Episode 1471 - Gary Gulman
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast what the fuck wtf
Marc:Sorry, kids.
Marc:I know you're driving, Mom.
Marc:I know you're driving, Dad.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know sometimes you go ahead and let them listen.
Marc:And that was a lot of F-bombs in a fairly short period.
Marc:But no more than usual, really, was it?
Marc:How are the kids?
Marc:Everybody all right?
Marc:Everybody okay?
Marc:Are they growing up fine?
Marc:Are they turning out all right?
Marc:You know, I just got back from St.
Marc:Louis.
Marc:And I had a great time in St.
Marc:Louis.
Marc:Had a great time.
Marc:I'm not going to ramble too far here before I tell you that Gary Goldman is on the show.
Marc:Gary Goldman.
Marc:He's been on before a long time ago.
Marc:Back on like episode 357.
Marc:That was 2013.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And since then, he's released several comedy albums and televised specials, including The Great Depression on HBO in 2019.
Marc:He's now written his first book, Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the 80s.
Marc:This guy's gone through it, man, and he's come out the other side for the most part, I would say.
Marc:And we'll get into it, man.
Marc:We'll get into it.
Marc:But it was heavy, man.
Marc:It was heavy.
Marc:And Gary's doing all right.
Marc:And we'll have that conversation momentarily.
Marc:I'll be at Wise Guys in Las Vegas this Friday and Saturday, September 22nd and 23rd for four shows.
Marc:I'm in Bellingham, Washington at the Mount Baker Theater for one show on Saturday, October 14th.
Marc:as part of the Bellingham Exit Festival.
Marc:Portland, Oregon, sold out, sorry, 20 through 22nd of October, all sold out.
Marc:Then I'm at the Chemo Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for one show on November 11th, my hometown.
Marc:In Denver, Colorado, I'll be at the Comedy Works South for four shows, November 17th and 18th.
Marc:And I'll be at Comics Come Home, whenever that is, in November.
Marc:So look, I was in St.
Marc:Louis.
Marc:I did some morning radio.
Marc:It was the Rizzuto Show.
Marc:Yes, 105.7 The Point.
Marc:With Riz, Moon Valjean, King Scott, Rafe Williams, and Learn...
Marc:Quite a crew.
Marc:Walked in there.
Marc:It was on fire right away.
Marc:Great morning crew.
Marc:Had a great time.
Marc:It was fun, you know, because they give you this option...
Marc:A lot of these places, they were like, you want to do a phoner?
Marc:I'm like, what am I doing in St.
Marc:Louis in the morning?
Marc:I'm not a child.
Marc:I'm not a drunk.
Marc:I can wake up and go to the place.
Marc:Phoners are useless.
Marc:You got to get into the same airness for the real exchange.
Marc:We've got to get back to same airness.
Marc:All these Zoom conversations, all these text conversations, it's not good.
Marc:You may think you're talking, but you're not.
Marc:You're not feeling the vibrations in the room.
Marc:You're not breathing the same air.
Marc:People, commune.
Marc:Get back to same airness as often as you can.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So I went into Rizzuto's show, talked to the guys and the gal.
Marc:Some people misunderstand.
Marc:I like morning radio.
Marc:Yeah, I did a joke about morning radio.
Marc:But a good crew in the morning, you walk in, all they're wanting you to do is kind of get in there.
Marc:And God knows I know how to do that.
Marc:We had an excellent time.
Marc:Good crew.
Marc:And then I did that.
Marc:And then I did another show.
Marc:That guy was pretty good too.
Marc:KMOX.
Marc:I believe the guy's name was Roger.
Marc:Had a good time.
Marc:That was afternoon radio, afternoon talk.
Marc:Just got in there, got in there, knocked out a segment.
Marc:Rizzuto let me stay on for like two segments, I think.
Marc:But there comes that moment where they're sort of like, hey, you know, we were talking about something before you got here.
Marc:We'd like to get back to that.
Marc:They don't say it like that, but I could tell they're sort of like, all right, so Mark Maron's at Helium and he's leaving.
Marc:We were talking about aliens, and then he came in and did his thing, but let's get back to that.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I did morning radio.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Tamara, I believe that's how you pronounce her name.
Marc:The owner and...
Marc:proprietor of the chain of clementine's creamery the ice cream artisanal ice cream and i'm and this is not a paid plug it's probably the best ice cream in the fucking country at least so creamy so good but i can't eat the dairy right because i'm doing the veggie the veggie the veggie the vegan thing
Marc:But she got in touch with me.
Marc:She said, do you want to see the new plant where we're making the ice cream?
Marc:I'm like, fuck yes.
Marc:And then comes the benefit, the perks.
Marc:She's like, I'm going to have the ice cream genius down at the plant.
Marc:Let you sample some of our new and as yet unreleased vegan flavors.
Marc:So I just go to this plant.
Marc:They have freezers the size of my house, refrigerator the size of this studio.
Marc:Just people making ice cream.
Marc:Had to wear a hat, gloves, footies, walk through some suds, no germs.
Marc:But I went into the kitchen, the tasting kitchen, and there was like five or six pints.
Marc:And I'm like, let's go.
Marc:I'll try it.
Marc:and they won in my opinion there were three varieties of coconut macro and ice cream i went with the richest tasting one there was a bit of an argument with that they had a sweet potato ice cream that was fucking amazing they had uh i guess they're sorbets are they sorbets quite good trying to remember another flavor there was an avocado one that was i didn't mind it it was okay there was a crumble one god damn
Marc:And I considered it a meal.
Marc:I considered it a vegan meal, tasting about six or seven many spoons of ice cream, separate spoons every time.
Marc:And they were metal spoons, but we kept changing them.
Marc:We kept changing the spoon.
Marc:Felt official.
Marc:Felt like, you know, I felt like I had to behave myself as opposed to just kind of covet one and step into another room with a larger spoon and just fucking...
Marc:Wolf it down.
Marc:But that was fun.
Marc:And then hung out with Tamara for a little while.
Marc:Went to eat some good vegan joints in St.
Marc:Louis.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:A car, I think, was one I went to.
Marc:Went to Frida's.
Marc:I went to a place called Small Batch twice.
Marc:But the high point outside of the shows was
Marc:was Euclid Records.
Marc:Euclid Records, I would say, outside of my buddy Dan's shop here is my favorite record store.
Marc:You hear me?
Marc:I'm not looking for perks.
Marc:I'm not looking for anything.
Marc:I'm not paid to say this.
Marc:But Euclid Records, my buddy Steve down there, the whole crew down at Euclid, they're always nice to me.
Marc:I spent two days
Marc:at Euclid Records at about two hours each day.
Marc:And I didn't even get to the jazz section.
Marc:Two days.
Marc:As you know, I was at Helium.
Marc:There's a great staff at Helium, but all the shows were pretty exciting because I'm doing this new hour 15 or so and I'm structuring it and it was good.
Marc:And the audiences were great.
Marc:They came to see me and they all filled out all the shows, the five shows.
Marc:But I will say this.
Marc:I will say this.
Marc:Look,
Marc:You know, I work here at the comedy store and it's a great club.
Marc:And Helium, the room itself, it's great.
Marc:It's a fine comedy venue.
Marc:But a couple of things happened that I thought, like, I thought I'd experienced all the shitty things that can happen on stage at a comedy club.
Marc:But I was wrong.
Marc:I have a new thing for the list.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Look.
Marc:The relationship between club owners and comics, you know, it's fraught sometimes.
Marc:Certainly coming up when I did, all you had, the only place you could perform was at the comedy club.
Marc:You weren't going to make any waves.
Marc:You know, even if you didn't get paid, you'd whine to other comics, maybe get your money.
Marc:Even if the club owner had suggestions for your act, you'd suck it up and listen, Tom Sawyer.
Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:But but let me tell you something, man.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe you've heard it on this show.
Marc:But the worst part about doing comedy club comedy is that it's a it's a bar business.
Marc:They're selling drinks and that's fine.
Marc:We get it.
Marc:And because of that, even if they sell food, there is a check spot.
Marc:There is a check drop.
Marc:During your set, we've grown to live with it.
Marc:that usually right towards the end of your set and some clubs maybe at the beginning of the last third of your set they're going to be dropping those checks and people are going to get distracted they're going to be distracted with math and money and you can feel the attention go away for a bit and it comes back but this is something this is the this is the the job we've chosen
Marc:And you get used to it.
Marc:It just is what it is.
Marc:It's a rare club that doesn't have a check spot.
Marc:So on Thursday night, I'm doing my set.
Marc:And all of a sudden I hear like a digital beep.
Marc:I'm like, what?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:And then I heard another one.
Marc:What the fuck is happening?
Marc:Is that someone's phone?
Marc:Is that a watch?
Marc:And then another one and another one and another one.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:And it's the goddamn point of sale machines.
Marc:I have to assume that they make them where they don't make noise, or you could turn the fucking thing off.
Marc:But during the check spot, during the pay time, like right when you're coming into your big bits, there's just a fragmented, scattered chorus of digital beeps.
Marc:I never thought, in my life as a comic,
Marc:That there would be an audible check drop.
Marc:And it just goes on and on for 15 minutes.
Marc:Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know what the ownership thinks that we can't hear it.
Marc:So I brought attention to it, but then people notice it more.
Marc:I just could not fucking believe it.
Marc:And apparently it's a franchise-wide thing.
Marc:system they have so i'm going to be in portland at helium so i'm anticipating the uh the sort of random beeping for 20 minutes starting about two-thirds of my i've never i just and i'm no diva people we don't ask for much a mic a mic stand maybe a stool that's about it everything else is a perk
Marc:But man, never thought in my life that there would be a audible check spot.
Marc:Just, I lost my mind.
Marc:I lost my fucking mind.
Marc:And apparently, word on the street is, been going on for a couple years.
Marc:But I guess people just, I don't know.
Marc:They don't want to say it.
Marc:It was something else, people.
Marc:Anyway, that was my experience.
Marc:I've added a new...
Marc:shitty thing that happens on stage to my list of shitty things.
Marc:And maybe you don't care, but it was something.
Marc:So listen, Gary Goldman is here.
Marc:He's got a new book out.
Marc:It's called Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the 80s.
Marc:Comes out tomorrow, September 19th.
Marc:This is not a trigger warning, but heads up.
Marc:This is a real conversation about pretty drastic mental health issues.
Marc:This is me talking to Gary Goldman.
Marc:You alright?
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Jesus Christ, I caught up on your stuff.
Marc:I think that's the first question.
Marc:Are you all right, man?
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's really a great question.
Guest:My friend Mike, who directed my special about being depressed...
Guest:He said he had worked with Letterman on the Netflix Letterman, so they became friendly.
Guest:And it turns out that Dave had the same psychiatrist as me, this guy.
Guest:I saw him in the special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Dave called my friend and said, how's the kid doing now?
Yeah.
Guest:When was this?
Guest:It was when it first aired.
Guest:He watched it.
Guest:He said it was a good special.
Guest:He said, how's the kid now?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's an honest question.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I will say I've had five years now of uninterrupted remission.
Guest:So I'm very, very grateful.
Guest:So that's the word that they use for depression, too?
Guest:Remission?
Yeah.
Guest:That's the one that feels the most accurate to describe what's going on.
Guest:I mean, I could say recovery, but then I feel like I'm appropriating the rooms.
Marc:Well, that's interesting because I think that once you get diagnosed with the profound depression that you had, that...
Marc:I think most people waver.
Marc:Sometimes people get depressed, and then they're kind of depressed, and then they have a good day.
Marc:So you don't look at it in terms of remission unless it's a chronic condition that took it where it took you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because everybody is on the spectrum of some sort.
Marc:And I like that about the special, about sort of destigmatizing mental illness.
Marc:And I thought that your mathematics around...
Marc:Side effects was kind of funny.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:In terms of kind of funny.
Marc:That's what I shoot for.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Because like, you know, when you're doing stuff that is and I've done it, too, that that is rooted in something, you know, serious and dire.
Marc:I mean, what you know, there's a message there.
Marc:So kind of funny is not an insult.
Marc:No.
Marc:Right, right, right, right, right.
Marc:No, I got it.
Marc:You're talking about serious stuff.
Marc:And I imagine, not unlike when I talked about grief, that you have to find the balance.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because the guarantee is that it's sad and off-putting and makes people uncomfortable.
Marc:100%.
Marc:That's a given.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So, like, there's nothing you can do about that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then over time, you know, the balance becomes sort of like, how do I balance that reality with the humor?
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But, like, the last time I talked to you was in 2013.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, and I don't remember you being depressed.
Guest:No, I had never had a lengthy, like two and a half year episode.
Guest:I would have six weeks, eight weeks, and then come back and recover.
Guest:And I never felt that great.
Guest:I never felt...
Guest:as suicidal i'd always felt since i was seven years old i always had this idea that i was going to end by my own hands and that it was just which crisis would would bring that about would it be a divorce would it be uh the grief over over a parent or a loved one yeah and and i i
Guest:I fought it pretty, what's the word I'm looking for?
Guest:Valiantly for a long time.
Guest:And then at 45, it came in such strength and uninterrupted that I had to, for the first time in my life,
Guest:be checked into the hospital for, you know, on two separate occasions.
Guest:Well, that's what you talked about during the, in the special of the great depression.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was, you just talked about one time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there was a, there was a second time that was, that was not, that was a followup.
Guest:That was a, that was a, that was a followup in which I, it's funny.
Guest:Cause I, I listened to Maria Bamford the other day, the interview that you did a couple of weeks ago.
Guest:And I,
Guest:She was talking about her hospitalization.
Guest:It was kind of similar in that I went to an emergency room.
Guest:One time I planned it, and it was a calendar, and I was going to be there for a month.
Guest:And the other time, I just didn't feel safe in my apartment, and my wife took me to the emergency room, and they admitted me right away.
Guest:And I stayed for three or four days until they wanted to move me to...
Guest:take advantage of the new insurance that i had that was different from from the one i had so you got an upgrade or no they asked me if i wanted to go to this other hospital and i said well i'm not familiar with it so i was frightened by it and i and i just went went home and the the key is always never telling them that you feel like you're a danger to yourself and then they'll eventually then you'll they'll let you go eventually so if you don't tell them that if you don't tell them that
Marc:You know, when I watch it, because, you know, I like I've been talking about trauma a bit on stage and, you know, and I come from depression and, you know, suicidal ideation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I've had most of my life as well.
Marc:My joke was different than yours.
Marc:What was your joke about it?
Marc:About about the essay.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You've got to leave a note.
Guest:If you're a conscientious person, you should leave a note.
Guest:I always dreaded writing essays.
Marc:And that's what kept you alive?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My joke about suicidal ideation is like, you know, I think about suicide all the time.
Marc:It's not because I want to kill myself.
Marc:It just makes me feel better knowing that I can if I have to.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:A hundred percent.
Marc:So there's that moment where it's just you're typing like, fuck.
Fuck.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:I could always kill myself.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I always think about that.
Guest:It's soothing in terms of if the worst thing were to happen, I could always kill myself.
Marc:Or even if it wasn't that bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, because of where I'm at now in terms of my own mental health and trying to assess, I'm going to be 60 this month.
Marc:I've decided, and I'm talking to you like this because when I watch your special, I'm like, I wonder if he could help me.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:As opposed to go to a doctor, I'm just going to drain you of your resources.
Guest:I've, I've accumulated quite a bit of resources through reading and, and also I have really good, I have really good professionals in my life.
Marc:So I've been, well, I don't go, well, it seems like, I mean, I remember when I was in college, I drove up to McLean's hospital.
Marc:Oh, I love that.
Marc:to see a guy.
Marc:And back then it was early on in the, uh, psychopharmaceuticals.
Marc:There was like one guy, I think who did one guy in New York.
Marc:I think his name was Klein.
Marc:And then there was a guy, you know, cause my, my cousin had issues and there was a guy at McLean's, but I can't remember why I was there.
Marc:You know, I, I don't, I don't know if I, I think I was depressed, but not unlike you and what you sort of talk about in your book that there, there was an awkwardness to, you know, how I felt in relation to other people.
Yeah.
Marc:A hundred percent.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, and you hear that in alcoholic stories all the time.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you say it was, I really fight the idea that I'm depressed if I am.
Guest:Oh, I always think it's just me that I am a lazy person who isn't very talented and isn't very attractive.
Guest:Yeah, what's that got to do with it, though?
Guest:Because I think, well, why wouldn't I feel lousy about myself?
Guest:I've got nothing going for me.
Guest:So you couldn't tell— I couldn't tell that that was a depressive symptom.
Guest:Not just a self-esteem problem.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because for me, what I've come upon in my research into myself, which is deep—
Marc:But there's always a blind side is that I suffer from profound anxiety.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And when that gets out of hand, you enter a sort of paralysis.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like a dread-fueled paralysis that looks like depression but may not be.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's what I decided.
Guest:And I've heard you describe your naps as mini suicides.
Guest:And I think that is one of the most brilliant...
Marc:When did I do that?
Guest:I like that.
Guest:Depictions of what I was doing was I would either be anxious or feel very overwhelmed by life, and I would take these long naps, and then those naps become 16-hour sleeping days.
Guest:Become days.
Guest:Yeah, and that was a lot of my coping mechanism, and then it got so bad that my wife at one point, she would describe me as being catatonic.
Marc:She would say, I thought you were dying.
Marc:My dad, see, that's the thing is my dad was a depressive, but, and it was, you know, we assumed it was bipolar, but I always tried, like my brain, for some reason, I imagine you were like this too, was that, is that, you know, I wanted it to be, um, uh, what, what's the word?
Marc:Symptomatic of experience.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Like I didn't, I didn't want to believe it was chemical.
Marc:Like, and it's not that I know, I know that exists, but
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I wanted it to be relative to a type of thinking or trauma or experience or emotional liabilities.
Marc:Like I didn't really want to believe that it was a chemical thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that's what you're talking about when you're younger, that it's got to be me.
Guest:It's got to be me.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Do you have it in your family?
Guest:Oh, my gosh.
Guest:My father was born at Danvers State Hospital.
Guest:You mean he was born institutionalized?
Guest:Yeah, because my grandmother was bipolar and she had had an episode while she was pregnant with him.
Guest:And so that's where he was born.
Guest:And then he was put into foster care eventually.
Guest:Yeah, eventually he was adopted by his grandparents and then his...
Guest:His mother got well, but when we talk about well, she was just... What does that back in the day, though?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:She was just heavily medicated with lithium.
Guest:Yeah, and she was just... I never got to enjoy any aspect of her personality.
Guest:I heard before her breakdown that she was very personable and fun and would have moments, but she would also have manic swings, and she was just heavily medicated in every interaction I ever...
Guest:So she was sort of just kind of in the corner silent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, so you remember her.
Guest:I do remember her.
Guest:And then on my mother's side, my mother's twin brother, and my mother would never admit this in a million years, my mother's twin brother was...
Guest:he was a fence.
Guest:He was a burglar and a, and a fence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and he was any who never bathed.
Guest:Like he was just, he was clearly, there was something wrong with him mentally and nobody would ever acknowledge it.
Guest:So it definitely runs on both sides.
Guest:My, my family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's, I mean, that, that's interesting that, but your father's not a depressive.
Guest:My father was not a depressive, but he was out of his mind.
Guest:Is he alive?
Guest:He's no longer alive.
Guest:My mother is alive.
Guest:She's 90.
Guest:My father passed away a few years ago.
Guest:Older parents.
Guest:Older, much older.
Guest:I was born when my father was around 50.
Guest:My mother was around 40.
Marc:But the book starts after you get out of being treated in the hospital...
Marc:In the psych ward with electroconvulsive therapy, you're just left with no other recourse in terms of emotionally and otherwise but to go live with your mother in the house you grew up in.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I guess the thing that I'm curious about is that – about being comics because I've noticed that somehow you're kind of transitioning into something that isn't fundamentally –
Marc:you know, club work.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there is sort of this point where either you have more to say or you want to speak to something, you know, personal in a way that you feel supported by your audience.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So you do that because you and I came up similarly.
Marc:I mean, I'm older than you, but like I was an angry Jewish kid that came out of, you know, Boston University.
Marc:I went out here for a while, got fucked up on drugs.
Marc:I went back and I started doing one nighters.
Marc:I'm doing Dick Daugherty shows.
Marc:I'm doing all the, you know, I'm doing all the one nighters all over the, when I look back at it though, though, I don't know who that guy was.
Guest:It was somebody you had to adjust to the audiences because, but it was crazy.
Marc:You're playing for townies in Lemonster.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:At a place called Pancho Villa's.
Guest:Yeah, and 99 restaurants.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But now, how much of you believe, now I did drugs as well, but do you believe that initially that comedy or the attraction to it, because I haven't really thought about this, was in a way self-medicating?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, yes, it was self-medicating in that you feel this rush of dopamine and acceptance and you were getting attention as a kid from this.
Guest:But also on the other side, and you hear from this people online all the time about how your comedy soothes them or makes them feel less alone.
Guest:And I found that from listening to people at the time
Guest:It was people like Stephen Wright and Richard Pryor and Bob Newhart.
Guest:And they would make me so happy.
Guest:And Steve Martin was a big album that my brothers had.
Marc:But what about the guys who were going at, like Kevin Knox?
Marc:Oh, my gosh.
Marc:Don Gavin.
Guest:When I went in high school to see at Nick's Comedy Stop, I saw guys like Sweeney and Don Gavin.
Guest:And to me, they were gods.
Guest:They were gods.
Marc:But the thing is, is that like that essentially, though, like if we're talking about what we do and what they do and what my appeal, my attraction to comedy initially was that it wasn't that it made me feel less alone.
Marc:It made me it relieved me because it gave me a way to look at things and it made me laugh.
Marc:And it's sort of like I think part of the appeal of comedy for me was that you could make sense of the world in this very specific way and share it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So.
Marc:when I watched any of those guys or Rickles or anybody else, I don't know if it made me feel less alone, but it made me laugh and it made me feel more Jewish and it made me, you know, feel like it was able to disarm, you know, sadness, fear and contextualize things in a way that I found very relieving.
Marc:But the sort of less alone thing to me is this sort of,
Marc:new byproduct of what we do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I, I think that when you talk honestly, there were three comedians back then.
Guest:One has passed away.
Guest:Gary Shanling.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:One is in disrepute.
Guest:Woody Allen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and one I think is, is ill Richard Lewis, but they were, I talked to him a week or so ago.
Guest:How is he doing?
Guest:He's okay.
Guest:You should do his podcast.
Guest:I'll tell him.
Guest:I would love to.
Guest:Because those three guys were Jewish men who were talking about being sad, failing, and being honest.
Guest:Those guys made you feel less alone.
Guest:And they made me feel less alone.
Guest:So that was a great connection.
Guest:It's so funny because my mother from my bar mitzvah took me to L.A.
Guest:to see The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Guest:And Gary Shandling and Carrie Fisher were the guests.
Guest:And it's one of my all-time memories.
Guest:I'll never forget that.
Guest:And I had never heard of...
Guest:gary shandling and then he became like my go-to comedian because he soon thereafter had the it's gary shandling show which was illuminating and revelatory and then the of course the larry sanders show which is just one of the most accurate depictions i guess that's right i guess like you know i'm overlooking that that the that jewishness was a big part of it yeah and that and it scares me now
Marc:Because there is a – comedies become tribalized and there are people that are like, you know, what's with all this whiny comedy, which is – it's a dog whistle for Jews.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think when I would listen to Rodney Dangerfield or people like that – Yeah.
Guest:Now I – like I do this little gag with Todd Glass where he plays Rodney Dangerfield and I play a friend who's gone through cognitive behavioral therapy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll say, Rodney, you can't say you get no respect.
Guest:You don't get as much respect as you'd like.
Guest:But I respect you.
Guest:And I think you need to change your doctor.
Guest:Dr. Vinny Bumbutz is not helpful.
Guest:He's insulting.
Guest:But I totally get that.
Guest:But he didn't identify as a Jew, really.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But it was so Jewish.
Guest:It was so Jewish, but a working class Jew, which we didn't recognize.
Guest:I love him.
Marc:And I don't think he did get the respect that he deserved when he was alive.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:You know, like I think that people have rethunk him.
Marc:I think that people like Norm MacDonald.
Marc:who was a tremendous proponent of Dangerfield.
Marc:And even me, as I get older, I watch him more.
Marc:When you watch him on The Old Carsons, you realize he's incapable of just talking.
Guest:That when he runs out of jokes, it's over.
Guest:He speaks in jokes.
Guest:But there was something about him and Bill Murray where they were losers, admittedly losers, but they seemed to have confidence.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that I found, like Chris Elliott was another person that I admired so much growing up because he was, especially on the Get a Life show, he was living with his parents, he was a paperboy, and yet he was arrogant and he was pushy and he was demanding.
Guest:And I always aspired to that because I felt like a loser and I thought, all right, I'm a loser, but at least I'll act like I deserve something more than to be ignored.
Marc:But the thing is it's interesting to me about you is that – and, you know, you were not – no one would have known necessarily.
Marc:No.
Marc:Nobody had any idea.
Marc:And the truth is is that, you know, our – because I'm a very sensitive guy and, you know, but like I think differently than you maybe because, you know, my parents were fundamentally –
Marc:I'm sure you had it, too.
Marc:And, you know, now that I'm old and, like, I feel a little safer around my own vulnerability, you know, it's still, you know, touch and go in the sense that – and I think doing stand-up like you're doing where you're, you know, exploring these elements of your childhood and of trauma and of depression, you gain more confidence in speaking from that place.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But, like, I still force myself to go out and do regular club comedy.
Marc:No, I know that.
Marc:And I don't always know why, but I feel like I have to stay in shape.
Marc:Like, I have to be able to go, like, why are you fucking talking?
Guest:I used to do that.
Guest:I used to do that.
Guest:I would go to the Comedy Cellar two, three nights.
Guest:place is not easy it's not easy i would do two or three shows a night on the weekends all weekend that's what you're supposed to do and it felt it got to be like i was doing road work right because they were not there to see me and they were talking they were eating what whenever they're serving snack chips in the front row it it drives me insane and i just i decided that it was much easier on my constitution and my mental state and
Guest:to do hours in small clubs where I could fill 50 or 60 people.
Guest:And work out the stuff.
Guest:And work out the stuff.
Guest:And that's been so helpful.
Guest:And I really feel that it doesn't make me a better club comic, but it makes me a better version of me as a standout.
Marc:But there's the thing is that like because social media and ability to find an audience has become sort of micromanageable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And especially if you're talking about things that people, you know, that are universals in a thorough way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You'll find your people.
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:But I still got some kind of weird, dumb, you know, old school working class comic disposition where it's sort of like you got to be able to go up in front of any audience and do the fucking job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the goal.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But I also felt the goal was always to find your own audience so you could be your most authentic self.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that—because I'll do well at the Comedy Cellar, but they're enjoying my jokes.
Guest:They're not enjoying me.
Guest:Yeah, but it's only 15 minutes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it is you.
Marc:But it's just not the ones that, you know, you feel satisfying.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And you can—
Guest:To me, it's all about those obscure references or those really deep feelings that I feel most comfortable sharing with an audience that knew they were going to see me.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so still, though, maybe this is a better way to look at it.
Marc:We need to do the clubs to stay in shape in a way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't want to get too lazy.
Guest:No, totally.
Guest:That's not even the right word.
Guest:There's also the social aspect of it.
Guest:Yeah, it's our guys.
Guest:Yeah, and that we get out of the house for the evening.
Marc:Right, and you have Bobby Kelly on.
Marc:You picked a good guy.
Marc:That guy, for such a bombastic fuck, is one of the sweetest guys in the world.
Marc:Oh, he's the sweetest.
Marc:And very capable of talking.
Marc:You know, he can receive the full spectrum of emotional problems just from his own recovery.
Marc:He's so versatile.
Marc:Yeah, he's the best.
Marc:Yeah, he's a great guy.
Guest:So talented.
Guest:We used to wait tables together on Newbury Street in Boston.
Guest:He got me the job.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, so we're very close, even beyond comedy.
Guest:Are you doing the Comics Come Home?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:For some reason, I haven't been invited back since, like, 2011 or something like that.
Guest:That guy's too sad.
Guest:You know, we're...
Guest:Larry's like, ah, fuck that guy.
Guest:Last time I made everybody cry.
Guest:I'm not going to fucking have that guy back on again.
Guest:That could be possible.
Guest:Although I don't think I was doing anything about depression last time I was there.
Marc:But we all knew.
Marc:I wouldn't have known because I didn't see you enough.
Marc:And I'm very sensitive to it.
Marc:So you must have been managing pretty well.
Guest:I was managing really well, and the thing was is that if I was out, I was feeling okay.
Marc:But my question to you is then, knowing all this stuff about the parents and knowing what I came through and our different trajectories around mental health, you don't think that any of that caused it?
Marc:Oh, of course it did.
Guest:Yeah, of course it did.
Guest:But I also think there's a chemical component, and I don't know what the percentages are.
Guest:I guess it's not really important.
Guest:Yeah, I just know that a combination of therapy and medication, and I don't want to undersell the power that the electroconvulsive therapy had on sort of rebooting.
Guest:And I've read that...
Guest:In Michael Pollan's book about changing your mind, that psilocybin mushrooms can have a similar effect in rebooting your system and taking you out of.
Marc:I'd like to see the long studies on that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They don't exist because it's been such a short investigation.
Guest:But you're right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's sort of like, you know, I get it.
Marc:I'm doing a joke about that, too, about how, you know, because I'm sober a long time.
Marc:Yeah, no, I know.
Marc:And now I know these guys who are sober as long as me who are getting prescribed weed.
Marc:And when you're this sober, you know what's up.
Marc:And they're like, well, I got a doctor's prescription.
Marc:I'm like, but you know what you're doing.
Marc:Right, totally.
Marc:But then I do this bit about, I say, so how's that work?
Marc:You go to the doctor and he's like, so you're depressed?
Marc:I'm like, I am a little bit.
Marc:And he says, well, you know, there's been a lot of studies and they find a pretty effective treatment for depression is just getting really fucking high.
Yeah.
Marc:But then I say, if you're having trauma issues, I can prescribe some microdoses because they find that nothing shakes trauma loose like tripping balls.
Marc:I don't know if you know that.
Guest:I mean, I don't know enough about smoking marijuana all day, every day.
Guest:I do.
Guest:It doesn't seem like it's a healthy or any kind of...
Guest:I don't think it has.
Guest:I think there's no free lunch is what I'm saying is that is that eventually I think it could.
Marc:I think what I just noticed when you were talking is that, like, you know, whether it comes from, you know, conditioning or or or chemical in this is a combination of the two.
Marc:But I think what gets exacerbated.
Marc:if you have a predisposition to depression, is that whatever your parents are hiding in terms of their incapacity to be emotionally supportive and selfless enough to manage being a parent properly creates a loneliness, right, that is deeper.
Marc:It's something you can't identify, and that exacerbates the biological component, I would think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Does that make sense?
Guest:Totally, because I find that there are certain days where I'll have done a lot of things.
Guest:I'll exercise and I'll do some writing and I'll be feeling really down.
Guest:And the missing component was that my wife was gone all day and I hadn't talked to anybody.
Guest:And I'll be out at night and I'll be with people.
Guest:And that's really important.
Guest:And my house was very lonely.
Guest:My brothers were grown.
Guest:My mother was either working or in her own world.
Guest:And it was very lonely.
Guest:And to this day, one of my biggest sensitivities and triggers is just...
Guest:hearing about anyone's loneliness or experiencing loneliness or songs about loneliness that I don't know if you're a Pearl Jam fan, but there's that song about the elderly woman who's working at the, at the cash register and sees somebody from her childhood.
Guest:And it's just, it's so forlorn and it just, it makes me cry almost every time I hear it.
Guest:And I've heard it a hundred times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, me is like that.
Marc:It's a magic tear maker.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I cry very easily at things.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:I don't weep outwardly.
Guest:No, I sob.
Guest:I'm like a crybaby.
Marc:I stifle it.
Marc:If I'm sitting with my girlfriend and we're in a movie, I'm just holding it in, but there's a tear running down my face.
Guest:I watched Harold and Maude recently that I'd put off my entire life because I knew I would feel and I knew it was going to be heartbreaking.
Guest:And I watched it, and the only thing I was...
Guest:grateful for was that my wife didn't see the violent sobbing because I felt like, oh, she'll never feel safer around me because I just... Can't keep it together.
Guest:I can't keep it together.
Guest:It was just the saddest thing.
Guest:But at the same time, it was the most joyful film I'd ever seen.
Guest:But there was that component.
Guest:I guess it's a very good metaphor for existence because there's... Well, right.
Marc:It's that balance that we talked about earlier of the reality of sadness.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and trying to sort of, you know, create a, you know, a counterbalance of humor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To sort of balance it.
Marc:And that's sort of a real challenge.
Marc:And I think a lot of us do it innately and some guys just don't do it at all with the with just jokes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But even when you look at somebody like a tell, there's never a doubt that that it tells a sad guy.
Marc:You never think like, well, this guy's got it together.
Marc:He's just writing, you know what I mean?
Marc:So he's sort of almost like the perfect, he's almost Rodney-like in that, you know, the disposition is honest.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And, you know, whatever it is that he's balancing is creating all this genius.
Guest:But look at who we really love, because you said this, and I agree with this totally, is that Maria Bamford's the best of us.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I think David Tell is right up there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:One thing they have in common is that they are so themselves the entire time they're on stage.
Guest:And we know how difficult that is.
Guest:But Dave, you have to decode.
Guest:Yeah, you have to decode.
Guest:Maria, not so much.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Maria is right there.
Guest:But even within her work, there's a lot to decode and unpack because there's so much ambivalence or multivalence.
Guest:It's extraordinary.
Guest:And I wanted to ask you, and I'm sorry for...
Guest:guiding where our discussion goes, but you've mentioned denial of death a lot on the show, and recently I'm reading it, I'm to the part where he kind of goes in on Freud, and I'm past the part where he embraces Kierkegaard, and so my question is, because that was written 50 years ago, how accurate, and I think I know you still believe
Guest:believe in a lot of the philosophies within that but how much of your anxiety has to do with this fear of death and also what role has faith played in in your abilities to get a a handle on it and maybe quell the the anxiety
Marc:Well, I think like I think that some of the points of that thing, there's a lot of, you know, it's all over the place after a certain point.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But what I learned the most was him sort of hijacking Freud's theory of transference onto the sort of almost innate need for humans as a species to feel connected to something bigger than themselves to give their life meaning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that kind of blew my mind.
Marc:Whether it's faith or football, who the fuck knows?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But for Kierkegaard, it was faith.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But for me, I think faith is sort of accommodated...
Marc:with some strange kind of selfish denial of things.
Marc:Like, I don't have an organized faith.
Marc:I'm not a practicing Jew.
Marc:You know, I don't generally believe in God.
Marc:So on bad days, you know, I can think there's obviously, you know, I know I'm not him.
Marc:And then I know that...
Marc:That there seems to be some universal order to things.
Marc:But, you know, my faith is, I think, generally founded in people and also a strange kind of cynical optimism that I think probably wrongly so at this point in history that things are going to be okay and that humans are generally good at their core.
Marc:But both of those things I've begun to doubt, which makes things a little worse.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:But also, you know, having lost Lynn and being that close to death and the death of someone I love, it's given me a very practical experience with loss.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So that coupled with the other stuff...
Marc:It's still a very rational approach.
Marc:I'm not totally cynical.
Marc:I wouldn't say that I'm a committed atheist, but I don't spend much time concerned with spiritual matters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What about you?
Guest:Well, I think I, like a lot of people my age and a lot of Jews my age, I've cobbled together a sort of philosophy or religion based on a few of the Ten Commandments.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:The Sermon on the Mount, I think, was very helpful to others.
Marc:How to behave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So civilization doesn't eat itself.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's a blueprint for an ethical, empathic life.
Guest:And then there's just this idea that I first came across and different people have different ideas for saying this, but it was Kurt Vonnegut talking about his son, Mark, who survived schizophrenia and is now a pediatrician or retired pediatrician.
Guest:He said, we are here on earth to help each other through this, whatever it is.
Guest:And I thought, oh, that makes sense.
Guest:And the other thing is I love Camus, so I feel like you can give meaning to whatever it is, even if it's pushing a boulder up and down it.
Marc:And also, it's like, you know, it's one of the, you know, I believe that cognitive therapy and acting as if is is good.
Marc:Yeah, I think that you can sort of, you know, choose against your instincts if they're shitty.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And grow into having better habits.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And also, I believe that, you know, being there for other people.
Marc:And I talked about this a little in the special doesn't take much.
Marc:And I think that's the big fall in a selfish culture, because in the special, you talk a lot about, you know, sort of millennials and the difference between them and for good and for bad that, you know, they seem to be more accepting, but they're also more detached in some ways.
Marc:But ultimately, to show up for somebody else, you know, requires very little effort.
Marc:And it goes a long way.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think Twain had this quote where he said the easiest way or the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer someone else up.
Guest:And there is something about doing these acts of altruism that even if it means...
Guest:Delaying your own gratification, it actually becomes gratifying.
Guest:And it has made me feel better in a lot of cases.
Guest:It stopped being that exciting to go on TV shows and do stand-up.
Guest:What became really exciting before the strike was trying to get friends and comedians that I admired on their first...
Guest:TV late night sets.
Guest:It just felt so good and much better than it feels now going on TV.
Guest:It's almost like... Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like helping other people, being of service.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, the whole premise of recovery of AA is just talking to another alcoholic so you get out of yourself.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And being of service is very simple in a lot of ways if you can do it.
Marc:But, you know, ultimately the only issue becomes, especially if you're mentally ill, as we are to whatever degree, is that you do have to have some boundaries.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because like, you know, helping somebody else can, you know, can ruin your life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:In the sense of like who you let in, you know, codependency, whatever it may be.
Marc:But, you know, but just in a general way, being of service, it's there's plenty of ways to do it.
Marc:I don't do all of them.
Marc:But I think that like what we're doing right now is service.
Marc:And that's sort of a cop out.
Marc:You know, I can rationalize it.
Marc:Like, do you help people?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, but I feel like I had this obligation after recovering to share what worked for me and also give some people some hope that I owed the world something because I really, in the depth of it, two and a half years in, I thought, oh, this is just who I'm going to be until I work up the courage to end my life.
Guest:And then when something finally worked, two and a half years in, I was...
Guest:I was so grateful.
Guest:I was just looking for ways to express that and give some people some hope.
Guest:But there was just something that you were talking about recently about the 12-step programs.
Guest:And Vonnegut always talked about this.
Guest:He said that the only worthwhile religion on the planet was Alcoholics Anonymous.
Guest:And he said that the key was, and I wonder if you agree with this, was that it...
Guest:It put a governor on loneliness that it was able to circumvent some of a lot of the loneliness, which is a lot of the drinking and a lot of that.
Marc:Well, that comes back to, you know, talking to another alcoholic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then the other concept, I think, that is the most important.
Marc:really the part of it, and this goes back to existentialism and it goes back to some of the stuff in terms of the kind of leading up to a spiritual awakening, is the idea of powerlessness.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That is the kicker, is that once you realize you're powerless over alcohol because there's no indication that you can do it safely, then you really start to expand that and you realize, like, I have power over almost nothing.
Marc:We are powerless over just about everything.
Marc:And that becomes a powerful place to be in accepting that.
Marc:Getting it in your head that you can't do drugs, that you're powerless over whatever it is you're in recovery for, that you need to know.
Marc:And then talking to other people is the next thing.
Marc:And then ultimately they want to lead you to there's a power greater than yourself.
Marc:So however you want to handle that is up to you.
Marc:But accepting and understanding powerlessness is also the other sort of component.
Guest:but it's also an interesting twist and this is sort of the epitome of humility yeah and and the strength that i found over the years i'm sure many of us find in being humble i've never felt stronger than when i felt or or opened up about my weakness yeah yeah oh yeah yeah that like i i think like i'm i'm i'm
Marc:I think that like I don't pay a lot of lip service to humility and I still am sort of cocky and, you know, and, you know, in certain situations, people who know me can get right in.
Marc:But like in certain situations, I can be kind of a dick because I like to, you know, I say things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, out of petty resentment.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That I think are funny.
Guest:I'm the same.
Guest:I'm the same way.
Guest:But I think it's obvious to anybody who's taken even a 10th grade psychology class that a lot of our boasting and gloating is insecurity.
Marc:Insecurity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, like, you know, sometimes it's just it'll keep you out of the hole.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:It's why I'm going in.
Marc:Go fuck yourself.
Guest:It's why I admire shit talking athletes so much because who knows whether they're scared down deep, but there's something driving them to this level that borders on it.
Guest:In the case of the, the Kobe Bryant's and the Michael Jordan's, they're maniacal.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're maniacal.
Marc:Well, I, I've never really had that, but, but so it's interesting.
Marc:So the book starts, you know, you know, when you go back after you've had, uh, uh, ECT.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, my dad had it and, um,
Marc:And he claimed that it erased a lot of his memories.
Marc:But he has dementia.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he doesn't want to admit that he has dementia, but he's going to blame ECT.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The thing with depression...
Guest:is that it's hard to form memories when you're depressed.
Marc:But this book is very focused in terms of fairly specific memories.
Marc:And you have them in, I imagine, bits and pieces, the ones that had an impact on you.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't lose a lot of memory.
Guest:Is that something that happens?
Guest:Yes, I have heard.
Guest:A lot of it is short term.
Guest:A lot of it is things that would have happened around the time I was depressed or being treated for the depression.
Guest:My doctor says some of these memories, you never really they never stuck because they called depression faux dementia.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So because, you know, it's almost a different, entirely different psychological state.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it's almost like drinking or a blackout where you're like, well, because my dad would go in and out of rages or in and out of depression.
Marc:When bipolar people go up, they're like, that wasn't that bad.
Marc:It was like when you were in bed for three months.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, I mean, they become addicted to the to the mania.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you didn't have mania.
Marc:No, I didn't have the gift of mania.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I was not touched by fire, but I did.
Guest:I did have the depression, which is deadlier.
Marc:So did you find that writing this book, you know, because like it seems like the framework of it is in the Great Depression.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:This is sort of like a prequel to the Great Depression.
Marc:But it's also, it's a prequel, but it's you going back as somebody who recovered from depression and assessing your life in light of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I wanted to highlight some of the sources of my worldview and my outlook and where my...
Guest:my depression started, the first time I felt it.
Guest:Maybe I was destined to be depressed at some point, but I remember when my father had this very arrogant idea that I would have a tremendous advantage athletically if I would repeat the first grade.
Guest:And I was a precocious kid.
Guest:I was not immature, and so I was... So was I, but we're a mess.
Guest:It's interesting, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I was forced to repeat this grade, and I was much bigger than everybody else, and I had nothing to say to any of these kids.
Guest:They were just...
Guest:They were not fully formed physically nor mentally.
Guest:And so I was just very lonely.
Guest:And I had a teacher who was cruel.
Guest:And those were the first times when I had suicidal ideation.
Guest:And I felt like life was just this nightmare that was not worth living.
Guest:And I talked about this in the Great Depression, that Sunday night when 60 Minutes would come on and that...
Guest:I would have panics and dread and fake illnesses and go to the nurse and be sent home.
Guest:It was a nightmare, man.
Guest:I did all that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, but I didn't get as depressed as you.
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:I regressed.
Marc:I remember in camp, the first time that my mom took me to camp, I was just unconsolable.
Marc:To be left.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And when my parents would go out of town when I was like eight or nine on a trip, I would be convinced they would die in a plane crash.
Marc:And I had to be sent home from school.
Guest:I used to have this recurring nightmare that the bomb was dropped and I was at school away from my mother.
Guest:And so I would go out of my way to either stay home from school or get sent home because I didn't want to be separated from my mother.
Guest:And I had no problem going to school in kindergarten.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And first and nobody noticed that suddenly I had regressed when I repeated first grade.
Guest:They just were not.
Guest:I love the parents now because they're in tune with their kids.
Guest:And we were free range.
Marc:But it's weird because our relationships with our mother were not appropriate.
Marc:Or, you know, there was not.
Marc:Well, I was like an eight year old husband.
Marc:Yeah, there's that.
Marc:That's the thing about it is that you become an extension of that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I still am.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I still am.
Guest:My mother, my Gary, and she feels entitled to comment on my hair and my clothing and everything like I am just some sort of reflection of her still.
Guest:And she's 90.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's no fixing it now.
Guest:No, not her.
Guest:My wife, my wife always says you're arguing with her like she's an equal and you're going to change her.
Guest:And she, she only knows good, bad, ugly, pretty.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just don't like, yeah, I've had realizations over time about both of them and you know, I am pretty okay with them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And yeah.
Marc:And my mother just is very kind of emotionally very immature.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, and very young.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And they're very sensitive.
Guest:And sensitive people, for whatever reason, my mother could be mean as a snake.
Marc:Yeah, my mother can really take the shots.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, I remember at one point being really sick and not wanting to go to some half-assed doctor she was recommending.
Guest:And she said, you don't want to get better.
Guest:And I thought, wow, you really can pick the cruelest possible thing to say.
Guest:Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Guest:And doesn't understand the impact and will call me sensitive for saying how hurtful these things are.
Guest:My mother's like a horrible caretaker.
Marc:Like if you get sick, it's like, she just doesn't really want to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What have you to do with it?
Guest:She'd feed me, but she would, yeah, but there was nothing, nothing comforting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was nothing beyond that.
Guest:And, and a lot of, uh, Bobby Meissen's old wives tales and superstitions about illness and things like, yeah.
Marc:I don't know, but it's so, it's so fucked up that we still have to, how old are you?
Marc:53.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm 59.
Marc:You still unpack this stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was a point where I was able to accept them, and the triggers got less.
Marc:But now my dad's losing his mind, so that's a whole other thing.
Marc:But it's weird because, I don't know about you, but for years I thought it was my dad that was the problem.
Marc:But then all of a sudden one day you're like, oh no.
Marc:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's her.
Marc:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But does your brother Craig see it?
Guest:Because my brothers have no idea that there's anything wrong with my mother or father.
Guest:They think they're saints.
Guest:So that's helpful to have somebody to corroborate.
Guest:My brothers will not corroborate the insanity of my family.
Marc:Oh, there's only a two and a half year difference and he was younger.
Marc:So like I got, you know, I was the golden child and he got, and he took a hit, but he's still, you know, he's gotten very accepting and responsible about things.
Marc:But, you know, there was a period there where he's like, you know, my father, you couldn't deal with it.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And, and my mother, he understands.
Marc:I always thought he was closer to her.
Marc:I was closer to him, which were, or related to them differently.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, which is probably true, but he's completely on board.
Marc:He's got all the same problems.
Marc:That's really helpful.
Marc:And he's yeah.
Marc:Also, he's he was the spiritual searcher.
Marc:He was always the proactive one.
Marc:He was always the one looking for ways to get better.
Marc:And where did he land?
Marc:He's all right.
Marc:It took a while here and there, up and down, but he went through a couple marriages, got a few kids, and now he's in his third major relationship and seems to be really good.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:He's got a daughter, and everything seems to kind of be working out.
Marc:But he, arguably, my little brother, who I always say, he was the tennis player, the jockey, arguably made a bigger mess of his life than me.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:And I'm proud of him.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Marc:Because it was always like, I always thought I was the fuck up.
Marc:And then like in quiet moments over the course of our lives, he would tell me what he was up to.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck?
Guest:You're hardcore, you know?
Guest:That's great.
Guest:No, my brothers were so straight edge and married at 25 and had two children each.
Guest:And so I was a black sheep.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:No, my brother and I are very close with that stuff.
Marc:And he's, you know, he's all right.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Yeah, he landed on his feet.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:So what did you learn in terms of like, you know, the one thing about writing, which I found great about, I hate doing it.
Marc:I really don't like to write.
Marc:But there is a, there's something that...
Guest:that happens when you do it that is a level of self-discovery that you can't just think or vocalize when it comes out of you on paper you're sort of like wow did you find that a hundred percent yeah i i would take certain events that i highlighted in the book to therapy that that week or for the next couple of weeks and yeah and discuss them and the impact and and to have a
Guest:An objective person saying, no, this is insane for you to be in the... This sounds very petty of me, but I keep telling everyone I was in the top reading group in first grade.
Guest:I got all A's.
Guest:And then I find out a week before school starts that I'm repeating this very easy, simple...
Guest:And the only explanation is that I'll be better at sports, which I really wasn't that into, and I would have been fine in sports anyhow.
Guest:And so my doctor or my therapist is a social worker named Alan Lefkowitz, who you'll find a lot of the New York comedians go to him.
Guest:He said it's incredibly undermining.
Guest:It makes you lose confidence in yourself.
Guest:And you are supposed to trust these people to have your... And so you assume that this is the best idea.
Guest:And then years later, you realize there was no accountability.
Guest:And everybody tells you to shake it off.
Guest:I brought it up with my dad while he was alive.
Guest:And he apologized.
Guest:And his explanation was inconceivable.
Guest:He said that when...
Guest:When he was in second grade, he changed schools from Boston to New York, and his mother said he was in third grade instead of second grade, and he was always overwhelmed by that experience.
Guest:So he was trying to help you.
Guest:So he was trying to help me, and he says, and I fought the superintendent and the principal, and I said, I know my son, and I always thought, no, you spent three hours with him on a Sunday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my teacher was my next door neighbor and had me six hours a day and knew I should be going into second grade.
Guest:And it's just, to this day, I have this certain malaise every time it gets to be fall.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I remember how I felt every year going back to school that I didn't fit in and that I was unhappy.
Marc:So you're saying that hobbled you through for all of elementary school?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I didn't have a close friend until fifth grade.
Guest:And so I would just come home after school every day and I would read or draw notes.
Guest:And then eventually I found basketball, which was the only sport you could practice by yourself.
Guest:And that was very helpful.
Guest:I would go to the park and shoot for hours, which is very zen.
Guest:And I would make friends through that.
Guest:But I didn't have a friend who I would go over to his house frequently until I was fifth grade.
Guest:And that's just a tough time to be so solitary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think...
Guest:It was the voice in my head.
Guest:Here was an interesting thing about my dad.
Guest:He grew up in the Bronx, Jewish, fought every day.
Guest:According to him, there was a fight every day.
Guest:Somebody would call him a Jew bastard or something.
Guest:He would fight them.
Guest:And he always told me if anybody gives you a hard time, teases you, pushes you, you hit him and you fight.
Guest:And I just didn't have that in me.
Guest:I didn't know how to fight.
Guest:And I was afraid of fighting.
Guest:And so I just felt like such a soft, weak...
Guest:being teased and bullied by the other kids and unable to do anything about it.
Guest:And also this horrible letdown to my father.
Guest:So there was this whole side of my personality that I wasn't able to share with my dad.
Guest:And it was very sad for me.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't come from... My dad was an angry fuck in a lot of ways, but I wasn't in culture.
Guest:My dad was the type.
Guest:Somebody would give him the finger on the highway, and we'd be like, we're not going to the carnival today.
Guest:He's going to follow this person until he pulls him over to the side.
Guest:My brothers witnessed him pulling somebody out of the car who was driving too fast in a parking lot.
Guest:I mean, my father was...
Marc:was uh yeah full of rage my dad was a angry explosive guy but he wasn't like that he'd take it you know he'd yell at us a lot yeah about this or that right i used to do a joke he used to you know he used to have a gun in his car oh yeah uh like uh and and and i and i think the joke was like we just assumed he was going to use it on himself we didn't we weren't afraid we weren't really worried about it but uh it's insanity
Marc:But like, I'm the same with fighting too.
Marc:And I got an email from an asshole once that really, I can't, I think about it all the time because it bothers me.
Marc:And I talk about masculinity a lot on stage now and about, you know, what is, what is courage and what is, you know, I talk about being called a pussy like recently and I'm like,
Marc:I say this guy called me a pussy.
Marc:I'm a 59-year-old man, but it landed.
Marc:Oh, it lands.
Marc:Yeah, when you're a certain type of way in high school, it's going to land all the time.
Marc:And then you go into this weird spin about your masculinity and everything else.
Marc:And I kind of explore that.
Marc:But this guy wrote me an email about how he could tell—
Marc:Because he was at a show where I fucking unloaded on somebody.
Marc:And he said, you know, basically he said, you're a pussy.
Marc:He said, when I was a kid, you know, there was somebody who was bullying me at school.
Marc:And my older brother said, you just go to school and you fucking punch him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And take care of it.
Marc:So this guy, the thing that sits with me that drives me nuts is he says, I went to school that day and I broke that guy's jaw.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he says, and I became my own hero.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:And I'm like, fuck, I'm definitely not my own hero.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I don't know what happened to the other kid.
Marc:But nonetheless, standing up for himself in that way gave him a fundamental cognitive change in his ability to stand up for himself.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I talk about it in the book.
Guest:There was one time where I was beaten up.
Guest:My mother broke it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:After school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that felt terrible.
Guest:And then later on that year, it became clear that I was an easy pick.
Guest:Easy mark.
Guest:Right?
Guest:An easy mark.
Guest:So everybody was challenging me to a fight because I guess it would be a pretty big win because I was taller and bigger than everybody.
Guest:I just was soft.
Guest:And so he challenged me to a fight.
Guest:And out of...
Guest:I don't know where the inspiration came.
Guest:I just got him in a headlock.
Guest:And I held him in the headlock until he gave up.
Guest:And it didn't feel any better than losing a fight.
Guest:It didn't make me feel strong.
Guest:I was shaking.
Guest:It was as traumatic as being beaten up.
Guest:It just was not my... Dominance or aggressiveness was not my personality.
Guest:No, I go for the full charm offensive.
Guest:I'm the negotiator.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I think comedy helped a lot, that I would make people like me rather than want to fight me.
Guest:But there are those stories of the mother telling the son that he's going to have to stand up for himself and going and fighting.
Guest:And then there are those stories where the kid...
Guest:Probably had a breakdown and never felt good about himself because he could never fight.
Guest:So these things, because my dad did that to me all the time.
Guest:I'd come in after being beaten up, and he'd say, go out there and fight the kid.
Guest:And I'd just go out there and walk around the neighborhood avoiding that.
Guest:And it made me feel horrible.
Marc:And this is where you get that comparison with evolved parents of today in a progressive way where it's a gift that
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In a way.
Marc:But it seems to me not unlike some of the observations I'm making is that it was the patterns of emotional negligence or emotional abuse that really in the long run become the most traumatic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Not the single episodes.
Marc:Not yet.
Marc:It's not it's not about that day you had putting that guy in a headlock.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's the repetition of your father's point of view.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And every story told from his childhood was about a fight, most that he won.
Guest:Some occasionally throw in for balance a loss of a fight, but it was mostly about how aggressive he was and how angry he was.
Guest:And it made me feel very, very soft and that I didn't measure up in comparison.
Marc:See, I feel soft, but it's only for people that know me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But as I get older, more and more people see it.
Marc:And they're just sort of, you know, the one thing I don't realize is there's plenty of people in my life that you and I have known for years that, you know, I'm not fooling them.
Marc:They're just sort of like, yeah, well, Mark does that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like I'm having this small birthday party in a couple of weeks.
Marc:And I literally the guest list is very weird because there's some people I've known a very long time.
Marc:There's some people I've only known a little while.
Marc:And there's some people that I like seeing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I realized that out of the 20 or 30 people that I invited to the party, it's really people that don't cause me any anxiety.
Marc:That was how I gave the guest list, for whatever reason.
Marc:These are people, whether they're new friends or older, older, older friends, they don't cause me any anxiety.
Guest:No, I get that.
Guest:But I have found that one sort of silver lining to the fact that it took me so long to make friends is that I know the value of friendship.
Guest:And I'm loyal and I'm good at it.
Guest:I'm good as a friend.
Marc:I guess sometimes I get a little selfish, but yeah.
Guest:No, I get that.
Guest:But it's just, I've learned over the years, it's really, when you have a fucked up family, your friends are really all you have to get you through.
Marc:Yeah, and I've had friends at different stages of my life.
Marc:Some of them have stayed in the pocket, and some came later.
Marc:I found that the friends I met as an adult that stood by me through divorces and the death of a partner and sobriety, that means a lot.
Marc:But then I reached out to this kid I went to Hebrew school with.
Marc:No way.
Marc:And he's going to come.
Marc:I got one guy who I see when I go back home to Albuquerque.
Marc:Oh, that's amazing.
Marc:Who I've known since second grade.
Marc:Ha!
Marc:We don't, you know, we're pretty tight because there's a familiarity, but he's still in my life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I realized yesterday, like, we'll see if he wants to come out, you know.
Marc:Oh, that would be, what's his name?
Marc:David Kleinfeld.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:So in looking at the, what did you find in the book was really the crux, you know, outside of...
Marc:the the chemical uh imbalance around the depression what was it in the book where you're like well and we talk about your father but is there one episode outside of like you know getting the guy in the headlock that you really sort of hang a lot of uh you think back on as being the most traumatic thing uh
Marc:Oh, I mean... Or I know it's not all about trauma, and some of it's just fun.
Guest:No, I mean, there were certain things, like the first time I had been in love with a girl when I was in high school, it was very difficult after that to ever really go back into that.
Guest:It took me years and years to open myself up to that possibility because it was so devastating, and it brought about a...
Guest:I wouldn't say it was a depressive episode because the one thing about being 17 is that you have to get up every day and go to school and be on a sports team and be around people.
Guest:So it wasn't like I was depressed like I was at 40s.
Guest:But I didn't want to ever connect that way with a girl or later...
Guest:I don't know at what age we're supposed to call them women, but we were boys and girls at the time, but it was so hard.
Guest:It devastated me, and I had nobody's perspective to say that I would say to a boy now, you're going to get to a point in your life, and I think about this frequently with my wife, that sometimes she'll be naked in my house, and I really won't look twice.
Marc:i i'm so used to seeing naked women that it's not the end all and be all of my existence sure like it is in 17 and there'll be a time where you'll be able to you'll be okay find women that you like you're not i was so hung up on sexual stuff that like because i yeah like because you know i had all these i had friends and they were all you know like having sex and yes everyone was having sex and i was so bad at it i would come in my pants nine times out of ten i couldn't i
Marc:talked about that in the book you did a constant premature ejaculator and a compulsive masturbator and it was just like it was devastating and I saw porn way too young and I thought like well that's how you do it and it was like but that was a Betamax
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:My parents had in a drawer.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't get it.
Guest:That's not good.
Guest:I don't think it's helpful to see porn too young.
Marc:No, it fucked me up.
Marc:But sexual anxiety is plaguing to me today.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Like, you know, defining myself.
Marc:You know, I learned how to do it, and I'm okay at it, and I function as an adult, and I've probably had more sex than most people.
Marc:But the anxiety around it and just being just sort of –
Marc:Like so anxious, you know, either coming in your pants or premature ejaculating or not being able to get it up because you're so freaked out is paralyzing for life.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You talk about it in the book?
Guest:Well, yeah, I talked about that, that a girl liked me and a friend of mine had said, if you play your cards right, you could get laid.
Guest:You could have sex.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew there was no way it was going to happen.
Guest:And then one day we were kissing passionately.
Guest:She was lying on top of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and it's, and that felt so good.
Guest:And, and I just made up an excuse to have to leave because I had, I had soiled myself.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Soiled yourself.
Marc:I don't think, I think you can, it's not the same.
Marc:You, you, you kind of, you came in your pants.
Marc:I came in my pants.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I shouldn't say soil.
Guest:I just, I,
Marc:Coming in your pants is just the worst.
Marc:There's been times where... And I had to do my own laundry because I didn't want my mother to discover that I... My mother, like, how about discovering the mountain of Kleenex stuck on the side of my bed?
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:They know.
Marc:They fucking know.
Guest:They had to know.
Guest:That was the one area that they knew not to shame me in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I just remember there was a time where I was like making out with somebody my freshman year of college and I came in my pants and I stood up from the bed carefully and I spilled the soda on my pants to be like, oh shit.
Marc:Smart.
Marc:That's really smart.
Marc:It really is.
Marc:It's just the worst.
Marc:No, I just sprinted home.
Marc:But that's also a compare thing.
Marc:Like, who knows what people were really doing?
Marc:But look, there's definitely not necessarily well-adjusted people, but people who are not so sensitive that they destroy themselves over everything.
Guest:And there were also well-adjusted people.
Guest:And that was the great thing about comedians is they would talk about these humiliating things and they would let you off the hook.
Guest:And I think that's one of the great powers of comedy.
Guest:of comedians is they can let you off the hooks for things like being lonely or on drugs.
Guest:Oh, that's true.
Guest:If you talk about it, yeah, totally.
Guest:And I would feel, I remember Barbara Swanson was a comedian.
Guest:I remember.
Guest:She was the first person to talk about
Marc:Holy shit, I had not heard that name and so on.
Marc:She had the big hair.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And she was like, yeah, hey, how are you?
Guest:Yeah, she was the first person to talk about being on Prozac.
Guest:And I thought, wow, how brave.
Guest:I'm so embarrassed.
Guest:I think she passed away from cancer at a young age.
Guest:She was lovely, but I just thought that was a great thing.
Guest:The bad thing is that sometimes comedians let you off the hook for bad things, like being racist or misogynistic or...
Marc:No, I think this is a good point.
Marc:I think now I have to really kind of explore years of premature ejaculation and anxiety-driven impotence as my next one-person show.
Marc:Thank you for the breakthrough.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I've done grief, I'm doing trauma, but now just sort of like soiling myself with cum.
Guest:How old were you when you read Portnoy's Complaint for the first time?
Marc:Oh, God, I don't know.
Marc:I feel like I was in college.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, I was after college, too.
Guest:I could have really used that book in high school.
Guest:That would have made things easier.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:The masturbation thing with Jews is a big thing.
Marc:I imagine it's pretty big with everybody.
Marc:It has to be big with every culture.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:We didn't invent it.
Marc:No, we didn't invent it.
Marc:But I knew early on, just from the Jews that I knew from Hebrew school, we were talking about jerking off when we were like 13.
Guest:That's so interesting because everybody in my sphere denied it until we got to college.
Guest:And then I was on this football team and everybody after practice was talking about how they were going to go back to their rooms and jerk off.
Marc:and i thought yeah and i thought and you admit that yeah yeah oh no the jews in my circle oh that's so funny so do we cover it i think we covered it yeah i i i really appreciate this this went deep i loved it well what else is it gonna do yeah no i know i know wait what uh so what's this new person show that fine arts tells me you got a new a new show going well where you talk about class disparity
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That was a special.
Guest:I shot in Toronto in June, born on third base, in which I talk about income inequality.
Guest:But in terms of how I grew up and things like that.
Marc:And when's that going to be out?
Guest:I hope that it'll be out in December, but we've sent it to the streamers, and I may wind up self-formatting.
Guest:What do they call it?
Guest:Platforming.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But you've got a good audience now.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I'm very grateful.
Guest:This is more than I could have ever hoped for.
Guest:And I was talking about this with Tig Notaro recently.
Guest:I said, and she agreed, if we were able to maintain this for the rest of our lives, this level, we would be very happy and content.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's true.
Marc:Some part of me thinks like, how come not everyone everywhere thinks like me?
Marc:There's part of my being that's sort of like, I don't understand.
Marc:I'm the most accessible comic around.
Marc:It's not true.
Marc:Good talking to you, buddy.
Marc:Same here.
Marc:All right, there you go.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:That was pretty heavy.
Marc:Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the 80s, comes out tomorrow, September 19th.
Marc:Hang out for a minute, people.
Marc:Hey, WTF Plus subscribers can listen to Gary's first appearance right now.
Marc:This was on episode 357 from back in 2013.
Guest:Comedy Cellar has been a tremendous social boon for me.
Marc:It's a great place to hang out.
Guest:Once you're invited over to the table and you're not one of those people at the other table.
Guest:It's very interesting because there is a table very close to it that you can reach and touch it.
Guest:Don't bring your chair any closer than the talking distance.
Guest:You can talk from that table, but to sit in the corner table.
Guest:It's high school cafeteria.
Guest:It's remarkable.
Guest:In New York, it's definitely a special seat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you are a strong enough performer and star that you're able to actually bring somebody to the table who's not even a comic.
Guest:That's a very special level.
Guest:Not many people can get away with that.
Guest:I've had girlfriends where they will say, yeah, you've got to be a comedian to sit at this table.
Guest:So it says more about me.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But also, I've also brought girls in there, and I'm like, you know, I don't want to bring you...
Guest:I don't want to put you through that.
Guest:Oh, no, because it's a lot gentler now.
Marc:You just don't, you know, you never know when, you know, it depends on the mix.
Marc:But, you know, if Patrice was alive, I'll sit in another restaurant.
Marc:If I go there with somebody, I'm like, you know what?
Marc:Mark, you're a phony bitch.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:To get that episode and all WTF episodes ad-free, sign up now by going to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.
Marc:And this is a slide guitar specifically for Lorraine Newman.
Marc:Okay, Lorraine, I'm doing this for you.
Marc:We know why.
Marc:Okay.
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
.
.
.
guitar solo
guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and LaFonda.
Guest:cat angels everywhere