Episode 1332 - Michael Che
Guest: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 fucking ears?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:Michael Che is on the show today.
Marc:You know him from Saturday Night Live, where he's the co-head writer and he co-hosts Weekend Update with Colin Jost.
Marc:He also has his own sketch show, That Damn Michael Che, on HBO Max.
Marc:That's the name of the show.
Marc:The show.
Marc:I'm not saying that about him.
Marc:That damn Michael Che.
Marc:Season two premieres next week.
Marc:I talked to him in my hotel room in New York City.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:It was great to finally hang out with Michael.
Marc:So I'm going to be in D.C.
Marc:tomorrow night at the Kennedy Center.
Marc:I think we'll have a pretty good turnout.
Marc:But also, here's the weird thing.
Marc:My old college roommate Lance lives in D.C.
Marc:and I see him maybe once a year less.
Marc:I haven't seen him a whole lot in the last.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:How old are we?
Marc:When was it?
Marc:Thirty five years.
Marc:But it's an it's an interesting thing that we were, you know, pretty close.
Marc:We lived together for two years in college housing and then for another two or three years.
Marc:I think off campus, but then you kind of your life goes different ways.
Marc:So I'm going to see Lance and I think I'm maybe going to do an episode with him.
Marc:I'm going to talk to him, which I'm nervous about, because what is that sort of like?
Marc:Let's go over what you remember about me, but we'll see to talk about life with somebody.
Marc:And then turns out in Red Bank, New Jersey, where I will be on this Saturday.
Marc:The other two guys we live with, Brad and Tony, are coming to the shows.
Marc:Now, I haven't seen these guys really much.
Marc:You know, I can count them on one hand in the last 35 years.
Marc:And it's just wild.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I can get them all on tape.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:But...
Marc:It's gonna be wild.
Marc:It's always wild to see people after so long.
Marc:I can't even imagine what Tony looks like.
Marc:I mean, I used to see this guy like every day, pretty high, but I'd see him every day.
Marc:We were all pretty high.
Marc:I don't know how we amounted much to anything, but maybe we can fill in some blanks in each other's lives.
Marc:I'm kind of looking forward to it.
Marc:I've been fairly emotional lately.
Marc:I'm trying to do the enjoy life thing.
Marc:I'm trying to do that.
Marc:And I think I'm having some success at it.
Marc:Like, I actually have to pay attention to moments where I'm like, hey, dude, just enjoy what you have in your mouth.
Marc:Why don't you try that?
Marc:Why don't you just enjoy sitting on your porch?
Marc:Why don't you just enjoy it, man?
Marc:The clock is ticking, bro.
Marc:Why don't you enjoy giving love to your cats and being empathetic with other human beings?
Marc:Why don't you do that?
Marc:Why don't you do what you can?
Marc:Why don't you like focus in on who you're voting for in this California local elections and state elections?
Marc:Who are you voting for?
Marc:Why don't you do a little research?
Marc:Why don't you try that?
Marc:Once you order some stuff online, that'll make you feel better.
Marc:Like those little things you put in a drain that catch the random food.
Marc:So you don't have to use your garbage disposal and fuck up your plumbing.
Marc:A lot of people don't know that garbage disposal is not for garbage disposal.
Marc:It's just for loose shit that gets in there that shouldn't be in there anyways.
Marc:So you get rid of that.
Marc:Don't fucking put your whole life into your garbage disposal.
Marc:Don't do entire cakes or the end of celeries or any of that.
Marc:Don't don't use it like that.
Marc:Like my mother used to use it like a mouth that wasn't hers.
Marc:That's how my mother used her garbage disposal.
Marc:It's like, all right, there's a cake on the counter.
Marc:I'm going to eat one piece of it compulsively and fast and without any joy whatsoever.
Marc:And then I'm going to aggressively shove the rest of the cake down the garbage disposal.
Marc:That's my second mouth.
Marc:The garbage disposal will keep me from gaining weight.
Marc:Sorry, man.
Marc:Stream of consciousness.
Marc:You never know what's going to happen.
Marc:My mom's okay.
Marc:Thanks for asking.
Marc:She's a little dizzy.
Marc:I think she's going to be all right.
Marc:I don't know what I'm going to do at the Montreal Gala.
Marc:I got to figure out some time.
Marc:Shit.
Marc:There's a lot going on.
Marc:I got to work on some new material.
Marc:Look, I'm already doing like two hours.
Marc:Lay off.
Marc:Back off.
Marc:You know what's lovely, though?
Marc:I'll tell you what's lovely, honestly, is that I'm getting a lot of emails about the bad guys.
Marc:And first of all, there's a lot of kids that walk out of there, according to their parents, and say that I'm their favorite character, which I find very moving and touching.
Marc:But I'm also getting a lot of emails from parents who are fans of mine who now have this experience of me with their kid that they couldn't have, obviously,
Marc:just watching my standup or something, but they can both have these separate but common experiences with me.
Marc:Now this isn't a selfish thing.
Marc:I just find it very sweet that it's happening.
Marc:I'm glad that that movie did so well and I'm glad that people enjoy it, but it's definitely something I never thought in my life would happen, which is that I'd have some fans who were under 10.
Marc:So that's exciting, right?
Marc:Fans under 10 for the snake.
Marc:The snake's a great character.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So Michael Che and I had this lovely conversation a few weeks ago in New York City in my hotel room.
Marc:This Saturday is the season finale of Saturday Night Live.
Marc:Season two of That Damn Michael Che premieres next Thursday, May 26th on HBO Max.
Marc:And we've never really talked.
Marc:So we've met a couple times, but this is the first time we talked.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:This is me talking to Michael Che.
Guest:Bye.
Marc:Jimmy, like, whether it's a voice or an expression, like, he knows how to... Right, right, right.
Marc:You're working with a dude that's, like, you know, he knows how to whole... I love Jimmy.
Guest:He's a good guy, right?
Guest:He's a great guy.
Guest:He's always been great to me.
Guest:How long did you work with him over there?
Guest:I never worked with him.
Guest:Like, we never overlapped.
Guest:But my first show... No, my second show at SNL as a writer, Jimmy was... I mean, excuse me, Justin was hosting...
Guest:yeah so like jimmy was around oh because you know what i mean yeah so i kind of met him very very quickly and then uh and then like you know like he'd always be around like he'd be around like he hosted i think like the next season or something like that so you're around him and he's like just in the building he's always been in the building yeah so he's in the you know he's right on six and i know i know amir and them so oh yeah yeah yeah so it was like i kind of i don't even know how long i i don't know how i've met him is that you know like that's how long i feel like i've known him
Marc:Yeah, I think everybody in that building loses track of time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it's like a casino, like no clocks or windows type thing.
Guest:It's true, right?
Guest:Yeah, literally, yeah.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:I never thought about that, but it's kind of like that.
Marc:I mean, I've only been there a couple times, and I was like, have I been here a week?
Guest:Yeah, it's got that feeling.
Guest:It's like forever.
Marc:Yeah, so I went over, I did the full spread at Katz's about an hour ago.
Marc:I did the whole thing.
Guest:Isn't it crazy there's a line wrapped around the block for that?
Marc:I know a guy.
Marc:You could probably get in.
Marc:I could probably get in.
Marc:I think you've earned that.
Marc:I would hope so.
Marc:Go into the sandwich place without much trouble.
Guest:But it's just crazy.
Guest:I remember going there as a kid.
Guest:That was our Sunday treat.
Guest:My grandmother would go to Katz.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And we'd share a pastrami sandwich.
Guest:My grandmother would always get the hot dog and finish.
Guest:So that place just reminded me of...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It just feels weird that people want to go there.
Guest:That's all that's left, dude.
Marc:Yeah, it really is.
Marc:There's no other delis anymore.
Marc:There's no Jews.
Guest:No.
Marc:They go there, but they look at meat and they look at Jews.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Still the best pastrami, though.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:It must have been when you were a kid, though.
Marc:You grew up around here?
Marc:Yeah, I grew up on Allen Street.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was the situation then?
Guest:Oh, that was public housing, man.
Guest:Right here?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:30.
Guest:I'll be 39 in like a week.
Marc:So what year was that?
Marc:You were born then?
Guest:83.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Because I came down here in 89.
Marc:And I was on second between A and B.
Guest:Yeah, this was all kind of dope.
Guest:This was all dope.
Guest:It's sad, but it's also funny.
Guest:People will say, oh man, I miss the gritty New York.
Guest:And I'm like, no you don't.
Guest:No you don't.
Guest:Do you have uncles in prison still?
Guest:Do you have...
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Cousins that OD'd and shit like that.
Guest:Like, you don't miss it.
Guest:It's nice now.
Guest:I like it now.
Guest:I like it right now.
Marc:Well, those people don't know what they're- I mean, I think I was one of those people until you start to realize, like, I don't know, dope's better than crack, I think.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you gotta take one.
Guest:Right, because it was always- it was weird down here.
Guest:It's a lot easier to catch the guy stealing your shit if he's on dope than if he's on crack.
Guest:Because he'd stop and he didn't know he stopped.
Guest:Yeah, he's just stuck there.
Guest:You could just take your shit back.
Guest:You could just take the book back right off of him.
Guest:He won't know the difference.
Marc:But I just remember the whole, like, when I was on second, there was a dope doorway right next to my house.
Marc:And they had these guys.
Marc:I think it was, I don't know if it was Colombians or Dominicans.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It was Latino for sure.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But they had the guys at the end of the street, on each side of the street, the lookouts.
Marc:And then they had, and junkies would line up like 30 deep.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like it was a movie.
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:It was crazy.
Guest:It's crazy that everyone knew it, but cops did nothing about it.
Marc:So you grew up in that area?
Guest:Yeah, it was like a tidal wave, I remember.
Guest:In the 80s?
Guest:You would just hear about people that you lived in your building, lived in other buildings.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But for years, and the next thing you know, 30 years, 20 years, 40 years in prison.
Guest:Or dead.
Guest:Prison?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, I don't know if they're dead for 30 years.
Marc:No, but I mean, or dead.
Marc:Or dead.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Because that was when the dope got really clean, because they realized that white people would snort dope, but they wouldn't shoot it.
Marc:So there was a period there in the 80s where the heroin on the street was so good,
Marc:that people were dying pretty easy.
Guest:I feel like it was, for my neighborhood, it was more crack.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:For my neighborhood, I think you would hear more about people going away for selling crack.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's what all of the time came down because it was so fast and everybody was doing it and it was so easy to get that it was just like, it was crazy.
Guest:Makes people crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like all at one time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like just a celebration of psychosis on the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like it was like the first iPhone.
Guest:It was like everyone had to have it.
Guest:They were lined up to get it.
Guest:You can't remember life before it.
Guest:And then you just, you connect, you stay connected to it.
Marc:It's what your life is.
Marc:That's all it is.
Marc:It's your, it's your, your, your.
Marc:It's like an appendage.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The pipe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How, how many kids in your family?
Guest:I'm the youngest of seven.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Is that a lot?
Guest:That's not a lot.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Marc:What are you?
Marc:Two.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Marc:Catholics, blacks, Hasidic Jews.
Marc:I guess seven's not a lot.
Marc:That's not a lot.
Marc:No.
Guest:Yes, it is a lot.
Marc:Wait, what's your background?
Marc:I'm a Jew.
Marc:Yeah, but Jews don't have a lot of kids?
Marc:Not the regular ones.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:The hatted ones seem to have quite a few.
Marc:I was just at the Hertz and I saw some woman and a Hasidic guy.
Marc:They had like seven kids and she didn't even look like she was 40 yet.
Marc:Well, she was wearing a brown wig.
Marc:A brown wig and she looked tired.
Yeah.
Guest:And sad and lost.
Guest:Yeah, that's a rough one.
Guest:I always feel bad for those women because every time I'm at a bar late night or randomly, you'll just see one Hasidic man just come in drinking, trying to touch the girls.
Guest:You're like...
Guest:Your wife is at home right now, covered up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're out here.
Guest:With nine kids.
Guest:With nine kids.
Guest:And you're out here drinking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or driving around your station wagon looking at hookers.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Obviously, you see them down on the Lower East Side driving around looking for trouble.
Marc:It's the saddest thing in the world.
Marc:But I heard there was some sort of loophole.
Marc:Like, you know, I don't know.
Marc:Like, they can fuck hookers or something.
Guest:what is biblical i don't know oh is it kind of like like uh well because they're doing the work or something or that like things like you know like you can't touch you can't use the lectures but you can let somebody else push the elevator button for you on a sabbath thing yeah yeah yeah you can't fuck your wife but you can fuck a hooker she's not jewish maybe i don't know you can have somebody fuck her with your dick yeah
Marc:Technically she's doing the work.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Guest:So where are all your sibs at?
Guest:All spread out, man.
Guest:We left Lower East Side when I was about 10.
Guest:We moved to Jersey City because we got out of public housing, but still Manhattan was way too expensive.
Guest:And you live with your mom?
Guest:My mom, yeah.
Guest:And your old man?
Guest:My parents were separated like...
Guest:I think when I was conceived, even.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I was the last one.
Guest:I'm the youngest.
Guest:And he was out?
Guest:He was gone.
Guest:They were married, but he was gone.
Guest:Do you have a relationship with him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:You know what's interesting is I think it's because we're very similar people, but I get along way better with my dad, but I'm closer to my mom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Me and my dad have never had like a falling out or argument or anything.
Guest:Well, I mean, if you accept that he wasn't there.
Guest:Well, it's not that he was there.
Marc:He wasn't in the house.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, well, that makes sense.
Marc:That was the easier one.
Marc:You love your mom because she took care of this.
Marc:There was probably like kind of that weird like, all right, I'll do it.
Marc:But your dad was more like, hey.
Guest:No?
Guest:I don't know because like me and my mom, I don't know.
Guest:I guess maybe that's a good way to think of it.
Marc:She took Carrie and you were able to have a good time with him.
Marc:No?
Guest:Maybe.
Marc:Isn't that usually the way it goes?
Guest:Maybe.
Marc:The one who's got to shoulder the burden of bringing the kid up.
Marc:And that's where the love is.
Guest:I've been kicked out of the house so many times.
Guest:By her?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:For what?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:First time I got kicked out of the house, I was 14.
Guest:Then I was 16.
Guest:You just go to your dad's?
Guest:I went to my sister's first.
Guest:Then I went to my dad's.
Guest:What'd you get kicked out for?
Guest:14?
Guest:Not going to school.
Marc:So that was going to make it better?
Marc:Get out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Go to school, live in the street.
Guest:Yeah, that was, I didn't understand the logic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was one of those things like my family background is like, if you don't follow the rules, then you're out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we don't care how old you are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is crazy to think now.
Guest:Like, I think, good God, 14 now.
Guest:But back then, I was like, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Guest:I guess it's time to go on my own kind of thing.
Yeah.
Guest:14.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:How old was your oldest sibling?
Guest:I was tall, if that makes sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My sister was 12 years older than me.
Marc:The oldest sister?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's not that much.
Marc:And then they come down?
Marc:Then there's how many?
Marc:I'm the last, so it's like.
Marc:But there are how many brothers and sisters?
Guest:It's 15, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8.
Guest:And then me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, so there's a big gap.
Guest:Yeah, there's a huge gap.
Guest:I was going to say my parents were separated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When they had you?
Guest:When they had me.
Guest:Oh, I see.
Guest:So it was like a kind of like you want to just try it.
Marc:We're both lonely.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:The cable was out or something.
Guest:I don't know what happened.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:How's it going over there?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't know what happened.
Marc:So you're getting thrown out of the house a lot or no?
Guest:As a kid, I used to a lot.
Guest:I was very like, I thought I was older than I was.
Guest:I thought I was a little bit more.
Guest:You know, I just always thought I had my mind made up.
Guest:If I was against something, I could stand up.
Guest:I didn't realize.
Guest:Yeah, super stubborn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Taurus, they say.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Super stubborn.
Guest:But you didn't get fucked up?
Guest:No.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Like high?
Guest:I mean, like, yeah, drugs or anything.
Guest:No, no, no, no, never.
Guest:Fucking that.
Guest:At least that's... You thank your parents for that?
Guest:Well, my dad was an addict.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Still an addict, I guess, but he's been recovered for over 30 years, I guess.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Or in recovery.
Guest:I don't know the tenses for it, but he's been in recovery for... Sober.
Guest:Sober for as long as I know, but... So I've always... And also, too, like...
Guest:If you grow up in a neighborhood with a lot of drugs and all of that stuff, there's kind of a fine line between people that use drugs, even people who sell drugs.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:There's a hierarchy.
Guest:It wasn't cool to do drugs in my community, in my neighborhood.
Guest:It was like, oh, you've crossed the line of drug addicts.
Guest:oh really yeah it was like a stigma because we lost a lot of people you see you know there's a lot of pain that came from that so people knew it existed and they knew about it oh my god but they didn't you didn't want to do it you just want to be on the wrong side of it yeah if you sold you could get more respect selling drugs and doing drugs okay which is crazy because the destruction seems to be in the you seem to be marketing yeah
Guest:But but it's and it's just as addictive.
Guest:Both are just as addictive, which we didn't know.
Guest:But I always stayed away from it just because of just seeing both.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Just seeing the depth, seeing the.
Guest:It's so weird, dude.
Guest:It was it was rough to watch growing up.
Marc:When I lived down there, because that was like the first time I got sober.
Marc:I moved down the lower side.
Marc:I came here to New York.
Marc:I'd been sober a little while.
Marc:And I just see these junkies come down.
Marc:And you see the same dudes every day.
Marc:And you'd be like, what the fuck?
Marc:They look terrible.
Marc:They're sweaty.
Marc:just like ghosts like zombies and i'm like god damn is this the best thing to see being sober to see these fuckers all fucked up every day as a reminder but it's weird how the junkie brain of the attic brain works because i'm about i'm there about a year and so it slowly starts to shift to like that shit must be really good really good yeah something he's coming back he's looking like that he's willing to give up everything
Guest:for whatever the fuck is in that doorway it must be not bad yeah yeah it must be worth something yeah but it's it's i guess it's also different too as a kid you start to if you grow up in it you start to see like your friends moms or your friends oh right right right
Guest:you know what i mean dads and family members and people who used to be you know normal normal or not normal anymore and then it's just like quick just a quick fall off yeah like wow where's her teeth you know all that stuff that's right shit like that you gotta deal with the kid all fucking angry and sad it's like getting bit by a zombie where you're like oh just wow you want nothing to do with it but you never saw your old man like that
Guest:No, never, never, never.
Guest:My dad, I think his biggie was booze.
Guest:Booze.
Guest:Old school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he definitely did what he did, but I think his big one was booze.
Marc:But so did your siblings see him drunk?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Marc:So that's interesting.
Marc:You probably got the best version of the guy.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I remember, it's so crazy to say, because I remember when I was a kid, I thought my dad was the nicest guy in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And every time I would tell him that, he would get so embarrassed, like, dude, you have no idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:who you're talking to, you know what I mean?
Guest:Don't ask your sister.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it was just like a fun thing where I just thought he had low self-esteem.
Guest:I had no idea he had a history.
Marc:You never asked your siblings about him?
Guest:I knew things, but you know, people aren't going to tell you bad things about your dad.
Guest:Sure, when you're a kid.
Guest:When you're a kid.
Marc:Yeah, not till later.
Marc:yeah and then they tell you then they tell you that's the funny the statute of limitations on shit you shouldn't tell your kids runs out when you're like i think in your 60s right yeah but i but i don't think it was ever like even then it wasn't ever that he was a bad guy right just drunk it's just a fucking sick you know yeah fucked up guy it's just fucked up yeah it happens yeah i mean i know people like and it's funny the kids of uh of drunks go either way they either become a drunk or they become a complete control freak
Marc:Like, yeah, I'm not going to be a drunk.
Guest:Oh, now boozing is, I could see it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's a rough one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I try not to drink too much so that I don't ever have to quit.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm trying to keep it.
Guest:I'll take a couple days off.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just to make sure.
Guest:You like it, though?
Guest:I like it a lot, man, especially for, like,
Guest:I feel like the way you start performing is what you become addicted to.
Guest:It's almost like a baseball player's socks, you know what I mean?
Guest:On a hit streak, you don't want to change a fucking thing.
Guest:So I was doing comedy drinking starting out.
Guest:And now it's like in the back of your head of have a drink.
Guest:It's a ritual.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It all becomes a ritual.
Guest:Hang out at the bar, have a drink, talk with your friends, do the set, shit on somebody, go have another drink.
Guest:Didn't he ride in that high?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There are guys that can't do it without drinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't think... I know I've performed on everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't think I perform better.
Marc:No.
Guest:No one does.
Marc:No one does.
Marc:But I can understand the one drink to get that, to ease you into...
Marc:It'd probably make your first four minutes better.
Marc:But then if you get another drink, I don't know.
Guest:It just makes what you're willing to try better.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like you said, I think it's just a slower start maybe only because of your apprehension of being sober thinking you can't do it.
Guest:But it's all the fucking same.
Guest:You got it all in you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you wouldn't be that good if you needed to drink.
Marc:Yeah, I can't imagine it anymore.
Marc:It's hard for me to... But I definitely was doing it at some point.
Marc:So when did you start doing stand-up?
Marc:I started in 2009.
Guest:I was 26.
Guest:Oh, you were old.
Guest:I was an old dude.
Guest:Well, what the hell did you do before that?
Guest:Man, a little bit of everything.
Guest:I wanted to be a, I wanted to be like a, I didn't know, I knew I wanted to be an artist somehow, but I didn't know like what it was.
Guest:You mean like anything from like painting?
Guest:Anything from painting to acting, to directing, to something.
Guest:I just wanted to be in not cubicle world.
Guest:When did you start doing something?
Guest:Well, I went to art school in high school.
Guest:I went to LaGuardia.
Guest:Oh, that's that one.
Guest:It's down here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, it's up on 65th and Amsterdam.
Marc:Is that the fame school?
Marc:Fame school.
Marc:You know, I ask everyone I've talked to who's ever gone there if that's the fame school, and I should know by now.
Marc:But every time I ask, I'm completely earnest about it because I don't fucking remember.
Guest:But also it's like fame's not a thing anymore.
Guest:No, that's true.
Guest:But that's how everyone knew that.
Guest:That's how everyone knows it.
Guest:But it's like if you ask anybody under 30, you ask Chalamet who went there.
Guest:Is that the fame school?
Guest:He'd be like, what?
Guest:Like he probably doesn't know what the fuck fame is.
Guest:Was Chalamet from planet Earth?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I think he's a strange little guy.
Marc:He's a good dude.
Guest:I think he's a good dude.
Marc:I don't know him.
Marc:He seems like a good dude.
Guest:He seems like a sweetie.
Guest:I'm excited to see him get old.
Guest:Yeah, it's going to be weird.
Guest:It's going to be weird.
Guest:A little skinny mustache.
Guest:Like a little French old man.
Guest:He's going to be all right, though.
Guest:Yeah, he'll be all right.
Guest:But this is his time.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:This is his.
Guest:He's new Leo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He is.
Marc:He might grow up to be Leo.
Marc:Maybe, but Leo kind of like, like Chalamet has a different look than Leo.
Marc:Leo was like a troubled kid.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, I got you.
Marc:He looks like he's having a really good time.
Marc:I got you.
Marc:Leo looked like the world was weighing on him a little bit.
Marc:Chalamet just looks like nothing's going to hurt that kid.
Guest:Well.
Guest:Famous last words in Hollywood.
Guest:Nothing's going to hurt me.
Guest:I think Corey Feldman said that first.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:None of those child stars really kind of go the distance like Leo has.
Marc:And he's still so fucking good.
Guest:It's rare.
Guest:It's rare.
Guest:But when you see it, it's... I mean, we look at Kenan.
Guest:Kenan's frigging...
Guest:Still going.
Guest:He was a child star.
Guest:You almost don't even think of it.
Guest:Who's Nickelodeon?
Guest:Nickelodeon.
Guest:And he's got nothing but funnier, that guy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's like the best thing.
Guest:Keenan got so funny.
Guest:Has he got so confident?
Guest:He's so good.
Guest:He's so funny.
Guest:I can't imagine the show without him.
Guest:And working with him.
Guest:Neither can anybody, apparently.
Guest:Yeah, neither can anybody.
Guest:He's like, it's incredible.
Marc:But wait, so you go to that school, and what does it prepare you for?
Marc:What are you doing there?
Guest:Honestly, it's, I mean, you get your major, you get, you know, just art, performance, art and drama and all that shit, but.
Marc:So you were acting and stuff while you were there?
Guest:No, I was doing painting.
Guest:You were painting?
Guest:I was doing fine art, yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like figurative painting?
Guest:yeah you good yeah no but you i would have stuck with it if i was good yeah yeah i wasn't that good it was uh i tried i liked it but i i knew it was like not my first language uh-huh i knew i knew how to do it because i knew how to do something else and i could you know it wasn't my first sport yeah yeah
Guest:I knew comedy and performing was probably going to be the thing.
Guest:I just was afraid to do it.
Guest:So you weren't doing that in high school?
Guest:No, I mean in the cafeteria.
Guest:Right, just for front.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when did you like... I just nutted up one day.
Guest:I was broke.
Guest:But it wasn't... I got fired from some job.
Guest:I think I was working at a car dealership.
Marc:Wait, so you get out of the performance school and all you do is paint and fuck around the... I mean, you had like... I was also...
Guest:2019 yeah you know so you do like odd jobs fast food yeah yeah yeah waiter but that's six years oh so you did all of them did everything in the city never well in jersey oh you were in jersey i moved to jersey because it was way cheaper i couldn't afford manhattan anymore but with but your family was out there too right my family was in jersey city yeah and you were living in jersey working at restaurants living with my brother
Guest:Oh, what did he do?
Guest:He was a barber.
Guest:Still a barber?
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't know what he does anymore.
Guest:I think he's like a truck driver.
Guest:I think he's a truck driver.
Guest:Do you have his number?
Guest:I do, I do.
Guest:I try not to ask people about their finances because it gets really expensive for me.
Guest:You're the guy.
Guest:It's never, I'm doing great, don't worry about it.
Guest:It's funny you should ask.
Guest:I think he's a truck driver though, if I'm not mistaken.
Marc:Well, so you're living with your brother in New Jersey working in restaurants.
Marc:That's the Petri dish of desperation that pushes somebody.
Guest:Basement apartment.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Basement apartment.
Guest:Subterranean Petri dish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No windows.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:In New Jersey.
Guest:A lot of time to stew.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So what were you on the edge of?
Guest:Depression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was like I had to do something, man.
Guest:I was like, at some point, all I wanted was just try to justify not going to college.
Guest:Still, at 20-something.
Guest:At 20-something.
Guest:You're like, I still got to show the world.
Guest:Yeah, well, because I had friends that were already graduating and starting their careers and shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:And they're like, what are you doing?
Marc:That's the worst.
Marc:What are you up to?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, we're all hanging out.
Guest:We're all going to eat somewhere.
Guest:And I got $8 for the week.
Guest:I can't do anything.
Guest:It was embarrassing.
Marc:Yeah, I know that feeling.
Marc:But you're so lucky that at least you landed on a show that's pretty visible.
Marc:Even when I was doing well early on, my parents were like, I don't know that show.
Marc:What network is your show on?
Yeah.
Marc:IFC?
Marc:Where is that?
Marc:Yeah, I dealt with that.
Marc:It never ended for me.
Guest:I got lucky in that way that it was a show that... A known thing.
Marc:I swear to God, I just got an email or a text from my cousin because they just did a piece on me in People Magazine.
Marc:And she goes, look what I found.
Marc:And she took a picture of the piece and said, I guess you really are a big deal.
Marc:Fucking...
Guest:58.
Guest:That happens to me still, though.
Guest:I remember five or six years ago, my mother called me, and she was like, I just saw you on a commercial.
Guest:I was like, a commercial?
Guest:I'm on television, appointment television.
Guest:I was like, yeah, but a commercial.
Guest:She saw the commercial.
Guest:Which what?
Guest:I think it was an American Express commercial I did with Tina that Tina pretty much gave me.
Guest:Shout out to Tina Fey.
Marc:Pulled you in a while back?
Guest:Yeah, it was a while back, but I really appreciated it.
Marc:Yeah, those are good.
Marc:All right, so tell me about that first time.
Marc:What the hell?
Marc:You're in the basement.
Marc:You decide to do comedy.
Marc:Who are you watching?
Marc:What made you think you could do it?
Guest:I'm watching Tough Crowd.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm watching Jerry Seinfeld Comedian.
Guest:I'm watching Howard Stern Show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't really follow Opie and Anthony because I didn't know about it until later on.
Guest:Yeah, and that's when it got not great.
Guest:Yeah, because I didn't know about it then.
Guest:I didn't drive.
Guest:I didn't have a car or anything.
Guest:So I didn't really have all that stuff.
Guest:Howard Stern, I think, was still free.
Guest:I think it was still on K-Rock.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I remember when I did O&A, your primary concern was like, am I going to be dragged into something that's going to be problematic?
Marc:yeah you're like is there is there going to be a porn star in here doing something horrendous or am i going to be asked a horrible racially loaded question well like i all i knew about ona was they were like they had the uh the people have sex in the church oh yeah like that's what i knew about that's what that's what got him thrown off
Guest:Yeah, and then after that, it was obscurity for them.
Guest:I didn't know, according to me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's when they went to Sirius.
Guest:That's when they went to Sirius.
Guest:I wasn't paying for satellite radios.
Guest:I thought they were dead and gone.
Guest:I only did it at Sirius, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so at that time, for me, I really didn't know much about them.
Guest:Who were you following as a comic?
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Patrice, you, Jim, Keith, Jim Norton, Keith Robinson, Geraldo, like all of those guys were like, I wanted to be one of those guys.
Guest:Love them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, obviously Quinn.
Marc:I tell you, man, Geraldo and Patrice, I miss them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I miss seeing them.
Marc:It was always good to walk in there and have Patrice take your legs out from under you somehow.
Guest:Giraldo was so good.
Guest:Todd Lynn.
Marc:It's so sad because he was such a ball buster.
Marc:And I always liked him.
Marc:He liked me, so I was okay.
Marc:But the last time I saw him, he was blind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think the last time I saw him, he was blind.
Marc:Like, it was in Montreal, and I put him on an elevator.
Marc:Like, an elevator was like one of these situations that opened up, and I just saw Todd standing there looking away.
Marc:I'm like, Todd?
Marc:He's like, what?
Marc:Mark Maron.
Marc:He's like, oh.
Marc:And I'm like, holy shit.
Marc:So I had to bring him in the elevator.
Guest:it's rough it was rough man really rough people don't know him either but he was one of the great assholes yeah one of one of the all-timers one of the all-time assholes famously so where do you first do it how do you get the i i started vetting i started going hanging out at the cellar like buying tickets to shows and shit or like the comic strip because it would just be places that i'd hear them talk about
Guest:Sure, so you'd go.
Guest:Yeah, but because I don't think you guys even realize, or maybe you do, but like, that exposure to comedy was like the first time I ever saw comedy not in a theater, but like,
Guest:The working part of comedy.
Guest:Yeah, the gym part.
Guest:Yeah, the grind of it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:One after another.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, to me, I thought, oh, you write a special, you go to a theater, and you say what you wrote, and then that's how you do it.
Guest:I didn't know it took...
Guest:years and years of noodling and 10 minutes at a time and five times a day, that kind of thing.
Guest:I didn't know that part.
Guest:But watching those shows and seeing that documentary where Jerry's like- Comedian?
Guest:Yeah, where he's like coming back, for me was like,
Guest:Oh, so it's humanized it.
Guest:It made me feel like, oh, this is something you can work at and get good at.
Guest:This is the job.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You don't have to be Eddie Murphy immediately.
Marc:Almost nobody is.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And sometimes it doesn't end well for people.
Marc:It doesn't.
Marc:Most times.
Marc:All right, so you watch all that, and you go into the shows.
Marc:When do you finally go up and ask one of us, like, hey, man.
Guest:Never.
Never.
Guest:Never.
Guest:When I did stand up, I went to, I don't know if, man, I don't know if you even know this place because I don't know how long it existed.
Guest:It was called the Comedy Corner.
Guest:It was on McDougal.
Guest:It was next to that restaurant.
Guest:It's like the next block.
Guest:Oh yeah, I knew it.
Marc:Is it downstairs?
Marc:Yeah, downstairs, yeah.
Guest:I did an open mic there.
Marc:What's the guys that hosted it?
Marc:Morris something Morris?
Guest:No.
Marc:Or like a guy with glasses?
Guest:The one I did, a woman hosted it.
Guest:Her name was Amy Carlson.
Guest:It's a little tiny place downstairs.
Guest:Tiny place downstairs.
Guest:Now someone's standing in the corner.
Marc:It's like, oh, you didn't go to the cellar?
Guest:You want to come here?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I did that open mic.
Guest:They had an open mic.
Guest:It was like $5.
Guest:You had to pay?
Guest:You have to pay $5.
Guest:And bring people?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Just pay $5, and if you get joke of the night, you get your $5 back.
Guest:Joke of the night?
Marc:Who decides that shit?
Marc:The host.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:So just somebody who can't get work at the cellar decides whether or not you're good?
Marc:I'm so bad.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:They were probably nice people, and they probably were pretty reasonable.
Guest:You wanted that $5, I'll tell you that.
Guest:You wanted it back.
Guest:You're damn sure right you wanted that shit back.
Guest:You wanted that $5 back because that was a whole other mic.
Marc:I know.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That's a good testament to the scene at that time was that you really wanted to win it.
Guest:Yeah, you did.
Guest:Of course you did.
Guest:You just want to be the funniest guy in the night.
Guest:You don't want to be the funniest guy ever.
Marc:You just want to be the funniest guy on the show.
Marc:So do you remember who was doing shows with you?
Guest:It would be like Nimesh Patel, Jared Freed, Jermaine Fowler, Kevin Barnett, late Kevin Barnett, Mark Norman, Mike Lawrence.
Guest:Mike's funny, huh?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Mark's funny, too, actually.
Marc:I just saw Mike.
Marc:I haven't seen Mike in years.
Marc:He's all right.
Marc:He's good.
Marc:They have a baby, I think.
Marc:He's married.
Marc:He's writing.
Marc:He used to open for me.
Marc:That guy was like, to be as profoundly nerdy as him and to be able to fucking swing that fucking dick like he did, to do jokes, go up for anybody.
Guest:and do it.
Guest:Well, it would be like that.
Guest:It would be like you start to meet guys that are around, and then they'd start telling you about better rooms where you don't have to pay, better rooms where you could, you know, they start booking shows, and everybody has their own back-of-barroom show or whatever, and then after a while, you develop somewhat of a reputation, and the next thing you know, you're working.
Marc:Yeah, because people are like, that guy's good, and someone brings you out with him, and you open.
Guest:Also, doing them kind of nerdy rooms was good if you was black and good, because they wouldn't have that many black guys
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Working those circuits so you could get a lot of stage time.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I don't know how guys get good in other cities where they're getting up once a week.
Marc:I don't know that you do that easily.
Marc:I mean, when I started, it was just open mics, real like clubs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:None of those rooms.
Marc:But I mean, you were getting up every day.
Marc:Well, once I started working, sure, but the very beginning, I guess I kind of got... I started out weird because I came in... I was up in Boston, and I was doing open mics, and I was at the comedy store for a while, but then I came in second in this contest, and I just got thrown into working.
Marc:They had all these regional gigs all over New England.
Marc:They'd send you out, a two-man show, opener did a half hour, headliner did 45.
Marc:Sometimes you had to drive the guy, but that was how I started.
Marc:It was like...
Marc:Right abruptly from mics and small sets to like fucking fill in a half hour one way or the other in some shitty fucking bowling alley bar.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:That was the way I did it.
Marc:But here it was like, yeah, it was all those mics.
Guest:It's pretty much the same.
Guest:It's just we had so many open mics.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so many comedians had their own kind of rogue shows.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And then once you start to, because there were still guys that were doing like those kind of bar shows and all of that shit for 10 years or so.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then got in the clubs.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Or couldn't get clubs.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:So how did it go?
Marc:How did it play out for you?
Marc:Were you just always doing, were you writing jokes?
Marc:I got, I was.
Marc:Were you talking about yourself?
Guest:No.
Guest:You always start out writing jokes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You always think you're really a good joke writer until you realize you're not.
Guest:Then I realized, I kind of figured out that being comfortable on stage was more paramount than writing jokes.
Guest:So I learned how to just...
Guest:be on stage and look like I know what I'm doing.
Guest:And then the jokes come.
Marc:The first 10 years or so, it's just like 80% of your energy goes into pretending like you're not afraid.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And then the next 10 sounds, just try not to sound like who you sound like.
Guest:And then eventually you become you some way.
Marc:The part of you that lives up there anyways.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:So when do you start getting paid?
Marc:About three years.
Marc:Into open mics?
Guest:About three years into doing bar shows and stuff, I started doing clubs pretty regularly.
Guest:Which club?
Guest:Well, it all kind of happened at the same time.
Guest:I started doing Carolines.
Guest:I started doing...
Guest:I got Caroline's Eastville and Marco.
Marc:No, I know that place.
Marc:If the sound wasn't so horrible there, I would have played there more.
Marc:It was kind of like a bathroom.
Marc:Wasn't it all like hard?
Guest:Yeah, I guess it was kind of like.
Guest:I think it was like a lot of tile and shit.
Guest:I guess I never paid attention to that.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:Yeah, you're right.
Marc:Okay, so you started doing those rooms.
Marc:The cellar.
Marc:Oh, you started doing the cellar.
Guest:I got the cellar last.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Eight years in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't get the cellar until she saw my HBO half hour.
Guest:Well, I can't relate to that.
Guest:Estee loved me immediately.
Marc:What I fail to understand is that people understand me better than I think they do.
Marc:Like, you know, because she's like, you're too angry.
Marc:And I'm like, no, I'm not.
Marc:Which is a nice way to respond.
Marc:Say that you're not being funny.
Marc:Well, yeah, but...
Marc:that's not what I was saying no I know but that's what she was saying and she was right in retrospect yeah because like I because that room to me angry is funny it is if you're angry funny but if you're just angry and it just lands as anger people are going to be like I don't know
Marc:fair enough but you know to be i'm yeah i'm i'm dark and angry but it took a while for me not to do it as a you right you know what i mean it was a defense mechanism angry tired is funny cranky angry cranky tired yes yeah yeah sure that's that's that that took me a long time to relax into but i think ultimately a lot of these people were right to not give me breaks or to criticize me because you know i thought i was doing something
Marc:Like I thought I was saying something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But they're like, be funny first.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I could do it.
Marc:I'm being hard on myself.
Marc:What do you mean you can do it?
Marc:You do it.
Marc:I did it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've been out there.
Marc:I'm not even taking an Oprah anymore.
Marc:I'm just going out there and doing an hour and 45.
Marc:What?
Guest:Did you go like Europe or something?
Marc:No, I was in.
Marc:I just did Tarrytown, Boston, Portland, Maine, and Providence, Rhode Island.
Guest:But I mean, what stopped you from opening?
Guest:I mean, having an opener.
Marc:i just like i got tired of uh like i've it was one of these things i think it was in order to um make right something in my past whereas like i just was i i'm like all right the part of me that had to learn how to do comedy by going up cold in shitty fucking rooms yeah like i feel pretty good now i've got the time right you know they're here to see me right why drag it out no 100 i was just i'm curious about this because i was just talking to uh
Guest:Gerard Carmichael about the same exact thing.
Guest:And he was saying, he's like, I don't need an opener.
Guest:He doesn't use an opener anymore.
Guest:And I was just like, but I remember not using an opener when I would do the UK.
Guest:Whenever I would go to Europe, I wouldn't have an opener.
Guest:And I would just go up.
Guest:They have a whole different thing.
Guest:Understanding of theater there.
Guest:That's normal there.
Guest:They'll let you launch into a story to start your show.
Guest:In America, that's got to be a lot...
Marc:But if you think about it, that's only because we came up in the context of stand-up.
Marc:So we came up in this context where you bring someone with you, you're giving someone an opportunity.
Marc:The opening slot is to sort of get everyone situated, get the audience focused.
Marc:But the truth is, if they're there to see you, they're focused.
Marc:The idea that they may not all be seated, that's another problem.
Marc:So I've had to deal with that a couple of times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I'll just go out and I'm like, are you kidding me?
Marc:You guys can't get here on time?
Marc:Oh, you thought there was going to be opener?
Marc:Well, now there isn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm doing the time.
Marc:This is the opening slot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And in a way, you can start off by fucking landing it like that.
Marc:And then I'm just trying to, most of my audience is older, kind of grown up people.
Marc:I don't got any real fucking yahoos or anything.
Marc:So I just want it to be like an evening with, as opposed to like, you know, here's a new guy who's going to, you know, close with everything he has and then bring me up.
Guest:It's interesting how, like, to me, I don't know if this is too heady, but...
Guest:your career plays out the way your set plays out sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, fragmented, inconsistent, up and down.
Guest:You kind of start out a little bit faster to win them, and then as the set goes on, it starts to slow down, and you start to launch into, and I feel like you're at a point in your career where you're like, I don't need,
Guest:I don't need to do the dick joke now.
Guest:I've done that a million times.
Guest:Now I could just launch into that hour, two hour chunk.
Guest:Sit down.
Guest:Sit down.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And take my time.
Guest:I don't need the open.
Guest:That's where you're at.
Guest:It's almost like Jedi level shit though.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that's how I'm thinking about it.
Marc:Yeah, it's very impressive.
Marc:Here's the other thing.
Marc:if I'm going to do an hour and a half, and my audience is mostly grownups, they're going to get to a point where they're like, okay, this was good, but he could have ended.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Even doing an hour 45, I said it the other night because I felt it happen.
Marc:I'm like,
Marc:Oh, you guys are like, I looked at my watch.
Marc:I'm like, I could have ended like 20 minutes ago.
Marc:It would have been great.
Marc:Now you're all going to walk out going like, wow, that was, you know, that got long.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is he okay?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I feel like he didn't want to go home.
Guest:Right.
Marc:He didn't want to go to the hotel.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:So.
Marc:but that's uh also when you have an older audience time is a lot more valuable it is and they then they get tired but they've they've been good i'm just sort of like i think what i'm i'm trying to say and what the truth is it's like i'm having a good time they're there to see me if i ramble or if if it's loose because i like to improvise and shit that's what they want exactly that's what they want but you like but you sit down i watch your last special i don't usually sit down though
Marc:No.
Guest:I don't know why I did that.
Guest:Because it's time.
Guest:It was time to sit.
Guest:I just saw a stool and I just started sitting.
Guest:I wanted the audience to...
Guest:I feel like people listen different based on the way you perform.
Marc:If you sit down, you can bring them in.
Marc:No matter how big the room is, it becomes an intimate space.
Guest:I just wanted it to feel a little bit more intimate.
Guest:It's almost more control.
Guest:I wish I would have done it in a smaller venue, personally.
Guest:I was surprised.
Guest:It was big.
Guest:Which was it?
Guest:It wasn't the Fox.
Guest:It was the Fox.
Guest:No, it was Fox, but I wanted to do it in like a 500 seat, like a club kind of.
Marc:That's what I like to perform in, five to eight.
Marc:and then i always say i don't know what it is about 500 seats but to me that's where i have the most fun keep it intimate i've played giant places 500 is where it's the most fun because you don't have to change your timing you have to change your pacing like you get up around 900 you gotta wait yeah yeah right yeah totally but like uh and also the new special opened with the big dick closer i liked it i liked it
Guest:That was another one.
Guest:It's supposed to be a throwaway joke.
Guest:And I just started with it.
Guest:I don't know why.
Marc:It was a very strange kind of... The old kind of thought with the 80s style was like, he closed with the dick jokes.
Marc:You're like, he's coming right in.
Marc:Coming in hot with the dick stuff up front.
Marc:But it was important because I think in the middle of the newest special, what you were really...
Marc:working towards was that turn where you were like where is the line right so like you had to make sure you had laid some pretty good groundwork to see what they would take so by the time you said oh is that the line you'd crossed it whatever it was before and they really had no recourse right yeah I was trying to take a thank you I appreciate that you even watched it first of all but I do think like I was trying to take what seemed like an obvious joke
Guest:just make it a little a little bit more thoughtful yeah and then I I do think that the line gets blurred the more thoughtful you are or the more you let people think yeah do you know like if you if you exactly if you didn't qualify that joke no R Kelly joke if you didn't qualify it at all
Marc:right and and just and do the you know one's harder to clean like if you didn't sort of make it you know cute right you know you would it would have been problematic right just just take one more second to think about it yeah no i like it i like that i like those kind of jokes and i like that you know we can still do that kind of stuff
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:I get kind of weirded out.
Guest:I hate when people, especially comedians, we always like to make our job seem more complicated and difficult than it is because we're stealing money.
Guest:But I do think that there's something that rubbed me the wrong way about people saying jokes you can't do.
Guest:It's like, yeah, you can do it.
Guest:You can always do it.
Guest:You can always fucking do it, man.
Guest:It's just like, you know, if it goes sideways, you just got to prepare to shoulder the burden.
Guest:Then it went sideways.
Guest:For you?
Guest:No, I'm saying that's what happens.
Guest:When it goes sideways, then it went sideways for you.
Guest:But you did the joke.
Guest:They didn't take you off in handcuffs like Lenny Bruce.
Guest:It wasn't that.
Guest:It's not that.
Guest:They didn't try to set your house on fire like Dick Gregory or something like that.
Guest:It's literally...
Marc:The stuff that any of us can say, and certainly some of the stuff you were saying, that would have got you in life-threatening trouble.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But then, in that climate, it wasn't canceling.
Marc:It was burning your house, lynching, shooting somebody.
Marc:So the progress has been made.
Guest:Tons of progress has been made.
Guest:This is the greatest job in the world, man.
Guest:We get to watch people laugh at us.
Guest:It's awesome.
Marc:But I really have a hard time with this culture of anti-woke, this panic around cancel culture.
Marc:Because a lot of those dudes, that as a point of view is hack.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:It's hackneyed.
Marc:And these guys who are saying they can't get work because it's like, I bet you it's for something else.
Yeah.
Guest:If that's why you were getting work in the first place, then your time is up.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:It was never- Or else you're just going to be with those people.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's the other thing.
Marc:It's like, you want to talk like that?
Marc:Go hang out with the people that talk like that.
Guest:There's people that can make a living doing it.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's also-
Guest:You can't have everything.
Guest:No, it's not going to be everything.
Marc:But it's also like, I think what we were talking about before in relation to this and, you know, in acknowledging the time it takes to learn how to write and then the time it takes to land in your own skin, that if you're coming from your heart,
Marc:and you're genuine and you're decent, you can kind of do whatever you want because you're going to balance it out naturally.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:But if you don't know where your heart is and you're just trying and you haven't resolved some of your issues yet, you're going to be doing stuff for the wrong reasons.
Marc:it's so hard to do though you know what well just finding out where your heart really is i guess but as a performer on some level if you're that kind of performer it probably pays off to do it it absolutely does i don't know if you can do it on purpose some guys are up yeah especially in this field for sure isn't it but it's all right is that telling that we picked the job where most up people thrive
Marc:Well, you know, it's just one of those things.
Marc:You know, we obviously don't fit in one place and we don't want to do a certain way and we want to get away with something and we don't like listening to other people or being told what to do.
Marc:It's like you're going to... Back in the 80s, there's this whole range of people that just hit the road that were running away from the government, running away from ex-wives, running away from prison time.
Marc:I mean, it was like the preaching racket.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like carnies.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But we're our own carnival.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, literally.
Marc:The circus is in town.
Marc:It's one guy.
Marc:And they just threw him out of the hotel he was staying at.
Guest:What is it for you?
Guest:What?
Guest:What is it?
Guest:What's the ceiling of... Of the line?
Guest:Of joy.
Guest:Oh, geez.
Guest:Joy?
Marc:For when you're... Oh, when I can get one thing.
Marc:When I can get... Like, when I leave enough room for myself...
Marc:to have freedom of mind enough to, because I feel all my jokes are delivered to me on stage.
Marc:Like I go up with ideas and they kind of form on stage over time, over talking.
Marc:And I always add things.
Marc:So if something is delivered to me, I'm like, I don't know where that comes from.
Marc:It comes from being in the position to be funny.
Marc:So like it happened the other night.
Marc:Like I was talking about how some people have great relationships with their mothers.
Marc:And I just talk about like,
Marc:I don't want to call my mother.
Marc:I don't want to talk to her.
Marc:I don't have kids.
Marc:There's no reason for me to really engage with her that much.
Marc:And I sort of do a phone call.
Marc:I make fun of a phone call with her.
Marc:And then I said, there are these people that have problems.
Marc:They call their mother.
Marc:It's like, are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:Here's how that would go.
Marc:And I go, hey, mom, I'm in a little bit of trouble.
Marc:And she says, do you want to call me back?
Marc:And that came from nowhere.
Guest:And I'm like, thank you.
Guest:Great, new bit.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:That's, wow, God, I'm a lot like your mother.
Marc:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, yeah, I don't like to hear people's problems.
Marc:I don't mind.
Marc:I mean, it depends what they want from me, you know.
Marc:Sometimes you just got to listen and then it's done.
Guest:I'm a good listener, but I can't, but I'm not a solution guy.
Guest:I'm not a solution guy.
Marc:Well, what's the ceiling for you?
Marc:The joy.
Guest:Performing?
Guest:Yeah, what do you... I think it's the same.
Guest:I think it's finding something new.
Guest:It's the discovery of something that wasn't there before.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's been there the whole time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and then bringing it to the next audience.
Guest:So it's almost like they give us the bit, kinda, because we don't really know it's a bit until they say, you know, until they hear it and respond, and you're like, ooh, there's something here, and then bringing it back to them, and they're like, whoa, you know, it's kinda strange.
Marc:Why did it take on the Will Smith thing that I don't think anyone did?
Marc:And I was so thrilled with it, because I didn't want to talk about it, really.
Marc:To me, it was all terrible.
Marc:It was just terrible.
Guest:It was awful, ugly.
Guest:And I think to everybody, it felt like an uncomfortable, it was like watching somebody's parents fight, where you're like, I don't want to see this.
Marc:Yeah, and the entire community of Hollywood act like abused children.
Guest:Don't look, don't say anything.
Guest:Yeah, literally, everyone just put their heads down and ate their dinner.
Marc:Right, and then Denzel and Tyler, they group around him to pray.
Marc:It's like, they're all weirdos.
Marc:They're all weirdos.
Guest:When the fuck did Tyler Perry get such good seats at the Oscars?
Guest:What has Tyler Perry done that got him front row at the Oscars next to Denzel and Will Smith?
Marc:He's done a lot, and he just hasn't been given any credit for it, so they just keep giving him better seats.
Guest:Imagine watching Oscars like, oh yeah, and then Ernest had to talk to Tom Hanks and calm him down.
Guest:Ernest?
Guest:What the fuck is Ernest doing at the Oscars?
Marc:You know Ernest.
Marc:Oh, but my take was just that, like, look, as a guy that for my entire life and to this day, there's part of me inside that just wants to fuck everything up.
Marc:And I've got to be in constant conversation with that guy.
Marc:I just sort of like, I got to keep him kind of, you know, like, he'll be, he's like, come on.
Marc:I'm like, no, no, no.
Marc:so like for 30 years so fucking true for 30 years you know will smith was the nicest guy in hollywood and you know on the biggest night of his life he'd do it and i just said you got to respect that self-sabotage long game yeah
Marc:yeah oh god it was like that was that was the that was everything he was working for in his entire life and boom he slapped the clown and like i'm not chris is gonna be fine i don't think we're gonna be i don't think will's gonna be fine
Guest:He's going to be always the guy that does that now.
Guest:Now he's Sean Penn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But isn't that crazy how you can be so good for so long and when you do something, when you do one thing wrong, that becomes what you're known for as opposed to somebody who does a little wrong all the time?
Guest:that's right that's right where it's like oh he's that he well of course that guy did that yeah you're not the guy that does that and it's like you really do it yeah you're like oh my god like i always thought that's why trump will beat hillary clinton a hundred times out of a hundred because they see him as honest he's really who he is yeah like to me hillary was like
Guest:she was like a, she was like a white suit with like a ketchup stain on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where like all you see is the stain.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, right.
Guest:And Trump, Trump was like a guy with ketchup all over him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you're like, and he's telling everyone he's not, it's not ketchup.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, all right, this guy just like, it must be the suit.
Guest:It must be the, it must be a pattern.
Guest:I did this on purpose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, oh, he must've.
Guest:Cause who would have that much ketchup all over him?
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Like he is what he is.
Guest:He is what he is.
Marc:I couldn't believe that thing, to be honest with you.
Marc:I just couldn't believe it.
Marc:Watching it, I didn't see it.
Marc:I saw it in real time.
Guest:I didn't see it.
Marc:And I was like half watching, you know, doing other shit.
Marc:It's one of those moments where it's like, if Chris had just said, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It would have been an entirely different thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the worst part was they made him give out the awards still.
Guest:Could you imagine how little of a fuck you have to give about somebody?
Marc:Did they make you?
Guest:He just kept reading the prompter.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You think if Tilda Swinton would have got slapped, they would have just let her read the prompter?
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But I don't think anyone knew what to do.
Marc:It was like 9-11.
Guest:They would have known what to do if it was anybody else.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They would have known what to do if it was.
Guest:So you're saying they're like, it's between them.
Guest:If Julianne Moore got slapped in the face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She would not be reading the prompter afterwards to give out the next award.
Guest:They would have dumped a commercial.
Guest:Something would have happened.
Guest:They would have apologized to everybody watching.
Guest:Somebody would have came out and said, I'm so sorry about the actions of whoever the fuck did that.
Guest:We don't tolerate that.
Guest:It would have been a huge to do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This mother, they didn't cut the commercial.
Guest:They made him give out the award for best director.
Marc:I thought like, it's the one thing though as a comic, I kind of knew as a comic who's been tackled on stage before, like all you're thinking in that moment from years of experience is like, I don't want to look like an asshole.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Please don't split my pants.
Marc:Please, please don't split my pants.
Marc:Somebody just slap me in your pants.
Guest:I gotta keep, I gotta somehow stay, you know.
Guest:Fucking insane how little regard they show for Chris Rock, who is, by the way, by the way, if anybody did a Mount Rushmore of stand-up comedy and put Chris Rock there, no one would scoff.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:He absolutely has a place there.
Marc:And he walked backstage alone.
Guest:Alone.
Marc:And it was sort of like, yeah.
Marc:That's what the comic does.
Guest:He's the most beloved comedian possibly of this generation.
Guest:Yeah, it's crazy.
Guest:And that could happen to him on television.
Guest:I thought it was gross.
Marc:I thought it was fucking awful.
Marc:It was just so gross.
Guest:It was fucking awful.
Guest:Disturbing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe he slept Steve Martin.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what would have happened if it had been anyway.
Guest:He would have been sprayed with a fire hose.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck happened inside that dude's head.
Marc:I do not know.
Marc:I swear to God, it wasn't about the joke.
Marc:It had nothing to do with the joke.
Marc:It doesn't make comics any less safer.
Marc:I've never felt safe in my life.
Guest:No, yes, that's a great point.
Guest:Yes, I agree with that 100%.
Marc:Like, I go on stage, especially when I'm doing politics in the fucking middle of nowhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm giving a fake name at the hotel.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I want to know if there's security at the club.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck is in there.
Guest:100%.
Marc:Like, all these comics were like, you know, sort of like, I'm concerned for myself.
Marc:It's like, I have always been concerned.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look, absolutely.
Guest:I've always known it could go that way.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:But when you're Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Guest:At the Oscars, you don't.
Guest:God damn.
Guest:If ever there was a safe place.
Marc:That's who has to be afraid now.
Marc:Motherfucker.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:We should boycott, as comedians, boycott award shows.
Marc:Well, they're not asking me, so.
Marc:I'm not the top of the list.
Marc:I might be now.
Marc:Maybe it's going to open up something for me.
Marc:Any comics willing to take a punch, we want you to give out these awards.
Marc:But I learned something from you, though.
Marc:I just happened to be at the fucking Emmys because Glo was up for Emmys when you and Colin hosted.
Marc:And I'd never really been to one of those shows because there was never a reason to go.
Marc:And when I watched that, I'm like, oh, this is the worst job in the world.
Guest:It sucks.
Yeah.
Marc:they're just they're sitting up there you can't make an audience out of an audience you've got to pretend like the audience isn't there you've got to play to the camera no matter what's going on in the room and the room's way too big to manage I can't and you can't and and you're out there with someone else
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Well, at least that must have been at least good.
Guest:No, I think it made it harder.
Guest:Oh, it did?
Guest:Well, because you're just hanging.
Guest:Because you're doing bits.
Guest:Well, someone's talking, and then we're not doing bits together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's doing bits, and then I'm doing bits.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's like, it wasn't like banter.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or we could just be on an island kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were just kind of running monologue jokes.
Guest:kind of doing update style jokes, but standing flat-footed in front of Hollywood, which is just... I couldn't do it.
Guest:I didn't want to do it.
Guest:I tried to get myself out of it at least 13 times.
Guest:I couldn't.
Guest:Was it Lorne?
Guest:Well, it was a network thing.
Guest:I think they just really wanted us to do it.
Guest:And I was being kind of a team guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh but um it it taught me a lot though like as far as i don't know
Guest:It was one of those things of like, well, I'll go with it because everyone wants to do it.
Marc:Yeah, you might as well try it if you got the opportunity.
Marc:But I didn't want to do it.
Marc:It seems so hard.
Guest:It's not even so hard.
Guest:It's just like we were talking earlier.
Guest:It's like some people are better at that kind of thing.
Guest:To me, it's like, well, if I'm going to do that show, then I want to do it the way I would do it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I don't want to do it the way...
Guest:the network needs it to be.
Guest:To me, it feels like you're performing at someone's wedding where you're like, if I can't speak from my heart, then I shouldn't say anything.
Guest:I don't want to emcee a wedding.
Guest:Weird job.
Marc:It's a very strange job.
Marc:That's one thing I've grown to appreciate more from people I know or from opportunities I haven't really had or I've tried.
Marc:I would panic.
Guest:no you wouldn't no no hell no you'd be so competitive and and like and ready to to lock in you wouldn't you you'd think you would be until you get out there and then you're just doing jokes but the kinds of jokes that we would we have to do for that kind of thing is just not exciting right i would if i'm gonna do it i would want to do it and be excited about what i'm doing
Marc:Sure, right, like when Kimmel or Rock host the Oscars, it's kind of engage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Gervais does the Golden Globes.
Marc:It's a lot different.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's a lot different.
Marc:They're hiring you for you.
Guest:This felt like, to me, it felt like a corporate gig.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Marc:So what about this?
Marc:You've done how many of the damn Michael Che shows?
Marc:You've done five?
Guest:We did six last year, and we got six more this year.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:It's the perfect amount.
Marc:But I mean, the show's good.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:Engage all the stuff you like to do.
Guest:Yeah, it's the perfect amount to do only because it's like...
Guest:the sketch is so like consuming it's like you know you got to write like 30 little pilots you know what i mean yeah yeah because they're all just ideas that live on an island kind of thing sure and you got to you got to pull them from the air and figure out how you've got to establish establish a premise and get to a punch line
Marc:But in each show, though, it's not essentially a sketch show.
Marc:It's like some monologues.
Guest:Yeah, this is a little bit.
Guest:This season is a little bit more sketch.
Guest:We have a lot more kind of proper sketches or whatever.
Guest:This is kind of the show that I wanted to do the last time but couldn't find.
Guest:but is it it's still theme yeah it's still theme driven there's it's uh it's looser i think it's more fun personally but who do you got with you writing uh gary richardson we got a lot of people that we had last year we had gary richardson reggie conquest kevin iso rosebud baker uh we had yamanika saunders um rosebud just got hired snl right
Guest:Rosebud just got SNL.
Guest:ISO's got, you know, Flatbush Misdemeanor.
Guest:He has his own show.
Guest:Reggie's working on a show.
Guest:Like, everybody's kind of, it's kind of a fun time.
Guest:Like, all my friends are doing good.
Marc:And you started as a writer over there, right?
Marc:At SNL?
Guest:At SNL, I started as a writer in 2013.
Marc:After you did stand-up for a while?
Guest:After I did stand-up for a little while.
Marc:Did you have to audition for Lorne to write?
Guest:No.
Guest:I came in as a guest writer.
Guest:They was doing this guest writer program where they was asking two writers to come in every week or so, every couple weeks.
Guest:Who pulled you in?
Guest:Jost.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Oddly enough.
Guest:How'd he know you?
Guest:Stand-up.
Guest:I was doing, we were doing Hannibal's show at Knitting Factory on Sunday nights, and
Guest:And he was like, yeah, you ever think about writing sketches?
Guest:And I was like, I don't know nothing about sketches.
Guest:He was like, you should come in.
Guest:And then he brought me in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you guys have been together.
Marc:Is that when you met him?
Guest:No, I knew him from stand-up.
Guest:He was just like a guy I knew from stand-up.
Marc:He was just a show of stand-up like the rest of us?
Guest:Well, no, he was head writer at SNL at the time.
Guest:But I didn't know.
Marc:I remember him starting as a stand-up.
Guest:Yeah, he started at SNL.
Guest:He was at SNL before he did stand-up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:OK, that's cheating.
Guest:That's cheating for sure.
Guest:It's doubling down.
Guest:But by the time I met him, he was head writer of SNL already.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:And it was him and Seth.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not a stand-up either, but an improv guy.
Guest:Improv guy, yeah.
Guest:And crazy prolific writers.
Guest:Like, insanely prolific sketch writers.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that's how they think.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:If you name the top 50 or your top 50 favorite SNL sketches of the past 20 years, Seth and Colin probably would make up half the list.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah, you wouldn't even know.
Guest:But probably, I would imagine their names would be on half of them.
Marc:Yeah, I wouldn't even know how to start writing a sketch.
Marc:It's easy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:For stand-ups, it's easy.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I have a hard time writing anything.
Marc:It's hard to write a lot that doesn't involve me immediately.
Marc:Like, you know, if I'm not part of it.
Marc:How about this sketch?
Marc:I do this.
Guest:Well, Larry David wrote.
Guest:He didn't work, but he wrote there.
Guest:He's close to that.
Guest:Yeah, but I think, like, it is a... What did he tell you?
Guest:What did Colin tell you when he said, it's easy, and you go in there?
Guest:Seth is the one that actually told me why.
Guest:He was like...
Guest:well comedians always are like rich with premise yeah and we know how to punch up like we know how to make shit you know so even if you don't have a sketch in you could always help a sketch with just jokes and what would be funny to have the next kind of thing yeah we you you write sketches everything you just said like five different sketches while we were talking right now yeah okay you think in sketches it's just a way it's just a different way of thinking
Guest:It's just you think of it from your perspective.
Guest:All you have to do is just start thinking about what everybody else is doing, and boom, you got a sketch.
Guest:How long did you write there before you got offered the gig?
Guest:Two years, two and a half years, I think.
Marc:And how did it come down to you and Jost?
Guest:I think...
Guest:Jost wanted to do it with me, and I think... Warren said, do you want to do update to Jost?
Guest:Well, Jost was already doing update.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:It was Jost and Cecily.
Guest:Right, Cecily.
Guest:And I think Cecily, they wanted Cecily to be more in sketches.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were looking at combinations for Jost.
Guest:I think Jost wanted to do it with me, and I think Lauren took the risk.
Guest:And everybody's happy?
Guest:Not for a while.
Guest:Not until about two or three years in.
Guest:Then everyone got a little bit less scared.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because of what you were writing?
Guest:No.
Guest:It wasn't working.
Guest:We didn't have any chemistry.
Guest:I didn't know what I was doing.
Guest:It was fucking rough.
Guest:Do you feel better now?
Guest:I feel... No.
Guest:No.
Guest:you never feel i feel better you don't feel good how much of the jokes that you're doing do you guys write uh well it depends i mean now it's it's to a point now where we have so much chemistry with the writers yeah that like the guy who you have update guy yeah we have update writers like monologue guys yes yes yes but at this point now it's like right you're just sort of like
Marc:what if we do it this way?
Marc:That looks good.
Guest:Let's try that one in rehearsal.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's fun.
Guest:Pete Schultz and Josh Padden and Megan Callahan shot like they've written so much shit.
Guest:Like it's crazy.
Marc:It's so fun to like have jokes written and they're good jokes and you're like I want to try this.
Guest:But they write like they they've
Guest:they figured out how to write like literally in our brains yeah you know what i mean which is like yeah you can't learn that in two or three years that comes from being together for so long that we we kind of know how to write which like we are always we're constantly texting each other so like we'll be texting you yeah we'll be texting and the next thing i know there's a joke in the frame of what we were writing oh
Guest:that's great you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah or they'll have something i'm like oh this i need this this is fucking perfect yeah yeah that's great and then we'll you know then i'll just read it sometimes i don't need to do anything to it it's just perfect that's great yeah it's interesting so now what what happens you're doing the hbo thing like what do you want to do are you doing it are y'all done no man i i want to do more stand-up i i miss stand-up
Marc:Did someone just tweet or DM me that you just hosted an open mic in Minneapolis or something?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What the fuck is that?
Guest:I was doing a college in Minneapolis, and I always hate doing colleges because they're kids.
Guest:It was kids, but it's also like...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:No, I never get asked.
Marc:It's like any time people are like, it's great.
Marc:It's a college town.
Marc:I'm like, they're not coming to see me.
Marc:There's a very certain type of young person that comes to see me.
Marc:It's a young person that I was like, an angry, overly intelligent young person that's too sensitive to get along with other young people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just I can't imagine playing for them because you forget, you know, that it's like the ones that come to those shows, they can't drink yet.
Marc:So a lot of them are like 18, 19 years old.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's also like just just from a frame of reference of life experience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's not quite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah they're kids i i said i said transvestite one time at a college and you would have thought i smeared doo-doo on the american flag like they looked at me like that word was and i was like wait a minute that's supposed to be an okay one it's that's not a crazy word it literally just means dressing in different gender clothes but isn't that what trans is short for
Guest:No, now it's gender and sexual, but it's not Vestite.
Guest:Vestite is done and gone.
Guest:Vestite's over?
Guest:No more Vestite, apparently.
Guest:I looked it up because I got scared.
Guest:I was like, I had no idea this was like a trigger.
Guest:Am I done?
Guest:Am I finished?
Guest:I thought that may be finished.
Guest:now but literally looked it up and i was like oh no it's like an italian word for clothes vestite what was that old word for cross-dressing it's an old word for cross it's an outdated term for cross-dressing transvestite that's all it is but they had never heard it so they just knew it was mean oh oh but it wasn't mean no it wasn't mean it wasn't even said in the mean context but that's what that's my point all of that was all that energy was spent
Guest:when I could have moved on and did another joke.
Guest:For an adult audience, they would have kept, yeah, I remember Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Marc:Sure, it's a learning moment.
Marc:Now you had to look up Vestite and you realized I'm not about that anymore.
Marc:I guess I learned something in college.
Marc:I learned something in college, I did.
Guest:so you want to get back out and are you doing i miss the reps i miss i miss doing the i miss doing like the six months eight months yeah year i'm obsessed with this material like it's why you know like with specials and stuff like i wish i could be four deep you know or whatever yeah it's just so right this is the first one he did in five years four years so fucking hard to get an act together
Marc:dude i mean i didn't know when during covet i was like the weird thing was is that you know like i didn't miss it and i thought like well maybe i'm all better but but as soon as we could start doing it and other people started doing it i wasn't going to do any outdoor shows but as soon as people started going to clubs i'm like all right it's on i did some outdoor shows oh man it was you missed out on a good time i did people were so ready to laugh man
Marc:To me, it was sort of like, I'm not doing that kind of shit.
Marc:I'm not going to go perform for Cars.
Guest:No, no, I didn't perform for Cars.
Guest:I'm with you there.
Guest:But I had a parking lot show that I would do every couple weeks.
Guest:I needed that stage.
Guest:I was on the back of a pickup truck.
Marc:that's nice it's all right once i got back and i didn't know where the hour was going to come from what i do is i just book out like dynasty typewriter for a month of like once a week and just start riffing yeah what sticks yeah i'm going i'm going on the road this weekend just for that reason just to milwaukee improv
Guest:I'm going to be in Milwaukee next week.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I'll be there.
Guest:I'm leaving Friday.
Guest:I'll be there.
Guest:Friday to Sunday, I think.
Guest:Oh, this Friday to Sunday.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm going to be there next week.
Marc:I'm going to be at the Pabst Theater somewhere in Milwaukee.
Guest:Oh, I love that theater.
Guest:That's the one with the great green room with the coffee and shit.
Guest:Yeah, great green room and the record player.
Marc:Yeah, that's awesome.
Marc:Yeah, I think I sold a few tickets.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:I should know the numbers.
Guest:But yeah, that's where I'm going to be.
Guest:I'm trying to do like kind of.
Guest:You're just working shit out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm not doing no theater or nothing like that.
Marc:That's good, man.
Guest:I got nothing.
Marc:Because you just dumped it?
Guest:I dumped it.
Marc:It's all right.
Guest:But now I'm back.
Guest:I got some ideas, though.
Guest:Like I said, like I did the Minnesota shows and just like fun.
Guest:Just go up there for 40 minutes and just fuck around.
Guest:Yeah, figure out what you got.
Guest:Figure out what you want to talk about.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, it was good talking to you, man.
Guest:This was so much fun, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah, thanks for doing it.
Marc:All right, there you go.
Marc:Michael Che, you know who he is.
Marc:Saturday Night Live, the season finale, is this Saturday.
Marc:Also, the second season of that damn Michael Che show premieres next Thursday, May 26th on HBO Max.
Marc:All right, so this is me playing my new...
Marc:uh, my new partner, my new, uh, banker custom Leslie double cutaway P90 fucking just this guitar is a monster.
Marc:Love it.
Marc:Love it.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey.
Guest:La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Bye.