Episode 1143 - Seth Rogen
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuckadelics what's happening there's i've changed my tone to urgent this is my urgent tone how's it going how are you doing urgency
Marc:Take a breath.
Marc:Breathe it in.
Marc:Breathe it in.
Marc:Breathe it out.
Marc:Let's do a little of that.
Marc:All right, everybody.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Stop what you're doing.
Marc:Stop what you're doing.
Marc:Take a breath.
Marc:All the way in.
Marc:All the way.
Marc:Oh, go ahead and cry if you have to.
Marc:I might.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Oh, God damn it.
Marc:I can't even take a deep breath.
Marc:I've been avoiding the deep breaths.
Marc:Clearly.
Marc:Clearly.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:It's right there, man.
Marc:It's right there.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I'm holding it in.
Marc:I'm holding some of it in.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:Let it out.
Marc:Everybody all right?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So today on the show, I talked to Seth Rogen.
Marc:Now, Seth Rogen has been on before.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The first appearance he was on with Goldberg.
Marc:What's that guy's name?
Marc:Is it Evan Goldberg, his partner?
Marc:So they were on here together.
Marc:This is Seth alone.
Marc:And I have to say that there is a trigger warning.
Marc:If you don't like Jews, you're going to get triggered.
Marc:If you're anti-Semitic,
Marc:This is going to definitely trigger you.
Marc:It's very Jewy talk.
Marc:It might be the most Jewy talk we've ever had on the show.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:But it's the first time Seth has been on since 2014.
Marc:And we had already covered a lot about his life and his early career on that episode.
Marc:And so that means I had to figure out some stuff.
Marc:And he just made this very Jewy movie.
Marc:It's called the American Pickle.
Marc:Like it's almost throwback Jewy.
Marc:It's it's a movie that is so Jewy, you would think it was the 70s again when the Jews and understanding Jewish comedy and Jews were sort of out in the world and the dictators of a certain amount of culture back in the day.
Marc:This feels like it could have fit there a bit.
Marc:It's that Jewy.
Marc:You know, back when, you know, Philip Roth used to appear on talk shows and Norman Mailer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Bernard Malamud.
Marc:So that's going to happen, man.
Marc:We're going to do the Jew thing.
Marc:Tomorrow I'm going to go get another COVID test because, you know, that's a fun thing to do.
Marc:It's like going to an amusement park.
Marc:You go park, you know, you get online in your car and you go through very slowly, go through a series of streets and turns.
Marc:And then you end up in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.
Marc:And then there's a video with the mayor.
Marc:And then you're given some things, some fun things to spit in.
Marc:And then you give it to another guy with a mechanical claw.
Marc:And then he gives it to you with a mechanical claw.
Marc:And then at the end, you throw it into another thing.
Marc:And then two days later, they email you the good or bad news.
Marc:Very exciting way to spend an afternoon.
Marc:I am fighting back the darkness.
Marc:I'm trying to fight back the darkness.
Marc:But I tell you, man, it's hard as Jews when you kind of feel the fascism coming.
Marc:And anybody, any of you Republicans that, you know, still listen to me who used to just like what I do and then thought I got too political and thought I was, you know, I was exaggerating the possibilities of authoritarianism.
Marc:Well, look what happened.
Marc:Who was wrong?
Marc:You.
Marc:I'm not saying I told you so, but I told you so.
Marc:I want to be able to say it while I still can before there are, you know, jackboot thugs coming into the garage.
Marc:I told you so.
Marc:Hey, what's going on?
Marc:Hey, hey, you can't.
Marc:Hey.
Marc:Before that, not going live.
Marc:So the odds of that are tricky.
Marc:They have to be listening outside.
Marc:But Jews historically, I think, have sort of a radar for it.
Marc:The fucking thing is, is that a radar?
Marc:I have Judah, sure.
Marc:But do we have a little sensitivity to fascism?
Marc:Who doesn't?
Marc:Other than the people that are like, well, it won't be that bad, right?
Marc:It's just going to be us.
Marc:What?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Well, what about your neighbors?
Marc:I don't know them.
Marc:We don't know them.
Marc:That's a big question, right?
Marc:How desperate does your neighbor, who doesn't like the way you think, have to be
Marc:to kill you because he doesn't like the way you think.
Marc:If he's allowed, encouraged, or assigned that task, how desperate?
Marc:At what level of dehumanization are we with everybody in how we take in information and how we see other people?
Marc:How desperate does your neighbor have to be
Marc:to kill you if he's allowed to because of the way you think.
Marc:We're kind of pushing back on China, shutting that out, creating that situation to the point where my idiot father who watches ONN
Marc:When I asked him what he thought of the pandemic, he said, well, we got to get back at China.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Marc:And he said, we're allowed to have a difference of opinion.
Marc:And I'm like, that's not an opinion.
Marc:That just sounds stupid.
Marc:And I'm embarrassed.
Marc:And I can't respect you anymore if you're going to just regurgitate garbage that you hear on a propaganda channel through your face hole into the phone at me.
Marc:If you want to discuss a broader idea about where we're at now with it as a doctor, but it's a Chinese virus.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know, I don't know if I can ever talk to you again.
Marc:So economic deprivation, economic collapse, desperation in the streets, broken spirits, hundreds of thousands of unemployed people, angry people, desperate people.
Marc:Are you angry and desperate?
No.
Marc:You want to wear a uniform?
Marc:What did you do in your civilian life?
Marc:Branch manager.
Marc:Would you like to be a commandant?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:School superintendent.
Marc:Do you want to run a camp?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:I was a teacher.
Marc:Would you like to be a reprogrammer?
Marc:What did you do in civilian life?
Marc:I was a manager at a slaughterhouse.
Marc:Are you able to make the jump to people?
Marc:Everybody gets a hat.
Marc:You're going to look good in that uniform.
Marc:Can't afford clothes anymore.
Marc:We'll feed you.
Marc:Oh, you're not really cut out for that kind of thing?
Marc:Well, we can put you to work in one of the state-owned factories.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Is that too dark?
Marc:I can end on an up note.
Marc:Kinda up.
Marc:Something gave me faith in the humans recently.
Marc:I was on my hike.
Marc:I was with Al Madrigal and Rory Scovel heading up the hill.
Marc:Three clowns.
Marc:Three clowns outdoors.
Marc:And a guy walking down the hill was like delicately holding this little bunny.
Marc:There's a lot of bunnies up on the hills right now.
Marc:A lot of bunnies.
Marc:And it's a little sort of sad looking, wet looking bunny.
Marc:A sick bunny.
Marc:The guy was holding a sick bunny.
Marc:This man walking down the hill with a sick bunny.
Marc:And we're like, oh, what happened?
Marc:He's like, it's sick.
Marc:I want I'm going to bring it home and make it better and then let it out.
Marc:It's a nondescript accent, not being racist because I'm not identifying it.
Marc:But he had one.
Marc:So we're like, oh, that's that's nice.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:But it was just like in these times, you know, whatever he's going through, whatever we're all going through, you know, that moment.
Marc:Where he saw this sick bunny and he decided to do that.
Marc:Well, I don't know what success he'll have, but the spirit of that, the action of that, the heart that goes into that, he's carrying that bunny down the hill.
Marc:And I read that there was a bunny plague.
Marc:I felt bad because I didn't need to bring that up, but I did.
Marc:I said, I heard that there's a lot of sick bunnies around.
Marc:And he said, oh, can I get it?
Marc:I'm like, I don't think so.
Marc:And I felt bad.
Marc:I should just let it be.
Marc:I don't even know if he can get it.
Marc:But it was so nice that there was something he could do.
Marc:It was something he could do in that moment.
Marc:I'm going to help this bunny.
Marc:I'm just saying, look, if you can help a bunny and use it as a metaphor.
Marc:OK, use it as a metaphor.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Strap in for some Jew stuff.
Marc:American Pickle premieres on HBO Max on August 6th.
Marc:That is the film that Seth is in.
Marc:And this is me and Seth Rogen coming up.
Yeah.
Guest:hello there's a jew there's a jew if i've ever seen one what are you talking about pin him oh i see so i can just see him pandemic has turned everyone into my grandparents me and my wife spent 10 minutes trying to get on instagram live today so yeah it's it's everyone oh so you were trying to do it too yes how was that one a problem that's it you just have to push a button i we couldn't figure it out yeah
Marc:Did you get on there?
Guest:We did it.
Guest:We did our thing.
Marc:I got into a rabbit hole with Amazon today.
Marc:How'd that go?
Marc:I don't know how it went.
Marc:Did you buy anything on Amazon today?
Guest:Uh, no, I have not bought anything off Amazon.
Marc:But, but you have recently, right?
Marc:Yesterday.
Marc:I mean, I see pretty much every day.
Marc:Every day.
Marc:Yeah, that's exactly.
Marc:So like today the guy comes up and he gives me two packages and one is, um,
Marc:my oyster shucking gloves great yeah and the other one was an empty envelope that was supposed to contain my oyster shucking knife yeah that and he was just okay with that no he got he ran off before i could get him it's probably in his fucking truck just now now it's but now it's a problem now i i got an empty envelope i have no oyster knife i got five oysters that are going to be an issue later i have to get a screwdriver you get a rocker screwdriver or some shit
Marc:Have you ever eaten oysters at your house?
Guest:I've done it at a friend's house who shucked them, and it was impressive.
Guest:And I don't think I could have done it myself.
Guest:I tried one, and I was like, this is not for me.
Marc:I saw a guy put the oyster shucking knife through his fucking hand.
Marc:Yeah, that's exactly what I would have been that guy.
Guest:Again, not a joke.
Guest:Jews were not meant to do that.
Guest:That is it is not.
Guest:That's why that's why oysters aren't kosher, because they knew we couldn't do that.
Guest:They knew it's too challenging for us to open the shell.
Guest:Physically demanding for us.
Marc:You know, that whole thing, that whole that whole stereotype about Jews not being able to do things is not really true.
Marc:And I think that movie that you were just in that I just watched is a testament to that.
Marc:It's your old Jews can do stuff.
Marc:There was a time where Jews were like, when I worked at a deli, did you ever do that?
Guest:No, my great aunt owned a kosher butcher shop in New Jersey, though.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Where in New Jersey?
Guest:In Newark, near Newark.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That's where my people come from.
Marc:That's the fucked up thing.
Marc:Anyways, I'll get to that.
Marc:When I worked in a deli when I was in college in Boston, for some reason, it really blew my mind.
Marc:These old Jews would come in and they were ex-cops.
Marc:Plumbers.
Guest:My grandfather was a plumber.
Guest:I come from a line of like very tough blue collar Jews as well.
Guest:My grandfather was a professional.
Guest:He played professional football in Canada and he was a plumber.
Guest:His brother was an electrician.
Guest:My great grandpa on the other side was a mailman and like they were tough.
Guest:And that was that was a lot of actually where the idea for the movie came from.
Guest:Simon Rich, the writer, was like I was looking at an old picture of my grandfather when he was my age.
Guest:And I couldn't help but think that if we knew each other, he would fucking hate my guts and probably beat the living shit out of me.
Guest:And that's, like, exactly.
Guest:And my grandfather, they were nice to me, but you could tell, like, he thought I was soft and, like, was physically tough on me.
Guest:And, like, in general, like, yeah, that was a tough – those were tough Jews.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, well, I've always had a theory about it, that there's the stocky sort of proletariat peasant Jew, and then there's the composer Jew, the math Jew.
Marc:And I'm definitely not a math Jew, and I don't think you are either.
Marc:Whatever's happened to you to make you soft mentally, I don't know, but physically... No, I'm big.
Guest:I come from a big people.
Guest:I'm a large Jewish person, for sure.
Guest:You're like from the James Caan Jew...
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there is Gene Hackman, who is a singular Jew.
Guest:Is he a Jew?
Guest:Gene Hackman is Jewish.
Marc:Are you serious?
Marc:Have you checked that?
Marc:When did you check that last?
Guest:I've got to be checked.
Guest:How about I look right this second?
Marc:I think he must be Jewish.
Marc:I think you're wrong.
Marc:I don't want to hurt your feet.
Marc:I don't want to hurt you.
Marc:Is he not?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I never thought he was a Jew.
Guest:Well, he's not Jewish.
Guest:Wait, no, he's not.
Marc:Sorry, man.
Marc:Sorry.
Guest:He stole it.
Guest:Well, it makes sense because what I was going to say is he seems too intimidating and scary to be a Jewish person.
Guest:But that makes James Caan the scariest Jewish person.
Marc:Yeah, he's definitely up there.
Marc:You know, James Caan.
Marc:And I've talked to his son.
Marc:I think in real life he's relatively scary.
Guest:I think there you go.
Guest:That's good.
Marc:He's that kind of Jew that hangs out with gangsters.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:James Conn's lucky Gene Hackman's not Jewish because that makes him the best Jew.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And his father was a butcher, Conn.
Marc:There you go.
Guest:No, I classify Jews as kind of soft Jews and sinewy Jews.
Guest:Like, I think that's like a category.
Guest:The wiry Jew?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, like, like, like, like, like, like Israelis are very like, they're, they're like leathery and like, they have, they're tough though, man.
Marc:They're tough.
Guest:They're veiny and muscular and senior.
Guest:Yeah, no, I would call, I put them in like a tough category.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They don't fuck around.
Marc:No.
Marc:Israelis aren't going to put up with our fucking middle class.
Marc:No.
Marc:You know, Jew bullshit.
Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:They don't like that shit.
Marc:No, it's like it's ridiculous.
Marc:They don't even want to know.
Marc:They don't even care if we're religious.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like all they want to know is that do you believe we can kill them?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Where do you stand on all this?
Guest:Do you think they deserve a country or can we kill them?
Guest:I haven't gotten along with an Israeli in a long time.
Marc:Yeah, I don't think I've ever gotten along with it in Israeli.
Guest:So at my Jewish summer camp, there were Israeli counselors who were fresh out of the army and they were psychotic and they would torture us.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I never.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was it a sleepaway Jewish summer camp?
Marc:It was.
Yeah.
Marc:Because I went to a Jewish day camp.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I went to a very non-Jewish sleepaway camp.
Guest:I went to a Jewish sleepaway camp where the goal was essentially to get young Jewish kids to fuck one another to make more Jewish kids, I think.
Marc:Really?
Marc:At that age, you defined?
Marc:They're planting the seeds.
Marc:It wasn't just a sort of experiment?
Guest:I mean, a lot of people, my sister met her husband there.
Guest:Weirdly, a disproportionate amount of people I know produced Jewish offspring due to this summer camp.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Is it a Canadian summer camp?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:A Canadian Jewish summer camp?
Marc:A Canadian Jewish summer camp.
Marc:Everyone goes there.
Marc:Were you there when you were at what age?
Guest:Like maybe like 9 to 16 or something like that.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So it's like every year the same people.
Marc:You grow up with each other.
Marc:Everyone gets laid the first time at the camp.
Marc:Yeah, basically, yeah.
Marc:With other Jews.
Yeah.
Marc:I guess you got it.
Marc:That's the thing, depending where you live.
Marc:I grew up in New Mexico, so there was only so many Jews.
Marc:No, it's true.
Marc:You grew up in where?
Guest:Vancouver, British Columbia.
Marc:There's not a ton of Jews.
Guest:There's some.
Guest:They're all in Montreal, right?
Guest:Yeah, all on the East Coast.
Guest:Where in New Mexico did you live?
Guest:Albuquerque.
Guest:Oh, man, I've lived there several times for months on end.
Guest:Yeah, for movies and TV shows.
Guest:We shot the show Preacher there for the first season.
Guest:I like it there.
Guest:I actually like how I'm a Kirk, New Mexico.
Marc:People get the wrong impression of it because, I mean, I don't think they really see the best of it sometimes when they live there.
Marc:And I guess there's not much there, and I guess it's gotten a little economically depressed since I grew up there.
Marc:My parents are from Jersey.
Marc:Yeah, mine too.
Marc:My dad.
Marc:Is from Jersey?
Marc:My dad is from Newark, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's funny because my mother's father was from Elizabeth.
Marc:And I was just going to say that that fucking cemetery in the movie, it's exactly like the one my grandparents are buried in Elizabeth.
Marc:Like there is a Budweiser factory right off of the highway, right across from New York.
Marc:And like you get off in Newark and there's this Budweiser factory.
Marc:And in the shadow of that is this little old Jewish cemetery.
Guest:You see them as you drive around and it's just like, oh, like the people who if the people who spent their life savings on that 100 years ago knew what it had become.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So bummed out.
Guest:It's so yeah, it's so upsetting.
Marc:It was very true.
Marc:That was very true to the it's I think it's in Linden.
Marc:It's in Linden, New Jersey, New Jersey.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I definitely related to that.
Marc:But the thing about the Jews in New Mexico and I guess in Vancouver, too, is like they you know, I guess your parents.
Marc:I think we talked about this a little the last time.
Marc:You know, there has to be an effort made, you know, to get all get them all together.
Marc:They want you.
Marc:For sure.
Guest:I went to.
Guest:Yeah, I went to Jewish elementary school.
Guest:Is your wife Jewish?
Guest:My wife is Jewish.
Guest:See, so that worked out, I guess.
Guest:It worked.
Guest:And what's funny is I don't care that she's Jewish.
Guest:And like I would have been totally happy marrying a non-Jewish person.
Guest:It's totally coincidental that she's Jewish.
Guest:And it really bothers her when I say that.
Guest:Like she wants her Judaism to have some value to me, even though it doesn't in any way.
Marc:Well, I don't know that you would know if that's true until you did.
Marc:I bet you wouldn't be great with a non-Jew.
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Marc:I'd be okay.
Marc:Yeah, you'd probably be okay, but there's not that.
Marc:I was married to a Jew, and that didn't work out.
Marc:And then I was married to a non-Jew, and that didn't work out either.
Guest:So there you go.
Guest:Sometimes religion has nothing to do with it.
Marc:I used to do a joke about it.
Marc:I said the only problem with marrying a Jew is that means everything you hated about going home is now in your house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I found, yeah, there's a lot of similarities for sure that it, but there's a familiarity to that.
Guest:But also like I was a real, I found myself being like kind of a real novelty to some of the non-Jewish women I dated.
Guest:Like it was like,
Guest:Like, oh, wow.
Guest:Like they'd never been around a funny person before in their entire life before.
Guest:But if you're a Jewish person, then you're like, I'm no funnier than your average Jewish person's uncle is.
Guest:So the novelty has not.
Marc:I don't think that's true.
Marc:I think I think I guess Jews communicate a different way.
Marc:I don't know what the hell it really is.
Marc:But I mean, I think there's some non-Jewish women.
Marc:Who just like Jews.
Marc:Yeah, that's also a thing.
Guest:And thank God for them.
Guest:If you go on Pornhub, you find that everything is someone's into everything.
Guest:Is there a Jew, like a Jew fetish on Pornhub?
Guest:How would that even play out?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, there are some porn stars who are famously Jewish, and their work is featured as a result of it.
Marc:But do they look Jewish?
Marc:Would you, like, you mean men or women?
Marc:The men would be easier to pick out, probably, from a lineup.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I think Ron Jeremy's a Jew.
Guest:Porn stars.
Guest:They're female Jewish.
Guest:Yeah, they're female Jewish porn stars.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Does this part of your brain go, like, how did that happen?
Guest:My answer, it does.
Guest:And then my answer is like probably super liberal, like very liberal upbringing.
Marc:That's the weirdest thing about Jews in this sort of like, you know, this chosen people business that's been kind of put on us is that there's this there's this sense of exceptionalism, which is kind of weird because that that's what I learned about when I was at the deli.
Marc:I like I had to wrap my brain around.
Marc:Of course, there were Jewish plumbers, all these Jews that come over here.
Marc:First generation immigrants, how are they going to figure out how to do whatever you make pickles like in the movie or whatever?
Marc:And it wasn't until the second or third generation that they actually started to integrate into the middle class and upper class and make a lot of money.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:It's and I think like to me making the movie like it, like my grandmother was born fleeing Poland, fleeing like the pogroms in 1919, which is when the movie.
Guest:How old was she?
Guest:she passed away in 2000 i think 15 so she was like 96 maybe something like that but she was born yeah so she was born in 1919 in a caravan fleeing you know people trying to kill jewish people and coming to america and like it will and she came to canada she moved to winnipeg which is a terrible place winnipeg oh my god what a beaten little city that is
Guest:My only like reason I could think as to why so many Eastern European Jews went to Winnipeg is that maybe it reminded them of Eastern Europe.
Guest:Like maybe it was, it was the closest thing to the shtetl they could find.
Guest:The barren landscape.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's a frozen barren landscape.
Guest:And so, yeah.
Guest:And so it was, yeah.
Guest:I mean, making the movie, it was like really kind of reenacting my own history in a lot of ways.
Guest:And it was, I mean, it made me think of it a hundred.
Guest:percent differently it's like oh yeah like my that's why my grandfather was so tough like he grew up at a time and my grandmother was so tough it's like they everyone hated people beat the shit out of them you know what i mean he was yeah he had to he had to fight they had to you know i think a lot and a lot of people i think don't
Guest:Like, I just conversationally understand that, like, if you meet a Jewish person in America, they're probably here because someone tried to kill their grandparents not that long ago.
Guest:And like and we should be in Eastern Europe.
Marc:Well, that was actually a plan that that, you know, when the Jews fled the Holocaust to spread out, there was actually an organization that would place Jews in as many different places as possible.
Guest:I think that's a better strategy.
Marc:Like why they couldn't corral them up again.
Guest:Yeah, well, you don't keep all your Jews in one basket.
Guest:I don't understand why they did that.
Guest:It makes no sense whatsoever.
Guest:I totally agree with that strategy.
Guest:Spread them out.
Guest:And it would be nice to live somewhere that was not a part of the Christian apocalyptic prophecy, which is also probably a good idea.
Guest:Maybe settle somewhere that the Christians don't think you all have to die in order for the... Yeah, and then they want us all to go there.
Marc:They need a certain
Marc:number they need us to go there so we can die so yeah but but that but it's nice to know that like you know in the present they need us there's a similar there's some best common vested interest in the in the meantime the christians they they need us for their their ridiculous vision and they're not they're not gun they're not gunning for us not
Guest:Yes, but luckily it serves our ridiculous, like our ridiculous visions are temporarily parallel.
Marc:Could you imagine living in Israel?
Marc:Would you ever go live in Israel?
Marc:No, it would be.
Marc:I'm the same way.
Marc:And we're going to piss off a bunch of Jews.
Marc:It's like, you know, for some reason, my mother, who's not religious or whatever, but there's her generation.
Marc:They were kind of hung up on Israel and they find some comfort in it.
Marc:And I've been there and I'm like, I can't I couldn't imagine living here.
Guest:No, it's there are nice parts.
Guest:And I think you like for like, I can imagine like, yeah, like at best you are convincing yourself that you are far enough away from a major conflict to not worry about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is like a terrible thing to convince yourself of.
Guest:And like, I don't understand.
Guest:To me, it just seems very like an antiquated thought process.
Guest:Like if it is for religious reasons, I don't agree with it because I think religion is silly.
Guest:If it is for truly the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense.
Guest:Because, again, you don't keep something you're trying to preserve all in one place, especially when that place has proven to be... Volatile.
Guest:Pretty volatile, you know?
Guest:I'm trying to keep all these things safe.
Guest:I'm going to put them in my blender and hope that that's the best place to... That'll do it.
Guest:Like...
Guest:it just it doesn't make sense to me and so i i and and i also think that as a jewish person like i was fed a huge amount of lies about israel my entire life you know they never tell you that oh by the way there were people there they make it seem like it was just like they're sitting there it was like the fucking doors open hours for the taking
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like it literally they forget to include the fact to every young Jewish person, basically like, oh, by the way, there were people there.
Marc:Well, they just want to make sure that you are frightened of your own survival to the point where when you get old enough, you will make sure that that money goes to Israel and that trees are planted and that you always speak highly of Israel and Israel must survive no matter what.
Guest:Yeah, and I don't understand it at all.
Guest:And I think, like, for Jewish people especially who are thought, you know, who view themselves as progressive and who view themselves as analytical and who view themselves as people who ask a lot of questions and really challenge the status quo, like...
Guest:you know what are we doing well yeah i mean well there's that there's a thing i mean i'm even i get frightened to talk about it you know you start i know and we're afraid of jews i'm afraid of jews i'm 100 afraid of jews which as we started it aside from james con we have no one to be afraid of yeah yeah
Guest:No, it's those Republican Jews, buddy.
Guest:No, it's scary.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, like we're Jews.
Guest:We can say whatever we want about like we should.
Guest:If anyone could say whatever the fuck they want about this shit, it should be two famous Jewish people who, you know, if anyone's getting rounded up first, it's our fucking asses, you know, like we.
Guest:we are, we are outwardly Jewish.
Marc:So I think like, but I find that, but don't you find that like, like when I watched the movie, I thought like, wow, this is really, I mean, they're, they might be overdoing it.
Guest:It is a very Jewish film.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm wondering, like, who is the audience for this?
Marc:How old are they?
Marc:You know, I mean, not in a bad way, but it's very specific.
Marc:It's very specific.
Marc:And it's sort of like almost a throwback to movies when, you know, Jews had some, you know, cultural profile.
Guest:It's like for those few years when Australians were really cool in the early 90s.
Guest:It's like when Yahoo Serious was famous.
Guest:You're bringing it back.
Guest:You're bringing it back.
Guest:I'm bringing it back to the Yentl Crossing Delance.
Guest:Late 70s, early 80s.
Guest:It is specific.
Guest:But I do think that there's like, you know, the themes are pretty universal.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:But do I felt like, you know, when I see that and I felt it like in my last comedy special, too, that for some reason, even as frightened as I may be of fascists and anti-Semites, I almost feel like I have to overstate my Jewishness.
Marc:to in order for other Jews to be like, all right, well, someone's taken the hit and, you know, we can all I can meet him halfway, maybe, you know, maybe not at work, you know, but I do think it's important to represent.
Marc:For sure.
Guest:And Jews don't like it when you deny your Jewishness, which for me would be a ridiculously futile endeavor.
Guest:And I think that and that is what's complicated about being Jewish.
Guest:And I think, you know,
Guest:It's something that I've reconciled, and I think the movie, it was one of the things I was interested in the movie, is like, unlike other religions, you could find a corpse and determine whether or not it was Jewish.
Guest:It doesn't work like that with being a Methodist.
Guest:like you don't know what that person like what because of what circumcision or the nose of our dna because like if you do a dna test you come back as jewish you don't come back as uh you know right you come back as an ashkenazi jew it's weird right did you get that i was i was uh yeah mine just came back jew yeah 90 yeah exactly 100 000 jew don't fuck your wife you're probably cousins
Guest:But I think, no, and I think that is what's different about other religions is being Jewish is inextractable from us.
Guest:It is literally our DNA comes back Jewish.
Guest:That's what it says on the DNA test.
Guest:And if you're a Baptist, they don't know that.
Guest:It's your belief system.
Guest:It's not who you are.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:But being Jewish is not exclusive to, you don't have to believe in Judaism to be Jewish.
Guest:I believe I believe like let's round down and say I believe zero of Judaism.
Guest:Yeah, I'm still Jewish.
Guest:I can't help it.
Guest:I just am.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My DNA comes back Jewish.
Marc:But do you think there's something about that DNA that.
Guest:that whether you believe zero i mean what does it really mean to believe zero jewishness i mean you know there's something about the the sort of legacy you are and the the sort of like the way of speaking that tumbles down through generations inherited the trauma inherited through our dna i think it's also definitely a big part of it um yeah i think like it's not like being neurotic is not like a genetic you know it's that that's like you know inherited i think
Marc:But also like there's a premium put on on education and on survival and on, you know, a certain amount of of wariness, you know, and, you know, I think there was something touching in the movie just because that character that you play that isn't the the one that was the old Jew, you know, you know, comes to some sort of moment with his with his Jewishness at the end.
Marc:And it was it was kind of touching because like I I think you're probably more Jewish than you think in terms of actual.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How deep the ritual is written into you.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:And I think also as I get older, I appreciate that religion, you know, specifically revolving around death, like Judaism has a lot of protocol that.
Marc:is helpful you know and it kind of forces you to dude it's like yeah i just i went through it with the death of someone else who was not jewish but it was like you know like jews like you get the body in the ground yeah you got two days you know and you and you you physically bury it yourselves in a wooden box don't with it you know yeah and then the shiva thing you know is really kind of powerful
Guest:For sure.
Guest:And it happens fast.
Guest:And what I've seen, my wife, Lauren, her mother passed away earlier this year.
Guest:And what I saw was like, it puts you to work and it forces you to do stuff and it forces you to confront it and it forces you to be around people and talk to people.
Guest:And
Guest:It forces you to eat and drink.
Guest:And it is religion.
Guest:But it was one of those things where I was like, oh, this is like a very useful tool that religion has created around a very painful thing.
Guest:And a lot of thought was put into this.
Guest:And it's actually, you know, for everything I could say about...
Guest:as silly as Noah's Ark is that this is not silly.
Guest:This is actually like a very well thought out, practical protocol to do after someone dies.
Guest:And whether you believe it or not, it like is useful, you know?
Guest:And I think that's also something that,
Guest:you know, because I was, I went to Jewish school and I went to synagogue and you realize that, oh, I was brainwashed and kind of just taught a lot of things that I don't believe.
Guest:And I was never really given the choice to make these choices, you know, decisions for myself.
Guest:You, you, you drastically kind of revolt against it for a while.
Guest:And then now I'm kind of in the last few years have more been in the phase where it's like, okay, I like, yes, there's a lot that I should not have,
Guest:Ever probably been told to take as seriously as I did.
Marc:But but what will you talk is, I mean, I was brought up like conservative Jew and I don't remember, you know, I kind of we learned a little bit of Hebrew.
Marc:I learned to read Hebrew.
Marc:I did the prayers.
Marc:But like, I don't remember, you know, ever being afraid of God or taught to pray in any real way.
Marc:I don't know what I was really.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:So, like, what did I really learn?
Marc:I mean, like, I have no practical relationship with God.
Marc:I mean, like, it seems like with Jesus, they're like, you know, Jesus died for your sins.
Marc:And, you know, you ask for forgiveness.
Marc:And it's a very kind of A plus B equals, you know, you get to heaven.
Marc:With Jews, it's sort of like, who are we talking to?
Marc:No, it's true.
Guest:But I do remember, well, but that was a funny thing, though, because I think when you're young in Jewish school, they do kind of lay it on.
Guest:And I was pretty young, but I remember, like...
Guest:I remember my sister, who's only three years older than me, being like, oh, none of this is, I don't believe in any of this shit.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:And then she's like, mom and dad don't even really believe in this shit.
Guest:Do you realize we're not doing any of this stuff?
Guest:And I was like, oh, wow.
Guest:I'm being taught.
Guest:And that is just like, I mean, it's like the tooth fairy.
Guest:It's like anything.
Guest:It's like, oh, you're just, I was taught things that were never meant to be.
Guest:come to fruition or be real in any way, shape, or form.
Marc:Except to remind you at your age now that maybe there's something to it.
Guest:No, and then, yeah, and then I get to it now, and I'm like, oh, for these very adult things that I wasn't dealing with at the time, it was like death, and there's actually a lot of useful stuff to it.
Guest:I just honestly...
Guest:Israel is the thing that I was, that I look back on and look at as like, maybe that was the thing I was like most misinformed about.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like, I think the religious stuff, there are, I can reconcile it more like with what we're talking about now, there are tools, but like with,
Guest:You know, I think like just specifically like Israel and Palestine, like that was stuff that like I was and not because of my parents or anything.
Guest:I think just like culturally, it was not in the conversation of the average Jewish family to really get into the specifics of what was happening.
Marc:You don't question Israel.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I think that's true.
Marc:And also, like, I remember being shown Holocaust movies, the movies like and that was a bit of brainwashing, probably for to for the better, where you're just sort of like this.
Marc:This happened.
Marc:You can never forget it.
Marc:It was horrible.
Marc:And these are this is the pile of shoes.
Marc:Here's all the hair.
Marc:This is exactly with the bodies in it.
Marc:That's, you know.
Marc:Never again.
Guest:I got to say, though, my parents actually always did instill.
Guest:I remember my dad, when I was very young, when my dad very frankly telling me, like, people hate Jews.
Guest:Just be aware of that.
Guest:They just do.
Guest:And it's honestly something that I am so glad was instilled in me from a young age, because if it wasn't, I would constantly be shocked at how much motherfuckers hate Jews.
Guest:Jews because they do and it is it is pervasive and it is prevalent and it is too many Jewish people so confounding that they don't assume it's true right and I think that that is something that I that I'm honestly glad was always very much instilled in me because it's true yeah and it's interesting that it's confounding because hating Jews is as old as Judaism right
Marc:I know.
Marc:It was the second thing that happened.
Marc:Yeah, like, it's so... And it's institutionalized in some other religions.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In a way.
Guest:It's super... Yeah, it's really bizarre.
Guest:And I think it's something that I've also, like...
Marc:you know put it like a little tried to put a lot of thought into why it happens and you know i know why it happened it was because i mean i know part of it part of it was because the jews were you know not allowed to participate in a lot of cultural things and and and things that uh you know required like um they were kind of pushed into a position
Marc:They couldn't own property.
Marc:They couldn't do this.
Marc:So they learned other skills.
Marc:And those skills became necessary for other people to exist.
Marc:Banking, you know, like education.
Marc:Yeah, well, they just sort of like, you know, these smart asses who are managing our money.
Guest:And I also think like, you know, people obviously hate people who do not look like them.
Guest:But I think and I think people.
Guest:Also have a weird fear of people who look like them, but do not believe the same thing they do fundamentally.
Guest:And I think that is like, it's, it's funny though.
Marc:Like I can, I can get mildly antisemitic with guys that are too Jewish where I'm like, there's some people where I'm like, you can turn it down a little bit.
Marc:You know, you're like, you know, you're why?
Marc:Oh, for sure.
Marc:You're the reason.
Yeah.
Marc:exactly you know like we're all you know you can be who you are but it seems like you're overdoing it a little i think you're milking no for sure and anyone who's like super like people who are like anyone who's too militant or extreme about anything like needs to fucking pipe it you know it's not even militant it's just those guys are like i don't know should we go to the thing or not go to
Guest:yeah exactly how it is yeah you're not doing us any favors there either but yeah the very yeah the very um yeah that just like please for the love of god where did where did you meet your wife at that camp or no no i uh a friend introduced us we uh a long time ago yeah we met at uh we met at el sid where at el sid the mexican restaurant oh really
Guest:uh-huh he was at a special event because no one it was a birthday it was actually whitney cummings's birthday party oh okay um 15 15 years ago wow no kidding so she was in the uh comedy orbit yeah she um went to yeah she uh well she actually worked i worked on the ali g show
Guest:The guy who worked on that with me was dating a good friend of hers who she had gone to film school with.
Guest:But she worked for Robert Demeckis at the time that we started dating, actually.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:So what's she doing now?
Guest:She's a writer and director.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's made a film for Netflix.
Guest:She wrote another film.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:Did I see it?
Guest:Is it out yet?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's called Like Father with Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'll check it out.
Guest:Check it out.
Marc:So here's my question, though.
Marc:You know, we know what's going on.
Marc:You know, you're you're politically active person.
Marc:and uh you're canadian and and i read an article that you're slowly buying up most of the hollywood hills so let me and uh but like so you're really digging in i mean i would maybe i'm a different kind of jew than you but like for me it's like i would kill to have canadian citizenship i don't know what don't you buying up all this property and it's like you might have to go back to canada next year but i i i have an apartment in canada
Guest:My parents are there.
Guest:My sister's there.
Guest:There's a lot of opportunity for me in Canada.
Guest:I don't think I would leave them.
Guest:I mean, things would have to get very bad for me to leave America.
Guest:You love it here?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, and I appreciate, like, I've benefited so much from living in America that my instinct is to not...
Guest:leave it as soon as things get rough here.
Guest:You know, like I, I have a lot of American friends who actually reach out to me.
Guest:I'm sure half joking, half not like, you know, any Canadians I could marry, you know, like, but my instinct is like, we can't like, like things would have to get very bad in order for me to leave this country.
Guest:And they're pretty fucking bad.
Marc:I was going to say, are you not watching the same programs?
Guest:I am.
Guest:It's still, it's not, I'm still here.
Guest:I'm not, I'm not leaving yet, you know?
Guest:And I, I don't,
Guest:you know i don't know what leaving like personally it might make me a little more comfortable but i don't think it would do any like grand good necessarily and i think like again as someone who i'm half american i've lived here forever i just don't know if like my instinct is to not leave right
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, but, but your father, like he's out, you grew up, he left New Jersey and went to Canada when he married your mother.
Marc:Is that how it worked?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, my parents hilariously met in Israel on a kibbutz.
Marc:Really?
Marc:When they were like in their 20s?
Guest:Early 20s.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They were doing the kibbutzing, like they were doing their bit.
Guest:They were doing the, they were just kind of hippies, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, yeah, my mom's from Vancouver and then my dad like went back to Vancouver with her.
Guest:oh so what now what i think we talked about it a little bit the last time your dad was a he's a is it what what does he do your mom's a social worker you my mom's a social worker my dad uh never he was he's always been like outwardly against the concept of work and careers in general um he never like he's worked in non-profits basically and like whatever so he kept that uh that that hippie ideology
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:But he was always outwardly like, work sucks.
Guest:Do not try to gain your identity through your job, which is ironic because it's a thousand percent what I've done with my life.
Guest:But it was not what he instilled in me in any way.
Marc:But your job was self-dictated after a certain point.
Marc:It's not like, God damn it, I got to make another movie that I'm producing.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And they were very supportive of me as well.
Guest:So that was nice.
Marc:How do you make a living then?
Guest:My dad, he worked at, again, when I was a kid, he worked in the game room of the vocational school in Vancouver.
Guest:The game room where the video games were?
Guest:Literally, if you went to the VCC, the Career Vocational College, if you wanted to use the ping pong table, he would give you the paddles.
Guest:And I remember this.
Guest:I would go to work with him as a kid, and I remember hanging out in the game room.
Guest:And because it was a vocational school, I would get haircuts as a kid from the people learning to be hairdressers.
Guest:And I remember once a guy with no ear cut my hair, which was very distressing to me.
Guest:And I don't know why it was distressing because the odds that he was trying to cut his own hair and cut his own ear off.
Guest:It was still symbolically distressing for some reason.
Marc:Yeah, you never forget the first time you see a guy with no ear.
Guest:No, and when he's cutting your hair, it's alarming.
Marc:Was it a fresh wound or was it like a...
Guest:it was scarred over, but it was not like, it seemed like last, last six months, I would say.
Marc:So your dad was a guy that sort of like, don't bang the paddles on the table.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he became like the bookkeeper at what was the Vancouver coalition of people with disabilities, which was like a nonprofit organization that helped people with disabilities.
Guest:And he,
Guest:helped run their books um he's like he dropped out of rutgers like he's not a you know really he did not have like my dad went to rutgers there you go was your father in the zeta beta tau fraternity i don't think he was my dad is not a fraternity type he fenced he was a he was one of the he was at the third best state in the state for fencing and i think he won some champions the fencing hippie who doesn't want to work i like it exactly
Marc:The ZBT, Zeta Beta Tau, was called, I imagine by anti-Semites, a Zionist Bankers Trust.
Guest:It was a Jewish fraternity.
Guest:Sounds about right.
Marc:So since I last saw you, I mean, you've done a lot of stuff.
Marc:I mean, like the animation business, that seems like it's going to be pretty lucrative in the future because we're never going to be able to touch each other again.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:How did that Sausage Party movie do?
Guest:It did really well.
Guest:It made like $100 million in the theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um which is crazy um yeah it was i mean we spent a lot of time working on it so i'm glad i'm glad it did but uh no we have plans to try to do more uh r-rated animation and we're doing kids animation now as well which is hilarious like what do you got going
Guest:We're doing we're producing a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie for Nickelodeon.
Guest:And yeah, some more things like that.
Marc:But how does that work in terms of like is that sort of like, you know, Seagull doing a Muppets movie?
Marc:How do you get how do you get access to the Mutant Ninja Turtles?
Guest:Some things just happen with a phone call.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:There's some things that I've been working tirelessly for years to try to become a part of, and it still has not materialized.
Guest:And then some things are like this, where Ryan Robbins is the head of Nickelodeon.
Guest:Around 20 years ago, he was a producer, and he was one of the first producers to read Superbad.
Guest:we very much got along and then like i got a phone call one day and he was like i'm the head on the clodian want to make ninja turtles okay um and and so yeah now we're now we're producing intro as a result of that and are you writing it i'm i'm like producing no i'm like helping write it as a producer and being pretty annoyingly hands-on throughout the writing process were you a fan when you were a kid
Guest:yes i was obsessed with it i watched like every episode oh really because those those characters are so defined right yeah they are defined yeah there's a there's a party dude there's the leader there's a nerdy guy and there's a petulant rebellious guy it's all you need and what other what other what live action ones you got going
Guest:Um, I mean, we have a lot of things that are now just kind of on ice and we'll see what happens.
Guest:We haven't filmed anything that has not come out.
Guest:Like the American pickle was the only thing we had like produced that actually the boys season two of the boys.
Guest:We have a TV show on Amazon, um, called the boys.
Guest:That's like a superhero show.
Guest:Um, and the second season of that is coming out, um, in September, I think, uh, uh,
Guest:but yeah we haven't those are the only like on those are the only like produce things that we haven't released and everything else we were like about to start shooting some stuff but we now will maybe not shoot that stuff for right years who the fuck knows the america the pickle movie what's it called again
Marc:An American pickle?
Marc:We call it the pickle movie.
Marc:We refer to it as the pickle movie.
Marc:Okay, the pickle movie, the American pickle.
Guest:There was a day where I was bothering everyone at my company and being like, can we just call it the pickle movie?
Guest:Is that weird?
Guest:I know maybe in Kentucky, movies with the word movie in it is maybe not a great look.
Guest:It does not have an incredibly wonderful history, but my instinct was to call it the pickle movie.
Guest:Was it actually based on a book or no?
Guest:Yeah, it's based on the novella, like a short story by that Simon Rich wrote.
Guest:That was in The New Yorker many years ago, seven, eight years ago.
Marc:So, like, what did you take from that?
Marc:Like, what points of the story?
Marc:I mean, I guess I could just read it, but I was curious about, you know, kind of like, you know, with any of these comedies that are a little broader, you've got to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, you know, for story points, right?
Marc:You know, obviously, we're going for the... You cannot be pickled, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:concede at the beginning but that's like but it's funny but um but is that what what was the story about was it exactly that well the story simon wrote from his own perspective and it was about his as though he met his own he wrote it from the herschel character's perspective but he was herschel rich from the old grandfather great grandfather of simon rich okay the writer of the story i get it i get it right oh interesting so
Guest:But the fundamentals were very similar.
Guest:I think the thing that we really leaned into when we were making the movie that was not as big a part of the short story was this idea of grief.
Guest:That, to me, became...
Guest:kind of the most interesting and original weirdly um you know like all plot conventions aside like it became something that like i always like to think like it's nice to at least to yourself be able to justify that you were doing something that is not done a lot or you cannot think of many examples or that or that shallow
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was like, there's not a lot of movies about grief and it's something that everyone experiences.
Guest:And it's something that as just a movie fan, it's not something I could think of like a ton of movies that like really...
Guest:dive into the subject of loss and moving on and reconciling that and how people deal with it and legacy and what, what we leave behind.
Guest:And, and to me that became, and that's not a huge part of the short story, but it became something that to me was, was just really fascinating and, and, and a subject that was just really worth exploring.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:So you like, as a producer, you saw this story and you sat down with the writers and you said, what about this or what?
Guest:No, Simon actually came... Luckily, he envisioned it as a movie with me.
Guest:The first time I ever hosted Saturday Night Live was his first episode as a writer on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And we were both much younger than everybody else that was there at the time.
Guest:It felt like... There were some people around our age, but we felt...
Guest:very young and inexperienced comparatively you know and so we kind of bonded and then the short story came out and a lot of people liked it but I think people maybe thought it was too weird to be a movie but we talked to him about it and he was like I picture it as a movie and I picture it with you and I picture you playing both characters also and
Guest:and it took me a long time to wrap my head around whether or not that was a terrible idea or not.
Guest:And eventually kind of, uh, many, and, and, and the script, it was a hard movie to crack.
Guest:Like the tone is weird.
Guest:And it was something that I wanted to spend a lot of time making sure we got right.
Guest:And like, I, I do, I slow down the process always like more than anything.
Marc:What was the concern?
Yeah.
Guest:just that it would be silly or stupid or then like to me as just an actor playing two roles I didn't want to subtract from what I thought might be like a potentially powerful film by doing something gimmicky or just kind of silly you know I didn't want it to be perceived as self-indulgent that's always something I'm just horrified of you know even though I constantly am doing it so I think like
Guest:All that was, you know, people just writing mean things about me is generally the concern I have before I before I do anything.
Marc:Can you avoid that, though, as a Jew?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I can I can mitigate it best I can.
Marc:But I find that interesting that because now that, you know, you bring it up because I think you did a great job separating the roles and emotionally.
Marc:And that, like, you know, now that you say what you're saying, because, like, you know, I get hung up on things where I can see where the comedy bits are and I can see where you make leaps.
Marc:But, you know, it really does become about, you know, about family and about his, you know, missing his whole life and, you know, missing his wife's life and, you know, his feelings about her and going to that grave and that being, you know, sort of the beginning of this important journey he's got to go on.
Marc:And then you having these dead parents.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that like it was interesting, like this idea of, you know, what our grandparents hoped our lives would be like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And how they would have to recalibrate things.
Guest:that for today you know like that in and and and that it's hard for everyone you know and I think that like for the you know if my grandparents were to see how I live they'd probably be very proud of some of the superficial things but
Guest:They're the fact that I'm not religious.
Guest:I don't speak Yiddish.
Guest:These kinds of things would be appalling to them.
Guest:And then slowly they would probably have to kind of like recalibrate what they hoped their future generations would become and see that I'm a happy, you know, hopefully reasonable.
Guest:You think they'd be upset you didn't speak Yiddish?
Guest:My grandmother, probably a little bit.
Guest:She would always say, you think you're a big shot?
Guest:That was one of her favorite things to say.
Marc:My grandparents used to speak Yiddish when they didn't want us to understand what they were talking about.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They liked to...
Guest:I think the things that they had, there's more of them that they wish that we did.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Well, yeah, because it's all gone now.
Marc:It's like it's over with them.
Marc:If our generation, you're younger than me, if we don't keep it moving, it's over.
Marc:I mean, you know, for sure.
Marc:The delis are closing.
Marc:All that generation, you know, of those kind of traditions or just even –
Marc:You know, you know, like that because like I still sometimes somehow it's infused in me, you know, where it's sort of like I, you know, I can appreciate, you know, a good brisket, good pastrami, a good corn.
Guest:You just are Jewish.
Guest:Again, if we if I found if I found your body in an alley somewhere, I could determine you were a Jewish person by the cholesterol level and by the brisket in your in your gullet.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But no, but like that whole thing, I was always fascinated with that generation.
Guest:They were it was a fast and my grand like the character is very much what my my grandfather was born in Canada, but he was a hard man and he was a tough man.
Guest:And and for sure, if we were both 37 years old, he would not have liked me.
Guest:he would have physically assaulted me, likely, you know?
Guest:And that's something... You knew him?
Guest:He barely liked me as his own grandson, and he had to because I was his grandson, you know?
Guest:Once when I was very young, I stubbed my toe and my toenail cracked a little bit, and he ripped off my entire toenail, and I had to go to the hospital.
Guest:It was like a big thing, you know?
Guest:And that was like his approach.
Marc:He was he was a scary man.
Guest:He was.
Guest:But he was also funny and he was like lovely and he had a good sense of humor.
Guest:But and for sure, as he got older, he like mellowed out.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I also like he could rip an apple in half with his bare hand.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was like a trick he would do.
Guest:Like he was he was a tough guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I like that that part where, you know, that where the older generation, the ancient Jew can't understand your disconnection from the religion when there's pictures of you at your bar mitzvah.
Marc:It just doesn't he doesn't understand how it's not integrated into your life.
Guest:Yeah, and how at a time, and again, our grandparents, he was someone who was going to be killed because he was Jewish.
Guest:And the only reason he was in America is because he was Jewish.
Guest:And that's the same thing with my grandmother.
Guest:The only reason I exist is because people were trying to kill them.
Guest:And so the fact that that is no longer this like thing you're hanging everything on and is instead like, oh, like culturally I'm Jewish.
Guest:Stick one of 20 things about me.
Guest:Like, you know, I like to play board games.
Guest:I garden.
Guest:I'm Jewish.
Guest:Like I went to baseball camp.
Guest:I had a bar mitzvah.
Guest:Like I think that concept for a generation who was...
Guest:the target of systematic annihilation and had to literally uproot their whole lives and come to where I am because of that targeted annihilation.
Guest:I think that is something that I would imagine would be hard to reconcile where it's like before Judaism was like,
Guest:It was everything.
Guest:If you were a Jewish person, you had to it dictated a lot of your life.
Guest:And now it doesn't.
Guest:And I think that is like a real.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you feel it, though.
Marc:You feel it.
Marc:You want to see it.
Marc:We do.
Guest:It is a privilege.
Guest:Jewish people now have, I think, in America, for the most part, compared to previous generations.
Marc:But do you feel that like, you know, you understand Jews like, you know, like are most of your friends Jewish?
Guest:Uh, not most of them, but I have a lot of Jewish friends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, do you have childhood?
Marc:Like, well, uh, I have friends from summer camp.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're still friends with him for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's wild, right?
Guest:It's wild.
Guest:And none of us are religious and do anything.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:But, but you, but you have an understanding.
Guest:There's an also like not that long ago, there was like 30 fucking Jews on earth.
Guest:And so like, if you go back like a disturbingly few amount of generations, we're all related to one another.
Guest:We are cousins.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:How far back have you gone?
Marc:I was on that show, you know, the show Finding Your Roots.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He got back six generations.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:My family go.
Guest:Rogan is an unchanged last name.
Marc:Mine is, too.
Marc:Ukraine?
Marc:Mine, too, from Galicia.
Marc:But that's the other side.
Marc:Marin's actually from the Palo Settlement in Belarus in Russia.
Guest:Yeah, my grand one side is from Ukraine and from a place called Chudnov, which I think is now in Russia.
Guest:And my grandmother literally does not did not know where she was born or on what day she was born because she was born like in a caravan fleeing the pogroms.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:You should get on that show because they do a good job.
Marc:No, I would love to.
Marc:They'll go all the way back.
Marc:They did a Jew show.
Marc:It was me and Jeff Goldblum and Terry Gross.
Guest:And I'm sure you're all related not that far back in some capacity, right?
Marc:I guess we're related.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We might have been in the same neighborhood.
Marc:I mean, I don't know if we're related.
Marc:It's why we get sick.
Marc:It's why we have all these.
Marc:It's why we're riddled with disease.
Marc:I mean, I know it seems like the Orthodox, the Hasidim are a little tight.
Marc:Their gene pool is so tight that they're actually producing Jews that don't even look like Jews.
Marc:Like if they didn't have the get up, you wouldn't know they were Jewish.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They've mutated beyond Jew.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And there's some other thing.
Guest:A whole new Jew.
Marc:How do you feel about the Hasidim?
Marc:What is your first reaction when you see them in your mind?
Marc:Again, not doing us any favors.
Yeah.
Guest:I also am always thinking about how wizards are clearly based on Hasidic people.
Guest:Like we know culturally as wizards is based on Hasidic people.
Guest:Like Gandalf is based on Hasidic people.
Guest:It's so funny.
Marc:I didn't realize that.
Marc:Well, they are wizards.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I get why.
Guest:I 100% get why.
Marc:They're the only ones that understand certain things.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You've got to be deemed worthy to understand it, but also you have to be stupid in every other way.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But the thing is weird.
Marc:I used to think that, too, they're not doing us any favors on some level, but they...
Marc:ultimately are a community in direct reaction to the Holocaust and that the only reason they're living the life they're living and reproducing as much as they are is specifically to make sure that the world is populated with very Jewish people.
Marc:It's very fascinating.
Guest:What's our game?
Guest:What's our end game here?
Guest:Well, how does we need it?
Guest:I hate to break it to Jews.
Guest:We need non-Jews.
Guest:Or we're not going to like, there's a lot of things we are, again, we are not cut out to do ourselves.
Guest:We need the help of our non-Jewish friends.
Marc:Yeah, I don't have like, you know, I don't have, I'm not going to have any kids.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:I'm not either.
Guest:You guys decided that?
Guest:It's just going that way and no one's no one's turning against it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you didn't have the last so funny because we listened to the last time I interviewed you and I was with the I was deeply enmeshed with a person who I was going.
Marc:I was slowly surrendering to having children with.
Guest:but uh that i got out buddy i got thank god no we don't kids i don't know like i yeah it seems crazy to me to have kids does your sister have kids she has two kids yes there you go that's nice more two more jews count them put them on the list but you can you like their you like her kids right i do they're great
Guest:yeah because like for me i'm just like i can't like right now if i picture myself with a child i'm i'm freaking out me too i would i'm not happy i'm like and where is he what are they doing what is he doing yeah is he eating did he eat as much as he should have is eating too little is eating too much yeah i'm like and i think about the only like problem with not having kids is like will you regret it
Guest:But like that window is such a smaller window than the regret of having kids.
Guest:Like you could, if I had kids now, I can regret it for the next 30 fucking years.
Guest:If I don't have kids, I'll regret it for like the last few years of my life.
Guest:And then I'll die.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not going to be like, it's not a prolonged thing.
Marc:But aren't you, you're one of those people though.
Marc:Like I could, you'd be a good father.
Guest:I that's not my fear and me and my wife are like that's not our fear and like our friends are always like you'd be a good you'd be good parents we're like yeah no that's not why we're like like I hate to break it to you like some of the dumbest motherfuckers out there are good parents like it's not that doesn't mean like you know there are you know everyone has kids it's not what is your fear then
Guest:I don't want that I'm happy not having kids.
Marc:Cut in on your you time.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And that the world's burning.
Guest:And that my kid is going to look at me and be like, why did you bring me into this fucking shit store?
Guest:You knew it was bad.
Guest:You didn't know it was bad.
Guest:By the time this shit was happening, they'll be able to Google the day they were conceived.
Guest:You see what the fuck was going on?
Guest:Why did you fucking bring me here?
Guest:Yeah, it's like, no, those are the two things we talk about.
Guest:And my wife, like, you know, Lauren has had, you know, a much sadder life than I have.
Guest:And there's a genuine, like, life is not always fantastic.
Guest:And why bring someone into that, you know?
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Is there, is that, is this a gift that we're giving someone or not?
Guest:You know, I think that's genuine.
Marc:Yeah, believe me, I've definitely thought about that.
Marc:And the funny thing is, is that, like, I've never...
Marc:And I've been married twice and it was just never a thing that, like, it was, I never thought about doing it.
Marc:Like, I mean, I knew I could, but like, I'm like, I'm not compelled.
Marc:People who want kids, they want kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, tons of people just don't even fucking think about it.
Guest:And it's like, right.
Marc:It's just what you do.
Marc:It's just what you do.
Marc:And that, that's it.
Marc:I can't quite understand that, because in my mind, it's like, you know you don't have to.
Marc:There's plenty of people.
Marc:You don't have to.
Guest:And if anything, there are few things worse for people than other people.
Guest:What problems have more people solved?
Guest:Do you have pets?
Guest:I have a dog, yes, that I love very much.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:So what was great talking to you?
Marc:What happens now?
Marc:What are you going to do today?
Marc:It's a whole day already.
Marc:You've been doing this all day with the talking?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I use the phrase, I'd rather do fewer, more impactful things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd rather to me, I know I'd rather talk to you for an hour in the day than talk.
Guest:I don't do a ton of.
Marc:I heard I heard a secret.
Marc:Well, I heard something about you from somebody who had been to your house years ago.
Marc:Yeah, I just want I want to I want to check it off the list.
Marc:Was there a tunnel?
Marc:There was.
Marc:Huh?
Guest:Yeah, my house had a tunnel.
Guest:It was a speakeasy, and there was a tunnel that went from the backyard into the neighbor's backyard.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the floor was one of those speakeasy doors, like a giant wooden door with a little window.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, you can see outside, yeah.
Guest:And yeah, they had a big smack in the middle of West Hollywood, but it was a speakeasy, yeah.
Marc:That's wild, man.
Marc:What else do you know about the history of the place?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It was built in 1916, I think.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, and it was turned, and during the Prohibition, it was a speakeasy in West Hollywood.
Guest:And it has a basement.
Guest:It had a tunnel in the back and a basement, which, especially for houses built at that time, were like non-existent basement.
Marc:So you have a basement?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:Yeah, it's tiny.
Guest:It's enough to hold, like, I guess, some kegs of beer and shit like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, congratulations on all your success.
Marc:It was nice talking to you.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:Most Jewish conversation of all time.
Guest:See, we don't believe in this shit, but it's all we can fucking talk about.
Guest:So there you go.
Marc:I mean, you, you made the movie, buddy.
Marc:You made the movie.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:I can't help it.
Guest:Anyway, you too.
Marc:Hey, man, if you didn't like Jews before that talk, you probably don't like them now.
Marc:Or if you wondered if you like Jews, you love them now.
Marc:You can go either way with the Jews.
Marc:American Pickle premieres on HBO Max August 6th.
Marc:It was a pleasure talking to my brother, Seth Rogen.
Marc:And now let's play some guitar, not unlike I've played before.
Guest:.
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Yeah.
Guest:.
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Marc:Boomer lives!