Episode 1569 - Brendon Walsh
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it how's it going with you today what is happening
Marc:Well, thanks for asking.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:I'm all right.
Marc:I'm back up in Canada shooting the last few weeks of the show that I am involved with.
Marc:A lot of time on the golf course.
Marc:A lot of the time standing around, acting engaged.
Marc:That is the primary focus of the work today.
Marc:These next few weeks, standing there engaged.
Marc:It's not easy.
Marc:It's not easy for anybody.
Marc:It's not easy for a lot of people to engage, period.
Marc:It takes a lot of work, doing the big work being engaged.
Marc:But it's nice up here.
Marc:It's been nice.
Marc:It's nice today.
Marc:It's beautiful out.
Marc:I was on the golf course just the other day.
Marc:Just yesterday, it would be, if you're listening to this today.
Marc:Yeah, that's how this works.
Marc:And I did want to say something about my late partner, Lynn Shelton.
Marc:Her birthday was on the 27th.
Marc:That was...
Marc:Tuesday and uh my thoughts are with her friends and family and these things come up twice a year there's the the birthday and the day she passed away and uh yeah I just want to acknowledge that she's certainly in my thoughts a lot and uh I'm sure in the thoughts of her friends and family on these days and to anybody who has lost people these are difficult days there's always markers but um
Marc:I love you, Lynn.
Marc:Miss you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So look, you guys, a couple of things.
Marc:A couple of things are on my mind.
Marc:First of all, I'll be in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater on Friday, September 20th.
Marc:Then I'm in Phoenix at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday, the following day, September 21st.
Marc:You can go to WTF pod.com slash tour to get the dates for the shows that were rescheduled in 2025 and to get tickets for all upcoming me shows.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Heading, heading into the show proper here.
Marc:I am going to talk today to, uh, Brendan Walsh.
Marc:Now,
Marc:I've known Brendan a long time.
Marc:I met him way back in Austin.
Marc:I think maybe he'd been doing comedy not long.
Marc:He was really just... Him and I became kind of more friendly when we were just starting the podcast.
Marc:He was on two live shows, Episode 77 and Episode 383.
Marc:He was on for a full interview on Episode 210.
Marc:He was also on my show, Marin.
Marc:He comes up a lot when I talk to guests.
Marc:And he's always been somebody I thought, why not check in with what Brendan's doing?
Marc:How's Brendan Walsh doing?
Marc:Because this is what's happening now.
Marc:I mean, I've been doing this show a long time.
Marc:And for a long time, it was sort of a one and done policy with most guests.
Marc:They come on once.
Marc:I do the type of interview that's sort of a deep dive.
Marc:And then we kind of don't do it again.
Marc:We've changed that for a few reasons.
Marc:I mean, some people I like talking to, so they come back around.
Marc:There are certain people that I have a good interaction with.
Marc:And then there are certain people that it's been a long time and a lot has happened.
Marc:It's a very odd thing when I think about my life.
Marc:Maybe you think about your life in these terms where I don't even know if I'm the same guy.
Marc:really, in a lot of ways, as the guy that started the podcast, as the guy that started doing comedy in Boston in the late 80s, as the guy that was out of his mind on cocaine in the later 80s, as the guy who went to college even.
Marc:I think there's a lot of things that happen in life that are kind of amazing, surprising, some bad, some good.
Marc:I'm not telling anybody anything they don't know.
Marc:But it's certainly interesting what you assume would happen, what you wanted to happen, what did happen, what continues to happen, good or bad, and what life has done to people, done to us.
Marc:How has it chewed us up and spit us out?
Marc:How has it made us rise above?
Marc:There's never any shortage of, oh, my fucking God.
Marc:I didn't think this would happen.
Marc:But what I'm noticing, because all of a sudden I'm 60, it really feels like that.
Marc:All of a sudden, I'm 60.
Marc:And I'm not a guy that really registered.
Marc:I never thought time was flying by.
Marc:I never felt like time was, where'd the time go?
Marc:I always felt that in any given time, it was just kind of dripping by.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you get to a certain age and your brain changes and you're like, holy fuck, where did that all go?
Marc:Who were all those guys I was?
Marc:What the fuck happened?
Marc:What happened to that eight-year chunk?
Marc:How do I know you?
Marc:What city?
Marc:What year?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:What is your name?
Marc:I've lived in four cities in my adult life.
Marc:Five, including my childhood.
Marc:Six, including my younger childhood.
Marc:And I've lived in some of them twice.
Marc:And just the back and forth, the different periods of chasing the dream, of trying to get something done, of trying to self-actualize.
Marc:I mean, it's almost like a fucking dream, man.
Marc:But how anybody deals with adversity and how anybody comes out the other end of this, I'm fortunate.
Marc:I'm grateful.
Marc:I mean, many of you know the history of me from doing this show and from my comedy.
Marc:Somehow or another, in the second half here, I have figured out a way to have my own place in the world.
Marc:And I do all right with it.
Marc:Sometimes I wish it was a bigger place.
Marc:Sometimes I wish I wasn't any place, oddly, but I'm okay.
Marc:And that wasn't without hardship and without hard work and without insanity and without close calls.
Marc:But it is sort of interesting to kind of check in with people because many of the people I interviewed in the first time and only time, it's like 14 years ago now.
Marc:And do you know what happens in 14 years to an adult?
Marc:Fucking anything.
Marc:Anything could happen.
Marc:People come and go.
Marc:Friends come and go.
Marc:Partners come and go.
Marc:Animals come and go.
Marc:Jobs come and go.
Marc:Sanity can go away.
Marc:I mean, it's kind of nuts.
Marc:But it is what it is, and it is that way for all people, especially if you're out in the world doing things.
Marc:If you're not doing anything, it can happen, but fewer things happen.
Marc:There's a smaller menu of shit that can go wrong when you're not doing anything.
Marc:It's usually mental, and it usually has something to do with lack of exercise.
Marc:I'm speculating.
Marc:But catching up with Brendan...
Marc:It was kind of wild, and it happens a lot every time I have a guest on again, especially one that hasn't been on in many years.
Marc:Like Fitzsimmons the other day.
Marc:At some point, you just kind of look around you, and you see your old buddies, guys you've known.
Marc:maybe since second grade i got a buddy in albuquerque i've known since second grade and i can you know i i never forget the tom shalhou joke about going to his high school reunion and seeing everybody and just noticing somehow i don't know how he phrased the joke that their heads seem larger but he could see the guy he went to high school with inside of the face somewhere
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:But more so than anything else, it's nice to see people moving through their life with a certain amount of grace and dignity, despite whatever circumstances or consequences that they've had to deal with, either because of things they did or things that were done to them or just shit that happens.
Marc:trying to be appreciative of time passing and realizing it's running out in a nice way.
Marc:As I said before, trying to get out a little more with my friends and try to think about stuff and see how I'm changing.
Marc:Oh, this is the other thing.
Marc:I wanted to talk about before I sort of move through other topics is I think that I don't have many regrets, but they're all the, there are these, these seemingly old expectations about who I am in the world and, you know, relevance and all that, but all that stuff diminishes.
Marc:And I'm not, you know, I'm not in any way desperate and I'm not in any way chasing anything, but there's definitely part of my brain that still thinks it is and
Marc:I've got to figure out how to get that fucker to settle the fuck down and accept life the way it is.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Do you?
Marc:Like my gums.
Marc:I don't know why I'm talking about my gums, but it's just sometimes I get obsessed with my gums.
Marc:My gums have been receding since I was 15.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And apparently I just never know what the fuck it is.
Marc:I tend to think that I fucked them up with, you know, brushing them too hard or whatever, but they're, it's annoying to me.
Marc:And it's not unusual thing.
Marc:Gum recession, your mouths, you know, they get used a lot and they're going to go through a lot, just like the rest of your body.
Marc:But I'd say that probably gets used more than most things.
Marc:But I get obsessed with them.
Marc:And then I realized like the other day, it's like, oh my God, I got some sort of new Sonicare toothbrush with three speeds on it and a gum setting and a clean setting and a white setting or whatever.
Marc:And I just like, I don't know what the hell's wrong with me, but I assume like Sonicare, it seems like almost like a medical device.
Marc:So I got this thing set on the top setting, which is like a power sander.
Marc:And I'm up here going at my fucking teeth and gums with this thing for the last month.
Marc:And I think I just made them raw.
Marc:I knew it felt like it was too much.
Marc:But I thought, well, it's Sonicare.
Marc:The whole idea is you're not going too hard and you're just kind of hitting the surface of it.
Marc:But it's like...
Marc:I couldn't believe how white my teeth were, but I also realized my gums feel a little raw.
Marc:And yeah, I don't even know why I'm telling you this.
Marc:It's part of that part of the brain and part of marketing, I guess.
Marc:I'm like, well, Sonicare, I think it's made by scientists.
Marc:I mean, look at the thing.
Marc:It's got to be made by scientists.
Marc:I'm not going to have any gums left.
Marc:I went to the dentist the other day.
Marc:I'm like, what's going on?
Marc:He's like, nothing.
Marc:Everything's fine.
Marc:You have this recession because your bite's screwed up.
Marc:And I said, well, I've been using a Sonicare at the third speed.
Marc:And it's just like.
Marc:He's like, yeah, don't maybe do the first one.
Marc:I'm like, good call, buddy.
Marc:But I really thought, did you have anything to do with the Sonicare design?
Marc:Did you know anybody?
Marc:Because it feels pretty scientific.
Marc:Just use the first setting.
Marc:So, all right, look.
Marc:whatever and i've talked about before i talked about recently whatever i think you know i know that adam sandler and i had an issue many years ago because i made an example of his fans and a joke and you know we had work this many years ago i'm sure many of you are many of you have heard the story before now my assumption was that from that day on adam sandler just was like fuck that guy
Marc:Maybe he is, maybe he's not.
Marc:I have seen him several times since then.
Marc:He's been very nice.
Marc:He dropped in and did a set on my show.
Marc:We had a nice conversation.
Marc:I met his wife.
Marc:I said nice things about the movie he did with his kid, which were genuine.
Marc:But he's like that kind of guy, very charming guy, sweet guy, open, very nice.
Marc:You like to be around him.
Marc:And maybe he's just being nice to me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:The issue is that I guess the reason I'm prefacing like this is that whatever I'm about to say right now does not ever mean that Adam Sandler will ever talk to me on my show.
Marc:He's never.
Marc:We've asked many times.
Marc:It's completely understandable.
Marc:I have people like that.
Marc:So without any reason, and certainly I'm not one to blow smoke too often, but I watched Adam's newest standup special on Netflix, Love You, which was directed by Josh Safdie.
Marc:And I tell you,
Marc:It is a rare thing, and I know it from looking at comedy specials my whole life and from being on many.
Marc:You get to a point where you're like, well, you can't reinvent the wheel.
Marc:A special is a special.
Marc:You can do it with no set.
Marc:You can do it in your basement, whatever.
Marc:But it still is what it is.
Marc:It's just a stand-up.
Marc:There's a guy talking to an audience with a mic.
Marc:You can do it from a different angle in a different space.
Marc:You can do it in a jazz club and not prepare.
Marc:There's a million ways you can do it.
Marc:You can do it in a room that seats 80, whatever.
Marc:But in terms of what it essentially is, I do not think there's any way to uniquely do it, to do something new.
Marc:And Safdie somehow did it with Adam.
Marc:And, you know, Josh Safdie, the Safdie brothers, but Josh in this particular situation, I mean, he's definitely got a point of view and there's definitely a thing that he does.
Marc:Everything is sort of like mildly chaotic and they're profoundly weird.
Marc:And there is a way that they see movies and they're very distinct and I love them.
Marc:I love their movies.
Marc:These guys are sort of original in their auteur-ness, real point of view and a real style.
Marc:But I still didn't know.
Marc:I'd heard that he was going to direct Adam Special, but I didn't think like, well, what's he going to do?
Marc:I mean, he's just going to fall victim to the form.
Marc:But he did not.
Marc:This thing is kind of crazy and kind of beautiful and very engaging and to the point where during the show, his stand-up spot,
Marc:Like, I don't know that he knew what was going to happen.
Marc:It seems to me that safety put him up there and just said, look, you know, you're going to have to trust me.
Marc:I'm going to fuck with you a little bit and you just deal with it, which is a great idea.
Marc:I hope that's what happened.
Marc:Obviously, you know, him coming to the club and him seeing fans outside.
Marc:And once he walks in, I mean, obviously he knew the idea of where he was going to do it.
Marc:The idea that, um,
Marc:willie tyler and lester would be on stage when he got there opening the show and the the i don't know where they shot it or what that room was or what they did to it but it definitely had it was it wasn't completely tim and eric weird but it was more kind of like odd people weird but the the bottom line is is that once he gets on stage in this environment
Marc:I guarantee you, I wish Josh Safdie would come on.
Marc:I couldn't get them on either.
Marc:But he did an amazing thing.
Marc:And he did an amazing thing with that specific talent, with Adam, to put him in a situation where he had to react to things that he might not have known were coming.
Marc:And I don't want to ruin him for anybody.
Marc:But there was something about things feeling like they were really just barely keeping it together.
Marc:And it was a very intimate show.
Marc:It just was a special special, which is very rare, unless someone just gets all excited about someone's jokes or ideas.
Marc:This is a whole package thing.
Marc:This is as much Joss Safdie as it is Adam Sandler.
Marc:And that partnership just yielded something
Marc:Truly original.
Marc:And there's no reason for me to say that because I don't believe I'll ever talk to Adam Sandler on the show.
Marc:I have doubts I'll ever talk to Josh Safdie on the show, but I will recommend you watch that because it's just rare to see something happen with a comedy special.
Marc:And oddly, it started not unlike...
Marc:Old HBO specials where you do this cold open business where there's a little bit before you actually get on stage.
Marc:It kind of honors that, which you don't see guys doing that much anymore.
Marc:Some goofy shit that happens backstage or whatever.
Marc:It is sort of a trope and you don't see it much anymore.
Marc:But you're never going to have seen it the way Safdie did it.
Marc:And the whole thing is very fluid.
Marc:Anyway, I recommend it.
Marc:I guess that's what I'm doing.
Marc:I recommend it.
Marc:It's all very new, very surprising, very funny.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Just recommending.
Marc:So look, Brendan Walsh is here.
Marc:His podcast is called The World Record Podcast with Brendan Walsh.
Marc:You can get it on all podcast platforms.
Marc:And also, I will...
Marc:give a bit of a content warning here that this conversation includes a discussion about suicide.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:This is me talking to Brendan Walsh.
Guest:This is just a one-man show still.
Marc:Dude, it's the same as it's ever been.
Marc:Yeah, that's the way you got to do it.
Marc:I was just talking to my producer.
Marc:We were churning out some bonus content.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I asked him, when did you do your full WTF?
Marc:2011.
Marc:I feel like I got blown out again.
Guest:Well, just relax.
Guest:Well, here's with my podcast.
Guest:It's all like, how's that?
Guest:It's good.
Guest:It's only coming through.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, hey, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:I mean, I'm riding the, I'm riding the levels over here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm always, uh, obsessed with the sound.
Guest:Like I just feel like the sound sounds different.
Guest:Like we have an engineer guy and I'm like, why do I sound, why does that mic sound different than this mic?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Me too.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:And my producer's like, dude, don't worry about it.
Marc:I've got a thing that'll do a thing.
Marc:And I'm like, all right.
Guest:Yeah, you hand it off to somebody.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You don't?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He sends me.
Guest:How long have you been doing it?
Guest:The podcast?
Guest:The new one.
Guest:Three.
Guest:I mean, it's two episode two.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:What's it called?
Guest:World record podcast.
Guest:What's the angle?
Guest:Just goofiness.
Guest:You know, we make calls.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just kind of silly, you know, like bits.
Guest:And I don't want the.
Guest:I feel like the comedians talking about comedy has been done enough.
Yeah.
Guest:No offense.
Guest:Um, but, uh, yeah, just, I, you know, I had the bone zone was the first one that I started in 2011, I think.
Guest:And, uh, it's just silly, goofy bits and, uh, phone calls.
Guest:I do my current one with, uh, my, um, domestic partner, uh, who's not a comedian.
Guest:She's very funny though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had, uh, Richard Bain was the kind of the original host and he, uh, killed himself a few episodes in.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you, and you took up the podcast.
Guest:He was, he was doing it with you.
Guest:I was, I was starting the new podcast.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Is this, are we recording already?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Uh, yeah, it had just started.
Guest:I had, I started, I did the bone zone with, uh, Randy for seven years.
Guest:Randy Lidke.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's that guy doing?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Um, and, uh, red haired guy, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think he's on my TV show.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Yeah, you had me on your show, too.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Yeah, you're welcome.
Guest:Not a lot of people have thrown me the bones that I thought I would get throughout my career, if you call it that.
Marc:Always been a fan.
Marc:It was one of those things where, you know, because I've got to go up to Vancouver and do a show in real show business.
Marc:And we're trying to like we're making a list like, well, who can we who are guys that you want to talk to again?
Marc:Because we started having guests again.
Marc:I'm like, and I was brought you up.
Marc:I'm like, what's that guy doing?
Marc:Because like I check I'd see things you were tweeting occasionally and you had a thing going with Todd Berry and I knew you had podcasts.
Marc:But well, there's a couple of things that, you know, made me a lifelong fan of Brendan Walsh.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But wait, so let's get back to this guy killing himself.
Guest:Richard Bain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Funny, real funny comic.
Guest:He was on The Bone Zone a lot.
Guest:So The Bone Zone ended.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And which I still recommend as like, it really is maybe the funniest podcast that's ever been out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's just, you know, the chemistry and the silliness.
Guest:I mean, just as like pure comedy comedy.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:And that ended right when I had a kid and I lost my two TV jobs.
Guest:Well, you were writing, right?
Guest:No, I had these sweet gigs.
Guest:I was on that True TV's World's Dumbest.
Guest:That was such a great gig.
Guest:I saw Chelsea Peretti this weekend.
Guest:weekend yeah and uh she got you know hooked me up with that she was doing that yeah and it's non-union you know non-union and uh
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:They would send you a DVD of clips.
Guest:You'd watch them and then go in and rattle off jokes that you wrote in front of a green screen.
Guest:And by the end of it... In town?
Guest:Yeah, on Cahuenga.
Marc:It's interesting how that plays in.
Marc:It's like, where is it?
Marc:Sure, yeah, I'll go by.
Marc:Yeah, that sounds good.
Marc:I do the voice for the snake in the bad guys.
Marc:I know, I got a six-year-old.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And they're doing another one.
Marc:I'm like, eight minutes away.
Marc:I just go over to DreamWorks.
Marc:Isn't that the best?
Guest:I mean, that's so inside Hollywood baseball.
Marc:It's a good job.
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Marc:I get tired of how demonized we're becoming.
Marc:It's like anybody who has a job, especially someone who's an independent contractor of any kind, part of the thing that plays into decision-making is, yeah, money, but it's also like, where is it?
Guest:Oh, God, if you had to drive over to the Sony lot every day.
Guest:In Culver City?
Guest:Or whatever that area is where the Fox lot is.
Guest:Or that's on Pico.
Guest:That's a big one.
Guest:But it's like it's not near any highway exit.
Guest:It's its own thing.
Guest:It's 53 minutes whether you take side streets or 53 minutes on the 10.
Guest:Well, now we're getting real nuts.
Marc:This is stupid.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Now people can still resent this.
Marc:It's like, oh, are you complaining about making money in show business and you have to drive an hour?
Marc:Hour each way.
Marc:Oh, well, that makes it different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, especially when you're on the lowest rung.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like, I remember when Comedy Central was in Santa Monica.
Guest:I remember they had their offices there with Spike TV and stuff.
Guest:And I've always lived on this side of town.
Guest:And there would be meetings scheduled, and it'd be like 11 a.m.
Guest:I'm like, great, that's perfect.
Guest:That's perfect.
Marc:11 a.m.
Guest:11 to 2.
Guest:But then...
Guest:You get the emails.
Guest:Hey, they're pushing it back to three.
Guest:Because, you know, it's like everybody else is better than me.
Guest:So they're going to get the sweet spots.
Guest:And then by the time it's like my meetings at four.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And I'm it's this is a this is now I have to leave my house at two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not going to be home till eight o'clock.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Or seven to eight or seven or eight.
Marc:I've never talked to anybody that has the same idea about that.
Marc:Like, you know, it was a big step in my life where, you know, if I had to go to a meeting on the west side.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm not doing it at four and I'm not doing it at 10.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, and I don't care if I do it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So figure it out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I always felt the same way.
Marc:You got me at four.
Marc:It's like, who was it?
Marc:11, 12, one.
Marc:John Oliver.
Guest:Somebody.
Marc:Jack Black.
Marc:Probably.
Guest:Eric Andre.
Guest:I mean, just, you know, name anybody and they're above me.
Guest:But we don't... But that's not true.
Guest:Tony Hinchcliffe's opener.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, the full cast of Kill Tony.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That wasn't even back when they were in Santa Monica.
Marc:I don't think they were... Yeah, but I'm the same way.
Marc:I'm sort of like... It began to feel fundamentally disrespectful to have a meeting at 4 o'clock booked from the West Side.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, but...
Guest:Well, and then COVID happened, and it proved that, like, nobody had to be driving across town.
Guest:Skype was around back then.
Guest:But also, they're not necessarily meeting with other people.
Marc:Like, who the hell knows what they do?
Guest:I don't know what anybody does.
Marc:No, I mean, they have clowns in to entertain them for a few minutes and indulge their fantasies of making it in show business.
Marc:And then they sit and talk, and then they have a meeting about a thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's the day.
Guest:Well, I think they have, like, a budget they have to spend on lunches and...
Guest:And, yeah, just kind of, you know, justify their existence.
Guest:And, you know, it's just like set up meetings with every clown in town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every solicited clown.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So what about this guy, Bain?
Guest:So Richard Bain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, like this long winded.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:But, yeah, did the bone zone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Super funny thing that ended kind of abruptly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right when Patreon, all that, like, it was, I was like, all right, I guess we're not.
Guest:Yeah, okay, great.
Guest:Now that we can finally monetize this thing, we have, like, a loyal fan base.
Guest:The other guy doesn't want to do it anymore.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so then I, you know, tried to figure out what I wanted to do next.
Guest:I did a thing with Nick Thune called Do You Know Who Jason Segel Is that came from...
Guest:The Bone Zone where there was... Because, you know, we would make calls on the Bone Zone and was talking to Nick... I don't know.
Guest:We were talking about celebrity or something.
Guest:And I brought up Jason Segel and Nick Thune's like, well, everybody knows who he is.
Guest:And I was like, I bet if we call 20 people right now randomly around the country, nobody's going to know who he is by name.
Guest:And so we did and we called around.
Guest:And this is not an indictment on Jason Segel's popularity.
Guest:It's also a name that just sounds like...
Guest:Right.
Guest:A name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we called, yeah, like 20 places and like two people were like the actor.
Guest:And I was like, see.
Guest:And then I thought that's a funny idea for a podcast where you just call each state, call a few places and say, hey, do you know who Jason Segel is?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and then just talk to the like most people be like, oh, you know, that name sounds familiar.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Did he work here?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Does he come?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did that with Nick Thune and that was just going to be a limited time.
Guest:We were just going to do all 50 states.
Guest:So like 50, 52 episodes or whatever.
Guest:That was always, that's like been an ongoing joke of mine is all 52 states.
Guest:Because I, one of my first, one of my first gigs was in Tulsa, Oklahoma at that Tulsa Comedy Club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, just the audience, I didn't,
Guest:It was like, I was like, I have nothing in common with these people.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, I did not want to get killed.
Guest:And I was very green.
Guest:I had enough like diarrhea jokes and poop jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To get you through.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had, uh, I started a debate in the audience one night cause I, I had a joke about Florida or something.
Guest:And, and I was like, out of all 50 States, Florida.
Guest:And I go, Oh, uh, wait, 50 States of 50 or 52.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:52, right.
Guest:Alaska and Hawaii are 52.
Yeah.
Guest:And then someone in the audience is like, no, it's 50.
Guest:And then someone else is like, no, he's right, Alaska and Hawaii.
Guest:And it started, you know, a little debate in the audience in 52-1 as, you know, the 52-ers shot down.
Guest:Which is wrong.
Guest:I know, I know.
Marc:So either way, the... I did a joke that I said 52 states and Mike Sweeney corrected me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was like, there's 50.
Marc:It's just so stupid because it's one of those basic civics lessons.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That everyone should fucking know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I, you know, I felt dumb because, you know, you think you're a smart person.
Marc:It's like...
Marc:52 states.
Marc:Did you, but you, you were joking though, right?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I was just saying 52.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:And it was years ago, but like, and then I felt forever stupid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But we'll never forget.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that'll stick with you.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Guest:There's another bit that I always do that flies over people's heads is I always say, you know, when people tell me I'm dumb or whatever, I go, no, I'm actually really smart.
Guest:I have like a 72 IQ, which is borderline.
Guest:Dumb?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Borderline like medically dumb, whatever the proper term is for that.
Yeah.
Guest:But nobody knows.
Guest:They're like, oh.
Guest:They're like, oh, okay.
Guest:I don't know what that means.
Guest:But anyway, so did the thing with Thune.
Guest:And that kind of fizzled out before we got to it.
Guest:We made it to about 40 states.
Guest:And then was like, oh, I want to do another podcast.
Guest:I want to do...
Guest:Having a co-host kind of adds the probability of chaos and somebody screwing you over and leaving.
Guest:So I kind of wanted to keep it loose, but I like having somebody to play around with.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So Richard was, um, he's super funny comic from Portland and, uh, he had come on the bone zone a bunch.
Guest:And so he was, it was, you know, the podcast is world record podcast with Brendan Walsh, but I kind of was like, I'm going to have not like a solid co-host, but a revolver, whatever.
Guest:And Richard, but Richard was kind of like going to be mine.
Yeah.
Guest:ad hoc co-host or whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um, yeah.
Guest:And then actually Memorial Day is coming.
Guest:He killed himself, uh, Memorial, like the night before Memorial Day.
Guest:That's horrible.
Guest:Did you, did you see that coming?
Um,
Guest:It wasn't the most shocking email or text that I got.
Guest:I mean, he, you know, would talk about it.
Guest:No, I mean, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, when you're in this world, it's like, don't we all kind of, or at least go through a phase of that?
Marc:No, no, I'm a pretty regular suicide rumination guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you don't expect it.
Guest:You don't expect it, but I wasn't floored by the, I mean, I was very upset.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Did he have a family?
Guest:No, he's a single guy.
Guest:That's so funny.
Guest:It's a positive.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:I mean, as a guy with kids now, I, you know, that, that is one of the first, cause I can't, you know, the thought of ruining their lives deal with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have two, two of a boy and a girl.
Um,
Marc:So you just kept going on your own with the ghost of Richard.
Guest:Amanda was, yeah, and the only text or a tweet that, you know, because there were people tweeting like, you know, man, he was great and stuff.
Guest:And I remember I went on a really long walk after I got the, you know, after I found out.
Guest:Do a lot of people cry on the podcast?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I figured.
Guest:You got 1,500 episodes.
Guest:I'm not going to do that.
Guest:Just cry.
Guest:We haven't had a good cry in a while.
Guest:It could be good.
Guest:Yeah, get somebody to fucking stay tuned in, right?
Guest:They're skipping over this one already.
Guest:No, they're not.
Marc:This is not a guy.
Marc:People like the episodes with people they don't know.
Marc:Failed middle act.
Marc:They like those better.
Marc:The episode before was Tom Cruise and now he got a failed middle act.
Marc:Hey, I follow Barack Obama with Rich Voss.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Still better than a Brendan Walsh get.
Marc:No, that's not true.
Guest:But yeah, the only tweet that I did, I was walking.
Guest:It was like kind of scrolling through it.
Guest:And I just tweeted to him.
Guest:I guess you really didn't want to record the podcast tomorrow.
Yeah.
Guest:Like a lot of people really do a lot of... Come up with a lot of crazy excuses to get out of doing a fucking podcast.
Guest:But you really took the cake on this one.
Guest:How did that go over?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, who knows?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wasn't counting my faves.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:It really bummed me out.
Guest:And still does, you know?
Guest:Like I think about... It's funny.
Guest:We did a...
Guest:Oh, whatever.
Guest:But we recorded one over when COVID started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was, my Amanda and the kids went to Big Bear.
Guest:I had the place to myself.
Guest:I was like, I'm just going to call a bunch of people and do this in the place and record it over Zoom.
Guest:And I have a lot of very...
Guest:the initial call is just us kind of shooting the shit.
Guest:Like I have these secretly recorded phone calls.
Guest:Of you and Richard?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just the one when we were doing the podcast, like there's like an hour of us shooting the breeze before we did the, did the episode.
Guest:I actually found when there's one with Drew Carey too, where we, I'm like, Ooh, this is, you almost feel dirty.
Guest:Like I found it on this old recorder.
Guest:I was going, I used it for something for the first time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You almost feel like, Ooh, I was like,
Guest:I'm like a spy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was secretly.
Guest:I mean, that wasn't the intent.
Guest:It was just like.
Guest:It was just on.
Marc:Just start recording.
Guest:Make sure it works.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then because you're friends with the guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You have the thing.
Marc:But it's nice though, right?
Marc:To hear him?
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:It's, you know, it's a bummer.
Guest:He was one, like, I have a pretty small social...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't have, like, a thing, like a click.
Guest:Me neither, dude.
Guest:I feel like we're similar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, there's... I've told people in the... You know, I might have even said it on a podcast, but it's like you have, like...
Guest:If you made a Venn diagram of like the Rogan crew and like the Ackerman crew, the only place it overlaps is like they both think Brendan Walsh is an asshole.
Marc:Well, I mean, I used to do a joke.
Marc:I said, you know, all you need are two friends really in life.
Marc:You need the main guy and the guy you go to when you drain the main guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, you're tired?
Marc:I'll call the other guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Take the day off.
Guest:Yeah, mine was like, you know, going to concerts and stuff.
Guest:Neil Mahoney was the other guy.
Guest:Oh, another guy who died.
Guest:And both during COVID, those guys both died.
Marc:Do you think it had something to do with COVID, the isolation?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I didn't have a little, one little kid when it started and two when it ended, I like, I was thinking if I was back in my one bedroom apartment when I was living by myself, if I, it would have been a, uh,
Guest:It probably would have been a trip to the liquor store bogeys every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There would have been a bottle of Jameson drank every day.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Probably.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because even with the kids, and I'm lucky during COVID, like we weren't, you know, I have a small place for four people.
Yeah.
Guest:luckily amanda's she grew up in burbank so her mom was so during covid there still was like i'm gonna go to my mom's house with the kids and you know we weren't that wound up of like fucking wearing hazmat suits and not going near family yeah and um so i would have time to still kind of get work done at the place and have the place to myself but also have people
Guest:We'll have people to where the wife and kids can get out.
Guest:But there were days where...
Guest:you know, I would just kind of be like, okay, what am I doing?
Guest:It's 11 a.m.
Guest:I did, you know, the email thing and I did this and that.
Guest:And I look at the little kind of drink cart and I'm like, I could have a glass of, like, why can't you?
Guest:I can have a glass of whiskey at 11 in the morning.
Guest:Who's stopping you at this point?
Guest:Like everything, like nobody.
Guest:So I even did like, I wasn't like, you know, boozing up crazy during COVID, but that kind of like,
Guest:You're not going to have a meeting.
Guest:Nothing's going to pop up that you need.
Guest:So I think that, you know, and I think I don't know exactly what did kneel in, but it was drinking related.
Guest:And yeah, and I think that it was just, you know, you get isolation.
Guest:isolation and yeah just kind of like no monitoring system and and and i think when you're drinking kind of that much yeah there's a certain kind of like you don't let everybody know that you know that you're on your second bottle of bullet that day yeah uh
Marc:Yeah, the alcoholic thing, especially when, I mean, well, that's like even the whole nature of the program is like it's all based on one alcoholic talking to another one.
Marc:Like if you have an alcoholic brain or a certain type of mental disposition and you're not engaging with any sort of reflection of you through other people and it's just your brain reflecting on itself, it's a hopeless situation.
Marc:You can't fucking win.
Marc:It's the worst.
Marc:Like if I didn't have the podcast, I don't know who I'd be.
Marc:if I didn't talk to people, even if it's only once, just to have the engagement.
Marc:Someone told me the other day that they think the reason why people are snapping, like you see all these Karens or people snapping on planes, is because they no longer know how to operate among people anymore, and it's directly related to COVID, and I never thought about that.
Marc:All these people that had patterns in their lives, and they were taken away from them for three years,
Marc:And they haven't re-assimilated.
Guest:I mean, I noticed that once I got back to... And Trump didn't help with the doubling down on garbage.
Guest:I think Trump helped out a lot, actually.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I think he did a good job overall.
Marc:Really gave everyone a voice.
Guest:Can't wait to see his second term.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Can't wait to see what he does next.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it might be better not to be too famous.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because if he doesn't like you, I don't know what he's going to put into place.
Guest:Oh, I'm going to stay.
Guest:I stay.
Guest:I've been staying on his good side.
Guest:Oh, you have?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Talk to him every day.
Guest:How's everything going in court?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you tweet to him still?
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:I really, I don't pay attention to anything.
Guest:No?
Guest:No.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:It's freeing, right?
Guest:It's freeing.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:It's also like...
Guest:you know, that Northern light shit that's been going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, Oh wait, I didn't know.
Guest:Like I see tweet.
Guest:Like I really, I go on Instagram and Twitter to just kind of promote the podcast or if a stupid joke comes into my head, just do that.
Guest:But I really limit the, you get sucked in, you get sucked into a certain point where you start scrolling.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:I don't like emotionally jerked around by your phone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the fucking, like, people, I have friends who send me, you know, like, messed up Instagram.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:They follow whatever, faces of death fucking accounts and shit.
Guest:And it used to be, I guess I got out of that cycle where, you know, you wake up in the morning, first thing you do is turn your phone off, you're not disturbed, see the emails and stuff.
Guest:News.
Guest:Look at Instagram, and it would be like, I've been awake for...
Guest:Three minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just saw a fucking forklift fall on a guy and kill him.
Guest:Like, you shouldn't see that right away.
Guest:You shouldn't see that ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's happened from... I remember when the internet was first starting and a guy sending me this fucking...
Guest:picture i what was it called like rotten.com or there was one of those sites yeah like fucking motorcycle accident whatever just horrible shit and he sent me uh i mean it was a good lesson early on in the internet like 98 yeah whatever i was working it was because there's a guy i worked with at the zach scott theater in austin when i was building sets yeah
Guest:no it was i don't well either way it was before the internet was the internet yeah and we're still just kind of new to email and stuff and all figured out like well there's an unlimited fucking bottomless pit of pornography yeah and garbage yeah and and and just uh complete uh morbidity fascination yeah well a guy sent me a picture of of a guy who had tried to it was like a weightlifter thing and he squatted
Guest:too much weight and his fucking asshole got blown like his colon shot out of his ass or something and I like and it's one of those things where you're looking at the picture like what the fuck am I looking at and then you realize you're like ah ah I can't now that's I can't unsee it yeah but that was a good thing on for a good lesson because you know like two girls one cup's been an ongoing
Guest:uh you know everybody knows what that is or whatever yeah i've never seen it yeah because i'm like i i know i get the gist i don't think i saw it either i don't want to i got up to the point i saw kind of the where i got enough into it i said that's enough i don't want i don't i have that in my head and i don't want the rest of
Marc:Yeah, I totally believe that what you can do to your brain upon waking is more than your brain's ever supposed to tolerate in a lifetime.
Marc:You can do it because you're emotionally connected to the phone in a deep way.
Marc:So if you just blow your brain out with catastrophe, tragedy, apocalyptic politics, anything, you've overwhelmed your phone.
Marc:We weren't designed for that.
Marc:And now we just adapt to it.
Marc:And it's fucking horrendous.
Marc:And I, you know, I try to get, I try not to do it.
Marc:I only look at news and I'll scroll a bit, but my algorithm is mostly cat rescue and food.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like, I feel like I'm okay with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I was thinking about before you came over, like, what are the books you brought?
Guest:So I, and this is why I wasn't late.
Guest:I was Hollywood late.
Guest:I wasn't, I wasn't 15 minutes early.
Guest:You were right on time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, and I was like, oh shit, I wanted to bring Mark a gift.
Guest:And, um, and that I was like, I wanted to bring a book.
Guest:I have a bunch of old national lampoon magazines.
Guest:I wanted to bring a couple of those from like the eighties or so, but I think I moved them into my garage.
Guest:They weren't in my office where I thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this book, well, I have two copies of this.
Guest:I'm sure you've read this book.
Guest:Brave New World, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You probably have that already, right?
Guest:Somewhere, yeah.
Guest:If you want it, I have two.
Guest:But this, have you ever read this?
Guest:Jack Handy, The Stench of Honolulu.
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's the funniest book I've ever read in my life.
Marc:Seriously?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I appreciate your gifts.
Marc:You gave me that spiritualized record once.
Guest:Oh, I did bring you a gift last time?
Marc:Well, it was years ago.
Marc:It must have been like 2011.
Marc:Yeah, the last time we did it.
Marc:Or you might have sent it to me because you were so into them, and they would become like a big, you know, they're in my rotation.
Marc:That's good to hear.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:Yeah, you brought me spiritualized, ladies and gentlemen.
Guest:We're floating through space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the one.
Guest:That was the one.
Guest:That was the album in Austin that, you know, I had a roommate who had an amazing record collection.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Turned me on to a lot of stuff that...
Guest:really sticks around in the heavy rotation.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they're great.
Marc:So what I was thinking about before you came over was that, like, I still think about the conversation we had walking over that bridge in Vancouver.
Guest:Yeah, I remember that.
Guest:I mean, I remember the time.
Guest:I don't remember the conversation, really.
Marc:Well, it was like, you know, right when, you know, the sort of Rogan tribe...
Marc:yeah was was cohering yeah at the beginning uh it felt like of the podcast right and and you had and i remember i was fascinated with it you had just said fuck this and i'd never heard anyone you know talk about it before and i'm like what happened yeah and you were just sort of like i don't work for anybody yeah what was that
Guest:I don't, you know, I mean, I opened for Joe for a little bit.
Guest:And I don't, you know, and I don't have, and I'm not hedging my bets or anything, but I don't, Joe's always been super nice to me.
Guest:And I don't have any ill will towards any of those guys' success or that whole thing.
Guest:But it is a thing that...
Guest:And maybe it's me just talking myself out of, like, that I could be in a much different position financially if I rode that wave and played the game.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I opened for the biggest shows I've ever done in my life, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, even back then, I think we did a 3,000-seat place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you would go with him to—he has such a great setup.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know hosts the ufc on saturday so he would book a gig on friday night do like a 2000 seat theater yeah so you go to that with them then you sit ringside for the fight on saturday which going into that too i was like i don't want to see that guy guys beating the shit out of each other like right
Guest:um and the first fight i went to was like because i i watched ufc when it first started when there was like really no rules like you would have like a 300 pound guy versus a 160 pound guy yeah one was just like a bouncer and one was a karate master right they could you could like kick them in the back of the head if you like there was no rules right
Guest:And I, you know, I liked it or whatever.
Guest:It was like a side show, a freak show.
Guest:But yeah, I went, would go to the shows.
Guest:The first fight I went to, you are in the third row or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this guy got punched in the, you heard his nose break.
Guest:Like you heard the distinctive sound of a nose break.
Guest:And I was like, oh boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've since gotten into it.
Guest:Like it's ruined boxing for me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Cause it's, the action is great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, so I did some shows with Rogan and yeah, just didn't feel,
Guest:I feel like I fit in with like, you know, it was like me and him and Red Band and Diaz and never really felt like Diaz liked me.
Guest:But I also...
Guest:I'm sure we're similar.
Guest:I don't think anybody likes me.
Guest:So it's really a problem.
Guest:I mean, I'm not trying to bait you into shitting on Rogan.
Marc:I'm not shitting on anybody.
Guest:I fucked it up.
Guest:I was meeting the Red Band one night at the improv.
Guest:Oh, that was what it was.
Guest:And that severed the whole... Because they're very...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I can't speculate on their code of... Sure.
Guest:You know, manifesto or whatever.
Guest:But I did something really mean to Red Band.
Guest:And I was, you know, it was... I was on the road with him a lot.
Guest:I felt like... I don't know.
Guest:I don't want to get into the details.
Guest:But it was... I got... You know, I was... I had had some drinks.
Guest:I basically... I was going to do...
Guest:not premium blend of the half hour um comedy central thing yeah and i had booked a show at the small at the side room the lab at the improv yeah yeah to run the half hour right and i had done it like i don't know it was like casually maybe at the bar when i was hanging out there the improv was kind of the that was my club that's where i went yeah that's where i did most of my sets i was never a comedy store guy never really liked the laugh factory i felt like that was a bad road gig all
Guest:Yeah, no, I never go there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so maybe like I, you know, the guy who was running it, I just was like, oh, yeah, let's do that or whatever.
Guest:Never put it in my calendar.
Guest:Never.
Guest:I just forgot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I think the day before the guy's like, you're doing that.
Guest:You have the lab tomorrow.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, shit.
Guest:I didn't even fucking promote.
Guest:I didn't tweet it.
Guest:I didn't do anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nobody's going to be there.
Guest:So I frantically did a couple tweets or whatever, and I don't know, eight people showed up.
Guest:I'm like, well, I'm not going to try and run my half hour or whatever.
Guest:For eight?
Guest:For eight people.
Guest:Like, it's just not going to work.
Guest:So I just wound up, you know...
Guest:Yeah, I'll have a whiskey.
Guest:I mean, by the end, there might have been 25.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, it's a small space.
Guest:But, yeah, I just kind of had a fun, silly set.
Guest:I remember John Doerr was there.
Guest:I don't know if I dragged him in on the bin or something.
Guest:Oh, look at how he's doing.
Guest:See, he's great.
Guest:I think he's got a kid now, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is he in Canada?
Guest:I think he's in Canada.
Yeah.
Guest:Either way, just was like, well, this was a fucking waste of time.
Guest:You know, we had to have a few drinks.
Guest:It was just kind of goofing around, keeping everybody entertained for however long I had to.
Guest:I don't think I had any openers because I didn't fucking... I forgot about... I forgot I did.
Guest:I forgot I booked it.
Guest:And then was at the bar after the show and...
Guest:Yeah, and Red Band came in and said that, you know, he had a rough show at the Ontario Club or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, he was like, the crowd sucked.
Guest:And I was like, I didn't suck, you suck.
Guest:That's the problem.
Guest:And...
Guest:It was mean.
Marc:It was mean.
Guest:But you felt bad about it.
Guest:I felt bad about it.
Guest:And he really got, like, he really got upset.
Marc:And I was, I don't know.
Marc:Well, the thing is, is that if you're contrite, because I'm the same kind of guy, you know, you get in these moments of honesty where it's half a joke, but it's too hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Like, you want it to be, you kind of half want it to land as a joke, but you know that there's an honesty to it.
Marc:That's why I'm no good at roasts.
Marc:I don't know how to insult people unless I mean it.
Guest:Here's the problem with these roasts, I think, is that, and I'm not a roast historian, but I feel like back in the olden days, it was like the dais was all people who really knew, who really know and love the guy.
Guest:There were no random comics just from out there who just came up and, oh, I wrote a bunch of jokes about shit that was in the tabloids about you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they are mean, because tonight was the first night I met you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:But I do, like, if it is, you know, people who obviously know and love each other, then it's funny.
Marc:But I just think the honesty and insult, because I've had to, like, my whole life had to curb that.
Guest:Well, I wasn't really joking with Red Band.
Guest:That was the thing.
Guest:It wasn't a good-natured jab.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was a, I'm kind of sick of you right now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because he was on the road with us opening and stuff, and I felt like...
Guest:This guy got, you know...
Guest:He didn't earn this spot or whatever.
Guest:I don't know what it was.
Guest:What bugged me, I didn't really care about that.
Guest:I mean, I feel like maybe the only thing I was protective of is like, hey, I put in the time with this shit, and I'm here because of certain things that have happened.
Guest:This kind of organically happened.
Guest:You're this guy's buddy who he's like, well, you want to try stand-up?
Guest:Go open for me at the 2,000-seat thing.
Guest:And you get a pass because everybody there knows, is familiar with you from the podcast.
Right.
Marc:But my point is that there was a sense, like, you know, what I see now is that what's ultimately happened is there's sort of a tribalization of the comedy landscape.
Marc:And there's this new show business and old show businesses kind of scrambling to adapt and appropriate what they can.
Marc:But I just thought what was interesting about it was more what you were saying about, you know, what are we willing to do
Guest:to to get you know an audience and is that audience really ours i mean i think the idea of realizing that you know i'm only going to be part of this caravan until he until he decides it so i you know and maybe it's justifying my actions which i did regret and i've apologized and i feel like i'm i feel like we're okay yeah but also it's like yeah i said shit that you can't take back yeah right and
Guest:And, uh, yeah, it was mean and it was shitty and I don't know where it came.
Guest:I know where it came from was I, you know, just, I don't know.
Marc:No, I know where it comes from.
Marc:I mean, it's like, there's this idea that when you back in the day, there was a way to do this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And anytime, you know, people would cut corners.
Guest:But it's not my place to do it.
Guest:And, you know, obviously the drinking had something.
Guest:If I hadn't had, you know.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:If everything leading up to that confrontation hadn't happened, it wouldn't have happened.
Guest:Because I was mad at, you know, that's something that I've learned over the years is that all of my...
Guest:bullshit, negative talking, talking shit or whatever.
Guest:It's like, you know, I mean, it's just, it's common knowledge.
Guest:You're talking about yourself.
Guest:This is all shit that you fucking don't like about yourself.
Marc:But I think what impressed on me, what it impressed on me was that, you know, whether it was alcohol or just your own insecurity, you know, the wherewithal to know that, you know, you didn't know what your future would hold, but you didn't want to be sucked up into somebody else's
Marc:You know, caravan.
Marc:Well, I didn't want somebody to have the power to pull the plug on it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, where it's like, because I feel like... To be sent out.
Guest:Like if, let's say this thing, this, you know, misstep or whatever you want to call it with Red Band had happened...
Guest:Two years later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was in that group kind of.
Guest:And I did go from making $1,500 a week to $15,000 a week at the clubs.
Guest:And then I had something happen between me and one of his main guys.
Yeah.
Guest:then I feel like he would have, that would have had a bigger, like, he'd be like, that guy, Brendan is a fucking asshole.
Guest:That was a mistake.
Guest:Don't go see him anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then that not, I don't know if that's what, but no, I get that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's kind of how I felt after the fact was like, and probably even going into it was like, I don't, cause I had the taste of that with, uh,
Guest:Stan Hope, where... And, you know, I mean... But you're more in line with Stan Hope.
Guest:More in line with Stan Hope, yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also it did come to a point like when I was moving out here.
Guest:From Austin?
Guest:From Austin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I stopped at Doug's because I just drove my car to move out here.
Guest:And that's kind of a good stopping point.
Guest:And went and hung out with Doug to watch the Super Bowl.
Guest:And I wound up sticking around and helping a guy build his fun house.
Guest:I used to be a carpenter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was opening for Doug a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:When we went on my way out here, I was like, I'm going to... He had a tour coming up, and I'm like, I'm going to tell him I'm not... I don't want to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because...
Guest:I knew a handful of comics who did road comics who moved out here and continued to just be on the road all the time.
Guest:So all they did was triple the rent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you'd move out here and like, oh, you know this guy or that guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've never heard of him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And because they're still on the road 30, 40 weeks a year.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I'm like, I'm going to tell – and it was the most amicable.
Guest:It was funny.
Guest:It was like almost, you know, Three's Company –
Guest:we're sitting at his kitchen table, uh, you know, having beer or whatever, smoking cigarettes and, and, uh,
Guest:I was like, oh, you know, yeah, I want to talk to you about the upcoming tour.
Guest:And he's like, well, you know, I want to talk to you about it too, actually.
Guest:I was talking to Hannigan, his manager, and he's like, you know, we're just going to use local guys.
Guest:He thinks it's better to just not, you know, instead of taking an opener, it's better.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I was going to tell you, I don't want to do it.
Guest:So this is great.
Guest:This is the best breakup I've ever had.
Marc:Cheers.
Marc:Yeah, but I relate to you.
Marc:That's the thing is like there's still something about me
Marc:Like I never did that.
Marc:You know, I went from, you know, opener to headliner pretty quick.
Marc:I didn't feature much.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, when I started, you know, because I was I did my training in Boston and we were doing two man shows half hour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I was pretty strong feature when I started working.
Yeah.
Marc:But I could never, I never wanted to open because like, you know, I learned something at the comedy store, you know, with Kenison where, you know, he would have this crew of guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're never going to get out from under that.
Guest:Well, that's another cautionary tale is like, yeah, you have these guys that like once Kenison died, they're,
Guest:back to the B rooms and whatever.
Guest:It's like you just, you got to be on the road all the time and you're not.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was my biggest fear when I started the podcast, but I couldn't unfuck it in my brain.
Marc:There's too much pride and too much insecurity to think that that would necessarily be an opportunity.
Marc:And look, it doesn't always work that way.
Marc:I mean, Bargetsy used to open for me.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And that was like some weird match made.
Marc:I just love the guy.
Marc:But, you know, he's the biggest name in comedy.
Marc:So it doesn't always go that way.
Marc:But there was some fucking point of pride with me where I'm like, you know, I want to build my own thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it just fucking worked out that the podcast clicked.
Marc:I had good cosmic timing.
Marc:I don't know if it would have happened otherwise.
Marc:I don't even know what I would ultimately draw in B rooms.
Marc:It worked out for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's, you know, as somebody who's a new AARP member.
Marc:How old are you?
Guest:I'm still trying to get new faces.
Guest:I just turned 50.
Marc:I'm fucking 60.
Marc:But like in looking back on it, do you regret it?
Guest:You know, I feel like I'm 10 years behind on everything.
Guest:I started late.
Guest:You know, I started when I was like 30 instead of 20.
Marc:I still remember being in that front fucking room at Cap City talking to you.
Marc:And I'm like, this guy, he's pretty full of the beans.
Guest:Yeah, we talked about it on 2011.
Guest:That's why I listened to it.
Guest:I was like, I got to listen to this because I don't want to.
Guest:Number one, that would be terrible if I came in with this.
Guest:If we had the same fucking conversation.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's, yeah, because we didn't, you mentioned the, you know, walking over the bridge and getting Chinese food at the Vancouver thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we haven't hung out a bunch, but the times that we have, they stuck, I mean, I have, like, I don't remember everything, like you said, I don't remember what we talked about, but I do have a very distinct kind of, you know, image of you and I, of your face talking to me in the back of the big room or.
Guest:Serious conversations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just shooting the shit, yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, and, yeah.
Guest:But you think you're 10 years behind?
Guest:Well, I think with the, you know, when you look at the, like...
Guest:uh, just kind of, it took, it took me a while to figure things out.
Guest:It took me a while to figure out, you know, go to an open mic if you want to do standup or whatever.
Guest:Like I didn't know, you know, I wasn't Albert Brooks.
Guest:I didn't grow up next door to Carl Reiner.
Guest:Like I never had anybody tell me, you know, like when I was 13 and somebody said, what do you want to do?
Guest:I want to be on Saturday night live.
Guest:The only thing,
Guest:Advice I had was, well, that's impossible.
Guest:You know, like there was nobody.
Guest:It's like, well, you could join the groundlings and do this.
Guest:And they're like, it's, this is not, it's not on another planet.
Guest:There's ways to do it.
Guest:There's ways to try to get, to try to do it.
Guest:So, yeah, I just, you know, kind of had the, I just figured things out on my own while, you know, also...
Guest:goofing around like you just wanted to live life like I was cutting school yeah you know that that was the best feeling right was when I was in high school when I discovered that you can cut school yeah and just go and have an adventure every day instead of sitting in algebra class they're like this is what I want this is what I want and then after high school after squeaking out of there you know having a job and and and getting fired from that and realizing I don't want that either and I don't want to
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I want it to have a certain amount of freedom.
Marc:It's just like working for people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's, I mean, like literally, like, you know, I was one of those guys where, you know, club owners, like I'm still pretty, you know, weird about it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Even though I'm like, I'm doing mostly small theaters, but like, you know, I just, I'm at a point where I just, I'm not going to tolerate disrespect from a club owner.
Marc:It's like, and they were the gatekeepers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was crazy, dude.
Guest:Getting yelled at by a guy as an adult is really hard for me.
Guest:Like, you know, and that's... Because that was my whole kind of... I feel like that was my whole childhood.
Guest:Somebody's just always yelling at me for doing something that I'm just doing.
Guest:You know, where I'm like, what?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's just... I was goofing around.
Guest:I wasn't hurting anybody.
Guest:I'm trying to be... I'm trying to make myself laugh.
Guest:Like, what the fuck?
Guest:I'm making Dave laugh.
Guest:That's all I'm doing.
Guest:Why is there a nun physically assaulting me over this?
Guest:And... Yeah, so...
Guest:Then getting into comedy where I'm like, well, everybody's going to be a fucking party guy.
Guest:And then realizing like, what the fuck?
Guest:Still guys yelling at me.
Guest:I thought like sending them goofy headshots when they asked me to send headshots.
Guest:And I fucking drew, uh, you know, a cock going into my mouth on my headshot that I sent to him, hang up at the club.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're like, what the fuck is this shit?
Guest:I'm like, I, that's not funny to you that I drew a cock going into my mouth on my headshot that for you to hang up.
Yeah.
Guest:What's wrong with you?
Guest:No, I'm going to get yelled at on the phone for a half hour.
Guest:Okay, sorry.
Guest:I thought I got in the comedy business.
Guest:There were a lot of, like, I do see a lot of signs from the universe.
Guest:And there were a lot of ignored signs when I was starting stand-up comedy where I'm like, I should have fucking got stopped right there.
Guest:I should have fucking packed my bags and called everybody and said, I'm done with this.
Guest:This is not the right path for what I want.
Guest:When I was crying literally in the fucking hotel at the comedy cave in, uh, the fuck is that?
Guest:One of the coldest places in the world.
Guest:It's a Calgary or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In February.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like freezing.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:You couldn't leave.
Guest:You couldn't, there was a Chinese buffet across the parking lot.
Guest:You could bundle up enough before your eyeballs froze open.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To get to the Chinese buffet to eat.
Guest:And then run back to the travel lodge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where the club was in the travel lodge.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And,
Guest:It was a Tuesday through Sunday week.
Guest:And I think that was also... Although I have done that gig.
Marc:You've done that, huh?
Marc:In the hotel.
Marc:It's called a comedy gig.
Marc:It's like in the ballroom of the hotel.
Marc:It's like just a little... It's what I call it, a ballroom.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's been around for years.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think it moved locations once.
Guest:I mean, this is... Yeah, this also was... This is all connected to when I did my half-hour thing, too.
Guest:Why were you crying?
Why?
Guest:because it was a, it was around Christmas time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, uh, the, the, the crowds were dismal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the only night it was, again, it was me.
Guest:I'm like, okay, I have this half hour that I'm going to do for comedy central.
Guest:You're trying to run all this stuff and like start having fun with just be like Lucy.
Guest:Like, you know, like let's be Jordan shooting free throws for a month before we play the big game or whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:You know, Tuesday, Wednesday, death, Thursday, death.
Guest:And I think it was the Thursday night show.
Guest:There's a big Christmas party of oil rig guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walk into the club.
Guest:They're already shit faced.
Guest:There's 50 of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, it's half the crowd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:one of the guys is on the stage talking into the mic look at me yeah and um i go up to the you know they're already should be kicked out before the show starts and i go to the guy say what's going on with this this is what are you going to do about this before the show starts i don't want to do that and he's like well it's the whole fucking crowd yeah i'm not gonna do anything about it yeah i'm like so i gotta go
Guest:do that take the hit fight yeah with a table full guys who could who could beat me up so i gotta i'm not gonna fucking tear into them that much not that i'm like a destroying heckler guy but yeah so it was like you know i didn't even get into what he pushed you over the edge well it was you know it was one of those shows where i'm like let me i'll open with my closer to maybe get them the fucking shirt
Guest:Maybe that'll end and didn't even get to finish the sentence and was like, this is fuck.
Guest:All right.
Guest:What do you guys want to talk about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess I am a faggot or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yeah, fought my way through it.
Guest:Nobody had fun.
Guest:I guess some of those guys had fun, you know, cause they were just yelling.
Guest:They got to do whatever they wanted for an hour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, went back to my hotel room and,
Guest:And realized I wasn't even halfway done the week and started crying.
Guest:And was like, what am I doing?
Guest:What is this?
Guest:What the fuck am I doing?
Guest:Why am I here?
Guest:And what am I going to get out of this?
Guest:And what the fuck am I even like?
Guest:I don't even like my act anyway.
Guest:Like I don't like anything about myself.
Guest:And I cried.
Guest:I fucking cried and looked out the window and it's in the room they gave you in the travel lodge was the room that
Guest:uh was like the window was blocked by the air conditioned hvac unit on top of the other roof yeah i'm like oh this is that's why this is the comedian's room because everybody they give it to opens the window because you have another i don't want the fucking giant hvac thing right out i don't want a view and a hearing that yeah and uh
Guest:And right there, I'm like, I don't, yeah, why?
Guest:I mean, hindsight, I don't have regrets.
Guest:Of course I have, you know, of course there's things I should have done differently.
Guest:But yeah, in hindsight, I'm like, if that wasn't a fucking sign, like all these, so many things where it's like, if that was not a sign from a higher power, like...
Guest:Knock it off.
Guest:You're on the wrong.
Guest:You got on the wrong fucking train.
Guest:You went to Grand Central Station and you got on the wrong fucking.
Guest:This is taking you further and further away from where you want to be to Calgary.
Guest:It's taking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're not.
Guest:It's going to take so long to figure out to get back on it.
Guest:And I feel like now.
Guest:I've figured out the train.
Guest:I'm like, okay, now that I've exhausted everybody in LA, and maybe that's another thing where I do have a knack for self-defeating.
Guest:But it's like, yeah, I just had a thing, and...
Guest:Where, you know, I've had development deals.
Guest:Like I've, I've managed to just kind of stumble through Hollywood for the past 15 years where it's like, I don't need a lot to get by.
Guest:I get enough, you know, like at midnight thing, had a gig doing stuff for them, had the true TV thing, get these random uncredited writing jobs or like, you know, prank shows or whatever.
Guest:And, and, um, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then just had a Fox thing, you know, that imploded for, you know, whatever.
Guest:These things never work out.
Guest:Do you do stand-up?
Guest:Well, I'm getting back into it.
Guest:Like, that's the other kind of, like, all right, here's your, okay, now you got, you can't, living in my car is not an option anymore because I got three other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The car's not big enough.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And now it's like, so what's the, um,
Guest:It's like, okay, well, let's dust off the old, you know, other way that I never really made enough money.
Marc:Well, you gave me a ride from the airport, didn't you?
Guest:That was in your show.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:That was my character.
Guest:I know I'm a great actor, so that's probably why.
Guest:I might have from Austin.
Guest:Austin, that was part of it.
Marc:No, I think it was the show.
Marc:But I didn't open for you.
Marc:Yeah, I think that was the show.
Marc:I did your show.
Marc:So how does it feel to focus on stand-up again?
Guest:Well, I'm not... I wouldn't say I'm... Well, I... That was one thing during COVID that I...
Guest:that gave a lot of people time to reflect on like, what the fuck am I doing?
Guest:And, and also, yeah, with all the signs from God of like, you know, crying in Calgary and, and other things where I'm like, oh yeah, what the, why didn't I just say fuck you and walk away then?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:You just get caught up in it where that's what you do.
Guest:And it's like, I'm going to the improv three nights a week or four, whatever.
Guest:You're doing those, you know, all shows around town.
Guest:Hammering it out.
Guest:10-minute sets.
Guest:And every time driving to one of those shows, I'm like, fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fucking, what the fuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm gonna fucking do this tonight.
Guest:See, you didn't like it.
Guest:Well, the 10-minute thing is like, I don't, like, I would never...
Guest:I didn't, I don't know.
Guest:I feel like it was always like, I, you know, just kind of when I got there would be like, what's, uh, what's 10 minutes that I can fuck around with, you know, already shit that I'm already tired of.
Guest:Like I didn't use it as like, uh, all right, I got 10 minutes.
Guest:I'm following.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Rob Schneider dropped in and just did 30.
Guest:And now I got to go up.
Guest:Nobody knows who I am.
Guest:And I'm going to try out like whatever these random thoughts, which is what I should have been doing.
Guest:But instead, I'm like, I'll do the fucking, you know, voicemail bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fucking, you know, the Microsoft joke.
Guest:But what's it like now?
Guest:Now I have, I started my own business.
Guest:uh, monthly show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is, um, me.
Guest:It's in a great room at the high, low bar afternoon delight.
Guest:It's a show that I started right before COVID because I, that's one thing that I guess I realized before COVID, like during COVID, I realized like, wait, I, yeah, I don't think that I, this is the, this isn't exactly what I wanted.
Guest:Like I wanted to do, like when I started, I was doing more kind of Andy Kaufman type, like really goofball messing with the crowd.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Um, and then just kind of was like, you know, Chris Fairbank's like, if you want to get on the road, you know, you can't be doing, you can't dress like powder from the movie powder and pee your pants on stage.
Guest:They're not going to book you for that.
Guest:What do I do?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:10 minutes of poop jokes.
Guest:All right.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's good.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:He quit drinking too.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I feel like it's something you age out of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I know you stuck, you, uh, jumped in with the, uh, AA thing.
Guest:Early on, yeah.
Guest:But I think, yeah, if you stuck it out, man, you would have gotten tired of it anyway, too.
Guest:I don't know if you miss it at all.
Guest:I don't.
Marc:Yeah, it's not something you really miss once you... I don't miss it, but I do know there's like a...
Marc:A lot of weed around, you know.
Guest:I don't do it.
Marc:That's too much for me.
Marc:Yeah, no, I don't do anything.
Marc:But, like, you know, that one was, you know, if I ever think of anything, it's sort of like, will I ever get to the age where I'm done with everything and I can just smoke a little weed?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Guest:I can do whatever I want.
Marc:Do whatever you want, yeah.
Guest:So what do you do at the high-low?
Guest:So I started a show where it's, like, where I do live crank calls on stage.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So the setup of the show is, like...
Guest:uh you know have like two or three comedians come on like i opened the show with and now it's two the the current show when i first started it i'd have like three comics each do like a seven ten minute set and then sits down with me and and we make phone calls together right and uh so now it's the same thing at the high low but i i'll do 15 minutes up front of and it's people that it's a it's a great little room there i don't know if you've probably never been in no
Guest:holds like 50 people it's fucking it's it's perfect yeah and um everybody's there they know you know they know who i am so there's not that you don't have to like win them over initially so i can i do feel comfortable and like looking just kind of like all right i got these ideas let's see if we how we can make them funny yeah um so that's what i'm doing and i'm not you know
Guest:I don't, I guess I should start replying to the improv emails.
Guest:I still get them.
Guest:I don't, I mean, I feel like so many new people over COVID too.
Guest:Like, I feel like COVID was a good kind of like, uh, all right, we can get rid of a lot of these guys that were on the calendar because now we're starting fresh and there's all these new guys and, and, um, but you haven't responded yet.
Uh,
Guest:I'll respond here and there.
Guest:I haven't gotten to the point.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:I'm into it.
Guest:That was another thing with COVID.
Guest:I'm like, I can't fucking do any of these jokes again.
Guest:I'm a different guy.
Guest:Now that I got to take a breather for the first time in 10, 15 years, however long I was doing it.
Guest:Um, yeah, I want to do something different.
Guest:And I like the calls.
Guest:Like I went on the road with Stan Hope a little bit right after COVID.
Guest:He called me and said, do you still do standup?
Guest:And I was like, you know, that's a good question.
Guest:I've been thinking about that myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, I was like, can I do, I've been doing this thing like where I want to call people on stage and, and it's not jerky boys.
Guest:Like, yeah.
Guest:Hey, fuck face.
Guest:I'm going to come in and piss on your wife.
Guest:And you know, I'm not, it's, they turn into, I don't know how to describe it.
Guest:I mean, crank calls are the easiest way, but it's,
Guest:It's just kind of like getting to know people.
Guest:Like, you know, you call them with a surreal kind of situation of like, hey, I was using your elevator at the building and what's up with the pay elevator?
Guest:Like the idea of, cause like, you know, when you're a hotel, you have to use your key card.
Guest:And the idea, I was kind of like, oh, it'd be funny if you had to swipe your debit card and it charged you more for the higher you went up.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And so like, yeah, I'll call an elevator company and be like, I just want to know, cause I work on the 50th floor.
Guest:And if I go out for lunch, like sometimes I have to leave and come back and it costs me like eight bucks for the day.
Guest:And ladies like, I don't know what you're, wait, what pay?
Guest:Let me look into that.
Guest:And, and then you kind of just start talking to them and it's an entertaining, like nobody's.
Guest:Every now and then you get a guy, you get somebody wound up, which is fun.
Guest:Like I have like a voice changer thing where I sound like a mouse or whatever.
Guest:And I called like a limo, uh, like a party bus rental company.
Guest:And it was like, uh, Hey, how much for a party bus for, uh, you know, Saturday night, it's my birthday or whatever.
Guest:How many people?
Guest:Uh, zero people, 11 mice, 11.
Guest:Well, how many people?
Guest:11 mice.
Guest:What kind of bus do you want or whatever?
Guest:I just, whatever for a mouse, you know.
Guest:For how many hours?
Guest:I'm like, you know, I don't know, maybe a half hour.
Guest:Time moves faster for mice because our lifespan's shorter.
Guest:And he's like, what do you mean mouse?
Guest:What are you talking about mouse?
Guest:You are mouse?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, that's like the closest thing.
Guest:And they're fun.
Guest:That's fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I told Doug, I was like, you know, I've been thinking about that because that's one thing that even going into when I first started stand-up, I didn't realize like, I was like, wait, you guys, did you do the same?
Guest:Because I would see guys going up and I'm like,
Guest:he's doing the same fucking shit i've seen him do before yeah that's that's the way this works you go sometimes you build an act yeah i yeah not for you i well i'm just like i like the looseness of it but then the the the train that i got on to stick with that analogy was like yeah your first acts in tulsa where everybody thinks there's 52 states alaska and hawaii yeah
Guest:and i'm like oh i gotta stay i don't want to get beat up after the show so i'll just do this and whatever hey it's 600 bucks better than loading fucking trucks yeah and uh that's a good song and um
Guest:So, uh, yeah, the, when Doug called me, I was like, cause I like the freedom.
Guest:I like the, I feel like I've never been myself on stage fully.
Guest:Like, obviously I have my, the way I am, but you know, launching into rehearsed material is not myself.
Guest:And, and I never put the work in that you really should when you're doing it.
Guest:Um, um,
Guest:Cause yeah, the, you know, boozing and banging like whatever.
Guest:It was like, Hey, fun.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:You know, I don't, I can skate by on, you know, but now you're, you're, you're just taking a little different approach.
Guest:Well, you know, I mean the, the not boozing is, is definitely frees up a lot of time.
Guest:How are the kids doing?
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're, they're really, what's your partner do?
Guest:But she's, I dragged her into co-host the podcast because she's funny.
Guest:She was like, we would do like these fake kind of calls with her where she'd play like the CDC or something.
Guest:Like this was like, kind of started the podcast right at the beginning, like when COVID was...
Guest:A few weeks before it all got serious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we would just do, she would, she's great to be on the other end.
Marc:That's fun.
Guest:Of a call.
Guest:And, and, and I just kind of was like, you know, just come, you're the cohost for now.
Guest:Cause it's like, and also thinking of like boxes, there was a lot of the, um, I'm like, I don't want to just be too white guy.
Guest:Like, I don't know.
Guest:You're a chick.
Guest:So that's makes this seem a little more diverse than something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And now we're kind of locked into it.
Guest:I mean, she could still, she's going to wind up with a full-time teaching thing at some point.
Guest:Like, the kids are still young.
Guest:My son's three, so he's starting preschool soon.
Guest:So there's going to be a time when she can't co-host all the time.
Guest:And I'm getting more comfortable with...
Guest:doing it myself yeah but yeah with with the doug thing yeah i was like hey can i make calls on stage or whatever you know doug yeah just kind of do whatever the fuck you want i'm like this is great this is going to be a good because doug's crowds are great yeah they have a you know there'll be a portion of the people who kind of are familiar with who i am from from just from him yeah and i'm like this is great this is going to be you know and san francisco's the best he was like i'm doing some shows in san francisco then phoenix and and i'm like this is great cobs
Guest:To see whether or not I still want to do this, I'm going to get to go to Cobb's, my favorite.
Guest:San Francisco has always been my favorite.
Guest:That's just great.
Marc:That new Cobb's is hard, though.
Marc:It's big, but yeah.
Guest:How new is the Cobb?
Marc:Well, when I lived there, it was in the cannery, and it was an intimate room.
Guest:But this is the one that's been there for 20 years or whatever.
Guest:I like being, I think I'm better.
Guest:I need that little bit of like, you know,
you
Guest:you don't know what's going to happen.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I feel like that, that I'm good, you know, like it's proves that, you know, I'm like funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's another thing.
Guest:I've never been good at like mailing lists and none of the business side of show business.
Guest:I'm just like, I thought I'd come out here and you'd get some kind of managing.
Guest:Somebody else would just be like, do this.
Marc:It's all on you.
Guest:Get in the gym and do this and get your hair cut and, you know, like.
Guest:No, it's all on us.
Guest:And like, are you writing on anything or are you just doing anything?
Guest:No, I think that's, I think that's finally, I think I had to exhaust all the chances at easy money out here for, I, I had a development thing at Fox.
Guest:I mean, I, you know, I worked on cranky anchors when they brought that back, thought that would be like, okay, this could be a five year thing.
Guest:Maybe, you know, real residual checks.
Guest:And, um, you know, that didn't, it didn't really, uh, work out, uh,
Guest:And, yeah, I just had a thing at Fox, an animated show idea that we sold.
Guest:And, yeah, it didn't pan out.
Guest:And now I feel like, yeah, I feel like that kind of stuff.
Marc:You're back in Vaudeville, buddy.
Guest:Back in Vaudeville where I should have stayed in the first place.
Marc:No, you can't do that.
Marc:But I'm glad it's fun.
Marc:And I'm glad that, you know, you're doing it.
Guest:Yeah, and I feel like it's better.
Guest:It's going to be...
Guest:you know they talk about people finding their voice and stuff and and i'm like okay yeah i think oh okay you can do it where you're grounded you're not drinking you got a family yeah you're a more whole person it's good yeah and i can and yeah and i can do more goofy stuff and and yeah and i'll start going on the road with you which will help and oh yeah we got to plan that out i gotta go i gotta go get my cat in the cage it was good talking to you buddy
Guest:You too, man.
Guest:I blew it again.
Guest:No, you didn't.
Guest:I'll see you in 2035, I guess.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks for the book.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Catching up with my old pal, Brendan.
Marc:His podcast is called The World Record Podcast.
Marc:Hang out for a minute, folks.
Marc:Hey, Full Marin listeners, there are more outtakes from recent episodes posted this week exclusively for subscribers.
Marc:You can hear me talk about all sorts of things that didn't make it into the episodes, including my favorite albums.
Marc:My parents had records.
Marc:When I was a very little kid, there was a box of cassettes that they had that they didn't play anymore.
Marc:They didn't have a cassette player.
Marc:And in that box, the ones that fucking blew my mind, Bobby Gentry's Ode to Billy Joe, Creedence Clearwater, Cosmos Factory, and Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin.
Marc:those were in the wiring those those beveled some neural pathways and in the vinyl area beatles let it be melanie's uh i got a brand new pair of roller skates record um chuck berry the london sessions yeah yeah my dingaling that's right and also janice joplin's pearl that was big and
Marc:Because I was a kid.
Marc:I wasn't even 10.
Marc:And I saw that cover of Janice just laying there all pretty on that Shea's Lounge, all dressed up.
Marc:And I asked my mom, who's this?
Marc:Maybe my dad.
Marc:And they said she died of heroin.
Marc:And then I just identified her as heroin.
Marc:And it was sad because if you turn that record over, I'm like...
Marc:Those four look more like heroin, that band, but whatever.
Marc:To get bonus episodes twice a week, as well as every episode of WTF ad-free, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.
Marc:And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast.
Marc:Here's a classic riff by me.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.
Marc:They're in the room.
Marc:They're in the fucking room, man.