Episode 1073 - Louis Katz

00:01:04Marc:Paralyzed, incapacitated by some wild boar meatballs into a nap that was unproductive, though I did take the nap at the time that people here in Spain seem to take naps at around four o'clock.

00:01:17Marc:Maybe I didn't.

00:01:18Marc:Maybe it was a little early.

00:01:19Marc:Maybe if I'd waited and followed the national rules of nappage.

00:01:23Marc:I would not feel as bad as I do now.

00:01:26Marc:It's one of those naps where you take it and you're much worse off for the rest of the day for taking the nap.

00:01:33Marc:It was a half hour.

00:01:34Marc:I didn't seem to have a choice.

00:01:37Marc:Something happened.

00:01:38Marc:We had a nice lunch.

00:01:40Marc:I had some wild boar meatballs, some octopus, and then there was a sea bass and razor clams.

00:01:48Marc:Look, man, I had to look it up.

00:01:50Marc:It took me a while to research it, but they were razor clams.

00:01:52Marc:And I don't know if you've ever had razor clams, but they were probably one of the best things that happened the entire time I've been away was these two razor clams that were sitting among two other ones, four total, underneath a piece of finely pan-done sea bass.

00:02:10Marc:And we looked at the razor clams and we were like, is that a vegetable or is that an animal?

00:02:15Marc:And I tasted it, and I'm like, nope, that's a clam, and it's one of the best clams I've ever eaten.

00:02:20Marc:So that happened, and that was pre-nap.

00:02:23Marc:Now everything's not looking as good.

00:02:26Marc:Louis Katz, the comedian, is on my show today.

00:02:30Marc:Louis Katz and I go back.

00:02:31Marc:He opened for me many years ago.

00:02:33Marc:He's always been around, Louis.

00:02:35Marc:I mean, he's much younger than me, but he's a comic.

00:02:37Marc:He's been at it for a while.

00:02:38Marc:He opens for Dave Attell quite often.

00:02:40Marc:He's a headliner in his own right and always a great joke writer and funny guy.

00:02:45Marc:Nice guy.

00:02:46Marc:He's got a record out, an album, a comedy album, Katz Kills.

00:02:51Marc:cats kills it's available wherever you get your music or comedy albums he also co-hosts the travel podcast road heads which which you can get wherever you listen to podcasts but he opened for me years ago in san francisco always liked the guy always meant to have him on never made it happen until now so here we are folks i have to address a couple of things

00:03:15Marc:It's been a lovely vacation to the point where I don't want to come back, but we did shift in the vacation, obviously, since I talked to you last on Monday, where I was having an amazing time in Ireland, feeling connected to the roots and the rocks and the weather and the turbulent gray and the cliffs and the sea, some of the local customs, the people, the fish, everything about it.

00:03:40Marc:I did not listen to any Irish music, and I have to say nothing against it, but I don't know what that would have done from my experience.

00:03:48Marc:I have a feeling it would not have put it over the edge in a good way.

00:03:52Marc:I don't have anything against Irish music.

00:03:54Marc:I like it, but I have more my sensibility about Ireland.

00:03:57Marc:If it was sort of maybe...

00:03:59Marc:You know, some Pogues music, some slower Pogues music where it was depressing and you didn't know if the singer was going to die in the middle of the song.

00:04:07Marc:That would have been good.

00:04:09Marc:But just the sort of upbeat jigging kind of like that, that Irish zip.

00:04:15Marc:I didn't miss it.

00:04:17Marc:So no one's asked me, did I go see some?

00:04:19Marc:Some people said you should go see some.

00:04:21Marc:I did not because I don't drink because I think quite honestly, that music probably better after a few beers.

00:04:28Marc:Because you kind of need the lift.

00:04:30Marc:Me, I don't drink much.

00:04:31Marc:I'm already a little jacked.

00:04:33Marc:It would have caused me some anxiety and maybe a little bit of panic.

00:04:38Marc:And I probably would have felt judged.

00:04:41Marc:Why are you not drinking?

00:04:43Marc:Get on board.

00:04:44Marc:I think that's how a lot of alcoholics slip is pressure from Irish musicians.

00:04:49Marc:It seems sort of specific, but I don't know.

00:04:53Marc:I've run into that a couple of times where people, well, the Irish speak the language.

00:04:58Marc:But anyways, I'll get around to it.

00:05:01Marc:Understanding your triggers around relapsing.

00:05:05Marc:It's important, alcoholics.

00:05:06Marc:It's important.

00:05:07Marc:Remember, your disease, as they say, is always looking for a way to take you down from the inside.

00:05:15Marc:He's like an assassin.

00:05:17Marc:The disease of alcoholism is your inner assassin looking for an angle when you got your guard down.

00:05:26Marc:And sometimes that's as easy as an Irishman going, do you want a Guinness?

00:05:29Marc:Yes.

00:05:30Marc:How easy was that to provoke that assassin?

00:05:34Marc:Doesn't that Guinness look good?

00:05:35Marc:It does.

00:05:36Marc:She'll like a Guinness.

00:05:37Marc:Yes.

00:05:39Marc:Done.

00:05:40Marc:Over.

00:05:41Marc:You move to Ireland.

00:05:42Marc:You don't know how to make a living.

00:05:44Marc:Soon you're out in front of the pub.

00:05:47Marc:The musicians know you.

00:05:48Marc:That's the American that was here years ago.

00:05:50Marc:It's weird.

00:05:50Marc:He looks like one of us now.

00:05:52Marc:Not really.

00:05:53Marc:He just looks like he's dirty and lives outside.

00:05:56Marc:And sure, here's a euro.

00:06:00Marc:Have a euro.

00:06:01Marc:Not a gyro, a euro, not a euro, a euro.

00:06:07Marc:One's a sandwich, Greek I think, the other money.

00:06:12Marc:Okay, so the last time I talked to you, I was in Ireland and we were in Dublin.

00:06:18Marc:I got a little pushback on my romanticization of burning peat bricks.

00:06:24Marc:Bog bricks.

00:06:27Marc:Stuff carved out of the earth, put into brick form so you could use it to warm yourself.

00:06:33Marc:Apparently not great for the environment.

00:06:35Marc:A couple of people.

00:06:36Marc:Don't get mad at them.

00:06:38Marc:You know, look, I had a nice time.

00:06:40Marc:I'm not bringing any home with me.

00:06:41Marc:I don't even have a fireplace.

00:06:43Marc:Actually, I do have a fireplace in my new house.

00:06:45Marc:It's a gas fireplace.

00:06:46Marc:Fake fire.

00:06:48Marc:Fake logs.

00:06:49Marc:No peat.

00:06:49Marc:Could burn peat if I wanted to.

00:06:51Marc:I don't know where I could get it.

00:06:52Marc:Imagine I could get it.

00:06:53Marc:Point being,

00:06:54Marc:Again, not great for the environment because apparently they've mined it to the degree where they've pulled the lid off of the bogs and released the inner demon of CO2 that emits from decomposing organic matter into the atmosphere.

00:07:08Marc:And it is one of the, I wouldn't say it's a primary cause, but it doesn't help things.

00:07:14Marc:So we got to keep the peat in place, keep the bogs covered with all their demons.

00:07:20Marc:Also, on a more mythological basis,

00:07:23Marc:Level that does say something about the bogs.

00:07:26Marc:There is a sort of a presence in there that when you release it could end the world.

00:07:32Marc:Not unlike oil.

00:07:34Marc:It's the revenge of the dinosaurs.

00:07:36Marc:You think they went extinct?

00:07:37Marc:Nope.

00:07:38Marc:Something killed them and now they're going to kill us because we need them to.

00:07:43Marc:That's the paradigm we're involved with.

00:07:46Marc:The revenge of the fucking dinosaurs.

00:07:49Marc:How do you push back on that?

00:07:51Marc:Because there's a corporate spigot that has been pimped out by the ghost of fucking dinosaurs.

00:08:00Marc:Anyway, we've really gotten off the beaten track.

00:08:04Marc:I've had weird dreams with a couple of messages from the dreams since I've been here.

00:08:13Marc:The first message just came to me in a line that was part of a bigger thing, but the line that was delivered upon waking was that the audience will end before the symphony.

00:08:28Marc:There you go.

00:08:30Marc:Do what you want with it, but it seems to be true.

00:08:32Marc:The audience is definitely ending before the symphony.

00:08:36Marc:Now, the problem was we were having a nice time in Ireland and it was very intimate, one-on-one time, no responsibilities, rented house.

00:08:49Marc:Then we get here and we wake up to a city where they don't speak our language.

00:08:54Marc:That's not their fault.

00:08:55Marc:We're the ones at fault.

00:08:57Marc:There's no one at fault.

00:08:59Marc:We just don't speak the language.

00:09:01Marc:And now we have responsibilities.

00:09:03Marc:We have to be at a premiere of the movie, Sword of Trust, for an audience that doesn't really speak English.

00:09:09Marc:That sounds like, well, that should be interesting to watch.

00:09:12Marc:I guess if you enjoy failure.

00:09:15Marc:OK, now it was no one's fault.

00:09:18Marc:But, you know, I've seen this movie probably a dozen times with laughing audiences that get all the jokes.

00:09:24Marc:And now it's subtitled and the rhythms are different here.

00:09:28Marc:So what gets laughs are the broadest bits of business and a few of the jokes.

00:09:32Marc:It was it was hard.

00:09:33Marc:It was interesting.

00:09:34Marc:It was good.

00:09:34Marc:They seem to enjoy it.

00:09:35Marc:It was packed to both audiences that we played to was packed.

00:09:40Marc:We did a Q&A with a translator, which is interesting.

00:09:44Marc:I'm finding that I'm not entirely comfortable not knowing what's being said or how to say anything.

00:09:51Marc:Does that sound like an uncomfortable situation for everybody?

00:09:55Marc:where I literally don't know any Spanish, even though I grew up in New Mexico.

00:10:00Marc:So I just don't, and I don't expect people to know English.

00:10:05Marc:I understand the standoff, but that's ultimately what happens.

00:10:08Marc:These weird, polite, awkward, just standing there with people, looking at them, and realizing we can't talk to each other.

00:10:16Marc:We probably have a lot to say to each other, but nothing's going to happen here.

00:10:20Marc:There's no way.

00:10:21Marc:Nothing's going to happen.

00:10:23Marc:Maybe basic niceties and sort of a scramble to find a word of each other's language and then go, oh, yeah, and that's it.

00:10:34Marc:It's difficult, but it's a lovely city, and we walked around it.

00:10:37Marc:It's very pretty.

00:10:39Marc:And another thing I learned about traveling, either internationally or not internationally, is that if you're not going to invest in the history of the place,

00:10:48Marc:you're really left with things like, well, that's pretty.

00:10:52Marc:Oh, this is old.

00:10:56Marc:And oh, this is really old.

00:10:57Marc:There's only part of it here.

00:10:59Marc:There's just a piece of it.

00:11:01Marc:This must be very old.

00:11:03Marc:Or that's cool.

00:11:04Marc:I can't believe that that's that old.

00:11:07Marc:It's pretty.

00:11:07Marc:That's what you're left with if you don't want to learn.

00:11:11Marc:Hey, that's pretty.

00:11:13Marc:Hey, that's old.

00:11:14Marc:Hey, that's very old.

00:11:15Marc:Wow, that's cool.

00:11:16Marc:That's been there that long.

00:11:18Marc:or I can't read this, it's not in English.

00:11:23Marc:So that part of the trip has been great.

00:11:25Marc:A lot of pretty stuff here.

00:11:27Marc:Our movie went over very well, as well as it could.

00:11:29Marc:It was hard to watch with an audience that you didn't... I wasn't getting enough laughs, I think is what I'm getting at.

00:11:37Marc:My character was not getting enough laughs because he's of a certain tone and it's a certain physicality.

00:11:43Marc:Some of the broader...

00:11:45Marc:Characters, big laughs.

00:11:47Marc:I got a couple of big laughs, but John Bass was definitely getting a majority of the laughs during the European showing, the Spanish showing.

00:11:56Marc:I'm glad he did.

00:11:57Marc:He wasn't here to experience that, but I'll go ahead and say it publicly.

00:12:01Marc:I didn't get as many laughs as I should have, but I'll let John have it.

00:12:07Marc:Bigamy, right?

00:12:07Marc:The audience will end before the symphony.

00:12:11Marc:Make sure you write that down.

00:12:14Marc:Louis Katz, as I mentioned earlier, is a good guy and a funny guy.

00:12:17Marc:Great joke writer.

00:12:19Marc:Opened for me many years ago.

00:12:21Marc:Not many.

00:12:21Marc:I'm not saying he's like, it's not like the back in the day kind of shit.

00:12:25Marc:But when he was a younger comic, now he's been at it for a while.

00:12:28Marc:Does a lot of headlining on his own.

00:12:30Marc:His most recent comedy album, Katz Kills, is available wherever you get music or comedy records.

00:12:35Marc:He's got a podcast called Roadheads.

00:12:38Marc:If you want to listen to that, it's a travel podcast.

00:12:40Marc:And this is me talking to Louis Katz.

00:12:45Marc:I don't know.

00:12:51Marc:I just got this.

00:12:52Marc:I got an iPhone 10 because I have no patience.

00:12:55Marc:And I got it literally a week before the 11s came out.

00:13:00Guest:And I don't like it.

00:13:06Guest:Yeah, I'm considering going back to Android personally.

00:13:09Guest:Really?

00:13:10Guest:Yeah, man.

00:13:11Guest:I just can't deal with it sometimes.

00:13:13Guest:I just don't.

00:13:13Guest:I don't like the way they're trying to pretend like it's not a hard drive.

00:13:16Guest:I know it's a hard drive.

00:13:17Guest:Just let me drag and drop shit.

00:13:18Guest:I shouldn't have to go through iTunes to drag everything onto everything.

00:13:22Guest:They want me to pay for the cloud and be cloud dependent.

00:13:25Guest:And I'm like, fuck that.

00:13:26Guest:I don't want to be.

00:13:27Guest:So you're against cloud dependency.

00:13:29Guest:Yeah.

00:13:29Marc:Is this like sort of your cause?

00:13:34Guest:Yeah.

00:13:34Guest:I mean, there's a lot of things I'm angry about and love to complain about.

00:13:38Guest:This is probably the lowest one, but if you just want to talk phones, that's my opinion on it.

00:13:41Marc:Well, I am a little nervous about the cloud, personally.

00:13:44Marc:I'm not sure why I'm nervous about it.

00:13:46Marc:But all of a sudden, it became this thing where, I remember a few years ago where it just became, you know, you want to put all your shit on the cloud.

00:13:53Marc:I'm like, I don't even look at all my shit on my computer.

00:13:56Marc:It's so rare that I need anything from the past.

00:14:00Marc:in a way.

00:14:01Marc:It's weird because you carry around this shit.

00:14:03Marc:If you keep just switching over hard drives, you've got shit on your computer from like 20 years ago.

00:14:09Marc:I do.

00:14:09Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:10Marc:And I don't even know what's in there.

00:14:11Marc:And every once in a while, I'm like, I'm going to go through it.

00:14:13Marc:And then you go into the file and you're like, oh, fuck.

00:14:16Marc:I'm not going through this.

00:14:17Marc:And then you feel weird throwing it away.

00:14:19Marc:You get nostalgic over garbage.

00:14:20Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:14:21Guest:I mean, as far as like hoarding stuff, at least you're hoarding like small hard drives and computers instead of like files and cabinets of shit.

00:14:28Marc:I guess so.

00:14:28Marc:Yeah, it's true.

00:14:29Marc:But like, you know, why can't I apply that same idea to, you know, things in your house where it's sort of like if you haven't looked at it.

00:14:37Marc:For a year, do you really need it?

00:14:40Marc:Photos are always good.

00:14:42Marc:Well, not photos.

00:14:43Marc:You know, like just whatever.

00:14:44Marc:You know, like things that you keep, keepsakes, things that you, like books, things you think are important.

00:14:50Guest:I mean, yeah, I guess so.

00:14:51Guest:I don't think that not looked at it for a year rule works for a lot.

00:14:54Guest:I think with clothes, that's good.

00:14:56Guest:Yeah.

00:14:56Guest:Because if you're not really wearing the clothes, then like get rid of it.

00:14:58Guest:Do you need some clothes?

00:14:59Guest:How big are you?

00:15:00Guest:If you got some in, I'll take them.

00:15:04Marc:Yeah, I think that's probably true.

00:15:05Marc:So now I'm trying to think when we met.

00:15:08Marc:Did you feature for me?

00:15:10Marc:Yeah, I must have opened for you.

00:15:12Marc:In San Francisco?

00:15:12Guest:Yeah, in the Bay.

00:15:13Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:15:13Guest:Yeah.

00:15:14Guest:In San Francisco at the Punchline.

00:15:15Guest:Yeah.

00:15:16Guest:Yeah.

00:15:17Guest:I mean, I'm trying to remember.

00:15:18Guest:I can't remember when, but I know I opened for you there for sure.

00:15:20Guest:It's over 10 years ago, I would think.

00:15:23Guest:Way over 10 years ago.

00:15:24Guest:Right?

00:15:24Guest:It's more like 15 to, yeah, 15, at least 15 years ago, if not more.

00:15:29Guest:No kidding.

00:15:29Guest:Yeah.

00:15:30Marc:So that's, you've been around that.

00:15:31Marc:How long have you been doing it?

00:15:32Guest:I've been doing it 18 years, man.

00:15:33Marc:Wow.

00:15:35Marc:Yeah.

00:15:36Marc:Now, did you start in the Bay?

00:15:38Marc:I did start comedy in the Bay.

00:15:39Marc:Okay, so you were there.

00:15:40Marc:I wasn't living there by the time I came back, and I'd been there, and you were part of the new crew of Bay Area people.

00:15:47Guest:Yeah, there's a whole new school of comics.

00:15:49Marc:Like Moshe, you, like who else?

00:15:53Guest:Guy Branham, Jasper Redd, Ryan Stout, Chris Tinkle, the Searoffs, Shane Wayne.

00:15:58Marc:The Searoffs, what the fuck happened to that guy?

00:16:01Guest:Do you talk to him?

00:16:01Guest:I don't talk to him too much.

00:16:02Guest:Moshe's in touch with him.

00:16:03Marc:Yeah?

00:16:04Marc:He's around.

00:16:05Marc:He's just around?

00:16:06Guest:Yeah, man.

00:16:06Marc:They're not married anymore, are they?

00:16:07Marc:No, that ended.

00:16:08Marc:That ended bad.

00:16:12Marc:Because he middled for me somewhere back in the day, like in 2006 or 2007.

00:16:16Marc:I think he featured for me

00:16:18Marc:at like roosters yeah it was a time where i was going through this fucking divorce or i was going through this breakup with the the wife had left me and i was keeping this diary that was very sort of candid uh-huh i think i hung out at their hotel room or something somehow or another i left my diary oh no with those two monsters

00:16:42Marc:And, like, you know, Jacob is all right.

00:16:47Marc:They're all right, but they're comedians.

00:16:48Marc:And, you know, I'm the headliner.

00:16:50Marc:I leave this fucking book of writing.

00:16:51Marc:They're not going to look at it.

00:16:53Marc:It was fucking.

00:16:53Marc:That makes me so nervous.

00:16:55Marc:They said that they didn't go through it, but how could you not?

00:16:58Marc:It was so fucking, like, it was so candid about Viagra, about fucking, about my feelings for my ex.

00:17:04Marc:Like, it was crazy.

00:17:05Guest:Well, the shit you were saying on stage publicly was already hardcore.

00:17:08Guest:So to think there was stuff you were filtering out.

00:17:11Guest:I mean, who knows what kind of shit was in there.

00:17:12Marc:It was just, I have those books, man.

00:17:16Marc:I haven't looked at those in a while.

00:17:18Marc:That would probably be interesting, I guess.

00:17:20Marc:That's right, when I saw you last, you said you were listening to Final Engagement, which is like this weird, it's an id record.

00:17:26Marc:It's one of these records where I'm like, I know I did it, but I haven't listened to it in a while.

00:17:31Guest:Dude, it's awesome.

00:17:32Guest:It's a classic breakup album.

00:17:34Guest:There's all those music albums that are breakup albums, and I just went through a breakup, and I was listening to it, and man, it was hitting so hard.

00:17:40Guest:And the truth is, though, because that's only half of your breakup stuff because you had the whole hour that was scorching the earth.

00:17:46Guest:Right.

00:17:46Guest:That was separate from it was like kind of the same stuff, but not all of it.

00:17:49Marc:Yeah, there was a lot of the same stuff in there.

00:17:51Marc:But it's like I just called it scorching the earth, but it never really came together as as a show that I could repeat.

00:17:57Marc:You know, like some of that stuff on there, like it's so raw and angry and weird that like I don't know if I could make it an entertaining hour and a half for anybody now.

00:18:07Guest:No, not now.

00:18:08Guest:But then it was awesome.

00:18:10Guest:I mean, like that year of you touring after that, because I was this is also when I moved to New York.

00:18:15Guest:So I'm seeing you.

00:18:16Guest:You're doing these shows a lot of head in the hand on the stool, a lot of and the crowd.

00:18:21Guest:There were not crowds there.

00:18:23Guest:And it was like really dark in the basement of that theater.

00:18:26Guest:You saw me.

00:18:26Guest:I saw you at Caroline's with like 13 people.

00:18:30Guest:That room seat's like 400.

00:18:32Guest:Yeah.

00:18:33Guest:And I saw you at the punchline.

00:18:35Guest:It was better than that because it's the bay, but it was still like... And it was so dark that it wasn't... And then I saw you take all that, make a show of it, sell out the UCB.

00:18:43Guest:And I told my friend, I'm like, you got to go because there's no one else who...

00:18:48Guest:is a motive like you on stage.

00:18:51Guest:Like there's, I honestly, and this is going to sound like I'm kissing your ass, but straight up, I think it's like prior and you are the only people that are that open.

00:18:59Guest:And it's like, it's, and it's uncomfortable and great.

00:19:02Guest:You know what I mean?

00:19:03Guest:And like, and so I show my, I told my friend, like, there's no, you got to see this.

00:19:05Guest:And he saw it and he was like, I hyped it up and it lived up to the hype, man.

00:19:08Marc:It was awesome.

00:19:09Marc:Oh, thank God.

00:19:10Marc:Yeah.

00:19:11Marc:Oh man.

00:19:11Marc:Now, now I feel bad.

00:19:13Marc:Cause I've like, I feel like I've, uh, reeled it in a little.

00:19:16Guest:Oh, so you're healthier now and happy?

00:19:18Marc:Yeah, I feel terrible.

00:19:20Marc:Someone just fucking emailed me that.

00:19:22Marc:A woman emailed me about the podcast.

00:19:24Marc:She's like, I don't listen anymore because you seem to be condescending.

00:19:27Marc:I'm like, oh, is that what that is?

00:19:29Marc:Maybe I just feel better.

00:19:31Marc:Maybe I'm not talking from a pit of sadness and unintentional vulnerability.

00:19:36Guest:I just like that you're condescending towards her comment of her being condescending.

00:19:39Marc:well yeah fuck her I don't know what it is with these people that loop you into their passive aggression like tweets or whatever like I used to like Marc Maron it's like you don't have to at me on that you know what I mean it's shitty what does that mean

00:19:56Marc:So you grew up here in Los Angeles?

00:19:58Guest:Yeah.

00:19:59Marc:In the Valley?

00:20:00Guest:No, I didn't live in the Valley.

00:20:01Guest:I grew up in... I was in Silver Lake from when I was born until I was five.

00:20:04Guest:Your family lived in Silver Lake?

00:20:06Guest:Yeah, when I was in the early 80s.

00:20:08Marc:It's so funny.

00:20:09Marc:As somebody who hasn't lived here my whole life, you just identify Silver Lake as like... It's just a bunch of...

00:20:15Marc:You know, hipper, younger parent people.

00:20:17Marc:Yeah, I don't think of like old timers.

00:20:20Guest:Yeah.

00:20:20Marc:Living there, bringing up families.

00:20:22Guest:Even now, they live in Los Feliz now and they go out to places and they're just like the oldest people there because, you know.

00:20:28Guest:They were always here, huh?

00:20:29Guest:Yeah, they were always.

00:20:30Guest:I mean, my parents are both from Southern California.

00:20:33Guest:My mom grew up in Claremont.

00:20:34Guest:My dad grew up in Fairfax.

00:20:36Guest:And so he always loved Griffith Park.

00:20:38Guest:He just wanted to live by Griffith Park.

00:20:39Guest:He thought he loves the park.

00:20:41Guest:That's how he looked at it.

00:20:42Guest:Is he a show business guy?

00:20:43Guest:No.

00:20:44Guest:That's a cool thing about growing up here.

00:20:46Guest:I knew some people a little bit in show business, but my parents are both not in show business.

00:20:51Guest:And that's always what I recommend to people when they move to L.A.

00:20:54Guest:Everyone moves to L.A.

00:20:55Guest:and they go like, oh, man, everyone here is so superficial.

00:20:58Guest:I mean, everyone that you meet that's also trying to make it in the entertainment business is superficial.

00:21:02Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:21:03Guest:Right.

00:21:03Guest:But you meet local people that are actually from here and we're real cool.

00:21:06Marc:Sure.

00:21:07Marc:No, I agree with that.

00:21:08Marc:I think that it's a stereotype almost.

00:21:11Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:21:11Marc:I mean, it's a big, weird, fucking sprawling shit show of a city.

00:21:15Marc:Yes.

00:21:15Marc:And to generalize it in any way just because you're in the entertainment industry.

00:21:19Marc:Yeah.

00:21:19Marc:And desperate and looking for a little traction.

00:21:22Marc:Yeah.

00:21:22Marc:It doesn't mean that you can just judge everyone who lives here.

00:21:25Guest:Yeah.

00:21:25Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:21:26Marc:What'd your old man do?

00:21:27Guest:My dad is like a real estate lawyer, so he would do some low-income housing and then some shopping centers.

00:21:37Guest:And my mom worked for a local government always.

00:21:42Marc:So just regular working people in the L.A.

00:21:45Marc:area?

00:21:45Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:21:46Marc:And you have siblings?

00:21:47Marc:I have a sister, yeah, a younger sister.

00:21:49Marc:A younger sister?

00:21:50Marc:Yeah.

00:21:50Guest:What does she do?

00:21:51Guest:Is she in show business?

00:21:52Guest:No, she's what I call...

00:21:56Guest:Jewish welfare, managing a building that my parents own.

00:22:00Guest:How does she take that title?

00:22:03Guest:I don't know if I've said that to her, but now she'll hear it, I guess.

00:22:06Guest:Maybe.

00:22:07Guest:How old are you, though?

00:22:09Guest:I just turned 40.

00:22:10Marc:We have the same birthday.

00:22:11Marc:I just turned 40.

00:22:12Marc:September 27th.

00:22:13Marc:So you're a Libra, too?

00:22:14Marc:I feel there's a kindred spirit thing.

00:22:15Marc:So do you find that that ... Are you a Libra acting person?

00:22:21Guest:I don't know what that means.

00:22:23Marc:Me neither.

00:22:24Guest:I assume I'm indecisive, and I can see two sides of things.

00:22:29Guest:Are you always looking for balance?

00:22:30Guest:Do you always feel imbalanced?

00:22:32Guest:I guess so.

00:22:32Guest:Yeah.

00:22:33Guest:I mean, isn't that just life?

00:22:33Guest:You feel a lack and everyone feels it?

00:22:35Marc:I don't know, man.

00:22:36Marc:Some people, no.

00:22:37Marc:It's not for everybody.

00:22:38Marc:Really?

00:22:39Marc:Some people are just satisfied?

00:22:40Marc:Yeah, well, some people are okay.

00:22:41Marc:They've got things in perspective.

00:22:43Marc:They've got God on their side.

00:22:44Marc:They're not afraid to die, and they just look at life each day as a gift.

00:22:47Marc:Not you?

00:22:48Guest:I mean, I'm going to say no to that.

00:22:52Guest:Were you brought up like a L.A.

00:22:54Guest:Jew?

00:22:56Guest:Reform Jew.

00:22:56Guest:You know, I was bar mitzvahed.

00:22:57Guest:I went to Sunday school.

00:22:59Guest:I went to even confirmation class after that.

00:23:01Guest:But was there guitar playing during the services in your temple?

00:23:03Marc:Yes.

00:23:04Guest:If that's where you draw the line, then yes, there certainly was.

00:23:06Marc:Sure is where I draw the line between reform and conservatives.

00:23:08Marc:Yeah, yeah, there was guitar playing.

00:23:10Marc:And then from conservative to orthodox, you draw the line, like, do you wear a kippah all day?

00:23:14Marc:Yes.

00:23:14Marc:And then from orthodox to ultra-orthodox, do you wear the costume and don't talk to other people outside of your peer group?

00:23:20Guest:And the sideburns.

00:23:21Guest:Yeah.

00:23:21Guest:Man, dude, I've been living in Brooklyn, and living that close to so many Hasidium kind of makes you a little bit anti-Semitic, and I feel bad about it, but it does.

00:23:30Marc:Hey, I used to cover this shit all the time.

00:23:32Marc:They're dirty, rude people.

00:23:35Yeah.

00:23:35Guest:It's like, also, it feels like they have like, well, we have our own set of laws, so fuck every other law of man and common courtesy.

00:23:47Marc:Dude, I talked to a guy in this show, Loser Tversky, who got out.

00:23:51Marc:It's like, it's deep, man.

00:23:52Marc:It's like deep cult.

00:23:54Marc:It's like, yeah, and they keep all the people, all their kids as stupid as possible.

00:23:59Marc:Don't put them into public schools.

00:24:01Marc:Put them into yeshiva schools.

00:24:02Marc:Don't vaccinate them.

00:24:03Marc:Well, there's that now.

00:24:04Marc:Yeah, too.

00:24:05Marc:Thanks for seeing them for the measles.

00:24:08Marc:Appreciate it.

00:24:08Marc:We've gotten rid of them.

00:24:10Marc:Great idea.

00:24:11Marc:Why don't you spread the gene pool out a little bit?

00:24:13Marc:Do the diaspora thing.

00:24:15Guest:You know?

00:24:15Guest:Yeah, man.

00:24:16Guest:And it's weird because it's like, you think of a cult as being kind of like on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but they've established this urban cult, which you have to give them respect for that.

00:24:25Marc:Sure.

00:24:26Marc:It's 1800s Poland, right in the middle of Brooklyn.

00:24:29Guest:Yeah, there it is.

00:24:30Marc:Minivans and like caged in balconies.

00:24:32Marc:You ever think about that one company that makes those hats for them?

00:24:35Marc:They got to do all right.

00:24:37Guest:I can't believe no rapper has appropriated those hats.

00:24:41Guest:They're so cool.

00:24:41Guest:Those big fur circles.

00:24:43Guest:Oh, the fur circles?

00:24:43Guest:Man, that looks cool as hell.

00:24:45Marc:That's a very specific trip, that thing.

00:24:46Guest:I mean, a bathrobe and a fur circle, a giant fur hat, that seems like rapper worthy to me.

00:24:52Marc:Those are very specific.

00:24:53Marc:But even the brims, like there's like a company that makes the Jewish brim hat.

00:24:57Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:24:57Marc:They're a little different than regular hats.

00:24:58Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:59Marc:All of it.

00:25:00Marc:The black suits.

00:25:02Marc:I'm fascinated with it.

00:25:04Marc:Now I feel bad for saying what I did because I used to get emails from them.

00:25:06Marc:Mostly this guy, Loser, who ended up pulling out of the cult.

00:25:10Marc:I don't know how he's doing.

00:25:10Marc:He's an actor.

00:25:11Marc:That's a pretty interesting conversation.

00:25:13Marc:You weren't brought up that, Julie.

00:25:15Guest:Well, it's kind of like both my parents were reformed.

00:25:18Guest:My mom's side grew up kind of like Zionist, before that was a bad word.

00:25:24Guest:So culturally Jewish, but totally pro-Israel.

00:25:30Guest:Not totally.

00:25:30Guest:She's still like very like, she won't accept Israel's bullshit.

00:25:35Guest:She recognizes when Israel is like-

00:25:39Guest:mistaken and pushing for Israel to be more liberal and for a peace process.

00:25:44Marc:But did she do the kibbutz thing?

00:25:45Marc:Was she in Israel for a while?

00:25:46Marc:She was born in Israel, yeah.

00:25:47Marc:My mom was born in Israel.

00:25:48Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:25:49Marc:The Israeli Jew versus the American middle class reformer conservative Jew is a very different animal.

00:25:54Guest:Yeah.

00:25:54Guest:Actually, what I would say is my dad's kind of working class Brooklyn by way of Fairfax or Fairfax by way of Brooklyn Jew.

00:26:01Guest:And she's more like Claremont Zionist, but a little more like firmly middle class Jew.

00:26:07Marc:And so they're different breeds of Jew right there.

00:26:09Marc:Sure.

00:26:09Marc:Well, it's full spectrum.

00:26:11Guest:Yeah.

00:26:11Marc:Yeah.

00:26:12Marc:I guess that's it.

00:26:14Marc:Full spectrum of Jew.

00:26:14Marc:So what were you studying in college?

00:26:16Marc:Were you English major?

00:26:18Guest:No, I wish I was.

00:26:19Guest:I did development studies, which was like third world political economy, which I just- So were you looking to save the world back then?

00:26:29Guest:To me, it was, I went to public schools and I loved my public school education, but I wasn't, because it was LA, it wasn't, I think if I went to public school in the Bay Area, I would have already learned all this kind of like other side, what's going on in these developing countries' history.

00:26:43Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:43Guest:But because I hadn't, I went to college and it was kind of like blowing my mind.

00:26:46Guest:Like, wow, this is most of the world.

00:26:48Guest:And it's so different from here.

00:26:50Guest:And it's so different from Western Europe, which we mostly studied.

00:26:53Guest:And so to me, most of my parents, they had BAs and things that they didn't end up doing for a living.

00:26:57Guest:So I was like, whatever interests me, I'm going to study.

00:26:59Guest:And that's what I studied.

00:27:00Guest:Now, in retrospect, I wish I'd done some kind of writing thing or English or something like that.

00:27:04Marc:Well, what were you studying in that?

00:27:08Marc:Were you just learning about what?

00:27:09Guest:the different client systems of the Cold War where the United States would have their countries that they support and the USSR would have the countries they support and how it wouldn't really matter about the politics.

00:27:21Guest:They would just kind of build them all up.

00:27:22Guest:How raw goods are not going to make as much money as manufactured goods and that kind of keeps these countries down because they're depending on this earlier stage in the economic line of things.

00:27:31Marc:So you were basically learning about how the capitalist system fucks the world.

00:27:36Guest:Yes, that'd be another way to put it.

00:27:37Marc:And how...

00:27:39Marc:The existing empires have contracted but still fucked the world through the capitalist system.

00:27:45Guest:Yes.

00:27:46Guest:Yeah, that was it.

00:27:47Guest:And then right two months after I graduate, 9-11 happened and the whole system was like turned on its head.

00:27:52Guest:And it was all kind of crazy.

00:27:53Marc:Yeah, it's crazy now.

00:27:54Marc:Now that we've got a president that just wants to make it a bunch of tough guys with their chunk of territory.

00:28:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:03Guest:I mean, I guess it's, I was going to say- I think he'd be willing to give up Europe.

00:28:08Marc:Yes, easy.

00:28:09Marc:I think Trump would be like, let Russia have it.

00:28:11Marc:Yeah, totally.

00:28:12Marc:We're good.

00:28:13Marc:Then it'll just be Russia, Europe, China, and us.

00:28:16Marc:And I'll know who to talk to on the phone.

00:28:18Guest:I think he doesn't even understand things in that complex of a level.

00:28:23Marc:I think that's true.

00:28:25Marc:So you're doing that in college and you're disillusioned or you're doing comedy in college?

00:28:30Marc:When did you start that shit?

00:28:31Guest:Well, I joined a sketch comedy troupe while I was there at Berkeley.

00:28:34Guest:I joined an Asian sketch comedy troupe called Theater Rice because it was the only one available to me.

00:28:39Guest:So is this you and a bunch of Asians?

00:28:41Guest:Yeah, me and a bunch of Asians.

00:28:42Guest:Huh.

00:28:43Guest:And I just, I knew a guy.

00:28:44Guest:He said to join it.

00:28:45Guest:He said he was starting it.

00:28:46Guest:I'm like, can I join?

00:28:47Guest:I joined.

00:28:47Guest:You played the white guy?

00:28:49Guest:Well, I wrote a whole sketch that was, it was kind of like a live action Kung Fu thing.

00:28:54Guest:So I would voice the guy doing like, and he would like mouth the words on stage.

00:28:57Guest:It was like a dub over, but live.

00:28:59Marc:Sure, that's a classic comedy bit, kind of.

00:29:00Guest:Yeah, totally.

00:29:01Guest:Yeah.

00:29:02Guest:And I wrote this big sketch for that.

00:29:04Guest:It was like super long, had tons of jokes, really dirty.

00:29:07Guest:Yeah.

00:29:08Guest:That's what I ended up doing.

00:29:08Guest:That's what I like.

00:29:09Guest:And, man, it went over huge.

00:29:12Guest:And I remember lying in bed that night and, like, thinking, like, I'm doing this.

00:29:16Guest:This is what I'm doing.

00:29:16Guest:Yeah.

00:29:17Guest:Also, though, it made a – there was another sketch in the sketch groups that was very – dealing with a lot of stereotypes.

00:29:23Guest:Yeah.

00:29:24Guest:And some guy thought I wrote that one and thought I was being – and that I was racist.

00:29:28Guest:And then there was an article in the Asian weekly paper called Fuck Louie Katz.

00:29:33Guest:Yeah.

00:29:34Guest:Really?

00:29:34Guest:By a guy who's now a pretty established journalist, honestly.

00:29:37Guest:And you hadn't written the sketch.

00:29:39Guest:I had not written the sketch.

00:29:40Guest:The guy didn't even stick around to see.

00:29:42Guest:The guy was so offended by the sketch that these other people who were Asian wrote.

00:29:46Guest:What was the nature of it?

00:29:47Guest:It was just simply finding ways to say all these words that are stereotypes.

00:29:52Guest:Yeah.

00:29:53Guest:They were construction workers.

00:29:54Guest:Like, oh, I'm going to pour all this gook into this chink.

00:29:57Guest:You know what I mean?

00:29:57Guest:Oh, right, right, right.

00:29:58Guest:Yeah.

00:29:59Guest:Well, I guess I'm not writing on SNL anymore after that.

00:30:02Guest:But I'm just quoting somebody, so please don't take that out of context.

00:30:05Guest:He still wants the job, Lorne.

00:30:06Guest:Yeah.

00:30:07Guest:Yeah.

00:30:08Marc:No, I get what you're saying.

00:30:09Guest:And so it was.

00:30:10Guest:It was using all these words that I didn't use and wouldn't use.

00:30:13Guest:And-

00:30:15Guest:Yeah, the guy got really mad.

00:30:16Guest:The guy wrote that article.

00:30:17Guest:It was controversial within the group.

00:30:19Guest:And it was very stressful.

00:30:20Guest:I was just like, hey, I just want it.

00:30:23Guest:It was also an eye-opening thing to think of the weight of... They were saying it was also... Even if that wasn't the right sketch, his sketch was very vulgar.

00:30:31Guest:Is that what we want to represent in our group?

00:30:32Marc:Right, right.

00:30:33Marc:Well, I mean, it's weird.

00:30:34Marc:As you make that joke about... Just now we just made that joke about that guy who got fired from SNL.

00:30:41Marc:But that was not... There was no context to that.

00:30:43Marc:Yes.

00:30:44Marc:I mean, it's like this idea that it was a joke is not correct.

00:30:48Guest:No.

00:30:50Marc:I mean, from like, you know, I can identify jokes.

00:30:52Marc:It was somehow an environment had been created where the casual use of those words was part of the thing.

00:30:59Marc:Yeah.

00:30:59Marc:You know, and it was not a popular environment.

00:31:02Marc:And, you know, once it be got the light of day was shown upon it, people are like, what is that environment?

00:31:07Marc:Yeah.

00:31:07Guest:I mean, to me, it's like it was because I so I ended up eventually moving to New York.

00:31:12Guest:It's a weird thing is that like racism is like a part of East Coast comedy tradition and just like joking around between friends and straight up stand up comedy in a way that it just isn't or wasn't on the West Coast and isn't the way I grew up.

00:31:25Guest:You know what I mean?

00:31:25Marc:well i mean i can see that i mean like because i lived there long enough to know yeah it's part of the east coast comedy tradition if everyone's represented in the conversation i mean if it's just a couple of white guys sitting around saying the n-word that's not quite the way it is but if i'm sitting at the table with patrice and keith and jim and whatever and there's an understanding there yeah sure sure you know that everyone's taking a hit at each other yeah it's different i mean that's a contextual thing

00:31:51Guest:Yeah, totally.

00:31:52Guest:I mean, it's almost like when people first meet each other on the East Coast, it's almost like race play is how you make friends.

00:31:58Guest:Like, oh, you're a Jew, you're so cheap.

00:32:00Guest:And coming from the West Coast, I'm like, what?

00:32:04Guest:No one's ever said that to me in my life before I moved to the East Coast.

00:32:07Marc:Well, we can get there.

00:32:09Marc:Because I know that you spend a lot of time with Atel, who I love and who I came up with.

00:32:17Marc:Yeah.

00:32:17Marc:Uh, it seems that you gravitate towards some of the, uh, filthier joke writers and tellers.

00:32:23Guest:Yeah, I like, you know, I like, I like smart and dirty.

00:32:27Guest:That's what I like.

00:32:27Marc:I like that combination.

00:32:28Guest:So I get Jim and Dave and, uh, you, I, did you open for Stanhope too?

00:32:33Guest:I like, my guys are like, like, I'd say like you, Stanhope, Attell, Maria Bamford.

00:32:40Guest:Yeah.

00:32:40Guest:And then, uh, you know, Chris Rock.

00:32:42Guest:Yeah.

00:32:43Guest:And, you know.

00:32:43Marc:Yeah, sure.

00:32:44Marc:It's a good, that's a good, uh, good representation.

00:32:46Guest:I guess I like someone kind of making me think of things or see things in a way that I hadn't or expressing something that's really hard to express.

00:32:54Guest:I really like that in stand-up.

00:32:56Marc:Well, it's funny with Attell.

00:32:58Marc:I can see that applying to Maria and to Doug in terms of really taking ideas, but Dave is like every joke you're like,

00:33:07Marc:What the fuck?

00:33:08Marc:How did that work?

00:33:10Marc:Because he's working them like it's a never-ending math equation.

00:33:13Marc:It's pretty crazy.

00:33:14Marc:It's crazy.

00:33:15Marc:Every time you watch him, just the marvel of his goddamn turn of phrase.

00:33:20Guest:Yeah, it's nuts.

00:33:22Guest:The amount of jokes, the consistency of how funny it is, the pictures that he paints, and he's doing it all in no sleep and no food, which I know after working with him.

00:33:32Guest:It's mind-blowing.

00:33:33Guest:Someone should study his brain after he dies.

00:33:35Marc:Well, he what he I think he sort of like it's a way he sort of stays engaged in the world is this compulsive process of writing jokes, you know, whether it's in his head or whether he's tooling around with like it seems almost like it's almost like Sudoku.

00:33:50Marc:Yeah.

00:33:51Marc:You know what I mean?

00:33:52Marc:Yeah.

00:33:52Marc:I think that's just the way he's constantly going and staying sane.

00:33:55Guest:I mean, he's almost ruined anyone else riffing for me because it's not as good as him when I see.

00:34:02Guest:He riffs full jokes that other people would love to have written.

00:34:06Marc:You know what I mean?

00:34:07Marc:Right, right.

00:34:08Marc:And just off the top of his head.

00:34:09Marc:It's crazy.

00:34:10Marc:Great referencing.

00:34:11Marc:So when you start out here, outside of getting a good response and reaction to the sketch group, are you watching comedy?

00:34:20Marc:Are you going to see it?

00:34:21Marc:Was it part of your life?

00:34:22Guest:What was kind of cool was that, I think this helped me, was that I didn't watch that much stand-up until I started doing it.

00:34:28Guest:So I didn't have that first five years.

00:34:30Guest:You weren't a fan.

00:34:31Guest:Yeah, I wasn't doing someone else.

00:34:32Guest:Well, I was a little bit.

00:34:33Guest:So I like Chris Rock coming up because I grew up in the mid-90s and he was like the guy.

00:34:38Guest:And of course, Eddie Murphy growing up.

00:34:40Guest:And then on TV, we would watch, when we were in college, we would get high.

00:34:44Guest:There'd be an hour of The Simpsons.

00:34:46Guest:And then we'd switch from The Simpsons rerun channel to BET and watch Comic View, which would be on all night.

00:34:52Guest:And that was really the only stand-up I was watching.

00:34:54Guest:And I think...

00:34:56Guest:I think the first time I did stand-up was every time I ever saw it live, the first time I did it, at a show, and then afterwards they had an open mic.

00:35:02Guest:Oh, really?

00:35:03Guest:Yeah.

00:35:04Guest:That was the first time you saw a live stand-up was waiting to go on?

00:35:07Guest:Yeah.

00:35:07Guest:I really loved sketch, actually.

00:35:10Guest:I thought SNL was so cool growing up.

00:35:12Guest:This thing that was on, it was later than I was supposed to be staying up, and it was like, back then, now-

00:35:19Guest:commercials themselves do commercial parodies, you know what I mean?

00:35:22Guest:But back then it was like, oh, they're making fun of all the regular, it's like this weird bizarro world of media.

00:35:27Guest:And I thought it was so cool.

00:35:28Guest:So that was really, that and like comedic movies was what I really loved, was movies and sketch.

00:35:33Marc:So you kind of thought about being a writer from the get-go?

00:35:37Guest:Well, so I wrote that sketch thing, and then after I was in the sketch group, I caught all the heat.

00:35:41Guest:The next semester, I was going to make a comedy porno, which I'm glad I didn't.

00:35:45Guest:I didn't make it.

00:35:46Guest:What was the concept?

00:35:48Guest:I don't think I had one.

00:35:49Guest:But you were going to be in it?

00:35:50Guest:Yeah.

00:35:51Guest:I interviewed girls.

00:35:53Guest:I'm so glad I didn't do that.

00:35:55Guest:And then luckily, that didn't go through.

00:35:58Guest:I spent the next year studying abroad in Brazil.

00:36:01Guest:Uh-huh.

00:36:02Guest:uh so i was living in rio and just kind of like writing things and trying to think about like should i write movies what should i do and you were living in rio yeah rio de janeiro you studied abroad in rio yeah why there um was it part of what you were studying it was i wanted to i went i spent the summer of my isn't that like where people go for like uh just to to you know um do complete hooker vacations

00:36:27Marc:Yeah, some people do.

00:36:28Marc:I didn't.

00:36:29Marc:I mean, I could have.

00:36:30Guest:I didn't.

00:36:31Guest:I have a vague memory of the certain few comics that were like, we're going to Rio.

00:36:36Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:37Guest:It's just going to be hookers night and day.

00:36:38Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:36:39Guest:Oh, man, now that sounds kind of fun.

00:36:41Guest:But that's not what I went there for.

00:36:42Guest:I went there to study.

00:36:44Guest:Basically, I went on this program for Jewish kids going.

00:36:48Guest:I didn't know I could go for free on this trip later on.

00:36:51Guest:I went to this summer between my junior and senior year of high school to Israel, eight weeks in Israel.

00:36:55Guest:Sure, sure.

00:36:55Guest:And I hadn't really traveled internationally that much.

00:36:58Guest:How'd that affect you?

00:37:00Guest:Dude, it blew my mind.

00:37:01Guest:Not even just like religiously, but I just love the history.

00:37:04Guest:I loved walking on streets that were like, I like the Christian parts.

00:37:09Guest:I like, oh, this is the place, the street where Jesus walked.

00:37:11Marc:I'm walking on that street.

00:37:12Marc:Yeah, the seven stations of the cross.

00:37:14Marc:Yeah.

00:37:14Marc:And then you go into that place where there's that slab where they laid him out.

00:37:17Marc:Yeah.

00:37:18Marc:And people are rubbing their things on there.

00:37:20Marc:Yeah.

00:37:20Marc:Like pieces, their crosses and their Bibles.

00:37:22Marc:And then the Dome of the Rock.

00:37:24Marc:Yeah.

00:37:24Marc:I love it up there.

00:37:25Marc:I didn't get to go to that.

00:37:26Guest:You didn't go up top?

00:37:27Guest:It was too hot politically for them to take all these high school kids to the Muslim side of Jerusalem.

00:37:34Marc:Really?

00:37:35Marc:Yeah.

00:37:36Marc:Oh.

00:37:36Marc:But you didn't get it.

00:37:37Marc:See, I found I enjoyed Israel and I thought it was fascinating, but it was too scary for me to think I'm going to live here and I still don't know what's going on here.

00:37:46Marc:It didn't make me feel more or less Jewish.

00:37:48Marc:Yeah.

00:37:48Marc:But I didn't feel like this is my home.

00:37:51Guest:I'll tell you, it felt nice just like knowing that everyone there was Jewish or understood what being Jewish was.

00:37:57Guest:But I'll tell you what, I get the same thing in New York.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah.

00:38:00Guest:And it's a nicer place to live.

00:38:02Marc:Yeah.

00:38:02Marc:I think part of the whole white nationalist Christian agenda is to not to kill all of us, but to push us all to Israel.

00:38:12Marc:I think a lot of the Jews in the world have to be in Israel for the second coming to happen.

00:38:16Marc:It's in the book.

00:38:17Marc:Oh, fuck.

00:38:17Marc:So I think like part of the agenda is like, let's just scare them out of here to Israel.

00:38:22Guest:Well, that's funny because that's Israel's agenda too, is that we all get scared enough to go and move there.

00:38:27Guest:And I'm not trying to do that.

00:38:28Guest:To me, it's like, I always thought like, when I grew up knowing that, like, well, if shit goes down, you can always go to Israel.

00:38:33Guest:I'm like, if shit's so bad in America that we have to go to Israel, it's not good in Israel.

00:38:38Guest:It's not safe in Israel.

00:38:39Guest:There's no point of being there.

00:38:40Guest:And it's just, oh my God, I don't even want to go.

00:38:43Marc:So you didn't get any more Jewy, but you enjoyed it.

00:38:45Guest:I enjoyed being in another country and having that other perspective.

00:38:50Guest:Even now, I've been traveling and working the road for all this time, and I still go to places where I'm just like, man, people live here.

00:38:56Guest:This is crazy.

00:38:57Guest:It still blows my mind.

00:38:59Guest:Like St.

00:38:59Guest:Louis?

00:39:00Guest:Exactly.

00:39:01Guest:Exactly.

00:39:02Guest:I'm saying every range of it, from exotic foreign country to small shitholes in America, I'm still like,

00:39:09Guest:Man, this is nuts.

00:39:11Guest:What a different life.

00:39:12Guest:And I love having my world spun upside down and having this new perspective.

00:39:17Guest:So I knew I wanted to study abroad.

00:39:19Guest:And honestly, I wanted to go to... Everyone that I knew either went to England, Australia, or Israel.

00:39:26Guest:They don't want to learn a language or they want to do the Jew thing.

00:39:30Guest:And I was like, I got to go somewhere different.

00:39:32Guest:And I narrowed it down to Brazil and India just because I knew nothing about them.

00:39:36Marc:I want to go to India so bad.

00:39:37Guest:Well, I went to India after I graduated from college, too.

00:39:41Guest:Did you get sick?

00:39:43Guest:My friends did, and by the end, I was just eating bread.

00:39:45Guest:I would only eat bread.

00:39:46Guest:I was so scared of getting sick.

00:39:48Guest:They got so sick.

00:39:49Guest:Oh, it was rough.

00:39:51Marc:All right, so wait, so we'll get to India.

00:39:53Marc:So you go to Rio.

00:39:54Guest:So, yeah, so India, I tried to choose between the two.

00:39:57Guest:I got high with my friend who's a Brazilian-American.

00:40:00Guest:He's like, dude, go to Brazil.

00:40:01Guest:And I'm like, cool.

00:40:02Guest:I'm like, dude, part of it, I knew nothing about Brazil.

00:40:04Guest:I was like, man, it's got a Z in the name.

00:40:06Guest:Cool.

00:40:06Guest:Like, that's all I knew.

00:40:07Guest:I mean, little did I know it was like perfect for me.

00:40:10Guest:It's just like, it's like beautiful and it's a land of like big butts and beautiful music.

00:40:15Guest:And it was like, it ended up like shaping a lot of the things, ways that I am and interests that I have.

00:40:23Guest:Like what, big butts and music?

00:40:24Guest:I mean, I learned so much.

00:40:26Guest:First of all, I learned Portuguese.

00:40:28Guest:I speak fluent Portuguese.

00:40:30Guest:You do?

00:40:30Guest:Yeah.

00:40:31Guest:Do you use it ever?

00:40:33Guest:No, I don't, but you know what I want to do?

00:40:35Guest:Can you speak Spanish?

00:40:37Guest:I can understand it, and I can struggle to get through it.

00:40:40Guest:Yeah, right.

00:40:40Guest:And what I want to do is I think if I spent a month in a Spanish-speaking country, I could become a fluent Spanish speaker, and then I want to start doing stand-up in Spanish.

00:40:47Marc:So you've got a knack for languages.

00:40:49Marc:I didn't.

00:40:50Guest:I was in the lowest level when I started that course.

00:40:53Guest:And then I became fluent and probably one of the better Portuguese speakers by the end of it.

00:40:57Guest:Just because I learned that I thought I was bad at languages.

00:41:02Guest:And then I realized the way you really learn a language is by speaking, is just speaking to locals over and over and over again.

00:41:07Guest:And I got a Brazilian girlfriend and she didn't speak any English.

00:41:10Guest:And that was that, man.

00:41:11Guest:I became a fluent Portuguese speaker.

00:41:13Guest:And I love- How long were you with her?

00:41:16Guest:Too long.

00:41:17Guest:That was like a major mistake.

00:41:20Guest:We were together the year I was there and then we did long distance for like five years after that.

00:41:26Guest:And then we got the fiance visa and she was going to move to America.

00:41:30Guest:And that's, you know what the fiance visa is?

00:41:32Guest:You have like two, now I think 90 day fiance is pretty much that.

00:41:34Guest:It's like you have two or three months.

00:41:35Guest:To get married?

00:41:36Guest:To get married.

00:41:37Guest:And within six weeks, she took a trip to visit her friend in Seattle, which was actually a trip to Minnesota to fuck this guy she'd been seeing for the last year.

00:41:47Guest:So I didn't marry her.

00:41:48Guest:I guess I dodged a bullet, but that fucked me up pretty bad.

00:41:51Guest:Real bad.

00:41:52Marc:Because she was fucking that guy behind your back?

00:41:54Guest:Yes.

00:41:55Guest:Yes.

00:41:56Guest:That's why.

00:41:56Guest:Is that not clear?

00:41:58Guest:I don't understand.

00:41:58Guest:Is that not- I just want to make sure I understood the timeline.

00:42:03Marc:Yes.

00:42:04Marc:Yes.

00:42:05Marc:But you learned Portuguese.

00:42:06Marc:I did learn Portuguese.

00:42:07Marc:And you did dodge a bullet.

00:42:08Marc:I also- Well, I'll tell you this-

00:42:11Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:13Guest:I think being in a long-distance relationship right when I started stand-up was perfect because I felt like someone loved me.

00:42:20Guest:I had someone to talk to.

00:42:21Guest:I had a girlfriend.

00:42:22Guest:Did they have Skype then?

00:42:24Guest:No, they didn't.

00:42:24Guest:I'd buy all these phone cards.

00:42:27Guest:But then I could focus totally on stand-up while I was doing stand-up.

00:42:30Guest:Right.

00:42:31Guest:So in the end, it made me really focused and get really good at stand-up early on.

00:42:34Marc:But I also like- Without being distracted by getting involved with a female comic or another woman while you're doing stand-up.

00:42:41Guest:Or anybody.

00:42:42Guest:I wasn't even trying to date.

00:42:43Guest:I mean, I wasted some prime years of fucking by actually being committed to this lady, which was a mistake.

00:42:49Marc:But in the end-

00:42:52Guest:He was living there.

00:42:53Guest:It was like, it's like, it's like that rock joke about, it's like, it's the guy you always expect it to be.

00:42:57Guest:You know what I mean?

00:42:58Guest:It's like, it was this friend who was running this NGO where she worked at.

00:43:01Guest:And it was like, I should have like, I should have known it all.

00:43:04Guest:But what do you think she was, was she going to follow through with using you to get a visa?

00:43:09Guest:Here's the crazy thing.

00:43:10Guest:So she applied twice, even just to get a regular visa, just to visit.

00:43:14Guest:She couldn't get one.

00:43:15Marc:Right.

00:43:16Guest:And finally we decided to do this fiance thing.

00:43:18Guest:Yeah.

00:43:19Guest:I fly over to get the fiance visa.

00:43:21Guest:Yeah.

00:43:21Guest:I fly over.

00:43:21Guest:Not only do we have the, I go to have the interview with her.

00:43:24Guest:To Brazil?

00:43:25Guest:Yes.

00:43:25Guest:And I go there and I shoot a Portuguese rap video while I'm there.

00:43:30Guest:Just, it's just something to do?

00:43:32Guest:I had an idea.

00:43:33Guest:I wanted it.

00:43:34Guest:At the time, there's this stuff, this music called Baile Funk was kind of big underground.

00:43:37Guest:It's kind of like Miami bass music, like mixed with old school rap and Portuguese.

00:43:41Guest:Yeah.

00:43:41Guest:So I wrote some dirty raps.

00:43:43Guest:I invented this character that was actually supposed to be in that porno that I was supposed to make in college called the Archduke.

00:43:47Guest:I wore a gold diaper and a powdered wig and a leopard skin cape.

00:43:52Guest:And I wrote this whole song in Portuguese.

00:43:54Guest:So I spent one day with the interview and then one day shooting that video and I flew back.

00:43:57Guest:In a gold diaper.

00:43:58Guest:Yes, I shot it in a gold diaper.

00:44:00Marc:How'd that go?

00:44:00Marc:Did it get any traction with that?

00:44:02Guest:I made that video.

00:44:03Guest:I edited it.

00:44:05Guest:I showed it to my agent.

00:44:06Guest:He got me a meeting with Super Deluxe at the time with Turner, and I got a six-figure deal off making that video.

00:44:11Guest:So she came and broke my heart, but I made a ton of money and got to make all these other videos, which was really cool.

00:44:17Guest:Yeah.

00:44:17Guest:You did it.

00:44:18Marc:Yeah, I guess.

00:44:20Marc:But that was all at the beginning of you doing stand-up, the deal with Super Deluxe?

00:44:23Marc:They were throwing away money at that time, huh?

00:44:25Guest:This is 2005 or 2006, so no one really understands the internet and what videos are.

00:44:32Guest:No one understands that you don't have to throw money at it.

00:44:34Guest:It's all about it being low-budget and DIY.

00:44:37Guest:It's kind of the appeal.

00:44:38Guest:Right.

00:44:38Guest:So they were throwing crazy money around, man.

00:44:41Guest:I mean, I believe that's how, I mean, I don't want to tell her business, but I believe that's how like Maria got her first house.

00:44:46Guest:You know what I mean?

00:44:46Guest:I think everyone, like several people came up on it.

00:44:49Marc:Right.

00:44:49Marc:And then it just, I think that the downside was it just ended and people couldn't get their rights to their shit back.

00:44:57Marc:I did.

00:44:57Marc:Yeah.

00:44:57Marc:Oh, you did.

00:44:58Guest:I have the rights to all my shit.

00:45:00Guest:But that's what happened to people though, right?

00:45:03Guest:Well, here's what happened with me was that it ended right in the middle of a deal.

00:45:06Guest:Yeah.

00:45:07Guest:So it was like they either owe me all this money or I get the rights.

00:45:10Guest:I said, you owe me some of the money and I get the rights back.

00:45:13Guest:This was a second deal?

00:45:14Guest:I think it was that it was like several stages.

00:45:17Guest:You turn in certain things and then you and then you owe more.

00:45:19Guest:I think it was one deal, I think.

00:45:21Guest:And they still owed me a ton of money.

00:45:22Guest:So they were like, how about we owe you less money and you get the rights back?

00:45:27Guest:And I got the rights back.

00:45:28Guest:I mean, I haven't done anything with it.

00:45:28Guest:I guess I could make a movie or something.

00:45:32Marc:Yeah.

00:45:32Marc:But no, but it was just a thing that people panic about.

00:45:35Marc:It's like, I don't have the rights to that special anymore.

00:45:37Marc:It's like, who needs it?

00:45:37Guest:Yeah.

00:45:38Guest:Yeah.

00:45:39Guest:No, I always think about having those rights to things like that.

00:45:41Guest:I mean, it's like to be able to release stuff or like especially when like the videos are one thing.

00:45:45Guest:But like, imagine, I mean, you know how long it takes to develop an hour stand.

00:45:48Marc:But they're out there anyways.

00:45:49Marc:If like if you're popular, people want to find it.

00:45:52Marc:Someone's going to rip it off and get it on YouTube.

00:45:54Marc:You know what I mean?

00:45:55Marc:It's like, what are you going to do?

00:45:56Guest:It's true, man.

00:45:57Guest:I don't know.

00:45:57Guest:I feel like there's a thing to a body of work, and I like that.

00:46:00Marc:Sure, but the thing is, even with all my records, I kind of have the rights to some of them, but they're all up on Apple Music forever.

00:46:11Marc:Some people aren't, though.

00:46:13Marc:I'm not going to make money, not much money off of some of them, but some of them I still do, actually.

00:46:17Marc:Some of my old records...

00:46:19Guest:Yeah.

00:46:20Guest:I mean, dude, it's hard to find those.

00:46:21Guest:Personally, I, strangely enough, prefer to listen to the audio of specials.

00:46:25Guest:I like watching specials, but I like hearing the audio.

00:46:27Guest:I can hear more detail and stuff like that.

00:46:29Marc:It's like when you're a kid, you listen to comedy records.

00:46:31Marc:Well, I did.

00:46:32Guest:Yeah, but I didn't.

00:46:32Guest:I don't know why this is how I like it.

00:46:34Guest:I think I can hear more in the rhythm.

00:46:36Guest:I can hear more what they're doing.

00:46:37Guest:Yeah, the timing's so much better.

00:46:38Marc:It's so great.

00:46:39Marc:You listen to Robert Schimmel on CD.

00:46:41Marc:Yeah, man.

00:46:41Guest:Best.

00:46:41Guest:Yeah, I got to open for him a few times too, man.

00:46:44Guest:That was great, man.

00:46:45Guest:I mean, I've opened for all the dirtiest Jews, you know?

00:46:48Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:50Guest:Schimmel was awesome, man.

00:46:51Guest:Hearing his stories and hanging out with him.

00:46:52Marc:About Jackie Vernon.

00:46:53Marc:His Jackie Vernon stories.

00:46:54Marc:He opened for Jackie Vernon.

00:46:55Guest:I didn't hear that.

00:46:56Guest:I heard more of his move to L.A.

00:46:58Guest:stories.

00:46:58Guest:His constant almost getting things.

00:47:01Guest:It's classic comedy stories.

00:47:02Guest:I don't know if I should tell his stories on this thing.

00:47:05Guest:He's dead.

00:47:06Guest:He's dead.

00:47:06Guest:Yeah.

00:47:07Guest:Well, I mean, he lived in Arizona.

00:47:09Guest:He visits his sister living in L.A.

00:47:11Guest:She signs him up without knowing at the improv open mic.

00:47:14Guest:He does well there.

00:47:15Guest:He loves it.

00:47:15Guest:Bud's like, you come here, you have a home to do stand-up.

00:47:18Marc:That's right.

00:47:18Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:47:19Guest:He goes back.

00:47:19Guest:He tells us he has a family.

00:47:20Marc:He's like, you know what?

00:47:21Guest:We're moving to L.A.

00:47:22Guest:They drive to L.A.

00:47:23Guest:before they go to the sister's house.

00:47:24Guest:He's like, I want to show you where I'm going to be playing every week.

00:47:26Guest:He drives to the improv.

00:47:27Guest:It's burnt down.

00:47:28Guest:He drove into town the day it burnt down, and his career continued to go that way.

00:47:34Guest:Right.

00:47:35Guest:for the rest of his life.

00:47:37Marc:Fire in the 70s.

00:47:38Marc:Yeah, man, yeah.

00:47:40Marc:That's funny.

00:47:40Marc:All right, so you've got some money.

00:47:44Marc:You're doing comedy.

00:47:45Marc:You got your heart broken, kinda, but you got a gold diaper wig video that got you a big opportunity.

00:47:51Marc:You're doing stand-up.

00:47:53Marc:Yeah.

00:47:53Marc:But that's what I always wondered about you since you opened for me.

00:47:56Marc:Were you gunning to be a writer or did you want to do the full stand-up thing or you didn't think about it?

00:48:03Guest:You didn't separate it?

00:48:04Guest:I wanted to make movies and do stand-up.

00:48:06Guest:And I've since shifted into writing because it pays me.

00:48:09Guest:So when do you go to India?

00:48:11Guest:That's right after I graduated from college.

00:48:14Guest:That's between- Oh, that's before.

00:48:17Guest:The month before I graduated from college, I do an open mic every week.

00:48:19Guest:I go to India for a month.

00:48:21Guest:I come back.

00:48:21Guest:I do stand-up.

00:48:22Guest:I haven't stopped doing stand-up since.

00:48:24Marc:Got it.

00:48:25Marc:So the Brazil connection was always happening through the open mics and through everything.

00:48:29Marc:Yeah, through my first five or six years in comedy.

00:48:30Marc:And India just was like a month before you really got going.

00:48:33Yeah.

00:48:33Guest:Yeah, I think I was a month or six weeks in India right after college.

00:48:38Marc:And everyone you went with.

00:48:39Guest:I think the reason I'm focusing on India is everyone you went with got sick.

00:48:42Guest:I went with two people.

00:48:43Guest:They both got so deathly ill.

00:48:45Guest:It was India.

00:48:46Guest:Remember I was like, I like that change of perspective.

00:48:48Guest:I don't know what going to India is like now, but back then it blew my fucking mind, man.

00:48:53Guest:It's so different.

00:48:54Guest:It's so.

00:48:55Guest:I mean, it's like you go outside and just walking like two blocks and you walk back to your room and you just close the door like, what the fuck?

00:49:02Guest:That was so intense.

00:49:04Guest:It's so intense there.

00:49:05Guest:It's hard to even describe it, but it was amazing, and I recommend it to everybody, even though my friends got sick.

00:49:12Marc:So you're doing stand-up, and you got to deal with Super Deluxe, and then you start writing.

00:49:16Marc:How do you get aligned with...

00:49:18Marc:I always liked your jokes.

00:49:20Marc:I think we actually had a similar joke.

00:49:21Marc:Do you remember what it was?

00:49:23Marc:Because I remember we talked about it.

00:49:24Guest:I thought it was that the first time I had sex without a condom on, it felt like I stuck my dick inside the mouth of God.

00:49:31Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:49:31Guest:And you don't think it's that.

00:49:33Guest:But that's what I think it is.

00:49:34Guest:You do?

00:49:35Guest:That's what I think of the joke.

00:49:36Guest:I think there's a similar.

00:49:37Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:49:38Marc:You have a joke like that.

00:49:40Marc:Maybe.

00:49:40Marc:I don't remember what it was, but I just remember that we have a similar way of thinking humorously, which is fine.

00:49:47Marc:Yeah.

00:49:48Guest:It's also like it's tripping me out now at my age where I'm listening to you and Stan Hope, and I'm like 21, and I'm just like, these guys are nuts.

00:49:57Guest:They're all fucked up.

00:49:58Guest:This is crazy.

00:49:59Guest:And now it's all so relatable.

00:50:01Guest:It's like, oh, yeah, I've done that.

00:50:04Guest:That's happened to me, all of it.

00:50:05Guest:And it's like, ugh.

00:50:06Guest:Welcome.

00:50:06Guest:Welcome, welcome.

00:50:07Marc:It's just a matter of time, Louie.

00:50:10Marc:You just had to grow up a little bit, that's all.

00:50:12Marc:Just out of curiosity, when you work with Attell, does he ever tag for you?

00:50:15Marc:Does he ever go like, do you ever think maybe a... He's giving me like one tag or something like that.

00:50:20Marc:Do you ever get those calls from Attell like, do you do a thing about Jesus?

00:50:23Guest:Oh, all the time.

00:50:24Guest:So he's like known for this because he's so careful about not taking anyone's joke.

00:50:28Guest:He'll just call you up like, do you have anything about Egyptian scissors or like whatever?

00:50:32Guest:It's like, no, I don't.

00:50:33Guest:I don't.

00:50:34Guest:I've never put those two words in order before in my life.

00:50:38Guest:What are you talking about?

00:50:39Guest:I think one time he called me up, do you do a thing about jerking off in the Bible?

00:50:43Guest:No.

00:50:47Guest:Yeah, man, he's crazy about that.

00:50:48Guest:And I also respect that about his work ethic.

00:50:51Guest:He like is really anything that's even been slightly done before.

00:50:54Marc:He doesn't want to do because it's only going to be like with him.

00:50:56Marc:They're they're they're mostly shorter form jokes.

00:50:59Marc:So like, you know, what's what's the real?

00:51:00Marc:You know, it's not like a 20 minute chunk.

00:51:03Marc:Well, what do you what do you think?

00:51:04Marc:I mean, like, you know, if he if he feels like if something similar, it's not like he's losing a quarter of his act.

00:51:10Marc:Yeah.

00:51:10Guest:Well, sure.

00:51:11Guest:But yeah, but you that's but because those jokes, he takes so many of those jokes to make a full hour.

00:51:16Guest:No, I know.

00:51:16Guest:They're so fucking valuable because it's like it takes forever to add them all.

00:51:20Marc:Right.

00:51:20Marc:But I'm just saying if you go, yeah, I do do a thing about jerking off the Bible.

00:51:23Marc:If he doesn't finish the joke that he's working on about jerking off the Bible, it's going to be one minute gone.

00:51:28Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:51:29Marc:Yeah, totally.

00:51:30Marc:Yeah.

00:51:30Marc:Totally.

00:51:31Marc:So when did you start like doing writing for these?

00:51:35Marc:Like, I mean, what?

00:51:36Marc:I mean, outside of the.

00:51:38Guest:Well, you gave me my first writing job, really.

00:51:40Guest:I mean, so.

00:51:41Guest:So what happens is I move from the Bay to L.A.

00:51:43Guest:I'm doing this super deluxe thing.

00:51:45Guest:Yeah.

00:51:45Guest:Break with that girl.

00:51:46Guest:I'm going nuts on the road and stuff like that.

00:51:48Guest:And I try and pitch things around L.A., and they're like, well, maybe if you were more famous, we would buy this from you.

00:51:52Guest:And I'm like, well, maybe if you bought this from me, I'd be more famous.

00:51:55Guest:So I realize there's that classic paradox.

00:51:57Guest:I decide to go to New York and focus on stand-up, and I move to New York.

00:52:01Guest:And this is when you're at New York and working at Air America.

00:52:03Guest:And you hook me up with basically my first formal writing job, which is writing a few sketches for you on the Air America show in the last days of it.

00:52:13Marc:With me and Cedar.

00:52:14Marc:Yep.

00:52:14Marc:Oh, my God.

00:52:15Marc:That's right.

00:52:16Marc:Yeah.

00:52:16Guest:Yeah, I tried to help out.

00:52:17Guest:Yeah, no, you did.

00:52:18Guest:You totally did.

00:52:19Guest:You tried to get me to sublet your place.

00:52:22Guest:You were very forthcoming about the bed bugs, which I appreciated.

00:52:24Guest:I heard some people didn't get that much honesty, so thank you for telling me that you had them.

00:52:30Guest:Get that much honesty from me?

00:52:32Guest:Yeah, that's what I heard.

00:52:33Guest:What did you hear?

00:52:34Guest:I just heard some people, like you, me, you're like, there were bed bugs, we don't have them.

00:52:37Guest:I heard some people were just, you were just like, just move in.

00:52:39Guest:It's cool.

00:52:40Guest:Like, whatever.

00:52:41Marc:Well, I mean, you know, after what, at what point do they go away?

00:52:43Marc:I mean, God knows I tried to get rid of them and I did everything you do to get rid of them.

00:52:47Marc:I'm sure you got rid of them.

00:52:48Guest:There was, this is a panic time.

00:52:49Guest:The 2009 to 2012.

00:52:50Guest:With the bed bugs?

00:52:52Guest:With the bed bugs.

00:52:53Guest:Crazy.

00:52:53Guest:What was you, do you call it apartment aids?

00:52:55Guest:Isn't that your line?

00:52:56Guest:Huh?

00:52:56Guest:Apartment aids?

00:52:57Marc:I don't know if it is my line, but I like it.

00:53:00Guest:I mean, that's basically what it was.

00:53:01Guest:People were so scared.

00:53:02Guest:It was driving people out of their fucking minds.

00:53:04Guest:And I knew there was a girl who worked at Air America that didn't have them and thought she had them and lost her mind.

00:53:09Guest:Yes, exactly.

00:53:11Guest:I've gotten them twice on the road, which is the best place to get them.

00:53:14Guest:You have?

00:53:15Guest:Twice on the road.

00:53:15Guest:What do you mean?

00:53:16Guest:How do you mean?

00:53:17Guest:You got bit?

00:53:18Guest:I wake up.

00:53:19Guest:I get bit by them.

00:53:19Guest:I can see the marks.

00:53:20Guest:I can tell that I have them.

00:53:22Guest:They like women more than men.

00:53:24Guest:I'm tasty.

00:53:25Guest:Yeah, okay.

00:53:25Guest:And I get the three bites in a row, and I just wake up just covered in welts, and I'll be like, ugh.

00:53:33Guest:And it's like my hotel room.

00:53:34Guest:Twice it was my hotel room.

00:53:36Guest:It's the best place for it to happen, though, because you tell the hotel, you're like, man, you gave me these bed bugs.

00:53:40Guest:You could put all your stuff in their giant dryers.

00:53:42Guest:You can even put your luggage in their giant dryers.

00:53:44Guest:You dry it enough there, it kills them all.

00:53:46Guest:They move you to another room, you're good, instead of taking them back home.

00:53:48Guest:Right.

00:53:48Guest:But it was rude.

00:53:49Guest:I mean, man, they bit me those three in a row right across my bald spot just to rub it in.

00:53:54Guest:It was horrible.

00:53:55Guest:It was horrible both those times.

00:53:57Guest:So you didn't take my apartment.

00:53:59Guest:I didn't take your apartment.

00:54:00Guest:You tried to sell me.

00:54:01Guest:Several people have tried to sell me on Astoria, and I'm just not.

00:54:04Guest:I prefer Brooklyn.

00:54:07Marc:Leo Allen ended up living there for years.

00:54:09Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:54:11Marc:I don't even know if he still lives there.

00:54:12Marc:He might.

00:54:12Marc:All I know is that I just held on to that place and eventually the guy who owned the building sold the building and the new guy came up to Leo and said, are you Mark?

00:54:26Marc:And Leo goes, no, he's not here right now.

00:54:28Marc:He's like, all right, you're the guy now.

00:54:30Marc:And that was how I lost my lease.

00:54:31Guest:All right, you're the guy now.

00:54:34Guest:That's so funny.

00:54:35Marc:That's so funny.

00:54:36Marc:I guess I could have fought it, but like, fuck it.

00:54:38Guest:Yeah, man.

00:54:39Guest:I mean, eventually you got to let go.

00:54:40Marc:You didn't like Astoria.

00:54:41Marc:Yeah.

00:54:41Guest:I just felt everyone's like, it's 15 minutes and you're in New York.

00:54:46Guest:Yeah, you're on the Upper East Side.

00:54:48Guest:That's not exactly where I'm trying to go.

00:54:49Guest:I'm trying to get to downtown.

00:54:51Guest:So why not live close to downtown?

00:54:52Marc:No, you're not in the Upper East Side.

00:54:53Marc:Oh, I get it.

00:54:53Marc:But you're not in the Upper East Side.

00:54:55Marc:You're Midtown.

00:54:55Marc:You go over on the N and you end up where?

00:54:57Guest:It's the N and the R. I'm saying the first stop off the L is First Avenue and 14th, where I want to be.

00:55:04Marc:I get it.

00:55:05Marc:I get it.

00:55:05Marc:50, whatever.

00:55:06Marc:But you don't get all the great, all the weird ethnic food and excitement.

00:55:10Guest:Well, that's, I mean, I think the food, maybe because I don't live in Astoria.

00:55:13Marc:Sounds like you're just surrounded by, you know, Hasidim.

00:55:16Marc:Like in Astoria, it's like a multicultural paradise of weird shopping hours.

00:55:20Marc:Well,

00:55:20Guest:Well, I still have like, it's very Puerto Rican and Dominican right where I live in Brooklyn right now.

00:55:27Guest:And so it's like, so I get all kinds of different people.

00:55:29Guest:I mean, also the thing is like when you're in New York and really working standup, it's like really just like, I don't hang out in my neighborhood.

00:55:35Guest:I'm out every day and night.

00:55:37Marc:Yeah.

00:55:37Marc:So you're just wandering around a little bit during the day and then you're out till like two in the morning and you've got to figure out whether you're going to take a cab or take a train.

00:55:44Guest:Exactly.

00:55:44Guest:So it's easier to be closer to there.

00:55:46Marc:Sure.

00:55:46Marc:So when you go to New York, you say that that's when everything sort of shifted in terms of your perception of what you could do with comedy and, you know, the way people act.

00:55:55Marc:And I mean, how long were you in the Bay Area doing it?

00:55:58Marc:What made you move?

00:55:59Guest:I moved from the Bay because I felt like I was I was done with there.

00:56:02Guest:And I always thought it was a small town.

00:56:03Guest:You know, I grew up in L.A., so I'm used to being in big cities.

00:56:05Marc:Sure.

00:56:06Marc:And there wasn't enough outlets, really.

00:56:08Guest:Yeah.

00:56:09Guest:Yeah.

00:56:09Guest:I mean, eventually you're just doing all the stage time you can and it's time to go.

00:56:12Marc:Yeah.

00:56:12Marc:There's the punch line in whoever's little room.

00:56:14Marc:How many times can you do Roosters?

00:56:16Marc:Yeah.

00:56:17Marc:Yeah.

00:56:17Marc:What's the other one?

00:56:18Marc:That weird one was like sort of a sports bar.

00:56:22Marc:You know, it was big.

00:56:23Marc:Tommy T's.

00:56:23Marc:Yes.

00:56:24Guest:Tommy T's.

00:56:24Guest:Yeah.

00:56:25Guest:But yeah, there's not money there.

00:56:26Guest:Now there's like actually a lot of local shows.

00:56:28Guest:Yeah.

00:56:29Guest:But this was a different time.

00:56:30Guest:There was a certain amount of stage time.

00:56:31Guest:I'm doing as much as I can.

00:56:33Guest:It was time to go.

00:56:33Guest:I went to LA because that's where I was.

00:56:35Guest:I went home to LA and it was fine and it was good, but I decided I needed to get some heat and I went to New York.

00:56:40Guest:So I went to New York.

00:56:42Guest:I got the heat.

00:56:42Guest:I got a half hour special.

00:56:44Guest:I did an album for Comedy Central Records.

00:56:46Guest:And then I stayed.

00:56:47Guest:And maybe that was a mistake.

00:56:48Guest:I just stayed there after I got the heat that I wanted.

00:56:50Marc:I don't know.

00:56:51Marc:You weren't at a punch.

00:56:52Marc:It's a good place to perform.

00:56:53Marc:When I was there, it was before alt rooms, really.

00:56:55Marc:I mean, Luna happened when I was there.

00:56:57Marc:But still, I still think that figuring out how to perform at the cellar is like a huge victory.

00:57:05Guest:Yeah.

00:57:05Marc:It's a rite of passage.

00:57:06Guest:Totally.

00:57:07Guest:And it really is a great room.

00:57:08Guest:And it's also something that I really- It's a hard room.

00:57:11Marc:But once you master it, it's a great room.

00:57:12Guest:That's funny because you go up to the store and I was just hanging out at the store the other night.

00:57:15Guest:I'm like, this is a tough room.

00:57:17Guest:After every comic, 20 people get up and leave and this is the stage time I'm fighting for?

00:57:21Guest:This is ridiculous.

00:57:21Guest:What times do you get there?

00:57:22Guest:It's a four-hour show and everyone's leaving between shows.

00:57:25Marc:I make sure they put me on before 10.

00:57:27Marc:Okay.

00:57:27Marc:That's you.

00:57:28Marc:I went third or fourth up and then I'm out.

00:57:30Marc:There you go.

00:57:31Marc:It was a hard room to figure out though as well.

00:57:34Marc:Sure.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah, but it's different now.

00:57:37Guest:It's this thing.

00:57:38Guest:It's a thing to do when you go to New York now.

00:57:40Guest:It's not just like local roughnecks or whatever, like late at night drunk.

00:57:44Marc:No, it wasn't always that.

00:57:45Marc:It was just that it was a no... That wasn't the reason.

00:57:48Marc:It was just sort of, and I think a lot of New York, you can't be indulgent like you can't be in San Francisco.

00:57:54Marc:I mean, you can't noodle around up there.

00:57:56Marc:I mean, you've got to be efficient, and your punchlines have got to land.

00:58:00Marc:You can't like... I mean, I spent two years in San Francisco just kind of...

00:58:04Marc:noodling really well i mean i the way i work is improvised so like if i can just get up there and start running through shit until it sticks it's great you know whereas in new york you better have some place to land in san francisco they'll indulge you you don't have to have a landing pad really i guess that's i that's funny because what i was going to say would definitely internalize the lesson of new york is what i really love about you and like you and like patton and you like the like the vanguard of like original alt comedies like you have these club chops that you bring an

00:58:34Guest:Of course.

00:58:35Marc:Well, that's why we started in clubs.

00:58:38Marc:I mean, that's why.

00:58:38Marc:I mean, both him and I started in clubs.

00:58:40Marc:There's a difference between people who started a few years later.

00:58:43Marc:All of us that did alt comedy or whatever the fuck it was in New York were club comics.

00:58:48Marc:Yeah, I mean, I have the sensibility, but I'm saying that, like, you get to a certain place with who you are, you can take risks on stage.

00:58:56Marc:I just felt that when I left New York and went to San Francisco...

00:59:00Marc:that it was a little, you could be a little more indulgent.

00:59:06Guest:I guess I'm saying I really hate the indulgence.

00:59:10Guest:I used to think I just like tighter jokes, and now I really think it's a level, these comics are like, I feel like there's entitlement.

00:59:17Marc:I'm supposed to just listen to you, and it's not funny?

00:59:19Marc:Why am I listening to you?

00:59:21Marc:But I was always pretty funny when I was indulgent.

00:59:24Marc:That's what I'm saying.

00:59:25Marc:You bring me good funny.

00:59:26Marc:Yeah, you know how to put it in there.

00:59:28Marc:It's how you build it.

00:59:29Guest:That's what I'm saying.

00:59:30Guest:Like, I don't I think of you as the exact opposite.

00:59:32Guest:I think of you as like somehow like you really disguise the jokes.

00:59:37Guest:Right.

00:59:37Guest:And they're coming, but they're coming at you pretty fucking frequently.

00:59:39Marc:Right.

00:59:40Marc:Yeah.

00:59:40Guest:And you're even using little turns of phrase to get through like exposition or narrative.

00:59:45Guest:Right.

00:59:45Guest:That are still funny within that part.

00:59:46Marc:Right.

00:59:47Marc:Well, I guess.

00:59:47Marc:OK, the bigger point I guess I'm trying to make then is that it's it's hard to build long form material in New York.

00:59:54Marc:Yes, yes, that's true.

00:59:55Marc:Whereas in San Francisco, it was fairly, you know, they would support you.

01:00:01Guest:Yeah, I hear you.

01:00:01Guest:Dude, I tried, I had to do, I did this story for This Is Not Happening, which ended up being like 16 or 17 minutes long, and I was running it in New York, and it was like...

01:00:10Guest:killing me dude yeah because like you're like four minutes in and you're like oh god yeah and it's not working you can't get the laughs dude I got booed off stage at the Fat Black Pussycat I'm opening my heart and they're like be funny and I'm like this is not it's gonna be funny but it's also that's exactly the difference yeah you know that like in terms of vulnerability you know San Francisco they'll carry you a little bit New York they're like what are you gonna cry laughing laughing

01:00:38Guest:Exactly.

01:00:39Guest:Exactly.

01:00:40Guest:Yeah.

01:00:41Guest:It was really hard to work that out, too, just in general.

01:00:43Guest:Because the other thing I'm in New York is there's all those storytelling shows.

01:00:46Guest:And you go to those.

01:00:47Guest:So I do these.

01:00:48Guest:Different than stand-up, man.

01:00:50Marc:Exactly.

01:00:50Guest:So I try and do it in stand-up rooms.

01:00:52Guest:They're like, why are you making us sad?

01:00:53Guest:Yeah.

01:00:53Guest:And I go to the storytelling rooms like, why are you making us laugh?

01:00:57Guest:And they were both mad at me.

01:00:58Guest:Like, why is there a dick joke in the middle of your.

01:00:59Guest:You're being too funny.

01:01:00Guest:Yeah.

01:01:01Guest:There's jokes.

01:01:02Guest:Don't hide the emotion in the middle.

01:01:04Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:01:04Guest:I mean, like, I also did it through a very, like,

01:01:07Guest:jokey but still storytelling way.

01:01:10Guest:What was it about?

01:01:11Guest:I can't remember.

01:01:12Guest:That was about this, so after, I have like all these misadventures with women after the Brazilian girl, and for a while I was dating this, I met a gutter punk in Portland.

01:01:24Marc:Like someone who lived in a squatter?

01:01:26Guest:She was in and off of the squatting thing, and it was about a... She had a rash?

01:01:35Guest:It sounds like you're thinking of a specific girl, and you're wondering if it's the same one.

01:01:38Marc:No, I just remember seeing squatters in New York, and they just all had skin problems and a griminess.

01:01:44Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think in Portland it's a little more of a lifestyle, and she was somewhat clean, but she was a mess and amazing, and it was a real mess.

01:01:53Guest:Yeah.

01:01:54Guest:And so, yeah, I did it about that.

01:01:55Guest:It was a...

01:01:57Guest:That's a whole story.

01:02:00Guest:I mean, her and all that stuff.

01:02:02Guest:How long were you with her?

01:02:04Guest:Maybe a year or two.

01:02:05Guest:It was pretty heartbreaking.

01:02:06Guest:She had a really bad alcohol and drug problem, and I had a bad her problem, and I couldn't walk away from her.

01:02:14Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:02:15Marc:No, that's a classic situation.

01:02:17Marc:It's called codependency.

01:02:19Guest:Yeah, yeah, yes.

01:02:20Guest:Yeah, that's in the story.

01:02:22Marc:Yeah?

01:02:23Marc:Did you try to get help for that?

01:02:24Marc:What do you mean, myself or for her?

01:02:26Marc:No, for knowing that you can't control somebody else and that you have to detach somehow because there's nothing you can do necessarily that's going to change them.

01:02:36Marc:And eventually you just get exhausted.

01:02:39Guest:Yes.

01:02:39Guest:Well, I mean, strangely enough, even though I look like the kind of person who's been going to therapy since I was 12, I only started seeing a therapist about two years ago in New York, and it's fucking helped a lot.

01:02:49Marc:Really?

01:02:50Marc:It took you that long?

01:02:51Guest:Yeah, man.

01:02:51Guest:I wasn't going, and my last girlfriend- The one that just happened.

01:02:56Guest:Yes, the one that just broke my heart.

01:02:58Guest:How long were you with?

01:02:59Guest:Four years with her.

01:03:01Guest:All right.

01:03:01Guest:Yeah.

01:03:02Guest:That one was... Yeah.

01:03:05Guest:Was she all right?

01:03:07Guest:What do you mean?

01:03:08Guest:She wasn't a gutter punk.

01:03:09Guest:Well, that's good.

01:03:10Guest:What do you mean, was she all right?

01:03:11Guest:That's what I mean.

01:03:13Guest:No, it wasn't the same problems with her, but I had my own problems.

01:03:16Guest:I think with her, it was like...

01:03:18Guest:I was shooting myself in the foot because I was really scared of fucking it up.

01:03:23Guest:I thought she was so good.

01:03:24Guest:It turns out I guess she kind of wasn't also over time.

01:03:27Guest:She wasn't good?

01:03:29Guest:I mean, the way she's been since the breakup has been kind of appalling, and she also changed over the course of the four years, as we both did.

01:03:36Guest:When we met, I thought we both had so much in common.

01:03:38Guest:By the time we broke up, I thought less so.

01:03:41Guest:Yeah.

01:03:42Guest:And she's been shitty about the breakup, to be honest.

01:03:44Guest:Well, I mean, in what way?

01:03:47Guest:Just not talking to you?

01:03:49Guest:No, we're both not talking to each other.

01:03:50Guest:She's tweeting, like, rude, like, shitty stuff.

01:03:53Guest:Is she a comedian?

01:03:54Guest:Yes.

01:03:55Marc:Oh.

01:03:56Marc:All right.

01:03:57Marc:Yeah.

01:03:57Marc:Yeah, public domain, man.

01:03:59Marc:Like, you know, if you deal, you know, dating people with public profiles?

01:04:04Guest:Yeah.

01:04:04Marc:As opposed to civilians?

01:04:06Marc:Yeah.

01:04:06Guest:Yeah.

01:04:07Marc:Tricky.

01:04:07Guest:I'm done.

01:04:08Marc:Yeah.

01:04:09Guest:I'm done with comics.

01:04:09Guest:I think I'm done with white women.

01:04:10Guest:I think I'm cutting them both out.

01:04:12Guest:She was the first white woman.

01:04:13Guest:Oh, maybe second.

01:04:14Guest:But, like, rarely have I dated them, and I think I'm done.

01:04:18Marc:Well, you mean you'll date any other ethnicity?

01:04:22Marc:Anything else.

01:04:25Marc:Anything else.

01:04:25Marc:I guess that's open.

01:04:27Marc:That's broad spectrum.

01:04:28Marc:No, I'm probably just joking.

01:04:29Marc:I'm just mad at her.

01:04:30Marc:No, I know.

01:04:31Marc:I married a comic, and that ended horribly.

01:04:36Marc:But I also know that I was horrible.

01:04:38Marc:So now, I don't know, man.

01:04:41Guest:Well, the thing is, you'd think from the tweets that I broke up with her, but she kind of broke up with me.

01:04:46Guest:So it seems kind of unnecessary.

01:04:47Marc:And then, what, are you supposed to be dragged into the arena?

01:04:51Guest:I won't do that, man.

01:04:52Guest:I'm not doing it.

01:04:54Guest:I mean, I guess this is kind of doing it a little bit, but I'm not doing it.

01:04:57Guest:I'm not going to.

01:04:57Marc:No, but you, so you just let it be.

01:04:59Marc:You're just sort of like.

01:05:00Guest:I stopped looking.

01:05:01Guest:I stopped looking at her feed.

01:05:01Guest:Like I was, I was not, I haven't talked to her since we broke up.

01:05:04Guest:We haven't communicated.

01:05:05Guest:I was looking at her feed for about a month and then I was managed to just cut myself off.

01:05:08Guest:I have these shitty friends of mine who are like trying to make me feel better.

01:05:11Guest:Like, man, you should see what she wrote now.

01:05:12Guest:I'm like, I'm trying not to.

01:05:13Guest:All right, but fucking tell me.

01:05:14Guest:And they would tell me, you know, and it's, it still sucks.

01:05:17Guest:You know, I just don't understand.

01:05:18Marc:Oh, fuck.

01:05:18Marc:Well, I'm sorry you're going through that, pal.

01:05:19Marc:You can bring, bring me up, you know.

01:05:21Marc:It's like, it's like just the disaster of this, of the, you know, of at every, but I don't quite understand it.

01:05:28Marc:The need, there's some people and I'm not talking about her.

01:05:31Marc:I mean, I'm talking about people.

01:05:32Marc:I just, I don't know.

01:05:33Marc:I didn't date men, women that they need to, to, to constantly put shit out there like, you know, three or four times a day.

01:05:41Marc:Yeah.

01:05:41Marc:And it's like, it's no one's getting paid for it.

01:05:43Marc:And I understand branding and I understand, you know, staying, you know, relevant or whatever, but some of it just starts to look like, you know, like help.

01:05:50Marc:Hey, look at me.

01:05:51Marc:Yes.

01:05:51Marc:You know, I'm you know, I need some validation.

01:05:55Marc:I need I don't know what it is, you know, where it's just sort of like how many times you're going to do this a day.

01:06:00Marc:Yeah.

01:06:01Marc:And these are people I respect and who I think are funny.

01:06:03Marc:And it still looks desperate to me.

01:06:06Guest:Yeah, man.

01:06:07Guest:Yeah, totally.

01:06:08Guest:I totally agree.

01:06:08Marc:Where it's like, I understand how this platform works.

01:06:11Marc:I understand it's great to create content and that's sort of fun.

01:06:14Marc:But, you know, the amount you're doing it, it's like it looks desperate to me.

01:06:19Guest:Yeah, there's a gross neediness to it, a thirst to it that's off-putting.

01:06:22Marc:Even if it's great, I'm sort of like, good.

01:06:25Marc:All right, thank you for the free thing.

01:06:27Marc:Are you okay?

01:06:27Marc:What are you doing?

01:06:28Marc:Are you spending any time off of this platform?

01:06:32Marc:I don't know, man.

01:06:33Marc:So what's your relationship with when, did you write for Stanhope?

01:06:39Guest:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:06:41Guest:Stanhope, I, well, it was cool, because the first people I opened for, the very first person was that dude Tree.

01:06:47Marc:You know Tree?

01:06:48Guest:Yeah, of course.

01:06:48Guest:Yeah, I opened for this dude Tree.

01:06:50Marc:I wonder what happened to Tree.

01:06:51Guest:I don't know.

01:06:51Marc:I think I'm an Eskimo brother of his.

01:06:54Guest:Probably.

01:06:55Marc:Yeah, up in San Francisco.

01:06:57Marc:I just remember this.

01:06:59Marc:Tall woman.

01:07:01Marc:Man.

01:07:02Marc:It didn't go as well as I wanted it to.

01:07:03Marc:I think it was like after a Sacramento punchline show, but she was like R. Crumb style, kind of like big and beautiful.

01:07:10Marc:Oh, I love that shit, dude.

01:07:11Marc:And we just ended up in the hotel room, and I think it went a little faster than she was anticipating.

01:07:18Marc:And all I knew was that she had fucked tree.

01:07:20Marc:Yeah.

01:07:23Guest:That's so funny, man.

01:07:26Guest:Oh, man.

01:07:27Guest:So you open for tree.

01:07:28Guest:I open for tree, but after that, I was so dirty that I got to, I started out dirty.

01:07:32Guest:I'm probably less dirty now, but that meant Molly, the book at the punchline, bless her, would always put me.

01:07:38Marc:Back when she was like 14?

01:07:39Guest:Yeah, she just took over the booking, and she would book me with ... I get booked with Stanhope and Attell, and they're some of the first people I work with.

01:07:48Marc:Oh, because you're the local dirty guy.

01:07:50Guest:Yeah, so they're the only person I can be booked with because of my act.

01:07:53Guest:Yeah.

01:07:54Guest:I started out, I had a three-minute bit about fucking someone with my nose.

01:07:59Guest:It's like, I can't open for everyone with that.

01:08:00Guest:Yeah.

01:08:01Guest:I got to meet him, and I knew him through all that stuff.

01:08:04Guest:And I just got to I mean, one of the great things about also starting in a city that's not New York is that or L.A.

01:08:09Guest:is that like I meet people like you or them or San Diego Hotel and I open for them or Fitzsimmons, who's also like one of my favorites.

01:08:17Guest:And then I establish these relationships with them and it carries on afterwards.

01:08:21Guest:Yeah.

01:08:22Guest:I don't know if that would be true now.

01:08:23Guest:There were so many less comedians then that it was easier to make friends.

01:08:27Guest:Now it's like there's a million comics every town you go to, and it's hard to remember everybody.

01:08:31Marc:I don't know who anybody is.

01:08:33Marc:I just know that my group now, I guess it was bound to happen, and I'm glad it did on some level because it means I'm still alive.

01:08:40Marc:You know, you're just, you're veterans.

01:08:42Marc:And, you know, everybody kind of drifts away and has a life.

01:08:45Marc:Like, you know, all the cats I started with, you know, you're not, you know, in New York, we were just there.

01:08:49Marc:We were with each other all the time because it's what we did.

01:08:52Marc:And there were three clubs.

01:08:53Marc:And, you know, you just, you'd be eating together.

01:08:55Marc:You'd be with each other during the day.

01:08:57Marc:Yeah.

01:08:57Marc:And then as you have a life, you start to realize, like, we're, my generation is we're all in our 50s, mid to late 50s, for fuck's sake.

01:09:05Yeah.

01:09:05Marc:And, you know, I don't you know, I'm always happy to see you tell, you know, and I'm always happy to see the people I started with.

01:09:12Marc:But, you know, we don't talk.

01:09:13Marc:Everyone's got their own fucking life.

01:09:15Marc:Wow.

01:09:16Marc:It's weird.

01:09:16Marc:That is weird.

01:09:17Marc:Who are your friends?

01:09:18Marc:I mean, like, you know, I have friends.

01:09:19Marc:I have a few that, you know, I but one of them lives in New York and.

01:09:22Marc:And it's hard to make new friends.

01:09:27Marc:Yeah.

01:09:29Marc:But you know everybody.

01:09:30Marc:But now you're saying you're even of the generation now where there's like a thousand comics beneath you.

01:09:34Marc:Yes.

01:09:34Marc:Where you're like, I don't fucking know what's going on anymore.

01:09:36Marc:There's just so many people.

01:09:38Marc:Yeah, how can all these people be doing original comedy?

01:09:43Guest:You know what I mean?

01:09:44Guest:Yeah, man.

01:09:44Guest:There's a lot of.

01:09:45Guest:And I was talking to someone about it, but it's like you'd think eventually they'd quit, but they don't quit.

01:09:51Guest:They seem to be sticking around.

01:09:52Marc:No one knows how to quit.

01:09:52Guest:Yeah, there's no way to quit.

01:09:54Marc:Well, it's weird.

01:09:55Marc:I thought there was a way.

01:09:56Marc:You know, I did an interview with a guy who I thought got out gracefully, Billy Braver, but, you know, he ended up back doing it.

01:10:02Marc:But there are people I know of my generation and the one ahead of me that eventually just drifted off and found jobs.

01:10:09Marc:I think it's a pride thing that if you're in if you're a lifer, you can't picture what else where else you would go.

01:10:14Marc:But I think there were people like from the 80s boom that were just sort of like, you know, a lot of them ended up on radio and some of them just went into jobs and they're like, it just didn't work for me.

01:10:25Marc:Didn't because they had to have.

01:10:27Marc:You know, like so many of them, like from the 80s, so many of the guys who were just features and stuff.

01:10:32Marc:I mean, would they all die?

01:10:33Marc:No, they figured out a way to reintegrate into the world.

01:10:37Guest:Yeah.

01:10:38Guest:Yeah.

01:10:38Guest:I mean, I keep thinking about how like, I mean, like part of me is bummed out that it didn't work out with this girl.

01:10:43Guest:And then I'm like now single again at 40.

01:10:45Guest:But part of me realizes like, man, if I wasn't, if I had a kid at this age, it would be time to like start really reevaluating what the fuck I'm doing.

01:10:52Marc:And, you know, I'll tell you from my the best thing I ever did was not have them.

01:10:57Marc:Really?

01:10:58Marc:For sure.

01:10:59Marc:Wow.

01:11:00Marc:I'm a fairly self-involved person, but I've been married twice and I don't have kids, so there's a reason for that.

01:11:09Guest:As I used to say on stage, I think the way my second wife put it was, you think I'm bringing children into this?

01:11:16Guest:That's funny.

01:11:17Guest:Man, that's funny.

01:11:20Marc:I just knew that for years I knew if I do that, then whatever I'm working on, whatever I'm trying to get to, will not happen.

01:11:31Marc:Yeah.

01:11:32Marc:And I didn't even know what that was, but I knew it was about me.

01:11:36Marc:And you know what I mean?

01:11:38Marc:And like, you know, if it all became about how do we feed this thing?

01:11:41Marc:Yeah.

01:11:42Marc:That, you know, I don't know how I would live.

01:11:45Marc:I would literally feel like I was strangling myself from the inside just thinking about it.

01:11:50Marc:Yeah, man.

01:11:51Marc:So now, like, you know, like, I don't, you know, I never seem to be alone very long, you know, and I'm seeing somebody new now.

01:11:58Marc:Mm-hmm.

01:11:58Marc:But my expectations are different.

01:12:01Marc:There's a lot of things I don't have to do.

01:12:03Marc:I don't have to fucking get married again.

01:12:05Marc:I don't have to live with somebody again.

01:12:07Marc:I don't have to be up someone's ass every fucking hour.

01:12:10Guest:You didn't like that stuff?

01:12:13Guest:I mean, you're speaking to sound negative now being up someone's ass, but I don't know, man.

01:12:16Guest:I miss, like, this is the closest I've come to, like, understanding when someone calls someone their partner, like, dating this girl for four years.

01:12:22Guest:Like, I had a partner.

01:12:23Guest:Like, she was my partner.

01:12:25Guest:She was my partner in my life.

01:12:26Guest:That's nice.

01:12:27Guest:Maybe I'm cynical.

01:12:27Guest:You're right.

01:12:28Guest:I don't know.

01:12:28Guest:I miss that shit.

01:12:29Marc:Yeah, I understand.

01:12:31Marc:I...

01:12:33Marc:Yeah, I mean, the last one I went off with, I had a lot of love for her, but I just felt that we were actually two, our lives were a little too separate and we were a little too different in a way.

01:12:43Marc:And, you know, I'm dating somebody that's more like me and more my age, but still I'm sort of like, because I have a codependent thing too.

01:12:51Marc:Like if I'm with somebody, I'm always going to be checking myself and I'm always going to be worried about what they're doing or thinking.

01:12:58Marc:And, you know, to me that's exhausting.

01:13:00Yeah.

01:13:00Guest:Yeah, but you can't work on that?

01:13:03Marc:I guess, but- You're just like, that's how it is?

01:13:05Marc:Well, what's the payoff?

01:13:06Marc:What do you mean work on it?

01:13:07Marc:You know what I mean?

01:13:08Guest:So you can stay with someone and have this partner that we both said was nice.

01:13:12Marc:It's pretty nice.

01:13:15Marc:The thing is, it's like, I have worked so fucking hard for so fucking long to land on my feet and have my shit.

01:13:22Marc:And that now, like, I'm just trying, I'm just starting to figure out what I like to do.

01:13:26Marc:Wow.

01:13:26Marc:So like, there's part of me that's sort of like, what do I got to share that for?

01:13:30Marc:I'm just figuring this out.

01:13:32Marc:Can I try to enjoy it myself?

01:13:35Marc:I'm sorry it happened when I'm 55, but it just, that's the way it panned out.

01:13:40Marc:Does that make sense?

01:13:42Marc:Yeah, I think it does.

01:13:43Marc:Yeah, I think it does.

01:13:44Marc:I mean, yeah.

01:13:44Marc:And also, I'm terrified of, like, being hurt.

01:13:51Guest:Finally, the truth.

01:13:52Marc:I don't ever want to... I don't ever... Like, and I really... I think that, you know, if we were to be honest, like, I don't... Oof.

01:14:00Marc:You know, after that one...

01:14:01Marc:I think after that one that you saw that show about, after that first major fucking heartbreak, whatever it was, whether it was ego-based or whatever, whatever it was, it was so devastating that I just, there's some part of me that's sort of like, I'm not gonna make myself that vulnerable again.

01:14:15Marc:You hardened your heart.

01:14:16Marc:I did.

01:14:17Marc:Yeah.

01:14:18Guest:Are you doing that now?

01:14:19Guest:I'm trying not to, but it's hard.

01:14:21Guest:I hope I'm not, but I feel like I am.

01:14:25Guest:I don't feel like it.

01:14:27Guest:I'm working on this bit now how I hate.

01:14:30Guest:You know what I love being in a relationship?

01:14:31Guest:I love being antisocial, and now I have to meet new people.

01:14:35Guest:I don't want to do that.

01:14:37Guest:I don't know, man.

01:14:37Guest:I'm working on not doing it.

01:14:39Guest:This is all fresh.

01:14:40Guest:It's less than two months.

01:14:41Guest:I don't know what I'm doing.

01:14:43Guest:I don't I just don't I don't feel like the bullshit of meeting someone anymore and I don't feel like talking to someone who I don't really connect with and which I know you have to do to get you through to the person you really do connect with.

01:14:56Guest:So I don't know what it's going to mean.

01:14:57Marc:Well, I don't like it's weird because like if I've hardened my heart, I don't even think with the person who broke my heart or whatever that was.

01:15:03Marc:You know, I feel like I was obsessed with her and I loved her and like I like I loved looking at her.

01:15:08Marc:I loved being, you know, but I don't know if I really, you know, was fully open, like I'm fully comfortable in an intimate situation.

01:15:16Marc:I think that most of what happened is, you know, I just did not see it coming at all.

01:15:20Marc:And it just completely shattered my whole life.

01:15:23Guest:Yeah.

01:15:23Guest:Well, that's like with the Brazil girl with me.

01:15:25Guest:It was like this wasn't as much of a blindside, this breakup.

01:15:28Guest:But, yeah, man, it just like it really fucks you up, especially when someone you trust and someone you let in like that.

01:15:33Guest:It does make you want to shut everyone else out.

01:15:35Marc:But also you take them for granted.

01:15:36Marc:And I was kind of a dick.

01:15:38Marc:Yeah, I did that.

01:15:38Marc:Yeah, and I was certainly a dick.

01:15:40Marc:And I don't know if I obviously wasn't that great a partner if this was happening.

01:15:44Marc:And I don't know that I was capable of it for a lot of different reasons.

01:15:47Marc:But.

01:15:48Marc:Oh, I just don't.

01:15:49Marc:I don't know, man.

01:15:50Marc:I don't like I don't know what.

01:15:52Marc:Sadly, it gets to the point like whether it's hardening my heart or like I don't know sometimes what the value of it is like to, you know, if I don't want kids and I don't need to be married again and I've sort of those ships have sailed.

01:16:06Marc:What is it that I need?

01:16:08Marc:From somebody else.

01:16:10Guest:You don't get what I was saying?

01:16:10Guest:That partner thing?

01:16:11Guest:No, I get it.

01:16:12Guest:I get it.

01:16:12Guest:You don't miss that?

01:16:14Guest:And also, don't you feel like, maybe this is corny or whatever, and you talk about the hurt and you don't want to get hurt again and all that stuff and how bad it fucked you up.

01:16:21Marc:Mostly you feel like a fucking asshole.

01:16:23Marc:You feel like a fool.

01:16:25Guest:Yes, when I was cheated on, I did feel like a fool and I felt like taken for a ride.

01:16:30Guest:And that part felt bad.

01:16:31Guest:And honestly, with this new girl, I feel a little bit like a fool.

01:16:34Guest:With the last girl, just because of the way she's been tweeting since then makes me like, wow, I guess I didn't know her.

01:16:39Guest:Maybe she wasn't as great as I thought she was.

01:16:42Guest:Maybe I was blind to everything.

01:16:43Guest:But at the same time, the hurt is only so big because it was so great to be with her when I was with her.

01:16:51Guest:And so I'm trying to... The hurt is...

01:16:55Guest:Not good, I guess.

01:16:56Guest:I don't know, man.

01:16:57Guest:You guys had a good time, huh?

01:16:59Guest:I liked her.

01:17:00Guest:I guess you didn't like me.

01:17:01Marc:I don't know.

01:17:02Marc:Yeah, I understand that.

01:17:04Marc:I understand that.

01:17:05Marc:I guess like, you know, the partnership thing, I guess I have to explore what the hell it all means.

01:17:09Marc:You know, I'm just I'm just a little old now.

01:17:12Marc:And, you know, it's not clear to me.

01:17:14Marc:I'm not I'm afraid.

01:17:15Marc:I just really want to keep my life to myself sometimes because I feel like I've earned it and I'm just learning how to live in it.

01:17:25Marc:Because when you do what we do for so long and you don't know what's going to happen or how it's going to fucking go and then all of a sudden in my mid-40s it works out.

01:17:36Marc:You know what I mean?

01:17:37Marc:Yeah.

01:17:37Marc:That was a long fucking haul, dude.

01:17:40Marc:That was 25 years.

01:17:40Guest:I'm very much aware of that.

01:17:42Guest:Yes, I can relate to this kind of.

01:17:44Guest:I don't know.

01:17:44Guest:Somehow I feel like I'm seeing some parallels.

01:17:48Guest:I'm sorry.

01:17:48Guest:I don't know.

01:17:48Guest:I haven't even got to that working out part yet.

01:17:50Guest:I know.

01:17:51Guest:And I'm still saying I have hope.

01:17:53Guest:I know.

01:17:53Marc:I mean, hopefully it turns around for me too.

01:17:55Marc:Shit.

01:17:56Marc:Well, it's good.

01:17:56Marc:We seem to be on the same trajectory.

01:17:58Marc:I think it's going to.

01:17:59Marc:All right.

01:18:00Marc:So I got five years.

01:18:00Marc:Good.

01:18:01Marc:I didn't mean to get selfish about it.

01:18:02Marc:I mean, I always did fine.

01:18:03Marc:You know, we got by.

01:18:05Marc:Yeah, I'm getting by.

01:18:05Marc:Yeah.

01:18:06Marc:But, well, I hope you feel better.

01:18:08Marc:So what's going on right now?

01:18:11Marc:Didn't you just put out a record?

01:18:12Guest:Yeah, I had this.

01:18:13Guest:My last album was called Catskills, and people really reacted to that.

01:18:16Guest:It was great.

01:18:17Guest:It made, like, the top five albums of the year from Vulture.com, if that means anything.

01:18:21Marc:Oh, that's great.

01:18:21Guest:Yeah.

01:18:21Guest:People really dug that.

01:18:22Guest:And I just started a new podcast with Matt Fulcheron about, like, traveling.

01:18:26Guest:With who?

01:18:26Guest:Matt Fulcheron.

01:18:27Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:18:28Guest:Yeah.

01:18:28Guest:And so we do.

01:18:30Guest:That's great because, as you can tell, I love to travel.

01:18:31Guest:I've been all over the place.

01:18:32Guest:What's that called?

01:18:33Guest:It's called Roadheads.

01:18:34Guest:Oh, great.

01:18:35Guest:And so I'm doing that and then I'm working on projects and I'm working on this new hour and I'm always trying to push and become better at stand-up and I feel myself getting better.

01:18:43Guest:And so as long as I feel like I'm getting better, I feel all right.

01:18:46Marc:So do you headline as well?

01:18:48Guest:Yeah, sure.

01:18:48Guest:Okay.

01:18:50Guest:So you do a tell dates?

01:18:51Guest:I do a tell dates and then I headline myself.

01:18:53Guest:I'm doing both of them.

01:18:54Guest:I mean, I think it's like, man, you know, just being like a fucking 40-year-old feature act, it doesn't feel right, even if it's for a tell, who's like the best, you know what I mean?

01:19:03Guest:I should move over and let someone else get in there, but I just like, it's hard for me to make this move over.

01:19:09Guest:And it sucks because I know people come up to me every town now and they know me from my albums.

01:19:13Guest:They know me from that or they know me from this is not happening.

01:19:15Guest:They actually know me from things.

01:19:16Guest:Yeah.

01:19:16Guest:But I really haven't been able to harness the power of the internet to really get people to come out and see what I- As a headliner.

01:19:23Marc:Yeah, as what I have to bring, you know?

01:19:25Marc:Yeah, like just we're at clubs?

01:19:27Guest:Yeah, I do clubs.

01:19:28Guest:I do all the indie touring down south.

01:19:31Guest:I do a lot of that.

01:19:32Guest:And down south, the Midwest, where I'll just like book a room for a night and come through town.

01:19:36Marc:Does that work out?

01:19:37Guest:Yeah, that actually does work out.

01:19:39Guest:I've done a run there several times.

01:19:41Guest:I don't think I'm building up a following, but I make decent money, and I get to go to all these towns and stuff like that.

01:19:46Guest:I find a way to make it work, and I always find a way to make it work, but it's a struggle.

01:19:52Guest:I'm on rep, man.

01:19:54Guest:I'm doing all this on my own.

01:19:55Guest:I'm doing a podcast.

01:19:56Guest:I'm writing stand-up.

01:19:58Guest:I'm working on a show idea.

01:20:01Guest:I'm booking my travel.

01:20:01Guest:I'm promoting my shows.

01:20:02Guest:I'm doing all that myself, so it's fucking a lot.

01:20:04Guest:It is a lot.

01:20:05Guest:And all that's like none of that pays, really.

01:20:08Guest:All that's like volunteer.

01:20:09Marc:Now, is being unwrapped your own choice or just the way it is?

01:20:12Guest:No, no, it's not.

01:20:14Guest:It's not my choice.

01:20:15Guest:Yeah.

01:20:15Guest:And yeah, it's I mean, like, I think you need someone who wants to work with you.

01:20:19Guest:You know what I mean?

01:20:20Marc:You don't want someone you don't want to be chasing people.

01:20:21Marc:Well, what about like what what were you doing on Dave's little porn?

01:20:25Guest:Oh, I wrote a little bit on that pilot, and I've written on a couple shows.

01:20:28Marc:Were you there when I did it?

01:20:30Guest:No, I only worked on the pilot of that.

01:20:31Guest:So I worked on David Tell's show, Dave's Old Porn.

01:20:33Guest:I worked on the pilot of that.

01:20:34Guest:I worked on Totally Biased.

01:20:35Guest:I worked on Guy Branum's show, Talk Show, The Game Show.

01:20:38Guest:So that's really where I've been making money.

01:20:40Guest:Kamau's show?

01:20:41Guest:Yeah, I worked on Kamau's show and Guy Branum's show, Bay Area Comics, who both hooked me up, and that's what's really kept me going through all this other stuff.

01:20:48Guest:The stand-up is always kind of making money and kind of not.

01:20:51Guest:And I get other writing gigs.

01:20:54Guest:I ghostwrite for people and stuff like that.

01:20:56Guest:I make money, but it's always from who knows what source and when it's coming and how.

01:21:01Marc:You should get a writing rep.

01:21:04Guest:Yes, I agree.

01:21:07Guest:You sound like one of my relatives.

01:21:08Guest:Have you thought about getting on SNL?

01:21:09Guest:Maybe you should do that.

01:21:11Guest:I hadn't considered that, especially considering that legally no one's allowed to have a writing rep right now.

01:21:16Guest:But sure, I should get one.

01:21:18Marc:All right, well, we'll figure it out.

01:21:19Marc:I'll make some calls.

01:21:21Marc:Appreciate it.

01:21:22Marc:Thanks.

01:21:23Marc:Great talking to you, man.

01:21:23Guest:Good talk to you.

01:21:29Marc:All right, that was Louis Katz.

01:21:31Marc:Get his album, Katz Kills.

01:21:33Marc:Also listen to his podcast, Roadheads.

01:21:36Marc:All right, do it.

01:21:38Marc:You know where to get that stuff.

01:21:41Marc:The audience will end before the symphony.

01:21:46Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?

01:21:48Marc:How clear does it have to be, people?

01:21:51Guest:Boomer lives!

01:21:53Marc:Okay?

01:21:58you