Episode 1139 - Colin Jost
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I guess most of you have been hanging out, right?
Marc:You've been around, been hanging out around here.
Marc:For you new people, welcome.
Marc:This has been going on for a while.
Marc:We've been talking.
Marc:We've had an ongoing conversation here, me and whoever's been here since...
Marc:Whenever some of you have been here for over a decade having the ongoing conversation.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:Everything that I do is just part of an ongoing conversation, sometimes with other people, sometimes with you, sometimes with myself.
Marc:But I've noticed that with my stand up or with whatever I'm doing here, it's just an ongoing conversation.
Marc:And so many people.
Marc:I've been here through a lot of stuff, and I'm finding that I've been there for a lot of your stuff as well.
Marc:I always kind of knew it, but I don't know if I fully... It's not appreciate, but there's a...
Marc:It's a type of empathy, I guess, where I'll get emails from people that say, you know, we went through breakups together or you were there for me.
Marc:And I understand that.
Marc:And I'm glad that I was there.
Marc:But obviously, I wasn't there, you know, right there with you.
Marc:But I was there with you in your head.
Marc:But like, if I really think about what the sort of weight of that, the gravity of it.
Marc:that i've been there like it gets me uh gets my heart all all welled up how's everything with you guys all right are you it's fucking horrendous come on who we kidding it's fucking horrendous every day is fucking horrendous
Marc:Now that I feel a little, a smidge better where I can actually set aside time to cry about my sadness and my loss and set aside some other time to take in the news whole-mindedly and feel that fucking weight, that fucking grief.
Marc:It just feel like you watch the fucking news sometimes and you feel like somebody is punching you in the goddamn chest.
Marc:The authoritarian fist of garbage.
Marc:just right into your chest.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm just running with the fist thing.
Marc:You want to know who's on the show?
Marc:Let's do that.
Marc:Colin Jost is on the show.
Marc:This season will be his 15th year at Saturday Night Live.
Marc:He has a new book out tomorrow, July 14th, called The Very Punchable Face.
Marc:Oh, maybe that's where I'm hung up on it, on the fist and the punching and the heart clenched like a fist.
Yeah.
Marc:I think if it was another time, now we're two months into, Lynn died a little over two months ago.
Marc:And I feel the hole, I feel the void, I feel the pain, I can see.
Marc:I have to struggle not to perceive the world through the hole in my heart.
Marc:That is not a great lens.
Marc:I have to separate, compartmentalize.
Marc:I have to deal with the spiritual realm.
Marc:I have to deal with the mystical realm.
Marc:I have to deal with the practical realm of loss.
Marc:On any given day, you know, when you listen to the news, it's terrible.
Marc:Wear your fucking mask, stupid.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:It's like, Jesus.
Marc:But on any given day, it's really the challenge is compartmentalizing and realize that I've got this sadness, the deep sadness.
Marc:I guess we all have that.
Marc:The deep sadness of like, why the fuck am I here?
Marc:You know, who did this to me?
Marc:Why did it?
Marc:Why was I brought here?
Marc:Why?
Marc:Then the next layer, which is my girlfriend's dead.
Marc:And then the world doesn't seem to be working out.
Marc:That's diplomatic.
Marc:This shit, the experiment is not working.
Marc:This is some banana republic bullshit.
Marc:Then there's the plague level.
Marc:It's hard to separate this shit out and just sit there and be like, it's okay on the porch right now.
Marc:But what do I do for relief?
Marc:It's the relief thing.
Marc:I'm not prone to seek out healthy relief.
Marc:You know, I'm just not.
Marc:Or healthy rewards.
Marc:Just not.
Marc:You know, and I guess this quarantine is helping me keep shit manageable.
Marc:You know, outside of the occasional ice cream, I guess I've been eating OK, but I eat a lot.
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:That's OK.
Marc:Acting out like that's fine.
Marc:You know, just shove your mouth full of stuff.
Marc:Just keep stuffing stuff into your face hole till you're happy and comfortable and feel sick.
Marc:That's not a healthy way to do it, but it's, you know, depending on what you eat, right?
Marc:I can't drink.
Marc:Can't do no drugs.
Marc:Haven't.
Marc:Don't wanna.
Marc:Haven't even dipped back into the nicotine.
Marc:Can't fuck.
Marc:See, I think that's one of the things that, you know, you don't hear about in the more, in the sadness of grief.
Marc:How much you miss somebody, the whole, the love.
Marc:What about the fucking, man?
Marc:That's gone, too.
Marc:Goddamn.
Marc:And now, like, you know, what am I?
Marc:I'm the guy fucking just eating ice cream and jerking off again?
Marc:Full circle.
Marc:I've landed back.
Marc:Goddamn it.
Marc:And, you know, I guess if it were another time, I've never been through this, but certainly...
Marc:When you break up with somebody after a couple months, you're like, I'm going to go.
Marc:I'm going to fuck.
Marc:But this is different.
Marc:This is much sadder.
Marc:There's no revenge impetus.
Marc:There's no, like, which one of her friends.
Marc:You know, there's no, it's just sad.
Marc:So even if I chose to act out sexually, which is very difficult during a quarantine, I think, you know, really, you know, fucking in the age of AIDS was easier than this.
Marc:Because it's like you can protect yourself.
Marc:Now, not only do you not know, but you can't just put a coating on your entire body.
Marc:You just can't do it.
Marc:It's better, though.
Marc:It's better, right?
Marc:It's better.
Marc:Thank God for quarantine.
Marc:After a few months, I'd be like, who wants to fuck the sad man?
Marc:I am emotionally incapable of connecting because I'm so profoundly consumed in grief.
Marc:But can we just, you know, touch the things?
Marc:Can we put the things in the things?
Marc:Nope.
Marc:You're on your own, pal.
Marc:So in other words, because of the quarantine and because of, you know, a certain amount of recovery mindedness, you know, I can't I can't do much of anything.
Marc:That doesn't involve just me and food.
Marc:And I'm more terrified than ever of getting this fucking disease.
Marc:I'm not doing shit.
Marc:But my friend Kightlinger, she gave me a hat with a fucking windshield on it.
Marc:I went to Whole Foods wearing a mask and like a golf hat with a full windshield.
Marc:Like a beekeeper's outfit.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:I just ordered some more plastic shields.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:It's scary, man.
Marc:It's just fucking scary.
Marc:And you know what I started to realize, too?
Marc:It's like, you know, I got my problems, but there's a lot of people dealing with a lot worse shit than me.
Marc:My friend Lori Kilmartin lost her mom to the COVID, and she's been pretty aggressively funny about it in a very dark and painful way.
Marc:You should check out her Twitter feed going all the way back.
Marc:She basically live-tweeted her mother.
Marc:dying of covid uh which was heavy it's fucking heavy man
Marc:But, you know, I've been talking to other people.
Marc:I've been, you know, I talk to my friend Sam Lipsight every night, who is, you know, a dear friend.
Marc:And he's really been there for me every fucking night.
Marc:And last night, I don't know, I think something shifted to me because I was able to kind of like get out of myself, listen to him.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:I felt good.
Marc:I got choked up a couple of times just thinking about being a father, all these things that, you know, being the father of a kid in high school.
Marc:Things I never did.
Marc:I'm getting a contact emotional high.
Marc:Get a little choked up about the struggles.
Marc:Nothing tragic.
Marc:Just, you know, I think the common struggles of raising children in any world, but the world now where they can't do anything.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So that was nice.
Marc:I'm just I'm just I'm what I'm doing right now is I'm saying I know a lot of you guys got your fucking plates full and my heart goes out to you.
Marc:We're all trying to get through this.
Marc:And we have a president that likes to hurt us more.
Marc:And there's no clear leadership.
Marc:The center cannot hold, it does not seem.
Marc:What strange beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Marc:Good question.
Marc:somebody answer it all right look uh enough enough uh colin jost is uh he's got a book coming out a very punchable face a memoir comes out tomorrow july 14th but you can pre-order it now
Marc:And we talk about some interesting, there's interesting Pete Davidson, Colin Jost connection that is very touching.
Guest:This is me and Colin coming right up.
Marc:Hey, buddy.
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Okay, I get it.
Marc:You read books.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:I'm very impressed with the books.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:What did you actually go back to Harvard to do this?
Guest:To collect the books?
Marc:What the fuck is that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, to shoot this?
Guest:They're all hollow.
Guest:They're just for show.
Marc:There was ones you buy in bulk.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You had a set deck come in and just...
Marc:Can you make me look smart on my FaceTime video?
Guest:You've got a Rolling Stones poster framed up, you know?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So point being.
Guest:You're cool.
Marc:What's going on, man?
Marc:Whose house is that?
Marc:Your place?
Guest:Yeah, we're back in the city for like one day just to like see if everything's okay, like collect mail and all that stuff.
Marc:Oh, so you guys have been holed up in the country or something?
Guest:Yeah, out of Montauk.
Guest:We've been there.
Guest:We went out just for a weekend when we had a break from SNL, and then that turned into whatever, 120 days or whatever it's been.
Marc:So I've read a lot of the book, actually, and I don't usually, but I read.
Marc:It was funny, and I enjoyed it, and I think I made it a little more than two-thirds through.
Marc:And you do succeed in creating somewhat of a sympathetic character of yourself.
Guest:A miracle.
Marc:But what happens at the end?
Marc:Do you end up with the movie star and good job, right?
Guest:There's no, the ending is more of, you know, probably ending more in existential crisis than anything else.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:But yeah, no, that's, it's more, there's sort of weirder episodes toward the end.
Marc:Actually, the biggest laugh I got, what do you think is the biggest laugh in your book?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I don't even, I don't remember what's,
Marc:For all the talk about writing and being funny, you're going to tell me you don't know what the biggest laugh in the book for you is?
Guest:I'm fascinated to know what you found.
Marc:When you wrote the book and you're like, that's a good joke.
Marc:That's going to stay.
Guest:I heard different things from different people, like friends when they read it, what line they liked.
Guest:So I'm curious.
Marc:Well, it's for me because like, you know, I like, you know, things that are directly related to experience for some reason.
Marc:But that beat where the cops come in into Chicago, you know, they break in with the full riot gear and you say, I became a scared high school student again and throw my beer on the floor, even though it's perfectly legal for a 30 year old man to drink a beer in a private home.
Marc:I laugh twice at that.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:The idea.
Guest:The idea.
Marc:Reacting quickly.
Marc:I'm not holding a beer.
Guest:When you're 30, when you're 30 and you go back to your full high school anxiety,
Guest:That's a very fun thing to do.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I've been, you know, in a car and, you know, you see a cop coming up on you like, be cool.
Marc:Like, what am I?
Marc:I'm 56.
Marc:What am I doing?
Marc:Be cool.
Guest:Cops.
Guest:I'm I'm I have anxiety about those things where when I'm going in a store and there's like a security guard at the store, I almost make a show of leaving with my like showing that I'm not shoplifting.
Guest:I'm so worried about conflict that they'll say, that I'll be mistakenly, that's how afraid I am.
Marc:Have you ever been in one of those situations where the buzzer goes off and you don't know why?
Guest:Where you did, you bought something and then you suddenly, you're like, I swear I bought it.
Marc:Have you ever stolen things and gotten away with it?
Guest:I don't think I've ever stolen it.
Guest:I remember an incident as a kid stealing a
Guest:A dog's leash from a neighbor's house and like stealing it and putting it down a sewer drain.
Guest:And that's like a really haunting memory in my mind.
Guest:I was like, why did I do that?
Guest:I don't know what caused me to do that.
Guest:And that's still like.
Marc:Have you figured it out?
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:I haven't.
Marc:Do you know the neighbor or the dog or anything?
Guest:I don't remember which neighbor, which dog.
Guest:I just remember doing it.
Guest:And then I remember feeling like so horrible about myself.
Guest:Like, why would I do that?
Marc:You didn't kill the dog.
Guest:It wasn't like a good son.
Guest:I watched the good son the other day and I was like, Oh, I'm fine.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're not a monster.
Marc:It's hard for me to believe that you come from Staten Island for some reason.
Marc:And I don't know a lot about it other than I lived in New York for a decade or however long I lived there, a couple of 15 years ago.
Marc:And I you know, I always knew it was over there and I always knew that there was no reason to go there, really.
Marc:And I knew I knew about the dump.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I knew about the mob and I knew about like it was just this weird kind of dark place that that I knew Eddie Pepitone came from there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But other than that, I would never like I was surprised to find out, even though I know you mentioned it on the show, that you come from there.
Marc:So it seems to me that you must have gone through some effort to erase as much of that as possible from from your from how people perceive you like a conscious effort.
Guest:Yes, for sure.
Guest:There was a lot of there was a lot of running away from it.
Guest:I mean.
Guest:physically commuting in for high school and also wanting to probably still be on the move a little bit and also adapting, always wanting to, I don't know, change where I am or change what's going on, you know?
Marc:Yeah, but do you have family members that are deep Staten Island?
Marc:They talk the talk?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I had trouble speaking for a long time in my life, and then when I did learn, I actually had a very thick Staten Island accent, like super...
Marc:Yeah, what was that?
Marc:When did you learn how to talk?
Marc:Four.
Marc:And there's no medical explanation for that?
Marc:And you don't have a ton of brothers, right?
Marc:You only have one brother?
Guest:Yeah, I have one younger brother, Casey.
Marc:So there was no reason for you not to talk?
Marc:You just didn't talk?
Guest:No, there wasn't, no.
Guest:And I think it was getting to the point of probably some real fear on the part of my family, which is why I went to a hospital speech therapist.
Guest:But yeah, I don't know if there was a medical reason they have not told me.
Guest:Yeah, my parents would be the parents that would not would bury something that would be that would be traumatic.
Guest:They would they would rather keep it to themselves and not and not burden me with it in some way.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:I've tried I can't always get a straight answer out of them.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So even now you're a grown person that's worked through some stuff.
Marc:You've written a book and they're still going to go, you know, go to the grave with the secrets of why they may have buried them for themselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's the thing you realize later in life.
Guest:Like they may not have parents sometimes don't tell you things because they've buried it themselves and don't work, you know, don't figure out how to do it.
Marc:Well, I mean, it was sort of interesting to me that like no one could figure out the name of the hot speech therapist.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Everyone was just like, it was this beautiful blonde woman.
Guest:And I was like, name, first name, last name, nothing.
Guest:And you really couldn't track her down?
Guest:No.
Guest:And I kept asking.
Guest:And that's what made me almost more suspicious of my mom, that there was some other darker thing I didn't know.
Guest:I was like, wait, you don't remember this woman who like saved your son's life and taught him how to speak.
Marc:You give him you give her a lot of credit.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, I still give her a lot of credit like every day.
Guest:I'm very grateful.
Marc:Did you try to go to the hospital and ask or do some research in the records?
Guest:Again, I was too trusting of my mom that I was like, Ken, does the hospital, she was like, the hospital doesn't have that.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:I just thought, oh, I guess they don't.
Guest:But maybe they don't.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe they don't have that kind of thing.
Marc:I think I think it would be nice to reach out to her.
Marc:But I guess I don't know.
Marc:Usually people can find you if they want to find you to say like, hey, I'm here.
Guest:I remember like when I started SNL, I was talking to Amy Poehler about it and she was like, you got to find this woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like this is going to be she would be so grateful to get to talk to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, you know, and I was like, I have to.
Guest:And then I really tried to figure out.
Guest:And truly, my parents said there's we don't have any medical records of you before the age of 12.
Guest:That seems which is also a very evasive statement, don't you think?
Guest:But isn't your mother a doctor?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Uh huh.
Marc:OK, so I wouldn't trust that information.
Guest:But it was it's Staten Island.
Guest:So my doctor growing up was just like an uncle that I would know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah, I grew up with Uncle Lou, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your mom, there were other doctors in the family and you everything was sort of a social call.
Marc:It was never a real visit.
Guest:I mean, I kind of just trusted that A, he was a doctor and B, that he was an uncle.
Marc:Your parents seem to have signed off on it.
Marc:So you went along with it.
Marc:You don't really know any other way.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Those can those stories can be bad or good.
Marc:I'm glad it was OK.
Marc:But did you like when you so you did your mom have a practice growing up?
Guest:Yeah, she has a family medicine practice that she's had this whole time.
Guest:So, you know, she she had a family medicine practice.
Guest:My dad was a teacher at Staten Island Tech High School on Staten Island.
Guest:So between the two of them, like so many people on Staten Island either had my dad as a teacher or my mom as a doctor.
Guest:Like they're there when you go out to dinner on Staten Island, it's crazy how many more people know them than me.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Well, people walk up to her and they're like, remember me?
Marc:You fixed that kind of thing.
Guest:It's like when you're a comedian.
Guest:If someone says, remember me, I saw you at a show in Missouri 15 years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes you're like, oh, yeah, you audience member.
Guest:It's the same for her.
Guest:She's like, how can she remember all of these people?
Marc:Well, it depends who they are.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The guy who ruined the show.
Marc:I remember that.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Someone's like, remember, I yelled that thing at you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Now I remember you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're the guy who threw the thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:OK, great.
Marc:But that's so funny.
Marc:So she she probably did remember.
Marc:I saw a lot of them as kids and they just kind of remember like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They totally did.
Guest:She has a lot of kids, you know, a lot of kids.
Marc:That's probably why you don't have records is because she probably did most of the doctoring.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
Guest:Again, that's my assumption.
Guest:But as you're asking me now today, I start having a lot of more suspicious conspiracy theories.
Marc:Maybe you're not even their kid.
Guest:I thought we'd go deep.
Guest:I didn't think we were going to go this deep this quickly.
Wow.
Marc:Maybe that's what's being hidden.
Marc:They found you.
Marc:Maybe one of her patients was like, I don't want this one.
Marc:And your mother agreed to raise it as her own.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:More of a penguin kind of raised.
Guest:Maybe the speech therapist was more of a circus performer that raised me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't realize.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You were the boy that didn't talk.
Marc:You were a traveling act for a little while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't like it is odd to me, though, that you're able to like if you wanted to, could you speak Staten Island?
Marc:Do you speak it when you go back?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Certain phrases like even saying like Staten Island is like you.
Guest:It's hard to say that.
Guest:No, I've never heard anyone even not from Staten Island called like Staten Island where you hear the T's.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's really funny.
Guest:Even Verrazano Bridge, they just now, this year, corrected the spelling.
Guest:They had misspelled the name of the explorer that they named the bridge after.
Guest:And it just got fixed.
Guest:And they just were like, oh, maybe we should spell his name correctly.
Yeah.
Marc:But like when you were growing up, like, so your younger brother, what's he do?
Marc:He's in show business, right?
Guest:He's been working on that show in Practical Jokers since it started with all those guys who are all from Staten Island.
Guest:They all went to this school called Monsignor Farrell High School on Staten Island.
Guest:And my brother went there.
Guest:My brother's younger, but he went there and then they started doing stuff together.
Guest:And then that show, that show happened.
Marc:Like, I picture that to be more of a Staten Island undertaking.
Guest:It's very Staten Island.
Guest:I mean, it's like born and bred in Staten Island.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So, but like, I can't, like, I don't, it seems like you've done everything to erase it.
Marc:I just, I'm glad you own up to it in the book, but it still seems like you're some sort of weird magical elf person that, you know, that was just passing through Staten Island, you know, for some reason.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's a funny either-or, magical elf person or native Staten Islander.
Marc:Well, it's like it all ties into the idea that you're not really your parent's child and that somehow you were found.
Marc:And now look at you.
Marc:You didn't talk for four years until you're four years old because you innately knew, like, these people I can't let on who I really am.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, you learn how to talk, and then you go to Harvard, and you're engaged to Scarlett Johansson.
Marc:There's no...
Marc:There's nothing Staten Island about that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, this is suddenly this found child theory is really adding up.
Guest:All the pieces are connected.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's on you to fix everything.
Marc:You're the golden one.
Marc:Are you up for it?
Marc:I mean, I know the story about the stand up and everything.
Marc:That's cute and everything.
Marc:But but, you know, this you have big responsibilities.
Marc:It's just point in history.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just rewatched the Eddie, you know, Golden Child, which I hadn't seen since probably I was whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like eight or something.
Guest:And that is what a trippy, weird, fun movie that is.
Guest:It's like such a surreal thing.
Marc:I haven't watched it.
Marc:I haven't watched it.
Guest:I forgot there's just like full dragon person in it and shadow figure and all this stuff.
Guest:I forgot how much, how like spiritual it got.
Marc:Oh, man, I should I definitely have to watch it now.
Marc:So when does the how does it work?
Marc:Like so you how did you get out?
Guest:Just education.
Guest:Like that's that's how I got.
Guest:I got out because I got into this high school, this like free Catholic high school in the city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I commuted in.
Guest:And that was the only way I got out.
Guest:Like it was always going to be I had to like education was the way to weigh out, I think, for me.
Marc:And it was a Catholic school.
Marc:How Catholic were you brought up?
Guest:I always can say now I was raised Catholic.
Guest:I think a lot of Catholics say I was raised Catholic the way you say I was raised by wolves.
Guest:My mom still goes to Mass every Sunday.
Guest:I went to Mass every Sunday through the beginning of college.
Guest:But it was weirdly never super religious for me.
Guest:It was always...
Guest:reflection and taking that time to kind of think about, I don't know, almost intention or think about people in your life or things you're grateful for, things you want to figure out.
Marc:Was there something calming about the hymns and chants and weirdness of the Catholic Church?
Guest:yeah yeah and it's and it's really repressed which which i liked you know it made sense to me you know it was not no one's in your business you're not forced to sing most people are just kind of half singing or not paying attention you know you you can do your own uh journey at a catholic mass it seems like many catholics have done their own journey yeah there's few that follow the exact rules of the prescribed journey
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I, the thing I always, the thing I remember learning was the idea of conscience.
Guest:And I always like the pure version of conscience is if you have fully examined something in your, in your heart and your mind, and you really believe this is the right thing to do, you're, then you can go against what the tenants of your faith are because
Guest:because you've really taken the time to think about that.
Guest:And I always thought that was such a great loophole in a good way for a religion to say, like, if you really are looking at yourself and this religion and you don't believe in something, trust your conscience.
Guest:And that's not a big played up thing in Catholicism.
Guest:I think it's more modern and recent, but I do think that's a great concept.
Marc:But yeah, it is.
Marc:Is there a catch to it that lays the next step and then go apologize?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, there's I don't know if there's a catch like, but you might go to hell.
Guest:I don't know if that's a catch, which seems like a pretty big one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it's like you can't they can't force you to hell if you really were pure in your conscience.
Marc:So you don't know when that was added like that.
Marc:Like it seems like a way to sort of move the religion forward.
Marc:It's a relatively progressive idea.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I bet it was emphasized more in the last 30 years than when it was all in Latin.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like your parents, I mean, your mom's a doctor.
Marc:She couldn't have been that nuts with the Catholic thing.
Guest:Oh, she was very, I mean, she was pro-choice always.
Guest:She was in favor of gay marriage.
Guest:She was, I mean, she was a pioneering woman who worked in the fire department when there were no women in the fire department.
Guest:So she didn't give a shit about a lot of social things.
Guest:What she liked about it was, I think, the
Guest:The community of it and the again, like they're trying to reflecting and trying to be a better person of it.
Marc:So when you went to the Catholic school, that's when you kind of were able.
Marc:I don't think people really understand the difference, you know, between Staten Island, you know, and the rest of the world.
Marc:So for you to sort of go to school in the city, that's like a big fucking deal.
Guest:It was a completely different world.
Guest:Like Staten Island is not far from New York geographically, but as you know, and is like light years different.
Marc:I mean, it's like you go out on the island, they're like, New York what?
Guest:You know, it's crazy.
Guest:Oh, it's like Southern, being in like Southern New Jersey or something.
Guest:It feels like a very different strain.
Guest:And even among suburbs, it's weird.
Guest:It's not like other suburbs either.
Marc:No, there's a darkness there.
Marc:There is.
Guest:When you live on an island that was the largest landfill in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like this is in a modern era when we were competing against like landfills in China.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we were filling this one up faster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's like a different world.
Marc:So it's not active anymore, right?
Guest:No, they closed it, I don't know, 10 years ago or something.
Marc:So now it's just a mountain?
Guest:It's now a mountain.
Guest:And then every time you go home, there's some new theory about what they're going to do with it.
Guest:Like one was, we might have buffaloes come and wander the hills.
Guest:You know, you're like, what?
Guest:Great.
Guest:Where is it?
Guest:Who's bringing them in?
Guest:Do they want to come?
Guest:I don't think they want to come.
Guest:Wander the toxic mountain.
Yeah.
Marc:Not just that, but there's all the weird Dutch shit.
Marc:You kind of gave a brief history in the book of Staten Island to kind of justify your foundation as a true Staten Island person.
Marc:Your family's been there since it was like, what, there was just a few families and farms or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, my, my, like my Irish ancestors on Sten Island from like the 1860s, 1870s are buried like under a golf course, the 18th pole of a golf course.
Marc:And you guys all knew that.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't actually know that till later on.
Guest:And I was like, oh, shit, I should have paid my respects, I guess.
Guest:I don't know what you golf course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know how you do that.
Marc:They just plowed over the fucking graveyard.
Marc:Or was it where they buried in a trench because of disease?
Guest:This is way before people thought maybe we shouldn't plow over a graveyard.
Marc:I mean, OK, they're like, move the stones.
Guest:And they didn't expect the poltergeist graveyard.
Yeah.
Marc:So you're just, are you all Irish?
Marc:No, you're Irish.
Guest:German and Irish.
Marc:Where'd the Germans come from?
Guest:My grandfather was an immigrant who came in, he came as a kid with his parents who spoke only German.
Guest:They came, I think, in 1920, something like that.
Guest:Okay.
Okay.
Guest:um and they i don't they my my uncle said they may there may be they may have been german and maybe half like jewish german he wasn't sure like he's been trying to figure out their their heritage but you get on that show that i did finding your roots call henry gates yeah yeah he he uh scarlet did and said it was like it was nuts like she found out
Guest:you know yeah right you know her grandfather was in a hall you know in concentration camps and had survived all this crazy and she found all the crazy stuff out it was a real did they was that already on her episode uh yeah i think i think a couple years ago i'm i haven't i haven't actually watched it she was she told me about it but i haven't seen is she forbidding you to watch it there's things she doesn't no no no it was i don't think there was anything too too dark that came out but i know
Marc:So you're going to school with the Catholic high school and that's like but this is like like this is where you start learning about what books writing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Books writing and like critical thinking, you know, like questioning things was was it.
Guest:But really the biggest thing was it was like finding your people kind of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I found all these other.
Guest:really funny, nerdy, aspirational kids who almost none of them were from Manhattan.
Guest:There were like three kids in our school that were from Manhattan, even though it was in the city.
Guest:And almost everyone came from Queens, Brooklyn, Jersey, Pennsylvania, upstate New York.
Guest:Like people traveled.
Guest:It was a long distance to get there because it was free and it was a good education, but it was all these kids that wanted to stay in this.
Guest:No one wanted to go home.
Guest:Why would you go home to Staten Island when you could be 14 and just have freedom in the city?
Guest:It was finding my people who loved... It was finding kids that even today I still am on text chains with and try to go to dinner with whenever I can and joke about
Guest:things with, and that was like the beginning of, of really of comedy for me, you know, like seeing just the way you joke around with friends.
Guest:It was like that first group of friends I found.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Cause you didn't, did you have, did you have an equivalent of, was it comedians when you started doing comedy or was there a group of friends before that?
Marc:I had a couple of funny friends, and I definitely had a little group of people that I hung out with in high school.
Marc:I don't know when I started to realize the comedy thing.
Marc:I knew that I was sort of a smartass, and I knew that it got me through life.
Marc:But unlike you, I didn't seem to learn any great lessons in high school or from Temple.
Right.
Marc:Like, I knew that Jewish kids seemed to jerk off more than other kids and talk about it, which was, you know, funny.
Marc:You know, there was a lot of talk about jerking off for some reason.
Marc:So I always thought that Jews were funnier because they talked about jerking off.
Marc:And I turn out to be correct.
Marc:It turns out to be true.
Marc:I know a lot of you non-Jew Harvard guys have tried to bully in to the comedy racket.
Marc:But don't forget, you know, we invented it.
Guest:I don't pretend for a second to have any of it.
Guest:I think Catholic kids probably jerked off the same amount but never told anyone, like repressed it.
Guest:I feel like there's such a, not symbiote, some sort of very similar but different thing between Jews and Catholics where there's so much anxiety and Catholics put it all into their own, like internalize it and pretend like it's not there and then it comes out in huge,
Guest:Or they never address it and it tears them apart.
Guest:Whereas I feel like my friends are able to talk about their anxiety, which is they may seem like anxious people, but they're actually healthier people because they're communicating about what their anxiety is.
Marc:And that turns out to be, you know, if you can find a job doing that.
Marc:Then you've really you've really succeeded.
Marc:Well, I think the Jew anxiety is there's like there's always this inner pressure of not being good enough in a way in the way of like, you know, in a practical sense, like, you know, could you be doing more?
Marc:Why didn't you get an A?
Marc:Why aren't you a doctor?
Marc:Whereas I think it seems that Catholics have a similar thing where they're not good enough, but it's a moral thing.
Marc:Like, you know, you're dirty.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can't.
Marc:Don't you know what I mean?
Marc:What have you done?
Marc:How are you going to get forgiven for this?
Guest:Yeah, everything feels like you're looking back at a dead body like, what happened?
Guest:How did this happen?
Guest:And the cycle of drinking and being like, let's do stuff.
Guest:And then the next morning, feeling like you need to delete numbers.
Marc:Yeah, you had a good go with it.
Marc:It seems like you had quite a few of those experiences.
Guest:Yeah, all the cycle of fun and release.
Guest:Because again, it's all related to not getting out your feelings right in the first place.
Guest:And then you're letting them go.
Marc:But there seems to be a point where somehow, I don't know.
Marc:I just, it's, I, and I, you know, I'm not going to judge, you know, your Harvard experience against, you know, anyone else's Harvard experience that I've talked to, you know, the other Harvard people.
Guest:Like Conan, it was really fascinating when you guys were talking because I heard it was such a, there were so many things and insecurities he was talking about, about being there that I really didn't.
Guest:empathize with and thought like, oh, yeah, I also felt like I was didn't belong there and was not good enough.
Marc:Well, how did it unfold that you got in there?
Marc:How does that you know?
Marc:What was your what was your like?
Marc:I mean, I'm not hung up on it and I certainly don't resent it.
Marc:And it's like an impressive place.
Marc:But the more people I talk to about it, there is something that gets demystified.
Marc:But nonetheless, you know, it is Harvard and you knew that as well.
Marc:So what would you just applied or how did that work?
Guest:Yeah, I applied early.
Guest:And, you know, I was it was non binding.
Guest:Like when you apply, it was when I when I was applying there, it was non binding.
Guest:So I applied there because it was it was like the only school that I was, you know,
Guest:curious about that didn't say like if you got in you had to go because I didn't really know where I wanted to go I hadn't you know I would have been truly so happy at any of the colleges I was applying to I and I had no I did not in any way think that I would get into Harvard I also didn't think I would get into a lot of other schools either like I thought I would get into some good school
Guest:And I really now, having gone there, the absolute truth is that the top 100 schools in the country could be the same level school or also maybe better for people than Harvard.
Guest:And some schools are definitely harder when you're there, and some schools are...
Guest:have a more academic rigor you know and I was just lucky that I got in there you know I really feel grateful that I got in there but I also at the same time don't think it's anything different than other places it just feels like it is for well I think that in the sense of like I imagine it happens the same with other schools that there are these kind of cliques and clubs and sort of networks of people that go there that seem to kind of
Marc:you know, take care of their brothers and sisters who went there as well.
Marc:You know, not just in comedy, but in whatever.
Marc:I imagine it's the same with medicine or any discipline of people who went to Harvard.
Marc:They're going to be like, oh, you're Harvard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Come on in.
Marc:You know, I'm sure that happens.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, and it's seeing that sometimes is the worst part of it because you see people be like chummy in that Harvard way.
Guest:And that's
Guest:Like my high school was so the opposite of that.
Guest:It was all kids that were really like really kids that were humble and grateful to have a good education.
Guest:And again, would have been happy going to lots of places.
Guest:So the idea that suddenly people that were at Harvard, they're like, I went to Harvard, you know, and you hear people bring it up in conversation early on in conversations.
Guest:And you're like, oh God, so why?
Guest:Like, who cares?
Guest:And it just it's such a gross that that part of it.
Marc:Well, I had a hard I have a hard time deciphering between, you know, it seems like I don't I don't know.
Marc:However, I romanticized Harvard about, you know, about in terms of getting a well-rounded liberal arts education that would somehow provide.
Marc:It seems like you had the brain to kind of glean, you know, moral and life lessons from early Catholicism or from high school or from whatever.
Marc:But it seems that at some point, Harvard became a place where hyper ambitious young people could sort of facilitate their their ability to network post college.
Guest:Some people I think there's lots of people that go leave there and are.
Guest:I almost want to say traumatized by it because they don't know what the fuck to do with their life.
Guest:And they're Harvard people.
Guest:I went to Harvard.
Guest:Yeah, I remember Conan had a really funny joke in the graduation speech that for the rest of your life, whenever you do something really dumb, people will be like, you went to Harvard?
Guest:And I do think it's that people think that about their lives.
Guest:They're like, am I doing enough?
Guest:Some people are really burdened by that.
Guest:But what did you study when you went there?
Guest:Why did you feel out of place?
Guest:I think because there was a lot of, I would say, intellectual showboating, people wanting you to think they were really smart.
Guest:And that is just a strange instinct.
Guest:You know, what saved me, you know, not saved in the sense of, I just saved on a like morale level, finding a purpose in life level was the Lampoon, the magazine, because I went there and it was all these kids that were not that.
Guest:They were not showboating in a weird, you know, they were almost showboating in a nerdy comedy way.
Guest:It was like walking into a room, like a room at the cellar where you're really intimidated, but you can also look around and tell everyone there is really smart.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, I appreciated that part of the book about the lampoon because it seemed like, you know, not unlike...
Marc:You know, my experience with the comedy store or some other thing where you just you have a respect and a sort of a fascination and you're humbled by the history of the place, you know, that like, you know, it's a magical place and you respect the magic of it.
Marc:You know, just in the way you talk about the building and who was there and what it meant and all that.
Guest:I still feel that way with like the, the, the comedy seller in New York and the store, the comedy store in LA.
Guest:I always felt so intimidated there because, you know, it's just intimidating.
Guest:It's an intimidating place as an outsider.
Guest:And,
Guest:But when you're there, you can just tell there's something special about that building and about the comedians who are there.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:But the Lampoon goes way back.
Guest:Yeah, it's super way back.
Guest:Before comedy was even funny, basically.
Guest:It used to be like a magazine, but there was one kind of funny cartoon or something.
I don't know.
Marc:Well, I, you know, I, they gave me an honorary, whatever they do, you know, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, I just felt bad because I went there to, you know, I was sort of excited to see the whole thing.
Marc:And then I get there, I'm like, oh my God, it's a bunch of kids.
Marc:And, and, you know, I don't drink and I don't, you know, do anything too crazy.
Marc:So I think they were disappointed that I didn't kind of play along with whatever little rituals that needed to happen when they gave me the, the little medal, um,
Marc:And I feel like I disappointed them or I let them down and I was sort of surprised at the whole undertaking.
Marc:But but I was happy to be part of it.
Guest:It's a it's a cool like the building there is such a weird, trippy place, you know, it's a and I think it goes through cycles.
Guest:The lamp goes through cycles where sometimes it's really difficult.
Guest:nerdy, writerly, fun, like a funny place to be.
Guest:And other times it gets kind of weird.
Guest:Sometimes I think there's phases where it gets druggie.
Guest:One time I went back and someone was like, you want to do nitrous and just hand it, you know, had a floor full of nitrous canisters.
Guest:And I was like, this is not what I remember or wanted.
Marc:Well, yeah, that, yeah.
Marc:At any point in time, all it takes is one devil to pollute the legacy of a structure for a little while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like it's occupied by like a bad force and that then pollutes the rest of the young people in it.
Guest:And then they move on generation.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:But but it seemed like that experience really kind of taught you the discipline and gave you the focus to to pursue what it is that you wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah, and you got used to creative output with a lot of rejection.
Guest:You know, you got used to submitting pieces and most of them not getting in to the magazine.
Guest:You know, like older editors of the paper telling you, like, this is shit.
Guest:Like, this has got to be better.
Guest:And then feeling slow progress over time and realizing that each small failure like that
Guest:is not the end of the world and you're, you got to get better and, and not be bitter about it too, to realize, Oh, I'm doing something wrong.
Guest:You might disagree with their opinion, but over time you realize I got to get better at this or else I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to publicly.
Marc:Well, I see.
Marc:I think that that maybe is the key to your success because like you say, those things that you're saying and, you know, before you finish my thoughts, like, well, fuck those guys.
Guest:So like,
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's that's where I go.
Marc:I don't say like, I'll keep trying.
Marc:I'm like, who the fuck are you?
Marc:And then I drop out of school and I try to do something else.
Guest:I also feel a visceral initial fuck those guys to this day.
Guest:I always feel it.
Guest:But then again, probably the Catholic in me internalizes it and it's like, oh, I did something wrong.
Guest:Like, what's wrong with me?
Guest:Why did I why am I not better?
Guest:Why do they not like me?
Marc:That's so interesting.
Marc:Because it's so interesting that as a Catholic, even when you have good parents, your inner voice is going to call you a fucking asshole.
Marc:It's like you can't win being a Catholic.
Marc:Because it sounds like your parents were lovely people.
Marc:And they brought you up in the right way and your brain works fine.
Marc:But because of the fucking...
Marc:Because of the fucking church, you've got the I suck thing.
Marc:And it didn't come from emotional negligence.
Marc:It came from organized religion that, you know, like I'm a faulty vessel who doesn't deserve anything.
Marc:And your parents were good people.
Guest:That's also a good book title.
Guest:I'm a faulty vessel who doesn't deserve anything.
Guest:That's what it's going to be.
Guest:I want to make it that in line.
Guest:And when I. What do you mean?
Marc:That's the New Testament.
Guest:That is the New Testament.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Old Testament was more like, fuck, those guys are going to go.
Marc:Yeah, there you go.
Marc:Now we've isolated the difference.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what did you study?
Guest:I studied.
Guest:I studied mostly Russian and Russian literature.
Guest:Like I went.
Guest:again what the where did that come from what was the fascination there it went you know i started i went i went thinking i was going to major in economics that's what i like put down that i was going to major in why because i thought i get because i'm from staten island so i'm like i got where do you go you go to oh you want out money i go to economics and i was like right that's what i do and then i just again realized that was not going to be my my my strength or calling and i think to go back to your
Guest:original question of like why did I get in I think when I look back it's probably because of my writing on some level like the writing I did for my news for like I wrote all the time so I bet things like that whether it was writing
Guest:plays or newspaper stuff and even like college essay yeah probably was something they saw in it that they liked as much as I can tell a reason oh that's right you're like a big you were a product of the debate team yes I was a speech and debate person oh and that was in high school that was that was in high school yeah so I did that like traveled on but the way it sports team travels but with none of the athleticism every single week
Guest:we were in a different either school in New York or city for like a national tournament.
Guest:So you, you travel around and like put on a tie and do speech debate.
Marc:But that, that got you some stage chops.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That guy, you got over sort of the state, the initial stage fright, uh,
Marc:I don't know how you I'm do you do you are you nervous now when you go on stage no but it took 30 years yeah I'm still nervous basically before anything I'm not nervous when I do like a theater who you know of me like they're all here to see me but like to go on at the fucking cellar or at the store not so much a store anymore but the cellar you know fuck that place that place drives me crazy
Guest:Well, some of the most some of my worst sets, I think, and also the most anxious sets are ones where you're just on a bill like for a charity event or a, you know, and you want to be there and do it.
Marc:And then you can't do those where they're eating dinner.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And no one's there to see you.
Guest:They're like, most people don't even maybe know who you are.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, God.
Guest:And then you feel like you just can't be, you know, you're like the worst version of yourself.
Marc:You can't get over.
Marc:You can't get over at those kind of shows.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, but that's one of those things where it seems like the more mature comics just suck it up and be like, yeah, this is going to suck, but it's for a good cause.
Marc:But if you're like me, you're just sort of like, I just want to connect with the people.
Marc:And then you realize like, oh, there's no way to do that here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was at the fucking Emmys that you guys hosted and I'm like, oh my God, how are they doing this?
Guest:It was the when we first came out, it was kind of like, you know, I can't even fucking getting hit or something where you you're a little stunned.
Guest:You're like a little the first of all, you never see it.
Guest:There's no rehearsal.
Guest:You just come out into this whatever 3000 seat.
Guest:It's huge theater.
Guest:Maybe it's 5000 people right in that theater.
Guest:You come out.
Guest:You've never seen that many people anywhere ever, basically.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like I just was watching, I was sitting there and I'd never been to the Emmys.
Marc:I think I saw you that night.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Briefly.
Marc:And, you know, I just watched you two standing out there and I'm like, they look so tiny.
Marc:How are they going to do this?
Marc:And you're locked into whatever you got to do and there's no warm up.
Marc:No.
Marc:no like icebreaker you're just going right into a joke you thought of three weeks ago and you're like god i hope this sort of holds up the one thing i could never quite figure out my mind which is i guess one of the reasons why i am where i am is that like do you know you're just sort of like we just got to play to the camera this isn't for the people here this is for this is for the show to look good that's a really hard thing dude that's a really hard thing to
Guest:You have to have that in your mind a little bit, but it's such a hard thing to follow through with when you're still in front of all those people.
Guest:You know, like you, as a comedian, you, if you don't feel laughter in the room, it's really hard to say, but it's going to translate well to television.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You kind of have to always believe that it's, it should be both theoretically, you know, you write, right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yeah,
Guest:The hardest part about that was choosing what to do without ever... You know, you've never played that room.
Guest:We've never done that event before.
Guest:Using your material, like figuring out what can get in the show.
Guest:And then there's so little...
Guest:that you get to do or that is comedy in the show.
Guest:It's almost always just passing out these endless awards.
Marc:Presentational.
Guest:Presentational.
Guest:So it's really hard to, I mean, if we could have done it again, we would have prioritized certain things way more than we did because when you're doing it the first time, it almost feels selfish to do that.
Guest:I know that's dumb because we're hosting it, but we were hosting, but there were other people from SNL involved.
Guest:There were other people that we were, you know, obviously are being showcased from different networks as a result of it.
Guest:There's a whole other system.
Guest:So it felt kind of selfish to say, no, we got to do this or we got to having never done it before.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not a person that pretends I know how things work if I've never done them.
Guest:I mean, I barely think I know how things work when I've done them hundreds of times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how and how what was the reception of that?
Guest:It's glorious.
Guest:Glorious.
Guest:You know, I would say the reception was not great.
Yeah.
Guest:I just definitely talked to my therapist about managing failure.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:The weird thing is when we did it, going through it, there were moments that felt fun and there were moments that felt like
Guest:survival fun where you're getting through it and you're not like puking into the audience and you're not, you know, you're saying the words like things like that when you've never done a thing before feel like small victories.
Marc:I just, I felt like, you know, I, I mean, I was completely, you know,
Marc:empathetic as a comic sitting there watching you guys.
Marc:Cause I met you guys when I was up there at SNL, you know, to interview Lauren, you and Shay said hi to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Um, and you know, I think that's where we really met.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember that because I remember how big, um, also for you, such a, you know, I haven't listened to your show from the beginning.
Guest:Like I know that, you know, right, right, right.
Guest:Lauren.
Guest:So I saw you and I was, I also didn't want to, uh,
Marc:b2 in your face because i knew based on everything that you were going into a pretty huge moment for you i was kind of like trying to send you zen vibes of yeah god yeah i hope this is a very good yeah and then he moment yeah and then he sven gollied me he just charmed me you know really indulged me and i walked out thinking like that guy's probably the best guy i've ever met you know he's very very good
Guest:He wanted his great skills.
Marc:I just walked out.
Marc:I'm like, I didn't even really want to show.
Marc:I just want them.
Marc:So happy.
Marc:He's just a guy that works at an office.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:He really fucking did it.
Guest:He also is amazing at instilling confidence in people before they host or before they.
Guest:that's another amazing it's it's related to what you're talking about but he i've seen him really put people at ease and give them confidence and it seems like it's coming from such a deep well of confidence from him yeah and after he'll turn to me and be like oh god you know like i hope this goes like
Guest:He'll really, he'll be like, I've had to do, he's like, I've had to have this talk with someone like the host almost every week for 45 years, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because you can't believe everyone who, almost everyone who does it for the first time goes through this rollercoaster of so excited to host certain ideas they love,
Guest:by the end of the week, every idea they love, they start to question.
Guest:And it's sort of him selling them again on the idea of the show the night before the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and he and he can do that because he's seen it be pulled off.
Guest:And he's seen people that were so nervous as hosts, you know, do brilliantly at it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he has to.
Guest:It's amazing how often he still has to do that.
Marc:Well, he has to get them, you know, it's important for them to listen to him.
Marc:It's like I remember when I did Letterman and Eddie Brill, who used to do warm up and, you know, and he was the segment producer of the stand ups, you know, for one of my appearances.
Marc:And he told me I literally wanted me to rewrite this joke that I'd gotten very used to doing a certain way.
Marc:you know, to change it for the audience.
Marc:And I'm like, dude, you can't, you're out of your fucking mind.
Marc:How am I even going to?
Marc:And he was like, dude, it's going to work.
Marc:And I'm like, you don't know.
Marc:He's like, I do know.
Marc:And then like, I did what he told me to do and it worked fine.
Marc:But like, I have to assume that most hosts when they're in a panic, you know, you just got to listen to Lorne, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think there's some, there's probably a balance, you know what I mean?
Guest:It's not like he's always right, but it's actually frustrating how often he is right.
Guest:You know, like I find it with my, you know, I'm like, I think it should be this way.
Guest:And he'll he'll usually say, like, all right, well, think about it.
Guest:And then I'll think about it for a little bit.
Guest:And I'm like, God damn it.
Guest:He's right.
Guest:You know, or I'll try it.
Guest:And the other person who I always I always like know they're right is Keenan.
Guest:Like if I'm writing a sketch that Keenan's in, I remember early in the day, he'd be like, I'm not sure about this.
Guest:And I'd be like, well, let's try it.
Guest:And he'd be like, OK, OK.
Guest:And then it didn't work.
Guest:And then I learned that lesson early on.
Guest:I was like, Kenan knows what the fuck he's talking about.
Guest:And then from then on, I'm like, yeah, we need to fix that.
Marc:It's amazing how like, you know, the evolution of Kenan on that show.
Marc:I mean, I know he's been there the longest, but he's actually gotten better and better and better.
Guest:I think he's so funny.
Guest:The genius of Kenan beyond his his how how.
Guest:many sheer hours he has logged as a performer.
Guest:The genius of him is that there have been so many waves, generations of writers at the show who have all wanted to write for Kenan and have loved writing for Kenan.
Guest:And so they've all had distinctive voices
Guest:And then they've given a whole new voice to Keenan through the years because they grew up either loving him or watching him on the show and knowing he had all these skills.
Guest:And so he's actually gotten to do some of the best work by 15 different writers who have come through the show at different periods of his life.
Guest:So he's had all these artistic cycles that are really cool to see.
Guest:where he gets deep into it with a writer for a while.
Guest:You know, it's cool.
Marc:So I did find that, you know, you must have spent a good amount of time sort of like, you know, the balance in the book.
Marc:I mean, you know, yeah, you went through some shit, but it seems that, you know, the chapter about your mom and, you know, the 9-11 must have been a very important chapter to sort of get right for you.
Guest:Yeah, it was a very... It's such a... I wanted to do justice to her and not... I didn't want it to be a melodramatic chapter or a... I wanted to try to tell it as plainly as possible because I think the story of it is very powerful and I did want to get it right and...
Guest:It was a very hard chapter to go back to and reread and edit.
Marc:Now, your mother was the medical director of the New York?
Guest:Her title was chief medical officer.
Marc:For the New York City Fire Department.
Guest:Yeah, for the New York City, for all the New York City.
Guest:And she she did that for, I want to say, like 25 years.
Guest:And what's that?
Guest:What is that job?
Guest:That job is you're essentially in charge of the well-being of all the firefighters.
Guest:So she would go to every four or five alarm fire in the city.
Guest:She would go to help treat people on the scene.
Guest:She would work on physical exams for firefighters and help people get back to active duty when they were injured in the line of duty.
Guest:And she also had, I would guess, the hardest part of her job is also...
Guest:alerting and talking and meeting with families when someone dies in the line of duty and meeting often with their spouses and their children and being the one that breaks that news.
Guest:And so that's a pretty rough part of a job.
Marc:And when 9-11 happened, you weren't home.
Guest:No, it was the first day of college.
Guest:It was my first day back in sophomore year.
Guest:It was my first day of classes.
Guest:And they were obviously then canceled.
Guest:But I had just left New York and gone up to Boston.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was just interesting to me the way you sort of documented the thinking was that, you know, once you realize what was happening, you had to do this math around.
Marc:You knew your mother was going to go there to ground zero.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you were sort of like, when would she have gotten there?
Marc:Because you couldn't get hold of anybody.
Marc:I was in New York when that happened.
Marc:And my girlfriend at the time had gone to work downtown.
Marc:And, you know, I didn't know where she was or what happened.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and you couldn't get through to anyone.
Guest:Couldn't get through to anybody.
Guest:And again, I think it's a New York thing in general, but especially a Staten Island thing is you're constantly thinking about traffic and how much traffic there is and how you can never get anywhere.
Guest:And so I really did...
Guest:have faith.
Guest:I really thought that there was no way she could get there because how could you, how could you get there that quickly?
Guest:And so I, that was my, my hope, but of course that wasn't true.
Guest:And, and, and then I hadn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't talk to her for, for a long time.
Guest:Like I don't know if I even spoke to her for like weeks at what, cause I, cause I didn't know where she was and how to, how to contact her.
Guest:I really just heard,
Guest:updates like um later that day and then not for a while like for days really from my dad but you knew she was okay i knew she had survived but i didn't know what i didn't know what had happened and then she she was you know she stayed on site there for days so but how did you put together how where did you get you know these these kind of like the details of of her surviving basically the both towers collapsing yeah
Guest:You know, some I got from her and some I also researched because she had to give testimony to like the commission after 9-11 because she was really instrumental in getting funding for the fire department ongoing.
Guest:And Jon Stewart was someone who was always so proactive and helpful.
Guest:And she's always so grateful to him because he like really stepped up and kept pressure up to get
Guest:funding for all the for all the first responders but she had to do like a full testimony of what happened that day which i can't imagine for her having to go through that again um and and relive all those details it must must have been just uh must have been crazy because she literally was there before either tower fell right she was at the bottom of both uh towers when they each fell yeah
Marc:It's insane, horrifying.
Marc:And she's trying to find her guys and pull guys out.
Guest:And, and, and guys that she like guys that she had just cleared for active duty and stuff and guys that she had known for years who were, it was a miracle that they were on the job that day.
Guest:And, and, and these, you know, different firefighters that, that saved her life in different ways at different moments.
Guest:And, um, it was really, uh, you know, I,
Guest:I'm so it's like a miracle, you know, how is she now?
Guest:You know, she's she's good.
Guest:She's good.
Guest:She's you know, she's has a lot of, you know, it's hard in this time because she still she has she's at risk a lot because of lung stuff related, you know, obviously with COVID.
Guest:There's yeah, there's there's lung, long term lung issues.
Guest:And
Guest:Now she's seeing a whole other uptick of people from COVID that were first responders because they're affected by it so much more.
Guest:And she's been back for a while.
Guest:She was back in the hospital on Staten Island just picking up shifts because it was so overloaded.
Guest:So it's kind of terrifying when you know she's at risk for being pretty messed up by it.
Guest:So that was...
Guest:But she's she's she's a very low key, unassuming, heroic person.
Guest:That's really I'm constantly impressed by my mom.
Marc:Did she know Pete's dad?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, she did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She, you know, not like they weren't friends, but she she knew him like and it's funny, like I remember her talking about Pete's dad in the years after, you know, and and and about Pete.
Marc:Before you had anything to do with SNL.
Guest:Before I think he was even doing stand-up or certainly before I knew him as a stand-up.
Guest:I think she really, even from afar, really loves Pete and really loves his mom.
Guest:And, and I think she, you know, she, she has a real bond with, with a lot of the families that are in the fire department and especially families that have lost, lost people in the line of duty because she, you know, she saw them often that day or, and, and, um,
Guest:I don't know, I think she just, she's a very empathetic person.
Guest:I think she really, she cares about, and she lost so many of her really, really close friends.
Guest:Like it would, it truly, it would be like if something happened at the comedy store and almost every comic you work with wasn't there, you know, and imagine going forward
Guest:imagine going back there or going back to work and after that and uh right that's a really crazy crazy feeling but you probably more stage time yeah that's true that is the you know that's true i never think you see you see you see the bright i'm an optimist they're all dead everyone says you're an optimist
Guest:no it's just a a horrible joke but um but i'm glad she's okay no no it's great and it's crazy you know it's crazy to now be on the show with pete like it's crazy to have two people from staten island in general i'm sure and connected through that i know and and i can't imagine when lauren started the show he wanted anyone from staten island anywhere near it but now we've now there are two
Marc:But I also didn't know about you that, you know, like after Harvard that, you know, you became obsessed with standup.
Marc:I just didn't I never knew you as a standup, even though you sent me a poster of a gig we both did.
Marc:I must have run out of there before you got there.
Marc:Was I there?
Guest:Yeah, you were there.
Guest:Yeah, you were there because it was a time in my life where I would just stay for the whole show because I had time to do it, you know.
Marc:But I didn't talk to you.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:We didn't meet there.
Guest:I saved it because I was a fan of your show and I saved the poster because I thought it was.
Guest:First of all, that was such a fun show to do that meltdown nerd melt meltdown.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you were paid in comic books, which is already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you were, you know, sometimes there was an artist to do posters.
Guest:So I, you know, I didn't have any cool, no one ever did a poster of any show I was a part of.
Guest:So I remember saving that, uh,
Guest:It's probably been eight or 10 years that saved it with me, you, Kumail, Jonah Ray on there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, it was from like, I think my producer said it's from 2011 maybe.
Guest:Okay, yeah, that sounds right.
Marc:But I didn't really realize that you really kind of were
Marc:You know, not unlike your time at the Lampoon, where you just sort of force yourself to compulsively write in order to get better, that you really kind of locked in to doing stand-up.
Marc:But you came up, you know, in the Rafifi zone, which was, you know, alt-comedy had already taken its first turn into something more mainstream.
Marc:And, you know, you had...
Marc:merman down there and bobby tisdale and all those at 80 miles were doing that yeah you know with that that alternative kind of broke out from the original luna setting but for some reason you know you were very aware of stylistically and also the requirements as a performer of both alt comedy and club comedy because you kind of were fans of the guys down the cellar as well and he kind of it was interesting to see you write about knowing you were going to have to
Marc:figure out how to do both.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember at the time there were comics, like there was one comic I remember who, who told me who was like an alt, who described himself as an alt comic, but I don't think the alt movement was embracing him.
Guest:You know, he's like, I would never do a show above 14th street.
Guest:Like I would never do one like as a principal.
Guest:And I remember thinking, first of all, does anyone above 14th street want you to be doing a show?
Guest:I'm not sure they do, but also what a weird mentality to have.
Guest:Like, I won't go to these.
Guest:You know, it's like it's like having the idea I'll only perform in New York and L.A.
Guest:Like unless you go around and see the country and try to succeed in all kinds of rooms like what.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Lorne Michaels was not a big fan of whatever was going on below 14th Street.
Marc:I had a personal experience where he said to me.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:He literally said, oh, it was a big moment.
Marc:And then it turned up on Seinfeld.
Marc:Seinfeld said it to him on Comedians in Cars because that was what he said to me when I met with him.
Marc:There was an article in the Times about the alt-comedy thing at Luna.
Marc:And I was mentioned in it.
Marc:And I remember it was right around the time I met with Lauren for SNL, that meeting that cursed me forever, that haunted me.
Marc:So one of the things that Lauren said to me when I met with him is like, I don't know what you think you're doing down there below 14th Street, but it doesn't matter.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I remember this quote from you.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Marc:So this guy.
Marc:But he said to you, he said this guy was like a diehard.
Marc:You know, I'm not going to ever work as a professional comic.
Marc:I only do all shows below 14th Street guy.
Guest:I think it was more, I think it was a dislike for comedy clubs because I think he saw comedy clubs as sort of the establishment.
Guest:Yeah, I get that.
Marc:Yeah, there was definitely that was going on.
Marc:But a lot of them were resentful that they couldn't get work at comedy clubs.
Marc:And, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that.
Marc:Some of them not good, but some of them just because, you know, comedy clubs are privately run by people who book comedy and make decisions about comedy.
Marc:Maybe they weren't thought to be funny, but they don't want to admit that.
Guest:Yeah, but I, and I also, you do realize, like, especially early on, the people making those decisions, you know.
Marc:Who the fuck are they?
Guest:They're wrong.
Guest:They're wrong all the time.
Guest:Yeah, who the fuck are they?
Guest:For sure.
Guest:You know, a lot of shows early on I did at the strip, like at the comic strip, and that was like,
Guest:had not moved into the new generation when i was there you know it was still db swedler yeah yeah it was a lot of and it was great comedians that were that were still working but that i didn't know from anything else nowhere else so you started doing comedy before you got the gig at snl yeah but but really like open mics and bars like no nowhere um nowhere good it sounds like you know in the book your meeting with lauren was was pretty easy
Guest:It was it was really scary, but it was easy in a sense that he didn't.
Guest:I just kind of he just asked me questions like, where are you?
Guest:It was honestly, I don't think he cared that much.
Guest:I think he was more like, where are you from?
Guest:Like, how are you doing?
Marc:Like he didn't care.
Marc:I mean, obviously he cared.
Guest:I mean, I think he just, you know, I think I remember at some point, I think Lauren said that.
Guest:you don't really know, even when someone starts at the show as a writer or cast member, really, you don't like, he doesn't really know them for at least a year or two.
Guest:Like he doesn't, he's aware they're there.
Guest:Like that's the most, some people he doesn't, you know, there are people that work there.
Guest:I remember my friend, Matt Murray worked there for, as a writer for like, maybe he worked there eight years.
Guest:He said he never met Lauren, like never met with him, you know, until he left.
Guest:Lauren obviously knew of him and was at meetings all the time where he was there.
Guest:But he's like, I never had a one on one meeting with Lauren.
Guest:And so he doesn't meet when you're just a writer getting hired as a staff writer, which is the biggest was the biggest thing in my life for him.
Guest:That happens every year.
Guest:So he doesn't meet even with every writer, you know, because.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's why it was so much more.
Guest:There was so much more weight on the meeting with Tina and Andrew Steele, who were the head writers then.
Marc:That's who you met first.
Guest:That's who I met with first.
Guest:And I sensed they were probably the ones making the decision about hiring a first-year fighter rather than Lorne digging in and reading everyone's packets.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So you felt that by the time you got to Lorne, they had decided...
Guest:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:Or I thought it could go either way because sometimes Lauren meets, lots of times Lauren meets with people that he doesn't hire.
Guest:You know, like he'll, he might like them.
Guest:I know, it happened to me.
Marc:So what, so you meet with Andrew and Tina.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You sense that they liked what you did, but they wanted to make sure you weren't crazy.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you later realize how many people are kind of crazy.
Guest:Like when they, in those interviews, like they have
Guest:People, you know, people read also weird books about how to interview for jobs.
Guest:And I think sometimes with strange agendas or like have a real game plan that is not at all sensitive to the situation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like come in giving lots of notes on the show or, you know, things are like, wait, well, you can have these.
Guest:Lots of people at the show have notes and concerns about it all the time.
Guest:But
Guest:It's a weird thing in an interview to be like, here's how your company needs to get better.
Guest:Sometimes maybe in certain industries that works.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But some people have that and it's just some people are...
Guest:I don't know, part of it's just a, you're going into a very high stress, weird community there.
Guest:So I think you're trying to show that you're somewhat at ease in a high pressure situation, which that is.
Guest:Because you're about to be in a way more the next, you know, whatever the next week, you're going to be in front of the host and pitching them ideas, you know, in front of Lorne and pitching ideas.
Guest:So if you can't survive an interview, then it's going to be then it's going to be hard.
Marc:How did you know you got the job?
Marc:It's always so unclear when people find out that they have the job or that they've been fired, it seems.
Marc:It's never clear.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I've also gone through summers of not knowing if I was fired and that very murky process, too.
Guest:But being...
Guest:When I was hired, yeah, Lauren just sort of said, like, I'll see you around at the end of the meeting.
Guest:But I really didn't know, you know, I didn't think that meant I was, I was like, oh, am I like see around New York or around like next year, maybe try again.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I basically they put me in a, they like put me quarantined me in a writer's office, like a random writer's office.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And said like, wait here a while, you know?
Guest:And I was like, okay, sure.
Guest:I, you know, I, of course I would have waited.
Marc:How long did you wait to see Lauren?
Guest:I think I waited like six hours or something, you know, like a long, a long time.
Guest:But again, for me, it was, I would have waited for six days.
Guest:I mean, happily, you know, and, and I met all my people who'd become my friends in those hours.
Guest:Like you, I went into one office and it was like the whole Lonely Island team, you know, like Andy and Keith and,
Guest:And, you know, they had been hired probably three days before, but I was already like, teach me.
Guest:How does this work?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they were so cool.
Guest:Like, they were, like, cool guys.
Guest:And I was like, whoa, what is this?
Guest:And, like, seeing Maya Rudolph in the hallway and Harrison, I'm thinking...
Guest:I was just watching you guys on TV and I love you guys.
Guest:And also resisting the urge to say, I love you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you want to be, play it cool, but you don't know how because you're just, you know, you're figuring.
Marc:So they stick you in that room and what happens?
Guest:They stick you in that room and then...
Guest:like maybe I'm there alone for half an hour, just kind of looking around the walls and seeing, trying to process what's been happening.
Guest:And then the phone in the office rang like a random writer's phone.
Guest:And I instinctively thought I should, I should pick it up.
Guest:Yeah, which is a pretty crazy move, but I don't know why I was like I this seems like it's a call that I should take and I answered the phone and it was Two of the producers on the line and they were like Guess what?
Guest:You're hired Like you're gonna be here like you're gonna be a writer and I was like, holy shit, whoa and then yeah Mike Shoemaker was on the phone and he was like he's one of the producers and he was like when can you start and
Guest:And I was working at this kind of rinky-dink animation company.
Guest:And I remember, well, I should probably give two weeks notice and be fair to my boss.
Guest:So I was like, what about, I could definitely do it in, let me give two weeks notice.
Guest:And Mike was like, how about you start tomorrow?
Guest:And I was like, I will be here.
Guest:Yes, anytime tomorrow.
Guest:Fuck that old job.
Guest:I do not care about it.
Guest:Why was I so loyal to this?
Yeah.
Guest:my old employer Catholic thing again Catholic thing and so I I came in the next day and then had to submit two sketches the next day like for writing commercial parodies and uh and with the and then immediately started working with all those people I had just met and it was like
Guest:It was like going to camp, but then at the end you have to turn in papers or something, you know?
Marc:And then it just started and it hasn't stopped.
Guest:And it hasn't stopped.
Guest:And that's been kind of my life at times, 90 hours a week.
Guest:Now I try to be there physically less, but that became my full life in every way for at least 10 years.
Guest:And now I'm trying to be a little more balanced as a human.
Yeah.
Marc:How long have you been there total?
Marc:15 years.
Marc:That's like a long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it's different because it got broken up because part of things was like a whole other life and learning curve.
Marc:And which what?
Guest:Like when I started doing Weekend Update with Jay, like that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you were a writer for how long?
Guest:I was a writer for, you know, something like 10 years.
Marc:And then when did you become head writer?
Guest:Or after five years there or something like that?
Guest:Or after somewhere between five and seven years?
Marc:And then you're still doing stand-up during this time?
Guest:More and more stand-up.
Guest:When I was head writer, I became hard to do it the same way.
Guest:But when I was a staff writer, I really missed performing.
Guest:And I would go, you know, it was...
Guest:you know, crazy schedule, but I would go four nights a week and do standup during SNL.
Guest:So I would go like we had Sunday was our one day off and I would go and do like three shows.
Guest:And then Monday after our pitch meeting and a bunch of meetings, I would go do a set Wednesday, having been up all night,
Guest:writing and turning things in i would try to do a set at like 11 o'clock or midnight right right yeah you like i would go to work at noon tuesday and i would leave work at at 11 p.m wednesday straight through and then i would still want to go do a set and thursday night i would try to sneak in a set friday and saturday was impossible but i just i missed perform i needed to get better as a performer i missed it so much and then on would probably help i would tour i would go on the road i would go
Guest:MC for people I would feature for people and any any any chance I could go and do six shows in a weekend on the road.
Guest:It was like it was fantastic.
Marc:And it probably sort of paid off in terms of being able to have those chops when he got the update gig.
Guest:Yeah, although you never... I still didn't in any way feel ready or prepared because it's such a different animal.
Guest:Like, it's such a specific, strange setup.
Guest:And it felt very different for a while than stand-up.
Guest:Now it feels closer to that.
Guest:And, you know, Che is...
Guest:And Che was like so helpful in trying to get it to feel more like stand up for us.
Guest:And he's better at it, like in a sense of he can he can do a bit now on the show that that can feel really close to what he would do on stage.
Guest:And that's something right now I feel like I'm working on because you're you're you're sort of trying to convince yourself that you can go there and do it in that way and test it.
Marc:Well, it seems like, you know, you over time, you evolve a dynamic and you evolve a sort of character as the update person.
Marc:You know, like, you know, he he does like I notice when he gets more personal to the point where you're taken out of the conceit, whereas, you know, a lot of times you you are grounding the conceit a bit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that's and I think sometimes that I think sometimes that can work really well because it's, you know,
Guest:you're, you're, you're, there is a grounding in the news and then it can be expanded on.
Guest:And that's kind of nice give and take, I think sometimes.
Guest:And we try to figure out ways of doing that, you know, sure you get, that's it.
Guest:When you start, you get all this weird advice about it, you know, where people will tell you sort of like the anchor of the show, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like the thing that I always thought was interesting.
Guest:Lauren, Lauren always talked about how update he always imagined that update was like a second start to the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and I that it was sort of like you got through this first act of monologue and an opening and some sketches and music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it was like, all right, let's reset.
Guest:And I always kind of like that.
Guest:It's like you're the second half.
Guest:You're kind of like, all right, let's get ready for some fun, weird sketches, too.
Guest:So right.
Guest:You're already like halfway to that weirdness.
Guest:So there's a little more.
Yeah.
Guest:Freedom air I think and you know, I always as a fan of update watching like I grew up on norm Yeah, I also just loved jokes that had that were not really tied to the news of the day like that were just those random fun later in the update jokes and
Guest:that you remember those were the ones I still remember forever I don't remember what the news story was in like you know 1993 except for OJ but but I remember like one-off jokes of his or like a weird fascination with Frank Stallone and uh
Guest:You know, him taking out a recorder and saying like note to self or jokes that were like, or so the Germans would have you believe or things like that, that I'm sure if you haven't seen those updates, anyone listening is like that's nonsense and doesn't sound like a joke at all.
Guest:But those are things I really remember.
Marc:Well, I mean, that was something I mean, I think that when I think about it now that you say that, you know, those kind of, you know, callbacks and themes, you know, those were sort of established a long time ago as part of update, really.
Marc:You know, Francisco Franco is still dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, there are definitely been character points through sort of repetition and callback that have been part of a lot of people's approach to update.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think everybody kind of makes it their own.
Marc:I guess it must be hard.
Marc:How is it received?
Marc:Has it sort of landed?
Marc:Is everybody good with it now?
Guest:I sense certainly more so.
Guest:I think it's always evolving, and I don't think you ever know
Guest:you know, first of all, you're never going to please everyone, but you also, we feel better about, you know, we feel more excited and doing it.
Guest:And, you know, we feel happier doing it.
Guest:It's less of an existential crisis of what is this and more of a challenge.
Marc:Are you still the head writer too?
Guest:Me and Michael Che and Kent Sublette have our head writers together.
Guest:I think we've been doing
Guest:This I think we've been had writers like three or four years and then before then there before that I did it with Seth For two years something like that.
Marc:Yeah, and Rob Kline and Rob Kline for two years and now like now that you guys are down I thought those two the the couple of shows you guys did on lockdown where I thought they were kind of fun and
Marc:I like that they were really homemade feeling.
Marc:You can really see the vulnerability of all the performers because they don't have this weird, huge support system.
Marc:It's just you guys doing it at home.
Marc:I don't know if you could do a whole season like that.
Guest:I hope not.
Guest:You see it both ways.
Guest:You see...
Guest:the, the vulnerability.
Guest:And I think he's, and you also saw like some nice raw talent moments from people where you're like, Oh, that's what they would be doing if they were posting this video on YouTube or what they would.
Guest:Well, that's right.
Marc:I think it's the same thing in my eyes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But also it shows you the limitations of it.
Guest:It shows you how much production value can really help.
Marc:Yeah, we don't want all television to look like an audition tape.
Marc:No, that would be tough.
Marc:So hopefully we'll get through this.
Guest:Hopefully at some point that changes.
Marc:So you guys are engaged, you and Scarlett?
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:When are you going to get married?
Guest:Well, that's a great question.
Marc:I don't know when... Does she ask you that?
Guest:No, we were supposed to, but we...
Guest:Uh, now we don't know when we really can because of, you know, it's, it's a very evolving thing.
Guest:Um, but I don't know, you know, I truly, I don't know when we, you know, we have at risk people in our families that, you know, who knows when we really want to get people together for a large gathering, you know?
Marc:Oh, but you didn't have to cancel anything.
Guest:Well, there's some.
Guest:OK.
Guest:All right.
Marc:But you guys are hanging in.
Marc:You're doing OK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the you know, the the one nice part about
Guest:being holed up is you know we in some ways are more into a married life than we would have otherwise been and you know her daughter Rose and I have spent like tons of time together and that's great like that's a thing you never can get oh yeah you know yeah this is like you know it's like exponential like the time you spend in lockdown or in this situation you guys are in
Marc:The intimacy would have spread out over three years.
Marc:These three months are equivalent to a year and a half or two years of intimacy time.
Guest:Yeah, and that's something I think you have to appreciate.
Guest:Sure, for sure.
Guest:And, you know, that's cool.
Guest:That part's good.
Guest:And then, of course, it's like a crippling anxiety about not knowing when work will happen or what kind of work can happen.
Marc:It's fucking hard.
Guest:On every level.
Marc:On every level.
Marc:Or whether the country is going to survive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:the economy, the country, the, yeah, it's like, it's a lot to manage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's really, really fundamental things you think will generally be okay or not.
Marc:Totally unstable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So does Lauren call you when, you know, see how you're doing?
Guest:I talked to him once this summer, like since the show's ended, I think I talked to him once, you know, he'll usually call like for my birthday and say, you know, have a birthday.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:but he'll, I saw, I talked to him once just to sort of, he called just, I think just to vaguely talk about next year, like, you know, almost brainstorm, like, can it happen?
Guest:What's it going to be, you know, on a practical level for the show?
Guest:Like, what do you, what, what do you think?
Guest:But, but no one knows.
Guest:It's like even experts now don't know, which is the scary part.
Guest:You know, like you don't know, people are kind of just,
Guest:Throwing out random theories about when when work can happen.
Guest:I mean, I'm fascinated to see the NBA and what what's, you know, whether that works and to what extent and what the pitfalls of that are, because that'll that'll dictate so much for, I think, showbiz, you know.
Marc:Yeah, they need to figure out a couple of things like an effective treatment, you know, an effective treatment.
Marc:tests that gets fairly quick results and then hopefully a vaccine but you would think some treatments and a test doesn't seem like anyone can do anything without a test that gets results in a half hour yeah so like everyone can do it day of and then go to work yeah i mean but also you need the test to be pretty pretty accurate uh or else yeah then you're you know
Guest:And but I now I'm always remember the beginning.
Guest:Everyone kept saying, you don't need masks.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:You don't need that.
Guest:And then they're like, actually, you know, you really should have masks.
Guest:And then there's things like where they say, you know, you're not going to get it from your cat.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Immediately.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to get it from a cat.
Guest:Like, I know that, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You've done OK in life.
Marc:I don't think that it's in the cards for you to get it from a cat.
Yeah.
Marc:I just don't.
Guest:Also, we don't have a cat, so it would be a real stretch if I started really hanging out with strays.
Marc:You had to be out there in the garbage with the ferals.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:It was good talking to you, and the book's funny, and there's a lot of stuff we didn't talk about that's in there, and I'm glad you're well.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Really, I'm very honored to be on your show.
Guest:I've listened from the beginning, and I...
Guest:i was actually i'm very intimidated talking to you but i also i'm very honored to be here i appreciate you having me on it didn't get any easier throughout the no no it did it actually it was immediately easier i was i i was scared going i didn't know i you know we haven't really talked so i i was i'm naturally a scared person so i was worried but you kind of knew what to expect right i knew general things maybe but i don't know who knows
Guest:It worked out for you, though?
Guest:It could have started off with some, like, you know, really... Yeah, I really hate you.
Marc:Some crazy, aggressive... I don't know, you know... I don't know anything about you, and I just don't like you.
Guest:Yeah, that definitely occurred.
Guest:You know, that thought definitely passed my mind.
Marc:Well, that wasn't the case.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Guest:I really appreciate it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Take care of yourself.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That was me and Colin Jost.
Marc:It was a good story, right?
Marc:Good story.
Marc:His book, A Very Punchable Face, is out tomorrow and you can order it right now.
Marc:And now I'm going to play some guitar.
Marc:It took me a long time to figure to get this simple shit right.
Marc:And then I ended it badly.
Marc:But what doesn't end badly?
Guest:Boomer lives!