Episode 1197 - David Duchovny
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf
Marc:David Duchovny is on the show today.
Marc:OK, he's, you know, from the X-Files and Californication.
Marc:But he's also a musician and he's an author and he's got a new novel out.
Marc:It's called Truly Like Lightning.
Marc:And it's an amazing conversation.
Marc:If you listen regularly, you'll find, and I know this just because I'm doing it, that a lot of the interviews during the plague have been thorough and good and connected in a way that is surprising.
Marc:And actually, in some cases, deeper and better than had I done them person to person live here in the garage, which is...
Marc:Believe me, when we chose to start doing Zoom because we had no choice like everybody else or figuring out some platform to make this work.
Marc:It was a big deal because we have really stood by this in-person interview thing since the beginning of the show.
Marc:It was a big transition and both Brendan and I were nervous.
Marc:But oddly, what's happened is.
Marc:We've gotten a lot of guests that we probably wouldn't have gotten before.
Marc:And I couldn't quite figure out why some of these things were going so well or that they were more interesting and connected and deeper in a way.
Marc:There's a lot of things that aren't happening.
Marc:There's a lot of defenses already down.
Marc:There's a couple of things happening.
Marc:You know, when you don't have a celebrity or an actor or an artist who
Marc:Who has who's in the middle of a day driving around doing TV hits, doing radio spots, you know, some of them traveling with hairstylists or trying to figure out how to get here or just dealing with traffic, all that stuff.
Marc:You know, what has to shed?
Marc:When they get in here on the mic and see, you know, whose house is this?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's real.
Marc:It happens in the moment.
Marc:But these things, the new ones happen in the moment, too.
Marc:But what I started to notice differently was that and I sort of.
Marc:thought about this is that none of that they're coming in from the other room of their house or wherever they're staying.
Marc:They're just, you know, they're setting up in their living room or they're just walking down their hall.
Marc:Some of them may not even be wearing pants.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But what I'm saying is that all this sort of buildup of shields, defenses and just dealing with a day of work is
Marc:Not there.
Marc:So that's one part of it.
Marc:The comfort factor that they're in a place that they're already comfortable.
Marc:I don't have to make them comfortable.
Marc:And the other thing is, I think a lot of people are starved for connection.
Marc:Some people have a better relationship with their parents.
Marc:I don't FaceTime with my mother.
Marc:I don't FaceTime with my brother.
Marc:I don't Zoom with anybody.
Marc:There's no family Zooms going on.
Marc:The only Zooming I'm doing...
Marc:is from my podcast.
Marc:And there's a few people I still see in person, but I think a lot of people, even if they're seeing people on Zoom or in their orbit family, most people are not having the casual conversations that they used to or just having the comfort of regular life.
Marc:So I think a lot of times, like with Duchovny, because we had an amazing conversation.
Marc:And I think it was just because he's a smart guy.
Marc:I don't think a lot of people talk to him like we talked.
Marc:Or that he assumes they will.
Marc:I'm not saying I'm smart, but I can keep up.
Marc:But I think a lot of people just aren't having conversations in general.
Marc:So that combination of them already being comfortable where they are.
Marc:And the fact that people aren't talking to people as much as he used to.
Marc:They're not out in the world much.
Marc:They're a little starved for connection.
Marc:The combination of those two leads to what have been some fairly amazing conversations on this show.
Marc:And Duchovny's no different.
Marc:It's a really good one that you're going to listen to shortly.
Marc:But I got to tell you, just talking to other people, even if it's people I don't know, like I interviewed, who did I interview last week?
Marc:Sam Neill.
Marc:or even this Duchovny conversation that you're about to hear, just to connect with somebody, just to unload a little bit, relax, get into their life, what's going on with you, how you doing, tell me about your life.
Marc:I talk to my buddy Sam Lipsight every night.
Marc:I ask him about his kids.
Marc:You know, it's really what we're built to do and you should keep doing it because I'm sometimes I'm out of my fucking mind and I don't know what the fuck is going to happen or how I'm even going to or how I'm even going to be able to talk to somebody else or what about or what do they like or what the fuck is going to happen.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Why am I even doing this to begin with?
Marc:And then I have a conversation with him within five minutes of talking to somebody, a stranger.
Marc:I feel better.
Marc:That's what people do, man.
Marc:This is not the time to just get lost in rabbit holes of buying things you don't need.
Marc:Although it is fun.
Marc:And our economy relies on it.
Marc:You don't take that back.
Marc:Please buy a lot of stuff you don't need.
Marc:But help people out.
Marc:Give to charity.
Marc:Do whatever you got to do to make you feel engaged like you're doing something.
Marc:But I guess my point is talk to people.
Marc:You know, you can do the better help thing, but also talk to your friends.
Marc:Try to talk to your family.
Marc:I always forget because there's something about.
Marc:I've learned that I like to isolate.
Marc:I didn't realize it, but I I'm OK by myself.
Marc:And some days it's sort of I'd rather sit at home and feel sorry for myself for no reason than engage.
Marc:You know, feel like somehow my life, you know, got derailed.
Marc:Everyone's life got derailed and everything is amplified now when we have all this time and this plague is upon us.
Marc:And there's fear and tension and anxiety politically and financially is that every little thing that if it would have just happened in ordinary life would have been daunting, but it would have just folded into the flow of ordinary life.
Marc:Now everything is amplified and you can fully process everything.
Marc:Everything.
Marc:All the bad shit, all the good shit that happens to you.
Marc:You can really fucking take it in.
Marc:It really lands.
Marc:Tragedy, joys, appreciation, horror.
Marc:Man, you can take a few days with any of that.
Marc:Really fucking churn on it.
Marc:And I'm trying to stay in the light, people.
Marc:Trying to stay in the light.
Marc:If any of you want to hang out in the morning, I'm available usually.
Marc:I've been doing these live Instagrams for months now.
Marc:Even when I have nothing to say, I'll get on there.
Marc:We'll play some music together, go through some records, hang out with my cat.
Marc:If that interests you, it helps me out.
Marc:David Duchovny's book, Truly Like Lightning, comes out tomorrow, February 2nd.
Marc:And I told him, I didn't read it, but I looked over it and I kind of got a sense of it a little bit.
Marc:But I told him, you know, there's other things we could talk about.
Marc:But you can get that wherever you get books.
Marc:He has a third album coming out, music, soon.
Marc:He's already released a single from it called Laying on the Tracks.
Marc:You can check that out on YouTube.
Marc:And we're going to talk about...
Marc:A lot of stuff.
Marc:This is a good talk, folks.
Marc:It's a great talk.
Marc:This is me and David Duchovny.
Guest:Where are you at, David?
Guest:I'm in L.A.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, I was I was in New York until Saturday.
Guest:I came out of here.
Guest:I'm going to shoot a couple of things.
Guest:all over the world, which is crazy.
Marc:Have you done any shooting in The Plague?
Guest:Yeah, I did a reshoot about four or five days on a movie, and it was odd.
Guest:As you know, you want kind of a loose feeling on set, kind of creative feeling.
Marc:you know you just have to get used to this kind of stilted um masked mask on mask off i know i shot a movie for 12 days and it it's definitely bizarre screws your hair up you know it's not it's not not good for an actor no hair face you know you got the mask on the whole time and then like right before you talk you take it off were you able to focus uh yeah i was in fact it it created more of a
Guest:special space yeah for just that that moment of performance yeah i'm not saying i prefer it by any stretch but yeah certainly you know you just felt like okay there's this little magic circle here we're just going to do what we need to do and you know yeah we can't do it's a lot of squirting and wiping going on everywhere never enough never enough squirting wiping
Marc:Hands are always dry.
Marc:I don't think my hands are ever going to be the same again.
Guest:Well, so I've grown this thing out for the thing I'm going to shoot next week.
Guest:And it's not a beard is not mask friendly.
Guest:I don't know why you're doing it.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:The virus can just sneak right around through the whisker gap.
Guest:It's also uncomfortable.
Guest:There's nothing comfortable about any of it.
Guest:Yeah, these are small complaints.
Guest:But when I flew on Saturday, I was triple masked, quadruple masked.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:You flew commercial?
Guest:I did.
Guest:But I've had COVID, so I figure I'm kind of immune right now.
Guest:I mean, I had it almost three months ago, so I'm told I'm pretty good for another few weeks anyway.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What were the symptoms?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Well, since you asked my symptoms, I will tell you my symptoms.
Marc:I'll take it.
Guest:The main one was an astonishing diarrhea.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lost some weight.
Guest:It didn't feel, it didn't, because that's not the symptom that people seem to focus on.
Marc:Yeah, you can still breathe with diarrhea.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, you can.
Guest:And, uh, and, uh, no, I just didn't think I had it.
Guest:I thought, Oh, I've, I've got food poisoning.
Guest:So a couple of days went by and I thought, okay, food poisoning is usually done in a day.
Guest:So then I got tested and sure enough, I had it.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:It wasn't that bad.
Guest:I mean, it was bad, but it wasn't certainly nothing like I've heard.
Marc:Yeah, it seems like it's a unique experience for everybody who gets it.
Marc:And like my uncle and my aunt who are in their 70s, they got it.
Marc:He was tired for a week and couldn't really do anything.
Marc:She had a head cold and it was over.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I've not talked to the diarrhea people.
Marc:You're one of the diarrhea people.
Yeah.
Guest:That's actually how we like to be known.
Marc:Yeah, the COVID diarrhea crew.
Guest:I've started a support group.
Marc:But like fevers, breathing, all that okay?
Marc:Taste?
Marc:Sense of taste?
Guest:Taste, smell, none of that went away.
Guest:I had fatigue.
Guest:I had a very weird kind of muscle powerlessness in my legs, it just felt like.
Guest:The way I would describe it is, and this is completely made up.
Guest:And again, remember, I'm not a doctor.
Guest:It just felt like something my body had that it had never seen before.
Guest:And it was trying to throw all these symptoms at me, alert me that something was fucked up.
Guest:Um, but they didn't, they didn't like make any sense.
Guest:They, they didn't seem connected.
Marc:So it didn't feel like anything you'd had before all at once.
Marc:So I, that's interesting way to look at it.
Marc:So it's like, your body's like, well, this is new.
Marc:Uh, let's try to fight it and just give them diarrhea.
Guest:Let's try to fight it.
Guest:Let's, let's alert this body here that, that there's something we didn't understand that's going on.
Guest:So we're just going to make odd things hurt for a while and see if we can get his attention.
Marc:Oh, you got, you got like a joint pain and stuff.
Guest:Well, just that powerlessness in the legs, just that weird feeling of not having my legs underneath me.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, you got lucky, it sounds like.
Guest:I did.
Marc:I got lucky.
Marc:Did you have any visions?
Marc:Did you have any moments of like, oh, fuck, this is it?
Guest:I guess I was maybe a little afraid at first just because I didn't know what the...
Guest:intensity was going to be yeah i was more focused you know i had seen my my kids i'd seen my daughter i'd seen my son and my daughter has pre-existing lung conditions so i was really i was just terrified that i had infected them and once that passed which was like
Guest:five or six days into mine.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was really just focusing on that in the beginning.
Guest:So, um, by then it was kind of over.
Marc:Did you, were you able to track it?
Marc:Like where you got it?
Marc:Not that it matters, but you were in, you were in New York though, right?
Guest:I'm the guy, find the guy, you sneeze, you fuck.
Marc:Now you'll pay.
Guest:No, it was weird because I'm really careful.
Guest:I was in New York.
Guest:Uh, I hadn't traveled, so I got it in New York and, um,
Guest:Maybe a cab, maybe an Uber.
Guest:But really no event.
Marc:That's the scariest thing to me.
Marc:I'm doing N95 mask.
Marc:I go out with a plastic shield.
Marc:Now I've gotten this far without getting it.
Marc:Now the vaccines are in trucks somewhere.
Marc:I just have this horrible fear of if I get it in the next couple months, are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:So all that work, why didn't I just get it at the beginning?
Marc:exactly exactly well i can't answer that i can't answer that because i was scared and terrified and careful and i go to fucking i go this but now there's a version out here that is highly contagious everyone one in three people get the way they talk about it like one in three people it's almost like we're trying to get it here
Guest:We're getting close.
Guest:Yeah, we're getting that herd immunity going.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I don't know if that just works on a county level.
Guest:Well, there's also culling the herd is the problem.
Guest:You got to cull the herd to get to the herd immunity.
Marc:Well, that seems to be happening, and that's the sad part about the whole thing.
Marc:So you're out here to work.
Marc:You're just doing five days reshoots?
Marc:Is that what you're saying?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I did a reshoot about six months ago, but I'm going to work for like four days on an Indy, and then I'm going to
Guest:work on a Netflix TV show.
Guest:And then I'm going, I'm actually going to go to London and shoot a movie.
Guest:So I'm like chasing the COVID hotspots is what I'm doing.
Marc:Good for you, man.
Marc:I mean, they probably know that you've already had it.
Marc:They're like, let's hire, it's a new, your agent's like, that's how they're pitching you now.
Marc:Look, he might not be right for the part, but he's already had the COVID.
Marc:So on an insurance level, this is the best choice you can make.
Guest:Yeah, it used to be, you know, when I was starting out as an actor, they would ask for like special skills on the back of your headshot.
Guest:And I'd always lie and put like horse riding, juggling, fencing, rock climbing.
Guest:I didn't do any of that shit.
Guest:But now I'll just put had COVID.
Guest:I'm good to go.
Marc:Do you have a place out here?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I do.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:I love L.A., actually.
Marc:You do, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I guess it's like this whole, I mean, I'm kind of delusional, or not delusional, I'm just so detached now.
Marc:It's hard to remember what things used to be like.
Marc:I can't imagine what New York is like.
Marc:It's just like this weird ghost town, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's not quite a ghost town, you know, because I think at this point in the pandemic, people are, they're fed up and frustrated and bored and they're kind of inching back into
Marc:into their their normal ways of moving around so it's definitely quieter you know obviously there's no front activity or anything like that but people are out yeah people are out people are definitely out out here in la it seems like people give zero fucks i mean you go places it's like there's traffic again i don't know what everyone's doing you know i go hiking out here and try to dodge the maskless armenians
Guest:Let's not single out an ethnic group.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:They have masochist people in my neighborhood, which has a high Armenian population.
Guest:I think that it's just human nature.
Guest:It's been almost a year, right?
Marc:I know.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:People are ready to die.
Marc:They're ready to die.
Guest:Unfortunately, I think so.
Guest:But people can't be vigilant this long.
Guest:It's just not in our nature to stay on guard for that long.
Guest:I think we're built to be on guard for short spurts.
Marc:Yeah, and we enjoy entertainment and eating out.
Guest:I mean, that's the problem.
Guest:There's that too.
Marc:So now I've got the book.
Marc:I looked at the book.
Marc:I couldn't read the whole book.
Guest:You just looked at it.
Guest:You held your hands and you looked at it.
Marc:No, I read some things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Truly like lightning.
Marc:Now, when you start a novel, because I don't know how many people know you as a novelist.
Marc:And I don't know how many people know you as a musician.
Marc:And I don't know how five.
Marc:But I know people know you as the guy on the X-Files.
Marc:Most.
Marc:And in Californication and whatever.
Marc:But this is your fourth novel.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, I mean, you're a busy guy.
Marc:You don't stop doing shit.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:And when you write a book about a guy who's in like, what was the beginning of this book?
Marc:The guy's a Mormon.
Marc:So were you just you're like, were you obsessed with Mormonism and then decided, I want to learn more about that and I'm going to set my guy there?
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:The beginnings of this story are from like 20 years ago, actually when I was doing the X-Files, I had written an episode that was kind of based on a guy named, not based on, but had used this guy named Mark Hoffman as an inspiration.
Guest:And Mark Hoffman was a Mormon
Guest:forger and and and uh murderer and and uh bomber actually he ended up being he's in prison now and uh he he forged uh joseph smith's letters oh i think i kind of remember this when was it yeah like in the late 90s yeah yeah i kind of yeah right right so i was kind of captivated by this story because uh hoffman well the amazing the brilliant thing he did was he
Guest:There are rumored writings of Joseph Smith, as you can imagine.
Guest:Not a lot survives, but there are rumors of writings that deal with fringe beliefs.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So what Hoffman did was when he was forging these Joseph Smith writings, he would forge like the most controversial, most non-fundamentalist Mormon strains into these things, knowing that the church, he wasn't trying to sell it to collectors.
Guest:He wanted to sell it to the church who would buy it to suppress it, who would buy it to keep it quiet.
Marc:Oh, clever.
Yeah.
Guest:So he had this amazing scam going on.
Marc:Very specific and very, very small audience for the scam.
Guest:He needed probably big money.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The elders were.
Marc:Yeah, it was a good.
Marc:Yeah, it was a good angle.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I kind of translated that into an X file where I I wrote about a 60s radical.
Guest:who had started forging Jesus Christ's kind of lost gospels, in which Jesus took a wife and had sex with women and was more of a human than he is in traditional Christianity.
Marc:Isn't that The Last Temptation of Christ?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:Well, you know, am I guilty of forgery?
Guest:Maybe just influence.
Guest:That's a book that I love and a movie that I was certainly aware of.
Guest:And so I wrote this X file that was kind of based on this guy who believed he became Jesus.
Guest:But that was the thing about Hoffman is when he wrote as Joseph Smith,
Guest:he believed that he was Joseph Smith.
Guest:So he didn't think they were actually forgeries in the end.
Marc:And also, if you think about the credibility of Joseph Smith, I mean, whoever decides to believe what he wrote about the golden plates and where the underpants, whatever those are, I mean, it seems like Joseph Smith, of all people, would be flattered that Hoffman took it upon himself to create some more bullshit in his name.
Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I had all these strains in my mind from that time.
Guest:I had never addressed the Mormon aspect of it, but I kind of addressed it through a Jesus Christ aspect of it.
Guest:And there was also this sentiment or, you know, I don't know if you know anything about history of Mormonism, but in order to join statehood, Utah, which was Mormon in the late 1800s,
Guest:had to not denounce, but set aside polygamy and this thing called blood atonement.
Guest:Otherwise, you know, everyday American, the union wouldn't allow them in.
Guest:So lo and behold, Brigham Young said, ah, you know, we don't really practice that stuff anymore.
Guest:And they joined the union.
Guest:So it was polygamy and it was blood atonement.
Marc:What's blood atonement?
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:This is how I started getting into the story or the story started taking shape in my mind.
Guest:Blood atonement is this idea that there are sins that a man can commit that are beyond the atoning blood of Christ.
Guest:Now, the beauty of the Christian sacrifice is that it achieves forgiveness.
Guest:It's all inclusive.
Guest:Well, that's what I thought, but not in this blood atonement says, and I'm sure it's some kind of a murder, usually with the murderer's state of mind and play intent.
Guest:So there are certain kinds of murder that you have to be killed in return for.
Marc:This is in the Mormon religion or in Christianity?
Marc:In the Mormon religion.
Guest:This is a fringe Mormon belief.
Guest:It's kind of a capital punishment.
Guest:So I was like, oh, wow, blood atonement is an excellent driver of a story.
Guest:Blood atonement is an excellent fictional device.
Marc:Either administering it or running from it.
Marc:Both.
Guest:Or deciding, in my case,
Guest:It's a father and son.
Guest:The father is looking at his son thinking, in order to save my son's soul.
Marc:Do I have to kill him?
Guest:So I was like, wow, this is the kind of stuff that I really like thinking about and I like writing about.
Guest:And I thought if I could write a tale or a novel that was...
Guest:you know, not a religious novel at all, but around these issues, you know, I use the word fun, you know, because the middle of the book is kind of comedic because you have these three kids who have been raised in a Gata De Vita, which is what they called their compound in the desert, haven't seen any other humans their whole life.
Guest:They basically lived in this bubble.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And they get taken out and put into Rancho Cucamonga High School.
Guest:So the middle is this very fish out of water culture, cultural innocence trying to survive.
Marc:The weirdo Mormon kids.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So I don't know if that answers your question, but it's like my interest in Mormonism was then driven by...
Guest:my uh knowledge of these strains within it i really liked the idea that you know that they had pushed aside these you know and not anti-american but on you know things that america couldn't handle like polygamy or blood atonement in order to join the union and then i had studied with a guy named harold bloom at yale when i was a graduate student that guy huh
Guest:Brilliant.
Guest:I mean, just the most brilliant mind I've ever been around.
Guest:What was his big book?
Guest:The Anxiety of Influence.
Guest:How'd you reference him in your mind?
Guest:He had written about Joseph Smith and he called him an American genius.
Guest:And I was like, what the fuck, Joseph Smith?
Marc:One of the great hucksters.
Guest:Well, yes, but I read Bloom on Joseph Smith and it informed my book in that Bloom talks about Smith as...
Guest:You know, his whole anxiety of influence, Bloom, is about being belated.
Guest:Like, here we are, you and me, we've come in the 21st century.
Guest:There's a lot of genius behind us.
Guest:There's not a lot of stuff we can say or do that's new.
Guest:We have that anxiety of influence.
Guest:We can't be better than our betters and the people that came before.
Guest:It's very difficult.
Marc:But so that's a that's a condition, not a fact.
Guest:That's a condition, a psychological condition, a literary condition for Bloom.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Literary slash psychological condition.
Guest:So what he says about Joseph Smith is, you know, it's it's in the name.
Guest:They're Latter Day Saints.
Guest:Smith Smith is taking this backwards looking religion, Christianity, which is based on something that happened.
Guest:2000 years ago right miracle and he's saying no that shit's still happening we're saints now we can it's very american it's like no you know yeah you're a god i'm a god we're all gods we're all saints yeah miracles are still happening yeah we can move jesus to the states he's he's our guy
Marc:It's an American.
Marc:No, I like the idea of it being an American phenomenon.
Marc:But I think what you're addressing then is that the notion that even though Brigham Young said, all right, we're you know, we're on board with being part of the union.
Marc:But, you know, secretly, we've got our own code and we've got our own laws and we've got our own way of life.
Guest:You know, it's interesting you say that because there are I don't know if it's historical fact, but there's been heavy rumors that
Guest:I don't know if it was Smith or Brigham Young that had tried to negotiate with a foreign country while they were.
Marc:To move the church there?
Marc:Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Just doing negotiations, you know, not allowing the American government to do it.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, you know, it is Salt Lake City is one of the only, you know, kind of functioning theocracies in this.
Marc:I would say the only one in this country.
Marc:But it is that.
Marc:I mean, you go to that town, you're like, we're in it.
Marc:This is how this is here.
Guest:That was my fear when I when I had when I had like the vague cloud of this novel idea in my mind about a year ago.
Guest:I was like, oh, fuck.
Guest:I'm going to have to go to Utah.
Guest:Nothing against Utah, but if I want to know what it looks like and feels like and sounds like, I could go there for some months and really get the lay of the land.
Marc:It's nice there.
Guest:I'm sure it's beautiful, but I'm lazy.
Guest:I like my home in LA, so I was like, ooh, I set out the first...
Guest:First, the feelers of research.
Guest:Very, very lazy.
Guest:I don't like research, but I know it's necessary.
Guest:So I contacted this guy who was working with me for me.
Guest:And I said, just find me pockets of Mormonism throughout the country and let me know
Guest:where they are and how valuable the land is where they are because it's a land grab book too there's a capitalist land grab happening underneath did you go to new mexico i think a lot of them are down in silver city aren't they yeah well i got this this document back that was fascinating so there was there were pockets like real pockets mormonism all over the country but
Guest:They fucking founded San Bernardino.
Guest:Mormons founded San Bernardino.
Guest:And I was like, it's my L.A.
Guest:novel.
Guest:I'm going to write my L.A.
Guest:novel.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:I'm too lazy to go to Utah, which is an hour plane ride.
Marc:But now I can just drive to San Bernardino.
Marc:Well, that's interesting.
Marc:So, like, I get the feeling that that this was the this was the this was the goal that this is what you wanted to do.
Guest:which right oh um yeah i didn't really have a goal i mean that was that was the that was the idea where'd you grow up new york city and was your dad an academic or no my dad was um he worked for the american jewish committee uh the ajc oh really yeah in what capacity i don't really know i mean he had like a nine to five job i believe i believe he was
Guest:in public relations, they called it.
Marc:What did the American Jewish community, what did they do?
Marc:I remember seeing the AJC as a Jew.
Marc:I know the AJC.
Marc:I know those letters.
Marc:But what is their...
Guest:goal i wish i could call up i wish i could get you my dad and tell you but uh he's he's he's no longer with us but uh i don't really know i was young i you know he had an office in midtown i believe it's so funny about people and their dads it's like i go to the office and i can play with the stapler but i don't know yeah that's that's all i remember
Guest:And he wrote speeches.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:He was a writer.
Guest:He was good with words.
Guest:Were you brought up Jew-ish?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, he was a total cultural Jew, I'd say.
Guest:Not a religious Jew.
Marc:And your mom's Jewish or no?
Guest:No, my mom...
Guest:My mother is from a small fishing village in Scotland.
Wow.
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:It was an unholy match.
Guest:But how did they find each other?
Guest:Yeah, in Europe after the war.
Guest:My dad was in Rome and Paris, and they were both teaching Berlitz English.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And they were teaching English as a second language?
Guest:Yeah, she was the first woman, probably first person in her family to ever attend college.
Guest:She got out of there.
Guest:I mean, God bless her.
Guest:She's a strong, strong person.
Guest:And she valued education and left college.
Guest:and was i don't know what she was doing in europe but she was out there alone on her own and she met my dad and uh they came back to new york she met a charming jew yeah he's charming he was charming oh yeah oh yeah yeah and he he brought her back to new york saying oh basically i got to say goodbye to my parents you know we're going to move to london i think he wanted to raise kids in london but he didn't know jews well enough to know that he was never going to leave his mom
Marc:Got her.
Marc:So does that mean that you have family in Scotland?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Marc:And do you go there?
Guest:I've been to Scotland a few times.
Guest:I have a kilt.
Guest:I have my own tartan.
Guest:I have my own tartan kilt.
Marc:Oh, so you're official?
Marc:Is that what that means?
Marc:Like if you go, you're ready to, you know, you can hang out with the fellas?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But I feel very much that mix, though.
Guest:I feel very much a mix of, as I said, cultural Jew and rural Lutheran.
Marc:I feel like that's my sweet spot.
Marc:So...
Guest:you grew up in new york what were you did you act as a kid or you didn't act as a kid no no i never um i played sports i didn't act um and i i read and i wrote my dad my dad you asked my dad actually supplemented his uh income from the ajc by writing little political books oh really little knockoff satires like uh
Guest:The Wisdom of Spiro Tiagno.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like paperbacks, they were published.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This Ballantyne paperbacks.
Guest:They were these little, like you could fit them in your back pocket.
Marc:And they're funny.
Guest:They're funny.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He was a satirist.
Guest:He wrote a couple of coloring books.
Guest:He wrote the psychiatrist coloring book, the Nikita Khrushchev coloring book.
Guest:And this was all kind of to supplement the income because he also liked to play poker.
Guest:He had like different ways of like- He played poker at the house?
Marc:Did he have a group of guys that would come over and smoke when you were growing up?
Guest:No, not at the house.
Guest:He played out and he usually won.
Guest:He was a good poker player.
Guest:He'd win like a hundred bucks, which is a big deal.
Guest:So my dad, then he wrote a play that was on Broadway in 1967 called The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Guest:And it was not a comedy, as you can probably tell from that.
Marc:So he wrote that after Oswald was shot, obviously.
Guest:Only four years after.
Guest:So the hypothesis was if Oswald hadn't been shot, this is the trial.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:So I feel like I've heard of that play.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:Closed in like three days.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Why?
Guest:To hear him tell it.
Guest:He would say that people just weren't ready to see shots of Kennedy's head, you know, blown up and exploded.
Guest:You know, I remember I was seven.
Guest:It was the first theater experience I ever had.
Guest:aside from maybe you're a good man, Charlie Brown, which was a little lighter affair.
Marc:Yeah, they don't show Charlie's head being blown open.
Marc:Not yet.
Marc:Yeah, it's like when Lucy trips him and he flips up on his back, his head doesn't blow open.
Guest:You're a motherfucker, Charlie Brown.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that kind of blew your mind.
Guest:Well, it was my first experience of of any kind of performance.
Marc:And it's pretty radical.
Marc:What year is that?
Marc:So that was 67, 68, you know, seven years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad asked me what I thought after.
Guest:And in the play, which was very, very long, as I recall, Oswald is sitting in a chair.
Guest:It's a courtroom scene.
Guest:He's sitting in a chair and he doesn't say anything for the whole first act before intermission.
Guest:So he's like an hour.
Guest:sitting in that chair as the prosecution of the defense is talking around him.
Guest:And my dad asked me, what did you think after the play?
Guest:And I said, how did he not have to go to the bathroom?
Guest:So that was my, I was perceptive about acting from the very beginning.
Marc:What do you do if you have to go and you're sitting there?
Marc:What do you do if you're Oswald and you still got to pee?
Marc:Stuck on stage.
Marc:Can't get out to pee.
Marc:So, but it seems like you ended up at Yale.
Marc:So, you know, your family or you obviously put a premium on education.
Marc:You must have been a pretty good student.
Marc:It didn't seem, you know, you don't seem like you were necessarily connected.
Marc:So you had to do the work.
Guest:Not connected at all.
Guest:It was all scholarship stuff.
Guest:I went to a very fancy New York high school on scholarship.
Guest:And then I...
Guest:I had a scholarship at Princeton based on need.
Guest:And then I got a Mellon Fellowship to go to Yale.
Guest:So pretty much all my stuff was paid for.
Guest:My mom had to take out some loans to help pay for school.
Guest:I took out student loans, but we did get help.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What did you study undergrad at Princeton?
Guest:I studied English literature, just the general liberal arts.
Marc:What was your focus?
Marc:Did you have a focus on the literature?
Guest:Probably modern.
Guest:Like my junior year, I wrote on Virginia Woolf and my senior thesis.
Guest:At Princeton, you have a choice of choosing.
Guest:You can either take four courses or you can take three and write your senior thesis.
Guest:So it's basically a year long book that you got to come up with.
Guest:So that's what I did.
Guest:And I wrote on Beckett, Beckett's novels of all things.
Marc:So you were in it, man.
Marc:You were like on the professor track.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was my track.
Marc:So you're not even going to write about Beckett's plays.
Marc:You're like, you know, there's not enough attention being paid to Beckett's novels.
Guest:What was the... Well, you're giving it a much nicer slant than the one I had, which was...
Guest:There's so many brilliant people who've written on Beckett's plays, but nobody's written about Beckett's novels.
Guest:I'll do okay.
Marc:It's unexplored territory.
Marc:I just got to make sense.
Guest:And I don't have to do much research.
Marc:Again, we can go back to my laziness.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So what was the angle on the novels?
Marc:Was there a theme?
Guest:I was caught up in the sway of this French...
Guest:stuff um what like uh like lacan or like uh yeah foucault and like yeah yeah the post-modernists yeah so i was i the the name i can't remember what i wrote about but the name of it was uh the schizophrenic critique of pure reason that's what it was called and
Guest:And fuck that guy.
Guest:That was that was a call from the grave.
Guest:How dare you?
Guest:And I don't really remember what I was writing about or what my idea was, but it was basically in a nutshell, it would be.
Guest:and this is to make it a cliche and everything but uh you know the only sane response to an insane world is insanity right basically so it was basically that got it and so then you go to yale for for masters in english no phd but i didn't finish so i was admitted into the phd program but i i
Guest:Did my classwork and I sat my orals and I passed those.
Guest:And then I was supposedly on to my dissertation when I started acting, really.
Marc:You mean you started acting to get out of your dissertation?
Guest:That's one way to interpret it.
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:You know, I would say my soul did that.
Guest:My mind didn't make that decision, but my soul was...
Guest:It was like looking around like you can't do this your whole life.
Guest:You just can't.
Marc:What was the dissertation that drove you to acting?
Marc:What was that one?
Marc:I want to know the name of that one.
Guest:That was called Magic and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry.
Marc:That seems a little broad, but probably, you know, you just pick a few and go at it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, that's what you do.
Guest:You pick a few and you go at it.
Guest:That's life, isn't it?
Guest:So I was going to write on Pynchon.
Guest:uh, James Merrill, the poet, uh, Robertson Davies, the Canadian author, um, Ishmael Reed, an African-American author and Norman Mailer.
Guest:So I had those five that I was going to write about.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:Basically, the idea behind that one was that throughout human history, there's been this notion of magic, but magic has always been like black magic and white magic.
Guest:There's a sense in which there's some magic that you shouldn't do, like Faustus.
Guest:It's a very heavy strain.
Marc:Don't conjure up the devil and ask him for a favor.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But magic also is a primitive technology.
Guest:It's a way in stories, the way people made shit work, like they're flying in magic.
Guest:Now we have technology that does magical things.
Guest:But we don't discuss technology in terms of bad and good, in terms of moral and immoral.
Guest:So I was saying that these writers are kind of imbuing technological fields with magical thoughts.
Guest:And that they're saying just because we can do it, they're not saying it, they're authors, but just because we can do something.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Does that mean that we should?
Marc:Those conversations are definitely happening now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:That was how many years ago was I thinking of writing?
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:If you'd only finished it, you could be a professor now.
Yeah.
Marc:It'd just be a kind of weird, tenured, broke professor having this conversation with a student and sitting in your office wondering why you never pursued acting.
Marc:I should have been an actor.
Marc:So what was the moment where you bail on your dissertation to act?
Marc:What was the opportunity around that?
Marc:How did you just all of a sudden switch tracks?
Marc:Were you taking classes?
Marc:Did you get a part out of nowhere?
Guest:All good questions.
Guest:I'm kind of zeroing in on the truth.
Guest:I think that...
Guest:I knew that I wanted to write, which is what you asked and it's true.
Guest:I knew that that's what I wanted to do.
Guest:And I also knew that I'd written poetry up until that point mostly, I hadn't really written prose.
Marc:Yeah, I used to do that.
Marc:I was an English major.
Marc:I wrote some poetry.
Marc:Again, how do you feel about that?
Marc:It seems like that's the easier route.
Marc:Oh, it's easy?
Marc:Well, it's not that it's easy.
Marc:It's just like, who's going to tell you it's no good?
Marc:It's just two ways to go with it.
Marc:Either that's people who don't really read poetry.
Marc:I guess what I'm saying is that in order for poetry to be judged properly, it's a very small world.
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:I've heard it said that poetry is wonderful because you can't make any money at it.
Guest:That's why poetry is wonderful.
Marc:Yeah, I still enjoy reading a few poems here and there because I've been going through my books.
Marc:But you read poetry and what makes it land, what makes it not land is...
Marc:You got a wide, a wide berth there.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:What I'm saying is that if you were the guy that doesn't like doing research, it seems to me that it would make sense that like why, you know, I can knock out a poem.
Marc:You could just kind of work a poem like a math equation.
Marc:You know, you don't have to spend your entire life writing 400 pages.
Guest:Well, it's an insulated world that you're doing.
Guest:A poem, you know, it will give you the terms in which it wants to be read.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Each poem.
Marc:Do you look back at your poetry and you're okay with it or do you sort of not?
Guest:It's decent.
Guest:Like the poetry itself is okay.
Guest:My mind was young.
Guest:Right.
Guest:the things that i'm feeling and thinking are you know yeah right you look at that like if only that kid knew what he was getting exactly he's got away with words but he's got nothing to say yeah so okay so then you're you're a poet and i was thinking i was thinking well that's super lonely um
Guest:And prose, wow, that seems even more lonely because you really got to sit your ass down and work through that stuff.
Guest:So I thought, okay, the only way that I can be out in the world, which is what I was interested in being, was to write plays.
Guest:So I thought, I'll go in the theater.
Guest:I'll write plays and then...
Guest:And then I thought, well, if I'm going to write plays, then I should probably learn something about acting.
Guest:If I'm going to write words for actors to say, I should probably think, I should probably know something about what that is.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:So you took a class?
Guest:Yeah, I did take a class.
Guest:It was also the same time when I was told I needed to make like $3,000 for the summer for my graduate lifestyle, my fancy graduate lifestyle.
Guest:And a buddy of mine who was an actor said, you can make three grand doing a commercial.
Guest:And I was like, OK, I'll do that.
Guest:He said, well, you've got to meet my agent.
Guest:I met the agent, and she said, yeah, I'll send you on commercial auditions, but if you want to go on TV, theatrical, and movie auditions, you'll have to get into class.
Guest:And I was like, all right, I'm not doing anything this summer.
Marc:I don't want to work on my dissertation.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So did you get a commercial?
Guest:I got a commercial the last day of summer.
Marc:Oh, so all that, you put the whole summer work in, then you nailed it.
Marc:What commercial, what was it for?
Guest:It was for Lohenbrow beer.
Marc:Was that what instilled a love for acting in you?
Guest:Oh, no, not at all.
Guest:I remember I kind of choked on it.
Guest:I didn't have a good day.
Guest:I didn't have a good day at work.
Guest:I wasn't ready for that pressure.
Marc:And what did the class teach you?
Marc:Was it a good class?
Marc:Did you take it at Yale?
Guest:I didn't take it at Yale.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I was kind of schizophrenic at that point because I was teaching.
Guest:I also had to teach at Yale while I was a graduate student.
Yeah.
Guest:um i would come into new york and go to class i kept that going i'd ride my bicycle to the train station in new haven get my bike on the train take it to penn station ride around new york get back on and go it was kind of a it was cool graduate student kind of vibe i i found this amazing class i say amazing because it was strasburg technique which is like known as the method i guess sure call it and it was very um
Guest:you know nothing to do with the words i you know my conception of what acting was when i first thought about it or began was like oh i gotta figure out like smart ways to say these things right but this was all about you know what are you feeling and what's behind the words and the words don't matter yeah at all who taught it woman named marsha haufrecht she was wonderful um and uh you know these classes would just go on forever you know people would we put on these scenes yeah
Guest:And Marsha would stop them in the middle and she'd make you relax and do like sense memory stuff.
Guest:So you'd watch a scene that was a five minute scene, but it would be two hours watching these people struggle through.
Marc:Yeah, I've been in those where people there's a lot of crying involved.
Marc:yeah a lot of crap a lot of blaming of the father yes sure yeah that well that is the you know that is the complaint of civilization at this point yeah the patriarchy it all up they've it all up yeah it's been it's been dad's fault since the beginning of time that's a poem i'm working on um
Guest:so so so apparently that class but it sunk in you got it you understand what makes acting acting and and and did you write the plays once you kind of got a sense one play i wrote one play i've written you know screenplays teleplays things like that since but um i just wrote one play while i was at you know i did and never put it on and it was it's not good no and i'll say this you know coming from
Guest:my background in literature and in like the,
Guest:the halls of literary criticism academe you know these kinds of things i was not you know i didn't read for plot you know but but um movies and stories that we film are plot yeah plot i had a disdain for plot i was like you know when i'm going to talk about a book i'm not going to talk about what happens what are you going to talk about magic to talk about
Guest:I'm going to talk about the structural aspect of it.
Guest:I'm going to talk about the political aspect of it.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:The meaning.
Guest:Or the meaning that the author didn't even know.
Guest:That's where we were at that point, blindness and insight.
Guest:You write around exactly what you're blind to and the critic who's empowered now to find out
Guest:through your blindness to your own stuff, what exactly you were actually trying to say.
Marc:So is this, is this Bloom's influence?
Guest:Oh, that's not Bloom.
Guest:That's Paul DeMann and people that came after him.
Guest:Bloom was much more of a humanist.
Marc:So who are these guys, these other guys, Paul DeMann?
Marc:I don't know him.
Guest:Shit.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Not Diderot.
Guest:Well, people at Lacan, Foucault, going back to Nietzsche.
Marc:Were you thinking Derrida?
Guest:Yes, I was thinking Derrida.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Boom.
Guest:It's fun to say.
Guest:Isn't that a good word to say?
Marc:Good word to say.
Marc:I have no idea what it means.
Marc:Just drop it.
Guest:Derrida.
Guest:Also, I'll say this.
Guest:What I wanted to say was becoming an actor, especially getting the X-Files
Guest:which, you know, it's an action show.
Guest:It's a plot show.
Marc:that really i needed to be exposed to that as a writer actually i needed to and as an actor i needed to see that what happens is what draws people in it's great because you got to see it 210 times and a couple of movies worth yeah exactly plenty of plot for you to understand yep yep but that wasn't the first role though i mean you kind of kicked around a little bit didn't you yeah yeah i uh
Guest:I was on Twin Peaks.
Guest:I did a movie called The Rapture with Michael.
Marc:I was going to talk to you about that because I love that fucking movie.
Marc:I like Michael Tolkien movies a lot and I miss them.
Marc:I haven't seen a Michael Tolkien movie in a long time.
Guest:Michael wrote the miniseries that Ben Stiller did last year.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The one with Benicio and the Arquette.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I'm at that age where I'm like, I know it's an Arquette.
Marc:And I know I've interviewed her.
Guest:But Michael's a great writer.
Guest:You know, I wrote The Player.
Marc:I know, The Player.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:But that rapture with the – what's that guy's name, the blonde guy who played the sheriff or the cop in that movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Will Patton.
Guest:Will Patton.
Guest:See, together we can get there.
Marc:Yeah, I always liked that guy, too.
Marc:But that was an intense movie because it dealt with such a big idea.
Marc:It literally dealt with the rapture, the Christian rapture.
Marc:And it's such a small movie.
Marc:And you're really talking about the end of the world and the end of that movie where it's just that sound and you've got to buy it.
Marc:The poetry of the thing was very it worked.
Marc:You know, I was I loved that movie.
Marc:It had an impact on me.
Guest:Well, me too.
Guest:When I was finished with this book, Truly Like Lightning, I realized that I had been influenced by the rapture long, long ago because I was dealing with similar themes in this and I actually called Michael up or I emailed him and I said, hey, I just finished this novel.
Guest:Would you care to read it?
Guest:I really think that the rapture kind of
Guest:marinated in me all these years and when i was writing it i had no not even one conscious thought about the rapture but i realize now and i i sent it to michael and he actually blurbed it for me he's written a nice blurb for me on the book how's he holding up he must be an older guy now
Guest:Yeah, he's good.
Guest:I think he's good.
Guest:I haven't seen him, but his emails are sharp.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:And then, all right, so Twin Peaks, you did a few episodes of that.
Guest:I did a movie called Ruby, which was about Jack Ruby.
Guest:The Jack Ruby movie.
Guest:Yeah, I played J.D.
Guest:Tippett, the officer who Oswald shot or was shot in Dallas the same day as Kennedy was shot.
Marc:See, that would have been the perfect moment to, from the recognition from that, you should have put up your dad's play.
Yeah.
Guest:Now you sound like him.
Guest:My dad said to me once, and he said, you were talking about dads before, the fucking patriarchy and all that, but he said, I'm giving you the greatest gift a father could ever give his son.
Guest:I'm not very successful.
Marc:You can win.
Marc:yeah that's true that's kind of there's a wisdom to that right you're not going to fight that fight no i don't i don't think i ever did well i mean it seems like you know from the way you talk about him you know specifically the fact that he was
Marc:Outside of not understanding his work, you understood that he was a creative guy and a funny guy and a guy that had a political point of view and, you know, something to say and some balls, you know, and those are all the good things.
Marc:Not like, you know, we could have, you know, could have been a schmata hustler and made a billion dollars selling garbage clothing.
Marc:You know, you got lucky.
Guest:Yeah, I knew.
Guest:I also knew that he was frustrated.
Guest:I also knew that he considered himself a novelist and he.
Guest:He did publish his first novel when he was 73, two years before he died.
Guest:And I published my first novel when it was 55.
Guest:So I guess I did win at least the chronological race.
Guest:But we're both late, and we both kind of ran from...
Guest:Well, I don't think he ran from it.
Guest:I think he had to make, you know, he had to support a family, you know, and.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it sounds like he got a lot, a lot done.
Marc:So you got a good work ethic and a good.
Guest:My mom.
Guest:That's from my mom.
Guest:My mom is.
Guest:She's still around.
Guest:Yeah, she's 90, 90.
Guest:She'll be 91 in a couple of days.
Marc:And she's together?
Marc:Yeah, let's see.
Marc:Good, good.
Marc:So now the, like, I have to, like, so you get the X-Files.
Marc:I mean, you had no idea that that would be your life for a decade, did you?
Guest:Oh, hell no.
Guest:I mean, I thought it came my way.
Guest:And at that point, I shared the prejudice against television actors that was current during that time.
Guest:It was before the so-called golden age of television.
Guest:where we realized that, you know, actors are actors and they can exist in any medium.
Guest:But then it was like, Oh, if you're, if you're a TV actor, you're a shitty actor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I mean, partly it was X-Files ER, you know, these, these shows that were, or NYPD blue, especially, you know, shows that were very well acted, you know, but that was before that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I thought, but I needed money.
Guest:And I thought it was a really cool pilot.
Guest:And I thought, there's no way.
Guest:I wasn't interested in aliens.
Guest:And I just thought, there's no way.
Marc:How can this go on for very long?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I thought, okay, maybe we'll do...
Guest:Six.
Guest:If we're lucky, we'll do a season, but there's no way.
Guest:I'm really good at that stuff.
Guest:I should run a studio.
Guest:I really have a good mind for seeing what's going to hit.
Marc:It's so funny because it's not just the acting thing.
Marc:You stepped into a thing where it's not about TV acting or not TV acting.
Marc:It's that you stepped into a world that is going to have an eternal well of weird cult attention.
Marc:Like you, you know, it's almost like being on Star Trek.
Marc:I mean, for the rest of your life, you're going to deal with guys coming up to you going like, hey, you know, in that episode where.
Guest:It's the obituary line, you know, and yeah, I mean, make peace with that, you know, because I, I kind of, I struggled with that for a while, you know, but then I realized there's no way to outrun it because it is, it is.
Guest:one of the biggest shows of all time.
Guest:So you're not going to, you're not going to, you're not going to make a bigger show.
Guest:So I just feel lucky to have been on that show, you know?
Guest:And then at first it was like, okay, I've got to, I've got to compete with that.
Guest:I've got to somehow erase it, you know?
Guest:oh so you were conscious of that you're like yeah after 200 episodes but you so you have a good relationship with the fans oh absolutely but at the time maybe i didn't you know at the time i was like don't typecast me i can do other things i can do other things um and then i went you know and then i when i got off the show i was you know i wanted to do movies and i did a few but i really wanted to do comedy and i wasn't getting those roles in movies and that's when i i californication came my way and then
Guest:I had never thought about doing another TV show because the season of The Next Files was so onerous and debilitating, 25 one hour episodes running around in the cold at night.
Guest:And I was just like, no, never again.
Guest:I can't do that again.
Guest:And then cable came around.
Guest:It's like, oh, eight episodes.
Guest:That was like, whoa.
Marc:Yeah, why not?
Guest:You can do this.
Guest:And then California Case was really like adult comedy.
Guest:uh the kind of comedy that i wanted to do reminded me of like movies from the 70s yeah yeah yeah and uh so i was like oh yeah yeah i'll do that in a way that was like me pushing against you know moulder was sexless moulder never had a woman right you know and it was comedy which i which i really um i like the challenge of that what was your relationship with uh shandling i mean were you guys friends
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were just very, very good friends.
Marc:Cause I, I love those episodes with him and you know, I was, you know, I went to that memorial service.
Marc:I interviewed him here and he was like such a amazing, he told me about you years and years ago.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:Tell me about your, you know, did you start with a radio show or did you start with a podcast?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Well, I had a radio show many years ago on Air America.
Guest:And then I think he knew you from that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then we did a podcast together and we had a nice time.
Marc:And, you know, he was he was he was a special person.
Guest:He was special to me.
Guest:You know, I miss him daily.
Guest:It's weird to say.
Guest:But one year when I was finishing up the X-Files, like the third year, I guess, I said to my agents that I didn't have the energy to go do a movie in my short hiatus, which was like,
Guest:six or seven weeks but i did want to do um saturday night live and i did want to do uh the larry sanders show because i was i loved it i would get the vcr tape sent up to vancouver oh yeah when that music would come on i'd just get excited and uh they came back and said oh yeah gary loves you he wants he wants you to do it and uh so i came i was back in la and drove down to radford where they shot it
Guest:And I came in and I was watching Gary do like a talk show segment.
Guest:I was sitting really close and he looked at me, walked behind me, clear to me he had no fucking clue who I was.
Guest:Gary did not love me in any way.
Guest:And Gary did not know me.
Guest:And then came time to shoot our first scene.
Guest:And it's a scene in which I'm me, obviously, and I'm a guest on the show, but Bill Cosby has...
Guest:talked so much that my spot has been pushed.
Guest:And I pull a fucking hissy fit.
Guest:That's the idea.
Guest:Showbiz story.
Guest:So we do one take in the hallway.
Guest:Todd Holland, the director, good guy, good director.
Guest:And they cut.
Guest:And Gary looks at me and he goes, how old are you?
Guest:And I said, 32.
Guest:And he goes, what took you so long?
Guest:And I was like, to this day, it's like, you know, it's one of those moments that I treasure in my entire life, not just in my friendship with Gary.
Guest:It's just like, to me, that was such a validation of...
Guest:what I was trying to do, my comedy, whatever.
Guest:It was just like from him, that was worth everything.
Marc:And that's when he became friends on his show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he said, you play basketball.
Guest:And I said, yeah.
Guest:So we'll have a game every, uh, Sunday, my house.
Guest:Why don't you come by and play?
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:came by and played a few times.
Guest:And then that's when I started talking about this coming back on and talking about like the man crush and all that stuff about where, you know, I want to come back on and kind of have a crush on him, but it wasn't homosexual crushes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Those are funny episodes.
Marc:That was a famous basketball game.
Marc:You must have seen a lot of people over there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was very funny basketball game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's hard, man.
Marc:It's hard when people go, you know, it is.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And like I said, but he's not, you know, to me, he's not.
Guest:It's weird because people do go.
Guest:I was just thinking today, you know, I rarely think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg anymore, and it's not been long that she's dead.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she wasn't my friend, but she was something that I thought about, someone that I thought about.
Marc:Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah.
Marc:I mean, how much did you think about her when she was alive, honestly?
Guest:Well, a lot for somebody that I didn't know, you know?
Guest:And I just feel like she's gone.
Guest:And I don't feel that way about Gary, oddly.
Marc:It took me a long time to really fully appreciate him.
Marc:Because I used to see him when I was a doorman at the comedy store in the 80s, and I'd see him a few times.
Marc:But he didn't go there that often.
Marc:But it took me a long time to really sort of appreciate the uniqueness of his voice, you know, of how he did it, you know, in history.
Marc:You know, and certainly talking to him was one way.
Marc:And then, you know, talking to Judd and then, you know, posthumously, you know, really sort of.
Marc:And I watched Larry Sanders and everything.
Marc:But, you know, after he passed away and hearing to see people talking about him and Kevin Nealon and every like.
Marc:I love Kevin.
Marc:Oh, God, he was so fucking funny at that memorial service.
Guest:I saw I saw a recording.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I mean, yeah.
Marc:But but, yeah, you know, just really appreciating the way he handled life and what his struggle was.
Marc:I think Judd definitely.
Marc:you know did did a beautiful job with that documentary oh in the book he really kind of locked in he really loved uh gary a lot so where do you like in terms of like i know i listen to some music too i mean when you like are you just like a workaholic or wait before we get to that let's talk about like i'm a recovery guy and i know you had your issues now did the californication did that did you become that guy or how did it happen
Guest:No, no, not at all.
Guest:That was something... I don't really talk about it.
Guest:I don't like to talk about it because I don't like to give it kind of currency.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But...
Guest:But I was trying to save my marriage, you know?
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it almost happened, right?
Marc:You almost saved it.
Marc:You tried.
Guest:I almost saved it.
Guest:I almost saved it.
Marc:Are you guys, do you get together?
Marc:Are you okay with each other in terms of things with the kids and everything?
Marc:Fantastic.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Fantastic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I think she's great.
Marc:She's wonderful.
Marc:Okay, well, then moving on from that, what's the music thing?
Marc:Do you play an instrument or you just write songs and you've got a band?
Guest:I play a little guitar.
Guest:I play enough guitar to throw chords together.
Guest:I can hear melodies, which is weird because I never could sing.
Guest:I don't have what they call an instrument.
Guest:But I can hear melodies and I can more and more approximate them with my voice and I can certainly write lyrics.
Guest:So I have a band and
Guest:you know, I'll like come up with little demos on my garage band and just play guitar under, under melodies and lyrics.
Marc:And then we work on it.
Marc:And it's just a passion project.
Marc:You don't have any expectations.
Guest:I never had any expectations for it.
Guest:I mean, the fact that I've, you've done three, right.
Marc:You got a new record coming out.
Marc:You got a novel coming out and you got this new record coming out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's all startling to me, you know, especially because like I mentioned, in terms of my voice, uh,
Guest:You know, I was actually someone, you know, they told, you know, they said, you know, you want it.
Guest:You just mouth the lyrics, you know, you just, you know, in church or whatever.
Guest:But I did go out for the choir when I was probably 11 years old because they got paid.
Guest:I went to a school called Grace Church School in Manhattan.
Marc:Oh, that's a famous school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some, uh, my mom was a teacher there many, many years and my friends, they, they, they could, who could sing, they were in the choir and they got paid, you know, like a few dollars a month, but not only a few dollars a month was forget it for me.
Guest:And it was like, that was all I needed.
Guest:I never could imagine like, what would I do with $4?
Guest:I didn't know I could get an album or I could save up and get those Adidas.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So,
Guest:I was like, yeah, I'm going to be in the choir.
Guest:And not only that, but when the church pays you.
Marc:For the money, man.
Guest:Yeah, for the money.
Guest:I don't know if you know this, but when the church pays you, you probably don't know that being a Jew.
Guest:You don't know that when the church pays you, they cut you a big check, like a golf tournament check.
Guest:It's like, it's only for $4.
Guest:But it's huge.
Guest:It's the size of you.
Guest:I was like, I want one of those big checks.
Yeah.
Guest:So I auditioned for the choir, and you have to audition in front of the whole choir, all my buddies.
Guest:And the choir master sat at the piano, and he said, okay, I'm going to play a note, and I want you to sing the note after it.
Guest:And I heard literally, okay, I'm going to try to sing the note after the note he plays.
Guest:Not singing that note, the one that comes next.
Marc:That's how I heard it.
Guest:So he'd be like, boom.
Guest:And I'd be like, boom.
Guest:He'd be like, boom.
Guest:And I'd be like, boom.
Guest:And I just remember looking around the room and people were like, oh, my God, like not only tone deaf, but in a really weird way.
Guest:So that was my relationship to my singing voice until I started writing a song.
Marc:You were misunderstood.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And what do you have like a record deal or you just do it?
Marc:You just self-produce it?
Guest:Yeah, self-produce.
Guest:But, you know, we've had like three or four tours.
Guest:I've played like 3,000 seat places.
Guest:You know, pretty big, huge venues for me.
Marc:But like, are there a lot of people waiting for after the show so they can ask you, ask file questions?
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, part of the shame of music now is, you know, there's like the meet and greet.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a lot of that stuff, a lot of signing of the harms.
Marc:A lot of excited nerds.
Marc:Well, you said it.
Guest:I didn't say it.
Marc:But how come, like, let me ask you this.
Marc:So when he first started doing X-Files and the stigma of, you know, wanting to be a movie actor and then taking the TV gig.
Guest:Double stigma, though, because also sci-fi couldn't be cheesier.
Guest:So it's not just TV.
Guest:Sci-fi triple stigma.
Guest:It's Fox.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Not even a network at that point.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So it's like you put a lot of thought into self-flagellation at that point.
Marc:So but like what about the stigma of the actor fucking playing rock music?
Guest:Yeah, well, if I want to do it, that's not going to get in my way.
Guest:I mean, if you're going to yell that at me all the time, it's going to hurt my feelings, but it's not going to stop me.
Marc:Because you like doing it.
Guest:And I think I'm good.
Guest:I think I have something to say.
Guest:I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I had something to say.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, sure, I guess that's egotistical, but I think we all need that or else we wouldn't be sitting here on microphones talking like we're going to entertain or notify people.
Marc:I mean, I get that from you.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, just from knowing you from, you know, what certain things you do or your presence in the culture, I always thought like, well, that guy seems like he he's OK with himself.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I don't know about that.
Guest:But, you know, it's like, I guess I just keep on trying to express something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's a great thing to, I think, to realize, like, if you have talent and to move it around and to take all the risks you want to take with it, it's a rare thing.
Marc:Not everybody has it.
Marc:So why not see what you can do with it?
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:I mean, it's like, for me...
Guest:It's just, I have ideas or I have notions or I have impulses and
Guest:they take different forms at this point in my life.
Guest:And I feel very, almost lucky to be able to pursue them that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, but also it's, you know, it's not like I'm just sitting around like having this great time, you know, it's hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:That novel, you, you looked at it, you pick up the, pick up the weight of it.
Guest:I mean, it's big book.
Guest:I mean, business.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I mean, business.
Guest:No, I can take it seriously.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, that's, that would be, that would be my,
Guest:My weakness, probably.
Marc:You want to be taken seriously.
Guest:I want that book to be taken seriously.
Marc:You don't want people to go like, the guy from the X-Files wrote a book, I guess.
Marc:That's what they're going to say.
Marc:The guy from the X-Files made a record.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I'm sorry to get a laugh out of it.
Marc:But yeah, I guess that is the deal that you made with the devil.
Marc:When I took that big check.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That is the magic.
Marc:That is the Faustian contract.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:That's the magic and technology right there.
Guest:And I can't go back on that deal, nor do I want to.
Guest:And that is the way it goes.
Guest:And I just need to, in my mind, I keep on doing the work and I hope and believe that eventually people will see that I'm in business.
Marc:Well, I hope so too.
Marc:And I didn't not read the book out of disrespect or no desire.
Marc:I just didn't make the time, but I have it and I will.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And it was great talking to you, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:It was nice to meet you too.
Thank you.
Marc:There you go, folks.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What an enjoyable conversation.
Marc:The new book, Truly Like Lightning, comes out tomorrow, and you can check out his music.
Marc:He's got a new album coming out.
Marc:There's a single called Layin' on the Tracks.
Marc:You can check out on YouTube.
Marc:You can watch all the X-Files.
Marc:If you haven't seen the X-Files, spend the rest of your life watching them.
Marc:There's enough of them.
Marc:All right, I'm putting my gum back in my mouth, and I'm going to play some guitar for you.
Guest:guitar solo
Guest:guitar solo
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives in Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:and cat angels everywhere in secret underwear