club in Sherman Oaks.
Guest:It's called the Oyster Bar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they just have really bad stand-up.
Guest:Oh, they got like a weekly thing?
Guest:A weekly open mic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:perfect.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, no one knows.
Guest:Swip in.
Guest:And of course, I told some people, like, oh, we're going to tell people.
Guest:I'm like, don't do that shit.
Guest:Don't tell people.
Guest:Don't tell people.
Marc:Now, how many, like the South Side of Chicago.
Guest:South Side of Chicago, yeah, I grew up there.
Guest:How many brothers and sisters?
Guest:Well, there were six of us who grew up together.
Guest:There are eight of us total.
Guest:My parents, my dad is originally from Panama.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, came to America.
Guest:His father came over, you know, one of these typical immigrants, super duper smart, had to come over here and work in a parking garage or something.
Marc:His dad, your grandfather.
Guest:My grandfather.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He brought over the first three kids with a wife, but they had six.
Guest:So my dad was part of the three that got left in Panama for like, I think, a couple years, which is traumatic.
Yeah.
Guest:Then they came over, then they came to the south side of Chicago, because every immigrant picks a place where other immigrants are.
Guest:They're starting to figure this thing out in America.
Guest:They came over, and south side of Chicago, luckily they were black, even though they were Latin, so they kind of blended in until they spoke, and then people were like, you don't sound right, my man.
Guest:Where you from, brother?
Guest:I've even heard my dad say this when we were out, even when I was an adult.
Guest:Somebody was like, where your accent from?
Guest:He's all from the south.
Guest:I'm like, man, you're from South America.
Guest:Don't pretend.
Guest:But they came over, and then he went to college.
Guest:I met my mom, Southern Illinois University.
Guest:She's from west side of Chicago.
Guest:And then they converted to Islam in 1971, 72.
Guest:I was born in 76.
Guest:So they're like the first wave.
Guest:The very first wave.
Guest:of like the movie Malcolm X. They were in there.
Guest:But then there was a split in 76 where some people stayed with Farrakhan and stayed with the idea of black nationalism.
Guest:And then my parents, this other guy, Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace Muhammad, said, no, no, we gotta be more mainstream.
Guest:They actually, believe it or not, I actually grew up
Guest:being taught that Farrakhan was like a demagogue because of how my parents had been there and been like, no, no, we don't do racism.
Guest:They saw it happen.
Guest:They were there for the whole thing.
Guest:But what really happened was that Elijah Muhammad passed, and so there was a split, like all things.
Guest:Whenever there's a lot of power, an important person leaves, now we gotta figure out who really has the power.
Marc:So you come from the school of American Muslim thought.
Guest:I come from the school where my dad.
Guest:It's for everybody.
Guest:It's for everybody.
Guest:You know, when I was growing up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of appreciated it because we were Muslim, so we were like outside the mainstream.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think it was kind of cool that I got a sort of an education on how to not be part of the crowd.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that was really healthy.
Guest:And I think, you know, even with my own children, I'm going to try to be like that way.
Guest:So you got to really learn how to think on the outside so that you're not ever swept up in groupthink.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and also so you can know who you are when group things starts to creep in.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:That's what I try to tell people just in general.
Marc:It's like, it's happening, man.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Nobody believes it.
Marc:Yeah, and it's like, you better know who the fuck you are and what you stand for and what your real values are because people are going to start buckling to the fear.
Marc:And whether or not they're going to wear the hats, that might not be the issue, but they're definitely not going to get your back.
Marc:No.
Guest:No, it's interesting.
Guest:I always assumed when I was in college in 1998, there was this idea that we were at the end of history.
Guest:This is like the Bill Clinton era.
Guest:Well, you know, the superpowers are kind of settled and everybody kind of knows what the alliances are.
Marc:Globalism is intact.
Marc:Are we at the end of history?
Guest:And then I think that's one of the best lessons about life is that you don't know anything.
Guest:Just wait.
Guest:Yeah, too many thinkers.
Guest:Wild crazy shit could happen any second.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Look at the history of humans.
Marc:Whatever intellectual concept you're toying with in your fucking brain, you still got to deal with incomprehensible, crazy humans.
Guest:Who you don't know and who have ideas that aren't the same as yours.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And if they get enough people on board with certain ideas, they kill their neighbors.
Guest:One of the reasons that I am not religious anymore is as I was growing up, just naturally, because luckily my mom was very much a, she was a very big independent thinker.
Guest:She constantly, constantly, constantly pushed us to think for ourselves.
Guest:And as I got older, I was just like, wait a second, so we're in this religion, but you're telling me if somebody was born just in a different part of the universe, then they're wrong and going to hell.
Guest:And even then, my brain was like, that doesn't make any...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's the point then?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why even bother doing anything if it's a roll of the dice?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you might be wrong.
Guest:And thank God we happen to be right.
Guest:And then I was like, but everybody feels like they're right.
Guest:And this is when I was like 11, 12 years old.
Marc:That's a good one to have then.
Guest:And then my mom was like, yeah, you're right.
Guest:My dad was like, no, no, brother, you should read this book some more.
Guest:I was like, okay.
Guest:My mom was like, oh, you should.
Guest:She actually, God bless her, she gave my first taste of alcohol growing up too.
Guest:I'm just putting her on blast.
Guest:That was a good thing?
Guest:We were at a wedding.
Guest:It was beautiful.
Guest:I gotta tell you, it was one of the best things.
Guest:It's one of the best things in the world where there's this thing.
Marc:It's weird because in an alcoholic's life, that's not the great part of the story.
Guest:Well, luckily, my bout with alcoholism was much later, so thank God.
Guest:But my mom, we were at a wedding, and she had this little, there was a bottle cap.
Guest:She poured a little bit of champagne into it.
Guest:She said, you want to taste this?
Guest:I was like, hell yeah, I want to taste that.
Guest:Mom, my brothers and I passed it around.
Guest:We were like, ooh, this is weird.
Guest:And she was like, well, that's what that is.
Guest:And it was kind of cool that she was introducing us to the world that we had been sort of told was almost like an omelet family.
Marc:Oh, because you can't drink.
Guest:can't drink, can't eat pork, can't celebrate Christmas, and your neighbors worship the wrong God, and all this stuff.
Guest:But I will say, one thing my dad always said growing up, which I always appreciated, he was like, this is the best country to be a Muslim, is America, because this is the only country.
Guest:where anybody who has any religion can practice it the way they want to.
Guest:We don't have a government enforcing being like, oh, the address is too short.
Guest:You're going to go spend a day and a half in an education center or something like this.
Marc:Well, that seems to be happening.
Marc:That's all changing.
Marc:So you were in the glory days.
Guest:My dad was wrong, man.
Guest:No, he was right for the time.
Guest:At that time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The question is, do you think it can get to that point?
Guest:You believe so?
Marc:It's not a good day to ask me.
Guest:Thought police, morality police.
Marc:They don't need to have those because we already have them inside of us.
Guest:People are doing it for the government.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:That, you know, now when you have this type of divisiveness, there's plenty of workplaces in certain parts of this country where people are already afraid to talk about their beliefs or about what they think is right or wrong.
Marc:And rightfully so, because they will get told on.
Marc:They'll get told on or they'll be, you know, exiled or I mean, not always fired, but, you know, it's not going to be a comfortable work environment.
Marc:No, it won't.
Marc:So like so isn't that the same?
Guest:It is the thought police, you know, it's it's it's a slippery slope.
Guest:It's like the thought police is people like I said, you know, Deontay in Memphis policing himself right on the social media for fear of.
Marc:Yeah, I just don't think all those years.
Marc:Yeah, those those those I don't think all those the infrastructure of authoritarianism in the culture we live in now because of how powerful the media is.
Marc:You know, you can, it's just going to be yourself.
Marc:It's going to be already in there.
Marc:The notion of what is true and isn't has already been, you know, kind of just hazed or, you know, now that's not, it's not solid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that means it's fucking wide open for whack jobs.
Guest:Yeah, I saw something yesterday.
Guest:This woman said, you know, we were all taught growing up that, I saw this on Reddit.
Guest:She was like, we were growing up that the source of ignorance is a lack of information.
Guest:And she was like, that's wrong.
Guest:We have so much information now that people can pick and choose which facts they follow.
Guest:And that is an incredible moment that I never would have saw coming in history.
Guest:That you can literally have two people and you're watching them talk on TV and you're going, you guys are operating on different sets of facts.
Marc:It's a waste of time.
Marc:Once you enact, once you sort of embolden, you know, nut jobs who have an ideology like, you know, all these like shootings.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They happen in all these different places.
Marc:So by not engaging any sort of gun control laws and you have a president and a cultural momentum that is sort of inflaming nut jobs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like it's all done for him.
Marc:You don't need to put any kind of like weird, you know, Gestapo out there to keep people in their homes.
Guest:People are self-stopping.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, I'm not going to go to that fucking rock show.
Guest:What a, you know.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:No, I just wish it was a better time.
Marc:I wanted to be more fun.
Marc:It's a bad day.
Marc:It's a bad day for this, in my head.
Guest:I tell you, I read an email, because my wife and I were looking to buy, but we still rent.
Guest:And I had an email from my landlord this morning.
Guest:And I was like, I should not have read this before I came here.
Guest:It fucked my head up.
Guest:The long and short of it is that there was a home repair that wasn't getting done.
Guest:And so we finally did it.
Guest:And, of course, now the shit's hit the fan of, like, you guys weren't supposed to fix that thing.
Guest:And so it's like that.
Guest:And, yeah, it's one of those things where, like, we were like, okay, so clearly we should just buy a house because if we're going to deal with this, we might as well just be the ones on the hook for it.
Marc:You did the work.
Guest:Did all the work.
Guest:Did it well, too.
Guest:Really nice.
Guest:And now she's like, no, I'm not paying for that.
Guest:So it is what it is.
Guest:I just say that to say that, like you said this morning, I was like, you know, you see certain things.
Guest:Oh yeah, it just fucks you.
Marc:I'm very sensitive.
Marc:Me too.
Guest:And I'm like, I don't want to, I'll tell people like, no, you can't do that right now because that's going to fuck up my whole day.
Guest:And I don't want you to fuck my day up right now.
Guest:I'm trying to be in a good mood.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the mood killer is the thing you have in your hand all times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With one movement of my thumb, I can destroy my whole sense of well-being.
Guest:I'll see an article and I'm like, don't read this.
Guest:Don't fucking read this shit.
Guest:Because you're going to know how you feel about this shit as soon as you read it.
Guest:You're going to be mad.
Guest:And you're going to, like a lot of people nowadays, spend a lot of time in the shower having fake arguments with people you're not really talking to.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Making incredible points.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And having room for the people to applaud your erudition, right?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:But really... Yeah.
Guest:People try that shit online and get destroyed.
Guest:And you're yelling at that guy in Memphis.
Guest:I'm yelling at him, man.
Guest:Because he shouldn't have did that shit, bro.
Guest:I was fucked up, Deontay.
Marc:Deontay.
Marc:You're right.
Guest:Hey, man, I just want to close some things up.
Marc:So what was it?
Marc:So is that how you got the name?
Guest:What, Bashir?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's where the name comes from.
Marc:What kind of name is your last name?
Marc:Is it all Arabic?
Marc:It's all Arabic.
Marc:It's made up?
Guest:Well, it's not made up.
Guest:It's Arabic.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:But I mean, that was your dad's real name?
Marc:No, my dad's... Brother, what you mean real?
Guest:You mean a slave name?
Guest:You saw Malcolm X. Come on, man.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:My dad's original last name from his slave masters was Boyce.
Guest:And then before that, it was Gaskin.
Guest:Here's what I think was cool.
Guest:He and my uncle both became Muslim at the same time.
Guest:And they picked a new name, which is that one, Salahuddin, for the whole family.
Guest:So they were like, we're just going to do this whole new thing.
Guest:Kind of like, you know, you just change the whole family name.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they were like, we want to make sure that at every educational level, these kids have problems.
Guest:And they made sure that every substitute teacher, every school I went to, man, what kind of name is that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but like I kind of.
Guest:I don't see that as traumatizing.
Guest:I see it as empowering.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because it helped me sharpen my own sense of humor, and it helped me get some thick skin, which I think is kind of necessary.
Guest:People don't really have that anymore.
Marc:But weren't there other Muslim families?
Guest:You know, for a long time, we were at the Muslim school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then after sixth grade, that ended.
Guest:We had to go to, because the school only went up to sixth.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So you had to take your name and go into the real world.
Guest:We had to take our name and go to that public school with them public school kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you get in there and sit down, it feels like that first day at Shawshank.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:You're just like, hey, what's up, man?
Guest:Hey, look at this guy.
Guest:You're like, uh-oh.
Guest:But I will say, another misconception about growing up in the hood is, you know, when I grew up there, there were actually guys who would protect the smart kids.
Guest:Don't touch that kid.
Guest:Leave that kid alone.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:They were like OGs, like gangsters, like killers who were like, don't touch this kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He might get out of here.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Don't bother those kids.
Guest:So, you know, there was really a distinction.
Guest:And I think, unfortunately, like, for example, what happened in Chicago, a lot of those guys were killed or put in jail.
Guest:I think one of the reasons the violence in Chicago had increased is because there was no more...
Guest:there was no more mentorship.
Guest:I mean, it sounds terrible to say that, but there were no more OGs keeping the young boys in line.
Guest:So now you could have a group of young guys on the block just start calling themselves a gang.
Guest:There was nobody to give them the proper orientation.
Guest:Of how this works.
Guest:The roads of the road, none of that stuff.
Guest:And then the next block over, you have kids calling themselves the very same gang.
Marc:Yeah, they kill each other.
Guest:Yeah, and it's all obviously based around economic opportunity.
Guest:There's just such a lack sometimes.
Marc:But you saw that growing up?
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I remember being on a bus on 79th Street and, you know, because I'm a naive kid and like a nerd.
Guest:And we were going, and I just hear pop, pop, pop, pop.
Guest:And everybody on the bus hit the deck.
Guest:And I'm looking around, and some person's like, get your ass down.
Guest:Because I was looking around like, what was that?
Guest:Because I'm naive.
Guest:I never heard that before.
Guest:I was new.
Guest:I think this was sophomore year, freshman year in high school, so I must have been 14, 15.
Guest:And it was eye-opening, because I was like, damn, I could have been going just like that.
Guest:Didn't even occur to me.
Marc:It's not even aimed at you.
Guest:No, it rarely is.
Guest:It rarely is.
Guest:Usually, unfortunately, a lot of times when you read about Chicago, it is like, you know, they're aiming at this other person.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Oh, but there's a mother and a child walking through.
Marc:Or in that room over there.
Guest:That's the scariest one.
Guest:That's the worst.
Guest:Somebody like, you know, some poor woman at home just trying to watch Jeopardy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then something comes through the window.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just like, well, what the fuck?
Yeah.
Guest:But then I was thinking, because I want to stay in this morbid place.
Guest:Then I was thinking, when I was living in New York, there was this poor guy.
Guest:He was literally walking through Central Park.
Guest:A tree branch fell and killed him.
Guest:And I just said, well, shit.
Guest:This guy's probably living on the Upper East Side.
Guest:He's probably on the phone with the guy who's going to get him Mets tickets.
Guest:Being like, these aren't good enough.
Guest:Tree branch.
Marc:Bad timing.
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:It's a little different.
Guest:Once again, it's a lot different.
Guest:But it does tell you that, no, but there's no, you know, you can't really be safe on this planet, right?
Guest:I mean, we kind of all live under this sort of expectation that at any moment.
Marc:Sure, it's kind of random.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you can do things.
Marc:That makes it more exciting, right?
Marc:I guess, but I mean, you can do things to, you know, sort of insulate yourself.
Marc:I mean, that's sort of the idea of, you know, shifting the quality of work, why people live in certain communities or don't do certain activities, you know, is to lessen the possibility.
Guest:I think it's a terrible way to live.
Marc:I guess, but I mean, we all kind of do it.
Marc:I'm not going to go rock wall climbing.
Marc:I'm too old for that shit.
Guest:There's guys way older than you who do that shit, though.
Marc:Yeah, I know, but they make that decision.
Marc:There's also guys way older than me that fall down and break their fucking necks.
Marc:But no, that's not a tree branch because everyone's like, well, he's a fucking idiot.
Marc:He's 70.
Marc:Maybe he shouldn't have done that.
Guest:He shouldn't have been walking in his house, I guess.
Marc:Well, I mean, walking in your house is different.
Marc:If that happens to you- That happens all the time with the hips.
Marc:Oh, with the hips, yeah.
Guest:The number one causer of hip replacements is household stairs.
Marc:I'm scared of these.
Marc:I got some fucked upstairs.
Marc:You got some, yeah.
Marc:I keep looking at them.
Marc:Those are going to be my demise.
Guest:I think the cats are going to save you.
Marc:Oh, yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah, they're going to be real helpful.
Guest:They're going to be helpful at all.
Marc:They're having trouble with their hips.
Marc:They're both 15.
Marc:Oh, man, good for you.
Marc:A couple of them are old-ass cats, and then the black one is young.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, Buster.
Marc:You gotta have a young buddy cat around.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, you gotta, yeah.
Marc:They keep things lively.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:With his jazz music.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:His reefer cigarettes.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:All right, so you're there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what do you, now you said you got this.
Guest:Born and raised in Chicago.
Guest:But there's six of you?
Guest:Well, there's four boys and two girls.
Guest:It's a religious family.
Guest:My, growing up on the south side of Chicago, dad was an airplane mechanic.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:It was kind of cool.
Guest:Out at O'Hare?
Guest:At Midway.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:This was before.
Guest:Actually, no, Midway's still there.
Guest:Yeah, it is still there.
Guest:But before, it was Midway Airlines as well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:It used to be literally an airline, and we would go, and I'll never forget it, that it was all these pretty stewardesses who would flirt with my dad in front of my mom, and she'd just be like, these bitches ain't shit.
Guest:And I'll never forget that growing up, because they had no respect.
Guest:And I was like, man, the 80s is cool.
Guest:And we would just fly all over America.
Guest:Did you guys?
Guest:We flew everywhere.
Guest:Standby.
Guest:We had to dress up.
Guest:Five black kids in the airport in little suits and ties and dresses.
Guest:Because if the airline employees take their family on a standby trip, they have to represent the airline.
Guest:And so we were really well behaved.
Guest:But I do think that I do cherish that growing up.
Guest:We really traveled all over.
Marc:You were afforded that luxury because you're old man.
Guest:I was afforded because my old man used to fix airplanes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he wanted to travel.
Guest:Love traveling.
Guest:Love traveling.
Guest:Are they still around?
Guest:My parents?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad is remarried.
Guest:He's in Arizona.
Guest:He has two new kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has his youngest son has my same birthday.
Guest:So I was like, are you trying to replace me?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:He did replace you.
Guest:He did replace me, yeah.
Marc:He replaced all of you.
Marc:He did.
Marc:Two new kids.
Guest:And a new wife.
Guest:He got new everything.
Guest:He started over.
Guest:And then my mom still lives in Chicago.
Guest:I just saw her a couple days ago.
Marc:How's she doing?
Guest:She's doing good.
Guest:She's in all my stuff.
Guest:I constantly pick her brain for ideas.
Guest:She's the reason I have a sense of humor.
Guest:She's one of the most creative people.
Guest:When did they split up?
Guest:They broke up around the year 2000.
Guest:So they were together like 25, 26 years.
Marc:Oh, so you're pretty grown.
Guest:I was grown.
Guest:I was grown.
Guest:I just felt like helpless because I was in LA, poor, a PA at Warner Brothers.
Guest:They were having a really messy divorce.
Guest:And I just felt so helpless.
Guest:And it's one of those things where I think that young adult time is really helpless because you don't have any money and yet you sort of physically and emotionally know
Guest:that there should be some way to be helpful, and there's no way to be helpful.
Guest:I mean, it's nothing like that.
Marc:Yeah, and in that situation, it's like, then you just like, do you pick sides?
Guest:Yeah, hell yeah, I picked a side.
Guest:I was on her side.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was easy.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I was surprised I took too long to break up.
Guest:I was like, yeah, I should have broke up much earlier.
Guest:Oh, this fucking fighting.
Guest:This is too much.
Guest:People don't behave like this.
Marc:Your parents, I'm sorry, what?
Marc:No, my parents, I was like in my 30s, and I knew what side I would pick.
Marc:How'd you feel about it?
Marc:Well, it's hard because I had to decide who to live with.
Guest:The parents are like, FYI.
Guest:They share time.
Guest:This is your fault.
Guest:No, I mean- People always, when I see these guys on the news being like, man, I didn't grow up with my father.
Guest:I'd be like, you know what?
Guest:Maybe he got off easy.
Guest:Sometimes it's good.
Guest:Not all of us grew up with him.
Guest:My dad, here's the thing.
Guest:I love him today, and I honor him.
Guest:He did some incredible things.
Guest:He raised six kids.
Guest:All of us went to college.
Guest:Traveled.
Guest:He provided for us.
Guest:We traveled.
Guest:We never needed anything in our lives.
Guest:And his credit, I didn't even have a curfew growing up.
Guest:His whole thing was just don't bring it to me.
Marc:But he also instilled you with some sort of moral compass.
Guest:Let me tell you, he had us out there every morning on the weekends picking up garbage in the neighborhood, going door to door, trying to be helpful.
Guest:He definitely forced us to be helpful to our neighbors and to be of service.
Guest:To this day, I still get up early in the morning, and I still have this sense of, you know, he's an immigrant, so he's got that immigrant work ethic.
Guest:So I still had that.
Guest:So there's a lot of things where I'm just like, man, this has been so, you know, I'm so lucky to have that.
Guest:But on the other hand, it's like there's a lot of arguing and a lot of instability.
Guest:And I think that it's not good for kids to see all that.
Guest:To go through the insanity?
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:No.
Guest:I think it's better for them to be in two different households and see two people who are really happy and then one household where people are miserable.
Guest:I think every marriage, you should live in different houses.
Guest:My wife, oh, I shouldn't even say that.
Guest:But the other day, she jokingly brought that up.
Guest:And then, you know, somebody jokes and then nobody corrects the joke.
Guest:We were both walking like, we had enough money.
Guest:We could do that.
Guest:She could live on one end of the block.
Guest:Because, you know, I'll say this.
Guest:Love is really, and I don't typically talk about my relationship.
Guest:I always feel like the best way to lose my relationship is to talk about it.
Guest:But I bring this up to talk about myself.
Guest:Love, when you really have it for real, it absolutely changes you, and you absolutely learn who you really are.
Guest:Because for years, I was single, I was in New York, I was dating, I was traveling, I was like, this person, whatever, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:And it's not until you start to say, well, this person is going to matter, and this is going to be meaningful, that you start to learn all your inadequacies.
Guest:And I didn't even realize I had an anger problem.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, my dad had one.
Guest:I was like, that's him, not me.
Guest:And then I got in a relationship, I was like, oh no.
Marc:You didn't have a lot of crying women in your life?
Guest:No, I had a lot of neglected women.
Guest:I had a lot of people who would write me letters and be like, I came to New York to see you.
Guest:We hung out for an hour.
Guest:You were a piece of shit.
Guest:That kind of stuff.
Marc:Oh, so you weren't a rager.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Just a simmering anger guy.
Guest:But no, I never even got mad.
Guest:Why would I get mad?
Guest:There was no stakes.
Guest:There was zero stakes.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:I don't care, do what you gotta do.
Guest:It was very like, and it wasn't until somebody totally mattered that I realized like, oh, I have all this, and the work continues to this day.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:But I felt embarrassed that I had to do that much work to myself in my 30s.
Guest:I was like, god damn, I am all fucked up.
Marc:Yeah, I'm 55 and I'm going to therapy in two hours.
Marc:And I just started again.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, it's an ever-evolving process, but I think that's a good point you make, that when you do finally find yourself in a relationship where it matters, where you want to be your best self.
Guest:Or just stop yelling and stop sending three-page text messages.
Guest:I literally had to block her on my phone so that I wouldn't text her a fucked-up thing.
Guest:Oh, because she got in there.
Guest:Because she's in my heart, in my head, and all of a sudden I'm jealous.
Guest:I didn't know I was a jealous person.
Marc:I was never jealous.
Marc:I didn't give a fuck.
Marc:Oh, dude, it's the worst, man.
Marc:When you spend your life with this kind of emotional disposition that gets you through.
Marc:But then when somebody gets in there, then all of a sudden the whole structure starts to shake.
Guest:Oh, the whole thing falls apart.
Guest:Yeah, it was like a house of cards.
Guest:And it wasn't even like...
Guest:I'm like, well, she's never gonna see me cry.
Guest:Check that off the list.
Guest:She's never gonna see me raise my voice at a party.
Guest:Check that off the list.
Guest:And God bless my wife.
Guest:She was very patient.
Guest:Again, it's because she would look at me like I was an alien because her family, I've been around them, they don't encounter each other like that.
Guest:I know.
Guest:You go to these people's houses, you see these people's families, and you're like, y'all just sit in the same room all day and just kick it?
Guest:Yeah, we just sit in the same.
Guest:You know what it is?
Guest:I liken it to, there are people like, I'm very fortunate in that.
Guest:I used to have trouble sleeping.
Guest:It's not another slave analogy, is it?
Guest:I got three more slave things before we get off here.
Guest:I have a lot of them.
Guest:Because you know what it is?
Guest:Slavery just, can we switch?
Guest:Slavery just, it baffles me.
Guest:Because it's so like...
Guest:And it's so incredible and it's so hard to believe.
Guest:And it also kills me because it wasn't that long ago.
Guest:It was like kind of recent.
Guest:And so what I'll say is, and I'm going to be a little bit on my civil rights high horse right here, but I do feel like I'm always heartbroken.
Guest:When I see people disparaging black neighborhoods, disparaging crime statistics that are in our favor, the amount of incarceration, it's almost like you can't just do that.
Guest:You can't just go out and totally and brutally disrupt somebody's entire self being in history.
Guest:then put them into a system that is designed for their failure, and then when a few succeed despite that, which is incredible, and then some other ones do fall victim to all the traps that are put in place, you go, aha, you fell victim to the trap.
Guest:And it just seems like, for me, I liken it to a house.
Guest:If you went to somebody's house, and they had all these beautiful kids, and the house was gorgeous,
Guest:But then there was this one room in the house that was just not taken care of.
Guest:And there was a kid in there who clearly hadn't bathed in weeks.
Guest:And then somebody was like, hey man, how's that house?
Guest:You wouldn't say, you know, it's an amazing house.
Guest:You'd be like, that house looks good on the outside, but it's fucked up.
Guest:There's something going on in there that that one thing.
Guest:And I say that to say that I think that, you know,
Guest:So to me, I'm always heartened when I see people take it upon themselves and go, wait a second, this isn't Southside Chicago's problem.
Guest:What's in the news now, Baltimore?
Guest:It's not Baltimore's problem.
Guest:It's not Queens's problem.
Guest:It's America's problem.
Guest:How do we all fix this thing?
Guest:Because our house has a part of it that we should be ashamed of.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I agree.
Guest:We're ashamed of how we treat that problem.
Marc:And I also think what's important is to really not just... The problem with the amount of information that's coming at us all the time is there's no real context anymore.
Marc:So I think that what you're saying about really realizing how it wasn't that long ago and the sort of expansiveness of the horror.
Marc:Because I went down when I was shooting last year in Birmingham and I went to Montgomery to that museum, to the lynching museum, and like...
Marc:And I'm just a white guy, and I think my head's in the right place.
Marc:But to really put it into perspective of human lives and how widespread it was and just the power of that piece of art, it blew my fucking mind.
Guest:America had several...
Guest:Speed bumps for black folk.
Guest:We had slavery, got past that.
Guest:Then there were actually people who pulled themselves up literally by their bootstraps, despite the government's promise of 40 acres and a mule, which was not realized.
Guest:There were people who still pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and then those people were firebombed by their neighbors and killed.
Guest:By their neighbors.
Guest:And the government sometimes, too.
Guest:America's had so many secret race riots, we wouldn't even talk about them.
Guest:We saw this in the Jack Johnson documentary.
Guest:He won the world championship, I think it was like 1918 or something,
Guest:hundreds of black people around America died.
Guest:It was like this massive bloodletting because he had dared to beat the white champ.
Guest:That all happened.
Guest:You know, I just shot a movie in North Carolina about black soldiers in 1918 who were part of a terrible race riot and they were just trying to get over to France and fight for this country.
Guest:And so,
Guest:Then that goes.
Guest:And then that goes away.
Guest:And then you just see these systemic things.
Guest:And then you have the war on drugs.
Guest:And there's like this constant barriers.
Guest:And I'm always so impressed when I see black folk who've really succeeded despite all that.
Guest:Because I can tell you it is a difficult proposition when you don't have a community there that supports you sometimes.
Guest:Some do.
Guest:And you don't have the traditional structures.
Guest:And you're sort of writing your own.
Guest:Think about this.
Guest:A lot of black folk are writing their own history from scratch.
Guest:Starting in the 70s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not in the 60s, 50s, because that's still sort of fighting just to be able to not be shot on the way to school.
Guest:You have us creating and implementing an entirely new identity set of values, art, music, and all of its revolutionary and new.
Guest:And it comes from our experience, but it has to be sort of created on the fly, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's sort of like we have to figure out our own history because there's this gigantic eraser.
Guest:that has erased this sort of lineage.
Guest:I mean, I don't even know where I come from.
Guest:I'm sitting here, I mean, I also haven't done the ancestry test, but I have friends who can be like, oh yeah, my grandmother's from here, and then her grandmother's from here, and here's my great-great-great-great-grandfather and his mule.
Guest:I don't have that.
Marc:You don't?
Marc:No.
Marc:Do you want to get it?
Guest:Eventually.
Guest:Eventually I'll get it.
Marc:Because yours is probably a little different because your dad come up through Panama.
Guest:It might be a slight difference, but the phrase diaspora refers to everybody who was kind of dropped off on a slave boat.
Guest:So we were kind of all dropped off at different places.
Guest:So it might be different.
Guest:It could be identical to a lot of other people.
Marc:Right, so were you aware of this like your whole life?
Marc:Yeah, I mean.
Marc:I mean in the sense that because you're like, but you're one of these people that kind of made his way out.
Guest:A lot of help, lots of help.
Guest:But I don't feel like I made it out because when I go back to Chicago, still, one of the reasons we did a show there is because I'm just sick and tired of how the city is presented.
Guest:Oh, this is the other show.
Marc:So you've got two things coming out.
Guest:Yeah, I've got Southside and Sherman Showcase.
Marc:Sherman Showcase is a sketch comedy show.
Guest:Sketch comedy on IFC.
Guest:IFC, that's Wednesdays at 10 o'clock.
Guest:And Southside is same night on Comedy Central at 10.30.
Guest:So, yeah, the South Side show is really just my, you know, our chance to sort of say, hey, look, South Side Chicago and Black Chicago is not what you think.
Guest:It's a really vibrant place with fun people.
Guest:Some of the best comics, you know, your Bernie Max, your Robin Harris.
Guest:God damn.
Guest:The greatest, yeah.
Guest:I love Robin Harris.
Guest:Sherry Shepard, there's so many great, Deon Cole, we were just talking about him.
Guest:D-Ray Davis, Laurel Howery.
Guest:D-Ray, I like D-Ray.
Guest:D-Ray's hilarious.
Guest:He is.
Guest:All these great guys come from black Chicago, yet when you think of Chicago, you don't think like, oh, black Chicago, you don't think, oh, comedy.
Guest:You think like, oh, I saw that in the news.
Marc:Yeah, of course there's a vibrant community there.
Marc:Right, yeah, but people don't know about it.
Guest:They don't know about it.
Marc:I don't go visit.
Guest:No, you haven't been to the south side of Chicago?
Marc:I'm not, usually, here's my excuse.
Marc:I'm never there that long, you know, and I got work to do.
Marc:You go in, get in, get out.
Marc:You see what you need to see.
Marc:I eat my pizza.
Marc:Eat a couple slices.
Marc:I do my thing.
Marc:I do like it, though.
Guest:You look to the south and say, it looks crazy over there.
Marc:I don't, if someone took me there, I'd go.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, but I usually, I do like Chicago.
Marc:I've grown to really love it.
Marc:It's definitely, if it's on a place.
Guest:It's a great town, man.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:It definitely doesn't take itself seriously, which I love.
Guest:The people there, you know, they're just regular ass people, which I love.
Marc:Well, I do think it's an important perspective to show because you're right in that there is this idea, even people who consider themselves progressive kind of package it that way in their head.
Marc:That's problems.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But yeah, you know what I mean?
Marc:There's problems there.
Marc:People are dying.
Guest:There's problems.
Guest:Look, there's parts of my beloved city where little kids go to school that can only be described as a war zone.
Guest:you know, for the amount of violence that they have to pass or just to get to class every day.
Guest:Not to mention, you know, evictions.
Guest:Not to mention, there's a great book called Eviction, which I just read, which really lays out how people getting evicted, not having money, and moving from place to place destabilizes the ability for a village to raise a child, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kids are always the new kid.
Guest:There's always new beef.
Guest:There's always new people.
Guest:There's always people you don't know.
Guest:There's always a distrust in these neighborhoods.
Guest:And families are just moving from different place to place, following whoever will let them live there.
Marc:It's really just- And historically, of your parents' generation, that was one of the strengthening aspects of the community.
Guest:There was more home.
Guest:I won't speak ill because I don't know the numbers, but there was definitely, when I was growing up, we played on the block.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But everyone knew each other.
Guest:Everybody knew each other.
Guest:If your folks were away, they would watch you.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:We went across the street to the neighbor's house.
Guest:The neighbor came over to our house, and everybody kind of was aware that there were certain rules in place.
Guest:And I think some of that infrastructure has been eradicated.
Guest:Community infrastructure.
Guest:Community infrastructure has been eradicated.
Guest:So you got to be, how do we do something about that?
Guest:That's the question I think about.
Marc:Well, I mean, and on some level, you know, you think about it and, you know, you wonder, maybe ask yourself, I do as well, like, where are the leaders?
Marc:But there are people that work on a community level.
Marc:And then there's people like you who's going to make a show showing a different side of that.
Marc:And you've got to hope that helps somewhat.
Marc:I think.
Marc:I think it will.
Marc:But it seems to be those people that are at it every day with those kids.
Guest:I think for me, maybe just because our leaders keep getting assassinated in spectacular fashion, I tend to be against this idea of single leadership.
Guest:One of the things that I admire about Black Lives Matter is they have a decentralized leadership.
Guest:And I think that's really important.
Guest:Because if you have one human being who's supposed to be the face of something, that person's going to get tarred, feathered, smeared, destroyed.
Guest:Heaven forbid they're actually just a human being with mistakes and foibles.
Guest:And like all of us, they have some shortcomings.
Guest:That's all going to come out.
Guest:Now the entire movement is disparaged just because this guy likes hookers.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Whatever that would be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, you know, it happens.
Guest:People like that.
Guest:People are flawed.
Guest:People are humans.
Guest:I think that's the thing.
Guest:It's almost like you read the internet every day, and there's this sort of idealized person that nobody thinks anybody else is living up to.
Guest:You kind of want to be like, we're all just people, man.
Marc:Yeah, there's articles and ads about how you become your best self, and then all the other articles is what a fuck that guy is.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Or you'll see even like Democrats, for example, will point out the hypocrisy with, say, Republican behavior to be the Bible.
Guest:But then it's like, well, but we're not supposed to be using the Bible as our standard.
Guest:Separation of church and state.
Guest:So you're pointing out this guy's a hypocrite.
Guest:But you're also implying that we should be sort of following a Judeo-Christian point of view.
Guest:Have this conversation.
Guest:And it's like, well, what if he's an atheist or a Satanist?
Marc:Or we shouldn't be even arguing.
Marc:Why can't we just be rational people concerned about our lives on this planet and taking care of each other?
Marc:The way we treat this planet, it's very American.
Guest:The way we treat this planet, I just go sometimes like, man, that is just, we just act like we got three more of these motherfuckers somewhere.
Guest:Just sitting around waiting to be inhabited.
Marc:They're hoping we'll adapt, I guess, or they're just pretending like it's not happening.
Marc:You just need better sunscreen, different clothes?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that's why I was mad about my air conditioning not working earlier.
Marc:Well, that's the weird kind of like Faustian deal we all make.
Marc:It's like, I know all this shit's not happening, but I'd like to be comfortable.
Marc:And what's more important, saving the world or me being comfortable?
Guest:you know well why not both yeah yeah but really the answer i think should be like saving the world so what was your how did you get into uh the comedy thing i mean what was always man always you know when i was a little kid um i used to dress up like a dog yeah pretend i was the family dog and try to make my family laugh that's funny yeah uh it was had you been there you'd be dying right now yeah
Guest:Yeah, it sounds pretty funny.
Guest:Many years later, it's just, what a hot kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think even growing up, and I'm sure you felt this too, there's that first moment where you're in a room full of people and they laugh at something you say, 11 or 12, and you're kind of like, oh, that feels really good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it wasn't comedy.
Guest:It was just for me, it was always theater.
Guest:I love theater.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I've done so much Shakespeare.
Marc:Really?
Guest:So much musical theater.
Guest:When was the first time you were exposed to that?
Guest:High school.
Guest:First time I was Hamlet.
Guest:In high school.
Guest:I wasn't Hamlet.
Guest:I played Claudius.
Guest:I played the dad.
Guest:And he loved it.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I was like, this is every day.
Guest:It's like lush.
Guest:You get to be on stage.
Guest:You get to say this wonderful stuff.
Guest:You essentially use poetry to drive plot, which is incredible.
Guest:And it's like learning French and loving French.
Guest:I mean, for me, it was wonderful.
Guest:So then in high school, you were like, I'm going to be an actor.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to be an actor, but I didn't tell nobody because I'm from the hood.
Guest:And particularly once I was a president of the National Honor Society, I had good grades.
Guest:You can't be from the hood and have all these accolades and be like, hey, mom and dad, I'm about to go to Hollywood.
Guest:There's some tears.
Guest:So I went to college, and for three years, I did pre-med.
Guest:Where at?
Guest:Harvard.
Guest:That's a good school.
Guest:That's where I met Diallo, my writing partner.
Guest:It's a great school.
Guest:I don't encourage anybody to try to learn calculus in college.
Guest:You're not going to be able to do it.
Guest:You should really do it before.
Guest:Once that ship has sailed, it's gone.
Guest:Dude, math in general is like, at some point, you need to be honest with yourself about, are you going to be a math person?
Guest:And sometimes the answer is not.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:Oh, no.
Marc:But you haven't really needed it, have you?
Marc:No, but I mean, I used to do a joke about that where you can't charm your way through math.
Guest:No, you can't.
Guest:So it's not for me.
No.
Guest:You can through English.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Almost everything else.
Guest:Everything else, yeah.
Guest:Math is more like, yeah, it's very charming, but this is an F. Yeah, exactly.
Guest:That's the wrong number.
Guest:Would it be the wrong number if I held it like this?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's a fit.
Guest:Yeah, it still would, motherfucker.
Guest:You're terrible.
Guest:I did college, and I was always doing theater in college.
Guest:Harvard has this thing called the Hasty Pudding where men dress as women.
Guest:I did that.
Guest:I played a fellow twice.
Guest:I played it my sophomore year and my senior year.
Marc:But they have a theater thing for not- Harvard has tons of theater.
Guest:Harvard has more theater than any other college in America.
Guest:It's mostly bad, though.
Guest:but it's not for you don't have to be in the theater no no it's not a ct program it's not like structured it's really that's why they have more than anybody else because any student can just like i did a paul robeson play yeah um i just got a space i walked around the campus for four days four days just putting up flyers right rehearsed my ass off and i just did it and people showed up and it was it was cool yeah um and i had this wonderful moment now that you bring it up that i never forget it's one of my most cherished memories
Guest:is I remember there was a training program in upstate New York.
Guest:It's called the Hangar Theater Lab Company.
Guest:And it was a place to really, as a young person, start your career as a real actor.
Guest:And it was not cheap.
Guest:And my family does not have money.
Guest:So I'll never forget, I called my dad and I said, hey man, this is my junior year.
Guest:Because you know you have that foreboding sense in the back of your head like, there's a day of reckoning coming.
Guest:Because your ass is not going to medical school.
Guest:this facade will come to a lie.
Guest:And you haven't told them.
Guest:I haven't told anybody.
Guest:This is coming to a head at some point.
Guest:But you just like party and dance.
Guest:Are you getting good grades in the pre-med?
Guest:No, terrible.
Guest:Terrible grades.
Guest:But passing, but terrible.
Guest:My worst grades at Harvard were my pre-med grades.
Guest:And then I finally called my dad, my junior year, and I said, hey man, so there's a theater training program and I want to go do it because I want to be an actor.
Guest:And I'll never forget, he said,
Guest:okay.
Guest:He said, I think we kind of always knew you were going to do that.
Guest:So, all right, I'll pay for it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:It was wonderful.
Guest:That was my best memories.
Guest:I was like, I felt this weight lift off my shoulder.
Guest:I just felt it.
Guest:Don't, it was so good, man.
Guest:I wish it on everybody.
Guest:That moment where you accept who you, who you going to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:And I was so happy.
Guest:And then my mom was like, okay, we just finished your pre-med requirements.
Guest:And I said, what the fuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I got- Oh, so she was like, indulge him.
Guest:Make sure he finishes it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom was like, well, yes, you can go, but also just never know.
Guest:You might want to be a doctor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, I don't think she realizes the degree to which I'm getting off that path.
Guest:You can't just casually fall back into that.
Marc:But they're worried about your future.
Guest:Well, they know where I come from.
Guest:They know how hard it is to do something from there that is at the level I had done it.
Marc:So you finished school, though?
Guest:Finished it, man.
Guest:Graduated, came to LA.
Guest:Oh, right after?
Guest:Right after.
Guest:Well, not immediately.
Guest:I went home to Chicago first because I didn't make enough money.
Guest:I worked as a paralegal in downtown Chicago.
Marc:To save up to come here.
Guest:To save up enough money to come to Los Angeles.
Guest:Came to LA and then just had every eye job.
Guest:I was a PA.
Guest:I worked in restaurants.
Guest:Where were you a PA?
Guest:At Warner Brothers.
Marc:Oh, just general?
Marc:Not on a shoot?
Guest:No, I was a PA for Warner Brothers Studios, which was cool.
Guest:At that time, their two big shows were Friends and ER.
Guest:So I would see the cast of Friends, and I would see George Clooney out there tossing the football with some of the crew guys.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:I've made it.
Guest:And I was driving, I remember my dad was driving a cart and I whipped around the corner and I hit the brakes.
Guest:It was Brooke Shields.
Guest:I almost hit her with a cart.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:I said, man, that would have totally ruined my entire Hollywood career.
Guest:That would have been it.
Guest:I was going.
Guest:That's done.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Random black kid, assault model.
Guest:By accident, yeah.
Guest:How did he even get on the lot?
Guest:That's the question I want to know.
Guest:How did he get on the lot?
Guest:Says he was working here.
Guest:Claims he was working here, guys.
Guest:He's from Chicago, by the way.
Guest:The bad part.
Guest:The bad part, yeah.
Guest:We can't vouch for this guy.
Guest:But we started doing our own thing, and then we, like you did, wasn't getting what I wanted, wasn't happy, and we started making our own web videos.
Guest:You and Diallo.
Guest:Me and Diallo started making our own web videos.
Guest:We were always doing sketch comedy.
Guest:Diallo Riddle?
Guest:Diallo Riddle.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And he's some guy you met?
Guest:We met in college.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Very similar background to me.
Guest:Big family like I'm from.
Guest:Really funny guy.
Marc:What was the New York time?
Marc:You talk about New York.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:So that's after that.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:We were making our own videos.
Guest:And then Jimmy, actually first David Allen Greer, God bless him, caught wind of us and hired us for his show for like two seconds.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It was a show called Chocolate Noob.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We kind of got there after they had done everything.
Guest:But it was cool, man.
Guest:Being in a writer room for the first time.
Guest:So you were a team.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were a writing team.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we did Chocolate News.
Guest:And then Fallon called us and said, hey, man, you guys should come out here.
Guest:We met with him.
Guest:And it was a 13-week contract.
Guest:And we were like, yo, man, the last person that had a TV show and talk show from the SNL camp was like Chevy Chase.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was not a show that lasted a long time.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:Your words, not mine.
Marc:Everyone's words.
Guest:America had made a decision about that show.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So at the time, Jimmy was also maligned because they were saying, oh, he breaks up in the sketches.
Guest:I think he's great.
Guest:He's incredible.
Guest:So we went and we worked.
Guest:We had a 13-week contract and we moved to New York.
Guest:Didn't know what the hell was going to happen.
Guest:And that was four great years.
Guest:Ended up being four.
Guest:Got an Emmy nomination.
Guest:And we did sketch.
Guest:And obviously, our show Sherman Showcase is sort of like...
Guest:the most logical progression.
Marc:So A.D.
Guest:Miles was the head writer?
Guest:A.D.
Guest:Miles was the head writer, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was cool, man.
Guest:Morgan Murphy was there.
Guest:Anthony Jeselnik was there.
Guest:And then a bunch of other really cool young... It's interesting with Jeselnik, because I always thought he had the best jokes.
Guest:Sure, great joke writer.
Guest:But then it would be like, that's hilarious, not going on air.
Guest:Hilarious, not going on air.
Guest:I'm like, these are great jokes, but he's not going to say this stuff.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So, okay, so you write for Fallon, and he's a good guy, right?
Guest:Great.
Guest:Because, like, a lot of people, like, criticize... Really focus on the funny, though, which I love.
Guest:Oh, he's so funny.
Guest:Like, it's not... But I'm saying he's not, like... Like, there's not small talk with him.
Marc:No, but that's why, like, people criticize him because he's so goofy and cute, but I'm like, that's what he's doing.
Marc:That's what he does, yeah.
Marc:And, like, when I do it, I just did the show, like, a week and a half ago, I'm always, like, relieved.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, it's going to be fine.
Guest:Dude, he made us feel so... We were there, he made us feel so comfortable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could not...
Guest:I was so grateful that he made us.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:I never appreciated how hard his job is until I was on the couch.
Guest:And I was like, holy shit, this job is hard.
Guest:But he kept the ball in the air.
Guest:He kept it interesting.
Guest:He's quick.
Guest:He kept setting us up for line drives.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:We had really good hits because of him.
Guest:And so I said, oh, man, I am getting educated.
Guest:I am learning.
Guest:That shit is hard to be out there.
Guest:And it's like you're out there alone.
Guest:I know it's live to tape.
Guest:You could edit it.
Guest:But you got to edit it.
Marc:He's so quick when you're talking to him and he listens and he likes to laugh.
Guest:Yeah, he loves it.
Guest:One of the things I love working with him is that it really is about the funny.
Guest:You talk to him, as I was saying before, it's really not a lot of small talk.
Guest:It's like, how do we make this funnier?
Guest:What does the audience think about this?
Guest:Do we like this part of it?
Guest:It's almost like technical.
Guest:And you kind of learn, because we were there some days.
Guest:I don't know if you've ever written for a late night show.
Guest:It's like, dude, 20 hour days sometimes.
Guest:And so every fucking day, and I don't give a fuck how great your day was on Monday.
Guest:Tuesday needs to be good too.
Guest:That's hard work.
Guest:That's hard ass work.
Guest:But I kind of like hard.
Guest:In my life, anything that's been hard has usually been really worth it.
Guest:And the easy shit is like, it's not worth it.
Marc:The payout's better.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's hard for a reason.
Guest:It's hard because it's worth doing.
Marc:So you got a good education with the funny with him?
Guest:You got a great education in really collaborating.
Guest:For me, comedy writing is collaborating.
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:You can't sit up there and be like, I'm the funny one.
Guest:You're going to embarrass yourself.
Marc:Unless you just write monologue jokes.
Guest:But even then, they go through.
Marc:I know, hundreds of them.
Guest:Yeah, hundreds of them for seven.
Marc:And then you're doing that, you write, but you also act.
Marc:You're in the show with me, you're on Glow, and we do that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of fun.
Marc:And you're going to be in the new Top Gun movie?
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to be in Top Gun.
Guest:I'm playing Tom Cruise's best friend.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That's a big role, man.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:I was on an aircraft carrier and I was about to shoot this thing with Tom where he's in a jet and I'm outside the jet and we're having this really tough moment.
Guest:And then I just had that amazing moment of imposter syndrome wash over me.
Guest:I'm like, who in the fuck life is this?
Guest:Who is this guy?
Guest:But then...
Guest:I looked at my paper trail and I'm like, yo, man, 20 years in, you've acted in movies before.
Guest:It's not your first movie.
Guest:You acted on TV, recurring on three different TV shows, produced shows.
Guest:I was like, you have the resume of somebody who would be in this moment.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But it's hard.
Marc:Did you like the moment?
Guest:Um...
Marc:So you're the new best friend.
Marc:You don't go down, do you?
Marc:No, man.
Marc:I don't even get to fly a plane.
Guest:Everybody's like, you get to fly planes.
Marc:I'm like, nah, I'm the- Who was the guy in the first movie that got killed?
Marc:That was Goose.
Guest:Dr. Anthony Edwards from ER.
Guest:The new movie, yeah.
Guest:But you're with Tom a lot?
Guest:Yeah, I'm with Tom the whole movie.
Guest:And how was that?
Guest:Educational.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:Tom Cruise reminds me a lot of Jimmy Fallon in his professionalism.
Guest:You know, I'm greatly aware that everybody's got stuff to say, but the good news about what we do is that we get to sometimes work one-on-one with folks.
Guest:And I will tell you that every discussion I have with Tom, it's similar to Jimmy in that Tom is like,
Guest:what is the audience thinking right now?
Guest:And I thought that was really cool to see.
Guest:Like, literally, I don't care where the camera is.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:Anything that's happening on set, it's always going to pass through one single filter with him.
Guest:It's like, what is the audience's emotional response?
Guest:He really sees himself almost like a rollercoaster director.
Guest:I know that sounds weird, but he's like, we need to make sure this thing has enough thrills, enough highs, enough moments, enough everything.
Guest:Is he the producer?
Guest:I think he's always the producer.
Guest:I mean, if he's on the movie, it's his movie.
Guest:So to watch that and to be like, oh, you know, I know people would think, you know, movie star, right?
Guest:It's like, oh, movie star, movie star.
Guest:One thing he always told us when we were on set, he was like, the reason I have a long career is competence.
Guest:I study this stuff.
Guest:He said, I've tried to learn what everybody on the movie set does.
Guest:He said, I go to movies.
Guest:I sit in the back of the audience.
Guest:I look.
Guest:I see what they respond to.
Guest:I see what they don't.
Guest:I've done that all over.
Guest:It's really...
Guest:like a scientific undertaking, almost like a technical undertaking.
Guest:And I think for myself, I was like, damn, I really want to learn how to do that because I don't think of my writing that way.
Guest:I never thought of it, when I write, I always thought of it as like, how do I say what I want to say?
Guest:I never thought of it as, when I say this, what will the audience feel?
Guest:And I think just that second part, which is where he is, is something that I want to get better at.
Guest:It's sort of like an empathy thing almost.
Guest:Like, you put yourself in the position of the audience.
Guest:He is a fan.
Guest:He said, like, I'm a fan of these movies.
Guest:I need to be able to watch this movie like a fan and feel like a fan feels it.
Guest:And I think that's actually, to his credit, it's been the key to some of his longevity is because when you go to his movies, them shits really are exciting.
Guest:Nice guy?
Guest:Super nice.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, by the way, I'm not going to say one bad thing on this podcast.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:Even though I could destroy, fuck all these guys.
Guest:I could kill all of them.
Guest:But could you?
Guest:But I'm not.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I probably couldn't, actually.
Marc:You're going to be diplomatic.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:You're in show business now.
Guest:I'm in show business, man.
Guest:I can't be- No crying, a little small talk.
Guest:I cry a little bit, y'all.
Guest:Say nice things about everybody.
Guest:That's the worst when you try to be all manly and then- Oh, yeah.
Guest:You're like, I'm just going to break down right here if you don't mind.
Guest:Yeah, and then they know.
Guest:And then in your heart- And then no matter how much you try to act tough outside, after that, they kind of look at you and go, you're just crying, bro.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I had to bring you tissues and shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The dog was licking your tears.
Guest:Just know I-
Guest:Just know I know that.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:Vulnerability is something that I always saw as weakness growing up on the South Side, man.
Guest:There's some tough guys, man.
Guest:And I think that's why a lot of black folk will tell you, particularly if you read Twitter and stuff, because even though I'm not on anything, I'm the world's number one troll.
Guest:I troll everybody.
Guest:I always tell people I'm like that janitor in the breakfast club.
Guest:I've been through your stuff.
Guest:I know what's going on.
Guest:I read your tweets.
Guest:But vulnerability, and it's linked to emotional expression, is something a lot of black folk, I think, have traditionally been raised to see as weakness.
Guest:Because it's too tough to go out there, get the man stepping on your neck all day, come home, she'll try to be some kind of mother figure and provider, and then also acknowledge the fact that you are fucking depressed as fuck and you barely got out of bed yesterday.
Guest:because the kids are crying in the other room.
Guest:The rent is due.
Guest:You can't sit up here and do that.
Guest:You can't feel sorry for yourself, but obviously that leads to some emotional destruction.
Guest:Even in myself, and I'm one of the lucky ones.
Guest:I came from a nuclear family.
Guest:Everything was there.
Guest:Again, we were talking about that with my woman.
Guest:I did not realize the level of emotional damage that I had, and it was devastating.
Guest:I had to be honest about how fucked up I was.
Guest:And that is something I never thought I would have to do.
Guest:It's nice, though.
Guest:It's nice on the other side of it.
Guest:And you almost wonder, how could I have kept that up for so long?
Guest:That's embarrassing.
Marc:It's exhausting.
Marc:You get to breathe now.
Marc:Isn't it nice?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So tell me- I'm sorry.
Marc:We should talk about the show.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:We actually talked about- Okay, good.
Marc:Certainly about South Side Show.
Guest:And Sherman Showcase.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But Sherman Showcase, no, because I watch an episode of that.
Marc:Now, the whole thing is around that show.
Marc:The whole thing is around the dance show.
Guest:One thing Diallo says, which I love, is he says if 30 Rock took place at Saturday Night Live, Sherman Showcase takes place at Soul Train.
Guest:Now, we don't just use Soul Train.
Guest:We use a lot of TV shows.
Guest:American Bandstand, Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special.
Guest:Yeah, I remember that.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had never seen that.
Guest:Diallo, to his credit, used to get these ... He used to literally be up late at night watching the infomercials for Burt Sugarman's Midnight Specials, and then he bought them.
Marc:Yeah, I kind of remember it.
Marc:And then he watched them all.
Marc:Yeah, I kind of remember it being on when I was a kid.
Guest:It was kind of cool.
Marc:I'm 55.
Marc:Yeah, because he would sit there and talk.
Marc:I barely remember.
Guest:I mean, I watched the VHSs in the early 2000s, so that'll tell you.
Guest:Oh, excuse me.
Guest:I guess it would be the DVDs at that point.
Guest:So it's sort of that kind of rock music showcase.
Guest:We love music.
Guest:Diallo DJs.
Guest:I sing.
Guest:We both play instruments.
Guest:We've always loved music.
Guest:We've always been strongly into music.
Guest:When we were at Fallon, we did all the musical bits.
Guest:We wrote the Slow Jam the News with Obama.
Guest:We were the guys who did the History of Raps and
Guest:Even when Stephen Colbert came on to sing Friday, we produced it.
Guest:We were always with the musical guys.
Marc:And you're working with The Roots.
Marc:That's got to be great.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Working with Questlove.
Guest:You know, every now and then you meet somebody and you go like, man, I hope this person is this way.
Guest:And then they are.
Guest:You're like, oh, thank God.
Guest:He's a sweet guy.
Guest:Man, you know this business.
Guest:So when I was at Fallon, I will say that whole thing about Don't Meet Your Heroes is so true.
Guest:So many people, I'm like, hey!
Guest:I'm like, oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that guy is a jerk.
Guest:And you can't even do anything because they're like, motherfuckers will embarrass you in front of the rest of the room full of people and all you can do is just eat that shit.
Guest:Yeah, but not Questlove.
Guest:No, Questlove is the fight.
Guest:You know what I like about Questlove is like,
Guest:He is a nerd in the greatest way.
Guest:When I say nerd, I mean somebody who has tremendous interests and they're unafraid to pursue them without anybody making fun.
Guest:They don't give a fuck.
Guest:They love Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars.
Guest:In Questlove's case, it's music.
Guest:And so Questlove and I and Diallo, mostly those two, would be down there talking about music.
Guest:Like, oh, well, you know, this guy played drums for James Brown.
Guest:He really defined the sound.
Guest:I don't think he defined the sound.
Guest:I think, you know, that really in the weed stuff.
Guest:Yeah, deep cuts.
Guest:And so when you watch Sherman Showcase, what I love is that if you just like music and comedy, we have something for you.
Guest:If you're a real music fan,
Guest:Sherman Showcase really gets in on the music.
Guest:So we have an episode three that's really about the entirety of Prince's career, how he came out and he was playing music for Stevie Nicks.
Guest:Then he got really hot and was doing stuff.
Guest:Then there came a point where he was getting less applause than the people open for him, right?
Guest:The sort of hip-hop era when it first really, really hit.
Guest:Like 92, 93, he was having a little bit of difficulty continuing to stay as strongly relevant because hip-hop was coming.
Guest:And so he continued to define himself.
Guest:And then what our show does, which I love, is...
Guest:it almost serves as like a sort of a love letter to him.
Guest:Almost like a goodbye.
Guest:As a fan, I feel like we never really got to say goodbye.
Guest:Episode three?
Guest:Episode three.
Guest:And we never really got to say goodbye to him.
Guest:And so we do that.
Guest:But we have all this wonderful, we have this whole sketch about Barry Gorey's artists trying to get their money back from him.
Guest:But it's shot like Ocean's Eleven.
Guest:So we're like doing a whole heist.
Guest:You're going to go in Barry's vault.
Guest:Okay, he got Marvin Kaye's ashes in there.
Guest:Watch out for that.
Guest:So like all this stuff where it's like, hopefully it's funny, but more importantly,
Guest:Actually, funny is the most important.
Guest:If it's not funny, then we're going.
Guest:Can't go back on that now.
Guest:Guys, here's the thing.
Guest:Funny shmoney.
Guest:The point is, if you're a history buff, god damn, you're going to love this stuff.
Guest:The one thing I'll say that I'm most proud of is that we really tried to be elite at every level.
Guest:We didn't just write the first season.
Guest:We then brought in some of our comedy friends.
Guest:We did a full punch up on the whole first season.
Guest:We didn't just write music for the show.
Guest:We tried to follow what the Lonely Island guys do.
Guest:And really, the first time I heard Lazy Sunday, I was like, yo, this shit goes hard without the comedy lyrics.
Guest:Comedy lyrics are like an added bonus.
Guest:So it was really important to Diallo now to go to real musicians to make our music.
Guest:So we might hum a tune or have a bit of an idea.
Guest:Then we go to people like Neo and this guy Fonte Coleman and this group, The Knox.
Guest:And there's all these really real musicians because we're smart enough to know that we are not real musicians.
Guest:Working with Questlove, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to give it to somebody who has that shit in their heart.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I envy that.
Guest:I wish I had it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wish I was good enough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I'm also smart enough to know that I'm not good enough.
Marc:And why not employ some musicians?
Guest:Hell yeah.
Guest:They could always use the work.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And they all want to be in front of the camera, which is great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we have all these great John Legend and Common and all these great musicians who came on and just did comedy with us.
Guest:So it's like our show was like the only other place outside of SNL.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where if you're a musician, you can come on and we'll do some music stuff with you and we'll do some comedy stuff with you.
Guest:The hope is that we've created something so different and unique that it stands out in this crowded marketplace.
Guest:I mean, that's the goal.
Marc:So wait, so now Sherman's is on now.
Guest:IFC starts Wednesday.
Guest:Southside started last week.
Marc:All right.
Marc:And then Glow starts August 9th and Top Gun is out when?
Guest:Top Gun, I don't know, they didn't tell me.
Marc:But you know Glove's coming on August 9th.
Guest:August 9th, man, I'm excited.
Guest:I was hanging out with Sadell yesterday.
Guest:Oh yeah?
Guest:I've had so many friends tell me that they think, they're like, oh, you know, Mark is so lucky to do that show because he gets to be a real asshole and he gets to just say whatever he wants.
Guest:You can't do that anymore.
Guest:Do you feel like you're doing a part where you get to be more over the top than other people get to be?
Marc:I don't know that I play it that way, but the way I feel is that these guys existed, and that's one of the reasons why that people like it.
Guest:It wouldn't work if it was fake.
Marc:Yeah, they like Sam.
Marc:All these women come up to me and say, that was my dad's friend.
Marc:Everyone knew Sam, a Sam.
Marc:My dad was like that.
Marc:My dad hung around guys like that.
Marc:That guy was like a regular guy back in the day.
Marc:I mean, he's a bit of an asshole.
Marc:I don't think he's a conscious misogynist.
Marc:Everyone was swimming in the same water, dude.
Marc:It was just the way shit was.
Marc:He's obviously not a racist.
Marc:So he's a certain type of asshole that is not as toxic as real monsters.
Marc:I don't think Sam's a monster.
Guest:He's not trying to kill careers and destroy people's lives.
Marc:No, it's like he's a sad sack asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's America's favorite asshole.
Marc:It is.
Marc:Yeah, people love a cranky, sad sack asshole.
Marc:Good talking to you, Bashir.
Marc:Thanks for having me, man.
Marc:This is great.
Marc:All right, there you go.
Marc:Again, the show that Bashir can be seen in is Sherman's Showcase.
Marc:He created that, co-created it, and stars in it.
Marc:It's on Wednesday nights on IFC.
Marc:He's also in season three of GLOW with me.
Marc:I actually fill in for his job on GLOW.
Marc:That's part of my job in the show is to fill in for his job.
Marc:You'll see.
Marc:Rest in peace, David Berman.
Marc:You will be missed.
Guest:Boomer lives!
you