Episode 1336 - Jesus Trejo
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast it's the one that you like it's the podcast that you like how are you is everything all right with that thing on your butt
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Did you get that thing fixed?
Marc:The thing you were talking about?
Marc:I don't know how you're driving it if you didn't get it fixed.
Marc:I don't know how you're riding it if you didn't get it fixed.
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:Wait for something terrible to happen?
Marc:Get on it.
Marc:Hey, congratulations.
Marc:Two days sober is great.
Marc:Three days sober is great.
Marc:Five days sober is great.
Marc:Thirty days sober.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:Hey, just be nice.
Marc:Go apologize.
Marc:Go fucking apologize.
Marc:Now go get your fucking shine box.
Marc:Look, I'm the guy.
Marc:I'm the guy.
Marc:I guess I'm finally where I always wanted to be.
Marc:I'm the chronically broken hearted fuck who spends his life doing comedy.
Marc:Finally, I didn't think it would happen.
Marc:I thought like, you know, the podcast is great and, you know, I'm glad I'm making some money doing comedy and I'm glad I got an audience for my comedy and I'm happy to perform for the people.
Marc:But back when I was a younger man, I thought, what has to happen for me just to go all in in a way with my heart and soul and mind and everything else into just being a real fucking comic?
Marc:And I figured back then, well, I mean, something's got to crush you.
Marc:Something's got to take it out of you.
Marc:Something's got to, you know, just kill something inside of you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Finally, I'm that guy.
Marc:I'm the chronically broken hearted guy that goes out there and opens up for the strangers, lets them in and then leaves and feel satisfied in this hotel room.
Marc:Ninety percent of the time.
Marc:Finally, I've all my dreams are coming true today on the show.
Marc:jesus trejo who's a young comic who can only look forward to what i just talked to you about uh he's touring a lot i met him at the comedy store he used to work the lot and work the door and now he's a paid regular over there and he has a show on the first we feast youtube channel called tacos con todo and uh i'm on the latest episode you know i gotta be honest with you i'm not a um i'm not a huge uh california mexican food dude
Marc:I guess it's because I grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But, you know, I'll eat just about anything once or nine times or for my entire life.
Marc:It's hard to know what that's going to be.
Marc:Lately, I've been craving Asian soups.
Marc:And that's new, but I think it's a carb hookup with the noodles.
Marc:I think secretly I've always been afraid of pasta because of the carbs.
Marc:But for some reason, I think if the noodles are an Asian soup, they're not the same kind of carbs.
Marc:It's just a bowl full of pasta, which is not fucking true.
Marc:But I did the Tacos Contoto and went to this place that's kind of in this garage space next to a factory that stonewashes blue jeans.
Marc:And this guy makes the best goat tacos, some sort of goat preparation.
Marc:And he's just doing it there until he runs out.
Marc:I think he's got a deal going with the guy that runs the factory that stonewashes pants, which we took a tour of for the show.
Marc:We weren't supposed to be in there, but we just saw these vats.
Marc:and big containers full of, like, pumice rock.
Marc:And they really do actually stonewash the jeans.
Marc:But this place does it on a big scale for big companies, and it's not a great-looking factory.
Marc:It does not look safe in any way.
Marc:And neither do the tacos, to be honest with you.
Marc:But I ate them.
Marc:I ate some goat tacos, and I ate some goat spinal cord, and I ate goat with gravy on a tortilla.
Marc:And I did all that stuff for Jesus because...
Marc:He wanted me to.
Marc:And I like him.
Marc:And he was one of those guys who I just saw all of a sudden.
Marc:Anyways, to me, pop and become funny right before my very eyes.
Marc:I mentioned I'm the chronically broken hearted guy out there on the road pretending like he doesn't have a broken heart, entertaining the people.
Marc:That's me.
Marc:Finally, I made it.
Marc:I made it.
Marc:Where's the sad guy?
Marc:Nope, not sad.
Marc:It's so not true.
Marc:I'm so far into the sadness in the bits.
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:And these people are amazing, too.
Marc:These lucky people who are able to engage in the presale right now for all of these new dates, new dates.
Marc:The password is time, T-I-M-E.
Marc:General admission tickets go on sale tomorrow, Friday, June 3rd.
Marc:For these dates, are you ready?
Marc:Indianapolis, Indiana on Friday, August 5th at the Old National Theater.
Marc:Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, August 6th at the Beaumard Theater.
Marc:Yeah, let's say it like that.
Marc:Lincoln, Nebraska on Thursday, August 18th at the Rococo Theater.
Marc:Des Moines, Iowa on Friday, August 19th at Hoyt Sherman Place.
Marc:Iowa City on Saturday, August 20th at the Englert Theater.
Marc:Tucson, Arizona on Friday, September 16th at the Rialto Theater.
Marc:Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, September 17th at Stand Up Live.
Marc:And Boulder, Colorado on Thursday, September 22nd at the Boulder Theater.
Marc:The Phoenix ones are on sale now.
Marc:No pre-sale on that one.
Marc:And also, I'm going to be in Vegas next month.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com slash tour for all of these links to all of these dates.
Marc:And the pre-sale is currently happening.
Marc:The password is time.
Marc:And I will bring my chronically broken heart, stifled bullshit right to your town.
Marc:You want in?
Marc:Do you want in?
Marc:It's watermelon time.
Marc:Here's what's going on.
Marc:You know, it's the drought is very frightening out here in California.
Marc:Fires are very frightening.
Marc:I've talked about this before, and I realized, like, how much time do I have to get out?
Marc:You see, what's going to happen is we're all going to need to leave the West Coast and the West Coast, according to some on the, you know, the more radicalized right wingy types were the problem.
Marc:The elitist, progressive, liberal Jews of whatnot.
Marc:And by the way, woke.
Marc:means Jew.
Marc:By the way, Big Pharma, Jew.
Marc:By the way, Socialist, Jew.
Marc:But here's the point.
Marc:Whether we are those things or not, Jews or not, progressives or not, Democrats or not, is eventually climate change is going to force a migration.
Marc:Now, the way things are going now in this, what they call the it's not a democracy, according to the ultra right people.
Marc:It's a constitutional republic.
Marc:So I imagine at some point the Midwest is going to balkanize into something that is against the rest of the world.
Marc:Some sort of I've talked about this before.
Marc:I think some sort of Christian fascist rape culture forced birth shit show.
Marc:And it's starting to feel to me like, you know, right around the time we're going to have to get out.
Marc:of the West Coast and the Western states because of drought and fire and everything else and migrate inland, they might close off the boundaries to the new country within the Midwest.
Marc:And we're going to have to fight it out.
Marc:And that's going to be weird.
Marc:We're going to have civil wars over water within the country.
Marc:That's...
Marc:I'm prophesying, but this is also maybe advanced cue.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm making it up as I go along.
Marc:But what I'm saying is maybe it's time for all of us progressives and radicals and Jews and Democrats of all kinds, all the people, trans people, all of us, the big tent to just sort of quickly and rapidly move inland and just start offering people in Arkansas and Idaho and
Marc:Not Idaho so much, maybe Oklahoma and Kansas, just offering them money for their houses and moving in.
Marc:That'll change the political profile of the state.
Marc:Just the mass migration of progressives into the Midwest before they close down the border and we become two countries.
Marc:Anyway, just speculating, just thinking out loud.
Marc:I got my sprinklers fixed.
Marc:I'm trying to comply.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:It's just so fucking sad because, like, I know what's going on, you know, and I know it's you know, I don't want to use too much water, but I also want to enjoy my yard.
Marc:And that might mean I have to leave.
Marc:I have to leave.
Marc:There's no reason I can't enjoy my yard.
Marc:The only reason is because I live in a state that's got no water and it's about to all be on fire.
Marc:I got to get out.
Marc:I got to get out before they close the border of Oklahoma.
Marc:Listen, Jesus Trejo is here.
Marc:The episode of Tacos Contoto that I'm on, you can watch it now at the First We Feast YouTube channel.
Marc:And I like this kid.
Marc:I like this kid.
Marc:He's coming up.
Marc:So what happened?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:You were at CBS?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Yeah, I had a meeting.
Guest:It was a notes meeting.
Guest:I got this project brewing.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You know, we sold a project.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, we're getting notes and then getting ready to take it out wide.
Guest:Oh, so it's a project?
Guest:Yeah, it's a... Is it a sitcom?
Guest:Yeah, a sitcom.
Guest:For you?
Guest:Yeah, for me.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was loaded.
Guest:That was a loaded, oh yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's still happening?
Guest:You went out there and you sold a little show?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I'm just trying, you know, just enjoying comedy and just, yeah, putting stuff on paper, see if people like it, and if not, you keep creating, I guess.
Guest:So what was the process?
Guest:Is this your first deal?
Guest:We had taken out some stuff, but this is the first one.
Guest:We as in you and who?
Guest:I co-wrote it with Cesar.
Guest:So he's the only Latino writer on The Simpsons.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We're co-taking this thing out, and it's been great.
Guest:This is your time, man.
Guest:Hopefully.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:I mean, we'll see.
Guest:We'll see how the cookie crumbles.
Guest:But, you know, just excited and putting in the work.
Guest:So what was the process?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:You wrote a script or you just got an idea?
Guest:Pitch.
Guest:Yeah, we put a pitch together.
Guest:We went different production companies.
Guest:And then, you know, Cloud9, you know, the idea really resonated with them.
Guest:Oh, so they're a production company.
Guest:A production company.
Guest:Got it, yeah.
Guest:And they have a first look with CBS, and we got paired up, Cesar and I, and we really hit it off.
Guest:It's like Only Childs grew up in a very similar family dynamic.
Guest:And we put this thing together, and the project Inner Child is the running title of it right now.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:So he had a deal with CBS?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, Cloud9 did.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So, Cesar, you didn't know him, though?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Yeah, they introduced him.
Guest:Well, it's funny because I met him years before.
Guest:I went in and auditioned for a project that he had called High and Mighty.
Guest:That he had written?
Guest:That he had written, directed the whole shebang.
Guest:Went out, auditioned, met him there.
Guest:So when we met in the room, Cloud9 put us together.
Guest:I was like, hey, you look familiar.
Guest:You look familiar.
Guest:And we kind of look...
Guest:Kind of the same.
Guest:It's like a it's like an NFT variant, you know, where it's the same thing.
Guest:That's what it's like.
Guest:We're both NFT variants of each other.
Guest:And it just clicked.
Guest:And we were able to really bring some stuff to paper.
Guest:And we want to take it out to streaming services like like a Netflix, Hulu, Amazon.
Guest:OK, so what is the show that I did?
Guest:That's yours.
Guest:The taco show.
Guest:How does that work?
Guest:Man, Tacos con Todo, which, by the way, thank you for doing it.
Guest:I mean, when I was in the parking lot, I remember walking into the store, and you walked by, and you're like, I think I'm doing that thing.
Guest:I said, wow, thank you so much, Mark.
Guest:Yeah, I couldn't believe it, and it meant the world.
Guest:This is Tacos con Todo.
Guest:We have it over at...
Guest:First We Feast, Complex.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:First We Feast is, so they do hot ones.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Have you been on that show?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, not yet.
Guest:I've never been on that show.
Guest:That's where you eat the pepper?
Guest:The wings, and each wing gets gradually hotter, and they ask you hot questions.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:I don't know why they never asked me to be on it.
Guest:Oh, I'm sure they want to have you on it.
Guest:You think so?
Guest:Yeah, well, we didn't think you were going to do Tacos con Todo.
Guest:They would love to have you over there, believe me.
Guest:So, yeah, this show, we're on the third season.
Guest:Justin Bolas, who's an amazing, I mean, I tell him all the time, he's a genius.
Guest:He's now the VP over at First We Feast, and he's amazing.
Guest:He's all things food.
Guest:He's in.
Guest:He's dialed in.
Guest:And I guess he had saw a podcast I had done with...
Guest:with Bobby Lee and reached out.
Guest:We had meetings and that kind of thing.
Guest:So they already had this IP and this idea, and it's like, would you like to host it?
Guest:I'm like, I've never hosted anything.
Guest:Way to block my blessings, as I say that in a meeting.
Guest:I've never hosted before.
Marc:I don't know how to do any of that.
Guest:That's the self-sabotaging aspect of the comic.
Marc:Or honesty.
Guest:Yeah, honesty.
Guest:Yeah, that's one way to look at it.
Guest:And he was just very kind.
Guest:He really understood the angle that I brought to the table, and I love his work.
Marc:Which was what?
Guest:You know tacos?
Guest:I'm a guy with a belly, so that's my credential, I guess.
Guest:But is the whole show tacos?
Guest:So it's basically eating foods.
Guest:We basically map out all the great...
Guest:Taco spots that are popping up everywhere from trucks to backyard speakeasies.
Guest:So it's all tacos.
Guest:Tacos.
Guest:And then I get to talk to comedians who I'm friends with.
Guest:Eating tacos.
Guest:Eating tacos.
Marc:Now, let me just ask you now, because I was trying to figure it out.
Marc:So tell me what I ate.
Marc:You ate birria, which is goat meat.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't mind goat.
Marc:I've eaten Arab goat before, Indian goat, maybe some Greek goat.
Marc:This is the first, I think, Mexican goat I've eaten.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there's been like a big birria craze in L.A.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I am not on the pulse.
Marc:I didn't know there was a big goat craze going on.
Guest:Well, I think food trucks and tacos right now is, like, are having a big moment.
Guest:And it's like, you know, in that area where you went to go Ibizria... Yeah, where was that?
Guest:That was in Boyle Heights.
Guest:Yeah, right in front of the projects right there.
Guest:Great area of, like, just so many food trucks.
Guest:And so the one that we took you to was... It was in a factory, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we took you to one of the best spots.
Guest:It's not even a birria taco, which is what's popular right now.
Guest:They make it in a taco.
Guest:They put cheese.
Guest:This is out of the oven.
Guest:Consomme, which is kind of the soup that came with it.
Guest:But that's the most authentic style of birria you could possibly have.
Guest:And I just thought it was so great...
Guest:to put you in that space because it's like this guy, Hector, is like blowing up because he does such an authentic recipe and the food is so great.
Guest:Can he handle the orders?
Guest:I mean, scarcity.
Guest:It just goes until it runs out.
Guest:It goes until it runs out.
Guest:He opens at 8.
Guest:He's done by 11, probably even earlier.
Guest:But this guy started in a garage.
Guest:So this guy works next door at a denim restaurant.
Guest:I know.
Marc:We went in there.
Marc:That was crazy.
Marc:We're in this space in like a, it's not even a parking lot.
Marc:It's like in between buildings.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then there's a denim factory where if they don't make denim, they stonewash it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's only, that's all they do at that place is stonewash shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And we went in there and it was like, it was probably not safe.
Marc:No, not at all.
Guest:We didn't have a hard hat.
Guest:We didn't have anything.
Guest:Yeah, the lights weren't even on.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:But he works there.
Guest:Yeah, he works there.
Guest:So the owner of the factory allowed him to kind of set up shop in this alleyway kind of garage.
Guest:Did he take a cut, that guy?
Guest:I'm sure he does.
Guest:I mean, it's L.A., baby.
Guest:Is he family, though?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think they might be related in some way, but, you know, he works there during the week.
Guest:On Saturdays only, he's able to set up shop.
Guest:And the connector here was, like, how great would it be to bring in Marc Maron, who started in a garage and had this great podcast blow up from there, much like this man who started in a garage, is still there, but is getting write-ups left and right on... I don't think I'd ever had it before.
Guest:It was all very exciting.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The spinal cord part was my favorite.
Guest:That wasn't great.
Guest:Oh, it wasn't.
Guest:Tell me what was going through your mind as we're eating this.
Guest:Because I'm so curious.
Marc:No, I'll eat anything.
Marc:I don't give a shit, man.
Marc:I'll try everything.
Marc:But I thought it was good.
Marc:But I remember the spinal cord part because it looks like spinal cord.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Why was that your best part?
Guest:You like it?
Guest:i mean it's part of the thing it's it's kind of like a mixture of stuff and i see you kind of picking at it and you looked over at me and you're like god dang it it's like why'd you bring that look it's like it's like yeah yeah because of the spinal cord that's what that's what you wanted you got what you wanted no no that wasn't it that happened to be on there but it was it was just i mean i was blown away that you would say yes and you would come out i mean i yeah come on dude that's all right i'm a you know i'm a fan i'll do things occasionally
Marc:I mean, I've watched you.
Marc:I remember, because I go to the store, I've been going there on and off for however long.
Marc:Since 87.
Marc:Since when?
Marc:Since 87, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But since you've been there, when did you get there?
Guest:I got there around 2009 or 10.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, because I got past September 7, 2012.
Guest:With Adam or Tommy?
Guest:Through Tommy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, through Tommy.
Guest:so when did i get back i mean i was around yeah i mean i was around so i saw you since when you were like a baby comic oh yeah for sure you did like when did you like what were you door lock guy uh i did a little bit of everything but mostly it was a lot you know i they they stuck me in the lot um i worked everything i did phones at the time remember the bathroom used to be kind of facing the the or like the doors were kind of right and the phone was there
Guest:The payphone.
Guest:Oh, the payphone.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So those bathrooms used to clog up a lot.
Guest:So Adam was the GM at the time, Adam Egott.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And every so often I'd work the back door and he'd be like, hey, man, you got to go unclog these toilets.
Guest:And they were overflow and there was floaties and I'm kicking a turd down the hallway.
Guest:I mean, I did everything there because I knew it was an opportunity for me to go there.
Guest:And it was like tuition to learn.
Marc:I guess, it's so funny, because I used to think that way too.
Marc:And I do, because I did it.
Marc:I was a door guy.
Marc:But then I heard Chappelle talking about, I can't remember where he was talking about it, but when he found out that there were comics working those jobs, he's like, what?
Marc:Why would you do that?
Marc:I never really thought about it like that.
Marc:Because either you buy into the store or you don't.
Marc:So there are people that come in there and they're just sort of like, I just want to do comedy.
Marc:And she's like, well, you got to work the door.
Marc:And they're like, fuck you.
Marc:But for me, I was like, all right, I'll just live at this place.
Guest:Yeah, I'm no stranger to hard work, and I knew that if I could put in some sweat equity into the place, I was gonna be a part of the place and really learn about it.
Guest:So it was... Yeah, I took on any shift that I could from seating, you know... Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, lot...
Guest:phones, maintenance.
Guest:Now, was Mitzi conscious when you got there?
Guest:So Mitzi wasn't involved in a day-to-day business, but I did get to meet her because I toured with Pauly quite a bit over the years.
Guest:I met him there at the parking lot, and one of the really cool things... Hey, buddy.
Guest:Dude, Jose Trejos.
Guest:He still calls me Jose to this day.
Guest:I don't think he knows my real name.
Guest:No, he's great.
Guest:Jose Trejos.
Guest:But when we would come back from like...
Guest:touring he did this really cool thing that I'm so grateful for is like he let me go buy a Christmas tree and I get to go set it up at Mitzi's place on Doheny and I'd set it up and she'd be there and you know Christmas for the Jews yeah it was great I mean I'm
Guest:no more than a couple words of exchanging back and forth, I kind of kept to myself, but I set up the tree and it was just, to me it was, you hear this legend of Mitzi, like the Mother Teresa of comedy, and I was able to see her there live.
Guest:Yeah, live, putting her tree in her house.
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:And she's looking at you confused.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't speak much to her.
Guest:I kept to myself, but the act of that tree meant the world to me.
Marc:I just love that the old Jewish lady's got a Christmas tree.
Marc:That guy named Jesus is setting up in her living room, and she barely knows what day it is.
Marc:It's a beautiful image.
Marc:Polly's a character.
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Marc:I grew up in Long Beach, inside Long Beach.
Guest:Born and raised.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what was that?
Marc:How old are you now?
Guest:I'm 35.
Guest:Born in 86, the year before you started at the store.
Guest:That's your point of reference?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, point of reference.
Guest:So how big a family?
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:So I'm only child between my mom and dad, but I do have a pretty big... I have half siblings.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were both married before?
Guest:Oh, kind of interesting.
Guest:This is a juicy part here, the real spinal cord of the conversation.
Guest:So my mom and dad are not married to each other.
Guest:So my dad is married or was married to... So he had another family in Mexico, essentially.
Guest:And so, yeah, my mom... Did your mom know that?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I didn't know that.
Guest:I was late to the party.
Guest:So it was like a slow reveal over the years, and it was like, oh, I started putting two and two together.
Guest:Really?
Guest:This is gnarly.
Guest:Wait, so, okay, so your dad's living here, but he's legal, right?
Guest:So he's an American citizen now.
Guest:So he came to the country to work, meets mom.
Guest:My dad's a gardener, construction worker.
Guest:Did construction during the week up in Palos Verdes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did gardening work up there and around town.
Guest:So my mom cleaned houses and she was a nanny.
Guest:So I like to say that my parents met on the circuit.
Guest:It's like all the people that would go up the hill into Palos Verdes to work.
Guest:So they met each other and one thing led to another and then I'm here and then it's like, oh, dad has another family.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was he sending money back or how did it work?
Guest:No, he was going, like for years he would go
Guest:during Christmas to spend time.
Guest:To Mexico?
Guest:Yeah, to spend time with his family.
Guest:So dad was gone during the holidays, and he'd come back early in the following year.
Guest:And you didn't know?
Guest:I mean, I put two and two together.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:eventually i'm like oh so that's why mom cries i thought mom was a party pooper trying to ruin christmas and it's like i i get it ma but she's got other kids too no my uh i'm i'm my mother's only child oh and but dad has family out there oh yeah yeah have you met him i i i did through like here and there it's like there was a so so there was a brother where's your dad now
Guest:He's here.
Guest:Yeah, the whole squad's here, mom, dad, and I. You met him?
Guest:What do you mean you met him?
Guest:So I had met a brother, a half-brother of mine, when I was younger, and I didn't know the context or who he was, and then he went back, then he came out here for a little bit, stayed with us, and then...
Guest:I'm a slow learner, Mark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So eventually I'm like, ah, you're a half sibling, right?
Guest:And then during COVID, there was a situation that happened and they all came down here.
Guest:Like in 2020, height of 2020, like I would say like height of pandemic, maybe like it was the summer, so maybe August.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They came down and I got to meet them all and they're like, again, NFT versions of like my dad.
Guest:I'm like, oh, this mustache went in a different way, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Slightly taller dad.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Chunky younger dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a-
Guest:And so brothers and sisters.
Guest:How many?
Guest:Four that I know of.
Guest:You can't get information?
Guest:I mean, it's a need-to-know basis, I think, as well.
Guest:My dad, he's slow-rolling me with this stuff, I guess.
Guest:It's complicated, but it's... But you're 35.
Guest:Can't he come clean on that?
Guest:I'm not old enough to know yet.
Guest:I mean, no, I'm playing.
Guest:There'll come a time when I'm mature enough to know that information again.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But you get along with the guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like there's a WhatsApp group chat, and they chime in there.
Guest:Some of them do, some of them don't.
Guest:But your dad's here.
Guest:Yeah, my dad's here.
Guest:I'm a caregiver to both of my parents.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so I'm a caregiver.
Guest:I've been a caregiver for such a long time.
Guest:How long?
Guest:A long time.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Uh, so, so my mom has always been kind of ill in one way or another.
Guest:Um, and then, uh, so like in 2013, my mom got like a brain tumor, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, maybe 2012, 13, like somewhere around that.
Guest:So they, they couldn't find out what was wrong with her and they found out it was like, we thought it was cancer.
Guest:We were like the whole shebang and it was like meningioma.
Guest:And so they went in there and they... So it's like a brain tumor of the brain.
Guest:There was like a mass on the left-hand side.
Guest:They went in there, they did surgery.
Guest:It was like insane.
Guest:And then, you know, that greatly impacted my mom's like cognition, movement.
Guest:And then over the years, it just complicated things so much.
Guest:And right now, we're like kind of dealing with like this...
Guest:pretty heavy onset of dementia.
Guest:And then years ago, my dad got colon cancer and getting treatment and being the only child was juggling career, life, and caregiving.
Guest:As a matter of fact, there was a documentary that ARP Studios
Guest:they did a project right after they did Dinner with Don Rickles.
Guest:They took on this project called Care to Laugh.
Guest:AARP?
Guest:Yeah, AARP.
Guest:And they followed me for a year of caregiving and doing mics.
Guest:I'm at that time driving up here to do mics and that kind of thing, and also juggling this heavy stuff.
Guest:So as I'm doing comedy at night, going back, and then my dad went to Mexico to get treatment, and I'm left with my mom, so it's like...
Guest:you know, juggling the gardening business, so it's like, I even said in my special, it's like, I feel like there was a moment in time where it's like, I felt like I lived the American dream backwards, because I went to college, followed my dreams, and then mowed lawns.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, so it's like, that's life, man.
Marc:What's the special called again?
Guest:The Specialist Stay-at-Home Son.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was on Showtime.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:But yeah, the documentary kind of explores that.
Guest:But yeah, it's like, yeah, caregiving has a big part in my comedy.
Guest:I mean, that's where I draw from.
Guest:And the whole definition of who you are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah, it comes out of sacrifice.
Marc:You went to high school down there in Long Beach?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I went to Wilson High School.
Marc:And then when did they first start getting sick?
Guest:Uh, so my mom had like some like knee stuff, like cartilage kind of, uh, issues.
Guest:So that was like, that was like high school for me.
Guest:And then, um, that's just walking thing, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a walk.
Guest:They just worked there.
Guest:Like they've always worked so hard, you know?
Guest:So it's like they, you know, their body really aged and you know, in their, in their,
Guest:Late 50s, 60s, it was already kind of like they were... So now they're like 75, 76, but they've aged quite a bit just because of the work that they've had to do since they were kids.
Marc:Well, it's just kind of sad but interesting that their experience as Latino Americans is just that...
Marc:That one that almost is not stereotypical, but that he's a gardener and she was a cleaning lady.
Marc:Yeah, there's some stereotypes.
Marc:No, but it's just sort of like you don't... That is the experience for so many immigrant people, that they start at this level.
Guest:It's also interesting because even though I was born here in Long Beach, born and raised, Spanish was my first language.
Guest:English, I didn't have full command of the language until...
Guest:maybe fifth grade.
Guest:As a matter of fact, even in high school, I'm still in ESL English as a second language classes, and I went in and petitioned to get out of it before senior year because I'm like...
Guest:I'm not learning anything here.
Guest:I'm rifling through stuff, and it's like there isn't a challenge here for me.
Guest:And then having to deal with that and then going into City College, kind of figuring out the City College deals, like do I go to college here?
Guest:I went to Long Beach City College, and then it's like trying to figure out higher education, then transferring to Cal State Dominguez Hills.
Guest:I graduated there with a business degree.
Guest:And then telling my parents I'm about to be a comic, they're like, man, you have this education, something that we would have killed for, essentially.
Guest:You have this great opportunity.
Guest:We've sacrificed so much.
Guest:And you're telling me you're going to go be a clown.
Guest:It's like, that's a hard pill to swallow.
Guest:But me knowing that the work ethic, the inheritance that was passed on to me early on from my dad, work ethic, I'm like...
Guest:Trust me, this is going to take a while, but this is going to be a long internship.
Guest:And that was before your dad got sick.
Guest:That was before my dad got sick.
Guest:I was mowing lawns with him on weekends, doing comedy at night or working the store at night on the weekends.
Marc:So what made you decide that that was the way to go?
Marc:You just went to college just to make sure you had a degree?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you do what people tell you to do.
Guest:And also, like my parents wanted, like my parents never had any schooling.
Guest:I think combined, they probably have a second grade education.
Guest:So I know education is a big thing for me.
Guest:And so I think I definitely wanted to do it and was told I needed to do it, but also felt in my heart that it was important.
Guest:I mean, to learn those skills and...
Guest:I wanted to do this and that, and eventually, you know, everything clicked.
Guest:I'm like, I just need to graduate because I want to do comedy.
Guest:Well, what made you realize that?
Guest:When did you realize that?
Guest:Just comedy, like that burning desire to do comedy, and it's like... But who were you watching?
Guest:What made you think that, like... Oh, man, it's like I've been a fan of comedy.
Guest:I mean, so again, I don't have command of the language, so my first...
Guest:into comedy was Mexican comedians, Chespirito, who did Chavo de Locho, and he was such an amazing writer.
Guest:The name Chespirito breaks down to little Shakespeare.
Guest:He was a tiny guy, and he was such an amazing playwright.
Marc:I have no idea what that guy does.
Guest:Oh, man, he's amazing.
Guest:Cantinflas was another one for me.
Marc:Cantinflas, that's an old-timer.
Guest:Yeah, old-timer during Charlie Chaplin days, who Charlie regarded him as one of the funniest comedians ever.
Guest:La India Maria, which was this indigenous woman.
Guest:You were watching Cantinflas?
Guest:Yeah, I was watching Cantinflas as a kid.
Guest:What did you get, on video?
Guest:Just on TV.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, VHS, that kind of stuff.
Marc:On the Mexican TV, they got repeats and stuff?
Guest:Yeah, they would play stuff on weekends on Univision, that kind of thing.
Guest:And then slowly I started getting into stand-up comedy.
Guest:Spanish speaking?
Guest:Yes, a little bit.
Guest:There was a show called Sabado Gigante, and every so often they would bring in comedians, but they would tell jokey jokes.
Guest:So-and-so walks into a bar, da-da-da.
Guest:Street jokes.
Guest:Street jokes.
Guest:And I would write them down.
Guest:I had a whole notebook full of them.
Guest:But then I started getting into stand-up.
Guest:Was your dad a fan, or were you just watching...
Guest:the television and you're just picking up on it.
Guest:I was probably hyper-aware to this comedic stuff, because I would see maybe my parents, the only time they would laugh and that kind of thing, so I think it was one of those core memories where I'm like, everything else is shit, but right now they're laughing, they like this, so maybe that was a formative thing.
Guest:What's the other guy's name?
Guest:So you have Cantinflas, you have Chespirito.
Guest:And Chespirito, does he do... He's not stand-up.
Guest:No, he's not stand-up.
Guest:It was very much like sketches and almost like a sitcom of sorts.
Guest:There was a kid that lived in a wooden barrel and his whole...
Guest:um, goal in life was to get a ham sandwich and he was very poor and he lived in a barrel in the middle of this neighborhood.
Guest:And there was like, uh, the, the single older woman, you know, who, who the college, the local school professor would go over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was a single dad with a daughter.
Guest:And, um, there were all these characters that had this community, um,
Marc:Yeah, because I don't know, like having not seen it or not understanding the language, it always struck me what little I saw, I would always sort of think that the Mexican television comedy was very broad, very big, very theatrical.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it can be.
Guest:And there were these kind of comedic archetypes that I think people gravitated on.
Guest:I mean, look at Cantinflas.
Guest:Cantinflas was a street sweeper.
Guest:He walked around with a trash can on wheels and he would sweep.
Guest:And he had a red handkerchief.
Guest:He had a sailor hat.
Guest:His pants were sagging.
Guest:They were ripped.
Guest:But he was able to...
Guest:he went on to do many variations of this character.
Guest:He was a priest, he was this, so he put himself in these situations, and it was always very nice and endearing, and, you know, that was definitely my formative comedic influences moving into stand-up.
Guest:Now, as a kid, I'm watching...
Guest:Bobby's World, that's Howie Mandel's thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Life with Louie, Louie Anderson's cartoon.
Guest:Cartoons, yeah.
Guest:So you start looking at these characters, you're like, oh, they do this thing called stand-up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you're like, oh, man.
Guest:So that leads into, oh, Don Rickles, look at this guy.
Guest:How old were you when this was happening?
Guest:I don't know, like maybe.
Guest:10, 11 or that kind of thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, around that age.
Guest:And now I'm doing a deep dive.
Guest:I'm watching everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like anything I can get my hands on, you'd have to go to the record store, you know, buy CDs and that kind of stuff.
Guest:And then, you know, one thing linked to another is like Kenison, you know, Bill Hicks.
Guest:Where'd you find those guys?
Guest:How old were you when you found those guys?
Marc:Yeah, I was probably like in high school.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:So you were just a complete comedy nerd at that point.
Marc:Comedy nerd.
Marc:Digging shit up.
Guest:The whole thing.
Guest:I'm consumed by comedy at that point.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm discovering guys like George Lopez.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I literally remember the moment I got kicked out of English class in high school.
Guest:It was Mrs. Linker's class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And somebody gave me a bootleg copy of George Lopez's comedy album.
Guest:And there's a bit in there.
Guest:that he describes the only time we went to Mexico was when a family member was sick.
Guest:And he goes into the act out and he's like, get up, my mom's dying.
Guest:Get up, my mom's dying.
Guest:And everyone would pack in a van and go down to Mexico.
Guest:And that made me laugh so hard that I got kicked out of class.
Guest:They took away my CD player.
Guest:They took away the CD, which wasn't even mine.
Guest:It was a bullet copy, but it wasn't mine.
Guest:So I can't give it back to him.
Guest:I'm in the hallway supposed to be thinking about
Guest:what I should be doing, and I'm crying, laughing, still thinking about this bit, and it just resonated with me because we would go to Mexico quite a bit, again, for my mom and dad, most every weekend to go see the doctor down there, because one, we didn't have health insurance, and it was cheaper down there, and so every weekend for a long time, I think since middle school into like,
Guest:High school, like 11th grade, we were going every single weekend.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, because it's like my mom needed treatment for this or that.
Guest:My father needed treatment for this and that.
Guest:Or if I got sick, we're going to TJ.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I remember that was like, I think, a big kind of marker in comedy for me.
Marc:So you would go to TJ to see a doctor and then get prescriptions?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Just right there in the border town.
Guest:Yeah, border town and Tecate.
Guest:I used to spend a lot of time there in a little town called Tecate.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of food, restaurants.
Guest:I remember wandering by myself.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:There was a restaurant right in front of this hospital called Hospital Guadalajara.
Guest:That was the name of the hospital.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And right in front of it, there was a restaurant called Los Albañiles, right?
Guest:You used to go over there, and for a couple pesos, you get a huge milkshake, which was just banana milk and some chocolate powder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you couldn't tell me nothing, dude.
Guest:I was like king of the town, dude.
Guest:Yeah, it was just beautiful.
Marc:So that, like hearing George...
Marc:Talk about that experience connected you.
Marc:It resonated.
Marc:It connected me.
Marc:And you knew there was at least, you know, a Latino voice out there.
Guest:Yeah, there was a Latino voice.
Guest:And then you start, you know, discovering, you know, your Dave Attells.
Guest:And, you know, it's like Mitch Hedberg, Stephen Wright, these one-liner comics, which I became so obsessed with.
Guest:You know, it's like...
Guest:Mitch and Wright were like big, Ronnie Dangerfield.
Guest:I mean, that was huge for me because Economy Awards, the flip, the derailment of this idea, I mean, that was literally like, I hear people describe heroin, and I'm like, yeah, that's when I discovered Mitch Wright and Dangerfield.
Guest:That was it for me.
Guest:In high school?
Guest:This was maybe, yeah, high school, telling the high school into college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, just listening to, like, Ronnie Dangerfield's 1995 special in Vegas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These jokes where it's like... So many.
Guest:It's like, my dad, I don't think he likes me.
Guest:I asked for a bubble bath.
Guest:He started boiling water.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like, wow, how did he do that?
Guest:That's like, no magician could ever, like, wow me in that way, even though I love magic so much.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know it's a trick.
Guest:It's a trick, but it's like...
Guest:you're giving information, you're slow rolling people with information, and then it's not this, it's that.
Guest:The turn of phrasing.
Guest:Yeah, derailment, the misdirection, whatever people call it, it's like insane.
Guest:And then, yeah, it's like to be able to do comedy at whatever I bring to the table.
Guest:But it's great to be able to express myself in that way and also do it in Spanish.
Guest:Like be able to tour Mexico and
Marc:When did you first start doing it?
Marc:How did that happen?
Marc:What did you put together to start?
Guest:Was it Spanish or English?
Guest:English.
Guest:It was in Long Beach.
Guest:So I'm 35.
Guest:I'm about to be 36.
Guest:So I started when I was 20.
Guest:That was the first time I ever went on stage.
Guest:Local bar in Long Beach.
Guest:My space days.
Guest:So I see that thing come up.
Guest:Comedy night.
Guest:Down the street.
Guest:I'm 20.
Guest:I can't get into the bar.
Guest:I go in, and the guy running the show, his name's Cochino.
Guest:I go up to him.
Guest:I say, hey, can I do some time or whatever?
Guest:He's a holiday.
Guest:I'm at 20.
Guest:And then he's like, yeah, you're not supposed to be here.
Guest:We can shut down this bar kind of thing.
Sure.
Guest:And I'm like, so if I come back next week, can I go up and do a couple of minutes?
Guest:He's like, if you can get past the bouncer.
Guest:I took it at face value.
Guest:I'm not very bright.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And next week, I just show up.
Guest:I'm just kind of waiting it out.
Guest:I see the bouncer kind of like I'm picking up on his patterns, doing a little bit of recon.
Guest:And then I just kind of walk in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Show starts.
Guest:I'm in the back.
Guest:There was a ping pong table there.
Guest:So I just kind of sat over there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then show kind of starts.
Guest:I don't know how this works.
Guest:So once it starts, I go up to him and it's like, hey, so you- He's hosting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when he gets off, brings up the first comic, I said, hey, I'm here.
Guest:You said if I could get past the door guy.
Guest:He's like, oh, Jesus.
Guest:He's like, go up there.
Guest:It gives me like five minutes or something.
Guest:Is there an audience?
Guest:Yeah, it was a rough bar, so it was rough around the edges character.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A character's there, and it was a cool bar, but, you know, it's like there was an audience there.
Guest:Is it comedy night?
Guest:Yeah, it's comedy night.
Guest:It was on a Monday, I remember that.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And so I go up there, I get five minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I hit him with my fire three minutes, which was nothing.
Guest:One-liners?
Yeah.
Guest:I was talking about this... There was a thing that came out on the Press-Telegram, the Long Beach newspaper, and they were debating in the editorial about... So they gave this guy a last meal that was on...
Guest:Death row.
Guest:They put him in an electrical chair.
Guest:And his last meal, he asked for an insane amount of ice cream and a bunch of other stuff.
Guest:It was like a whole feast.
Guest:And they were debating where their tax dollars should go towards this.
Guest:So I kind of set it up very poorly.
Guest:And I said, if...
Guest:If I was in that situation and they asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I would ask for a Red Bull because I heard it gives you wings.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:And at that point, my knees start shaking.
Guest:I'm like, hands are shaking, like a borderline about to cry.
Guest:I try to put the mic back into the stand.
Guest:It doesn't do it.
Guest:The mic...
Guest:because it's a wireless one.
Guest:Batteries fly out.
Guest:I'm like fumbling out of there.
Guest:And my buddy's recording the whole thing, my buddy Tan Lee.
Guest:And he's still recording.
Guest:I'm outside shaking, teary-eyed.
Guest:He's like, how'd it go up there?
Guest:I'm like, you saw how I went up there.
Guest:He's like, turn that thing off.
Guest:And he has that footage.
Guest:I want to get my hands on it, but I don't really want to see it because it was so painful.
Guest:I mean, I'm sweating just even telling you this.
Guest:Yeah, I can feel it.
Guest:And it took me a whole year before I got back on stage.
No.
Marc:Oh, so it has wings.
Marc:That's from the advertising campaign.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sorry, Mark.
Guest:I didn't mean to bring that caliber of jokes into this podcast.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:I mean, we've all done that, that like on the page, it feels clever.
Guest:How'd you tell the Red Bull joke?
Marc:Well, you know, it's just like one of those things where, you know, you're just trying to figure out.
Marc:I mean, you know, the impulse was correct.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, because, you know, you were fans of guys who can turn the phrase, you know, and it made sense.
Marc:But it just wasn't strong enough to take off.
Marc:Yeah, not at all.
Marc:So you did one joke and that was it?
Guest:I did another joke about traffic cones.
Guest:It's like who decides how far away from the hazard they're supposed to be?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's like you slam into something honking after the fact or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Being an only child, I probably had like one-liner in there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And another one-liner about...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seven one-liners, and they're like, five minutes?
Guest:I'm like, yeah, I got it.
Guest:In under three minutes, I'm out of there.
Guest:Sweating.
Guest:Sweating.
Guest:Yeah, the microphone is broke.
Guest:$800 in damages on my first set.
Marc:You had to pay?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:You just ran out of there?
Guest:Never went back for a year?
Guest:Never went back.
Guest:I changed numbers, everything.
Guest:He wasn't going to get a hold of me.
Guest:Even if he would have called me the next day, want to come back and try again?
Guest:Nah.
Marc:So what were you thinking for that whole year?
Marc:in terms of comedy.
Marc:This is your dream, and you just fucking ate it, and you just couldn't pull it back together to do it again.
Marc:Now, at this point, your parents are sick, both of them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, my dad wasn't sick yet, but we were dealing with the stuff with my mom.
Guest:I'm still in college.
Guest:So I'm like, I think I'm going to really see this through.
Guest:College?
Guest:College, yeah.
Guest:Double down on the college.
Guest:Double down on the college.
Guest:I probably bought a new class catalog that day.
Guest:Was this before or after you told them you were going to do comedy for your life?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:That was definitely before.
Guest:You keep those things to yourself, Mark.
Guest:Until you're real sure.
Guest:Until you're real sure and then you just kind of go with the motions.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:It was just so painful.
Marc:After a year, where did you end up going back?
Marc:To that same place?
Guest:Did you feel like you had to go conquer?
Guest:I didn't slay the dragon until years in, so I was able to go back.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:After a year, though, where'd you go start again?
Guest:It was probably at a coffee shop.
Guest:There was another coffee shop in Long Beach off of Cherry that had an open mic, and then probably coming down out here to doing different open mics in Hollywood.
Marc:And what was different when you went back?
Marc:determination.
Guest:You'd think I would have learned, but I'm like, this Red Bull thing I think has wings.
Guest:I think this joke has wings.
Guest:No fun intended here.
Marc:So a year later, you stuck with the joke.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, it won't work with monster energy drink.
Guest:I think it's an energy-specific joke here.
Marc:It's so funny that you get locked into this
Marc:you know like this five minutes or whatever like you just can't let it go some guys can't let their their material go you know yeah but like when you're starting out you really believed in it though i guess that's something when did you finally how many times did you do it oh i did nothing i bombed my first five years oh my god yeah i'm a slow learner man dude total bomb i mean i
Guest:I'll be very careful in how I say this story, but there was a show that I got booked on to host.
Guest:I bring my parents out.
Guest:In Long Beach?
Guest:No, at the improv in Hollywood.
Guest:What was the show?
Guest:It was a show.
Guest:It was a show.
Guest:There was a lineup there.
Guest:But I know, how'd you get booked on that?
Guest:The person running this specific show asked me to come out and, you know- Comic run show?
Guest:Yeah, it was like one of those bringer type stuff.
Guest:Okay, all right, all right.
Guest:So it was a bringer show and I come out and- How many years in is this?
Guest:Oh, probably five.
Guest:This is the fifth year where I'm like, I'm past the Red Bull mark.
Guest:And so I'm up there.
Guest:I probably have.
Guest:Your parents come.
Guest:Yeah, my parents come.
Guest:And we're in a pickup truck.
Guest:So the three of us are sitting in the same thing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So it's like, this is great.
Guest:Sparkle in my eyes.
Guest:Hopes are high.
Guest:Parents are like, we're going to see him do this thing.
Guest:He's been telling us about it.
Guest:and uh so i go there it's the worst it's the worst man it's like i'm literally sweating so so we get there yeah you know they check our id my id or whatever we go in i check in mom and dad order probably some food or something they're getting ready yeah yeah show starts i i go up there i do my my fault you follow somebody
Guest:No, I'm opening because I'm hosting.
Guest:Oh, you're hosting?
Guest:Yeah, I'm hosting, and I got my flaming hot five-minute set up top just to get it.
Guest:Open it up.
Guest:Yeah, loosen people up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I do that.
Guest:Not good.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Next comic, thank God.
Guest:So I bring them up, and I go up there.
Guest:Are you guys ready for your next one?
Guest:And now I'm like, you know what?
Guest:I should try some material.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I got a minute or two in between.
Guest:I start doing that.
Guest:The person who runs the show goes up to me.
Guest:He's like, hey, man.
Guest:I'm gonna take it from here.
Guest:What?
Guest:I said, you sure?
Guest:He's like, oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We're gonna take it from here.
Guest:He's like, I'll host the rest of the show.
Guest:I said, great.
Marc:So you had to bring that guy up, and you bring him up, he's gonna finish it up?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then so I go sit down, and my dad's like, what are you doing here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, well, they said to come, yeah, that they're gonna host the rest of it.
Guest:He's like, yeah, I can see why.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He's like, let's get the hell out of here.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think that's a good idea.
Guest:I would like that.
Guest:I don't want to ruin this funk.
Guest:And let me tell you.
Guest:Tough ride home.
Guest:Pickup truck, three of us sitting on the same pickup truck bench.
Guest:I mean, I was brutal, and my dad was like, just focus on school, man.
Guest:He was like, you got a good thing going over there.
Guest:And I was like, in my head, I'm like, you don't know my grades.
Guest:You don't know how well I'm doing over there either.
Guest:You know, kind of thing.
Guest:But yeah, it was a hard thing.
Guest:So at that point, it was like, do I keep doing this thing?
Guest:And just, like, why am I still doing it?
Guest:It's like, because I think I'm very hard-headed.
Guest:It's like I latch on to this same thing for, like, a joke or a one-liner.
Guest:It's like I get obsessed with this figuring the thing out, you know?
Guest:And thank God I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So after that, like, that's... I just... The feeling of...
Marc:disappointing family or loved ones and they're like at least your dad didn't even try to be polite in a way oh he's he that's not something he subscribes to he's going to be direct and real yeah at all times yeah and like i mean it's brutal but i mean that's really one of those sort of like you know that's it'll teach you whether or not you really cut out for it or not yeah but you just kept going you just kept going and yeah you keep going and at that point it's like oh
Guest:That's probably when you find out you're meant to do something.
Guest:Despite negative feedback from the audience, the people who are judging your art, people around you, the people are like, why are you putting yourself through this and you still want to do it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just people looking at you like, oh, Jesus, that guy again?
Guest:Oh, he keeps showing off, that guy.
Guest:It's almost like that character in that movie, A Million Dollar Baby with a...
Marc:Oh, yeah, Jay Baruchel's character.
Guest:Yeah, the character just keeps getting wailed on, but he keeps showing up.
Guest:He pays his gym membership a year in advance.
Guest:It's like, how does he stay here?
Marc:And then the bully finally just trashes him, just beats the shit out of him to wake him up and go home.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Just comedy in general.
Guest:That's what it does to you.
Marc:But so five years in, this is what happens.
Marc:So when do you get the job at the store?
Guest:So I worked there for a couple of years.
Guest:So if I trace it back from September 7, 2012, it's like it would be like two years.
Guest:So maybe like two years and a half.
Marc:So you were already at the store.
Marc:You were already working at the store.
Guest:It was probably, yeah, maybe it was already at the store.
Guest:That's when it kind of gets a little foggy.
Guest:And what were you doing?
Guest:Like what were they letting you do at the store?
Guest:Three minutes.
Guest:So they let you do three minutes at potluck.
Guest:And back then there was a potluck was Sunday and Monday for us.
Guest:So I could get three minutes on Sunday and Monday as a door guy at that point.
Guest:I get to develop my hot three minutes, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You get one development spot a week so you can go into the belly room.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you get to do five whole minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that to me was like, so I'm getting, you know, eight, nine, ten.
Guest:So it's like...
Guest:Yeah, it's like sometimes I would get longer sets in the belly room if it may be.
Guest:So it's like at minimum I'm doing six minutes a week at the store and I'm getting some money for gas to go back and forth.
Marc:When do you feel like something clicks or at least you know you're like, all right, thank God.
Guest:I would say...
Guest:I can tell you what joke gave me confidence.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, there was a joke that I had because, you know, before I went all bald, I had a comb-over for a long time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I mean, I had a full-on comb-over.
Guest:I mean, this thing was gnarly, and I would spray it on, just make sure it held together, combed it.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And I would go up to it, and I just started talking about it, and...
Guest:And that was like, it was an act out.
Guest:I could flap it, the whole thing.
Guest:And I think that one really like gave me confidence because it was foolproof.
Guest:And I can tell you, like, I knew that I had a tough set the night before because I could, I was really selling the comb over.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, I hurt my neck.
Guest:The next day I'd be a little sore on my left side.
Guest:I'm like, oh yeah, that crowd was a little tough, I guess.
Guest:But yeah, just after a while, just, you know, one of the comics I'm really like a huge fan of and just blown away by their writing and their, as a person, as a comic, it's like Ian Edwards.
Guest:So it's like me watching him, you know, night after night.
Guest:Well, he's like a boxer.
Guest:He's like a Mexican boxer.
Guest:It's like, it'll be 107 and 43.
Guest:It's like, how do you get that record?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he has no defeats.
Guest:I mean, he is just so funny.
Guest:He doesn't miss.
Guest:He just, and, you know, we became good friends and just being able to see him and over the years, like, you know, getting better as a writer, seeing, you know, being a fly on the wall.
Marc:I remember when he had dreadlocks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so we have that in common.
Guest:We used to have hair and now we're bald, you know?
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:But so, all right, so it was the comb-over joke that gave you confidence.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were you, like, I always thought you were kind of, did you ever watch Madrigal?
Marc:Yeah, Madrigal, of course.
Marc:Big fan.
Guest:Yeah, he's a good comic.
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:He didn't quit.
Guest:He's done.
Guest:Did he quit?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Have you seen him?
Guest:Well, I mean, he's busy with projects, I'm sure, right now.
Marc:No, but he's just sort of like, I ain't doing it anymore.
Marc:It's sort of such a sad thing.
Marc:But he's just one of those dudes.
Marc:He's like, I do all this other stuff, and this is where I'm making my living, and that didn't work out.
Marc:But I can't believe it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the store, I think, you know, being able to see a lot of the big names, you know, as I'm coming up, I'm seeing you, I'm seeing Madrigal, I'm seeing Ian Edwards, I'm seeing, like, a ton of comics, but it's also learning.
Guest:I mean, that experience, it's insane.
Guest:Being around it all the time.
Guest:Yeah, it's like I remember talking to you a couple times, like, you know, parking your car, and then you seeing, you know, me do, like, a tough...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I was like, oh, he's doing it.
Guest:He's a full-fledged comic now.
Guest:Yeah, and your shout-out that you... Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, on the podcast, you gave me this huge shout-out, and people were hitting me up.
Guest:It's like, yo, he's giving you a shout-out and some nice words.
Guest:I'm like, oh, there's things along the way that give you confidence.
Guest:It's those things.
Guest:It's like, I think comedy is great, and there's a lot of...
Guest:fulfilling things like from the audience of like them laughing, applauding, like all these cool things.
Guest:But I think as a comic, we can't kind of move forward without the respect of our peers.
Guest:And that means so much.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, it's like comics that I look up to like yourself and so many others that have
Guest:been so kind and gracious with their words and, you know, provided me so many opportunities.
Guest:So it's like, it feels good.
Marc:It's like, well, when did you start to feel like you could talk about, you know, your parents and, and your situation?
Marc:I mean, cause that's sort of, I mean, like, I think it's interesting that the comb over is the first kind of window into realizing, you know, what feels good as a joke.
Marc:Cause that's very, it's revealing and it's owning something that's kind of embarrassing.
Marc:And, you know, I,
Marc:But using it.
Marc:So that opens up the vulnerability.
Marc:So like after you're able to kind of take ownership of those things that are so fucking embarrassing, you can kind of do anything.
Marc:So how do you start to kind of open up and talk about the shit just five minutes at a time?
Guest:Yeah, so it's like, I think the real growth for me was the store, being able to have 15 minutes at a time.
Guest:When you finally got to be a regular, you mean?
Guest:Yeah, when I finally got passed as a paid regular.
Guest:When was that?
Guest:Yeah, September 7, 2012.
Guest:Oh, that was it?
Guest:Yeah, that's when I got made a paid regular, and I'm getting 15-minute spots at 1 in the morning, at 1.30 in the morning, right before Abravaya.
Marc:Abravaya, for people who don't know, is the guy who's been doing the last spot at the Comedy Store for like 30 years.
Marc:Is he still around?
Marc:I saw him at the 50th, but I don't see him at the store.
Marc:I don't hang around that lake.
Guest:I don't even know what that place looks like.
Guest:I haven't seen him in a long time.
Guest:I used to see him when I was there late nights, but I haven't seen him in a long time.
Guest:When I was there, he used to just go do Carson's monologues.
Guest:Yeah, that's what I remember.
Guest:But yeah, that to me was a big breakthrough.
Marc:But I can't even imagine what... I never stay there much past 11.30, ever.
Marc:So at 1 in the morning, it must be, what, scattered people, like 10, 15 people?
Guest:10, 15?
Guest:No, it's single digits.
Guest:Mark.
Guest:Sorry, it's been a long time.
Guest:So your slow nights in the golden era of comedy when you came up was 10, 15 people?
Guest:Man, that's great.
Marc:No, but I didn't do that at the store.
Marc:I did that shit in New York.
Marc:So it was nine people at the beginning of the show.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:And then it stayed nine people.
Guest:That would have felt like Madison Square Garden to me.
Guest:Nine people?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:In the OR?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:There was two people.
Guest:There was like one person, two people.
Guest:It was like that kind of thing.
Marc:Was that during the downtime?
Marc:Was it the dark period?
Marc:Yeah, it was a dark period.
Marc:So no one was going.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:I mean, that room was clearing out.
Guest:It's like, as a matter of fact, there'll be times where it'll be just like one person that's just asleep, you know, close this tab, just stay there.
Guest:You're just kind of like dozing off drunk and you're basically playing to your peers.
Guest:The person working the cover booth or the lot guy that happened to come in and sat down and watched you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that point, it's a writing session.
Guest:Hey, try that again.
Guest:What if you said this?
Guest:It's like at that point, it's like, yeah, I'll hold the mic and you give me tags.
Marc:But was that when no one was going to the store in general?
Marc:Like the shows weren't that popular?
Marc:Sometimes they'd cancel shows in the OR.
Guest:I was around the time.
Guest:So it started picking up when I became a paid regular.
Guest:But when I'm a door guy, the main room is not working.
Guest:It only works on Saturdays.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that thing is shut down.
Guest:And then when I became a paid regular, I saw...
Guest:outside promoters start going into that room and bringing life to it during the week.
Guest:But yeah, it was.
Guest:Was that Fat Tuesdays?
Guest:Trippin' on Tuesdays was Tuesdays.
Guest:So Tuesday and Sunday were the only spots that I was seeing the room be used for.
Guest:Other than that, it's like, and then over the years to see that there would be like two showings in the main room, that's bonkers.
Guest:I mean, it's because I saw it when it was dead dead.
Marc:Yeah, well now it's kind of crazy, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But even then, you mean when Joe and... What's his name?
Marc:Mencia and everybody.
Marc:You were there during that.
Guest:No, I wasn't there during that.
Guest:I was there when Joe Rogan and Joey Diaz came back.
Guest:Around that time, when I saw it, I remember them coming back and the place was just bumping.
Guest:It was sold out main rooms and sold out ORs, and it's like, wow.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:um yeah it was it was really cool to see kind of like this so the 15 minutes of performing for nobody give you the confidence to kind of start pulling it together yeah you start talking about yourself yeah you like you forge you like you forge this kind of steel you know you're you're hammering away at this red hot steel before like the
Guest:this kind of like pocket of creativity cools.
Guest:It's like, you know, I'm going to go talk about this, like my mom wearing diapers.
Guest:I'm going to go talk about my dad getting cancer and being in denial.
Guest:You know, it's like, and that's, if you're going to present something like that, it better be at 1.30 in the morning in a pitch dark room with a couple people.
Guest:And if you can get some, if you can hear some chuckles and that kind of thing, I'm like, oh, I'm onto something.
Guest:You know, and then you go perform that elsewhere and maybe they're not into it, but it's like,
Guest:That's the kind of material that I was... I later started doing as a paid regular and to be able to... So even as I'm doing my special, I'm not really on the road.
Guest:I'm not headlining.
Guest:I'm not doing weekends.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, it's like I got a couple weekends leading up to it, but I pieced the whole hour off of four 15-minute sets.
Guest:I'm rotating them as I get the spots, and then it's like when I would get one-nighters... Yeah, it's like one-nighters.
Guest:I would go in and try to...
Guest:Do the 45?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, I would do the whole hour.
Guest:It was four 15s.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:So that's how you were working at the store?
Guest:That's how I was working at the store.
Marc:And then once I got the... Where'd you finally get the hours?
Marc:You had to run the whole hours.
Guest:Yeah, it's like getting close is when I finally got an agent and I started getting like... What year is this?
Guest:So I filmed my special November 2nd, 2019.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So you weren't headlining.
Guest:Not complete weekends.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just one-nighters or stuff like that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So at that point, once I'm on the road leading up to, like, say the last six months leading up to the thing, it's like I'm having some scattered weekends, like some fallout spots, some one-nighters, that kind of stuff.
Guest:So at that point, it's like the four 15-minute sets became...
Marc:that's breaking stuff up in thirds that's hard man to to just sort of be like all right well this like especially at the store where you're like this is this 15 minutes this is this 15 minutes because it's so easy to get stuck in a habit there yeah yeah because you just want to do the shit that works maybe throw a couple new ones in the middle right but you're just sort of like no tomorrow i got to work on this total other one i would trick myself into thinking is like imagine i started comedy right now yeah and and i didn't have the red bull banger that i had before i
Guest:And, you know, this is what I have right now.
Guest:So I would go up and trick myself and force myself to do that only 15 minutes.
Guest:And then some weeks I would just do that same 15 over and over again, working out a joke or whatever.
Guest:But it was me tricking myself into it.
Guest:And then later... And they're long form too, right?
Marc:I mean, sometimes it's two or three stories, right?
Guest:Yeah, two or three stories.
Guest:So by the time I got to the special, I had mapped everything out.
Guest:I would love to show you that picture afterward, but it's like I mapped everything out.
Guest:So what helped me doing four 15-minute sets, what really helped me was callbacks.
Guest:I have a callback from here to here.
Guest:It was like... Callbacks are like, they're the greatest.
Oh.
Guest:Yes, they are.
Guest:It makes audiences just like, oh, my God.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's like this kind of smoke thing, and the dove flies out of your hands, and you're like, I got another one going.
Marc:You're going to love the next ones.
Marc:Four birds come out of it.
Guest:Yeah, and at that point, it's like I remember kind of weaving.
Guest:At that point, I got away from the 415s once I'm doing weekends, and I said, I'm going to do 320s, so beginning, middle, and end.
Marc:And then now, do you headline now?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I'm loving it.
Guest:I'm going on the road.
Guest:I was just in Philly.
Guest:I'm going to Jacksonville, Florida this weekend.
Guest:I got Brea at the end.
Guest:So it's like I'm loving it.
Marc:So it's so wild how you put it together because you didn't do it like you didn't go from opening into feature acts.
Guest:Yeah, no, I was featuring.
Guest:Oh, you were.
Guest:Yeah, I was featuring.
Guest:I've been opening and featuring for so long, but I never had the headlining weekends.
Guest:You see what I'm saying?
Marc:And then Pauly took you out.
Marc:Who else took you out?
Guest:Yeah, I went on the road with Pauly, Trevino, Russell Peters, Steve Byrne.
Guest:Yeah, a ton of people have been.
Guest:Steve Renazizi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's so many.
Guest:I hate to list everybody.
Marc:That's the big benefit of the store is that I think, yeah, you can go work out, but that someone will be like, let's just go do some dates.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you can do the real job as opposed to just being in one of those rooms over there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I hate to name everybody just because I feel like I'm going to leave somebody out, but it's like, yeah, the store, you're 100,000% right.
Guest:It's like you build rapport with these comics and later it's like, wait, I need somebody open.
Guest:You ready?
Guest:You ready?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll get somebody to cover my shift and I'll see you there.
Guest:And then you're there an hour before they show up in the green room ready to go.
Guest:When did you start working in Spanish?
Yeah.
Guest:That happened a couple years ago, so that actually happened when I took my mom to go see the Virgin Mary in Mexico City.
Marc:The Virgin Mary was there?
Guest:Not the real one.
Guest:We went to the cathedral in Mexico City, and so I was gonna take her there because she was gonna have that surgery, that brain surgery, so it was kind of like a, in Jewish culture they call it a mitzvah, kind of like a trip.
Guest:And so I was taking my mom on this trip and, you know, make sure everything was in order.
Guest:So I took them down there and that's kind of, I think even a little before that I had tried it out here, but I did it in Mexico City at this spot called the Shakespeare Forum.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:And it was fun.
Marc:You just did your regular act?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I translated stuff, and then that was another learning moment for me because you realize some similes and metaphors and wordplay.
Guest:Double entendres are different.
Guest:You have a different set of double entendres and puns to work with.
Guest:So things weren't working.
Guest:I had to pivot, adjust.
Guest:So it felt like I started all over again.
Guest:I felt like I was in that pickup truck driving home.
Marc:But you know the language.
Marc:It's your first language, so...
Guest:Well, my dad would say, you're going to end up mute because you can't speak Spanish or English well.
Guest:It's like eventually you're in this purgatory of language where you lose kind of this and you gain that and vice versa.
Guest:So I come to find out that I'm fluent in Spanish, but not Mexico City Spanish.
Guest:So it's like that was a realization.
Guest:And then me working on it and performing and...
Guest:It worked then, but I would say that I'm a lot better now than I was then.
Guest:This past weekend, actually, no, I was in Oxnard this weekend, so I did the weekend, four shows.
Guest:Friday and Saturday shows were in English.
Guest:At the Improv?
Guest:Yeah, at the Improv, the Levity Live here in Oxnard.
Guest:The Sunday show was in Spanish, and I was able to do... How many people come out?
Guest:Did you sell it out?
Guest:Uh, the English ones were like, it's the first time where I'm like, Oh wow.
Guest:Like people are coming out, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the Spanish one, it's kind of new.
Guest:It's a new thing.
Guest:So it's kind of hard to reach kind of the Spanish speaking demographic because maybe they're not plugged into the email list and that kind of thing.
Guest:But you know, people did come out and be able to do an hour in Spanish and it's like a hybrid of like the old hour and the new hour and just being in the moment.
Guest:Like, uh,
Guest:I have command of the language now where I'm like, hey, I could talk to this audience member, maybe a little bit of crowd work.
Guest:That sets up another joke.
Guest:But it's a nice place.
Marc:You're becoming proficient in Spanish with it.
Marc:Comedy, yeah.
Marc:So as far as it does that too, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I think Segura does it.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah, so Tom Segura and we put on this show at the improv in the little lab.
Guest:It was like Francisco Ramos, Fabrizio Copano and I. And it's like the room holds 20 people.
Guest:And Tom Segura and Felipe were kind enough to come do the show a couple of times and kind of jam out.
Guest:So it was cool.
Guest:It's kind of like...
Guest:Doing comedy in Spanish just feels like a basketball play, like working on your left.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to work on that.
Guest:You know, it feels good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, to be able to sink those baskets with your left.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, English is my like, I think in English now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like my dominant.
Marc:But I mean, just on a business level, you know, if you can build out the Spanish market for yourself, I mean, fuck, dude, it's a whole other world.
Marc:And there's thousands of people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, LA's Spanish, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, Texas, Arizona, there's all these beautiful markets, Miami.
Guest:But going to Mexico, it's like I see the Mexican comedians right now killing it.
Guest:And it's like stand-up comedy as we know it here in the States.
Guest:It's still a very early, young art form in Mexico.
Guest:I think...
Guest:Roughly, the eldest comic in Mexico is like 10 years into comedy.
Guest:And they're putting out specials year after year.
Marc:It's like totally new there.
Guest:It's a gold rush right now.
Guest:People are rushing into premises.
Marc:Are you going to go shoot a special in Mexico?
Guest:Yeah, so I'm going to go shoot it this year.
Guest:So I have the first hour that I translated.
Guest:The dream would be to sell a double special of Spanish and English for every hour here on out, much like a book.
Guest:Esparza does that?
Guest:Yeah, Sparsa did that.
Guest:Yeah, and it was great, and that has for a long time been my dream of if I could do that.
Guest:How do your parents feel now about your choices?
Guest:My dad still reminds me of this job where I wore a tie.
Guest:And I said, you know, I sold clothes at Robinson's May.
Guest:It was a department store.
Guest:He's like, but you wore a tie.
Guest:So my dad still hints at it.
Guest:My mom's like... Hints at what?
Guest:He wants you to wear a tie or he wants you to not be a comedian?
Guest:Not be a comedian.
Guest:He's like, man, it's like, I don't know.
Guest:He's like, there's an easier way to do this, man.
Guest:To do life?
Guest:To do life, to kind of...
Guest:I think what it comes down to, it's like, I think parents don't want you to suffer or have the same path of resistance that they did.
Guest:So I think they want to lessen that.
Guest:But it's like, if only they could really comprehend that I'm happy doing this and I want to do it for the rest of my life.
Guest:When it's all said and done, if I could just put out special after special, it's like...
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:I'm good.
Marc:Even last night when I saw you, what's your girlfriend's name?
Guest:Adria.
Marc:Yeah, she's great.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:It seems like she's on board.
Marc:Very supportive, absolutely.
Marc:For the full ride.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How long has that been going on?
Guest:A couple years.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah, a few years, actually.
Marc:Because I just know you came out, because I know with that audience last night, it was a little chaotic.
Marc:It was a little chaotic.
Marc:I did both rooms.
Marc:Like I wasn't even booked in the main room, but Ross didn't show up till late.
Marc:So I went on, but it was just one of those nights where it was like, you know, they weren't bad, but they were just sort of distracted or something.
Marc:And it was just, you could just feel that weird, a little bit of chaos in the room, you know?
Marc:So, but you could focus on, you got enough people laughing to where you, you know, it could sustain your set and not just be like, no, I wanna fucking leave my body.
Marc:But, I mean, I saw you come out, and you're like, it was great.
Marc:I'm like, was it, though?
Marc:Was it great?
Guest:And I was very honest.
Guest:I said, for what I'm trying to do, yes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Because I'm doing new premises, and I wasn't fazed by the lack of laughter or, you know, just whatever little pops I got with the thing I'm working on.
Guest:It was like, that was great.
Marc:Well, when you're doing the new shit, which is great, you know, like, when you finally... Because I'm, like, at that point now, like, I don't know where this...
Marc:A lot of this material I'm doing now came from like I'm doing these two hour shows and some of it.
Marc:Yeah, but some of it's not going to stick, you know, and some of it will.
Marc:But, you know, there's a lot of stuff in there.
Marc:But I realize like there's things I need to talk about.
Marc:And, you know, I have to consciously kind of like, all right, well, figure out, you know, what you want to say, you know, and just get it out there.
Marc:And you know that weird feeling, like there's an excitement to doing it.
Marc:And when it fucking tanks, you're just sort of like, well, how committed am I to this?
Marc:But the thing you start to realize is like, well, if I believe in it, I gotta make it work.
Marc:And that's the one thing you don't really talk about to yourself, which is like, things can tank.
Marc:But if you have faith in it and you keep tweaking shit, it'll eventually come to life.
Marc:but but you know there's a lot of things that i do impulsively and i get big laughs and i forget but like when you really focus on something and then you sort of go and you make it work like the only problem with that thing is like you know once it's really working i'm like no that's that's done do you know like you know that's so funny we do put a kind of a expiration thing and say all right that's done yeah and like either you keep doing it or you just sort of like that was a good challenge right yeah and then it just goes away so the new shit's kind of working
Guest:Yeah, I think the new stuff is working.
Guest:Talking about my mom wanting a new walker.
Guest:That feels good.
Marc:That's all relatable shit, too.
Marc:I'm finding, you know, talking about grief and my dad's Alzheimer's and shit.
Marc:It's like, that's where it's at, dude.
Marc:Like, in some ways.
Marc:Because, like, all that kind of stuff, like, kind of shouldering, you know, the real challenges of life and, you know, people you love getting sick or you getting sick or losing people.
Marc:It's like, what else is there, really?
Marc:How much can you talk about the fucking Kardashians or Amber Heard or whatever the fuck her name is?
Guest:So how do you kind of challenge yourself to talk about things that maybe seem a little too vulnerable?
Guest:Like when you start talking about your father.
Marc:Yeah, it's hard.
Marc:Usually it starts pretty cynical, kind of dark.
Marc:And then I feel it out.
Marc:There's a beat that I'm doing.
Marc:That's just never, like occasionally it'll get the big laugh and I can't determine what makes it happen or what doesn't.
Marc:But it's a matter of rising above the sadness of it.
Marc:It's delicate because what you're talking about is sad as fuck.
Marc:So you better have a good relief valve in there.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And that's the challenge, I think, of those jokes.
Marc:It's like from the get-go, this is sad shit, but I've got this little twist that's gonna turn it around and relieve you of that sadness, literally.
Marc:You can feel it.
Marc:Who the fuck knows what makes it happen?
Marc:I'll stick with shit that's sad, doesn't go anywhere.
Marc:I'm doing a thing on stage that's horrendous.
Marc:It's horrendous, and it's unnecessary.
Marc:Because I'm literally saying, I don't know if you watched it, but I'm saying, I don't know what we're supposed to be doing as comics.
Marc:I can't just entertain you.
Marc:The weight of the world is on all of us, and we know what's going on.
Marc:It's horrendous.
Marc:So I say, the metaphor I'm sort of working with as what our job is, is...
Marc:You know when someone's sick and dying in the hospital?
Marc:And they're gonna die.
Marc:You know what they hear from everybody they know in the weeks leading up to them dying?
Marc:You're gonna get through this, man.
Marc:You're strong, you're gonna do it.
Marc:If you don't worry about it, you're gonna kick this thing.
Marc:That's the comedian's job, right?
Marc:Yeah, just kind of hold a hand and just... Of the world.
Marc:Of the world, yeah.
Marc:But see, again, it's not funny, but for some reason I think it should be.
Marc:So I don't know.
Guest:I think it's great.
Guest:And then certain premises, I really believe in this thing called stand-up comedy.
Guest:It's art.
Guest:And sometimes you just have to do it for the sake of just doing it.
Guest:I feel like it's such an imprint and being able to get that out.
Guest:And yeah, certain jokes aren't funny, but they're still jokes.
Guest:It comes out as a certain way.
Guest:And I don't know, comics were so twisted in our minds that sometimes you say something and you're like, oh, that's not going to be...
Guest:good.
Guest:It's not going to sit well with me tonight or tomorrow.
Guest:I'm thinking, why did I say that?
Guest:That could have been this.
Guest:Am I being disrespectful?
Marc:For a year, man.
Marc:The Red Bull for a year.
Guest:I tried it last night, actually, Mark.
Guest:That's why I said it was great for what I'm trying to do.
Guest:I'm trying to bring back this Red Bull wing thing.
Marc:Dude, I hate fucking like I felt it the other night, man, when you're on stage and you get that sweat on the back of your neck.
Guest:Those two beads just racing down the vertebrae.
Guest:You have like the spinal cord.
Marc:You have no control over it, but it happens when you got to work.
Guest:You're up there and you just kind of like lean forward.
Guest:You just feel the elastic of your box just snap down.
Marc:Well, yeah, because like, you know, it's like St.
Marc:Landon.
Marc:It's not landing.
Marc:And that still happens, you know, and I get off and I'm like, fuck.
Marc:They just saw the sadness.
Guest:Yeah, there was a premise that I tried to tackle that was just like, I think, I'm not, yeah, it's like, so the idea was that like, you know, my mom's health is bad, but my parents are not married.
Guest:My dad is now able to
Guest:So my dad comes to me, he's like, you can't make this shit up.
Guest:He's like, hey, I've been thinking of marrying your mom.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, that's cool.
Guest:And I didn't know what to say.
Guest:And he got really upset because I'm like, I don't know, take her out for coffee or something.
Guest:And then he's like, hey, I'm being...
Guest:freaking real right now, dude.
Guest:I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.
Guest:It's such a weird, touchy thing for me, but at the same time, the comedic mind to kind of let the comedy in these painful, vulnerable moments.
Guest:It's like, you know, start thinking of the premises like, well, who's going to have to marry him?
Guest:You know, it's like my parents don't speak or read English.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to be officiating.
Guest:The thing is like going into like these hypothetical premises.
Guest:You know, my mom is hard of hearing.
Guest:Mom, do you take that?
Guest:And it's like, that's what relieves the pain, I think.
Guest:And presenting that on stage is like, just like you said, it's like, ah, shit, the audience saw the sadness.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got to tweak that a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, it's not ready.
Guest:Let's let that brew a little bit.
Marc:It's just coming out sad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's all right, man.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's the real risk of it.
Marc:If you're just doing jokes that are just jokes and you're just doing them like math problems, you can just reel them off.
Marc:Because I go all in all the time, and you do that too, where you just put your heart into it so when they don't work, you're like...
Marc:it's not just sort of like the embarrassment of a joke not working it's like oh my god it's got a little heartbreak a little heartbreak there right yeah yeah it's all right we're we're tough good talking to you man thank you so much for having me
Marc:jesus trejo go see him if he's coming to your town and you can also watch him on his tacos con todo show here's a messy guitar riff that i tried to pull together and i kind of fucked it up here and there but i rolled with it i rolled with it i rolled with the mud and the sludge
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey LaFonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.