Episode 1492 - Jesse David Fox
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark marin this is my podcast welcome to it how is everybody how are things going at home how are things going at work what's going on with your parents
Marc:What is happening with your kids?
Marc:Oh my God, the options are infinite.
Marc:How's your partner?
Marc:How's that guy who lives down the street?
Marc:What about that guy that keeps walking by your house?
Marc:Maybe you should ask him what's up.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:Wandering around New York.
Marc:That's what I've been doing.
Marc:A lot of walking, a lot of trying to find vegan food, eating.
Marc:Things have changed since I've been coming here over the years.
Marc:It's odd being a vegan person, but I'm not missing it.
Marc:I literally stay across the street from Katz's and I think about it and nothing happens.
Marc:So I guess that's a good sign.
Marc:Let me do some business up front here.
Marc:First of all,
Marc:On the show today, Jesse David Fox is here.
Marc:He's the senior editor at New York Magazine's Vulture site.
Marc:And since like 2012, he's been covering comedy for Vulture.
Marc:I've talked to him many times for print interviews, and I've been on his podcast a couple of times.
Marc:It's called Good One, a podcast about jokes.
Marc:He wrote the new book, Comedy Book, How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic that Makes it Work.
Marc:I read the whole thing.
Marc:I read the whole thing because it's about my business.
Marc:It's like reading the Cliff Nesteroff book.
Marc:Sometimes I'll read the whole book.
Marc:I don't know why I say that, like I need to be proud, but I've been reading a lot more lately, which is good.
Marc:I don't think I ever... I think the problem with reading in me is when I sit down to read, like I have to...
Marc:actually think about people I know who read a lot and just think about them saying, all right, I'm going to read for a couple hours.
Marc:Because for me to sit down and do anything for a couple hours, I got a million other things that need to be done that aren't even major.
Marc:Small things, things that probably aren't urgent, like cooking, eating, fixing the refrigerator.
Marc:There's just, I don't allot the time.
Marc:And as I get older, I guess maybe it's just because
Marc:It's enjoyable.
Marc:I'm like, just shut up and sit down and get into it.
Marc:Read the book, dummy.
Marc:I don't know what the hell my brain's doing.
Marc:I don't know what I think I'm doing.
Marc:I don't think I'm wasting time, but I don't have a lot to show for myself.
Marc:I have this, what I'm saying right now, to show for myself, but the other 24 hours and change...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Not always a lot comedy.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But what about that?
Marc:Those chunks of free time.
Marc:I usually frame it around homework, like things I need to do.
Marc:I don't know how much I do for enjoyment, man.
Marc:You know, this isn't your problem.
Marc:So listen, Los Angeles.
Marc:People, I'm at Dynasty Typewriter on December 1st, 13th, and 28th.
Marc:The Elysian Theater on December 6th, 15th, and 22nd.
Marc:And Largo on December 12th and January 9th.
Marc:Then I'm in San Diego at the Observatory North Park on Saturday, January 27th for two shows.
Marc:San Francisco at the Castro Theater on Saturday, February 3rd.
Marc:I will be hosting a screening of a beautiful print of McCabe and Mrs. Miller at the Roxy Theater on February 4th.
Marc:You can go to roxy.com.
Marc:I'm just telling you that because as many of you know, it's probably among my favorite movies in the top five.
Marc:And I have been trying to understand it on a deeper and deeper level throughout my entire adult life.
Marc:And my buddy, Peter Conheim, who's a film archivist, has his own print.
Marc:And he's been asking me to come to his house to watch it, which seems weird, but it's probably fine.
Marc:But now it just worked out.
Marc:He lives in the Bay Area and he got the Roxy on board.
Marc:And we're going to show this beautiful print of that movie.
Marc:And I'm going to say a few words, not like it's dead, but like it's alive, like it's alive.
Marc:I'll be in Portland, Maine at the State Theater on Thursday, March 7th.
Marc:Medford, Massachusetts outside Boston at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th.
Marc:Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On Saturday, March 9th.
Marc:Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th.
Marc:And Atlanta, Georgia.
Marc:I'm at the Buckhead Theater on Friday, March 22nd.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.
Marc:And also I'll be adding dates here and there.
Marc:As we move towards whatever I'm going to do with this hour.
Marc:I know some people are like, why not this town?
Marc:Why not here?
Marc:Why didn't you come back here?
Marc:Well, I'll add more dates after this run as we head towards the fall.
Marc:And I need to polish it up and get out to those other markets.
Marc:So don't freak out like I'm never coming to your town again.
Marc:Here's some other big news.
Marc:Christmas is coming, and there are new Brian Jones cap mugs available to purchase starting today at noon Eastern.
Marc:These are the handmade mugs you get if you're a guest on WTF.
Marc:There are two versions available for the holidays, both based on the original art we used from the early days of WTF.
Marc:Again, these are available today starting at noon Eastern at wtfmugs.co.
Marc:WTFmugs.co.
Marc:Oh, he's got a dedicated website.
Marc:I love this design.
Marc:These are the original ones that made me very excited when Brian Jones was an early fan of the show and we came up with the idea to provide some high-end swag for the guests.
Marc:And he made these very specific mugs with the original cats on it.
Marc:And this one, the new version of the original design-ish,
Marc:has the new cats and the cat angels the original crew of three the new crew of three and the old crew of three and my face uh people love these mugs i i hear from it's one of the only things that uh some of the uh um celebrities i've talked to uh reflect on even it's like i love that mug what about the conversation don't remember it at all the mug is great i use it every day okay
Marc:But I've been walking around, been eating at some good places.
Marc:I guess if you're in New York, someone turned me on to this place down on, where is it, like Mott Street somewhere?
Marc:Luann's Wild Ginger.
Marc:It's almost like a Thai vegan place that's just fucking amazing.
Marc:I ate there twice.
Marc:It's on Broom Street here in New York City.
Marc:But where else did I go?
Marc:We went to Brendan and I. This is the weird thing about when you eat vegan is that you find a place.
Marc:Why not eat there several times?
Marc:Spicy Moon was very good.
Marc:Sashawan, a vegan place.
Marc:Butcher's Daughter, very good.
Marc:So I don't know.
Marc:I'm still pretty excited about eating this way, and I'm not missing anything.
Marc:I might miss the Russ and Daughters a little bit.
Marc:But aside from that, I saw a few movies while I was here.
Marc:I went to see The Holdovers, which was pretty good.
Marc:I went to see, oh man, we went to a Friends and Family screening of The Color Purple musical because I'm going to talk to the director.
Marc:That was spectacular.
Marc:Just crying like an idiot when I watch musicals.
Marc:I shouldn't be ashamed of that anymore.
Marc:I've earned that, haven't I?
Marc:And I also watched a screener of this movie Memory with Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain that was devastatingly beautiful.
Marc:And I have not seen a film like that, you know, kind of ride this edge of...
Marc:Complete sadness and also beauty and love.
Marc:It was spectacular.
Marc:And I've done some reading.
Marc:That's what I'm doing.
Marc:I'm wandering around New York, taking it in again.
Marc:I walk by this hole in the ground that seemed familiar to me.
Marc:It's on Second Avenue.
Marc:There's this giant... It's not even a construction site.
Marc:It's just...
Marc:what's left over after they took the building away, just hole in the ground.
Marc:I realized, oh my God, that was at church.
Marc:That was at second and second.
Marc:It was one of the places I got sober.
Marc:It was very important in my early sobriety, the second and second meeting.
Marc:Now it's just a hole in the ground and I'm hoping that doesn't mean anything.
Marc:Got to be careful with my brain not to read into events as being symbolic or representing something that I don't quite understand.
Marc:I got to reel in the mystical sometimes because that part of the brain can't trust it, cannot trust it.
Marc:So anyway, let me talk a little bit about this conversation you're about to hear.
Marc:Jesse David Fox is a guy that I've known for a long time.
Marc:He's written about the podcast.
Marc:He's written about me.
Marc:I've talked to him many times for print and for his podcast and other things, as I said before.
Marc:But he's really trying to... These couple of books that I've read recently, Cliff's book, Outrageous, and also Jesse's book, the comedy book, How Comedy Conquered Culture and The Magic That Makes It Work, are really kind of...
Marc:they're in engaging, entertaining texts that, you know, are documenting comedy as in a, not only in a critical way and in a cultural commentator type of way, but also in, in a historical way.
Marc:These are in a lot of ways function as, as histories, Jesse's book of modern comedy and, and Cliff's book about the arc of controversy and comedy, but I'm just bringing that up because I've read these two kind of back to back.
Marc:Um,
Marc:But Jesse's book really deals with modern comedy, not going back that far, you know, sort of like dealing with some of my generation, but mostly the generation after me and also the transition that comedy made with social media platforms and, you know, with SNL, with Sketch.
Marc:He just kind of brings it all in and really kind of focuses in a fairly intellectual way about the impact and, you know,
Marc:unfolding of of modern comedy in all these different uh areas and what was interesting to me is like i have definite opinions about the impact of of a certain generation of comics after me that you know we're not we're not contentious about it but but i i i sort of came around to his point of view and then his book goes all the way through you know two generations down from me
Marc:You know, there's the generation after me and then there's another one in terms of these waves of comedy.
Marc:And I'm completely out of the loop.
Marc:So this is one of those conversations where I kind of realize like, all right, dude, you're not really on the pulse.
Marc:You do see these people around.
Marc:But in terms of, you know, the active kind of ongoing momentum of new comedy talent is something I'm quite removed from.
Marc:And it's a weird thing to admit, and I've known it for a few years now, that I don't know who the fuck's doing what anymore, and that's just by virtue of age and because my life is full, and I have my world, and I go do what I do, but I'm not in the race anymore.
Marc:And I'm not seeing it necessarily as a competition, but there is turnover.
Marc:There are new generations.
Marc:There are new talents.
Marc:Sometimes I'll see them on, like, I didn't know anything about, you know, the world of the new LGBTQ comics, the sketch comics where Bowen Yang comes from.
Marc:He talks about Kate Berlant, who I've talked to, but it's just, you know, Bo Burnham, social media.
Marc:They're just a world of it.
Marc:that he puts into context that I, as an old guy, was not necessarily quite hip to.
Marc:So it's an engaged conversation.
Marc:Obviously, I have some dug-in opinions about certain things, but also it's one of those conversations where I'm learning things about the business I'm in, and I'm also being a bit of a stubborn old man.
Marc:Again, the book is called Comedy Book, How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic that Makes It Work.
Marc:It's now available wherever you get books.
Marc:And this is me and the author of that book, Jesse David Fox, getting into it back at the garage in Los Angeles.
Marc:So, I read the whole book.
Marc:The whole book.
Marc:That's so... I really appreciate it.
Marc:Is anyone else doing that?
Marc:More people than I expected.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Like who?
Marc:You mean people who are interviewing you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or just in general?
Guest:Well, I think both.
Guest:How long has it been out?
Guest:It's been out for about a little less than a week.
Guest:But I've had people...
Guest:who I sent it to said they're either planning on just reading the beginning and then saying they read the whole thing, or comedians reading the sections that I write about them and then being like, you know what, I'll read the whole book.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Which I expected comedians to— Which comedians would that be?
Yeah.
Guest:You didn't say anything bad.
Guest:You said like, which comedians?
Guest:Well, the book has only been out recently.
Guest:So I think it's, excuse, I was talking to John Early yesterday.
Guest:Who?
Guest:John Early.
Guest:Oh, okay, yeah.
Guest:And I write about him and Caperland.
Guest:And he read that part and he really appreciated it.
Guest:And then he said-
Guest:He's excited to go back to the beginning and read the rest of the book.
Marc:Well, it's interesting about people just even getting into the book because I embark on this thing and I'm kind of a through line in there.
Marc:I feel that on some level our conversations and this show has contextualized a lot of stuff for you.
Marc:Huge, yeah.
Marc:I imagine that you wouldn't have read Denial of Death.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:If it wasn't for this show.
Guest:Hadn't I talked about it forever?
Guest:I think that is probably true.
Guest:I don't know if it was on my radar, but now that I'm trying to remember if I had any source material for that other than you talking about it all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that is why it is a very Marc Maron book beyond the fact that you're in it a lot and WTF is in it a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And those early episodes shaped my interest in a lot of where my career went.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that denial of death and the perspective of that book is also huge throughout the entire book, even though I only mentioned it once.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's one of those, it's why I always talked about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, in terms of framing that idea of transference onto, you know, whatever.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:It's very helpful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Somehow when you're, especially when you lack belief.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you crave understanding.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah, and I think also the idea of the craving of belief, trying to find things, trying to find meaning, I think is a really big thing for me and a thing that I try to explore.
Guest:And I think part of what this book is is about like –
Guest:we're in a time post-religion for a lot of people.
Guest:Very not post-religion for others.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:If you could still call it religion.
Guest:But there is a search for something to replace it.
Guest:And there's lots of things that have been replacing it, good and bad.
Guest:And I think for a lot of people, comedy and comedians as tellers of information and organizers of the world have been a source of both comfort and perspective.
Guest:So I think that is in it as well, which is like...
Guest:Especially on the Internet, I think the value of comedians has only increased because people are like, I need something to hold on to.
Guest:I need someone to trust.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And comedians, for better or for worse, have become those people.
Marc:Yeah, I don't like, you know, I think that was an evolution of things.
Marc:I don't think that that was always the way it was.
Marc:I think that because I just read Cliff Nesterov's book, Outrage.
Marc:And I read them back to back.
Marc:And there is some crossover, but he's doing a deeper dive into the history of controversy.
Marc:Now, it seems that, and I'm not going to lose that thread, but it seems that, you know, your book is really about how comedy impacts culture now.
Marc:You know, you go back a bit, but it's really, we're talking the last 20, what, 20, 25?
Guest:I think it's like from 1990 on.
Guest:I organized it partly when millennials grew up and also post the comedy boom of – Of the 80s.
Guest:Of the 80s.
Guest:So like when comedy – because you can see just a clear trajectory of where comedy evolved and also because the internet is in the 90s.
Guest:So I think it's really about like what we think of as a modern culture.
Marc:But I like that thread that you talk about that.
Marc:I don't know that in my understanding, I'm not in contention with you on many points in this.
Marc:I think it elucidated some things for me in a way.
Marc:But I mean, this is my life.
Marc:You're on the outside.
Marc:I've been doing comedy professionally since 1988.
Marc:So I started comedy at the end of the boom.
Marc:And we always heard it.
Marc:It was this mythological time.
Marc:Where, you know, you'd go to clubs and it became sort of a joke where the club owner would be like, I don't know what's going on.
Marc:It was packed last week.
Marc:And you're like, how long ago was that week, you know, when it was packed?
Marc:But the idea that comedy replaces religion, I don't know.
Marc:I don't know that I jive with that.
Marc:But I think the idea that, you know, comedians are looked to to sort of now report something or tell the truth.
Marc:I think that is true culturally.
Marc:I don't think that was always the case.
Marc:I think that somehow or another, you know, the idea of Lenny Bruce and the idea of George Carlin and the idea of comedy at that moment, you know, that through line.
Marc:And I think prior as well, you know, which everybody tracks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you go from Lenny to Richard and George.
Marc:and they go their directions with it.
Marc:But I think that that whole idea of comedians as philosophers and truth-tellers was really hijacked by these comics that you talk about later in the book who have tribalized comedy.
Marc:But I think there's a difference between that truth-telling and reporting, which I think you go to great lengths to establish The Daily Show as a shift in how a certain age group got their information, period.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I think it's partly – as I say, it's not like it came out of nowhere in so much as there were people looking for places to consume news that they trusted.
Guest:And it's partly that people started trusting mainstream news less and less over the last 40 years as well, right?
Guest:Part of this shift is because our trust in institutions has decreased significantly.
Guest:So then people are just looking for things and then comedians –
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So I think if anything, he elevated the information and conversation and social engagement with what is happening in the world for a generation that might not have given issue.
Guest:Yeah, and he was good at it and they had a large research staff.
Guest:So there are things behind it.
Guest:He also was active in discrediting –
Guest:Fox News primarily, but a lot of cable news in general terms and the nature of how the discourse was evolving.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like if you look back to him when he was on Crossfire, just the fact that Tucker moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where he's he's with two journalists and he leaves that acting like he has the most journalistic integrity.
Guest:Now, he also, as a comedian, self-deprecates any time they try to push back on his journalistic integrity by being like, I'm just I'm after cranky anchors.
Guest:I don't I'm not.
Guest:But clearly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even if he didn't want to cop to it, he shaped how a lot of people started to want to consume the news.
Guest:And then also for people younger, they didn't know a time where this didn't exist.
Guest:So now when they grow up, people maybe 10 years younger than I, 15 years younger than I, comedians are just people that provide context or information about the news.
Guest:And that is just a fact.
Guest:They don't know that was ever –
Guest:That was like – that there was like – they don't know who Mort Sahl is and they don't know that between Mort Sahl and Jon Stewart, there was like a gap of just like people directly reading from a newspaper and responding.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I mean I don't know that that's a great thing.
Marc:I don't think it's a great thing either.
Marc:And oddly, Joe Rogan uses that same dismissal.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, but like, let's go back to the sort of, you know, why you did this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I know you're a fan, but I mean, you've got me quoted in there about, and I think this is more so whether people know it or not.
Marc:And I think a lot of the stuff that you're doing here, this is an intellectual...
Marc:approach to this thing.
Marc:I mean, you're sourcing it with a lot of philosophers, cultural critics, poets.
Marc:I mean, you sort of did your homework to find context for yourself so you could write this ambitious book.
Marc:Like, I don't know really.
Marc:It's not light reading.
Marc:I mean, there's jokes in it.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:But I mean, I'm not just missing the book.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You set out to do something.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes, I wanted to do an ambitious book.
Guest:I wanted to say – the part of it was not only do I want to write an ambitious book because if I'm going to write a book, I might as well be ambitious, but also I wanted to suggest that comedy could have an ambitious book about it, right?
Guest:I felt like the level – Stand-up.
Guest:Yeah, stand-up primarily, yeah, yeah.
Guest:With a little sketch.
Guest:Little sketch, you know, late night in terms of Jon Stewart and then – But really stuff that comes out of –
Marc:Stand-up and sketch.
Marc:And that would include those.
Marc:Yeah, live comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The live comedy arts and then— But not comedy in general.
Marc:You do source thinkers who deal with the broad idea of what humor is.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And I try to—you know, it all relates, but I do think—
Guest:Often I focus on stand-up because stand-up is sort of the purest of a lot of the sort of questions are at its most distilled with stand-up because it is just a person and an audience.
Guest:And in so much as the book is about both the comedians and audiences and how audiences interact, I felt useful to sort of focus on that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when you're when you're deciding to do this, I mean, you know, what shifted in you?
Marc:Like, I imagine when you start first started writing about comedy and what you thought comedy was that that kind of changed over time.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it seems like that at the point where you needed to, you know, kind of ground your emotional reaction to comedy.
Marc:the most desperately was after your brother passed away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which was tragic and happened quickly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, then all of a sudden, you know, you need it.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then that must have changed your entire outlook on how much work you had done.
Marc:What year was that?
Marc:That was, the pandemic was 2019.
Marc:Sorry, buddy.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:It's a terrible thing.
Marc:But, you know, I imagine that deepened your need to have an understanding.
Marc:Because when you started this or when you had the idea of writing about comedy, you were just sort of like, I love comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I want to convey that love and I want to show people just the craft of how comedians work.
Guest:And isn't that interesting?
Guest:We haven't really seen that in the same way or as deeply.
Guest:And appreciating comedians as artists just because –
Guest:I like doing – I found it interesting and as a journalist, I felt like it's useful to convey what I find interesting to people.
Guest:But I do think, you know, that experience – you know, traumatic experiences like that let you look back at your life and how you experience a variety of things.
Guest:And, you know, so my brother passed away and it was unexpected and hard and I just was not getting over it.
Guest:And –
Guest:And I went to a comedy show on purpose.
Marc:It's not that long ago.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then COVID happened right afterwards, right?
Guest:So then that's it.
Guest:And now there's this sort of death all around you.
Guest:That's why the Maria Bamford set that I write about in the book that I can't talk about without crying, it's –
Guest:About her mom.
Guest:About her mom.
Guest:The James Corden.
Guest:The James Corden thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like the ability for comedians to give people space when the world is moving so quickly around them.
Guest:And that set where she talks about her mom passing away just so gracefully.
Guest:In a context, you would never expect a set like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you're surprised.
Guest:You're just like, oh, cool.
Guest:Maria's doing Corden.
Guest:Like, I'll watch that.
Guest:I like Maria a lot.
Guest:And then she just sort of...
Guest:She says the line, my mother loved life.
Guest:And that's the only way she says it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, it is.
Guest:Choke you up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's hard.
Guest:You know, I write about 9-11 in the book.
Guest:And 9-11 was this one moment.
Guest:And then we sort of have to process this thing.
Guest:But COVID was happening as an ongoing thing.
Guest:It was ongoing while I was writing the book.
Guest:And it's hard to stop and reflect on a thing while people are continuing to die.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So to give people those five minutes, and I think it allowed me to sort of work in the – having that moment happen, having – because I first thought of doing a book before COVID, but after my brother died.
Guest:But it allows you to sort of look in your entire life.
Guest:You thought about doing it before your brother passed.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:All after.
Guest:All was after.
Guest:Yeah, I –
Guest:I essentially did a long article about Adam Sandler.
Guest:I asked my book agent if I would want a book about only Adam Sandler.
Guest:And he basically said, not really.
Guest:Not the type of book I would want to do.
Guest:They would like a biography or something, but not like a sort of heady exercise.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's like, what about a general book about comedy?
Guest:And I had read the book Ways of Seeing by John Berger.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I was like, can you do that for comedy?
Guest:Can you sort of?
Guest:not just give people opinions about what is good and bad.
Marc:That was about painting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, how can you look at art differently?
Guest:And so it's like, can I do that for comedy?
Guest:Which is sort of look at it sort of abstractly.
Guest:And then COVID happened.
Guest:So then death was sort of all around.
Guest:And so that was going to be a theme no matter what, because I was writing the book.
Guest:But I do think that happening made me revisit
Guest:And the decision where I was in this sort of – I was stuck in this moment of grief and making an active decision to go see Reggie Watts, being like, maybe this will make me feel better.
Guest:And having such a high expectation for this show to be like –
Guest:My brother passed away and I need this comedian.
Guest:What do you got?
Guest:To save this.
Guest:And it just went.
Guest:And it really did.
Guest:And unbelievably, even though.
Guest:But that's also an improvisational music experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was just sort of I was in it and I felt connected to people and I didn't feel so isolated.
Guest:And part of what that experience, that plus COVID and looking back is that.
Guest:By nature, I am prone to detachment.
Guest:I'm prone to being in my head.
Guest:I think that is sort of a genetic predisposition.
Guest:My mom passed away 107.
Guest:I think that also is part of it, which is just sort of –
Guest:You it's a protective thing, right?
Guest:You get less invested with people than you're less likely to be hurt when things go sideways.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:I mean, you know, you're lucky you didn't have deeper mental and emotional problem.
Marc:I mean, is your dad still around?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, I and I get that and I get that from my own perspective that I know that.
Marc:You know, comedy is a way of deflecting.
Marc:It's a way of, you know, kind of hijacking the emotional tone of a conversation.
Marc:It's a way of disarming.
Marc:You know, we talked about that, and I think it's in the book.
Marc:But in terms of if you're a person that is isolated, who else is going to make you laugh?
Marc:You need it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like the Martin Starr character in Freaks and Geeks, that moment that everybody loves so much where he's just sitting at home watching Shandling on Merv Griffin or something and Judd having that experience as well and me having that experience as well.
Marc:However you're isolated or weird or socially incapable, the connection that comedy makes with you is deep and everlasting and necessary.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's where you're coming from.
Guest:Yeah, that's where I'm coming from.
Guest:And I think that is – it really underlined how powerful it could be when not taken for granted and not treated cynically when the comedian is being open, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If the audience is being open and the comedian can be open, really remarkable things can happen.
Guest:And I don't discredit other art forms' ability to do that.
Guest:I just understand comedy.
Guest:Comedy works for my brain.
Guest:I mean that's – It's also immediate.
Guest:Yeah, and you feel in your body, right?
Guest:It's like you are – as far back – you might be in your head as much as you want.
Guest:But if you're laughing, your body moves.
Guest:And I laugh.
Guest:I'm a very physical laugher.
Guest:And that is – it's such a – like a visual metaphor of you –
Guest:Being pulled into the present.
Marc:Yeah, and also, yeah, it's uncontrollable if you surrender to it.
Marc:Which, you know, I'm just realizing this now, which is with grief as well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that, though it's not coming from the outside, really.
Marc:You know, you're not looking for it.
Marc:But in terms of sadness and physicalizing it and actually crying—
Marc:It's uncontrollable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For a while anyways.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which is – that's interesting.
Guest:Yeah, and you have to be in it.
Guest:And I think part of it is – you know, I went back to work after my brother passed away fairly quickly just because I wanted – you know, I wanted to do something.
Guest:And I think that's a normal thing to do.
Guest:And –
Guest:But you're doing these sort of two things of like, oh, I want to process this, but I also, you know, I just want to get on my light bulb.
Guest:And that push and pull, and I think there is something to just sort of giving into it.
Guest:And I think— For a while, right?
Marc:You know, but it's going to—I mean, you've learned this, is that like—
Marc:You're only going to get over it when you get over it.
Marc:You don't ever really get over it.
Marc:And the grief just sort of levels off somehow and integrates itself into your being.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's going to be there forever, that sense of loss.
Marc:For whatever it is, I'm not sure that we're not constantly all grieving almost everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As each day goes by, you know, there's loss.
Marc:You just lost another day.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you are getting closer to whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Inevitable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that is it's you know, you lose a parent at a young age.
Guest:It's hard for you not to sort of see the world as versions of loss.
Guest:And I think I and I think comedy, at least from my understanding, it helps with that.
Guest:There's there's something sort of there is something comedic about the fact that we die in a sort of like in a sort of dark way.
Guest:But I do think.
Guest:The sort of – how would I put it?
Guest:There – that we're sort of all here and we're doing this thing that doesn't make any sense, which is existing.
Guest:And at any point, we sort of die.
Guest:It's too much, I think, for –
Guest:For a brain to sort of – Well, this is the denial of death thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, and I think – And when I reread Denial of Death before I started writing the book, I sort of had a long phase of procrastinating where I just read books sort of maybe that I could pull from.
Guest:And so, I reread that and there was the idea of legitimate foolishness.
Guest:And this sort of cure for neuroses is this need to sort of like –
Guest:And it's probably an odd translation, but essentially like the need to not take things seriously, the need to be silly or to essentially like be pre-human.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where we're just sort of like laughing and playing and not afraid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And is the only way to be.
Guest:And like how can you find yourself to be not afraid considering –
Guest:All the bad things are constantly happening all the time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, well, OK, so that's the groundwork.
Marc:And, you know, you do go through trying to make, you know, a pretty big context.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, for, you know, what comedy is culturally, what it is physically, what it is, you know, as an audience member, emotionally.
Marc:But, you know, going through this, you know, you know, piece by piece with, you know, audience headings like audience, funny, timing, politics, truth, laughter, the line.
Marc:Context, community connection.
Marc:And I think you're pretty thorough in all of them.
Marc:But, you know, going into this, you know, for me as a comic, you know, you've got to... Before the internet and maybe before social media platforms, you know, and even maybe a little before comic produced shows or the mic culture or even the first wave of alternative comedy not being...
Marc:San Francisco in the 50s, but being, what would it be, the mid-90s, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a stand-up who started, like I did, where your only option was the club and the open mic at the club and then going through the club system.
Marc:And then alternative happened.
Marc:And for me, it was different than what it became or what it was thought of.
Marc:And I thought you captured it fairly well.
Marc:But like one of the arguments me and Brendan, you know, used to have a lot about the second wave of alt comedy is like, you know, what happened to many of those people is that it didn't necessarily have that profound an impact.
Marc:On comedy per se.
Marc:And what I started to sort of think and the reason I found the book, the last few chapters specifically about the two or maybe three generations at this point after me and how they're doing it.
Marc:You want to believe that the fundamentals don't change in terms of standard, but they do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because, you know, people don't look to live comedy as much as they used to.
Marc:But nonetheless, I guess my point is, is that having been in this business for almost 40 years, everything that happens, despite...
Marc:What happened after the technological ability to generate quickly and efficiently and cinematically, everything that happens in comedy, almost 98% of it, I've seen before.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And it's guys like you, and I'm not saying you can take that tone however you want.
Marc:It's your job to contextualize it for whoever gives a shit about what you're saying.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, there have been people taking risks, being vulnerable, losing their mind, pushing the line way beyond anything that you could even imagine, you know, for as long as I've been doing comedy and certainly, you know, for probably before that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just that it doesn't have any cultural significance until it does because of popularity or because of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it's one of two things, which is either a lot of the examples are like I don't I can't imagine anyone has invented anything new because there's been so many comedians just not on anyone's radar in whatever city doing things.
Guest:They might have, you know, like the difference is, you know, like in the example of like Hannah Gatsby and Annette is that.
Guest:They did a special where there was large pockets of not laughing on purpose.
Guest:And I said they were not the first comedian who was not funny for half their set.
Guest:The difference is this became an international phenomenon.
Guest:And as a result, it must be reckoned with because that means –
Guest:There's something about this special and there's something about culture was ready for that.
Guest:And then I can comment on culture because they cared about it.
Marc:But when you break it down, Hannah Gadsby was an efficient working comedian who knows how to do comedy despite what anybody may – you know, whether any thick-headed person.
Guest:They'd only done a decade of –
Marc:Yeah, whatever thick-headed person decided it wasn't comedy.
Marc:But it also spoke to the moment of patriarchy out of control and Me Too.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:Me Too is the reason it became a sensation.
Guest:If you ask Hannah Gadsby, I have asked Hannah Gadsby, they weren't like – when they were a fairly popular Australian comedian doing this, they weren't like, well, this will be an international sensation that makes me a huge American comedian.
Guest:And they worked through it, like all comedians and also a philosophical predicament of I think comedy is –
Guest:going in the wrong direction in whatever way.
Guest:And there has been generations of that since the – I'm sure – I don't – I've never read this, but I'm sure the comedians of the 1950s thought that the hacks of the 19 – you know, then – not the 1940s to the 1930s, and then obviously the –
Guest:Shirley Berman's S, that's obviously a huge revolution where people are pushing back on certain orthodoxies.
Guest:Point is, they are in a predicament.
Guest:They did a thing.
Guest:What makes it – what this book is, is one, it is a notable – they succeeded in what they were trying to do and it resonated.
Guest:So then I could be like, why did – what is it resonating and how does it reflect –
Guest:Where the culture is, which is sort of Me Too is happening, and where the culture is with comedy, which is a point they make, which is our access to laughter is at an all-time high.
Guest:We have an ability to find things that make us laugh very easily, which some comedians believe puts the comedians in a position to do something – the freedom to do something else and audiences that are happy to have it because they don't need the comedians to do that.
Guest:Now, that's not all comedians have to do that, obviously.
Guest:But there is a freedom to do shows that still count and feel like stand-up but have a lot more room for different types of storytelling approach.
Guest:And right now, there's a lot of people doing one-people shows, at least in New York.
Guest:I don't know about here.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, but that, you know, what Hannah Gatsby implies, you know, when something like that becomes culturally polarizing and then, you know, politically motivating, not unlike we talked about or you talked about and I talked about with you, you know, what, how...
Marc:How 9-11 splintered the comedy community in terms of tolerance versus not tolerance, in terms of jingoism, in terms of potential racism and that stuff.
Marc:That was sort of a big moment.
Marc:But I think Hannah had a big moment because that was able to...
Marc:And galvanized at least some progressive momentum around taking on the patriarchy and feminist ideas and modern feminism.
Marc:And that was aligned with some stuff that was going on in television.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But ultimately, you know, what happens then is that the other side gets fortified as well.
Marc:And now we have a situation which I think you handled very well, which is something I talk about on the show a lot about, you know, tribalization of comedy, that you were able to track in your book to the idea of community and that, you know, that comedy is, you know, a tool of community building and you cite bell hooks.
Marc:But, you know, when you're citing bell hooks, it's usually a proactive community that we're building here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now you have a tribalized comedy culture because mainstream show business has broken down and now people can make their own show businesses, which I think is the advent of technology.
Marc:Anybody can make their own show business.
Marc:But some people who deal in networks in terms of building their own networks and building their own
Marc:worlds like, you know, Rogan primarily, you know, no longer need mainstream show business at all.
Marc:So then you have that community who also believes that they can dictate what comedy is and what it isn't.
Marc:And I think that that's a problem on both sides of polarizing comedy in terms of community is that, you know, when Hannah Gadsby says –
Marc:you know, comedy needs to change.
Marc:I think that got more of a fuck you then from comics than anything she was saying about feminism.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think we all kind of agreed and saw her point, but it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Marc:You're telling me that?
Marc:Yeah, so... But to go back again...
Marc:In terms of repetition and why, you know, I think what you're doing is important to who it is important to.
Marc:See, that's the biggest problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that you've spent this amazing amount of time, you know, creating this context.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of why and what, you know, comedy is, the who, what, when and where of, how it impacts culture.
Marc:But ultimately, the audience for this book is going to be who.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's the question.
Guest:I don't know yet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The book has only been out.
Guest:I mean, the hope was the audience.
Guest:I wrote it for people who love comedy as much and follow it as much as I do.
Guest:People that listen to this show, people listen to other comedy podcasts.
Guest:The hope is, you know, I'm trying like I, you know, I did Bert's podcast.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So maybe if I do some of those people who are who also.
Guest:fashion themselves comedy fans, but are siloed to a different part of the comedy world.
Guest:We'll read this book and disagree with some things and understand things a little bit more.
Guest:I mean, the goal of this was just sort of to evolve the conversation.
Guest:Now, is there going to be a large group of people on the right who read the book and sort of take it in kind to be like, you know what, I've changed my mind?
Guest:No, but like maybe we'll just sort of loosen the nature of the conversation so we're not having the same sort of, you know, as we said, there's cycles of this or of...
Guest:Free speech is this, and no, we can transgress it this way.
Guest:And then it's been around for, as Cliff's book captures.
Guest:Since like the late 1800s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the hope is there's also then the people who don't consume a lot of comedy but do know it as a cultural force and have been curious about how that happened.
Guest:I was interviewed years ago.
Guest:I think right at the beginning of the pandemic I was interviewed.
Guest:I was on a podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're talking about just comedians during the pandemic and the cultural critic just goes, why are we talking to you?
Guest:Not like dismiss it, but like, how did this happen?
Guest:How did I care about what comedians were doing during a national tragedy?
Guest:And this book is kind of explains how that happened.
Guest:And I assume when you're starting, when a national tragedy happened, the first thing wasn't like, well, what are comedians saying about that?
Guest:And that is the thing that has evolved in my lifetime, which is like when things happen, when there are mass shootings or whatever, a lot of times people look at comedians.
Guest:And if they don't say something, people are disappointed in comedians if they don't.
Marc:Yeah, but what's shifting since then is like, you know, it was like after 9-11, which you talk about in the book, like comedy is dead.
Marc:But, you know, like for me, I've been doing a joke on stage about, you know, distance, which you talk about in the book.
Marc:But I was the type of a comedian at a different time where I needed to address it immediately because it was so juiced up.
Marc:And there was no way it was going to work.
Marc:But you wanted to get a jump on that joke.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm telling a story about, you know, walking around with Louis.
Marc:But I say I was hanging out with a previous version of Louis, who was my friend.
Marc:And, you know, he was about to do his first Letterman.
Marc:And the Oklahoma City bombing, it just happened.
Marc:And I was the kind of comic that was like, you know, you got to get on that.
Marc:And I say in the act now, I say I was very busy on 9-12.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like I got to, you know, so, and we did.
Marc:And I think you got it in here.
Marc:Some of those quotes, you know, from, from the guys that were, were in the clubs right after nine 11.
Marc:But I was telling Louie, he's like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Marc:I'm like, what do you mean?
Marc:You got to mention it.
Marc:How are you not going to, how are you not going to bring it up in his five minute set on television?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, and then he, the story goes that he went and talked to Robert Morton, the producer, you know, and Morton was like, how are you feeling?
Marc:And, and Louie's like, well, I don't know what to do with this Oklahoma City thing.
Marc:Marin,
Marc:Mark Maron thinks I should mention it.
Marc:And Morton says, yeah, that's why Mark Maron's not doing the show.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But the point that I'm trying to make here in terms of looking to comedy, it was not for information, though.
Marc:It was for the ability to compartmentalize.
Marc:You know, the idea that comics, like right now as a Jew and as a comic, people are like, what do you think of Israel?
Marc:And it's like, it's a trick question.
Marc:And on some level, all that it would serve—
Marc:Like, whoever's asking me, well, what is your point of view on it?
Marc:Because if I don't honor it, then I'm a fuck.
Marc:So, you know, that's part of the incentive.
Marc:But I think that comics, this idea that comics are truth tellers, you know, is part of this free speech right wing frame.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:At this point in time, you know, because who the fuck are comics?
Marc:And they're going to do some version of whatever they got off the Internet or deconstruct, you know, that.
Marc:I mean, the better ones are going to say this is all bullshit.
Marc:But I come from that.
Marc:You know, I come from this idea.
Marc:And, you know, you give fairly short shrift to Hicks because he doesn't happen in the parameters of what we're exploring here.
Marc:But this was a guy, you know, whatever line you think it is or whatever is required of a comic that would clear rooms on purpose.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, that was happening, you know, before anybody in the alternative world was creating something not even as menacing to make that point.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I guess what I'm coming back to is that—and what everybody says is it's subjective, right?
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:And that is the bottom line because, you know, you give the proper amount of attention, which is many pages, to Maria Bamford, who by far is the best stand-up comic ever.
Guest:Yeah, in my lifetime.
Guest:I say comedy is so subjective other than Richard Pryor and Maria Bamford are the greatest comedians of all time.
Guest:And that's how I orient it, which is like – and if that to me is the value system is those two comedians, then we can start thinking about what –
Guest:good and what we mean by good because comedy is too subjective.
Guest:And what you laugh at is so built into you as a person.
Guest:And there isn't a history like a lot of art forms have of creating value systems of knowing how to appreciate things.
Guest:I mean, this book is somewhat starting that conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yes, I there was an earlier draft where I had I had a good amount of Maria, but not as much.
Guest:And I
Guest:My colleague Catherine Van Arandon, who writes for Vulture, was like, I thought you might have a little bit more Maria in it just because I know how much you appreciate her.
Guest:And then in a later draft, I think I added all the stuff in the last chapter, which really – you know what happened?
Guest:She did the late night set after she said that.
Guest:So then I was like, well, this gets at the other part of it.
Marc:And even when you brought up that late night set as being this moment of respite from the noise of culture to emotionally connect –
Marc:with grief in an honest way, you said that, like, that's something that happens often.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry for saying that.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, that, like, you know, this, finally, a comedian did what they were supposed to do.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:No one's going to do that.
Marc:But I think this, it also...
Marc:It also speaks to my shifting attitudes, and I was talking to Brendan about what I thought the edgy comedy really was.
Marc:And I think that as we get older and as we live some life, you start to realize what is the nature of real risk.
Marc:Now, you know, and the two sides are is that you have the school of Hicks where it's what you say.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And and and then you get from there, unfortunately, to what are you two woke?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and I think you handle them very well, too, the Legion of Skanks and, you know, what evolved out of that.
Marc:You know, this is not – these are not ideological guys.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:These are, you know, just sort of like we're just kind of nihilistic clowns.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That are trying to get away with something and fuck some people's heads up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, cause some shit.
Marc:But I think it might – I don't know if you characterize it this way in the book.
Marc:It's childish.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like, you know, let's see if we can make the grownups mad.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's just saying a thing that people take seriously and be like, not.
Guest:It's just like it truly is.
Marc:And we've all done that with God.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But let's talk about this idea of edge is that when you deal with – if these are your polls –
Marc:That you're trying to, you know, create a narrative in between or a theory or a conversation is prior and Maria is that the essential force of both of them is vulnerability.
Guest:Yes, 100 percent.
Guest:That is the thing.
Guest:That is the thing that I – and understanding what vulnerability means, like I talk about it in a lot of the chapters, but like mainly the chapter on truth because we had –
Guest:This idea of a comedian truth teller is a narrative not necessarily pushed forward by comedians but in terms of sort of media's understanding of what comedians they thought were doing.
Marc:But that's also – that's truth telling through language.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you're trying to integrate the idea of vulnerability as a fundamental truth.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because the general understanding is it's what did he say?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm trying to move.
Guest:I mean, saying is, I think, the big part of it, which is I think I say multiple times, which is there's been too much focus on what comedians say instead of how they say it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think and by how I mean the entire context of the person saying it.
Guest:And so, you know, I contrast.
Guest:Louis, partly because Louis at the time was heralded as the most truthful comedian that's ever lived.
Guest:There were just so many.
Guest:And some of it he helped foster, but some of it was just people decided.
Marc:But truthful in the way that he was saying what shouldn't be said.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's what they actually meant, yeah.
Guest:About sex and child rearing.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I sort of break down this sort of way of thinking of it and focus on what I think is more truthful in a sort of deeper way, which is sort of comedians who are vulnerable.
Guest:And I talk about Maria and I talk about Tig when she went on stage with cancer.
Guest:I talk about Margaret Cho.
Guest:And the idea is –
Guest:But often you hear a certain type of comedian be like, oh, that guy's fearless on stage, right?
Guest:And usually it's a guy.
Guest:And by fearless, they mean they're willing to make fun of anyone.
Guest:They're willing to say any words.
Guest:They have no fears while they're on stage.
Guest:But that to me is not being fearless, especially because if you're doing it to an audience, who wants that?
Marc:It's the opposite of that.
Marc:Once we become professionals and we can make it happen again and again, you're fearless.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Period.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, right.
Marc:It's used to connote courage.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:If there's no ramifications for saying certain things, then there's – it's not – that to me should be – there should be no fear involved.
Marc:Well, that's right.
Marc:And now we have these bubbles.
Marc:So fearlessness is like this idea that like I might get canceled.
Marc:Like, no, you won't.
Marc:You're not talking to anybody who's going to cancel you.
Guest:And you're not famous, right?
Guest:You are famous in your world.
Guest:It's hack, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But – and it's a cheap way to raise the stakes of jokes that are probably underwritten, right?
Guest:It's like, oh, there's not enough tension because you, the audience, like when I say the words I'm not supposed to say.
Guest:So then I have to make it seem like we're doing something dangerous just so there's more energy to it.
Marc:But let's get back to vulnerability.
Guest:So, but what I think is actually dangerous is putting yourself out there when your body is physically at risk.
Guest:As I say, like –
Guest:Both Tig thought she would lose work by telling people she was sick or there is a history of people not getting work because they are open about having mental health issues.
Guest:That is – to then talk about it on stage in this town is risky, is a thing that a comedian could be fearful of.
Guest:So to do it anyway –
Guest:Because you sort of are compelled to as an artist and or you want to help people to me is a noble pursuit is taking the art form.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But not to diminish it.
Marc:The industry was able to carry it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was not the same time.
Marc:I mean, when the issue was, well, we can't use her because we can't ensure she's got cancer or, you know, she's going to bring the audience down.
Marc:You know, we now have a we do have safe rooms because audiences have been built.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But in the general population.
Marc:You know, like when I think about Pryor, when, you know, you know, people have these conversations between the goat being, you know, Pryor or Chappelle is that, you know, there's no there's no comparison.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because, you know, Pryor could not help himself.
Marc:And in terms of how he lived his life, which was out of control and also his need to share it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're you're dealing with somebody who's dealing with these vulnerabilities of the experience of growing up in a brothel and then, you know, having a a a self-destructive streak that he's completely at odds with all the time because the most vulnerable things about prior outside of whatever he did in terms of bridging the race gap.
Marc:For me, you know, the risk of of of.
Marc:Profound humiliation because of how you lived your life and what you did and then processing that on stage is the most human thing.
Marc:And he could do death.
Marc:He could do all that stuff because he grew up in a very electrified and lively childhood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also the thing that I mentioned Richard and Maria together is they're also both exceptionally talented, right?
Guest:They're not just like –
Guest:Good joke writers, which they are.
Guest:They can do voices.
Guest:They can do act outs, right?
Guest:And that – I think why Richard is number one, and I can't imagine any conversation that is not that, is that he took an art form that was not even close to being ready for it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And just by the sheer will of his charisma and talent and – Willing to take risks.
Guest:And willing to take risks, he modernized the art form, right?
Guest:Totally, right.
Guest:And so –
Guest:And so ahead of time that it took a very long time for people to catch up to it.
Guest:And even the idea of there being safe audiences was long.
Guest:It would be another 20, 30 years before that happened.
Guest:Now, I like that there are safe audiences because I do think it benefits the art form for the audience to be receptive of people.
Guest:And I do understand the benefit of a somewhat more antagonistic relationship sometimes because it allows you to figure out how to translate the jokes to wider audiences.
Guest:Without the audience that is supportive – well, I'll say this.
Guest:If you have a supportive audience, that means you should be taking risks in terms of vulnerability, in terms of my value systems aren't for.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:If you have a supportive audience –
Guest:The other way, which is we don't need you to take risks in terms of vulnerability, but we just want to hear you say the words.
Guest:That's the opposite of a supportive audience.
Guest:That is a condensing audience.
Marc:But see, like if you – this is the other point that I have where I get argumentative with ideas about comedy is that my generation –
Marc:came up with the job was to entertain strangers.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:And you should be able to do that.
Marc:That what came out of the comedy boom was that people would go to the comedy club to watch comedy.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:There was a time where...
Marc:Maria Bamford would have been on Carson.
Marc:And she could have handled it.
Marc:Because the only precedent for that is Jonathan Winters.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he was just as mentally ill as Maria.
Marc:And all the talent and everything else.
Marc:But what I'm saying is what I've been thinking about Maria is that, you know, you put her on stage in front of a general audience right now, you know, without any preconceptions.
Yeah.
Marc:That there's going to be half of the people that are like, I don't get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is she okay?
Marc:And just even creating that character for that three seconds, I'm mad at them.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Guest:Or I try not to be – I try to be like, can that audience who would respond that way –
Guest:Can they evolve?
Guest:And they have, right?
Guest:I think you put Maria on stage at an even lesser... Like, I think there's even more context for her now because there's so many comedians who are more broad, who are influenced by her.
Guest:I mean, like, just the fact of how many comedians talk about mental health on stage now compared to 20 years ago is significant.
Guest:Like, and not just in sort of alternative spaces, broadly defined.
Guest:All comedians, it's just a thing that people... But they've always been doing that.
Marc:I used to talk about how...
Marc:You know, the language of contemporary comedy for decades in the 60s and 70s was fundamentally self-reflective, fundamentally Jewish, and fundamentally driven by the idea of analysis.
Marc:This is the weird thing.
Marc:It's like you would see people do, you know, my reaction to Rathaniel was furious.
Marc:I was furious.
Marc:And when I talked to him, I was furious.
Guest:And I could tell.
Guest:I write about it in the book.
Guest:I was like, I didn't know if this conversation was only going to be about your interview with Gerard.
Guest:But I knew it was going to be a little bit about it.
Marc:Well, but, you know, you frame it in, you know, the final, the beginning of the latest version of what you would call alternative comedy.
Marc:And that, you know, it has its place.
Marc:But, you know, outside of Bo Burnham, who I think, you know, out of all of them,
Marc:As a comedic visionary, well, he's the guy, you know, like, you know, that thing he did during the pandemic and also all his stuff is that this is a guy that takes emotional risk, but also is insanely talented, like you said, and intellectually up for the challenge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But even with the intimacy that you claim and having that being some sort of indicator of a new generation, like I'm having a hard time seeing that.
Guest:Yeah, I think you're looking for –
Guest:A sort of transparency that Gerard is not going to – that I think when you – I think it's completely fair.
Guest:I think the type of vulnerability that you respond to is not necessarily the type of intimacy that Gerard is after.
Guest:Like I think he's more interested in the sort of cinematic feeling of –
Guest:Closeness as much as actually feeling like, you know, what this person's soul is.
Guest:And when I write about him in the book, it is partly about the moving forward of specials filmed like as an art form and essentially thinking about his.
Guest:Nathaniel as much as an actor trying to make you as much as a. OK, I'll give him that.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:He's a good actor.
Marc:But, you know, he sits in here pretending like, you know, he was shooting from the hip that night.
Marc:He wasn't that.
Guest:And that's why I understand.
Guest:I think we would agree that that is where you guys were up, which is he is doing.
Guest:He's still that press tour around Nathaniel.
Guest:in my opinion, and I have not spoken to him, felt like a continued performance.
Guest:The entire thing was a performance piece, which is like, I am going to play the part of a person who's doing this sort of vulnerable work.
Guest:I don't know why that is why he did it, but I can see why, especially one-to-one, you'd be like, you're not actually, you're not, this is the same thing, which is you're not being vulnerable in so much as you're not scared to do any of this because he's so in control of whatever that instrument is.
Marc:Yeah, and also he doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:I mean, you know, I mean, that's like I there's and like, you know, I talked to Drew Michael and, you know, OK, so if you're going to say it's about the structure of the special and taking that to the next level, which is always a challenge.
Marc:And it's been tried in a lot of different ways.
Marc:And, you know, I asked Bo to direct my last one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just because I thought, well, maybe you could do something interesting with me because I'm actually a fucking bleeding wound half the time.
Marc:But he was polite, but he said he was going to deal with Netflix.
Marc:But why would he want to?
Marc:I was condescending to him.
Guest:And also, I mean, the end times fund that Lynn did, I think, is when I wrote a piece about specials as a visual medium, that is one of the examples that I point to.
Guest:Well, she knew.
Marc:She was like, this is what this guy does.
Marc:I know him well.
Guest:I'm going to stay in him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she also I remember I think we talked about it a little bit.
Guest:I asked you about how she shot it and, you know, she had the intimacy of it.
Guest:But you didn't mention this, which was she shot you to seem like paranoid.
Guest:There are certain shots.
Guest:She shot you through like windows.
Guest:So you looked like.
Guest:A lunatic that was falling apart.
Guest:She was hiding that from me.
Guest:And I always wondered if she never told you she did that.
Guest:Because if you watch the special, she tracks you.
Guest:It's like you're being watched.
Guest:Not like you're being watched like an audience.
Guest:Like you're being watched by the CIA.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it is so profound.
Guest:So when I wrote that, knowing that you have not mentioned that, the cinematographer commented to that article being like, that's exactly what we were trying to do.
Yeah.
Guest:So you've been – what's funny is you're part of a movement that you have somewhat antagonism towards.
Guest:No, but not complete antagonism towards.
Guest:No, but – no, all I want is credit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I gave it to you.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:You're the intro paragraph of this example of things.
Marc:Okay, good.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:To be fair, I give Lynn the credit.
Marc:She deserves it.
Marc:Because, like, I know what I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I can't pretend to do what I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when people pretend to do what I do or pretend to do it, period.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like even with Drew Michael, like the device of the special that had laughter, whatever Gerard was trying to do with that first one, he fucked that guy is what he did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He sold him a bill of goods and it was a faulty experiment.
Guest:But I do think, and I think Drew would agree, but it allowed Drew...
Guest:To then, when Drew does his next special and the thing after that, to be like, well, I'm the guy that did that, right?
Guest:There is something about even a big swing and a miss in Hollywood that they think he was like, well, that's the guy that takes big swings.
Guest:He can get into the room.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:What's he doing now?
Guest:Well, he's doing a new show.
Guest:I haven't seen it yet, which sucks.
Guest:But, you know, he's doing a new show –
Guest:That's only about sort of having hearing loss.
Marc:So now he's returning to the hook that he should have started with.
Guest:But it seems like he's doing it in a specific way that uses audio cues.
Guest:Well, good.
Marc:Look, he's a creative guy.
Marc:My problem with him was that, you know, he assumes the mantle of self-importance that, you know, I've seen other people do.
Marc:And I've seen similar jokes.
Marc:So my big problem with him was that, you know, if you're going to pay homage...
Marc:Then, you know, don't do it exactly the same way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, he's of a type of comedian that there's only a handful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, you've got to sort of own that legacy and not pretend like you invented it.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I don't think he thinks it.
Guest:I remember the interview.
Guest:It was a fundamental disagreement of how much you thought he was specifically doing one specific thing and not owning it.
Guest:And I do think partly...
Guest:Drew was commenting on that legacy as much as participating in that legacy.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Look, this is where I'm just a cranky old guy.
Marc:Yeah, but I think the thing that we— You're the only guy that gives me credit for anything.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I mean, you're throughout this book for a lot of reasons.
Guest:I'm the closer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you are the closer.
Guest:I remember when we had that because I hadn't had that.
Guest:That was very deep in the writing process.
Guest:And I just needed something to get to Maria and the sort of last paragraph, which I had.
Guest:And then we had that interview.
Guest:And I realized, oh, that chapter starts with my interview with you and you saying the thing about like when we look back at this time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we'll realize how lonely we all were.
Guest:And then sort of we come back around.
Guest:And so, yes, it's very important.
Guest:But I think the fundamental disagreement we have or the fundamental different perspective.
Guest:And I think it's why I wrote this book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:is you, because of your experience and because you have to do the job, believe the job of a comedian is to be an entertainer, which I think is a completely valid perspective.
Marc:But I don't believe I'm an entertainer.
Marc:It's not why I got into it.
Marc:But you believe they should do the job of a comedian, which I don't always think is entertainment.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's fair.
Guest:But I don't have to care about the job of a comedian because I am not – I don't have to go up on Thursday night.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:So then I could just be detached from it and be – This is all about you wanting to be a comedian.
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:As I write a book.
Guest:I tried it one time.
Guest:It's just not for me.
Guest:I like being funny.
Guest:There's jokes in the book.
Guest:But like it's just not – I don't – honestly, I don't like the experience of – You made the right decision.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Well, that's nice.
Guest:But go ahead.
Guest:But we'll see.
Guest:I mean, we'll see how people respond to it.
Guest:But what were you saying?
Guest:Can you get back on it?
Guest:I think I am free to not care about the job of the comedian, to just think about it as a sort of cultural force and comedians as ideas.
Guest:And look, it's – this book is not –
Guest:a detached history or some sort of thing.
Guest:It is my perspective on a thing.
Guest:And it is – I am manipulating time and I am choosing comedians that fit a sort of idea that I want to come across.
Guest:There are another thousand comedians that I could have written about.
Guest:These are the comedians that best exhibited what I was trying to capture.
Guest:A lot of the times there are famous comedians because famous comedians have cultural impact.
Guest:But there are famous comedians I didn't include because I couldn't figure out how they fit through these sort of ideas of how I see it.
Guest:But –
Guest:But it is – but I'm free to do that because I don't have to be – I don't have to do the job.
Guest:And I think that's useful.
Guest:I think comedy benefits from having people whose job is not to do that but to sort of be a conduit.
Marc:Yeah, it helped me.
Marc:It contextualized a lot of stuff for me and it made me think differently about even –
Marc:You know, Gerard, who I don't have anything against.
Marc:But, like, I'm, you know, it turns out that I'm really sort of dug in.
Marc:And I have principles around what I think it is.
Marc:And, you know, ultimately, you know, I know what a joke guy is.
Marc:You know, I know what a guy who's doing something on purpose for effect is.
Marc:I know, you know, what real vulnerability is.
Marc:And for me, you know, whether I like a person or not, if I can see who they are, then that's the connection I'm looking for usually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, even if it's a persona, you know, like I can feel that connection that that's human to me.
Marc:And I'm sort of like that.
Marc:But, you know, usually I like pretty goofy comics when I want to watch comedy.
Guest:I will also add that you have to be dug in.
Guest:I think to do the job of an artist to be a stand up comedian, you can't be like, what do I think is comedy right now?
Guest:You have to know there are people in this book that do that.
Guest:What?
Marc:That is their drive.
Marc:What?
Marc:What do I think comedy is right now?
Marc:What kind of tricks do I want?
Marc:What kind of games do I want to play?
Marc:You know, like as much as I love Kate Berlant and I watch her and I think she's very good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But sometimes it seems like an exercise in moving the needle, which is fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, is it a good night out for me?
Marc:But I'm not that generation.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I think she's very bright and she's very smart.
Marc:But I crave knowing.
Guest:Have you seen her new show, The Kate Show?
Marc:Oh, yeah, it's great.
Marc:And I like that.
Marc:It's a theater experience.
Marc:And I think she's great.
Marc:But I also know she's a very heady person.
Marc:And I know that, you know, and I'm enough of an art person to know when, you know, there are calculated things that are done to make a point or to elevate absurdism for its own importance.
Marc:And I get all that.
Marc:And I understand it and I can appreciate it.
Marc:But I think that, you know, with me and stand-up,
Marc:What I want is I want just raw humanity to either come through to me or be on display.
Guest:I also think – I compare it to – as you say, the sort of book goes on these tangents.
Guest:But I compare it to post-structuralist architecture, right?
Guest:I compare it to people who are motivated deeply, formally, right?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And they want to push back on it, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't think Gerard is being like every comedian should be exactly like what I'm doing.
Guest:I don't know, but it would be weird.
Guest:But I think he's just trying to expand the palette of what counts as a special special.
Guest:And I do think by and not unlike Nanette, but by being radically unfinished.
Guest:Maybe this is a generous reading, but by being radically unfinished, it does push back on how a lot of specials feel radically regimented.
Guest:On the expectation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because, yeah, and we all kind of deal with that.
Marc:Like, you know, we did the special End Times Fun in a black box theater by default.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I have a problem with those big theaters.
Marc:But, you know, the interesting thing about all those theaters that you always see on comedy specials, I mean, I think the biggest jump was, like, don't show the audience.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Because that was an old-school thing just to be able to cut.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that became my big thing.
Marc:But ultimately, those old-time theaters that the comics do them in are so established that they become these passive characters.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So it actually showcases the comic better than any other way.
Marc:Because if you're going to make –
Marc:character out of the space right yeah uh then that's a distraction but everybody's used to those dumb old big theaters do you know what i mean yeah so you're just watching the comic and then you know but but to your credit i mean i think that seeing what you know beau did and what lynn did and what you know people started to do i think was right and we all wanted that to happen but sometimes they're not as effective as just a comic in the theater
Guest:And that's okay.
Guest:I mean, like, ultimately, like, it's just neat.
Guest:All I care about – not all I care about.
Guest:I shouldn't say it that way.
Guest:But, like, ultimately, I just want there to push back the idea that there's one way of doing it.
Guest:Like, we just have to expand the definition of what specials are and what stand-up can be.
Guest:And not because –
Guest:I particularly want – it's just that it is – I don't want the opposite happening of sort of shrinking and shrinking.
Guest:And I think you agree, which is sort of the people who are most strided of only one way of doing it and it's saying these bad words or whatever are – is the most extreme example of –
Guest:You know, like there's the type of comedians like comedians only job is to transgress.
Guest:And we were out there to do this.
Guest:Like, that's not the only job of a comedian.
Marc:It could be those transgressions that those comics talk about aren't even transgressions.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And that's the thing that's even sillier.
Marc:I mean, the real transgressions are what you're talking about is actually.
Marc:And I understand now that, you know, if you're going to you.
Marc:contextualize it as art, then it has to transgress, it has to evolve, and risks have to be taken.
Marc:Transgressions just by being a bully and sort of making lives worse for people whose lives are already pretty bad.
Marc:But building the momentum in the community to where they're the
Marc:They're the last say on what comedy is.
Marc:There's an army of fucking faux-enlightened meatheads who know how to do false equivalencies and have Socratic arguments because they're fueled up with talking points who call everybody but their guys hacks when they don't even know the real meat.
Marc:They don't realize the irony of that.
Marc:That's what we're up against because those are the ones that are saying this is how comedy is.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And it's problematic because those those guys that that movement absorbs a lot of people because, you know, in the guise of free speech, you know, they align themselves.
Marc:They don't I don't think because of their selfishness and their egos and some of them, their nihilistic intent, don't realize how easily appropriated they are by the fascist momentum that is real.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So when you're pushing back on their context of what comedy is and isn't and the army of fucking morons who claim to be comedy fans that aren't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's it.
Marc:That's what's going to diminish it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what's going to diminish democracy.
Marc:I, you know, not coincidence, not even coincidentally.
Marc:It's just the nature.
Guest:The limiting of the allowable thought.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, like, look, I do not say in the book they are not that that doesn't count.
Marc:And limiting is as easy as like, what's this fucking idiot?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, in an aggressive way and making it uncomfortable to do it and making it not worth the squeeze of being in those spaces.
Guest:And then they sort of carve out spaces for just them and those spaces get larger and larger.
Guest:And then, you know, the spaces become the size of Madison Square Garden easily.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then because of the nature of how the industry works, you have comedians on –
Guest:The margins being like, well, if I go in this direction, that definitely seems like I can have a career.
Guest:And what you have to do is have a profound denial of how your jokes might be received differently than you intend them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also I think what happens now is that before what comics were up against in terms of taking chances was just the mainstream.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now what we're up against is a highly effective, you know, propaganda machine of a certain ideology that is informing comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they don't know it because they're fighting this fight.
Marc:That's not even a real fight.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so that and I don't know that that's mainstream, but that is a force within culture that that because mainstream is not what it used to be, you know, because mainstream show businesses become hobbled.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I also think it is outside of their control in so much as that, you know, as I explained in the book, that algorithms are pushing people from them to things that are further away from them all the time and then reassociating them, right?
Guest:It's like those guys might make fun of Ben Shapiro or whatever or make fun of –
Guest:Not Nick Fuentes.
Marc:Yeah, but that's going to be the next reel you see when you flip because you looked at.
Guest:And look, it happened.
Guest:Researching the book, that happens.
Guest:If you watch Joe Rogan, they will then associate you with this.
Guest:And if you watch that, they will do.
Guest:And the next thing you know, you're one of them.
Guest:You're one of them.
Guest:And I've seen it.
Guest:Like, I know what it feels like to be radicalized.
Guest:Well, surprise, I'm a cat guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, it happened to me.
Guest:The example I use is that I had almost no interest in watches before the pandemic.
Guest:Through a series of YouTube algorithms, it is now my main interest outside of comedy.
Guest:This is a thing that had no – and so that could happen to right-wing ideology.
Guest:You're a radicalized watch guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, thankfully, I'm not – if I had a lot more money, I'd be one of those guys talking about dealing and selling.
Guest:But, like –
Guest:Algorithms are very powerful things that are building content around what – not what you're interested in but what will make you keep on watching, right?
Guest:And they know that by this one element of all of those comedians has the most juice and we're just going to keep on pushing further and further juice and radicalizing you bit by bit without your knowledge that's happening.
Guest:And so you're being presented to someone –
Guest:Then you don't even know they're radical.
Guest:But in terms of their sort of opinions about Jews or whatever.
Guest:But next thing you know, well, this guy's pretty funny too.
Guest:And why it is even more of a problem is those people, the really radical, the people who are truly anti-Semitic, racist, and that's their mission, they are doing this on purpose.
Guest:They know that they can easily fool the algorithm to trap especially young men.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and as a result, I don't have an answer to that.
Guest:There's ultimately there comes a situation where comedians are put in a situation where people can misinterpret their work or put them in a context they don't want to be in.
Guest:And they either have the option of denial or pushing away some of their fans.
Guest:And that's and I don't know if I met a comedian is really willing to be like to push away fans who are interpreting them incorrectly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, except for Jeselnik.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, but he can't he can't get him out of the room.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But he can push back.
Guest:But now put the pushback as part of it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think just like the comedian tries the hardest, but even he says in a funny way.
Guest:So then they could be like, right.
Guest:That's what he's being ironic about.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but, you know, this like but to me, this was the most sort of horrific observation along these lines in terms of what we're talking about.
Marc:Which is from the book.
Marc:It is through play and jokes that the perversion starts happening.
Marc:As I've said, jokes and memes influence people's expectations of and their interactions with other comedy.
Marc:It is here that conservative adjacent comedy becomes a tool of the right.
Marc:Andrew Anglin...
Marc:The founder of the neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, is upfront about the fact that he uses humor as a Trojan horse for his bigotry.
Marc:Anglin understands that most people are uncomfortable with vitriolic, raging, non-ironic hatred.
Marc:So his goal is for the unindoctrinated not to be able to tell if we are joking or not.
Marc:And that's a quote from him.
Marc:He continues, quote, there should be a conscious agenda to dehumanize the enemy to the point where people are ready to laugh at their deaths.
Marc:So it isn't clear that we are doing this as that would be a turnoff to most normal people.
Marc:We rely on Lulz.
Marc:And this is an on-purpose declaration of what I've been talking about for a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The radicalizing of the people that are watching comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the comics are guilty in that they've been duped as well.
Marc:either through ego or nihilism or dumbness.
Marc:But, you know, you talk about this stuff and then because of the bubble world, they're just like, that guy doesn't get it.
Marc:He's a hack.
Marc:He's a cuck, whatever the fuck.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So this becomes really about you establishing the idea and what you talk about with the generations after me, you know, including, you know, Gerard and Drew, who, you know, who I accept –
Marc:Great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't wait to tell Drew that I. I don't know what his experience with me was in terms.
Guest:I think he didn't have the best time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think the what it felt like to listen to, I think, was that he can tell that you were dismissive of some of all the things that we talked about.
Guest:I think he was aware of that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But I still don't think I was wrong.
Marc:But you don't have to you don't have to get involved.
Marc:I mean, in part of it might have been, you know, again, my own sensitivity to what I've done in my career.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That for whatever reason, either insecurity or reality, I don't get appreciated for necessarily or enough because I'm an old man.
Guest:Yeah, I think there is the feeling and I think you are more successful than that.
Guest:There's a lot of times where right now because of.
Guest:social media and stuff, there are comedians who are extremely famous for doing versions of other comedians who are not that famous.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But it's always been the way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Without social media.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now how famous they are and how less famous the other ones are.
Marc:Well, there's always been, there's always a few guys behind every famous guy going like, I was doing that.
Marc:That was my bit even.
Guest:But I understand, but also, so you see Drew playing in your space and it's like, but you get a lot of credit.
Guest:You should be comfortable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:That's all I was looking for.
Guest:You're in this book a lot.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:More than Drew.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:No, but I'm a thinky guy, and I'm not hitched to just comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But...
Marc:But from what we're talking about, these generations two or three after me is what you're trying to do and what needs to be done, whether the other side reads this or not.
Marc:But in the terms of like this is a attempt at elevating the form, the art form of comedy, defining the art form of comedy in the shadow of a threat in order to validate the art and to encourage it.
Marc:Yeah, because like one of the things I noticed in this is a problem with the mind in the world we live in is like, you know, who's going to read this?
Marc:Who's going to see this?
Marc:It's just another piece of content.
Marc:You know, does it matter that we look at it as an art or not?
Marc:But, you know, that your focus on, you know, how social media works, how younger comedians are dealing with it, what younger comics are doing live in relation to social media and also queer comedy in general.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:as being cutting edge right now is something I'm not going to see anywhere or even contextualize because I don't know the community anymore.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So but but the intent is because the playing field isn't level.
Marc:You know, back in the day, you had the one or two oddballs.
Marc:You had a couple of characters and you had the mainstream comics.
Marc:But everybody was sort of around or at least representatives of them were around.
Marc:But that doesn't exist anymore because we're in different worlds.
Marc:So in some very real sense, the world of comedy as an evolving art form that takes chances, that is interesting and challenging, is under threat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and that art form that does those things is the art form that I love and is the art form that I want to make sure more people love.
Guest:They love the one that is open.
Guest:And seek it out.
Guest:And seek it out.
Guest:And because I do think it demands –
Guest:in my perspective, an audience that wants that, who wants not one – it needs – we're expanding an audience's expectations, allows for comedians to have more boundaries to explore or wider boundaries to explore different things and to be open.
Guest:And that openness is how you get the sort of connection that I write about at the end of the book in my perspective, which is just – and that openness is not just to one definition of vulnerability, but being vulnerable – there's a vulnerability to just taking artistic chances.
Guest:And to allow for that is to understand that comedy is an art form, period.
Guest:And as an art form, that means it can have artistic – like artistic – taking artistic chances.
Guest:And if you have all of that, then everyone in my hope and perspective will get more out of it.
Guest:And in my personal experience, there's something profound that can be found there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And we live in a culture where, you know, the –
Marc:The key motivators are effective monetization and putting asses in seats.
Marc:Now, that's always been part of show business.
Marc:The idea of monetization, generating content and whatever, that's a little different now, obviously much different.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is that there is a language to –
Marc:To what we know as show business or cynically content providing that that that is competitive and that winning means mass appeal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or and that is contrary and always has been to true art.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:in a way.
Guest:But you have to fight for it, or the alternative is then it just doesn't exist, right?
Guest:It's a continued fight.
Marc:And I think that the last chapter or so, outside of reflecting on
Marc:Your own sort of emotional connection to comedy is that with the advent of certain technologies and methods, it is easier and encouraging to get that shit out there.
Marc:There's a lot of garbage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you don't have to defeat yourself entirely.
Marc:You can wait until you don't get the number of views that you consider winning.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, and it's also like a fight to get people together and doing it, right?
Guest:Like, I do think it's a fight against the internet.
Guest:And maybe this makes me, you know, when the person who thinks I'm old thinks the book is wrong will be like...
Guest:You're dismissive of, like, the Internet's ability to have people connect to each other comedically.
Guest:Yeah, but that's a lie.
Marc:I mean, and I think that, right, the idea of live performance and the idea of community in a live venue is important.
Marc:I mean, you know, once we could stop doing Zoom, we did.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I won't do it.
Guest:Yeah, and I think the reason you mentioned talking about sketch and stand-up, in particular and stuff like stand-up, is at its core it's a live art form.
Guest:And my favorite version of it, and the version that I –
Guest:I vowed for the most is when comedians are working on material, which is not... That's the best, yeah.
Guest:Which is not how a lot of people are consuming... Well, in the past, it's not how a lot of people were consuming work.
Marc:Now, there's sort of this thing where... Well, apparently, you know, Gerard acted like that.
Guest:Well, that's why... Look, that's why I loved it.
Guest:That's why he... This sort of unfinished thing is because there is... And I think there is a... When comedians find...
Guest:Yeah, and it might not ever happen again.
Marc:I mean, I know that with me.
Marc:Yeah, that, you know, there are moments that happen, you know, I leave room on all the specials for that to happen.
Marc:And it usually does.
Marc:But there are things that only happen once or twice.
Marc:And if someone's there to witness it, then you did it.
Marc:It's not as satisfying as like, damn, why didn't I get that on TikTok?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that is the sort of dragon I'm chasing because I write on stage.
Marc:So we have where it comes from and why and what that moment is.
Marc:And for it to be witnessed is important.
Marc:And I also think, like, you know, I've talked to people recently about people going back to movies again.
Marc:And there's this idea that, like, you know...
Marc:Like, you know, people want to be together and, you know, COVID's over and everything.
Marc:But also, the world is fucking ending.
Marc:And that is what entertainment, you know, musicals were the biggest form of entertainment during the Depression.
Marc:So people were like, I need something.
Marc:And when you're sitting with other people, like, enjoying the community of distracting yourself from the horror...
Marc:It's something that's different than you sitting at home and experiencing that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, you know, the next click you make, you've been driven into a rabbit hole of garbage.
Marc:And that experience is personal.
Marc:And you don't people don't do not have the the the management ability of their own minds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's the difference between passive and active and enjoy.
Marc:And even when you're sitting in a show like I, you know, I used to joke about it, but.
Marc:You know, it's not like you're paying full attention all the time.
Marc:Sometimes you're like, oh, what am I doing tomorrow?
Marc:And, you know, but at least you're with other people.
Marc:But you can have your own experience in your mind even then.
Marc:But I think it was, you know, it's an important undertaking to sort of... And I was the last guy to get on board in calling myself an artist.
Marc:I'm wary of doing it now.
Marc:But I do like...
Marc:That, you know, you you sort of because stand up always seemed to be a kind of for me, a calling or a job.
Marc:But but yeah, but but to sort of give it some structure and context and root it in history and in your own experience, you know, as a means to elevate it and understand it, I think it was great.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Oh, that was like it's like a very – the entire conversation was built into your one-sentence review of the entire book.
Marc:The whole thing was a review of the book.
Marc:I don't have any problem with the book.
Marc:I think it's – the struggle for you must have been to find an effective theme, but after a certain point, to sort of –
Marc:create a structure was enough, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think ultimately, I think there are certain artists who just have an instinct of what the thing is.
Guest:And I think for a lot of people, they just have to do so much work and be so deep in it that themselves, they can't help but have themselves come through.
Guest:I didn't set out to write the book and have certain themes about culture that you said or to have there be death run through it.
Guest:And I think a lot of people...
Guest:don't read the book and even really pick up on the fact that it's sort of death is sort of running through it or sort of the and in so much as that the book is about processing life and then and as a result that means death but it it couldn't help but be my book and it sort of has my sense of humor and my neuroses and my pain in it and and
Guest:It was a note that I got very late in the process, which is sort of like I write this.
Guest:It's a fairly heady book, the first 10 chapters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a person read it because by the end, the audience wants to know who you are.
Guest:Who's the person that did this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a thing.
Guest:It's a weird thing to write this book this way and to be quoting these philosophers and to having such deep analysis on things that maybe had not gotten it.
Guest:So that's why at the end, I'm like, OK, I'll let you in a little bit.
Guest:But this is why a person like this would write this book.
Guest:And saying like ultimately only I could write this book and you'll have your opinions or your view, it's about how to see it.
Guest:It is about how – allowing your brain to not think differently but not to have different thoughts but to think differently about it.
Guest:And I am proof positive of the fact that if you do that, there's a lot to get out of this.
Guest:And I didn't know if comedians would feel the same way.
Guest:I didn't know if comedians were like don't tell us – don't tell people this.
Guest:We want the audience to be like that.
Guest:But I –
Guest:comedians have been very generous, and I think it's helped them come to terms with a lot of things that they were doing instinctually.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Or that they saw but didn't have the time to sort of –
Guest:Research or even the middle, like I think, and this is the same thing I experienced with my podcast, which is that it's nice to feel seen, right?
Guest:You're doing this thing and you don't know if anyone takes you seriously.
Guest:So I think there's something I hope beautiful in just taking people seriously, even the people whose job it is to like not be serious, you know, air quotes of like, there are to be silly.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:There's something serious about that.
Marc:Well, I think people know that.
Marc:You know, it's sad clown things.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, it's – but yeah.
Guest:But it's not just – the seriousness could be not just in their sadness but in their ambition or their vision.
Marc:And what they do with the silliness and how they execute it and whether it's a reflection on silliness.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:All of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good job, buddy.
Marc:Nice talking to you.
Marc:Nice talking to you.
Marc:there you go that was good did we all learn i feel like i learned the comedy book is available now wherever you get books uh i enjoyed that conversation smart guy hang out for a minute
Marc:So every month, Full Marin listeners get a bonus episode with exclusive outtakes from recent WTF episodes.
Marc:We've got the latest producer cut episode up now, including an additional 11 minutes from my talk with Doug Stanhope.
Marc:My dad was a doctor, but he's got dementia, so he's no health.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:How's that working out?
Guest:As much as I'm with you on the no kids, when someone my age still has parents that are alive, you're like, oh, fuck.
Guest:It's like having kids.
Marc:It's kind of sad.
Marc:You know, my aunt, my mother's sister just passed away.
Marc:They're both in their 80s, but he's losing it.
Marc:I mean, he's still relatively, you know, old memories.
Marc:He knows who I am and all that stuff, but nothing's sticking that long.
Guest:Do you feel like a responsibility to take care of him?
Marc:Well, you know, his wife is still hanging in there.
Marc:And the way I see it is I basically said, look, I got money.
Marc:So when you need to put them somewhere, just tell me whether it's a box or a place.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we'll take care of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can I buy my way out of this?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I worked really hard to be a man who can buy his way out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because she's like, why doesn't he come stay with you for a couple of weeks?
Marc:I'm like, that's not happening.
Marc:There's no way that's happening.
Marc:To subscribe to the full Marin, go to the episode description and whatever podcast app you're using and click on the link or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus.
Marc:Here's another thing I did not do in New York City this time, buy an old guitar.
Marc:Man, I gotta stop myself from that shit.
Marc:I was over at Howie's, over at Rivington, over there on 4th Street, playing some old Gretsch from the 50s.
Marc:I'm not even a Gretsch guy, but it was close.
Marc:He had a Telecaster custom, it was close.
Marc:Yeah, but I didn't, I didn't.
Marc:I did not need it, and I realized that.
Marc:But here's some old guitar from another time.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and LaFonda.
Marc:Cat names everywhere.
Marc:Yeah.