Episode 1581 - Langston Kerman
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck tuplets?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:How's it going with you, man?
Marc:I gotta... I gotta reel it in.
Marc:I gotta focus.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I'm about to start shooting a movie.
Marc:And I guess people don't really talk about this.
Marc:Why would they?
Marc:How many people do you know that are going to start shooting a movie and are reflecting about it?
Marc:I mean, it's just work you assume actors do, but it's a big deal for me.
Marc:And I'm paralyzed with the fear I'm not going to be able to pull it off.
Marc:That's the amazing thing about staying active and creative well into your...
Marc:40s, 50s and 60s is that at some point you're thinking, hey, man, this confidence thing is just going to lock in.
Marc:It's going to be a time where I'm just sort of like, yeah, man, this is going to be fun.
Marc:I don't know if I've ever said that about anything.
Marc:Loving what you do, that's one thing.
Marc:But having fun is another.
Marc:Is it though?
Marc:Aren't you supposed to, if you love what you do, isn't the assumption that like, yeah, this is fun.
Marc:This is my life.
Marc:The things that I do that I love, or maybe it's just that I'm kind of good at.
Marc:I don't always think they're there.
Marc:I don't, I just don't know how much I think they're going to be fun.
Marc:I think really my whole sort of goal is to, to get through it and feel like I did.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:If I don't change things up soon, I'm not going to know about this fun thing or this love thing.
Marc:I'm running out of time.
Marc:Today on the show, I'm going to talk to Langston Kerman.
Marc:He's a comedian, and I didn't know him, but that's not unusual.
Marc:I'm already two or three generations beyond whatever's happening now, beyond the 100,000 new comedians.
Marc:But I got a text.
Marc:from John Mulaney.
Marc:He's like, hey, you should check out my buddy Langston Kerman's stuff.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, I will.
Marc:And then I find out that I turn on the special and Mulaney had directed it.
Marc:And I'm like, ah, all right.
Marc:Well, this is a thing he did as well.
Marc:Then I watched it again.
Marc:I'm like, all right, let's talk to this guy, Kerman.
Marc:Some of these bits seem to be rooted in some interesting stuff.
Marc:So we had a good chat.
Marc:We had a nice time.
Marc:Also, I'll be a Dynasty typewriter in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 26th.
Marc:The rest of my tour dates are scheduled for next year.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour to see all of them.
Marc:And yeah, so I'm just getting ready to lock into this shooting process where I got to play the lead and figure out.
Marc:It's just interesting because, look, I'm no brilliant actor.
Marc:I think I'm getting better at it.
Marc:But again, it's like I'm not like I'm having a great time.
Marc:I'm like, I really want to do well.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:You want to do well.
Marc:It's hard to have fun when all you're thinking about is pulling it off, doing well, nailing it, getting into it, losing yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I got to jump out of a plane or jump off a cliff or something, you know, with with a shoot and something.
Marc:I think the word fortuitous.
Marc:Is it fortuitous?
Yeah.
Marc:I read Al Pacino's book.
Marc:Al Pacino's got a memoir coming out.
Marc:I'm not sure when it's out soon because I fucking talked to Al Pacino.
Marc:I read the whole book and he's talking about acting and he's talking about his life and how he handles things and what he went through to sort of honor his creative process.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, quite helpful.
Marc:It's not a book about about it's not acting teaching book.
Marc:But he writes about his life and there's a couple tidbits in there where, you know, and also the character who Al is actually helped me with the guy that I'm trying to be in my mind.
Marc:And there are a lot of nuggets in there.
Marc:And I just feel like, well, this happened for a reason.
Marc:And I don't always feel that way.
Marc:You don't want to get too far into that rabbit hole of things happening for a reason because...
Marc:It's probably crazy and it's probably coincidence, but it's nice.
Marc:It's nice when things line up to enough for you to think that like, yep, someone's watching over me.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, today maybe.
Marc:And it's probably not, but it's a nice feeling to have.
Marc:But yeah, I was able to glean a lot from Al's experience in life.
Marc:And, you know, that said,
Marc:Fucking Al Pacino was at my house the other day in the afternoon.
Marc:I'm waiting around.
Marc:I'm loaded up in my head.
Marc:I got Al Pacino on the brain.
Marc:I've had Al Pacino on the brain for most of my life.
Marc:But here he is.
Marc:Just walking up the sidewalk to my house.
Marc:Al Pacino.
Marc:What a fucking sweet guy.
Marc:What an exciting day.
Marc:I had fun with that one.
Marc:I just had fun because I'm, fuck man, I'm talking Al Pacino.
Marc:Oh, did you see that movie, The Substance?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I can't recommend that enough.
Marc:I hope I can get Demi Moore in here.
Marc:I'd like to talk to the director.
Marc:But look, you know, I was curious about it because, you know, I like Cronenberg enough.
Marc:I'm certainly a Kubrick fan and David Lynch.
Marc:And those seem to be, you know, some of the influences in this movie.
Marc:But, like, I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a horror guy, you know, but Kit is a horror person.
Marc:And we're watching that movie, man.
Marc:And, yeah, it's rough.
Marc:But, I mean, it's a movie.
Marc:You know, people are like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can watch it.
Marc:It's fake.
Marc:You know, but you go ahead and believe it because that's the effect you want.
Marc:But I mean, it's not really happening.
Marc:But what an incredible sort of kind of gutsy exploration.
Marc:of vanity, of aging, of the pressure and pressures that women put on themselves when confronted by those things.
Marc:It's about show business.
Marc:It's about culture.
Marc:But the basic premise of being able to...
Marc:inject something and split into two selves, one being your younger, beautiful self that gets to go out and do things for a week and then come back and wake your half dead ass up and, and send you out.
Marc:I mean, the conceit of it is, is science fiction and horror.
Marc:And you quickly believe it because the, the kind of spectacle and grotesqueness of
Marc:of of the story is so engaging but i'll tell you man if you don't see it and try to see it on a big screen you're you're denying yourself a very uh life-changing experience as far as a movie goes because you watch this movie and it's broken into three acts and
Marc:And by the end of the second act, you know, it's like two hours in.
Marc:You're like, oh, my God.
Marc:How much more can we take?
Marc:What else is going to happen here?
Marc:And then that third act, you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:This is fucking crazy genius.
Marc:It's...
Marc:Xiao Cronenberg's Cronenberg.
Marc:And, you know, if you're not a horror nerd, but, you know, you kind of, you know, Cronenberg's your limit.
Marc:This is taking Cronenberg to just amping it up, man.
Marc:And the performances are great.
Marc:And...
Marc:It is a metaphor for something, and it is a conceit, and it is, you know, I would say, you know, science fiction in a way, but horror in another way.
Marc:But Kit, when it was over, she was like, oh, my God, instant classic.
Marc:Because it's all these points of references, filmic references to horror movies, which I don't really know, but to the directors I mentioned before, to Cronenberg and Kubrick and Lynch.
Marc:It just—I don't know.
Marc:I'm recommending the movie.
Marc:You know, it reminds me of—there's just very few—
Marc:Movies that kind of blow your mind with their audacity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Go see that fucking thing.
Marc:Go see it in a theater.
Marc:Just sit there with a bunch of other people and be like, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:All right.
Marc:So look, Langston Kerman, Chicago guy.
Marc:I talked to a few people from Chicago lately and, you know, kids from Chicago.
Marc:I got to spend some time in Chicago.
Marc:I think that's a sign.
Marc:It's actually a great city.
Marc:But this is an interesting conversation because once it's sort of unfolded, you know, the kind of journey to doing standup and what you go through creatively if you're a creative person and the other avenues you take or what you think your life is going to be, it's always kind of surprising.
Marc:And it was good to talk to this guy.
Marc:The special that he's got out there is called Bad Poetry, and it's called that for a reason.
Marc:It's on Netflix.
Marc:It's directed by John Mulaney.
Marc:It was shot in Chicago at that place.
Marc:Is it called the Green Mill?
Marc:I think that classic old Al Capone bar is shot there for a reason, too.
Marc:But.
Marc:The thing about doing this show, my show, and the thing that makes it fun, yes, fun and interesting, is that I really don't know, because of the way I do it, how anything's going to unfold in here on the mics.
Marc:And this was great.
Marc:It was great to talk to this guy.
Marc:So this is me and Langston Kerman.
Marc:So do you, who are you?
Guest:Honestly, that's a fair question.
Guest:If we want to start there, I'm happy to do it.
Marc:Where did you come from?
Guest:You live here?
Guest:Yeah, I'm in like mid-city.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How long have you lived here?
Guest:Seven years.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, it's one of those things where...
Marc:You know, all of a sudden, I'll tell you what happens.
Marc:So I get a text from John Mulaney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My new dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that carries a little weight sometimes.
Marc:Not always, but, you know, I know John.
Marc:And he says, you got to look at this guy.
Marc:And I'm like, all right.
Marc:And then it turns out he directed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'd never seen you before, which is not—that's nothing to say.
Marc:I don't take it personally.
Guest:No, that's okay.
Marc:I mean, I'm an old man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You youngsters come up all the time, and all of a sudden I'm like, where the fuck has that guy been?
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was one of those things where it was with Millennium, like, I'm not going to let him muscle me around.
Guest:Sure, sure, sure.
Marc:I'm going to take a little time.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I'll watch it when I'm ready, John.
Marc:Yeah, it was that kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah, no, I... But it's funny, it's...
Marc:Like, how did, like, I don't know what John's doing, but he's doing it at a very high level.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Whatever, you know, he's really got an angle on how to work this business.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:I mean, and he's very funny and he's a smart guy.
Marc:But the point is there is that level of those guys where you're like, I don't know, I guess he's at that level.
Marc:And then he's like, he chose you.
Marc:He's done some directing.
Marc:Of his own shit, right?
Marc:I mean, he did the kid show thing, the Netflix thing, the lunch.
Guest:Yeah, the sack lunch.
Marc:Yeah, I think that was all his.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So how does he find you?
Guest:Weirdly, John and I, because we didn't have much of a relationship.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But he really, really fucked with a show that me and a few of my friends made called Bust Down.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That was Sam Jay, Chris Redd.
Guest:I know Chris Redd and Sam Jay.
Guest:I've talked to both of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Jack Knight passed.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I remember that show.
Marc:I saw that show.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, then you saw me, Mark.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:We solved the problem.
Marc:I don't know how many of those episodes I watched.
Marc:It was like everyone worked as a break room thing, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We all worked in the back of a casino.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And yeah, they only made six episodes.
Guest:So you couldn't have seen more than six.
Marc:So that was your big break.
Guest:That, I wouldn't call it a big break.
Guest:No, nobody watched it.
Guest:And that's why they only made six of them.
Guest:Peacock.
Guest:Peacock.
Guest:Early generation.
Guest:Early Peacock.
Guest:Peacock.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was an odd show.
Marc:I agree to disagree.
Marc:I loved it.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:I'm not saying it was bad.
Marc:Odd is good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's good for, it makes sense why Mulaney, you know, because he likes stuff that is unique.
Guest:We took really big swings, I think, for the six that they made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Mulaney just loved it a lot.
Guest:And in a weird way...
Guest:had reached out to the four of us, sort of wanting the possibility of NA Season 2 coming on as our Danny DeVito fifth, a la Always Sunny.
Marc:Oh, like Mulaney was going to do that?
Guest:Yeah, so it would be me, Sam J., Chris Redd, Jack Knight, and John Mulaney hanging out.
Guest:And then Peacock said, no, no, no, we want nothing to do with anything you guys are doing anymore.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Was it was it really that?
Marc:I mean, what was the what was the experience?
Marc:Because like everything's in transition and I don't know how show business works anymore.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, Peacock was sort of that was at that time.
Marc:That was the streamer that NBC Universal was doing or whoever.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was so it was only on the streamer.
Guest:We were early generation Peacock.
Guest:I think they very much still saw themselves as an extension of NBC.
Guest:And we were going on there saying nigga and bitch and covering Jack and cum.
Guest:It was all chaos.
Guest:And I think that did not sit well with what they thought they were building.
Guest:And so they opted not to make more of that.
Guest:OK, but John, thankfully, just really, really loved it and was into it in a way that a dude like him probably shouldn't be.
Guest:But but he is.
Guest:And that's great.
Guest:With that, it sort of became a thing of like, hey, man, I know you were not going to be able to make more of that, but I'm working on this.
Guest:If there's any world where you'd be interested in producing more.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Please.
Marc:So he's got a production company.
Guest:He had built a production company and I reached out and he just was very... He's just been huge.
Marc:Wanted to be in the Langston Kerman business.
Marc:I hope so, yeah.
Guest:Seems like it.
Marc:But it's interesting because out of that... Because Sam Jay, I wonder what...
Marc:Because Sam Jay, I think, is an important comic.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know if she's completely taken on that responsibility.
Marc:And I think I'm kind of happy in some ways that she has to really focus on that and not be distracted in a way with other projects.
Marc:Because I think she's got a very courageous voice.
Guest:Yeah, I don't love when my friends become important, so I hope she never turns that way.
Marc:I'd like her comedy to be seen by more people.
Guest:I'd like that, too.
Guest:I think what an unbelievably funny person, but I do think there becomes this weird game in comedy where suddenly we become...
Guest:responsible for representing a community or representing the voice of the unheard.
Guest:It's like, I don't give a fuck about that.
Guest:Let her just keep being as funny as she is.
Marc:Well, oddly, you know, in that particular situation, that voice, the voice you're talking about rarely becomes like megastars.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So it becomes sort of a representation of something that does require, and it's good someone's talking.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you know what I mean?
Marc:But she was doing some stuff I saw at the comedy store a few weeks ago.
Marc:I was like, holy shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, she's funny, man.
Marc:I've been doing this so long that when you have those moments where you're like, holy shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's good, right?
Guest:It's nice when somebody reminds you that this is a game.
Marc:Or it's not a game.
Marc:You can be raw and truthful and you're seeing something in a club where it's like, no one's seeing this on TV.
Marc:And your stuff, too, is pretty ballsy.
Marc:I mean, there are some things that you...
Marc:You take shots at that I think are pretty good.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Hell yeah.
Marc:But so wait, so now are you a Chicago guy?
Guest:I'm from Chicago originally, Oak Park, Illinois.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I started there, but I only did like nine months and then moved to Boston.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So wait, so you grew up in Chicago.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Grew up in Chicago.
Marc:And were you a big family?
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:It's a big disjointed family.
Guest:I'm the oldest of five, but none of us have the same set of parents.
Guest:Does that make sense?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I watched the special.
Yeah.
Marc:Apparently, your mom got a lot of work done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad, too.
Guest:On both sides?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I talk about my mom, but my mom's four marriages.
Guest:My dad's three.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:People complain about being the child of divorce, but I'm the child of the most divorces.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:In that, you get a lot of siblings.
Marc:You know, you get a choice of siblings.
Marc:I imagine that once, you know, you have step siblings like that and you get a certain distance from it, you can kind of choose which ones you want to hang out with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I actually don't have any step siblings.
Guest:I just have weird half.
Guest:That's what I mean, half brothers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so like it is it's complicated because I'm the oldest by far.
Guest:I'm 10 years older than the next in line.
Marc:And you're not even that old.
Marc:So you got real kids around still.
Guest:Yeah, there's a there's a 14 year old out there.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I'm 23 years older than the next, you know, the baby of the family.
Guest:So it's a weird combination of both being like, I don't know what we are, but also I have a responsibility to help you grow into a human being.
Guest:And I how do I do that?
Guest:You have that responsibility with siblings and a kid now.
Guest:Yeah, I have two kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 37.
Guest:You just did it.
Marc:You feel like you needed to do that.
Guest:I nutted in a lady and I said, let's keep going.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I got none, you know, but I'm like, I'm, I'm emotionally broken.
Marc:So when you're in Chicago, what do you start out doing?
Marc:I mean, like, did you start doing comedy?
Marc:Cause you like to act obviously.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I started in standup.
Guest:I'm, you know, that's where it started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I started, you know, doing the open mics and where, like who, like what year, how old were you?
Marc:Did you go to college or what'd you do?
Guest:I went to college.
Guest:I graduated college in 2009.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The height of, you know, the market crash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I sort of realized that like, oh, we're, I followed the rules.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to school.
Guest:I got good grades.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to a good college.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:University of Michigan.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And the- That is good.
Guest:You know, there's no job at the end of that.
Guest:What'd you study?
Guest:An English degree.
Guest:So that's on me.
Guest:There's no job anyway.
Marc:I did the same thing.
Marc:I mean, I have this feeling that-
Marc:about English majors, that it was something to focus on, and you knew that it was going to broaden your horizons intellectually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think that if you sign up for an English degree, either you don't know what the fuck you want to do, or you just want to be smarter.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, if you get into college and I'm going to do English, you're not thinking about jobs.
Guest:No, but I really liked poetry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that was going to be my shit.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:And that...
Marc:pays less than we get.
Marc:No, there's no money in it.
Marc:But I mean, by that time, there was sort of that slam poetry thing.
Marc:It was happening.
Guest:Deaf Poetry Jam was huge for me.
Guest:So I was like, oh, I'll be a poet.
Guest:I'll get on Deaf Poetry Jam.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:No.
Marc:Never.
Marc:Never once.
Marc:But performatively...
Marc:It's just one step away from stand-up.
Marc:It's almost like you have an appreciation of words, but not necessarily the appreciation of funny.
Marc:But you do have the appreciation of impact and delivering it.
Marc:So on some levels, there are some... I knew a guy who was into that.
Marc:He started as a comic, then made a racket out of poetry, then came back to comedy, and then got into trouble somehow.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I don't know...
Marc:I think he's with Jesus now.
Marc:Do you know who I'm talking about?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So Jesus got him through many struggles.
Marc:So he's into the old poetry.
Marc:I got you.
Marc:The Bible poetry.
Marc:The original poem.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there is something about the compulsion to do that.
Marc:Because when I was...
Marc:In college, there was none of that.
Marc:There was, you know, the closest you got to what became slam poetry was, you know, Allen Ginsberg.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and the way he kind of worked rhythmically.
Marc:But it wasn't a thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I wrote, you know, I don't talk about it a lot.
Marc:Yeah, because there's something, there's a little more swagger to slam poetry, even though you mock it in your special.
Marc:But to just write like, you know, like, well, I really like William Carlos Williams and E.E.
Marc:Cummings and I'm kind of working some shit out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:To me, the poetry of yesteryear felt cooler.
Marc:Who are you guys?
Guest:Well, in poetry, I read a lot of... I don't read anything anymore.
Guest:Sharon Olds was really big for me.
Guest:Terrence Hayes is really big for me.
Guest:Louise Glick was one of my professors.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And she passed last year, and that was crazy.
Guest:But yeah, I loved...
Guest:I fell in love with the literary word, but previous to that, poetry sort of became a nice segue into comedy for all the reasons you're saying of, like, impact on stage and learning to, like, manipulate words into making people laugh.
Marc:But it's interesting, though, right?
Marc:With poetry, like...
Marc:There's something about it.
Marc:You know, I don't know that I was ever very good.
Marc:But, like, there are certain poems that I wrote back in the day where I'm like, that was pretty good.
Marc:And then, like, you know, there's really no one to tell you it's good.
Marc:And you never believe them.
Marc:And there's no way to put it out in the world to get validated in a way unless you want to stay in academics.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I think slam poetry is a little different.
Marc:But there was something about, you know.
Marc:When you focus on playing with words for poetry, there's a real kind of like once you nail it, if you start working with a group of words and you're not really clear what you're trying to say, it becomes almost like this kind of like what's the word I want?
Marc:Like an elevating math problem.
Marc:Right?
Marc:There's a puzzle quality.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And sort of like when you fuck with the rhythm and you fuck with the words, even you don't know what's going to come out of that.
Marc:And then when something does, you're like, wow, that kind of made me feel a certain way.
Marc:And it's very rewarding.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I think it's also what kind of scared me out of it to some extent.
Guest:It's certainly the performance element of it because...
Guest:I found myself landing that feeling you're talking about where you're like, holy shit, I didn't even know that's what I was trying to say.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then when you are a performance poet, the ask is to then go replicate that feeling for an audience.
Marc:Make it happen.
Guest:And sometimes you don't feel that feeling anymore because you got it out on the page.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:And also like to expect an audience to appreciate it in a live way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, it seems like, and I'm not diminishing it, but, like, it seems like slam poetry is pretty up front.
Marc:Like, you know, you can make your metaphors and you can do your turns of phrases, but they got to be attached to sort of something that's tethered to reality and to your experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whereas, like, if you're just writing, you know, a kind of ethereal bit of business that's, you know, kind of driven by your feelings on the page...
Marc:You know, sometimes that feeling, it'd be hard to replicate out loud.
Guest:There's a reason T.S.
Guest:Eliot wasn't reading that shit in front of people.
Marc:And now here, let's give it up.
Marc:Make some noise for the wasteland.
Marc:T.S.
Marc:Eliot, the wasteland.
Guest:Yeah, some of that stuff, just to your point, wasn't going to play the same in person.
Marc:T.S.
Marc:Eliot, the dry salvages.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:Boom, boom, boom.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:But so obviously you at some point realized when you had that amazing feeling of putting some words together that there's no living in this.
Guest:Well, I win.
Guest:I'm stupid enough.
Guest:I got a master's degree and I got an MFA in poetry.
Marc:So your options were teach or teach.
Guest:Yeah, I was going to teach.
Guest:That was my plan.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:I taught high school for a few years.
Guest:That's different.
Guest:Full time for a few years.
Guest:You could have stayed in higher learning.
Guest:But then when would we talk?
Guest:When would you and I get to know?
Marc:When I ran out of guests entirely.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You just start going to local schools.
Marc:Somebody, my writer friend would have said, you know, this guy, I don't know if you know him, he's doing some amazing poetry.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:He's actually the funniest teacher we have here.
Guest:And you're going to want to talk to him.
Marc:So you got an MFA in poetry and then you go teach high school kids?
Guest:Yeah, I taught high school.
Marc:I mean, I know in the special, what's the special called again?
Marc:Bad Poetry.
Marc:Bad Poetry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, you really talk about your experience about dealing with kids of that age.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, walking into that, I mean, were you, did you see yourself as like, well, I'm going to be of service?
Marc:I mean, why would you teach?
Marc:I mean, it just seems so daunting.
Guest:I, my mom taught.
Guest:I had a teacher in high school who was very, a man named Peter Kahn who was very important to me and had like left a big impact in terms of like me finding poetry and a sense of self and shit.
Guest:And so I thought, you know, I'm going to mirror these people who meant something to me and they seem like good people and I'm going to try to be
Marc:Well, they blew your mind.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:I had a guy, an English teacher in high school who did that, Dr. Hayes, and he was an odd little man.
Marc:He encouraged me to do poetry, but I did one of these poems.
Marc:I've always been a sort of like a too much information guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just remember writing this poem about, you know, high school and about virginity.
Marc:And it was like really kind of like raw shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I remember reading it out loud.
Marc:And, you know, and what I was trying to say definitely connected, but it was so cringy.
Marc:I could never look at anybody.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:That odd little man was like, you got to chill out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's very interesting.
Yeah.
Marc:Very honest.
Marc:But I do.
Marc:I guess I do hold him somewhat, you know, in in in that place where, you know, he did spark something in me creatively.
Guest:And I think a worse teacher would have told you not to be that honest.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, and then that discourages what ultimately becomes the voice that you create as a stand up.
Marc:Yeah, I never really thought about its impact on me.
Marc:But, you know, you're a sophomore in high school and you put yourself out there like that and you already feel uncomfortable.
Marc:And you've just made this bit of expression that amplifies your discomfort.
Marc:It's sort of like, yeah, the comedy is the next step.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I either become very self-serious or I stop taking any of this seriously.
Marc:Well, what's weird about poetry, too, is like, you know, my biggest fear in life is embarrassment.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Right?
Marc:And it's a weird thing that, you know, I chose comedy to sort of kind of like, you know, if I'm going to embarrass myself, I want to have complete control over it.
Marc:I'm going to get in front of this right away.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you have that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm having it constantly.
Guest:I'm having it right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that so much of what ultimately transitioned me into comedy was feeling embarrassed about doing poetry.
Guest:And then at the open mics of our college, I figured out that I could host those and talk shit in between other people's poems.
Guest:The poetry open mics?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we would have like this, this open mic for all the students and everybody would perform.
Guest:And I liked being able to host it because then I could just read one poem and talk shit between everybody's poems.
Guest:And that sort of like eventually, and it took a little while.
Guest:I saw.
Marc:Is this after teaching or during?
Guest:This is before any of that.
Guest:This is like truly in college, just fucking around.
Marc:But you didn't do comedy yet.
Marc:I didn't do comedy yet.
Marc:So you had that feeling of the—because the difference between experiencing a personal revelation through writing a poem on paper and then getting a laugh is different.
Marc:It's very different.
Marc:But, you know, but it is sort of the same—
Marc:Because if I think about your comedy or I think about what I'm doing, if you can make somebody look at something differently than they already did or have that experience of like, I never thought of that or that's funny because that is a poetry thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think the whole goal is to be provocative.
Guest:And it's just whether I'm provoking you to reflect or provoking you to laugh.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Or see something differently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the hope is to merge all of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what did I know you talk about it a bit in the special, but I mean, it seems like if you were teaching high school as your first gig out of college, that that that must have been the final straw.
Guest:It didn't help.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To drive you to stand up because, you know, you talked about the thing is, we're all pretty sensitive people.
Marc:You know, comics, you know, we you know, we we seek to kill it.
Marc:You know, we're constantly pretending we're not.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's the whole job in a way.
Marc:And I think you eventually, at least professionally, get a tougher skin about it.
Marc:I don't know that you get any less sensitive.
Marc:But I can't imagine.
Marc:And you talk about it fairly specifically.
Marc:If you're going into it with an open heart and you're teaching high school, how the fuck are you going to live through that?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I truly, I did six months as the assistant to that teacher I was talking about back home at my high school.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And then was so sort of like miserable in that, went and started doing open mics at like a local bar.
Marc:But was this guy, your mentor, when he saw you were miserable, did you have conversations?
Marc:Did he tell you like, dude, you can't take this person.
Yeah.
Guest:They're kids.
Guest:There were constant sort of like reminders that this is a job and this is part of it.
Guest:It's not about you.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:We're here for a greater good and all that shit.
Guest:But look, I'm a comedian the way you are.
Guest:We have egos and desires that live in the back of our head that can't be satiated by helping you get a job at Best Buy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Guest:I got other plans.
Guest:I mean, were you performing for the class?
Guest:Not really?
Guest:No, I've done everything I can to keep my students away from anything that ultimately would have been comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what were you teaching?
Guest:I taught poetry for a year back in Chicago.
Guest:Then I got into my MFA program in Boston.
Guest:And taught high school English in Boston in Boston, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we met in Boston.
Guest:You're not going to remember this at all.
Guest:But we actually met in Boston.
Guest:I did the Boston Comedy Festival.
Guest:Oh, when I was at the Somerville Theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they honored you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they gave me a little thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were you were backstage and you shook all the finalists hands.
Guest:And you were one of them.
Guest:I was one of them.
Guest:You were very like indifferent about the whole experience, both the honoring and the shaking hands of us who were happy to meet you.
Marc:Well, it's weird because I mean, I don't even know what year that was.
Marc:What year was it?
Marc:So I'm sure I was not in a good place.
Guest:2011 or 2012.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So all of a sudden I was sort of, because of the podcast, all of a sudden a recognizable character.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I lived in Timberville before, you know, when it was like just fucking, you know, wheezing little village.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Before it became like this cool hip place to move to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I was there like it was all just old style.
Marc:And I was there when Red Bones opened.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I was sort of like, what is this?
Marc:It's just like barbecue every twice a week.
Marc:And I got to know the people that own the place.
Guest:You don't only barbecue twice a week?
Marc:That's a noble purpose.
Marc:So that guy, Rob and Karen, the people that ran that place, they were just trying to bring all the different barbecues to get honoring each region.
Marc:So it was like, I'm going to fucking eat there all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now I have plaque in my heart.
Marc:But I imagine teaching, though, like if you get one or two kids that are really interested, it's got to be rewarding.
Marc:It's huge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's all you're going to get, right?
Guest:You hope for more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do think that in the grand scheme of things, there remain a bunch of kids that I taught and worked with.
Guest:that like stay in contact, have found themselves sort of working in the arts in ways that I didn't expect them to.
Guest:And that feels affirming in a cool way, and I'm excited for them.
Guest:But yeah, I don't know that you know how many you can actually pull out of a classroom, especially when it's sometimes 30 kids that you're just hoping to... Connect something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To get them into a different place than just, you know, staying who they are in high school for the rest of their life.
Guest:Or just make a plan.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Even if you don't solve the problem, just truly start to be like, oh, I think maybe in a couple years I might try this.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Give them a little bit of a voice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A little confidence in something.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you did your MFA in Boston.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where?
Marc:BU.
Marc:I went to BU.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Hell yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:We weren't there at the same time.
Marc:Definitely not.
Marc:I was an undergrad there for five years.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Like, it was 81, 82, I was out in Milton at Curry College.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And then from 82 to 86, I was in BU.
Marc:Did you learn student housing?
Guest:No, because I was an adult by that point, so I was living in Brighton.
Guest:Brighton?
Guest:Yeah, taking the bus in.
Marc:How far up?
Marc:On Com Ave or Beacon?
Guest:I was near Com Ave, so it wasn't that bad.
Guest:I had no family in Boston, no connection there, and so I ended up living in a hell house where truly the first dude that I ended up living with
Guest:was ended up getting arrested as like a sex pest, like fully went to prison and had like become infamous in Boston as what they were coining the loose cannon because he would break into women's homes late at night and and jerk off on their faces while they were sleeping.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I found out via the news.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I truly know the guy down the hall.
Guest:Just paying rent to him, signing checks, having no idea that this was... What was his alias life?
Marc:What did you see him as?
Guest:He said that he was a day trader and would carry literally a Mac, like your Mac, from room to room, being like, I'm going to work out the kitchen today and carry a big-ass computer between rooms.
Guest:So he was a psychopath at home, but not jerking off on my face kind of psychopath.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:That's fucking...
Marc:Profoundly disturbing.
Marc:How long did you live there?
Marc:You were there when it happened?
Guest:I was there when he went missing.
Guest:And there were three of us in the apartment.
Guest:And then the other roommate was like, yo, he's missing.
Guest:We should be concerned.
Guest:Called the police.
Guest:And the police were like, he's not missing.
Guest:We got him.
Oh, my God.
Guest:And then they, you know, the police won't tell you why they have people.
Guest:And so you have to go to the courthouse.
Guest:And we went to the courthouse and I found out that I didn't know his real name, that we had been writing checks to a person.
Marc:That didn't even exist.
Marc:So he was a full on sociopath.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And then in Googling his real name, discovered this laundry list of criminal history.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And you're just going to graduate school?
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to grad school, writing poems with my friends.
Yeah.
Marc:What was the graduate program at BU?
Marc:Who were your professors?
Guest:Louise Glick.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Robert Penske, who remains a weird sort of like advocate for what I'm doing, despite being, you know, the celebrated, brilliant poet he is.
Guest:He still will be like, oh, watch this thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's fucking weird.
Marc:Well, they're all jealous.
Yeah.
Marc:You think that the life in academia is a thrill a minute?
Marc:They all get mired in bureaucracy and jaded and cynical.
Guest:What an interesting twist on that.
Guest:I took it solely as him being just celebrating what I'm doing.
Guest:You're like, no, he's seething with jealousy.
Marc:I don't know if he's seething, but I think there is a kind of leveling off of that academic life where if anybody that you were a student or anything is doing anything, getting the word out and being creative, you're like happy.
Marc:But there's got to be party that's sort of like, I never did.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, well, what I will say is that Penske does a fair amount of work with jazz.
Guest:Like he does live performances where he'll like, he has a band and he'll incorporate jazz into it.
Guest:And I think he is taken with performance in a way that makes comedy sort of like a natural, like, attractive thing to it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you're in grad, you finished the MFA, you got your master's?
Guest:Yeah, I got my master's and then I started teaching high school.
Guest:But when do you start doing comedy?
Guest:I had started doing comedy already.
Guest:So I was doing comedy at night.
Marc:In Chicago you started?
Guest:Started in Chicago.
Guest:Oh, you said nine months.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Doing open mics and shit?
Marc:Doing open mics.
Marc:But comedy open mics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when I moved to Boston, the comedy studio was still a thing.
Marc:Rick?
Guest:Yeah, Rick Jenkins.
Marc:I think it's back.
Marc:I don't know where it is.
Marc:I think I got an email from him.
Guest:I think it's complicated.
Marc:Yeah, I have no idea what happened there.
Marc:I knew Jenkins when I started.
Marc:He was around when I started in Boston.
Marc:I was talking to some people from Emerson.
Marc:Emerson College, there's an Emerson College here now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On Sunset.
Marc:I didn't know that.
Marc:It's a big, beautiful place, and I didn't realize what it was.
Marc:I was asked to speak at a class yesterday.
Marc:But what the Emerson here is, it's really just an extension of the Emerson in Boston—
Marc:For students to come here for like a semester.
Marc:It's almost like an extension thing.
Marc:You do your semester in L.A.
Marc:You study abroad in Los Angeles.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And it's like it's an industry school in a way.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was kind of interesting because I was talking to those kids and one of their teachers is a comic I started with.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They bring up the...
Marc:They bring up the teacher and I'm like, Mike Bent.
Marc:I know Mike Bent.
Marc:Is that an uncomfortable thing?
Marc:Are you like, oh, no.
Marc:I was happy that he's working.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:He used to do a whole gig.
Marc:It was like, I think it was the child magician.
Marc:Mike Bent, he was this weird little guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he's very kind of endearing.
Marc:And he'd do these, you know, kind of inspired odd magic tricks.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:But it was like a whole character.
Marc:But when I told them that I started with him, they were like, no way.
Marc:So I think I gave him some props, really.
Marc:Oh, he's doing good now.
Marc:Well, now these kids are going to go back like, you are a real guy.
Guest:Turns out you're the cool professor we've been looking for.
Guest:We never thought that.
Marc:So you were doing the studio, and who was around?
Marc:I mean, you got a class?
Marc:Sam.
Marc:Sam was around.
Guest:She's the tail end of my time in Boston.
Guest:Josh Gondelman was around when I was in Boston.
Marc:They were all coming off like, you know, Sam is like, you know, there was that generation that had sort of a real experience with Patrice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I think Patrice had a big impact on Sam.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think she knew him in a much more formative era than certainly I did by the time I was in Boston.
Marc:She's the most like him I know, I've seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, just creating these things, you know, talking about these ideas in a very honest way that are just sort of like, fuck.
Guest:And the digging.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And continuing to dig.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And those people are being like, please stop.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Yeah, it's smart.
Marc:So you're doing, what, you're just doing straight stand-up?
Guest:Yeah, just doing stand-up, Knicks comedy stuff.
Guest:You know, all the saddest places you remember from Boston.
Marc:Well, when I was there, it was a pretty vital comedy town.
Marc:So Knicks, when I was there, there was like five Knicks.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:Dude, there was a period there when Knicks was open and there were Knicks everywhere.
Marc:There was the Knicks in Saugus at the Kowloon.
Marc:That was probably there when you were there.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:They were still there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They've tried one in Framingham.
Marc:They tried one in Worcester, I think.
Marc:I think there was a Nixon marble head for two minutes.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:They've continued to try to, I think, expand at various points, but I don't know that the—
Marc:That downtown room when it was full on, it was big.
Marc:There was like they made the upstairs room into a room.
Marc:And then there was I think there was literally like two.
Marc:It was at least two, but maybe three rooms within that structure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you could kind of do like six shows in a night.
Guest:No, they still had that by the time I was there, but it wasn't six shows a night.
Guest:It was like.
Guest:Oh, every once in a while, we're going to have like teens come to this downstairs room and you'll perform at 12 in the afternoon for a bunch of camp kids.
Marc:It was crazy back in the day, man.
Guest:No, Boston, the legend of Boston sounds spectacular.
Guest:The experience of being a comic in the early aughts felt remarkable.
Marc:So you were just doing mics at the downtown room, the Knicks downtown?
Guest:Yeah, just shows, mics, whatever, headlining, or not headlining, but featuring and hosting.
Marc:It was like a 20-minute spot, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, you get some time and you learn to cut your teeth.
Marc:Well, there used to be all these guys.
Marc:There was a crew in Boston.
Marc:It was a regional thing where these guys could make a living just by working the region.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:There's not a lot of them around anymore.
Guest:The Steve Sweeney's of the world.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They could feed their— Don Gavin.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:A lot of them passed away that were around when I was younger.
Marc:But there were some real characters around, dude.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:So how long are you doing that, hammering it away?
Guest:In Boston for three years, and then I moved to New York and was there for five.
Wow.
Guest:So you did the whole thing.
Marc:Yeah, I hit every major market I could.
Marc:And in Boston, like, were you doing one-nighters and shit?
Marc:I do it.
Marc:Yeah, I do that shit.
Guest:Did they have them?
Marc:Where you go out for, like, did you ever do Mike Clark's rooms?
Marc:Did you ever do Giggles?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I did everything that anybody would let me do.
Guest:I would drive three hours.
Guest:You did it.
Guest:To go to, like, Hartford, Connecticut.
Guest:For $150.
Guest:Yeah, to go bomb and, you know, something that they were saying was going to be a thing that never became a thing.
Marc:So they were still around.
Marc:Like, who was booking those?
Marc:Like, Clark?
Marc:And was The Connection still booking stuff?
Guest:The Connection didn't exist by the time that I— Dick Daugherty?
Guest:Dick Daugherty was still around.
Guest:And, yeah.
Marc:Langston.
Marc:Langston.
Marc:Langston.
Guest:I remember I'll never forget it.
Guest:I remember that Boston Comedy Night at Boston Comedy Festival night.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I did the finals.
Guest:I didn't win.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember specifically Dick coming up to all of us afterwards.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:You did good.
Guest:And he came up to me and he said, you you didn't seem quite yourself tonight.
Guest:And I'll never fucking forgive him.
Yeah.
Guest:For the feeling that that left inside of me, it's forever.
Guest:He did the same to me.
Marc:Yeah, I was driving him to a gig.
Marc:It was me and Dick and some other guy in the backseat.
Marc:And he goes, Mark, you're insecure.
Marc:that's your problem you're insecure i'm like what yeah i know man that's why i'm doing this that's all i remember about dick darty i remember a few things well he was a big act down on the cape he used to be like the guy yeah when they had happy hours like he would sing he was a big thing i remember he had a guitar yes that's the legend i never saw dick perform because by the time
Guest:I was doing it.
Guest:He was just running the vault in his other rooms.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there was a thing.
Marc:What happened was they outlawed happy hours at some point.
Marc:So there was a big infusion of guitar acts into the local comedy scene.
Guest:Which is always what you want.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You want more guitar.
Marc:But he was like supposedly a big deal down the Cape.
Marc:And I remember I went to pick him up at his house once and he had this huge portrait of himself.
Marc:in the house a younger dick doherty i love that yeah and he had just kind of a this uh you know big kind of bold looking irish guy with his mustache he's a real real star real regional star was he was and i mean this was he handsome was this like uh well yeah he had that kind of like that uh you know kind of like a burly you know tough irish guy look
Guest:Yeah, he was a rustic looking man.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:He had that long ass gray hair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I remember being in a car with him and we were driving down.
Marc:I think it was like Newberry for some reason.
Marc:And he saw Steve Tyler.
Marc:He's like, stop the car.
Marc:Stop the car.
Marc:And he got out and he hugged Steve Tyler and they were having a nice talk.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Look at this.
Marc:Well, it was a recovery thing, you know.
Marc:He became, I think, a very sober mentor to a lot of people.
Marc:I got you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're doing the one-nighters.
Guest:Yeah, I'm doing everything that Boston will offer you.
Guest:And then you go to New York?
Guest:I go to New York.
Guest:And where did you live down there?
Guest:I was in Bed-Stuy pretty much the whole time.
Guest:And what were the rooms you were doing there?
Guest:Brooklyn had really started to build a beautiful alt scene.
Guest:So Hannibal's room?
Guest:Yeah, the knitting factory was real big and just any of the sort of alt-y Brooklyn.
Guest:Did Rami have a room too?
Guest:Rami never had a room while I was there.
Marc:Like who was booking the rooms?
Marc:Because like that thing that Eugene Merman was doing, that was gone.
Marc:His festival?
Marc:Not the festival.
Marc:Well, that was where, at the bell house?
Marc:Yeah, he would have his.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, he used to do a weekly show in the city.
Marc:I can never remember the name of him and Bobby Tisdale and bring them up or something.
Marc:I can't remember what it was, but that was over.
Guest:That was long gone, Bobby.
Marc:So it was mostly Brooklyn.
Guest:It was mostly Brooklyn.
Marc:Well, that's interesting because that means in some ways you're kind of a hybrid.
Marc:You started in the trenches and then the alt thing became your home.
Guest:Yeah, I think I felt just more comfortable figuring out like a way to make this feel kind of egalitarian and not.
Marc:But also to say what you want to say.
Marc:I mean, like, I don't know necessarily that you could do what you were doing at the cellar.
Guest:The act that I was doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like even like the special?
Marc:Well, no.
Marc:I mean like if you're kind of exploring different ideas that take a little time to get out, some of those rooms in New York are a little – you really got to punch it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean the cellar is great now, but I think at the time I probably wasn't ready for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And it used to be –
Guest:a pretty hard line of like dude you had to earn the seller yeah tough room and i i wanted to earn it the way that you have to did you i have now yeah you can work over there i go work the seller now but like at the time it was very much like oh yeah you gotta they walk in and see those guys in the back this the table i i was terrified of that table i
Guest:I listened to enough of this podcast to know that that table was going to eat me alive.
Guest:It was heavy.
Marc:Patrice, was he alive when you were coming up still?
Guest:Patrice, by the time I was in New York, I think had, if he hadn't passed, he only had been another year or two kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah, because if he was at the table, you're going to take a hit.
Guest:Yeah, no, I was terrified.
Guest:The idea of Patrice, I think, is probably my favorite, if not one of my favorites of all time.
Guest:And the idea of even sitting across from him terrified me more than anything.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You couldn't get a word in and you were going to definitely get your ass handed to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So how long did you stay in New York?
Guest:I was in New York for almost five years.
Marc:And were you working?
Marc:Were you starting to go on the road and stuff?
Guest:I was in New York working part time in education doing like after school programming and like Kaplan.
Guest:Do you remember the Kaplan like test prep people?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was one of those guys.
Marc:You taught kids how to take their tests?
Marc:How to take the SAT and shit.
Marc:But it sounds to me like, you know, you got your hearts in it.
Marc:You weren't just doing that for money.
Marc:Well, there was no money.
Yeah.
Marc:So there was something about you that felt like you needed to be an educator.
Guest:I just knew that I had a limited skill set.
Marc:So if you were a chef, you would have been cooking somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the thing.
Guest:I didn't know what else I could be doing.
Marc:I'm going to use this degree, the only jobs it has to offer me, substitute teaching.
Guest:No, I was I was teaching full time in New York in New York.
Guest:I was doing like after school programming.
Guest:Yeah, like I would like there was a place in Red Hook that specialized in basically like helping kids finish their homework and stay, you know, Red Hook has the largest projects in the country.
Guest:And so it was like the goal was to keep the kids from ending up on the streets.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they come to this place and you work with them.
Guest:And it's called the Red Hook Initiative.
Guest:Was that rewarding?
Guest:Yeah, it was cool.
Guest:There were there were a lot of there were a lot of kids who I thought benefited from what that program was.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But by that point, I knew I wanted to be a stand up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was just a question of how quickly can I get out of this?
Marc:This.
Guest:This, despite how rewarding it is.
Marc:Where did you teach in Boston?
Guest:In High Park.
Guest:There's a school called the Academy of the Pacific Rim that specializes in taking the mostly Caribbean kids of that community and teaching them Chinese studies.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So they all like learn Mandarin.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They follow sort of like Chinese traditions in the school.
Guest:But I was an English teacher.
Guest:Caribbean kids?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of Haitian kids just learned to speak Mandarin.
Guest:That's fucking crazy.
Guest:I took them to China, everything.
Marc:You took them to China?
Guest:Hell yeah.
Marc:What?
Guest:Yeah, it was cool.
Marc:Hyde Park, is that like at the edge of Mattapan?
Guest:It's west side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like you take the orange line all the way to the end and you take a bus in a different direction, essentially.
Guest:And so you took how many kids to China?
Guest:I took what were there?
Guest:Ten kids to China?
Guest:And you'd never been?
Guest:Yeah, me and another teacher.
Guest:No, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:We spent two weeks in Beijing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And then we took a 17-hour train ride to Xi'an.
Guest:And one of the more horrifying train rides I've ever experienced.
Marc:You don't feel like there's a lot of safety protocols in place.
Marc:No.
Marc:With the things in China.
Marc:Like, I was in Beijing for like a week because I did a gig there.
Marc:Beijing and, I think, not Hong Kong.
Marc:I think...
Marc:Yeah, it was Beijing and Hong Kong, I think.
Marc:But I found it fascinating.
Marc:It was like going to another fucking planet, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's me and 10 black children.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Mostly there was probably six black kids and four white kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But but one of them in particular was like six four.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so like we literally could not walk the streets without people stopping this kid to take pictures with him or touch him because they just had never seen that species of human before.
Guest:It did not exist for them.
Guest:And so like we we had to plan for extra time because they're going to they're going to grab him up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We got to.
Guest:What do you think of that?
Guest:We got to adjust.
Guest:I mean, he was 14, so he's like, this is fucking awesome.
Guest:It's crazy, man.
Guest:I'm the man around here.
Marc:I saw more kind of hand or feet-driven vehicles in Beijing than I've ever seen in my life.
Marc:Every kind of bicycle contraption.
Marc:People were getting haircuts on the street.
Guest:It was crazy to me.
Guest:I remember crossing the street with them was one of the most terrifying things we could do because-
Guest:You know where it was coming from.
Marc:There are no regulations.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I almost died on some fucking thing there.
Marc:We went to visit the Great Wall, you know, and they had, you know, it's kind of phenomenal.
Marc:You know, these seven wonders, they're seven wonders for a reason.
Marc:They make the list for a reason.
Guest:Did you go to the wall?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I thought it would be chiller than it is, and it's so hard.
Guest:You are ascending into the heavens as you walk up that fucking wall.
Marc:And then when you get on a piece of it, you just look at the span of it.
Marc:It's like nuts.
Marc:But there was some sort of concession where we were.
Marc:There was some sort of like – it was like a bobsled type of ride just on tracks and you just sit in this little thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you go down these tracks and you control –
Marc:With speed, with these handles.
Marc:And I had no idea.
Marc:There was no guardrails.
Marc:There was nothing.
Marc:And I got on this thing.
Marc:And I'm having a hard time controlling it.
Marc:And I'm getting towards the bottom of it.
Marc:And there are these Chinese people going, go, go.
Marc:And I'm thinking like they're going, yeah.
Marc:They're not cheering you on.
Marc:No, they're saying stop.
Marc:So I just fucking plow into all these other things.
Marc:I knocked a family into the goddamn dirt.
Marc:Like, it was amazing I didn't get hurt more.
Marc:But I was like, there is nobody in charge here.
Marc:No.
Marc:What was the train like?
Marc:Was it that kind of thing?
Guest:So my most terrifying moment inside the train was because there were black children, we had separated the girls and the boys into their sleeper cars.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But the sleeper cars don't have doors.
Guest:It's just wide open.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:While some of the girls are sleeping, I hear a bunch of them scream out because there's just a man standing in the room watching them sleep because he's like, I ain't never seen this sleep before.
Marc:It wasn't like your roommate.
Guest:No.
Guest:It was just him going, what is this?
Guest:He's like, I'm going to check on this real quick.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then he walked away.
Marc:Some guys told me about this.
Yeah.
Guest:They said there's some black people over here?
Guest:I didn't believe them, but I saw them.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:Did you go to, like, the Forbidden City and stuff?
Marc:No, we went to— Do you go to Tiananmen's?
Marc:Check that out, Tiananmen Square?
Guest:No, I mean, some of what the trip was was, like, paired with our sister's school.
Guest:And so a lot of it was driven through, like, activities inside the school, keeping them in school, but letting them sort of engage with a different—
Marc:And did the kids love it?
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:I think it was life-changing for them.
Guest:For me, honestly.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I was eating fucking scorpion on the street and starfish.
Marc:You don't know what they're selling as pets or food.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:you go you're walking down the street like what is this they they'd literally put scorpion on a stick that's still alive and grill it for 10 seconds and then hand it to you and it's still twitching no and you were supposed to eat how is it it tastes like sunflower seeds it's not that bad yeah if you can get past the physical i used to do a whole bit about about the the when you walk through chinatown or certainly in china yeah at grocery type of situations you're like what is that yeah is that a
Marc:Is it a bug?
Marc:Is it a rock?
Marc:Is it from the ocean?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And then I used to do this bit about how like when you've been a civilization that long, you're going to get around to eating everything.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we haven't tried that over there yet.
Marc:Exactly, exactly.
Marc:Let's give that a nibble.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's a great experience, man.
Guest:Yeah, it was really cool.
Guest:I've been very lucky to trick people into letting me travel places.
Marc:Oh, it's great.
Marc:And, well, comedy, you can certainly do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're in New York, and then what gets you out here?
Guest:My then girlfriend, who is now my wife, lived in Baltimore at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were doing long distance and didn't it ultimately came down to a choice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of like either you moved to New York or.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We're going to be able to keep doing this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She didn't want to live in New York.
Guest:New York is hard.
Guest:She's a lawyer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She, you know, had a life that was.
Guest:She was in Baltimore.
Guest:And she was in Baltimore.
Guest:And so L.A.
Guest:became a nice concession for.
Guest:Oh, you agreed on it.
Guest:Yeah, it was like, all right, well, you don't want to live in New York, then I have two places I can be, and Baltimore ain't one of them.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm moving to fucking Baltimore with you.
Marc:Step sideways.
Guest:Sideways?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't know.
Marc:It seems like a city.
Guest:Name one place you can do comedy consistently in Baltimore.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:How far is it from D.C.?
Guest:It's like 45 to an hour depending on.
Marc:A lot of guys came from D.C.
Guest:D.C.
Guest:'s great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But Baltimore ain't it, so.
Marc:I hear it's kind of rough, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Baltimore.
Guest:Her part of it was great.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She grew up there?
Marc:Yeah, she grew up there.
Marc:And this is your wife?
Marc:Yeah, it's my wife.
Marc:So you come out here, and you got any juice?
Marc:Or you're just a guy?
Guest:No, by the time I came here, I'd been on some shit.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Insecure, which sort of became like the first thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I wrote for Chris Rock's Oscar team the year that he hosted.
Marc:Oh, you did, yeah.
Marc:Oh, no, he wasn't hosting when he got hit.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'd love to have written that year.
Guest:That'd be whatever that joke was.
Guest:I would love to take responsibility.
Marc:It wasn't even that great a joke.
Marc:No, it's... It was all because, you know, Will was out of his fucking mind.
Guest:Yeah, there was a weird history, I think.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was fucking crazy, dude.
Guest:It's really one of the funniest group chat days I've ever had in my life.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:So you wrote for Chris for the Oscars out here.
Marc:And are you friends with Chris now?
Guest:No, I wouldn't say we're friends, but I don't think there's any malice.
Marc:He's one of those guys where I'll get occasionally a random text over nothing once a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm like, hey, Chris Rock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I don't even get those texts.
Guest:Congratulations to you.
Guest:No, I mean, I'm very grateful that he would even allow me to be in that room, but I didn't get anything off.
Guest:Michelle Wolf, she was there.
Guest:Scott Ackerman was a good buddy there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, who I had done a pilot with, but also was just a dude who kind of was also at the end of the table riffing with me and being silly.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:um nimesh patel was was there he's a funny guy yeah he he and i sort of booked it the same day because chris had come out to a show that nimesh hosted in new york in new york um and i did a set and then nimesh did a set after or it might have been the other way either way chris saw both of us and was like yeah both those yeah yeah oh wow so yeah it was it was a great uh rodney barnes who i think is
Guest:brilliant and amazing yeah i know that guy i can't i can't picture him um yeah yeah i mean he made he made uh fucking uh winning time he's made yeah he was responsible for a lot of boondocks oh yeah yeah right right yeah yeah he's a brilliant brilliant comic how i knew the name
Guest:And a lot of people from the old Chris Rock show were a part of it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It was a great collection.
Guest:And I was a child who had not yet figured out how to, you know, make my hero laugh.
Guest:It didn't work.
Marc:It didn't work.
Marc:But you got the experience.
Marc:I got the experience.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then so when you come out here, what's a...
Marc:So how, how big was your part on insecure?
Guest:Uh, I was in the first season pretty heavy and then, you know, tapered off.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:It was a funny show.
Guest:It did some, it did some work for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've just been working ever since.
Marc:So putting together the special, where'd you, did you tour it or what'd you do?
Guest:I toured it as much as I could.
Guest:Comedy clubs?
Guest:Clubs.
Guest:I'm still doing clubs.
Guest:I like clubs.
Guest:I like, frankly, more intimate rooms.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:I can go and open for people in theaters, and it's always fun.
Marc:Who do you open for?
Guest:Mulaney.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's some other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of Mulaney.
Guest:But like even that, I really fucking love a low ceiling and an audience that's too close to me.
Marc:It's the best.
Marc:Like, you know, like the Comedy Works.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:I just played that one, the Comedy Works South for the first time.
Marc:And that's fucking great.
Marc:It's also good.
Marc:They're both great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People always talk about it like it's lesser than it.
Marc:No, I know people always say, so are you going to go out and do the other room, the suburban room?
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I did the downtown room for years, and then I booked the other one.
Marc:And I'm like, this is just as good.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's almost like a little theater.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Wendy over there, I don't know.
Marc:She must have inspired design.
Marc:Because both of them have, one has the low ceilings in downtown, but it's tiered as well.
Marc:And it's all right on top of you.
Marc:It's like a mini amphitheater.
Guest:Yeah, I think good clubs that build a suburban room are always fun.
Marc:Yeah, if they work.
Guest:The room in the suburbs tends to be a good time.
Guest:Now, if it's not a good club and they build a room in the suburbs, it's fucking miserable.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know about, because I didn't know about Denver, but downtown Denver is like a shit show on Friday and Saturday night.
Marc:I've never seen drunker stone, more stone people, except in Scotland.
Marc:And I just...
Marc:And so I assume like I do in the other room, people who want to see me, they're going to come to either one.
Marc:It's not that far.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What are some of the other rooms that you like?
Guest:I mean, as far as like other clubs I love, I mean, you know, Madison's amazing.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:The zanies.
Guest:In Chicago?
Guest:The ones in Chicago.
Guest:The old ones?
Guest:I like the old ones, but I really like the Rosemont.
Guest:I never did Rosemont.
Guest:I never did it.
Guest:I fuck with Rosemont.
Guest:Yeah, it's good?
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty fun.
Guest:It's another one where people are like, you're going to do that one?
Guest:And it's like, nah, I like that one.
Marc:Will you do Acme?
Marc:uh i haven't done it yet but i'd love to that's a good room yeah kind of an old school it's not low ceiling it's pretty low but it's a it's always a good room it's one of those that's hailed as yeah as the ones you know what i mean yeah i love the punch line i think is in san fran san fran that's an interesting one in the corporate park but the ceilings are low the ceiling the stage is kind of oddly high
Guest:But it's good.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I think they do an amazing job of still getting the right kind of people in there where they're just like into whatever they chose.
Guest:Like you ascend those steps and you know you wanted to be there.
Guest:And I think for whatever reason that works.
Marc:It's always wild because it is a great comedy room, but you literally are in the kind of quad of a corporate industrial part.
Marc:It's like a, it's a corporate park.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you walk up these stairs and it's just, it's down there in the Embarcadero.
Marc:You, it's, there's nothing else around.
Marc:No.
Marc:I think there's a restaurant over there now.
Marc:I've been there in years, but I definitely did that a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what are you, uh, working on now?
Guest:Uh, I, my, you know, I'm writing, I'm, I, I wrote on Everybody's in LA, the, the show that John did and, uh,
Guest:Just writing my own shit and trying to make more.
Marc:Where are you working here mostly?
Marc:I never see you at the store.
Guest:I don't love the store.
Guest:I'll be honest with you.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It has a fraternal nature to it that makes me uncomfortable.
Guest:It used to.
Marc:Not anymore.
Guest:And I think it may be.
Marc:Why aren't you working there?
Marc:Because that original room is like, that's your jam, man.
Yeah.
Marc:When did you go there and decide it's not for you?
Marc:How long is that?
Guest:Probably too early in my journey here that that now has.
Marc:Was it still kind of like kind of like under the the ego of the Rogan crew?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:That's all gone, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I've, I've had plenty of conversations and I do go play there.
Guest:It's not like I'm like anti store.
Guest:I'm not, it's not that, but it's one of those things where like I, I've done enough emotional work to not want to have to go hang out and wait my turn.
Guest:Oh, that's a nice way to put it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I am not desperate and I'm too proud.
Yeah.
Marc:To do what's necessary to work at that fucking place.
Marc:Hey, we can both say the same thing in different ways.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:Well, I mean, Chappelle talks about having gone there and, you know, and when he saw, you know, comics working the door, he's like, what?
Marc:Like, I'm not doing that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a nightmare.
Marc:I'm a comedian.
Guest:But I don't think I'm going to have to go work the door, but I also think I've sort of created a patience around it where, like,
Guest:If the store wants me to come perform, they know my number and they call me sometimes.
Marc:Do you know Emily?
Guest:I know Emily.
Guest:All right.
Marc:Okay, fine.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:I'm not going to.
Marc:So what do you do?
Marc:The improv?
Guest:I do the improv a bunch.
Guest:I do the laugh records sometimes.
Guest:I do, you know, I do a lot of the sort of like, you know, alt.
Guest:What's left of those?
Guest:They're falling day by day.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like Hot Tub is soon to be gone.
Marc:What, The Virgil?
Guest:It's not even at The Virgil anymore.
Guest:It's not Permanent Records, which has like a bunch of shows that they put on.
Marc:Yeah, I know that.
Marc:Yeah, in the backyard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They don't do the backyard anymore.
Guest:They got sound complaints, so they got to take it inside.
Guest:In that little room?
Guest:Yeah, in that little room.
Guest:How many is that even seat?
Guest:40?
Guest:A hundred maybe.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:If you do standing room all the way to the back.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, he's still doing it.
Marc:Oh, they can't do the backyard anymore.
Guest:Yeah, the Elysian is still like a cool thing.
Guest:Bar Lubitsch has a bunch of shows.
Marc:Bar Lubitsch still going?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That place always felt like a bathroom to me.
Guest:It still is.
Marc:There's just something about the tile.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:It's like that weird Russian sort of like, you know what it is?
Guest:It's a themed bar that didn't finish the job.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like they didn't fully commit to the thing.
Guest:So you're kind of like, I don't.
Guest:It's got vampire bathroom energy, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Marc:What's the theme here?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But you do Dynasty too?
Marc:I do Dynasty.
Guest:That's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:And how's the special doing?
Marc:Do you know?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:They tell you and then you go, okay, and then they hang up the phone.
Marc:What do you want?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, it's a pretty funny special.
Marc:Good stories.
Marc:Thanks, dude.
Marc:Now, what about all those clips you used of people?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you have to get releases on that?
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:We talked to I I presented it as we should clarify.
Guest:I I was managing my my mother in law's social her dating apps.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And very often, men would either post and or send videos or voicemails of them basically trying to swoon or impress women.
Marc:Old black men.
Guest:No, most of them, it was a nice mix.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:Yeah, it was a good mix of white and black.
Guest:In the voices you used?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:What, there were three?
Guest:Yeah, that last dude at the end, I don't know what the fuck he is, but he... The loved one?
Guest:He ain't black.
All right.
Guest:But no, I would just sort of like be talking to these men and they would have these random voice notes.
Guest:And then after a while, I was like, this is too funny not to play with.
Guest:And then when it came down to the legal conversation, they were like, I don't know, bro, they posted it.
Guest:So technically, as long as they weren't ones that had been sent to me directly, like in a private message,
Guest:They were free gain.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Um, and so you don't say names or nothing.
Marc:No, you haven't heard anything.
Marc:Have you?
Guest:And they're old.
Guest:They're not on the internet streaming and shit.
Marc:So you got no, you got no flack for that.
Guest:No, nobody's, nobody's mad at me yet.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:And why'd you pick that place?
Guest:The Green Mill?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is the, quote unquote, birthplace of slam poetry.
Guest:Oh, is it?
Guest:This dude, Mark Smith, used to go there.
Guest:It's an iconic bar in Chicago.
Marc:No, I've been there.
Marc:I did a show there.
Marc:It used to be a radio show there.
Marc:It used to shoot like on Sundays or something.
Marc:I've done shows there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a beautiful venue.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:Capone was there, right?
Guest:Yeah, Capone's big hangout was there.
Guest:But this dude, Mark Smith, used to go there and he wanted to read his poems and nobody would listen.
Guest:So what he figured out was he could get these drunk dudes to participate if he gave them cards to hold up numbers based on the quality of the poem, make it a competition.
Guest:So that's what invented it?
Guest:Yeah, so he just was getting these drunk dudes to listen to his shit and hold up numbers or yell out numbers of like, that's a seven or whatever the fuck it is.
Guest:And then that sort of becomes what we now see as like this competitive slam poetry.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Marc:So you did it for historical reasons.
Guest:I was, as a child, the place that I wanted to perform at the most.
Marc:As a poet.
Guest:As a poet.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Didn't get to until I told dick jokes and stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it's interesting because I remember they set up another stage because the stage you're on is literally behind the bar.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But do they do shows on another stage?
Guest:Yeah, there's a legitimate sort of traditional stage in front of the room.
Marc:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we agreed that it was...
Guest:You got to do the bar one.
Guest:The bar one's cooler and sexier.
Marc:And why did you open the show?
Marc:The funny thing is about the beginning when you have the announce with someone bringing you up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mandel.
Marc:Very funny comedian, Mandel.
Marc:Well, yeah, but he said this next comment.
Marc:And I'm like, would they just how many do they wait out?
Marc:You know, like it's your special.
Marc:And he's saying this next comic.
Guest:So there was a bit that we had to kill because it didn't make it into like it didn't make sense for the cut.
Guest:And also there were going to be legal ramifications for it.
Guest:But I based the entire special or at least the motivation for the special was based on this movie Love Jones, which I have a theory that no white person has ever seen Love Jones.
Guest:You're going to prove that right right now.
Marc:I haven't.
Marc:I knew it.
Marc:But I will tell you this.
Marc:One of my favorite movies is Baby Boy, if I'm going to turn to pander to the black guy.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:We're related.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I think it's the greatest movie ever.
Guest:Listen, I'm a big Tyrese Gibson fan, and anything he does, I'm tuned in.
Marc:On him on that bike, it's fucking the best.
Marc:But yeah, I haven't seen that one.
Guest:I love the idea of you sitting here watching Baby Boy.
Marc:I've watched it many times.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:I think it's a beautiful... For me...
Marc:With movies in general, even with, like, I'm a big fan of, like, Reservation Dogs.
Marc:I championed that show, and he let me be on it.
Marc:If I can sense an honesty about the representation of a community of people that I would have no access to in that personal way, I always find it very moving.
Marc:And I think that Baby Boy is that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it's it's it is a it sometimes gets sort of put in this category of sort of like not quality films.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:And I think it's it's in large part because of the antics of some of the individuals relating to the film more than it is the actual quality of the film.
Marc:I think it's a fucking masterpiece.
Guest:I think it's a great movie that it just happens to star a very silly, silly man out in the world.
Marc:But I think that that's a perfectly I didn't see it as a comic character as much as an emotionally stunted character.
Guest:I don't think it's meant to be funny.
Guest:And I think he just happens to be the funniest guy.
Guest:It's great.
Marc:And that Ving Rhames stuff, I mean, that shit is just, I mean, it was like, and maybe I'm just being a dumb white guy.
Marc:But to me, I felt not unlike his other movies, like Boys in the Hood as well.
Marc:But this was more like a love of what that community is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it's less didactic for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like it's not trying to teach you something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As much as it is trying to.
Marc:Slice a life almost.
Guest:Give you a piece of that.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And Boys in the Hood is really trying to like show you.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Your responsibility.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:In this thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Baby Boy just this is what it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Snoop is fucking great in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's scary.
Guest:He's fucking great.
Guest:You see how.
Guest:Shamey.
Shamey.
Guest:You see how skinny he is and you're like, I'll still, I wouldn't fuck with this dude.
Guest:You ain't my son.
Guest:Fuck your fort.
Marc:Fucking great.
Marc:So what's this other movie?
Guest:So Love Jones, which you've never heard of.
Guest:Well, now I gotta watch it.
Guest:Stars Lorenz Tate and Nia Long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's this, it's a movie that really sort of is like the, all the bad stereotypes of what
Guest:slam poetry and sort of performance poetry are yeah is kind of a celebration of that yeah lorence tate being this sexy performance poet who falls in love with this journalist yeah whatever yeah um and i wanted to base the entire sort of uh energy of the special around this film yeah that john mulaney had not watched and to this day has not watched yeah
Guest:And so with that, there is a very iconic poem that is read in that special.
Guest:It's called A Blues for Nina.
Guest:In the movie.
Guest:In the movie.
Guest:And I had Mandel read that poem before the special.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then he throws to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But in the edit, it was too long.
Guest:It also featured a dude who it makes no sense to feature when you're starting a special for yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And more importantly, they were very worried that legal was going to be like, hey, you stole the words of a thing that, you know, people were going to come back.
Marc:And so that's why.
Marc:And you couldn't put out this next.
Marc:You couldn't pull that out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, because we wanted that swing.
Guest:The swing was so cool.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So it's sort of a funny way.
Marc:Like, as I noticed it.
Marc:Like, this is your special, and this guy's saying, this next guy.
Marc:I'm like, what are the other guys?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:None of this means anything.
Marc:And what did Mulaney bring to it as a director?
Guest:I mean, I think there's not a lot you can make up for in somebody who's been through it that many times and has that much sort of like know-how in terms of being like, do this, don't do that.
Marc:Did he help you structure the thing?
Guest:No, I think the material was largely sort of in place by the time we started working together.
Guest:But his his ability to kind of like spot stuff in the room or stuff that like that traditionally we've seen in specials that it's just like, hey, let's not waste money on eight cameras.
Guest:We don't write that.
Marc:And you don't need the audience shots.
Marc:You don't need the audience shots.
Marc:Because in the way that that bar is structured, they're there.
Marc:Enough of them are there.
Marc:They're present.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So to be shooting that place that small, I'm very anti-audience shots.
Marc:But there was no impulse to even do that.
Guest:Yeah, there was no impulse.
Guest:And I think we both were in agreement that that's a distraction or sort of like this weird satiating the people at home that doesn't need to happen.
Marc:But it doesn't even work that way.
Marc:When it comes right down to it, it was usually just to make cuts.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:An opportunity to... You did something weird with your arms, so we got to move.
Marc:Cut to the guy.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Well, great job, man.
Marc:Thanks, dude.
Marc:Good talking to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:See, that was interesting.
Marc:The...
Marc:It's a rare person, myself being one of them, that at some point said, yeah, I'm going to be a poet.
Marc:But look, again, Bad Poetry Langston's special is streaming on Netflix.
Marc:Hang out for a minute.
Marc:Hey, listen up.
Marc:For Full Marin listeners this week, we posted an archive deep dive where we talk about some of the difficult interviews I've done over the history of doing this show.
Marc:We got, I think, the interview with David Lee Roth only because I knew, you know, enough about...
Marc:you know, kind of a sensibility about where he comes from and the nature of his version of entertainment.
Marc:But somehow or another, I was able to keep him on track.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, and, and it's, it's a great interview.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Perry Farrell, not so much.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:That was difficult.
Marc:That was really difficult.
Marc:And he's got his wife in there.
Marc:It was when I was doing it in the house before I set this up and, you know, it was like, it was, you know, it was just, you know, there was a lot going on there that, you know, was,
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:He had a lot of big ideas about what he was going to be doing.
Marc:And, you know, it was very hard to, you know, he was obfuscating through, you know, kind of this rambling and he was not able to have any self-reflection.
Marc:It was hard.
Marc:To get bonus episodes twice a week, sign up for the full Marin.
Marc:Just 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 some layered guitar thing I'm doing.
Marc:I feel like I'm just doing my same old riffs and then playing on top of those with my same old riffs.
Marc:But hey, some people have been doing that for 30 years, but to major success and big audiences.
Thank you.
guitar solo
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Guest:.
guitar solo
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Guest:.
guitar solo
Guest:guitar solo
Guest:Humor lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.