Episode 150 - Paul F. Tompkins
Guest:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark marron
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuckericans?
Marc:What the fuckists?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:You are listening to WTF.
Marc:I'm trying to get a pulse on whether or not you guys think it would be a good idea for me to make Aw Come On Gallagher t-shirts.
Marc:There seems to be a little momentum out there in the ether for some basic white on black Aw Come On Gallagher shirts.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's up to you.
Marc:I got to be honest with you, folks.
Marc:I just had a conversation that gave me a lot of closure in my heart and a lot of a lot of I don't even know what to say.
Marc:I interviewed Carl LeBeau and we're going to be putting this interview up on Monday.
Marc:Carl LeBeau was Sam Kennison's best friend and opening act for years.
Marc:He was a guy that I had a lot of weird history with in that brief window of time that I was at the Comedy Store and and, you know, kind of got caught up with Kennison and that whole world.
Marc:But he also has a fairly profound and disturbing and pretty human story about something that happened, about something that made the relationship between him and Sam really different than anything ever assumed.
Marc:And it is a story that he is just telling at this length on my show.
Marc:And it is a story that has legal implications and human implications.
Marc:And it was pretty mind-blowing.
Marc:So that'll be on Monday.
Marc:Today on the show, by the way, Paul F. Tompkins, the the quite gregarious and funny.
Marc:What can you say about Paul?
Marc:He's a raconteur.
Marc:He's a comedy impresario, a man who dresses for the gig and a guy that at some point, of course, I had some issue with and whatever we talked.
Marc:We're going to talk now and you'll hear it.
Marc:I love the guy.
Marc:Actually, we had a lovely time.
Marc:But before that, I want to say that I was at the Mall of America.
Marc:I knew it was going to be difficult.
Marc:I knew it was going to be weird.
Marc:I knew that it might be sad.
Marc:But I had no idea I would get this email.
Marc:I'll start with this.
Marc:Subject line, outhouse.
Marc:Got a rural feel right from the get-go.
Marc:Outhouse.
Marc:Mark, then a miss you semicolon.
Marc:You have a painful spirit about what you are doing with your life, in my opinion.
Marc:When you decide to take people's money for a so-called comedy show, you would hope that there would be some respect on letting the patrons know the content.
Marc:I thought it was advertised.
Marc:It's a comedy show.
Marc:I can't believe that you can justify bringing slang, slang comments about our living God and in parentheses, Jesus into your filth act.
Marc:My filth act as opposed to my act.
Marc:This was the secret filth act.
Marc:Maybe you're thinking that, oh, I'm not part of God's chosen.
Marc:No, I quite the contrary.
Marc:I am a Jew, so I am chosen.
Marc:probably double chosen from where you're sitting but you are you will continue this dark road but don't be deceived mark you will be taken down by the only one that passes the final two ends judgment on all of us and in parentheses what would you do if everyone walked out on you thanks and god bless you always i wrote back i guess i'd be alone
Marc:in response to what I would do if everyone walked out on me.
Marc:And then I said, I'm glad I connected with you.
Marc:Thanks for coming out to the show.
Marc:Comedy, like belief in a particular God, is subjective.
Marc:Marin.
Marc:Had no idea I would get that, but I guess if I thought about it, Minnesota did elect Michelle Bachman.
Marc:There is that contingent there, and I understand, and I appreciate that guy reaching out.
Marc:But the Mall of America is a sad, sleeping giant out there on the outskirts of Minneapolis in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Marc:I'd been there years ago, maybe shortly after it opened, and I remember thinking that it was quite a spectacle and thinking it was quite a horrifying spectacle.
Marc:And not unlike I feel about many malls.
Marc:Look, I understand we are a consumer driven culture.
Marc:It is sort of something that people do.
Marc:They go to the mall.
Marc:I went to the mall as a kid.
Marc:You'd hang around.
Marc:You'd spend the day there when you're a teenager, hang out by the fountain, look at the girls, walk around with your pals, see some other pals there.
Marc:But the feeding frenzy that was the Mall of America when I first went there was daunting and upsetting.
Marc:And now I go back, and this is in a bad economy, and I went there on the Thursday to check out the mall.
Marc:The club is actually in the mall.
Marc:And it was one of those moments where I think, what is America really about?
Marc:Is America about democracy?
Marc:Is that what we're so proud of?
Marc:Or is America really about a democracy template put on the core of consumer capitalism?
Marc:Is democracy or the U.S.
Marc:government just really a money laundering operation for corporate interests and to keep us all relatively unhappy?
Marc:if possible, so we will continue to try to fill that unhappiness with products and things we pay for.
Marc:Maybe I'm getting a little heady, but I realize that they kind of go hand in hand because I walked into that mall on a Thursday afternoon.
Marc:It was empty, and this was once one of the biggest malls in America.
Marc:There is a roller coaster in the middle of this mall, and I walked into an empty mall, and I felt sadness.
Marc:But not sad because of what the mall implied, but sad because no one was at the mall.
Marc:It seemed to me that the stores were crying.
Marc:Help us.
Marc:People in the mall stores looked stranded and alone.
Marc:I realize that they may sit in those stores in a luggage store, a bag store all day long with nobody even coming by.
Marc:That would make me paralyzed with depression.
Marc:The sound of the mostly empty roller coaster, just a scream for help at the center, at the heart of this dying giant that is the Mall of America.
Marc:And I couldn't hang out.
Marc:I couldn't do it.
Marc:And then on the weekend, I went a little early before the show, and thank God there were people there.
Marc:But even then, it was just parades of displaced anger and sadness in the form of people hungry for something to feel connected with, to fill that hole.
Marc:It was sad.
Marc:And when I walked around that time, even with people in the mall,
Marc:I felt drained and exhausted.
Marc:Like, where's the room where I can take a nap?
Marc:Where's the cot room?
Marc:I get this way.
Marc:At all places this size, Ikea, Home Depot, I need a nap.
Marc:I'm drained.
Marc:But then I thought, man, if I stay 10 more minutes in that mall, I would need something to fill what had been drained out of me.
Marc:There actually was a place where you could lie down, like an oxygen bar.
Marc:I don't know what that is, but it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a vicious circle, a catch-22, one of those.
Marc:But nonetheless, the shows were as good as could be expected in a club the size of an airport hangar.
Marc:Loud music, a mural on the wall that had been contracted to somebody who's popular in Minnesota.
Marc:The mural actually required more attention than I did.
Marc:There were spinning lights, a video presentation, loud music in a huge room.
Marc:Seated like three or four hundred people.
Marc:Sold out a few shows.
Marc:Very happy that the WTFers showed up.
Marc:Made me happy.
Marc:We did what we could in a room that size with plenty of people that didn't know who I was.
Marc:I think we made a bridge between the what the fucker and just the everyday fucker.
Marc:And the shows went well.
Marc:I made it as intimate as possible.
Marc:But I did question the design and the idea behind a club that did everything in its design that it could to dwarf the comic.
Marc:That's just what we need is to be small, feel smaller.
Marc:That's what we need.
Marc:That helps comedy.
Marc:I lashed out, of course.
Marc:And then after the show, there was a lovely line of WTF fans that were buying T-shirts and CDs and asking me to sign things and take pictures with them.
Marc:And some brought gifts.
Marc:Some brought very interesting gifts, knitted gifts.
Marc:Someone knitted me a pair of socks.
Marc:They knitted me wrist warmers.
Marc:They brought comic books, original artwork, cookies, things that I could use.
Marc:And I found myself bartering.
Marc:Depending on what someone brought, I would say, all right, these are beautiful socks.
Marc:I will give you a deal on this T-shirt.
Marc:Or I will give you a T-shirt for these wonderful wrist warmers that you made.
Marc:And there I was.
Marc:in an empty mall of America, after a show, in the corridor outside, because you had to sell outside, in the actual mall itself, because they let people go out the back door, bartering, trading goods for goods in the mall of America.
Marc:And somehow I felt like it was honest transactions that we had transcended the horror of the hamster wheel of consumer capitalism.
Marc:And mutual respect and appreciation for the goods at hand and their necessity in life was being appreciated in me trading a CD for a beautiful pair of socks.
Marc:I'm not sure that was the exact deal, but I do know that there was barter going on.
Marc:That's the way it should be.
Marc:Let's move back to that.
Marc:Barter.
Barter.
Marc:I just took a shower.
Marc:Are you bragging?
Marc:A little.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You got one over on me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You didn't take one?
Guest:I slept as late as I could.
Guest:Really?
Guest:After San Francisco.
Guest:It was a long weekend.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:You were up there and we saw each other briefly.
Marc:Very briefly.
Marc:And then it went away.
Marc:Then you went away and everything went away.
Guest:Everybody went their separate ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It didn't have a festival feel to me.
Guest:Oh, you know what?
Guest:That is true.
Guest:Usually, a lot of times with these things, there's one central location where you see everybody every day.
Marc:Right, but that goes on for a month.
Marc:I was up there for a weekend.
Marc:Who's making all the money up there?
Marc:Not me.
Marc:It's not me.
Marc:It is not me.
Marc:I was looking at very full houses.
Marc:If you're seriously asking, I'm seriously answering.
Marc:Not me.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I'm not complaining, I guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there comes a point...
Marc:Where you start to realize, like, you know, hey, Salt Lake City's doing a festival.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How much do I get paid?
Marc:They'll fly you out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Put you up.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It seems like it's a little exploitive.
Guest:Well, my feeling of it is that what I love about that festival in particular is that it's not an industry thing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So you're really just going up there and having good shows.
Marc:Yeah, no, they were.
Marc:And, you know, they were prompt.
Marc:They showed up to pick me up.
Marc:They were very nice.
Marc:I happen to be a little crankier than I like to...
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because I don't feel like I'm that guy anymore.
Marc:But up there, I was like getting off stage going, this place sucks.
Marc:And, you know, and I was like, you know, like in there were people.
Guest:I mean, meaning wherever you happen to be or San Francisco.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Well, I live there and I've been going up there for years.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I always thought, like, what a great place.
Marc:And it finally realized, like, I used to say things like, I don't know what's going on here.
Marc:I didn't live there, but it's beautiful.
Marc:And then I started to realize, like, I don't I don't really fucking like this place.
Marc:I mean, it's beautiful.
Marc:There's good food and stuff, but people there are very caught up in themselves.
Marc:It's weird.
Guest:They're very proud to be living in San Francisco and they're proud of themselves as opposed to being proud of the city.
Guest:They're proud of themselves.
Marc:Yeah, they're their own little cities just trucking down the street with their piercings, women with beards.
Marc:I'm not judging, but you know, you can do whatever you want there.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:But how about saying hi to the guy that maybe isn't, you know, weird in that way?
Marc:Well, what would be the point?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Why should someone say, I am you?
Marc:That bothered me.
Marc:I always feel left out up there.
Marc:But then I think what I realized finally is that I'm not sure I want to be part of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You make your own little city.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right here.
Marc:Oh, but the shower thing was just something I was hung up on.
Marc:I don't use a washcloth, General.
Marc:Are you at home?
Guest:No, I don't, and I never thought about it until I saw an episode of The Chappelle Show.
Guest:I actually saw the commentary of an episode of The Chappelle Show on DVD where Neil Brennan was talking, because there was a joke in a sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:about a reality show spoof where it's like a wife swap kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so Dave's character has to go stay with a white family for a week.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he talks about how nobody there used washcloths.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I did not realize that was a thing that in the African-American community, it's like everybody uses a washcloth.
Guest:You put the soap on the cloth
Guest:So the soap is not being dirtied for other people.
Marc:I don't know if it's just African-American.
Marc:It seems like probably the proper use of a washcloth, and we all grew up with them, but I don't remember using them much.
Marc:I was just kind of given one, but I wasn't really told what to do with it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, what's the point?
Marc:Can I just wash with soap?
Marc:But it actually exfoliates and stuff.
Marc:Long story short...
Marc:Long story short, I used one today.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:I use it because I'm on these nicotine patches.
Marc:I have one on each arm.
Marc:And when you take them off, they leave a residue.
Guest:Are you supposed to be wearing two?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's just not enough with one.
Guest:It's best to just make your own rules and stuff like that.
Marc:Any sort of drug that's going into your body.
Marc:I've always thought that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the way I figure it, it's a controlled situation.
Marc:I'm not going to be surprised if I can handle this today.
Marc:True.
Marc:I'll probably be okay.
Marc:True.
Marc:The thing was, is I had the 21 milligram ones and then I ran out of them and they were Walgreens brand and I wasn't enjoying them much.
Marc:And I'm not even smoking, but I smoked a cigar.
Marc:You know, it doesn't have to all be about me, Paul.
Marc:Paul of Tompkins is in my garage.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, we're having a nice time, and I'm going to let it happen right now.
Guest:I think it's a beautiful plan of action.
Marc:Because I actually saw the Paul F. Tompkins I didn't like on television.
Marc:When?
Marc:From years ago.
Marc:They're running Mr. Shows.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:And I saw the coming attractions of one.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And I'm like, that's the one that I didn't like.
Marc:That's when we met.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, that was the one, that guy.
Guest:That was like the second year of Mr. Show for me, I think.
Marc:You did the warm-up.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you were also appearing in it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And did you write?
Marc:I wrote as well, yes.
Marc:So you were in it.
Marc:I was, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was when I met you, and you were larger.
Marc:You look much better now.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You looked younger, but you look better now.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You looked unhealthy and fat.
Marc:I was, both of those things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the time where I didn't like you.
Marc:And I didn't really know, like, one of the things I had with you,
Marc:Was that you I'm sure you have people in your life in our jobs that that this happens with.
Marc:And I'm not trying to be mean because I was probably one of those guys for you or I'd watch you and I'd be like, I don't understand.
Marc:I don't like he's animated.
Marc:He's telling a story, but I don't know where to get in on this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then like about three or four years ago, I was watching him like, oh, I get it.
Marc:It's all together.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:Is that mean?
Marc:Do you take that as mean?
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:Does that make sense?
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now you're very funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, thank you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think you were funny then.
Marc:Don't judge me.
Guest:Listen, it took me...
Guest:Coming out to L.A.
Guest:was a big thing for me creatively.
Guest:It changed everything.
Guest:I've been doing stand-up in Philadelphia for eight years.
Marc:Philly was just there.
Marc:Helium.
Marc:Helium, yes.
Marc:Enjoy the city.
Marc:I like that city.
Marc:Yeah, it's a great town.
Marc:It's one of the only successful urban renewal projects I've ever seen.
Marc:Oh, is that so?
Marc:In a way.
Marc:Like, it's clear that they took the downtown that was old and pretty and said, well, let's make this vital again.
Marc:And it actually feels like, is that true?
Guest:It's funny, because when I go back, I've been here since 94 in Los Angeles.
Guest:So when I go back, I just see different.
Guest:I see it in terms of the things that I used to know that aren't there anymore.
Marc:But it seems like a real city.
Marc:Some cities you go to, like Atlanta and stuff, they're still struggling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:for an identity in some ways in terms of making it feel alive but philly you know you're like hey there's people out yeah it's a functioning real yeah yeah metropolis it's easy to get around and it's uh it's it's one of those cities where you you talk to strangers and it's okay oh they're great it's that weird kind of like east coast you know italian so there's something about it's a lot like new york or even boston there's a regional pride yeah where people are like that's right philly you know and you're like
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:Let's have some meat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A lot of meat pride there.
Marc:A lot of meat pride.
Marc:So how long were you doing comedy in Philly before you came here?
Marc:For eight years.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I thought I was great.
Guest:You might have been pretty good.
Guest:I thought that I was doing something...
Guest:I thought that I was my desire was ahead of my ability, which was what which was I I wanted to be unique.
Guest:You know, I wanted there was a lot of Philly because it's you know, it's a city, but it's it's basically there's no media there.
Guest:So it's like the guys that I was watching that were successful were road comics.
Marc:Well, there's also there's also a large black comic community there, too.
Marc:Yes, although at the time that I started, not really.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:He's the only guy I know from Philly.
Marc:I know a couple.
Marc:I know Keith Robinson.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That might be it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:It might be.
Guest:It might be, actually.
Guest:I mean, a lot of the guys, Keith was around my time when I started.
Guest:He was a few years ahead of me.
Guest:So you started like me.
Guest:Like, how old are you?
Marc:I am 42.
Marc:I started when I was 17.
Marc:Yeah, so you started around probably the same time I did because I'm 47.
Marc:I started when I was like 20.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, wow.
Marc:86.
Marc:Even at it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think, yeah, my first, yeah, that's about around the time, yeah.
Marc:But I only got good in the last few years.
Marc:See, so I called it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, you did, absolutely.
Marc:It's true, though.
Marc:You're in agreement.
Guest:I was figuring it out at the time because what I saw in L.A.
Guest:was a thing that I was trying to get at,
Guest:Which was to be able to be conversational and as much myself as possible on stage.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I learned some I went through some bad habits on my way to where I am now.
Guest:I just realized why, you know, we didn't get along.
Guest:Because we were doing the same thing.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, for me, the journey in comedy was always to be myself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That there was some, maybe I don't know if you can relate to this, but when I was a kid, I didn't fit in well.
Marc:I didn't have a lot of great friends.
Marc:I always felt like I was desperately trying to fit in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was that you?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I had friends, but always it was like I took nothing for granted.
Guest:It was always like, please, you have to like me.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was annoying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you find later in life that your good friends knew that about you and you thought you were hiding it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:When you say that one thing where you're like, oh, I fucked it up.
Marc:They're like, dude, we know you.
Marc:I just spent most of my life has been spent being embarrassed.
Marc:most of my life.
Marc:Why?
Marc:My mother used to embarrass me.
Marc:What embarrassed you?
Marc:Why?
Marc:Oh, it was just like... Was your family?
Guest:No, I think it was me.
Guest:It was me.
Guest:It was my own desperation, you know, to be liked and to be accepted and into adulthood.
Guest:And I would say up till the last... Up till I started going to...
Guest:Therapy for the first time was when I started to gradually like kind of relax.
Guest:And it's not like I'm not very Zen right now.
Guest:I still have a ways to go, but I've gotten so much better at at just at just being able to live life without.
Guest:Are you a panicky guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not like panic attack, but I was always like anxious.
Marc:Dread.
Marc:Anxious.
Marc:Amped up.
Marc:Yeah, like, oh my God.
Marc:Yeah, dread.
Marc:A lot of dread.
Marc:Like, oh, this is going to be bad.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Still, still, where I have to talk myself down.
Marc:Right, where you realize like, hey, my head's making that up.
Marc:Yeah, it's going to be fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's going to be fine.
Guest:The worst case scenario is hardly the worst case scenario for most people.
Guest:We should get t-shirts made that just say, oh, this is going to be bad.
Marc:This can't go well.
Marc:But, well, that's really, that's fucking interesting to me.
Marc:So you come out here, so eight years.
Marc:But isn't it a gift, though, because if you're in the same boat I am, I mean, to actually all of a sudden feel truly fearless on stage, to feel like you're accepted for who you are and what you do.
Marc:I mean, it didn't happen to, I mean, we were 20 years in, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's fucking amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I didn't know if it was ever going to happen because and I think that maybe you were the same as me in that because we are sort of similar trajectories in that we're building our own worlds and we seem to find people.
Marc:You had more opportunity than me early on.
Marc:But even when I had those opportunities and looking back at them.
Marc:I'm sorry, when you say that, you mean the scene in L.A.
Guest:when I got here?
Marc:Well, you were integrated into the crew.
Marc:I mean, you did Mr. Show, and then you went on to do the David Alan Greer show, Dag.
Marc:And it was that point where I'm like, oh, I get what he is.
Marc:Paul's one of those character actors.
Marc:You're going to be the guy that's like, oh, no, on the TV show.
Marc:The jerk at the office.
Marc:Right, the jerk at the office.
Marc:Yeah, I just thought you were a jerk in real life.
Right.
Marc:But I understood something, but you had some TV success, and at that time I thought you were on your way.
Marc:But so did I. But when I look back at those breaks, I guess my question is this, is that when I really look back at all the opportunities I've had that didn't really follow through,
Marc:I realize now that I got those opportunities out of some sort of weird charismatic insistence that that, you know, I wanted to be part of it.
Marc:You know, get me that.
Marc:Get me.
Marc:Let's get this.
Marc:I'm going to sell a show.
Marc:I'm going to do this.
Marc:But in retrospect, I don't think I was ready for any of them.
Guest:I feel when I look back and I'm kind of I can't think about it too much because it'll make me crazy is how much of those opportunities did I squander and how much did my fear hold me back from what
Guest:from proceeding and perhaps being more successful today than I am.
Marc:But what are you going to do about that?
Marc:There's nothing to get obsessed about.
Marc:Exactly, exactly.
Marc:I mean, you're younger, you're this and that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But it's when you have the revelation.
Guest:For me, it was having the revelation of like, oh, wow, I turned down this, that, whatever.
Guest:I justified it to myself that I had a good reason for not doing X, Y, and Z. But it was because I was afraid.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:I was afraid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, what are those things?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what did you turn down?
Yeah.
Marc:For example, and why?
Guest:I think it was, there were movies or TV shows that I didn't audition for that I told myself was because I had a greater artistic integrity.
Marc:Or you weren't right for it, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's that one.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:You're at home and the agent calls like, nah, let me know.
Guest:It's better for somebody else who really fits.
Guest:Like, I don't want to take a job away from somebody.
Yeah.
Guest:But it was the anxiety, and I got so good at masking that to myself that I was able to invent.
Guest:I got so fast at it where I could invent a reason why, like an ironclad reason, like, oh, that is why I should not go in on that.
Marc:And when you went in, did you see other guys?
Marc:They're like, oh, he's going to get it.
Marc:Why am I even here?
Marc:Oh, instantly, yeah.
Marc:Always, always.
Marc:Oh, you're so insecure.
Marc:I like you all the more better.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because I found that out about myself, too.
Marc:And there's nothing you can do about that other than try to get help.
Guest:You just got to move forward.
Marc:Who knows what we did?
Marc:I mean, our talent obviously carried us.
Marc:I never had a plan B in place.
Marc:Did you?
Marc:No, never, never.
Guest:And that's the thing that haunts me sometimes.
Guest:Another thing that I got to stop that I can't think about is I got by...
Guest:on I feel like the merest sliver of my ability and if I had really dedicated myself as much as I'm dedicating myself now where would I be but you get there when you get there and like I did not have at the time I didn't have well I didn't have the tools at the time yeah to be to be a better performer to be a better writer to be a better person right now and you were a drinker too oh yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely and you just toned that down yeah now I drink like a human being yeah that's good for you yeah
Guest:because i mean like you know i don't drink at all but i mean if you're able to manage that i mean it's still difficult sometimes what didn't you do a show based on your alcoholism basically yeah what was that called it was called driven to drink uh-huh that was 1998 i did that uh-huh and it was all this thing i it's like one of those things where i'm i'm half embarrassed by that and half proud of it to this day in what way are you embarrassed in
Guest:I had this whole adorable little philosophy about drinking and, you know, what it was just like.
Guest:It's just I think about it now and it's kind of dumb, you know, that's how I feel about it.
Marc:What was it?
Guest:What was it?
Marc:Oh, well, what was it?
Marc:It was like you were proud of being that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was very much a part of my personality.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As much as smoking was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, all of that stuff that I thought that I would more self-consciousness where I thought, no, this is this is part of my identity.
Marc:It also defines you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, a cigarette is like he's a smoker.
Marc:He's at this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, we're living hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're drinking.
Marc:You're that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:If I don't go out tonight and drink in front of everybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, who am I?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No one knows.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm a ghost.
Marc:I'm a ghost.
Marc:People look right through me.
Marc:I might as well be dead.
Marc:Yeah, people just saw you as a beer and a cigarette moving through the... Yeah, that's Paul.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:The invisible man.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But how long did it take you to realize that that wasn't the fucking ticket?
Marc:I mean, like, did you hit a wall?
Guest:No, it really was.
Guest:I got to a point.
Marc:A gal.
Marc:It was a gal.
Guest:Yeah, of course it was.
Guest:Good for you.
Marc:Because I just use them like I use liquor and booze, liquor and cigarettes.
Marc:Another thing I can use.
Marc:Why not get other people involved in this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Bring them all down.
Guest:Oh, the stories you're giving people.
Guest:I was hung up on this girl who was a friend of mine, and it was really bad news.
Guest:We were close friends, and then I expressed affection for her, and then it all went south.
Guest:We ruined her life.
Guest:Oh, well, no, no, no.
Guest:I did not ruin her life.
Guest:She did just fine.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Our friendship kind of limped along in a weird way for another year, I would say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, as happened to many people after 9-11, I think some reassessing of what is acceptable happened.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Flying in airplanes in the buildings.
Marc:No, bad.
Marc:That's number one.
Marc:Unacceptable.
Guest:I think we all agree that was number one.
Marc:And then it got local.
Marc:What was number two?
Marc:Maybe this isn't working out.
Guest:Yeah, number two was like, I don't think I need this guy being this way to me, treating me like I'm doing something wrong by not loving me.
Marc:He's an emotional terrorist.
Guest:He's flying his childhood into my building.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:So that was devastating.
Guest:That was devastating.
Guest:And then I was like, okay, I clearly, I'm not, I was always one of those guys who's like, I don't need therapy because I got a pretty good sense of myself.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Except for the blind side that everyone else sees.
Guest:Which is, yes, which is 99% who I am.
Guest:So I went to, terrified, I went to therapy for the first time.
Guest:And I was really, really scared.
Marc:What year is this?
Marc:So 2001?
Guest:I started going in 2002.
Guest:Yeah, mid-2002.
Guest:And I was just terrified.
Guest:I did not know what was going to happen.
Marc:What was that first session like?
Marc:That's always to tell you.
Guest:Oh, such a blur.
Guest:But I remember the first session was such a relief.
Guest:It was such a relief because she was so nice and she was so, it was like everything that I, I went in there thinking, well, I'll try this person out.
Guest:And knowing that, okay, maybe this won't be the one and I'll go, but I'll go, I'll do this right.
Guest:You know, I'm going to do this right.
Guest:And she was terrific.
Marc:Auditioning.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But she she got the part right out of the gate.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:She was very just matter of fact about everything, but also like like she was very caring.
Guest:And it was just like this.
Guest:This works.
Guest:You know, I'll stick with this.
Guest:And I've been going ever since.
Guest:And it's been the biggest it has doing that has been the best decision that I've ever made because it it made me.
Guest:Once I saw the value of, oh, the more I let this stuff out and the more I say the things that I'm afraid to say and the more I look at the things I'm afraid to look at, the better it gets and the better my life gets.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's a good therapist.
Marc:And, you know, you have a good relationship and you're still with her after eight years later, nine years later.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what do you think?
Marc:What were the main things?
Marc:What was the thing stuck in the craw of your soul?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's the same as a lot of us in this business.
Guest:It was family issues.
Guest:I grew up in a big family and my six kids.
Guest:Holy shit.
Marc:Do you know all of them?
Guest:I recognize a lot of them on site, I think.
Marc:Have they offended you on Facebook?
No.
Marc:A couple have.
Guest:Not all.
Guest:Just a couple.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Not all?
Marc:I think all that are on Facebook have friends of me on Facebook.
Marc:How many boys?
Guest:How many girls?
Marc:Three boys, three girls.
Marc:And you were in the middle?
Guest:I was five out of six.
Guest:Middle boy.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So by the time I came along, my mom was burnt out.
Guest:My dad worked all day and came home and went off into his world.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:Like he had a world?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I talked to some other guys like that.
Guest:Yeah, he's like one of these, he's of Irish descent, and he's one of the remote Irish types, not the gregarious Irish type.
Guest:Are you all Irish?
Guest:No, Irish and Italian.
Guest:My mother's Italian.
Guest:That's Philadelphia.
Marc:Yeah, there you go.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:All Catholic.
Guest:Irish and Italian, all Catholic.
Marc:Did you go to Catholic school?
Marc:Oh, yeah, for 12 years.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:So you're fucked up in a very non-Jewish way.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Very specific.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so you were the fifth one, so there's plenty old clothes around.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:The detached dad I find a common thread among us.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So we just wander through the world looking for parents.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's like, this room full of strangers will work.
Guest:Hey, like me.
Guest:And then that thing where you have to, where you realize you have to become your own parent, like things that I didn't learn about, like...
Guest:and, you know, stuff like that.
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:That's why we're comics.
Marc:We live out of boxes.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know, we don't have a job in place.
Marc:There's no sense of like, what about that thing?
Marc:It's like, well, what about finding job security?
Marc:I'm like, what is that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's for babies.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I will be delivered.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a full calendar is job security.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For a month or two.
Marc:But it's interesting to me that there's so many of us that do that.
Marc:I mean, I didn't learn about the self-parenting trick till fucking, you know, recently.
Marc:Oh, me too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And to actually do it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To actually say, no, Mark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then to have Mark go, fuck you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, no.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:No, fuck you.
Marc:I can do whatever I want.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then he'd go into everything with that struggle.
Marc:What's the matter with that guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Can't decide what he wants.
Guest:That first time of not buying a thing, you know, like saying, I'm going to buy this jacket because it'll make me feel good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, like...
Guest:Really won't.
Marc:Not for very long.
Marc:Well, what I do in that situation, and I think maybe it would help you, maybe you already do it, is just wear it around the store for a bit.
Marc:Oh, that never occurred to me.
Marc:Oh, no, it's great.
Marc:I do that at big stores all the time.
Marc:I take some shoes, I'll try them on, I'm like, these are great, and then I'll walk around the store for another 15 minutes and I'll just eventually put them back.
Guest:Maybe I'll take photos, too.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:This is the jacket on my spot.
Marc:I'll hand my phone to someone.
Guest:Could you just take a quick picture of me?
Marc:But you are a close horse.
Marc:I am, yeah.
Marc:Now, what is the image we're doing here?
Guest:I think it's that it's the... First of all, I can't wait to answer this question the way it was asked.
Guest:I'm sorry, I'm letting you down.
Guest:That is almost identical to the inflection.
Guest:My mother, as she was dying, as she was dying, I'm riding with her in the ambulance to the hospice, and she said to me,
Guest:So what's the ultimate plan here with the career?
Guest:It's like, wow, you're taking care of business on the way out.
Marc:You were there for when she died?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Are both your parents dead?
Marc:No, my father's still alive.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't even imagine that.
Marc:It's not something I've had to live through.
Marc:Were you the only one there?
Marc:No.
Marc:We're all six of you in the ambulance?
Guest:She was alone.
Guest:No.
Marc:Come on, you guys.
Guest:Leave your jacket.
Guest:I don't know how that ended up being me, but that was me.
Guest:And I'm very grateful to have had that experience.
Guest:It's one of those things that's kind of
Guest:I could describe it to you, but there's no way you can understand what it's like until you experience it.
Guest:Was it a process?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Was she had cancer?
Guest:She had a million different things wrong with her, and she was on dialysis, and she also had this...
Guest:I don't know what the condition is called, but she had this condition where she kept getting this buildup of fluid in her abdomen that had to be drained every month, and it was happening with more and more frequency, and the doctor finally told her, look, this is the quality of your life for now until the end.
Guest:So you could either keep doing this, or you could just kind of let nature take its course.
Guest:And so she decided she was going to go off dialysis, and she was just going to go.
Guest:She realized she would rather do that than... Did she discuss it with the family?
Guest:or no at that point it's like you know she was in her uh her late 70s so it's like you know this was her decision all the way you know right and i cannot that's the thing that that flabbergasts me to this day is is i can't imagine the the idea of being at a point in your life where you say yeah that's enough i'm ready to let go you've never been there no i never have not even just to make yourself feel better
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:Honestly, God, I don't think I've ever been... I've had maybe one suicidal thought that was really that close to where I was like, I could see how great it would be to just not be anymore.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But and that scared me.
Guest:And I like my that shook me out.
Marc:But isn't that interesting?
Guest:I mean, was she a believing Catholic till the end?
Guest:No, she was not.
Guest:She was a Catholic all of her life until 76.
Guest:And then she was an atheist.
Guest:She woke up one day and and she it just didn't make sense to her anymore.
Guest:Were pictures taken down and things thrown away?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there had been there had been little statues and things around the house.
Guest:And she was never like evangelical about it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:But she was deeper than that.
Guest:They don't need to promote.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They have a look.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, great.
Guest:It's all taken care of.
Guest:There's an organization in place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, yeah, that stuff was all gone.
Guest:And you don't know what happened?
Marc:She just woke up?
Guest:She said she had started thinking about the Iraq War, and she was trying to think of what reason that God could have for this war because she was raised to believe that God had a reason for everything.
Guest:And then she started thinking she couldn't think of a reason God would have this war didn't make any sense to her.
Guest:It was stupid.
Guest:It was it was clearly under false pretenses.
Guest:And and then she started thinking, well, maybe that's not how God works.
Guest:And then she started thinking, well, hold on a second.
Guest:What if there's no reason for any of this, then what's the point to all of it?
Guest:And, you know, maybe there's not somebody that's in charge.
Guest:She lost her faith.
Guest:Yeah, she lost her faith and she was totally fine with it, too.
Guest:It was not at all like it didn't seem to depress her.
Guest:It what was amazing to me and what kind of made me feel good as opposed to bad about it, you know, as she neared the end of her life, because, you know, as your parents get older, it's nice to think that they have a thing that comforts them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She seemed to take comfort in the fact that in the fatalism of it all, I guess, like the idea that, no, you sort of you live a time on Earth and then that's it.
Guest:You know, like she seemed she seemed like a great weight was lifted off her shoulders that she didn't have to believe in this thing anymore.
Marc:Well, yeah, and who knows what was going on in her heart around the idea of letting go of hell.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Because if you're a Catholic and your faith is really shaken to the point where you lose it, that's got to be a relief.
Marc:It's like, well, I'm definitely not going to that place that doesn't exist.
Marc:That was a bad idea all around.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So now, I mean, I guess I'll find out.
Marc:Yeah, I guess I'll find out.
Marc:But that's interesting.
Marc:So it was like she was unburdened and she was able just to deal with the existential reality of life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then make a decision to choose to go out without, like a lot of people are like that because that's a living will thing.
Marc:Like if I ever get to this point.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But she was able to make that choice.
Guest:She was hilarious about it, too.
Guest:She had no problem talking about it to whoever.
Guest:When she was in hospice, and it's the last days of her life, and somebody said, there's a priest outside.
Guest:This is a guy that she knew.
Guest:He'd been over to our house for dinner countless times.
Guest:He's going in for a last call?
Guest:Yeah, he wants to know if you want last rites.
Guest:And she went, no.
Guest:No.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But did she let the guy in to just chat with him or anything?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:No.
Marc:Don't even let the guy in the costume.
Guest:Oh, you know what?
Guest:It wasn't that he was outside.
Guest:It was that a friend of hers, her best friend, was going to send for him.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:And she just dismissed it.
Marc:Oh, so she meant business.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She did not have a deathbed reconversion.
Guest:And what about your old man?
Guest:How did he react to all this?
Guest:Uh, that's a good question.
Guest:Um, you know, he was, he was there.
Guest:He was there.
Guest:He was, he was there for everything and, and, and, and sat with her and, and, you know, all that.
Guest:It's not like he was there at the very end and they held hands and stuff like that.
Guest:Um, but he, uh, people would ask me, you know, how's, how's your dad doing with your mom passing?
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:i don't think i'm the guy to ask no one knows what's in there no one knows no one does no one ever will that's that's the situation but do you have some peace around your relationship with him in that way uh not as much as i would like and it's it's one of those things where i think i i know it has to come from me and i have to initiate that kind it's not like we're estranged or anything it's just like if the if the if the phone call is going to be made it's got to come from me he's not going to pick up the phone yeah any of the siblings or just you
Guest:Oh, just me.
Guest:He lives with my sister now.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Well, as far as I know, it's just me.
Marc:It's not just me.
Guest:I would be upset to find out that he's talking to everybody else.
Guest:A blue streak.
Marc:I thought I was special.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But is it something to do with your career choice?
Marc:No.
Guest:Or just the fact that he never got you?
Guest:It is just who he is.
Guest:It's just who he is.
Guest:He's not a very demonstrative person.
Guest:He never has been.
Guest:And he is like a guy who likes to...
Guest:Who prefers to be in the background, you know, that's interesting because you're very demonstrative.
Guest:Oh, yeah Yeah, my mother was much more right outgoing and she was much more Italian, you know, so it's very she was She was happy to tell you what was on her mind at all times Yeah, and she was she was given to making pronouncements about everything everything was a pronouncement, you know And I have decided and you know things like that.
Marc:So that's I definitely shocked family.
Marc:Oh, yeah
Marc:Mom's decided.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that's interesting.
Marc:So do you ever think that's part of your disposition is a reaction to your father?
Marc:Oh, I'm sure.
Marc:I'm sure.
Guest:I'm sure.
Guest:I was trying to get noticed by both of them.
Guest:And it was easier to get noticed by my mother.
Guest:And now it's like I definitely want to have – my dad's in his 80s, and it's kind of beat the clock at this point where I really want to establish –
Guest:Some kind of relationship with him and get to know him after all this time.
Marc:Have you talked about that with therapists?
Marc:Is there a plan in place?
Guest:Many, many, many times.
Marc:What's the plan?
Guest:The plan is I have to do it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's the plan.
Guest:And it's and it's the it's the awkwardness.
Guest:And the and I and I'm sure the the the kind of pain that's involved.
Guest:um because it's not easy he is a he's a very reserved guy and so talking to him is like he will speak when spoken to but he's not gonna it's not like uh oh if you ask the perfect question he will just start talking and there's no stopping him you know yeah it's like it really is like i've often acquainted it to being with a friend of a friend that you don't know that well yeah you're like oh what do we have in common could you just hang out with him for a few minutes i gotta run into the store exactly exactly
Marc:so uh you like movies right yeah that's probably a good way to start yeah i don't know like uh with my dad like i just you guys have you talk to him no i do but like like i can't like i don't like when i'm around him like i went and saw him i'm only good for about two days before like i'm literally drained and mikey's like he's done it again i no longer know who i am and now i have to go get new headshots
Marc:Just so I could make sure I still exist.
Marc:It's just so fucking needy.
Marc:I mean, in a way, you got off easy on that way.
Marc:But it'd be interesting to see, because I have found that a lot of times as they get older, they do need a little push, but they're willing to spill some shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because they see it coming.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, he's lived, the life that he's lived is pretty amazing.
Guest:He was born during, he was a depression baby and fought in World War II in the Pacific.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he didn't tell you any stories?
Guest:no no no well that's that generation is not you know is not given to that yeah i think that i think they'll they'll tell you if you if you ask them but yeah they're not exactly they've kind of compartmentalized it yeah yeah because there was no you know celebration of what's to talk about yeah it's what you're supposed to do yeah we did what we had to do yeah yeah i mean yeah there's a lot of guys that killed but you know it was my job what are you talking about eating breakfast every day yeah you have to eat breakfast so you do it
Guest:Yeah, that's it, right?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:But that's the stuff.
Guest:I always think that that's the way in.
Guest:It's almost the interview style is I want to talk to him about his experiences and see what was this like.
Guest:When I think about people from my parents' generation and the things that they have seen in their lifetime, it's unfathomable and that they could roll with it.
Guest:By the end of my mother's life, she was on email.
Guest:She was surfing the web.
Marc:unbelievable to me it's amazing how we adapt but it's also amazing that they lived in in a period in history where there was history here everything just there's no history yeah it's just a series of pictures more of the same yeah yeah it's more the same but it's all right here in our laptops oh right yes yeah you know there's no there's no sense of life's lived yeah it's all personal narrative there's no you know broader cultural narrative like i mean just the idea of world war ii where everybody was like do your part yeah you know hero war happens now and people are like that's bullshit yeah
Marc:I'm sure there were a few of them during World War Two, but I mean, it was just a national duty and everybody.
Marc:I always think that when it was more intimate and there was less there was less media that maybe there was less information.
Marc:But I'm not sure that was a bad thing, because what it did for the human fabric is that more people were on the same page and there was some sense of cultural identity that everyone shared.
Guest:Now you have access to all this information, but the thing is, now history can be muddied as it happens.
Guest:So if you're looking for information on something, you're going to find 50 different versions of it.
Guest:You're not going to be any better off.
Marc:Yeah, there's no way to know unless you were there.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:I guess I'll just have to take whatever spin seems attractive.
Marc:Yeah, the one I like the most.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:This fits my ideology.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I think about those things all the time.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now, you know, you know, full circle back around to this dandyish persona that you seem to have appropriated from God knows who.
Marc:Who did it come from?
Guest:I think it came from from that's who was in.
Guest:That's what showbiz looked like when I was a kid.
Guest:And that's who seemed to be the coolest people because of the age I am.
Guest:And I know you can understand this.
Guest:You know, I would see The Tonight Show.
Guest:I would see the Merv Griffin show.
Marc:You know, sure.
Guest:It was like and everybody wore a suit and tie to be on television.
Guest:You know, right.
Guest:And so.
Guest:That was what I that was absolutely what I wanted to be, you know, and the comedian was the best one because he was all by himself and everybody paid attention to him and everybody liked him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it seemed effortless.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he goes sit on the couch and joke around like that's the dude that I want to be.
Marc:And now we learn it takes a little more effort than we thought.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was all a big lie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's effortful.
Marc:Full of effort.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the spectacle of Paul F. Tompkins now, because you don't just wear a suit.
Marc:I mean, you wear a fucking suit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It definitely has gotten more flamboyant the older I've gotten.
Guest:And it's like, I feel like I am preparing for my old age.
Guest:Because to me, like seeing Peter O'Toole on Letterman, you know, like dressed to the nines, this like elegant older guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:abso-fucking-lutely yeah yeah like yeah i'll do that yeah and i'm gonna prep now yeah i'm gonna prep now but there is sort of a uh also a cult uh history and show business of this of of i don't know what you would what a dandy really is it's a fop except you don't have a handkerchief tucked in your sleeve and a fop is i think a fop is like to me i think of the fop is like the the painted on beauty mark you know powdered wigs
Marc:They're just shy of burlesque in a way.
Marc:Male burlesque.
Marc:The guy who hosts a burlesque.
Marc:I'm thinking Joel Grey in Cabaret.
Marc:White face.
Guest:More of a fop than a dandy.
Marc:I would hope so.
Marc:And I don't see you as that.
Marc:From your lips to God's ears.
Marc:But I have seen you, I think, wearing white makeup.
Marc:Have I not?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Maybe that was a dream I had.
Marc:That might have been.
Marc:You know what I think I'm associating with the... Kabuki?
Marc:No, maybe, or the cover of V for Vendetta or something.
Marc:Ha ha ha!
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:So it's possible.
Marc:But but there is.
Marc:But but what I'm saying is that there have been people like like what's the name?
Marc:Tom Wolf, the writer.
Marc:There have been people that are are fairly aware of being recognized.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As as and maintain that consistency.
Marc:I think that when you were younger, you still had the suit thing going, as I recall.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you were more of a Jackie Gleason.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, unfortunately, yes.
Marc:That was not how I thought of myself, of course.
Marc:But did you like Jackie Gleason?
Marc:Or was he even on your radar?
Guest:I knew who he was, and I had seen The Honeymooners and everything, but he didn't do it for me.
Marc:But you were always sort of a raconteur, kind of a take over the room.
Guest:But I also was not always a heavy guy.
Guest:That was like a thing that happened.
Marc:With beer?
Guest:Well, with moving to L.A., and I remember it was after my...
Guest:First year working on Mr. Show, I think, and it was the constant anxiety of having this dream job, but feeling like I'm going to get fired at any moment.
Guest:And being in an office environment where there's food all over the place.
Guest:So it's like eating all day long and then drinking at night.
Guest:And it was just this terrible combination of things that I was not...
Guest:That I was handling as best I could at the time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I gained, like I'd never been heavy before like that.
Marc:But food makes you feel better.
Marc:I mean, that's for sure.
Guest:Yeah, and the worse the food is, the more it makes you feel good.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it's like immediately as I'm eating it, I'm like this, like last night I did this oinkster thing.
Marc:You ever been to oinkster?
Marc:No.
Marc:On Colorado?
Marc:Oh, no, I just saw it for the first time.
Marc:What is that place?
Marc:I thought it was a shitty place, but then Jesse Thorne says, we got to try it.
Marc:And they make their own pastrami there.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And they have this nice red cabbage slaw, chili fries, but their own pastrami.
Marc:And I'm in this thing now because I've gotten out of the loop on the exercise and I'm letting myself drift with cigars and shit.
Marc:But once it starts to go, I mean, it starts to go.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I shoveled a pastrami sandwich in my mouth, chili fries, and then a chocolate shake.
Marc:And I couldn't sleep.
Marc:I couldn't sleep because of it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But while I'm doing it, I'm like, I feel good.
Marc:This is good.
Marc:Look at me eating.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then within an hour, I'm like, I want to die.
Marc:What have I done to my heart?
Guest:Yeah, I'm a monster.
Marc:Yeah, I am a monster.
Guest:I'm a monster who doesn't deserve love, clearly, because I ate that sandwich.
Marc:And I enter the world like that.
Marc:But, you know, you did seem to solidify yourself in the world of I mean, now I think that your signature is revolving around your sort of rebirth as a as a solo performer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that it seems that from fairly early on from Mr. Show forward, you've worked in television.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you were integrated in, you know, you did you did episodic work a lot.
Marc:You show up in movies and and then, you know, and then you show up in really good movies for moments.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:For moments.
Marc:I've had this experience a few times in movie theaters.
Marc:That was Paul.
Marc:It was him, right?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what's your relationship with like with Paul Thomas Anderson?
Marc:I haven't seen Paul in a while.
Marc:The director of There Will Be Blood.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I have not seen him since then.
Marc:Did you do another movie?
Marc:You've sort of shown up in most of his movies.
Marc:Magnolia.
Marc:Oh, okay, Magnolia.
Guest:I did what ended up being just a voice in Magnolia.
Guest:And yeah, and that was it.
Guest:But he's a guy that I have known off and on through Largo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The old nightclub Largo.
Guest:Right, the crux.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he started coming to...
Guest:Largo around the time that comedy started happening at Largo.
Guest:It had been open for about a year and was just a music club.
Guest:And then they started doing comedy on Monday nights.
Guest:And then all the comics and the musicians started to get to know each other and appear on each other's shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And does Josh DiDonato get any credit for this?
Marc:No.
Marc:I will always give Josh credit.
Guest:He was the guy that brought comedy to Largo.
Marc:He was.
Guest:And that would not have happened had enough of him.
Marc:Not at all.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I see him around occasionally.
Marc:He's still kicking.
Marc:I haven't seen him in a while.
Marc:He's different.
Marc:He cut his hair.
Marc:He wears a hat.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:He's actually trying to be you.
Marc:Maybe you ought to call him.
Marc:But in terms of the sort of click that came out of Largo, I haven't really talked about that specifically on the show, that because I wasn't living here and I would come and do it, but there was definitely something that happened.
Marc:It was sort of a hub for what you said, that there was musicians, there were filmmakers,
Marc:there was sort of a young group of creative types that were sort of surfacing in Hollywood at that time.
Marc:And that was really the place where, you know, I mean, Galifianakis came out of there.
Marc:You know, Dana sort of cut his teeth in there, though he was already working a lot.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, he was an established guy, but I think a lot of things, you know, Bob and Dave, White Trash Lotto came out of there too.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:And I mean, it's an amazing, who else was around?
Marc:But Amy Mann and- Greg Berent.
Guest:Yeah, Berent.
Guest:Yeah, I remember Fitzsimmons went up there a lot.
Marc:Yeah, it was just like this weird hub of what was really alternative comedy here.
Marc:But oddly, and I find this a lot, that a lot of what people frame as the beginning of alternative comedy were mainstream comics who just didn't fit into the mainstream.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And wanted an outlet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For me, it was like...
Guest:That's what I was looking for when I started in Philadelphia was where are the places that I can go and I can do the stuff that I find the funniest that I don't have to worry if people are going to get it.
Guest:I don't have to worry about holding people's attention.
Marc:Or disappointing a club owner.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because it's like, well, you know, doesn't get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's that feeling like the first eight years that I did stand up, that feeling of being on stage was very desperate and was very like, Jesus Christ, this has to go well.
Guest:You know, these people, I could lose these people at any second, you know, and then that was that was the biggest change for me coming out to L.A.
Marc:was like, I've maintained that excitement throughout my career.
Marc:And it is exciting.
Marc:But coming out here.
Guest:But, you know, seeing that people, they trust you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like they're saying, we came to this place because we're assuming we're going to see something that's novel and that's interesting.
Marc:And the food was good, which I think made a difference.
Marc:The Largo food?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you like that food?
Marc:I don't know if I liked it.
Marc:People were very divided on that food.
Marc:I don't know if I liked it.
Marc:A lot of people complained.
Marc:But they were eating dinner.
Guest:They were eating dinner.
Marc:And it seemed like a respectable dinner.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It wasn't like, you know, some sort of bar food.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:It was not chicken wings.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There were no nachos.
Marc:Pasta.
Marc:Yeah, it was grown up food.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Grown-up food.
Marc:So you felt that you were with like-minded people and the audience was like-minded.
Marc:But definitely it was where the juice was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It took me a long time to realize, probably until recently, that this whole idea that a whole generation of talent, talent managers, talent agents, filmmakers, they all sort of come up at the same time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the people that are in their periphery, given their world as talent or as an agent or whatever, they align themselves with each other.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And then they push aside the people that are pitching the Michael Winslow movie or what have you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I had no sense of that.
Marc:I mean, did you have a sense of that early on?
Guest:I mean, no, I didn't have a sense of it at the time, you know, but also it was it was a very heady time.
Guest:It was very intense.
Guest:Like that was I remember that as being for for me anyway.
Guest:But I would I would I would wager that a lot of people felt the same way that it was.
Guest:There was always stuff going on.
Guest:You had people that were doing some amazing work.
Guest:And you had some people that were figuring it out.
Guest:People like me, I think, that were figuring it out that didn't realize they were figuring it out.
Guest:I kind of thought... I remember being on stage at one point
Guest:And I was doing this was talking about some episode of a TV show that I saw getting all worked up about it.
Guest:And I'm like, really, like, ranting about this.
Guest:And the audience is going crazy.
Guest:And I had a feeling like this isn't right.
Guest:Like, this is this is I'm talking about this dumb thing and I'm I'm I'm like selling it with performance.
Guest:But this doesn't feel earned and it doesn't feel.
Guest:That was like the first inkling of, this is not really what I want to do.
Marc:So you finally found a place where you could fit in and you wanted to fuck it up.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:It was like, well, this is not... These people, I can't trust them.
Marc:It wasn't satisfying.
Marc:It wasn't satisfying.
Marc:But there is that issue, too, and I don't know how you feel now because, I mean, you're doing... You're managing career a little differently than me in terms of who you perform for, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but I still like...
Marc:I like when there's strangers in the room.
Marc:And I've been fighting all this time to get my people out, but I had this interesting moment come up in Philly.
Marc:A guy tweeted online that there's a lot of douchebags in line at the Marc Maron show.
Marc:And then I walk around the room sometimes before the show and he comes up to me and he's like, dude, I just tweeted that we're seated with some of them.
Marc:And I'm like, would you relax?
Marc:They're just people.
Marc:And I'm going to do a show, and they might have heard me on radio.
Marc:I mean, I can handle this.
Guest:I'm on it.
Marc:I appreciate you watching my back.
Marc:And then the guy comes up to me afterwards.
Marc:He's like, you're right.
Marc:They were laughing the whole time.
Marc:I'm like, well, look who's a weirdo now.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:What are you judging on?
Marc:A haircut?
Marc:And we all do that.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But I like, and I think what you were speaking to, and I don't know if you were, but I like it when you're not preaching to the choir of one kind or another.
Marc:That there is a challenge to the fact, like, we're not sure who this guy is.
Marc:We watched this clip on YouTube, but I don't know if he's funny.
Marc:And then you get the audience that doesn't... There's still the idea, for me, of the comedy club, that you're dealing with strangers, and part of your job is to entertain strangers that may not know you.
Marc:I don't know how you feel about that.
Guest:The way I feel is, like, I want to...
Guest:I want to be doing something that's substantial.
Guest:It has to be substantial for me.
Guest:It has to feel like that was worth saying on stage.
Guest:And it's my criteria, but I have to feel okay about it to do it on stage.
Guest:And that was the very, very beginnings of starting to get better at stand-up.
Guest:And kind of realizing like,
Guest:maybe I'm not as good as I think I am.
Guest:Maybe I don't have it all figured out.
Guest:Just because I'm getting laughs, anybody can get laughs.
Guest:How many people do you see that it's like, well, this is button-pushing kind of bullshit this guy's doing.
Guest:It's making the sounds of comedy, but it's not really comedy.
Marc:It's just a rhythm.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So so anyway, so that was that.
Guest:But but but it kind of it kind of ties into it does tie into my approach now to to to performing in front of audiences like the comedy club thing for me.
Guest:The challenge of doing that, I got to a point where I just didn't.
Guest:That didn't hold an allure for me anymore because I felt like as my stuff got quieter and more internal and less explosive, you know, and more implosive, if you will.
Marc:So less a caricature.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was more honest.
Guest:It was like, I don't want to.
Guest:I didn't want to do what I felt was like babysitting people.
Guest:Because when I would go to the comedy clubs- I call it that too.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:Where you look around the room and you're like, am I going to have to babysit you?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Am I going to have to deal with like, no.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Boo.
Marc:Next.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or just people fucking talking.
Guest:Yeah, it's like you're an audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Behave yourselves.
Marc:I'm doing my part, right?
Guest:Yeah, when I felt like-
Guest:These there's certain people that have an idea of what comedy is, and I don't meet that idea.
Guest:And so they check out.
Guest:And I felt like the kind of stuff that I'm doing, it's I'm not performing it to the best of my ability.
Guest:If I'm worried about this guy over here, who the glow of his phone in his face, because he's totally changed.
Marc:But is there a sense because like, you know, I deal with the same issue and I and I deal with what something I perceive in myself as fear and arrogance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, because if I watch like, you know, I recently watched Bill Cosby himself, you know, all the way through.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had that thing memorized.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I sort of come to it with new eyes and he was never really one of my guys.
Marc:You know, I mean, I like some of the old stuff, but I was never he never like, you know, prior always spoke to me.
Marc:But right.
Marc:But just on a stylistic level, Bill Cosby is speaking to everyone.
Marc:Like if someone goes, you know, fuck Bill Cosby, you go, what's the matter with you?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and anybody could, you know, I have that problem with them, with people saying fuck anybody who has established a unique place in the world for themselves, because I'm like, there's no conversation.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Marc:So, you know, so so like I'm watching this thing and I realize and it was a profound realization at this point in my career, because this is the last within the last year that.
Marc:He is deciding the pace and he is deciding what they will laugh at.
Marc:He's making that decision for a fairly broad audience.
Marc:And then I started to realize, because I think what you're speaking about is something I did too, is that there's a panic and there's sort of like, how do I manage this guy?
Marc:How am I going to keep him interested?
Marc:And I also talked to Stuart Lee about it, which also changed my mind about things at this stage in my career, where he said, I've begun to look at the people that don't get me with sympathy.
Marc:In the sense that I'm sorry that I'm not your idea of what you expected.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And that your night is fucked up because you can't get me.
Marc:There's nothing I can do to bridge this gap.
Marc:So that's more in defense of finding your own audience.
Marc:But to me, lately, there's also...
Marc:in terms of my my fearlessness that i think is real now and earned as opposed to just pretend right fearlessness which and i've said that before like you know 95 of comedy you know and certainly the most of your career is pretending like you're not oh it has to be yeah oh it's like that first time that you go on stage like horrendous like all you're thinking is like i'll be off soon yeah in my mind that is such a blur like anything that happened on stage but i must have thought it went pretty well or i never would have done it again
Guest:Well, you got the response.
Guest:Yeah, I got some response.
Guest:I was so happy that you had Scott Carter on recently because I love listening to him.
Guest:And his whole thing about all he had to do was his deal with himself was to get one laugh.
Guest:And so once he got two laughs, it was like, well, I'm way ahead of the game here.
Guest:This is beyond my wildest expectations.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, it's like...
Guest:And I've had that same thing that Stuart Lee is talking about when I became more charitable about it.
Guest:Like, first it was, you know, you go through the thing where anybody's not liking it, they're your enemy.
Guest:They're your enemy for not liking what you're doing.
Guest:And then I realized, oh, this is such a drag.
Guest:That guy's not having fun.
Guest:He's going to sit here and the expression on his face is terrible.
Guest:And you just hope he doesn't ruin it for everybody.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Like, that's the best case scenario is that he just takes it.
Guest:You know, like, it'll be over soon.
Guest:Like, hopefully he's philosophical.
Guest:And it's like, this is just 90 minutes out of my life.
Marc:And then you know after the show, he's like, the middle guy was better.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's the worst.
Marc:The middle guy.
Marc:I liked him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I felt like, I guess I got to a, I felt like I'm not looking for that
Guest:Challenge anymore that challenge of winning over strange strangers.
Guest:It was I want to be with people who trust me enough that I can really Stretch as much as I post and that became the challenge for me.
Guest:It's supportive Yes was like was like I want to I want to be able to open my mind and I spend the first you know 15 minutes of my set just stream of consciousness just see what happens, you know, and
Guest:And hitting some fun stuff and being in the moment.
Guest:And I felt like I want to be in the moment as much as possible.
Guest:The problem with being in the moment is if something is going wrong, if there's somebody texting, if there's somebody being too loud or whatever, it's like now you've got to go to that.
Guest:You've got to babysit.
Guest:And you've got to address that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's hard for me to ignore that stuff when it's like knowing that, okay, if I don't call attention to that, it'll probably stop.
Marc:But do you ever –
Marc:I mean, and I guess this is just because of where I come from, but we don't come from different places.
Marc:I come from really wanting to work as a comic despite everything else.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And it's only now with the advent of technology where you're like, I can work as a comic in someone's living room.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But there's still, there's part of me
Marc:That that that the thing that we're trying to get away from is is that dread of going into that second show on Friday and knowing that, like, you know, I can't do what I planned.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I have to get these animals to to to focus.
Marc:I have to herd them into my my my mind.
Guest:You don't want to be the headmaster.
Guest:You don't want to be scolding people, even in a fun way.
Marc:But you're good at it, right?
Marc:There's some guys that can't do crab work at all.
Marc:I can eviscerate it.
Guest:I have gotten to the point where... I was talking with Maria Bamford about this because she was asking me about, what do you do with hecklers?
Guest:Deal with them.
Guest:Yeah, well, I got to the point... What I was saying to her was I got to the point where I realized...
Guest:Because it used to be, I started out, the thing was, anybody making noise, you shut them down.
Guest:And then I gradually understood, well, not everybody is trying to sabotage you.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Sometimes people are caught up in it.
Marc:Or they're talking amongst each other, laughing at a context, which is the worst.
Marc:Everyone's done laughing, and then you get the weird table.
Marc:It's like, that's not for the right reason.
Marc:I know you're making fun of me.
Marc:I know you're making fun of me.
Marc:Well, I'm fairly diplomatic, too.
Marc:I'll stop.
Marc:If someone's doing something, I'll be like, are we doing that?
Marc:I mean, you get that tone where it's like, is there a reason?
Guest:Right.
Marc:I mean, we're trying to do a thing here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why don't you get on board?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But what I try to do now is to be friendly about it first and assume that maybe this person is just having a good time.
Guest:And they're like, that's why they said something, whatever.
Guest:And so what I try to do is give them a chance to be good-natured, like I'm being good-natured.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let it go for a little bit, and if they're not going to be nice, that's when I try to shut it down.
Guest:Then we ruin the show.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:But it's so I can say to everybody, you all saw it.
Guest:You all saw it.
Guest:I was a good guy.
Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:as someone's escorted out crying yeah yeah yeah yeah i have uh little you know fewer and fewer problems with people being removed immediately i mean like i i mean when i see that it used to be like you do deal with a heckler and the worst thing that could happen especially if it was up in the front area yeah is that in the middle of you dealing with it that's when the club decides to take action yeah so then all of a sudden the guy the door guy comes out and talks to him in front of everybody else to the point where you have to stop your show and you realize like yo i'm a bitch now what the hell
Guest:all just happened you know i didn't need you to i was on top of that yeah yeah and then after the show they're like well we didn't really know where to step in well not in the middle of when i'm succeeding nowhere to step in yeah i will i'll tell people now and i had to do this in dallas and it worked great i'd never done this before but i i i had um you know a crowd of people ostensibly there to see me right um there was nothing else happening that night it was just me at this place you know and so there was four people uh up front and this one girl like uh
Guest:Did like a funny thing in response to something that I said I was like what's going on and she explained it and then you know I made a joke about it and then I guess she felt like I was making fun of her and so she's then she was checked out and so she's talking to her friends and you know then she's texting and it's like it's really distracting in the front row and
Guest:And so I talked to her about it and then she gave me some attitude back and folded arms and everything.
Guest:And then she kept on talking.
Guest:And so I stopped at one point.
Guest:I said, you know what?
Guest:You guys clearly aren't enjoying it.
Guest:So why don't you go?
Guest:Like it's early enough that you can get your money back.
Guest:You can go out and have a night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I tell you what.
Guest:You go at any point.
Guest:Just you can leave.
Guest:I'm not going to make fun of you.
Guest:I'm not going to I'm not out to like to, you know, humiliate you or anything.
Guest:But it really is like it's distracting for what I'm trying to do.
Guest:So if you're not having fun, just go.
Guest:There's no harm done.
Guest:I'm not going to take it personally, you know.
Guest:And so a couple of minutes after that, they got up and left.
Guest:And it was fucking great.
Guest:That's all you have to do.
Guest:If you don't like it, just leave.
Marc:That's all you have to do.
Marc:But it's so funny when they're actually given this opportunity in front of people.
Marc:You lay out the terms.
Marc:So I can just go.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:What are you really going to do?
Yeah.
Guest:I'm going.
Guest:I'm stepping away from the table.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Like never turning their back on me, just backing up the aisle.
Guest:But I got to know, once they were out of range, did you go, thank God.
Guest:Of course I did.
Guest:Of course I did.
Guest:Thank God that's done.
Guest:I went off on them for 10 minutes.
Guest:Of course you did.
Guest:And then you called her.
Guest:A deal's a deal.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I asked the box office for everybody's name and number.
Marc:We figured out who it was.
Marc:And then you played the tape of the show for her.
Marc:So how is that working out?
Marc:You do this thing.
Marc:How does it work with you in the shows now?
Marc:Because it's sort of, you know, it's a, you know, people talk about it.
Marc:It's the Paul Tompkins.
Marc:Oh, I know there's been people talking about it.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:The 300, the PFT 300s.
Guest:I started, this came about by accident.
Guest:I was in Atlanta and I was recording.
Guest:Laughing Skull.
Guest:Laughing Skull.
Guest:Great place.
Guest:Recording for Comedy Central and what was going to be a DVD.
Guest:And there was, the crowds were not, it was not selling out.
Guest:And I was like, I kind of need people to be here.
Guest:And that place seats 70.
Guest:It's tiny.
Marc:It's tiny.
Guest:It's like, I really need people to be here.
Guest:So I'm using our old friend, Social Networking Platforms.
Guest:I started putting the word out, I really need people to show up.
Guest:So in the midst of this very frenetic...
Guest:Hey, two for ones, you know, come on down, you guys.
Guest:I really want people to be there.
Guest:This guy.
Marc:You're firing on the street.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Oh, just about.
Marc:I was ready to do it if I had to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In that neighborhood, you would have gotten a lot of black gay men.
Marc:I would have taken it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a club across the street.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The Bulldogs.
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's something weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's quite it's quite a block.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Quite a block.
Guest:This guy tweeted me from Toronto, a total stranger, and said, why don't you come do a show in Toronto?
Guest:And I was livid.
Guest:I was livid.
Guest:Because there's nothing worse than if you post about a show on one of these things, you're trying to get people out, and then somebody says, just come here and do a show.
Guest:What do you think is going on here?
Guest:How do you think this works?
Guest:I'm trying to get people to the one place.
Guest:It's not like, oh, you know what?
Guest:I'm calling it off, guys, because this guy wants me to go to Michigan.
Guest:Load up the cameras.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good idea.
Guest:So I wrote back to him and I sarcastically said, if you get 300 people, because I figured out that's what I needed to fill the place over the course of the four nights that I was there.
Guest:If you get 300 people to say they will absolutely come to see me do a show in Toronto, then I will book a show in Toronto.
Guest:And so this guy, I think literally five minutes later, started this group on Facebook.
Guest:I want to see Paul F. Tompkins in Toronto.
Guest:And he sent me the link.
Guest:And he said, okay, so we're getting the ball rolling here.
Guest:And within a couple weeks, he had 300 people.
Guest:And he laid it out.
Guest:And it ended up this guy was a comic.
Guest:This guy, Bob Kerr.
Guest:And he laid it out and said, you have to be serious about coming to see a show.
Guest:Don't join this just because you want to help me out or because it's easy to join a group.
Guest:You have to be committed to seeing a show if he books a show here.
Guest:And so he got to 300 people within a couple of weeks.
Guest:And I said, all right, mom, as good as my word.
Marc:Let's see what happens.
Marc:Uniforms made.
Guest:And now there's the PFT army across the country, around the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's an oath you have to take.
Marc:People have to wear a fake mustache to come into the show.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Everybody gets a ring.
Yeah.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:I did the Rivoli up there in Toronto.
Marc:And it worked.
Guest:And it worked great.
Guest:It worked great.
Guest:And it was the best.
Guest:At that point, it was the best night of my career.
Guest:I never had that much fun on stage.
Marc:And now how many of those of PFT 300 shows have you done?
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:A few dozen, I think.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I did it for about a year.
Guest:That first one was in 2009.
Guest:So for all of 2010, that was how I was booking shows.
Guest:The first return one was this past October, that first one in Toronto.
Marc:Now as a return, did it grow?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's been great.
Marc:Were there cities you went to that you're like, there's no way there's 300 Tompkins fans there?
Guest:Yeah, there's been a couple surprises, like Madison, Wisconsin.
Guest:I was really surprised.
Guest:That one sprang up and grew quickly and was a fantastic show at this great theater.
Guest:There's been a couple places that the attendants, like that one in Dallas, what made it so bad that that foursome was talking was that there was not that many people there.
Guest:I think I had around 50 people show up.
Marc:Did you bust balls on the guy who said he was going to get A300?
Guest:Well, no, because it's like it's it's they're only in control of it so much.
Guest:And so I asked afterwards to the to the group, like, what happened?
Guest:You guys, you know, people said they were going to come.
Guest:And some people said, yeah, I had plans.
Guest:And, you know, there's a lot of this scheme that's kind of up in the air because people say, oh, yeah, I definitely want to go.
Guest:But once the date is announced, like, well, I can't go on that.
Marc:Yeah, I was just saying I wanted to go.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then some people were like, oh, the ticket price was too high.
Guest:But but now bucks.
Guest:Fuck you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got to fly home.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But now when you do that, who's in charge of renting the theater?
Guest:Do you leave that all up to them?
Guest:We tried to do it.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:That is my management finds the venue.
Guest:All the people have to do is start the group and say they're going to buy a ticket.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That is it.
Guest:There's there's no there's no commitment other than a sort of gentleman's agreement.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:If you we will come see a show, you know, and it's now it's kind of fucked up because Facebook has changed their settings.
Guest:So now you can add people to groups and then it's up to them to subtract themselves from that group.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So it can be you can just add like you could add 300 people in a day.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, and then so it's not I can't gauge the numbers anymore.
Guest:So I'm trying to figure out now a way to do it off of Facebook.
Guest:That's the same principle, but where I can track it accurately.
Marc:I know how you can do that.
Marc:How can I do get your own TV show?
Marc:Boy, that would help, wouldn't it?
Guest:I bet it would.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So just write that down.
Guest:Well, one thing is having started a podcast, being able to track who's downloading where has been a big help to where I feel like there are certain places based on those downloads I could probably book a show there and people would show up.
Marc:Which cities?
Guest:I haven't looked in a while.
Guest:I mean, definitely New York and L.A.
Guest:are the biggest ones.
Guest:Yeah, San Francisco.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like a lot of the markets that you would think.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So so that's and there's a lot of places that now that the groups have been established, I can return there and just use the group as a means of saying, hey, I'm coming back.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Spread the word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it worked in Toronto.
Guest:And it's worked.
Guest:I forget where else I've been back to since I started doing it.
Guest:But it's been it's been it's been a system that I've been refining as I go along.
Guest:But it's it's definitely a working model.
Marc:And the podcast is the P.F.
Marc:Tom cast the pod F. Tom cast pod F. Tom cast.
Marc:And you don't do what I do.
Marc:You do radio theater, basically.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And that there's a lot of production, there's bits.
Guest:Yeah, a little bit of conversation.
Guest:I talk with Jen Kirkman at the end of every episode.
Marc:Who doesn't want to talk with Jen Kirkman?
Marc:Oh, I love her so much.
Marc:Yeah, she's great.
Guest:I just got to see her at the Punchline in San Francisco, and I love watching her work.
Guest:I love comics, and Jen is one of those where I...
Guest:She always surprises me.
Guest:And it's always that my favorite comics are the comics that you can have that feeling of.
Guest:I forgot how great this is going to be.
Guest:Like when she starts talking about something and it's like, I don't know what she's going to do.
Guest:And this is really exciting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, she always surprises me.
Marc:It's interesting as I get older and I like like this doing the podcast and sort of being humbled by life has brought me back to a place where I can enjoy it again.
Marc:And, you know, and not judge in the same way I did, you know, based on my own fear.
Guest:I feel like I'm very judgmental.
Guest:I'm a real comedy snob.
Guest:And I've only it's only gotten more so as it's I feel like there's a trend in comedy now that's so outside of what I do that I can't.
Marc:Well, I just literally I just say not for me or, you know, I mean, I've spent most of my life standing in the back of comedy rooms.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I, you know, usually I can sort of get where a guy's tone is going.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't begrudge them anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Unless the audience really likes them and I think they're shit.
Marc:And then I'm like sort of like, well, but usually the first place I go, well, not gonna like me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yes, of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But but like I've just there are guys I like to watch.
Marc:And women I like to watch.
Marc:And then there are the other guys that are just, you know, that I'll go out back, you know, and talk.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And I just kind of look at it like that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, before we go, you were there the night that I was attacked on stage.
Marc:You were hosting.
Marc:Yes, it was Valentine's Day, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wasn't it?
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:But I just remember that you were the host.
Guest:99?
Marc:And I think, yeah, and you were in the back and I, you know, I remember I was hoping someone had captured it somehow, but there was no caption.
Marc:But you went back up on stage and said something to the effect because I've told the story here before, I believe.
Marc:And it was at Largo, which that's that shit doesn't happen.
Marc:No, but but you actually went up and said, like, well, it's lucky he was the last act.
Guest:Oh, I was in a bad mood the moment I got there.
Guest:Oh, you remember it?
Marc:Before I got there.
Marc:You remember it?
Guest:I remember it, yeah.
Guest:I remember it.
Guest:I was having a bad night, and it was like... It was that... I got a host?
Guest:No, I was not happy in my life.
Guest:I was not happy in my life.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:See, this is the weird thing about you and me, is that I think we're sort of wired in a similar way, and we take each other personally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, back then, I take things...
Guest:So much less personally now than I did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Back then, I was a raw nerve and everything was personal to me.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Guest:Everything was a referendum on who I was as a person.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Isn't that weird?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I don't think I've really thought about this clearly.
Marc:But I do think about, I find myself saying, it's like, they're not thinking about you.
Marc:They're thinking about themselves.
Marc:When people are like, that guy's fucked.
Marc:He doesn't like me.
Marc:He's like, no, he's not even thinking about you.
Marc:He's fucked in his own world.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which I was.
Marc:Well, yeah, but so was I. But not everybody had that effect on me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did everybody have that effect on you?
Marc:There's just certain people that you're like, you're the one that's got a problem with me.
Marc:And then really what it is is I have problems and I'm going to displace them.
Guest:We were like magnets.
Marc:With the wrong poles facing.
Marc:The same two Souths.
Guest:I look back, when I think about around the time that I met you, when I think about myself at that time, I am mortified because I think I thought I was telling myself that I was a great guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I think about the way I treated certain people.
Guest:And I'm I'm so embarrassed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That was like, wow, I really was.
Guest:I was I was not.
Guest:I wish I wish I had been the person that I thought.
Marc:But I mean, but when in a reassessment is, do you find that you were arrogant or what is the general the the the thing that you wish you were?
Guest:I'm sure I was arrogant.
Guest:I don't think I was as nice a person.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I could have been.
Marc:I can.
Guest:I think I was way.
Guest:But I wasn't either.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was way more judgmental and I was way less empathic than I am now.
Marc:But you say you're still sort of an elitist when it comes to comedy, but that's just a personal taste thing.
Marc:Oh, that's just a personal taste thing.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:You don't go up to somebody and go... No, I do not.
Marc:With your pinstripe suit.
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:So the Pod F Tomcast is monthly?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, and there's an hour-long episode every month, and then there's little shorter things that are sprinkled in throughout the month.
Marc:Well, it's great talking to you, Paul.
Marc:It was great talking to you, Mark.
Marc:I'm glad we got that.
Marc:I think we resolved stuff.
Marc:I feel better about you.
Marc:I feel better about you.
Guest:Now will you stop saying on Twitter that you think I don't like you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Thanks, Paul.
Guest:You're welcome.
Guest:You're welcome.
Marc:I have to say, that was a wonderful conversation with Paul F. Tompkins.
Marc:I feel not only close, but similar to him, as happens on this show at many times.
Marc:It was a pleasure to talk to him.
Marc:I could see us maybe having dinner, and I could see him dressed much better than me.
Marc:Tomorrow, February 18th, at the State Theater in Ithaca with Eugene Merman.
Marc:Next week, Wednesday, February 23rd, I will be at Wise Guys in Salt Lake City.
Marc:Next Friday and Saturday, the 25th and 26th of February at Laughs in Kirkland, Washington.
Marc:Just a stone's throw away from Seattle.
Marc:I don't want to hear any excuses that you couldn't come because it wasn't in Seattle.
Marc:This is where I'm playing.
Marc:I like the club.
Marc:It's run well.
Marc:I'll have t-shirts.
Marc:We can barter.
Marc:Please go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get on my mailing list.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels if you can.
Marc:Go to the merch.
Marc:We got new mugs.
Marc:We got things happening.
Marc:Please also go to WTFPodShop.com.
Marc:Get that weird dirty episode with the tell or the hipster nerd episode with Eugene and Kristen Schaal.
Marc:A lot of stuff to be doing.
Marc:A lot of things going on.
Marc:Pick up the apps at the App Store for Droid, iPad, iPod Touch.
Marc:iPhone.
Marc:That stuff's working out.
Marc:It's the only place you can stream the first, God, 60 to 90 episodes.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's the only place they're available for the time being.
Marc:Is there anything else I missed out?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Whoa!
Marc:I think I shit my pants.
Marc:Didn't even wait for it.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Or go to JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:If you get the WTF blend, I get a little something something.
Marc:And remember, Carl LeBeau, Sam Kennison's best friend, even in light of something that nobody would want to go through, will be our episode on Monday.
Marc:Is that enough?
Marc:Are we good?
Marc:Are we good?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Talk to you later.