Episode 1166 - Lewis Black
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I feel like I haven't checked in with you guys in a while.
Marc:But I don't know, how are you guys holding up?
Marc:What's going on with the thing?
Marc:How the kids?
Marc:How's the family?
Marc:You feeling pretty tight?
Marc:How's the tight-knit family going?
Marc:I can't imagine.
Marc:I'm sorry, man.
Marc:I am so sorry that you have to go through this.
Marc:I'm so sorry that, you know, you have to spend this much.
Marc:I don't even when did it stop being quality time for you people with families?
Marc:When did it turn into like, oh, my God.
Marc:When is this going to fucking end time?
Marc:Well, this is the end times, but you know what I'm saying.
Marc:I imagine that you've all gotten to know each other pretty fucking well.
Marc:Did you ever think you would get to know yourself or the people that you live with or your children as well as you do now?
Marc:You're all growing in strange ways because of this isolation.
Marc:We'll get it that way.
Marc:That's a positive.
Marc:Hey, we're weathering the storm together.
Marc:And man, what a fucking nightmare.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:I try to keep up with my buddies who have families and whatnot.
Marc:And...
Marc:It seems like there's good and bad to it, but I do feel bad for the for kids.
Marc:I mean, I'm an old man, kind of 57 and I've basically lost a year to some degree.
Marc:I don't know what I'd be doing that much differently other than knowing I could do things if I wanted to.
Marc:That's the primary difference for me is that I spend a lot of time alone.
Marc:I do the podcast.
Marc:I miss doing comedy now, but I had a dream about the comedy.
Marc:But I like knowing I had options to go out and eat, to stop and have a coffee, to say hi to a friend, to go do a set, to do just had options.
Marc:Now it's like, you know, I don't mind hanging out by myself and doing the work, but no fucking options.
Marc:Not many options.
Marc:You want to take a drive?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I just, I can't take it.
Marc:I can barely breathe because the reality of the world is gripping my entire body and squeezing the breath out of me on a daily basis.
Marc:I'm just going to have to meditate just to expand the grip that reality has on me to get me a little room so I can fucking breathe again.
Marc:And terrified election day is fast approaching and we nobody knows what the fuck is going to happen.
Marc:But I'll tell you this, honestly, and this is nonpartisan.
Marc:If Trump holds on to power, it will be the end of America as we know it in terms of tolerance, democracy, majority rule, the judicial system.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So good times.
Marc:It's happened in many countries before and it will in many countries again.
Marc:But we didn't think it would happen here.
Marc:But we are on the precipice of real authoritarianism.
Marc:And that's exciting, right?
Marc:How are the kids?
Marc:How's everything?
Marc:He's still holding up as a family.
Marc:Real authoritarianism right around the corner.
Marc:And I guess we'll know by the end of the year where we stand.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And just remember, it only takes a couple of reinforced suggestions by a occupying power for your neighbors to kill you for having different views.
Marc:Good morning.
Marc:Everything OK?
Marc:It's happened in other countries.
Marc:What makes us special?
Marc:Louis Black is on the show today.
Marc:He's been on in the past.
Marc:You'll notice that this week I've had I've actually had a couple of guests that I've had on before because we realized like Louis was back.
Marc:He was on episode like 485 in 2014.
Marc:He also did some call ins on the really old episodes of WTF.
Marc:And I used to talk to Louis a lot on my old Air America show back in the day.
Marc:He's got a new stand-up special.
Marc:It's called Thanks for Risking Your Life.
Marc:It's out now.
Marc:So I thought it'd be a good time for a chat, good time to catch up.
Marc:But also, there are people in my life who I consider friends, who I consider people I can have a nice conversation with about anything.
Marc:And that seems to be happening a bit, and Lewis is definitely one of those.
Marc:So look forward to that coming up.
Marc:I am sore as fuck.
Marc:I've actually gotten into, like, not a predicament, but I'm constantly sore because I guess... Who was I just talking to?
Marc:A friend of mine.
Marc:Oh, I was talking to Zach Braff.
Marc:I don't know if he's a friend of mine, but he's a guy I met from the show.
Marc:I met him from this show.
Marc:I met him because I talked to him.
Marc:I interviewed him, but he brought up this idea about... Well, I knew it.
Marc:Dopamine and serotonin management through exercise.
Marc:Like...
Marc:I don't know that I've ever exercised this hard or this much in my life.
Marc:And I think the quarantine is forcing me to do it because that way I know I do something.
Marc:But my joints are a little fucking hurdy.
Marc:I hike two or three times a week.
Marc:I do circuit training three times a week.
Marc:And I wonder, like the other day, I thought, like, do I have cancer?
Marc:Why can't I get off the couch?
Marc:And I don't think I really took it under consideration.
Marc:Just how much those workouts fucking drain me.
Marc:I mean, they're good.
Marc:But Jesus, man, I'm 57.
Marc:And granted, like, I'm not wearing a superhero suit on a mountain bike, but I'm definitely working out.
Marc:And like, I don't think I have some sort of terminal illness.
Marc:I think I'm just fucking sore from beating the shit out of myself.
Marc:Maybe this is it.
Marc:The first turn of the screw of the aging thing.
Marc:I got to accept it.
Marc:I got to temper my exercise.
Marc:I can't expect.
Marc:All right, look, I'm 57.
Marc:Maybe that six pack is never going to happen.
Marc:Not that I'm trying, but I'm just trying to stay sane and stay healthy.
Marc:I got to get the fuck out of here, you guys.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Here's my plan now.
Marc:I bailed.
Marc:I bailed on the two week trip by myself because of the erratic nature of my emotional disposition at this particular juncture.
Marc:But I think I'm going to try to get away and just hide
Marc:From the news on the day before Election Day and Election Day, and then resurface the day after just to see what havoc has ensued, what has happened.
Marc:Wouldn't that be exciting if I could do that?
Marc:If you just remain completely detached till November 4th, just to see like where we're at, just like after two days, which will seem like a month, just check back in.
Marc:I think I might do that.
Marc:Maybe I'll go up north, northern California, someplace where it hasn't burned.
Marc:God damn, man.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:And you know what the worst thing about everything that's going on right now?
Marc:And I've said this before.
Marc:It's like no one can tell you it's going to be okay.
Marc:Nobody.
Marc:Nobody.
Marc:Even that is like it's always kind of tempered a bit.
Marc:It's always potentially bullshit.
Marc:But sometimes it's enough.
Marc:The odds are pretty good that it might be okay.
Marc:Don't know about those odds anymore.
Marc:I do not know.
Marc:But I do know that Louis Black, who I consider a friend, I consider a funny guy, and he's one of the sweetest guys I know.
Marc:And I'll tell you honestly, this show, as it did before, it is doing again.
Marc:It's saving my fucking sanity.
Marc:It's saving my fucking life.
Marc:When I talk to people on this show, when I talk to these interviews...
Marc:I'm able to engage with somebody else, get out of myself, listen to someone else's story, be moved by someone else's story, be moved through someone else's story, connect on a human level.
Marc:And during that time, it's a beautiful thing because that's what humans do.
Marc:And so many of us during this time are denied that, especially with family, with friends.
Marc:It's challenging and it's sad.
Marc:It's very sad not to be able to connect on a human level.
Marc:And I think it's fucking with all our heads on top of everything else, obviously.
Marc:So I guess the one thing I hope that some of you get out of this is that by proximity, you get to connect because it's literally saving my sanity and my life because I wander around my house a lot alone.
Marc:I talk to my cat and sometimes I get way out of my skull.
Marc:because I'm too far in it.
Marc:Sometimes the inner monologues, the thoughts, like I realize I'm having a complete relationship with some sort of fiction that my brain is generating.
Marc:That's why I've taken to doing these Instagram Lives some mornings and having coffee with all the strangers, even the fucking trolls that love me.
Marc:I've decided that if you have a troll that is a repeat customer...
Marc:They're in love with you and they're just dying for you to get mad at them because that's how they experience love.
Marc:I think many of them may be masturbating while they're attacking you on Twitter or on Instagram or wherever you you roll comments.
Marc:A lot of them are just it's deep down.
Marc:It's just a frustrated love.
Marc:And they just want daddy to yell at them.
Marc:They want to make daddy mad so they know daddy cares.
Marc:Fuck trolls.
Marc:Anyways, what I'm saying is, see where my brain just went?
Marc:is that I need to get out of my head.
Marc:And it's very hard now.
Marc:And I hope I'm providing that for you.
Marc:And I just want to, I'm prefacing this conversation with Lewis because we had some laughs.
Marc:He got me out of my head.
Marc:We talked about his new special.
Marc:We talked about life.
Marc:And there's nothing better than making Lewis Black laugh.
Marc:I like making people laugh in general, but Lewis has got one of those, you know, deep, almost emphysemic laughs.
Marc:But as I said earlier, Lewis has a special out.
Marc:It's called Thanks for Risking Your Life.
Marc:It's available on all video on demand platforms and streaming audio platforms.
Marc:He also has a podcast called Lewis Black's Rantcast, which we talk about a bit so you can get a sense of what it is and how you can participate.
Marc:And you can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Marc:This is me talking to my old friend, Lewis Black.
Hi.
Guest:Hi, Lewis.
Marc:i hear you okay i i don't know it's been a while i don't know where you don't know but i mean i i'm shocked that i usually this takes 20 minutes i i was i was hoping for that i was looking for some uh unintentional slapstick to unfold with the old usually that's that's usually the case usually it's been brutal technically yeah
Guest:so where are you man i'm in my home in new york oh you're in new york i thought you were in north carolina i was until the other day and then i left i wanted to talk to you from new york okay well that i appreciate you traveling for me okay did you fly uh no no i won't fly i won't get in a plane no
Marc:What is that noise now?
Guest:That's the landline I have so I can speak to my mother.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So it's like, what are you getting, a fax?
Marc:What the fuck is happening over there?
Guest:No, that's my landline.
Guest:Somebody is calling me to tell me probably that something has occurred in China.
Guest:Usually it's a Chinese person.
Guest:Oh, so it's like a red phone?
Marc:It's like an emergency phone?
Marc:Call the comedian in New York.
Marc:We've got problems.
Marc:I...
Marc:So would you drive from North Carolina?
Marc:You drove home?
Guest:I have that tour bus.
Guest:I have a tour bus and I took it out of mothballs and said, this is it makes no sense.
Guest:You know, it's kind of like traveling in a pot.
Marc:You own a tour bus.
Marc:You own it.
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:I lease it.
Marc:Oh, and but so you've just had that you've just been leasing it in case you need to drive back and forth.
Marc:You know, you can rent a car.
Guest:No, no, I can't.
Guest:I don't drive anymore because it's really it's not fair to people on the road.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That's so responsible.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Guest:I reached I reached a level of anger in Los Angeles about 10 years ago, driving in.
Guest:In the backseat of a car that I thought, wow, if this is my road rage in the backseat and I'm not driving, I shouldn't be doing this.
Marc:Oh, so it's not because you're you're old and cannot cannot navigate the road.
Guest:It's because there's also it's not the it's not being old.
Guest:It's just I have no attention span.
Guest:I don't have any interest in what's in front of me.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You can't maintain continuity enough to drive when you're driving a car?
Marc:No.
Marc:It's like, what is this sign?
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:I don't mean to say you're old.
Marc:You're not old.
Marc:You're a spry whatever you are.
Guest:I'm old.
Marc:It's old.
Marc:72?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's going on in New York?
Marc:How's it feel there?
Marc:I have no sense of it.
Marc:I wish I was there because it's fall, but it seems like it's sad there.
Marc:Is it sad there?
Marc:What are you feeling?
Guest:Well, it was sad.
Guest:I think it's perked up a little.
Guest:You know, people are eating outside, so there's a sense of life out there.
Guest:It's kind of nice.
Guest:They're wearing their masks.
Guest:There is kind of movement.
Guest:It kind of calmed down.
Guest:There's a slight sense of
Guest:We're two seconds away from like the early, the late 70s in New York.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It was really, you know, holy God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's it's less of that.
Guest:It's more of a there's it seems to be kind of a sense that it's kind of finding a balance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that well, that's interesting to me, because like.
Marc:In thinking about talking to you, and I watched part of this special, and I understand.
Marc:It's interesting that enough of the material was sort of evergreen-ish enough for you to just frame it around.
Marc:Because we've all had that night where something horrible has happened that day, and you've got to reckon with it if you're that kind of comedian.
Marc:So here you are on the eve of...
Marc:Of the lockdown.
Marc:And it's still relatively cute to reference it, you know, and you're able to reference it and riff on it for five minutes and then go into your act that is still relevant, you know, and funny enough to where it's not dated yet.
Marc:Because all we've been doing, you know, after the night that you did that special, everyone has had the same life.
Marc:And it's not that expansive.
Marc:It's just relative to dread, terror, and wondering if we're ever going to be able to go outside again.
Marc:There's no big movement, right?
Guest:No, it's the same day.
Guest:It is Groundhog Day.
Guest:And I have this feeling that between one and four...
Guest:Time just stops.
Guest:You look at you go, wow, it's one.
Guest:I can get a few things done.
Guest:Then it's four.
Guest:And you've done you can't remember what it was that you didn't do.
Marc:No, no shit.
Marc:And then from five to like 11, you're like, I don't even know what's happening anymore.
Marc:And then it's like, when did I go to sleep?
Marc:Am I asleep?
Marc:Is this a dream?
Marc:And then you wake up again and start over.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:No, it's really it.
Marc:But in terms of how are you how are you how are you dealing with this?
Marc:Because I started to realize in terms of creative people that we're we're literally in the cauldron of trauma here.
Marc:So there's no one's going to create some art that is relative to what's going on, because what is going on?
Marc:We're all in this fucking holding pattern, you know, be wary of authoritarianism and economic collapse.
Marc:And, you know, what can we really create right now to a romantic comedy where people wear masks?
Marc:How are you dealing with this intellectually?
Guest:It took a while because there was it's just as of late that I've started to kind of go, I'm going to do this, this and this where I've really kind of I was in lockdown for 10, 10 weeks here in New York in this apartment by myself.
Guest:I call it solitary confinement.
Guest:I saw no one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm lucky because I have kind of a nice terrace where I can walk around.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So it was solitary confinement and a little place where the prisoner could walk.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And it really hard, so to speak.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it did damage.
Guest:I mean, it did real damage.
Guest:Ten weeks like that.
Guest:There's a reason they put people in the hole.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what did you find about yourself?
Marc:What did you learn about Lewis?
Guest:with the time i learned that i'm not i'm not i really i learned that my mind given given you take away all the targets that i've had in my life it goes right after me you know it's all of a sudden finally all the things you know well you know the deal all the things that you'd set up out there boom boom boom boom and then it was like
Guest:Yeah, yes.
Guest:I couldn't get I could not go after myself fast enough.
Guest:I finally got me cornered.
Guest:I did.
Guest:It was literally like a rat with my brain saw my body as a piece of cheese.
Marc:But you came out the other side.
Marc:What did you did you how deep in the darkness did you get?
Marc:Did you have to.
Marc:Was that the reason you got out?
Guest:Well, yeah, I kind of I realized if eventually I kind of realized that there were things, you know, partly partly that came out of that that first when it was like you're in the highest risk category, Lewis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was big.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So it was kind of like you could die if you go outside.
Guest:Yeah, you know, that was it every day.
Guest:And so it took a while to kind of come through that.
Guest:And I had been tracking this son of a bitch stuff for a while.
Guest:What do you mean, before the lockdown?
Guest:Oh, way before the lockdown.
Guest:You know, Italy, China, all of that.
Guest:When it was coming, as soon as it hit China, I was like, okay, you fuckers, how are they going to fuck us?
Guest:Somebody ate what?
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:Because I used to have that joke, somebody gets off a ship and coughs in their hand and shakes yours and it's all over.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, the world ends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I... Somebody ate one.
Guest:So I kind of kept trying to find the information.
Guest:I had friends who kind of knew stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, people who were working, you know, kind of in... I don't even know what their gigs were, but in the sense that they were dealing in...
Guest:bringing uh ppe to people epidemiologists you know i was starting to get information and realizing okay if i do this and do that that i don't need to uh soak my food in clorox that you know i was washing everything it was everything yeah we all yeah we did that yeah yeah you can get it from every surface and now it's like hey there's no need to worry about that stuff it's in the air
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So so I kind of went through that.
Guest:And then I was in touch with friends who were also doing it and then kind of realized and they and they invited me.
Guest:It was my friend Kathleen Madigan, who, you know.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And her and a friend of hers were hanging down in in Nashville and said, you know, you can come down here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had been in their own pod and not seeing anyone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had not seen anyone.
Guest:I got, you know, and I went down there and that was when it started.
Guest:When I started to see people, I started to come back and it took a while.
Marc:So you took the bus down.
Guest:I took that down and then I went from there to see a friend of mine.
Guest:One of my oldest high school friends lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Guest:And it was near Chapel Hill where I went to school.
Guest:So I went there.
Guest:He also, he and his wife had been also in lockdown.
Guest:And they were also both kind of in isolation in places that were isolated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I'd hang out with them and I'd take walks.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Which is nothing I've ever, you know, I'm not, I'm not Mr. Fuck hike.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now it was like, give me a hike.
Guest:Let me look at birds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let me, let me, let me be out with my friends and that kind of, and all of that.
Guest:And then I went and saw my mother and then I traveled around a bit.
Guest:Where's your mother?
Guest:She's in an assisted living situation outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:So you really got 102.
Marc:You kind of got caught up with everybody.
Guest:Hello?
Marc:Hello?
Okay.
Marc:Did I lose you?
Marc:I think so.
Guest:Hold on.
Marc:Okay, cool.
Guest:Well, that's because you were talking about my mother.
Guest:That's the way she deals.
Guest:Even if she can't deal with me psychically, she'll go after the technology.
Marc:Yeah, no, I know.
Marc:They're always in you.
Marc:They live in your brain.
Guest:They do.
Guest:And my mother, but just to take it from where we were, mom's 102.
Guest:102?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did she smoke?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:She was she was 60, 62 or something.
Marc:That's that's some tough genetics.
Marc:Which which Eastern European country does that come from?
Guest:That's Russia.
Guest:My grandfather smoked cigars and inhaled them.
Guest:And he died in 86 and not from the cigars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He just hated.
Guest:You know, he just he stopped working and it kind of he just was done.
Guest:Do you stop eating?
Guest:He just stopped eating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had enough.
Guest:Well, because he's the cigar thing.
Guest:He quit it.
Guest:He quit smoking cigars at 82.
Guest:I said, would you why?
Guest:He said, I didn't like the taste anymore.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's probably why he quit eating.
Marc:It was the only thing he enjoyed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were the cigars.
Marc:But like, so that was, it does make you appreciate, I'll tell you one thing, this time that I've spent by myself and whatever the hell I'm going through, you do really start to appreciate your friends and start to appreciate, you know, you get, it's an interesting thing to not, to know that there's nothing you can do to work in what we usually work in and no one else can either.
Marc:And so so there's a certain amount of pressure that's taken off you.
Marc:You can stop for a minute because there's no options.
Marc:And there's something aggravating about that.
Marc:But I found I found that given the time, I'm OK doing nothing.
Marc:And I might know.
Guest:But it takes time to get to that.
Guest:You know how long it takes to get to that point, which is unbelievable.
Guest:It took a long time to get there, didn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, are you going to go do these drive in shows?
Marc:You look like that.
Guest:Oh, fuck, you know, fuck them.
Guest:Are you fucking kidding me?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Are you going to do the show where everybody wears earmuffs?
Guest:Fuck you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you've been offered, right?
Marc:Did you get that call from your manager?
Marc:Look, they're they're they're doing this now.
Guest:I got a in there's a there's a theater I like over in, you know, in New Jersey, one of the performing arts center.
Guest:They called in with an offer.
Guest:to play outside that's the other thing you know don't you take one of your great joys isn't it of being a comic is boy i can't wait to play outside again oh no i'd like to do again again see that's the thing it's like you you spend your life trying to get away from shit gigs and now they're being this is like isn't this great we're doing it again and it's a shitty gig no no i'm not doing it they offered me a thing
Guest:And they said, you know, everybody be socially distanced.
Guest:It wasn't they'd be outside.
Guest:It wouldn't be in cars, but it was going to be kind of in a in a in a drive in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wouldn't be.
Guest:It wouldn't be sitting in cars to be sitting.
Guest:You know, they'd have chairs and hoods or whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they said and then like is a bonus.
Yeah.
Guest:They said, and there'll be food carts, you know, food trucks.
Guest:Well, are you what?
Guest:That's the bonus.
Guest:So there's another way.
Guest:So can they put lights, heavy lights on the food trucks so that I really so I can have the same sense to have inside when I'm at certain places and they have those snack bars?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Make sure the audience is lit so I can see the movement towards the trucks and the lines at the trucks.
Guest:And as a friend said, when you see that kind of thing, if I'm out there and the audience is there and I can see those food trucks, all I'm going to think about is, you know, I hope what is in that food truck and what am I missing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Can you get me some before they run out of whatever the fuck it is that's distracting people from my show?
Marc:So here's the other question I have.
Guest:I've got a question.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You haven't a Zoom.
Guest:You don't do that Zoom comedy, do you?
Marc:We're on Zoom right now.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:The comedy where you've got.
Marc:Oh, dude, I can't do that shit.
Marc:Are you kidding me?
Marc:It's like I talked to someone the other night of comics and she said, yeah, it's OK if you can work without laughter.
Marc:And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Marc:This is what we've come to?
Marc:It's a good gig, but you can't hear any laughter.
Marc:Oh, well, that sounds great.
Marc:But you know how to pace yourself.
Marc:There's no fucking way, dude.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:I don't even go to Zoom AA meetings.
Marc:I'm out of my mind.
Marc:I fucking, but here's, I guess the, like most days I'm managing and I'm taking in the news, but you're a guy like, so you were in New York.
Marc:You remember the fucking seventies, right?
Marc:You've got a few years on me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So is there a way, are you able in any way to contextualize, you know, mentally what is going on now with, with some precedent that gives you any comfort at all?
Guest:No.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Not a thing.
Marc:Not a thing.
Guest:There's nothing.
Marc:Like you can't go back to Nixon.
Marc:You can't go back to the sixties.
Marc:You can't go back anywhere.
Guest:No, no, because we're also, because even when Nixon, even at that point, uh,
Guest:There was a sense that he had some sense of what government was about.
Guest:He'd kind of gone to like student council camps.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:The system still held.
Marc:This guy is dismantling the system.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that makes it hard.
Guest:And he's coming on every day and rattling the cage.
Guest:And then they're allowing him to rattle the cage.
Guest:Not only, you know, the whole Congress is allowing him to rattle the cage.
Guest:And then and then the fucking news, you know, the news can't keep their eyes off him.
Guest:And it's like, no, you have to stop it.
Guest:You have to basically stop it and get us information that will help us.
Guest:Stop worrying about fucking him and start worrying about us.
Marc:So where are you on a day-to-day basis with this?
Marc:I mean, how much aggravation does it cause you?
Guest:I've gotten down to... I do...
Guest:About 40 minutes in the morning until they start repeating the news, which they do now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like 40 minutes into it, they start over again with the same bullshit and different people talking about the same bullshit.
Guest:There's no nobody's good.
Marc:Yeah, it's all speculative.
Marc:You get it.
Marc:You get four facts and then, you know, 72 hours of speculation.
Guest:So there's that.
Guest:And then and then what I've done is and it's not because of an age thing, but just because to get a wrap up each day, I watch the, you know, the news that comes on NBC, the, you know, the 630 news about there.
Guest:I don't know the news that comes on.
Guest:Like NBC, the local news.
Guest:And no, I watch a little of the local news to see just NBC news.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:As if you're living in the 70s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like which of the three channels am I going to watch?
Marc:This guy is I like this guy.
Guest:And it's 20 minutes.
Guest:And then generally I watch about 20 minutes and that's and that's it.
Guest:And that's all I do.
Guest:And then I try to avoid it.
Guest:Unless something seems to be like, oh, you know, maybe they got him.
Guest:Maybe they caught him now.
Guest:You know, like he walked in that house.
Guest:I thought you got him.
Guest:He just did something.
Guest:He's walking around spreading a fucking major virus in the White House.
Guest:And you got him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:It's OK.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Let him wander around.
Guest:Can you imagine working there?
Guest:No, I can't imagine.
Guest:I mean, you sit there and go, gee, my day was shitty, but I'm not in the White House.
Marc:I can't quite understand the the sycophancy and the loyalty.
Marc:I don't know what kind of strange satanic magic he has over people other than the ability to destroy them, which I guess is pretty powerful.
Guest:But I mean, but but he doesn't really have that power.
Guest:I mean, he kind of does in the sense that he could fucks with people.
Guest:But if these if these if enough people stood up, I mean, they're all standing up at the end.
Marc:It's like, where were you fucking two years ago, three years ago?
Marc:But do you think like I was talking to my friend?
Marc:Who did I talk to last night?
Marc:Maybe Sam website or somebody that I think like.
Marc:What probably will happen if we make it through this and if he doesn't get reelected is that all these fucking guys, given six months to a year, are going to be like, yeah, that was crazy.
Marc:That was a crazy time.
Marc:I don't know what the hell happened to everybody, but we're okay now.
Marc:Yeah, we're good.
Marc:They're just going to scramble to save their own asses, right?
Marc:I mean, that's all that's got.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So what are you doing otherwise?
Marc:Are you writing a goddamn play or something?
Yeah.
Guest:Uh, I am, uh, what I'm doing at this point is I've started to, uh, uh, I did, I've got a, a rant cast, which I do, which is this, I put together, um, the, uh, I do these live rants after each show that were written by, uh, people in the audience, people within the city that I'm performing in or the state.
Guest:So, and it's a live, it's, it's done in front of the audience and it's sent throughout the world.
Guest:I've been doing this for like five to six years.
Guest:And it evolved really into the... It was like, you're not going to give me a TV show, so fuck you.
Guest:This is my TV show.
Guest:It was really like... And it was me standing in front of a mic, reading what these people were writing.
Guest:And it got better and better and better.
Guest:And it evolved into what it evolved into, which was like...
Guest:in like, uh, you know, let's say Charleston, South Carolina, and the show is the, it's the Charleston, South Carolina show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's written by these folks in Charleston or around, you know, or Columbia or wherever Greenville.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And so we started to put those together in what is essentially, you know, like a podcast, but it's the rants.
Guest:It's the rants that were done after the shows and taken from the tour.
Guest:And so I'm doing the openings for those.
Guest:How many you got?
Guest:This is the 14th one we did, the 14th podcast.
Guest:And then...
Guest:We've got a few more.
Guest:And then I've started to do the I call them virtual ones.
Guest:Right now I have folks writing in and they can write in now to, you know, to to my website.
Guest:They can find out how to do it.
Guest:And I've been I've been collecting new rants.
Guest:And then I stand in front of a camera.
Guest:I'll be doing it from here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll start and I'll read their rants.
Guest:I'll read the ones that I like.
Guest:And they're great.
Guest:I mean, what's amazing, Mark, is the level of the writing.
Guest:It's spectacular.
Marc:Well, it's like, well, they they probably know you.
Marc:They probably know your comedy.
Marc:You know, you're you know, they can they can write to your voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But but what I'm what's intriguing is, I mean, is is how many people kind of write now on a regular basis?
Guest:And not whether I do it or not, they don't seem to give a shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They just, you know, it's given them a way in which to, you know, get stuff off their chest.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's been about stuff that's just, some of it is just spectacular when you, you know, you know, that thing about comedy and you kind of mine an idea and you start mining it.
Guest:And sometimes you go, even I'm sitting there going, holy fuck, if this was my assignment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I couldn't have written what this guy wrote.
Guest:I had a guy write a thing.
Guest:One of the great ones was a guy opens up a jar of peanut butter and
Guest:and expects it to be smooth.
Guest:It's chunky.
Guest:And he does seven minutes on it.
Guest:It's a seven-minute diatribe about his hate for chunky fucking and why it's disgusting and all of the things.
Guest:But one thing after another, but, like, meticulously written.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's the kind of thing that if I if I handed it to you, you'd go after three things.
Guest:How much can you hate peanut butter?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It was like in pickles, pickles.
Guest:Some people I've had like people lining up like it's like it's a two party system over pickles.
Guest:You don't put that thing squirting it shit on like it's a cum shot.
Guest:Somebody wrote, I don't need the goddamn pickle shooting a cum shot on my burger, you fucks.
Guest:I mean, it's like, wow.
Guest:You got to love it.
Guest:And it reminds people of the time in a nostalgic way that we will return to when that was the height of our pain.
Marc:I think those things getting hung up on those things is always a way it's a sort of controlled and and seemingly less offensive way to express our anger and fear.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I would assume that now.
Marc:where people feel so out of control and, you know, if not hopeless about the situation, that getting angry about mundane things, you know, that could go on for a few days, you know, like and it's a way of controlling your environment, I would think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like for me, it's like it's just like the amount of dread and anxiety.
Marc:It's like I can't even get to anger like I used to.
Marc:Like I go right to like, oh, my God, I want to be dead.
Marc:You know, like I don't know.
Marc:you miss the anger exit you drive by the anger exit i know i keep missing it i gotta i gotta loop back around you know i gotta loop back around usually what happens is i miss the anger exit and i find myself and i want to be dead road and then i loop back around and the only available exit is sadness so
Marc:So I keep I keep missing anger.
Guest:I have to say, you know, it's something I talked about early on when I when I was first in the lockdown was this.
Guest:I'd never, and it was, and probably, and maybe in the end, it will, you know, what good might come out of it is folks might have an understanding when all is said and done.
Guest:When somebody, like, I've known people who are anxious, and I have a sympathy for that anxiety.
Guest:I mean, I have a certain amount of empathy, anyone with anxiety.
Guest:who's kind of like tries to kind of listen, you know, but now I've experienced it.
Guest:Anxiety.
Guest:Anxiety and dread and depression on levels that I'd never experienced before.
Guest:And so I feel more attuned to that.
Guest:And I'm hoping that others who've now kind of gone through it,
Guest:You know, kind of get it now and don't turn to their friend and go, come on, step out of it.
Marc:Right, right, right, right.
Marc:Well, what was your primary emotion?
Marc:Just anger before?
Marc:Like you never had anxiety or dread?
Marc:I just never had anxiety.
Guest:I just know because I was kind of just kind of had like I kind of was focused on what I was doing.
Guest:You know, let's do this.
Guest:Then we'll do that.
Guest:Then we'll do this.
Guest:I kind of filled my day and I like writing.
Guest:You know, so you never wallowed in.
Marc:What the fuck am I going to do?
Marc:That's the difference.
Marc:Like, I know what I'm doing.
Marc:I don't know what I'm doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was always in and I, you know, I could see friends and I lived in New York and it was always kind of a pulse of life.
Guest:And yeah.
Marc:But you seem a little like, I mean, in the midst of all of the crankiness and whatever is funny, I mean, you always seem to kind of have a fairly at the core of it.
Marc:And I think why the humor continues is that, you know, there is something there's some there's some tone of hope.
Marc:at the core of most of your ranting and raving.
Marc:Like, you know, I do when I listen to you do comedy, I'm like, I think it's going to be OK because I understand you're angry, but you don't seem terrified.
Guest:No, I, you know, I don't.
Guest:I do.
Guest:The only thing now that gets me is that the thing that undermined it was, is I had this firm belief in the American people, which I still do, because
Guest:That but but, you know, that that you could always you know, you can fuck the politicians.
Guest:You could rely on the American people that they would come.
Guest:They would.
Guest:They got it.
Guest:And I think that it's true.
Guest:And that what's occurred now is, is that, you know, one of the things that's happened is, is that, you know, these the people who should have basically said to the 30 percent who think they own the world now.
Guest:In this country, this is it may be a democracy, but you're really not in charge.
Guest:OK, right.
Guest:You're not you know, you're 30 percent.
Guest:You don't get to wander around and yell and scream your bullshit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's it's written here.
Marc:OK, well, I mean, the thing that I'm starting to realize about people in general is that, you know,
Marc:They're easily manipulated.
Marc:They don't do a lot of their own thinking.
Marc:Many are shallow.
Marc:And they've got a lot of anger that is easily misdirected into possibly killing Jews.
Marc:So...
Marc:And that scares me a little.
Marc:I have to be honest.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I did talk.
Guest:I hadn't heard it from someone.
Guest:I mean, you know, we, you know, we laugh at it, but I was taught, I was interviewed by like a 14 year old girl for the, I worked for the, I do some stuff for the Vonnegut museum.
Guest:Out in out in Indiana.
Guest:And they were they had this young girl who's fucking smart as fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Brilliant.
Guest:And she was interviewing me and asked, have you ever experienced anti-Semitism?
Guest:And I kind of there was a couple of things I talked about.
Guest:And you said, yeah, but only from me.
Yeah.
Guest:Pretty close to true.
Guest:But I said, you know, I kind of explained it, but it wasn't, you know, at the times in which I've experienced it, there's always been other people around who weren't Jewish and were more offended, you know, kept yelling, you know, fuck you, you fucking idiot.
Guest:They're the ones yelling back.
Guest:So I never felt...
Guest:that sense of dread from that.
Guest:And I said, why have you experienced it?
Guest:And she said, Oh yeah.
Guest:You know, they, they, I've experienced it a lot.
Guest:I mean, she lives in Indiana.
Guest:So she's in Indianapolis, you know, so that's, uh, that could be part, but I was like, I was stunned.
Guest:Cause you know, we hear it, but I had not heard it directly from someone, you know, you see somebody on TV and dah, dah, dah, dah.
Marc:But this, even now, do you have a Twitter?
Marc:Are you on Twitter?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I don't pay much attention.
Guest:Oh, I don't dive into Twitter because it makes me psychotic.
Guest:That really is the rabbit hole, because if I start looking at it, I get I get deranged.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:All of this stuff is making everybody crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My big fear.
Marc:And I don't know, like because generally generationally, you and I are maybe just a little different.
Marc:Like I just turned 57, 67.
Marc:So you are like a like an earlier boomer than I'm in the end of the boomer.
Marc:You're like the beginning.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but there is this sort of this there's a problem with barometers of truth, that there's this idea that that that all truth has gotten sort of shaky on both sides.
Marc:Every you know, the left was always real good.
Marc:I think we we really I think the anti-Semites early on, the Christians invented conspiracy theories, you know, with with the New Testament and then with the Illuminati.
Marc:But it seems like the left.
Marc:perfected it in the 60s, and now it's been hijacked.
Marc:But both sides are fairly proficient at believing bullshit and questioning the integrity of any sort of fact.
Marc:And I think that the fact that both sides are doing that, that it's become quite nebulous, you know, what we base our reality on and what is true and what isn't.
Marc:And when you get a whole population or even two-thirds of a population that is in that zone, they're very easily manipulated and eventually can be
Marc:driven into a type of apathy that would make it very easy for authoritarianism to take hold.
Guest:But part of that came from it's exacerbated by the word I rarely get to use, was exacerbated by the state that we're in, in terms of like you said, look at Twitter.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's it's exacerbated by the fact that we're looking at screens the whole time.
Marc:No, absolutely.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:People anymore.
Guest:And we're being undermined by not being in the public square so that the guy who you might not like, who is a schmuck, whatever side you want to pick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You still were, you know, you saw him every day and you went, well, he's a schmuck, but, you know, he's my schmuck.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You kind of.
Marc:Yeah, but he's a schmuck, but we eat lunch sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:You know, and you kind of felt, OK, I feel a little bad for him because of A, B and C. You know, there was an empathy.
Guest:But if you got this fucking piece of shit in front of you.
Guest:You know, and you're looking at this.
Guest:You don't have any empathy for that.
Guest:Because if you saw somebody who writes something, fucking you, fucking.
Guest:I just sit there and I'm like, fucking, fucking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not even their real name.
Marc:You don't even know who you're yelling at.
Marc:It could be, you know, a 14 year old who just.
Guest:I'm yelling at a bot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a guy whose hobby it is to make old Jews snap.
Marc:Like we got.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Look, we made another one nuts.
Marc:It's hilarious.
Marc:No, I agree.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I think that, you know, that this there is an isolation to technology.
Marc:And certainly that's exacerbated now because of the plague and that people are sitting there, you know, engaging with the screen, engaging with selective information.
Marc:That's but it's like, really, there are some people, Lewis, I think that are so brain fucked.
Marc:by bullshit that they're not coming back.
Marc:I mean, you know, the way you're talking, it used to be that you knew Republicans that you could sit with, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where are those days?
Marc:You know any of them anymore?
Marc:Well, you know the Lincoln Republicans.
Marc:Yeah, but those guys are monsters.
Marc:You know, I know they, you know, it seems like they're like they're doing a good thing, but they're just triangulating.
Marc:You know, as soon as they get rid of this guy, they're just jockeying for their position to be cunts again.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I did.
Guest:I mean, I was and I think I think it's all very simple in terms of politics.
Guest:For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
Guest:So we go here, here, here, here.
Guest:And what will happen happened in my lifetime, you know, because early on had been bum, bum, bum, bum, bum in the in, you know, in the 1900s and the early 1900s into the 20s.
Guest:You know that the people will you will end up with a Congress in which there are there are going to be Republicans who seem like Democrats and Democrats who seem like Republicans.
Guest:And we'll get back to that.
Guest:When I was a kid, my mother, nothing irritated my mother more than when I voted for that we had a senator.
Guest:From Maryland, one of the first times I voted was for that senator.
Guest:He was a Republican.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:I can't believe you voted for him.
Guest:Well, because 90 percent of what he does, I completely think is great.
Guest:I don't know what the other schmuck's going to do, but I know that this guy, nine times out of ten, he's going to do what I want him to do.
Marc:And you think you think that there will come a time where we're not going to be as divided and tribalistic.
Guest:And that this is I think this is this is truly a this is like you could go a a happen, B happen, C happen, D happen, E happen.
Guest:This is a perfect storm.
Guest:We're in the midst of that perfect storm.
Guest:And out of it, I'm not saying there's going to be some fucking sunlight and bullshit and we come out of the storm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, no, but it'll take time.
Guest:But yeah, we will return.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:OK, so you don't think that, you know, that we're going to break up the republic or that the militias are going to succeed?
Guest:No, no, because once you get people back who like went to student council camp, they go, no.
Marc:All right.
Guest:You know, the Republicans, they fucking went home and hid.
Guest:They don't even know what's going on.
Guest:They go, please vote for me.
Guest:I didn't really like him.
Guest:OK, just vote for me.
Guest:I like I'm different.
Guest:You know, they're back there.
Guest:They're ready to fucking, you know.
Marc:I like that you have some some faith in that there's still an active student council camp culture.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I believe there is.
Guest:I mean, that's what drives them nuts about Biden.
Yeah.
Guest:That's what drives them nuts.
Guest:He's a part of this.
Guest:You know, they fucking come up.
Guest:They can fuck you with these conspiracies.
Guest:You didn't like the son of a bitch when he won the election in high school.
Guest:You still don't like him.
Guest:Fuck you.
Marc:But aren't you astounded at the the the the intensity of the shit magnet power
Marc:of this particular administration have you ever seen more cheap ass grifters and con men and bullshit artists and religious fanatics i mean it's fucking astounding it's like he drew them out of their holes like some sort of fucking snake charmer and he hired every one of them everyone it's fucking mind-blowing well this is when you really you'll appreciate this and um and those listening will have no idea we'll have to look it up but uh
Guest:because you knew him, you know him, but I'm sure you've been in touch, was when, what's his name?
Guest:I can see the guy, the one that he, one of the 60 that he pardoned, that Randy Credico showed up.
Marc:Credico, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That he showed up.
Marc:I don't know how Credico, yeah, in the Roger Stone situation.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, really, of all the people that I thought, wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wow, he's out.
Guest:Because, I mean, I've worked with Credico in a couple of things, and I did stuff with Randy.
Marc:Yeah, well, Credico was like the leftist, right?
Marc:He was the guy that went down to Nicaragua to work with, what's his, Ortega, to help the Sandinistas, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He brought crimmins down there, and they were just shy of being part of the government.
Yeah.
Marc:And then he comes back here and he's a political comic and, you know, you know, a fairly active participant in the nose candy movement.
Marc:And he would he would get on stage.
Marc:He do one politics joke and he'd go like, oh, what do you want?
Marc:Impressions?
Marc:And he'd do Popeye for 10 minutes.
Marc:So.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I don't even understand that.
Marc:And then I knew he was involved with Cuntsworth somehow for a while.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:I don't know his position.
Guest:And then he ended up with Roger Stone.
Guest:And then he ended up with the WikiLeaks thing.
Guest:And it was like, what the fuck?
Guest:And then he's walking around with a little dog.
Guest:I thought, this is the road to madness.
Guest:You know, I mean, how did this?
Guest:But that's when I knew when you're talking about grifters.
Guest:It was that was when I knew things were totally off the charts to another level.
Guest:I mean, you look at Roger Stone and you went, well, how do you look at him?
Guest:You go, would you hire him?
Guest:Outside of maybe working in front of, you know, the restaurant 21 here, you might have him stand out front in that outfit.
Marc:Well, you just realize it may like the corruption is so blatant and so expansive.
Marc:And you realize that on some level, you know, because of all this bullshit, it's the most transparent administration we've had in years because you knew the possibility of the grift and that these fuckers have been turning out, you know, have been have been have been
Marc:basically gaming the system all the time, you know, to to to make personal profit.
Marc:I mean, that's a whole Republican trip.
Marc:Break it down.
Marc:Use the system as a money laundering operation and then let the fucking thing collapse and see if business can put it back together.
Marc:And we're sort of at the end of that experiment and probably the end of the Democratic experiment.
Marc:We'll see which one wins.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think the Democratic experiment will win.
Guest:I'm worried about
Guest:what they're, you know, how the financial thing, because they don't seem to give a shit about coming up with a stimulus package.
Marc:You know, he's panicking now.
Marc:Now he's like trying to buy votes.
Marc:He's like, here's one point eight trillion.
Marc:We'll make everybody well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:But meanwhile, McConnell is standing in the way of it.
Guest:How do you do that?
Guest:OK, I mean, I know too many, you know, people.
Guest:How do you do that?
Guest:How do you stand in the way of people that, you know, need that check?
Guest:OK, you fucking dick.
Marc:yeah i i don't i you know he's he's a crafty motherfucker and i and i can't claim to understand all the machinations but what do you like are you what are you doing for uh for fun are you doing anything for fun what's that f-u-n yeah yeah like it usually takes the form in watching movies yeah i uh i kind i do i uh i play golf which is nuts but but it helps you can do that where you go out with people
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know, because you got real because the people I'm playing with, they're also people who have been basically isolated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See anybody.
Guest:We ride in different carts.
Guest:We don't you know, we don't you know, we're you know, it's golf.
Guest:You're outside.
Guest:Where do you go?
Guest:Jersey?
Guest:No, I was playing down in North Carolina.
Guest:That was I was I was working half the day and half the day.
Guest:I was out there.
Marc:playing golf and the nice thing about golf is is you don't it's such a stupid game and i understand why people don't want to play golf and i get it but it allows you a complete escape from this i've never done it i was talking to some guys about it yesterday i got a friend that does it and i've maybe i went to a driving range a couple times when i was younger and i can understand the rush of making contact with the ball correctly uh that little ping that you feel
Guest:Yeah, no, I've never gotten better, which is appalling.
Guest:And but it allows I used to say what it allowed me was to hate myself more than I normally do in my daily life.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But but what it does do is it gets you.
Marc:You can do it outdoors while you're walking to the next hole or driving.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:I mean, it's really.
Guest:So that helps.
Guest:I mean, that does help.
Guest:Reading is still elusive.
Guest:I find it hard to focus long enough to read.
Guest:I'm getting better at it.
Marc:I've been listening to a lot of music.
Marc:I've been buying records.
Marc:I buy a lot of records now.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Yeah, I enjoy it, man.
Marc:You know, I listened to John Lennon's birthday today, and I put on a plastic Ono band and listened to a couple off of there.
Marc:Did you ever listen to...
Marc:Like back in the day, did you ever listen to the Incredible String Band?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How fucking good are they, dude?
Marc:I am actually just for the first time discovering those Gaelic hippies.
Marc:And I'm like amazed.
Marc:Like I got their first four albums obsessively.
Marc:And I'm like, holy fuck.
Guest:Yeah, they were really good.
Guest:Yeah, they were like they kind of disappeared, but they were in that whole movement.
Guest:It was like everything that was coming out at that time.
Guest:You go fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck.
Marc:That's good, too.
Marc:They're just like it was so like I can't believe I'm going to talk about this like this is new.
Marc:But the way they used a sitar, you know, integrated into sort of like weird Scottish folk melodies without overdoing it.
Marc:You know, like it wasn't like, look, we're using a sitar, but everything was nicely balanced and there was a lot of space.
Marc:And I was like, this is magical music.
Marc:That's the great thing about music is what I'm saying, Lewis, is that, you know, it's always there to be discovered for the first time, even if you're 50 years too late.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's good.
Guest:I mean, that's something that helps.
Guest:And I binge watch a bit of things.
Guest:What'd you watch?
Guest:What have you been watching?
Guest:Do you watch The Vow?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, you like it.
Guest:It's really sick.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's an interesting analysis of, in part, there's a part, there's a kind of a through line to it that this guy kind of created this.
Marc:Oh, the documentary about NXIVM or whatever?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But it's really like part of it.
Guest:I'm sitting there watching.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Well, he created this in part to get laid.
Guest:I mean, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I mean, that's a lot.
Guest:That's exhausting.
Marc:Begging is easier.
Marc:Do you know how many men have it?
Marc:That's the driving force of almost everything for a lot of dudes.
Marc:You can't imagine how many comedians I have talked to their intention.
Marc:by being funny, by being a comedian was to get laid.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they didn't make a business out of it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:But this is really, it's well, it's, it's kind of fascinating.
Guest:It's like one of these things you go, wow.
Guest:It, it, it,
Guest:The paranoia that we live in, right?
Guest:You know, that you kind of, you're looking at, you know, this thing about what you were talking about in terms of people, the left, the right, whatever, you know, these, and really, and a lot of intelligent people kind of, you know, losing their minds.
Guest:This is a group of really bright people who end up doing this and you kind of go, holy fuck, right?
Marc:Well, that's exactly what that's what's happening with the with the fucking QAnon.
Marc:I mean, that people are not most of these people that, you know, some people, you know, your whole life and you think, well, this is a reasonably a reasonably informed guy, you know, a bright person who who can knows the difference between right and wrong, seems to be able to think.
Marc:And then one day you're like, they're a fucking moron.
Marc:how the fuck did that happen how did you get duped yeah i don't know what that is i mean that's what i've been obsessed with that thing for a while now like how do i think that like look if you've got enough like weird uh self-hatred but self-awareness and enough sort of like strange uh anger and ego you're not going to be easily led into spiritual solutions or cults like there's no fucking way
Marc:that I'm going to be in a cult because I don't like leaders.
Marc:I don't like to lead.
Marc:Just, you know, you know what?
Marc:Go fuck yourself.
Marc:I'm OK.
Marc:Don't what do you want from me?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what exactly it is that that makes me not vulnerable to that.
Guest:Well, it's called your question authority.
Guest:That's it for starters.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:So that's the initial.
Marc:Yeah, I've got an innate, who the fuck is this guy?
Marc:What's this guy want?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but yeah, but but do you ever find yourself like for me, like when I try to really think about it, like spirituality, craving, like, you know, I've experienced some sadness and loss in the last few months.
Marc:And I understand like it'd be nice.
Marc:And I'm sorry about that.
Marc:You know, I'm sorry.
Marc:Yeah, I appreciate that stuff.
Guest:I understand that.
Guest:It was terrible.
Marc:But then you're like, what is what does it all mean?
Marc:You know, what is existence?
Marc:You know, why am I here?
Marc:Why did that happen to her?
Marc:You know, like, is there does it all make sense?
Marc:Then you start to realize it's a fundamentally human thing.
Marc:You don't know when the fuck it's going to happen, but everybody carries loss.
Marc:Everybody deals with it.
Marc:It's part of the human experience.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:But it does make you sort of like, you know, I never think like, is there a God?
Marc:Is there is there?
Marc:Like, what does God have to do with it?
Marc:But there is that party that's sort of like, how do I reckon with this?
Marc:And I don't really have an answer, but I rarely go to God.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:No, I go to.
Guest:I have gone to faith, which is not in God, but it's going to it's.
Guest:That it will work.
Marc:Right, right, right, right, right, right.
Guest:That I've got, you know, that it's bigger.
Guest:You know, I've kind of my thoughts have always been about it.
Guest:The problem with God to me is the concept was it's smaller than what's going on out there.
Guest:Don't reduce it to this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Way bigger.
Marc:Don't reduce it to an entity or a guy that cares about you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then had a son.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, an interesting one of the interesting kind of thoughts about this, about, you know, passage of life are book walls.
Guest:who's a really good writer, you know, really funny writer for a long time.
Guest:Uh, very, very good.
Guest:He, he was, um, he, his, his kidneys were giving out.
Guest:He was old.
Guest:He kind of, he, he decided he was going to stop doing dialysis.
Guest:He just went, you know, fuck it.
Guest:I'm going to go in, go into a hospice.
Guest:I'm going to die.
Guest:So he goes in there and, and, uh,
Guest:And he and he doesn't.
Guest:People come to visit him.
Guest:Six months later, he's still going.
Guest:He's writing apology letters.
Guest:I'm really sorry.
Guest:And he said the one thing that he felt that he learned was, as he said, that he wondered.
Guest:It wasn't so much.
Guest:where he was going he the big question was why was he here right yeah yeah yeah yeah right which is really an interesting way to look at it as opposed to that as opposed to out there it's what is this about well yeah i mean that that happens in relation to it i i just i guess i'm just talking about like you know there just seems to be much more
Marc:Like, look, I've believed my share of bullshit in my life, but, you know, and I'm not sure that some of the stuff I'm hanging on to right now isn't bullshit.
Marc:I'm sure it is.
Marc:But but I never looked for salvation.
Marc:Like, you know, I guess there's people that look to be relieved.
Marc:Of the burden of their own struggle and the seeming unfairness of life.
Marc:And there are those of us who who just, you know, believe that that without that to complain about, what do we have?
Guest:Yeah, that's really true.
Yeah.
Marc:And that's the difference between Jews and Christians.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Guest:And then the other thing is that I kind of arrived at, which is similar to that, is, you know, why do these people like him, the leader?
Guest:Why do they like him so much?
Guest:It's precisely that he feels that he expresses what they feel every day, which is put upon.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:A victim.
Marc:Poor Donnie.
Guest:They're all victims.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the grievance culture.
Marc:You know, like, we've been fucked.
Marc:And now, like, you know, who's fucking us?
Marc:You just point a finger like, that's those fuckers.
Marc:The Libs, the Dems, the Jews.
Marc:See, third on the list, Louis, I'm telling you.
Marc:Third on the list.
Marc:And the other two are kind of the same thing.
Marc:So where's the special going to be on, buddy?
Guest:It's on iTunes, Amazon.
Guest:It'll be on Amazon Prime eventually.
Guest:Google TV, Farty Bobo, Natty Natty.
Marc:There are 147 platforms.
Marc:Dude, believe me, I did a whole bit on it.
Marc:Did you do a bit on it?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:no i didn't no not after hearing your bit i'm not stealing well i always love i love talking to you man it's good seeing you i'm glad you're holding up it was really a pleasure you know and uh um and i'm uh and i and i did want to tell you you know i like glow a lot i thought you were terrific i mean i'm not i really liked it i like the work you did in it too
Marc:Oh, thanks, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's like it's sad, but like when it comes down to it, I think it was really honestly it was about money, but it was also about safety.
Marc:I mean, we don't you know, we were going to probably be shooting in May.
Marc:Oh, we're right on time finishing this thing.
Marc:My gardeners just got here.
Marc:And, you know, who knows if it would have been safe?
Marc:I tell you, it does not look fun to work on a set right now.
Guest:You know, I'm friends who were doing it of some friends who were doing it.
Guest:And and it has not and they've had to fight about it.
Marc:Yeah, no, it looks just miserable.
Marc:But stay healthy, buddy.
Marc:I love you, man.
Marc:Love you.
Guest:Take care of yourself, Mark.
Guest:Good to see you.
Marc:Who is black, folks?
Marc:Love that guy.
Marc:The new special is Thanks for Risking Your Life.
Marc:Get it on all the video demand platforms, also streaming audio platforms, and his podcast, Louis Black's Rantcast.
Marc:You can get that where you get the podcasts.
Marc:You dig?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's play some music.
Marc:Now I'm going to go take a bath in Epsom salts.
.
.
so so
Guest:guitar solo
so
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Don't forget Monkey and the Fonda.