Episode 142 - Joe Mande
Marc: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 Marc Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucking knots?
Marc:My what the fuck a reeking friend?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Apparently there's more than one of you, which is nice.
Marc:What the fuck Nicks?
Marc:How are you doing?
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know, there's a lot of names I could go through.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF with me, Mark Maron.
Marc:Thank you for joining me.
Marc:I'm a little hyper.
Marc:I'm a little ecstatic.
Marc:I'm not sure why.
Marc:Maybe it's because tonight I'm doing a Conan O'Brien show, and I've not hung out with Conan O'Brien in what?
Marc:How long has it been?
Marc:I don't even know.
Marc:I wasn't on the Tonight Show.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:It's been a long time since I've been on the old show.
Marc:I'm very excited.
Marc:I don't know if I told you, but the last time I went over there,
Marc:I had a meeting with one of the executives over there about some other stuff with Conan's production company, and I'm walking around backstage, and I see all the old cats from New York, and I almost cried.
Marc:I was like, well, how come...
Marc:how are you guys doing i miss you guys and now tonight i'm gonna be on and i hope uh i hope i don't look fat i hope i'm funny and i hope i don't dress in a way that i regret uh in years to come like so many of the other conan episodes that i've done in my past you can go to markmarin.com and go ahead and take a little a little wander through or a little uh
Marc:Take a little trip through the weird bad fashion choices and haircuts that I once donned in order to look what I thought was good on television.
Marc:A lot of bad choices.
Marc:Right now, can I tell you this?
Marc:In my ears, I'm listening to myself through these new earphones that I got.
Marc:These are tweaked audio earbud earphones.
Marc:I'm listening in my head right now on tweaked audio earbud earphones.
Marc:If you go to Tweaked Audio, that's T-W-E-A-K-E-D-Audio.com slash WTF, and use that to buy some of these, you can get 33% off, and they'll give you free shipping.
Marc:They're kind of cool looking.
Marc:There's a bunch of different styles.
Marc:They've got a few different colors.
Marc:They've got red, blue, green, pink, black.
Marc:silver, wood grain.
Marc:You want some wood grain earphones?
Marc:So they have that handcrafted carpenter look.
Marc:And they have several different versions of these earphones.
Marc:And they seem pretty good to me.
Marc:So why don't you go to tweakedaudio.com slash WTF and get yourself a deal on these.
Marc:See how that goes.
Marc:They're fun.
Marc:They're good.
Marc:They're earbuds.
Marc:I like earbuds.
Marc:I like them better than the ones that fit on your head.
Marc:I like earphones that I can cram into my ear so I literally hear nothing else but whatever's in my head.
Marc:And that's the way I roll.
Marc:God, are we plugging away?
Marc:Are we doing more plugs?
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Did I just shit my pants?
Marc:JustCoffee.coop, available at WTFPod.com or JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:So that's how it's going today.
Marc:What do you want to talk about?
Marc:Where are we at?
Marc:I feel like I haven't talked to you in a while.
Marc:I really didn't give you the rundown.
Marc:or what happened in Philadelphia.
Marc:Man, Helium Comedy Club was fucking great.
Marc:Sold out a few shows, a lot of what the fuckers came.
Marc:Great to meet you people.
Marc:Thank you for all the cookies, but also thank you for making me feel fucking fat.
Marc:And I'm not gonna complain about this.
Marc:I don't want to be that guy with the girl inside.
Marc:He's always like,
Marc:Am I fat?
Marc:How's my ass look?
Marc:Am I going to be okay?
Marc:It's just the way I was wired, and you know that about me.
Marc:But I haven't gone to the gym.
Marc:I did eat a mound of cookies.
Marc:I mean, three or four people brought me cookies.
Marc:And I'm not going to complain about it because they were lovely.
Marc:But I just know that if you bring me a box of fucking cookies, then that means that after the show, I'm going to be in my hotel room eating a box of fucking cookies.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I'm not going to complain.
Marc:They were great.
Marc:And I have no control over this.
Marc:But I will say this.
Marc:Some dude...
Marc:Came to the show.
Marc:I got some nice books.
Marc:A cat brought me a Chuck Klosterman book.
Marc:Another dude brought me a Hellboy book.
Marc:I just went to my P.O.
Marc:box.
Marc:Someone named Amanda sent me all this nice soap.
Marc:I love fucking presents.
Marc:Makes me feel good.
Marc:But look, this is one of the most unique presents I ever got in my life.
Marc:A dude in Philly comes up, he's with his girlfriend, and he hands me a box that's got some art on it, like a picture of me that he drew.
Marc:And in the box, there's no way in the world you could ever guess.
Marc:He gave me a box of Shabbos candles that he had carved with his teeth.
Marc:These were teeth carved candles.
Marc:Now, I think you hear that and your first thought is like, well, that's a little fucking weird.
Marc:It is a little weird, but it's a very specific talent.
Marc:He carves candles with his teeth and now I have them.
Marc:His name's Max and I appreciate that, Max.
Marc:Also in Philadelphia, I've never been...
Marc:to a city that is more proud of shoving meat in their mouth than Philadelphia.
Marc:I mean, this is about sandwiches.
Marc:It's about cold cuts.
Marc:And I didn't want to get the cheesesteak.
Marc:You know, I was busy.
Marc:I had to go up.
Marc:I did morning radio, Preston and Steve.
Marc:Great.
Marc:That was a great time.
Marc:John DiBella.
Marc:But what an operation Preston and Steve have over there.
Marc:That was a good time.
Marc:And it's fun to do morning radio when you just like you lock in with a morning crew and it's just like you just sit there for an hour and riff.
Marc:It was a good time.
Marc:But nonetheless, the meat thing.
Marc:Like I was running up to New York on both days that I was there because I had meetings with publishers.
Marc:You know, I'm trying to sell a book because I think that you guys would like a book.
Marc:Would you?
Marc:You'd like a book, wouldn't you?
Marc:If I wrote a book, you would like that.
Marc:Well, we'll see what happens.
Marc:But nonetheless, I didn't go to the cheesesteak.
Marc:I said, look, I know what a cheesesteak is.
Marc:I know they're great, but I know that experience.
Marc:Maybe I don't have to do that.
Marc:So then I put it out on Twitter like, you know, what should I eat if I'm not going to eat a cheesesteak?
Marc:And they sent me this place to Nick's in in Reading Market.
Marc:And this place had roast Italian style pork.
Marc:You can get it with broccoli rabe or provolone cheese.
Marc:I never heard of this.
Marc:They had roast pork.
Marc:They had pulled pork Italian style.
Marc:They had brisket.
Marc:And you get the pork sandwich with chopped broccoli rabe on top or cheese on top.
Marc:And I went with my buddy Oz and we got a roast pork with broccoli rabe.
Marc:We got a pulled pork with provolone.
Marc:We got a brisket sandwich.
Marc:We're sitting there at this table with literally three huge...
Marc:Fucking sandwiches.
Marc:Nobody stepped in.
Marc:There was no intervention.
Marc:I felt like Adam Richman.
Marc:I felt like it was me versus the sandwich.
Marc:And I shoved all that in my face.
Marc:And then I shoved your cookies in my face.
Marc:And then I shoved some of the chocolate that some guy brought me in my face.
Marc:So needless to say, if I look obese tonight on Conan O'Brien, I have you to thank.
Marc:And that's not passive aggressive.
Marc:That's not guilty.
Marc:The way I look at it, it's only going to compel me
Marc:to go into some sort of gym mode, you would hope.
Marc:And right now I'm wearing two nicotine patches to get off of the nicotine lozenges, which I started to do again.
Marc:So that's my life right now.
Marc:I just wanted to update you.
Marc:Let's talk about women.
Marc:Can we?
Marc:There's something odd going on in my life where I'm in some sort of transition where I believe that perhaps a healthy relationship is possible to me.
Marc:A lot of weird things are sort of happening.
Marc:I don't know how to explain it.
Marc:Obviously, you know, Jessica and I broke up.
Marc:That was very dramatic.
Marc:That was very it was it was heartbreaking.
Marc:And now like I somehow believe that I am capable of a healthy relationship with a healthy person.
Marc:I have no evidence of that.
Marc:I do not generally engage on an emotional level with with healthy people.
Marc:I am wired to engage with people that that match my wiring, which means a little fucked up.
Marc:And here's the weirdest thing.
Marc:I don't know really quite how to talk about this, but, you know, I've been around.
Marc:I've lived in many cities.
Marc:I've I've been around.
Marc:And I was in Philly and I ran into a woman I dated for a month or so a few years back or a year or so back.
Marc:And and there was this moment where I'm looking at her and something is happening inside of me where I feel emotions.
Marc:kind of boiling up or sort of brewing, something is going on.
Marc:I feel a full body rush when I see this person, but I don't quite know who she is yet.
Marc:And all of a sudden, like in this weird kind of Proustian rush, everything sort of came back and it all congealed around her face and eyes, the past that we had together.
Marc:And I was just overwhelmed with some sort of real excitement.
Marc:And and in that moment, here's the weird thing about living for a while is that you tend to forget the bad parts.
Marc:There's some part of me, you know, even though I broke up with this girl a couple of years ago, we didn't go out for that long, but I hurt her feelings.
Marc:It was it was a bad scene in a lot of ways.
Marc:But in that moment where you see somebody that you haven't seen in a while, all that shit is forgotten.
Marc:And there's some party that's like.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, so we good.
Marc:Let's just pick up where we left off, not knowing what they went through or where they've been with it or what effect it had on their life.
Marc:And also my memory was hazy of the situation.
Marc:I think men are a little worse with that.
Marc:There's something about I know from from being sort of an angry guy that, you know, once you yell when you're done yelling, it's over.
Marc:But you don't realize you just dump that into the other person and that people have emotional memories.
Marc:So it was sort of this weird lesson to be learned in dealing with this person and hanging out and talking and stuff and getting some closure around that stuff that, you know, sometimes that's your window, man.
Marc:Sometimes whatever you had, that's all that it was.
Marc:And it's not going to come back.
Marc:And if you're a pretty decent person, you can sit down and hear their side of it and sort of apologize and try to make it OK.
Marc:But you can't get that stuff back sometimes.
Marc:But some part of your heart really wants to.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I'm getting old.
Marc:I wish I had kids.
Marc:So at least I know I was getting old.
Marc:I think that's one of the benefit of having kids.
Marc:I wouldn't say it's a reason to have children just as some sort of reality check that your life is running out because of the way they're growing up.
Marc:As they grow up, you realize I'm running out of time and they're picking up speed.
Marc:but i just don't know how i don't have any regulator i don't you know i'm stuck in some sort of some sort of perpetual in my brain i think i'm like maybe 28 or 29 and then i look in the mirror and now like i'm getting all gray on the sides and and it's becoming undeniable that perhaps i'm older than 29 years old
Marc:All I know is there's a lot more cats around.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:That's the weird thing.
Marc:It's the same thing with running into people.
Marc:There's this stray cat that I haven't seen in months.
Marc:Months.
Marc:And this is a little scrapper, fucking vicious little cat.
Marc:Like it eats out of a bowl like the equivalent of someone who's been in jail.
Marc:You know how when people have been in jail, they sort of wrap their arm around the bowl so no one will fuck with them?
Marc:Well, this cat, like it eats, it almost eats like it's about to attack something.
Marc:It eats, but like right at the corner of its eye, it's like, you know, don't fuck with me.
Marc:Don't fuck with me.
Marc:But I haven't seen this cat in months, and I'm feeling the same way about people in my life now.
Marc:The cat shows up.
Marc:The last time I saw this cat, half its ear was gone.
Marc:It had blood on its face.
Marc:Its coat looked all ratty, and it disappeared, and I assumed it died.
Marc:But no, there he is.
Marc:His ear is back.
Marc:He's not bloody.
Marc:He looks healthy as shit.
Marc:And I wish he could talk because there's part of me that's like, where the fuck have you been?
Marc:What have you been doing?
Marc:How are you okay?
Marc:And I'm finding that I feel that way with people, too.
Marc:I see some people, certainly in comedy, where you see somebody and you're like, what have you been doing?
Marc:I recently sat down with Tom Rhodes.
Marc:I'll share that with you in an upcoming episode.
Marc:And he's one of these guys I've known for 20 years.
Marc:And we're just a bunch of fucking stray cats sometimes.
Marc:You know, if you're out of the limelight, you're not on television and and you all sort of started together gunning for the same prize.
Marc:And then you just don't see people for a year and a half.
Marc:And it's like seeing that stray.
Marc:You know, I just see him and I'm like, hey, where the fuck?
Marc:What the fuck have you been doing?
Marc:Where have you been?
Marc:The last time I saw you, you were missing part of your ear and your face was all bloody.
Marc:You're still alive, huh?
Marc:Well, that's fucking great.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:I guess maybe I'm just feeling a little nostalgic today or something.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Is it possible that I get my emotional shit together?
Marc:It seems like everything else is going okay.
Marc:Why can't I just get my emotional shit together?
Marc:My mother's like, don't worry, Mark.
Marc:You'll meet some nice lady who's age-appropriate.
Marc:And like all I can think is like, what does that mean?
Marc:Does that mean I just sort of give up and I meet somebody and we kind of hang around the house and sort of reflect on how we both failed for the most part?
Marc:Emotionally share stories about fucking disastrous relationships and the fact we don't have children.
Marc:That's negative.
Marc:Isn't that negative?
Marc:It doesn't have to be that way.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:Well, look, today on the show, we have Joe Mandy.
Marc:Joe Mandy is a very funny guy.
Marc:He's a young guy.
Marc:And so, you know, it's a little difficult for me to completely be appreciative.
Marc:But this dude, he's bright.
Marc:He's funny.
Marc:And he's just sharp.
Marc:And he's one of these cats that...
Marc:You know, that I see.
Marc:And because of his sort of disposition, I'm thinking, well, you know, he's going to end up being a writer.
Marc:But it's it's you know, it's great is when you see a dude that is sort of built to be a writer, which just means he's smart.
Marc:And you assume that, you know, he's not going to find his groove in the stand up world.
Marc:This guy's got some fucking, I think, as they say in Yiddish, naches.
Marc:He's fucking, you know, he sells it.
Marc:He delivers it.
Marc:And, you know, he holds the stage and he's a funny fuck.
Marc:And I talked to him in New York.
Marc:Why don't we do that now?
Guest:Have you ever taken a voice?
Guest:I've never done anything like that.
Guest:No theater?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I was actually in high school.
Guest:I was in the Crucible.
Guest:I played the old man, which is really funny.
Marc:Were you?
Marc:Now, I'm trying to remember.
Marc:Giles Corey.
Marc:Is that the Crucible?
Marc:Arthur Miller, Witchcraft.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Well, Witch Trials.
Marc:Witch trials that were a not so thinly veiled metaphor for the McCarthy heroes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:At the time of the McCarthy.
Guest:And I played an old man.
Guest:I played an old man named Giles Corey who is accused of being a witch and is stoned to death.
Guest:So that was very funny for me and my friends.
Guest:My friend Al McIntosh played the judge who gets to sentence me to stoning to death.
Guest:And we laughed.
Guest:I think we did five performances.
Guest:We laughed every time.
Guest:During the performance?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was absurd.
Guest:I had baby powder in my hair to make me look like I had... Yeah, it was... Now, please tell me this was a third grade play.
Guest:No, it wasn't.
Guest:This was high school.
Marc:This was... I'd love it if The Crucible was being done in an elementary school.
Guest:That would be amazing, yeah.
Marc:Has anyone tried that?
Marc:That sounds like something that you might try to do.
Marc:I'm pitching that idea to you.
Guest:It's sort of Rushmore, isn't it?
Marc:Oh, I guess that's true.
Marc:But even younger.
Guest:Did they do that in Rushmore?
Guest:How old... I mean, they were like little kids, I think.
Guest:I mean...
Marc:You should pitch Rushmore Again, just to retitle it And maybe pitch it to Wes Anderson Are you a Wes Anderson fan?
Guest:I am I can't say I'm not Actually, I've liked all his movies He's sort of like M. Night Shyamalan In some respects Me and Bottle Rocket is one of my favorite movies It gets more and more Wes Anderson each time Some people really like that
Marc:Yeah, but I think that the career trajectory, the arc, is heading up.
Marc:Is completely opposite.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:If you were to look at a graph of Wes Anderson and F. Night Shyamalan.
Marc:It's close enough.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They'd be like crossing in the middle.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My guess is Joe Mandy.
Marc:We're in New York.
Marc:We're in the offices of OWA.
Marc:which is Olivia Wingate Artists.
Marc:This is my studio away from home.
Marc:It's the first time I've ever recorded in here.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm honored.
Marc:It's a virgin episode recorded from Broadway and Bond Street.
Guest:And because I'm a virgin.
Guest:Are you still?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I would have made that assumption, but I would have felt like I would be sliding you.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I get it a lot.
Marc:In a hackneyed way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now, I'm a fan of your comedy.
Marc:I sing your praises.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Really, I appreciate that.
Marc:Because you don't do that often.
Marc:No, I don't do it often.
Marc:And oddly, for some reason, I thought we, you know, and I think we talked about this on the live one briefly.
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:Yeah, I thought we had tension between us.
Guest:There was no real tension.
Guest:I've been a fan for a long time, and I came up to you at a show once and was trying to tell you my life story because there's a lot of overlap.
Marc:Because we're from Albuquerque.
Guest:Yes, we're both from Albuquerque.
Guest:So that was you.
Marc:See, because there was something that happened.
Marc:I think I asked you.
Marc:I wrote you an email.
Marc:to write on the Break Room Life thing.
Marc:And you were like, no, I've got a writing job.
Marc:And then I thought to myself, is this the same guy that came up to me and was so nice to me?
Marc:The way you handled that email, I was like, who the fuck?
Marc:And then I thought, I can't be the same guy.
Marc:Because when I met that guy, he was so nice to me.
Marc:We come from Albuquerque.
Marc:Then I started asking around.
Marc:I'm like, do you know a comic from Albuquerque?
Marc:I thought it was Joe Mandy.
Marc:Well, see, because I'm not actually, I mean, I'm from Minnesota.
Marc:No, but you were nice to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I guess in my mind, I thought that guy would drop everything to write on my internet TV show.
Guest:I think we both have that.
Guest:You write curt responses, too.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, it's just how I sort of, if I don't reply like that, I'll forget and never reply to anyone because I'm always on my phone.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's a matter of pace.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I do curb responses.
Marc:And then when I get them, I'm like, fuck him.
Guest:It's so easy to misunderstand the tone of email because there isn't unless you actually invest.
Guest:Yes, it kills me because I'm very sarcastic and that is the hardest thing to convey.
Marc:Yeah, but I think that because you're sarcastic, I would imagine that any email anyone gets from you, they're like listening.
Guest:Especially if it's sincere.
Guest:Like I wasn't trying to be a jerk.
Guest:I mean, I was writing.
Guest:Like, sure, I'll get back to you.
Guest:Like, sure, I'll get back to you.
Guest:Because it's Joe Manley.
Marc:Exactly, yeah.
Marc:Have you had any misunderstood emails that have gotten you in trouble?
Guest:Let me think.
Guest:Not that I can remember.
Guest:I can always take care of it in person.
Guest:But, I mean, all the time that nothing comes to mind.
Guest:There's no calamity, though.
Marc:Have you ever misread an email?
Marc:I've had that from a woman where I thought it was loaded with sexual implications.
Marc:And it was probably just sort of like, you know, coffee sounds good.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah.
Marc:well yeah i want to fuck you you know and she's like i think you misunderstood that's hilarious it's ridiculous you've gotten like you're uh i i didn't really realize until recently what if what a you know troublemaker you are oh yeah i mean you see i mean you get off on you know publicly you know you know busting balls it's true i uh i think you're speaking of my twitter yeah yeah that uh what was that about i
Guest:I was sort of morally opposed to Twitter for the longest time, and I found it kind of sort of gross and indulgent, and it is completely.
Guest:But I joined it when I found out that people like senators and famous athletes are on there and interact with people because it is this weird forum where you can pretty much say anything and there's no real consequence.
Guest:So, I mean, I joined it, and I thought, I mean, I sort of,
Guest:avoided joining twitter at first because i thought it would kind of bring out the bad sides of my personality like i would be so obsessed with how many followers i had like fuck that guy has like 10 000 followers who's he like i thought that would be my obsession and it's really not i don't care how many followers good for you you've overcome thank you yeah i hit a number of followers where i stopped caring really yeah i mean i obviously there's still a twinge of that but i sort of ignore it how many you got
Guest:I think I'm over 5,000 now.
Guest:I mean, that's not much.
Guest:But I literally just do it to go after people I find annoying.
Guest:So, yeah, I go after senators.
Guest:And what's happened?
Guest:What are some incidents?
Guest:I just get blocked.
Guest:I mean, I find out.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, that's a great feeling to have David Vitter block you on Twitter.
Guest:Actively say.
Guest:Yeah, Cindy McCain.
Guest:Cindy McCain blocked me after one tweet, and it wasn't even anything.
Guest:So she just knew what I was up to immediately.
Marc:I always engage.
Marc:I have to struggle to engage with people, with haters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because there's some sort of surge that happens.
Marc:Like, you know, there's a rush.
Marc:And I know no matter how smart I am or how clever I think I'm being, as soon as you engage, you're fucked.
Marc:You're done.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because they can just turn it on you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because they've sucked you in.
Guest:Yeah, and I don't really, I don't have that side of it, because I'm the hater.
Guest:But I'm going after people who probably deserve it, so I can live with it.
Guest:And you don't get compulsively engaged?
Guest:Well, I got into a really...
Guest:bizarre Twitter war with this guy named Jesse Camp who used to be an MTV VJ.
Guest:And he's just like, just a lunatic.
Guest:And the funny thing about our interaction was that I never said anything mean to him.
Guest:Like he just kept digging himself.
Guest:He was so upset and so fundamentally.
Guest:Well what happened?
Guest:Well, I was drunk one night at a bar, and I wrote on Twitter, I was talking about Jesse Camp with a friend, and I just wrote, is Jesse Camp on Twitter?
Guest:And then someone wrote me back and was like, yes, and sent me his profile.
Guest:And for a while, I was just retweeting things he wrote without commentary, just because they were insane.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, just so weird.
Guest:Just him complaining about his friend Brian.
Guest:He's like saying, I'm outside the library.
Guest:The library's closed.
Guest:Where's Brian?
Guest:So I would just retweet that because like, what is this guy's life, you know?
Guest:And then he eventually at one point he wrote like, who the fuck is Joe Mandy?
Guest:Out of nowhere.
Guest:Because I guess he saw that I was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I wrote like.
Guest:I was like, hi, Jesse.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:I just said, hi, Jesse.
Guest:And then he wrote back and he was like, you know what?
Guest:I'm going to sue you if you keep retweeting me because this is all copywritten and it's my property.
Guest:And then that just, I just.
Guest:So you tweeted that.
Guest:Yeah, obviously.
Marc:He did that in public forum.
Guest:He did that.
Guest:He said, I'll sue you if you keep retweeting me.
Guest:And then I retweeted it and I said, see you in court.
Guest:You know, stuff like that.
Guest:And it was never that mean, but I was just like, you know.
Guest:And it started with nothing.
Guest:It started with nothing.
Guest:And it went on for like two days.
Guest:It was hilarious because he always responded.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then it was just – it was so funny.
Marc:Well, that's sort of an interesting thing about you is that you sense – you can sense the humor, the inherent humor in something that is fairly – it's just indicative of a ridiculous wife.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I mean, just to retweet, you know, where's Brian?
Marc:Right.
Marc:On some of a wooden –
Marc:No, I don't think that everybody would see that and go, this is ridiculous.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's ridiculous because it's his husband.
Marc:And who knows what his wife is like.
Marc:And then it actually pushed his buttons.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it served to do exactly what you set out to do to make him realize that his wife is small and ridiculous.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my new thing now is I follow a lot of corporate Twitter accounts because all these corporations have.
Guest:That worked for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what have you gotten?
Marc:What are some results?
Guest:Well, I just just recently I've been sort of I've been replying that the White Castle corporate Twitter account is always asking these questions with fill in the blank answers.
Guest:And I always just write the most morbid, depressing stuff, you know, like commentary for their hamburgers.
Guest:Yeah, they're like, hey, Cravers, what are you doing this this weekend?
Guest:And then I'm just like, I'm just going to stay in my room and stare at candles.
Guest:And then they wrote me back and they were like, oh, that sounds fun.
Guest:Is it White Castle scented candles?
Guest:And I was like, they might be because they smell disgusting.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then what happened?
Guest:They probably blocked me.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Well, the interesting thing about corporations claiming the personhood that they're availed legally and just trying to engage among us, obviously for promotional purposes, is that I had an issue with Virgin America.
Marc:Right, yeah, I saw that.
Marc:And I got, because of the number of followers, I have to assume it was because of that, I got immediate response.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:It was just basically, why did they separate me and my girlfriend without telling us?
Marc:And they corrected it, and they gave us the good seats, not first class, but the second down.
Marc:And I just think it's interesting that that does give us a certain amount of power if you have the followers, if you have some momentum.
Guest:Gravitas.
Guest:Gravitas.
Marc:But you can really get action done.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:I mean, that's sort of why I pursued this lifestyle in the first place is just to be able to skip lines and stuff.
Guest:I'm not going to wait in line for anything.
Guest:It's really gross.
Guest:part of that's why you pursued what celebrity not celebrity I mean just like well yeah I mean just just show business right yeah because I'm special and and and how's that panning out yeah where have you found that it is actually worked in your favor mostly just comedy shows nothing else you get your own soda in a couple places right exactly finally you've earned the ability to go now I'm a comic and I'm still working on it hopefully in the next few years I can what are you working on right now
Guest:Right now I'm just sort of doing stand-up, doing the odd writing job here and there.
Guest:Like, what have you written on?
Guest:I just finished doing a writing pilot thing for Reggie Watts.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:With Jessie Klein.
Guest:She and I were the writers.
Guest:So you've been to this office before?
Guest:I haven't, actually.
Guest:Well, now you know Reggie.
Guest:Yeah, I know Olivia.
Guest:But we met at Reggie's super cool hotel room every day.
Guest:That was our writing.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You were staying in one of the upscale places?
Guest:He was staying at this place that I thought I would be patted down.
Guest:Because Jesse and I were both just not cool enough to be in this hotel.
Guest:I've never seen anything like it.
Guest:It was a spaceship.
Guest:It was a spaceship.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was here in New York?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which hotel?
Guest:The Standard.
Guest:The Standard.
Marc:Right, I've stayed there, right.
Marc:So he was working at comics, or he put himself up there?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:I don't really know what the situation was, but he... The weird thing about those hotels, as spectacular as they may seem and as great as they are, they're kind of impractical.
Marc:Totally, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I was at The Standard, and they've got the design, so the bathroom, the sink and everything is basically in the shower.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I was in a room there where you could not, the water would go all over the place.
Marc:It made it dangerous to be in the bathroom.
Marc:Some of it would overflow under the rug.
Marc:And we said, look, you should provide squeegees in those rooms where you have fucked up the showers.
Marc:And of course they go, oh, that's a very interesting suggestion.
Marc:We'll make note of that.
Marc:So I would rather stay in a Marriott Suites hotel where I have a refrigerator
Marc:in a microwave, and some of them have stoves or an extended stay.
Marc:See, when you really start working the road, that's where the real payoff is going to be.
Marc:What, stoves?
Marc:Yeah, stoves and hotel rooms.
Guest:Sweet.
Guest:I look forward to that.
Marc:So when you get to a particular town, if you're there for three days, you're not held hostage to the dietary restrictions of corporate food court food.
Guest:Yeah, that's the worst, because I cannot handle that.
Guest:I have the most sensitive stomach.
Guest:I can't do
Marc:I know.
Marc:Didn't I bring you somewhere and you had a problem?
Guest:I mean, probably.
Marc:Where was that?
Marc:In Vancouver?
Guest:Did we go?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I had fried scallops.
Guest:I should have known better.
Marc:Oh, no, Seattle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was in Seattle.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, immediately.
Guest:I finished my meal and I was like, yeah, I'm going to go.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:You couldn't even make it out for the bikes.
Guest:Nope, I was done for most of the afternoon.
Marc:Is that clinical?
Marc:I mean, can you treat it?
Guest:I mean, in high school, they thought I had the most severe case of IBS they'd ever seen.
Guest:They thought it was stomach cancer.
Guest:Because I literally, for about four years, woke up every morning with just explosive diarrhea.
Guest:Just every morning.
Guest:That was just part of my routine.
Marc:Have you got any good shitting in public stories in your pants?
Guest:There was one time... Actually, there was one time I was on a conclave.
Marc:Sorry, being insensitive.
Guest:No, it's fine.
Guest:It's my life, you know?
Guest:Shitting all the time.
Guest:I was at this thing for my Jewish youth group when I was like 15.
Guest:Jewish youth group stories.
Guest:Yeah, and we were on a bus in Wisconsin, and we had just gone to Taco Bell.
Guest:So, I mean, already, red flags.
Guest:Did you know when you were eating it that...
Guest:I mean, yeah, it's always like sort of Russian roulette with Mexican food.
Guest:Mexican roulette.
Guest:And immediately I just knew I had to go and it was like in a school bus.
Guest:So there was no bathroom and I had to go up to my rabbi's
Guest:The front of the bus and say, you know, bad things are happening to me.
Guest:We really need to pull over the next rest stop.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, I'll make sure of it.
Guest:So we went back.
Guest:I went back to the back of the bus.
Guest:And, you know, the rest stop was five miles ahead.
Guest:And I'm just like, you know, pacing.
Guest:And then the bus driver just blew right past it.
Guest:And the next rest stop wasn't for like 45 miles.
Guest:And I didn't know.
Guest:My body was going to explode, you know.
Guest:And I...
Guest:And to this day, I can't listen to Tom Petty without thinking of I put on the Wildflowers album and like the only time I've ever successfully meditated.
Guest:But I meditated for those 45 minutes to the next rest stop and ran.
Guest:And I my friend was in the bathroom and he said he's never heard a human body make.
Guest:Those kinds of noises.
Guest:I was in there for, everyone on the bus is waiting for me.
Guest:I was in there for like 35 minutes just evacuating.
Marc:So that is an amazing testament to the power of meditation and complete fear of pure judgment.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I probably hurt my body in the long run the way I was clenching every muscle.
Marc:Because that is a superhuman feat.
Guest:That is almost Nietzschean.
Guest:I still, to this day, I don't know how I did it because it was bad.
Marc:I guess the power of being the guy that shit in the back of the school bus for the rest of your life.
Marc:Forever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And was this the beginning of the trip?
Marc:No, we were on our way back.
Marc:So you made it, you know, you were cool the whole time.
Marc:Like, you know, people still thought the same of you.
Marc:You were Joe Mandy.
Guest:Well, they knew I was in there for, they knew something was up.
Marc:But,
Marc:But it's amazing to me that those kind of things can define, I mean, literally, it would have defined the future of your life.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:Yeah, and actually, my high school, I went to a really just insane high school, and you could not take a shit in my high school.
Guest:Because if anyone saw, you know, the bathrooms were sort of wide open if you walked in, and if anyone saw legs dangling, or, you know, if they saw legs under the stall, then you were just, you were going to get tortured.
Guest:People would throw, like, wet...
Guest:toilet paper at you.
Guest:Just for shitting.
Guest:Just for shitting.
Marc:So I... What kind of high school is that?
Marc:I went, yeah.
Marc:I kind of remember that, though.
Marc:I remember situations where, I don't know if it was high school, but there was one situation where they didn't even have doors on the stalls.
Guest:Right, it wasn't that bad, but I mean, usually what would happen, and I only...
Guest:I actually, ninth grade, I took a couple shits in high school and then vowed never again, you know, because people would kick the door open, laugh at you, throw stuff at you.
Guest:It was terrifying.
Marc:So you're saying they would throw shit at you in the bathroom?
Guest:Yeah, not like shit.
Marc:No, no, no, but it wouldn't happen in the classroom or something.
Guest:No, but what would happen, too, is if you came out, there would always be some dude who would see you walk out and then just walk behind you down the hallway and be like, yo, that dude took a shit.
Guest:That dude took a shit.
Guest:So you'd just be like this awful, awful, shameful feeling of...
Marc:Don't you ever wonder what drives those people?
Guest:It is kind of funny.
Guest:I mean, you have to realize I was like four feet tall in braces.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I mean, I was an easy kid.
Guest:Yeah, it was easy.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:How much hate built up from that era of your life?
Guest:Man.
Guest:My high school years were... You were short, head braces.
Guest:I was short.
Guest:Not only that, I went to St.
Guest:Paul Central High School.
Guest:Where?
Guest:In St.
Guest:Paul, Minnesota.
Guest:St.
Guest:Paul Central, which has a reputation for being sort of...
Guest:a rough i mean it's it's like the movie dangerous minds yeah it was like that school but with like an honors program right so like it actually had this like kind of apartheid vibe to the school where like the white kids took the honor the white kid and the white kids and the asian girls took honors classes and everyone else took regular classes and hated those honors and it was just there was just some tension like and the the honors classes tended to be on the top two floors because
Guest:Cream rises to the top or whatever.
Guest:And yeah, and there was just, there was a little, it was just, it was just strange.
Guest:The whole vibe was very strange.
Guest:And there were, there used to be race riots before I got there.
Guest:So I mean, that was like, we had a daycare.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And actually our football field had barbed wire surrounding it, but the barbed wire went in.
Guest:Why would you want to keep people in the football field, not out of it?
Marc:They were probably preparing just in case some other riot situation happened.
Guest:The rumor, I don't know if this is true, but the rumor was that the architect who designed our school also designed the prison in Stillwater, Minnesota.
Guest:out right it was no it was sort of like a modern looking building so but like the doors would magnetically lock during class and stuff it was very just like prison like you know so this is one of those situations where they did an architectural experiment with one of the more difficult schools and said that you know give it these elements of yeah and um my dad
Guest:When I was in ninth grade, my dad's job was he put kids in prison.
Guest:He was a juvenile prosecutor, right?
Guest:So like my third day of school, I got lost in the hallway and this giant dude just grabbed me by my neck and threw me against the locker and was like, your dad put my cousin in prison.
Guest:Oh my God, so you were in prison.
Guest:Yeah, and I was like, yeah, he's a dick.
Guest:He sold your dad out like that.
Guest:He was like, he makes me mow the lawn.
Guest:Yeah, that fucker.
Marc:We have a huge lawn.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:Just immediately.
Guest:Threw dad under the bus.
Guest:You got to.
Guest:Yeah, you have to.
Guest:And I mean, yeah.
Guest:And that was the point of my life where I didn't... Both of my parents were trial lawyers.
Guest:So I just... There was a few years where I just didn't talk to my parents because they would just...
Guest:Oh man, between my sister and I, we would just get cross-examined on everything.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:That was just how we were raised, just constant.
Guest:So always looking for the lie?
Guest:They were always looking for the lie.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:And my parents are much better.
Guest:They never said that my client, my son,
Guest:Basically.
Guest:We would be sitting at a dinner table, and if they smelled anything fishy, they were back on the clock and just grilling us until they figured out what the issue was or whatever.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And my sister and I both handled that in different ways, because I think from 7th to 10th grade, I just...
Guest:basically just pleaded the fifth on everything you know i mean i just didn't talk to them because i didn't want to incriminate myself so i really like there's a few years i hardly ever talked to my parents just out of fear of being uh grilled yeah and my sister on the other hand she uh she sort of just pled insanity my sister was just this like wall of noise she just like everything was just anytime my parents tried to confront her and she just scream and slam her door and that was i kind of jello actually that's a much better tactic i just internalized everything and uh
Marc:Well, that's interesting that it's a unique take on the boundary-less intrusiveness of parents.
Marc:You're not in a situation where there's clearly emotional interdependence or that type of boundary-lessness, but they're literally like they will take all of their skill and craft...
Marc:from years of prosecutorial.
Guest:Really good at it, too.
Guest:Oh, they both are really good?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's relentless.
Guest:It was.
Guest:That's the exact word.
Guest:Relentlessly.
Guest:It was just insane.
Guest:And it's funny now that my parents have totally, I think my whole family sort of chilled out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we're all older.
Guest:And my dad actually is sort of retired from law and is now starting his own dog training.
Right.
Guest:Business?
Guest:The dream.
Guest:Yeah, the dream.
Guest:He's got to control something.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And my dad, actually, we had this funny moment last year where he had just taken all these really kind of intensive courses on how to, this kind of animal behavioral stuff.
Guest:And he was learning a lot about dog training.
Guest:He didn't ask you to get in a box.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:But he did sort of come up to me and apologize for how he treated me as a kid.
Guest:how everything he does with dogs now is all about positive reinforcement and he was sort of apologizing for being more like a dog yeah exactly i was like that i was like it was kind of this touching thing where my dad sort of you know the meaning he's very this very touching thing he's trying to you know tell me this he's very sorry but i was like okay that's great but now you now i know you think of me as a dog yeah and then after he said that he said come here boy right yeah gave me a liver treat it was delicious
Marc:But how did you, like, as a comic, you know, and as somebody that, you know, I had some liabilities.
Marc:I mean, I had braces.
Marc:You know, I don't, you know, you seem to be a little more disciplined than I am.
Marc:What were you like in high school in terms of education?
Marc:Were you nerds?
Guest:I've always been sort of an intellectual idiot.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That was always sort of, I was smart and I got good grades, but I was always doing stupid things to get attention.
Guest:In fact, I ended up running for student council
Guest:we had like a student council president, sort of like a student council oligarchy.
Guest:That was sort of how our school, and so there were 10 people who were in charge of the student council, and I ran and won, and my campaign was just utter ridiculous, and it was just, all my posters were pictures of me and Kathy Lee Gifford, and nothing made any sense, and it was clearly I was the,
Guest:anti-candidate right and I won and I literally only did that so I could get a card to leave school and go use the bathroom at my house it was a complete cynical use a political power but I needed that card to get it because I otherwise I mean I spent sophomore and junior year just skipping school if I was having problems you know so I was like I saw an opportunity and so your whole life has really been defined by your your sphincter
Guest:Oh, completely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, up until, yeah, I sort of manage it now.
Guest:I take fiber pills every day and that's sort of, it's magic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, so you got the card so you could just at any time say, I got to go home and spend some time.
Marc:So that whole like shitting at school thing, the fact that it was so, such a social liability was just torture.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was late.
Guest:I mean, most of my problems happen early in the morning because it's stress induced my stomach problems.
Guest:So it's still to this day, like if I have to wake up too early for like going to the airport, I have to make sure.
Guest:You give yourself time?
Guest:I factor in like, yeah, an extra 40.
Marc:Now what about performing?
Marc:I mean, when you have larger performing opportunities, are you one of those people that sort of like?
Guest:Well, when I first started, I had problems for sure.
Guest:But yeah, I don't, I've never had like real stage fright.
Guest:So that was never really going up on stage wasn't.
Guest:But what about the haven't you had the fear of things not working?
Guest:Initially at first.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You sort of just were able to take the stage and not.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That sort of you.
Marc:That's interesting.
Guest:I mean, even back in junior high, I ran for student council, and there was a big speech, and I had no problem with that.
Guest:Did you kill?
Guest:I killed.
Guest:Yeah, I killed.
Guest:I literally was just like, I want, because you got to go to these city-wide student council meetings and eat free pizza.
Guest:And go to the bathroom there.
Guest:I was just like, I want to eat free pizza.
Guest:And people were like, yes, okay.
Guest:Go to the bathroom in other places.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Other cities.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Other parts of town.
Guest:Right, all over St.
Marc:Paul.
Marc:Did you, like, when you were out with your friends, did you know where the good bathrooms were?
Guest:Oh yeah, I mean, for sure.
Guest:And I have a mental map of Manhattan.
Guest:I know every bathroom, yeah.
Marc:It's hard here.
Marc:It is.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, the go-to place used to be the Barnes and Noble.
Marc:But sometimes you never know when you're gonna walk into a homeless situation.
Guest:Yeah, I've had a few of those.
Guest:And then feeling like feeling you're interrupting, you know, I wouldn't want anyone to do that when I'm.
Marc:So there's an understanding, I imagine, between people with irritable bowel syndrome and homeless bathing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There's a lot of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You meet a lot of interesting people.
Marc:So you're I guess what I'm getting at is in high school as a comic, usually you find some way to ingratiate yourself to those that would torture you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think junior year I ended up winning like class clown.
Guest:I was in the my high school had an improv troupe.
Guest:My whole like actually my whole comedy career came out of some dude sort of dismissing me when I said I wanted to run, you know, try out for the improv team in my high school.
Guest:He was like, wow, you're not funny.
Guest:And to this day, I mean, that's the reason I was just like, fuck you.
Marc:I guess that's why I related to you and maybe we're kindred spirits is that a lot of your life was fueled by spite.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Spite against those who would condescend and judge.
Marc:But were you able to sort of baffle and...
Marc:ingratiate yourself to the more menacing of the jocks and perhaps the more menacing of the bad element.
Guest:My favorite story of that, in ninth grade I took Spanish in high school.
Guest:It was the only non-honors class I ever took.
Guest:And I showed up the first day, ninth grade, so I was very short and braces and sweater vests.
Guest:I don't know why I wore sweater vests.
Guest:Who made you do that?
Guest:What?
Guest:I thought it was cool.
Guest:And I got into Spanish the first day of class and it was just me and the JV basketball team.
Guest:That was the class basically.
Guest:And I was like, it'll be fine.
Guest:I listened to Outkast or whatever.
Guest:And I sit down and they were just ruthless.
Guest:They would make fun of me.
Guest:They would call me names.
Guest:They would choke me.
Guest:I got choked a lot, but it was never violent.
Guest:They just would come up from behind when I wasn't expecting it and like rap.
Guest:sometimes it was like piano wire i don't like they had piano wire they would like wrap wire around my neck and i would freak out obviously yeah and then they would let go and just crack up they'd be like ah ha ha you stupid yeah yeah you know he's like oh he's writing for the right reason right what an idiot right what an idiot i was like how stupid of me to freak out yeah um so it was just it was bad and they would throw like empty cans of soda at my head and stuff it was just
Guest:It sucked.
Marc:And the teacher just let this happen?
Guest:Yeah, our teacher.
Guest:That Spanish teacher was so broken.
Guest:She was so done with life that it was chaos.
Marc:She was an older public school teacher.
Guest:She looked like Newman from Seinfeld, so everyone called her Newman.
Guest:They would call her Miss Newman, and she would respond to it.
Guest:I mean, it was bad.
Guest:And then that December, our principal made this big announcement that no more gambling was allowed in the hallways.
Guest:Was there gambling?
Guest:Yeah, people played dice in the hallways and stuff.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:What kind of fucking hype was this?
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:There were active dice games?
Guest:There were active dice games.
Guest:Like, come on, seven!
Guest:The Asian kids would have breakdance competitions in between classes.
Guest:In the hallway.
Guest:In the hallway.
Guest:And I actually started doing this thing.
Guest:I do it on stage sometimes, too.
Guest:I got really good at making it look like I was about to start breakdancing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause actually I was just trying to get through the hallway.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I would get in the middle of this like big circle and it would be like my turn.
Guest:And I would start like moving around to the, to the music and like, you know, pumping my shirt and making it look like I was about, and I would just do it until they realized I was never going to start.
Guest:I would go for like two minutes without actually doing any dancing before they like pushed me out of the circle.
Guest:But anyway, back to the story.
Guest:So our principal, she instituted this no gambling policy.
Guest:And I saw an opportunity and I went up to these kids in the back of my class and I was like, you know, I can teach you a gambling game that you'll never get in trouble for playing if you just stop choking me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was that clear.
Guest:There was a negotiation.
Guest:Yeah, it was a clear negotiation.
Guest:And they thought about it.
Guest:And the next day I brought I taught them how to play dreidel for money.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:And so for like a good month outside my Spanish class, you would walk by and just see these black kids in like Averex jackets huddled over a top.
Guest:Yeah, just like, yo, that's a W, motherfucker.
Guest:Pay off.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were they gambling for chocolate coins?
Guest:No, they weren't.
Guest:For real coins.
Guest:For real paper money.
Marc:I wonder what Yahweh thought of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, but I thought that when you think about the history of the Jewish people and the Jewish scholars and the debate and Talmudic arguments that elevated and guaranteed the safety of a Jew, you did something very proactive.
Marc:Yeah, who knows?
Marc:Maybe they converted.
Marc:That's a W. I don't even know what's on a dreidel.
Marc:So did you do the Hanukkah thing?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Now that I'm away from my parents' judgment, I'm not too practicing.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know if it's the same with you, but as a Jew growing up in New Mexico, and you were there for a brief time.
Marc:For 11 years.
Marc:But having parents that come from Jews, but we never really identified ourselves as anything but conservative.
Marc:There was still that sort of like, we're better than the reform because they have an organ, singing.
Marc:We were, that was us.
Marc:Oh, you had the organ?
Marc:Yeah, probably.
Marc:But the weird thing coming out of it, outside of identifying myself culturally and following a certain number of the traditions because of family and it was expected of you, I was never given any sense of God at all.
Marc:Yeah, I never bought into it.
Marc:It's not even buying into it.
Marc:No one ever said I had to pray.
Marc:No one ever really made me understand what belief meant.
Marc:And I'm grateful for it.
Marc:It was never posited in my brain that God was something to be feared or that God answered any questions whatsoever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, someone's got to drive that in.
Guest:Yeah, I never got that either.
Guest:I didn't get into Hebrew school either.
Guest:I was Jewish growing up.
Guest:I went to Jewish summer camp and youth group stuff and never took that part of it seriously.
Guest:My friends and I were just awful.
Guest:When you drop a prayer book, you're supposed to kiss it.
Guest:We would drop it on purpose just to make out with our
Guest:Just going to second base with our prayer books.
Guest:We're just terrible.
Guest:And never took it seriously.
Guest:And then I had this experience a couple of Passover.
Guest:It was four or five years ago.
Guest:It was Passover.
Guest:And I was doing the Passover thing to see if it meant anything to me.
Guest:And I ended up getting conned by this Israeli guy for like $400 when I had no money.
Guest:And the whole time he was like, it's a mitzvah, it's a mitzvah.
Guest:And I knew I was getting conned.
Guest:But in my head I was like.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Because the whole thing was like he was saying.
Guest:This guy was awful.
Marc:Wait, I don't know.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:This guy was at a Seder?
Marc:He was running an expensive Seder?
Guest:No, man.
Guest:It was a straight up, like, I was waiting for a train.
Guest:I was at work.
Guest:And it was over Passover.
Guest:It was over Passover.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So you were aware of Passover.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm pissed off that I can't eat bread.
Guest:Like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Okay, so you're saying that, like, you know, you followed the rules for Passover.
Guest:I was following the rules, yes.
Guest:And I was seeing if it meant anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because up until that point, like, I was just doing it because I was expected to.
Marc:Well, you go, you eat, and you do the plate, and there's something funny and kind of, you know, endearing about if you're with family.
Guest:Yeah, but I wasn't.
Guest:I was by myself in New York, and I was seeing, you know, if I were- Joe Mandi's search for meaning.
Guest:Right, and then I definitely found it.
Guest:This guy came up to me, and he was like, excuse me, are you Jewish?
Guest:Are you Jewish?
Guest:And I feel bad, but I usually say no.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Because I just don't... I usually fight them to not make me do tefillin on the train.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:But I know that's what they're going to do.
Guest:So was that to seed him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, well, he wasn't.
Guest:Normally it is.
Guest:This guy looked like Michael Chiklis.
Guest:Like a tan Michael Chiklis.
Guest:And I was like, yeah.
Guest:And he started telling me how...
Guest:At first, he just wanted to know if this was the train to Queens, because he had to get to LaGuardia.
Guest:And then he started telling me this weird story about his wife and his child were at this house in Astoria, and he was trying to get his shekels in order.
Guest:And it just made no sense.
Guest:And he was like, can you help me?
Guest:It's a mitzvah.
Guest:I just need you to go to this bank and help me convert shekels into dollars, because I don't have a bank account in America.
Guest:And I was like, okay, sure, whatever.
Marc:This was a hustle designed for Jews.
Guest:Yeah, it was, and it's also the worst hustle.
Guest:It got to the point where we surfaced, we were on 59th Street, and he started asking me about my girlfriend, and is she Jewish, and I said no, and then he was like,
Guest:better dumper you know and I was like who are you you know and then but yet you're following him to a bank exactly and then he's like you know my grandparents didn't die in the holocaust for you to date a Christian girl and I was like you know and then the whole time I'm like they didn't you're clearly a liar you know you're a liar but I'm trying to but he keeps he's nailing home that it's a mitzvah it's a mitzvah I'm helping him we're Jewish we're achim you know all this whole thing so we get to the bank and I'm like okay so give me your shekels and then he was like no you you misunderstand I uh
Guest:I need money to turn into shekels.
Guest:And I was like, that's the opposite of what you said.
Guest:And he told me he needed $400.
Guest:He did the conversion rate.
Guest:He said, this many shekels.
Guest:And then was like, that's about 400.
Guest:But at the time, also, I had a broken iPod.
Guest:And I was actually waiting to buy a new iPod.
Marc:So you couldn't check the shekel to turn?
Guest:So I don't know why I did this.
Guest:I went and I got $400 out of my savings account and I handed it.
Guest:I was about to hand it to the guy.
Guest:And then I was like, wait, I need your information.
Guest:Because he said his name.
Guest:First of all, he said his name was Israel from Israel.
Guest:And then he owned the biggest falafel stand in Jerusalem.
Guest:He was the worst con man in the world.
Guest:You're falling for it.
Guest:I was completely knowingly.
Guest:To this day, I don't know why I did this.
Guest:And so I gave him the money, and then he wrote on a deposit slip.
Guest:It was all in Hebrew script, like Israel from Israel, a phone number with like 30 digits.
Guest:And then he just walked away with all my money.
Guest:And I was just like, I just gave that dude my iPod.
Guest:That's my iPod.
Guest:And I was just like, just to see if I can trust this.
Guest:I mean, I don't know why I did it.
Guest:It bothers me so much.
Guest:And I was like, well, at least I got a story out of it.
Guest:And I did it.
Guest:I told that story a few nights later on stage.
Guest:And in the back of the room, I hear someone just freak out.
Guest:And when I get off stage, it was Nick Kroll.
Guest:This dude, same dude con Nick Kroll out of like $250, uh, you know, like on two Bishvat or something like, like this guy knows how to find like, uh, like insecure 23 year old Jews going through some sort of spiritual crisis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So it's a mitzvah.
Marc:It's a mitzvah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's another interesting story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, you, you, you taught the Goliaths how to play dreidel for money.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then this is some other weird – I mean that story is like a parable.
Marc:And also it was – I also had this like very – But how did you come to peace with it?
Guest:Well, what I did was when I handed him the money, I said, I just want you to know if you don't pay me back, I don't believe in God.
Guest:So you're going to have to deal with that.
Guest:Like some Cameron Crowe movie.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I'm just forcing this.
Marc:That was the best you could do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he was like, okay.
Guest:And then just skipped away.
Guest:What does he care?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I was forcing this huge plot point in my life.
Guest:You will pay me back or I don't believe in God.
Guest:Like he cares if I believe in God.
Marc:So the real punchline of that story as a stage piece was that someone else had run into the same guy.
Guest:Well, now it is.
Guest:I mean, at first I was just telling the story because I was trying to figure out if it was anything worthy of stand-up.
Marc:But now it'd be, yeah, but like Nick Kroll, it's so funny.
Marc:But because in my life, even today, there's something about our vulnerability.
Marc:Like I come from, like you come from a family of litigators, which is interesting.
Marc:So, you know, they call bullshit.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And, you know, I come from, you know, a father who is very susceptible to being a mark, that he's a sucker.
Marc:So most of my adult life, I know that I was brought up like that, that that like, you know, that I'm easily suckered.
Marc:So I've had to be vigilant against having that sensitivity.
Marc:And I'm not sure what it is.
Marc:And I think part of it for me is that there's something impressive about hustlers.
Marc:That, you know, you're sitting there.
Marc:It's like this.
Marc:You're being played.
Marc:And you know you're being played.
Marc:They commit 100%.
Marc:But you want to believe.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Even though in your mind.
Marc:Like my father.
Guest:This guy, the whole time I was like, you are a liar.
Guest:You're terrible at this.
Guest:But I was strung along.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:It was like hypnosis.
Guest:You're a smart guy.
Guest:You can't figure out why.
Guest:No.
Guest:Other than I needed a reason to not believe in God, and it was like a selfish – if it's $400 for me to live with that, then whatever.
Marc:I'm trying – because I had something like that happen to me, and it sort of stuck in my craw.
Marc:I bought – years ago, I bought pot on the street in San Francisco.
Marc:No, it was here in New York from from a junkie.
Marc:But I wanted to buy pot, but I didn't do it.
Marc:And I knew I was going to get burned.
Marc:I knew there was no way I wasn't going to get burned.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How does that guy have weed?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I came home and I had a big balloon full of garbage.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I knew when I did it.
Marc:And I think that on some on some level with that, maybe this is it.
Marc:You never wanted to do that again.
Marc:So you were going to pay $400 to never have that happen.
Guest:It sort of felt like that because also I'm never going to find anyone that obviously.
Marc:But there's something about, you know, like there's something about because, you know, I have to assume on some level you still fucking hate yourself for doing that.
Marc:Oh, so much.
Marc:So that feeling is enough to stop you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You paid $400 to be wary of anyone's bullshit and not fall for it.
Marc:It very well could be.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's fucking interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, and I guess that would be the parable, is that it costs you that much money to never do that again.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm fine with that.
Marc:Because the situation that I can relate to that is that my father has become this weird...
Marc:Sort of like, you know... Dog trainer?
Guest:No, not a dog trainer.
Marc:We went through that.
Marc:My father, we bred... He was a dog shower.
Marc:We had Old English Sheepdogs, and we had one that was a champion.
Marc:My father was very into showing dogs.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And we went through that as a family, you know, like, you know, five or four English sheepdogs at one time.
Marc:And the very special one that we had to drive and hang out with dog show people.
Marc:You know, he was prone to those sort of weird, obsessive hobbies.
Marc:That one included live dogs.
Marc:But now he's like into alternative medicine and he's very into this vitamin thing.
Marc:And I went to one of these new agey type of expos with him because his buddy who manufactures a vitamin called the memory revitalizer is someone he has aligned himself with.
Marc:And, you know, this guy is like a weird kind of libertarian.
Marc:You know, the FDA is on our ass.
Marc:And he makes this vitamin that's got all this shit in it that's supposed to, you know, fight Alzheimer's.
Marc:And my father, obviously, is very impressed with this character.
Marc:And when I met him, I looked right through him.
Marc:I said, this guy is fucking snake oil.
Marc:This is the definition of snake oil salesman.
Marc:This is what it really is.
Marc:And I held that.
Marc:And I held that frame of mind.
Marc:And then I don't know when it happened, but I am now buying vitamins directly from him.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Marc:How's your memory?
Marc:I don't know if it's changed anything.
Marc:But with that kind of hustle, you get involved with it.
Marc:And then whether it's not just the regular ebb and flow of your neurotransmitters on a day-to-day basis, if you have a good day, you're going to attribute it to the vitamins.
Marc:So then you get into this weird thing where you're afraid to stop.
Marc:And that's how they get you.
Marc:It's also smart to have a villain like the federal government.
Marc:Well, yeah, you know, like, because my dad's like, yeah, they're always checking his shit.
Marc:Are they checking his shit?
Marc:I mean, he did just change the capsules from green to blue, which is a more attractive, you know, looking capsule.
Marc:But you got to take six of them.
Marc:And, you know, that's, you know, if you get hooked on them.
Marc:That's hard to remember to take six memory pills.
Guest:Well, if you do it every day, you would hope that.
Guest:So it's sort of like Islam.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:I mean, you take six pills different times every day.
Guest:No, you do it all at once.
Guest:Oh, you do it all at once.
Marc:But to this day, I'm like, why am I doing this knowing that it's bullshit?
Marc:Because there's part of me that thinks maybe it's not bullshit.
Marc:Now, what happened when you tried to track that guy down?
Guest:I mean, I called that number, and of course, it was just like nothing.
Guest:And I sort of just gave up.
Guest:I knew it was a lost cause.
Marc:So now, let's talk about the website and the book.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:What is it?
Guest:Look at this fucking hipster?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How did that start?
Guest:It started actually with my parents came to town last year for my dad's birthday.
Guest:And I took him out to dinner in my neighborhood in Williamsburg.
Guest:And when they got off the train at North 7th Street, my dad's head exploded because he had no idea what he was looking at.
Guest:you know my dad used to be a hippie so he's he sort of has uh rationalized that like well i was fine you know so it was a war going on i was fighting the war so like he kept that like who are these people who are these hipsters yeah he was like are they against the war and i was like no i don't think so you know and the more questions he asked about hipsters the more confused he got and the harder it was to explain uh-huh what what what i was surrounded by right and uh
Guest:So I told my dad when we were eating dinner that he should start a blog called Is This a Hipster?
Guest:Where he would take pictures of people in my neighborhood and then just underneath, like, yes or no, and then people could vote whether they were or not.
Guest:And then I realized, you know, shortly after dinner that my dad's never going to be able to figure out a blog, his software.
Guest:Or his new camera.
Guest:Or, well, he's actually very good with adapt with the camera, but also he was in suburban Philadelphia, so there's no hipsters really, you know?
Guest:And so then I started it, like a week later, I started a website called Look at This Fucking Hipster and just was taking pictures of people in my neighborhood.
Guest:And it's one of those weird internet things that just, I had no intention, it was just a thing for my friends and I and my dad.
Guest:Just a joke.
Guest:And it just blew up kind of completely out of my hands.
Guest:And I did no publicity for it or anything.
Guest:Like the layout of the blog is just like the default settings.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I put no real effort into it.
Guest:It was just a yes or no question?
Guest:No, it was just pictures of people around Williamsburg and then just funny captions underneath, like little quotations of what they would be saying or what I imagined them thinking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It sort of, it was just like one of those, there was all this, I guess all this animosity towards hipsters and it just blew up.
Guest:And I felt very uneasy about it because even though I thought it was funny, like I had the problem, like people liking it almost too much.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Where, you know.
Marc:You thought you're doing a disservice to your peers.
Guest:Well, I just, I had no intention of people becoming, like, there's a guy on my website who, like, people now call him Beans, because I put a few pictures of him, and I called him Beans, because he looks like he should be called Beans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, and he goes to a lot of concerts, and people, like, get their picture taken with Beans and stuff.
Guest:It's so bizarre.
Guest:Has he accepted it?
Guest:yeah i mean he in my book he's got his own chapter i had a professional photographer he came into brooklyn and uh we did like a full photo shoot with him so you it was you did what every hipster wants is you gave him a certain credibility and notoriety yeah and for us he wasn't he's not even really a hipster he's just like this lunatic but uh so he's just he was waiting for a nickname oh man yeah he's the funniest guy uh
Guest:And so, yeah, and then, so the blog was, it got really big, really quick, and I started getting, like, emails to my anonymous Gmail account from publishers saying, you know, let's make this a book, and I was just like, I didn't, I had real no, no interest, really, in doing that, and then I got an email from a friend saying that there was some guy in New York that was going around town pitching my book, saying he was the author of the blog, so going into meetings and trying to get a book deal, uh,
Guest:So the book I ended up writing was completely out of a defensive stance where I was just like... Did you find out who he was?
Guest:I don't know who the guy was.
Guest:You really don't?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I really don't.
Guest:It wasn't Beans.
Guest:It wasn't Beans.
Guest:So again, spite drove you to create.
Guest:Yeah, and defensiveness, yeah.
Guest:And the book itself, it's funny.
Guest:I ended up writing the whole thing in just a few weeks.
Guest:And has it sold well?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I mean, I don't... It's hard to know with that.
Guest:It's hard to know.
Guest:I mean, it's at Urban Outfitters and stuff, but I've always tried to separate that from my stand-up, because the... What are you going to do, bring slides on?
Guest:Right, and also, it's just, that's not my... I mean, it's not really my...
Guest:My thing?
Guest:That's not my sense of humor, really.
Guest:It's just... It's just like it was a hooky thing.
Guest:It was a side project I was working on.
Marc:Pictures are good.
Marc:People like pictures.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was an easy thing.
Marc:It wasn't even a side project.
Marc:It was this thing you just did as a fluke.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Completely.
Marc:Now, let me ask you in a general sense about hipsters, because I've been working on a joke that...
Marc:There's a confusion in terms of where some hipsters draw from historically.
Marc:I have a big problem with handlebar mustaches.
Guest:You should.
Marc:Everyone should.
Marc:I have a problem with fedoras.
Marc:And then I saw a guy with a handlebar mustache and a fedora, and I think he was wearing jodhpurs or something.
Marc:And then it occurred to me that it looks like he dressed quickly running through a time tunnel.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You think that'll work as a joke?
Marc:Yeah, that's funny.
Marc:And I don't, like, when, you know, obviously there's a resentment, you know, and I have found in my life that a lot of that type of resentment, it's primarily based on the amount of effort put into their personal appearance.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That defines any sort of, you know, cultural meme at any given time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the hipsters seem to try to outdo each other with resources in terms of vintage facial hair, you know, found clothing.
Marc:They're all just trying to out-silly each other.
Marc:Is it silliness though?
Guest:Because I think some of these people are presenting themselves rather seriously.
Guest:Well, they are very serious about being silly.
Guest:I mean, I don't really know.
Guest:I can't really speak for them.
Guest:But the funniest thing about hipsters to me is that no one is a hipster.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No one will.
Guest:It's a slur.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the biggest hipster in the world has come up to me.
Guest:People who are textbook hipsters saying, oh, I hate hipsters.
Guest:I love your book.
Guest:And it's like, okay, dude.
Marc:Well, did you ever do any research into the – is it etymology?
Marc:I mean, I think the word hipster really sort of came out of white guys hanging around black jazz clubs.
Guest:It was.
Guest:I mean, I did some research, obviously, for my very important book.
Marc:Now I don't know if etymology was the right word.
Guest:That is the right word.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:You nailed it.
Guest:But it – yeah, it started off as sort of like a –
Marc:jazz term right yeah posers really but people who were into the hip subculture and that kind of evolved into beatnik yeah so so that that the history of the hipster is uh you know the um cold war outsider really you know you got hipster the jazz age white guy and that evolved into the cold war outsider and now i think it's just evolved into you know people who are trying with everything they have to look different than other people sort of aimless and assume a posture
Marc:Yeah, that I think the the real fallacy of it is that it means nothing other than what they're trying to do on an appearance level.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my biggest problem with it is that whenever you see any documentary or anything about the 60s, they show the same stock footage of like Haight-Ashbury and Jefferson Airplane's playing.
Guest:And it's like these people with like flowers in their hair dancing in in the park.
Guest:And I'm just afraid 30 or 40 years from now, it's all going to be stock footage of Bedford and North 7th and Animal Collective is going to be playing.
Guest:It's all these guys with overalls and handlebar mustaches and playing kickball.
Marc:You would hope that they even have that power of definition.
Marc:I mean, I think that the reason that that 60s footage is used is certainly now is it's almost mocking.
Marc:that, like your father, they believed that taking the liberties to present themselves like that was an actual rebellious act and identified themselves as a community with a cause.
Marc:And they had one, for real.
Marc:What's sad about that culture now is that any time there's legitimate social outcry outside of them
Marc:You know, being forced to only be active in penned off areas that they designate for activism is that the cameras on CNN will always go to like nine people that look like wavy gravy and some squatters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it undermines everything.
Marc:So that actual image of the hippie has now is clownish.
Marc:It is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's sad because, you know, they actually did something.
Marc:I believe.
Marc:Hipsters do nothing.
Marc:Comparatively, yeah.
Guest:And that's the thing.
Guest:That's what confused your father.
Guest:Do they stand for anything?
Guest:Yeah, they're just clowns.
Guest:When you look at what a clown is, they're clowns.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:They're serious clowns, which is the worst kind of clown.
Marc:I actually have another question.
Marc:The one thing that impresses me about your comedy is that
Marc:It's literate, it's smart, it's long form.
Marc:You seem to come from a tradition of what I will identify as Jewish monologists along the lines of Woody Allen, but a little more personal.
Marc:And that type of comedian is rare now.
Marc:In the 70s, back when New York dictated the cultural high point and neurotic Jews were unmedicated and the therapy was accepted across the world as being something that is possible and that is done and that neurotic Jews do and they talk about it.
Marc:is gone.
Marc:It's been medicated away.
Marc:It no longer exists as an archetype.
Marc:What's your success rate with this stuff?
Marc:Because you seem to have figured out how to make it work for you.
Guest:Well, I don't take medicine, so I guess that helps.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I think I've sort of figured out what I like doing on stage, and it is sort of short stories, you know?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And have you tried to take it to people that are not like-minded?
Guest:uh i i've been venturing out a little bit into uh i did a thing in vancouver recently and that was i was up there right i was there i think a week before you uh-huh and it was like a club it was like a clubby club and it took me a couple days to feel it out and figure out what jokes worked i mean it is there's an attention span that's the biggest issue yeah i mean people who are used to uh short one-liner simple things
Guest:I mean, I don't mean to demean.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:There's nothing demeaning about it.
Marc:But some people, joke structure is really about turning a phrase or a surprise ending.
Guest:There's nothing like that with me.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So in order to sort of move through something that requires them to lock in and follow you is different.
Marc:You're really dealing with sophistication and attention span.
Marc:But if you look at most one-liners or jokes, what they're waiting for is a surprise ending or a poopy ending.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm going for a more visceral thing where I'm trying to tell a story and keep people along for the ride.
Guest:And I've opened a few times for Biglia, and I've learned a lot of how he works, where he really does just try to hit jokes throughout the story.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And that's something you really have to— So what you do is—what I do and what people who tell stories do is that at some point you have to identify, either consciously or not, this is the laugh place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you can dictate the rest of the story.
Marc:Because I think when you first start with story form, you don't really know where they're going to come.
Marc:And I'm still like that.
Marc:There are times where I talk about something that's happened recently on stage where people laugh.
Marc:And then, you know, after the show, I got to go like, why'd they laugh there?
Marc:And can I make it happen again?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like, is it a face I made?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's the trickiest part about doing it that way.
Guest:yeah but it's working i'm trying i mean i'm figuring it out things seem to be going all right yeah yeah did you do have you done any television uh i'm wait i've done like live at gotham essentially but i'm waiting to do a late night show are you on uh are you uh in line at fallon show or who knows i don't i don't really i'm so my parents are so freaked out about that part of my life where i don't know
Guest:I don't know how things work.
Guest:I suppose I am.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I've sent tapes in.
Guest:I've talked to people.
Marc:I can tell you, honestly, as a guy who's been doing it a long time, the freaked outness will never go away.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm fine with that.
Guest:But my parents, my parents have been so cool about me being a comedian.
Guest:They never pressured me.
Guest:So I think I would be a pretty good trial lawyer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ultimately, I think my dad wanted to be a comedian, he and all his friends.
Guest:Lawyers definitely do.
Guest:Yeah, they hang out at dinner parties and get bombed and tell war stories.
Marc:I used to do a joke about lawyers are creative, charismatic, entertaining people that didn't have the courage to follow their dreams, so now they're going to make everyone else pay for it.
Guest:Okay, well, I hope my parents don't hear that.
Marc:Does that make sense?
Marc:I mean, I'm not saying it in a negative way, that most lawyers I've met that go the trial route are performers.
Guest:Oh, totally, yeah.
Marc:And many people, more so than other professions, have left law to do stand-up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Al Lubel, Greg Giraldo, Mike, there's been several.
Guest:Right, yeah, there is a performance aspect to it, for sure.
Guest:So your parents are a little more frightened than you are.
Guest:They are, I mean, they just think it's crazy what I'm doing, because they always ask me, like, what's the next thing?
Guest:And I was like, I don't know, I'll figure it out.
Marc:You're a guy, I imagine, you know, management and, you know, people who are somehow taking care of your career are trying to move you towards writing.
Guest:They are.
Guest:They're very, very into, I'm an ideas guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that's a, that's a. And I would love, I think ideally I would like to end up writing for television and still be able to do stand-up.
Guest:Well, I hope that happens, Joe.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Thanks for talking.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Marc:Okay, that's our show.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I'm very happy that you're all digging this show.
Marc:It makes me thrilled.
Marc:I'm trying not to acknowledge a lot of the press.
Marc:I mean, I'm taking it in, but I'm still just talking to you.
Marc:I've got to keep it that way in my head, and it seems to be staying that way in my head.
Marc:And the reason why it's easy for me to keep it there is I'm sitting in my garage right now, and that is not going to change.
Marc:Oh, let me do this.
Marc:Let me plug a couple of gigs.
Marc:Tomorrow night and Saturday, tomorrow night, Friday, 8 o'clock at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco, I will be doing a live WTF with Bobcat Goldthwait,
Marc:Will Franken, Baron Vaughn, Maria Bamford.
Marc:I think my friend Nato Green is going to stop by.
Marc:Maybe some other dropping guests.
Marc:We'll see how that goes.
Marc:And next week, Helium in Portland.
Marc:Next Wednesday through Saturday.
Marc:26th through the 29th.
Marc:Helium in Portland, Oregon.
Marc:It's going to be fun.
Marc:If it's anything like the other Helium, it's going to be great.
Marc:So come out to that.
Marc:Please go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Kick in a few bucks if you can.
Marc:We're running on donations here and advertising support.
Marc:It is my job.
Marc:I like doing it.
Marc:So throw us a bone if you can.
Marc:You can also get on the mailing list, which I've been very diligent about.
Marc:And new t-shirts under the merch button there.
Marc:American Apparel shirts.
Marc:I like the company.
Marc:They're great.
Marc:And we're going to be offering some more stuff.
Marc:There's going to be some mugs on the way.
Marc:Perhaps a pow, I just shit my pants mug.
Marc:Maybe a cat mug.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What do you think of that?
Marc:Mugs?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Hell yeah.
Marc:Also, WTFPodShop.com if you want to pick up the premium episodes, which will soon be available again on iTunes.
Marc:And get the app.
Marc:Go to iTunes.
Marc:Search WTF with Marc Maron.
Marc:App's fun.
Marc:A lot of cool stuff on it.
Marc:Oh, enough of this.
Marc:Enough.
Marc:I'm going to find an emotionally healthy relationship right now.
Marc:Going to make some calls.
Marc:Talk to you later.