Episode 1119 - Whitmer Thomas

Episode 1119 • Released April 30, 2020 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuck nicks what the fuckaholics what the fuckadelics what what the fucktuckians

00:00:23Marc:I don't know why I'm specific about fucktucky.

00:00:27Marc:I got nothing specific other than I like saying it.

00:00:31Marc:What the fucktuckians.

00:00:32Marc:So they're special only because I enjoy saying what the fucktuckians.

00:00:36Marc:There's good people in Kentucky.

00:00:37Marc:There's good people all over.

00:00:40Marc:But there are some horrible people too.

00:00:43Marc:And some states have more than others.

00:00:45Marc:If you know what I'm getting at.

00:00:48Marc:Okay?

00:00:50Marc:Now I'm not saying evil.

00:00:52Marc:I'm not saying, you know, stupid.

00:00:59Marc:I'm not saying, you know, like human garbage.

00:01:06Marc:I'm just saying horrible.

00:01:09Marc:And you know who they are and you know who you are.

00:01:11Marc:That being said, we are all trying to get through this time.

00:01:17Marc:How are you?

00:01:18Marc:Are you okay?

00:01:19Marc:Is everything all right?

00:01:21Marc:Did you get all that organizing done?

00:01:22Marc:Did you put that picture up?

00:01:24Marc:Did you figure out a way to get your kids to shut up for a few hours?

00:01:30Marc:An hour, 15 minutes.

00:01:32Marc:I talked to somebody the other day today, actually.

00:01:35Marc:I don't want to say who it is because it's an upcoming episode.

00:01:37Marc:I don't know when it's going to be on.

00:01:39Marc:But she brought up a fascinating thing, I thought.

00:01:41Marc:Her and her husband came up with an idea that I thought was a good idea.

00:01:44Marc:And I don't have children.

00:01:45Marc:They have like two or three children.

00:01:47Marc:And they were trying to figure out how do we make this work, this indefinite quarantine.

00:01:53Marc:And none of them had seen Lost.

00:01:56Marc:So now there's like, what is there, 900 episodes of Lost?

00:02:01Marc:1,007?

00:02:02Marc:How many?

00:02:02Marc:1,010?

00:02:03Marc:1,014?

00:02:05Marc:So they're actually watching an episode.

00:02:07Marc:None of them have seen it.

00:02:09Marc:So they're watching an episode a night.

00:02:11Marc:How fucking genius is that?

00:02:13Marc:I mean, how many like that's something the whole family could lock into and, you know, you can just ride it out.

00:02:20Marc:It's like it's built in babysitting.

00:02:22Marc:I've never seen any of it.

00:02:24Marc:Grownups are doing tick tock.

00:02:26Marc:I don't even know what the fuck that is.

00:02:28Marc:But I mean, I draw the line of Twitter for stupid name shit.

00:02:33Marc:Tick tock.

00:02:34Marc:Grown people are doing tick tock.

00:02:36Marc:So that means someone's going to say, do you know how to do tick tock?

00:02:38Marc:I'm like, I don't want to even know what it is.

00:02:40Marc:I don't want to know what it is.

00:02:41Marc:Because from my experience with this type of shit, once someone says, do you know what it is?

00:02:47Marc:Do you know how to do it?

00:02:48Marc:And I go, no.

00:02:49Marc:And someone says, you should check it out.

00:02:51Marc:It's probably a month to six months before I'm doing TikTok.

00:02:56Marc:Like I'll fight the good fight for a while.

00:02:59Marc:And then I'll be like, look, I did a TikTok.

00:03:03Marc:And then I'll be in the race.

00:03:05Marc:Who's doing the best tick tocks?

00:03:07Marc:You know, it's a matter of time.

00:03:09Marc:Whit Thomas is on the show.

00:03:10Marc:Whitmer Thomas, comedian, musician, actor, worked with him on the film Sword of Trust.

00:03:17Marc:He played one of the sympathetic rednecks.

00:03:21Marc:The Lynn Shelton film.

00:03:24Marc:So look, you guys, I want to address something that I think upset a couple of people, at least three, right?

00:03:33Marc:At least three.

00:03:34Marc:I go through stuff with the shoulda, woulda, coulda, or just beating myself up or just getting anxious about everything and freaked out, not just about the disease, about what happens when we get out.

00:03:46Marc:Am I going to do this?

00:03:48Marc:Am I going to do that?

00:03:49Marc:When my brain runs away with me,

00:03:53Marc:There's only a couple of things I can do.

00:03:55Marc:There's only a couple of ways to wrangle it back in.

00:03:58Marc:You know, when I get into the future horror.

00:04:04Marc:And it's fairly dramatic self-talk that I engage in.

00:04:10Marc:Okay?

00:04:11Marc:To make myself feel better.

00:04:13Marc:There's, you know, and this is addressing what I said the other day.

00:04:17Marc:I'm done.

00:04:18Marc:I'm done.

00:04:19Marc:I'm fucking done.

00:04:22Marc:It feels good to say that.

00:04:23Marc:I'm fucking done.

00:04:25Marc:Done with what exactly?

00:04:26Marc:Whatever it is that I think is causing me anxiety, work, living in this country, eating, life, cats, etc.

00:04:36Marc:It really doesn't mean I'm done.

00:04:38Marc:It's just comforting to me.

00:04:41Marc:I'm working on some other ways to deal with it in the sort of acceptance realm.

00:04:48Marc:You know, like, hey, man, you know, this is what it is right now.

00:04:53Marc:That feels okay.

00:04:56Marc:But like a few seconds later, I'm back to like, I'm fucking done with this shit.

00:05:01Marc:Fucking done with it.

00:05:06Marc:But that's better than I'm going to kill myself.

00:05:09Marc:I think we've made progress just by me saying I'm done in a general way with most things.

00:05:16Marc:But the point I'm trying to make to you is clearly I'm not.

00:05:19Marc:I'm not done is what I'm saying.

00:05:22Marc:OK, because I got an email from a few concerned people.

00:05:26Marc:One guy sort of like, you know, go fuck yourself if you're done.

00:05:31Marc:Just do it already.

00:05:32Marc:It's not going to matter to us.

00:05:34Marc:That was a nice email to get.

00:05:36Marc:But this woman, Julia, subject line, I'm done, in quotes.

00:05:41Marc:Hey, Mark, how funny it is to see the mantra of my last few days repeated by my favorite comedian, podcaster, going live on Instagrammer, actor, et cetera.

00:05:51Marc:You and I must have had the same epiphany at the same time about just being done.

00:05:55Marc:I'm done worrying.

00:05:56Marc:I'm done being anxious.

00:05:58Marc:I'm done spinning myself out.

00:06:00Marc:No, actually, Julia, it was quite different.

00:06:02Marc:I'm done with the things that caused those things to happen.

00:06:05Marc:Work, love, cats, life.

00:06:12Marc:You seem more together than me.

00:06:15Marc:And she writes, does it mean it actually does a full stop?

00:06:18Marc:No, not really.

00:06:19Marc:But it helps because it's like I'm holding a stop sign up at my brain and I'm just like, stop, done, no.

00:06:25Marc:That's good.

00:06:26Marc:That's proactive.

00:06:28Marc:I've noticed a slight drop in anxiety in the past couple of days as well, but whether that's just a cycle and it will be back in force in another couple of days remains to be seen.

00:06:36Marc:Hang in there, Mark.

00:06:38Marc:Thank you.

00:06:39Marc:Can't wait until this shit is over.

00:06:40Marc:Excited to see what we all look like.

00:06:42Marc:And oh my God, I'm excited to fucking hug someone.

00:06:45Marc:Jesus Christ.

00:06:46Marc:That has been the worst.

00:06:48Marc:Love you, Julia.

00:06:49Marc:Thank you.

00:06:50Marc:I'm not done.

00:06:52Marc:I'm not done, Julia.

00:06:53Marc:I'm staying.

00:06:54Marc:I'm staying in the saddle.

00:06:55Marc:I'm good.

00:06:58Marc:This one, I don't know if I can read it, but it's sort of... It's about Laura Linney's dad.

00:07:06Marc:She talked about him.

00:07:08Marc:Difficult person.

00:07:10Marc:So I guess I can read this.

00:07:12Marc:Subject line, Laura Linney's dad squashed my creative soul.

00:07:17Marc:Hi, Mark.

00:07:18Marc:Listening at this moment to the Laura Linney episode, I was in a graduate creative writing program at University of Pennsylvania in 1990.

00:07:25Marc:And Romulus Linney was the writer in residence.

00:07:28Marc:My workshop mates responded powerfully and positively to the opening chapter of a novel I was working on.

00:07:34Marc:But the acclaimed playwright tore it to shreds.

00:07:37Marc:The class was stunned and I was crushed in real time.

00:07:41Marc:I dropped out of grad school for a lot of reasons.

00:07:43Marc:I still remember that feeling 30 years later.

00:07:46Marc:I struggled through lots of depression and OCD and addiction for years as a struggling writer until finally getting sober in 1998.

00:07:54Marc:And then I struggled with depression and OCD for a lot longer after getting sober.

00:07:58Marc:But that's another story.

00:08:00Marc:I'm coming up on 22 years of sobriety in a bit.

00:08:02Marc:Congratulations, pal.

00:08:04Marc:I've been reading my old manuscripts, unpublished novels and screenplays during the pandemic quarantine.

00:08:09Marc:Some of my old stuff is good.

00:08:10Marc:Some of it is bad.

00:08:11Marc:Most of it is both.

00:08:12Marc:Anyway, Laura sounds like an amazing person.

00:08:15Marc:And something about her description of her father soothed my 30-year-old artistic injury.

00:08:21Marc:For this moment, anyway.

00:08:23Marc:Go figure.

00:08:23Marc:I've emailed you before.

00:08:25Marc:I moved to Albuquerque five years ago, and I'm a psychoanalyst out here.

00:08:28Marc:Nice.

00:08:29Marc:Only mildly crushed that you never responded previously.

00:08:32Marc:Kidding, I think.

00:08:34Marc:Thanks for being a consistent, entertaining, thought-provoking voice in my head and earbuds.

00:08:38Marc:There you go, David.

00:08:39Marc:It's your day.

00:08:40Marc:David, it's your day.

00:08:42Marc:It's happening.

00:08:45Marc:David and Albuquerque, it's happening.

00:08:48Marc:I'm glad you landed on your feet after your hurt feelings.

00:08:55Marc:I hope that wasn't the straw, man.

00:08:59Marc:Heartbreak, man.

00:09:00Marc:It just never goes away.

00:09:01Marc:It just never goes away.

00:09:03Marc:It's just right there under the surface, and you don't got to scratch very far to feel that ache.

00:09:11Marc:Whitmer Thomas has an HBO special on currently called Whitmer Thomas, the golden one.

00:09:18Marc:It's available on all HBO platforms.

00:09:21Marc:The songs from the golden one are available to stream or download and as CDs and LPs with two exclusive tracks not featured on the special.

00:09:30Marc:It's a it's a harrowing personal tale and emotional tale.

00:09:34Marc:that he talks about what he goes through in the show, but also what you're about to hear from my conversation with Widmer.

00:09:43Marc:So this is me talking to him.

00:09:46Marc:He came in live.

00:09:48Marc:He braved it.

00:09:51Marc:We sat apart, took a picture apart, chatted apart, and it was a good talk.

00:09:57.

00:10:05Marc:There's a kitchen.

00:10:07Marc:It's a completely permitted accessory dwelling unit.

00:10:10Marc:Someone could live in here comfortably if they can live in this much space, but legally.

00:10:16Marc:I could do it.

00:10:17Marc:Oh, sure.

00:10:17Marc:I think people we know could do it.

00:10:19Marc:Almost anyone could do it.

00:10:20Marc:Yeah.

00:10:20Marc:It'd be a relief.

00:10:21Guest:I could live under the stairs.

00:10:23Marc:Sure, man.

00:10:23Marc:I mean, it's like when I go to hotels now, I used to be weird on the road, but now I'm like, this is great.

00:10:31Marc:None of my shit is here.

00:10:32Guest:It's clean.

00:10:33Guest:I love it.

00:10:34Guest:You do?

00:10:35Guest:I love a hotel.

00:10:35Guest:Yeah, man.

00:10:36Guest:I love a hotel, a motel, whatever.

00:10:38Guest:I realized when I was like...

00:10:39Guest:26 that i had only stayed in one hotel ever yeah like you'd never been away from home no i've been away from home plenty of times but we were so stupid as like punk kids we would like sleep in a car or whatever it was yeah and then get a motel realizing as an adult that like now a motel only costs like 40 some places for a cheap one yeah i guess so for like a comfort inn or a la quinta or something yeah but when we were kids on tour

00:11:07Guest:yeah you know that's ten dollars between the four of us but instead we would yeah sleep in the car didn't you sleep at people's houses yes hopefully that was the hope is like begging on stage fans yeah hey man yeah please help us out yeah and then you'd sleep on someone's basement floor with their parents upstairs that kind of thing shivering yeah dude that was the best if parents were upstairs and they'd make you breakfast in the morning oh oh so they were nice supportive parents nice parents the good parents yeah

00:11:35Marc:yeah i don't know man i even at this point even like if i have friends who have the capability like the money or the space to offer me you know come stay at our house you know you have your own bathroom like no same i never want to do it i'll just stay at the hotel how far is the hotel for the event nowadays i'll get a hotel like right by the airport too and i'll just oh wow yeah you don't have anything to do with that town no

00:11:59Guest:And that way I can sleep as late as I possibly can before the flight.

00:12:03Marc:Get out right under the wire?

00:12:04Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:12:05Marc:Yeah, I don't do airport hotels, unless I have to.

00:12:08Guest:Well, I'm new.

00:12:08Guest:I'm new to all this hotel stuff.

00:12:10Guest:Are you?

00:12:10Marc:I do the touring thing?

00:12:11Marc:Yeah.

00:12:12Marc:I usually go to... I'll stay by the venue.

00:12:15Marc:Yeah.

00:12:15Marc:What does the venue recommend near the place?

00:12:18Guest:Yeah, I've opened, you know, for comedians.

00:12:21Guest:They really got it down packed where they like know all the questions to ask.

00:12:25Marc:So you've opened for some dudes that take you with them and put you up?

00:12:28Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:12:29Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:12:29Marc:That's nice.

00:12:30Marc:That's the best.

00:12:31Marc:It is.

00:12:31Marc:And then like, who have you opened for?

00:12:33Marc:I opened for Bo, I opened for Dimitri and Rory and Todd Glass.

00:12:39Marc:The nice fellas.

00:12:40Marc:So now let's talk about these guys because I know all of them.

00:12:45Marc:Now somebody like Bo, I'm sure like you guys get up and you eat and you hang out a little bit, right?

00:12:49Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:12:49Guest:But when I was opening for him, he couldn't talk because he was about to tape his special and he had lost his voice.

00:12:55Guest:Oh, wow.

00:12:55Guest:And so he was trying to keep his voice.

00:12:59Guest:And so we would go around town and like I would have to talk for him everywhere.

00:13:02Guest:Yeah.

00:13:03Marc:It's a little extra added opening.

00:13:05Guest:Yeah.

00:13:06Guest:Open for him at the restaurant.

00:13:07Marc:Yeah.

00:13:08Guest:And then after the show, we would talk and hang out.

00:13:12Guest:But before the show, he's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

00:13:15Marc:How many shows did you do with that guy?

00:13:16Marc:Like 14, maybe.

00:13:18Marc:That's a lot.

00:13:18Marc:Yeah.

00:13:19Marc:And who was the other, Bo and, oh, Rory.

00:13:22Marc:Yeah, Rory.

00:13:22Marc:He'll probably have, he'll eat with you, right?

00:13:24Marc:Yeah, we hung out a lot.

00:13:25Marc:Yeah.

00:13:26Marc:Dimitri, probably not so much.

00:13:27Guest:Dimitri, no.

00:13:29Guest:We would just hang out in the green room.

00:13:31Marc:That was it.

00:13:32Marc:See you later, man.

00:13:33Guest:Yeah.

00:13:33Marc:No breakfast.

00:13:34Marc:No socializing.

00:13:35Guest:No.

00:13:36Guest:Yeah.

00:13:37Guest:I could see that.

00:13:38Guest:Yeah.

00:13:38Guest:I had the best night of my life opening for him, though.

00:13:40Guest:Oh, really?

00:13:40Guest:I walked out of the casino and I put some money in a slot machine and I won $1,200.

00:13:45Guest:$1,200?

00:13:47Marc:Yeah.

00:13:48Guest:That's sick.

00:13:48Marc:By yourself.

00:13:49Guest:Yeah.

00:13:50Guest:Alone.

00:13:51Guest:You get to yell and scream by yourself.

00:13:52Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:53Guest:And Todd's got to be fun to open.

00:13:55Guest:Todd is fucking wild, man.

00:13:56Guest:He stays up all night talking to people.

00:13:59Guest:Really?

00:14:00Guest:Yeah.

00:14:00Guest:Just like whoever wants to talk to him.

00:14:03Guest:You'd hang out in the lobby.

00:14:05Guest:I don't know if that's wild or sad.

00:14:08Marc:It's a fine line between like, man, that's kind of sad a little.

00:14:13Guest:Yeah, well, no, it seemed all right.

00:14:15Guest:No, no.

00:14:15Guest:I'd walk back to the hotel after visiting friends of mine or something like that in the town, and he would just be sitting in the lobby talking to whoever.

00:14:23Guest:At the hotel?

00:14:23Marc:Yeah.

00:14:23Marc:Oh, that's nice.

00:14:24Marc:Oh, so he's just not necessarily people at the show, but whoever's around.

00:14:28Marc:Yeah.

00:14:28Marc:Just socializing.

00:14:29Marc:Yeah.

00:14:29Marc:Lonely guy socializing.

00:14:31Marc:It was great.

00:14:32Marc:Yeah.

00:14:32Marc:It was awesome.

00:14:33Marc:So I appreciate you coming during the plague.

00:14:37Marc:Thanks for having me.

00:14:37Marc:Well, yeah, but not many people willing to make the journey, even if I guarantee them a clean environment.

00:14:42Marc:I sprayed down that mic with some alcohol.

00:14:44Marc:That's not vinegar in that spray bottle.

00:14:46Marc:It's alcohol.

00:14:47Guest:Cool.

00:14:47Marc:And there's hand sanitizers available.

00:14:49Guest:I've got rubber gloves.

00:14:51Guest:I haven't really been leaving.

00:14:52Guest:So, I mean, other than to just do little go to the store or whatever it is, but I'm really excited to get to do this.

00:14:59Guest:So I don't care if I get sick or whatever.

00:15:02Marc:Well, I don't want to get sick, but I don't think I'm going to get you sick.

00:15:05Marc:We're on top of it.

00:15:07Guest:Yeah.

00:15:07Marc:I'm going to have to figure out how to open the door.

00:15:10Marc:Like, you know, the thing.

00:15:12Marc:The thing that's weird is that it goes both ways.

00:15:16Marc:I don't think I have it, but they make you kind of paranoid.

00:15:21Guest:Maybe I do, and I don't know it.

00:15:22Guest:I keep sucking in to see if I can hold air in my lungs good.

00:15:26Guest:Oh, that thing, yeah, yeah.

00:15:28Guest:Well, I've been running.

00:15:29Guest:I went running yesterday.

00:15:30Guest:Good.

00:15:31Guest:You've been skating?

00:15:32Guest:Yeah, I've been skating.

00:15:33Guest:Yeah?

00:15:33Guest:Can't run, don't got any ligaments in my knees.

00:15:37Guest:Really?

00:15:37Guest:Or else I would.

00:15:38Guest:I see these people running and I'm really jealous of it.

00:15:40Marc:But you can skate?

00:15:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:43Guest:It's like I can choose to do one or the other, but apparently running is really bad for my knees.

00:15:47Guest:Oh.

00:15:48Guest:So I can skate and I don't have to use both of my knees in the same kind of way.

00:15:53Guest:Oh, that's right.

00:15:53Guest:Because I'm pushing, you know?

00:15:55Marc:Right, one of them's just holding your foot on the board.

00:15:57Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:58Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:59Marc:Yeah, I noticed a little bit of skating in the special.

00:16:01Marc:Not much, a little bit, but it was like, oh, like one little thing that was fairly complicated.

00:16:05Marc:I'm like, oh, you know how to do that.

00:16:06Marc:Second nature kind of deal.

00:16:07Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:16:08Marc:Yeah, you can just do that.

00:16:09Guest:Well, yeah.

00:16:10Guest:Didn't you land on two boards or something?

00:16:12Guest:Yeah, well, yeah, hey, that's cool you noticed that.

00:16:14Guest:you're the only person to say that so that's what do you mean well nobody's i mean i did land on two boards and was something that we sat there for a second trying to do thinking it would be a bigger moment and then of course it's like why would that be a moment at all it was kind of quick yeah yeah it was a quick moment so you and i like i i guess i should preface that you and i were in you were in sort of trust with me yeah you played one of the redneck young men yeah um

00:16:39Marc:And, uh, but also when we were shooting that in Alabama, you informed me that you were on glow and I didn't realize that, but you were the, uh, the fan of, uh, of, uh, the wolf of, uh, Sheila, Sheila, Sheila, Sheila, Gail, Gail Rankin.

00:16:56Marc:Yeah.

00:16:56Marc:The genius.

00:16:57Marc:And you showed up at, uh, at the, uh, at the, at the wrestling match dressed as her.

00:17:03Marc:Yeah.

00:17:03Marc:That was you.

00:17:03Marc:Yeah.

00:17:04Guest:Yeah.

00:17:05Guest:And so when I was on set, I, well, you know, and we had met before that years and years ago.

00:17:12Marc:Right.

00:17:12Marc:But there was no way I was going to remember doing your horrible show.

00:17:18Guest:No, so I didn't want to say hi because I looked like a fool.

00:17:24Guest:If there was ever a way that you did remember that, I'd have to force you to go through the Rolodex of the specific things in that show to even maybe- In power violence?

00:17:33Guest:Yeah.

00:17:34Marc:I remember that because I was sort of like, I did not like doing those kind of shows.

00:17:39Marc:And I don't know who talked me into it or who said it was a good thing to do.

00:17:43Marc:I just remember that it was over-amped.

00:17:46Marc:There was something fucked up happening in there.

00:17:48Marc:Everybody was way too excited or too worked up.

00:17:51Marc:It was not a good environment for a comedy show.

00:17:54Marc:It should have been.

00:17:55Marc:And I just knew that there was no way I wasn't going to get up there and ruin the vibe and also be mad about it.

00:18:00Marc:No, dude.

00:18:01Guest:But do you remember what you did?

00:18:03Guest:No.

00:18:04Guest:Okay.

00:18:04Guest:You just made... You were like, I can do this.

00:18:08Guest:Yeah.

00:18:08Guest:like this kind of shit and you were like doing bits that you thought that the audience was going to like like making fun of them but it killed like and you went after zach alifianakis who did like his absurdist stuff and so you were you were like doing your more absurdist ideas you did something about a dolphin oh wow or dolphins or something and it was really funny it was great

00:18:31Guest:It worked out.

00:18:32Guest:Yeah.

00:18:32Guest:And at the beginning of the show, we set our friend on fire.

00:18:35Guest:And so we were like, we didn't know what the hell we were doing.

00:18:37Guest:And looking back, it's like, I'd hate to have to follow someone getting set on fire.

00:18:42Marc:It's the worst, dude.

00:18:43Marc:Yeah.

00:18:44Marc:It's like you're not really hosting as much as you are just like creating a place where you can do your crazy shit.

00:18:50Guest:And then like, oh, yeah, there's a guy we asked to come do this.

00:18:53Guest:Right.

00:18:53Guest:Here's a guy who makes a living doing it.

00:18:56Guest:I keep thinking about like, we got Zach Galifianakis and Mark Maron on the same show.

00:19:01Marc:How did that happen?

00:19:02Marc:10 years ago.

00:19:03Marc:I kind of remember standing in the back with Zach thinking like, what are we doing?

00:19:09Marc:Yeah.

00:19:10Marc:Why are we doing this still?

00:19:11Guest:Yeah, and it was like Zach hadn't done comedy in years.

00:19:14Guest:Oh, so he was trying to get out and get- And that was the first-

00:19:17Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:19:19Marc:But it was called Power Violence, but what was the theme?

00:19:22Marc:Why was it?

00:19:24Marc:Because all these shows back then, these produced shows, had to have some grabby angle.

00:19:29Marc:A lot of them did.

00:19:30Marc:What was it exactly?

00:19:31Marc:Because, I mean, the title's kind of heavy.

00:19:34Guest:Right.

00:19:34Guest:Power Violence was like a genre of music that we liked, me and my friends, which is like a grindcore, metalcore, blast beat music.

00:19:42Guest:Oh, right, right, right.

00:19:45Marc:Is that the stuff out of Sweden?

00:19:46Guest:Yeah, I mean, sort of like black metal, yeah.

00:19:49Guest:Black metal, but less aesthetically... Dark?

00:19:52Guest:Dark, yeah.

00:19:53Guest:Just more like silly, I guess.

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:55Guest:So we called the show that.

00:19:56Guest:I don't know why.

00:19:56Guest:And we didn't know how to do comedy.

00:19:58Guest:The truth was that I started doing that show because I had gotten some money from my mom who died.

00:20:04Guest:And she was like...

00:20:05Guest:don't spend it on rent so I was like oh you can rent a theater that's that I think is okay yeah right she's like she was more like put this towards your dream right yeah yeah right so I uh rented that little black box and then we started just like we were already in a band yeah playing around town and it was like

00:20:24Guest:What was the name of the band?

00:20:25Guest:We were called Tooks.

00:20:26Guest:Tooks?

00:20:27Guest:Yeah.

00:20:28Guest:T-O-O?

00:20:28Guest:K-S, yeah.

00:20:30Guest:Which was like, it was during the kind of garage explosion, like in the 2007 era.

00:20:36Guest:Who came out of that explosion?

00:20:37Guest:Just to give me some context.

00:20:38Guest:Ty Siegel and all those guys.

00:20:40Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:40Guest:But they were just miles cooler than us.

00:20:43Guest:And we were just idiots on stage and talked too much.

00:20:46Guest:And nobody liked us.

00:20:48Guest:We were annoying to everybody.

00:20:50Guest:And so when we started that show, I had the band guys in the show with me.

00:20:54Guest:And then we would bring up stand-up comedians because I didn't realize that stand-up comedians would just do any show.

00:21:02Guest:You could get huge names to do anything.

00:21:05Guest:And then we sort of stopped playing music and just would like fuck around and do whatever we could to get laughs.

00:21:12Guest:And then eventually kind of evolved into doing more of a focused show, stand up show.

00:21:18Marc:So but previous to that, you didn't do comedy.

00:21:21Guest:No, I took classes at UCB, and I wanted really badly to be a comedian.

00:21:26Guest:I would try every four months to do stand-up.

00:21:29Marc:But wait, so the dream was music.

00:21:31Guest:It was music for my whole childhood, and then I moved out here thinking I could get into acting and writing.

00:21:38Marc:Well, let's go back, because I watched a special.

00:21:40Marc:It was called The Golden One.

00:21:42Marc:Yeah.

00:21:43Marc:And it's pretty emotionally raw, and I'm sort of a specialist of emotionally raw at times.

00:21:52Marc:But there are moments there where it's not particularly comfortably raw.

00:21:59Marc:There's moments during the special where I'm like, he doesn't really have a handle on this yet.

00:22:02Marc:He has no closure at all on this, and this is kind of hard to watch.

00:22:10Marc:But there are good parts, too.

00:22:12Marc:And I'm not saying that's a bad part.

00:22:13Marc:I'm just saying it's a slightly courageous kind of insane part.

00:22:19Marc:What are you laughing at?

00:22:21Marc:Is it hurting you?

00:22:23Marc:No, it's absolutely true.

00:22:25Marc:It's like, you know, like, how did he pitch this?

00:22:31Marc:I don't know, man.

00:22:33Marc:I mean, yeah.

00:22:34Marc:But, I mean, the idea of sort of getting closure, you know, I mean, the thrust of the show is about your mom's death and then, you know, her being an entertainer and playing at this place as a regular performer and you going back to that place, sort of a full circle thing to your hometown.

00:22:55Marc:I guess that's what it is.

00:22:58Marc:And then this was an exercise in getting that closure.

00:23:03Marc:Like you don't have it, but maybe this will do it.

00:23:06Marc:And I'll show everybody this painful attempt to display all of my talents in the rawest way possible.

00:23:17Marc:In front of friends and family at this weird joint.

00:23:20Marc:Now, where is that place?

00:23:21Guest:Where did you grow up?

00:23:22Guest:I grew up in a place called Gulf Shores, Alabama.

00:23:26Guest:And the Floribama is, you know, it's like on an island in Alabama called Pleasure Island.

00:23:31Guest:And then the Floribama is right off of that island, still in a piece of Alabama called Perdido Key, on the line of Florida and Alabama.

00:23:39Guest:Gulf Shore, Alabama is...

00:23:41Marc:by the it's on the water yeah and it's next to florida it's like that that corner there yeah like what's the closest town in florida pensacola oh yeah so this is like you know this is an observation i had you know watching it was

00:23:56Marc:A lot of Florida is the South.

00:24:01Marc:Most of it, probably.

00:24:02Marc:But there's this moment where I realized when you were performing at this place and I saw some of the people in the audience, that if you don't come from the South,

00:24:12Marc:You know, you just assume that all the people that look a certain way act a certain way.

00:24:18Marc:But you're definitely not of that ilk and you're a sensitive guy who kind of went the way of sort of emo and goth and were different and a slightly fragile sort.

00:24:29Marc:And when I watch you performing in this environment, there's part of me that's sort of like, you know, man, that's got to suck.

00:24:37Marc:But then I realized, like, but you're from there and they know you.

00:24:42Marc:Like, whatever they're going to judge you as is – the overriding thing is that you're still one of their own.

00:24:49Guest:Yeah.

00:24:50Guest:Right?

00:24:51Guest:Yeah, man.

00:24:52Guest:It was like I was freaked out by that because that –

00:24:54Guest:You know, like I wanted to make sure that because I'm like an L.A., New York kind of comedian.

00:24:59Guest:I love doing shows out here and I'm super progressive and all the shit I like has nothing to do with the South.

00:25:06Guest:And so going home, I was like, God damn it.

00:25:08Guest:I got to do it here.

00:25:09Guest:Like these people didn't have to.

00:25:11Guest:Well, I didn't have.

00:25:12Guest:That was the pitch.

00:25:13Guest:That was kind of the idea.

00:25:15Guest:So I went around like I went to Birmingham and other places to test out to make sure that it would work and found that they liked it more than a lot of a lot of the shit they liked more than people in L.A.

00:25:26Guest:and New York.

00:25:27Marc:I think a lot of times they're sort of excited to see professionals.

00:25:30Marc:Yeah.

00:25:31Marc:Yeah, dude.

00:25:32Marc:Yeah.

00:25:32Marc:You know, like certain rooms that, you know, kind of get the rotation of the local cats, you know, you know, just to see.

00:25:39Marc:But somebody's got some chops.

00:25:41Marc:Yeah.

00:25:41Marc:It's good.

00:25:42Marc:But but also but I realized, though, I understand that.

00:25:45Marc:But you are still genetically and emotionally from that place.

00:25:50Marc:Right.

00:25:50Marc:Yeah.

00:25:51Marc:And in what you were talking about in the special about being the kind of kids you were, like emo, goth, just arty kid, you were doing that there.

00:26:03Marc:So all those fucking rednecks or whoever, you still had to go to school with them, and they had to deal with you, and you dealt with them, and they dealt with you, and that happens everywhere.

00:26:13Marc:Yeah.

00:26:13Marc:So like, you know, there's this, you weren't an outsider.

00:26:15Marc:There's this idea that anybody that goes to the South, if they're not from the South is an outsider.

00:26:19Marc:And that I think is kind of true, but you aren't, even though you're a weirdo.

00:26:24Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Guest:The South has plenty of weirdos.

00:26:26Guest:Totally.

00:26:27Guest:Like, and even more weirdos because they don't have the access in the same way that the big cities do.

00:26:33Guest:So like they get the half version of something, the like half evolved version of the cool band or

00:26:39Guest:Like the band that doesn't look in the way that they're supposed to look.

00:26:43Guest:Right.

00:26:43Guest:So they become even stranger than the weirdos in the big city.

00:26:47Guest:Right.

00:26:47Marc:Because they're trying to do something.

00:26:48Marc:It's almost like they're, you know, the blob.

00:26:53Marc:Right.

00:26:53Marc:Yeah.

00:26:54Marc:Yeah.

00:26:54Marc:Totally.

00:26:55Marc:The blob kind of makes a weird kind of creepy facsimile of the person it absorbs.

00:26:59Guest:Yeah, man.

00:27:00Guest:So like when I was in my bands, like we never got access.

00:27:03Guest:This is something I always noticed is like we never had access in the South to the pants of the time.

00:27:09Guest:Come on.

00:27:11Guest:So, like, there would be guys wearing, like, skinny jeans or whatever it was.

00:27:16Guest:But we didn't have skinny jeans, so we would still be wearing, like, these chunky-looking whatever pants.

00:27:22Guest:Levi 505s.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah, Levi 505s.

00:27:24Guest:But with the rest, the top half looked the right way.

00:27:27Guest:Right.

00:27:28Guest:But the bottom half, we looked like fools.

00:27:30Guest:Right.

00:27:31Marc:It didn't match the... No.

00:27:32Marc:No.

00:27:32Marc:Well, I mean, that was the thing, though.

00:27:34Marc:I mean, that was sort of like I didn't realize.

00:27:36Marc:But that was always a thing, even in the original wave of punks.

00:27:40Marc:You know, they had to get the record sent to them.

00:27:42Marc:Some cat who owned a record store had to fucking be the channel to get the shit.

00:27:47Marc:You had to get people to send you the clothes from New York.

00:27:49Marc:Someone had to bring them down there.

00:27:52Right.

00:27:52Marc:But the skinny jean things, I thought most people, most guys resolved by buying girl ones.

00:27:57Guest:Right.

00:27:57Guest:That's what I would do.

00:27:58Guest:Right.

00:27:58Guest:Go to Target and get girl pants.

00:28:00Guest:Yeah.

00:28:00Guest:The stretchy pants.

00:28:01Marc:Yeah.

00:28:02Marc:Yeah.

00:28:02Marc:That's what I would do.

00:28:03Marc:And then, yeah.

00:28:04Marc:I mean, I just watched like a bad documentary on the replacements, you know, and just how that weird theme of local bands and

00:28:14Marc:There's the cover band, there's the ones that are the rock band, but then there's the art rock people, and they're always going to be dressing in dresses and doing weird shit, but it's almost like a staple.

00:28:25Marc:It repeats itself over generations in one form or another.

00:28:28Marc:There's always going to be that band, and you were them.

00:28:32Guest:I'd say we were playing with them.

00:28:35Guest:We weren't them necessarily.

00:28:36Guest:We were like... We were pretty okay.

00:28:41Guest:We were fine.

00:28:42Guest:We didn't seem to ever fit completely in with anybody.

00:28:45Guest:But it was also... When we would go out of town, when we would go to Nashville or somewhere cool to play a show, then we would become that band.

00:28:54Guest:But in our scene, we were okay.

00:28:56Guest:It was just like...

00:28:57Guest:But also in our scene, there was not enough bands to even make like a proper scene.

00:29:02Guest:In Gulf Shore?

00:29:03Guest:Yeah, in Gulf.

00:29:04Guest:Well, Pensacola is like where we would end up playing.

00:29:06Guest:That was like really our scene.

00:29:07Guest:I have no sense of Pensacola.

00:29:09Guest:I have no sense of what that's like.

00:29:10Marc:It's like... I mean, I've been to Tallahassee.

00:29:13Guest:It's similar to Tallahassee, except it's on the water.

00:29:15Guest:Uh-huh.

00:29:16Marc:Oh, so there's more of that beach Yahoo shit.

00:29:17Marc:Yeah.

00:29:18Marc:Like, even your brother, like, there's a moment there where you're seeing your family and your cousin, you know, in these documentary moments, where, you know, when you're talking to your cousin, you know, about your mom's death, you know, like, he looks like a fucking Southern bro.

00:29:36Marc:Yeah.

00:29:36Marc:But then all of a sudden, he's just, like, all soft and breaking down.

00:29:40Guest:Well, yeah, man, he's...

00:29:41Guest:He stayed home.

00:29:43Guest:We all left.

00:29:44Guest:My brother lives on a school bus and drives around with his family.

00:29:47Guest:My other cousin lives in Denver.

00:29:50Guest:He stayed there.

00:29:52Guest:So he's really dealing with all of the family hell.

00:29:56Guest:Yeah.

00:29:56Marc:Well, yeah, your brother, there's a moment where you're like, what's this guy about?

00:29:59Marc:And you're like, of course he's acting.

00:30:00Marc:He's just a good guy.

00:30:01Guest:Yeah.

00:30:02Marc:Kind of like free spirit dude.

00:30:03Marc:Yeah.

00:30:04Marc:Can still play some guitar.

00:30:05Marc:Big time.

00:30:06Marc:Yeah.

00:30:07Marc:But what is the story?

00:30:08Marc:So he's your older brother and there's just two of you?

00:30:10Guest:Yeah.

00:30:10Guest:Yeah, he's my older brother from a different dad.

00:30:13Guest:Oh, really?

00:30:14Guest:Yeah.

00:30:15Guest:So his dad and my mom were, you know, successful drug smugglers, I guess is the story.

00:30:23Guest:And then his dad went to prison.

00:30:25Guest:And then when my mom met my dad, they had me five, six years later.

00:30:32Guest:Yeah.

00:30:33Marc:But your mom has a twin sister.

00:30:36Marc:Yeah.

00:30:38Marc:And they were music act.

00:30:41Guest:Yeah, Sin Twister.

00:30:42Marc:Sin Twister.

00:30:43Marc:Yeah.

00:30:44Marc:Of course.

00:30:44Marc:Yeah.

00:30:46Marc:But just the sort of talk of if you grew up in the world of music in a local scene or art in a local scene, this story is familiar.

00:30:55Marc:We almost had a record deal.

00:30:57Marc:Why didn't we record it?

00:30:59Marc:There was a time where we were kind of hot.

00:31:01Marc:Yeah.

00:31:02Marc:And you kind of focus a lot on that.

00:31:04Guest:I do, man.

00:31:05Guest:And they came close and closer than I thought when I went back home, you know, talking to my aunt.

00:31:12Marc:Oh, yeah, about the record deal, the Virgin Record deal?

00:31:14Marc:Yeah.

00:31:14Marc:But like, okay, so they're doing this act after the drug dealing husband goes to jail.

00:31:21Marc:She marries your dad who's kind of like, you know, that he's come back into your life and you get to see that guy.

00:31:27Marc:He doesn't quite fit in with it all.

00:31:29Marc:He must have really turned his wife around somehow.

00:31:31Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:31:31Marc:Like, you know, he's like, I don't know.

00:31:37Marc:He's a sober guy.

00:31:39Guest:Yeah.

00:31:39Marc:But so your mom and he were married for how long?

00:31:45Guest:Nine, 10, nine or 10 years.

00:31:47Marc:So they really wrote it out.

00:31:48Guest:Yeah.

00:31:49Marc:But was it like, because your mom was a drinking and drug addicted person.

00:31:53Guest:Yeah.

00:31:54Guest:But she somehow managed.

00:31:56Guest:She sort of managed.

00:31:57Guest:It like fell apart when I was about eight.

00:32:00Guest:My dad jokingly said the other day that I had about six good years.

00:32:04Guest:Oh, really?

00:32:05Guest:Yeah, it really was.

00:32:07Guest:She didn't manage.

00:32:08Guest:I mean, maybe until I was eight or nine.

00:32:10Guest:It was like that's when everything and with my dad, too.

00:32:13Guest:That's where everything kind of really started to visibly be like I got if there's like wine bottles in the house, I have to break them.

00:32:20Marc:Like it was chaos.

00:32:21Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:22Marc:So, but like was that during the time where she was, was her sister fucked up too?

00:32:29Marc:Yeah.

00:32:29Marc:Everyone was fucked up.

00:32:30Marc:Yeah, her sister got sober first.

00:32:33Marc:Oh, so did the getting out of control coincide with the musical dream sort of fading or-

00:32:40Guest:No, really the first, there's like been a lot, there was a lot of hiccups.

00:32:43Guest:Like they were most, like most promise was in the late 70s.

00:32:47Marc:And your uncle was playing bass or guitar?

00:32:51Guest:Oh, my uncle.

00:32:52Marc:No, who was in the band?

00:32:53Marc:Oh, that guy, Ricky Whitley?

00:32:54Guest:Yeah.

00:32:55Guest:He's not my uncle, he's just some swamp man.

00:32:57Guest:Who was always sort of in the band.

00:33:00Guest:Now he lives on a swamp.

00:33:01Guest:He's like completely, probably doesn't know Corona is happening right now.

00:33:05Guest:Yeah.

00:33:06Guest:But I just got him back there to play the show with me.

00:33:10Guest:You went and found him?

00:33:11Guest:Well, he sent me that VHS tape of my mom and him playing.

00:33:16Guest:So that was sort of what kicked all this off.

00:33:19Marc:Oh, the swamp man.

00:33:20Marc:Yeah.

00:33:20Marc:See, that's something that a lot of us don't know what you're talking about.

00:33:24Marc:Swamp people.

00:33:25Marc:Right.

00:33:26Marc:There's swamp people in Alabama?

00:33:27Marc:Oh, yeah, man.

00:33:29Guest:There's swamp people, dude, for sure.

00:33:32Marc:Do they live, like, is the swamp, like, is there, like, a road where you're like, well, you take that road, and then you're... You want to go see some swamp houses?

00:33:40Guest:Some true detective shit?

00:33:41Marc:Like, let's go, man.

00:33:43Marc:That's where they are?

00:33:44Marc:Yeah.

00:33:45Marc:And they're in New Orleans, too, or in Louisiana coast.

00:33:49Marc:Yeah.

00:33:49Marc:But it has to have some density.

00:33:51Marc:So the foliage density to be swampy, right?

00:33:54Guest:Yeah.

00:33:55Guest:And we have all that where I'm from.

00:33:56Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:33:56Guest:It's like every type of body of water you could ever dream of.

00:34:00Guest:Oh, wow.

00:34:01Guest:Yeah.

00:34:01Guest:And people who you can tell the type of person they are just by like, oh, he's wearing those rubber boots.

00:34:06Guest:So he's like a swamp guy.

00:34:09Yeah.

00:34:10Marc:Okay, so the swamp guy sent you the video.

00:34:11Marc:Well, that was nice.

00:34:12Marc:Out of nowhere?

00:34:13Guest:Yeah.

00:34:13Marc:Huh.

00:34:14Marc:Out of nowhere.

00:34:15Guest:I wonder what that was about.

00:34:16Guest:I don't know.

00:34:17Guest:He just sent it to me.

00:34:18Guest:He found it and felt compelled to send it to me.

00:34:21Marc:Is that the only existing video?

00:34:23Guest:That I have, yeah.

00:34:25Marc:That exists?

00:34:25Marc:Yeah.

00:34:26Guest:That I know of.

00:34:26Guest:I'm sure there's other ones.

00:34:28Guest:We used to have a lot of tapes, but Hurricane Katrina kind of wiped a lot of them away.

00:34:32Guest:Oh, really?

00:34:33Guest:Yeah.

00:34:34Marc:Wow, that's so wild.

00:34:35Marc:And that was the one that kind of triggered it.

00:34:38Marc:Okay, so what are the hiccups?

00:34:41Guest:The hiccups are, they had a lot of promise.

00:34:43Guest:They were in Jamaica.

00:34:45Guest:The 70s.

00:34:45Guest:Yeah, in the 70s, living in Jamaica, meeting every famous David Bowie, Bob Marley, all the people.

00:34:53Guest:Keith Richards, maybe, was down there?

00:34:55Guest:I'm sure.

00:34:55Guest:Whoever came down there, they were the girls who would, like, go sing back up and just, like, fun to hang out with.

00:35:00Guest:Oh, really?

00:35:00Marc:So there were these white girls living in Jamaica who sang?

00:35:03Guest:Yeah.

00:35:04Guest:Yeah.

00:35:04Guest:And they were identical twins, and they were, like, beautiful and just, like, loved to party.

00:35:08Marc:So some pretty big rock acts have some pretty serious memories.

00:35:12Marc:Totally.

00:35:14Marc:Dude.

00:35:15Guest:Dude, you remember the twins?

00:35:16Guest:Do I remember the twins?

00:35:17Guest:Well, that's when I realized going home.

00:35:20Guest:It's like all of these innocent stories that I would hear.

00:35:24Guest:Like, oh, yeah, your mom.

00:35:26Guest:My mom would always tell me I spent the night with David Bowie, you know.

00:35:28Guest:And I remember as a kid thinking she spent the night like walking on the beach with David Bowie.

00:35:33Guest:That's nice.

00:35:34Guest:They had a sleepover.

00:35:35Guest:Yeah.

00:35:35Guest:And now I'm like, oh, damn it.

00:35:36Guest:David Bowie is fucking my mom.

00:35:39Yeah.

00:35:39Marc:There are worse things, dude.

00:35:40Guest:Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:35:43Guest:Yeah, so that was happening.

00:35:44Guest:And then my mom met her husband, my brother's dad.

00:35:47Guest:And then they got into smuggling drugs back and forth from Jamaica.

00:35:51Guest:Weed?

00:35:51Guest:Yeah.

00:35:52Guest:So then he got caught.

00:35:54Marc:that that was like that became the focus and they had a kid who had who died in a car accident too at that time so like it just was like oh that's the thing that we yeah it's not i don't think you really delineate that stuff in the special in the documentary like you know you talk to your aunt about the kid your mom lost but you know i guess it was your brother your half brother anyway yeah but but it happened long before you right yeah huh

00:36:21Guest:Yeah, so he died.

00:36:23Guest:Her husband got arrested.

00:36:25Guest:That was like a big hiccup in the music thing, you know what I mean?

00:36:30Guest:Yeah.

00:36:30Guest:And then before he went into prison, they had my brother.

00:36:34Guest:When he went to prison, my mom moved back to Alabama.

00:36:38Guest:Yeah.

00:36:38Guest:Where my aunt had already moved back.

00:36:40Guest:Yeah.

00:36:40Guest:Then they had the second wind of Sin Twister.

00:36:43Guest:Okay.

00:36:43Guest:Let's focus.

00:36:44Guest:Let's record all these songs.

00:36:45Guest:They recorded...

00:36:46Guest:yeah you know so many good songs in this great studio called airwave studio in birmingham and uh and so that was like the moment for them the like they might actually do it this time now is it mid 80s yeah mid 80s yeah and then um it just didn't really happen again and then this reminds me of your monologue and

00:37:09Guest:yeah yeah so and then yeah then my aunt moved down to Gulf Shores then my dad left mom followed to Gulf Shores so where were you guys

00:37:24Guest:We were in Birmingham until I was a little kid, you know, just until I was, like, seven or eight.

00:37:28Guest:Really?

00:37:28Guest:Right when we shot that shit?

00:37:29Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:30Marc:You lived there.

00:37:31Marc:So, but, like, the scene at home, though, like, I mean, what, yelling and screaming and throwing shit and, like... No.

00:37:37Guest:It was just mystery, constant.

00:37:40Guest:Like, I don't know who's gonna come home.

00:37:42Guest:I was... Luckily, I had an older brother who was there, you know.

00:37:46Guest:It was just... There was no classic movie drunkness.

00:37:52Guest:It was, like...

00:37:53Guest:nodding out, kind of, like, fucked up.

00:37:56Guest:You know, my mom's, like, an ex-junkie, like, or she was a junkie until she died, I guess you could say.

00:38:01Guest:What, doing the dope?

00:38:01Guest:Yeah, so, like, it wasn't like a... Oh, right, right.

00:38:05Guest:So it was more, you know, is she alive?

00:38:08Guest:Go, you know, shake her.

00:38:09Guest:It was like, oh, if she stops drinking, she'll have a seizure, that kind of thing.

00:38:13Guest:Yeah.

00:38:14Guest:So it wasn't, like, as energetic as...

00:38:19Guest:Right, there's no Sid and Nancy shit going on.

00:38:21Guest:Your dad looks like kind of a control freak dude.

00:38:24Guest:Well, yes.

00:38:26Guest:And my dad was like, until 10 years ago, was like this backwards hat, kind of cut off jean shorts guy.

00:38:33Guest:Oh, really?

00:38:34Guest:And then he met a new, his wife, and they've like very much, you know, now he's obsessed with fitness and kind of like yoga.

00:38:42Guest:Golf, being.

00:38:43Marc:But he's a sober dude, like, you know, real deal does the thing.

00:38:46Guest:Does it, fully does it.

00:38:47Marc:runs meetings and all that stuff right right right yeah yeah yeah i mean it was sort of wild that like you know because a lot of the jokes in the show you know were you know you're kind of you're slightly dark jokes some of them were about the family but it was more of the songs a lot of them and some of the interstitial stuff that really kind of told the story of of where you come from right yeah yeah so what you didn't end up having a fucking drinking problem

00:39:15Marc:No.

00:39:16Marc:Your brother either?

00:39:17Guest:No, we were like, my brother was, he got five more good years than I did, so we both had like a lot of hate in us, like for alcohol and drugs.

00:39:29Marc:Right, right, that's the other way to go.

00:39:30Guest:We just like, I was this kid who just fucking hated it and like...

00:39:35Guest:Hated it and felt completely uncomfortable and pissed off anytime.

00:39:38Guest:Like, every time, you know, turning 13 when I'd see, like, my friends were starting to get fucked up.

00:39:43Guest:Yeah.

00:39:43Guest:Just, like, fucking pissed.

00:39:45Guest:But trying to be cool about it and saying I didn't care.

00:39:47Guest:Right.

00:39:47Guest:And that lasted until I was in my mid-20s, probably.

00:39:51Guest:Right.

00:39:51Guest:Just this, like, rage about it.

00:39:54Guest:And then my brother was a little bit more chill, but a really similar kind of way.

00:39:59Guest:Yeah.

00:40:00Marc:What's the timeline on, like, because she died not that long ago, right?

00:40:04Yeah.

00:40:04Guest:She died 11 years ago.

00:40:06Marc:Oh, that's 11 years ago.

00:40:07Guest:Yeah.

00:40:08Guest:Yeah.

00:40:09Guest:So I was 19 or 20.

00:40:11Marc:And you were still at home?

00:40:13Marc:No, I had just moved to LA.

00:40:15Marc:Okay.

00:40:15Marc:So your, your dad leaves and you're how old?

00:40:19Guest:I was nine.

00:40:20Guest:Oh, so you officially left when I was nine.

00:40:23Marc:So you had like 10 years just being down there with your mother?

00:40:27Guest:Well, yeah, so then my dad came back when I was in high school.

00:40:31Guest:When my dad left, my mom was in and out of rehab, and she would get in trouble and be on, what's it called?

00:40:39Guest:Probation?

00:40:40Guest:Probation, yeah.

00:40:41Guest:So it's a real fucking mess.

00:40:44Guest:Yeah, and then my dad had gotten sober.

00:40:47Guest:He was living in a halfway house and doing all that and kind of that life.

00:40:51Guest:He had lost his law license and was... He was a lawyer?

00:40:55Guest:Yeah.

00:40:56Guest:And he came back to live in Alabama after visiting one time and like seeing the kind of shit show.

00:41:06Guest:The squalor.

00:41:07Guest:Yeah.

00:41:08Guest:Yeah.

00:41:09Guest:And he stepped up.

00:41:10Guest:He for sure stepped up.

00:41:11Guest:Yeah.

00:41:13Guest:It was really weird.

00:41:14Guest:He kind of realized like...

00:41:16Guest:Wow, you know, Johnny and Wit kind of have already figured this out, how to raise themselves.

00:41:23Guest:So I'll like give them a place to stay and live and take care of them and work.

00:41:29Guest:You know, he worked as an assistant at a title company and just figure out how to help them in whatever way I can.

00:41:35Guest:But they've got it.

00:41:36Guest:So it was still like we didn't have any real rules or anything.

00:41:38Guest:But now we had like a consistent place.

00:41:41Marc:Yeah.

00:41:41Marc:And you had your dad for whatever that was worth.

00:41:44Guest:Yeah.

00:41:45Guest:Yeah.

00:41:45Guest:And he's always been like, dude, anytime I'd love to talk to you and tell you what happened and what went down.

00:41:51Guest:And I waited until just recently for him to tell me.

00:41:55Guest:Before the special?

00:41:57Guest:Yeah.

00:41:58Guest:We sort of like about two years ago, he was driving me to the airport and he like kind of laid it all out.

00:42:04Guest:Yeah.

00:42:05Guest:His whole fucked up shit.

00:42:06Guest:Was it surprising?

00:42:08Yeah.

00:42:08Guest:No, I mean, once you hear it from him, he was like, I didn't expect to live this long.

00:42:14Guest:That was his idea.

00:42:15Guest:He was like, the shit I grew up liking was all these people, this free love.

00:42:21Guest:And then my age, for some reason, everything is synthetic.

00:42:26Guest:There was no more just people smoking weed and having sex with each other.

00:42:29Guest:It was like shooting heroin and getting AIDS.

00:42:32Guest:It was a different thing, but my parents never hugged me and I just wanted to die.

00:42:38Guest:You know what I mean?

00:42:40Guest:So he was like, I wanted to live fast and leave a good-looking corpse, and then I had a family.

00:42:45Guest:So I don't think it's a good thing, but I guess I get it.

00:42:51Guest:Yeah.

00:42:52Marc:But the one thing I noticed about the whole thing, so we'll get to it.

00:42:56Marc:So by the time you leave to come out here, I mean, your mother's kind of lost to you anyways.

00:43:04Yeah.

00:43:04Guest:Yeah.

00:43:05Guest:No, I watched my mom die like 100 times.

00:43:09Guest:So it was, when she actually did die, it was really hard and painful, but it was sometimes, in a way, it was like a relief, as terrible as that sounds.

00:43:21Guest:It's like she's actually gone.

00:43:24Marc:And when did, because another part of the sort of story is that

00:43:29Marc:From the special, is that like your aunt, then your mom's twin sister stopped talking to you?

00:43:33Guest:Yeah.

00:43:34Guest:For no... No, I mean all kinds of reasons.

00:43:37Guest:When my mom was dying, it was absolute chaos.

00:43:41Guest:There was like drugs and money stuff and a safe with like a ring in it.

00:43:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:43:47Guest:Yeah.

00:43:47Guest:all kinds of shit like that and my aunt really was like going through hell dealing dealing with her sister dying and then um she was doing some fucked up stuff some bad stuff too me and my brother who were watching our mom die and um ultimately like I went to the funeral and uh

00:44:10Guest:I was like, I'm never going to talk to any of these people again.

00:44:13Guest:Oh, really?

00:44:13Guest:Yeah.

00:44:14Guest:It was a bad scene.

00:44:15Marc:Brought out the worst in everybody.

00:44:17Guest:Yeah, everybody.

00:44:18Guest:I went to the funeral and they had decided that they didn't really want anything to do with me a long time before that, I think because I moved in with my dad.

00:44:29Marc:Yeah.

00:44:30Marc:So there's just like this strain...

00:44:33Guest:Yeah, at the funeral, they had a slideshow of my mom and her first son, Casey, and their life together.

00:44:42Guest:Yeah, and then a slideshow of my mom and my brother, and then they didn't have anything of me.

00:44:47Guest:Really?

00:44:48Guest:Yeah, and so I was like, fucking, I'm out of here.

00:44:51Guest:This is it, and I left, just bailed, went back to California and never looked back.

00:44:56Guest:So who called you to tell you your mom died?

00:44:58Guest:Your dad?

00:44:59Guest:Yeah.

00:44:59Guest:My brother.

00:45:00Guest:Well, he said, we need to go home.

00:45:04Guest:You need to come home.

00:45:06Guest:Your mom has got a couple more days.

00:45:09Guest:And she was keeping it a secret that she was dying.

00:45:11Guest:What was she dying of?

00:45:14Guest:Cirrhosis and hep C and all the things.

00:45:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:45:18Marc:All the things that that life.

00:45:19Marc:Yeah.

00:45:20Marc:The gifts of that life.

00:45:22Guest:Yeah, the gifts.

00:45:24Yeah.

00:45:24Guest:The satanic souvenirs of a life embracing hell.

00:45:31Guest:And it's like, dude, at that time, every one of my friends down there, too, each one of our parents were just... Dropping?

00:45:39Guest:Dropping in the same kind of way.

00:45:41Guest:Really?

00:45:41Guest:Drugs or alcohol, yeah.

00:45:43Guest:Whatever.

00:45:44Guest:It's just like a hard-living kind of place down there.

00:45:48Marc:So, when you came out here, it seems like, I don't know, it's not that...

00:45:54Marc:But it seems like before she died or whatever was going down there, you just needed to get out of there.

00:46:01Marc:Yeah, man.

00:46:04Marc:There was no way I was going to stay down there.

00:46:07Marc:And you had a vague sense of...

00:46:09Marc:Being an actor or being a musician?

00:46:12Guest:I met a guy.

00:46:13Guest:I had stopped doing music because I had taken it so seriously throughout my whole childhood and never had like a life outside of a band.

00:46:20Guest:Yeah.

00:46:20Guest:And so I had stopped doing it and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

00:46:24Guest:I had met my friend and co-director, Clay, who I grew up with down there.

00:46:29Guest:He had gotten a scholarship into Savannah College of Art and designed for a short little sketch thing we had made.

00:46:35Marc:I hear that's a good school.

00:46:36Guest:Yeah, it's a great school.

00:46:37Guest:And then I was like, well, maybe I could do something like that.

00:46:40Guest:But I couldn't go to some fancy school.

00:46:41Guest:And then I met a guy in Florida who worked at a special effects company in L.A.

00:46:47Guest:And I was talking to him about it.

00:46:49Guest:Like, could I want to move?

00:46:49Guest:Maybe I can move to L.A.

00:46:50Guest:And he's like, dude, give me a call when you, you know, and I'll hook you up with a job as a P.A.

00:46:55Guest:So I was like, great.

00:46:56Guest:That's what I'm doing.

00:46:56Guest:And that became my plan.

00:46:58Guest:And then moved out here right after high school.

00:47:00Guest:And that guy never answered the phone.

00:47:04Yeah.

00:47:04Guest:It was like the rudest awakening immediately.

00:47:09Marc:I've heard so many stories of the people that like, all it took is one guy.

00:47:13Marc:They don't know the guy that well, but they're like, I'm going.

00:47:16Marc:This one guy who I don't know.

00:47:18Marc:Didn't know him at all.

00:47:19Marc:Yeah.

00:47:19Marc:Said, come on out and I'll set you up.

00:47:22Guest:Yeah, man.

00:47:23Guest:And I wonder how many times I've done that to people now.

00:47:26Marc:i try to only offer things that i can handle i can that i can really do yeah you know what i mean so all right so so you come out here but that kid that co-directed the special with you clay is yeah and he was part of power violence as well yeah so you guys have been working together for a long time yeah since we were 10 really we was in every band with me oh really yeah and he's out here yeah

00:47:50Marc:What's he doing?

00:47:52Guest:He's just making stuff, you know, writing, directing little things.

00:47:55Guest:You know, me and him are hopefully going to make more stuff, you know, if they let us.

00:48:01Marc:Sounds like you should make a real script about the family.

00:48:05Marc:Yeah.

00:48:06Guest:Yeah, I want to.

00:48:07Guest:I'm trying.

00:48:07Guest:That's what we're trying right now.

00:48:09Guest:Gothic.

00:48:10Marc:Indie movie.

00:48:14Marc:Because I think that what's really compelling about it, you know, drugs and whatnot, but in family tension, but it all sort of focuses around a very specific period in music.

00:48:25Marc:Where, you know, they were kind of doing a Stevie Nicks trip.

00:48:28Marc:Yeah.

00:48:28Marc:Yeah, like a dual Stevie Nicks trip.

00:48:32Guest:Yeah, they love, I mean, and I found all those tapes.

00:48:35Guest:There's at one point when my aunt is talking about Casey, like we're at the kitchen and we're looking through.

00:48:40Guest:About the kid that died?

00:48:41Guest:Yeah.

00:48:41Guest:Two inch tape.

00:48:43Guest:Oh yeah, that big analog tape.

00:48:45Guest:Yeah.

00:48:45Guest:And she was saying those were all ruined by Katrina, and I got them all digitized, and the guy was like, these are two-inch tapes.

00:48:51Guest:You can't ruin these.

00:48:53Guest:They're indestructible.

00:48:54Guest:So I was listening through shit all the way back to like 75.

00:48:57Guest:Oh, you have it digitally?

00:49:00Guest:I have all of it, yeah.

00:49:01Guest:And I'm getting a bunch of the songs remixed and mastered, because some of them are isolated recording tracks.

00:49:07Guest:But there's recordings of them fucking around in a bar in Aspen doing a cover of whatever Fleetwood Mac.

00:49:15Guest:song oh really yeah it's really cool and then you can hear him talking to each other in between songs and like entertaining the crowd no kidding yeah that must be nice it's really cool

00:49:24Marc:Well, that was sort of the interesting thing about retrieving this past.

00:49:31Marc:But okay, we can get back around to that.

00:49:34Marc:So how did you land out here?

00:49:35Marc:What the fuck?

00:49:36Guest:What'd you end up doing?

00:49:38Guest:I got a job at a skate shop in Santa Monica, active skate shop on the Third Street Promenade.

00:49:44Marc:And you're a good skater.

00:49:45Guest:I'm okay, not by California standards.

00:49:48Guest:In Alabama standards, I'm good because the ground isn't even good enough to push around on.

00:49:53Guest:But once you get out here, it's like there's real good skaters.

00:49:57Guest:Yeah, but you can hold your own.

00:49:58Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:49:59Guest:Yeah.

00:49:59Guest:And so I was doing that.

00:50:00Guest:Enough to be at a shop.

00:50:01Guest:Yeah, enough to be the guy behind the counter at the skate shop.

00:50:04Marc:But also probably the non-intimidating guy.

00:50:06Marc:Yeah, especially back then.

00:50:07Guest:I'd be like, hi, guys.

00:50:08Guest:Y'all want to?

00:50:09Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:09Marc:But they're kids, right?

00:50:10Marc:And the last thing they need is some alpha skateboard jock.

00:50:13Marc:Totally.

00:50:14Marc:You know, you're just like you could do a few tricks.

00:50:16Marc:And you're probably the ones that you still have more skateboards like eight-year-olds than anybody.

00:50:20Marc:Totally.

00:50:21Guest:They really connect with me.

00:50:22Guest:Nobody has ever been intimidated by me in their whole life.

00:50:26Yeah.

00:50:28Guest:So, yeah, I was just doing that.

00:50:29Guest:And then I looked up on MySpace.

00:50:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:50:32Guest:I was like, I looked up people.

00:50:35Guest:I was like, is anybody out here from the South trying to be an actor?

00:50:39Guest:And then some people were like, oh, yeah, I'm from wherever.

00:50:42Guest:And here's what you got to do.

00:50:44Guest:Yeah.

00:50:44Guest:Uh, I went to an acting class and then I was like, what else do I need to do?

00:50:48Guest:And then they were like, some, some like a scam studio.

00:50:53Guest:I'm sure it's some type of pyramid scheme.

00:50:55Guest:And they're like, you need to get a headshot.

00:50:56Guest:And I remember not knowing what headshot was and saying, what is a headshot?

00:51:00Guest:Oh, wow.

00:51:01Marc:And so they, you know, it was a scam studio.

00:51:04Guest:You know, one of those things where they're like, we'll introduce you to an agent.

00:51:07Guest:Oh, right.

00:51:08Marc:Well, don't they all do that?

00:51:09Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:51:09Marc:Yeah, okay.

00:51:10Marc:So how'd that work?

00:51:11Marc:Did you do some acting lessons?

00:51:13Guest:I did all of it.

00:51:14Guest:And then I got into, like, real serious stuff, you know, and took it really seriously.

00:51:19Guest:It was like...

00:51:20Guest:Growing up, like, loved movies and Gus Van Sant and shit like that.

00:51:24Guest:My Own Private Idaho is probably my favorite movie still, but especially back then.

00:51:30Guest:I realized that, like, everybody out here who was working in all these acting classes on shows like Gossip Girl or whatever it was, they had, like, never seen a movie in their life.

00:51:43Guest:They were just, like, really good looking.

00:51:45Guest:Sure.

00:51:46Guest:People cast them and stuff, and I just became super bitter about it.

00:51:50Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:51:51Marc:Prematurely bitter.

00:51:52Guest:Yeah.

00:51:53Guest:Okay.

00:51:53Marc:Without even getting into the game.

00:51:54Marc:No, not at all.

00:51:55Marc:Like, I'm fucked.

00:51:56Guest:Look at these idiots.

00:51:57Guest:I'm doing it.

00:51:57Guest:I'm trying really hard, and these people are actually doing it, and they don't know anything about it or care about it.

00:52:03Guest:And so that, luckily, like, that shifted into me doing, you know, I was doing the band, but then I started doing stand-up and stuff.

00:52:10Marc:Where were you doing the stand-up?

00:52:12Guest:I started just like in all the alt rooms.

00:52:14Guest:Right.

00:52:14Guest:And still, you know, pretty much just like east side rooms, you know.

00:52:18Guest:Yeah.

00:52:19Guest:We did some shows together.

00:52:20Guest:Sure.

00:52:21Guest:I know.

00:52:21Guest:You never, you missed.

00:52:22Guest:I remember one time thinking, okay, I have a joke that I think Mark might like.

00:52:26Guest:And then you walked out right when I got on stage.

00:52:29Guest:I'm sorry, dude.

00:52:29Guest:Where was that?

00:52:32Guest:It wasn't Meltdown, but it was at Meltdown.

00:52:34Marc:Oh, right, like Andy Kindler's show or something?

00:52:36Guest:Something like that, yeah.

00:52:38Guest:You were with your niece, I think?

00:52:40Marc:Oh, when Eden was in town, that one time.

00:52:43Marc:Oh, yeah, got her in there.

00:52:44Marc:Yeah, she didn't seem to care much.

00:52:47Marc:Yeah, I didn't know if I could keep her there.

00:52:50Guest:Like, I took off, huh?

00:52:51Guest:Well, no, I mean, I was like, oh, he's sitting, you were sitting in the crowd, which was kind of like odd.

00:52:57Guest:Yeah.

00:52:58Guest:And then you stood up and left right after whatever.

00:53:00Guest:Oh, sorry, buddy.

00:53:02Marc:I like to sit in the crowd sometimes.

00:53:04Marc:I'll sit in the crowd when my opener's on at a theater or something.

00:53:07Marc:That's cool.

00:53:08Marc:Get the feel.

00:53:09Marc:Yeah.

00:53:09Marc:What are people experiencing?

00:53:11Guest:Yeah.

00:53:11Marc:How does this feel for the people?

00:53:13Guest:Yeah, that's good.

00:53:14Marc:But so, were you making a living doing comedy?

00:53:17Guest:No.

00:53:18Guest:I didn't make a living doing comedy until three months ago.

00:53:22Guest:Yeah.

00:53:22Guest:Dude, the brokest of anybody I've ever known until like three months ago.

00:53:28Guest:I was like, me and my buddy Clay were always like, dude, how do people live?

00:53:35Guest:Yeah.

00:53:35Guest:Because for me, it's like unemployment and some crazy job or whatever, you know.

00:53:40Marc:Yeah, no, it wasn't until recent that I. Yeah, because it is sort of interesting, like, you know.

00:53:47Marc:Because watching the thing, the special, because I remember I saw a trailer for it or something.

00:53:54Marc:But then I watched the special and I'm like, man, he can't decide what he wants to do.

00:54:03Marc:And we're all watching the confusion.

00:54:06Marc:He's pretty good at a lot of things, but he's not willing to let anything go.

00:54:10Marc:And he's protecting himself from failing at any one thing by doing many things pretty well.

00:54:22Marc:yeah that's a good that's a good way to put it i don't know if i would put that on the blurb no yeah well no but the thing is like i related to it i'm not trying to be negative i understand putting stuff out in the world that in retrospect was really probably too raw for for for me to to know you know how it would land yeah you know what i mean

00:54:43Guest:Well, it comes from complete desperation.

00:54:47Guest:Does it?

00:54:48Guest:For me, yeah.

00:54:49Marc:Desperation for what, though?

00:54:50Guest:Anything.

00:54:52Guest:It was desperate to connect again.

00:54:55Marc:Right, connect.

00:54:56Marc:Okay, that's different.

00:54:57Marc:But that's not desperation for money.

00:54:59Guest:Oh, yeah, no.

00:55:00Marc:It's a desperation that can come through in creativity where you need to be seen by whoever.

00:55:09Marc:Like, this is me.

00:55:10Guest:Right.

00:55:11Guest:I mean, it's in a way desperate to be seen, but for me, it was like getting that tape.

00:55:17Guest:My comedy agents had just fired me right before that guy, Ricky Whitley, sent me that tape, and I was like- Really?

00:55:24Guest:Yeah.

00:55:25Marc:The absolute- They fired you because they couldn't get you work, or-

00:55:28Guest:Yeah, I was doing the Golden One show, but there was no music in it yet.

00:55:32Guest:Oh.

00:55:32Marc:And people just kind of- So it started as a one-person show kind of thing about the death of your mom and- Sort of, yeah.

00:55:40Marc:Less about the parallels of our failures.

00:55:43Marc:Oh, right.

00:55:43Marc:Oh, okay.

00:55:44Marc:Yeah, see, that theme, the sort of like we both were failing.

00:55:48Marc:I mean, the thing was like, you know, you're young.

00:55:51Yeah.

00:55:51Guest:Right.

00:55:51Guest:But she was young, too.

00:55:53Guest:And so I kept when she was kind of I kept thinking, oh, in that video, she's my age.

00:55:58Guest:Right.

00:55:59Guest:Right.

00:55:59Guest:And and she had already it had already all happened.

00:56:03Guest:And now she's at this bar.

00:56:05Marc:She's the house band.

00:56:07Guest:Yeah.

00:56:07Guest:She's kind of done now.

00:56:08Marc:Right.

00:56:09Guest:And I kept going.

00:56:10Guest:I've just been like, let go.

00:56:11Guest:And is this what am I going to fucking do?

00:56:14Guest:Right.

00:56:14Marc:Right.

00:56:15Guest:And she called me the fucking golden one and like all the time.

00:56:19Guest:And so, yeah, so that's kind of how that worked.

00:56:24Guest:And then I had recorded a bunch of music.

00:56:27Guest:I was like, maybe if I record all these songs that I wrote about, you know, my mom or whatever it is, breakups, I'll feel this connection and this like creativity.

00:56:37Guest:And so I recorded all these demos with a friend of mine and then I listened back to all these lyrics and I was like, this is fucking embarrassing.

00:56:42Guest:I'm never going to show anybody these songs.

00:56:45Guest:And you showed everybody.

00:56:46Guest:Well, I just changed all the lyrics kind of to make them more embarrassing.

00:56:50Guest:Oh, okay.

00:56:51Guest:Just taking, removing metaphor.

00:56:52Guest:Oh, to make them funnier?

00:56:55Guest:Yeah.

00:56:55Guest:Right.

00:56:55Guest:Just like if I had a song about my mom drinking herself to death, just saying my mom drank herself to death.

00:57:00Marc:Right, or I partied till I died.

00:57:03Guest:Yeah, yeah, partied to death.

00:57:04Marc:Partied to death.

00:57:05Guest:Which was one of my first jokes, like saying my mom partied to death.

00:57:10Guest:And like, so, yeah, man, it was just like, it was just all out of this like fluster of like desperation to just like connect creatively.

00:57:21Guest:Put this thing together, yeah.

00:57:23Marc:I mean, I think it was good.

00:57:24Marc:It was just like because I'm sort of sensitive to my own discomfort around,

00:57:30Marc:performing uncomfortable things because i've always done it it's always been the way i start you know like i'm gonna put this out there and i know people are laughing because they're uncomfortable they're not laughing because like i have complete control of this joke you know they're laughing because sort of like oh man yeah what the you know and that's a type of laughter

00:57:50Marc:Yeah.

00:57:53Marc:Yeah.

00:57:53Marc:But, but it seems to me that, you know, doing the songs and telling the jokes, you know, around this stuff, I didn't, you know, I don't know why you like, was there a discussion about putting the song about having a hard time getting a boner?

00:58:07Marc:Was there like, were you like, do I put this in?

00:58:09Marc:Is this really necessary?

00:58:11Guest:I just feel like it's nice to have a break from the death to talk about erectile dysfunction.

00:58:17Marc:Yeah.

00:58:17Marc:Hey, let's lighten things up a little bit.

00:58:20Guest:Yeah.

00:58:22Guest:Nobody's talking about it.

00:58:23Marc:Not enough people are being honest about it.

00:58:26Guest:Well, sometimes there's a certain type of person, guy, who will come up to me and I'm like, oh, this person lost his mom to alcohol.

00:58:34Guest:And then there's a type of guy who's like, he's going to come talk to me.

00:58:36Guest:I felt like he can't get a boner.

00:58:39Marc:Look, I mean, back when I was younger, I understood exactly, I understood the performance anxiety part of it.

00:58:44Marc:But, like, you just have to, are you getting better with that?

00:58:46Guest:Yeah.

00:58:46Marc:You just have to shift and say what you want and find someone who's patient.

00:58:50Guest:Right, patience, confidence, patience.

00:58:53Marc:Yeah, yeah, just sort of like, you know, shut up, it's happening.

00:58:59Marc:Stay with me.

00:59:01Marc:But it seems to me that...

00:59:05Marc:most of the closure that you got was really... It really seemed in the conversations with your cousin and your aunt was really where the shit landed.

00:59:20Marc:Because for some reason throughout a lot of that documentary footage, you didn't really...

00:59:24Marc:I could feel you not being able to get to your emotions around it.

00:59:30Marc:You would lock down, like with your old man and shit.

00:59:33Marc:You're locked down.

00:59:34Marc:I mean, you're social, and you can be funny, but you couldn't let go.

00:59:39Guest:No, and it's just, and you know, I'm in therapy and all that stuff.

00:59:44Guest:It's too, it's just been such a part of my life forever.

00:59:48Guest:And I don't know necessarily how to access my anger and that stuff over, no, just like my, my being fucked, you know, like in my childhood and my dad bailing, my mom, nobody taking care of me.

01:00:02Guest:I don't know how to access the anger about it at all.

01:00:06Guest:Hmm.

01:00:06Guest:So talking to them, you know, the things that I get emotional about are usually not even involving them.

01:00:14Guest:It's like... So, yeah, I didn't emote in the way that I wanted to, but then there is also more... I didn't also want it to feel like the apology tour, you know, of me, like, going around and talking to everybody and trying to get them to say I'm sorry or whatever.

01:00:30Marc:Well, no, I didn't feel that at all.

01:00:32Marc:What I felt was, like, you know...

01:00:36Marc:was your cousin's empathy, clearly there's this backstory about them all turning on you, and then you coming back and doing this, that there was a real moment there where he seemed to feel bad.

01:00:49Marc:And that moment was pretty amazing, right?

01:00:54Guest:Yeah, he feels a lot of guilt.

01:00:58Guest:He was there for me when my mom was dying.

01:01:01Guest:The cousins were there, him and my other cousins and my brother.

01:01:05Guest:But he feels a lot of guilt about my childhood and not being there.

01:01:11Guest:My brother and him and my other cousin, Jenny...

01:01:14Guest:They all had a car and could drive away and just kind of often I was stuck.

01:01:18Guest:And my cousin Wilkes feels a lot of, and they all do.

01:01:22Guest:And that was a whole, that's a conversation we've since had together, the four of us.

01:01:27Guest:But it's like.

01:01:29Guest:What, leaving you?

01:01:30Guest:They feel bad, like leaving me just kind of as a kid.

01:01:33Guest:Yeah.

01:01:34Guest:There to kind of break the bottles or whatever it is.

01:01:36Guest:Right.

01:01:37Guest:When they could drive off and go fuck around.

01:01:39Marc:Yeah.

01:01:40Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:01:42Marc:You're dealing with the sad part of partying.

01:01:45Guest:Yeah.

01:01:45Guest:And they're going to go have a good time.

01:01:47Guest:They're going to go have sex.

01:01:49Marc:Yeah.

01:01:50Marc:But when you regroup with your aunt, how was that?

01:01:55Marc:I mean, she seemed a little withholding.

01:01:57Marc:Yeah.

01:01:58Guest:She was.

01:01:59Guest:But willing.

01:02:00Guest:And she's become less withholding now.

01:02:02Guest:It's personal for her to... She was very willing and happy to talk to me.

01:02:09Guest:Right.

01:02:10Marc:And that whole moment of you seeing your mom and her because they're twins.

01:02:13Guest:Yeah.

01:02:15Guest:Yeah.

01:02:15Guest:And I realized kind of.

01:02:18Guest:It's just you get older and I just can't remember sometimes why I'm so angry.

01:02:21Guest:Yeah.

01:02:22Guest:Right.

01:02:23Guest:And and I think she might not be able to articulate it, but she feels a lot of guilt and about how everything went down.

01:02:34Guest:And, you know, she's still dealing with it.

01:02:38Guest:She says she dreams about my mom every night, you know?

01:02:41Guest:Right.

01:02:42Guest:That was her entire identity, was my mom.

01:02:46Guest:Like, her and my mom together.

01:02:47Marc:Well, yeah, twins, it's rough, man.

01:02:49Guest:Yeah.

01:02:50Guest:Especially when you're, like, creative together.

01:02:51Marc:And they're identical?

01:02:52Guest:Yeah.

01:02:54Guest:And so I just, I did become, I started to have a lot of sympathy for her.

01:03:00Marc:And she's sober, too?

01:03:01Guest:Yeah.

01:03:02Yeah.

01:03:03Marc:Well, that's the thing about your old man is like, you know, he seems, you know, legitimately kind of like, you know, born again sober dude.

01:03:12Marc:Like not, I mean, like born again, like sober, not Christian or anything.

01:03:15Marc:And like, you know, he knows how to do the work and process the shit.

01:03:18Guest:Yeah.

01:03:19Marc:And he's willing to do it, but it's still going to have that kind of practicality element.

01:03:24Marc:He's willing to take responsibility.

01:03:26Marc:Right.

01:03:26Marc:You know, but he's really kind of done the work.

01:03:29Marc:He has the language.

01:03:30Marc:Yeah.

01:03:30Marc:Yeah, but it looks like he's done the work.

01:03:33Marc:He's pretty solid.

01:03:34Marc:He's done all he can do.

01:03:35Marc:He can't live in the past or in shame anymore because he's recovered.

01:03:42Guest:Right.

01:03:42Guest:Yeah, that's totally what it is.

01:03:44Guest:He doesn't feel like this wake-up-every-night-guilty kind of thing.

01:03:48Marc:Yeah, because he let it go.

01:03:49Guest:Yeah.

01:03:50Marc:Yeah, which is part of it.

01:03:52Marc:Well, have you ever done the Al-Anon thing?

01:03:55No.

01:03:55Guest:When I was a kid, I would.

01:03:57Guest:With my mom, I would.

01:03:58Guest:That was part of like a mandated sort of thing that I would have to go be a part of.

01:04:06Guest:But then I haven't really been that big of a part of that since I was a child.

01:04:11Marc:How about that ACOA?

01:04:13Guest:No, I haven't done any of that.

01:04:16Marc:There's some good fucking, I hear some pretty solid ACOA shit going on.

01:04:20Marc:I know a couple cats who do that, you know, who come from like the serious alcoholism families.

01:04:27Marc:And that's like a kind of emotionally grad level kind of shit.

01:04:32Marc:That's cool.

01:04:33Marc:Yeah, because it's a specific thing.

01:04:35Marc:You know, I don't know.

01:04:37Marc:I mean, you know, it just like it seems like contextualizing is the difficult thing.

01:04:43Marc:Like, you know, if you're going to therapy, right, and you're working out this stuff and you're trying to access the grief, I mean, it would seem to me that being that what you're experiencing is, you know, highly common for people who were brought up or who grew up in that shit.

01:05:01Marc:Yeah.

01:05:02Marc:You know what I mean?

01:05:03Marc:And being part of some group mind around it would probably enable maybe some more access.

01:05:11Guest:Yeah.

01:05:12Guest:Yeah, you're right.

01:05:13Guest:I should do stuff like that.

01:05:15Guest:Yeah, maybe once a week or something.

01:05:17Guest:Once or four times a week.

01:05:19Marc:Well, I mean, I'll tell you who I know.

01:05:21Marc:Okay.

01:05:21Marc:So now, how is this special being received, dude?

01:05:24Guest:people have been nice on the internet.

01:05:28Guest:Swedish people.

01:05:29Guest:That in and of itself is really rare.

01:05:33Guest:Yeah.

01:05:33Guest:People have been cool.

01:05:34Guest:I didn't know but I do a Bill Hicks joke so people have been really angry about that.

01:05:40Guest:Which one?

01:05:41Guest:About Jesus on the cross and

01:05:42Guest:That's right.

01:05:43Guest:That's a Lenny Bruce joke.

01:05:45Guest:Oh, it's a Lenny... Well, people have been tweeting that it's a... I know Bill did his version.

01:05:49Marc:Everyone does their version.

01:05:50Guest:Okay, cool.

01:05:51Guest:Thank you.

01:05:52Guest:Because people have been tagging you in all these posts.

01:05:54Guest:They go, Mark Maron, Whitmer Thomas steals Bill Hicks' joke.

01:05:58Guest:They're telling me that you did it?

01:06:00Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:01Guest:And they tag Joe Rogan, too.

01:06:03Marc:um so that's been the most of the hatred look man i you know i i did a thing like i accidentally think i did i thought i accidentally think i did it or thought i did a bill hicks line on conan many years ago and it plagued me forever but it turns out like a lot of people were doing that joke well yeah so and but but your joke is exactly what what was it

01:06:21Guest:It's my mom.

01:06:22Guest:My aunt called me one year on my mom's death day.

01:06:25Guest:Yeah.

01:06:25Guest:Which is a weird day to remember somebody, but we're taught to remember things that way.

01:06:29Guest:When Jesus comes back, I feel like he'll be like, first order of business.

01:06:32Guest:Let's remove all the memorabilia from the worst day of my life.

01:06:36Marc:Yeah, right, right, right, right.

01:06:37Marc:It was certainly around when Lenny was around, but I get it.

01:06:40Marc:Yeah.

01:06:40Marc:So yeah, dealing with a little of that.

01:06:42Guest:Dealing with that.

01:06:43Guest:But other than that, everybody online has been really cool.

01:06:47Guest:People have-

01:06:47Guest:said nice things and i didn't necessarily think that people would connect in the kind of way you know so many people have dealt with the same kind of shit right right and so it's it's been cool and it's been nice you know people have been nice to me and it's getting you more work or i don't know yet because right now we're stuck at home but oh that's right i hope so a minute yeah you know how long has the special been out

01:07:11Guest:since late February.

01:07:14Guest:So I hope it does.

01:07:16Guest:I had to cancel a tour.

01:07:19Marc:Right, of course.

01:07:20Marc:Now, did it come along with, are you developing for HBO now?

01:07:24Guest:No.

01:07:25Marc:They just gave you the special.

01:07:26Guest:No, yeah, how it happened is they saw this version that I was doing before I had music, and they were like, I'm not too interested in that.

01:07:34Guest:Then I was doing it with music.

01:07:39Guest:Bo Burnham saw that, and then A24 got involved, and then we pitched it to HBO, this idea of me going home and kind of doing it there, and then they were like, cool, yeah, let's do that.

01:07:51Guest:And they just kind of let me go.

01:07:54Guest:And then we had to do hurry because the tourist season was about to end.

01:07:57Guest:So we needed people there to actually go to the show.

01:07:59Guest:So we had to shoot it like a month later.

01:08:01Marc:So you shot that for outside of friends and family, which I guess was, what, a dozen?

01:08:08Marc:Right.

01:08:08Marc:You shot that for real fucking Gulf Shore tourists?

01:08:13Marc:Yeah.

01:08:14Marc:That's pretty brave.

01:08:16Yeah.

01:08:16Marc:How'd you pull that off without fucking collapsing?

01:08:20Guest:They're cool, man.

01:08:21Guest:Me and Sean Patton used to do a show there like twice a year.

01:08:25Guest:At that place?

01:08:26Guest:Not there.

01:08:26Guest:At another place similar to that.

01:08:28Guest:Yeah.

01:08:28Guest:And they love it, man.

01:08:29Guest:Sean would fucking demolish just like telling whatever stories.

01:08:33Guest:They're just open.

01:08:34Guest:He's Southern boy too, right?

01:08:35Guest:Yeah.

01:08:36Guest:Where's he from?

01:08:36Guest:New Orleans?

01:08:37Guest:Yeah.

01:08:38Guest:So it was like, they were cool.

01:08:40Guest:Uh-huh.

01:08:41Guest:You know, and they laughed more at a couple of jokes than anybody, like that Dumb in Love song I have.

01:08:47Guest:They, like, at first thought that I was one of maybe more similar to them politically, and then they realized I'm making fun of them, and they're like, oh, that's funny, too.

01:08:55Guest:You know, it was like, they were cool.

01:08:57Guest:Oh, good.

01:08:58Guest:At the end of the show, I was like...

01:09:00Guest:How many people's moms or dads died here in like 95% of the crowd?

01:09:09Guest:How's Sean doing?

01:09:10Guest:Sean's great.

01:09:11Guest:Yeah?

01:09:11Guest:Yeah.

01:09:12Marc:I haven't seen him in a long time.

01:09:13Marc:I don't see a lot of the kids of your generation that often.

01:09:17Guest:You know, what's funny is when I first started doing comedy, you were around all the time.

01:09:22Guest:Like maybe right before, too, I would see you at like all the weird shows.

01:09:25Guest:Maybe early.

01:09:26Guest:It was like right when WTF had started.

01:09:28Marc:Yeah, because like I was still like, you know, I had to like I hadn't.

01:09:34Marc:I needed to kind of like get some foothold.

01:09:37Marc:You know, I needed to work.

01:09:39Marc:And I think I was working at the store, but like, you know, I didn't want to do the improv.

01:09:43Marc:I didn't really want to do the Laugh Factory.

01:09:45Marc:And I felt like at that time, I thought it was necessary that I do those places for that audience.

01:09:52Marc:That was a missing piece were those audiences.

01:09:57Marc:And that because I had been part of the original alt comedy movement

01:10:03Marc:in New York that I had some sort of place in it, but I never liked the audiences that much.

01:10:10Marc:It was just too selective.

01:10:13Marc:I came up in clubs performing for a broad base of people, and then it's just like everybody was so precious, and the comedy was so specific, and I always resented it.

01:10:24Marc:Yeah.

01:10:25Marc:So, you know, I did it and people did like me and it was fine.

01:10:29Marc:They seemed to be like, here comes our cranky uncle.

01:10:32Marc:But I definitely had a sort of like resentment to the homogenization of a type of comedy because it was all the same.

01:10:44Guest:Yeah.

01:10:44Marc:Those audiences.

01:10:45Guest:Yeah.

01:10:46Guest:I think I mean, I like going to the comedy store.

01:10:49Guest:I've tried many times to get in at the comedy store and I just can't.

01:10:53Guest:It's like just going and hanging out all the time.

01:10:56Marc:Now those audiences that were kind of built through all comedy or through.

01:11:00Marc:Well, it's weird because now there is sort of a new generation.

01:11:04Marc:of actually excited comedy audiences.

01:11:08Marc:Like people have become, because we're all sort of putting ourselves out there on platforms and because of podcasts, there's just a whole world of younger people that are on top of it and know the dudes and are into the thing and they come out.

01:11:23Marc:It's really kind of what was before the plague, a kind of heyday for it all.

01:11:29Marc:And it seems like as that's happening, a lot of those alt spaces are kind of,

01:11:34Marc:closing down or there are not as many, right?

01:11:36Guest:No way.

01:11:37Guest:There's not nearly as many alt shows as there used to be.

01:11:40Guest:It used to be like you could do a show a night, an alt show a night, but now it's like, and also it used to be that the comedy store, nobody was there when I first started.

01:11:48Guest:So, yeah, it's like, it's crazy how it kind of flipped, flipped around.

01:11:55Marc:Right, right.

01:11:56Marc:But a lot of the people that were driving the alt scene also became bigger acts.

01:12:00Marc:Yeah.

01:12:01Marc:And so they don't do it anymore.

01:12:03Guest:Yeah, they all came famous.

01:12:04Guest:I was thinking about that the other day, or maybe about six months ago.

01:12:08Guest:I was like, shit, nobody from my crew has gotten famous.

01:12:12Guest:I was like, who's it going to be?

01:12:13Guest:Because the guys ahead of us, there's like 10 of them who got super big.

01:12:18Guest:And then there's y'all's scene.

01:12:20Guest:Y'all got super big.

01:12:21Guest:And I'm like, fuck, we're already in our 30s.

01:12:23Guest:Nobody.

01:12:24Guest:So far.

01:12:24Marc:I was in my 40s.

01:12:26Guest:Oh, yeah, that's good.

01:12:27Guest:That's a good reminder.

01:12:28Guest:It's also funny to think that I was seeing you.

01:12:30Marc:No, I'm not of the next one up.

01:12:33Marc:Like, you know, I think like Zach, I would say is probably the one after me.

01:12:38Marc:Oh, really?

01:12:39Marc:Kind of.

01:12:40Marc:Maybe, maybe not.

01:12:42Marc:I mean, like I remember when Zach started.

01:12:45Marc:And I don't believe we started at the same time.

01:12:48Marc:I feel like he started a little after me.

01:12:51Marc:Rogan's definitely in my generation.

01:12:56Marc:All I know is the one on top of us was that 80s crew.

01:13:00Marc:Seinfeld and all those guys.

01:13:04Marc:And then we're the wave after that.

01:13:07Marc:And then there's another wave.

01:13:09Marc:And then you guys.

01:13:11Guest:Yeah, that's always the best thing.

01:13:13Guest:You know what is something that everybody, you always ask people from the store that they always skip right over on your podcast?

01:13:21Guest:What?

01:13:21Guest:Is you'll go, what was that?

01:13:23Guest:You always go, what was that I like about Jim Carrey?

01:13:27Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:13:27Guest:And they just go, I don't know.

01:13:28Guest:And then they talk about something else.

01:13:30Marc:Yeah.

01:13:30Guest:And I was like, why does everybody always skip over the Jim Carrey conversation?

01:13:34Marc:I don't know.

01:13:34Marc:I feel like he wasn't around that much.

01:13:37Guest:Yeah.

01:13:37Marc:Like that.

01:13:38Marc:There were certain people that started there.

01:13:41Marc:But that's true.

01:13:43Marc:He doesn't get mentioned that much.

01:13:45Marc:I don't know how long he stayed in it.

01:13:47Marc:I feel like it was kind of meteoric when he locked in.

01:13:53Marc:But that's a good question.

01:13:55Marc:I don't know.

01:13:56Marc:I mean, I wish he would come on.

01:13:58Marc:Yeah, it's weird he hasn't.

01:14:00Marc:Well, I don't know.

01:14:00Marc:He's sort of an isolated dude.

01:14:02Marc:He's an odd dude.

01:14:04Marc:Yeah, he's a strange guy.

01:14:05Marc:Yeah, but he's a very manic, very creative guy.

01:14:08Marc:But, I don't know, as more podcasts sort of exponentially grow, I think that the idea that they need to do this one kind of gets a little diminished.

01:14:21Marc:when there's so many other ones.

01:14:23Marc:I know I'm sort of that second wave OG.

01:14:27Marc:I didn't invent the podcast, but I helped popularize it.

01:14:30Marc:But now we're at some other level, man.

01:14:33Marc:There are certain people that are like, they have a choice.

01:14:38Marc:All I can offer someone like Jim Carrey is like, well, I talked to Tom Dreesen.

01:14:42Marc:and J.J.

01:14:44Marc:Walker.

01:14:45Marc:So if you want to be part of my little oral history experiment around the comedy story, you can come down and do that.

01:14:51Marc:I know you talk to Obama.

01:14:53Guest:I think he might know that guy.

01:14:54Marc:Sure.

01:14:55Marc:No, no, no.

01:14:55Marc:I know.

01:14:56Marc:I'm just saying that whether they do this or Dax or if they're of a certain type of mind, they're going to do Joe, whatever.

01:15:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:15:03Marc:You know, I run the same shop over here.

01:15:06Marc:Hopefully we'll be able to continue doing live ones.

01:15:09Marc:It's hard to say.

01:15:10Marc:You're the last live one I've got booked.

01:15:12Marc:Well, really?

01:15:13Marc:This thing is really working out for me, this corona.

01:15:16Guest:Oh, yeah, man.

01:15:17Guest:I got to make some calls to see who's willing.

01:15:20Guest:Yeah.

01:15:20Marc:But I guess we really don't know what's going to happen.

01:15:22Guest:Yeah, podcast is okay.

01:15:24Guest:I guess people want to make more cartoons now.

01:15:26Guest:There's some indoor stuff that are okay.

01:15:30Marc:This is going to be the big... Everyone's getting a whole new skill set.

01:15:33Marc:People never have to leave.

01:15:34Guest:There's going to be some cool albums or some terrible albums.

01:15:37Guest:I think that might be true.

01:15:39Marc:Depending on how creative people are using their time.

01:15:43Marc:I'm occasionally getting on the live Instagram.

01:15:47Marc:But I'm 10 minutes in and I'm like, this is stupid.

01:15:49Marc:There's nothing happening.

01:15:51Marc:I'm out here in the garage again.

01:15:54Marc:But people love it.

01:15:55Marc:They do, kind of.

01:15:55Marc:I wonder when people are going to start slipping, though.

01:15:58Guest:Kind of like, I'm back.

01:16:00Guest:You guys okay?

01:16:01Guest:I'm losing it.

01:16:02Guest:We're just filming stuff they definitely shouldn't be filming.

01:16:05Guest:Oh, that'd be great.

01:16:06Guest:I think that already happened.

01:16:07Guest:An NBA guy accidentally filmed himself getting a blowjob on Instagram Live.

01:16:12Guest:Really?

01:16:13Guest:Yeah.

01:16:14Guest:How do you accidentally?

01:16:15Guest:I don't know.

01:16:17Guest:He said he was hacked too, but it's like his hand on the floor.

01:16:23Marc:Well, it's definitely something people are doing if they can.

01:16:25Guest:Yeah.

01:16:26Marc:Yeah.

01:16:27Marc:All right.

01:16:27Marc:So have you talked to your aunt?

01:16:30Guest:Yeah, I talk to her a lot.

01:16:31Guest:Oh, good.

01:16:32Guest:She's never going to hear this, but hopefully we'll surprise her with the record that they wanted to put out.

01:16:39Guest:Oh.

01:16:39Guest:Getting it all mixed and mastered.

01:16:42Guest:That'd be sweet.

01:16:43Guest:Get a label to put it out, some little reissue label, you know?

01:16:46Marc:Sure, man.

01:16:47Marc:Press 500 or something.

01:16:48Guest:Yeah.

01:16:49Guest:That's the dream.

01:16:49Marc:Well, that's nice.

01:16:50Marc:And maybe then everything, you'll be all better.

01:16:53Guest:I don't think so thanks for talking man thanks dude

01:17:02Marc:There you go.

01:17:04Marc:Quite a story.

01:17:05Marc:Yes.

01:17:06Marc:Watch the special Whitmer Thomas, the golden one available on all HBO platforms and also the songs from the golden one, if you dig them, are available to stream or download.

01:17:17Marc:And there's a CD or an LP with two exclusive tracks not featured on the special.

01:17:22Marc:But that was a

01:17:23Marc:I like that guy.

01:17:24Marc:Nice guy.

01:17:25Marc:The guitar you're about to hear I played live for an audience of about 3,000 people on Instagram Live.

01:17:33Marc:You're going to witness a very short, kind of clunky concert.

01:17:41Marc:But you only hear my part of it.

01:20:03Marc:Boomer lives!