Episode 1258 - Zoe Lister-Jones

Episode 1258 • Released September 2, 2021 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:11Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuck sticks?

00:00:15Marc:What's happening?

00:00:15Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:17Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:19Marc:WTF?

00:00:19Marc:It's called.

00:00:21Marc:How's it going?

00:00:22Marc:These shows that you're listening to now were done last week because we needed to get this week done.

00:00:30Marc:Because my producer, Brendan, is taking some R&R with the fam, as they say, when you have a fam and take R&R.

00:00:39Marc:Me, I don't know from that.

00:00:41Marc:But so this is actually occurring the day after I played Largo with my band, the unnamed band, because I didn't want to name them out of a sense of insecurity.

00:00:52Marc:I just wanted to play.

00:00:53Marc:And many of you knew about the lead up and what was at stake.

00:00:59Marc:It's very interesting what was at stake, which was, as I explained it to you all a while back, it was the trauma, the trauma of failure, the trauma of failure in front of people, which, oddly, I made my life.

00:01:17Marc:As I talked to you weeks before the performance about the final show at music camp, where I crapped out.

00:01:29Marc:with a bunch of guys who were wasted.

00:01:31Marc:I don't need to recap the story.

00:01:33Marc:The movement towards performing on stage in the capacity that I did last night, which would have been last week for you listening now, was to just sort of own it, be the band leader, do the singing, pick the songs, and do it with enough confidence to where I wasn't falling into myself on stage.

00:01:53Marc:I wasn't trying to disappear as I perform on stage.

00:01:58Marc:That's that's some the magic of insecurity is not entertaining, which means if you're up there trying to do a show of any kind, but inside you're like, I don't want to be here.

00:02:10Marc:I'm going to check out.

00:02:11Marc:I'm going to leave my body here and and see if they can see that magic.

00:02:16Marc:Of course, they can see it.

00:02:18Marc:You'll fail because you've left.

00:02:19Marc:You've left your body.

00:02:21Marc:It's not impressive.

00:02:22Marc:I don't even think it would be impressive if you set it up like that.

00:02:24Marc:If you said, now I'm going to leave my body and let my empty machine perform for you while I go elsewhere and feel bad about what I dragged that machine through.

00:02:37Marc:So I don't know if you'll see this magic, but it's happening.

00:02:41Marc:If you presented it like that, people would be like, oh, this sounds like it should be good.

00:02:45Marc:It's not good.

00:02:46Marc:It's not.

00:02:48Marc:It's sad.

00:02:49Marc:And it's it's not entertainment.

00:02:52Marc:So ultimately, the attempt was to.

00:02:57Marc:at least immerse myself in the songs and the playing.

00:02:59Marc:At least have enough belief in my singing and my playing to do it with this group of guys that I've chosen to support me in this.

00:03:08Marc:One of them being Jimmy Vivino, who was gonna play a couple songs, but then ended up playing all the songs.

00:03:13Marc:He's part of the band and was into it.

00:03:14Marc:So I'm playing with Jimmy Vivino, who you know from being Conan's band leader, who showed me so many licks over the years and let me use so many guitars and let me, like a real hero of mine, real honor to play with him in a way.

00:03:26Marc:that I hadn't before, which was as an equal.

00:03:29Marc:Obviously, I'm not.

00:03:30Marc:I just play what I play.

00:03:32Marc:And I'm a little jolty and choppy and choky up there.

00:03:35Marc:But I think that'll kind of ease up.

00:03:38Marc:It was a good time.

00:03:38Marc:And I definitely transcended the trauma.

00:03:43Marc:I definitely reconfigured it in my mind.

00:03:47Marc:I did active sound therapy on a sound-based trauma.

00:03:53Marc:An out of tune sound based trauma.

00:03:58Marc:On the show today, I talked to Zoe Lister Jones.

00:04:01Marc:She came up when when I was actually talking to Helen Hunt.

00:04:06Marc:Helen, if you remember, Helen said she had just shot a movie directed by Zoe and that she was an interesting person who would make it for a good guest.

00:04:13Marc:And I watched a movie.

00:04:14Marc:The movie is How It Ends, which came out earlier this summer, is now available to buy or rent on digital platforms.

00:04:20Marc:She's an actor who was a regular on the series Delocated.

00:04:24Marc:Whitney, the new girl.

00:04:25Marc:She's been in movies like the other guys.

00:04:27Marc:She directed two other features, Band-Aid and The Craft Legacy.

00:04:32Marc:And I thought, well, why don't I talk to this woman about her work?

00:04:38Marc:And she agreed.

00:04:40Marc:And it was very funny.

00:04:42Marc:I liked her.

00:04:43Marc:I think you'll enjoy it.

00:04:46Marc:So the songs.

00:04:47Marc:It was a great show.

00:04:49Marc:I had Laurie Kilmartin do comedy and Fahim Anwar, who I think is very funny.

00:04:54Marc:One of the funniest guys ever.

00:04:56Marc:he's like a young dude he's funny i always thought he was funny but now i think he's funnier i haven't felt this way about i haven't had the sort of a comedy man crush on uh any uh comics since uh probably bargetsy yeah and he's you know he's huge now so maybe maybe he'll become a big star and not talk to me maybe that's what what do i sound like i sound like uh like a sad obsessed woman funny guy that's all i'm saying jesus christ back off back off

00:05:26Marc:Yeah, so basically the structure of the show was we got a blues going, got a little A blues going, a little shuffle to it.

00:05:35Marc:And the band went out there and they started that.

00:05:37Marc:I walked out, strapped on my guitar, did a little monologue setting up the evening.

00:05:42Marc:A little bit of that jump blues feel behind me, kind of riffing away, old school.

00:05:46Marc:Then I laid down some riffs.

00:05:48Marc:some relatively meaty blues riffs, though it's weird that I don't play with people often.

00:05:53Marc:And so the difference in confidence between me kind of really kind of locking in here in the garage and me on stage with somebody just felt a little jolty, a little tentative.

00:06:04Marc:I'd like to get past that.

00:06:05Marc:See, this is the this is the big deciding thing for me is that, OK, I've done it.

00:06:09Marc:Now, do I just put it behind me and say, like, that's done or do I try to get better at it?

00:06:13Marc:Does the world need another, you know, cranky Jewish middle aged white guy playing guitar with his friends publicly?

00:06:20Marc:No.

00:06:21Marc:Am I trying to be a professional musician?

00:06:23Marc:No.

00:06:23Marc:Do I think I'm good enough to be entertaining alongside my comedy?

00:06:27Marc:I think so.

00:06:28Marc:I think so.

00:06:29Marc:Do I think I could get better?

00:06:30Marc:Yes.

00:06:30Marc:Am I going to judge myself against that?

00:06:32Marc:People who are much better than me and use that to beat myself up with?

00:06:35Marc:Probably.

00:06:36Marc:Probably going to do a little of that.

00:06:37Marc:Was I happy with what I did?

00:06:39Marc:I was.

00:06:40Marc:So we did that.

00:06:41Marc:We did The Blues and we went into The Spaceman 3.

00:06:45Marc:I Walk With Jesus.

00:06:46Marc:Then Lori did some very funny dark humor.

00:06:48Marc:Then I came back.

00:06:49Marc:We did What Goes On by The Velvet Underground.

00:06:52Marc:We did The Stroll by The Diamonds.

00:06:54Marc:Then Fahim did some work up there, some funny work.

00:06:58Marc:Then I came back.

00:07:00Marc:We did ISIS.

00:07:02Marc:Yeah, we did.

00:07:04Marc:We did ISIS by Bob Dylan.

00:07:06Marc:That's where I might have made a mistake in Judgment.

00:07:11Marc:Very long song, about 13 verses, very dirgy, kind of a late mid period Dylan piece from the Desire album, which is one of my favorite songs in quite a story, but not a Dylan song that most people know.

00:07:24Marc:So I went into a dirgy 13 verse Dylan song that most people don't know, you know, three quarters of the way through the show.

00:07:32Marc:Not not a great choice.

00:07:34Marc:in terms of my ability to get through it without going like, wow, this is going on for a while.

00:07:39Marc:Sorry.

00:07:40Marc:Didn't mean to drag you through this.

00:07:41Marc:Couldn't muster up the small amount of confidence I had for the evening and apply it to getting through ISIS without making funny comments at how long it was.

00:07:53Marc:And it's such a great song.

00:07:54Marc:Mad that I ruined it.

00:07:55Marc:Then after ISIS, I did some comedy.

00:07:57Marc:Then we came back.

00:07:58Marc:We did Broke Down Palace.

00:08:00Marc:It was the day before Lynn Shelton's birthday, which was last Friday.

00:08:04Marc:I think that one of the reasons I did the show was for Lynn.

00:08:08Marc:She would have liked it.

00:08:10Marc:And I did Broke Down Palace.

00:08:12Marc:And I cried during rehearsal.

00:08:13Marc:Didn't cry the night of the show.

00:08:15Marc:But I did, like, sort of have a hard time remembering the words and chords.

00:08:19Marc:So I had to keep looking at it.

00:08:20Marc:But I think it was a defense mechanism against not crying during it.

00:08:24Marc:Then we kind of closed the show.

00:08:25Marc:Then we came back and we did Rolling and Tumbling, Muddy Water Song, which I believed in some weird way was necessary to know how to play your own.

00:08:32Marc:It's necessary to own that song to be a blues guy.

00:08:34Marc:So you got to do your version of it.

00:08:35Marc:And ours sort of sounded beef heart-ish.

00:08:38Marc:which Vivino pointed out.

00:08:41Marc:It kind of went into a beef heart direction, which I was like, great.

00:08:45Marc:Not only do I understand Muddy Waters, but finally understand beef heart, and you're right.

00:08:49Marc:That's what it sounds like.

00:08:50Marc:That's where we ended up.

00:08:51Marc:I was proud of it.

00:08:53Marc:Proud of it.

00:08:53Marc:Proud of the evening.

00:08:54Marc:It all went well.

00:08:56Marc:It went good.

00:08:58Marc:Fucking Dr. Bronner sent me all this goddamn chocolate, and they're making chocolate now, and it's so fucking good, and this isn't a paid plug.

00:09:06Marc:I just want to say that it's amazing, and go fuck yourself.

00:09:11Marc:You know, fuck the chocolate bars.

00:09:13Marc:I have like 40 of them.

00:09:15Marc:What am I going to do with that?

00:09:17Marc:I'm just going to eat them and get doughy and weird.

00:09:19Marc:It's going to lead to pasta.

00:09:21Marc:Fucking man, just shovel the coals into the shame engine, will you?

00:09:26Marc:I got to find the funny.

00:09:30Marc:That's a quotable.

00:09:31Marc:Let's put that on my gravestone when I die of fucking a clogged heart from pasta and chocolate.

00:09:38Marc:Shovel the coals into the shame engine.

00:09:40Marc:I got to find the funny.

00:09:42Marc:Is that what I said?

00:09:44Marc:I like it.

00:09:45Marc:I like it.

00:09:46Marc:Listen, Zoe Lister Jones is here.

00:09:50Marc:Her movie, How It Ends, is available to buy or rent on digital platforms.

00:09:53Marc:It's got Helen Hunt, Fred Armisen, Olivia Wilde, Nick Kroll, Bobby Lee, Whitney Cummings, Charlie Day, Paul Scheer, Bradley Whitford, and a bunch of other people you know and like, not including me.

00:10:07Marc:Wow.

00:10:09Marc:I just was not on her list.

00:10:10Marc:Why did I even have her on?

00:10:13Marc:This is me talking to Zoe Lister-Jones.

00:10:16Marc:Enjoy.

00:10:26Marc:So how often do you go to the dermatologist?

00:10:29Guest:I try to go every six months.

00:10:32Marc:It's been two years since I've been there.

00:10:34Marc:Oh, Mark.

00:10:35Marc:I had a basal cell on my face.

00:10:38Guest:You gotta go.

00:10:39Marc:I'm going Wednesday.

00:10:41Marc:Okay.

00:10:41Marc:But it didn't feel like that long.

00:10:42Marc:I guess COVID and whatever.

00:10:43Marc:Yeah.

00:10:44Marc:Time got weird.

00:10:46Guest:I've always been.

00:10:47Guest:I'm like, I'm a super hypochondriac, but I also don't go to the doctor enough.

00:10:53Guest:It's a dumb.

00:10:53Marc:What's enough?

00:10:54Marc:I go every year to the doctor.

00:10:56Guest:I don't know.

00:10:57Guest:Yeah, every year.

00:10:58Guest:But there was a two-year span that I didn't go to the dentist.

00:11:03Guest:That's not okay.

00:11:04Marc:My dentist retired.

00:11:05Marc:Okay.

00:11:06Marc:I don't know what to do about that either.

00:11:08Guest:You got to get a different one.

00:11:10Marc:I know.

00:11:11Marc:Yeah.

00:11:12Marc:But I mean, how do you... Just the idea of trying to find a dentist is... And I have money.

00:11:18Marc:Yeah.

00:11:18Marc:But the idea of looking for one that's good, I never think I get the good one ever of anything.

00:11:23Guest:No.

00:11:24Marc:Do you?

00:11:25No.

00:11:25Guest:No, in fact, I was wondering if I was cursed the other day with just like a terrible... I have terrible luck in the service industry in general.

00:11:33Marc:What was that?

00:11:33Marc:What brought that on?

00:11:35Guest:This is a really like bougie... This is going to be great.

00:11:40Marc:It's going to be this pathetic display of time in your brain.

00:11:45Marc:What?

00:11:46Guest:Wait, no, we're...

00:11:47Guest:Yeah, well- Bad luck service industry.

00:11:50Guest:I had a really bad massage.

00:11:54Marc:This is a really good way to start off.

00:11:55Marc:No, but you don't know what the massage is.

00:11:58Guest:You never know, and I just feel like I always, yeah, I just always strike out.

00:12:04Marc:With massages or in general?

00:12:05Guest:With massages, specifically, and then also-

00:12:09Marc:How often do you get massages?

00:12:11Marc:Because people tell me like, you should do it regularly.

00:12:13Marc:Again, I'm not bragging, but I could afford to have a massage, maybe even once a month.

00:12:18Marc:But the idea of just like the touching.

00:12:22Guest:You don't like that?

00:12:23Marc:It's okay.

00:12:24Marc:No, I don't mind it.

00:12:25Marc:I trust the massage person.

00:12:27Marc:And I don't even care, male, female, doesn't matter.

00:12:30Marc:But you better do something.

00:12:32Guest:Well, yeah, that's the whole point.

00:12:35Guest:I had been traveling a lot for work.

00:12:38Marc:For what, the movie?

00:12:38Guest:Yeah, and then I just shot this other movie in Montreal.

00:12:43Guest:And so my body was like, I just needed some sort of body work.

00:12:47Marc:Too much plane action?

00:12:49Guest:Too much plane action.

00:12:50Guest:And then my therapist said that I needed to get a massage.

00:12:55Guest:It's called a polarity massage that integrates your masculine and feminine energy.

00:12:59Marc:Oh, wait, hold on.

00:13:00Marc:Let me look that up.

00:13:03Marc:Is it under bullshit?

00:13:06Marc:A polarity myself?

00:13:07Marc:Boy, they figure out the angles, don't they?

00:13:10Marc:Wow.

00:13:11Marc:So is everything... I haven't gotten one yet, but I'll report back.

00:13:15Marc:Are you ready for that, though?

00:13:17Marc:It sounds like they're going to integrate the two sides.

00:13:19Guest:I'm looking for integration, yeah.

00:13:21Guest:Sort of a lifelong search.

00:13:23Marc:So wait, what movies you shoot in Montreal?

00:13:25Marc:You work a lot, huh?

00:13:27Guest:No, I don't know.

00:13:31Guest:Not enough.

00:13:32Guest:Really?

00:13:32Guest:Yeah, I'd like to work more.

00:13:34Guest:I shot Ari Aster's new movie.

00:13:38Guest:He directed Midsommar and Hereditary.

00:13:42Guest:So this was just acting, which was really nice.

00:13:45Marc:Yeah.

00:13:45Marc:Big part?

00:13:46Guest:No.

00:13:46Marc:Did you make choices?

00:13:48Guest:I did make choices, yeah.

00:13:50Guest:There's no small parts, only small choices.

00:13:55Marc:Is it choices?

00:13:56Marc:No, it's actors.

00:13:57Marc:It's actors, yeah.

00:13:59Marc:And was it a funny movie?

00:14:01Guest:He describes it as a four-hour nightmare comedy, which I think it's very funny.

00:14:06Marc:Wow.

00:14:06Marc:I bet you so many people who are listening to this are like, I'm in.

00:14:09Yeah.

00:14:09Guest:four hours it's i think it's so brilliant i think he's so brilliant and i i'm just like yeah i was so hype to be part of it yeah is it um weird yes okay yeah it's you like weird yeah i love weird did you grow up weird yeah

00:14:30Guest:Yeah.

00:14:33Guest:I grew up in Brooklyn.

00:14:35Marc:Before it was Brooklyn.

00:14:37Guest:Yeah.

00:14:37Guest:In the 80s.

00:14:38Marc:Like back when it was like reasonably priced.

00:14:41Guest:Yeah.

00:14:42Marc:And my parents.

00:14:43Marc:Did they own a whole brownstone?

00:14:44Guest:No.

00:14:44Guest:And this is like, yeah.

00:14:46Guest:My parents are both visual artists and they just, they would like move into the cool neighborhoods before they were cool, but they could never afford to buy anything.

00:14:55Guest:So we never got the upside of that.

00:14:57Marc:So they didn't even do the kind of like, we're here amongst the ruins.

00:15:02Marc:No.

00:15:03Marc:Making a life, but we own the block.

00:15:05Guest:No.

00:15:06Guest:Oh God, no.

00:15:06Guest:No.

00:15:07Guest:My dad has still never owned a home and my mom only bought her first home like in her 50s.

00:15:14Marc:Are they together?

00:15:15Guest:No.

00:15:17Marc:When did that happen?

00:15:18Guest:When I was nine.

00:15:20Marc:Early?

00:15:20Guest:Yeah.

00:15:21Marc:Huh.

00:15:22Marc:I think that's probably better.

00:15:24Marc:I've decided.

00:15:25Guest:Do you think so?

00:15:26Marc:Well, I mean, probably not for the kid in the sense that, you know, it's jarring.

00:15:31Marc:But like my parents split up when I was like 35.

00:15:34Marc:And I'm like, wow, the whole thing was a lie.

00:15:37Marc:You know, you know, it's you can handle it as an adult, but you're just sort of like, how long was whatever?

00:15:43Marc:I guess, you know, that's crazy.

00:15:46Guest:Did they appear happy to you?

00:15:48Marc:No, they're terrible.

00:15:49Guest:Right.

00:15:50Guest:Individually and together.

00:15:52Marc:I don't know.

00:15:52Marc:They're all right.

00:15:53Marc:They're just selfish people.

00:15:54Marc:That's what happens when you realize your parents are like, wow, just people with problems that I grew up with.

00:16:00Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:00Guest:I know.

00:16:01Guest:That revelation that your parents are human beings is just so devastating.

00:16:06Marc:It's just the worst.

00:16:07Marc:Yeah.

00:16:08Marc:When did it happen for you?

00:16:09Marc:Recently?

00:16:09Marc:Early.

00:16:10Guest:Early?

00:16:10Yeah, really early.

00:16:11Yeah.

00:16:11Guest:There was very little pretense or performance of normalcy.

00:16:17Marc:Well, they're artists, so what was the mediums?

00:16:22Guest:My mom is a video artist.

00:16:23Marc:You mean like Namjoon Paik?

00:16:25Guest:Kinda.

00:16:26Marc:She's stacking TVs?

00:16:27Guest:She doesn't stack those TVs, but hers is like a little more narrative than he's like super.

00:16:33Marc:So perhaps an installation of your mother's work would have a podium with just an old black and white TV set on it running.

00:16:43Guest:No, she doesn't do installations.

00:16:46Guest:Yeah, her pieces were like.

00:16:50Marc:Many screens, one screen.

00:16:52Guest:One screen, she did a lot around patriotism and propaganda.

00:16:57Guest:She's Canadian, so she was very interested in- Canadian?

00:17:00Marc:Yeah.

00:17:00Marc:Are you a dual citizen?

00:17:02Marc:I am.

00:17:03Marc:God damn it.

00:17:04Marc:Get out now.

00:17:06Marc:Just get out.

00:17:06Marc:Yeah.

00:17:09Marc:It's time.

00:17:09Marc:I know.

00:17:10Marc:I know.

00:17:10Marc:I think it's time.

00:17:11Guest:You do.

00:17:13Guest:You think it's now?

00:17:15Yeah.

00:17:15Marc:So you've put thought into this.

00:17:17Marc:I know that.

00:17:17Marc:How do we know when we're not saying, we can work with Hitler.

00:17:22Marc:How do we know when we've come to that juncture?

00:17:25Guest:Yeah.

00:17:26Guest:Well, it got really scary.

00:17:28Marc:Yes.

00:17:29Guest:Now it feels less scary.

00:17:31Marc:But still coming unraveled.

00:17:34Marc:It's definitely less scary, but something's not holding.

00:17:38Guest:No.

00:17:38Marc:And Jews are always in danger.

00:17:40Marc:Always.

00:17:41Marc:Always.

00:17:42Marc:And, you know, you can't.

00:17:43Marc:And the thing is, is the more you say it, the more we become annoying Jews to the people that don't like.

00:17:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:17:49Guest:Oh, my God.

00:17:50Marc:You know, there's really not that many of us.

00:17:52Marc:You know, there's really in the big picture, not that many Jews.

00:17:55Guest:It's funny because I feel that although the stereotype is that Jews run Hollywood, I am usually the only Jew in a cast.

00:18:07Marc:Is that true?

00:18:08Marc:I don't think they're talking about the actors when they're saying the Jews run Hollywood.

00:18:12Guest:That's true.

00:18:13Guest:But yeah.

00:18:15Guest:But it is sort of like odd, you know, like, yeah, it's just an interesting thing.

00:18:22Guest:Like there, I guess maybe, yeah, is there like a dearth of Jewish actors?

00:18:27Marc:No, there used to be.

00:18:28Marc:I mean, Jews, I think they were more popular in the 70s.

00:18:31Marc:Right.

00:18:32Marc:Like, I have this theory that once antidepressants became accepted and culturally kind of okay, the whole neurotic Jewish shtick kind of wore out.

00:18:44Oh, you think so?

00:18:46Yeah.

00:18:46Marc:It's a weird theory.

00:18:48Marc:That's interesting.

00:18:49Marc:I thought about it.

00:18:52Marc:It was really based on comedians.

00:18:55Marc:Because in the 70s, there were all Jews.

00:18:57Marc:There were some black guys and a few other ones, but there was a lot of Jews complaining about this or that.

00:19:02Marc:And then something happened in the 80s.

00:19:05Marc:Prozac.

00:19:06Marc:Yeah, I think it got to the point where people are like, you know, you can probably fix this.

00:19:11Marc:Whatever you're going through up there.

00:19:13Guest:Yeah.

00:19:14Guest:Probably stop kvetching about it.

00:19:15Marc:Because I feel that when I watch Richard Lewis.

00:19:17Marc:I'm like, still?

00:19:18Marc:Right.

00:19:19Marc:I mean, I love him.

00:19:21Marc:And he's hilarious.

00:19:22Marc:And I know it's an act to a degree, though he is in the moment.

00:19:26Marc:But it's sort of like nothing's resolved.

00:19:27Marc:I know.

00:19:28Marc:Resolve nothing.

00:19:29I know.

00:19:30Guest:But have you resolved anything?

00:19:33Marc:A few things.

00:19:33Guest:Oh, you have?

00:19:34Marc:Yeah.

00:19:35Marc:Until I spin out over a mole.

00:19:37Marc:Yeah, that's the thing.

00:19:38Guest:It's like it's never resolved.

00:19:40Guest:It's just an endless sort of cycle of panic.

00:19:43Marc:Yeah, but I'm getting older dread.

00:19:46Marc:Oh, big.

00:19:47Marc:I mean, I find that I'm not a depressive.

00:19:50Marc:You're not?

00:19:50Marc:No.

00:19:51Marc:Oh, wow.

00:19:51Marc:You?

00:19:52Marc:Yeah, of course.

00:19:53Marc:Come on.

00:19:54Marc:For real?

00:19:54Marc:Yeah.

00:19:55Marc:I don't know.

00:19:55Marc:Oh, that surprises you?

00:19:57Marc:No, it doesn't surprise me.

00:19:58Marc:I just, I question it.

00:20:00Marc:I question it.

00:20:01Guest:Oh, you think it's like too easy.

00:20:03Guest:It's like a humble brag.

00:20:05Marc:Yes.

00:20:06Marc:Oh, listen to the Jew lady.

00:20:11Marc:With her problems.

00:20:12Marc:That's so interesting.

00:20:14Marc:Yeah.

00:20:14Marc:But the massage didn't work, but you're going to get the polarity one.

00:20:18Guest:I think the polarity one's going to fix it.

00:20:20Marc:Yeah.

00:20:20Marc:Everything.

00:20:20Marc:Yeah.

00:20:21Marc:Panic, the dread, my indigestion.

00:20:23Marc:You're going to walk out of there Protestant.

00:20:25Guest:Yeah.

00:20:27Guest:It's going to rub that Jew right out of me.

00:20:29Marc:Yeah.

00:20:29Marc:There you go.

00:20:30Marc:Worked it all out.

00:20:31Marc:Cried a little bit.

00:20:32Marc:Not even hungry.

00:20:35Marc:No, because I find that dread, anxiety, panic, when taken to its logical highest pitch, just becomes something like depression.

00:20:51Marc:There's an overwhelming that happens.

00:20:53Guest:Yes.

00:20:54Guest:Yes.

00:20:54Guest:And then you get shut down.

00:20:55Marc:Right.

00:20:56Marc:But I think that's anxiety.

00:20:57Marc:I don't think that's depression.

00:20:59Guest:So you think I've been misdiagnosed?

00:21:03Marc:Let's call him or her.

00:21:05Marc:Who's the doctor?

00:21:07Guest:Yeah, no.

00:21:08Guest:Well, I think I have a combo platter of anxiety, overwhelm, and depression.

00:21:16Guest:Because there's also despair.

00:21:17Guest:That's normal.

00:21:19Guest:But despair can come from anxiety because you're like, well, it's all wrong.

00:21:24Marc:Yeah, but despair is reasonable.

00:21:26Guest:Well, sure, to live in this world without despair, you're a sociopath.

00:21:30Marc:Right, or religious.

00:21:32Marc:Right.

00:21:32Marc:Right?

00:21:34Marc:Or spiritual, which has its own problems.

00:21:37Marc:But I think despair is rational, and you just have to manage it.

00:21:42Guest:Yeah, it's just if you can, like...

00:21:44Guest:I struggled in quarantine, as so many people did, but like climbing, climbing out of the muck of despair.

00:21:51Marc:Well, yeah, but it was like, but at a certain point, well, you made a movie during it.

00:21:55Guest:Yeah.

00:21:56Marc:Which I thought was a good movie.

00:21:57Marc:That's why I'm talking to you.

00:21:58Guest:Oh, thanks.

00:21:59Marc:I wouldn't have talked to you.

00:22:01Marc:I would be like, who is that?

00:22:03Marc:Yeah.

00:22:05Marc:So you grew up with this, like, you know, with the video, with the editing?

00:22:09Marc:Yes.

00:22:09Marc:Mom's editing?

00:22:10Guest:Yeah.

00:22:10Marc:Do you have sister?

00:22:11Guest:No.

00:22:12Marc:Brother?

00:22:13Guest:No.

00:22:13Guest:Well, I have two half-sisters who are in Canada, but I was raised, like, as an only child in New York.

00:22:20Guest:So they're my dad's previous marriage.

00:22:22Marc:Oh, he's Canadian, too?

00:22:24Guest:No, but he...

00:22:26Guest:Now it's getting... He left the States because he was in the army and then he got called to Vietnam and he went to Canada.

00:22:35Marc:Draft dodger.

00:22:36Guest:No, he was a deserter because he was in the army.

00:22:38Marc:Oh, better, deserter.

00:22:40Guest:So he actually, he had a crazy, he has a crazy story.

00:22:43Marc:Do you think it saved his life?

00:22:44Guest:Yes, but he wanted to be an artist and so he asked to be stationed in New York because he thought that he could be an artist while being in the military.

00:22:53Marc:Where was he from?

00:22:55Guest:California.

00:22:57Guest:And then his job was to go knock on people's doors and tell them that...

00:23:02Guest:their husbands or brothers or sons were dead.

00:23:07Guest:So it was a brutal position.

00:23:12Marc:Jesus.

00:23:12Guest:Yeah.

00:23:13Guest:And so, I mean, it saved his life, but he had a pretty traumatic experience in the army.

00:23:20Marc:So he's sitting at an army building or base in the city, and they're sort of like, here's the list.

00:23:28Guest:Yeah.

00:23:29Marc:For today.

00:23:30Guest:Yeah, and then he'd have to go all over New York knocking on the doors.

00:23:33Guest:And he got punched in the face, got guns drawn on him.

00:23:36Marc:Like they didn't want to accept it.

00:23:38Guest:Yeah.

00:23:39Guest:Yeah.

00:23:40Guest:Wow.

00:23:40Guest:And he's an orphan.

00:23:42Guest:So, I mean, talk about like- An orphan?

00:23:44Guest:Yeah.

00:23:44Guest:Yeah, both his parents died by the time he was 14.

00:23:49Guest:So then to also be delivering that news to people, it's just a wild sort of trajectory of grief.

00:23:56Marc:So it wasn't combat he was running from, it was the daily onslaught of death announcements?

00:24:04Guest:Well, no, he ran from the combat because then he got called to go to Vietnam.

00:24:08Marc:How long did he stay in Canada?

00:24:11Guest:He stayed there for, I think he came back.

00:24:15Guest:I think he came to New York in like 77 or 78.

00:24:19Marc:When does your mom come into the picture?

00:24:21Guest:They met in Vancouver in British Columbia.

00:24:24Guest:Yeah.

00:24:25Guest:And she came into the picture.

00:24:27Marc:After he had the other two kids?

00:24:29Guest:Yeah.

00:24:31Guest:So he had, yeah.

00:24:33Guest:And then she moved to New York and he moved with her.

00:24:36Marc:Is he still underground?

00:24:38Marc:Do we have to vet this?

00:24:42Guest:No, he's not underground.

00:24:43Marc:Has he been vindicated or what's the word?

00:24:46Marc:Yeah.

00:24:47Guest:Well, so Carter pardoned all the draft dodgers, but he didn't pardon the deserters.

00:24:53Guest:And my mom likes to believe that it was her.

00:24:55Guest:She wrote a letter and was like, you're going to pardon the people who didn't even serve.

00:24:59Guest:You should pardon the people who served.

00:25:01Guest:And then he did.

00:25:02Guest:I don't think it was my mom's letter that did it, but we can.

00:25:04Guest:Sure.

00:25:05Marc:Let's say that it was.

00:25:08Marc:And is all this captured on a video art piece?

00:25:11Yeah.

00:25:11Guest:No, she never made a story about his.

00:25:13Guest:He wrote a screenplay about it that I think got optioned in the 70s, but then nothing ever came of it.

00:25:17Marc:Sounds like a good 70s movie.

00:25:18Marc:Yeah, totally.

00:25:19Marc:Like he just walks around telling people their family members are dead.

00:25:23Marc:Yeah.

00:25:24Marc:And then he he just the end is just him, you know, getting off the plane in Canada.

00:25:30Marc:Yeah.

00:25:30Marc:And then that's it.

00:25:31Guest:Yeah.

00:25:32Guest:Yeah.

00:25:32Guest:It writes itself.

00:25:33Marc:In 1972.

00:25:35Marc:Yeah.

00:25:36Guest:That would have been a studio movie in 1972.

00:25:39Guest:Yeah.

00:25:41Guest:But yeah.

00:25:41Guest:So then they met.

00:25:42Guest:So he's like a conceptual photographer.

00:25:45Guest:So he did a lot of like photograms and shit.

00:25:47Guest:Do you know what that is?

00:25:50Marc:Maybe.

00:25:51Guest:It's like projecting light through lenses onto photographic paper rather than snap and shoot.

00:26:00Marc:Right.

00:26:00Marc:I get it.

00:26:02Marc:But is it abstracts?

00:26:03Marc:Yeah.

00:26:04Marc:Oh, okay.

00:26:04Marc:So it's not like... I get it.

00:26:07Marc:So it's just sort of an extension of when you kind of put a comb...

00:26:12Marc:And a pliers and some other thing.

00:26:15Marc:Yes.

00:26:16Marc:A piece of photographic paper and then you expose it for a second and then you develop it and you're like, look, a man ray.

00:26:21Marc:Exactly.

00:26:23Marc:So it's different than that.

00:26:25Guest:Similar technique.

00:26:27Marc:Yeah.

00:26:27Marc:Color.

00:26:28Guest:uh he did he used some color paper he also he did a lot of like collage work and then him my mom collaborated on really cool stuff in the 70s too yeah and then they their relationship ended was it because of an argument over uh an abstract photograms um no so all that went on before you were even born so now it's just stories you hear

00:26:52Guest:Which part?

00:26:53Marc:Like their collaboration, the bulk of their... Because you weren't born, you were born later, right?

00:27:00Marc:Yeah.

00:27:01Guest:Yeah, I hear all those stories now.

00:27:02Guest:And of course, I've always been very interested in their dissolution.

00:27:07Guest:My dad moved down the block and I did a crazy thing when they split up, which was, I think I was worried about him.

00:27:13Marc:You lived in the street?

00:27:15Guest:Well, I decided to spend every other night with him, which is like a really...

00:27:20Marc:But you just walked down there?

00:27:22Guest:I did, but it was like, yeah, it was just a strange.

00:27:26Marc:It is weird.

00:27:28Guest:Yeah.

00:27:28Marc:Did he appreciate it?

00:27:29Guest:I'm not sure.

00:27:30Guest:I think I was just like, I sort of went into like parent mode.

00:27:34Guest:Like I was worried about him.

00:27:36Marc:Well, yeah, well, this sort of like, is this where it starts then?

00:27:39Marc:The obsession with the codependency business?

00:27:42Marc:100%.

00:27:42Guest:Yeah, you got it.

00:27:45Marc:Didn't you do like, isn't most of your work about that?

00:27:47Guest:Yes, right.

00:27:48Guest:Yeah.

00:27:49Guest:It's a lifelong, lifelong investigation of codependency.

00:27:54Marc:So, boundaries?

00:27:57Guest:No.

00:27:59Guest:Hard, hard no.

00:28:03Guest:No.

00:28:03Guest:No, very bad at those.

00:28:07Marc:But they weren't alcoholics.

00:28:10Guest:No.

00:28:11Marc:But they were just profoundly selfish people?

00:28:14Guest:No, I mean, they're wonderful people.

00:28:17Guest:I mean, I believe we're all addicts, even if it's not whatever it is.

00:28:21Guest:No, they're great.

00:28:24Guest:Yeah, I'm just fucked up.

00:28:27Guest:Like we all are.

00:28:28Guest:Parents fuck up their kids.

00:28:30Marc:They're the worst.

00:28:31Guest:There's just no way not to, which is I think why I've always-

00:28:33Guest:Well, that's why I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around having kids.

00:28:38Marc:I don't have any.

00:28:39Marc:I'm 57.

00:28:39Marc:I'm proud, and I never think about it.

00:28:43Guest:Yeah, it's like I just don't know how you don't fuck them up.

00:28:46Marc:But it's no time for children now.

00:28:48Marc:It's over.

00:28:49Guest:Oh, God, no.

00:28:50Guest:I mean, I've never been super into marriage.

00:28:53Guest:But you did it.

00:28:55Guest:I did it.

00:28:57Guest:We recently separated, but I did get married.

00:29:00Marc:I've done that twice.

00:29:02Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:29:03Guest:And no kids.

00:29:03Marc:High five.

00:29:04Marc:Two wives, no children.

00:29:05Guest:That takes a certain type of asshole.

00:29:09Yeah.

00:29:09Marc:I think my second wife, and I do this on stage, unfortunately, I think my second wife put it like this, you think I'm bringing children into this?

00:29:20Marc:But they wanted, your wives wanted?

00:29:22Marc:I think the first one wanted it, but I was too sort of like, I'm too self-involved and panicky and prone to anger at times, less now.

00:29:32Marc:I just didn't do it and I'm fine with it.

00:29:37Guest:Yeah.

00:29:37Marc:I'm sorry you got separated.

00:29:39Guest:Thank you.

00:29:39Guest:No, it's good.

00:29:40Guest:We spent, I mean, it was like a 17 year relationship.

00:29:44Marc:Oh my God.

00:29:44Guest:That's something to celebrate.

00:29:45Guest:Like we, we did that.

00:29:46Guest:That's cool.

00:29:47Guest:You know, that's like.

00:29:49Marc:Just that.

00:29:50Marc:And that was the only person.

00:29:53Marc:You didn't take breaks.

00:29:54Guest:We, we did, we sort of went, um, we went in and out of open of an, of an open relationship.

00:30:01Guest:That's no good.

00:30:01Guest:huh yeah that's why i have so much indigestion how can someone with anxiety and no boundaries even begin to think like this is a good idea why don't you just go other people i mean what do you well my so my mom's friends who i was like raised around are polyamorous and so i was like raised around a lot of this ideology like that like non-monogamy is something to like contend with you know um it's not something to scoff at but

00:30:30Guest:then, yeah, I think in practice it's really fucking difficult.

00:30:34Marc:How do you engage your jealous, possessive part?

00:30:37Guest:Oh, it's constantly engaged.

00:30:39Guest:Yeah.

00:30:40Marc:It's a muscle that is... I'm just saying that's the thing about polyamorous.

00:30:43Marc:I don't know if those people are well-grounded or absolutely, totally untethered.

00:30:50Marc:I don't quite understand relationships.

00:30:55Marc:I'm not great at them.

00:30:55Marc:Right.

00:30:57Marc:But the idea that like, you know, so what'd you do this afternoon?

00:31:01Marc:I was with Joe.

00:31:02Marc:Yeah.

00:31:03Marc:Oh, right.

00:31:04Marc:The guy you fuck on Thursday.

00:31:05Marc:I mean, how is that?

00:31:06Marc:How do you just be like, well, what are we eating?

00:31:08Marc:You know, I don't understand that.

00:31:09Guest:I will say that when it comes back to integration, the integration of when your partner comes back from fucking somebody else into the home is that that is a that's a tough day.

00:31:23Guest:I always had a hard time with it.

00:31:24Guest:Did you?

00:31:26Guest:Yeah.

00:31:26Guest:It never got easier.

00:31:27Marc:I don't think that's unusual.

00:31:30Marc:Maybe I'm not advanced enough.

00:31:32Marc:I don't know.

00:31:32Guest:I don't think it's an advanced thing.

00:31:34Guest:I think it's hard to shift the programming, even for hardcore veteran polyamorists.

00:31:42Guest:I think it's impossible not to be jealous or possessive.

00:31:47Marc:I don't know what the long term of that is.

00:31:51Marc:I don't know what that looks like.

00:31:52Marc:You know what I mean?

00:31:52Marc:A lot of times, if I start commenting on this, then the emails are gonna come.

00:32:02Marc:They're gonna come after you.

00:32:03Marc:I don't care if a bunch of swingers come after me.

00:32:07Marc:It's like you don't understand.

00:32:08Marc:That's not your niche audience.

00:32:10Marc:They're probably going to get mad I call them swingers.

00:32:12Marc:That's some sort of dated term.

00:32:14Marc:It is dated.

00:32:14Marc:Of course.

00:32:15Guest:I know.

00:32:16Guest:Doing it on purpose.

00:32:19Guest:This new generation who I'm kind of obsessed with.

00:32:21Marc:Oh, the fluid people?

00:32:23Guest:Yes.

00:32:24Guest:They're also like...

00:32:26Guest:I mean, they're all just as anxious as we are, maybe more so because they were raised with like phones and Instagram.

00:32:31Marc:We don't know how it's going to pan out for those people.

00:32:33Marc:You know, we're fortunate and you're younger than me that you've got, you know, at least, you know, you're kind of rooted in kind of some sort of strange narcissistic 70s artistic ideology, you know, as opposed to just having these passive parents who are upper middle class with jobs you don't understand that just, you know, let you be brought up by the Internet.

00:32:55Marc:Right.

00:32:55Marc:You know, I don't know where that goes.

00:32:57Guest:I don't either.

00:32:58Guest:I mean, yeah.

00:32:59Guest:Instagram is like, it's amazing and it's terrible.

00:33:04Marc:The Instagram, I don't have a Facebook page.

00:33:07Marc:Twitter, I just, I go in and out with sometimes.

00:33:10Marc:But it hurts me all the time.

00:33:11Marc:Instagram's the most easy one.

00:33:13Guest:Yeah.

00:33:14Marc:I'll sit and do a fucking two hour live Instagram.

00:33:17Marc:You will.

00:33:17Marc:And I don't give a fuck.

00:33:19Guest:And that helps you just like release shit?

00:33:21Marc:I don't know.

00:33:22Marc:I got into the habit of it during the pandemic to engage with people, you know, because my girlfriend died and I was alone and I was trying to figure how, you know, what do I do with that?

00:33:32Marc:And how do I, am I going to do comedy anymore?

00:33:35Marc:The weirdest thing about that time was like, I never, I never miss standup.

00:33:42Marc:You'll understand this.

00:33:43Marc:The thought I had was like, maybe I'm all better.

00:33:45Marc:You know, not like...

00:33:48Marc:Maybe I don't need to lean on those strangers.

00:33:50Marc:But as soon as people started doing it again, I'm like, fuck, game on, I guess.

00:33:54Guest:Because of FOMO?

00:33:56Guest:Because of competition?

00:33:58Marc:Yeah.

00:33:59Marc:But also it's what I do.

00:34:00Marc:Healthy competition.

00:34:01Marc:It's not healthy.

00:34:01Marc:I'm terrible.

00:34:02Marc:I judge myself against people all the time.

00:34:04Marc:Do you get mad at other people's successes?

00:34:06Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:34:07Marc:Don't you?

00:34:08Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:34:08Guest:Are you kidding?

00:34:09Marc:Shit, we're fucked.

00:34:10Guest:Get out of here.

00:34:11Marc:I know.

00:34:11Guest:I want what they have.

00:34:12Marc:Yeah, but do we, though?

00:34:13Marc:I mean, sometimes the only way I can rap... You don't, though.

00:34:19Marc:You know what I mean?

00:34:19Marc:I don't?

00:34:20Marc:I don't think so.

00:34:20Marc:I see who your friends are.

00:34:22Marc:You know?

00:34:27Guest:Yeah.

00:34:28Marc:We don't know what's going on with them, really.

00:34:30Marc:Well, that's the thing.

00:34:31Guest:And I will say, like, the pandemic was interesting because, like, the breakups that I witnessed happening, which is, like, what always happens.

00:34:38Guest:But when, like, couples break up who you've been, like, double dating with or who you at least, like, look at from afar as, like, they've got it figured out.

00:34:45Guest:It's always, it's a good lesson.

00:34:47Guest:Nobody has it figured out.

00:34:49Marc:if you really look at what they have and who likes them, with comics, if I judge myself against a more successful comic, I look at their fans, I can walk down the hall in the comedy store, and I love Bill Burr, he's a friend of mine, we're different in the way we approach it, and he was doing some main room shows, and I'll get jealous of him, because he's huge, and I have my audience, and I do fine, I make a living, but there's these guys that are really huge.

00:35:13Guest:Is Bill Burr more famous than you?

00:35:15Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:35:16Marc:I mean, as a comic, he sells more tickets.

00:35:17Marc:Yeah.

00:35:18Marc:So it's probably more famous.

00:35:20Marc:It's all tribal.

00:35:21Guest:In my world, you're more famous than him, if that makes any difference.

00:35:24Marc:Well, I appreciate that.

00:35:25Marc:Yeah.

00:35:26Marc:But so I walk down the hall and I look in the main room where he's running his hour and I just look at the front row, stage right, you know, and I see a dude there and I'm like, I don't want that dude.

00:35:35Marc:I got nothing for that dude.

00:35:37Marc:Got nothing for them.

00:35:38Marc:And I wouldn't know how to talk to him.

00:35:41Marc:I could be polite and maybe sort of like, are you in line?

00:35:45Marc:But that's as far as that goes.

00:35:46Guest:Are you in line?

00:35:51Guest:That's the depth of the connection.

00:35:53Marc:Yeah.

00:35:54Marc:So I don't know if that's helpful, but consider who you're jealous of and do you want their life?

00:36:01Guest:Right.

00:36:02Guest:I mean...

00:36:04Guest:Yeah.

00:36:07Marc:Okay, so you've got a good list.

00:36:08Guest:I'm not trying to get Bill Burr's life, but there's some others.

00:36:11Marc:Well, that's just an audience thing.

00:36:13Marc:And Bill's like, you know, but he's having some revelations about himself.

00:36:16Marc:It's very nice.

00:36:17Guest:Oh, good.

00:36:18Marc:So when do you start doing things?

00:36:21Guest:Well, I went to NYU.

00:36:23Guest:I graduated... Film?

00:36:26Guest:Acting, which is where I met my ex-husband, who I will just say, we are still best friends and collaborators.

00:36:31Marc:You made this movie together.

00:36:32Guest:We made How It Ends Together, and he's an incredible person.

00:36:34Marc:You've made a few movies together.

00:36:35Guest:We made a number of movies, and that was really my start, was that we started making movies together.

00:36:38Guest:Yeah.

00:36:39Marc:At NYU?

00:36:40Guest:Short films?

00:36:41Marc:No.

00:36:42Guest:After NYU, we entered into an open relationship.

00:36:45Marc:Right away.

00:36:45Guest:About two years into our relationship.

00:36:47Guest:But we were young.

00:36:48Guest:We met when we were like 20.

00:36:49Marc:Okay.

00:36:50Marc:So that's where you... Okay.

00:36:52Guest:And then our first film was about our open relationship.

00:36:54Guest:It's called Breaking Upwards.

00:36:56Guest:And we basically played versions of ourselves telling that story.

00:37:01Guest:And then that opened a lot of doors for us.

00:37:04Guest:So then we went on to make a number of other features together.

00:37:07Marc:Yeah.

00:37:07Marc:They did the band one?

00:37:09Guest:So Daryl and I made three features, narrative features together, and then I went on to do- Last name for the people.

00:37:16Guest:Daryl Wine.

00:37:17Guest:There you go.

00:37:18Guest:Director extraordinaire.

00:37:20Marc:Fabulous person.

00:37:22Guest:Come on.

00:37:22Guest:It's about you.

00:37:23Guest:Okay, fine.

00:37:25Guest:I went on to direct my first feature because he directed all of those films.

00:37:29Guest:We co-wrote them and co-posted them and I acted in them.

00:37:32Guest:And so Band-Aid was my directorial debut, which was with Adam Pally and Fred Armisen.

00:37:41Guest:That was my coming out party, Band-Aid, as a director.

00:37:45Guest:And it was really fun.

00:37:46Guest:And I hired a crew made up of entirely women, which was also really cool and fun.

00:37:51Marc:That's the right thing to do.

00:37:52Guest:Yeah, it was amazing because it was an amazing social experiment, an artistic experiment.

00:37:59Marc:And how did it do?

00:38:00Marc:How was it received?

00:38:01Marc:What did it bring to you?

00:38:03Guest:It was received very well.

00:38:06Guest:It premiered at Sundance in competition, which was really exciting.

00:38:09Guest:So that was a bucket list thing to play the Eccles Theater at Sundance.

00:38:14Guest:Wow.

00:38:16Guest:That's really cool.

00:38:17Guest:Wow.

00:38:17Guest:And then, yeah, it opened a lot of doors.

00:38:20Guest:So then I went on to direct my second feature, which was a remake of The Craft, which was that 90s.

00:38:26Marc:Yeah, I saw that.

00:38:28Marc:Why that?

00:38:31Guest:They came to me and asked if I wanted to pitch on it.

00:38:34Guest:And, you know, it's like a feminist horror, basically.

00:38:37Guest:And I did want to pitch on it because it was like a pretty seminal like cult film in my life.

00:38:44Guest:Coming of age.

00:38:45Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:47Guest:So then I pitched on it.

00:38:49Guest:I got the gig and I wrote it and directed it and went and made that it was, you know, how that do not as well.

00:38:58Marc:Why?

00:38:58Marc:What do you think went wrong?

00:39:02Guest:I think Band-Aid I made entirely independently.

00:39:05Guest:And that was a studio picture, which I think is always just a more difficult process.

00:39:12Guest:You know, it's like there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

00:39:14Guest:And I think because I was like servicing...

00:39:20Marc:a legacy like of the craft which I like had you know there were a lot of there was a lot of it's so funny because like you know in the world of directors wanting to you know sort of you know carrying the burden of honoring a legacy yeah that one's kind of you know you never win yeah but it's like usually it's because like I don't want to you know make something you know like the other one was such a masterpiece right and but for the craft I mean that was the thing there was room who was really going to judge you

00:39:50Guest:Right.

00:39:51Marc:I guess horror fans.

00:39:51Guest:It has crazy fans.

00:39:54Marc:That's the worst.

00:39:55Marc:They're full of nerds.

00:39:56Guest:Yeah, and they're out for blood.

00:39:58Marc:And did they come after you?

00:40:01Guest:No.

00:40:02Guest:You know, I think, listen, as a screenwriter, not to brag about.

00:40:07Guest:No, that was my only brag.

00:40:10Guest:That's what I call myself.

00:40:11Guest:As a screenwriter, I feel like the third act is just, it's so fucking hard to get right.

00:40:16Guest:And I think that that's where the movie struggled, was its third act.

00:40:19Guest:And I'm incredibly proud of it.

00:40:22Guest:Like, I still think it's a really special...

00:40:26Guest:movie um but yeah like i don't know any director who's ever like happy with like entirely happy with their film because it's always just being ripped from you in the edit you know right like and this one was particularly wild like i i was told that it was coming out like a month before it it came out so i had to finish it really fucking quickly because they wanted to get it out for halloween during the pandemic

00:40:51Guest:um but what's good is like something like that i would imagine like doesn't really stick to you yeah and then i think it was helpful that i went and made i think i think like it was great because i got to make like a studio movie and as a woman that's also like not a thing that happens and you will make more yeah so that was really cool don't you think

00:41:11Guest:I hope so, yeah.

00:41:12Marc:Do you?

00:41:13Marc:Because I know Lynn, her experience with studio movies was sort of like, I'm never doing that again.

00:41:19Marc:I'm going to wrangle some money together and shoot this out in two months or six weeks.

00:41:23Guest:She had such a cool career, and I'm so sorry for your loss.

00:41:26Guest:I never met her, but I always watched her from afar, and my mom is actually friends with Tanya, her sister, because she's like... Oh, in Brooklyn with the restaurant.

00:41:35Guest:...goes to Superfine all the time.

00:41:37Guest:Yeah.

00:41:38Guest:But, yeah, I mean...

00:41:41Guest:I don't know.

00:41:42Guest:It's like golden handcuffs.

00:41:44Guest:I don't want to put it into the universe that I don't want to make a big movie.

00:41:48Marc:Because I get all the money and the resources.

00:41:50Marc:Yeah.

00:41:51Marc:And you might as well throw your hat in the ring and see if you can pull it off.

00:41:53Guest:Yeah.

00:41:54Guest:But I mean, How It Ends was like a really, I made that right after The Craft.

00:41:59Guest:And that was a really nice reset because that was super guerrilla.

00:42:03Marc:Oh, so The Craft just came out?

00:42:05Guest:Yeah, last year.

00:42:05Guest:Or yeah, 2020.

00:42:07Marc:And how it ends.

00:42:09Marc:But I just want to make sure everyone knows that you act a lot.

00:42:12Guest:Yeah.

00:42:14Marc:And you had some pretty harrowing roles.

00:42:19Like what?

00:42:20Marc:Two seasons of Whitney.

00:42:24Marc:I say that with love.

00:42:27Marc:I've known her forever.

00:42:28Marc:You guys are homies.

00:42:28Marc:No, I do love Whitney.

00:42:30Marc:I actually do love her.

00:42:31Guest:She's amazing, and I had been, even though I was still young, I had been auditioning for so long and couldn't fucking catch a break in the TV world, and she gave me that break, and I'm so grateful to her.

00:42:45Guest:I bought my first house because of Whitney.

00:42:48Marc:Where was that?

00:42:49Guest:it's where i still live but whitney it was really funny i went in and auditioned for her and i sat down and she said why aren't you famous yeah and i was like i don't know i don't know how to answer that question um and then she really you know she fought for me and it takes people fighting for you sure this industry yeah to get shit and you know before that was glazer

00:43:13Marc:Glazer.

00:43:15Guest:That was a funny show.

00:43:17Marc:That was really funny.

00:43:18Marc:Delocated.

00:43:18Marc:Yeah.

00:43:19Guest:And it has a real cult following still.

00:43:21Marc:Does it still?

00:43:21Guest:Yeah.

00:43:22Marc:I love the two Johns, John Benjamin and John Glazer.

00:43:24Guest:Yeah.

00:43:25Marc:It's too funny.

00:43:26Marc:Oh, they're so funny.

00:43:26Marc:They're so funny and so specific and so set in their ways.

00:43:31Guest:Yes.

00:43:32Guest:That's a good way of saying it.

00:43:33Marc:Yeah.

00:43:35Guest:I feel bad talking shit about the craft legacy because it is, you know, it's like, it's a thing.

00:43:39Guest:This is a thing.

00:43:40Marc:You didn't though.

00:43:41Guest:I know, but I did.

00:43:42Marc:I did kind of.

00:43:43Guest:Well, you haven't even seen it.

00:43:45Guest:I mean, I think it's like such... The film after Breaking Upwards was a Fox Searchlight movie that Daryl and I made together that was critically not well-reviewed, starring Greta Gerwig.

00:43:56Marc:Which one was that?

00:43:57Guest:It's called Lola Versus.

00:43:59Guest:And it's funny, we've had this discussion of when people ask about it, my first instinct is to go, yeah, don't watch it.

00:44:08Guest:No, right.

00:44:08Guest:Right.

00:44:09Guest:I'm proud of it in many ways, but there's like the self-protective mechanism that comes in to go like, you're going to look at the Rotten Tomatoes score and then you're going to judge me.

00:44:17Marc:Right.

00:44:18Guest:Which also like, fuck Rotten Tomatoes.

00:44:19Marc:You know what's weird about me?

00:44:21Marc:I don't even ever look at it.

00:44:23Marc:You don't?

00:44:24Marc:No.

00:44:25Marc:I don't know what the fuck people are looking at.

00:44:27Marc:I don't know where people find the time.

00:44:28Marc:I don't check anything.

00:44:34Marc:If somebody I respect says, maybe you ought to watch this, I'm like, all right, I'll check it out.

00:44:38Marc:Or this looks interesting.

00:44:39Marc:I don't go to it.

00:44:40Guest:But this is the problem, is that now the Rotten Tomatoes score is on the iTunes when you press...

00:44:46Guest:So just when you pull it up, even if you're not seeking it out.

00:44:49Marc:I don't pay attention to it.

00:44:50Guest:Well, that makes me feel better.

00:44:52Marc:Yeah.

00:44:52Guest:Anyway, the craft did, I think it did well otherwise.

00:44:55Guest:It just, the critics, you know, they had problems with the third act, which is like fine.

00:44:59Marc:Third act's hard.

00:45:00Guest:Third act's hard.

00:45:01Guest:What are you going to do?

00:45:02Guest:It's an amazing cast.

00:45:03Guest:It's an amazing cast of like incredible young women.

00:45:06Guest:And it's, I think it's an important story to tell.

00:45:10Marc:That was something that was easier in the 70s, the third act.

00:45:14Guest:Yeah.

00:45:14Marc:Just don't end it.

00:45:15Marc:Didn't have one.

00:45:16Guest:So let the guy just go off on a bus.

00:45:20Guest:Once antidepressants came into town, Third Axe was skyrocketing.

00:45:24Marc:They were everything.

00:45:25Marc:People wanted closure.

00:45:27Marc:They wanted a button.

00:45:29Guest:Yeah.

00:45:30Marc:So the new movie, let's figure that out.

00:45:34Marc:The reason I liked it was because when I looked you up, I was like, what is this person?

00:45:40Marc:What is this person?

00:45:41Marc:Yeah, like, what does she do?

00:45:43Marc:Right.

00:45:43Marc:And then I'm like, oh, she's one of those, knows all the cool kids.

00:45:47Marc:Yeah.

00:45:47Marc:Like, I could tell from the movie, I'm like, I know that guy.

00:45:51Marc:She called him, too.

00:45:52Marc:Theirs was his name.

00:45:53Marc:So, like, the reason I liked it is it kind of, like, the conceit of it is what it is, but it's sort of like this weird, it is an art film, I've decided.

00:46:03Guest:Oh, thank you.

00:46:04Marc:Did you decide that?

00:46:05Guest:Yeah.

00:46:06Good.

00:46:07Marc:Like, you know, like bonafide.

00:46:09Marc:It's like, it's not, you're not, it's a poetry piece.

00:46:13Guest:Oh, thanks.

00:46:15Guest:Yeah.

00:46:17Guest:I think because like the development process on the craft was like so intense.

00:46:23Guest:It was really nice to like, I don't know, open up, I don't know, the process to like allow for it to be whatever it wanted to be, to be like more fluid and poetic in that way, I guess.

00:46:37Guest:Because I didn't have to be like hitting like, and then the climax happens and then the denouement and then, you know.

00:46:44Guest:I mean, that's what I liked about it.

00:46:45Marc:Yeah.

00:46:45Marc:It was so funny because I'm thinking like, man, she really did this on a budget.

00:46:51Marc:And, you know, I guess the only expense was stopping traffic.

00:46:54Marc:But it turns out there was no traffic.

00:46:57Marc:Yeah.

00:46:58Marc:I was just like, all they paid for was to have people at the end of the streets to stop the cars.

00:47:03Marc:No.

00:47:03Marc:But it was the middle of the fucking thing.

00:47:05Guest:No, we had a crew of three people.

00:47:06Guest:There was nobody to stop traffic.

00:47:09Marc:There's just no cars around.

00:47:11Guest:Yeah.

00:47:11Guest:I mean, we would hold for like a scattered few cars.

00:47:15Marc:I talked to Helen Hunt about it.

00:47:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:47:17Guest:Yeah.

00:47:18Guest:She's the best.

00:47:18Marc:Yeah, she is.

00:47:20Yeah.

00:47:20Guest:yeah no it was amazing i mean that was like part of i think our intention in making it was to sort of like serve as a time capsule for this totally surreal moment on the streets of la that it looked it was so apocalyptic you know yeah inherently that we were like let's get out there and shoot it and also i found it to be like one of those movies where like it's like the journey of it like the you know that that every there's a someone else just used an asteroid hanging in the sky

00:47:46Guest:Really?

00:47:47Marc:Exactly like your asteroid.

00:47:49Guest:What do you mean, in a movie?

00:47:50Marc:Yep.

00:47:51Marc:No, in a series.

00:47:52Guest:Really?

00:47:52Marc:Yep.

00:47:53Marc:Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Mr. Coleman, the new series.

00:47:57Guest:Oh, is it good?

00:47:59Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:48:00Marc:But it's a manifestation of his anxiety.

00:48:03Marc:But it looks like the same effect.

00:48:05Guest:Really?

00:48:05Marc:Like the exact same effect.

00:48:07Marc:That's so funny.

00:48:07Guest:Well, and then like Adam McKay, his new movie, I think is also, I don't know if it's an asteroid, but something's like going to hit the earth.

00:48:14Guest:I guess we all, it's funny.

00:48:15Guest:It's like we made Breaking Upwards and then like Katie Asselton made a movie about an open relationship.

00:48:21Guest:There are a bunch of like open relationship movies at the same time.

00:48:23Guest:Oh, no, that happens all the time, too.

00:48:24Guest:I feel like it's funny.

00:48:25Guest:Like there's something that happens in the, I don't know, ether, the collective unconscious.

00:48:32Marc:Yeah.

00:48:32Marc:It's annoying.

00:48:33Guest:Yeah.

00:48:34Marc:I don't know why that is.

00:48:35Marc:It makes you wonder about things.

00:48:36Marc:You know what I mean?

00:48:37Marc:It's like, well, is that a coincidence?

00:48:38Marc:What's going on?

00:48:39Marc:Are we all part of one mind?

00:48:41Marc:I should say the name of the movie.

00:48:42Marc:How it ends is what we're talking about currently on the podcast.

00:48:47Guest:Yeah.

00:48:48Marc:So, but like each point, like how did you, when you scripted it, so the idea is like you had a time that the world was going in and everyone knew it and this was the day of.

00:49:00Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think the intention was like,

00:49:03Guest:I think we were both, obviously, as the world was trying to process what the fuck was going on with the pandemic and with quarantine and being trapped.

00:49:10Guest:But it was this, I think the dichotomy of being in this apocalyptic nightmare, but also just being in sweatpants and watching Netflix every day was so...

00:49:22Guest:And so I liked the idea.

00:49:25Guest:We hadn't seen like an apocalyptic comedy that wasn't like mayhem, violence, like zombie.

00:49:33Marc:Like that one that Seth did.

00:49:34Marc:Seth did, yeah.

00:49:35Guest:What was that called?

00:49:36Marc:So good.

00:49:36Marc:Similar title, right?

00:49:38Yeah.

00:49:38Guest:What is it called?

00:49:40Marc:Which is so good.

00:49:41Marc:With Satan and everything.

00:49:41Marc:Yeah.

00:49:42Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:49:43Guest:But it's madness out on those streets.

00:49:45Guest:Yeah, it's amazing.

00:49:46Guest:And so this was like, there was a certain point, I mean, we're sort of still in it, where we were just resigned to this new normal.

00:49:55Marc:And also it's interesting how this culture comforts itself.

00:49:58Marc:Yeah.

00:49:59Marc:It's just sort of like bread and watching things.

00:50:04Bread.

00:50:04Marc:People were baking.

00:50:05Marc:A lot of sourdough, yeah.

00:50:06Marc:Well, I just love that as that started to wear off, everybody was sort of excited.

00:50:10Marc:It's like, well, we're going to do things during, and then three months in, they're like, get me out of here.

00:50:15Marc:I don't want to fucking even look at my children.

00:50:17Marc:No bread is going to stop this from, yeah.

00:50:20Guest:I was so grateful not to have children in the pandemic.

00:50:22Guest:Oh, my God.

00:50:23Oh, God.

00:50:23Marc:The journey of those people.

00:50:25Guest:I know.

00:50:26Marc:But so, yeah.

00:50:27Marc:So you thought that the disconnect was interesting.

00:50:30Guest:Yeah.

00:50:31Guest:And so, like, what would it look like if, like, we had all been preparing for the end of the world, which we kind of were doing so that on the last day?

00:50:39Guest:I mean, not the end of the world, but you know what I mean?

00:50:40Guest:On the last day that people were.

00:50:42Guest:resigned to it and sort of it was just a more introspective self-reflective energy and what would that look like and so we started to explore that and also we were trying to shoot everything outdoors and six feet apart so it worked to sort of have like a walk and talk journey right with your well the device of your younger self yeah what's that girl's name kelly spainy yeah she's amazing she's also the star of the craft

00:51:07Marc:Oh, she is.

00:51:07Marc:Didn't I see her in something else recently?

00:51:09Guest:Mare of Easttown.

00:51:11Marc:Yes.

00:51:11Marc:She's great in that.

00:51:13Marc:That's right.

00:51:13Marc:Yeah.

00:51:14Guest:She goes bye-bye.

00:51:16Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:51:16Marc:Right away.

00:51:17Marc:So quick.

00:51:18Marc:So quick she goes bye-bye.

00:51:22Marc:But she's the heart of the whole story.

00:51:23Guest:Yeah, and she's amazing.

00:51:26Guest:We worked on the craft together, and I fell in love with her, and then I was like, do you want to make a weird little movie?

00:51:30Marc:Well, see, that's right there.

00:51:31Marc:How does that continue to work?

00:51:35Marc:That's what I think sort of establishes it as a meditation on something, right?

00:51:41Marc:Yeah.

00:51:41Marc:And as an art film, is that, all right, this is her younger self, and that's okay.

00:51:46Guest:Yeah.

00:51:46Marc:We're just going to walk with them through Silver Lake, I guess, for two hours.

00:51:52Yeah.

00:51:52Guest:Yeah, that's the log line.

00:51:57Marc:It's going to go gangbuster.

00:51:58Guest:It's going to be huge.

00:52:01Guest:Yeah.

00:52:01Guest:Well, also because I was doing a lot of inner child work with my therapist.

00:52:06Guest:You were?

00:52:06Guest:Yes.

00:52:08Guest:And my mom had sent me.

00:52:10Marc:What does that look like?

00:52:12Guest:It's like figuring out how to talk to your inner child.

00:52:15Guest:Because it's the inner child.

00:52:16Marc:That asshole?

00:52:16Guest:Yeah.

00:52:19Guest:Because it's the inner child that's like so anxious.

00:52:21Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:52:22Marc:Oh, right, right, right.

00:52:23Marc:Like I feel like those.

00:52:23Marc:It doesn't feel safe.

00:52:24Guest:The overwhelm that we feel is like actually our inner child.

00:52:28Marc:Shit, man.

00:52:29Marc:I know.

00:52:29Guest:So it's like how do we speak to that person and like reparent.

00:52:33Marc:No, I get that.

00:52:34Marc:No, I've applied some of that.

00:52:36Guest:It's hard.

00:52:36Guest:It's so hard.

00:52:37Marc:Do you ever read the fantasy bond?

00:52:40Guest:No.

00:52:40Guest:What's that?

00:52:41Guest:Do I have to read it?

00:52:42Marc:I don't know.

00:52:42Marc:It's just it's changed my mind about why I am like I am.

00:52:47Marc:And like lately, what I've realized about the inner child thing outside of the fantasy bond, which I'll explain to you later.

00:52:53Marc:I've just I can't sell any more of his books.

00:52:57Marc:That's fine.

00:52:58Marc:I don't mind it, but I've explained it before.

00:53:00Marc:He's not a sponsor.

00:53:01Marc:No, no.

00:53:02Marc:Dr. Firestone.

00:53:04Marc:Okay.

00:53:04Marc:Robert Firestone.

00:53:05Marc:No one knows this book, and I think it's like one of these Rosetta Stones of contextualizing a certain type of emotional disfigurement.

00:53:15Guest:I have to read it.

00:53:17Marc:Yeah.

00:53:18Marc:Like, you know, I used to be this way about the denial of death, the Ernest Becker book about transference.

00:53:22Guest:Never read that.

00:53:23Marc:Yeah.

00:53:24Marc:But I just get locked on these things that reconfigure how I see something.

00:53:28Marc:Yeah, of course.

00:53:29Marc:Because these are just, they're just, you know, they're just templates.

00:53:33Marc:Framing devices.

00:53:33Marc:Yeah, that's all.

00:53:34Marc:All of it.

00:53:35Marc:What's happening to me, though, is like knowing, like I'm trying to be like, what about the good times, man?

00:53:40Marc:And I look back and I'm like, not too many.

00:53:43Marc:Are there any?

00:53:44Marc:Really?

00:53:46Marc:Let me explain why.

00:53:47Marc:If you feel uncomfortable or socially awkward or stressed, how is any part of your life going to be anything other than panic and embarrassment?

00:54:01Marc:Any time that I had a good thing happen,

00:54:05Marc:the panic leading up to it, that the good time equates to like, I got through it.

00:54:11Guest:100%.

00:54:12Guest:Right?

00:54:13Guest:I know.

00:54:14Guest:I've been dealing with that so much lately where I'm like, I'm just waiting for the thing to be over even though the thing is something that I'm excited about because it's causing me so much anxiety and I try to go like, no, live in the thing or even any victory, any small victory.

00:54:27Guest:You can't celebrate it because if you celebrate it, then it all gets taken away.

00:54:30Marc:Right, right, right, right.

00:54:32Marc:It was okay.

00:54:33Marc:It's just okay.

00:54:34Marc:But it's great.

00:54:35Guest:No, no, no, no.

00:54:37Marc:We did it.

00:54:38Marc:Yeah.

00:54:38Guest:It's behind us.

00:54:39Guest:It's what it is.

00:54:40Guest:Yeah.

00:54:41Marc:Yeah, that was very disturbing to me that like all the memories are traumatic because you just didn't feel good about yourself.

00:54:47Guest:I know.

00:54:47Guest:What do we do?

00:54:49Guest:Yeah.

00:54:50Marc:we're not that person anymore there is self-acceptance now we have to achieve things we have somehow despite our anxiety and our weirdness uh have our ambitions have compelled us to accomplish things and they're things we want to do yeah so i mean i think it is possible to sort of enjoy them i think it's possible to enjoy the process

00:55:12Guest:I don't know.

00:55:13Guest:I'm trying.

00:55:14Guest:I'm trying.

00:55:16Guest:It's just that there's so much anxiety, but it's like how to not have anxiety in this world is an impossibility.

00:55:22Marc:But like all we got is this like as things become more tribal and more sort of like insulated, everyone's got their own little world.

00:55:33Marc:You might as well enjoy that because it doesn't matter to the rest of it.

00:55:37Guest:Yeah, that's why I'm saying I just want to be partying.

00:55:40Marc:Right.

00:55:42Marc:But what does that look like?

00:55:43Guest:Well, my therapist says that I need to embrace play.

00:55:50Marc:That's the next one-person show.

00:55:53Marc:Embracing play.

00:55:55Marc:Embracing play.

00:55:55Marc:Maybe that's your TED Talk.

00:55:57Guest:Oh, that's so good.

00:55:59Guest:Yeah, and it's just going to be me doing drugs on stage.

00:56:03Marc:What do you guys want?

00:56:05Marc:I haven't got enough for everybody.

00:56:08Marc:Is this mic working?

00:56:10Guest:That's my drug guy voice.

00:56:14Guest:This mic was good, yeah.

00:56:15Guest:The audience can't see it.

00:56:16Marc:All my drug characters talking.

00:56:18Guest:Hey, man.

00:56:20Marc:There's an old story about a guy, about a road comic.

00:56:25Marc:Sometimes it's attributed to John Fox, who's dead, or Teddy Bergeron, who's alive, where he's on stage at some club, and he'd been doing well, like who knows how much.

00:56:37Marc:And his nose just started bleeding in the middle of his set, and he didn't really notice it, but the audience was like, what?

00:56:44Marc:And then he just, without missing a beat, looks at the audience like, what, doesn't anyone party anymore?

00:56:50Marc:Oh, that's so good.

00:56:56Marc:It's the best.

00:57:00Guest:Fuck you evil.

00:57:02Guest:I'm living it.

00:57:03Guest:That's my 2021 through line.

00:57:05Guest:Be careful.

00:57:06Guest:No, not cocaine.

00:57:07Guest:Just what?

00:57:07Guest:Doesn't anyone party anymore?

00:57:08Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:57:10Guest:No, like last summer I went to New York and there were these outdoor masked dance parties on the street.

00:57:16Marc:Are you a dance party person?

00:57:17Guest:Yes.

00:57:19Guest:Love to dance.

00:57:20Marc:And you do it.

00:57:21Guest:Yeah.

00:57:22Marc:So that's nice.

00:57:23Guest:So nice.

00:57:24Marc:That's not one of the things you're like, you know, just getting through it.

00:57:27Guest:No, but that was like me being like, oh, this is living.

00:57:31Guest:I brought my mom, who's incredible.

00:57:32Marc:Do you like LCD sound system?

00:57:34Marc:Yeah.

00:57:34Marc:Okay, good.

00:57:35Marc:Why?

00:57:35Marc:I just want to know if you're one of those people.

00:57:37Guest:Yeah.

00:57:37Guest:Did the key get taken away?

00:57:38Guest:No.

00:57:39Guest:Oh, okay.

00:57:40Guest:It's a generational thing.

00:57:41Guest:You don't like LCD Sound System?

00:57:43Marc:They're okay.

00:57:43Marc:I interviewed him recently and I really dug in and I get it.

00:57:46Marc:I get it.

00:57:47Marc:Yeah.

00:57:47Marc:I understand why.

00:57:47Marc:It's just, I missed it.

00:57:49Marc:Oh, really?

00:57:49Marc:It's not a matter of me not liking him.

00:57:51Guest:That was like prime.

00:57:52Guest:Like I was at NYU from 2000, 2004.

00:57:55Guest:Right.

00:57:55Guest:So it was like Strokes, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, LCD Sound System, Rapture, all those bands.

00:57:59Marc:Did you read that book by Lizzie Goodman?

00:58:01Marc:Yeah, it was so good.

00:58:02Marc:Yeah.

00:58:02Guest:Yeah.

00:58:02Guest:Yeah, I love that book.

00:58:03Guest:I was so obsessed with this.

00:58:05Marc:Yeah, that book, it's not my time at all.

00:58:08Marc:Reading that book is sort of like, I was around.

00:58:11Marc:How did I miss all of this?

00:58:13Guest:You were in New York then?

00:58:14Marc:What year?

00:58:14Guest:2000, 2004.

00:58:15Guest:Yeah.

00:58:15Marc:Or no, I just left.

00:58:18Guest:Right.

00:58:18Guest:Well, that's why I missed it.

00:58:19Marc:But I was still locked into comedy.

00:58:23Marc:I moved out here in 2002 after 9-11 with a woman because she freaked out and we had to get out.

00:58:30Marc:So I was here in 2002.

00:58:31Marc:Whoa.

00:58:33Guest:Interesting.

00:58:34Marc:She was downtown and got out of the train at the Raining Ash.

00:58:38Guest:No.

00:58:38Marc:Yeah.

00:58:40Guest:I was sleeping.

00:58:41Marc:Yeah, I got up and I looked at it.

00:58:42Marc:I opened up my AOL homepage to one tower and I'm like, it's not April Fool's.

00:58:47Marc:I'm like, what?

00:58:48Marc:And then I was on my roof in Astoria watching it.

00:58:52Marc:Yeah, so being in New York for that, I feel similar coming out of the pandemic, the anxiety, the weird sort of destabilized environment.

00:59:01Guest:Yeah, although it's like New York obviously is such an amazing place in terms of coming out of things like that, where I felt like, I feel like even now, New York, not post-pandemic, but wherever we are now in, is like, it's alive.

00:59:16Marc:I have to go back.

00:59:17Marc:I'm dying to go because I'm working on a thing with my friend Sam Lipsight and we're writing, but I just wanted an excuse to go back.

00:59:26Marc:I'm doing the New York Comedy Festival if this melanoma under my nail doesn't, you know, if I don't lose the top of my finger, I might have to lose the top of my finger.

00:59:34Guest:That's okay.

00:59:35Marc:Yeah, I think it is.

00:59:36Marc:You lose pieces as you get older.

00:59:39Marc:Sometimes that's the life you got.

00:59:41Marc:Just taking pieces off.

00:59:44Marc:When is it?

00:59:45Marc:It's in November.

00:59:46Guest:Oh, nice.

00:59:47Guest:I'm going to Patti LuPone's house for Thanksgiving if you want to come.

00:59:53Marc:Really?

00:59:53Marc:That's exciting.

00:59:55Marc:My mother's trying to get me to Florida.

00:59:57Guest:Oh, no, don't go there.

00:59:58Marc:Where's Patti LuPone live?

01:00:03Guest:Well, she's I think like by Central Park.

01:00:06Guest:She was in the Ari Aster movie and we got really close in a short amount of time.

01:00:10Guest:And now I just want to spend every waking moment with her.

01:00:13Guest:Yeah.

01:00:13Marc:So you dance.

01:00:14Marc:So you dance at the masked.

01:00:16Marc:What was that?

01:00:16Guest:Where were you?

01:00:19Guest:Yeah.

01:00:19Guest:It was this street in Fort Greene that they shut down.

01:00:23Guest:It started with...

01:00:26Guest:like, you know, when people started banging pots for essential workers at a certain time every night and they started turning their speakers out and then it just became this like dance party every night.

01:00:37Guest:So every night from five to seven, I would go.

01:00:40Marc:That's good.

01:00:40Guest:It was so fun.

01:00:41Guest:That's nice.

01:00:42Guest:It's an early curfew, you know, you get it out of your system.

01:00:44Marc:Yeah.

01:00:45Guest:And I was saying, I brought my mom and she wept.

01:00:47Guest:Cause it was, it was like, oh my God.

01:00:48Marc:Communal.

01:00:49Guest:Yeah.

01:00:49Guest:Just like be around people.

01:00:51Guest:Then they would play like MLK speeches at the end.

01:00:53Guest:It was cool.

01:00:54Marc:With a beat or?

01:00:55Guest:Yeah.

01:00:56Guest:There'd be like beats behind it.

01:00:57Guest:Yeah.

01:00:58Guest:Yeah.

01:00:59Guest:It felt like a New York of yore that I wasn't there for that I've always like, of course, been nostalgic for.

01:01:04Marc:Well, that's what, yeah, New York's amazing with that, with community sense, a sense of community and the way people coexist and take care of each other.

01:01:11Marc:It's, there's no place like it.

01:01:13Marc:And it always annoys me having lived there for so long, you know, when people judge it as just sort of like, well, New York's like the Midwestern view of New York.

01:01:21Marc:It's like, you don't even fucking know.

01:01:22Guest:Yeah.

01:01:23Yeah.

01:01:23Marc:The only time you see your friends is at church.

01:01:25Marc:We're up each other's ass every fucking day.

01:01:27Marc:Yeah.

01:01:29Marc:We're smelling each other's sweat every day.

01:01:31Guest:Yeah.

01:01:32Marc:You got strangers touching you.

01:01:33Guest:Yeah.

01:01:34Marc:And we love it.

01:01:36Guest:Yeah.

01:01:36Guest:We're inviting it.

01:01:40Guest:Yeah.

01:01:40Guest:It's the best city on earth.

01:01:41Guest:I never thought that I would live here, but here I am.

01:01:43Marc:It's okay here if you have a nice house.

01:01:45Marc:It's nice.

01:01:46Marc:So the movie, how tight was the writing in terms of deciding what each person or stop meant?

01:01:55Guest:I would say half of the scenes were very tightly written and then the other half were outlined and we were improvising off of a structured outline.

01:02:04Guest:So the scene with Helen and with Bradley Whitford and all of my scenes with Kaylee, those were all written.

01:02:09Guest:Because I think that was really important.

01:02:11Guest:Right.

01:02:12Guest:To get that shit right.

01:02:13Guest:Right.

01:02:14Guest:But then the scenes that were more like just comedic and like fun sort of.

01:02:19Marc:So Whitney was just improvising.

01:02:21Guest:Whitney was definitely improvising.

01:02:24Guest:We went to her house and she found that.

01:02:27Marc:That's where the party was?

01:02:28Guest:The party wasn't at her house.

01:02:30Guest:Her house was too nice to invite that many people to.

01:02:34Guest:But she had that weird bubble.

01:02:36Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:02:37Guest:And she was like, I'll just put this on my body and roll down the street in COVID.

01:02:39Guest:And we were like, okay.

01:02:43Guest:But she's down for whatever.

01:02:45Marc:And then you got Polly to...

01:02:47Guest:She got Pauly.

01:02:49Guest:So she improvised in the opening when she was on the phone.

01:02:53Guest:She improvised that Pauly Shore was going to be at the party.

01:02:55Guest:And then I was like, do you think you could actually get Pauly Shore to come to the party?

01:02:57Guest:She was like, not a problem.

01:03:01Guest:And Pauly showed up, had no idea where he was or what he was doing.

01:03:04Marc:Hey!

01:03:07Marc:What are we doing?

01:03:09Marc:Okay.

01:03:10Marc:What's your name?

01:03:11Marc:Yeah.

01:03:13Guest:He was just excited to be close to it.

01:03:16Marc:I've grown to Pauly.

01:03:17Guest:Yeah.

01:03:18Guest:He seems like it.

01:03:19Marc:I've known him since when I was a doorman at the comedy store.

01:03:22Marc:But as he gets older, he's on to himself.

01:03:27Marc:Yeah.

01:03:27Marc:So it's great.

01:03:28Marc:Yeah.

01:03:28Marc:And it's just sort of, he's just like the last time I saw him, I was like, dude, I moved to Vegas.

01:03:35Marc:It's so good.

01:03:36Marc:You can get good food every night.

01:03:40Marc:But like all the women are prostitutes, like all of them.

01:03:44Marc:So it's hard to date.

01:03:47Oh my God.

01:03:47Marc:But I just like the idea that he's got money saved because he did real estate and the movies and now he's out of the store.

01:03:57Marc:They bought him out of that.

01:03:58Marc:And he's just sort of like, I can get, because I don't like Vegas, but if you just want to eat good food every night, you probably can, right?

01:04:06Marc:And you can do shows.

01:04:07Marc:Sounds like a nightmare.

01:04:08Marc:I guess so.

01:04:08Marc:I don't know, but his old man lived there for years.

01:04:11Marc:So I think it's just something you either think is like, this is great.

01:04:15Marc:If you have money, this is great.

01:04:16Marc:And you don't gamble.

01:04:18Marc:Right.

01:04:18Marc:Go to shows, whatever.

01:04:20Guest:I guess.

01:04:21Marc:I never go there.

01:04:22Marc:Don't look at me like I'm promoting something.

01:04:25Guest:No, yeah.

01:04:25Marc:I never go there because it makes me feel corrosive.

01:04:29Guest:Very, yeah.

01:04:30Marc:Like it's corrosive and weird.

01:04:32Marc:Yeah.

01:04:32Marc:And just like when you're in one of those rooms at a big hotel with no VIP treatment, it's sort of like...

01:04:38Marc:This is horrendous.

01:04:40Guest:Yeah, I can't even imagine doing that shit.

01:04:42Guest:Just being a hotel guest is like a hellscape.

01:04:47Marc:In general?

01:04:48Guest:No, no, just in Vegas.

01:04:50Guest:No, I love being a hotel guest in general.

01:04:52Marc:I really like it these days.

01:04:54Marc:It's just where I don't have to do anything.

01:04:56Guest:Yeah, minimal effort.

01:04:58Marc:I'm going away tomorrow.

01:04:59Guest:Where are you going?

01:05:00Marc:Salt Lake City.

01:05:01Guest:Why?

01:05:02Guest:I'm going to be a Mormon.

01:05:04Guest:You're going to what?

01:05:05Marc:Be a Mormon.

01:05:08Marc:I'm going to do comedy.

01:05:09Marc:Right.

01:05:10Marc:I'm going to do comedy for the Jack Mormons.

01:05:11Guest:What are Jack Mormons?

01:05:13Marc:Ones that are over it.

01:05:14Guest:Oh, really?

01:05:15Marc:Yeah.

01:05:15Guest:Is that an actual term?

01:05:17Marc:Mm-hmm.

01:05:17Marc:Want me to look it up?

01:05:18Marc:No.

01:05:21Marc:Jack Mormon, a Mormon who is not strictly observant.

01:05:23Guest:Wow.

01:05:24Guest:It's like a modern orthodox.

01:05:26Marc:Yeah, or a sympathetic non-Mormon living among Mormons.

01:05:29Marc:That's tricky.

01:05:30Guest:Sympathetic non-Mormon.

01:05:32Guest:That's going to be you.

01:05:33Marc:Well, that's everyone who lives in Salt Lake City for whatever reason other than being Mormon.

01:05:37Guest:Right.

01:05:38Guest:Well, they're not all sympathetic.

01:05:39Marc:They kind of got to be.

01:05:41Marc:They have to be, I guess.

01:05:41Marc:They run the place.

01:05:42Marc:Yeah.

01:05:42Marc:You know, you can't walk around going, fuck these Mormons.

01:05:45Marc:Yeah, I guess so.

01:05:47Marc:It's a weird, you know.

01:05:50Marc:It's an okay place to work, but I made my shows Vax only, and that was the only place where there was significant refunds.

01:05:57Marc:Really?

01:05:57Marc:Yeah, it was YouTube.

01:05:58Guest:Oh, my God.

01:05:59Marc:It'll be fine, though.

01:06:00Guest:Yeah, it'll be fine.

01:06:01Marc:No, there's enough.

01:06:02Marc:I sold enough.

01:06:03Marc:I'm trying to work on an hour, so I'm doing club work.

01:06:05Marc:I'm not doing the theaters, because I'm a theater act, lady.

01:06:08Marc:I'm not going to fuck around.

01:06:09Marc:There's like some cities I can sell like 1,200 tickets.

01:06:13Marc:You just called me lady?

01:06:14Guest:Yeah, I did.

01:06:16Guest:Okay.

01:06:16Guest:Just wanted to make sure.

01:06:18Marc:So are we done?

01:06:22Guest:It's your show.

01:06:24Guest:I don't know.

01:06:25Guest:I feel like we covered a lot.

01:06:26Marc:Thank you for coming over, and I enjoyed the movie.

01:06:29Marc:Thank you.

01:06:29Marc:And I hope people like it.

01:06:32Guest:Thank you.

01:06:32Marc:Is it opening in movie theaters?

01:06:34Guest:It is in movie theaters, but it's also on iTunes and Amazon.

01:06:37Marc:Get it anywhere?

01:06:39Guest:Get it anywhere.

01:06:39Marc:How much did it cost you to make it?

01:06:42Marc:I don't feel those things.

01:06:43Marc:You do.

01:06:44Marc:Did you just use a camera you had at your house?

01:06:47Marc:Yeah.

01:06:49Marc:Use your phone?

01:06:51Guest:No, but that's an option.

01:06:54Marc:But it didn't cost a lot of money.

01:06:56Guest:It was 80 to 100.

01:06:59Marc:Okay.

01:06:59Guest:Million.

01:07:00Marc:Wow.

01:07:02Marc:Where?

01:07:03Guest:Million dollars, yeah.

01:07:04Marc:For the asteroid effect?

01:07:05Marc:That was just for the effect.

01:07:06Guest:And also my fees.

01:07:07Marc:Okay.

01:07:08Marc:You did well.

01:07:09Marc:That's great.

01:07:09Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:10Marc:And you really kind of rake some fucking investors over the coals.

01:07:13Marc:Good for you.

01:07:14Guest:Me and Pauly's fees.

01:07:17Guest:Pauly.

01:07:17Guest:Very high.

01:07:17Guest:His rider is crazy.

01:07:19Marc:Is it?

01:07:20Marc:It can't be.

01:07:22Marc:Are you going to pick me up?

01:07:25Marc:Am I going to ride over with you, Whitney?

01:07:29Marc:All right, nice talking.

01:07:30Marc:I'll show you.

01:07:31Marc:Let's go talk about the fantasy bond.

01:07:33Marc:Okay, great.

01:07:39Marc:Zoe Lister-Jones, funny, charming, talented.

01:07:42Marc:Should I put that first?

01:07:44Marc:Talented, powerful, works hard, does good work.

01:07:48Marc:Charming, funny.

01:07:49Marc:There you go.

01:07:50Marc:Is that properly ordered?

01:07:52Marc:Here's some Telecaster for you.

01:07:54Marc:Japanese Telecaster for you.

01:07:56Marc:With some echo and some bouncy bounce.

01:08:00Marc:Some tremolo.

01:08:04Guest:guitar solo

01:08:31Guest:Thank you.

01:08:56Thank you.

01:09:10Guest:guitar solo

01:09:36Marc:Boomer lives.

01:09:55Marc:Monkey La Fonda.

01:09:57Marc:Cat angels everywhere.

01:10:00Boomer lives.