Episode 1107 - Utkarsh Ambudkar
Marc:And plenty of it.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I am squeaking my mic.
Marc:I'm at home.
Marc:I hope you're at home.
Marc:I hope we're handling this together.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's hard to know.
Marc:I know people are craving some sort of something to distract themselves to stay engaged with something to stay connected.
Marc:I know there's a lot of people out there alone, and I want to say, hey, what's up?
Marc:Everything okay?
Marc:You have enough food?
Marc:You got stuff in the cabinet?
Marc:Don't eat too much.
Marc:Don't just sit and eat.
Marc:Do some exercises.
Marc:Take a walk.
Marc:Call your friends.
Marc:You know, you all right?
Marc:And I'm sorry you're going through this alone, but I just want you to know that a lot of us are here with you and that we're thinking about you and we're staying connected.
Marc:We're trying to stay connected.
Marc:At least stay engaged with something live, if you can, even if it's on TV or on your computer.
Marc:Stay engaged with information.
Marc:Don't drift.
Marc:Isolation is bad enough when you don't have to do it.
Marc:for a lot of people, but when you have to do it, man, it's even worse.
Marc:Anyways, I'm just reaching out to the lonely people out there, the people that have to ride this out by themselves.
Marc:I hope you're taking care of yourselves.
Marc:And also, look, I hope the people who have people in their lives, good luck with that too.
Marc:Good luck with that intimacy.
Marc:Good luck with that level of...
Marc:being together huh what a test what a test gotta gotta keep it honest can't hide now can you in the house not so easy day in day out how much do you love each other huh how much do you huh i guess you'll find out should i mention the guest shirt
Marc:I have a great guest today.
Marc:I love this guy.
Marc:Utkarsh Umbadkar.
Marc:You might know him from Britney Runs a Marathon, which is streaming on Amazon.
Marc:He's also in the upcoming action comedy Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds.
Marc:He was on the Mindy Project, I believe.
Marc:And hopefully you'll be able to see the Free Guy thing in the future whenever we can do things again.
Marc:But you know what?
Marc:A lot of stuff's ending up on the streaming.
Marc:They're doing it on the streaming.
Marc:Betty Gilpin's banned movie was unbanned, and now everyone went into isolation, so it couldn't be in a movie theater.
Marc:But The Hunt, I believe, will be available Friday.
Marc:I think that was the case.
Marc:Also, my buddy Bert Kreischer, he's got a stand-up special on.
Marc:It's on Netflix.
Marc:Me and Bert going back-to-back with the releases.
Marc:I think...
Marc:Tom Segura, he's got one dropping after Bert.
Marc:So in succession, me and then Bert and then Tom, weeks apart, coming at you with the full throttle comedy business.
Marc:Everybody's been enjoying the end times fun.
Marc:And I appreciate that.
Marc:Jason Zinneman, who I reached out to publicly to take his critical eye towards the special.
Marc:It's a weird thing to do.
Marc:I mean, I don't see it as kissing ass or as being solicitous.
Marc:I wanted a real critic to take that thing on, to reckon with that special.
Marc:And I believe he is one.
Marc:I believe he's a deep intellectual.
Marc:He's culturally well referenced.
Marc:He knows his shit.
Marc:He's an old school critic where you're not getting a review.
Marc:He's going into it.
Marc:And I think he really got it.
Marc:in that within the first paragraph or so, I'm quoting Jason Zinnerman from the New York Times, what stands out is his anchoring theme, a skepticism of unshakable belief of any kind, unquote.
Marc:And I think that was it.
Marc:The great thing about smart critics, about guys and women who really take it on and go all in intellectually,
Marc:And is that, you know, they can reveal something that I may not have seen, but that is true about this special is that I knew that the whole thing was tethered to the opening bit about not knowing anything or what do we really know and what is belief.
Marc:And that was the through line.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:And he saw it.
Marc:I don't know that a lot of people got that.
Marc:A lot of people are getting whatever they want to get out of it.
Marc:But this thing is a whole piece and that's the way I conceived of it.
Marc:So I appreciated Zinneman doing that.
Marc:And so thanks for that, Jason.
Marc:Also, the other press has been great and people's reactions have been great.
Marc:I'm just thrilled that the special is landing so well with people.
Marc:I'm saddened.
Marc:at the condition of the world that it is landing in, though it is providing somewhat of a life buoy or a lifeline or a relief or whatever from what is we don't even know yet in this country.
Marc:That's the fucking thing.
Marc:is we don't know.
Marc:We're days away from knowing, weeks max, in terms of how bad this is going to get here.
Marc:I got an email here.
Marc:I'll read it to you.
Marc:This is an email from, the subject line just says, news from Italy about COVID-19.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:I know you for your acting in the TV series Glow and Easy, and I like your work very much.
Marc:Tonight I saw your show End Times Fun, and for the first time in several days, I laughed a lot.
Marc:I'm not laughing so much these days because I live in Bergamo, a small town in the north of Italy that now is the epicenter of COVID-19 in Italy.
Marc:To give you the idea of the numbers of dead, in the local news usually we have three pages of obituary and today is ten pages.
Marc:Our hospitals are collapsing.
Marc:A lot of doctors are ill.
Marc:People are losing their jobs and many friends and relatives are at home with fever.
Marc:It's a mess.
Marc:I didn't know about your podcast until tonight but I've heard what you said in the last one about this situation and the necessity to take this seriously and I want to thank you for that and also for making me laugh tonight.
Marc:Being isolated, it's difficult.
Marc:Within a couple of weeks, our lives are completely changed, and we are shocked and scared and outraged for many political reasons, and we miss each other, and we are in pain for elder people who die alone, separated from the loved ones.
Marc:It's a terrible situation, and it's global, and we have to be informed.
Marc:So thank you, take care, and sorry for the shitty English.
Marc:Sarah.
Marc:Thank you, Sarah.
Marc:And I'm sorry you're going through that.
Marc:I'm sorry we're all going through that, but it sounds particularly awful.
Marc:That is the head of the spear there of the coronavirus pandemic.
Marc:But that is the barometer for what could and may very well happen here and continue happening.
Marc:So despite whatever information you may be getting, despite the lack of leadership at the top, despite the only thing that seems to make Trump happy is to call it the Chinese virus.
Marc:So there's some sort of nationalist spin on it.
Marc:This is a human virus.
Marc:that is just engulfing the planet and we can only hope for the best i think everybody's doing what they can states are doing what they can people are doing what they can and uh my heart goes out to people that uh many of us i mean i was just sick i don't know if i had it or i didn't do you know if you have it you don't know because it's far from easy to be tested so the numbers on some level can never be trusted we will never know
Marc:efficient numbers because we're the most advanced country in the world, but we for some reason are not getting these tests to everybody or at least making them accessible.
Marc:Why is that?
Marc:What do you think?
Marc:Who has anything invested in the numbers staying not quite right?
Marc:Look, folks, I don't want to be cynical.
Marc:I want to tell you that I hope you're taking care of yourself.
Marc:I don't know what you're doing.
Marc:I can tell you what I've been doing.
Marc:I can tell you.
Marc:I know it got heavy there for a minute, but it's heavy.
Marc:These are heavy times.
Marc:I'll tell you.
Marc:Just give me a second.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'll tell you.
Marc:So there's uplifting emails, too, I guess.
Marc:Isn't there?
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:Here's one.
Marc:Got one for you.
Marc:This is just, I guess, closure in a way.
Marc:I read that honeymoon email, the people who were in Spain.
Marc:in the middle of the pandemic, trying to keep it together.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:Thanks for reading our story on WTF.
Marc:We landed in Atlanta Monday to a slew of texts about it from friends and family.
Marc:Certainly made us smile after 36 hours of travel.
Marc:Happy to report that we are now safe and sound and honeymoon quarantining at Arcasa in New Orleans.
Marc:Wishing you and yours all the best.
Marc:Love, Keith and Lauren.
Marc:They made it.
Marc:They're still married.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:It's a real test, folks.
Marc:Hey, and don't go crazy with the fucking.
Marc:I mean, you can, but for God's sakes, let's not have a whole generation of plague babies, okay?
Marc:We don't need it.
Marc:We don't need it.
Marc:There's enough people.
Marc:We don't need the COVID generation, do we?
Marc:Am I being negative?
Marc:Do what you want.
Marc:Have as many babies as you want.
Marc:Who am I to judge?
Marc:All right, so here's what I've been doing.
Marc:I've been hiking.
Marc:I've been hiking, trying to get up there once or twice a week, going out.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:I hike up this trail near my house, go up to the top, and I saw a guy walking down, regular guy, older than me, with a beard, dressed in jeans, just kind of bopping down the mountain, carrying a shovel.
Marc:I always suspect the guy alone with a shovel out in the woods or out on the hike.
Marc:But it was the middle of the day and I couldn't quite figure it out.
Marc:My brain tried to piece it together as I hiked up that mountain, listening to Modu Maktar jamming in my head, getting a little spiritual, getting a little tarig.
Marc:And I didn't know what it was about.
Marc:And I was walking down past all the lizards and it's been raining a lot here in L.A.
Marc:And that guy had taken upon himself.
Marc:I do not believe he worked for the city.
Marc:Maybe he did, but it didn't look like it to sort of create new channels for the water.
Marc:So they didn't wash away the trails.
Marc:Many of the trails have these kind of small canyons in them from water rushing down them because there are no foliage on them.
Marc:So it naturally goes there.
Marc:And this guy was carving side channels out into water.
Marc:this sort of uh foliage area and blocking the ones that are running along the trails or in the middle of the trails to stop the erosion i don't know if that's just a good citizen i don't know but that i'm glad i figured it out that he wasn't burying friends or family up there uh i called my parents call your parents my mom's doing okay she's uh hanging in there they're trying to stay on top of having enough supplies
Marc:Apparently, she called Costco about toilet paper.
Marc:They said, you got to get here early and you got to be online.
Marc:So that's going to give her boyfriend, who is about 80, something to do.
Marc:Go stand online at Costco.
Marc:She also said, out of all things that I should do out of nowhere, she goes, don't upset Lynn.
Marc:Who's my mother to know who I am?
Marc:Who's my mother to know that when I'm holed up, that I may be difficult?
Marc:Right.
Marc:My dad's doing OK.
Marc:He doesn't seem to know entirely what's happening, but maybe that's better off.
Marc:Also, I've been watching some movies.
Marc:I watched From Here to Eternity the other night.
Marc:What a great film to watch.
Marc:I also watched a buddy of mine trying to get sober again.
Marc:So I was trying to think of movies.
Marc:Sober movies.
Marc:And to recommend, I didn't want to recommend the sort of the Bill W. movie.
Marc:There's a doc I haven't watched, but there's also an old TV movie with James Woods as Bill W. and James Garner as Dr. Bob.
Marc:But I always land on changing lanes.
Marc:It's this movie from, I don't know, it's about 20 years old.
Marc:It was...
Marc:With Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson.
Marc:And I love the movie.
Marc:I've watched it like once a year.
Marc:I watched it again last night.
Marc:Lynn had not seen it.
Marc:And I still like it.
Marc:It's a bit much in terms of it gets you at the edge of your seat.
Marc:And it's a little far-fetched on some levels.
Marc:But I think a pretty good recovery movie.
Marc:It's not a movie about recovery.
Marc:But...
Marc:It is a movie about wanting to do the right thing, doing the incredibly wrong thing, and then owning it.
Marc:I like it, man.
Marc:It's a good movie if you want to see Samuel L. Jackson just play a regular guy and not be over the top.
Marc:Also, listening to music is good.
Marc:Cooking is good.
Marc:Doing a lot of freezing, a lot of cooking.
Marc:Because all you can do is think about food when you're sitting at home wondering if you're going to have enough food or is there still more food or should we cook some food?
Marc:That's the hobby.
Marc:Making the food and putting it in your face.
Marc:I'm on Instagram.
Marc:Occasionally, I go live on Instagram.
Marc:If you want to follow me on Instagram, I'm at Mark Maron.
Marc:One word on Instagram.
Marc:That's the real me.
Marc:Like this morning, I did a little of that or yesterday, did a little of the live Instagram.
Marc:But, you know, it's like, look, this is going to wear out, man.
Marc:Celebrities being cute about the quarantine and about their hobbies during it.
Marc:I don't know how long it's going to be before people with a little bit of a following are just crying for help.
Marc:Maybe that's probably what they're doing now.
Marc:But I mean, more literally, like, I'm in trouble here, man.
Marc:I got my family locked in the room upstairs, and there's no work, and I can't get out.
Marc:God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wonder how long it's going to stay cute.
Marc:But hoping for the best, you guys.
Marc:But please try to do your part and stay out of circulation so the old folks don't die, so people who are vulnerable don't get this thing, so the hospitals don't get overloaded.
Marc:But it's going to be weird for a while, clearly.
Marc:All right, so there's no guitar playing at the end of this episode because me and Utkarsh Umbudkar, he freestyle raps over me playing a little funky chord thing.
Marc:It happens, and he's fucking good at it, man.
Marc:I mean, I'm no connoisseur of rap, but...
Marc:Pretty impressive, man.
Marc:So that's something to look forward to at the end of this episode.
Marc:And as I said earlier, you can see him in Brittany Runs a Marathon.
Marc:He's hilarious in that.
Marc:It's streaming on Amazon.
Marc:He's also in the upcoming action comedy Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds, which hopefully you'll be able to see sometime in the future whenever we can do things again.
Marc:But now he's here with me talking to him just before everything got real crazy.
Marc:You were the first one to use the bathroom in the new studio.
Marc:Really.
Marc:Aside from me.
Marc:And I made a note to myself to get paper products, which I did.
Marc:And then we got it just in time.
Marc:You finished.
Marc:And I heard you wash the hands.
Marc:And I'm like, I can't.
Marc:And I went out and I got...
Marc:The paper towels that I bought, now they're in here.
Marc:But then there was no place to throw the used paper towel.
Guest:I'd be... If you had a better guest, like a more famous, special, prestigious guest, I would feel guilty.
Guest:But I don't think you have to.
Guest:You're doing me a solid here.
Guest:Like, giving paper towels is like...
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:What are you going to walk around with hands?
Marc:It's terrible.
Marc:And then you're not going to ask because you're thinking like, I don't want to be weird.
Guest:Well, it's like a super, I just realized how intimate it is to like stand outside the bathroom or be inside the bathroom while having that paper towel exchange.
Guest:You're like, all right, this relative stranger.
Marc:You heard me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, we met at the Vanity Fair party.
Guest:I complimented you, which is why I'm here, I think.
Guest:I gave you a nice compliment.
Marc:But the odd thing is, I know who you are, because I saw that movie.
Guest:Oh, Brittany runs a marathon.
Marc:Yeah, and I thought you were the funniest part of the movie.
Marc:You're great, solid, great performance, and I enjoy the movie, and I worked with- Jillian.
Marc:Jillian and Michaela.
Marc:And Michaela, yeah.
Marc:But you were hilarious.
Marc:I had no idea who you were, and then all of a sudden, there you were.
Marc:And then when I met you-
Marc:And then you told me that.
Marc:I was like, oh, I fucking know you.
Marc:So, I mean, yeah.
Guest:I get a lot of, oh, I fucking know you.
Guest:I get a lot of that.
Guest:I'm not going to try and pronounce your name, but I'll remember your face.
Guest:That's quite a name.
Guest:Utkarsh Mbutkar.
Guest:Utkarsh Mbutkar.
Guest:Mbutkar, yeah.
Guest:Mbutkar.
Guest:I just realized this is the first time you've said my name.
Marc:Dude, I've been thinking about it all day.
Guest:I'm sorry for the stress that it's caused you.
Marc:It's not causing me stress.
Marc:Like I said to my, after I met you, I said, I told my producer, we should book this guy.
Marc:And he's like, great.
Marc:I said, wait till I can figure out how to say his name.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And I was like, nope, next week.
Marc:Utkarsh Ambutkar.
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:Perfect.
Guest:Yeah, it's there.
Marc:It's a mouthful.
Marc:So you were on the Oscars doing a silly thing.
Marc:How does that unfold?
Marc:How was that room?
Guest:So that room, have you been in that room, the Oscars?
Guest:So it was my first time.
Guest:There's several different levels of discomfort at play.
Guest:How'd you get the gig?
Guest:So I got the gig because I just finished a Broadway run of this show called Freestyle Love Supreme.
Guest:And that is an improvised rap comedy show.
Marc:You're an improvisational rapper?
Guest:I'm a freestyle rapper.
Guest:You can do that?
Guest:I can indeed.
Guest:It would be fun if you played some guitar, I could rap over it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, that'd be, I'd get to jam with Marc Maron.
Guest:Are you kidding me?
Guest:I'll do it.
Guest:I think it's whack and ingenuine when people aren't as complimentary as they should be around people they admire.
Guest:And I super duper admire you, bro.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I love your podcast.
Guest:I started doing a podcast because of you.
Guest:Oh really?
Marc:What's that called?
Marc:We need more podcasts.
Marc:There's never, there's never
Guest:Oh, I quit.
Guest:I was like, I cannot do this as well as Marc Maron.
Guest:I did it for like a year and a half, had some cool guests, and I was like, this is going nowhere.
Guest:All I want to do is listen to Marc Maron.
Guest:What was it called?
Guest:It was called Let's Talk About Me.
Guest:It was on the HeadGum Network.
Marc:Well, you definitely are like doing, you learned something from me.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, I'm just going to brand this.
Guest:I'm going to just do Marin, but I'm going to do it like no subtext, whatever.
Guest:Let's talk about me.
Guest:And the idea was I was going to have people from my past come on and talk to me about their first impressions of our relationship and how that went and how we can grow.
Guest:And I come to find that nobody wants to talk shit about you or insult you to your face.
Guest:And I was like, it just became like compliments.
Guest:And I was like, no, but what about that time?
Guest:And what about that time?
Marc:It's hard, and I learned a lesson about that recently.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:I sent the wrong text to somebody.
Guest:Who was it?
Marc:I've done that so many times.
Marc:Somebody kind of blew me off twice, right?
Marc:And it was an accident.
Marc:It happens.
Marc:But when I've done it, it means I really don't give a fuck.
Marc:right so you know what i mean like i don't like it's not you don't give a fuck in that moment like in the macro maybe you you care about the relationship with that person or are you just saying like maybe maybe i i just think that twice do you know what i mean like you don't really want to do it maybe that's me yeah but anyway so he's like this guy is married to somebody in show business and like i was mad driving home and i text lynn like you know they're both of them are shitty and i sent that to him
Marc:did he respond i immediately realized what i did i said so i guess you know how i really feel now my point was is that people are they they're polite yes they're too polite yeah but it's not usually if somebody hates you you would know that but but like you know my feelings were legit and but you know the proper human way to deal with that was like it's okay it happened sorry buddy i'll drive home even though i drove all the way to the restaurant i'm standing here like a fucking idiot
Marc:But, you know, underneath that is like, what the fuck, dude?
Marc:I got a life.
Marc:I got a thing.
Marc:So then he actually negotiated with me, you know, in the sense that he's like, I'm sorry you should have told me how you're feeling.
Marc:I could have handled it.
Marc:And I'm like, look, man, I was just angry.
Marc:And, you know, your wife's not shitty.
Marc:It's just you.
Marc:I'm sorry that I threw her into the equation.
Marc:No, neither one of them are.
Marc:I was just mad, you know.
Marc:And then I realized, like, why do I say that?
Marc:Why was I even texting that to Lynn?
Marc:What's the point of that?
Guest:Because there's a mutual, there's like a connection that you get from mutual sort of disdain for people.
Guest:Yeah, but she doesn't feel that way about him.
Guest:So maybe she's talking you off the ledge or she's like, you're right, baby.
Marc:It's just stupid.
Marc:I just, yeah, but it's just like, you know, I'm just turning into my dad.
Marc:I'm just like that guy is sort of like, oh, fuck that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I see my dad in the mirror, I get very scared too.
Marc:What's he like?
Guest:He's chill.
Guest:He's a scientist.
Guest:He's a PhD biochemist.
Marc:That's deep science.
Guest:It's super deep science.
Guest:He already has that science mind.
Guest:He's sort of an introvert.
Guest:He doesn't talk.
Guest:He's not one to start a conversation.
Guest:He's better now.
Guest:I think he was super stressed.
Guest:I've learned a lot.
Guest:I think we're both, after doing a thorough inventory, I've learned quite a bit.
Guest:Are you a sober guy?
Guest:Yeah, I'm sober a little while.
Guest:We learned that our parents did their best, right?
Guest:They did something.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:They didn't do anything with bad intentions.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't know about the best thing.
Guest:Well, you know, we aspire to give them as much credit as possible now, especially after the colossal shit show that I put my family and friends through.
Guest:Oh, that sounds exciting.
Guest:Oh, super, super great.
Guest:So where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Maryland, born in Baltimore, and then grew up in the suburbs of Maryland.
Marc:So the old man's like a biophysicist.
Guest:Biochemist.
Marc:A biochemist.
Marc:What's your mom do?
Guest:She's also a biochemist.
Guest:They work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
Marc:Oh, they still there.
Marc:They still work there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what are the what's it like under this president?
Marc:Are they complaining about the situation or is it?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My my mom and dad like, you know, I think there's funding being cut and my mom's like a she yells into the cavern of Facebook as much as she can.
Marc:But but what is like what what what would a job for your parents be like if they're working on something?
Marc:What is that?
Guest:It's the same job that it's been for 30 years.
Guest:So my dad, chemotherapy, cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy.
Guest:He's trying to figure out the mechanism by which they become resistant to cancer treatment using yeast and all this stuff.
Guest:Also, if you hear Mark and I belch, it's because we are enjoying beautiful Topo Chico.
Marc:We are.
Marc:I've got a case of this in the fridge.
Marc:So good.
Marc:Nice tight bubbles.
Marc:my friend dean turned me on to this and i don't really you know i don't walk into too many things for too long but this is good it's a good but it is burpee it's a tough bubble it's all good so my dad does that and my mother works in the nidcr national institute of dental research so when uh so that's your dad's life's work is to figure out why cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's pretty well recognized and lauded for that.
Marc:He's done some good work in that field.
Marc:He's super.
Marc:He's a hard worker.
Marc:He's figured some shit out.
Guest:I would say can't.
Guest:No, I would say he's chipping away at it.
Guest:I mean, I always ask him like the joke is like, have you cured cancer yet?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:It's always like, are you number one on the call sheet yet?
Guest:I'm like, all right, touche.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:But grew up in Maryland and the parents sort of like the immigrant experience.
Guest:They came from India in 1980.
Marc:What part of India?
Guest:My mother's from Chennai, which is South India.
Guest:If India is a triangle, they're both from like the bottom of the triangle, the point.
Guest:And my dad's from Maharashtra, a small city called Barsi.
Guest:In Northern India?
Marc:In the South.
Guest:It's South Central.
Marc:Are they both from Dosa, India or Curry, India?
Guest:They are.
Guest:My mom's from Dosa.
Guest:My mom's from Dosa, India, and my dad is like from some hybrid.
Guest:Definitely not curry, India.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's from vegetarian, India.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, they're both from vegetarian, India.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, that's a very good way to put it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It simplifies things a lot for me, which I appreciate.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, dog.
Guest:Everything is, yeah, food.
Guest:I remember you had Randall Park on, and you were like, we knew about Chinese food, but we don't know who makes it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I'm very food-centric.
Marc:Where does it come from?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I think Mindy Kaling got offended.
Marc:I think I offended her terribly in a lot of ways.
Marc:I could see you offending lots of people.
Marc:Yeah, I could definitely see that.
Guest:I understand it.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:You, I think the whole point- Slightly insensitive?
Guest:Is that- Well, the way that this works is if you're not honest, how can I be honest, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think some people come in, look, I know you, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I'm happy to be here.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I imagine some people sit in this chair like, I heard this was a popular podcast, but like- Oh, yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Mindy was a while ago though, and I think it was probably a bad idea.
Yeah.
Guest:My insecurities also don't lie in this space.
Guest:Like I love taking the piss.
Guest:I love comedy.
Guest:My insecurities are like the Oscars.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like being there.
Marc:We're going to get to that.
Marc:Apparently we got to reroute it.
Marc:So you're growing up.
Marc:Oh, see that?
Marc:You hear that?
Guest:Yeah, but I don't know if that was you or me.
Marc:It was me.
Marc:It wasn't a burp, though.
Marc:It was just a buildup.
Guest:Yeah, it was a baby.
Guest:It was a release.
Marc:An aborted burp.
Marc:Not quite a burp.
Marc:It didn't take shape.
Marc:No, it'll get there, though.
Marc:We'll get some good ones.
Marc:I'm trying not to.
Marc:So you're in Baltimore, the good part.
Guest:You're obviously living, you're not, you know... Well, no, we were in the city, like in the Baltimore city.
Marc:I know, but your parents had good jobs.
Marc:So the immigrant experience, when did they come over here?
Guest:College?
Guest:No, they came after they got their PhDs.
Guest:So they did the whole thing.
Guest:I think it's called grad school.
Guest:I don't even know.
Guest:And then they got their PhDs.
Guest:Are they medical doctors or just research doctors?
Guest:No, research doctors, yeah.
Guest:And then...
Guest:I was born in 83, and we had the ideal immigrant experience, which is you start in the inner city, and you move to a suburb of said inner city, and then now they're in a suburb of D.C.
Guest:in a beautiful community, and they do well.
Marc:How many siblings do you get?
Marc:Only child.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Oh, and you got all fucked up?
Marc:Yeah, I got all... All bets were on you.
Guest:Yeah, 100%.
Guest:You have a brother, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you kind of just grow up wishing you had someone to just be like, yo, is it just me or are these two fucking crazy?
Guest:Like, is it just me?
Marc:It can't just be me.
Marc:That's interesting because there's no one to ask.
Marc:There's no one to sort of bounce shit up.
Marc:Or no one to see, how come you're not getting as fucked up as I am?
Guest:Yeah, or just... How are you turning out okay?
Guest:And if I had had a sibling, they would have...
Guest:Turned out okay.
Guest:I imagine them being like, yeah, if I had a sibling, they'd have been the favorite.
Marc:Now, with other immigrants that I've spoken to or children of immigrants, there's that pressure thing.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Is that a real thing for you?
Marc:Like, did they want you to go into the nuanced, focused profession of biological research?
Guest:Yeah, 100%.
Guest:yeah they were like come on man just be a phd it's easy it's like that's all they know yeah that's what gave them safety but who did your mom cook my mom was get back to the food so it was all vegetarian food growing up it no she started cooking chicken but like she never ate it because she's a vegetarian vegetarian by just by growing up in that religion i think by choice i think she lost the taste for meat
Guest:So when I was in her stomach when she was pregnant, she would be eating Big Macs and Whoppers.
Guest:I guess there was some- Oh, yeah.
Guest:You get that.
Guest:There was some promotion, right?
Guest:Whopper beat the Big Mac.
Guest:Big Mac beat the Whopper.
Guest:And both are good for pregnant ladies.
Guest:And she would scarf.
Guest:And then shrimp fried rice, to speak of your Asian American knowledge.
Guest:How do you know this?
Guest:Because she would tell me.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:She was like, I ate a ton of hamburgers.
Guest:Oh, so they were trying to understand how you turned out the way you did?
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:She's like, you love Chinese food.
Guest:It's because I ate that when you were in my belly.
Guest:She grew up, she would wake up super early, go to NIH, come home, cook.
Guest:She's a superhero.
Marc:Like your grandparents in India.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They're still.
Guest:I have one grandmother who's 94 in India.
Marc:Uh huh.
Guest:And it's cool.
Guest:I know we're jumping around a lot, but she just got to read.
Guest:I made because of that Oscars thing.
Guest:I made the front page in India and like all the papers, which wasn't expected.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she got to, she doesn't speak English, but she got to sort of read an article about me in her mother tongue.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Which is super cool, man.
Guest:Do you speak that tongue?
Guest:It's Marathi and no.
Guest:My dad very kindly says we didn't want to overwhelm you by teaching you another language, which is like a sweet way to say I think they thought I was dumb.
Guest:Like they didn't want to confuse me with that.
Guest:And I wasn't like an exceptional child.
Guest:Like some people are, I don't know about you, but like I'm not.
Marc:But they could have brought you up speaking it if they wanted to.
Marc:It sounds more like one of those weird, I think that they probably wanted you to be American.
Guest:I think assimilation was really important to them.
Guest:And they should have given me an easier name.
Guest:I think in retrospect, they might have given me a different name.
Guest:Utkar Shambutkar is like, I feel so bad for people when they hear it for the first time.
Guest:It really confuses the shit out of white people, Americans in general.
Guest:That's a lot, man.
Guest:There's a lot of- There's a lot of sounds you're not used to putting together.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Okay, but so what religion were they?
Guest:So my mother was raised Hindu and my dad is- Hindu, that's what I was looking for.
Guest:Jain, which is sort of the Orthodox Jew of Hinduism.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Like it's very strict, no eating after sundown, no eating any meat, no root vegetables.
Marc:Very food-based, both of them.
Guest:Yep, diet-based.
Guest:My grandmother and my dad's mother prays.
Guest:Was it vegetarian?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:That's the Hindu thing, right?
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:But also, I mean, no, but Hindus, I think, Hindus eat meat in the north.
Guest:Just no cows?
Guest:Technically no cows, yeah.
Guest:Right, that's the trip?
Guest:That's the trip, no cows for, they're sacred.
Marc:But like, so the Hindu deities, the blue guy?
Yeah.
Guest:There's several different colors of deities.
Guest:The blue one is Shiva.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, oh, Krishna is also blue.
Marc:Is Ganesh a Hindu dude?
Guest:He's a god.
Guest:Ganesh is Shiva's son.
Guest:I like Ganesh.
Marc:I do too.
Guest:I have Ganeshas around.
Marc:I have a tattoo right here on my forearm.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:What does Ganesh mean to you?
Guest:Well, it's sort of like knowledge, prosperity, wealth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Great looking deity with the elephant head, many arms.
Guest:He's cute, adorable.
Marc:Oh, he's the best.
Marc:Easily accessible to the Western world.
Marc:Yeah, I've had several Ganeshes in my life.
Marc:I think one of them's that.
Marc:I had a very colorful Ganesh.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:I have a mezuzah on my door.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, my house.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yep, I got a mezuzah right there.
Marc:You didn't put it there, though.
Guest:Absolutely not, but I respect it.
Guest:I've got an om thing hanging next to the mezuzah.
Guest:I got everything covered.
Guest:I got rosary.
Guest:The Ganesh I got at...
Marc:Sorry, now I'm really going.
Marc:The Ganesha got at Bombay Spices over on Los Feliz.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Marc:Yeah, they've got the food there at the buffet, but then they've got a lot of Indian stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, there's Indian...
Marc:colors are amazing even the shitty plastic things are very beautifully colorful we know how to color things i got a shitty plastic ganesh that's so beautiful yeah there's no beige no beige in our culture it's just lit up man lit up that elephant-headed guy so there you are you're hanging out you're what you're you're getting into hip-hop yeah is that what's happened you're a hip-hop guy
Marc:I am.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Isn't it interesting, do you find that, because I talked to Jimmy O. Yang.
Guest:Yeah, I love his stand-up.
Marc:He's like huge hip-hop.
Marc:He grew up, that's how he learned about American culture.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:I've seen all his stand-up.
Guest:For me, it was, you know, I grew up on pop music, soul.
Guest:I wasn't like soul, Motown, R&B, same thing as you.
Guest:I know you guys all have a Paul Simon record.
Guest:We had a Paul Simon record.
Marc:We had Graceland.
Marc:You're talking about the collective we of Indian people?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My family.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:No, because you and Ben Schwartz said that every Jewish person has a Paul Simon record.
Marc:I'm like quoting your podcast.
Marc:Judging by the millions of dollars Paul Simon has, I'm sure it was expanded beyond Jewish households.
Guest:yeah who were buying the paul simon we had a part in that as well yeah we supported yeah um but hip-hop started in like second or third grade and for me that those are like the quintessential years for me that's when like the chronic drops yeah dog doggy style dropped um cypress hill you're in second grade cube third grade third grade it's that's what's soaking in in like a house of pain heavy stuff
Guest:Well, it was really like we didn't know it was heavy.
Guest:It was pop music.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was on the regular top 40 radio.
Guest:And around that same time, there was a feeling of like otherness.
Guest:You know, it was like there was some Maryland is pretty Southern.
Guest:People don't really realize that.
Guest:But people still drive around with Confederate flags on their trucks and things like that.
Guest:And sort of some of the white kids started calling me the N word.
Guest:And the black kids were like, well, you're with us.
Guest:And I was like, are you sure?
Guest:And they're like, yeah, what are you?
Guest:And I was like, I'm Indian.
Guest:They're like, oh, we don't know where the fuck that is.
Guest:But he called you the N word.
Guest:So now you're with us.
Guest:That actually happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That discussion.
Guest:basically like that sort of was like i i feel spiritually like being taken under someone's wing but i think it was a collective culture of just like you know he's he's brought you into to to our group now by way of oppression and prejudice yeah and um and so i sort of embraced that that that culture as it were and do you let the racist decide your future
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:And also, you just come to find you're good at something.
Guest:I just had tape recorders always, and I was always singing little melodies.
Marc:Oh, so you're saying that once you started hanging out with the black dudes, you're already into the music.
Marc:I'm into the music.
Marc:I'm making stuff up.
Marc:And then the one fucking redneck calls you the N-word, and you're like, I guess I'm going to start singing now.
Guest:Well, I had, like, these dreams of, like, being, like, boys to men and singing.
Guest:And then I just kept going with it.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:It's funny in retrospect.
Guest:Like, did I do it because I enjoyed it or because it got me attention?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:It's a real skill set.
Marc:You know, my limited experience or my limited knowledge of hip-hop is it's always impressive, you know, that there's a real context and there's a real skill set that has to be engaged and there's a way to innovate and express yourself very specifically.
Marc:I mean...
Guest:Yeah, and it's fun.
Guest:It's a party trick.
Guest:It started as a party trick to talk about what's in the room.
Marc:Could you teach a class in freestyle?
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I think I could.
Guest:I mean, you'd have to have rhythm and flow, but I can teach you Maren staring, preparing, Bobby McFerrin, you know, add an ING that's a Jaren.
Guest:Like, I could...
Guest:I could teach you tricks and skills, but sort of like if you can't get in the flow and tell the truth, it's the same thing that you do.
Guest:All I do is I tell the truth, but I rhyme when I do it.
Marc:Yeah, but doesn't sometimes the rhyme makes it a little sillier, a little easier to... It makes it easier.
Marc:The truth of the moment...
Guest:Well, I get away with rhyming when sometimes shit isn't that funny, but I got the magic trick of the rhyme to cover it up.
Guest:Whereas, as you know, when you're doing stand-up, if your content isn't solid, maybe you can get away with the delivery, getting a laugh, but you can't really... I mean, there's so many comedians that actually only live on delivery and personality.
Marc:Sure, it's part of it.
Marc:But, okay, so this was a way for you to express...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It just sort of naturally happened.
Guest:I'd make songs up about people.
Marc:It's very immediate though.
Marc:Like, you know, when you do that thing, when you freestyle with somebody else or you're going doing those, you know, duels.
Marc:Battle.
Marc:Battle.
Marc:Thank you for calling it a duel though.
Marc:It makes it much more classy.
Marc:The battle.
Marc:I want to duel you.
Marc:That they're, you know, they're, yeah, you can, that's the amazing thing about rap in general is just the amount of words and what can be expressed in the shortest amount of time.
Guest:Yeah, and how you use it, right?
Guest:I mean, you can use it to self-aggrandize, you can use it for social justice, you can use it to party.
Guest:I mean, you can use it in so many different ways.
Guest:You can toast, you can emcee, you can control the mic.
Guest:To tell a story.
Marc:Ideally, you're telling a story, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so I would think that the more personal, you know, those personal beats, and my recollection of raps that have been that, where you can really kind of set a scene.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Have you ever been a fan of hip-hop?
Marc:Have you ever sort of... Well, I've listened at my... There were different points in my life where, you know, the bigger artists, I'd get their records because it was sort of... And I was old, you know.
Marc:It was not my childhood, certainly.
Marc:But I certainly listened to a lot of Jay-Z.
Marc:I listened to the first few Kanye records a lot.
Marc:I listened to...
Marc:I had a Ghetto Boys record, Cypress Hill record.
Marc:So you know.
Marc:Yeah, you understand.
Marc:I had the Snoop record, I had some Dre records.
Marc:But they were usually the big records.
Marc:They don't run very deep.
Marc:I'm listening to the hits.
Guest:I hear you.
Guest:And vice versa for me with rock and those types of things.
Guest:I got a Strokes album and I got a couple Weezer albums.
Marc:I did my due diligence.
Marc:But the rap records, you've got 10 of the one guy.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:And you know the other guy that used to be
Marc:in the band and then yeah i don't have any like rivers cuomo b-sides but you know i know they exist yeah well that's a that's actually a fairly deep hole that weezer hole yeah it is it's a deep trench yeah i've only got a couple weezer records
Marc:I kind of spread it out, you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, I hear you.
Marc:But I did like, I did love, I've actually got that, what is it, the remix of the White Album, the Gray Album.
Marc:Oh, with Jay-Z, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Danger Mouse.
Marc:Danger Mouse, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's really cool.
Guest:Are we doing, am I part of like a double episode?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Guest:Really?
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:We don't do those anymore.
Marc:You don't?
Marc:No, I mean, I don't think so.
Marc:It seems like we're going okay.
Marc:That's so cool.
Marc:No, it's not going to be one of the situations where I got everything I could out of him.
Marc:I was telling him.
Guest:Came up a little short.
Guest:I was telling my wife, I was like, I'm going to be on a double LP.
Guest:This one, I'm going to be the first.
Guest:He's going to talk for 15.
Guest:I'm going to go for 15.
Guest:And then Patrick Stewart is going to be the main guest.
Marc:No, you're it, buddy.
Marc:Thanks, pal.
Marc:So when did it become a serious thing, the hip hop business?
Guest:In college, I would say.
Marc:What were you going to college for?
Guest:I went for acting.
Guest:I did a BFA in drama.
Marc:So you told your scientist parents that you're going to be an actor?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I did.
Marc:How'd that go?
Guest:I found it was not taken with a lot of confidence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, just to breeze through, doing well, making up songs, having fun, wanted to be a professional basketball player.
Guest:That was my trajectory.
Marc:That was it?
Marc:So not even a musician?
Guest:Fuck all that.
Guest:Were you a good ball player?
Guest:I mean, I'll tell you yes, and I still can play on the weekends, and I can hold my own with people.
Guest:I'm a functional basketball player at 36, but no, there's no chance that I would have made it to the NBA.
Guest:Ever.
Guest:But everything I do now is like plan B because I failed at my first dream, which was to be in the NBA.
Guest:Huh.
Marc:That's how you see it.
Marc:I still hold on to it like a lost opportunity.
Marc:Maybe you should work that out with an inventory.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I should, I should, yeah.
Guest:I resent the National Basketball Association.
Guest:I resent genetics.
Guest:My part is I'm full of shit.
Guest:But I found theater in high school.
Guest:I had moved in eighth grade to a new high school and felt pretty- Why the move?
Guest:I think my parents just wanted to move to a better school district.
Marc:They wanted to move closer to NIH.
Guest:And I was feeling out of place and I found theater and I had an aptitude for that sort of attention.
Marc:Out of place, why?
Marc:Because it was a nicer school, less integrated?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:More polite people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You sort of hit it right on the head.
Marc:Where were your homeboys?
Guest:We went.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:We went from like a nice pair of sweatpants would get you in to like you need.
Guest:I mean, at the time it was like Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, a bunch of things that like the price to just show up looking like other people.
Guest:You jumped to class.
Guest:A hundred percent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like I showed up to school.
Guest:I remember on my first day in a Michael Jordan jersey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like this is the best thing I got.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is the fanciest I get.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just looking around and being like, I am out of my fucking element.
Guest:There's no way I can compete with these people.
Guest:And then plus you show up anywhere new.
Guest:Like now I have a certain amount of grace about it.
Guest:But with my name, it was always such a hard transition just to get people to address me.
Guest:Do you have a nickname?
Guest:There have been so many nicknames around.
Marc:What do you answer to?
Guest:I answer to Utkarsh.
Guest:And then my friends, for some reason, call me UTK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is more syllables than my real name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sounds cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I take UTK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, all right.
Guest:I mean, it makes me sound like I'm proficient in something.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Ice Cube wouldn't call me UTK.
Guest:We did a barbershop movie together and he's like, man, I can't say your name.
Guest:How do I say your name?
Guest:I was like, just call me UTK.
Guest:And he's like, no, that's too cool.
Guest:He was like, you don't deserve a name like that.
Guest:I was like, all right then, Mr. Cube.
Guest:Thank you, Mr. Jackson.
Guest:When did you work with Ice Cube?
Guest:Four or five years ago.
Guest:Was that a big deal for you?
Guest:Huge.
Guest:Everything's a big deal for me.
Guest:This is a huge fucking deal for me.
Guest:But he's got to be a hero.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I was on a set with Ice Cube, Common, Eve.
Guest:Nicki Minaj was there, but I didn't grow up in awe of her.
Guest:But just picking their brains constantly.
Guest:Doing lyrics with them.
Guest:Cedric the Entertainer, who I know you've had here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who's like one of the... And JB Smooth, who I don't know if you've had.
Guest:I've had him, yeah.
Guest:Dude, these... Cedric and JB are two of the most blackout, lose-your-mind improvisers I've ever seen.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Of just going for...
Guest:Like take after take, minute after minute.
Guest:And then you're like, Cedric, do that again.
Guest:And he's like, I don't know what I did.
Guest:It's brilliance at work.
Guest:And just clowning each other, the stories that they would tell.
Guest:But I'm just like peppering questions.
Guest:Ice Cube always.
Guest:I'm like, this is a little inside baseball, but I'm like, what happened with West Side Connection?
Guest:How come you and Mac 10 aren't making music anymore?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:what's going on and like he'd answer me and um he's like well this went down and this is how i feel and i don't want to talk out of turn but like he would share this information with me and i'm like looking at the dude who founded rap as we know it yeah with just like you know crazy motherfucker named ice cube boom nuclear that's the big bang of hip-hop in many ways right yeah it's a second big bang right
Guest:but I remember he calls me over we're like in between takes right and I would go have a cigarette and just sort of sit by myself like what the fuck am I doing here and he calls me over and he's got this pill stereo this beats pill he's like hey man come here and I was like
Guest:And they immediately start shaking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And fear is a big thing for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like I don't belong here and I'm not going to pretend that I do.
Guest:Like a lot of people like fake it till you make it.
Guest:I'm like, no, dude, I'm genuinely going to be nervous, shitting my pants always.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he brings me over and he plays me an entire unreleased Ice Cube album.
Guest:Just him and me in front of his blacked out Escalade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, what do you think?
Guest:And he's just playing me track after track after track.
Guest:Because he knew you were a fan?
Guest:Huge.
Guest:Huge fan.
Guest:I let that be known.
Guest:I was like, you got to sign this for me.
Guest:You got to do that.
Guest:Like, I'm not shy about if I love someone's work.
Guest:And if I don't, I'll say good luck and God bless you.
Guest:And I wish you all the best.
Marc:So he chose you.
Marc:He's like, this kid will give me an honest read.
Guest:Oh, man, I was so excited.
Guest:And I said to him, and I know I'm not cool.
Guest:Like, I know I'm a nerd when it comes to this shit.
Guest:And I said to him, I was like, you're never going to – my friends aren't going to believe this.
Guest:I was like, I know I'm supposed to be behaving cool.
Guest:I said this out loud.
Guest:I was like, Mr. Cube, sir.
Guest:I was like, I know I'm supposed to be cool right now, but this is the coolest shit that's ever happened to me.
Guest:This is incredible, and I can't stop shaking, and I thank you.
Guest:And he's just like – he's like, all right, all right, all right.
Guest:And he's still – if I send him a text, I'll be like –
Guest:Hey, Ice, it's Utkarsh.
Guest:You starred with me in Barbershop the next cut.
Guest:I pretty much stole the whole movie.
Guest:You might not remember me, just hoping you have a good holiday.
Guest:And every time he's like, man, stop asking me if I remember you.
Guest:I remember you.
Guest:Leave me alone.
Guest:Same text every time.
Guest:Same exact text.
Guest:But what did you think of the music?
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:It's vintage Cube.
Guest:And most of that- Which record did it turn into?
Guest:It turned into his last, the most recent record, which I can't remember the title of, but it came out early last year.
Guest:And it's got tracks called Kill the President on it.
Guest:It's very Ice Cube.
Guest:Don't Have No Haters, Chemikils.
Guest:He rhymes Chemikils with Peels.
Guest:It's vintage Ice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like most of the kids today aren't going to love that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Hip-hop is totally different.
Guest:What are they going to love?
Guest:Well, hip-hop is more like R&B now.
Guest:Hip-hop is sort of this lean, the drink leaned out, drugged out, at least the sound of it.
Guest:It's very like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
Guest:Everything is super triplet.
Guest:It's like, when I'm ripping the triple, they're killing it.
Guest:And I got the hoe on the knees, and I'm doing the show.
Guest:And it's very catchy.
Guest:I mean, it sounds cool, but it's not what I came up with, so it doesn't hit me in my heart center.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I don't feel moved by it.
Guest:There's no one doing that anymore?
Guest:Sure, like J. Cole's rapping, Kendrick is rapping, but nobody's hitting that boom bap, that shit that makes you want to punch somebody in the throat.
Guest:That's not happening.
Guest:No more.
Guest:No, and I'm not violent enough.
Guest:I couldn't carry that.
Guest:I couldn't make punch people in the throat music.
Guest:They do a background check and be like, you don't have the credibility for this.
Marc:So you're in college and you're doing the theater thing.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:so i fall in love with theater in high school i find that i'm like have an aptitude for it yeah i'm doing it on a level and i'm improvising all the lines on stage i don't know that you're not supposed to do it so like the first play i did was like a shakespeare play and i'm improvising in and around the line was there no one directing the play
Guest:Yeah, but yes, Marion DiGiulio was her name.
Guest:But she said, you know, you're very good at this.
Guest:And I was getting laughs and I was sort of drunk on the laughter.
Guest:Never thought to do stand-up?
Guest:I've tried it twice and I started too late.
Guest:I started after I had booked a pilot and after I'd done some commercials and some TV stuff and I realized what you do is exceptionally difficult.
Guest:The bringer shows, I just didn't have the stomach for it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was like, this is a means to getting a TV deal.
Guest:It's not something I want to do every night.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So.
Guest:I didn't feel like.
Guest:It wasn't your passion.
Guest:No, like on the drive here, like I had instrumental beats on and I rapped the whole 20, 25 minute drive here.
Guest:Like I love that.
Guest:Instrumental beats.
Guest:That means.
Guest:Just no, no raps.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Just instrumentals.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you could do it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Just so I can keep the muscles sharp.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:But I'm not going to be writing jokes the way I imagine you do or Seinfeld does or even Eddie Murphy's probably, even though he hasn't done a special in 35 years.
Marc:Well, my process is like yours.
Marc:I go on stage and improvise.
Guest:Yeah, which is wild because, again, in that, Brent Schwartz is a buddy of mine, and in that interview, you said that improv terrifies you, but then the whole Sword of Trust movie was improvised, right?
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, it's... But there's a difference in kind of emotionally... There's a difference for me...
Marc:I know what improvisers do.
Marc:And when you've got a muscle to get laughs improvising with other people, to be sort of giving in that way and to work like that, most of my improvising comedically is done with myself and an audience, moving through ideas.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:So I create that conversation.
Marc:The conversation with other people, my fear on sort of trust was from the beginning.
Marc:I told Lynn after three days, I said, you know, a lot of these people are very broad improvisers that can drop in and out of these, you know, these bits, bits and characters.
Marc:And I'm just going to end up being the straight guy here if we don't get people into some real groove.
Marc:So my groove is always going to be kind of real.
Marc:I'm not going to be like, oh, here we go.
Marc:I'm talking like this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So but so I always associate, you know, the Schwartzian, you know, Del Closian, you know, that that trip as as being, you know, Second City, as being proficient in being able to drop into fairly convincing comedic characters.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Schwartz is like a master at that shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But the sort of trust stuff and the improvising that you're talking about to me is infinitely more interesting.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Guest:To be able to improvise with given stakes, stay grounded, be rooted in reality.
Marc:That I can do.
Marc:Yeah, you do it really well.
Guest:I mean, that's something with the Freestyle Love Supreme show with the freestyle rap.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a comedy show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the most special parts for me where it opens up and it becomes something other than where like the opportunity for like real truthful expression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is like kind of what I think the ethos of like this podcast is like you're you're one of these people that I look at as somebody who appreciates seeks.
Guest:and sort of really relishes in the dark truth, like sort of the underbelly.
Guest:You like going under the boat and seeing what the hell's grown on it over the years.
Marc:You'd be amazed at how many boats have similar growths under them.
Guest:Yeah, I imagine.
Guest:I mean, you live in... It's Glendale.
Marc:No, but I mean, in general, talking to people, the menu of sort of transgression or life choices that beat people up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's finite, really.
Guest:Well, yeah, it's either like, I was too selfish here, I burned the bridge there.
Guest:And fucking killed that guy there.
Guest:Yeah, it's like, I couldn't... Threw up on that guy there.
Guest:Yeah, my dad did this, and then I couldn't show up on time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's why I live in the street.
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Guest:By choice.
Guest:But, yeah, when I'm rapping and I can really talk about things that sort of transcend the idea of humor, whether it's sobriety or the South Asian American experience or sort of what it's like to feel other mental health, like people dealing with anxiety.
Guest:But I'm doing it in the moment.
Guest:It's totally improvised.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's your reality mentally and in life.
Marc:That shit's exciting.
Marc:Yeah, that's very exciting.
Marc:It's very exciting because a lot of times, like you said, I mean, it's going to land a certain way.
Marc:Like I'm doing straight up stand up and some of this shit, I know it's going to land weird and people aren't going to know what to do with it or process it.
Marc:And the expectation is to process it.
Marc:through comedy or to have the experience of being entertained or laughing, but I've done many bits in my life where people are just sort of like, I don't know what to do.
Marc:Yeah, which is a cool feeling.
Marc:To make somebody feel that way is pretty, it tickles me.
Marc:It does me too, but over time I realize when those are and I'm like,
Marc:All right, let's cleanse the palate a little bit.
Guest:Let's lighten it up.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:I'm sorry, guys.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I made you so uncomfortable.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Regroup.
Marc:Birds.
Marc:You're like, oh, bird, those wings.
Marc:They're little dinosaurs.
Guest:Who would have thought?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now back to my father.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So you're riffing the Shakespeare, but like... Yeah, and then I tell my parents I want to go to college to act, and they go the only Indian... Oh, so the Shakespeare riffing was in high school.
Guest:High school.
Guest:And then I go to...
Marc:That's why the director didn't get on you about it.
Guest:I go to my parents and I go, exactly, yeah.
Guest:But I see that I have an aptitude for it and I think people respond to it and I go, mom, dad, I want to do this for my life.
Guest:And they go, the only Indian on TV is Apu on The Simpsons and he's a fucking cartoon voiced by a white guy.
Guest:So what makes you, Hank Azaria, who now is my good friend, but like.
Marc:You did Brockmire with him?
Marc:I did.
Marc:That's done, right?
Guest:I don't know, actually.
Guest:You should fucking text him and be like, hey, man, what the fuck?
Guest:I know they did seasons three and four.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He's like a wildly talented guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And a great teacher as well.
Guest:Open to questions.
Guest:I like asking questions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's nice when people answer.
Guest:And he's one of them.
Marc:Did you take him to task for Appu?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had a lot of conversations about that.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I mean, I ended up being in this documentary called The Problem with Apu.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I remember.
Guest:That my friend Hari Kondabolu made.
Marc:I know, Hari.
Marc:I just was texting with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's an amazing stand-up.
Guest:He's one of my favorites.
Yeah.
Marc:He approached me.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Before he started.
Marc:Just this sort of strangely intense, very uncomfortable, seemingly angry dude.
Guest:He's got that anger gene.
Marc:But he came up to me, and it was in... I don't know.
Marc:I remember if... I feel like we're kindred spirits, and I represented something to him early on.
Marc:And I know we've talked about it.
Marc:I can't remember if I've had him on a full episode or he was just on a live one.
Marc:If I haven't had him on a full episode, I probably should.
Marc:But I feel like he was just on a live one.
Marc:He's brilliant.
Marc:Yeah, but we've always had this thing.
Guest:You guys have a similar shade about you from what I know of you from your work.
Marc:And, you know, he came up to me and I remember he asked me about stand up and what he should do and whether he should do it.
Marc:We had like a conversation at the Comedy Cellar and there was sort of this I was there at the beginning of that guy.
Marc:And then and then, like, I don't know what's happened over time.
Marc:I think we're OK.
Marc:He just texted me because he's producing.
Guest:I think that Apu thing was really ultimately, I don't know if trauma is the right word, but it certainly wasn't easy for him.
Guest:He caught a lot of negativity from a lot of people for trying to shed light on how South Asians have been seen, at least in Hollywood.
Guest:And dude, there's so many people listening to this podcast right now who just turned it off, who are like, I can't hear another goddamn thing about fucking diversity and equality.
Marc:I think you're misjudging my audience.
Guest:Oh, I hope so.
Guest:I hope you guys are still here.
Guest:But Hari wanted to shed light on that.
Guest:And the character of Apu was sort of the through line or the entryway into that larger conversation.
Guest:Hank kind of got caught as collateral damage as a result of that because he voices Apu.
Guest:And I remember when we were shooting Brockmire, I was like, oh, shit, I was in this dock and it shit all over the sky.
Guest:And I absolutely cannot tell him while we're working together that that's the case.
Guest:What, he didn't see it?
Guest:He hadn't seen it yet.
Guest:Oh, it wasn't out yet?
Guest:No, it hadn't come out yet.
Guest:So I was like, stay on the hush.
Guest:See what you learned?
Guest:I was like, let me just work with this guy and learn as much as I can.
Guest:He's the most prepared actor I've ever worked with.
Marc:Oh, he's a very anal dude, man.
Marc:He is very detail-oriented.
Marc:Okay, that's a nice way to put it.
Guest:And then afterwards, I shot him an email.
Guest:I was like, Hank, working with you was a true gift.
Guest:And it was.
Guest:I learned so much from him.
Guest:And I just need to let you know that I'm in this doc called Problem with Apu.
Guest:And I don't say kind things about the character.
Guest:I'm very honest about how I feel about it, which is, you know, I think it's set...
Guest:It certainly was the bane of my, one of the bane.
Guest:It was between that and Temple of Doom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Childhood was difficult.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As far as bullying was concerned.
Guest:There was some very low hanging fruit for people to reach from.
Guest:Reach for.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Like you eat monkey brains and you got slushies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:It was it.
Guest:And I was like, oh, sick burn.
Guest:You have everything else.
Marc:I guess it's sort of the benefit of not being a broader stereotype is that there was sort of a hackneyed nature to the limited oeuvre of insulting Southeast Asians.
Guest:Hey, curry boy.
Marc:I'm like, it's true.
Marc:Well, I mean, I bet you there's a lot more in England.
Guest:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Guest:Every country, every immigrant experience is country based in the sense that like UK Indians and South Asian Americans.
Marc:They've been there longer and there's a history of colonialism.
Marc:Yeah, it's a whole different ballgame.
Marc:Oh, for sure, man.
Guest:Here, there's different conversations happening in America that we are not necessarily a part of.
Marc:I got to have him on.
Marc:Please do.
Marc:I had him on a live one in Portland.
Marc:He's brilliant.
Marc:Truly.
Marc:Look, you don't got to tell me.
Marc:It's just like he sort of annoyed me because we're similar.
Guest:I know how that feels.
Guest:I know how that feels.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:I'm going to tell him right now.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:I'm talking.
Guest:Oh, now I got to spell your fucking name.
Guest:U-T-K-A-R-S-H.
Guest:S-H.
Guest:What if everywhere you went, people were like, Maers?
Guest:Maers?
Guest:And you were like, Mark.
Guest:What?
Guest:Ma.
Guest:Merch.
Guest:Ma.
Guest:Mars.
Guest:No, it's Mark.
Guest:It's just how it's spelled.
Marc:I'll say.
Marc:I don't get it.
Marc:Can't believe you haven't been on.
Marc:Been on for a whole one.
Guest:He's gonna be like, I love that guy, and you're right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So what were we doing?
Marc:Oh, we're talking about Apu.
Guest:We were talking about Apu, Azaria.
Guest:Parents are like, you shouldn't do that.
Marc:All right, that's it.
Guest:I ended up auditioning for all the schools.
Guest:I think my dad, you know, for being a scientist, he chased that.
Guest:He had a passion for it.
Guest:And so I think he appreciated it.
Guest:I did the college thing.
Marc:Appreciated your... The passion.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Sort of like the idea that this kid's going for something.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They're just afraid.
Guest:They're like, we came to the U.S.
Marc:so you could be, what?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's always... Usually...
Marc:If it's not resentment, which is rare, it's just sort of like, we're not going to feed you forever.
Guest:Also, we will feed you forever.
Guest:Why don't you just, because they're Indian, why don't you just live in the basement and not have to go through the pain of the failure that is sure to befall you?
Marc:Yeah, he just said Ut Karsh is wonderful.
Guest:Oh, I told you.
Marc:But see, he's a guy that uses that word.
Marc:Do you use that word?
Marc:Yeah, I do.
Marc:Would you use that in a rap?
Guest:No, because it doesn't rhyme well.
Marc:Right, but it's also like, what kind of word is that?
Marc:Yeah, wonderful.
Marc:No, I mean, it's just sort of like, that's wonderful.
Marc:It makes me uncomfortable to say it, but I'm glad he said it.
Marc:He said one of these days.
Marc:Yeah, we say wonderful.
Guest:I say wonderful.
Marc:You do?
Guest:I do.
Guest:What a wonderful thing to say.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, nice.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:My wife used a word the other day that I've never heard spoken.
Guest:She smelled something and she said, oh, that is repugnant.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:And I started laughing because I'd never heard it said out loud.
Marc:That's a good rap word.
Guest:I thought it was so funny.
Marc:You could use that word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Repugnant.
Guest:Repugnant.
Guest:in a dungeon, drugged in.
Guest:Anyway.
Marc:But is your wife Indian?
Marc:She's Kiwi.
Guest:She's from New Zealand.
Guest:She's half Samoan and half European.
Marc:European, just general European.
Guest:Oh, that's repugnant.
Guest:And I was like, oh, my God, you sound amazing.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:You love her.
Marc:So, all right, so you apply to all the schools?
Guest:Apply to all the schools, get into NYU, start the college acting world, that life, do some plays, find that rapping is what feels good, and I start studying it like it's a job.
Marc:So after the theater, so you do some plays, you're acting, but you land on rap.
Guest:I land on rap.
Guest:Dude, because everything in school like Shanley, Ibsen, Chekhov.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All of these roles are written for white people.
Marc:See, even just the way you said that, I thought there was going to be a rap there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Shanley, Ibsen, Chekhov.
Guest:Yeah, I couldn't get that because my skin ain't soft.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Too full of melanin to play any of those gentlemen.
Marc:You've never said that before?
Guest:melanin and gentlemen maryland yeah elephant eloquent okay enveloping that's part of your toolbox there's yeah that's a big part those triple letter triple letter rhymes for melanin are way at the top of the toolbox they're right in there it's the hammer and nail for me i got it um it's like yeah that's the thread it's basically yeah exactly it's pretty much go-to um
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:You were not represented and you didn't necessarily want to go the experimental route and be the Indian guy in the Ibsen play.
Guest:No, and they wouldn't have let me.
Marc:Really?
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:I remember having arguments of being like, why can't I do Chekhov?
Guest:Why can't I do the Seagull?
Guest:What kind of fucking school is that?
Guest:Because they're Russian people.
Guest:What kind of school is that?
Guest:I'm like, well, what about the plays for Indian people?
Guest:And there's a play called The Perfect Ganesh, and I was like, I don't want to play fucking Ganesh.
Guest:I just want to play what you get to play.
Guest:I want to do Lonergan, and I want to do Boghossian.
Guest:And they wouldn't do it?
Guest:I mean, there was arguments about it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And this is with who?
Guest:The faculty?
Guest:Faculty, students, yeah.
Marc:What the fuck?
Guest:That seems crazy.
Guest:I mean, school...
Guest:I love the vocal training I got, the movement training.
Guest:The people that I met there are some of the most brilliant people that are still working today.
Guest:You know, I was in Cyphers.
Guest:That's where you rap in a circle.
Guest:I was in Cyphers with Donald Glover and I wrote a play that Zoe Lister Jones.
Guest:They went to school with you?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Zoe Lister Jones, you know, rapped.
Guest:I wrote this hip hop play and she was one of the characters in it.
Guest:I remember.
Guest:Super cool.
Guest:So he's your crew?
Guest:Donald Glover was a dude, if I saw at a party, I got scared, because I knew he could wrap his ass off.
Guest:And I knew we would end up in a circle together, and I was gonna have to fucking hear somebody who was as good, if not, to be honest, better than me.
Guest:And he was clear-headed and clear-eyed at the time.
Guest:He was an RA, he was a resident advisor.
Guest:I went over to his dorm room to record a track together and I like rolled up a blunt and he was like, you can't smoke that here.
Guest:I'm an RA.
Guest:So stupid.
Guest:I like walked around Washington Square Park in 2003 smoking weed.
Guest:Highly illegal at the time.
Guest:And then I went up and I did this rap.
Guest:I was like, I'm just going to freestyle.
Guest:Like, if I could go back in time to that moment, I would have written a proper rap.
Guest:Wait, where'd you go to college?
Guest:I went to NYU.
Guest:Oh, so you were at the Tisch School?
Guest:I went to Tisch, yeah.
Guest:And they wouldn't let you play Ibsen parts?
Guest:You know, it was just like, it just didn't.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's preschool to like you're in acting school and someone's like, OK, we're all going to pretend we're cold.
Guest:And I looked around and I was like, oh, Lord, I'm like in kindergarten.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm in preschool for one hundred and God knows how many thousand dollars a year.
Marc:So who else was in the in the school with you?
Guest:They're all still my good friends.
Guest:Mostly they're writers and actors now.
Guest:D.R.
Guest:Kilpatrick.
Marc:Out here?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:She writes on The Last OG and she has a run this season.
Guest:Miles O'Ryan Feldsatt, who's a writer and a showrunner.
Guest:He just did Deadly Class.
Guest:Jamie King, who wrote on Jessica Jones.
Guest:They're all still my close friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Malcolm Barrett, who was just on Timeless and he's always working.
Guest:Wade Elaine Marcus, whose mother, Stephanie Elaine, produced the Oscars.
Marc:So that's how you got the opening to the Oscars.
Guest:So Stephanie Elaine knows me since I'm 18, 19.
Guest:Her son, Wade, who's a phenomenal actor, musician, writer.
Guest:We've been in groups together and hip hop theater programs and we went to West Africa and taught hip hop theater.
Guest:I mean, he and I are, I don't have brothers and sisters, so there's chosen family.
Guest:So he's like my bro.
Guest:And she hit me up and she was like, we want you to write the opening number for the Oscars.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:I've never done that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:And she was like, we got Janelle Monae.
Guest:So I said, okay, I don't think Janelle Monae is going to want my input.
Guest:She's a freaking legend.
Guest:She's like the next iteration of Prince.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was real quiet.
Guest:I went off and did a movie with Jillian in Boston called Godmothered.
Guest:We're about to wrap on that.
Marc:Jillian Bell.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Jillian Bell.
Guest:You, your coworker, your fellow coworker.
Guest:And, um, and then I got this call and they were like, we want you to wrap at the Oscars.
Guest:We want you to do a mid show.
Marc:So pressure's off.
Marc:No opening number.
Guest:I don't have to write the opening number, but I do have to perform at the Oscars mid-show for a bunch of people who I know I'm not going to feel comfortable around.
Guest:Mainly because they're super famous, and I've already established how much of a fucking fanboy I am.
Guest:I have no chill around people that I admire.
Guest:Also, and you have been around people like this, but the level of wealth...
Guest:in the room and the way people act when they got fuck you money when they got like fuck my like my kids can say fuck you money fuck you money for generations yeah like i got grandchildren fuck you money yeah like i could cry genetically freeze myself for fun like i could go to space just to go yeah like that kind of yeah like being in rooms like that yeah it's pretty intimidating and also it just feels kind of uncomfortable
Marc:Yeah, and then they try to act like regular people.
Guest:Like waiting on the bathroom and Rita Wilson's there.
Guest:And I'm like, you're probably the nicest person here.
Guest:I have to go on stage.
Guest:Can I please go to the bathroom?
Guest:And her being like, yes, of course.
Guest:But Pacino's in the other stall.
Guest:And you're like, what's happening right now?
Guest:I have to fucking rap for these people.
Guest:Was he going, oh, oh.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:Yeah, he makes a lot of noises.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And you love every single one of them.
Guest:You're like, oh, my God.
Guest:He's fucking...
Guest:He's grunting.
Guest:Here we go.
Guest:He's doing Pacino.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's like, dude, that's a great Pacino impression that you're doing.
Guest:He's like, it's me.
Guest:And then like walking out on stage.
Guest:It's definitely like the scariest thing that I've done that I know I can do.
Marc:It's a weird lonely island up there for a minute.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you also know that they're half paying attention and that it's a very strange situation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you, you know what I, and I'm no good at them, but you realize like all I'm performing for is the camera and that, that, you know, that's really what it's going to come down to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like I'd prepared, I'd spent a week sort of figuring out what the content would be so that I could plug in winners.
Guest:Like also the network wouldn't let me freestyle.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to make it up.
Guest:They're like, no, no, no, no, you're not.
Guest:We're going to say it's made up and you're going to be prepared.
Yeah.
Guest:Which actually helped me out, because I got to learn it like a rat.
Marc:Oh, yeah, because, yeah, well, dude, it's like I appreciate that spirit, and I've done that before.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But if you would have stuck by that and they would have let you, you would have fucked yourself.
Marc:I think so, too.
Marc:You would have been too nervous to pull it off.
Marc:I was...
Guest:i was terrified am i wrong not at all you're a hundred percent right my voice kept telling me the little guy in my head that is uh you know likes to think of himself as the realist yeah is like um you're gonna this up like you are too scared yeah you're you have an ulcer like you're gonna die no but like you're giving yourself an ulcer you're gonna diarrhea your pants yeah you're gonna do that
Guest:Shit my pants?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, but I did have violent diarrhea for the week.
Marc:Before?
Guest:Leading up to it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, my stomach.
Guest:Yeah, my reptile brain doesn't know that I'm just going to go rap.
Marc:Right, but in general, before you go on stage, you're a diarrhea guy?
Marc:Yeah, I get nauseous.
Guest:I mean, I give a fuck.
Marc:I think I probably care too much about it.
Marc:I get it, but I care too, but I'm never a diarrhea guy.
Guest:No, my belly, everything, my emotions go straight to my tum-tum.
Marc:I go to my chest.
Marc:My chest tightens up.
Guest:That happens for me, too.
Guest:Oh, you're full range.
Guest:Full thing, man.
Guest:Full beta blocker necessity.
Marc:That beta blocker never worked for me.
Marc:No.
Marc:They work for you?
Guest:They do.
Guest:I mean, in my mind, they do.
Marc:What, you mean just before you go on?
Marc:Half hour?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Pop in that propanolol and just hope for the best.
Marc:So you're in college, and how did you start working?
Marc:You started a group.
Marc:You don't call them a band.
Guest:No, what I did was I...
Guest:I started a hip-hop theater program at NYU.
Marc:But had that existed?
Marc:Is there such a thing as hip-hop theater?
Guest:No.
Guest:My professor, Daniel Banks, and a guy named Joby Earl, and Robbie Sublett, and I basically just birthed this thing because he was doing this class where we had to read all these books.
Guest:And he was like, this is hip-hop theater, but all it was was fucking books.
Guest:And I kept ditching class to go write.
Guest:What kind of books?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:I mean like books by like Ngugiwa Thiong about like ritualistic theater.
Guest:And I was like, this is amazing that you on an academic level want to bring this to my brain.
Guest:But my brain wants to fucking spit.
Guest:I want to rap and I want to write and perform.
Guest:And you need to provide a space.
Guest:We need to provide a space for that.
Guest:So we did.
Guest:We started a practicum, did a show.
Guest:And then summer before senior- A practicum?
Guest:Yeah, it's like basically you just go.
Marc:You got to get okayed?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Just to fast forward, summer before senior year, I took this on-camera acting class.
Guest:It was like an NYU summer program.
Guest:And you're meant to meet these casting agents and people every week.
Guest:And at this point, I was like, fuck acting.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:I ate way too many shrooms in college.
Guest:My brain is fried.
Guest:Shroom is always your thing?
Guest:Everything.
Guest:Weed, shrooms, not so much booze in college because I was underage.
Guest:But like, I mean, I remember going to like a fish show and not getting in.
Guest:But like there was acid.
Guest:So I remember like tripping balls in like Howard Stern's basement, which is just something that happens when you go to NYU.
Guest:What were you doing in Howard Stern's basement?
Guest:His daughter and I were in acting school together.
Guest:She's lovely.
Guest:Emily is like the coolest.
Guest:I probably, I don't know if I was supposed to share that.
Guest:But hey, yeah.
Guest:Well, you can decide.
Guest:Anyway, I just was sort of done with it.
Guest:And I remember the first week I went into this agent and she was like, you got to read this copy.
Guest:And it was like Listerine or chewing gum or something like that.
Guest:And I was like, oh...
Guest:Listerine, you should take Listerine.
Guest:It'll keep your breath fucking fresh, whatever.
Guest:And she was like, you can't say fuck in an audition.
Guest:And I don't know where... I just had so much fuck it in me.
Guest:And I was like, listen, I don't give a shit about this.
Guest:I just did three years of acting school.
Guest:I know that you want diversity.
Guest:I'm Indian.
Guest:You can sell that.
Guest:I can help you.
Guest:I can make money doing this, and you can make money, but...
Guest:I'm going to be a rapper and a spoken word artist.
Guest:That's what I do.
Guest:And I handed her a shitty flyer for my battle at Simpson on that Monday.
Guest:And I was like, you can come see me here.
Guest:And if you want to work together, great.
Guest:But like, I don't need to do this.
Guest:I don't know what, I was just, I don't know, I don't know, because I'm a pretty polite person now, but that's like, there's just so much, like, that arrogance of youth, that cockiness, that I'm gonna be.
Guest:Like, it's been my job to think of myself on the highest level, and to have the utmost confidence and ego in myself, and then it's been life's job to fucking humiliate me.
Guest:into having some sort of sense of humility and being humble.
Guest:So I'm like, I'm the greatest and life is like, nah, bro.
Guest:And we sort of have this back and forth.
Marc:Yeah, I have the same.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So this agent signed me the next day.
Guest:did she come to the battle well her yeah she ended up coming but her eyes went wide she was like you rap and you do spoken word and i was like this is not going the way i thought it would i was signed within 48 hours and within like a week i was doing my first off-broadway show which was a hip-hop theater show it was like a spoken word piece mostly done for youth called history of the word so that so hip-hop theater existed
Guest:It did.
Guest:It had started with the hip hop theater festival that Camilla Forbes and this guy named Clyde had started a few years earlier.
Guest:My first professional gig was assistant directing a show that was written by Chadwick Boseman, who ended up becoming the Black Panther.
Guest:We did that in D.C.
Guest:at Howard University at the festival, I think in 04.
Guest:In any case, I started doing commercials.
Guest:I started doing these plays.
Guest:I'm battling.
Guest:I'm doing pretty well on the battle circuit.
Guest:You making records?
Guest:I'm making a few records, but not really because I'm spending too much time kind of getting fucked up and sort of enjoying the life.
Marc:Booze now?
Guest:Booze, yeah, because if you want to battle, you got a bottle of vodka and a $100 bill.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:40 ounces.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:just doing that and just being like coasting on potential in new york in new york yeah and being like i'm gonna be the greatest when you're 23 22 you're like it's inevitable yeah and then you hit 30 31 and people are like hey man all that potential doesn't mean shit like are you gonna do so you dicked around for that long but you were doing shit right you were directing you were teaching and you know yeah and just like smoking weed every day and
Guest:But did you get involved with Lin-Manuel Miranda?
Guest:So out of history of the word, that first job, a producer named Oren Wolf introduced me to Lin and the guys, Anthony Shock, Chris Jackson, Tommy Kail, Arthur and Bill.
Guest:And I joined Freestyle Love Supreme when I was 21.
Guest:That's his thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or 22 years old.
Guest:And started performing with them.
Guest:That's like 15 years ago.
Guest:And, you know, we just sort of culminated this first, I guess, novel in the series with a Broadway run.
Guest:That story has ended nicely.
Guest:And a new one is beginning.
Guest:but what do you mean so that it finally went to broadway yeah like we got to broadway these motherfuckers did like in the heights and hamilton and tommy did fossey verdone and lynn obviously is lynn um and we got to go to broadway and i just got to do like 200 shows on broadway and meet patrick stewart and for rap bro like i got to freestyle rap every night was freestyle yeah every single night is a totally different show with no context
Guest:Zero context.
Guest:It's just fucking start and go.
Guest:How many people?
Guest:On stage?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Three MCs, a beatboxer, and two keyboardists, so seven.
Marc:How'd it go?
Guest:Sold out.
Guest:Made their money back.
Guest:Got to meet Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very big deal.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Padma Lakshmi came through.
Guest:Hari came through.
Guest:Asif Manvi.
Guest:Patrick Stewart.
Guest:Ian McKellen.
Guest:Helen Mirren.
Guest:Opening night was so cool.
Guest:It was like Black Thought.
Guest:Most Def.
Guest:Ryan Reynolds.
Guest:Ira Glass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Alan Cummings.
Guest:Josh Groban.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Katie Couric, and you're like, what the fuck are all you doing here for this?
Guest:It's that kind of show.
Guest:It just brings- New Yorkers.
Guest:New Yorkers, exactly.
Guest:But it can also just bring a bevy of different people in.
Marc:Sure, celebrity's weird.
Guest:Celebrity is very strange, as I learned.
Marc:Yeah, they can only hang out with each other sometimes, and they all go to the same place at the same time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're not necessarily connected-
Marc:But New York's different like that.
Marc:All of those people, I think, at least Ira and Katie and I imagine a couple of the other people are New Yorkers.
Guest:Yeah, but you talk to so many of them.
Guest:Do you feel intimidated?
Guest:Like when you're sitting with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt and your mic stops working, are you like...
Marc:No, I'm more mad that I'm not going to get something.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:I used to be more intimidated.
Marc:I'm more intimidated in my life in here by musicians, older musicians who have really changed my life somehow.
Marc:There have been some actors who I found intimidating, but when I really think about it,
Marc:You know, overwhelmed is more the feeling, not like, you know, intimidated.
Marc:I'm not intimidated, but you're sort of like, whoa, this is a special person.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, and you have to reckon with the special person.
Marc:Like some people, even if it's as simple as Mandy Moore, you know, then some people just you see them walking up and you're like, holy shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She has a glow about her.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then I see Letterman.
Marc:That brings a lot of my life, my baggage.
Marc:It's not baggage, but I've always loved Letterman.
Marc:But he comes up and I'm like, this is a fucking real thing, man.
Marc:This is David Letterman.
Marc:But I'm not intimidated because they're flesh and blood and you feel that pretty quickly.
Marc:And I've become very attuned to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you're yeah.
Guest:That's the thing that I admire about you is you you kind of cut through that real quick by sort of opening yourself up and it sort of gives other people permission to be vulnerable as well.
Marc:It's a humanizing thing.
Marc:You know, they are all just people and some of them are hiding more than others.
Marc:Some of them have a a, you know, a deeper stick.
Guest:Well, that's a skill I think I learned from you is just being like, yo, dude, this is what it is.
Guest:This is where my fears come from.
Guest:This is what I'm angry about.
Guest:This is what I'm not.
Guest:I don't have as much experience as you in life, so I don't think I'm as proficient in it as you are.
Guest:But it's certainly something that helps in just daily conversation.
Marc:It can, yeah.
Marc:And I don't talk to enough people outside in the world.
Marc:But, you know, it's but go ahead.
Marc:Like, are you a vulnerable person in your day to day life?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, you know, you got to know me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, you know, if you come over, I don't really know you.
Marc:I'd be like, hey, buddy, what's up?
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah, I definitely got a hey, buddy, what's up when I walked in, which is totally expected.
Guest:I was not expecting anything more than that.
Guest:I was like, whoa, he's letting me in his house.
Guest:You offered me something to drink.
Guest:I was like, this is going well.
Marc:No, but I mean, the people that know me, a lot of people who listen to the show, they can play me.
Marc:They know that there's a certain amount of fronting going on in terms of how am I going to open up.
Marc:But some people can see right through my shit.
Marc:But generally, I feel it out, and I'm willing is what it is.
Guest:Do you think that's a product of being sober at all?
Guest:How long are you sober?
Marc:20 years and change.
Guest:So you've been sober long enough to be over it, get back into it, be done with it again?
Marc:Yeah, I'm always pretty sober.
Marc:I've been a little cranky and a little dry lately.
Marc:But I'm always pretty sober.
Marc:Yeah, that definitely had something to do with it.
Marc:But it was part of the process.
Marc:I mean, if you really look at the foundations of AA, it's one alcoholic talking to another to get the other one of them.
Marc:They get out of their own heads if they talk to somebody else or try to help somebody else.
Marc:And that's really the foundation of the podcast.
Marc:So the fundamentals of this thing
Marc:were really me making amends with people and me getting out of my own head to a certain degree to learn how to be empathetic for other people, which evolved on these mics.
Guest:I think that's probably what resonates with me is sort of that, the idea of sort of accepting who you are and sharing that with other people is really special.
Guest:It certainly has helped me, like getting sober changed my whole fucking outlook.
Marc:Now, when did that happen?
Marc:How bad did it get and how'd you hit the wall?
Marc:What was the bottom like?
Guest:The bottom was like long and jagged.
Guest:How long you got?
Guest:Five years, past five years.
Guest:So did somebody say something to you?
Guest:Yeah, everybody said what they had to say.
Guest:What do you mean somebody?
Guest:Like there's not one person who didn't say something.
Guest:What were they saying?
Guest:I don't have a single friend who's like, damn, I wish you drank still.
Guest:I don't have a single person in my life who's like, you were so fun.
Guest:Just like you're riding this shit till the wheels fall off.
Guest:Like you're going to die.
Guest:I was a real alcoholic.
Guest:A friend had passed away, and that sort of lit the fuse.
Guest:I had money.
Guest:I'd done Pitch Perfect, so I had more money than I'd ever had before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:36 grand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was loaded.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Yeah.
Guest:And I started partying like crazy.
Guest:We were doing South by Southwest with this group I was in and just drinking became a daily.
Guest:Then there was a sort of a really close family friend died.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that sort of lit the fuse for me.
Guest:And I picked up a bottle and then I sort of didn't put one down.
Marc:How do you die?
Guest:Not the best way, like the worst way, but I want to be respectful to his family.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so that was super tragic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of ran with it.
Guest:And then at the very end, what happened is I went to the local bar.
Guest:If it's pitch perfect, that's- Seven years ago or eight years ago.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you had an intense two years, the bottom-
Guest:Yeah, I was a daily marijuana user.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Missing opportunities, right?
Marc:But you don't know.
Guest:Been to jail a couple times.
Guest:For what?
Guest:One was like, I was fucked up and had weed on me and we spray painted.
Guest:I was in a group, bad name, called the B-Tards.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we spray painted in the Lower East Side.
Guest:The B-Tards will outrun you.
Guest:It's a rap bunch?
Guest:Rap group, yeah, like Beastie Boys.
Guest:B-Tards will outrun you in big gold lettering.
Guest:Yeah.
whoop whoop.
Guest:Like within two seconds the cops pulled up.
Guest:The B-tards did not run, jump, skip.
Guest:We went directly to jail.
Guest:I had paraphernalia on my person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we spent a weekend in jail, whatever it was.
Guest:And then the other time was open container on the subway.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which again is substance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like the through line is there's substances involved.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But at the time I'm like this is cred, fuck the police, whatever, who gives a shit.
Guest:And not to mention the countless like close calls, right?
Uh-huh.
Guest:Dying.
Guest:Yeah, the not dying, the driving, all the things that we do for anyone who's listening who's in recovery or isn't and wants to be.
Guest:But my bottom was going to the local bar.
Guest:I had sort of gotten a little bit of program in me and decided we can speak candidly.
Guest:I got into a fourth step and decided, nah, the same for me.
Guest:And decided I wasn't an alcoholic and went out to do a little bit of research.
Guest:And seven months later, it was like a Sunday.
Guest:It was the second time going to the same bar.
Guest:I'd gone in the morning, fell asleep, took a nap, went back to the same bar.
Guest:The bartender put me in an Uber.
Guest:I fought with the Uber because he wouldn't get me booze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I walked home and I fell flat on my face and concussed myself.
Guest:And I woke up in the morning and I was like, there's only two things I got to do.
Guest:I got to take care of my face and my dog.
Guest:And 50% is failing.
Guest:I'm fucked.
Guest:And I called a friend and I detoxed on his couch for two or three days and haven't had a drink since.
Guest:Which is miraculous because I was on his couch like, I'm not done, bro.
Guest:I know I'm not done.
Guest:Sober guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Still sober too.
Guest:But yeah, and I haven't had a drink and I sort of dove into program.
Marc:In New York?
Guest:In LA.
Marc:This is in LA now.
Marc:Oh, I got sober in New York, yeah.
Guest:Which is a gnarly fucking place.
Marc:Yeah, but it's also like, it's real historical shit.
Marc:There's something about, like there's something when you get sober in New York and you're doing that thing where you're like, all you're fucking doing is going to meetings and hanging out with sober dudes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's one of those ones where you always land because there's always one there.
Marc:So it always plays a part in your head.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Old school.
Guest:But when you travel, are you hitting meetings out of town?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Not as much as I get more years.
Marc:I don't.
Marc:But yeah, I do.
Marc:Sure, I do.
Marc:Because people know that I'm in it.
Marc:I'm in the secret club and people reach out.
Marc:Sometimes I'll go.
Marc:Yeah, likewise.
Marc:I used to do it on my own.
Marc:I'd always pick the weirdest, wrongest meetings.
Marc:Me too.
Guest:I'm a bad picker.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'd look them up and I'd be like, this one sounds good and it's kind of close.
Marc:And I've had times where it's like, there was just me and some guy, it's his first meeting and we were the only ones there.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I guess I'm running this.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like that kind of shit.
Marc:How are you doing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Here's my number.
Guest:I leave tomorrow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's still it's the effort that what you learn about that shit is, is that you've done due diligence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when you think about that, like when I think about the early days, like having to just structure my life.
Guest:minute by minute just to like make it, you know, just to get through 24 hours at the very beginning and, you know, going through the, that, that change in that process of like, even just going to the grocery store sober and being like, it's so crazy, just all that stuff.
Guest:And I take that and I go, and then my brain, and then I look at like wrapping for 70 seconds at the Oscars.
Guest:And it's like, is that really going to be harder for,
Guest:than getting day one and you're like or even like day six for that first couple years you're so crazy man like you just like calling dudes in the program all day like what's up yep i'm in trouble yep yep i got a few of those shout out to john joey rico greg raul yeah right davy yeah yeah alex i got you doing i got a gaggle yeah i'm thinking about doing this yeah
Guest:My sponsor, he passed away, but he was a quadriplegic.
Guest:And he had a way of just giving me perspective.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I've got like three, four months.
Guest:I'm driving a Honda Civic, and it's just ratty, tattered.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm not paying attention.
Guest:And I go into traffic, and I hit a dude, and the front fender comes off.
Guest:oh you hit a car yeah i hit a car sorry hit a truck and the guy's wasted but i don't have insurance yet because i'm newly sober yeah so there's nothing not responsible there's nothing yeah there's nothing i can do yeah so i'm just like this dude's shit-faced but i'm gonna have to pay him because like if i call the cops we're both fucked like that's what my brain tells me oh yeah and i'm panicking and i call russell and i go
Guest:Russell, oh, my God.
Guest:I just hit a guy.
Guest:I hit his car, and the front fender's coming off, and I don't know what I'm going to do, and I'm freaking out.
Guest:And he just sighs, and he goes, man, I wish I could drive.
Guest:And I go, all right, man.
Guest:I think I'm going to be good.
Guest:i think we're good i just i'm just gonna get his number and deal with it without insurance because that sounds like a good idea i was like okay love you bye went to the meeting zip tied up the vendor went to the meeting that's it that's it that's life right there so so when so at what so it was a big relief for everybody yourself included and everyone that knew you and your parents were concerned
Guest:They didn't really know until I told them that I was doing it.
Marc:How much did you fuck up in terms of opportunity and whatnot?
Guest:I didn't pay taxes for several years.
Guest:The normal shit with people who have responsibility issues.
Guest:I cleaned up all that stuff.
Marc:Professionally, though.
Guest:Professionally, the white whale is Hamilton.
Guest:so Lin comes to me in 2012 and he goes I have this role Aaron Burr in Hamilton it's for you I'm writing something special for you and I go if I got time
Guest:I'm like, maybe if I have time.
Marc:2012.
Marc:So you're deep in it.
Guest:I'm deep in the substances.
Guest:I've just done Pitch Perfect.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Cocky.
Guest:I'm pretty high on my own supply.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of which there was very little of.
Guest:And so I went to Lincoln Center and I played Aaron Burr in an initial reading of Hamilton.
Guest:And then some time passed and I went to Poughkeepsie, New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that is SUNY.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:I'm sure there's a SUNY there.
Guest:So we go to Poughkeepsie, and we're doing these staged readings of Hamilton.
Guest:And I'm not a musical theater guy.
Marc:You and Diggs.
Guest:Diggs was there.
Marc:You did.
Marc:Yeah, talk to him.
Guest:Yeah, David is a close friend.
Guest:Good guy.
Guest:Great guy.
Marc:Good heart.
Guest:I like that movie.
Guest:Yeah, I was in that movie, Blindspotting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You're funny in that movie, too.
Guest:There's a scene in the middle.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They let me improvise, which was really cool.
Guest:I remember it.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Diggs is the homie.
Guest:So I show up with David the night before.
Guest:David and I and this guy dialect are in a cipher.
Guest:We're like rapping and I'm drinking Jameson and we're getting fucked up and we go.
Guest:We're meant to be in Poughkeepsie the next morning.
Guest:And so long story short, like I go, I'm not going to drink while I'm there.
Guest:And it's impossible.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:and I would go, I'm not gonna drink, and I'd wake up at 5 a.m.
Guest:in this dorm, wait for the liquor store two miles away to open.
Guest:I'd walk to the liquor store, buy the pint of whiskey, walk back in time for rehearsal.
Guest:And suffice to say, I was not able to execute in the way that they needed me to.
Guest:I fully fucked up.
Guest:I was wasted, man.
Guest:And Lynn and Alex Lacamoire, who's the musical director, Lynn, not so much because he's not one for confrontation.
Guest:But Alex Lacamoire pulled me aside and he's like, what are you doing?
Guest:Like, there's you're not good.
Guest:Like, you're not doing this well.
Guest:Nobody knew that it was because of alcohol.
Guest:But he's like, had you done it well?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The reason I was there is I'm able to pick up music pretty quickly.
Guest:If you sing it or if you say it, I'm quick to memorize.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But not if I'm fucking brain dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that opportunity, obviously, I'm not here talking about my starring Tony Award winning role in Hamilton.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's sort of the big thing.
Guest:And I had to, you know, when I got sober, the gift is is that my relationship with those guys in particular, with everyone in general, got so much stronger and deeper.
Guest:And I think, you know, I went and I auditioned again for them.
Guest:And we all knew I wasn't going to get it, but it was kind of like a living amends.
Guest:Like, here, let me give you my best because you didn't get it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I flew myself out to New York, stayed sober, auditioned for them.
Guest:I was fucking humble.
Guest:It's one of the few times in my life that I've actually been humble where you're like, I'm broken.
Guest:I don't have anything but my best to give you, and that's not going to be enough, and that's okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that engendered a little bit of love and respect.
Guest:That was there, but you start to rebuild relationships and build new branches on trees that you're like, this shit's probably gonna die.
Guest:But then all of a sudden, Lynn was the first person to call me when I got my year sober.
Guest:He FaceTimed me and we chatted.
Guest:Yeah, he was the first person to call.
Guest:And our families and our friendship has grown and become something that transcends work and rarely is about work.
Guest:You have kids?
Guest:I have a four and a half year old stepdaughter.
Guest:And I'm going to be a dad in two months.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, baby due in April.
Marc:So you hang out with the Mirandas?
Marc:We do.
Guest:Yeah, we do.
Guest:We kick it.
Guest:I mean, it's fun.
Guest:I mean, I'm so glad he was at the Oscars.
Guest:It's a double-edged sword because everyone's like, this motherfucker's only here because Lynn's here.
Guest:But at the same time, it's really helpful when you have one of your best friends.
Marc:But that's not quite true, is it?
Guest:No, no, it's not quite true at all.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it's, um, and if it is true, who gives a fuck?
Marc:Lin-Man, like, it's Lin.
Marc:And also, who wants to fucking do that job?
Marc:Lin's like, yeah, exactly.
Marc:I talked to him about his.
Marc:He's sort of like, it was, you know, no, no, I mean, I talked to him that night.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:About whatever he did out there, which was introduced to songs, or I can't remember what it was.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:He introduced Eminem, essentially.
Marc:Eminem, basically.
Marc:And everyone was like, why the fuck is Eminem here?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then I was like, fuck, I gotta follow Eminem?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:but like i thought eminem was great he was cool yeah he's one of us too yeah elton john is too yeah i was like this is great you could have had a meeting i should have the first person the red carpet was so uncomfortable i'm so scared i don't feel like i belong imposter syndrome yeah the first guy that came up to me was like hey utkarsh my name is so and so um my sponsor's name is you know him i have 17 months i just wanted to say hello
Guest:And I was like, bro, you have no idea how important it was for you to say hi to me.
Guest:You just put this whole shit into perspective.
Guest:Have a great night.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:I'm going to go do this.
Guest:But having Lynn in the audience and Anthony, who's the homie as well.
Guest:Anthony's Ramos, who's fam.
Guest:Anthony Ramos starring in In the Heights.
Yeah.
Guest:It really helps.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It helps to look and see your brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who genuinely wants you to succeed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not who's putting it on for the camera.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But also who I very much appreciate for putting it on for the camera.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He like put his big old smile face on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For me.
Guest:Yeah.
Like.
Guest:Lynn is the kind of person that Warren Buffett is excited to meet.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He's a sweetheart.
Guest:Good-hearted guy.
Guest:And he treats his third grade teacher and Warren Buffett with the same amount of love, which is what I appreciate about him.
Guest:But no, I stood up on that stage, and the first person I locked eyes with was Brad Pitt.
Guest:Yeah, also a sweetheart.
Guest:Dude, and he just won his Oscar, sitting next to mom, feeling fucking right as rain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He gives me a big old Brad Pitt smile, and I'm like, well, you and I are best friends.
Guest:Like, you're my guy.
Guest:And then I look up, and Mahershala Ali's there, and he's giving me that stoic, like...
Guest:And he's very like connected.
Guest:And I was like, well, Mahershala is my best buddy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I look and I see Taika, who I did a movie with this summer called Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I've got eating pizza with him.
Guest:So we're best buds.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you felt comfortable.
Guest:I made myself.
Guest:I tricked myself into feeling love.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As opposed to fear.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I changed the focus in my brain to instead of all you guys are judging me and I don't belong here, even though I said that out loud.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because I have a hard time filtering my real thoughts.
Guest:But I changed it to being like, let me show you guys a good time.
Guest:I flipped it to like, I do this very well.
Guest:I know I don't believe that I do it well, but there's evidence physically that it's happened for me in the past.
Marc:That's also show business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm just going to smile now and do what I've prepared.
Guest:And the lucky thing is fear for me makes me catatonic.
Guest:Like my body goes very rigid.
Guest:So it comes off as being very calm.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The paralysis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People are like, you are so calm and composed.
Guest:And it's like, dude, my brain, as it's happening, my director brain is like, you're not moving.
Guest:You are not moving.
Guest:And then the other brain's like, no, no, no.
Guest:It's perfect for camera.
Guest:Stay scared.
Guest:Just stick the landing.
Guest:Stick the fucking landing.
Guest:Thank your mom.
Guest:thanks mom wait wait what about your dad it's too late now like my dad just perpetually feels left out yeah um so that's basically how it went real time oh that's great and then rapping about mindy and mindy wasn't even fucking there it was like her seat filler and i was like don't like she was there though but she was just i had seen her before but like i saw some girl waving her arms and i was like
Guest:that's not mindy right and then you can't draw attention to the seat filler thing because it destroys the magic that is the oscars the fact that nobody's in their seats right or gives a flying fuck no i mean some people do but you did a good job i appreciate i didn't talk let's we i feel like we should kind of land this thing so let's all right so you ready to wrap i could wrap yeah i could definitely wrap are you gonna play yeah
Marc:What do you like?
Marc:What's the beat?
Guest:That's perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mark Maron.
Guest:UTK.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:What's up?
Guest:What the fuckers?
Guest:Ice road truckers?
Guest:Mother cluckers?
Guest:Oyster shuckers?
Guest:Young up and comers?
Guest:Outer luckers.
Guest:Listen while I just tuck the beat up in my pocket.
Guest:Listen cause I'm a rocket.
Guest:They call me the Indian and they say that I'm so exotic.
Guest:They keep taking off just like a rocket.
Guest:I'm strapped in.
Guest:I get to rapping.
Guest:Listen the captain is coming and what happened?
Guest:I'm kicking a liquor while I'm spitting the shit.
Guest:You fully equipped to feel me while you wiggle your hips to the sound that I'm making right now.
Guest:This is innovation in the South Asian.
Guest:A brown holding the crown.
Guest:Mark Maron never preparing.
Guest:He got it on the podcast.
Guest:You know I outlast anybody.
Guest:My paragraphs, spit it with different stanzas I repeat the scans and listen, I'm Tony Danza The boss, what's the cost?
Guest:You and I lost, you know that I floss So back and forth and I gotta just watch me toss The rhythm while I'm hitting it, revving my engine Oh yeah, full of melanin like I said earlier Just a word that I use in my toolbox Listen, cause I got it, my tube socks up to the knee Feeling me flow so free and emcee While I be up on the stage and you see The man finished Broadway Then I did the Oscars and I know Topper Cheek
Guest:always gonna wanna sponsor while i do it the respond the sound and you know oh i'll be playing on the frets and i'm flipping the flow oh yes sir he up on the get i'm spitting shit yeah making noise with my boy wearing green corduroy bringing joy yes i got it right now when i play with toys yeah he got the microphone in his brand new garage i got a lyrical barrage for all of y'all uh-huh
Guest:We don't stop, can't stop, won't stop.
Guest:Keep it hot like Ice Cube playing beats with a pill.
Guest:Chemicals in an Escalade.
Guest:Have a nice fucking day.
Guest:If you stopped listening to the podcast before that moment, you missed out.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Guest:It's like the one with Peter Fonda and then the one with me.
Guest:That's like one in two.
Marc:You got to give yourselves more credit.
Marc:Thanks for doing it.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Doing some music.
Marc:Great guy, funny guy, sober guy.
Marc:You can see him in Britney Runs a Marathon streaming on Amazon or The Mindy Project or anything else that he mentioned that you can find.
Marc:I enjoyed talking to that guy.
Marc:Stay safe.
Marc:Don't touch people.
Marc:Stay out of circulation.
Marc:Do the right thing.
Marc:Don't believe bullshit.
Marc:Don't fall into the stupid portal.
Guest:Boomer lives!
you