Episode 146 - Dave Foley
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF with Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck anistas?
Marc:What the fuck tarians?
Marc:What the fuck Olympians?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Whatever you want to call yourselves.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am back in my garage today on the show.
Marc:The lovely and slightly pained Dave Foley.
Marc:I had a wonderful conversation with him that I'm going to share with you.
Marc:A little business to get out of the way before I start.
Marc:I will be at the House of Comedy in Bloomington, Minnesota at the Mall of America in the freezing cold.
Marc:That's just outside Minneapolis.
Marc:Not far for you Minneapolis what the fuckers.
Marc:I'll be there the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Can I just turn my phone off?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:OK, it's off.
Marc:So come out to that if you want.
Marc:I'd love to see you there.
Marc:I have no idea what I'm getting into.
Marc:I imagine I'll have plenty of things to look at in either an ironic way or just a sad way.
Marc:But I will be at the Mall of America.
Marc:Thanks for all the feedback on the now infamous Gallagher episode.
Marc:I appreciate your input.
Marc:I would like to open with a quote if I could.
Marc:My buddy Jack Boulware, writer up in San Francisco, dug this up for me and we were trying to figure it out.
Marc:We can never remember this quote from Jim Harrison, who is a genius novelist.
Marc:I will quote this.
Marc:Quote, the danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense, unquote.
Marc:That is from the opening sentence of the title story of Jim Harrison's collection, The Beast God Forgot to Invent.
Marc:I've gotten a lot of feedback about the Gallagher episode.
Marc:I've gotten feedback from from from the gay community saying that they were grateful for what I pointed out.
Marc:I got feedback from the some black comics I know that didn't think I went far enough in terms of taking him to task about what a black comic was or is.
Marc:I got feedback from people who were angry about a perceived disrespect I showed toward the man.
Marc:And I understand all this feedback and I welcome it.
Marc:The only thing that I want to say is that, look, my politics are not unclear, but I didn't come to that interview with politics.
Marc:I came to ask a question about certain accusations.
Marc:And I'm certainly not the political correct police or the comedy police.
Marc:I certainly have friends and peers who I think are funny who do questionable material, but they own it.
Marc:And I'm not saying that makes it right or wrong, but they do not skirt the issue of what they're putting out in the world and whether or not it has the effect that it has.
Marc:Some of them do it to maintain an audience.
Marc:Some of them do it to challenge preconceived notions of stereotypes and whatnot.
Marc:But my issue with Gallagher, you know, right from the beginning, and I'm not going to fester on this because I don't have any shame about it, but I did have to listen to it again and listen to your feedback.
Marc:was that he wanted respect on his terms.
Marc:And in that moment, I didn't feel that I owed him that respect.
Marc:And I was more than willing to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about.
Marc:And the reason I pressed him on certain issues was because I felt that they needed to be discussed.
Marc:In light of what he does and how he presents himself and what he's doing to pander to his audience.
Marc:And I know a lot of you felt bad for him.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:I appreciate all the input.
Marc:But but just know that my emotions got invested because I'm just a person.
Marc:And many of you know that I'm not the most grounded person in the world.
Marc:And I do have problems with some people.
Marc:And this just sort of escalated and escalated from the beginning.
Marc:And look, I chose to put it out there for you to enjoy.
Marc:I chose to put it out there for you to take in and have the responses you've had.
Marc:And I appreciate all the responses you've had.
Marc:Moving on, let's talk about Dave Foley.
Marc:Dave Foley is a wonderful guy.
Marc:I've met him a few times over the years, and I ran into him in Vancouver.
Marc:And we had a long conversation about our lives and about our pain.
Marc:And I just thought it would be great to talk to him because he's a sweet man and he's a very funny man.
Marc:And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dave Foley.
Marc:Sometimes headphones help you modulate.
Marc:Are they right there?
Guest:There are headphones here.
Guest:I always get very self-conscious.
Marc:Do you really?
Guest:I usually do the one ear.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Guest:When I'm doing radio or voice work.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And now voice work.
Marc:You do the cartoons.
Marc:You do cartoons.
Guest:I've done some cartoons, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Which cartoons did you do?
Guest:I did the most famous one would be A Bug's Life.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:I found I sound very sexy.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm a little distracted by how sexy I sound.
Marc:No, it's good.
Marc:That's why one wears a headphone.
Marc:See, it's working in a positive way.
Marc:We thought you would be insecure, and now you're like, wow, I had no idea.
Yeah.
Guest:I could actually make myself come just by making that sound.
Marc:Oh, you see, you don't need me here.
Marc:In the garage at the Cat Ranch, Dave Foley.
Marc:You know him from everything that he's ever done, but I didn't know that you did a Bug's Life.
Marc:That was Robert Shaw and...
Marc:What was the other writer's name?
Marc:Did you know them?
Marc:The writers?
Guest:I didn't know the writers.
Guest:I can't remember the writers.
Guest:Bob Shaw.
Guest:Bob Shaw, yeah, and it was the second.
Guest:It was the second Pixar film.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He used to do comedy years ago, and he once came up to me when I was just starting out, and he was already a veteran of sorts.
Marc:And I'd never met him before, and he said, great stuff, Mark.
Marc:I'll let you know how it works.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That was Bob Shaw.
Marc:So Dave Foley,
Marc:I had no idea you live right downtown.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Ever since my second divorce.
Marc:See, now I think we should just get right into it.
Marc:I think we should build a little bit.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:When it was built, something happy?
Guest:We'll have to go back about five years.
Marc:Well, thank God.
Marc:I thought you were going to say, to when I was in high school, before the dream started.
Guest:No, no, there have been a lot of happy adult years.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Yeah, very few happy childhood years.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:So there was a bit in between.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was good.
Marc:So it got better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But childhood, what part of Canada did you come from?
Marc:mostly Toronto.
Marc:But that's like nice, not Winnipeg.
Marc:And I'm not knocking Winnipeg.
Marc:No, you can knock Winnipeg.
Marc:I felt very abandoned there by the world.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:That's the state of living in Winnipeg as well.
Guest:It is, right?
Guest:If you live in Winnipeg, that's how you feel every day.
Marc:It was just brutal.
Guest:Everyone in Winnipeg thinks they're the only person living in Winnipeg.
Guest:Either I guess you can look at that as special or sad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kevin McDonald lives in Winnipeg from Kids in the Hall.
Guest:He still lives there?
Guest:He's living there.
Guest:Yeah, he moved there recently.
Guest:He fell in love and has moved there.
Marc:You've got to be really in love to move back to Winnipeg.
Marc:I was wondering because I did the festival up there a couple years ago and he was there.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Working at a booth.
Marc:No, I'm kidding.
Marc:No, he appeared, and I thought, well, that's great that he's up here, and it turns out he lives there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's happy there.
Guest:Yeah, well, he met this girl up there when he was doing the festival one year, so he's pretty much stayed there.
Marc:Now, are you guys all pretty...
Guest:Friendly?
Guest:Yeah, we are.
Guest:Actually, more friendly now than maybe than we've been since, like, the 80s.
Marc:Now, when somebody like Kevin meets a woman, given your history with that gender, do you say, like, oh, hmm...
Guest:Well, actually, this is a case where this is actually the first woman that Kevin's ever been with that actually likes him.
Guest:He's one of those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He likes to fight.
Guest:No, he likes to give in.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:He likes to lose.
Guest:That's what he likes to do.
Marc:But, I mean, fighting for the affection of someone who doesn't like you seems like a...
Guest:yeah a chore no i don't know he really fights but it just falls into his lap and he just takes it you know it's like you know it's like i hear i have a plan yeah wherein i abuse you emotionally for the next 10 years yeah and what you get out of this uh is of no concern to me this is that's the offer that's the day foley plan no that's the kevin mcdonaldi plan that's how kevin's relationships start i uh oh so but the woman is the abuser
Marc:in kevin's right so with me it'd be the flip side yeah yeah where that's how i enter a relationship yeah but but we had this bonding thing you and i we're in vancouver and it was like you know like when you've been divorced twice or you've gone through a bad divorce you you kind of remember you're a member of the heavy heart club yeah you know like you know you sort of like you exude it you know and i like you right when i saw him like yeah me too oh god
Guest:And when people who aren't in the club want to tell you their problems, it's just, you know, you're not in this league.
Guest:You can't begin.
Guest:Unless you're terminally ill, you cannot trump me.
Marc:Can't compete.
Marc:Unless there's terminal illness somewhere in the circle of your problems, no.
Marc:I am in an ongoing, financially draining, emotionally deadening process that I don't see a way out of.
Guest:yeah no are you able to draw from that experience for your material I think so I don't know well here's the which I think I think the appropriate response to this and I'm gonna predict what your response will be hmm is one of deep sadness mm-hmm I've started doing stand-up yeah
Marc:No.
Guest:The frozen attempt at enthusiasm on your face is precious.
Guest:No, I am happy about that.
Marc:Why would I begrudge you the opportunity to fully experience pain as a solo performer?
Guest:I know, but also going into it as a middle-aged man.
Guest:I had a lot of trepidation about it.
Guest:Just because so many of my friends are so skilled at it and have been honing it for their entire lives.
Guest:And it just seems something shitty about just going, you know what?
Guest:I'm famous.
Guest:I can probably get gigs.
Marc:Well, is that your incentive?
Marc:Basically.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, then it is dubious.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, of course it is.
Marc:No, I thought you were saying like, you know, finally I can, you know, really process my emotions and feelings in front of a room full of strangers with no protection.
Guest:That would be a lovely way to put it.
Guest:It would be a lie.
Yeah.
Guest:The motivation is entirely court-ordered.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So have you started booking stand-up gigs?
Guest:I've just been doing sets around downtown.
Marc:You just show up at these places where the comic-run shows type of places?
Guest:Yeah, I've been doing those, just to develop material.
Guest:I just started just before Christmas.
Guest:And how is it going?
Guest:It's going all right.
Guest:I've been enjoying it.
Guest:I actually have been enjoying it.
Guest:And what are you talking about?
Guest:Well, talking about things like my first marriage.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And talking about a bunch of things.
Guest:A lot of it seems dirty when I think about it, which I guess makes sense because most of the kids in the hall stuff is pretty dirty.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Now, are you finding that you're just because like when I think of watching kids in a hall and I was, you know, when I was, you know, work is certainly a comedy central.
Marc:I used to watch it constantly because I'd run clips from it that there was always sort of a buoyant kind of, you know, chipper, but, you know, sardonic element that you had.
Marc:But now, like, I have to assume that the buoyancy is has been diminished.
Marc:It is.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I'm my the water lines a little higher on my body.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just you kind of going... Keep my head up.
Marc:Lean back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Please be careful of your wake as you pass.
Guest:That's all I'm concerned about is please be conscious of your wake, people.
Marc:Have you had any train wrecks on stage?
Marc:No, not yet.
Guest:No, as I said, I've mostly been going up and it's been fairly loose so far because I'm still just developing some material.
Guest:Do you knock a few back before you...
Guest:I usually have a beer.
Guest:Oh, just a beer.
Guest:Yeah, I usually have a beer.
Guest:Sometimes two.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:That's it?
Guest:Or four.
Marc:Because I'm anticipating the possibility of you touring as a solo act.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And there are a couple of nights where you're just like, I can't do it.
Marc:And you drink too much.
Marc:And then we get some great YouTube of Dave Foley losing it in Kansas City.
Guest:I'm going to say that is almost inevitable.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Guest:If I know anything about me.
Guest:So look forward to those.
Guest:And my coping mechanisms.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:You're going to go out there on your own, right?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Just travel like we do.
Marc:Yeah, that's the plan.
Marc:Get your carry-on together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fly in.
Guest:Yes, travel as cheaply as possible, make as much money as possible.
Guest:And to fill the bag up with.
Guest:To fill the bag, yeah, because, yeah.
Marc:So now are you planning on doing comedy clubs?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, you're really doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to do it.
Guest:You know, hopefully I'll, you know, as I said, the, you know, what I was told by some other people, you know, they're saying, well, if, you know, if you're, if you have some recognition, you can go out, if you can put an act together, you can go out and, you know, you can get good gigs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Like, like, you know, the pay money that make it worth your while showing up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Marc:I think you got one good, you know, maybe a year run of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I would save the drunken, you know, sort of weird, you know, despairing sets for later in the run.
Marc:I thought that'd be how I'd warm up.
Marc:How to just start.
Marc:so then what happens is like you know if you see foley's doing stand-up now yeah and it's fucking it's it's it's chaos yeah i want well my hope is that the tour will be sponsored by suicide watch oh god yeah they'll have placards up yeah maybe they can like suggest it to people that call the hotline i'm thinking about killing myself wait we'll give you two tickets to dave foley if you buy drinks yeah
Marc:Good.
Marc:All right, well, I'm glad there's a plan in place.
Marc:So let's look back into the good years and then get back to this.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Now, you grew up in Toronto, which is a fairly sophisticated and quite pleasant Canadian city.
Guest:It is, yes.
Marc:And the childhood was, what, shitty?
Marc:Because...
Guest:Well, it was, you know, we moved constantly.
Guest:My dad was a steam fitter.
Guest:I don't even know what that is.
Guest:I guess it's also called a pipe fitter.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Industrial plumbing.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:You could do, like, you know, the pipe work for nuclear power plants, that sort of thing.
Guest:Holy shit.
Marc:So he's the guy with the hard hat going, just turn it out, bring it around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's the chronic alcoholic who was in charge of making sure that the nuclear rods were properly kept underwater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's reassuring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'd be up at four in the morning having his glass of VO and his smoke before going to work.
Marc:You gotta take the edge off, you know?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Sleeping's hard on people.
Marc:I know.
Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then he came home and what?
Guest:And then he would come home and mostly brood.
Guest:He was like a deeply depressed guy.
Guest:Not a yeller, though.
Guest:Oh, not a yeller.
Guest:No, he would inspire everyone else to yell.
Guest:Oh, just to get through to him?
Guest:With just his dark brood.
Guest:And he was just like so mean.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And you're just like yelling at him like, you know.
Guest:Come on, snap out of him.
Guest:You're a fucking horrible father.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:You know, that kind of yelling.
Guest:When did that start?
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:I'm assuming.
Guest:For me, probably around 10.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I think around 10.
Guest:You got siblings?
Guest:Yeah, I got, like, an older brother, younger brother, and an older sister.
Guest:Oh, man, that's a lot of you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was it your job, like, with me, because my dad was manic depressive, it was sort of on me to entertain him.
Marc:Did you?
Guest:Yeah, well, I thought I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I thought he was pleased by my dad was like a pipe fitter who fancied himself as a working class intellectual.
Guest:He wanted to be Jack Kerouac and looked a lot like Jack Kerouac and had the same drunken sibilance of Jack Kerouac towards the end of his life.
Guest:No matter how sober they are.
Guest:It's all bullshit.
Guest:You know, the S's stop working.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So then you need a translator of some kind?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So did he write?
Guest:When he was a young man, he wrote a lot, yeah.
Guest:And apparently my mom says that at some point when he was in his 20s, he took everything he wrote and threw them into the furnace and never wrote again.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Did he talk about that day?
Guest:He never did.
Guest:But your mom did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The disappointment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was just the day.
Guest:And then after that, he was an even bigger asshole.
Guest:But she stayed with him the whole time?
Guest:She's English.
Guest:She lived through the Blitzkrieg.
Guest:This was nothing.
Guest:No.
Guest:What does she know?
Guest:We can stay above ground on this one.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Only I can hear the sirens.
Guest:Yeah, English working class people, because the educated class of English are very different from the working class English.
Marc:Well, they try to maintain that.
Marc:I mean, they enforce that difference, don't they?
Guest:Yes, all of the rage.
Guest:That's what the working class people get, rage.
Guest:All that rage that the rich people don't express, that they express by saying, oh my.
Yeah.
Guest:That suppression of rage, it just filters down.
Marc:Right, the suppression of rage goes right into the hearts and souls of the working class, and then it's spewed at the upper class, and the upper class goes, oh, what is the commotion?
Guest:You want a pint?
Marc:Fuck!
Guest:Everything is a potential fight with the British working class.
Marc:And that's your mom comes from that?
Guest:She comes from that.
Guest:She comes from like a nice Midlands town.
Guest:But but that's, you know, that that, you know, it's not, you know, it's they she what she does have that the wealthy have as well was a complete inability to express emotion.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Other than anger.
Guest:She had that.
Guest:Yeah, she could do that, but she couldn't tell you that she loved you, that she was incapable of that.
Guest:So dad's brooding, mom said.
Guest:Whereas my dad would hug, and he would every six months want to hug and cry and talk about, I know I'm a bad father.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Marc:When they decide to hug you, and in your ear, they go, I don't want to live.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I didn't want to have any kids.
Guest:I didn't expect to live this long.
Guest:I don't know what's going on, but I know I'm a bad father.
Marc:Oh, it's such a horrible position to be in.
Guest:Well, I know you're a bad father, too.
Guest:This conversation's kind of redundant.
Guest:Yeah, so let's try to have some smiles.
Guest:Yeah, let's put Rockford Files back on.
Guest:That's when we're happy.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:So then we're just in the kitchen, and you said you were working on a paper on Lenny Bruce in your senior year of high school that you never finished.
Guest:I never did finish it.
Guest:See, I didn't realize in high school.
Guest:Sorry if it gets hot in here.
Guest:No, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, it's going to get hot.
Guest:You get ready for it.
Guest:I don't know why I'm sweating.
Marc:Dave Foley's going to turn it up in just a second.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to get old Kinison in here.
Marc:Yeah, fuck yeah, man.
Marc:Wait till you go on the road and you got to do morning radio.
Marc:I've done a lot of that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Touring with the kids.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Oh, Lord.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That must have been quite something because I picture that you and McKinney were probably not great in the morning.
Guest:McKinney, I'm trying to think what part of the day McKinney is great in.
Marc:I haven't seen him in a long time.
Marc:He's an oddball.
Guest:He is.
Guest:He really is.
Marc:I know his brother Nick pretty well.
Marc:He's very sweet.
Marc:Seems like a fairly functional person.
Marc:But the times I've met Mark, I'm like, what is going on in there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mark is definitely, we always say he was sort of like, you know, what we always hear Peter Sellers was like.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That there's like no real Mark.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Mark's always in a persona.
Marc:Yeah, and beneath the persona is just a weird series of reactions and problems.
Marc:Yeah, which is odd because the rest of the kids in the hall are so together.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I know you.
Marc:I've met Kevin.
Marc:He seems like a very nice guy.
Marc:Probably the more codependent of the bunch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I don't know the... Brian?
Marc:Bruce.
Guest:Bruce, yeah.
Guest:I don't know him at all.
Guest:He's the little man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's got that.
Marc:He seems like he's kind of together, no?
Guest:He's very together in a lot of ways, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's also very... I'd say everyone in the group is pretty fucked up.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, very... In their own special way.
Marc:I know Scott, and he's apparently gay.
Guest:Yes, and that will not go away.
Guest:We hoped that the chemo would take that out.
Guest:But no.
Guest:He's a very sweet guy.
Guest:You get along with him?
Guest:Oh, I love it.
Guest:I get along with all of them.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:Well, that in and of itself is an amazing thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we actually are all right.
Guest:It's probably now closer than we've ever been as a group.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, now that it's over and it's all.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah that's all nostalgia and looking back on good times yeah no well even like recently we did the death comes to town a miniseries and and it was like we working together we still fought right but it was like the fights were manageable it was not life-threatening and someone wasn't going i'm going to make a movie no and often the fights were about work uh oh really they were yeah they were specific they weren't they yeah it wasn't it wasn't just well you could do your joke but you're an asshole
Guest:None of that.
Guest:No.
Guest:It was just, you know, that joke is shitty.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Instead.
Marc:But the interest in comedy, you know, started, like, how did it happen?
Marc:Which?
Marc:I mean, you were in high school.
Marc:If you're writing a paper on Lenny Bruce, something must have.
Guest:Well, I was deciding, I had decided, when I was in high school, somebody suggested to me that I should become stand-up.
Guest:And I actually did for a little while.
Guest:When I was, like, 17, I started doing stand-up.
Guest:And, you know, I'd always thought I was going to be a writer was my plan.
Guest:So I thought, all right, well, I've got to figure out how to write stand-up.
Guest:So I started studying it.
Guest:A TV writer?
Guest:No, I think I wanted to write short stories, maybe even a novel.
Guest:A writer, writer.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Comic novels, you know, that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like Terry Southern or somebody?
Guest:I guess, yeah, to me, that's how I think I wanted to be more either the new Thornsmith who nobody remembers, who wrote like Topper and Turnabout.
Guest:Mark Twain, perhaps?
Guest:Yeah, or Joseph Heller was one of my favorite writers as a kid.
Marc:So kind of fun, dark comedy, but literary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's what I thought I would do.
Guest:But then gradually, as I got into actually doing comedy, I realized I wasn't that good a writer.
Guest:I was good enough for television.
Guest:So I started studying comedy, started getting old comedy albums, and I thought, well, the best thing to study would be Lenny Bruce.
Guest:So I started researching to write a paper about him in high school.
Guest:But the thing I didn't realize at the time was that I was severely dyslexic.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I mean, I knew I couldn't read.
Guest:I'd spend my whole school life hiding the fact that I couldn't read.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or that I could read, but at an incredibly slow rate.
Guest:How did you get out of that in school?
Guest:I mean, reading out loud?
Guest:Didn't they call on you?
Guest:I could do reading out loud, oddly enough.
Guest:Reading out loud, which I can do now.
Guest:I can sit at a table read and read a script.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if I try to read the same script at home, it takes me like five times as long.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like if I'm not reading it out loud, it takes me five times as long.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:And if you read out loud everywhere you go, people think you're crazy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you can't just go, no, I've got a problem.
Guest:Not the out loud.
Marc:Oh, fuck it.
Marc:I can't.
Guest:My brain processes spoken speech differently than it processes written words.
Guest:If I say them out loud, my brain processes it faster.
Guest:Does that explain it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thanks for clearing that up on the bus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I, you know, so I had spent my whole, I used to like, I'd be reading a book and about the time that anyone would notice that I was reading the same book after two weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd stop reading it.
Guest:So I have, I have, I have read a third of some of the greatest literature in the world.
Guest:Cool.
Marc:Well, if it's any comfort to you, you know, I don't have dyslexia.
Marc:I'm in the same boat.
Marc:Look around.
Marc:All these books are, you know, most of them are maybe a third read.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or perhaps even the first 15, 20 pages.
Guest:All of my books are in storage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they no longer live with that horrible misapprehension that I might read them one day.
Guest:They're just comfortably in boxes going, oh, all right, okay.
Guest:Pressure's off.
Guest:I can just relax.
Guest:I don't have to think, oh, today's the day.
Guest:He's going to read me.
Guest:He bought me six months ago.
Guest:He hasn't looked at me.
Guest:And he's like, oh, fuck, he's had me 20 years.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I'm glad you let your books off the hook.
Marc:Yeah, that's important.
Marc:Yeah, because it's a lot of pressure on that.
Marc:Now you're making me feel bad for my books.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, I'm trying to do the same for my children now.
Ha ha ha.
Guest:How old are they?
Guest:I have, well, I have three children.
Guest:I have two kids from my first and truly horrible marriage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're 18 and 15.
Guest:So they're kind of off the hook in a way.
Guest:No, not in Canada.
Guest:Oh, you mean money-wise?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't have to care about them as much.
Guest:But their cost hasn't gone down at all.
Guest:When does that stop?
Guest:22 if they stay in school.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Although my first wife believes that she's got an angle whereby it can last forever.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wait, she's just going to keep them not finishing school?
Guest:Well, I think her hope is to, I think, blunt their mental capacities in some way so that they are never capable of taking care of themselves.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Guest:Yeah, because that way she can keep making a dollar off of them.
Guest:That's a hell of an approach.
Guest:She's a great mom.
Marc:Do you like these kids?
Guest:I love them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love them.
Guest:Do you get along with them?
Guest:I do most of the time.
Guest:There are times when I have incredible contempt for them.
Guest:I think that's normal.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you show that contempt?
Marc:Very rarely.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:So you got that from your mom.
Guest:Very rarely.
Guest:You just stifle the feelings.
Marc:I stifle all my emotions.
Marc:And because you don't live with them directly, it doesn't have to just be anger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, see, I think I'm more the other.
Guest:I'm much, I guess, I think I have more of my dad's hugginess, but without the horrible brooding blackness.
Guest:The suction to the hug.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's no vacuum, emotional vacuum involved.
Guest:The hug is not a taking hug.
Guest:Yes, it's not.
Guest:They don't come out of it five pounds lighter because of their joy being supplanted.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:That's growth.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You've changed the family history.
Marc:So you're in the middle of a Lenny Bruce paper, and what happens?
Marc:You decide high school's not for you?
Guest:I can't research.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:I realized I can't research.
Guest:So I'm working on researching this paper for a year, and so I've got photocopies that I've taken from microfiches.
Guest:God, remember that shit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that stopped me from writing a lot of papers.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just the idea that you had to go find it in the file and then put it in the projector and then drive downtown, go to the central library.
Guest:Oh, I'm tired just hearing about it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:So I had all this research, and it was fun doing it because I read local reviews from all over North America.
Guest:So you learned a lot about Lenny Bruce despite the fact that you couldn't write the paper.
Guest:If I was smart enough, I probably could have written a good book about him.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I couldn't write the paper, so I...
Guest:I eventually just looked at the stack, all this research I had done that I couldn't read.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:So I'm going, all right, I got all this, but I can't read it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And I just sort of admitted to myself, I can't read this.
Guest:And I tried taking a speed reading course in school.
Guest:No one had treated, no one had diagnosed you with dyslexia?
Guest:No, because I hid it really well.
Guest:Because I would, you know, in standardized tests, I would read maybe a quarter of the text that you're supposed to read and answer questions on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'd be able to guess at the answers.
Guest:For better or worse, I was smart.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So because I was smart, I was able to hide the fact that I was horribly impaired.
Guest:Now, was it diagnosed eventually?
Marc:I mean, were you able to say, that's why?
Guest:Well, when I finished school and got out, my first wife was dyslexic.
Guest:And she started going through all the symptoms of dyslexia and what it is.
Guest:And I had like 9 out of 10 symptoms of dyslexia.
Guest:And it was just clear, all right, that's obviously what it is.
Guest:And then is there anything you can do?
Guest:There really isn't anything anyone can do for dyslexia.
Guest:All you can do is have coping mechanisms.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Ways to get around it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Now they let kids write tests on computers and they give them extra time.
Guest:Oh, so at least they can engage your intellect and not feel... Yeah, now they acknowledge it and they treat it.
Guest:They don't treat it, but they give you ways to cope.
Guest:And my way of...
Guest:You know, way of coping was to become very verbal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To learn through listening and to, you know, learn.
Guest:I learned a lot from television.
Guest:And then you were on television.
Guest:And then I, yes, I watched enough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I believe this is how it works.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you just watch enough, kids, if you just dedicate yourself, you get up early.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you start watching TV and you don't stop until you are nauseous.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They will give you your own TV show.
Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so you dropped out of high school, and that's when you met the rest of the guys, or did you know each other?
Marc:How'd that work?
Guest:Yeah, I met them, well, I'd started doing stand-up.
Marc:So you were going to Yuck Yucks?
Guest:I was doing Yuck Yucks doing stand-up.
Guest:In Toronto, I just did that club.
Guest:Yeah, and I was, you know, like, just opened my stand-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I thought, then, it was just that I should take an improv course to, I thought it would help with, you know, stand-up, because it was all, well, Bruce did a lot of improv.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so you're really on this Lenny Bruce thing oh yeah I wanted so much to be I was like a 17 year old Lenny Bruce were you doing like social commentary I was saying things like dig man oh yeah yeah yeah of course yeah you know and what you gotta understand yeah yeah yeah yeah were you speaking in Yiddish occasionally occasionally throwing in Yiddish only things dopey because he said dopey all the time yeah yeah yeah
Guest:So yeah, I was trying so hard to be a 17-year-old social satirist, which is really precocious.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Must have been great.
Guest:Any tape of that available?
Guest:You know, there is, actually.
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't know if... I have never seen it, but when I was...
Guest:18, I think, or maybe just after I turned 19, I got flown to L.A.
Guest:There was this Canadian show called Thrill of a Lifetime.
Guest:It was sort of a game show.
Guest:It was supposed to have people write in what would be their thrill of a lifetime and they make it come true.
Guest:But what they really did was...
Guest:They were produced by the same people that produced Evening at the Improv.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So they went out and did a casting call for Unknown Comics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And had everyone audition to pretend that they had written a letter saying this was their thrill of a lifetime would be to perform at the Improv.
Guest:It's a lie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I won that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I got to fly to L.A., and I got to perform in between two episodes of Evening at the Improv.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was in between Tony Curtis.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Hosted the early show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Guido Sarducci hosted the late show.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so it was a pretty amazing experience at that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:18?
Guest:I think I was 18 or 19.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you met Bud Friedman with his weird monocle.
Guest:Met Bud Friedman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Met Willie Tyler.
Guest:Willie Tyler and Lester.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I have an autograph from Willie Tyler and Lester.
Guest:Is he still alive?
Guest:I think he is.
Guest:I'm sorry those headphones slip on and off.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:That's because I'm doing the hipster one ear thing.
Marc:Yeah, and you're pulling it off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you fly out and you do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It goes well or no?
Guest:It does go well.
Guest:I actually do really well.
Guest:I think I only bombed once and all the time I was doing stand-up when I was a teenager.
Guest:So what are you worried about now?
Guest:It's going to come right back.
Guest:It's like riding a bike.
Guest:I'm not worried about bombing so much.
Guest:I'm just worried about the sadness of actually doing it.
Guest:While you're up there, the sadness coming out?
Guest:No, that's just the sadness of the decision to do it.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:And the sadness of my friends who are all comedians going, why are you doing it?
Marc:Well, how'd they feel about the poker show?
Marc:I mean, come on.
Guest:Sad.
Guest:But this is a step up.
Guest:Sad about that.
Marc:I mean, this is the right direction.
Guest:Yeah, the poker show paid well.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:But I have nothing against it.
Marc:I'm just curious.
Marc:Wait, we're talking about the good times.
Marc:All right, the good times.
Marc:So you come back from Hollywood and you're taking improv classes in Toronto.
Guest:And I've been taking improv.
Guest:And at that point, I had actually, I got digressed because by that point, I had started working with Kevin MacDonald from the kids and a guy named Luch Casimiri.
Guest:We formed the original three-man improv team.
Marc:And it was improv, it wasn't sketch?
Yeah.
Guest:It was improv at that point, mostly.
Guest:We met doing Second City workshops.
Guest:Kevin and I actually got paired up randomly in my first class at Second City.
Guest:The teacher just sort of went to you, you, you, and you, and I got paired with Kevin.
Guest:And by the end of that class, he asked me to join his improv team at Theater Sports.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:So then I started doing improv, and then pretty much immediately stopped doing stand-up.
Marc:It's less of a burden.
Marc:You can just kind of hang out with other people.
Guest:Yeah, it was fun on stage.
Guest:It overlapped a little bit.
Marc:You have to sit around all day wondering, what the fuck?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I've got eight minutes.
Guest:That weird love-hate you have with doing the fucking eight minutes.
Guest:Because up to that point, my dream was that if I worked really hard, I can get up to a level where maybe I can make like $5,000 a month.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, shit, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I was making like $75 a gig, and I thought that was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:If I could just do four of those a week.
Guest:Yeah, I thought I'll be a professional comedian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's what I was... And then improv came, and it was like, thank God.
Guest:Yeah, it was just more fun, and it suited me better, because my humor, I guess, comes out more conversationally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I never had... I didn't really...
Guest:Master the fake conversation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of stand-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Like just talking generally.
Guest:Where you make it seem like you're having a conversation.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But nobody else is talking.
Marc:Wow, I never even thought of that.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I probably just ruined your stand-up.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:I'm all fucked up now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:God damn it, Foley.
Marc:I thought you weren't getting... You sucked me down into your misery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm starting to learn how to do that.
Guest:Now I think I'm doing that... It feels more natural on stage.
Marc:Well, you're supposed to be buoyed by laughter.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, the conversation has a, you know, it's like, oh, there they are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they'll talk to you if you engage them.
Guest:Yes, that's the problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You do?
Guest:No, no, they don't.
Guest:I actually don't mind people talking.
Marc:No, no, I don't either if it's friendly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:So how did it evolve into the group?
Guest:Well, we were doing theater sports and then we started writing stuff and doing shows outside, you know, on our own.
Guest:And then we heard about this other group from Calgary that was doing theater sports out there.
Guest:And everyone said, well, they're a lot like you guys, you know.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Marc:Was it like, who are those fuckers?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone said, well, everyone thought, you know, we heard they were going to move to town.
Guest:Everyone thought there was going to be this big competition between these two groups that were both... Because, like, we were kind of like...
Guest:Audiences really liked us, but the people running the theater hated us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And who was in the other group?
Guest:The other group was Mark and Bruce were in the other group.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Along with guys who later came in and wrote with us, guys, like Norm Hiscock, who went on.
Guest:He was like one of the producers of King of the Hill.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He works at Parks and Recreation now.
Guest:Gary Campbell.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And Frank Van Keekan.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:They were all in the group too.
Guest:So they all moved out and we were booked on the same midnight show once and we kind of did the show and at the end of that show the two groups merged.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At the end of the show we all said we should do stuff together.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, say, yeah, yeah, that seems like a good idea.
Guest:We should do stuff together.
Guest:And what year is this?
Guest:Like, 85?
Guest:This is like, oh, no, this is, I think it's like 82.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I think 82, 80, maybe 80, probably like 82 or 83.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Kevin's the one in charge of knowing dates.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:But I think that'd be about right.
Guest:In Winnipeg?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Have a father's phone and answer.
Guest:Ha!
Guest:Yeah, so we started doing gigs as a big eight man group and then Looch quit from our side and a couple of guys quit from their side and then eventually Scott Thompson forced himself into the group.
Marc:How did that play out?
Guest:He just stopped.
Guest:He just kept showing up.
Guest:And McKinney really liked Scott.
Guest:He thought Scott was really funny.
Guest:Kevin and I thought he was horrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we liked him as a guy, but we thought as a comedian, he was just awful.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because he was an actor.
Guest:yeah he studied acting oh right right right he's gonna come on our stage and act all over it yeah yeah it's gonna be horrible was he was he annoying well you know we just hated actors you're right right sure sure yeah um so he but he joined and eventually kevin and i warmed up to him and then you just started working together and when did you change the name to uh just to the you know the
Guest:It was a little while.
Guest:It was because Kevin and I were in a group called The Kids in the Hall.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And the other guys were in a group called The Audience.
Guest:And then at one point, you know, a bunch of people quit.
Guest:And we said, you know, to get some shows up again.
Guest:And at that point, there were more kids in the hall in the group than audience members.
Guest:Oh, so it was a Democratic decision?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that time... Majority rule decision.
Guest:Kevin and Mark McKinney and myself were doing a radio show for Ryerson University.
Guest:under the name Kids in the Hall.
Guest:So we said, well, we can cross-promote.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We got this radio show that is being listened to by someone.
Marc:Yeah, this is a big break.
Marc:We could get nine people to come out.
Guest:Yeah, and eventually McCullough said, all right, but it's just temporary.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The name's fucking stupid.
Marc:They wanted the audience?
Guest:They wanted to keep that name?
Guest:Which is really a shitty name.
Guest:That was really awful.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, Bruce hated the name The Audience.
Guest:Or The Kids in the Hall, you mean?
Guest:I mean, the name The Kids in the Hall.
Guest:And I think he's only...
Marc:maybe just in the last few years come to terms but that's finally good for him so so now in canada it's different it seems like that when there is state-run television that you know people who have talent or that is undeniable will eventually be on television uh nothing could be further from the truth is that that's not true
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Well, first off, there was very little comedy done in Canada on television of any kind of quality.
Guest:It was all really shitty, mainstream, cheap kind of ripoffs of American shows at the time until SCTV came along.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that was like a revolution in Canada.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was pretty great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when they started doing this show at a global TV in Toronto, they were making shows for like $5,000 an episode or something.
Marc:Did you know those guys?
Marc:Did you go watch the shows?
Guest:Well, I just watched them.
Guest:At that point, I was living in a really small town called Cremor, about 1,000 people, about two hours out of Toronto.
Guest:and I used to spend like an hour every like I forget when they were on like Tuesday nights every night that they were on it was a half hour show I would have to go up into the attic like an hour before the show and start trying to adjust the antenna was that where your family lived yeah oh okay so I'd be up there like moving the antenna a quarter inch shouting out the window is that better yeah
Guest:Because we didn't have a rotor and the antenna was just lying on the floor in the attic.
Marc:And your dad's saying, I don't know.
Guest:What difference does it make?
Guest:So I'd be shouting.
Guest:So after about an hour, I'd get it tuned in enough that you could make out an image.
Guest:And then we'd go down and we'd all watch SCTV.
Guest:It was really great, wasn't it?
Guest:Yeah, and that was the first time it had occurred to anyone in Canada.
Guest:The only other comedy that had been done in Canada was a show called Wayne and Schuster, which real comedy students will know.
Guest:I have no idea what that is.
Guest:They were a comedy team that started out during the Second World War on radio, and then in the 50s, they were the most repeated guests on the Ed Sullivan show.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:They were, Ed loved them.
Guest:He would give them like 20 minutes of the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They would do these sprawling 20 minute sketches with huge sets and costumes.
Guest:They did like a sketch called a Caesar sketch.
Guest:It was like 20 minutes long and it was about a private detective investigating the murder of Caesar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember my dad, my dad was a big comedy nerd too, I should say that.
Guest:But he would, the joke he used to always quote from that sketch, you know, say, you know, Johnny Wayne walks into a bar, goes up to the bartender, says, bartender, I'd like a Martinez.
Guest:And the bartender says, you mean a martini?
Guest:And Johnny Wayne says, if I'd wanted to, I would have ordered two.
No.
Marc:Your dad loved that one.
Guest:He loved that one.
Guest:So as the TV came on, suddenly we thought, oh, you can actually make something of quality and it's kind of hip.
Guest:And it had its own thing.
Marc:I mean, really, like the sort of umbrella of the network
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Kind of built this, this arena for sketches just to, and impressions and everything to take place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And actually a backstory.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that's how they started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They started developing all that, that, you know, that almost sitcom reality, you know?
Guest:And it was, yeah.
Guest:And it's just, they were such amazing performers and writers that it was like just this, you know, you just hadn't seen anything.
Guest:It was like suddenly, suddenly it was no longer square to be Canadian.
Marc:So that, did that influence you guys almost immediately?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:Again, we were kids when this started.
Guest:I was like 12 when that show went on the air.
Marc:But it's interesting because the kids in the hall became sort of a template for sketch groups coming out of the 80s and even up through now.
Marc:And a lot of sketch people sort of source Monty Python as an influence, but I have not talked to anybody that really, because you're Canadian and because that was what you saw and it was like indigenous, and it was that...
Marc:you know, that is, that's the template.
Guest:That was the thing that blew your mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, for us, it was just the fact that you could, the realization that you could do it.
Guest:You could make a show in Canada and it didn't have to be, you know, you know, just lame.
Guest:It didn't have to be lame.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, which we all thought Canadian TV just is just by nature lame.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And so we realized you couldn't, but out of our love for SCTV, we very, very carefully didn't do anything they did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, we did no parody.
Guest:We really veered away from parody.
Guest:We didn't do celebrity impersonations.
Guest:Like, so we just thought they were so much better at it than we would ever be.
Marc:So when you guys laid out this agenda, I mean, how old were you when you finally, you know, pulled together the cast that became the kids in the hall?
Marc:Were you 19 or 20?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:uh i was uh when we became the five of us i was i just turned 20. um and it was like well i guess when it really gelled was probably 84. uh but what was the mode of operation i mean what what were your rules i mean were you just in the sense where you would all write together or you said that you didn't want to do parody you didn't want to do uh impressions
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We wouldn't do anything that was like a TV format.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We wouldn't do game shows.
Guest:And you guys agreed on this.
Guest:Yeah, we just all agreed that stuff was off limits to us.
Guest:Because of SCTV.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You didn't want to be hung with the ripoff.
Guest:Yeah, we wanted to figure something, a new way of doing something.
Marc:So it was all sort of... And we had rules about Python.
Guest:Also because of Python, we love Python.
Guest:We said, all of our sketches have to have beginning, middle, and end.
Guest:You know, we were going to do any sketches that didn't end because that was Python.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you had to avoid, you know, well, that's respectable because sometimes I don't understand sketches because they don't have a beginning.
Marc:Like I'm one of these people like, you know, people who love sketch and sometimes I watch sketches and I'm like, well, I don't understand the point of any of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What just happened?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So how did it become decided?
Marc:Like, for instance, was there points where you decided, you know, who made a better woman?
Marc:Who would you know who did what type of characters?
Marc:Because it seems that with the kids in the hall and this is something that that it's hard to come by.
Marc:You all sort of had very defined stage personalities.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know if that evolved outside of the group or what, but it was a very unique thing because many people flounder for stage personalities.
Marc:But as yourselves, you all seem to know your wheelhouse in terms of what you can do.
Guest:Well, we have very little in common with each other as people.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:That's part of it, yeah.
Guest:Other than the fact that we can make each other laugh, we were very, very different audiences.
Marc:Well, how would you characterize that?
Guest:Bruce is different how?
Guest:Bruce is like a little tiny bully.
Guest:He was always a little tiny bully.
Guest:He was like he did wrestling in high school.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:That kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And was really sort of love creating his own sort of punk mythology about himself.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But we're all, you know, and I was, I guess, the prissy intellectual in the group.
Guest:And Kevin?
Guest:Kevin was the clown.
Guest:And Mark?
Guest:Mark the cipher and Scott the fag.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it all worked out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was like, no, but I mean, we were very different people.
Guest:We still are very different people.
Guest:But we love being in this group together.
Guest:And...
Guest:We didn't really have a manifesto.
Guest:It was just we kind of instinctively knew the stuff that we weren't going to do.
Guest:When we were doing the club shows, we used to play women without any makeup or wardrobe or even wigs.
Guest:It was all just done with body posture and voice because we really wanted to avoid getting laughs off being men playing women.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were only playing women because we couldn't get any women to stay in the group.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:They would get hired.
Guest:They would get hired by somebody.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were taken away?
Guest:Second City would hire anybody that we had.
Guest:So you guys had to do what you had to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Be women.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when it came to TV, we realized we'd actually have to start dressing up as women.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And did anyone have a problem with that?
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:But again, we came into it.
Guest:We had very clear instructions to all of our... We kept saying the makeup and wardrobe.
Guest:Don't make that funny.
Guest:We'll do the funny part.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:You don't have to over-accentuate anything?
Guest:Yeah, we didn't want it to be... Mock women.
Guest:No drag queen stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No Milton Berle.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We want people to forget that we're men.
Marc:And what's the consensus on who played the best woman?
Marc:Well, me.
Guest:Well, we all play good woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But if it called for the woman to be attractive, then it was me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Most of the time.
Marc:That's a nice thing to know about yourself.
Marc:I was the sexy one.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:Now, when did the heat start to build?
Marc:I mean, when did you know that a phenomenon was starting to occur?
Marc:Was it before the TV show?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was about a year or two.
Guest:Well, actually, a few years before the TV show.
Guest:It was like 84.
Guest:We suddenly started going from playing to like five people.
Guest:it seemed like overnight suddenly we were playing to a packed room and there were like lineups were starting in the afternoon going around the block of this like we were playing in this like 200 seat bar now could you can you attach that to anything that was going on with you other than just the thing started just gelling i think just word of mouth started to spread about you know what was going what we were doing there you know because we were on queen street in toronto which used to be uh you know that was like the hipster district and you know
Guest:And what bits were you doing there at the beginning?
Guest:Anything that made the show?
Guest:Stuff that made the show, some of it I think made the show.
Marc:What were the biggest bits in your mind that you did?
Marc:In those days?
Marc:I mean just in general, what do people remember you for?
Guest:Like the group four.
Guest:Well, the head crusher thing is huge.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Scott's Buddy Cole character.
Guest:Kevin and I, it's Simon and Hecubus.
Marc:Right, and the chicken, wasn't it?
Guest:Chicken lady, yeah, chicken lady.
Guest:Some things, like we did a thing called Dr. Seuss Bible.
Guest:It was only one sketch, but we hear about that a lot.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Because it was, at the time, shocking.
Guest:Because we crucified Christ in it.
Guest:In the Dr. Seuss way?
Guest:To Dr. Seuss first, and with all Dr. Seuss colors and backgrounds.
Guest:That was controversial?
Guest:But we actually showed nails going through...
Marc:See that, the Lenny Bruce research paid off.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Now, was the writing process all of you guys, or did some of you come to the table with stuff, and how did that work?
Guest:It would be, everyone would, like, before the TV show, we used to, you know, we all had day jobs, so we'd meet Friday.
Guest:and the five of us, everyone would throw out ideas they had for sketches.
Guest:And you'd see if anybody clicked with any of it, and then you'd sort of, we'd talk it through, and then you'd go off with whoever had the best take on the sketch, and you'd write it as like two or three guys.
Guest:And then by Sunday, we'd all come back together and start rehearsing everything.
Guest:And Monday, we'd put the show up.
Guest:Because we advertised we'd do an hour of new material every week.
Guest:So every Monday, we had to come up with an hour of material.
Guest:And you did that?
Guest:Yeah, for about four years.
Marc:Before you got the show?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's unbelievable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you had this fucking work ethic as a group that when the TV people finally got it, they were like, this is great.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They're self-contained.
Guest:Yeah, we generated material really fast, and we developed our style, I guess, for whatever that is.
Guest:For over four years working together every Monday?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Doing like 40-plus shows a year?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Serious dues as a group.
Guest:Yeah, so we'd do an hour of written material, and then we'd do an hour to an hour and a half of improv after that, which sometimes would get interesting because by the last part of the improv set, we'd all be pretty drunk.
Guest:Is any of that stuff on tape?
Guest:Yeah, some of it.
Guest:And some of it's actually on some of the DVDs as bonus features because our friend Paul Bellini, who also became a writer on the show, he used to videotape with an 8mm video camera.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not even high eight.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's on there.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Marc:So when the TV break came, you guys were ready to go.
Guest:Yeah, we felt... Well, in 85, we got scouted by Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And then Mark and Bruce got hired as apprentice writers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which meant they didn't have an office.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They got sucked into the machine to teach them a lesson about show business.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So they were down there for the 85 season, which you'll remember as the Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I believe it's...
Guest:I don't think there's any debate that it's the worst year ever.
Marc:Was that one of the Lorne Free years?
Guest:It was Lorne's first year back.
Guest:Oh, it was.
Guest:So he was trying to make a splash with celebrity power.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, and arguably, I think the worst year of Saturday Night Live ever had.
Guest:I have no recollection of it.
Guest:No one does.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except for someone who's now like Renfield in an insane asylum.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's the only person who remembers that year.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just eating bugs and going, ah, Terry Sweeney.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:So they were down there.
Marc:Were they cast members, too?
Marc:Or that came later?
Guest:No, they didn't.
Marc:Mark was a cast member, wasn't he?
Guest:Years later, after we shut our show down, he went to Saturday Night Live.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they were writing there, and we all thought, oh, well, that's it.
Guest:That's the end of the troupe.
Guest:These guys are going to go off to New York.
Guest:That must have been more than that.
Marc:Wasn't there fights?
Marc:What the fuck are you doing?
Guest:No, it was weird.
Guest:Actually, we did a big show.
Guest:We did a final show before they left town.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And it was huge.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:You know, it was like this, you know, I said the room's supposed to hold 200 people maximum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think we had like 600 people in there some nights.
Guest:You're Canadians, man.
Marc:You weren't, there was no sort of like, fuck you guys.
Guest:No, we were, you know, there was a lot of crying at the end of that show.
Guest:A lot of hugging and crying.
Guest:Wow, that's fucking touching.
Guest:A lot of, you know, wishing, you know, wishing them the best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We didn't know what was going to happen.
Guest:But then what happened is they went down and did Saturday Night Live, and we'd all heard about the workload there.
Guest:And then we found out that's all bullshit.
Guest:They don't work that hard.
Guest:It's not that hard a gig.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They get, like, every three weeks, they get a week off.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then they get, like, two weeks off at Thanksgiving and two weeks off at Christmas.
Guest:And then they're off for seven months.
Guest:And then we're going, what the fuck?
Guest:And so they started.
Guest:So we just immediately said, all right, well, on your weeks off, come up.
Guest:We'll write new shows and do new shows.
Guest:And they did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So every time they had a week off, which was constantly, you know, that was the biggest surprise of all the bullshit.
Guest:Saturday Night Live is not that hard.
Guest:So you guys could keep working.
Guest:Yeah, so they kept coming up and we'd write shows and do new material every week.
Guest:We'd do a show every month.
Guest:We used to do a show every week, so we started doing a show every month.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then eventually their season was done and Lauren kept hearing about the rest of the group.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, because he had heard people like all the people from SCTV used to come see our shows.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You got to know them?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, they had all started.
Guest:I think Catherine O'Hara and her sister Mary were the first to come down.
Guest:She's fucking great.
Guest:And Robin Duke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Marty Short and Dave.
Guest:Well, Dave Thomas just came down pretty early to the shows.
Guest:Were they nostalgic?
Marc:Or were they just sort of into watching the young generation?
Guest:They just heard that there was something good going on.
Guest:Oh, and they dug it, huh?
Guest:And they wanted to see what it was.
Marc:Did you ever invite them on stage for improvs and stuff?
Guest:I think Catherine and Robin came up.
Guest:and did some improv with us.
Guest:And also the main stage cast of Second City in Toronto used to come down.
Guest:You guys were the shit.
Guest:Yeah, we were the talk of the town at that point.
Marc:And then Lauren said, I need to own them.
Guest:Well, Lauren came up and he was going to see if he wanted to bring any of us down as performers.
Guest:And I think at one point, and at this point, we were working pretty closely with Pam Thomas, Dave Thomas's then wife, and our friend Diane Pauly, who was
Guest:Sarah Pauly's mom, who has passed away.
Guest:But they were sort of managing us.
Guest:And so Lauren came up to see our show.
Guest:And at one point, I think there was some talk that I was going to go down as a feature player.
Guest:And Mark and Bruce were going to make us write it.
Guest:But then Lauren decided that he didn't want to break the troupe up.
Guest:That he wanted to keep the troupe together and develop a show for us.
Guest:Which is nice of him because we put him through the worst audition show you could ever.
Guest:We did about an hour and a half of new material.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, really, like stuff we had never done before.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then at the break, we went over and we basically guilted Lorne into staying for the improv set.
Yeah.
Guest:how'd it go well we did like then we did like an hour and a half of improv you really wanted it we were just it's like the biggest asshole move on earth yeah it wasn't like that's the worst thing to do if you want to get hired annoy the guy hold him hostage yeah and make him feel like shit if he tries to leave yeah you know and it was like weird because other sketch groups tried to crash our show
Guest:Because they heard Lauren was there.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:They started doing sketch in the audience?
Guest:Yeah, there was a show going across the street and they were trying to get Lauren to come over.
Guest:And then somebody came in and stormed up on our stage and started reciting a poem.
Guest:Get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Trying to get Lauren over to the other stage.
Guest:Did you know these people?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And I think Scott Thompson.
Guest:It was a girl.
Guest:It was like this girl's reciting a poem trying to get Lauren to come over to their show across the street.
Guest:That's unbelievable.
Guest:And Scott wittily ad-libbed, get the fuck off our stage.
Guest:And just shoved her off the stage.
Guest:Good for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we had a punk rock kind of mentality in those days.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he sees it and he decides to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On Canadian television.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, actually, we were signed to HBO first.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So he sold us to HBO and then CBC came in in Canada after that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it was a joint production?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were on HBO?
Guest:We were on HBO for two years.
Marc:Two years?
Marc:Two or three.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because, I mean, by the time.
Guest:Three years.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I know you were on Comedy Central, like, forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:From the beginning, yeah.
Marc:And that's where you sort of built this army of eight to 12-year-old girls.
Guest:Yeah, we were on.
Guest:Well, I think we were the only thing on Comedy Central.
Guest:For a while.
Guest:You know, we were on, like, five times a day for about five years.
Marc:And your fans, like, are loyal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they're still around, I'd imagine.
Guest:Yes, they are, which is great.
Marc:And when you tour now, they must be thrilled to see these girls that were girls and now they're women.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because there was a lot of women.
Guest:Am I wrong?
Guest:A lot of female characters, yeah.
Marc:But a lot of female fans.
Guest:Oh, the fans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A lot of, yes.
Guest:A lot of young women who have trouble looking up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think those are our fan base.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, hey, how are you doing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they're still with you.
Marc:I mean, when you tour, when did you go out last?
Guest:A year ago?
Guest:2008 was the last tour we did.
Guest:And you sold out, right?
Guest:Yeah, we still managed to sell it.
Guest:And it's weird, it's because we still have like...
Guest:Kids like high school and college age and then, you know, then people all the way up to our age, you know, people into their 50s.
Marc:Like I said, I think you're an institution and an inspiration to people.
Marc:And sketch is like the biggest thing around now.
Marc:It is the template for a comedy career.
Marc:And certainly you get credit for being one of the best sketch operations ever.
Guest:Yeah, which is fantastic.
Guest:It really is a nice feeling.
Guest:I mean, I actually listened to your Cordray interview, and just hearing Rob, who I know, just hearing him mention Kids in the Hall as one of his influences.
Guest:That's something.
Guest:It makes you feel really nice.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:You've done a great thing, and it's documented, and it will be there forever, long after you saddened of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But the news radio thing, now that, I mean, that was huge too, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was a very set character and you were very you and a great ensemble cast.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that went on for how long?
Marc:Five years.
Marc:That's a good run.
Marc:It went into syndication.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you had to marry the wrong people.
Guest:Well, I married the wrong people early in the kids in the whole years.
Marc:Now, let me ask you something if we're going to switch gears now, because I've been married twice myself.
Marc:Now, when you married your first wife, I mean, you guys loved each other, didn't you?
Marc:No.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:I loved her when we first started dating.
Guest:Well, here's the thing.
Guest:It's tortured beginnings because she was actually a girl I wanted to ask out, and then I lost my job, and I couldn't take her out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't ask her out.
Guest:And then in the meantime, my best friend started dating her.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:And they started living together.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:But while they were living together, she and I were getting closer and closer.
Guest:As pals?
Guest:As pals.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But then I started feeling like I was falling for her.
Guest:And of course, one of those nights where I said, you know what?
Guest:We got to maybe stop hanging out so much because I'm starting to have these feelings and you're my best friend's girlfriend.
Guest:And so she showed me her tits.
Guest:And you realize, maybe he's not my best friend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, really?
Guest:Well, that's romantic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then I wound up stealing my best friend's girlfriend.
Yeah.
Marc:How's that friendship holding up?
Guest:Not so, we tried for a while.
Guest:We did try for a while back in those days.
Guest:Again, I'm like, this is like 20 years old.
Guest:I'm 20 years old.
Guest:But it added to that that once I got into this relationship with her and realized almost immediately,
Guest:Oh my God, she's fucking crazy.
Guest:Almost immediately you realized that.
Guest:And this is horrible.
Guest:But in my head I went, well, I can't just break up with her.
Guest:I just ruined my friendship.
Guest:This has to mean something.
Guest:I've got to hang in.
Guest:This has to mean something that I did this.
Marc:So you stayed in there.
Guest:I stayed in there and it was like through constant suicide threats and
Guest:oh really that's really crazy good yeah the immediate absence of sex uh-huh oh really as we became a couple uh-huh except to have the kids that would guarantee your income for the rest of her life yes yes so she had that lasted that lasted a slim 11 years wow of of celibacy isn't that interesting though because i'm the same way like but you knew she was crazy right away oh yeah and from then on it was just me trying to find a way to get out of it in a
Guest:in a decent way, you know?
Guest:And again, I'm 20, 21 years old.
Guest:You, you still, you think you can help people at that age, you know?
Marc:I'm telling you, dude, that, that does not go away.
Marc:It does for me.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It's still a lesson I have to learn.
Marc:I was surprised that I had to learn it.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Marc:That I have that part of me.
Guest:I see crazy eyes now and I'm, I'm out of it immediately.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:I can like, I can, I can see, I can tell if someone's crazy at like two or three blocks away.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:They have an aura.
Guest:Well, I grew up with a father who has borderline personality disorder.
Guest:Was he really diagnosed?
Guest:Diagnosed, yeah.
Guest:I didn't find this out until when my first wife and I split up.
Guest:She was diagnosed as borderline personality disorder.
Marc:See, I'm just dealing with somebody that has those characteristics.
Marc:I mean, it's over now, but it's tricky stuff.
Marc:Terrifying.
Marc:Terrifying.
Marc:It's terrifying because you will never be able to give them what they want.
Marc:No, and the more you try, the more they hate you.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:That is fucking beautiful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, the more you say, you know, do you love me if I do this?
Guest:And then, yes, I love you if you do that.
Guest:Well, what if I do this?
Guest:All right, yes, I love you.
Guest:All right, how about this?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:That's part of it.
Guest:Yeah, and it's like, you don't love me.
Guest:Yeah, I proved it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But they find people that have the dynamic that will keep trying.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Trying to make it better.
Marc:Trying to make it better.
Marc:And nothing else can happen, but you become depleted completely on a soul level.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And again, because having grown up with my father- You're wired to fucking- You're wired to engage with it.
Guest:Because my whole life was trying to get him to love me and trying to prove- And also that his love was always conditional growing up.
Marc:And that's not supposed to be a parental love, the conditional thing.
Guest:And so for me, part of it was like, as I learned in therapy, was that for me it was like trying to prove to myself that unconditional love was possible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And by giving it to someone else.
Guest:Who will never be able to.
Guest:Who can never accept it.
Guest:And we can't be unconditional anyways.
Guest:No, but I thought no matter what she does, I'll just keep loving her, keep loving her.
Guest:And of course, eventually I became twisted emotionally as well.
Marc:Well, because I just dealt with something like that.
Marc:And I thought that what I was doing, being that I was married to somebody once before who wasn't like that, we had other issues.
Marc:But I thought, well, I'm going to do it right this time and just sort of make some compromises and accept the way she wants to live her life as best I can.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you realize like, wait, she's defying me to like her here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, wait, that's pushing it.
Marc:You're pushing it, but I'll try to deal with it.
Marc:Wait, you're pushing harder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd grown up watching my dad treat my mom like shit.
Guest:Holy fuck.
Guest:You know, then being like a young man who considers himself a feminist.
Guest:I thought I wanted to prove that men could be something different from what my father was.
Guest:So it's all this dynamic feeding into me just going, okay, all right.
Guest:I can take it.
Guest:Just one more day.
Guest:One more day.
Guest:All right, if I just figure this out.
Guest:Yeah, figure it out.
Guest:If I just figure it out, then she'll be happy.
Guest:And she'll love me and we'll both be happy.
Guest:And that transitions to, okay, one more day.
Guest:And if I can figure this out, I can leave and she won't kill herself.
Guest:And I won't be responsible for her killing herself.
Guest:And it's just...
Guest:You know, and then it gets sicker and sicker, you know, until, you know, you know.
Guest:And again, then finally I was like living in L.A.
Guest:starting news radio.
Guest:And for the first time in my life, I was down here for about six months on my own starting news radio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because she was back home pregnant with our second child.
Guest:So she didn't want to come down to L.A.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it would destroy the fetus.
Guest:Somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She might not have been wrong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But... So...
Guest:so I was here for six months on my own and it was like the first time in, you know, 11 years, you know, 11 years where I'm going, where I, I could, I was, I was relaxed.
Marc:You could breathe.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I suddenly, I could relax and I could, and I was going out and having fun with the cast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and I was, and I was falling in love with more tyranny.
Guest:You know, she's so great.
Guest:You know, if I was single, I could go out with someone like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like one of those things, you know, I remember like, uh, driving, driving my car on the way to work one day and it was actually, it was, it was, uh, uh,
Guest:a Bare Naked Lady song came on my stereo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A Steve Page song called I Never Met to Break Your Heart.
Guest:It was the song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the song comes on and I suddenly just burst out in tears as I'm driving.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And I have to pull off the road and just sit at the side of the road just weeping.
Guest:And that's where I go, okay, this is a sign, I think, that I'm not happy.
Guest:LAUGHTER
Guest:I'm so unhappy, I can't drive safely.
Guest:The wrong song comes on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I got us into therapy, and that eventually led to things starting to improve, which, of course, led to her taking off for the kids.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:As soon as things actually started to get almost bearable for me to live this...
Marc:And she got better too?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It just seemed like she was getting better because I was doing things.
Guest:It used to be like in our marriage, it would be like I would finish work and I had better be home within the amount of time it takes to drive from the studio to the driveway.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And any time...
Guest:And then unaccounted for there would be the cause of a fight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like if I stopped off, like Steve Fruit and I, if we stopped off at a CD store to buy CDs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which we love to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That would be a huge fight that would last for months.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But when you fought, like, was there yelling and screaming and...
Guest:Oh, yelling, screaming.
Guest:She would tear my clothes, throw stuff at me.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Physically violent.
Guest:I would have to restrain her.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I'd become really physically violent.
Marc:That's that borderline fun, it's called.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But isn't it interesting, though, because you're wired for it, and I seem to be wired for it, too, that when you're engaged in that fighting thing, that it's horrible, but it's compelling.
Marc:And usually after those fights, there's that weird reprieve.
Marc:Where you're both exhausted from it, and it's really the only time where you're actually like, no.
Guest:I didn't have that.
Guest:No, I didn't have that.
Guest:That sounds nice.
Guest:That sounds like that would have been a nice.
Marc:Maybe if I just waited longer, I could have had what you had.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What we would have would be this horrible, horrible fight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then for her, it will be over, which usually meant I had apologized and it was all my fault.
Guest:And suddenly she's fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like going, everything's good.
Guest:But I'm still shaking.
Guest:You're getting cancer.
Guest:I'm shaking and I'm feeling this rage and self-loathing.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And in her head, it's going, what the fuck?
Marc:fuck's your problem oh god god get over it yeah you know and you're doing talk radio on news radio on top of all this yeah i'm doing news radio and and you're you're you're i guess that's interesting because have you ever thought about how much of your comedic character comes from this ability to repress emotion uh oh yeah like because i just really realized there's something about your the comedic persona that you sort of manage even the most horrendous of things like yeah okay
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think it's because the thing I learned from my mother, which was basically her motto for everything in life was, don't fuss.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I said, no, don't fuss.
Marc:But there's... Horrible things are happening.
Guest:Oh, don't fuss.
Marc:Oh, it's so beautifully painful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you get a divorce from this one finally.
Guest:Well, we finally split up.
Guest:And because she leaves me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because we're in therapy.
Guest:And I insisted on getting us into therapy.
Guest:And so we're in therapy for about six months.
Guest:And again, I'm thinking, oh, well, I feel free to go out and buy a pair of socks.
Yeah.
Guest:And not have to get home and go, how could you buy those socks?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Those socks are ugly.
Guest:You could be proud of your socks.
Guest:You are an ugly person for choosing ugly socks.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:You know, that's the kind of, you know.
Guest:So I had not made a decision about anything in 11 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except in my work.
Guest:In my work, I make decisions all day long.
Guest:Huge decisions.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I'm helping.
Guest:And you're functioning.
Guest:I help run a show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I run the kids in the hall with, you know, the other four guys.
Guest:You know, and yeah, making decisions.
Guest:But at home, it's like nothing.
Marc:But were the guys sort of like, dude, you got to... No one does that.
Guest:No, they just quietly hated her.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a Canadian way?
Guest:Yeah, they just quietly hated her.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Same thing with my whole family, just quietly hated her.
Marc:And you were just taking the hit.
Marc:No support, no sort of lifelines, just sort of like...
Guest:No, and none of them were allowed in my house.
Guest:Because of her?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She wouldn't let anyone come over.
Guest:And then same thing when we get down to L.A.
Guest:But yeah, so then finally that's over.
Guest:So 11 years, really 11 years of celibacy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Aggravated celibacy.
Guest:Yeah, which is not sustainable.
Guest:No.
Guest:Because I do like sex.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that point, I remembered liking sex.
Marc:You had an idea of what it used to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, so suddenly I'm single, living in L.A., and starring in a network sitcom.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:You're an item.
Guest:You're hot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're a catch.
Guest:Then I found out, early on, I found out that I had forgotten how to come.
Guest:That was a problem.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You ever have that?
Marc:Yeah, where it's like, I know something's supposed to happen at the end of this.
Guest:Yeah, I've literally forgotten how to come.
Guest:So, I mean, I was with a woman who's this amazing woman early after our split up.
Guest:And we were having sort of a relationship.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's trying really hard.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:You know, and I was thinking, come on, it's been 11 years.
Guest:I'm going to shoot her across the room.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, she's going to go like a bottle rocket.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But then I just, I can't.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It took me about six months.
Marc:But they must have been fairly impressed with your stamina.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was fun up to the point of chafing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then it's like.
Marc:And then they're like, they think they.
Marc:That's me.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:You know.
Marc:But you figured it out.
Marc:But that must have been because you were so emotionally fucking numb.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:On all levels.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just was not connected to my body at all.
Marc:So tell me the one that you figured out how to come with is the one you ended up marrying.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I figured out how to come.
Guest:And then I figured out how to come with just about every woman living in Los Angeles.
Guest:for about a five-year period.
Guest:Good for you.
Marc:I was just... You're like a kid in a candy store.
Guest:Oh, it's like I've got money in my pocket.
Guest:I can come.
Guest:Who wants some of this?
Guest:I have a house with a pool.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:My house was always full of...
Guest:Literally, I had a... Did you ever come up to a party at my place in Hollywood Hills?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Back in the 90s?
Guest:No.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:They were legendary parties up there.
Guest:Yeah, I bet.
Guest:And the pool was always full of naked people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, look at you.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Really, it was way more fun to go to my place than the Playboy Mansion.
Guest:I found out... One of the things I learned is if you have a pool and you keep it heated all through the winter to 95 degrees, almost any woman that comes up there will take all of her clothes off.
Marc:Let me write that down for maybe that might still happen to me.
Guest:Yes, swimming straight from the convent.
Guest:Yeah, oh yeah.
Guest:Off with the habit.
Guest:Yes, I need to swim naked in this pool.
Marc:Oh, good for you.
Marc:So you were doing the happy Satan thing.
Guest:It was really fun.
Guest:Yeah, I bet.
Guest:Yeah, so that was about five years of that.
Guest:And then I met my second wife who was doing a show called White Trash Wins Lotto.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:You remember that show?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It was, uh, yeah, it was, um, Andy Preboy wrote it and it was Paul F. Tompkins.
Guest:His wife, Rita, right?
Guest:Rita, yeah, Rita Delbert was in it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh, who now does Lucha Vavoon.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah, no, I know, I know Rita.
Marc:I haven't seen Andy in a long time, no Paul, yeah.
Guest:And Paul F. Tompkins was in it, Blaine Kapatch.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Um,
Marc:I remember that era.
Marc:That was the Largo era.
Marc:The first Largo era.
Guest:Who was your wife?
Guest:Chrissy Guerrero.
Guest:She was in the show as one of the singers.
Guest:I met her.
Guest:I was actually in the audience with a friend of mine watching the show.
Guest:My friend Craig Northey was in a Canadian band, The Odds.
Guest:In the show, I said, I should have a girl like that.
Guest:yeah about and this is after your five-year run yeah yeah you're ready to settle down again pretty she smiles a lot yeah she's uh she sings beautifully and everyone seems to like her i'll have one of those yeah and and and kind of just like hit on it for about a year you did yeah uh-huh because i met her that night and she had a boyfriend and
Marc:I remember you those days.
Marc:That was the Largo time and Amy Mann was around and there was a lot of, it was like a real thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I first went there with Amy and to see John Bryan shows.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:It was like that original Largo was quite the scene.
Guest:It was great, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the Monday night comedy shows were great.
Guest:Then eventually Paul started doing his shows there.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yeah, it was a really amazing scene, musically and comedically.
Marc:Yeah, it would change the game.
Guest:Yeah, because that's back before when Bob and David didn't have their show yet.
Guest:They were doing bits of art.
Marc:I remember I would come out and go there, and it was definitely a happening thing.
Guest:Yeah, it was amazing.
Guest:I remember, because I would tell the guys back in Toronto, I'd say, you know, there's a lot of comedy here that I think might be better than us.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they go, no.
Guest:Can't be.
Guest:You know, I'd be telling them about some of the stuff I was seeing.
Guest:You guys should come down here.
Marc:Yeah, and they did?
Marc:Some of them did.
Marc:Now, so you married her.
Marc:How long did that last?
Marc:Eight years.
Guest:I don't want to poke at it too much.
Marc:Eight years.
Marc:And was it different than the other one, just for my own information, in terms of hope in the future?
Marc:Did you end up with somebody who revealed themselves as crazy again?
Guest:No, she's not crazy, but she eventually got worn down by having to deal with my first crazy wife, you know, and having to deal with, you know, me, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Really?
Marc:You got some baggage?
Guest:You know, I'm not, you know, I have, you know, yeah, I guess I'm, you know, I'm dyslexic.
Guest:I have, you know, ADD, you know.
Guest:A crazy ex-wife.
Guest:Crazy ex-wife.
Guest:You like to have a few cocktails.
Guest:I drink too much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'll go on a bender occasionally.
Guest:Occasionally, yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:I had my emotional problems, but I think a lot of it was just that all of our money was going to this crazy first wife, and they were living like millionaires, and we were struggling to get by.
Guest:Kids out there are going to the most expensive schools in the country, going to camp every summer that cost me 50 grand.
Guest:Is she remarried?
Guest:50 grand.
Guest:Oh, good God, no.
Marc:She can't, right?
Guest:No.
Marc:Because then you're off the hook.
Guest:Yeah, well, no, she would still get all the child support regardless.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you had a kid with a second wife, too?
Guest:Yeah, then we have a daughter named Alina.
Guest:And you like her?
Guest:My daughter, yeah, she's fantastic.
Marc:Now, do you get along with the second wife?
Guest:Yeah, we get along great, actually.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Yeah, we've gone through some rough periods, but we get along great.
Guest:And she's reasonable?
Guest:She is.
Guest:She's fantastic, and she understands when, you know, like right now, it's a real problem.
Guest:I mean, I just went through a court...
Guest:proceeding in Canada where the judge ruled I have to pay about three or four times my average monthly income every month to my first wife.
Marc:Oh, God, I'm so sorry, man.
Guest:So that's part of why I'm doing stand-up.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Marc:It's just like it never goes away, and it's hard to get any relief from.
Marc:I don't have kids, and I had to deal with it to a certain degree, but just the fact that there's no end in sight and that you have no control.
Guest:And no rationalism to the laws.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Right, yeah, and there's no way to get around it because the woman with the children will win out generally.
Guest:Yeah, and it's just, you know, because I'm happy to give away half of my money.
Guest:That would be great.
Guest:I would love to be giving away half of my income.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm literally obligated to give away, you know, 400% of my income.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And if not, go to jail is basically the situation I'm in.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:You know, so right now I think I can't go to Canada right now or I'll be arrested at the border.
Guest:Right.
Marc:and there's really oh yeah and there's no way then she's not open there was no way see like there's no way to go like here's the money go away no because I don't have enough money to make her do that I'd have to come up with a million dollars I think all right so let's get a plan in place to get you the money you need and then we'll have some coffee all right so we're gonna do the stand-up tour
Guest:yeah so that yeah stand up trying to you know sure and you're available for for film and television television work yeah okay uh the kids in the hall we're putting that together again do another tour we're gonna try and do another tour all right that's good that's good all right so that should get you about even that'll uh that'll get me to that'll probably be enough to get me down to zero dollars to live on every month all if i do all of that
Marc:Now, are you able to extract any joy out of life right now, Dave?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I need to know when you leave here that you're here.
Guest:I do.
Guest:That's the thing that surprises me.
Guest:I still have fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have fun hanging out with my friends that are mostly comedians and musicians.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I have tremendous fun hanging out with my daughter.
Guest:I have fun with my second wife.
Guest:You know, we can have a great time together.
Guest:I had a great time on the holidays with her and her family.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:You know, I'm still very close to her family.
Guest:So I still, you know, especially now that while I'm here, and at least for the time being, they can't arrest me here.
Guest:So that's a little bit of a weight off my shoulders.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I don't think I would...
Guest:take to jail well no i don't think it's the same i don't know what canadian jail is like but uh a lot like here okay all right yeah that that there is a consistency there yeah jail's just as bad in both places yeah okay it's still they're both punitive institutions where you can't leave yeah and you're sort of at the whims of the warden and the other prisoners yeah yeah and i'm a person who's never been comfortable with that sort of thing sure sure but um
Guest:No, but I still can find pleasure, and I can still find the humor in the horrible situation I'm in.
Marc:Well, I hope that on some level that it'd be interesting for me to see, and it's not any sort of challenge, but I find a great deal of relief in doing stand-up.
Marc:Despite that there's a necessity here for you to do it financially, and you see it as a way to make some money, that if you really took some risks up there and explored this shit and dealt with some of your anger, I think you could do something pretty fucking exciting.
Guest:Well, creatively, it's already starting to go that road.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I mean, it's a lot of the stuff that I'm talking about.
Guest:I mean, it's hard not to deal with it when... It's all you think about.
Guest:I have a judge.
Guest:The judge ruled a few years ago, and this is the one that was just enforced, that my ability to pay is not relevant to my obligation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's one of the rulings, which is just insane in its outset.
Guest:But then she also ruled that my death would not be considered a material change to my circumstances.
Right.
Guest:Which means who would... Like I said, I called Kevin.
Guest:I said, if I die, you understand, you have to take my corpse out on the road.
Guest:You've got to be out there doing another restaging of the odd couple.
Guest:But this time, Oscar's dead.
Guest:The Broadway musical version of Weekend at Bernie's.
Marc:With you really dead.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But what does that even mean, that your estate will have to continue paying?
Marc:Yeah, and there is no estate.
Marc:Basically, she'd be going after my daughter for money.
Marc:And there's...
Marc:That's fucking horrendous, and you can't get any fucking justice out of this thing?
Guest:No, because this is the family law in Ontario where I'm from.
Guest:It just says that when the marriage dissolves, the children's life should be locked in amber, and it should just stay at that level no matter what.
Guest:So the judge even said if I was paralyzed from the neck down, I would still be responsible for having to earn a million dollars a year.
Guest:That's basically what they say.
Guest:If any year I earn less than a million dollars in a year, I'm committing a crime.
Guest:That's fucking heinous.
Guest:That's the thing that you say, do I get joy?
Guest:But despite this, you know, yeah, I still actually, you know, for the most part, enjoy living.
Guest:I like life.
Guest:You know, there have been times in the last few years where, you know, I could have gone either way.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, I bet.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, Dave, I love you.
Marc:And my heart goes out to you.
Guest:Do you want to edit some of the early conversation in at the end?
Marc:We're going to flip it all the way around.
Marc:No, I mean, it's sad, but it's something that people can relate to.
Marc:And what I sense is that there's a hopelessness to the sense that you don't know when it's going to end.
Marc:But ultimately, it eventually will.
Marc:And riding that out is the hardest thing and realizing that your recourse is limited and that there's a tremendous amount of unfair behavior coming at you.
Marc:And I can feel the burden on your heart because I feel a little, now I have a burden too because I'm that codependent.
Marc:But like, you know, after we're done, we can hang out.
Marc:All right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks, Dave Foley.
Guest:Appreciate you coming.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:Well, that was a lovely talk.
Marc:A little heavy-hearted, but it was a pleasure seeing Dave, and there was a lot of stuff I didn't know about the kids in the hall, and, you know, my heart went out to them in a lot of ways, and it was... I love the guy.
Marc:Thanks for listening to WTF.
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Marc:House of Comedy, Bloomington, Minnesota, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
Marc:Love to see you there.
Marc:I'll try to bring some shirts.
Marc:I will bring some shirts.
Marc:I'll bring some stickers.
Marc:I'll bring you stuff.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:You can bring me stuff, too.
Marc:I love presents.
Marc:Go easy on the baked goods.
Marc:I'm getting fat.
Marc:All right, enough about me.
Marc:Well, then I would have to stop doing this show.