Episode 139 - Greg Fitzsimmons
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fucking knots?
Marc:How the hell are you?
Marc:It's Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for being here.
Marc:Thank you for tuning in.
Marc:Thank you for, hold on.
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:I think I shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop, available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:What do I got to tell you?
Marc:Today on the show, Greg Fitzsimmons.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I know a lot of you thought that we didn't get along or that there was a problem.
Marc:Well, there is a problem.
Marc:There's always a problem between me and Greg, but we do get along and we love each other.
Marc:How's that for you?
Marc:Known him a long time?
Marc:Love the guy?
Marc:There's always a little problem.
Marc:But we're going to work through it in just a second.
Marc:Before I get into that, I want to plug my dates.
Marc:I'm at Helium in Philly.
Marc:Helium in Philly, January 12th through 15th.
Marc:Come down for that.
Marc:I believe it's heliumcomedy.com.
Marc:I'd love to see you at the shows.
Marc:Greg Fitzsimmons, huh?
Marc:What can I tell you about that?
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I'm going to stall it for just a minute.
Marc:Maybe read an email.
Marc:Subject line, root canal.
Marc:Mr. Mark Maron, I found your podcast a couple months ago and have been enjoying it immensely.
Marc:I, like almost every human being, have a very active thought life.
Marc:Your show, rants, and interviews give me a glimpse into your inner thoughts and help to remind me that I'm not the only fucked up person in the world.
Marc:Welcome aboard, my friend.
Marc:After many months of fighting with a sore tooth, I recently gave in and had a root canal.
Marc:Rather than listen to the drilling and perhaps to avoid my own miserable thoughts, I listened to two episodes of What the Fuck.
Marc:When it comes right down to it, I can't think of a better podcast that goes better with a root canal.
Marc:I wish you the best in life.
Marc:Love and working through your inner darkness.
Marc:Sincerely, Joel.
Marc:Can I use that as a plug?
Marc:Maybe that should be right there on iTunes.
Marc:how would that read what the fuck with mark maron can't think of a better podcast that goes with a root canal hey look i had one of those and believe me i had my own what the fuck going unfortunately i didn't have the benefit of listening to my podcast i just listened to my head and then i shared it with you guys letter letter later greg fitzsimmons yes greg fitzsimmons is going to be here shortly now i know a lot of you who listen to fitz dog radio who listen to his podcast
Marc:I think that there's a beef with us and I thought we had buried it.
Marc:But I got to tell you, I do.
Marc:I hold on to a resentment sometimes.
Marc:I mean, even when I don't know if other people can relate to this, but I I have grudges in my heart and mind that have lasted a pretty long time.
Marc:And even if I see the person that I have a grudge with, I'll be pleasant to them.
Marc:I'll say hi to them.
Marc:You'll maybe have a sandwich or a piece of pie with them, but I'll still be festering a bit.
Marc:Very hard to let go of that shit.
Marc:And I don't know always what to do about it.
Marc:And a lot of times when I have resentments, my tone with the person or when I'm talking about the person could be construed as negative when I speak to them in a dismissive, condescending, or abusive tone.
Marc:That could be construed as negative when I speak of them in an abusive, negative, or condescending tone or a slanderous tone.
Marc:tone that can be construed as negative but then when you get right up to them and they're standing in front of you like hey man what's going on isn't that what people do hey man what's going on i'm good man i'm good it's good to see you it's good to see you read fuck you you asshole hey how's it going i hate your fucking guts when are we gonna hang out again god please don't fucking email me hey uh how's your girlfriend she's a fucking idiot
Marc:See how that works?
Marc:I was talking to a made-up person.
Marc:But I think that goes on.
Marc:It goes on in my mind sometimes.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is, I have found that a lot of times that I'll resent somebody or hate them or decide that they're assholes because...
Marc:I like them because they remind me of me because I connect with them.
Marc:It's a boundary.
Marc:I don't have healthy boundaries.
Marc:So sometimes the best boundary I can muster is fuck that guy.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Get the fuck out of my face or over here.
Marc:Yeah, he's an asshole.
Marc:Oh, that guy.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:That is what I call a boundary.
Marc:And it's not something I can commit to because really what I'm saying is, hey, buddy, like me.
Marc:Hey, man, let's hang out.
Marc:How come you never call me?
Marc:Why don't we ever get together, come out as, oh, really?
Marc:No shit, asshole.
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But to be honest with you, Fitzsimmons just put this book out and it's like a real book.
Marc:He put some work into it.
Marc:Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons, Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox.
Marc:I'm not about plugging, but this is like a real book.
Marc:It's thoughtful.
Marc:There are pictures.
Marc:He put a lot of work into it.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you.
Marc:I've known Greg probably over 20 years and I've always liked him.
Marc:as a person as a comic i've always thought he was a very sweet guy and hard worker and just a decent person and then i did his show on sirius and for some reason his tone really grated on me and he was sort of an asshole to me and i just couldn't let it go i couldn't understand it in other words folks he hurt my feelings
Marc:See, that's a problem with being sensitive.
Marc:Your feelings are right there.
Marc:If I walk into a room, even if I'm cranky, I'm just like a fucking open wound.
Marc:How hard is it to hurt my feelings?
Marc:Not very hard at all.
Marc:That's what I'm telling you.
Marc:Try negative tweeting me.
Marc:It hurts my feelings.
Marc:Is that wrong?
Marc:Does that make me an asshole?
Marc:No, but I don't think the proper response to having your feelings hurt is like, you know, fuck you.
Marc:I'm never talking to you again.
Marc:You're an asshole.
Marc:But I mean, sometimes that's just better in the situation than to start crying.
Marc:Or to say, hey, man, you know what you said or how you acted?
Marc:It really hurt my feelings.
Marc:I know that psychobabbly kind of like that's what people tell you to do.
Marc:It's like, look, you know, stand up for yourself.
Marc:You know, have healthy boundaries and speak that, you know, tell people how you feel.
Marc:Hey, man.
Marc:Hey, you know, when you did that, it really hurt my feelings.
Marc:And then they laugh at your face, just like my mother did.
Marc:So now.
Marc:Greg is on.
Marc:We had a great chat.
Marc:It went on for a long time.
Marc:I don't want to waste too much time here chatting about this shit.
Marc:Let's just talk to Greg, and you'll see we're friends.
Marc:The reason why I like Greg is that he laughs.
Marc:You know, a lot of comics don't laugh.
Marc:They don't know how to laugh anymore.
Marc:Greg laughs, and the thing I love about Greg Fitzsimmons' laugh is that it could just as easily be crying.
Marc:Yeah, your publicist sent me your book.
Marc:Is that where we're at with podcasting, Fitzsimmons?
Guest:Are we recording?
Marc:Sure, we're recording.
Guest:All right, good.
Marc:Is that where we're at, where I got to deal with your publicist, who I happen to know to get your book?
Marc:So you brought me a book today.
Marc:How is that supposed to prepare me?
Guest:It was a gift in case you had, it was a forgive me gift if nobody had sent you a book.
Marc:A forgive me gift.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I really, I appreciate that you, I'm assuming, took a look at it then.
Marc:Well, you're lucky there are fucking pictures in it because I don't know that it made it to the bathroom a couple of times.
Guest:Well, I figured you learn to read with picture books.
Guest:You should learn to write with picture books also.
Marc:Greg Fitzsimmons, who I made drive out here, even though I was literally across the street from his house this morning, but the thought of going to his quote-unquote studio and let him have any of that territorial control over our conversation, which was a mistake I made last time, was just not in the cards this time.
Marc:The amount of resentment I have to shelf just to have him over for a second interview, given his...
Marc:The obnoxious treatment of me last time is is something that I'm proud to call an act of humility on my part.
Marc:But I do have the book.
Marc:Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons Tales of Redemption from the Irish mailbox.
Marc:To be honest with you, you know, when you call me and I guess you said on your your podcast that I'd canceled on you.
Marc:Did you say twice that cancel on you twice?
Guest:Well, we had San Francisco where you came to see my show.
Guest:And then I said, why don't we do a podcast tomorrow?
Marc:Where were you playing?
Marc:Did I come see your show?
Marc:I was at the punchline.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:I remember I took a seat stage right.
Marc:Yeah, it was very nice.
Guest:I liked having you out there.
Marc:Yeah, and I was making notes of what you've become.
Marc:in my mind, judging.
Guest:Of course, it's very hard to have another comedian in the crowd when you're doing your show.
Marc:Did you know I was there?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:We said hello before the show started.
Marc:Oh, and I appreciated that you're out there doing the work and you're holding up pretty well physically.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But there's this moment, there's a thing about being our age and having done it as well as we have is that my experience in watching you is not going to be like, this guy sucks or this guy's great or anything other than like, there's Greg, we're still doing it.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:It's almost like watching a rerun of Citizen Kane, or I guess in my case of watching at least an F Troop rerun.
Marc:No, I mean, it's just that after a certain point, a lot of the resentments and anger, whatever judgments or comparing we might have done, though we still do it, when we're in that room, when we're doing stand-up comedy, I just look at it.
Marc:It's amazing we're still doing stand-up comedy.
Guest:Yeah, and it's really...
Guest:It's all we can do.
Guest:You realize once you've gotten up close next to the flames of stand-up, you realize there's nothing else.
Guest:I mean, podcasting really is about as close as you can get to something that's as immediate and as openly creative and as self-indulgent.
Guest:It's better.
Marc:It is better.
Marc:It's better in terms of creativity and being immediate and whatever.
Marc:But I literally, when you were coming over here, and the reason I canceled that time was just, who the hell knows?
Marc:It was in another town.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We hadn't really planned it.
Marc:But this last time, I really just canceled because I didn't want to talk to you.
Guest:Yeah, I could tell by the way you canceled.
Guest:It wasn't like even an elegant attempt to couch it in real business.
Guest:It was like, I got to get ready for a trip to New York I'm making in a week.
Guest:And this was the night before the interview.
Yeah.
Guest:Look, here's the thing.
Guest:You and I approach this in a different way, and I said this when we had our initial, and first of all, I didn't perceive it as a conflict as much as you did, because I enjoy conflict on my podcast.
Guest:I like to mix it up.
Guest:I like to find a little bit more of a raw nerve, and I don't think I do it in a provocative way.
Guest:I just find if I'm...
Guest:talking to somebody during my interview and I find that there's something that seems like they're protecting or deflecting.
Guest:That's going to aggravate them?
Guest:No, I wouldn't say that.
Guest:I'm not trying to aggravate you.
Guest:I think I was asking you about the roots of what would make somebody become a stand-up comedian.
Guest:I'm always interested in that.
Guest:I couldn't have been that.
Marc:Now, if you were to ask me that- No, I think that's what it was.
Marc:But maybe you're asking in this way.
Marc:Why are you like you?
Marc:Why?
Marc:No, that's not it.
Marc:Why are you like you?
Marc:Why are you like you?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Why is that not an interesting, compelling question on a podcast?
Guest:Why are you?
Guest:Because you are like you, Mark.
Guest:You're a very unique and interesting person.
Guest:Why wouldn't I not want to find that out in an interview?
Marc:No, no, I know, but there's a different way to coax it out.
Marc:But the truth is, is like every time I see you, it all goes away and I don't give a shit about that.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:I love you too.
Marc:You've chosen to do the type of broadcast.
Guest:There it is.
Guest:There it is.
Marc:I respect your choice.
Marc:I knew when you lost eye contact, something was going to go awry.
Marc:Look at you.
Marc:Every time we talk now, you're like, okay, I see what you're doing with your eye.
Marc:The hand.
Marc:I know what the hand is.
Marc:That's a defensive action.
Guest:I'm going man-to-man defense with you.
Marc:No!
Marc:I can't drop back to his own.
Marc:I do not persist in passive-aggressive attacks.
Marc:But when I did see you do stand-up, you were funny, and I loved that you were doing crowd work.
Marc:You had some old guy there that was drunk.
Marc:And this is the weird thing about sitting in the crowd is that more so than not, we don't really hear what they say.
Marc:And we assume we hear what they say.
Marc:And then we go after them.
Marc:And then it turns out it's like, you know, I think that guy was wasted.
Marc:He was like, you know, 60 years old.
Marc:I was hugging him after the show.
Guest:He was an old Irish guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he was like, it was about the troops or something.
Marc:He was saying, you don't understand about America.
Marc:You don't know.
Marc:It's something ridiculous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it turned out he was just shit face.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Wait, how did that turn out?
Guest:Well, his son was with him.
Guest:And then after the show, the son came up to me, apologized for his dad.
Guest:I go, you don't apologize about a vet.
Guest:That guy was in Korea.
Guest:He's a good man.
Guest:I misinterpreted what he said a little bit and hugged the old guy.
Guest:He was fucking American flag on his lapel and saying, you're a good American.
Marc:He fought for the right to fuck your show up.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the thing about a vet, man.
Guest:It's like Brian Reagan's bit about I walked on the moon.
Guest:You fought in a war.
Guest:I got nothing to say.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The book, though, let's get back to it because, you know, I know that you wanted to come on to talk about the book more than anything else.
Marc:You didn't call me to.
Guest:That's not true.
Guest:That's really not.
Guest:No, I really look forward to talking to you, whether it's my show or your show, because there's a handful of people that I came up with that I consider... Yeah, I know.
Marc:You seem to thank all of them but me and the... That's not true.
Marc:Did I not thank you in the back of the book?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, in the back of the book?
Marc:Oh, you got to go to the back.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I got to put you right up front with my mom.
Marc:Oh, no, no.
Marc:The back of the book.
Marc:No, I didn't see me.
Marc:You're probably back there.
Marc:Not that I looked.
Marc:And how much did you have to pester Stern to write the foreword?
Guest:You didn't hear this story?
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, you think I listened to your show?
Guest:No, but it was a pretty big event.
Guest:I'm the most frequent guest in the history of the show.
Guest:I've had my own show.
Marc:You know what's weird about me?
Marc:And it's nothing about him.
Marc:I find very little time to do anything, but I've never really listened.
Marc:to an entire episode of the Howard Stern.
Marc:I can't say I've listened to more than 15 minutes of Howard Stern, which I feel bad about, but I just, I never do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I haven't in my life.
Marc:I'm one of these people I turn on, you know, all I got is NPR going and I don't know where people have, you know, find time.
Guest:It's a lot of time.
Guest:And you know, what's weird about it is there, and I'm, I don't listen.
Marc:And I love the guy, nothing against him.
Guest:No, you know what?
Guest:It is a huge commitment because it's not passive listening.
Guest:You really have to put everything down.
Guest:Like NPR.
Marc:People listen to us.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, and I'm just busy most of the time.
Guest:It's a committed four hours every day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yet there's these celebrities that listen.
Guest:I mean, like Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks does not miss a minute of the show of Howard.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, there's all these people that are intelligent, famous people.
Marc:No, they love him, and I have a lot of respect for him, and I'm almost sad.
Marc:It's a regret I have that when I was younger that I was not programmed to that because morning radio, for me, came later in life.
Marc:It always revolves around news for some reason.
Marc:If I listen to talk radio, I find myself, I listen to car talk.
Marc:I listen to whatever's on.
Marc:I don't do much switching around.
Guest:Are you listening to Phil Hendry much?
Marc:Because I emailed you the other night.
Marc:I was listening to him.
Marc:You emailed me like my dad emailed me.
Marc:I swear to God.
Marc:Let me find it.
Marc:It was just this fragmented email from you who never emails me.
Marc:Listening to Phil Hendry.
Marc:Guy's 100 years old.
Marc:Still got it.
Marc:Something like that, right?
Guest:I didn't write 100 years.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I wrote, he's still doing five days a week, three hours a night, and he's still doing whatever.
Marc:Well, it sounds to me like there's some part of you that does something that I do, that you realize in your mind that we have this talent to do this.
Marc:It's a unique talent.
Marc:Not everybody has it.
Marc:And it's oddly one of the few areas of show business where you can actually sustain a career for a lot of years if you lock into it.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:As a broadcaster, I was over.
Marc:I went to KCRW this morning to meet with the program director over there, Matt Holtzman, who's a fan of mine, just to talk about stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And even though it's not big money necessarily doing radio on that level or any level, unless you get a huge syndicated show, it's very satisfying and it is a rare talent.
Marc:And I think what you were saying about Phil and Phil is like amazing.
Marc:I mean, you listen to old Phil Henry shows.
Marc:It's fucking mind blowing.
Guest:It's mind blowing.
Marc:And is that he's a guy that's been doing it probably 30 or 40 years.
Marc:He had a huge influence on Howard.
Marc:And it's just amazing to hear guys still working.
Guest:I think he's had an influence on Rush Limbaugh.
Guest:Those guys sound so similar because Hendry is a master broadcaster first and foremost.
Guest:And then comes his ability to cut in and out of three characters out.
Guest:I don't know even how he does that.
Marc:I heard that Howard comes out here and he'll go over to Phil Henry's studio and watch him.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Oh, no shit.
Marc:I haven't heard that.
Guest:You never heard that?
Guest:I heard he's doing a video podcast of his show every night.
Guest:That's what Brody Stevens told me.
Guest:You can watch him and you literally, he physically changes into each character as he's doing it.
Guest:Maybe as a cue for him to get into that character.
Guest:But the content that he rips through every night, he goes through the billboard charts.
Guest:He goes through variety articles inside the industry.
Guest:Every single thing he does has a strong, unique opinion on it.
Guest:It's like a cubist look at each topic.
Guest:He's got...
Guest:Three completely different points of view happening at once.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:And there's not many guys that do that.
Marc:I mean, Rush Limbaugh, obviously, you know, ideological, but ultimately just a broadcasting clown.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, he's just a great broadcaster.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And same with Glenn Beck before he became a megalomaniacal semi-cult leader.
Marc:Again, good radio guy.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And this is the one thing I know about you and me.
Marc:It takes a certain amount of ego to do this for some reason, because if you really think of the guys that do broadcasting well, you meet them and...
Marc:It's that feeling, man.
Marc:It's even when you do morning radio, when you go to some town, like wherever it is, St.
Marc:Louis, Boise, whatever, they're like, we're going to take you to the morning show.
Marc:These guys are the biggest in the market.
Marc:And you walk in and it's Johnny and the douchebag.
Marc:And they act like, you know, you just like, you know, you better behave.
Guest:This is our house.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That feeling of ego.
Guest:There's no eye contact for the first 40 seconds you walk into their studio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They're checking the local paper.
Guest:And then they finally they do the no stand up.
Guest:Hey, nice to see you.
Guest:Welcome back.
Guest:And you got to go in your head.
Guest:I've been in this physical space before.
Guest:No wonder I didn't remember it.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:By the way, you think Bubba the Love Sponge as well.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Bubba, have you done that show?
Marc:No, Bubba was a douchebag to me.
Marc:That's what Louis C.K.
Guest:said.
Marc:An ass.
Marc:And I can't even remember what the fucking reason was.
Marc:Where was he?
Marc:In Florida?
Marc:Tampa Bay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I go in there with Gary Menke.
Marc:I was doing probably the improv in Tampa.
Marc:And I don't know what his fucking beef was with me.
Marc:I can't remember it right now.
Marc:Jewish.
Marc:No, it wasn't Jewish.
Marc:And I don't know if I was at Air America yet or what the fuck, what his problem was.
Marc:But I walk in there.
Marc:He left the fucking studio.
Marc:What?
Marc:He left the studio.
Marc:Before you went on the air?
Marc:No.
Marc:He had me in.
Marc:He gets up.
Marc:He's got some other guy there.
Marc:I don't know who.
Marc:And he goes, you guys do whatever you want to do.
Marc:And he walked out of the studio.
Guest:Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Guest:That's passive aggressive.
Marc:Yeah, it's aggressive aggressive.
Marc:Do you remember what you said?
Marc:Well, the thing was, I don't know that I was really a radio personality, and I think the smart thing to do at that time would have been just to really kick into gear, sit behind the mic and do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was not where I was at.
Marc:And I remember sitting there with the guy who was there, who worked with Bubba.
Marc:Spice Boy.
Marc:Maybe it was Spice Boy.
Marc:But it was just, it was so rude and so fucked up.
Marc:And I think I remember why he did it.
Marc:I don't remember now, but there was a reason.
Guest:I'll tell you what it is.
Guest:He is a good old boy, and I think when he sees the cultural elite walk in, he gets very defensive, and that's why he attacked Louie.
Guest:And I think that he feels like guys from New York who are comedians.
Guest:But that being said, if you go in and play ball, he becomes your biggest cheerleader and is really... To me, it's like taking a walk into a part of the country that you wouldn't have access to.
Guest:I have no problem with good old boys.
Guest:It's like being into the bayou.
Guest:I go in and he's got...
Guest:He shows me this Israeli handgun, a 12-cal... I don't know guns, but it was the size of a rifle, but it was a handgun.
Guest:And then he's got a midget outside on a couch that's urinated himself.
Guest:He's got a guy who's about to rob a bank, and Bubba's talking him out of it live on the air.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And then he's got a... I mean, the... And this is at 7 in the morning, and the entire crew is drinking Paps Blue Ribbons at 7 in the morning.
Guest:So to me, as a comic, I'm just thanking God I've got access to this for the morning.
Guest:I've never seen anything like this before.
Marc:But you're speaking of it as if it's a huge swath of American subculture, which I don't think it's huge.
Marc:And it's certainly and given the portrait that you just painted, am I not supposed to condescend that?
Guest:I don't.
Marc:I don't think you should because.
Marc:But I don't.
Marc:I mean, I understand it.
Marc:I like watching it.
Marc:It's part of the drama.
Marc:But they certainly aren't going to take that lifestyle and pull rank on me.
Marc:Well, but who the fuck are you to come in here and act like you're better than us?
Guest:I think I have every right to.
Guest:Yeah, well, I think it's the tone that you do it with, because that was definitely... I went with, yeah, it's great to be here.
Guest:There's a midget pissing himself out front, and you got a handgun that could... I go, I noticed the whole studio just cleared when you pulled out the gun, and they know you.
Guest:I mean, if you... If I...
Guest:I think there's a way to play it.
Marc:But I do that, too.
Marc:I would never... I am not a condescending person.
Marc:I'm misunderstood as condescending, but I'm an open-hearted guy, and I don't condescend, and I can't... Look, I do Opie and Anthony.
Marc:I don't have any problem with that.
Marc:I'll do any show.
Marc:Sometimes when I'm at a show, there's part of me that's thinking like, oh, no, now I'm part of this.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Where it's like, am I going to be able to get out of the studio without feeling like I violated something that I find... And you know what's worse?
Guest:What?
Guest:Is when you fall in love with the show and you want to go back...
Guest:I felt like that when I was on Bubba.
Guest:I was like, oh my God, someone's going to hear this and they're going to think I'm part of this world.
Guest:And then all I could think of for weeks after is, how do I get back into that world again?
Guest:There was something about it that was, it was them.
Guest:They were being themselves.
Marc:We are part of that world.
Marc:Anybody who masturbates to porn.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On some level, you know, is part of that world, not because they're masturbating to porn, but you're probably sitting with the people that you masturbated to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the thing about that is that I really have gotten to the point where, you know, you go through different levels with with porn.
Guest:And I think I had a titillation.
Guest:And then you really reach a peak when you discover your fetish.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, have you found yours?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is it?
Guest:Asian feet.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you being serious?
Guest:No, I mean, I'm not like crazed about it, but I found, you know, I think after you log X number of hours on Google or what's the one you porn, you start to realize that you're searching for certain things.
Guest:And I found that, yeah, Asian feet became the thing that really, really works for me.
Guest:And I haven't turned my back on the others, but I feel like.
Guest:So you masturbate to feet?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I mean, I'm not that specific.
Marc:I still need friction.
Guest:You rotate it?
Marc:No, I mean, I've been a little off porn because I happen to be fairly well sexed right now.
Guest:Well, that's what I was getting to is that I'm kind of off it now.
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Marc:After dating someone who was in the sex industry a bit, like I didn't want to see her strip.
Marc:I didn't want to see her dance.
Marc:I didn't want to see her fuck other guys.
Marc:I think I was sort of into, like she was a good person or what have you.
Guest:But wait, what was turning you on about her then?
Marc:That she was into me.
Guest:That's your fetish.
Guest:That's your porn fetish.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:If you could just have a site you could go to where the women just go like, Mark, tell me more about when you were in Boston coming up as a comedian.
Marc:Your cock is so great.
Guest:Tell me about Charles Bukowski.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Take a long time doing it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I mean, that's very appealing to have women into you, isn't it?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And that's the thing about going on the road now.
Guest:Like, I've been with my wife 11 years married, 14 years total.
Guest:And I can look you in the eye and honestly tell you I haven't fucked around on the road.
Guest:And why?
Guest:Because when a woman shows interest on me on the road, number one, I think she's a freak and something's horribly wrong with her.
Guest:And number two, mission accomplished.
Marc:Her being intimate, that's all I care about.
Marc:In the past, I didn't fuck around with my second wife, and I don't fuck around anymore if I'm involved with somebody because it's too much of a chore, first of all, to live a lie.
Marc:Living a lie is not worth it.
Marc:Yeah, because you're making a fool out of them.
Marc:And also, it's a lot to juggle if you're going to do that, and you never know what you're going to stick your dick into or how that's going to come back at you or what pictures are going to show up and what you just don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that shouldn't be... Oddly enough, this surveillance-based society that everyone's so afraid of Big Brother.
Marc:Big Brother is keeping a lot of guys from fucking around on their wives.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:But also, I really think that...
Marc:It's better if you stay focused.
Guest:You know, it's funny you say the Big Brother thing because I read an article.
Guest:I can't remember what it was recently, but it was saying Big Brother was better than this type of surveillance society because Big Brother ostensibly was trying to keep public order.
Guest:It was trying to be a good thing.
Marc:It was a function of the state.
Guest:Yes, whereas now it's really about finding bad things and putting them up.
Guest:Yeah, less than a free-for-all.
Guest:It actually has an agenda of embarrassing people, humiliating people, showing you violence.
Marc:What I'm saying, it's nebulous.
Marc:There's no apparatus in place other than individuals saying, let's see if we can get some dirt on somebody.
Marc:Let's see if we can market something.
Marc:Let's see if we can catch somebody doing something.
Marc:It's what William Burroughs called a nation of rats.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That everybody's looking to turn the other person out for a buck.
Marc:I'm working on this bit in my act where I say, you know what Big Brother sounds like?
Marc:Here's what Big Brother sounds like.
Marc:Could you just go through the machine?
Marc:We're waiting in line here.
Marc:We're it.
Guest:Yeah, it's the ability to sense the soft underbelly in somebody that you seem to have a relationship with.
Guest:Every single person... Like when you watch Jersey Shore, and I don't know if you watch it or not, but once in a while I watch a show like that just to find out how low the bar has gotten.
Guest:And it really is like seven, eight people in a house going, all right, if I'm the most fucked up one, I'll get the big deal coming off this show.
Marc:Yeah, but what I don't understand, and given where we come from in show business...
Marc:How did that become the thing that someone works towards?
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, like, to me, it's my biggest fear in life to be the guy that, like, that's the guy that shit himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, what, you're going to go shit yourself for the rest of your life because you're known as that?
Guest:Yeah, but I think you got it backwards.
Guest:You're saying that people are turning people out like rats, but I think it's the opposite.
Guest:I think that there is a...
Guest:There is a demand for it from the public.
Guest:They are they are hungry for those things.
Guest:That's why we're putting it out there.
Marc:But that's why gossip is a sin.
Marc:I mean, the thing is that it's destructive.
Marc:The thing it makes people frightened, number one.
Marc:And number two, it's slanderous.
Marc:And the way that the brain works is that once a frame is in place once.
Marc:OK, so, you know, I heard Joe fucks animals.
Marc:That was what I heard.
Marc:That was the news report.
Marc:Joe fucks animals.
Marc:Now it's been proven that Joe doesn't fuck animals, but that's page six, and who gives a shit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Joe fucks animals now for the rest of his life.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah, that's the thing about pedophilia charges, man.
Guest:One pedophilia charge, you're done.
Guest:And, you know, and to me, it feels like I heard this story once about this guy and he was taking a leak and the bat and his son's friend was over having a play date.
Guest:The kid opened up the door and he told his dad a couple days later.
Guest:Yeah, I saw Mr. Johnson's penis.
Guest:Mr. Johnson goes get gets put up for trial on it and the charges go away.
Guest:He's fucked the rest of his life.
Guest:He's his dick was shown to a neighbor's kid.
Guest:We're not really sure what happened.
Guest:We forget what happened in the trial.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But that guy's marked for the rest of his life.
Marc:Now, what would really make that story more in line with what we're saying is if the kid's dad had told him to walk in on Mr. Johnson while he was taking a pee and then fucking set the kid up.
Marc:Well, in a sense- Set the guy up.
Guest:I think maybe there's an awareness when you keep telling your kids-
Guest:Don't take candy from strangers.
Guest:Don't trust adults.
Guest:You'll be taken away.
Guest:There is a paranoia even among kids now where they are seeing things maybe they wouldn't have.
Marc:And there's a paranoia with parents.
Marc:Like, you know, if you have a kid over, I'm sure you have play dates at your house.
Marc:I locked the bathroom door, man.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's a paranoia.
Marc:Yep.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:I can't hug.
Guest:I love kids.
Guest:I want to hug a kid the way I'm fucking, I just, it like refreshes my soul when I, and yet I will only do it if it's like my niece, my nephew.
Guest:Out of fear?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I really feel weird about it.
Guest:And I feel like, and I'm at a playground.
Marc:I don't think that's right.
Guest:If I'm at a playground.
Marc:That's big brother.
Guest:Yeah, I think it is.
Guest:And I feel like it's the same thing with even my, I don't know if it's like sometimes my wife will have a hot friend.
Guest:And I remember back when she was breastfeeding and she was part of this mommy group and they would all whip their tits out and breastfeed.
Marc:You're the one in the circle jerk at all?
Yeah.
Guest:Look, we're all producing milky substance here.
Marc:Don't judge me.
Guest:Yeah, look, if you're pulling them out.
Guest:And I just remember thinking like, this is really fucked up.
Guest:But in the past, men would leave the room out of this self-induced shame.
Guest:And at least I'm being honest and going, look, you got nice big fat tits.
Guest:They're the biggest they'll ever be right now.
Guest:And I'm checking them out.
Guest:Let's all feel good about this.
Guest:Let me ask you this, because I'm curious about this with book.
Guest:How much of, because with my podcast, I love this part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't like marketing it.
Guest:I don't like booking guests.
Guest:How much energy do you waste, or not waste, but do you find like of your total energy?
Guest:This to me is positive energy.
Guest:This raises up my fuel tank.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Booking guests, fucking, if I can do it for 30 seconds a week, that's how much time I try to do it.
Marc:It becomes hard because I think I do more than you anyways.
Marc:I do two a week.
Marc:I do two a week.
Marc:Oh, you do?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I only book a guest on one usually.
Marc:Oh, I like to have as many guests as possible and I'll go record it on the road.
Marc:But yeah, booking is a pain in the ass because I don't have a booking operation.
Marc:It's all by, there has to be certain degrees of separation for me to get at somebody.
Marc:It's hard for me to get certain people unless I know them constantly.
Guest:Do you go after people that you think would be good on the show if you don't have a relationship with them?
Marc:Yeah, but I have to still figure out how to go after them.
Marc:It's still me doing it.
Guest:Who's your dream guest?
Marc:I'd like to talk to Iggy Pop.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I'd like to talk to Tom Waits.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I heard your thing about Tom Waits' new album coming.
Guest:No, no, I was following your tweets about Tom Waits' new album, and I fucking, I gotta get it.
Guest:Because I feel the same way about him.
Guest:When Alice came out, I couldn't do anything for two weeks except listen to that album.
Marc:I think he's just part of my life and has been for a long time.
Marc:I'd like to interview Shanling.
Marc:I'd like to interview Tina Fey.
Guest:Shanling is not the interviewer you think he's going to be now.
Guest:Now he's gotten so just preciously introspective.
Guest:You can't get to the real guy anymore.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:Just he is enlightened.
Guest:He's figured it all out.
Guest:Everything is very zen.
Guest:Everything's very meditative.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So you can't get to the guy who was the neurotic mess on Larry Sanders.
Marc:Not even if you juxtapose?
Marc:Like, you know, okay, this is where you're at now, but let's talk about this then.
Guest:He won't go there.
Guest:Albert Brooks, maybe?
Guest:Albert Brooks.
Guest:You know what I love about Albert Brooks is he basically slapped to the ground, like Bob Dylan did when they tried to make him the flag bearer for the whole civil rights movement.
Guest:He did that to alternative comedy.
Guest:Because, you know, Cross and Odenkirk and everybody kept talking about him, talking about him.
Guest:And they did this.
Guest:I think Rolling Stone did an article about this kind of this pocket of new comedy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they interviewed Alba Brooks.
Guest:The one we weren't in?
Guest:We were on the cunt hair of.
Guest:You and I were part of the initial Ludlow Street Largo Luna Lounge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just like, I just saw the UCB come rocketing past me.
Guest:And anyway, so he said, I don't know why these people keep bringing me up.
Guest:Just go, go do your own thing.
Guest:Stop pretending I'm, it was exactly like Dylan.
Marc:I just watched part of the first movie.
Marc:Real Life.
Marc:The other night with Charles Grodin about the documentary filmmaker.
Marc:He becomes so intrusive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Albert Brooks plays a documentary filmmaker that's got all this new technology and he's just going to follow the life of this veterinarian who's played by Charles Grodin.
Guest:This is like pre-reality shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Way.
Marc:This way back.
Marc:It's early 70s probably.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he just becomes so intrusive in their life that he almost destroys their life.
Marc:It's it's pretty great.
Marc:I mean, the thing about Brooks is like in every movie, there's great stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, like I watched Mother recently with Debbie Reynolds.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:It's it's a sweet, sweet script.
Marc:He was a little old to play the role in some ways.
Marc:But but but it's a it's a beautiful movie.
Guest:Yeah, well, The Muse was kind of like that, too.
Guest:He's kind of got a little bit of that old Hollywood.
Guest:He wants to do big family kind of comedies that have some... But the thing about the fucking couple that drives across America in the Winnebago... Oh, that's great.
Guest:I mean, that... I mean, yeah, I mean...
Marc:Boston, America.
Guest:But you know how he started, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He grew up best friends with Rob Reiner.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Carl Reiner went on The Tonight Show and Johnny said- To my friends, my son's Fred Dalbert.
Marc:Who's the funniest man you know?
Guest:My 13-year-old friend's son.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I mean, so he was burnt out by the time he was 25, 30.
Marc:I have his record somewhere.
Marc:Have you listened to his record?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:With the national anthem on it.
Guest:Three Dog Night is playing Dakota.
Yeah.
Marc:Did you hear that?
Marc:Yes, I did.
Marc:That'll be five dollars.
Guest:And it's like you realize albums like that.
Guest:Bob Newhart's first album.
Guest:He had done stand up three times in his life before he recorded an Emmy, a Grammy Award winning record.
Guest:And I think about the parameters we put on ourselves as stand up comedians.
Guest:I mean, between podcasting and stand up.
Guest:We could be walking around with a fucking giant green mask on and having sound effects and doing performance art and instead I stand at a mic and I do observational stuff or maybe internals.
Guest:But you look at what these guys did in the context of that time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like a failure, like Phil Hendry.
Guest:I think what you were getting at before is that we are broadcasters and we realize how high the bar is and that I think sometimes in my own limitations I put on myself, I feel like a failure.
Marc:Yeah, but I think that...
Marc:One thing that's saving me along these lines, because I was the first guy to beat the shit out of myself for years and never think I was making the great is that we at some point have to trust our own instincts.
Marc:We're not here by coincidence that that something has propelled us and somehow or another we've managed to make a living at this thing.
Marc:And I've recently in the last year or two, and I think by virtue of doing the podcast every day is I've decided that, you know, that my thoughts are valid and that my sense of things is valid and that the way I look at the world is mine.
Marc:It may I may share things with other people.
Marc:You know, I may have, you know, similar philosophies, but the way I look at the world is is mine and I can present it.
Marc:And that's enough.
Marc:I mean, sure.
Marc:I used to be driven by fucking furious jealousy all the time.
Marc:But but then all of a sudden I realized, like, the reason I didn't get that opportunity because it wasn't mine to have.
Guest:No, I think it's a booster rocket.
Guest:I think when you start out, you need that driven by spite.
Guest:And then that booster rockets got to fall off at some point.
Guest:And you have to find your own.
Guest:And be okay with it.
Marc:Realizing your limitations.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's the difference between somebody with talent who flounders around for years, maybe not getting anywhere.
Marc:Rick Shapiro.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And somebody with talent who says, this is what I can do.
Marc:I'm going to hone this.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Jim Gaffigan.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was never a honer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was a guy, like, literally, I still think that I have a lot of raw talent.
Marc:That, like, you know, I could sing.
Marc:I could probably dance.
Marc:I could probably do a lot of things.
Marc:You play guitar?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I'm not going to do that.
Marc:And there's something that I, like, even now, like, I got to do a CD next week.
Marc:And I went out on the road.
Marc:You're going to do one hour stand up seating.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And my fourth one.
Marc:And I want it to be a new hour.
Marc:And it is a new hour.
Marc:But I went out and started really owning it in San Francisco.
Marc:I did five shows up at the punchline.
Marc:And by the end of the fifth show, I'm like, I don't ever want to do any of this shit again.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And now, like, I'm taking two weeks off.
Marc:You know, I'm not going to do any stand up because I look.
Marc:There's a lot to be said for consistency, but I'd much rather something happen during the taping of my CD that I didn't expect that the audience didn't expect.
Marc:That might not even be funny.
Marc:But if it's real, I'm going to be very excited.
Guest:It's like Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, where he's trying to get the job.
Marc:Can I move?
Marc:Can I move?
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That defines exactly how I want to do stand up.
Marc:Can I move?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like for me, like I get off stage sometimes.
Marc:I'm like, you know, it was a great show.
Marc:But the best part was when I dropped the water.
Marc:And that's what people remember.
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:That's always what they remember because they're not used to somebody honoring that moment.
Marc:I watched Bill Cosby and I just realized it was along the same lines of what I was talking about before is that.
Marc:You know, it's your stage.
Marc:There's no reason.
Marc:Like now it's like, I just want to take my time.
Marc:And, and, you know, but I tried to sort of like, you know, sit in jokes a little more and just, you know, tell the story like Bill Cosby would, like, you know, just build it up.
Marc:And if you have confidence in where you think the funny is and you drop it and then they'll come.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I did that and didn't come.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then you realize, like, this is the process.
Marc:And it's always been the process because, you know, I write on stage.
Marc:I don't write jokes on a piece of paper.
Marc:And the things that stick, you know, are things that I keep trying over and over again that it's always about the thing we don't give ourselves credit for is we must be doing this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that we believe in certain things, and they stay in the act, and other things we let fall to the wayside.
Marc:But we get up there, and we overcome this fear, and I know they must fail at some point.
Marc:I don't remember it as much, but if I'm committed to a joke, I'll keep hammering away at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because I believe in the fucking thing.
Guest:I had a joke I worked on for two years, and I knew... Because sometimes you write a joke backwards, you know the punchline, but you try a bunch of ways to get there.
Guest:But you know when it lands, that punch... And it was this joke about...
Guest:They asked recently, Marge Schott from the Cincinnati Reds, she was banned from her own stadium for saying the N-word to one of the players, but she still owned the team, and they asked her who she thought was going to win the World Series that year.
Guest:And she says, well, I think the Reds are going to win, but then again, I'm prejudiced.
Guest:And I had that punchline, but I tried a million different scenarios, and it wasn't until that happened that it fit.
Guest:It was like, now I got the joke.
Guest:And of course, now it's a dead joke, but for one brief shining moment, there was Camelot.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that's one of those jokes.
Marc:It's like it's a soft punchline.
Marc:It's not like, you know, then I stuck it in her ass like that.
Guest:Like where they go.
Guest:That's clever.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I may not laugh.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like because the jokes I get hung up on, I don't usually do like when they're jokes like that.
Marc:Like I've got this idea for a joke that I'm like, I just can't stop thinking about it because, you know, when you see people on the street now, like, you know, I have a problem with handlebar mustaches.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, you know, people wearing Joppa.
Marc:It's like there's a confusion of time periods.
Marc:And then the idea that I'm working with is it looks like someone was getting dressed quickly as they ran through a time tunnel.
Marc:Like they were they were interrupted during a shave in the late 1800s.
Marc:Like, fuck, I got to go.
Marc:And they're just grabbing different pieces of clothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that works as long as it's a springboard into a rant.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A clever joke just for doing it is like now you're Chuck Sklar or Tom Agner.
Marc:That's TV style, though.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's very hard to do that in a club.
Guest:Guys that you watch, you know, Jonathan Katz, guys you watch and you're in awe of their ability to have succinct, hard jokes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then they can't headline because there's no bills.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you respect it because they don't have a plan B. There's no other route they're going to take.
Guest:It's all in.
Marc:It's black and white.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:If that joke doesn't work, it's on to the next joke like that.
Guest:We can talk over it not working.
Guest:And you do that.
Guest:See, you're smart because you're an old school comic.
Guest:Coming up in Boston, you had to have hard jokes.
Guest:There was no fucking ranting.
Guest:And so you've developed this style now where you can rant, but you've got your grenades loaded into it.
Guest:And if they don't work-
Guest:There's no harm or foul because you just pick up where you left off.
Marc:No, I didn't.
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:I didn't try to make a joke.
Guest:I was ranting.
Guest:Something occurred to me.
Marc:I threw it out there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:A lot of times now, like, you know, it doesn't like what I'm trying to do now is not.
Marc:And this is what I what I hate about me is that, you know, I don't like I'm not sure I care if they don't laugh a lot.
Marc:Like, you know, I don't like, you know, there's there's turns of phrases and there's performing jokes and there's surprise jokes.
Marc:But like now I'm just trying to be comfortable with the fact that if you're working in a comedy club and the laugh is not huge, but you believe the joke is solid, even if it's a little disturbing or too raw, that that's got to be OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like when I do that, like I still fight the demon of like, well, I've got to figure out a way to tag that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it gets a bigger laugh.
Guest:Well, and also by extension, I can't worry about if I'm in a red state and I'm doing a Palin joke.
Guest:It's like Bill Hicks.
Guest:It's like if the joke is sound.
Guest:I mean, that guy used to play in Texas as a liberal, and it worked because his jokes worked.
Guest:And you can't let them decide that they're going to either agree with you or not agree with you, and that's going to define the success of your career.
Marc:But with Bill, even if they didn't work, eventually he would move into an explosive, almost firework oriented, you know, you know, broader joke.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That like, you know, he could eat shit for a half an hour and make people hate him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then, you know, the last 15 minutes he would just fucking, you know, blow the place.
Guest:But I also think that there is like I may not agree with Nick DiPaolo's politics on any level whatsoever.
Guest:He's one of four or five comics I'll sit in the back of the room and watch every time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's because to me, it's about did you do your work?
Guest:Are you up there grandstanding because, you know, you've got a bunch of you're preaching the converted or are you up there, you know, in the same way you talk about what's funny about a tangerine?
Guest:You're talking about, you know, the tea party.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's got to work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's like, I don't know, because like now, like there's different stages, you know, like now I'm doing more comedy clubs than I used to.
Marc:And then you do the alt rooms and you do this and you do these other places.
Marc:But what I'm finding now, even with the podcast, is that I can sit and watch somebody if they're engaging.
Marc:I don't have to be laughing.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And by and conversely, I watched a comedian the other night.
Guest:I won't mention them, but big national headliner kills a rooms.
Guest:Fucking bored.
Guest:Getting killing on every joke.
Marc:So bored.
Marc:No vulnerability, just rhythm.
Marc:Did you watch that HBO thing with the Frank Leibovitz, the public speaking?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I thought that was great.
Guest:Yeah, it was really great.
Guest:She's so smart.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's like, you know, and I do similar type of philosophical jokes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, it is its own thing.
Marc:You have to accept that the comedy club is designed for efficiency, that, you know, they don't care what you do as long as everybody's laughing and drinking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, if you just talk, I mean, that's more human.
Marc:It's more interesting.
Marc:There's more vulnerability.
Marc:And if you can get the laughs, then you're doing an amazing thing.
Guest:And when you get the laughs, they're huge.
Guest:Like when Geraldo died, I was on stage the next night in Minneapolis, Acme Comedy Club, which is as good as any club in the country.
Marc:He won't want me back.
Marc:I don't know what that was.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, he'll let you back.
Guest:I'll make a phone call right now.
Guest:You belong in that room.
Marc:It's fucking political, progressive, smart.
Marc:But I used to play it all the time.
Marc:And then something happened.
Marc:He hasn't booked me back in 10 years.
Marc:I'm going to the Mall of America now.
Marc:That's insane.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know what the fuck is going on.
Guest:So I'm in the club the night after, and I can't.
Guest:I spend the day crying.
Guest:Literally, I don't think I've cried that.
Guest:Sometimes you burst into tears and you get over it.
Marc:It was horrendous.
Guest:Couldn't stop.
Marc:Yeah, because he was such a vital guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so I go on stage and I'm like, how do I not talk about this?
Guest:And 10 minutes into my set, I just went, so I don't know if there's an elephant in the living room or if it's just in my head, but Greg Giraldo died yesterday and I just talked.
Guest:I just talked about him.
Guest:I talked about what it's like to cry that hard.
Guest:I go, it's so weird because you start to cry.
Guest:And then as a man, you start to feel you shouldn't be crying.
Guest:So you try to stop.
Guest:And then you feel guilty that you're not crying for somebody who you loved.
Guest:So you cry again.
Guest:And then you go so deep.
Guest:It's almost like an orgasm.
Guest:Like these chemicals are released when you're crying that hard that feel good.
Guest:And then you feel guilty that you're feeling good about your friend who died.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I didn't it wasn't a bit and it didn't get laughs, but it was shit that I was really thinking and I couldn't not.
Marc:But if you would have tagged it with it after all that and said that and then you realize maybe I shouldn't be at the mall.
Guest:And then I realize, wait, I'm jerking off and crying.
Guest:And so, no.
Guest:And the thing is, is then when I did my next bit that had nothing to do with it.
Guest:Because you had trusted them and they had seen you vulnerable.
Guest:And so the jokes become like, and again, as long as the jokes then are not about staring at a nun's ass or if it's like an extension of that truth, but on another topic.
Marc:No, I think that's true.
Marc:And I thrive on that now.
Marc:I always did, but I didn't have any control over it.
Guest:Well, it's like watching that Fran Lebowitz saying her conviction on what she was saying as being real and hurt.
Guest:It was just you couldn't change a channel.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:The other thing that she said was that, like, you know, not not everyone should write a book.
Marc:So let's get to to your book.
Marc:Nice transition.
Yeah.
Marc:That addressing Fran's concern with that everybody who has any visibility... Speaking of trees being wasted in this country.
Marc:No, man.
Marc:It looks like you really put a lot of work into this thing.
Guest:Apparently more than you did in reading it.
Marc:Dude, I had it a week.
Marc:A week?
Marc:What do you think?
Marc:I got Keith Richards' book.
Marc:You think I'm going to put that down?
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm listening to it on tape.
Guest:Fuck him and... Johnny Depp.
Guest:Johnny Depp reading it, and it is...
Guest:God damn it, that's good.
Guest:Not as good as this was good.
Guest:Did you do a book on tape?
Guest:I did not.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:I think they want to wait six months because they want to sell these first, but that doesn't make sense.
Guest:I got a podcast.
Guest:My biggest advertiser is audible.com.
Marc:Right, but I mean, I'm wondering about my book.
Marc:Why can't I just record one and sell it myself?
Guest:Usually six months after the release of the book, you revert.
Guest:Why don't you do it yourself?
Guest:I will in six months if they don't want to continue to do that plan, then I'm on it.
Marc:Now, when you got the deal, because I know you're out reading the book and I talked to you, there was a period there where you couldn't do anything because you were like, I can't, I'm writing a book.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The weird thing about it, though, wasn't it amazing when you are told that you have a deadline and that you are being paid for it, that you write.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You write the book.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Now, what's amazing to me is that you saved all these fucking pictures and shit.
Guest:Yeah, my mother did, actually.
Guest:These are letters that were sent home when I was in trouble, starting in preschool.
Guest:Like, literally, a teacher was upset by me.
Guest:That's a through line.
Guest:Yeah, and it goes up till last year.
Guest:And, I mean, I've got letters in there tracking, you know, me not being able to wiggle in preschool.
Guest:And they were concerned and upset with my parents.
Guest:They sent me to preschool not prepared.
Marc:To wiggle?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, not prepared for preschool.
Guest:Yeah, I don't even know what Wiggle was.
Guest:I didn't know what a caboose was.
Guest:I didn't know the ABC song.
Guest:And the woman was actually really concerned about me.
Marc:That you were retarded?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But they didn't say back then.
Guest:They just put it on your parents to beat you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so it continues through like grammar school and high school and then police reports.
Guest:They used to get arrested a lot.
Guest:We got all the police reports in there.
Guest:And then in college, I was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon freshman year at Boston University.
Guest:For what?
Guest:What?
Guest:A guy had date-raped a girl in my dorm, and I chased him down with a broken bottle, and I held him while the police came.
Guest:And you got arrested?
Guest:The girl decided to not press charges, and then he turned around and pressed charges on me.
Guest:So then I had to bring the girl in at this hearing with the dean of housing, and we had to do a Mexican standoff, and she said she was going to press charges unless he dropped his.
Marc:Was that a backroom deal, or that happened in public?
Marc:That was backroom.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She stepped up.
Marc:She didn't want the controversy of dealing with it.
Guest:Well, it was three weeks into my freshman year.
Guest:She was a freshman.
Guest:I guess she just didn't want to be bogged down.
Marc:What was the chivalry involved in that?
Marc:How did you know her?
Marc:Were you just grandstanding?
Guest:I was walking home drunk at 2 in the morning, and I saw her with a friend's arm around her.
Guest:She was trembling and crying.
Guest:I go, what happened?
Guest:They said she was just attacked by this guy.
Guest:He was wearing like a Jackson community college sweater, something that you could distinguish.
Guest:So me and another guy ran out to – we were in Sleeper Hall.
Guest:We ran out to Com Ave.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I remember sweeping.
Guest:He went down.
Guest:Yeah, by the football field.
Guest:He ran down.
Guest:I ran up.
Guest:So he was going towards Hamilton House, that apartment thing.
Guest:You live right next to there, as a matter of fact.
Guest:And I told the security guard not to buzz him in.
Guest:He was a football player.
Guest:And I stood there.
Guest:He was with a friend.
Guest:And I held the bottle up.
Guest:Very fine fruit punch.
Guest:And for five minutes, I held him there.
Guest:And then the police came.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:But the interesting thing about that is because you always wonder where those moments of bravery come from outside of alcohol.
Marc:But that's three weeks in.
Marc:No one knows each other, really.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And this is your defining moment.
Guest:Well, it was for me having a little sister.
Guest:I was always extremely like vigilante.
Marc:Did you know the girl, really?
Guest:No, didn't know her.
Marc:Huh.
Guest:I mean, you see a girl.
Marc:This is a crazy Irish drunk fucking justice.
Guest:The book is kind of about that.
Guest:I mean, I still get into I got into a fist fight this year.
Guest:I still get road rage.
Guest:I still lose my shit.
Guest:And it's all about, you know, every arrest involved getting into a bar fight or a fight on the street.
Marc:Now, did you lose fights?
Guest:No, because I'm Irish.
Guest:I mean, again, if I have to pick up a bottle or if I have to bite somebody, it doesn't matter.
Guest:I'm five foot eight, 150 pounds.
Guest:And I think I think some people are afraid to fight somebody who's my size, who's not blinking.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They're like, this guy's.
Marc:So you go into like a like a blind rage.
Guest:Blind rage.
Guest:There's no off switch.
Marc:I cannot stop myself because I find that not I don't get into fistfights.
Marc:That frightens me.
Marc:But I when I do get into rages that I can't stop until they stop on their own.
Guest:And how do you manifest your rage?
Marc:Yell.
Marc:I yell.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and it's usually in relationships.
Guest:Is it also to you ever find it in the industry?
Guest:Have you yelled at club owners or not in a long time?
Marc:Yeah, I've become very diplomatic.
Marc:Well, my rage only comes out when I have chosen to give my heart to somebody.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then like I'm so sensitive that I get paranoid.
Marc:And if I get any sense that I'm being disrespected or manipulated or fucked with.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, in a moment, my tone will switch like, well, what the fuck does that like like that?
Guest:Yeah, because it's not about her.
Guest:It's about your ability to have a relationship.
Guest:Yeah, it's just all the rage against.
Marc:Very sensitive.
Marc:Yeah, I get very.
Marc:It's stupid and it's debilitating and it's hurtful and I'm tired of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But anyways, how much of yours is driven by?
Marc:Do you find do you have Napoleonic Complex?
Marc:I mean, you're not really short, but I mean, do you?
Guest:No, but I was very skinny growing up.
Guest:And I had a brother who was 13 months older than me.
Guest:And we used to fight a lot.
Guest:And my father was 6'2", an alcoholic, used to beat me.
Guest:And then I would go out with friends.
Guest:And I hung out with a pretty tough group of friends in New York.
Guest:And we used to get into fights.
Guest:And I mean, with other people and with each other.
Guest:And I played hockey and I just, I had a lot of, I didn't want anybody humiliating me.
Guest:I mean, when your father beats you, it's humiliating.
Guest:I mean, that is the work.
Guest:It's not the physical pain.
Marc:Because you can't, there's nothing you can do.
Guest:There's nothing you can do.
Guest:And this is somebody that you are counting on biologically.
Guest:Your life depends on this person loving and caring for you.
Guest:And now they're harming you on purpose.
Guest:That's a fucked up thing.
Marc:So you're frightened, yet you still have to rely on them.
Guest:And inside, there's a part of you that is protecting itself and saying, and there's a turning point in the book where I come home from college and my dad is beating my sister.
Guest:And I walk downstairs and again, like, what the fuck?
Guest:How did I allow myself to do this?
Guest:Stood between him and my sister.
Guest:I'm 19.
Guest:And I said, you can hit me.
Guest:You don't hit a girl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just froze.
Guest:First time in my life, I saw him just froze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walked her upstairs and he came up to my room about five minutes later and I was like, here comes the beating of my life.
Guest:And he said, if you ever cross me again, you got no money for college, you're out of this family, it's done.
Guest:And he left and I thought, it's over.
Guest:I just called his bluff and he had nothing.
Guest:I saw a weak, kind of frightened guy right there.
Marc:That happened with my father too, that when you push him to the wall, all that's there is fuck you.
Guest:And it's so sad because you realize that, man, all that shit, all that power I thought he had, which I looked up to, it's not there.
Guest:And yet I still love the guy.
Guest:I mean, we had a very close relationship.
Guest:He ended up dying very young, and I hadn't spoken to him.
Guest:And it was the first time in our lives we had stopped speaking.
Guest:As volatile as it was, I counted on him and vice versa.
Guest:He was extremely proud I'd started doing stand-up.
Marc:Well, he was a broadcaster, right?
Guest:Yeah, he was a big radio guy in New York, and then we didn't speak because of his drinking.
Guest:It got to a point where I couldn't be around him.
Guest:I had gotten sober, and I needed a year to just clear my head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nine months into that, he just died suddenly.
Guest:Of what?
Guest:Heart attack.
Guest:Yeah, he smoked three and a half packs a day.
Marc:But it's very interesting that moment where you said you don't hit a girl.
Marc:And I think that as a parent, especially an abusive parent, you don't see that.
Marc:You just see that's the kid.
Marc:The difference between a kid and a woman, that you framed it that way.
Marc:Obviously, he wasn't afraid you were going to hit him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think that the idea that he was hitting a girl.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It was emasculating.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I think it was, again, out of fear, he didn't want us to end up like him, because my sister was drunk.
Guest:She was like, you know, 15, and he was beating her because she was drunk.
Marc:But was there ever any contrition?
Marc:Did he ever cry to you?
Marc:Did he ever, like, you know?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was, you know, he grew up, his parents died young, and he had a lot of bad shit in his past, and the fact that actually he got married, him and my mother had a kind of a beautiful romance.
Guest:They really dug each other and had fun with each other, and
Guest:I think that what he accomplished on a personal level is when you look at it in the context of where he came from, it actually inspires me to go deeper into whatever I can have.
Guest:Because I had better tools to deal with life than he did.
Marc:But when you rage, even when I get into it, I feel so bad afterwards that I'd caused someone else pain and that I couldn't control it.
Marc:uh that you know without that self-awareness you know i i don't you know i don't know what like i feel like it's a release no it's a release but like when you when you do hurt somebody whether it's with your words or or with your hands that if afterwards you feel nothing uh you know that that's an indicator of something you know almost sociopathic isn't
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think it's a, well, there's, what is that thing?
Guest:Somebody was telling me about, is it split personality disorder?
Guest:No, not split.
Guest:Borderline.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that I definitely have a touch of the manic depression.
Guest:I mean, I have deep depression.
Guest:Everybody in my family does, and I take medication for it.
Guest:And the edges of that are that kind of borderline personality where you do, when you get paranoid, you really can detach a little bit.
Guest:And when I go white with anger.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Release.
Guest:I was driving to the hardware store with my friend two years ago, and this guy was going down the street, and he was cutting people off on purpose.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so then I cut him off, and I got out of the car, and I handed my friend my coffee cup.
Guest:We were going to the hardware store to buy something, and I got out, and I just started punching the guy in the face while he sat in his car.
Guest:He put it in reverse and took off, and I sat back in my car, and I asked him for the coffee, and I just kept driving.
Guest:And hands aren't trembling, barely breathing hard, and there was never a feeling of,
Marc:Has anyone taken legal action against you as an adult?
Marc:No.
Marc:I mean, doesn't that happen?
Marc:Isn't that the barrier to doing that as a grown man?
Guest:It's really, really irresponsible.
Guest:I'm ashamed of the behavior.
Marc:So you do feel that?
Guest:Well, I feel ashamed that I have children and I put them in a position where this stuff could affect them deeply.
Marc:You don't feel any remorse for that guy?
Guest:No, zero.
No.
Guest:Because I feel like that guy deserved it.
Guest:I don't think that people hit each other enough in our society.
Guest:I feel like in the old days, if you fucked up, you got punched in the face.
Guest:And now you've got people walking around, guys in LA that are walking around, douchebags.
Guest:And they treat people, they look down on everybody.
Guest:They look through a parking attendant because he's Mexican like he doesn't exist.
Guest:And they give him a tip and they don't make eye contact unless somebody can help them.
Guest:In every different ways that you can be a shithead in society, you used to get punched in the face for it.
Guest:And I think that that's lacking.
Marc:But are you telling me that you are that selfless, that you are aware and appreciative and show the proper amount of politeness and empathy towards everyone?
Guest:No, absolutely not.
Guest:But I do pay attention to people and I'm aware of a dynamic that's going on between every human being that comes within my range.
Guest:I engage.
Marc:and i'm honest like i find that like when i write emails that i have to constantly remind myself to say thank you that i have to constantly remind myself like sometimes i'll go back yeah yeah to thank people because i'm just it's it's not it's rude because i'm just thinking about me but that's different i think uh what i'll be condescending and yeah i think it's more of a like when i finished at kimmel i was like driving home like motherfucker it didn't even
Guest:It even occurred to me to write a thank you note to the producer, the second producer, who busted his ass, made me look great, took good care of me.
Guest:And I just thought to myself, I went into a shame spiral that I hadn't thought of it before that moment.
Guest:Meanwhile, the guy probably wouldn't be expecting it.
Guest:And even if I sent it tomorrow, that's when you're supposed to send it.
Guest:But the fact that it didn't occur to me quicker made me feel shitty about myself.
Guest:So I think you and I overcompensate.
Guest:I think you and I think we're shittier people than we really are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I often find that like I go to the shrink and she's like, you are a good father.
Guest:You feel like you're a bad father because you're father.
Guest:You're not.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I overcompensate for these feelings.
Guest:And I think that you feel like I mean, a big mantra in your act.
Guest:I don't know if it still is, was I'm an asshole.
Guest:And so you're and you're not really.
Guest:You're actually a very decent person.
Marc:Well, what happens is you I find, unfortunately, that flaw, the flaw of anger is.
Marc:It's one of those few character flaws that can really erase a lot of good behavior.
Marc:You can be a great guy, but as soon as you engage in that, all of a sudden you don't have any more of that good capital.
Marc:It empties the account.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's a problem.
Marc:It's one thing like, I spent too much money.
Marc:I gambled this away or whatever.
Marc:But there's all those destructive.
Marc:But anger, in two minutes, you can empty that account.
Guest:Well, it's probably very primal.
Guest:I mean, if you have a guy in the tribe who snaps, he can kill somebody.
Guest:And the other guy, he's never contributed much to the tribe.
Guest:He's a bad hunter.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:He's nice, calm, and even.
Guest:You can talk to that guy.
Marc:Yeah, but the anger, you become a liability.
Marc:That's the thing is like, hey, he's angry and he's funny, but let's not have him over.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's a bad one to have.
Marc:Yes, it is.
Marc:And it's always going to make you feel shitty.
Guest:Yeah, and I've had relationships with agents where I get angry one time because-
Guest:And it's a legitimate fuck up that really costs you something.
Guest:And if you get angry, I feel like as a New Yorker, I feel like we express ourselves that way.
Guest:Like a European.
Marc:You justify.
Marc:You try to justify.
Guest:It comes back and forth.
Guest:You can absorb it.
Guest:And out here and in this business, there's such a paramount on keeping your cool and being even and being okay with everything that I find it's castrating.
Guest:I can't be creative and keep myself that in check.
Marc:It's being political is what it is.
Marc:You know, it's maintaining relationships.
Guest:But it's emotionally political.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:But the thing is, is that someone once said to me, she goes, you know, you can't talk to people like that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And she's right.
Guest:You mean to her?
Marc:Well, yeah, just in general.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I think, do I do that to other people?
Marc:Have I?
Marc:Yeah, I haven't.
Marc:It's bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, do you still represent by Becky?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, well, like one time, like I used to like when I was driven by Spite, I'd call him up and go, why the fuck am I not doing that?
Marc:What the fuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And literally one time he said, I'm hanging up the phone now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't talk like customer service people.
Marc:One time, the one time that someone said, sir, you can't talk to me like this.
Marc:I'm hanging up.
Marc:There's that moment where they hang up and you realize you can go two ways.
Marc:Like, you know, who the fuck are you?
Marc:Or like, you can't.
Guest:No, I go the latter.
Guest:I go the latter because I need more pushback.
Marc:I need it.
Guest:And my wife, and you were asking me how my wife is.
Guest:I can't tell you.
Guest:You know what a fucking downside it is that I don't hate my wife and we don't fight as a comedian?
Guest:It would be such a great well to go to.
Guest:But this woman is just, she knows when to just say, hey,
Guest:You're being an asshole.
Guest:But that she doesn't hassle me on small shit.
Guest:She just knows this is my world.
Guest:I have a pretty broad range of emotions.
Guest:And she not so much absorbs it but deflects it.
Guest:It doesn't bother her.
Guest:And so I have that in my life.
Guest:And that has allowed me in a lot of ways to know, okay, that's behavior I should be showing to other people.
Guest:That's a good range.
Marc:But you listen to her.
Marc:That's the difference.
Marc:And that's something that I need to learn too is that if you value a relationship,
Marc:That, you know, you better value it.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That the difference between you saying like, you know, I love her and thank God, you know, when she says you're being an asshole, you go, you may fight in a minute, but you go, you're right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:As opposed to like, I'm being an asshole.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fuck you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then you're alone.
Guest:Well, and I've been there with her over the years.
Guest:I've been in places where I've been like that.
Guest:But I think in the last couple years, writing this book and watching her support for me be all about me and the book and missing dinners and missing picking up a kid at a soccer.
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:I got to do it.
Guest:And just watching her step up and go, you know, he needs this time.
Guest:I'm going to be there for him and never resenting it.
Guest:fucking filled me with she built so much credit with me yeah she i don't know how she could ruin it for the rest of my life i'm so on board and she's hot 34 d cup all right all right you don't want to hear more about that no i i mean it's pretty well i mean we're on a very mature trajectory but i just want to say it's that part too it's physical it's everything there's nothing i want in somebody else and uh and yet you know it's uh you want me to send this to her or she doesn't listen no
Guest:She will not watch my Kimmel set from last night.
Guest:She's never once heard my podcast.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Oh, complete media blackout.
Guest:She doesn't care about it, which is great.
Marc:It's very good.
Marc:But I mean, it sounds to me that what you're experiencing is you're fucking growing up.
Guest:I hate it.
Guest:It doesn't make you funnier.
Guest:I was talking to somebody about this the other day.
Guest:Do you remember in the first half of your life, and we're talking about competition and how that drives you, but also just you throwing yourself into shit, making big mistakes, falling down.
Guest:And thinking that's the way you learned.
Guest:Well, you do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then in the second half of your life, if I was still throwing out that range of commitment to everything I did, how much I'd still be growing.
Guest:We play defense in the second half of life.
Guest:You just you protect what you got in the first half.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, like, I find when people ask me advice that most of it comes from me saying, like, well, look, don't do what I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, there's an easier way to do this.
Marc:Try to be mature about it because it took me forever to realize that it's not all about me.
Marc:You know, that I do have to behave a certain way and I have to, you know, I can't.
Guest:But if you had, you wouldn't be where you are right now.
Guest:If you had behaved that way in the first half.
Marc:Well, I had no capability to do that.
Marc:Some people are just more.
Guest:No, but my point is you were expressing something that was real.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You were navigating life with a fire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That you would not be where you are in your career.
Marc:And I think I still do that.
Marc:I guess that's a good thing.
Marc:But age is sort of humbling.
Marc:It is very humbling.
Marc:So in the arc of this book, is there a lesson learned?
Marc:Do you change as a person?
Marc:I mean, from the beginning?
Guest:I think my perspective changes, but maybe not my behavior.
Guest:I mean, I've been sober 20 years, but beyond that, at the end, you see, I now get letters sent home about my children that are almost identical, and you realize it's just DNA.
Guest:It's bad Irish genes.
Marc:Well, I've always thought that no matter how hard you try to be different, that whatever's beneath your attempt,
Marc:at changing the, the, the, the game on a familial sort of like a tradition way that underneath that, the kids are going to absorb that too.
Marc:And it's ultimately going to be up to them and they're probably going to fight the same fight that you fought.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, and beyond just the chemical.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I feel so guilty that my kids are going to have depression at some point in their lives, and I know how bad it is.
Guest:But also, there's, you know, I don't drink.
Guest:My dad did.
Guest:And that adult child behavior will be handed on to them.
Guest:Even though they've never seen me drink, there's still the control and the rage and all those things that I've tried to work on.
Guest:They don't learn your words.
Guest:They learn your actions and they get the energy and the dynamic and that.
Guest:And so, you know, I think that if there is an arc to the book, it's that I look back and I see that these letters were not, you know, the book is about blindly challenging anybody who told me what to do, doing the opposite of what anyone told me to do.
Marc:The fight against no.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And now I'm looking back at no and saying some of these no's were constructive.
Guest:These were people that deeply cared about me.
Guest:Some of these notes I found from teachers, I'm like, that son of a bitch, he fucking saved me in school.
Guest:And I was angry at him for it.
Guest:So I think if there's a growth in the book, it's perspective.
Guest:But there's no, I don't believe in change.
Guest:I really don't believe people can change.
Guest:I mean, you can change the paint on the house.
Marc:Well, I don't know if that's true.
Marc:Only because I think that certainly when you don't drink and you're trying to find your way, I think that if you make different choices, then you are instinctually prone to do enough that you will change the way you approach things and your decision-making process.
Guest:Yeah, I guess maybe I'm looking at it too much as the instincts and, you know, the compulsions rather than the behavior.
Marc:The compulsions don't change.
Marc:Of course not.
Marc:But whether you honor them or not is maturity.
Guest:No, that's true.
Guest:But I guess maybe I mean, I think I'm like you.
Guest:I think I'm a little too existential.
Guest:And rather than judging it on.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I don't get in fights as much.
Guest:I don't drink anymore.
Guest:I'm manifesting a change to people, but I'm still feeling it.
Guest:So to me, it feels like, well, what's real?
Guest:What's real?
Guest:It doesn't matter what's real.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also what I know as someone who's getting older and someone who's been through a certain amount of shit is that a lot of shit that used to drive me crazy doesn't.
Marc:A lot of the shit I used to worry about or think about or make myself nuts about for days, weeks, months, years does not have a hold on me anymore.
Guest:But did you change or were you worn down?
Marc:No, I don't think it was worn down.
Marc:It's really putting things into perspective.
Marc:Literally, like I've said this before, that most of what we're reacting to is something we're generating either on purpose or not.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So if that's true, then I can make choices to not fuel that generator.
Guest:Well, I'm sitting in your studio right now.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And your instinct was, after our last interview, that you didn't want that.
Guest:So was that internally generated, that last conflict?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:What that was, every time we hang out, we get along great.
Marc:And I think we're good friends.
Marc:But my experience with your show, I was being resentful for no reason at all.
Marc:And then I was sitting here like, I'm going to go after him.
Marc:And then I'm thinking like...
Marc:What do I what for what?
Marc:Yeah, because we've had this.
Marc:We've had a discussion off the mics.
Marc:You're making a choice to do what you do.
Marc:You're aware of what you're doing.
Marc:And I didn't really resent you.
Marc:But I mean, you know that you're the kind of broadcaster you are.
Marc:But as a person, I believe you're different.
Guest:I believe that, yes, I think I bring the instincts of a stand-up to my show.
Guest:In other words, if I feel like there's fat or it's flatlining, then I need to fight to get something going that's—
Marc:No, I get that.
Guest:But sometimes we have different ways of doing that.
Guest:Obviously, you you if you're feeling something's boring, you're going to change topic or you're going to raise the stakes or whatever.
Guest:And for me, I guess I always go.
Guest:How can I how can I get this guy?
Guest:He's giving me he's standing flat footed.
Guest:How do I get him on his heels or on his toes?
Marc:But then sometimes like what happens is there's nothing you can do.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then you just end up yelling at a wall.
Marc:yeah but i don't yell no no i'm not i'm not judging you the thing that made me metaphorically yeah i'm just saying that like when you talk to somebody you're like all right he's not gonna go there so what does he do let him do what he does yeah and it'll be entertaining you know have a little faith in in in their ability to carry themselves that is something i need to work on i agree a lot of times i walk away from interviews saying like god i wish i and then like people like that was great i'm like you know what i'm gonna shut up yep
Marc:That, you know, like when you especially when you're talking to professionals in what we do and whoever your guests are, they're usually professionals of what they do.
Guest:They sense it's boring, too.
Marc:Well, not only do they sense they're boring, but what you believe is boring may not be.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You're just freaking out because it's like, oh, no, there's an empty moment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And really, it's just it's just two people talking and that you're denying them their their being.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And especially hard for me because I work with a sidekick and sometimes I got a producer there.
Guest:And then I feel like if one of them interjects and it's not good, I fucking explode because it's hard enough for me to get I'm locked in with a guest and I'm trying to keep it, you know, good, good, good.
Guest:And then they interject.
Guest:And now they have taken they have they've taken it out of gear.
Guest:Whatever was building up, they just fucking put air into it.
Guest:And it makes me crazy because they have to respect that unless there's a four alarm blaze outside, don't speak unless spoken to.
Marc:Don't derail it.
Marc:Well, that's why I don't have anyone in here.
Guest:Yeah, but do you find, though, when you do it by yourself, do you have to structure it more than if you're interviewing somebody, or do you just turn on the mic and go?
Marc:No, no, I don't structure anything.
Marc:I don't have anything written down for you.
Marc:I don't structure anything.
Marc:But what I was saying about you, though, the reason that I... I was not that upset, and I was... I just wanted to... I find that even if I schedule interviews, that they require a lot of attention.
Marc:But the one thing I know about you, and the thing that always...
Marc:gets me about you is that i know you've got a big heart and i know that when you laugh you know that you have the kind of laughter that i i appreciate which is like you might as well you should be crying and and that and then
Guest:Do you mean that it's just that?
Guest:It's like there's a lot inside that I need to get out?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I can feel that.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I'm putting that on the back of my next book.
Guest:When he's laughing, he really should be crying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I grew up with that.
Marc:And I think that it's just like there's a familiarity here that would breed resentment.
Marc:It's outside of professional.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:We're similar.
Marc:We're kindred spirits.
Marc:And that brings its own issues.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I think we did good.
Guest:I feel really good about this.
Guest:But wait, I just wanna say there's one missing puzzle piece.
Guest:Because you did my show, and then you had me on your live show at UCB Theater.
Guest:And you gave me, and I was really ready to be attacked because I know that you had a- I don't really attack.
Guest:Well, the intro you gave me, that's what I'm bringing up.
Guest:The intro you gave me was probably the worst intro I've ever gotten in my life, and it was kind of throwing an overhand right before I'd even sat down.
Guest:That's how I do it.
Guest:But that's exactly what you said that I was doing.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sip water, take another sip.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:What was that about?
Marc:I can't even remember it, but I think there was a little bit like, you know, both your fans and my fans had started to stoke some sort of fire.
Marc:And then like, you know, I got it in my head.
Marc:I don't even remember what the intro was, but I thought what stuck in my mind about you when I went into your studio and you interviewed me was that like I was like, why am I being put on the defensive?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I felt a little attack.
Marc:So it was just my backhanded way of getting you back.
Marc:And that was it.
Guest:You know, I don't know if I'm proud of the fact that we didn't engage that potential turf war or whether or not we missed an opportunity there.
Guest:But I think it would have felt contrived if it went any further beyond that.
Marc:The problem with that is, and I think we would have the same problem, is that when that stuff happens, even when I see opportunities to do it, like I tried to get Rogan on this show and he said words about me on his podcast in response to me calling him a bully in a general way, not even in a vindictive way, was that if I engage in that, then there's a wild card and that would be the other guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So like if we were to engage in that, then I'd have to manage this shit and be like, what did he say?
Marc:And then I got to go listen to your podcast, which I can't deal with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, you know, and figure out what you said.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then like, you know, have to address it.
Guest:And then you got to think about how is it appearing to the third person?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How is it affecting me personally?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't feel that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know.
Guest:The only way to do that is to really both plan it and do it right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We got to be in on it.
Marc:And then it'd be bullshit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It would be horrible.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the book is Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons, Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox.
Marc:And you did it.
Marc:You wrote a book.
Marc:Yeah, thanks, man.
Marc:And it's pretty and it sounds good and I'm glad.
Guest:I'm proud of it.
Guest:And can I just say you can order it there on Fitzdog.com, which is also where Fitzdog Radio is housed.
Marc:Okay, man.
Marc:Well, I think we did good.
Guest:Yeah, thanks for having me on, man.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Marc:It was good talk.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:You see, me and Greg are friends.
Marc:You see?
Marc:Could you hear that thing in his laughing, though, that he could be crying?
Marc:Could you?
Marc:I mean, is it just me?
Marc:Fitzsimmons, great guy.
Marc:Listen to Fitzdog Radio, his podcast.
Marc:Buy his book because it's fun.
Marc:Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons, Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox.
Marc:I'll plug.
Marc:I'll plug.
Marc:I'll plug me, too.
Marc:Kicking a few shekels, would you?
Marc:need the help cats are hungry wtfpod.com get on the mailing list because i'll email you i will i'll send you pictures i'll write things down that i don't say i'll do that kind of stuff go to wtfpodshop.com there's about five premium episodes up there a lot of funny shit a lot of great shows coming up i appreciate you listening i gotta go i'm going i gotta go now here i go
you