Episode 1319 - Adam Ray
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:I am back.
Marc:I recorded this yesterday.
Marc:I was on a plane this morning and I got up very early.
Marc:I got up and it was dark out.
Marc:I'm driving the rental car.
Marc:You know, it's it cuts both ways.
Marc:This road business.
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Adam Ray.
Marc:All right.
Marc:He's a comic.
Marc:I see him at the store all the time.
Marc:He's an actor.
Marc:He's currently on NBC's Young Rock, where he plays Vince McMahon.
Marc:And he played Jay Leno on Hulu's Pam and Tommy miniseries.
Marc:Also has a podcast.
Marc:Called about last night.
Marc:I also used to have a podcast with Brad Williams and I it was one of these weird thing.
Marc:I told them I do it and I parked on the street and I parked right in front of a driveway to an apartment buildings parking lot and my car was towed and I had no idea how it happened.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.
Marc:So anyways, it can cut both ways, my friends.
Marc:This life, this life, like if I had, what did I have, a couple weeks in between the long sets?
Marc:And I had some pretty great sets.
Marc:I've had some pretty great sets.
Marc:Sometimes you're really in the groove.
Marc:And my groove is very close to who I am.
Marc:And I don't know when it's going to happen and for how long.
Marc:It's an interesting thing.
Marc:Sometimes it happens right away and it stays locked in all the way through.
Marc:Other times, it starts off a little rocky.
Marc:Not bad.
Marc:It's not like people don't like me who come to see me.
Marc:They're there to see me.
Marc:But it's fragmented because there's a little chaos in the room.
Marc:And I know I'm choosing to be my own opener because I think an evening with Marc Maron, in that sense, where I'm seeing it as a performance, a singular performance of a relatively structured theatrical event.
Marc:That is me.
Marc:And I'm doing like an hour and a half to two hours.
Marc:So why not just go do it?
Marc:I don't know who made these rules about opening acts or whatever.
Marc:I guess sometimes I think I don't know if it's good for the show.
Marc:I know it's good to get people settled in their seats.
Marc:And it's probably good for that performer.
Yeah.
Marc:But I'm just trying to forego it to try to create a different expectation around what I'm doing.
Marc:Because I feel at the end of a show, the shows I've been doing, like I've been through something.
Marc:I'm not doing an act.
Marc:I know there are bits, but I'm trying to feel like there's an arc to this thing.
Marc:But all I'm saying is I got down there.
Marc:I got down there a night early.
Marc:I stayed at Kempton's.
Marc:I stayed at the Sylvan in Atlanta.
Marc:It was okay.
Marc:But I'll tell you something honestly.
Marc:They should probably tell you if their fucking hotel is going to turn into a goddamn nightclub on the weekend.
Marc:That shouldn't be a surprise.
Marc:It should be there when you book it, like right at the top.
Marc:Welcome to the Kempton Sylvan.
Marc:By the way, on Saturday nights in our eight story hotel on the roof, we're going to be blasting hip hop all day until midnight.
Marc:So if you're on the eighth floor, it's going to be right above you.
Marc:And if you had any sort of idea that maybe you get a full night's sleep in before you get up to go to the fucking airport in the morning, that's not going to happen.
Marc:But here are the room selections, and we have a nice restaurant.
Marc:It should just say that.
Marc:By the way, our hotel turns into a shitty fucking club on weekend nights.
Marc:So if you're looking for sleep, we're more concerned with selling drinks.
Marc:OK, do we understand each other?
Marc:I don't know what the reason they don't fucking do it.
Marc:The reason they don't say that is because they'd lose business from goddamn adults.
Marc:I mean, I wasn't that upset about it.
Marc:Your 12 o'clock is not a horrendous time to go to bed.
Marc:And I was reading been deeply immersed in a book preparing for a guest.
Marc:I haven't really I love when I get locked into a book and I was just totally surprised by this book.
Marc:It's Harvey Fierstein's memoir.
Marc:I think it's called I Was Better Last Night.
Marc:I knew nothing about him.
Marc:I'm not a big theater person, but what a life in New York at that time.
Marc:It's just great.
Marc:Tells a good story.
Marc:He's a good writer.
Marc:He'll be on the show.
Marc:I'll say that again later because I'm going to talk to him.
Marc:But that whole nightclub element, because you can lock in.
Marc:There's nothing you can do.
Marc:There's nothing you can do to sleep.
Marc:There's nothing you can do to stop it.
Marc:It's not like someone in the room next door that happens to.
Marc:That's the problem.
Marc:No matter how nice the fucking hotel, if somebody's paying for the room, you could get fucked.
Marc:If they decide to put you next to the elevator because that's the last room they got, you could get fucked.
Marc:It's hard for me not to feel like I'm some sort of mark and I've been set up.
Marc:But I handled it well, like a fucking adult.
Marc:I'm like, oh, okay.
Marc:Didn't realize this was a fucking nightclub hotel.
Marc:I'll suck it up for another hour or two.
Marc:But they should tell you, you know.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:So the hotel was what it was.
Marc:And I stayed an extra day because my brother came up from Florida to see the show with his girlfriend, his partner.
Marc:So, you know, I got to spend time with family.
Marc:But the show.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Granted, I had a quadruple shot macchiato.
Marc:Like within hours before the show.
Marc:And I don't think it kicked in until like five minutes when I got on stage.
Marc:And I kind of went into sort of a hyper kind of paralysis as I do to caffeinate it.
Marc:But too many people were coming in, you know, 15 minutes.
Marc:We held the show 15 minutes and there were still like so many people coming in.
Marc:And I guess that's why the opener takes a hit.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:But I just felt personally and no one needs to know this.
Marc:I thought it was a good show.
Marc:I'm glad people came out.
Marc:I thought it was a real show.
Marc:But I think that's my problem is I can't fucking fake it.
Marc:So if I'm experiencing some sort of discomfort while I'm on stage or that, you know, I'm not connecting the way I want to connect.
Marc:I don't know that it reads, but it makes me a little it makes me work differently.
Marc:And I don't want to just I do not want to autopilot things.
Marc:And I guess that's on me.
Marc:I don't know if it's a discipline thing.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I set myself up.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It was a fine show.
Marc:It was a long show.
Marc:It was a full show.
Marc:And people had a nice time.
Marc:I was happy to see everybody.
Marc:I got back to the hotel.
Marc:And I just was sort of paralyzed.
Marc:And I was like, you know, a couple weeks ago in Laconia, New Hampshire, you were like, why am I not...
Marc:sad and this is what I'm doing laying on a bed at a Best Western Plus and sort of owning my life and thinking like nothing wrong with this
Marc:This is what I worked for.
Marc:But for some reason that night in Atlanta, I was like drifting into the darkness, into that weird road depression, into that weird kind of place where it's sort of like, what's the point of any of this?
Marc:Why did look out there?
Marc:People have lives.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:It's in a hotel room.
Marc:Nothing to do that night.
Marc:Go down to the restaurant, eat by myself, read my Harvey, my Harvey Firestein book about a guy that had this huge life.
Marc:Either I don't appreciate the hugeness of my life and my accomplishments or I need to figure out.
Marc:what the fuck to do to feel like I'm living my life.
Marc:I'm hitting a wall, people.
Marc:That's sort of what's happening.
Marc:I'm sort of like coming to in a way.
Marc:My age, where I'm at in terms of performing, what is it that I want to do?
Marc:What makes me happy?
Marc:And I've talked about this before, but I better figure it the fuck out.
Marc:I guess I'm starting to realize that maybe I have not processed thoroughly or deeply the events of the last couple of years, the ones that we all experienced together and the ones I experienced alone.
Marc:I feel like I'm landing back in my same goddamn sad bag of skin and
Marc:And not much has changed other than for the worse.
Marc:So I have tools.
Marc:I have tools.
Marc:I have a hammer.
Marc:I have a wrench.
Marc:I have several screwdrivers.
Marc:I can hit myself in the head, stick one in my leg, wake the fuck up and be grateful.
Marc:That's what I need to do.
Marc:There's nothing like being at the edge, the existential edge of the abyss of just sort of what is the point of it all?
Marc:What am I doing?
Marc:Am I doing my best?
Marc:You can't explain that weird kind of road hotel room depression.
Marc:It's not permanent and it's very specific.
Marc:And I don't think I'm the only one that's experienced it.
Marc:I think it should probably be in the DSM.
Marc:It has all the ailments, all the psychological disorders.
Marc:And maybe there's one in there called hotel room affective disorder because it definitely is a thing.
Marc:Like, you know, sometimes you get to a hotel room and you're like, it doesn't matter what your life is or how long you're going to be there.
Marc:All of a sudden you're like in space and it's not great.
Marc:The ship's not working great, and you're in space.
Marc:The best characterization of hotel room affective disorder is Anomalisa, the animated Charlie Kaufman thing.
Marc:That is it.
Marc:There's alcohol involved in that one.
Marc:For me, it was just bags of cashews.
Marc:But to be in that room, being hard on myself about my performance and alone...
Marc:And it's a familiar place.
Marc:I do know it's going to go away.
Marc:And you just want to go to sleep.
Marc:And what really amplifies hotel room affective disorder...
Marc:is when you're staying in a hotel that turns into a fucking nightclub on Saturday night, and you're on the eighth floor, and the party is happening right above your head.
Marc:You're sitting there in bed thinking like, maybe it's time to stop.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:Last week, why do I feel... Everyone enjoyed it.
Marc:Maybe I can't... I don't know what the music was.
Marc:several different ones it was shaking the room shaking the room maybe that was buoying my hotel affective disorder maybe it was making it worse
Marc:I will have to reflect on that.
Marc:But I heard glasses clinking, people laughing.
Marc:And then that bass and the songs.
Marc:I heard a whole song.
Marc:It was literally the ceiling of my room and the window.
Marc:And maybe it's like I just don't understand life.
Marc:Why am I not on that fucking roof?
Marc:Why am I not on that roof jumping off?
Marc:Because there's a party going on, man.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:So Adam Ray, his podcast is called About Last Night, and you can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Marc:He's on tour right now.
Marc:You can go to adamraycomedy.com for his tour dates.
Marc:He does stand up with me over at the comedy store all the time.
Marc:He's acting a lot.
Marc:He was on Pam and Tommy, and he's also in Young Rock.
Marc:And it was time.
Marc:It was time to talk to Adam Ray, and this is me doing it.
Guest:Well, you got pretty much all the stuff a kid would have in his fanny pack if he was going to run away from home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A hammer, dice.
Marc:A pocket knife.
Guest:What's it?
Marc:X-Acto knife?
Marc:No, that's a regular pocket knife.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, and a dice.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Any kid needs dice.
Guest:Every kid needs dice because you never know when you're going to come across some sort of... Gambling ring?
Marc:Some sort of crap game?
Marc:You don't want to be the pit master?
Guest:I mean, I had a kid in elementary school, one of my friends who had a candy club.
Guest:The candy his mom would buy, he would then charge you five bucks a month to eat the candy from his house.
Guest:I'll say his name if that's what you're going to ask.
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't want to... Is there a statute of limitations on this information?
Guest:Is the kid... Did he... Did he grow up to do some other shady shit?
Guest:Is he a shady grifting... I mean, as shady as you can be, he ended up marrying my high school girlfriend, so I guess he knows who he is.
Marc:So were you one of the suckers who paid him?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Monthly candy?
Guest:Well, I was a classic fat kid, so I think if there was candy in a house and I... A classic fat kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like old school fat kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There are layers and levels, not only to the degrees in which we'll go for snacks, but today's fat kids, I think, are worse off.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:They have more things to keep them inside.
Guest:More access.
Guest:I was an active fat kid.
Marc:That's why I'm an active stoner.
Marc:You're an active fat kid, and now you're an active stoner.
Marc:Write that down.
Marc:There's a title for this episode.
Marc:Well, I think that's the title for your CD.
Marc:Are you going to put one out?
Marc:People still making CDs?
Marc:I love CDs.
Guest:You got to do it on something.
Guest:Put it on your YouTube thing, whatever the fuck you do.
Guest:When I first was getting into stand-up and I would drive to see my dad in Laughlin, Nevada when he moved out there and it was a doctor.
Guest:Laughlin?
Guest:At the VA clinic, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Edgewater Casino, you ever perform there?
Marc:No, but I know where it is.
Marc:You drive through it, I think, going across, don't you?
Marc:Mostly you drive through it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:If you're driving to stop, it's not bad.
Guest:It's a big Indian reservation.
Guest:There's a few casinos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad lived out there while he was working at the VA clinic, and he worked something out with the Avi Casino where he would just live in the casino.
Guest:So he's a degenerate gamble, your father?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wish.
Marc:I mean, great with money, you know, debatable.
Marc:It's the only time you can use the word degenerate.
Marc:I know.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:It's not a bad word, but it just always goes before gambler.
Marc:Now, let me ask.
Marc:The other stuff is just assume you're degenerate.
Marc:But with gambling, it's like if you gamble, you're a degenerate gambler.
Guest:Now, let me ask you this.
Guest:Would you rather be called a degenerate or a bummer?
Marc:Degenerate.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I mean, degenerate was sort of a flag of honor or whatever you call it.
Marc:The badge of honor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Back in the day.
Marc:In your day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I guess so.
Marc:I just wrote a forward for an introduction for a book of underground comics.
Marc:And underground comics were degenerate.
Marc:But it was in a good way.
Marc:In a good way.
Marc:Yeah, degenerate was a label put on people who were having a good time.
Guest:There were positive connotations towards it.
Guest:Degenerate was a lazier or more, I guess, artsy way of saying you like to have fun.
Guest:You like to have a fun party animal without saying it.
Marc:Or you just don't fit in.
Marc:An outsider.
Marc:You're a barnacle on society.
Marc:An outsider.
Marc:A Jew.
Marc:A Jew.
Guest:I knew we were building to that slow.
Guest:A degenerate Jew.
Guest:Wait, so the fat kid stoner thing.
Guest:Here's why there's a difference.
Guest:My nephew, now who's seven, is super active.
Guest:And he's a stoner?
Guest:Who's seven?
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:I can't wait.
Guest:I can't wait, honestly, to smoke pot with this kid.
Guest:Is that weird?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I look at him now.
Guest:A little.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He's just such a goofball, but he's real active, but he snacks like crazy.
Guest:I was that way, but I didn't have as many game apparatuses.
Guest:Indoor game.
Guest:Video game.
Guest:Gaming.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:More opportunities for them to all stay locked inside and go outside.
Guest:I don't even know if they have a social life.
Guest:Do they?
Guest:man the outside i mean in in person and in person social life my nephew at seven does my nieces at 12 are on tiktok god bless them so it's like they're and they're active at school but they're not doing what my nephew does at seven which is meeting kids in the cul-de-sac yeah and causing uh running amok going into the woods yeah to find trouble you know that's what we used to do go find the porn magazines in the woods oh yeah yeah who was the kid that had them in your neighborhood
Marc:Well, someone's older brother probably had one or two, and then one would just appear somewhere, and you'd be like, ugh.
Marc:I used to do a bit about it.
Marc:You'd go back to the same place where you found the one page.
Marc:Maybe the rest of the magazine showed up.
Marc:You never knew how they got there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:One was going around.
Marc:I remember the first time
Marc:Real filth.
Marc:Not Playboy filth, but real filth.
Marc:Like porn filth with that hyper-glossy pages.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And just like jizz and cocks and pussies.
Marc:On every page, huh?
Marc:Yeah, it must have been like 8th or 9th grade.
Marc:It was just like, what the fuck?
Marc:Yeah, what did you see first and what threw you into a... I'm just talking about that in this thing I'm writing.
Marc:And someone's forward?
Marc:Yeah, because it's Underground Comics.
Marc:It's about Underground Comics.
Marc:And my experience, my first experience, when I was like 12 years old at a B. Dalton bookseller at the Wenrock Mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that I'd taken the bus there to hang out at the mall.
Marc:I just went to the bookstore to look at the comedy section, the humor section, and there was this book called The History of Underground Comics.
Marc:And they didn't know what was in there, what was in there.
Marc:And it was just like fucking.
Marc:It was all the Art Crumb stuff, just dicks and cops and...
Marc:You know, pirates and heads being cut off.
Marc:All the underground comics.
Marc:It was the history of underground comics.
Marc:And I swear to God, I jerked off in the aisle, right there in the bookstore.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I didn't take it out, but just over my pants.
Marc:Yeah, you- I was 12.
Marc:Just a no hands.
Marc:Had to finish it up.
Marc:Probably no hands, but I've tried to do that.
Marc:I tried to do that every once in a while when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever pulled off a no-hander.
Marc:It is funny when those books- Did you pull off a no-hander?
Marc:Oh.
Marc:You know, come on, it's hard.
Marc:I remember I was on a trip with my parents in the station wagon, just in the back, trying to come without touching my dick.
Guest:Station wagon, the back of the station wagon is a great place to come by yourself when no one's watching.
Guest:Who said that?
Guest:Mark Maron and Adam Ray today.
Marc:I never did, though.
Marc:I tried.
Marc:You can't.
Marc:You can't.
Marc:It's impossible.
Marc:Your mom knows when you're jerking off.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Ever get caught?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:They used to stick their head in to say goodnight and stuff, but maybe the mounds of sticky Kleenex stuck in the edge beside my bed.
Marc:Where do you think ... Who finds that?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is one of the benefits of having a single mom is I didn't have double dose of check-ins, of nightly check-ins.
Marc:Oh, like when's the dad one coming?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also, I think, I mean, you tell me.
Guest:I mean, I don't know if the dad, if that's the role of like, hey, are you jerking?
Guest:Is there a conversation that goes down?
Guest:Because my mom didn't have it with me.
Guest:She did buy me condoms way too early.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I knew about it.
Marc:I don't think I ever got a talk.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I definitely, there was- Well, you didn't need it.
Guest:You were looking at jizz and titty and cock pages.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:And there was beta mass.
Marc:We had a bird, you know, 14, 15 years old.
Marc:I mean, there was porno tapes around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that i got hold of was there somebody's cool dad that kind of sat everyone down and was like no no no we just were we had to fend for ourselves but it was the 70s so you know it was becoming cool i guess but it was around you know filth was around and my parents were not very disciplinary but like you imagine the kids today with all the porn well you think someone's got to give you a conversation what to do
Guest:It's, yeah, I don't think so.
Guest:Well, porn, I think it's just ruining so much.
Guest:Yeah, it's ruining everything.
Marc:It ruined me.
Marc:It broke everything.
Marc:It broke my brain.
Guest:You know what's so funny?
Guest:This Pam and Tommy show that I got to be on is now making people, I get all these messages from people that tell me, I've gone back to find the tape.
Guest:Isn't that crazy?
Guest:Oh, you played Jay Leno in this?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And the Pam and Tommy sex tape that was like responsible more or less for- Isn't that good?
Yeah.
Guest:It was okay.
Guest:I mean, I'm not here to dissect the ins and outs of it.
Guest:It was fine.
Guest:The ins and outs of it?
Guest:Have you seen it?
Guest:The ins and outs of it?
Marc:That's all there is to dissect.
Marc:I mean, yeah.
Marc:If you want to talk like aesthetics and how it was shot.
Marc:I know what it was.
Marc:But it was only because- But it was the first of its kind.
Marc:What, a celebrity fuck tape?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Well, there haven't been that many, have there, publicly?
Marc:Since?
Marc:Paris Hilton and what else?
Guest:Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, kind of launched the true movement.
Guest:Who gives a fuck about that?
Guest:Yeah, who cares?
Guest:But guess what?
Guest:Before Pam and Tommy, I guarantee you there was probably another thousand couples making tapes that have never seen the light of day.
Guest:So who are these couples?
Guest:Celebrities are just regular people.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Probably more regular people.
Marc:Who are they?
Marc:Don't you have you porn?
Marc:You just put it in.
Guest:But I'm saying like the celebs that didn't ever let their tapes get stolen from a disgruntled worker.
Marc:I mean, I recorded myself fucking once when I was in college.
Marc:Where's that tape?
Marc:It's around, but it's nothing great.
Marc:You didn't destroy it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:What is it really?
Marc:Isn't that such a fucking move to like- But it wasn't done well.
Marc:I just set up a camera on a tripod to see what it looked like.
Marc:On a tripod.
Guest:It looks like porn.
Guest:Mark, you went as far to set up on a tripod.
Marc:Well, I told my girlfriend, what do you think?
Marc:I was going to hide it?
Marc:I'm like, let's try this.
Marc:Let's see what it looks like.
Marc:But you didn't just set it up on the edge of the desk.
Guest:You got a tripod.
Guest:I had a tripod.
Guest:That's the filmmaker in you.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I really respect that, actually.
Marc:There's a big old clunky camera that I stole from my dad.
Marc:You wanted to do it right.
Marc:So wait, you grew up in where?
Marc:Seattle?
Marc:Seattle, Lake Forest Park, Washington.
Marc:You're a Jew?
Marc:I'm a Jew, baby.
Marc:A Jew?
Marc:But you're like East Coast style Jew.
Marc:What, do your parents from the East Coast?
Guest:My mom is from Ada, Oklahoma.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:Yeah, and my dad is from Walla Walla, Washington.
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And you turned out a New York Jew?
Marc:You gave birth to a New York Jew?
Marc:I guess, yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what I... Wait, some of the Oklahoma Jews?
Marc:Tons of Oklahoman Jews.
Marc:I know, Tim Blake Nilsson.
Marc:Tim Blake Nilsson, the actor, is an Oklahoma Jew.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And the reason he told me was that there was a time...
Marc:maybe after World War II, I think, or maybe before, where the idea was people, immigrants, there was an organization that would assign them a state to spread everybody out so they wouldn't all be in one place when they come to kill us again.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I believe, I think it's true.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Like there was an agency, a Jewish agency that referred people to certain, you know, states or communities.
Marc:They just, the idea was like, we got to spread out this time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We can't, we can't be in too, we can't all be in Poland.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We can't all be in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mix it up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's tons in Seattle.
Marc:Not tons, but are they, but they're enough.
Marc:Yeah, but what kind of Jews?
Marc:Are they like San Francisco Jews?
Marc:They're not really Jews, like these German aristocratic Jews who try to blend in?
Marc:You tell me there's a real Jewish community in Seattle?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I went to Temple Beth Am.
Guest:Conservative?
Guest:No, very reformed.
Guest:See, that's what I'm saying.
Marc:But you've got levels in it, just like you've got- I'm not judging you, but was there a guitar there?
Guest:We had a cantor.
Guest:We had a full choir.
Guest:I was bar mitzvahed.
Guest:I worked there all through high school.
Guest:Let's back up a minute.
Marc:Full choir.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What the fuck is that?
Guest:You never had a choir singing Shema Yisrael?
Marc:In synagogue?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, choirs are for churches.
Marc:yeah I'm sorry buddy I'm sorry that's real reform did you believe in Jesus too no I mean you know I'm not religious I'm not really I mean I was bar mitzvahed Friday Saturday just one day who's doing two days who's doing a full weekend me wow me Friday was the Friday night service Saturday you did the half Torah it's
Marc:that's how it worked friday night was just a shabbat service saturday morning that meant business i think we were up there with the old guys yeah doing the haftora on saturday morning i crushed that worked with a uh a tutor for probably to work with the choir i wish i wish i wish i wish i was in musical theater i would have hopped right up there was it a uh let me just ask you was a progressive female uh rabbi who played guitar
Guest:We had a little rabbi who looked like- A little rabbi.
Guest:His name was Rabbi Hirsch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He almost looked and sounded like John Lovitz's character in The Critic.
Guest:Remember that cartoon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a little weeble of a Jewish man, but had big presence, and he was the last ... He did my bar mitzvah and then retired.
Guest:You put him over the top.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, it's not going to get better than this.
Guest:Or worse.
Guest:Or worse.
Guest:I butchered the via hafta.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got through it.
Marc:I was pretty nervous.
Marc:I thought you just said he nailed it, like moments ago.
Marc:I crushed, well, give me another one.
Marc:You crushed the Haftor?
Marc:Not the Hafta, the Via Hafta.
Marc:The Via Hafta.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:My Torah portion I crushed, and then I had to- That's what I mean, that leads into the Torah portion, doesn't it?
Marc:Look, it's all a blur at this point.
Guest:I was on a lot of pills.
Guest:Yeah, then you go in the half Torah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All my mom's friends at Temple Beth Almond are going to love that part.
Guest:It's the best.
Guest:So you have siblings?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I've got a sister.
Guest:I've got two half-brothers.
Guest:From where?
Guest:Two step-brothers.
Guest:From your dad?
Guest:So folks split when I was, what, seven, eight.
Guest:Are you the oldest?
Guest:No, sister's two years older.
Guest:Okay, so it's you two with the original set.
Guest:So it was us four, mom, dad, sister growing up.
Guest:Folks split, seven, eight.
Guest:Sister and mom and I went to live together.
Guest:Dad and new wife went with her kid and then had two kids.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then mom remarried about 10 years later and brought in my stepdad, George, who's crushing it with his two kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So step...
Guest:Brother and stepsister from that family.
Guest:All Jews?
Guest:No, my stepdad converted, and that's how he met my mom.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Classic Pixar story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He converted to... Oh, really?
Guest:Did she want that?
Guest:Yeah, and he was in the choir, I think.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Of course, the choir.
Guest:She actually didn't want it.
Guest:She told me that when they...
Guest:Went out that she wasn't all that impressed, but, you know, Shania Twain style.
Guest:But then they, but then he courted her and they, I mean, they're, you know, I just got back from Arizona with them, took them to Arizona to go to spring training before baseball gets going.
Guest:And they're peas in a pod.
Guest:They just celebrated 20 years.
Guest:Your mom and her stepdad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they should have met years earlier, but that's just how it goes.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you're a kid, a Jewish kid in Seattle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I grew up in Lake Forest Park, which is about 25 minutes north of the city shoreline, I guess, if you really know the area.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to Shorecrest High School.
Guest:In the 90s.
Guest:In the 90s.
Guest:So this is when Seattle is becoming rich.
Guest:Starting to become the metropolis it is now.
Guest:Starbucks was not yet a thing.
Guest:It still had a very blue collar vibe.
Guest:It was kind of brushed to the side.
Guest:And then the, I mean, it was the grunge, the sports, the- 90s, that's right.
Guest:It was just coming up, I'd say, when I was like sixth, seventh grade.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I was just, you know, and my- Eating, you were eating.
Guest:I was eating my feelings for sure, dude.
Guest:I was just listening to Can You Feel the Love Tonight by Elton John.
Guest:What was, so like how, like how fat?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's just say that when I went on a diet in sixth grade, because my grandpa very passively was like, you know, you can't wear sweatpants at your bar mitzvah, which is the name of a Judy Blume book.
Guest:Should be.
Guest:Should be.
Guest:So says that to me very passively.
Marc:Your memoir.
Marc:You got to think in terms of yourself.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:I'm like mid bite.
Guest:And he says that.
Guest:And I'm just like, it's just a classic drop the fork or actually finish the grandpa.
Guest:Grandpa.
Guest:Your mom's dad.
Guest:Mom's dad.
Guest:Sweetheart of a gentleman.
Guest:But he fucking was like, hey man, you gotta...
Guest:You know, you got to stop.
Guest:You got to just stop.
Guest:You got to get it together.
Guest:You're about to enter seventh grade.
Guest:You know, this is where girls come into play.
Guest:Hopefully, you know, you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But but I just really I was again, I was an active fat kid.
Guest:So it was just about stopping the eating.
Guest:But I mean, like when I started to try to go on a diet, the teachers, that's how I know it was like a big deal, because I remember the sixth grade party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had all the snacks because everyone else had crazy metabolisms.
Guest:So there's like, you know, from pizzas to pies and cookies.
Guest:And I'm going for veggies in front of some moms that are chaperoning and some of the teachers.
Guest:And one of the teachers has the audacity to go, hey, Ray, she goes, whoa, she goes, carrots.
Guest:She goes, there's pizza right there, Ray.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's pizza right there.
Guest:Hey, you fat fuck.
Guest:Another great title for your memoir.
Guest:There's pizza right there, Ray.
Guest:She just literally points at it, almost like gawking at me like, oh, you sure you don't want this delicious sweaty meat pie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're fat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, no.
Guest:And I just, so I didn't have the...
Guest:you know, the chutzpah and the social awareness to, like, fire back at her and be like, maybe you should join me on this carrot escapade, Mrs. Greenland, you know?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Chubby.
Guest:Chubby.
Guest:You know, if I wish I would be in hindsight.
Guest:But I just kind of cowered and was like, oh, no, carrots actually taste, you know, some sort of.
Marc:You did the fat kid thing.
Guest:Yeah, carrots actually taste good.
Guest:It's actually better.
Guest:You know, they're actually better for you.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:I just, I just, I love carrots, you know, just some that didn't.
Marc:You're just trying not to eat pizza?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You took everything you got.
Guest:A fat kid going on a diet spreads like wildfire.
Guest:What do you mean it spreads like wildfire?
Guest:Well, people are just like, can't believe, because you're the fat kid.
Guest:But were you sent to a therapist?
Guest:No, just, I mean, that statement from my grandpa.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Carried a lot of weight.
Guest:And what about your sister?
Guest:How'd she turn out?
Guest:The older sister.
Guest:great now she went away to a girl school um uh because she was kind of um just hanging out with the wrong crowd yeah the kids that would like there's a kid named i think jason potts he would like smoke cigarettes in our house yeah tell me my mom had big tits like just those types of kids that guy yeah that guy wait where'd he end up dude you don't know hopefully listen to this podcast and jason potts hopefully running for senate smoking cigarettes in adam ray's house
Marc:Talking about his mom.
Marc:Is that me?
Marc:Is that my phone?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:Is that Jason Potts?
Guest:Please tell me you got him on the line.
Marc:What the fuck is that number?
Guest:It's like, yo, Ray Ray.
Guest:How's Mama Ray?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have her tits holding up.
I'm sorry.
Guest:So sister goes to a girl's school.
Guest:It's just mom and I from eighth grade and through high school.
Guest:So we become best friends and enemies.
Guest:It's like I'm going through a time where I'm becoming a man.
Guest:So it's, I mean, you know, more or less at 16, 17, 18, where I'm like, give me some space.
Guest:But like, can you wash my basketball jersey for the game tonight?
Guest:You're such a jock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was a jock that did musical theater, you know, quit football to play Danny Zuko in Greece.
Guest:You did?
Guest:You quit football?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So wait, what year is that?
Guest:Sophomore year in high school.
Guest:Were you good at football?
Guest:Yeah, basketball and football were my sports, and I had made- See, like you're a sports Jew.
Guest:That's the primary difference between us.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:See, I know who Hank Greenberg is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Marc:You do, because he's a Jew.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Sandy Koufax is the other one.
Marc:Great.
Marc:But that's it.
Marc:That's all we got.
Marc:See, you know that stuff, and I know everything else.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:There is something about the Jew that plays sports that is also almost like the fat kid going on a diet.
Guest:It's like people, that didn't come up a lot, but I remember one of my friend's dads once making a comment to me about losing the weight and how I would rummage through his cupboards and how he didn't have to like, how he was going to save money on snacks basically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which I appreciate that he was making the joke.
Guest:I was in a better place.
Guest:Why not bully the kid?
Yeah.
Guest:But then he did make a weird comment one time about me being a Jew and being good at basketball.
Guest:And I just, it was my first taste of like, wow, you truly are a product of your environment.
Guest:Like, I guess if he doesn't- Mild antisemitism?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, Eastern Washington again.
Guest:But yeah, basketball was the main sport.
Guest:Football, I was good at.
Guest:I was going to start varsity my sophomore year.
Marc:But you're a sports fan.
Marc:Oh, huge.
Marc:Well, what's that?
Marc:Your dad did that?
Guest:Dad played sports, but mom was a tennis doubles champ in Ada, Oklahoma.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But probably both of them, but also just my friends.
Guest:Sports was the thing.
Guest:I didn't grow up with it at all.
Guest:Again, Seattle in the 90s had this movement of baseball and basketball that really got me into it.
Guest:And then I think it was truly, and how I became a funny kid was when the fat kid thing was going on, it was like, all right, start to make people laugh.
Guest:And now you're looked at as the funny kid and not the fat kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the more I could do that.
Guest:So honestly, I liked sports, but I think I made a point to be more active in that stuff.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because it was like more rooms to play in a way.
Guest:Does that make sense?
Guest:How fat were you, dude?
Guest:I think I remember I looking looking down at the scale in fifth grade and I think it was 170 or 175.
Guest:That's big.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If the viewers could see Mark's face, he's looking at me like a pint of ice cream.
Guest:To me, 175 is a good weight.
Guest:175 is a good weight.
Guest:That's a grown-up.
Guest:If you're 39.
Guest:I'm 58, but yeah, sure.
Guest:Look at you, dude, crushing the game.
Guest:Noxzema?
Marc:No, it's Cetaphil lotion.
Marc:I don't know what that is.
Marc:It's a facial lotion.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You don't put lotion on your face?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:See, a little sunscreen.
Marc:When's that going to happen?
Marc:I'm just okay.
Okay.
Marc:I guess so.
Guest:Yeah, you're doing all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to take care of your skin.
Guest:I know you do.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I don't want to- What?
Guest:I don't want to be- I don't know.
Guest:You see, though, some of these older, grizzled, chiseled character actors, and you're like, that seems like a cool life.
Guest:Well, maybe that's what you're headed for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're doing those parts.
Guest:I'll be the Jewish Gary Oldman.
Guest:I am doing those parts.
Guest:I haven't played any- I mean- You're not a leading man.
Guest:There's that guy.
Guest:That day is over.
Guest:There's that guy.
Guest:There's that guy.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I just saw the next 30 years of my hopeful career.
Guest:There's that guy.
Guest:Who is that guy that's always in the things?
Marc:You know what, though?
Marc:I'll take it.
Marc:At least you're that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But wait.
Marc:So because when I thought I was fat, no one was calling me fat.
Marc:I just thought it, except my mother.
Marc:There were nicknames.
Guest:Jello Jiggler.
Guest:No, come on.
Guest:Penis and Tits Kid.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:That one I made up.
Guest:But the first one for real.
Guest:Just Fatty Chubb.
Guest:Penis and Tits Kid?
Guest:I just wanted to get you to laugh.
Guest:Kids don't know how cruel they're being at that age.
Marc:Yeah, they do.
Marc:You know it more than anything.
Marc:But you don't know the impacts.
Marc:You have no conscience about it.
Marc:The only difference is you know when you're older because you know you're doing a bad thing and you feel bad about it when you're a kid.
Guest:You're like, who gives a fuck?
Guest:What's up, fatty?
Guest:Where you going, fatty?
Guest:And in a way, I almost thank some of those kids for throwing so much shade because it did break me down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where you get forced to look at yourself- Did you go home and cry and eat?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Saved by the Bell was my best friend, the Disney afternoon and snacks.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The candy we would buy for baseball to sell to get- Oh, yeah.
Guest:The bars, the chocolate bars?
Guest:The chocolate bars.
Guest:I remember one day I went out in the neighborhood to sell them and a dog, classic, like out of the sandlot, a dog got off his lease, one of these wild boar fucking woolly mammoth pit bull machines just chased me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Down the hill, I dropped all the candy and sprinted as fast as I've ever ran, got up, tripped onto the front lawn, lost a shoe, and crawled into our front door, went back, picked up all the candy, didn't continue selling, went home and ate it.
Marc:Good, good.
Marc:Well, you know, I guess there's some justice to that story.
Marc:If that dog ate any of those, it would have killed it.
Guest:Yeah, I saved the dog.
Guest:Thank you for picking up the message.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:But I ate all that stuff because I go, yeah, eating the feelings is a real thing.
Guest:But then you just get to a point where you go, all right, I got to flip it around.
Guest:When my friends that I were making laugh, that I thought were my friends, got in the game of the poking fun, then that's when it was like, all right, I got to make a switch.
Guest:But then I was funny kid.
Guest:Funny kid and sports kid?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And in both.
Guest:I was being funny with the theater kids and funny with the sports kids and just kind of in both worlds.
Guest:So you were a theater jock, but when it came down to choose, you went with the theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:That's evolved.
Guest:Well, yeah, because I mean, hey, man, Danny Zuko, Grease, sophomore year of high school.
Marc:You're getting a lot more attention than what position were you playing?
Guest:Offensive line?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Also, how many 6'1 offensive line Jews have you ever heard of in the NFL?
Guest:And also, how long is that going to last?
Guest:You weren't going to the NFL.
Guest:Bro, yeah.
Guest:You sound like my mom.
Guest:She was very, yeah, she was like, I mean, she told me though, because I had to quit.
Guest:My coach was a stereotypical football coach, like out of Friday Night Lights, what have you.
Guest:And I had to walk down the long hallway to his office and tell him, I'm not going to play football this year.
Guest:After he told me I'm starting varsity as a sophomore.
Guest:I'm a song and dance man, coach.
Guest:Mark, I tried to make a joke out of it.
Guest:I go, I can't memorize the playbook this year because I got to memorize the lyrics to Grease Lightning.
Guest:He paused, took a beat, said, get the fuck out of my office.
Guest:no then he brought his kids to the sunday matinee where i'm in full leather jacket and makeup and just goes you weren't bad oh good yeah yeah how do you like that yeah you made the right choice he's a and we've since reconnected and he's like you know now he came out and saw me and i was in hawaii with adam divine and and he goes uh he goes i guess it worked out and he was like a different person yeah it's so funny like time goes by you're like wow you is this guy and then we got to talking and and he came on my podcast and we got him on the podcast he came
Guest:on my podcast about last night, which you bet on when your car got towed.
Guest:How the fuck did that happen?
Marc:Remember that?
Marc:Every time I turn on Laurel, which is all live.
Marc:You think of it.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm like, what was I thinking?
Marc:You parked in the space.
Guest:It still baffles me to this day.
Guest:I parked in front of a driveway to a fucking apartment building.
Guest:That should have been the moment that you were put into a home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's amazing you're still here.
Guest:What time was it?
Guest:Early or something?
Guest:I'm up early.
Guest:I don't know how it happened.
Guest:It was not even time for the 5 o'clock news, dude.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It was still daylight.
Guest:People were still having appetizers.
Guest:No, I don't even know what the fuck happened.
Marc:I thought it was during the day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I cannot figure it out still.
Guest:I think the excitement of being on the podcast was just- Yeah, that was it.
Marc:Yeah, it was probably me going, where the fuck is this?
Marc:All right, I got to- I'm doing the guy who's on that day.
Marc:Oh, look, there's a thing right across the street.
Yeah.
Guest:That was cool, though.
Guest:People don't know this.
Guest:That was a very big deal because when I met you at the Just for Laughs Festival through our mutual friend Ryan Singer, and then you popped around to do other spots in Montreal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember your manager was going to bail, so you looked at me and were like, Olivia, you want to bounce?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You go, you want to bounce around to these spots with me?
Guest:And I was like, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and then we uh walked around and and all montreal it was out of a tom ang's meg ryan movie we just walked around talk shop you treated me like you know me for 20 years we got back i think i brought up my podcast prematurely and then at the end and like like a fucking amateur but not too early like eight minutes into the chat yeah after i made we had a couple i'd said something goofy and you thought it wasn't terrible and then we kept walking the streets but it's like we're walking through
Guest:beautiful Montreal.
Guest:Yeah, it's nice.
Guest:You're doing your spots.
Guest:Also, you were crushing in your spots.
Guest:Had one of the sets not gone well, I don't think we'd be here right now.
Guest:No, you would have been, you know, I would have been like, I gotta go.
Guest:Yeah, dude, you wouldn't have finished.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then we get back to the big Just for Laughs bar where everyone hangs out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we walk back
Guest:And it was like a fun thing.
Guest:And you looked at me and you go, well, that was a good time.
Guest:And you go, I'll do your podcast.
Guest:Like, bug me when we get back.
Guest:And I was like, wow.
Guest:I was like, this is what this festival is about.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:It's booking Marc Maron on my podcast so he gets car towed.
Marc:How long before I went on?
Guest:And then we got back.
Guest:And I think, and I've told this story just to a handful of buddies.
Guest:I think maybe two weeks later, I see you at the store and I go, Marc.
Guest:And you go, hey.
Guest:And I was like, okay.
Guest:I go right back to it.
Guest:Right back as if Montreal was just a fart in the wind.
Guest:It was a NyQuil dream that never happened.
Guest:Didn't want to walk around alone.
Guest:That's all it was to you.
Guest:I respect that, though.
Marc:Look at this large Jewish guy.
Marc:Pretty funny.
Marc:Seems excited.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:If that's one thing I am.
Guest:How long did it take me to do the podcast?
Guest:A year?
Guest:Three years.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Hey, no, dude.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It was the right time.
Marc:Things happen.
Marc:Everything happens in this world for a reason.
Marc:Doesn't it?
Marc:Doesn't it, though?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I got punished for icing you.
Marc:My car got towed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't look at it like that, but for sure, that was karma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was podcast karma.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But you know what it was?
Guest:It was like, I think I'd mentioned a few things here and there.
Guest:And then, you know, that's one thing is, you know, I mean, I don't know how long it took you to book Clooney and Obama.
Guest:Like, are you just shooting them text messages or like- All the time.
Guest:The follow-up.
Guest:George won't leave me alone.
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:That's what it's called.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's a balance between like when you're trying to get somebody on, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To being proactive and being a little bit of a nudnik, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nudnik, good one.
Guest:I don't know if it's the right definition of nudnik, but I like nudge.
Guest:It's like a nudge, yeah.
Guest:And so with that, with you, it was trying to find that balance.
Guest:And then I remember I saw you.
Guest:And then also we started to become chummier at the store.
Guest:And then once that started to happen, I go, oh, that was a necessary element.
Marc:I think I just started to watch you.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, this guy's fucking hammering this shit.
Marc:He's doing the job.
Marc:So I'm like, he knows how to do this.
Marc:So at some point in the interim there, I'm like, no, he's a real comic, this guy.
Guest:Hey, by the way, that's how it should be.
Guest:There has to be that respect.
Guest:You're going up in those early spots just like, wow!
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Now you're an audience.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Did you ever do those early spots?
Marc:Ah, somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:I mean, I was at Belly Room Act when I was a doorman there.
Marc:I mean, I know what it's like to perform for no one there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When I was a kid.
Marc:But yeah, I've done my share of cold opening.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Does the store- Not there necessarily.
Guest:Do you still, do you yearn for those days when, I mean, even when I remember I started there, I think in 2010,
Guest:12 or 2011.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, you know, a Tuesday was not what a Tuesday is now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you yearn for those days or do you- The 10 people days?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I only yearn for a minute because there was a time where I was terrified of the original room and when there was less stakes where you just like go up for 15 scattered people.
Marc:Like, who gives a fuck?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This isn't scary.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's not going to be on me.
Marc:Who can determine whether anyone does well with this shit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you just had more freedom.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But at some point, the fear went away.
Marc:I literally remember being terrified to go up there because you couldn't see the audience.
Marc:That was a big obstacle for me.
Marc:And I remember when I was trying to get the hang of that place and I still had ghosts from when I was a doorman there, just getting up there and not really having a bearing in terms of what the audience looks like.
Marc:It was kind of heavy for me.
Marc:But now it's like I live there.
Marc:like both rooms i don't give a shit you know what are they gonna do tell me i can't work there anymore yeah i mean that was ultimately actually just got a text saying yeah you're banned from the store i'm so sorry why can't i get any of these noises to stop ever text from no it's yeah it's right it's tommy it's tommy tommy was he's telling me i can't do any more spots do you need to see people in the uh at least like the first few rows in any venue
Guest:No, it's better if I don't, but it's, it's, it's helpful if I do.
Marc:It depends because.
Marc:That's surprising to me because you feel.
Marc:Yeah, I have to.
Marc:It's better if I don't only because I'm going to end up looking at one guy.
Marc:That's a lot of weight for the one guy.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:If I walk in on one guy, the whole fucking joke.
Marc:I can't look out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I did learn that in the original room a little bit.
Marc:But the point being that until I got the hang of that place, it was always just terrifying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think there is something about tackling that fear of the store because everyone has it.
Guest:That's what's great about it.
Guest:I don't think anyone has ever performed there without some window of where you are...
Marc:It's so much of it has to do with comfort, though, in terms of like, you know, initially you're afraid because you think like you're always auditioning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like that's over for me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I imagine for you as well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, you know, then it's just up to you.
Marc:Like the original room, who cares?
Marc:The main room, for some reason, can really go south on you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you don't even know why.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you're up there.
Marc:It's like a full house.
Marc:You're like, what?
Marc:Is there something wrong with my fly open?
Marc:What the fuck is happening?
Marc:You know, like, you know, after those first couple of jokes, you're like, oh, this is going to.
Marc:be a slog, and I'm not going to be able to get out.
Guest:When I have seen you just slay in the main room, sitting on the stool, it's like, because, you know, I think I've sat on a stool a few times and really dug it.
Guest:And the first stand-up I feel like I truly live absorbed was Patrice O'Neill at the Punchline in San Francisco.
Guest:And it was just mind-boggling.
Guest:And so people that do that, that command, and I don't nervously pace anymore like I did when I first started, but I got some energy.
Guest:You're moving around?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're slugging it out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So to watch you just so, I don't know if poised is the right word, but just still and comfy like that is, I don't know if it's that I want to be able to do it or I just admire it.
Guest:It's like for me, guitar, right?
Guest:I took a few lessons in college.
Guest:I can play enough chords to write a goofy song for a friend's wedding.
Guest:But I'm not trying to master it because I look at people that do.
Guest:Even yourself at the goddamn Comedy Jam, you go, oh, see, that's,
Guest:I don't want to do it because look at people who actually try and give a fuck.
Marc:I don't think I'm doing it.
Marc:I'm good at it, but I don't... But anyways, it's great.
Marc:So you can play a few chords and you don't close with it?
Guest:I did it.
Guest:So my second... You didn't close with it.
Guest:No, my second show at the store when I was doing the Bringer shows, doing the Vargas and Kathy Lewis shows, and I closed with... Yeah, I had six minutes, and the last three were a song.
Guest:And...
Guest:And I remember going, okay.
Guest:And then somebody said to me, you're either the guitar comic or you're not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was like, okay.
Marc:And you look around like, how many are there anymore?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And why aren't there any?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Because it's not good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Mitzi, and I showcased for Mitzi, and I didn't do it, but I was wearing a backwards hat.
Guest:And she just goes, why are you wearing a hat?
Marc:And I was like, that's your feedback?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She told me I needed to wear a scarf.
Marc:You had to take something off.
Marc:I had to put something on.
Marc:Are you serious?
Marc:You're a poet.
Marc:You should wear a scarf.
Marc:That's kind of a compliment, right?
Marc:I guess.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Who the fuck knows what she was thinking?
Marc:All I know is that, like, whatever she said, we'd all do it.
Marc:Okay, I'll take the hat off.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Took it off right there.
Marc:Threw it away in front of me.
Marc:Threw it away, yeah.
Marc:But wait.
Marc:So, oh, the sitting down thing.
Marc:You know where that evolved, Adam?
Marc:Where?
Marc:It was...
Marc:I used to do it when I was bombing because I would just lean into bombing.
Marc:If I wasn't having a good set, I'd fucking sit down and go on longer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also, I always thought the guys that sat down, like the old school guys, even Cosby himself and Shelley Berman or any of those old guys, this idea that stand-ups didn't sit down is ridiculous.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They were always sitting down.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And people who say this are like, shut the fuck up.
Right.
Marc:Look at these idiots.
Marc:Look at Marin and his stool.
Marc:What do you think this stool's up there for?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's always up there.
Guest:Not to hold your water.
Marc:You think it's just for your dumb bottled water being there since the 50s?
Marc:Fucking idiot.
Marc:Talking to nobody.
Marc:Making up the person to yell at.
Marc:Did you ever rehearse your bits in the mirror?
Marc:When you first started.
Marc:You did.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Of course I did.
Marc:No, I didn't do it.
Marc:Never did it.
Guest:Just got on stage immediately with your thoughts and just said, I'm going to see what happens.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:My thoughts and maybe like very early on when I did an open mic or two in college, a couple Woody Allen jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's trust.
Guest:You've always had that in yourself, I feel like.
Marc:It's not trust.
Marc:I was terrified.
Marc:I used to spend days when I was doing open mics.
Marc:For a fucking week, I was out of my mind with my piece of paper.
Marc:Man.
Marc:It's just me and a piece of paper going, oh, fuck.
Marc:But no, I didn't have no sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess that's the actor in me.
Guest:I would rehearse them for my alcoholic roommate all the time.
Marc:Yeah, but I didn't always know what they were.
Marc:I mean, I remember once in college, I did what I was going to do at an open mic for friends, and it was the worst.
Marc:The worst.
Marc:I can't look at myself when I see myself on television, let alone in a mirror.
Marc:What are you making, mugging and shit to yourself?
No.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I guess it was just to try to calm the nerves.
Marc:What's the gap, though?
Marc:So you're doing Grease in high school.
Guest:Yeah, sophomore year, and then that play just ignites the love for performing.
Marc:Hearing the people.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:Also, the...
Guest:Yeah, it was a mix of the, again, the adulation, but really the fun of it.
Guest:It all goes back to that.
Guest:All of this, this right here with you, doing shows this weekend.
Guest:I'm going to fucking Batavia, Illinois, the Vegas of the Midwest.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:It's like, it's all fun still.
Guest:So that's where the collaborative efforts for the play was like that time at Shortcrest High School and the group we kind of had that did five or six shows together is so influential in just what I'm doing now.
Guest:Formative.
Guest:Yeah, formative for sure.
Guest:And it's a roll of the dice.
Guest:I've seen the program a few years since and a few years prior when I was there.
Guest:At the high school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's such a luck of the draw of the classes you come up with.
Guest:And just like in Comedy Force, right?
Guest:The people that we come up with and get to be around and share stories and stages and the grind with.
Guest:It's so, you know, even my friend group in school, it's like my mom, my folks, but wanted to move to Oklahoma to be her folks were like, well, just come down here.
Guest:We'll help you get a job.
Guest:Stay with us for a little bit.
Guest:Save some cash.
Guest:My mom.
Guest:To her credit, which is why she's my hero and just the greatest and did four jobs as a single mom to make sure I could sell candy bars and get chased by dogs and try to lose some weight from running down the hill.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stand up for carrots.
Guest:She goes, I'm not going to move because Adam's got his friends here, which is huge.
Guest:If I'd gone to Oklahoma, who the fuck knows where I'd be?
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:Maybe I'd be running Bricktown Comedy Club.
Guest:I just gave them a shout out.
Guest:They'd never book me.
Guest:Maybe not.
Guest:Maybe you'd be riding a horse.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe a whole different, you'd be working on an oil rig.
Marc:Who's to say?
Guest:It stayed there, stayed on the track with my friends.
Guest:You'd probably have more indigenous friends.
Guest:A thousand percent.
Guest:Yeah, it'd be a more diverse group for sure.
Guest:But yeah, so then the performing bug just then led to everything.
Guest:And then in high school, it was like my buddies and I ran the high school news show.
Guest:The news show?
Guest:they had seniors our sophomore year basically they found out a way to broadcast into all the rooms a a weekly show that was like news weather sports and here's the clubs you can sign up for and there's a dance on Friday get your thing in so you get a few jokes in well we took it over and turned it but it was five minutes every Friday maybe even four by the time I graduated because we did a sophomore junior and senior year it was a 22 minute sketch show that played at the beginning of every class every Friday yeah most teachers wouldn't even air it because they're like
Guest:This is fucking 20 minutes of class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But but again, that helped kind of, you know, kickstart all of the the performing and acting and then stand up.
Guest:I started doing I did two open mics at Giggles in Seattle.
Guest:Did you ever play there?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I recorded two CDs there.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was the first place I did stand-up.
Guest:And then it was Jiggles for a little bit, the strip club.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:Yeah, Terry.
Marc:Fucking Terry.
Marc:Terry Taylor.
Marc:Ran everything.
Marc:But yeah, you make that sound like a good thing.
Marc:It was the worst.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Marc:Take two.
Marc:Let me do it again.
Marc:Ran everything.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:He sold you your ticket.
Marc:He made you your drink.
Marc:He did five minutes.
Marc:He seeded you, and then he'd do the five minutes.
Marc:And he yelled at your mom when she said, hey, can you seed us?
Marc:That guy was weird.
Marc:But for some reason, he was weird.
Marc:Did you ever go to his apartment and he'd show you his collection of action figures?
Guest:What?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why did I say that with such a surprise?
Marc:Because you assumed blowjob on somebody's part was next.
Marc:But...
Marc:But no, the weirdest thing about his collection is that they were arranged like they were at a store.
Marc:They were in the containers on racks.
Guest:Doesn't every action figure aficionado have them organized as if a store is going to come in and appraise them?
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Look, they're still in the package.
Marc:He-Man and Raphael.
Marc:You should just open a store here.
Marc:But no, I like what you're saying about the people that you hang out with.
Marc:We don't think about that enough.
Marc:Well, I mean, I do all the time because I know who my guy, I knew who they were, who I was eating with in New York at two in the morning.
Marc:You know, it was me and Ross and CK and Natal, Silverman, Todd Berry.
Guest:That's fucking crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But how about pre-standup though?
Guest:Do you have those friends, whether it's high school, middle school, that you go, wow, these guys were, I could bounce stuff off of, but they were also funny in their own right enough to help curate the skill set.
Marc:I wasn't as funny.
Marc:I was kind of a smart ass in high school and junior high more, but then I hung out with some guys in high school who were, I think, funnier than me.
Marc:And then in college, I think I got funnier again.
Marc:But I was more of a smart ass in Hebrew school than anywhere else, I think, probably.
Marc:That's where you found your voice.
Marc:That's where I made teachers cry.
Marc:So that's kind of my voice.
Marc:In a good way.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No.
Marc:You weren't killing?
Marc:No, I was just relentless at being disruptive.
Marc:That's awesome.
Guest:I would love to see the Wonder Years version.
Guest:It's the worst.
Marc:If we can bring Maren back, maybe we can get some- It was just like this poorly parented kid that was unmanageable and causing trouble in the class.
Marc:But funny.
Marc:I got kicked out of a private school and they wrote a letter to my parents saying, Mark has the wrong kind of leadership qualities.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:That's specific.
Marc:That's my memoir.
Marc:That's my next book.
Marc:The wrong kind.
Marc:I'm a comedian.
Marc:The wrong kind of leadership qualities.
Marc:I mean, that's degenerate territory.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:The wrong kind of leadership.
Marc:Yeah, the wrong kind of leadership qualities.
Marc:We suggest a military school for Mark.
Marc:Yikes.
Marc:What kid, though, has any leadership qualities?
Marc:Some of them.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Look at your sports captains and bullshit.
Marc:Yeah, you're right.
Marc:Anyone who's in a club.
Marc:And it really should be the people that are getting laughs.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:No, they're the rogues.
Marc:They're just trying not to get in too much trouble.
Marc:They're just trying to charm their way through life.
Marc:So you talk back to the teachers?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:One of them popped me in the face once.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So Seattle, that's so weird.
Marc:I forgot about that reality.
Marc:So did you go to college?
Guest:Started there.
Guest:I went to USC out here.
Guest:I was in the acting school at USC.
Guest:You were?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:For four years?
Guest:For four years.
Guest:I got, I'd say, maybe a year and a half paid for with academic stuff.
Guest:My grandparents helped me out with the semester.
Guest:My mom did the single mom financial aid thing.
Guest:I mean, we just paid off my loans probably five years ago.
Guest:And that was a good school, right?
Guest:Great school.
Guest:Great acting program.
Guest:And then you go back to Seattle?
Guest:No, stayed out here.
Guest:So I came out here in 01, graduated from high school in June in Seattle from Shortcrest, and then came to L.A.
Guest:in August.
Guest:So how'd you start comedy in Seattle?
Guest:So right before I left, I did one open mic just to go at Giggles, just to feel like I'd been on stage before I come to L.A.
Guest:Because for whatever reason- But you wanted to do comedy?
Guest:loosely at that point i snl was a dream for a while and so um it was i knew a lot of those guys had stand-up backgrounds right and so when i got to uh la the acting school was so the bfa program was rigorous class nine to six and then a show six to eleven and then i was in a fraternity so i had no of course you were in a fraternity but barely barely around why why would you even think to join one of more friends meet more people all right
Guest:Guess what?
Guest:The things that suck about fraternities suck, and I acknowledge that.
Guest:Did I make a lot of friends?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was I the funny guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Would I dress up in characters and do fun things to the pledges instead of take out the shit that I had on these people that I don't know?
Guest:No.
Guest:I would do goofy shit.
Marc:You don't have to defend it?
Guest:I think I do.
Marc:You're a frat guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah do i like to party do i like to have a good time yeah but the the negative parts of the fraternal uh world yeah i do not embody okay and i do not support there is a way to do that whole world without a lot of the dumb shit that guys who come into that should be like some i do feel like i'm running for office yeah this is something you should work on and allow these kids to pick carrots over pizza
Guest:Yeah, there is something about that experience that was also instrumental.
Marc:You still friends with those guys?
Guest:A handful.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Some of them have done amazing things.
Guest:There are some that are tied.
Guest:I mean, look, being at USC, small town, suburban Washington, I'd be in school and I'd be, you know, you're around, first of all,
Guest:You know, people with money that you didn't know was possible.
Guest:Being in the frat one night being like, I need to go make some copies for this paper.
Guest:Someone's like, oh, go use this kid's store, this kid's dad's store.
Guest:I go, oh, he's got a copy store open?
Guest:He's like, yeah, Kinko's.
Guest:That type of shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you knew the Kinko's error?
Guest:I knew the Kinko's error.
Guest:You said that like you got kicked out of the frat and didn't get a chance to chum it up with him.
Guest:I did know the kid goes there, yeah.
Guest:I think he went on Shark Tank with him and his brother is what I heard.
Guest:Boy, that's a big payoff.
Guest:And they got ridiculed because they were coming from money.
Guest:Somebody sent me the clip a little bit ago.
Guest:So USC...
Guest:It's formative with the acting stuff, and then I start doing YouTube videos, and then stand-up, and then I graduate, and I work at Universal Studios as a tour guide.
Guest:Wait, wait, wait.
Guest:You're rushing.
Marc:So you do one spot before you go to college.
Marc:One spot.
Marc:And then you go, and you do fraternity.
Guest:I do a couple frat parties stand-up-wise, and I study abroad in London my junior year to do Shakespeare and all that stuff, and I do a couple- So real acting, full acting shit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Full on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the program was great.
Guest:I did a few bar shows while I was out there.
Guest:Because I... Again, it was just something I did.
Guest:I'd done... What's a bar show?
Guest:A bar show in London.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't know where they do stand-up.
Guest:Not like a nice Virgil out here, but like a true bar.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Where stand-up was and somebody who... You were out there for a semester or a year?
Guest:A semester and a half, yeah.
Guest:okay and about six months doing the shakespeare doing shakes plays seeing plays just again a full program all the kids that i knew that were out there studying abroad had class monday through wednesday i fucked up and did a program that was class monday through friday so i couldn't travel every weekend like most of the kids i knew were doing that's why they go yeah but wednesday but yeah i went for an actual education but went to amsterdam and uh and that was great ada mcflurry in front of a girl in the red light district yeah and danced with her simultaneously i'll never forget that yeah that was it that was the extent of it
Guest:I wish this story had a better ending.
Guest:I wish I could say, I brought the McFlurry into the room.
Guest:She gave me a discount.
Marc:No, there's nothing good about that.
Marc:I was in Amsterdam, and I looked at them, and I went up and said- You got to look.
Marc:Yeah, but it's like, I don't know, it's kind of sad, isn't it?
Marc:It's very sad.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I think what was more sad is that I felt like I was taunting her with my delicious treat.
Guest:I don't even think she wanted sex from me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She looked at my- She definitely didn't want it from me.
Yeah.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:I love that I just created this idea that they're in there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Look at that kid.
Marc:Get him in here.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:So after college- After college, I graduate.
Marc:And you live here.
Marc:You say, well, I'm going to do it.
Guest:I'm going to do the acting.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, the program was just so rigorous, and I-
Guest:And at that point, I truly had stripped away all my musical theater bullshit and felt like I had at least some tools to start.
Guest:But again, you do not have much to build on when you graduate.
Guest:So I worked at a casting office for three, four years and then was doing open mics and then was in acting class and was doing the YouTube videos.
Guest:What YouTube videos?
Guest:I mean, just making sketches with my buddies.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And you're doing open mics at where?
Guest:I mean, Ha Ha, Store, Laugh Factory.
Guest:So I'd work a full day at Universal, right?
Guest:I was Wolverine for a little bit, then hosted the Fear Factor live show, and then the tour guide.
Guest:So these are acting jobs?
Guest:I mean, that's why I loved working at the theme park.
Guest:You're flexing that muscle.
Guest:Right, you're Wolverine.
Guest:Wolverine, not so much.
Guest:I got in trouble for improvising a lot as Wolverine, because my boss is like-
Guest:Well, just doing jokes, too.
Guest:So then when I was a 1940s cop, fucking full range to do and say whatever.
Guest:But what were you doing?
Guest:How'd you fuck up Wolverine?
Guest:I mean, I took out a squirt gun at one point.
Guest:We were shooting a bunch of tourists in the back.
Guest:And she was like, you can't have a squirt gun as Wolverine.
Guest:That doesn't...
Marc:Add up.
Marc:You got blade fingers.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And then I would say, I would make jokes too.
Guest:And they were just like, Wolverine's not funny.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:So the limitations of Wolverine at the theme park were holding you back a little.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I ran over a kid's foot.
Guest:As Wolverine?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With what kind of vehicle?
Guest:An ATV, three times a day, myself, Storm, Captain America, Green Goblin, and Spider-Man would parade around the park.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we'd pull out in these ATVs, and a kid ran up, and he wanted to take a picture, and I was holding up the caboose of this big party train.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I take the picture.
Guest:I'm like, hurry up, bub.
Guest:We got to do it real quick, you know?
Guest:And I know it's like Wolverine's right here.
Guest:And I look over and I think the kid's gone.
Guest:And I just, I rev it up and I take off and I feel my wheel go up and over something.
Guest:And so I turn back at the kid because I stopped and I was like, oh shit, sobbing.
Guest:So now I'm just rummaging through my brain of like, what do I say?
Guest:Do I say, hang in there, bub?
Guest:Do I say, oops, do I fucking kill him?
Guest:So there's no way.
Guest:Do I stab him with my plastic cloth?
Guest:I don't say anything because I couldn't think of what to say.
Guest:So I end up just staring him down and driving away.
Guest:So this kid, because I looked at him and I was like, he was crying and I was like, what do I say?
Guest:Is he okay?
Guest:You don't even know.
Guest:Did he break his feet?
Guest:All I know is that people would come to the comedy store that night when I would do the potluck and hold up pictures and go, hey, we took a picture with you today.
Guest:We thought we recognized you.
Guest:And I was like, hey man, can you just let me have this?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Can you not bring-
Guest:That's so funny, dude.
Guest:That's my other life.
Guest:That's my other life.
Guest:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:But then Bobby Lee took me on the road and that got me out of the Universal gig finally.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So you're doing enough open mics and you're putting together like 10, 15 minutes.
Guest:Putting together 10, 15 and just, I mean, going for it.
Guest:The ha-ha was really kind.
Guest:Well, when you open for Bobby, you kind of got to do 45, don't you?
Guest:Minimum.
Guest:Hey, Mark, minimum.
Guest:There were nights where he was like, I'm not feeling it.
Guest:Do an hour.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Marc:He's going to do 20?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:God bless Bobby Lee because that guy fucking gave me a lot of great work.
Marc:That's a tough opening gig where the headliners are like, you're going to have to cover most of the time.
Guest:I think it was San Jose.
Guest:I'm not even joking.
Guest:I did 45.
Guest:And he goes, I think he did 18 minutes.
Guest:And guess what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No one had a problem with it.
Guest:They loved seeing him.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so, yeah.
Guest:It's not like you're up there tanking.
Guest:You can do it.
Guest:I think I had, I mean, look, that was one of the things, too, having more time.
Guest:But you also know that they're sort of like, why does he keep going?
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:You think I wanted to be up to that long?
Guest:21.
Guest:20 or 25 of just pounding away I felt good on.
Guest:And then it was like the extra 10, 15, sometimes 20, people are looking around like, why the fuck is it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where's Bobby?
Guest:Is everything okay?
Guest:The ha-ha gave me a lot of work that wasn't bring your shows or open mics.
Guest:And Bobby takes you on the road.
Guest:Bobby takes me on the road and so I'm getting a lot of... And I remember Tommy would... It was before I got past and he was like... He told me I'm a road comic.
Guest:And I'm like, what do you want me to do?
Guest:I'm getting a chance.
Guest:Because he's like, you're never here to do Sundays, Mondays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do the three minutes here.
Guest:And I was like... I mean, I come hang out every other day.
Guest:The three minutes here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The three minutes.
Guest:And I had to tell him without being a dick.
Guest:I was like, look, man, the amount of times I stay and I sign up and then you tell me that people pop in and it's not going to happen tonight takes a toll on you.
Guest:And so then I go, well, fuck it.
Guest:I'll go to the haha Tuesday through Thursday where they're giving me stage time on real time.
Guest:yeah real time and then go on the road with Bobby and try to build it up that way because that's what you find and I'm sure you know you could talk circles about this where it's like there's no fucking blueprint but you I had this idea of what the blueprint was it was like okay go to these shows and do this and then try to get in here and hang out here and yeah but it's like at some point it was like I just need to get stage time where I can get it I mean whether it was driving to fucking San Diego to do the stats and then driving right back so I could strap on the claws the next morning yeah and then strap on the claws yeah I mean
Guest:yeah they took them that was sad too when they finally fired me to take the claws back that was plastic claws yeah they fell off one day in a group picture because i did i cling them together and i've never i still have nightmares of the kids who gasped because they thought that wolverine had just been dismembered and uh yeah you know and then party wants to be like hey man fucking this isn't real that guy's name is chad he drives an escalade with a bumper sticker that says nobody's ugly after 2 a.m
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's not Captain America.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you don't want to break the facade or the fourth wall because these kids really think you're the real people.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:They do not.
Guest:How old are they?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:It spans the gamut.
Guest:I mean, I've talked to... Man, I talked to Dave Matthews in Full Character one time with his family after a show and he... I broke character and he was like... Because he was like, is there a place to get a drink around here?
Guest:And I was like... When I was a New York cop and I go...
Guest:Oh, yeah, there's a little Irish bar right there.
Guest:I'll walk you there.
Guest:You seem like a guy who can throw a couple back.
Guest:I'm a pleasure here with your kids, and that can be a lot, just whatever.
Guest:And he's like, so we start walking, and then I just go, hey, man, I was at the show last night.
Guest:Fucking great.
Guest:And he goes, oh, shit.
Guest:He goes, can you break character?
Guest:I go, dude, you think I want to fucking be here?
Guest:And he starts laughing.
Guest:And then he wanted to buy me drinks in the bar, and I was like, I would love nothing more.
Guest:Couldn't drink with Dave Matthews because he...
Guest:I couldn't get fired from, if I was fired from a 1940s New York cop theme park job, I think it would have sent me into a spiral.
Marc:So when, okay, so you quit the thing and you're doing the comedy.
Marc:When did the acting start?
Marc:Because you've done a lot of shit.
Marc:Like you're that guy.
Guest:Yeah, we're about to go down the list, start reading a couple credits.
Guest:No, don't do that.
Guest:People don't care.
Marc:No, they care.
Marc:Do they?
Marc:But I mean, but like, what have you done?
Guest:My fiance did tell me to start telling on stage during this Pam and Tommy run to at least have people say that because she goes, because I'm really bad at that.
Guest:I never, I, when people are like, what do you say?
Marc:The first time I think I saw you was, or noticed, was in Eliza's movie.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:Because that was like a real part.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the hacks you came up to me.
Marc:Yeah, hacks too.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You were the club, the shitty club comic.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so like, you know, I'm starting to see you around, but you were in a lot of shit before that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Paul Fee gave me quite a bit of love and the heat and small parts and Ghostbusters.
Marc:I don't think I saw that.
Guest:I didn't see those.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:And did you see According to Jim in 2007?
Guest:I was one episode of that.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:I'll send you the link.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Just your part, though.
Guest:Just give me your part.
Guest:Acting is what I came here for.
Guest:You got your reel?
Guest:Don't joke about that.
Guest:I will.
Guest:No, acting is what I came here for.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Which is why I like doing- And usually that'd be a strike against you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For me.
Marc:Like, you know, like you just got- The comedy's just so I can get some parts.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But then you got stuck.
Marc:Then you got stuck as a comedy.
Guest:It's- Well, there's- You know what's so funny?
Guest:Do people ever ask you?
Marc:Because you, you know, you have been- Anything that I got, I was in my mid-40s.
Marc:No one's asking me anything.
Marc:Yeah, but look at what you've done.
Guest:No, I know, but no one's saying he just got into it to be an actor.
Guest:Right, of course.
Guest:But how do you feel with it now?
Guest:Well, actually, I guess stand-up was... You were dug in quite a bit before acting became... I'm still not that big of an actor, but I'm a stand-up.
Guest:Okay, so when I started, it was acting, and then I started doing stand-up, and now they're synonymous, and now I can't... If you ask me to pick, which people do, I will lean stand-up.
Marc:Yeah, because it seems like it's just your nature.
Marc:I mean, see, the thing about acting, really, especially when you're doing it, how you're doing it, which is you're working a lot, but it's a job.
Marc:It's a job.
Marc:And you don't have a lot of choice.
Marc:And you have to figure out how to make it a great job because it's your dream.
Marc:But a lot of times it's just sort of like, all right, you're on camera for 30 seconds, and then it's like, all right, we're just going to relight.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:That's three hours.
Marc:Then you come back and do the same 30 seconds.
Marc:You're like, all right, so you're going to do this again tomorrow.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Finding ways to be motivated and to enjoy it.
Guest:But this is why stand-up is so fucking incredible.
Marc:But you do hacks, though, and then it's a great little part.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That gets you a little exposure.
Guest:The Pam and Tommy thing is a little bump.
Guest:But you like doing it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:Back to the theater stuff.
Guest:I love the collaborative.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Even Paul Feig just threw me a little part in his Netflix movie with Charlize Theron and Ben Kingsley.
Guest:And even working with him, it was like just trying to figure it out.
Guest:I like to figure it out.
Guest:And we did season two of Young Rock in Australia, but here's a great point of why I can't just...
Guest:I was like, all right, take a little break from stand-up.
Guest:Take a few weeks off while you're shooting to not do sets.
Guest:Man, I had probably my longest day on a Friday, but the young comics who I become friends with, this kid Zach was like, hey, I got you an hour spot at Sit Down Comedy Club in Brisbane, which is like an actual comedy club, which was an hour away from me.
Guest:And I was like, fuck, I can't do a full day.
Guest:I'd already been up from three to do some other shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:shot all day and I get off and I was like, I got so Jones to go do it.
Guest:And so I took an hour Uber and went there and it was awesome.
Guest:I'm so glad I did.
Guest:But also that got me through the shoot day because I was, I knew I had that waiting for me.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:As a reward almost.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so, so I guess that's good in Brisbane.
Marc:I didn't love Brisbane.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean this, this club, the stage is real high.
Guest:The crowd was a little older, but, but yeah, fun.
Guest:I mean, again, it was, there were some, some rattier bar shows I did, but they, they love American comedy.
Guest:No, I do okay, I think, in Sydney and Melbourne.
Marc:But Brisbane was sort of like, I don't know, it's like Texas.
Guest:Yeah, I did say, I did, because I remember when I got on stage, they said, thank God you're not Mark Maron.
Guest:And then when I got off, they said something else.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:You know, anti-Semitic, but not for me to pass on to you.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:They were like, thank God you're not Mark Maron, but it'd be better if you weren't a Jew.
Marc:But you tried.
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's nice.
Marc:Yeah, and that made you feel good.
Marc:I felt great.
Marc:That's all I can do is try.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, they like to have voices.
Marc:They do.
Marc:Hilarious.
Marc:I do a lot of voices.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Marc:I like the act outs.
Marc:That's so funny because your first inbox is like, fuck you.
Marc:And then you somehow managed to stifle that.
Guest:Yeah, I own that.
Guest:The little fat kid that you are.
Guest:I'm trying to get.
Guest:Dude, yeah.
Guest:I'm trying to get the fat kid will never go away.
Guest:I'm trying to.
Guest:You'll take it.
Guest:The fat kid will take you.
Guest:Dude, Burr, when Burr came on my podcast and he goes, he had called, there was this great moment where he butt dialed me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's never called me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you ever have someone in your life like this where you go, we've got a text relationship, never called.
Guest:Never.
Guest:And then it rings.
Guest:So I look down, it rings, it says Bill Burr.
Guest:And I go...
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And I'm telling Burr this.
Guest:And I go, this happened yesterday.
Guest:And he's sitting there listening.
Guest:And I go, man, I kind of sat up.
Guest:I kind of fixed my chops and kind of tightened my collar.
Guest:And he goes, I just saw your whole childhood.
Guest:He goes, you really were the fat kid, weren't you?
Guest:Your snacks were your friends.
Guest:He goes, go on.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:And so how did I disappoint you because it wasn't really me calling you?
Guest:And it was such a light bulb shining on me.
Guest:But when did you, let me ask you this, because I'm just going back because I'm still hanging on you saying that I do voices.
Guest:And I'm trying to, in this year, dig deeper into, I guess, myself and me and Adam Ray and just the stuff that I've gone through.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm doing it in chunks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is there a point when you, like, look, I've got a white rapper brother-in-law named Dirty.
Guest:There's a lot of material there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:A lot of stuff that I want to talk about that I feel like.
Guest:Your older sister?
Guest:My sister, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:The sister I grew up with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Married a white rapper brother-in-law named Dirty.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:YouTube is music.
Guest:He's got some hits out there.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That's a good plug-in.
Guest:So what are you asking me?
Guest:At what point do you just go, fuck it, fuck these, the feelings of the people in my family, I just need to talk about this stuff.
Marc:Well, I mean, but you can talk about it, like, you know, I throw my parents under the bus pretty hard, and they can take it.
Guest:See, I don't know if my...
Guest:I do with my mom in a certain way, but I think she can take it.
Guest:But you love her.
Guest:You love her.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But your dad.
Guest:I've got some stuff about my stepmom, right?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:The woman that my dad married that is probably not as funny.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But it's like- What's going on with your dad?
Guest:He's chilling right now.
Guest:I was a doctor.
Guest:Just retired from 50 years of being- Did you get along with him?
Guest:Great.
Guest:And I think because we didn't really have much when I was younger.
Guest:And then wanted to have the relationship when I got older.
Marc:So you had the relationship when you were older.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't resent the fact that you didn't have him around.
Guest:No, because my mom crushed it.
Guest:And it was like, again, things happen.
Guest:I wouldn't be this if I- Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just started breaking down crying.
Guest:If he was around?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But again, it's like she played both parts and I'm fine with that.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think it's almost greedy when people want two parents.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:One's enough.
Marc:I think you're probably better off raising yourself.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:In my particular situation, I think they were obstacles, to be honest.
Marc:Giving me to a couple more responsible people would have been great.
Guest:Did you get to a point, though, where you truly just were on stage and you felt like, I guess, almost a release in the way you were talking about what was happening with you in your life and making it funny but not feeling like you were... Well, there's an excitement to it.
Marc:And then to polish it, I mean, certainly...
Marc:you know, coming from the point of view of like, if you were to talk about being a fat kid or you talk about, you know, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, but also, you know, making a choice over football, you know, to, to do song and dance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Would you talk about that?
Marc:No.
Marc:I mean, like, there's like, there's a lot of stuff there that if you wanted to be, but it's a whole different thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're like a guy because you go up early or because you open, you feel like you have to kill right away.
Marc:So at some point, you know, you're going to have to let that go and really workshop shit.
Guest:Well, that's why the road I love.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because when I'm doing an hour or hour 20.
Guest:Yeah, you got to pretend like you have the time.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I'm just walking into these fucking slam city.
Guest:And you're the mayor.
Guest:You're quick.
Guest:This is why you host your podcast.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:And not just a guest on it.
Marc:But I'm not kidding, though, because that's how you write.
Guest:You've also only seen me early.
Guest:You didn't see me in the late store spots or even now when I'll still do 11, 15, 11.
Guest:But no, I'm just messing your balls.
Marc:But I mean, even when you go on the road, but that's what it's for.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:If you're killing, then you try new shit.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:I do feel it is, and I don't know what that...
Guest:I also feel like, especially when you're doing these shorter spots sometimes run down, that you gotta- Yeah, you gotta kill.
Guest:You gotta hit it.
Marc:And also, if you don't hit it, there's party that's sort of like, I'm just gonna get through this.
Marc:I got these five bits, and all I gotta do is this shit.
Marc:And then you get stuck in that.
Marc:You get the opener.
Marc:You know what you're going to open with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you got your choice.
Guest:Well, I don't.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I go up there.
Guest:I mean, it's- Oh, you do crowd work?
Guest:At the top.
Guest:Every time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because that makes it new for me because that way my plan is completely abandoned.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I have chunks in my head I want to do and always a few new things so that the set is worthwhile.
Guest:But if I don't do some bullshitting up top- Yeah.
Guest:Because then it actually always, I go, I'm like, I think I'm going to open with this.
Guest:And then it always changes.
Guest:And that way it's a completely organic-
Marc:Yeah, you got to make it fresh.
Marc:You know, I'm not judging you.
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:I know you're not.
Guest:You're very supportive.
Marc:No, I think you're good.
Marc:And I just, I'm just, you know, I'm just kind of like, I know exactly.
Marc:It's hard with the short spots to generate new stuff because you get used to stuff.
Marc:And then if you take a shit in the middle of your set, then you got to put it back together in fucking 45 seconds.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:But back to your point of feeling the comfort of the store, I don't feel the pressure of needing to kill anymore there.
Guest:I want to do well when it's a great crowd and the shows, whatever.
Guest:And a lot of times now, just from where we live and having more friends and people to come out and see you, like Letterman or whatever, when that happens at the store, especially when the crowd's hot, you want to deliver.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I just don't know what it what it means to kill.
Marc:Like, you know, like it seems to me that if I really want to set my my mind on killing, then it's I'm doing other something other than being present.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Is that like I know the bits that are like I could boom, boom, boom.
Marc:And just sort of like, look at that.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:Look at these fucking people laughing.
Marc:And then like, you know, what is that?
Guest:That's just sort of like... Exactly.
Guest:It's why I do crowd work, because I break the monotony of anything that I felt like was going to be pre-determined and planned.
Guest:Yeah, if you know how to kill, there's no risk to it.
Guest:I feel a sense of trust and confidence in myself.
Guest:I feel like I'm growing each time when I do throw myself off course or dig a hole that I hadn't planned on and then can try to get out of that by putting this set back together and getting to a bit that I hadn't planned on or starting something and then having it tie into something that I hadn't planned on doing.
Guest:That's what you
Guest:got to do that to me is the most fun and that's i feel like uh i feel like the crowd picks up on that at least it it the spontaneity of it and also like well that's how i try that's how i work yes you patrice giraldo burr these are guys that i uh really uh looked up to when i started uh who have that have that flow the looseness that i feel like are conversational uh to a point to where it's um
Guest:you know the you can't tell where the bits in the conversation people say that to me when i get off now it's like would you just make all that up i'm like no i've worked hard yeah for sure you get pissed yeah because that's your tone yeah well i don't quite get pissed but it's sort of like no i've seen you throw a backpack yeah yeah yeah you had a backpack last time i saw you did i and a bunch of new pins on your jacket did i remember i complimented you on your uh your pins that's right that was another great thing it was like there was two pins i don't have a lot of four years it was it was a lot of pins for a jacket yeah
Marc:No, it's like two pins.
Marc:The other day... Two new pins.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but I don't have... I'm not like Adam Egott.
Marc:I have 90 pins.
Guest:Well, that's a lot of decals and patches.
Guest:I have only like one or two pins.
Marc:A couple pins, yeah.
Marc:Like one of them is a comedy store pin.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:We'll backpack.
Guest:You're like the guy that wears the band t-shirt to the show, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:Have you done that?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Nope.
Marc:I see people do it with me.
Marc:You judge that person.
Guest:Or they wear Marc Maron shirts to the show.
Guest:Yeah, and I like it.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:Yeah, but I'm not that guy.
Marc:I can barely wear T-shirts with things on them.
Marc:I go through phases where I'm like, I don't want anything on my shirt.
Guest:How did you feel when we were on the same flight to Utah?
Guest:That was nice.
Marc:And we- And you were going to Adam Devine's- Bachelor party.
Marc:Bachelor party in the mountains somewhere.
Marc:This guy gets married in Mexico, and he has a bachelor party where you got to drive nine hours.
Guest:In Lake- No, the Ozarks.
Guest:Okay, yeah, the Ozarks.
Guest:Your response was so- Oh, my God.
Guest:What?
Guest:A, I applauded the, because, hey, talking across the aisle, I would have been fine if you had said, what up, and then put on your headphones and been like, I'll see you back in L.A.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you had a couple gabs back and forth, and then you said, I'm going to Lake of the Ozarks for having a bachelor party.
Guest:You go, oh, awesome.
Guest:Great.
Guest:That'll be, oh, that'll be, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Guest:And then I go, yeah.
Guest:And then once we started walking off the plane, you asked more and more questions.
Guest:You just had this very real moment where you go, that sounds like a fucking nightmare.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, and it turned out, I mean, it was such a shit show, but you, you saw the debauchery that hadn't even gone down yet, which got me even more excited for it just so I could.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:I mean, again, Divine is a Midwest, Nebraska, Omaha kid that has been drinking since he was 12.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you truly get to find out what your liver is capable of.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm a, you know, one parent, North Seattle, didn't drink until, got forced, drank when I was in this summer stock production of The Wiz by the director, gave me a shot at tequila when I was 14.
Guest:Where'd that end up?
Guest:I mean, that was, then my next drink was college after that.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That did it, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was awful.
Guest:Just burned.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Weed though.
Guest:Weed I found at the end of high school.
Guest:Thank God the end.
Marc:So what's happening?
Marc:You're going on tour?
Guest:I'm on pretty much every weekend right now.
Guest:AdamRayKami.com for all the tour dates.
Guest:A lot of great clubs.
Guest:And you're headlining.
Guest:Headlining.
Marc:Headlining for since.
Guest:Again, don't get defensive.
Guest:I mean, it's like there's so many people still in my life, at least, that will... You know what it goes back to?
Guest:I remember when I first graduated college and I would have friends from the fraternity from back home in Seattle that would go, you're still doing the comedy thing?
Guest:Just because they go, what?
Guest:My parents used to do that.
Guest:They go, I don't see you on a billboard.
Guest:I haven't seen you on Hulu.
Guest:How come you're not on TV?
Guest:How come you're not on TV?
Guest:I saw you on that Jim Belushi thing, but you just said a couple things.
Marc:And you're like, well, here's a list of my resume.
Marc:I'm in a lot of things.
Guest:Yeah, that doesn't matter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it's everyone has their own idea of what it is they're like sort of like you know that guy they always mention a more famous guy what's why can't you be adam devine seems to be your friend why yeah do what he's doing yeah why can't you be a modern family but uh tour right now and then a podcast about last night and um uh pam and tommy's out now young rock season two is out now on nbc and then i'm in the show like chris is that like chris rock show
Guest:No, it's about Dwayne The Rock Johnson's life.
Guest:No, I know, but it's when he was a kid, right?
Guest:So it's three different time periods in his life.
Guest:He's running for office in 2034, and then it's flashbacks to 10, 15, and 19.
Guest:I play Vince McMahon, who created the WWE and was a father figure mentor to Dwayne.
Guest:So that's season two.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And then Gaslit comes out April 24th with your girl Betty.
Guest:Betty Gilpin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd say Julie Roberts and Sean Penn about the Watergate break-in.
Guest:I play Ron Ziegler, Nixon's press secretary.
Guest:So again, just another who's that guy playing that guy.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, but that's good.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Character acting is the best.
Marc:Those are the guys that have the longest careers.
Guest:I also came out here to act and this has been the best year for it.
Guest:And so, and it's afforded more opportunities with standup, which is all I, I see you guys doing the, the theaters and all that.
Guest:And it's, I'll be 40 in June and it's, it's a stacking of the chips.
Guest:I want to get better every year.
Guest:I want to make sure I'm taking care of myself, maximize the family time and, and just get better.
Guest:And it's like,
Guest:when I see, like, remember when I saw you in Montreal at some theater in the round, almost at an amphitheater vibe, you know what I'm talking about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny, there's certain shows, and I want to make a point to tell you this, that are just, like, stained in my brain as things that just, and hours that I've seen that go, man, I just, I...
Guest:I want to get to that.
Guest:I can envision it.
Guest:It's like getting at that level where I have that size of a room.
Guest:Because you don't have open for people in those rooms.
Guest:But to get there where the people are... Because everyone was there for you.
Marc:Oh, that was that nice one, the Palace of Arts.
Marc:That's a nice theater.
Guest:It was cool because the ovation you got when you came out was so welcoming and so deserved.
Guest:And it was just a cool thing where you go, oh, man, when you...
Guest:Sticking with this is a big part of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Evolving and being committed to it like you are.
Guest:No choice.
Guest:No choice.
Guest:Exactly, though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then having all these people, everyone was there for you.
Guest:There might have been a couple people that were being like- Just wandered in from the street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is this Arch Barker?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let himself go.
Guest:But no, mostly-
Guest:I haven't heard that name in a while.
Guest:Yeah, Australia's Finest.
Guest:Is he still there?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:But anyway, so that was a cool thing to see, and it's definitely always been in the, I don't have vision board stuff, but as far as like, wow, getting to that point to where people are coming out for you and to enjoy it.
Guest:Cause I, you know, I do my thing on the road and I, the shows are fun and great and people walk away and, and it's always bittersweet because they walk away and just at DC at the improv, which was the, probably the best, uh, room I had sales wise in my career to this point.
Guest:And having people that have come out who'd come to shows before is, is special.
Guest:And, and, uh, but you just go, you get a taste of it and you go, fuck, I like, how do you make it bigger?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You selling t-shirts?
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I've got merch on my website, but I haven't brought it out on the road enough because I... It's a pain.
Marc:I know, man.
Marc:You gotta sit there.
Marc:Even if you had a bad show, you gotta sit there.
Marc:I'm not going out there with my CDs.
Guest:I'd rather just chum it up with people and have... That show sucks.
Guest:I'm keeping the t-shirts in here.
Guest:I definitely have done that.
Guest:I just give them to the staff and I'm just losing money.
Guest:But it's fun, man.
Guest:And this was a treat.
Guest:I've told you every time when I see at the store certain episodes that I dig.
Guest:I mean, the fact that I am sitting in the same chair where Obama has sat, George Clooney and Dean Del Rey.
Guest:Dean Del Rey.
Guest:Clooney was on Zoom.
Marc:Well, it feels like Clooney was sitting there.
Marc:Josh Brolin.
Marc:How's that?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I saw him at a bar in Venice once.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:It was like my third celebrity encounter when I got to LA.
Marc:He's got a very familiar vibe.
Marc:You look at him, he'll look at you like, hey, buddy.
Marc:Incredible, huh?
Marc:Wow.
Marc:He's a good guy, I think.
Marc:Homies?
Marc:How many people do you continue the- None.
Marc:None.
Marc:Not more than one or two exchanges, and then we're not- And who is that?
Marc:It's a two-way street, but-
Marc:I don't like, I mean, there are people that like will- You've got your friends.
Marc:Will reach out to me sometimes that I've had on the show and I'm always surprised.
Marc:Like if I get a text from John Hamm, I'm like, hey, this Hamm, give me a text.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:You know, me and Guillermo del Toro almost became friends, but I don't know, something happened.
Marc:It went south very quickly.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm not sure what I did.
Marc:That's why I can't do it.
Marc:What about Clooney?
Marc:Clooney's a very nice guy.
Marc:He seems like he loves you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, but no, I don't have his number.
Marc:No Italy invites?
Marc:No, nothing.
Marc:No candy club invites?
Marc:Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Marc:Brad Pitt, when I see him, he loves me, but no, I don't have his number.
Marc:But it's better off, because then when you're, it's like being with a, it's like texting with a chick you just meet, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because you're not, well, you're going to fuck it up.
Marc:And so if you're texting with one of these big stars, and all of a sudden they're not texting you anymore, you're like, oh, goddammit, I blew it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I blew it with Clooney.
Marc:What did I say?
Guest:Let me scroll back and see how they fuck it up with Clooney.
Guest:I blew it with Clooney is the name of your next album.
Guest:Yeah, I haven't done it yet.
Marc:I haven't done it yet.
Marc:I keep my distance.
Marc:I respect their autonomy.
Guest:You read the room.
Marc:I respect their autonomy as major celebrities.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:Thanks a lot.
Marc:I'm going to text you, though.
Marc:I can text you.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:All right, man.
Marc:I'll text back.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That was Adam Ray, the podcast about last night.
Marc:You can get it where you get podcasts and adamraycomedy.com for his tour dates.
Marc:Now here's some guitar.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:I'm all right.
Marc:It's the world strung out.
Marc:From the road, from the travel, from the life.
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey, LaFonda, cat angels everywhere.