Episode 1648 - John Mulaney
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:Welcome to all you people that have been here for a long time.
Marc:Some of you new people that have a lot of catching up to do.
Marc:Look, you guys, I don't know if you know this, or why would you?
Marc:Maybe some of you would, but WTF, this podcast...
Marc:will turn 16, 16 years old on September 1st.
Marc:That's a couple months away.
Marc:16 years.
Marc:It's a long time.
Marc:A long time.
Marc:It's a long time to do anything.
Marc:And it's certainly... I've said recently that when I'm living it, I don't feel like time is passing by quickly, but...
Marc:Yeah, all of a sudden, you know, you're old and you realize you've been doing something a long time.
Marc:And this started...
Marc:you know, the old garage, the, you know, just no one knew what a podcast was.
Marc:I was coming out of a horrendous divorce.
Marc:I was wanting to figure out how to continue living my life.
Marc:Things were not looking good for me.
Marc:Brendan McDonald, my producer who I'd worked with for years on other things, radio and streaming related.
Marc:And when Brendan and I started this thing,
Marc:All we knew is we were going to do it every Monday and Thursday.
Marc:And there was no way to make money.
Marc:There was no way that we knew how to build an audience or anything.
Marc:And it was it was crazy.
Marc:We were doing it in a garage at the beginning.
Marc:That was just a garage.
Marc:It was filled with junk.
Marc:And it slowly evolved into the show that became what you listen to twice a week.
Marc:16 years we've been doing this.
Marc:And we've decided that we had a great run.
Marc:And now basically it's time, folks.
Marc:It's time.
Marc:WTF is coming to an end.
Marc:And it's our decision.
Marc:We'll have our final episode sometime in the fall.
Marc:It was not some kind of difficult decision necessarily.
Marc:Neither me nor Brendan, who are the only people in charge of this operation,
Marc:On every level, I record it here in my garage studio.
Marc:Brendan produces it in his chair in Brooklyn.
Marc:And it's always been a two-man operation.
Marc:And we always said, well, how do we know when we're done?
Marc:And I always said, well, whenever Brendan says so.
Marc:And he always said, well, if Mark is finished, then we're finished.
Marc:And thankfully, we both realized together that we were done.
Marc:And there was no convincing or pushback or arguing.
Marc:We were done, you know, and it's okay.
Marc:It's okay for things to end.
Marc:16 years.
Marc:And we have been through a lot lately.
Marc:And I'm talking about me and you, the audience, me and Brendan, me and my life, me and my cats, me with my guests, me with my equipment, me with moving and things change.
Marc:But you've been through the entire arc of my life and everything that's happened in it for the last 16 years.
Marc:And a lot of it was not easy.
Marc:A lot of it was amazing.
Marc:A lot of monumental things really happened on this show.
Marc:And this was a show that was started when there were no podcasts.
Marc:And now there are nothing but podcasts.
Marc:It's been an incredible time in my life and Brendan's life.
Marc:We've done things that we never thought we would be able to do because of the podcast.
Marc:My life changed dramatically.
Marc:All the things that I set out to do before I did the podcast is sort of a Hail Mary pass to be a stand up with with an audience to to try my hand at acting to, you know, to have experiences with other people that were, you know, one of a kind and
Marc:And completely exciting and unique and engaging and revealing to talk to a president in my garage.
Marc:So many things happened because of just this setting up a mic in my garage with Brendan, you know, on the knobs producing it.
Marc:discussing with him how we do it all.
Marc:It was a real creative partnership.
Marc:And you, the audience, have been here through all of it.
Marc:And I shared everything I could with you because that's the way I do it and with my guests.
Marc:And there have been so many amazing guests.
Marc:And it really comes down to the fact that we have put up a new show every Monday and Thursday for almost 16 years.
Marc:And we're tired.
Marc:We're burnt out.
Marc:And we are utterly satisfied with the work we've done.
Marc:We've done great work.
Marc:And this doesn't mean I'm never going to do something like this again.
Marc:Doesn't mean I'll never, you know, have talks like I do here or or some kind of podcast at some point in time.
Marc:But for now, we're just we're wrapping things up.
Marc:It's OK.
Marc:It's OK to end things.
Marc:It's OK to try to start some other chapter in your life.
Marc:And I'm talking to myself.
Marc:I know this this podcast has been my connection to you people.
Marc:It's been my connection socially to people in my business, people I never thought I'd meet before, creative people, interesting people.
Marc:It's a very big part of my spiritual, social and psychological life.
Marc:But I'll be honest with you.
Marc:It's nice to be able to end things on our terms.
Marc:And we've always had that power to do that.
Marc:And that's what we're going to do.
Marc:We started the show on our terms.
Marc:We grew it on our terms.
Marc:And we'll end it on our terms.
Marc:Look, we've had great partners who have helped us do the show over the years.
Marc:Acast has been our partner for the past three years.
Marc:And we've been able to do things differently.
Marc:on our terms with them.
Marc:We always had that and it's always been the way we've done it.
Marc:And that's been great.
Marc:And we've been very fortunate to be able to do things the way we want to do them.
Marc:And now this is, this is part of it is ending it the way we want it to end.
Marc:And look, the thing about burnout, about being tired and about the way me and Brendan are, is that we,
Marc:We are very focused and very particular and very hardworking in this endeavor and the quality of the work we've done every fucking episode.
Marc:Is its own greatness, because we're crazy, dedicated guys who really want this to be the best show that it can be.
Marc:I bring what I bring to the table.
Marc:Brendan brings what he brings to the table.
Marc:And, you know, God forbid we just keep plowing along and and something diminishes.
Marc:And we wouldn't want to just keep plugging along because we can at the risk of our burnout or our our sort of like, you know, passion starts to drift or it starts to get sloppy.
Marc:We're just we're just not those kind of people.
Marc:And look, I mean, look, I've got a lot of stuff going on.
Marc:I've got a lot of projects going on.
Marc:And we're still going to be doing this for the next several months.
Marc:And we'll try to have as many people on as possible.
Marc:Many people that maybe want to do it, never did do it.
Marc:Or people that maybe will do it now that, you know, this is the sort of like home stretch.
Marc:But I do want to sincerely thank all you people for being along on this journey with me and with Brendan and with all the guests.
Marc:Because we really did something here.
Marc:And I want to thank you all for that.
Marc:This isn't a sign off, but that's the big news.
Marc:And I'm sure we'll talk about it more in the weeks to come.
Marc:I'm sure that you guys will want to chime in.
Marc:But just for now, thank you for being here as always.
Marc:And it's going to be, there's probably going to be some ups and downs over the next few months with me emotionally around the reality of this.
Marc:But it's done with, you know, this is a full-hearted decision.
Marc:It's the right decision for me.
Marc:It's the right decision for Brendan.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:It's okay for things to end.
Marc:It's just time, folks.
Marc:But again, we'll have a few more months.
Marc:So don't get all bummed out.
Marc:Let's just enjoy it.
Marc:The world is on fire.
Marc:I have people I want to talk to.
Marc:We'll find a little joy.
Marc:We'll find a little connection.
Marc:We'll find a little solace in each other's company.
Marc:We'll learn some things.
Marc:We'll get some laughs.
Marc:We'll cry a little bit.
Marc:And, you know, we'll move on.
Marc:That being said, the first guy to hear about it was my guest on the show today, who's a good guest for this particular episode.
Marc:John Mulaney is here, and he's been listening to this show since the very beginning.
Marc:He was also on episode 551 and episode 743.
Marc:He's been through a lot since then, I would say.
Marc:He's currently hosting the Netflix talk show Everybody's Live with John Mulaney, which had its season finale.
Marc:last week.
Marc:So, yeah, I get to break the news to John.
Marc:Also, I wanted to mention this.
Marc:The documentary, Are We Good?
Marc:The screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City next month.
Marc:That's a documentary about me.
Marc:There are two screenings.
Marc:Saturday, June 14th at 5 p.m.
Marc:That's at the OKX Theater on Chamber Street.
Marc:Then Sunday, June 15th at 5.30 p.m.
Marc:It's screening at the Village East on 2nd Avenue and 12th Street.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour.com.
Marc:To get tickets for that.
Marc:And oddly, in the current cut of the documentary, it is not brought up that we are retiring the show.
Marc:But I'm excited.
Marc:I'm excited.
Marc:There are things going on.
Marc:I did go to the premiere of this new show, this new Apple show that I'm on with Owen Wilson, which premieres June 4th.
Marc:I think they're going to drop three episodes.
Marc:And they had a nice little red carpet event at the AMC in Century City with all the cast there and the producers and the writers and everybody on the crew.
Marc:It was kind of great.
Marc:Got dressed up in the one suit I have.
Marc:I have actually two suits.
Marc:But the thing is, I had never seen it.
Marc:I didn't watch any of the cuts.
Marc:I was trying to do what Owen does.
Marc:Owen doesn't watch anything he's been in, ever.
Marc:He's never seen anything he's been in.
Marc:I talked to him about that.
Marc:I understand that, but I did this independent movie that I wanted to see the rough cut in case I had any suggestions.
Marc:I was a producer on it, and he was also a producer, but I guess of stick.
Marc:But he explained it to me.
Marc:He said, look, you know, that fight scene that you and I had, I remember it as like the greatest fight scene ever because it was not a real like stunt driven fight scene.
Marc:It was an emotional explosion between two old friends.
Marc:He says, I just remember that as great.
Marc:Why not just hold on to that?
Marc:And I respect that.
Marc:So he actually went out during the screening itself.
Marc:He went out with his brother, Luke, to get something to eat.
Marc:And, you know, I watched it and I got to say it's going to be a touching series.
Marc:I feel like I did pretty well in it.
Marc:I feel like I did the character.
Marc:I represented myself.
Marc:I was doing some new things for me in terms of acting and how I was approaching it.
Marc:But I got to be honest with you.
Marc:This series is a is is a heartfelt, heart wrenching experience.
Marc:And the comedy balances out the emotions pretty well.
Marc:I think people are going to enjoy it.
Marc:I think you're going to enjoy it.
Marc:And it doesn't matter.
Marc:If you if you don't know anything about golf, because, you know, I didn't.
Marc:And I'm in it.
Marc:And sometimes when they're interviewing me on these on these on the junket on all these outlets are interviewing me about my relationship with golf, I almost feel like I should lie.
Marc:But I don't.
Marc:I did learn enough, I think, to portray the guy that I portrayed.
Marc:I didn't need to step up and look like a real golfer, but I think I could look like a real caddy if necessary.
Marc:But mostly in this show, I was an emotional caddy, I think, for a lot of the characters.
Marc:But all that said, I do recommend you watch it because I think it is a very human and a very moving series.
Marc:And in a rare turn, all the characters kind of transform.
Marc:All the characters change.
Marc:And that's really what you want from an arc of a story about any character is that they do change.
Marc:And this is a kind of...
Marc:found family.
Marc:Is that what you call it?
Marc:A kind of makeshift family of underdogs who are kind of moving towards self-realization and trying to let go of some things.
Marc:And it's kind of a beautiful thing.
Marc:16 years, you guys.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It's going to be fun, though.
Marc:I do think we're going to have a little, as much as I'm capable of, this will be a bit of a party.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:Is that overselling it?
Marc:Is that?
Marc:It's going to be good.
Marc:And John Mulaney, I did his show.
Marc:I did that.
Marc:Everybody's live with John Mulaney.
Marc:Had a nice time.
Marc:And it's always nice to talk to him.
Marc:I haven't talked to him.
Marc:I think everybody else has about, you know, what he went through with with getting sober.
Marc:I imagine we're going to get into that a bit.
Marc:Everybody's live with John Mulaney just wrapped last week.
Marc:I couldn't make the wrap party because I was doing a press junket for stick.
Marc:I don't know if it's clear whether he's going to do more, but they're all there if you want to watch them.
Marc:And they're pretty fucking unique and odd.
Marc:This is me talking to John Mulaney and breaking the news.
Marc:Heavy shit, man.
Marc:Jacques Derrida.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I felt like I took a crack at Derrida and Foucault and those writers in college.
Guest:And all I can do is say their names.
Guest:And I'm like, you know, we're pretty smart people.
Guest:No, I know we tried.
Guest:So what were they doing is the real question.
Marc:Well, I think you have to be sort of it's part of a evolving language of philosophy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So if you're not going to read the Heidecker and you're not going to read the Kant.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's hard to make the jump right into the Derrida's and the Foucault's.
Marc:Yes, they have deceptive introductions, I feel like.
Marc:This is for everybody.
Guest:I'm going to be able to handle this one.
Marc:No, it's literally a different language.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Marc:And I think the most accessible one was that Baudrillard.
Marc:Don't note at all.
Marc:You can read that guy.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:He's of the same ilk, but he was a little more poetic, and he dealt with things that you can kind of see in life as opposed to think.
Marc:Yeah, what was his first name?
Marc:Jean Baudrillard.
Marc:You know, they actually made one of his coffee table book.
Marc:Yeah, I was kind of obsessed with knowing that stuff, but not unlike you.
Marc:I possess the books.
Marc:I possess the books.
Guest:I possess the desire.
Guest:And I carry myself as if I've read them.
Guest:I think that's your great trick, John.
Guest:Yeah, thank you very much.
Guest:I would like to give off that I have read those and thought about those.
Marc:I think the more I see of your show, the more I realize we're similar.
Marc:It's like it only takes one album to make people believe that you know all of it.
Marc:100%.
Marc:So we have to open in a very specific way.
Marc:And you're the first person I think I've said this out loud to.
Marc:But this episode, I will have said in the intro before I talk to you that we are ending the podcast.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Mark.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I'm shocked.
Marc:We've got some time.
Marc:It's in the fall.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But my producer and partner in this endeavor, Brendan, and I have agreed on the decision to put it to rest.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:It's 16 years, man.
Marc:It's 16 years.
Marc:And look at the... I feel like I've partially done an amazing thing for culture, but on the other side of that, I feel like I've released the Kraken.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:Well... It was bound to happen.
Guest:I think it was bound.
Guest:I think...
Guest:Yeah, I think the Kraken just, you know, is going to come out no matter what.
Guest:Yeah, was out going to come out no matter what.
Guest:And you sort of it's no longer.
Guest:It's always AM radio.
Marc:Well, it's always twofold when you're at the beginning of a new medium.
Marc:You know, there's a there's a lot of like, wow, this is the freedom of it.
Marc:And, you know, I think those words are said before anything turns into a horrendous malevolent force.
Guest:The freedom of it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, before you build a commune in Idaho, you remark upon the wide open land.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We could start a neo-Nazi commune here.
Marc:Or even any kind.
Marc:We are free to think and feel the way we feel.
Marc:Yeah, finally.
Marc:And now that's over and you have to drink.
Marc:Everyone must drink this at the same time.
Guest:Our ambitions have exceeded our space in San Francisco.
Guest:Diana looks nice.
Guest:It's beautiful down there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Plus no meddling relatives.
Guest:So finally, that's like what we thought of.
Guest:Out of the reach of Congress.
Guest:Out of the reach of notes and networks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's exactly right.
Marc:But yeah, but so you're the first to kind of know.
Marc:You're the first guest.
Marc:Congratulations, man.
Marc:Well, that's a nice way to frame it.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:I think we've done an amazing thing.
Marc:I don't think we live in a time where people of my generation and slightly older know how to move on from anything or stop.
Guest:Do you feel like you're kind of making yourself stop for the exercise of it?
Marc:No, I feel like we've done our bit.
Marc:We've done all right.
Marc:It worked out okay for us in terms of...
Marc:We've always done a great show.
Marc:The quality and the audience has remained steady and high.
Marc:And I just think there's no shame in saying like, all right, well, we did it.
Marc:And we did a great bunch of work.
Marc:And I don't really know what this means for me.
Marc:I do have a few months, but I do have to try to wrap my brain around
Marc:what it means in terms of like, this is most of my social life.
Marc:Like you wouldn't be here
Marc:If, if it isn't, if you didn't, I'm, I'm sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, maybe I say, Hey John, you know, I got something I need you to talk about.
Marc:It's vague.
Marc:And I just, could you come over?
Marc:Let's just look at each other and talk for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We could do that.
Marc:I mean, and I like doing that, but it is a big part of my life and has been for a long time.
Marc:And I don't really know what it feels like to not have it.
Guest:I know because you have been so consistent with the longest stretch you ever took off.
Marc:Well, we don't take any off because we do two new shows every week and we have for 16 years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So no matter, even if, you know, Brendan takes a vacation, I don't vacation much, but I'm on the road.
Marc:I'm recording the things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was a period there where I was interviewing people out there and, you know, doing the intro.
Marc:So like, so this job and this passion of these conversations, you know, was a big part of my life.
Marc:And I don't know what you're like with resting mind.
Yeah.
Marc:Has it ever happened, to be honest?
Guest:Had a resting mind?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I have had, yes.
Guest:I had full... I think I had a pretty full period of... You can't talk your way out of this.
Guest:You have to sit in this.
Guest:But, you know, looking back... That's different.
Guest:It might have been a few months only.
Guest:Yeah, but it's... Oh, resting mind, like a peaceful resting mind?
Marc:Well, just sort of like, okay, I've decided to...
Marc:Like, you know, in relation to, like, yeah, the post-bottom hitting, now you've got to rebuild, own up, and try not to do any more damage.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know why I answered like that, because clearly, yeah, you're talking about a more...
Marc:We've done this amazing amount of work.
Marc:Culture has changed.
Marc:We've gotten older.
Marc:We've done all we can.
Marc:We're satisfied.
Marc:We're okay.
Marc:But it's been a primary part of my life for this amount of time.
Marc:And now that's going to be gone.
Marc:100%.
Marc:And I know, even if I just do stand-up, you know, like working towards this special I just shot, that's two years, a year and a half of pounding that shit out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now, like, you know, I did it, and there's that moment where I'm like, well, you know what?
Marc:I'm going to just take a break.
Marc:In three days, I'm fucking at the store.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:So but this is going to be different because after we stop this, I'm like, I don't have a producer.
Marc:I don't have the bookers.
Marc:I, you know, I guess I could still sit here on the mics, but I'm not going to do that without my my creative partner.
Marc:And I don't know that I need to, but it's going to be it's going to be interesting because I guess the point was, if I sit with myself for very long, it's not good upstairs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I start.
Marc:What does your brain do?
Guest:Uh, I'm trying to think the longest amount of time I've.
Guest:Does it go to somewhere in the zone of like, I'm a piece of shit?
Guest:I forget what I do.
Guest:And I go like, do I, what is my job?
Guest:I go to the gym sometimes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I make coffee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I make coffee and like.
Guest:Now you got the kids.
Guest:So there's always that.
Guest:There's that too.
Guest:But in front of, in front of them when I've had a month or two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:Why is daddy sitting on the couch so long?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why does he have so much time?
Guest:Oh, he really thought about building this city out of blocks.
Guest:This is troubling.
Guest:It's much better.
Guest:I was actually more dialed into building a city out of phone blocks the other day than my son, and he moved on, and I was like, well, why don't we...
Guest:Why don't we make a walkway?
Guest:Because I can't get this building higher, but we can make a walkway to a different building.
Guest:He was like, nah, yeah.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Let's go to Discovery Cube.
Guest:How old's that kid now?
Guest:He's three.
Guest:Getting back to you for a second.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:Was there an interview or an episode or a jag of interviews where you started to go...
Guest:Oh, I'm going to hang this up.
Guest:And if so, who are they?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, not really.
Marc:You know, everything is like I don't know from one interview to the next what's really going to happen.
Marc:So there there's always that element of surprise.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I do get anxious and sort of somewhat dreading everyone because I really don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:So there was never there.
Marc:There's been moments where it's been a job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it wasn't interview specific.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was just sort of like, you know, like we, you know, we're kind of short on interviews.
Marc:We're going to have to do five this week.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, you know, and there have been ones that have been disappointing in that I couldn't get through or whatever, but, but not, it was never, there was a sort of point where like, how many actors do we have to do?
Marc:A hundred percent.
Marc:But it was fortunate that that kind of coincided with me becoming an actor.
Marc:So there was that interest at least.
Marc:But to the average person, you know, are they going to talk about craft again?
Marc:That's very funny.
Marc:It's like the guy who's just listening in his car, it's like, I'm going to listen to Paul Dano talk about animal work.
Yeah.
Marc:A penguin, huh?
Marc:Now they're just doing Alexander technique on here.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:There's been jags like that where it's like.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:But fortunately, because Brendan, my producer, you know, like sometimes he comes up with ideas and I learn things.
Marc:You know, there was a period of professional wrestling, which was not totally my thing, but it was his thing.
Marc:But, you know, I can engage with that.
Marc:Generally, I can engage.
Marc:Yeah, you can engage with everyone.
Marc:We've also talked to almost everybody.
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:No show has had the quantity and quality you've had.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:Like I've dipped in and out over the years.
Guest:I'm like not out that often.
Guest:You were an early adapter.
Guest:I was an early adapter.
Guest:I was on the show for that first time live at comics, I think.
Marc:Back before it, maybe before you even thought.
Marc:Before we did the one on one.
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:Yeah, there's definitely a live one.
Guest:Different episodes had different formats, right?
Marc:Well, that was only to try to make money.
Marc:Yeah, 100%.
Marc:The live ones were, you know, we had created a pay site so people would buy them because we were stuffing envelopes and doing tiered donations.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I had a house full of envelopes with t-shirts and stickers for the high tier donors.
Marc:It's been you and Brendan since 2009?
Marc:Always.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:He was always, it's just me and him, period.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I just mean he and you started it.
Marc:I've been with Brendan since 2004.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I met him when he was 24 years old at Air America.
Marc:He was an associate producer.
Marc:Just come out at WNYC.
Marc:He was on Morning Sedition?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, I've known him since he was a kid.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:And for the first five years of doing this, he couldn't say he was the producer because he was working somewhere else with a no-compete or something, a non-disclosure or whatever.
Marc:But he couldn't own it.
Marc:He used to drive me nuts.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:Because he was the mastermind.
Marc:He was the wizard.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I got this guy.
Marc:Yeah, I got this guy helping me out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is the worst.
Guest:That's so funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you going to miss the—or I'll volunteer this.
Guest:I would certainly miss the, hey, good show this week from a passerby or a friend or an— Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:I have a lot of people that have been sort of—because outside of the interviews, the narrative of me has been really—
Marc:made me very close to some people.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:On their side.
Marc:And I appreciate that.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:That's the big question.
Marc:Will, whatever small amount of relevance I have in this culture, you know, and we all sort of worry about relevance on some level.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:You know, when that goes away, you know, and part of it is delusional in my head anyways.
Marc:But I always think like, you know, I'm not quite relevant enough or, you know, am I relevant?
Marc:But with this out of the picture, I'm sort of like, I can close my social media accounts and be okay.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know, dude.
Guest:Why did that give us both a start?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:To close our social media.
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:We stared at each other like, whoa, now Mark's.
Marc:I know, I know.
Marc:But really, I think it would be helpful and healthy.
Marc:I'm going to be 62.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was a time in this country where people were like, I'm winding it up.
Marc:Yeah, but not show people.
Marc:I guess not.
Marc:They just keep going.
Marc:And sometimes you look at them and you're like, why?
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because why not?
Marc:Because to me... It's still fun.
Marc:To do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But sometimes you may not know when you go out there, people are like, well, geez, he's... That's where a little bit of our...
Guest:When we're in that groove of inflated self-esteem versus crushing low self-esteem.
Guest:That's why it's helpful.
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I just saw some.
Guest:You hear that pop when I walked up there?
Marc:Which one?
Guest:No, you tell yourself that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:When you're 75.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Guest:They were pretty surprised I was there, yeah.
Guest:As you're looking out at an audience of 75-year-olds.
Guest:And still asking them at the cellar to act like you're a special guest.
Guest:Hey, anything can happen here.
Guest:Even this old-ass man can walk up here.
Marc:Well, they can, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they do.
Marc:I just saw footage of Angus Young.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And for the first time in my life, I'm like, ugh, uh-oh.
Marc:He's just fucking little old man, you know, and it's like hard.
Marc:And I had, you know, I did a whole bit about the stones on that level.
Marc:And it's just, you know, there's something about your heroes pounding on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That it makes you want them to be immortal.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:You do, but I guess I'm one that always wants people to either reunite or go back out on tour.
Guest:Seriously?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I always want people to come out of retirement and do something.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And then I think, as a fan, it's never enough.
Guest:What are you expecting?
Guest:What am I expecting?
Marc:I guess it's something to do with my own sense of mortality that I get kind of squirrely when they get old.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Where I'm like, oh, it's like that bit I did about when, you know, the day that Mick falls down, when he's in the middle of it, and then you got a room full of baby boomers going like, that's over.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's down.
Marc:He's down, yeah.
Marc:Everyone fanning him with menus.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You okay, buddy?
Marc:You okay?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the frailty of it all, I, look,
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:How's your stand-up?
Guest:Well, it was sort of slightly neglected when I was busy with some other things.
Guest:And then I've been doing a ton of spots because I've been doing longer monologues on this Netflix show.
Marc:And I appreciate that.
Guest:So I started kind of working at it like they're... I appreciate the effort of that.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Because... It's been fun to do.
Marc:You know, there was a period there where I thought...
Marc:You know, I had a pilot for a talk show many years ago at Comedy Central.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Back before, back when it was still half run by HBO.
Marc:I did a pilot for Comedy Central in probably 2008.
Marc:Fuck, I don't know.
Marc:Well, it was before The Daily Show started.
Marc:They went with The Daily Show.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I did something called The Marc Maron Project.
Marc:This was after?
Marc:Short attention span.
Marc:Short attention span.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And Chappelle was my guest and Steven Weber.
Marc:There was a big... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But Chappelle was still like a kid almost.
Marc:And I was going to the Museum of Broadcasting and...
Marc:And watching Jack Parr shows because I wanted to figure out how to do the long monologue.
Marc:And if you could hold it, like if you could keep it compelling enough for people to want to go for the whole arc.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was that your feeling?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Could you hold them and could you relax out of having a monologue cadence?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And would they follow it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's not...
Guest:other people have done that, but it was, um, I just wanted to see, you know, your, Richard kind announces me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just had the titles, energy, energy, energy.
Guest:And you want to go, welcome to my show.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Is the only show on Netflix where punchline, punchline, and then kind of tell a story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tell a story.
Guest:Get out of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, again, and tell it to the camera too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As well as the folks in the room.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And just feel like, yeah, we all have a bit of patience right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As we go somewhere.
Marc:As we enter this.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We don't know where it's going to go.
Guest:No, not totally.
Guest:We don't know if it's related to that night's themes.
Guest:We know it's not related to the news.
Guest:Now, in the conception of this thing, how many have you done now?
Guest:As of today, we've done 11.
Guest:We're doing the 12th on Wednesday.
Guest:And that's it?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Have they said we're doing more yet?
Guest:Yes, there was a plan to do more, and we're figuring it out.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you gonna?
Guest:I never know what to say to that.
Marc:Well, I mean, well, here's the question.
Marc:I'm just thinking about... You're thinking about Wednesday.
Marc:Yeah, I'm thinking about Wednesday, yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, here's the question, though.
Guest:It's been very enjoyable, and it's been... It's been very enjoyable...
Guest:And I...
Guest:I have really felt the 12 weeks in a row.
Guest:That's a lot.
Guest:Imagine if you were doing it every day.
Guest:Yes, though, we would scale back what we were doing if we were doing it every day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I guess my question is, like— 60 minutes of all—it's all us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No commercials, no— Oh, that's true.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I guess my thought is, like, at some point in the career of a comic, you realize the jobs that are available to you.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Like, you do stand-up, and that usually means, well, if you're not going to be a writer, you're available to host things.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's a job a stand-up does.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You can have a show centered around you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All right, now you've done all of this stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Now you've done all of the things available.
Marc:All two of them.
Yeah.
Marc:Three.
Marc:Three.
Marc:Writing?
Marc:Writing.
Marc:Oh, some acting, I guess.
Marc:Hosting, being center of a show.
Marc:Yeah, that would be the acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then just your stand-up.
Marc:So there's really four things.
Hey.
Guest:You, well, I think Brian Regan for a lot of us had a different path of like you can be an industry out on the road.
Guest:And then you, Marc Maron.
Guest:Can be an industry in my house.
Guest:Created a fifth one, yeah.
Guest:The fifth estate.
Marc:No, you really did.
Marc:Yeah, I've created an entire culture of entertainment fueled by aspiring afternoon drive time radio personalities.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It is amazing.
Marc:It's just like every you flip on your phone and depending who you're following, you'll see three or four white guys sitting behind mics talking about the first time they shit their pants as an adult.
Marc:Well, I'm glad you never got a couch.
Guest:A lot of these shows started having a couch with mics.
Guest:Well, we're just audio.
Guest:You're still a desk.
Guest:But we're just audio.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:There's no fucking YouTube to this.
Guest:That's so relaxing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there's no, we didn't, it was not what we do.
Marc:We're audio guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So how do you feel you did with this format?
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I love doing this format.
Guest:I mean, it felt like making 12 specials using the talk show as a format.
Guest:I once did this children's musical special, and it felt like I'm taking something like Free to Be You and Me.
Guest:It was really fun, yeah.
Guest:I'm doing a comedy special of my stuff channeled through Free to Be You and Me with Marlo Thomas.
Guest:And this felt like...
Guest:Some kind of evergreen, weird, not quite any era talk show that also is trying to be... That's also a variety show in some ways.
Guest:That's also trying to be like Jules Holland or David Sanborn Jules Holland Night Music.
Guest:And trying to feel very loose and then trying to feel very produced.
Guest:And we just got to like...
Guest:We really got to try every speed, too.
Guest:It was more than just that we got to try a lot of bits and jokes and have guests on.
Guest:It was more we just got to try whole episodes where it felt very shoestring and episodes where we were blowing it out production-wise.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now, hypothetically, you say, all right, I'll do 12 more, but this is what I've learned.
Marc:This is how we're gonna move forward.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what's great about that?
Marc:What?
Guest:As of today, no learning.
Guest:The first six we did last May during the Netflix festival, it was a joke, but it also just became true.
Guest:There's no time to learn.
Guest:We were just doing the show that was in front of us.
Guest:And there was, in a way that I really am proud of, there was little things we learned worked, we didn't do again.
Guest:That's always good.
Guest:In large part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why do what works?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But because other people are offering that if, you know, if you want to see that.
Guest:And that's great.
Guest:You know, go, oh, this type of bit worked.
Guest:We'll just do tonight.
Guest:Next week's episode will look like all the most refined parts of the first five weeks of episodes.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, there was a lot of talk about how, you know, or a couple people I said, well, they're finding their, you know, their legs.
Marc:They're finding their legs, yeah.
Marc:It's sort of like what Conan did for four years.
Marc:They seem to be finding a rhythm and yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I kept watching and I'm like, they're not though.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I really appreciate that.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:I really do.
Guest:Because two reasons.
Guest:One, we weren't.
Guest:Two, anytime you say they're figuring it out, a bad, not a bad side, a side of me comes out.
Guest:You know, like they've found their groove.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:No, we haven't.
Marc:I'll do it blindfolded.
Marc:And also when they say things like they're figuring out, it's just a diplomatic way of saying it's not good.
Guest:Oh, I think they just say it's not good when they don't like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think we're no longer living in the decent era of, well, they're figuring.
Marc:I think people want the best for you, John.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:They want you to, you know, you got fans and they're like, yeah, he'll get, he'll figure it out.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought you meant, well, sometimes critics like to say like, they found a groove and it's almost them saying like, because they took our notes.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's the most exciting thing to them.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Didn't listen to you at all.
Guest:Didn't even read it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Read it.
Guest:Thought about it.
Guest:Rejected it.
Marc:Advice read.
Marc:Advice rejected.
Marc:I don't like when critics are correct.
Marc:It bothers me because it feels like I have a blind spot.
Marc:Oh, but do you find when they're correct that it's something you already had thought of?
Marc:Well, no, I think sometimes if I trust the critic and they assess my work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, even if it's a good review, there's usually that one paragraph.
Marc:There has to be.
Marc:Just to keep their edge.
Marc:And they need to show their face at whatever.
Marc:Wherever critics hang out, they need to keep it held high.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:There's the three critics that really exist.
Marc:But I often think about the one thing that they're sort of critical of in a real way.
Marc:And I and I, you know, I kind of mull it over.
Marc:And sometimes I've learned things like, you know, from critics that I think in retrospect were probably correct.
Marc:I don't think I listened to them at the time, but eventually it turned out to be kind of right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What has the critical response been?
Guest:We've had some really, really dead-on excellent pieces written about the show that I think have captured that there's...
Guest:There's something intensely personal about it, even though I'm working with eight amazing writer-producers who are, you know, the voice of lots of pieces, that a couple people, my favorite thing, my favorite pieces were zeroing in on, well, two favorite types, zeroing in on, they're just kind of, this show is just kind of going where it wants.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they, you know, in a mature way, go for better or worse.
Guest:They're just going.
Guest:He wants to talk to John Cale and Maggie Rogers.
Guest:He's going to.
Guest:You were there that night.
Guest:Give that a try.
Guest:Give that a try.
Guest:I got my own show.
Guest:There's no way I'm not going to talk to John Cale.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's funny, though, because, like, you know, for the most part, it seems you forego segment producers when it comes down to guests.
Marc:Like, you know, like I'm pretty reliable.
Marc:But I know how to work with a segment producer.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:But I think that on another show, if someone was going to talk to John Cale, they would be like, well, let me just see what he's got.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, no.
Guest:You didn't do that?
Guest:No.
Guest:No pre-interview.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No social media ask.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We try to make it a very light lift for guests.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's also, it's a talk show designed by someone that's been on a lot of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we did without some of the things I find inconvenient, such as preparation.
Guest:But do you think that works out when you don't have a pre-interview?
Guest:For me, it really does.
Guest:And I'm not trying to be naive that a meandering...
Guest:Oh, so it keeps you engaged.
Guest:It keeps me engaged.
Guest:It's also, I just had to look at it like there are five guys out there who do that so well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They do it really well.
Guest:Throw the stories, basically, and then make jokes.
Guest:Are just excellent at knowing I'm going to get this guest to do this, not just tell the story or do this bit or go over this piece of, you know, go through this news item about them, but we're going to do it in three and a half minutes or four and a half minutes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a real art.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's a lot of people doing that.
Guest:And I wanted to, one of my favorite moments in the whole series was Tina Fey was on.
Guest:And spur of the moment, I went, do you collect anything?
Guest:And she went, no.
Guest:And I went, neither do I. And then there was like a 1,000.
Guest:And then we moved on to the next topic.
Guest:And I...
Guest:There's something about, you know, there's something about what Larry King used to feel like.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Where he'd, you know, he'd be talking to a caller, he'd have on Andy Rooney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Andy would go, what are you talking about?
Guest:He'd go, no, am I wrong?
Guest:And he'd go, yeah, you're wrong.
Guest:And then they'd move on.
Marc:Yeah, did you ever do an interview with Larry King?
Marc:I did his, what was the internet show?
Marc:Yeah, I did that too, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was fun to meet him.
Marc:Yeah, it was fun to meet him.
Marc:And then I also interviewed him at his house, which was not a great day.
Marc:Because I walked in and he goes, you're late.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:And I was, because I had the wrong time.
Marc:And it was a tough opening 10.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I've had those in my life.
Guest:I've had a healthy amount of that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sorry I'm late to traffic.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's why we leave early.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Shit.
Guest:Shit.
Guest:I'm a grownup.
Guest:Come on.
Marc:Traffic is no excuse in Los Angeles.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That's why you map it.
Marc:If you got to go down to Culver City, you better leave the night before.
Guest:But I think it's always been more fun to be as...
Guest:surprised by a guest as I am by a caller.
Guest:But Larry pressed.
Guest:You're not a presser.
Guest:Larry pressed with a lot of incorrect information.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No?
Guest:You don't think?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had on Andy Rooney once and he goes, there was just another high-profile kidnapping.
Guest:Let's say Elizabeth Smart.
Guest:He goes, Andy, why are there so many kidnappings?
Guest:And Andy goes, what are you talking about?
Guest:He goes, there's more kidnappings now than there used to be.
Guest:He goes, no, there's not.
Guest:There were always kidnappings.
Guest:He goes, aren't there more?
Guest:And he goes, no.
Guest:And then, without missing a beat, he changes topics.
Guest:He goes, should the Pope resign?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Just one question after another.
Marc:Aren't there more kidnappings?
Marc:No, there's always been kidnappings.
Marc:And that's because he was with a peer and they actually had a moment of conversation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As opposed to Larry just going, what do you think?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I just realized a good analogy for your show in a way.
Marc:A good analogy.
Marc:Well, you know, look, if you watch the old Dick Cavett shows, there's a lot of awkwardness.
Marc:In the sitcom?
Marc:No, the Dick Cavett talk show.
Marc:Oh, Dick Cavett.
Marc:No, Dick Cavett.
Marc:Dick Cavett.
Marc:Oh, for sure.
Marc:And the audience was rarely laughing.
Marc:You didn't get the feeling they were there half the time.
Guest:You didn't get the feeling that anyone felt the role of a studio audience is to be laughing on steroids the whole time.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And applauding every beat.
Marc:Yeah, and some of those British shows.
Marc:And there's a bit of that in your show.
Guest:Those are very comforting to me.
Guest:If something of note happens, and it's very funny, there's a big studio laugh.
Guest:There's applause when something, you know, Robbie Hoffman climbing over the couch in two seats.
Guest:It was a very funny, spontaneous moment.
Guest:But you did feel like...
Guest:It's engaging to have this audience here.
Guest:It adds electricity.
Guest:But we're not here to make sure everything is.
Marc:Well, that's interesting because that's almost rebellious at this point.
Guest:I don't know if it's rebellious, but it was something I thought, I know this melody in my head and I'm not seeing it right now.
Guest:And I also, they gave me the keys to this studio.
Guest:So that's what we'll do.
Marc:But I watched, there's one of my favorite moments in show business.
Marc:was Bob Dylan being presented with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy by Jack Nicholson.
Marc:Oh, yes, of course.
Marc:The best.
Marc:The best.
Marc:And when Channeling comes back out?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Was it Bob and Jack are talking backstage about how they're going to do more TV?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's really, it's great because Dylan seems to not, he tells that, you know.
Guest:He does that thing about, well, you know, my father.
Marc:Even my father said.
Marc:Yeah, he said a lot of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And even, was it like everyone will forsake you?
Guest:Even your parents will – something like that.
Marc:You said that before that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was that beat of like, you know, well, it's like my father always told me.
Marc:And he waits like 15 seconds.
Marc:He said a lot of things.
Marc:He told me something.
Marc:And then there's that whole weirdness where Jack doesn't really know where to stand while Dylan's getting the award and he's moving around.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's great because –
Marc:What used to be just the human time frame is now kind of in the cringe column.
Marc:It's why I love the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because none of them are used to talking.
Guest:None of them are used to talking.
Guest:As you move down the line, also start with some of the fringe members and end with who we consider the front man.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Don't go the opposite way.
Yeah.
Guest:But they always go the opposite way.
Guest:And then they get into, like, someone who didn't get royalties.
Guest:Like, come on, Debbie, come on.
Guest:Let me play.
Guest:All right, fine.
Guest:But they also, they couldn't have had more notice that they're going to get an award.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And they couldn't have prepared less.
Guest:Well, they don't think to, you know, hire a writer.
Guest:And people who are shocked, shocked, ingenues that win awards and are shocked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Still, once they get over the, like, hyperventilating, they dial into a tight, good speech that we all agree on is a good way to get it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And these people just get up year after year and blow it.
Marc:So did you, wait, now wait, did you turn down the Oscars?
Marc:Hosting it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was the thinking?
Yeah.
Guest:Um, well, they, I was very flattered.
Guest:They came to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Must've been last summer.
Guest:And, um, I knew Jimmy Kimmel wasn't going to do it and they, they offered it.
Guest:And it was honestly that I had a lot going on and it's, it's months and months of work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, because I mean, I think Conan did a great job.
Guest:No, that's the thing.
Guest:I mean, the best job he's done on anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Two totally different tops.
Guest:And he came out and, yeah.
Guest:He not only was so funny, but he elevated the show to the point that I almost convinced myself I had seen these movies and I'd seen not a one of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was like, yeah, this was a great year.
Marc:It was a great year.
Marc:It was a great year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he also did that thing where like, because I know him for so long and I was really worried that he'd start sort of, you know, self-erasing, which he does.
Marc:You know, like he'll do a joke and be like, he'll kind of, you know, take it apart.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's an insecurity.
Marc:It's a habit he does.
Marc:Start playing with his nipples and dancing around or whatever.
Marc:So, like, you know, the first couple of jokes, I noticed him starting to go that way.
Marc:And then I'm like, come on, don't do it, dude.
Marc:And then he's just kind of like, just locked in and owned the fucking thing.
Guest:Like, I'd never seen it.
Guest:Well, it's the same thing I thought at his Mark Twain Awards.
Guest:I went, oh, he has stature.
Guest:When he's out there.
Guest:It's just this thing that has come to some of those in our business where you go, that's Conan O'Brien.
Guest:And he's in control.
Guest:And it's an amazing thing.
Marc:It took a long time.
Marc:It wasn't always natural for him.
Guest:But it was to me as a fan.
Guest:I was like, you know.
Marc:Yeah, he's the guy.
Guest:Honestly, there was no point where I thought Conan's show wasn't great.
Guest:I sort of knew later...
Guest:through Rolling Stone or Bill Carter or something that he was, you know, struggling.
Guest:But as someone watching it.
Marc:Well, just as a comic, like, as you were a kid, but we were comics and, you know, we were the sort of like, why this writer?
Marc:Who is this guy?
Marc:It's a comics job.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, you know, but whatever.
Marc:It felt like it was a time where it's like, that's generally a comics job.
Marc:So there was actually this envy of, like, our job being taken somehow.
Marc:That's very funny.
Marc:It's true, though.
Marc:That's really funny.
Marc:It's a different time, buddy.
Marc:Different time.
Marc:So you're going to do stand-up.
Guest:I like it very much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm in a bit like... After your last HBO special, did you... Do you forget in between specials how to... How to what?
Guest:The one before the one you just taped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm talking about what's been released to the public.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:Did you forget how to... Do it.
Guest:Did you forget how to do stand-up in between?
Marc:I'm afraid that I forget it after two weeks.
Marc:But it's all pretty mental.
Marc:I think all you forget... All you...
Marc:it's it's not forgetting it's a rustiness because there's after a certain point there's some part of you that lives up there and he'll generally show up yeah but you know sometimes he's not in the same he's not jiving quite right if you get a little out of practice yeah like i believe you have to keep that channel open to talking to an audience yeah but if that goes away then there's a little bit of like all right so you guys are waiting for me to do something yeah but then the other guy steps in and goes i got it
Guest:Yeah, there's always this solid, he's not a trick pilot, but he can land a plane and he can, I'm just, we're not breaking new ground tonight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This isn't a memorable set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This isn't Tig at Largo.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But we're going to land the plane.
Marc:It's going to be okay.
Marc:It's going to be okay.
Marc:Well, you got to take the hit.
Marc:That's the hardest thing, really.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And fortunately, when you come out of the special, your confidence is pretty high.
Marc:So you can take a few hits after that.
Guest:Well, then you schedule that first show where you'll have to do an hour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you just keep thinking about the special going, wait, that's in there too.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I added some stuff to it since then.
Marc:I know the worst.
Guest:The worst.
Marc:Where you find a tag later?
Guest:I do it every time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, I record it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Then I have a few more dates.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And suddenly the burden of the special is off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I have this like more fertile mind.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Come up with some great tags.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes I figure out how to finish a story that I recorded.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I found a couple of things the other night and I was like, God damn it.
Marc:That would have been a nice callback.
Marc:At the store.
Marc:Was it at the store?
Marc:Yeah, I think it was at the store.
Marc:It's all I've been doing since I got back.
Marc:Yeah, I was able to put a couple of things together.
Marc:The thing was, I was adding shit right up until the special the week before.
Marc:That's smart.
Marc:There were a couple of pieces.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was a joke that was funny enough the way it was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I knew the tag wasn't right, but it was good enough.
Marc:Good enough, yeah.
Marc:And then three days before the special, it was delivered to me.
Marc:Oh, that's amazing.
Marc:Where it's sort of like, oh, it was right there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's perfect.
Guest:In time for the special.
Guest:Even if you hadn't found the perfect one, it's great to just throw something in so that your brain is online.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:Yeah, I can't, yeah.
Guest:We did Largo right before you went to Brooklyn to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Guest:And I remember you saying, like, I'm not going to run the hour.
Guest:I thought, that's a good idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't want to be too.
Marc:I didn't, I don't think.
Marc:I don't think you did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I did three club shows in Vermont the week before.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Because I had a whole week, and I'm like, what am I doing?
Marc:I've got to shoot a special that Saturday?
Marc:I'm just going to sit on my ass in New York for a week?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I did three shows at Vermont Comedy Club.
Marc:And then I did one theater show in Portsmouth.
Marc:But it was so funny because I'm like, this is where just do it.
Marc:Do it at a comedy club.
Marc:Don't like, you know, riff around with the audience.
Marc:Just stand before them with that detachment one has when they have a completed thing and fucking do it, which is not my habit.
Marc:My habit is always to sort of like, well, I'm going to feel them.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:And I was like, be a professional.
Marc:Fuck them.
Marc:Do what you've prepared.
Guest:And that's that.
Guest:Isn't that what you said about your first half hour?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:HBO half hour is that you were like, I'm just going in.
Guest:I'm not preparing.
Marc:Well, that was that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it feels like that.
Marc:But I don't know if it's this medicine I'm on, but I was not frantic at all.
Marc:And I knew the shit like top to bottom.
Marc:And I had no fears of the material at all.
Marc:And because I had done those four shows before I went with that focus of like, you know, just, you know, did make some decisions.
Marc:Like I knew going in that the political stuff up front, that it's my nature to become sort of swaggery and self-righteous with that type of material.
Marc:And I made a decision.
Marc:I'm like, try to just do it like casually.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then see how that works because then you won't have to switch gears so hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I made that note a week, you know, in that week before and I did it that way.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:I'm just toot my own horn.
Guest:Well, you would also already run it and run it so you could.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I could move it.
Marc:I could I could play with it a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what what else is going on in terms of like, how's your fucking head, dude?
Marc:Pretty good.
Marc:Pretty good.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not squirrely?
Marc:Not squirrely.
Guest:How long you got sober now?
Guest:Well, December will be five years.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We know what they say.
Marc:You get your marbles back?
Guest:That thing?
Marc:Or what?
Marc:No, I have a darker one of those.
Marc:Go ahead.
Marc:Don't kill yourself in the first five years because you'd be killing the wrong person.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I've heard that.
Marc:That's a good one, right?
Marc:That's a great one.
Marc:That's a good one.
Marc:That's not in the book.
Guest:No, I don't think it is.
Guest:It might be in the end of the NA book when it's like, you know, different people.
Guest:Who wrote in.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:The stories.
Marc:Yeah, the stories.
Marc:The stories at the end of the new NA book.
Marc:That one always got me, and then there was one I heard, God doesn't wake up and think he's you.
Marc:That's a good one.
Marc:That's very funny.
Marc:You like that one?
Marc:That's very funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a lot of good ones.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But are you actively doing the thing?
Guest:Yeah, I'd say I'm in a good amount of recovery talk and work, yeah.
Marc:With the dudes?
Marc:You got some dudes?
Guest:Well, the biggest thing is I see a great psychiatrist once a week.
Guest:Oh, yeah, like a psychiatrist, full doctor.
Guest:Full doctor.
Guest:Oh, look at that.
Guest:Addiction specialty.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We can cover many other things.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And...
Guest:Yeah, it's like, no, squirrely no.
Marc:The obsession's gone.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Yeah, that should go by five, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's a fucking gift.
Guest:I don't exist in a lack of drugs, you know.
Guest:Blow.
Guest:Or just like a Klonopin to fly home from.
Marc:Yeah, you can't do it.
Guest:From penguins in Cedar Rapids.
Guest:Or, you know, landing and having to finish a draft of something.
Guest:So I need 60 milligrams of Adderall.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You just do coffee?
Marc:All of that.
Marc:I do coffee?
Guest:I do lots of, lots of, lots of caffeine.
Marc:Yeah, lots of it.
Marc:And I'm eating these nicotines again.
Marc:A lot of nicotine.
Marc:Did you ever stop?
Marc:I did.
Marc:I stopped for like three years.
Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now I'm on a mixture of lozenges and the zins.
Marc:Yeah, I stopped totally.
Marc:And it was fine, though.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you know what's not fine about it?
Marc:It's that sort of like, you know, how do I reward myself?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:It's really just.
Guest:I have one non-alcoholic beer after each.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Episode of the.
Guest:I've been drinking those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I never used to.
Guest:No.
Guest:But now they're better.
Guest:They're better.
Guest:And it just feels for some reason for like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could never handle like a virgin anything.
Marc:No.
Guest:Somehow feels more grown up.
Marc:Well, the beers now, like there's people putting a lot of thought and heart into the non-alcoholic beer beverages.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they taste like fucking beer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They don't taste like almost beer.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:They're not lacking.
Guest:No, they're not.
Guest:They go through the process.
Guest:I believe they actually go almost up to the fermenting process and stop.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Versus creating a fake drink that tastes like beer.
Marc:Yeah, I just like, because I've been thinking about it like drugs lately.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, because I think I saw some on TV or whatever, but it really is about that knowledge that has to be drilled pretty far into you that, you know, you can't even do one, one thing with any safety at all.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think there was never a point in the past five years where I deluded myself at all that I could do.
Guest:I never for a second thought, maybe I'll just do this this time.
Guest:But even when I think about like... The question was early, early, early 2020.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like...
Guest:well, do I just dive back into oblivion?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It wasn't like, I could probably, you know, boot some Adderall every day and then come down with a Xanax.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It was never that.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:You always knew, like, yeah, am I willing to commit my life to this again?
Marc:It was like, am I becoming Batman?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:because I'll have to get all this stuff yeah the lights in the sky yeah I'll be spending money I'll be out late and I'll be lying I'll make mistakes and people will be like that bad night and I'll be like trust me it's all part of a plan yeah well I the one thing I think about with not regularity but like I think like well when I get old and you know my responsibilities change couldn't I just smoke weed all the time I don't know I know
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Well, because there's that slippery slope.
Marc:Hey, it's legal and, you know, it doesn't ruin your life.
Marc:Oh, legal never.
Marc:Most things I did were legal.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's booze is legal too.
Marc:Just needed a prescription.
Marc:But even, but like the weed now and like, and just knowing that if I did it, it's always like...
Marc:Like, it's not like, maybe I'll just do a hit.
Marc:It's like, I know that if I do that, that's going to be my life.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:That within two days, I'll be like, I got to go to the weed store.
Marc:Oh, 100%.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like buying sunglasses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just can't stop.
Guest:And I freak out when I don't, I'm the, one of the greatest gifts is I, now I have a phone and car keys and I guess a wallet and that's it.
Guest:The, the lack of having to make sure I have something on me.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got that with the, I get that fixed with those ends, the panic of like, and now you get the panic and the reward of, I remembered them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, and well, the phone gives you that too.
Marc:I mean, if you don't know where your phone is, that's a rough few minutes.
Guest:I guess so, yeah.
Guest:Where you're like, oh shit, did I leave it at the... Actually, I have this weird thrill now where I hope I've lost it.
Guest:The phone forever?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With the Zinzo, now because it's illegal, the self-flavored ones in California because of the kids, I had to find a guy that's got them.
Marc:So now I got the two layers of drug.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, where'd you get the peppermint ones?
Marc:I got a guy.
Guest:I got a guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:So it probably feels good to have a guy.
Guest:And like he's got rules like, no, come on, man.
Guest:It's 9 p.m.
Guest:You know, like he's got hours and standards, you know.
Guest:It's a little early in the day, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah, well, yeah, it's a little early.
Marc:No, they just got to know you.
Marc:You know, you go through the first two like, yeah, and they give them to you and then they know you.
Marc:And then they don't look weird when they're going under the counter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not a street corner thing.
Marc:No, no, it's a store.
Guest:Yeah, it's a store.
Guest:Which one, by the way, I know you talk about it in your special, what medication are you taking?
Marc:Oh, I'm just taking the Busporin.
Marc:Oh, which one is that?
Marc:It's sort of a small net dopamine thing that's like for anxiety.
Marc:It's not like a full SSRI.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:But it just works on this one area.
Marc:And I think it's very, the joke I had about it,
Marc:Being adverse to SSRIs, as the doc says, well, there's this other stuff I can give you that generally doesn't work for people.
Marc:I'm like, that sounds like the right drug for me, Doc.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, because I didn't want to have any of the brain fog or any of that stuff.
Marc:But I do think it's funny.
Guest:There's also these things like MAO inhibitors that were sort of the precursor of antidepressants.
Guest:But you can't be on, you can't, I think, you can't eat certain cheeses.
Marc:Oh, right.
Guest:Certain foods would like have a terrible chemical reaction with them.
Guest:It's like grapefruit and statins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but my doctor was like, oh, they're probably the best drug.
Guest:People just couldn't handle not eating the cheeses.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:I was like, wow, people really.
Marc:Do you do a thing?
Marc:You got one?
Marc:Yeah, I take Welbutrin and Zoloft.
Marc:Wow, so that balances it out because Welbutrin will jack you up a little bit.
Guest:So I can't recall if I ever had that, but maybe it was.
Marc:It used to be marketed to help people quit smoking under a different name.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What was it called?
Marc:It started with a Z, I think.
Marc:And then you learned that it was like, oh, it's just Wellbutrin.
Marc:Was it Chantix?
Marc:Chantix, maybe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I remember I was on that and it definitely jacked me up, but everyone's going to respond differently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I started Welbutrin at a time when I still used a lot of amphetamines.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I don't recall.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And it's working for you, this combination?
Marc:It has been.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, no side effects.
Guest:You're not going to get fat.
Guest:It's been a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if there's a side effect, I'm so used to it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I had some stomach issues with Zoloft, but they went away.
Guest:And I might reduce Zoloft.
Guest:In fact, I am currently reducing Zoloft a little.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I haven't noticed anything yet.
Marc:You know, I'm interviewing your wife tomorrow.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:Isn't that wild?
Marc:That's wild.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How's that going?
Guest:Great.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Oh, so good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Take it easy.
Marc:No, you asked.
Marc:I'm telling you.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, I'm good.
Marc:I'm glad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just don't want you to overkill it.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And so people go like, I don't know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I know how the public works.
Yeah.
Marc:I understand perception.
Marc:I'll tell you one thing, and I'll tell her tomorrow.
Marc:She's fucking great in this show, dude.
Marc:She's great on that show.
Marc:Great.
Guest:Really, and just wait.
Guest:Just wait.
Guest:Till the last one?
Guest:Well, you'll see.
Guest:Well, no, I've watched all of them.
Marc:Oh, till the last one.
Marc:Oh, yeah, you're in the media, yeah.
Marc:I mean, because I got to talk to her.
Marc:I'm talking to your listeners.
Marc:And I haven't seen, well, by the time we put this up, it'll all have been aired, but I haven't seen her in a long time.
Marc:Do stuff.
Guest:After we had our son, and then she was diagnosed with cancer, she was not working for three or four years.
Guest:And she's all good for now?
Guest:She's still on a course of treatment that will be a few years.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:But they did catch it, though it was aggressive.
Guest:They did catch it at a good, I don't know if there's any good.
Guest:But the short answer is she's got...
Guest:You know, you just don't say in the clear yet.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:But she's so fucking good in this show.
Marc:She's great on that show.
Marc:It's like, it's not even like, because I don't know her, it's not like, oh, it's a perfect role for her.
Marc:She just acts the fuck out of it.
Guest:Yeah, she makes, I mean, I talked to her in between, you know, she'd come home, how was it?
Guest:I sort of was vaguely aware of what the show was about, but like, she makes the most interesting choices.
Guest:And when I've talked to her about running lines for something I'm doing,
Guest:The thing I always think to do is change the words.
Guest:I go, well, I know how to get the emotion across.
Guest:I'll just change every word you have here.
Guest:I'll put it in a different way.
Guest:And it's really interesting to watch like a real actor who can.
Guest:Work within the words.
Guest:Yeah, work within the words.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I only realized that recently.
Guest:I thought, oh, you're figuring it out with what they wrote.
Guest:That's the job.
Guest:Whereas I'm like, I'll show up 10 minutes early and go, hey, right here, can I say this instead?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I wrote some pretty good lines for your script.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I know you guys are writers, but I'm also a writer.
Guest:I'm also a writer.
Guest:I did a little sketch comedy.
Marc:And the kids, how's that treating you?
Marc:How's it changing you?
Guest:I just, I don't know if I changed, I doubled.
Guest:I expanded where I can do
Guest:I almost feel like I can do more, less of a trade-off and more like I've just become... You integrated it.
Guest:Yeah, but also I genuinely feel like my brain doubled in size.
Guest:Like we knocked a wall down.
Guest:Well, it's the kid wall.
Marc:And there was all this space.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, also, like, you know, I think that you're wired for the emotional connection if you're a normal human being.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you have kids, and the party that goes, oh, you're supposed to love them should kick in pretty quick.
Marc:Immediate.
Guest:It wasn't even that.
Guest:It was, oh, oh, hi again.
Guest:That was the real feeling.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Especially with my daughter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:I know you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you're going to be here a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have, we are so, we have...
Guest:The sweetest, funniest, nicest kids.
Guest:I tell you this.
Guest:Like, yeah, you can't oversell it because it sounds disingenuous.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:I'm in a very, very happy time.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I'm in a really happy time.
Guest:Aren't you glad you can appreciate it?
Guest:Yeah, I totally can.
Guest:And I find I can be more of a psychopath in my work because I go home and I go, oh, these people really like me.
Yeah.
Marc:Show's over.
Marc:I can just be myself.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Everyone here really likes me.
Marc:You don't believe everybody else?
Guest:Um...
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:It's just different relationship.
Guest:This is a different relationship.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, because they're my children's wife.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I guess you got to, you got to suck, you know, kind of take it in while you can.
Marc:Because from what I understand, there are periods where they might not like you as much.
Marc:Yeah, there are times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Can you think, do you think yourself as a teenager, like I put my parents to hell at some, at certain points.
Guest:Yeah, I had a slightly different relationship where I was trying to keep my parents separate from whatever I was doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a problem.
Guest:And I really felt like I felt quite noble in this pursuit.
Guest:You figured it out.
Guest:And when I would get caught, when the two would meet, I would get mad at my parents because they weren't giving me credit for how much I tried to keep this away from them.
Yeah.
Guest:I was like the head of the CIA talking to the president like, do you know what the fuck I do over here?
Guest:It's not for you to know about.
Guest:Get out of my personal life.
Guest:I remember thinking as a kid, I'm going to try to keep my personal life separate from my family.
Marc:And you're pretty successful at it, apparently.
Marc:Well.
Marc:I mean, as you got older, it seems like the amount of surprise that everyone had, you know, when you were kind of, when you hit the wall.
Marc:Because, you know, like a lot of people.
Marc:Oh, some surprise, yeah.
Marc:No, no, totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, outside of your inner circle, who were probably just concerned.
Guest:You I had talked to months earlier.
Guest:Remember that?
Guest:When you're trying to get it.
Guest:Early pandemic when I was like, hey.
Yeah.
Guest:Hey, you know about – you've ever heard of relapse?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if I gave you good advice.
Marc:I imagine I did.
Marc:Yeah, you did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, like, it's so funny because for somebody like me, and I don't know if I told you this, you know –
Marc:When you went through all that shit, my response was like, well, good for him.
Marc:That makes him much more interesting.
Marc:Like, he's a real deal.
Guest:This guy's the real deal.
Guest:That was the first thing Loren said to me when I saw him after all that.
Guest:He went, oh, you finally became interesting.
Guest:That demon.
Guest:People were surprised, and also there is something about going through something very human in front of people where it... I mean, certainly, I don't need to tell you that, but there's also... Rather than feel like, oh, are you all disappointed in me?
Guest:There's this great...
Guest:Great extra familiarity with the audience from it.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Because, like, it's, you know, you float in this ether when you're not being candid on any level.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In your art where, you know, you're boxed in and you're an entertainer.
Marc:But then when all this human shit happens, you're going to get people that are like, fuck him.
Marc:But most of the people are going to be like, man, I had a brother who I've been through that or whatever they did.
Marc:Yeah, whatever it is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:How did you handle all that fucking pushback when you got divorced?
Marc:So... You disappointed a lot of girls, I think.
Marc:Or something.
Marc:I don't recall exactly.
Guest:I was focused on a couple things at that time.
Guest:One, I'm in like month three or four.
Guest:Of sobriety?
Guest:Of sobriety.
Guest:And...
Guest:I wouldn't even say I had to shut it all out because it all got back to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the crisis at hand was, you know, like I'll keep the boy alive.
Guest:And then we are into the summer and my son's born in November.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So what was happening in my life was not...
Guest:It didn't really rhyme with what was being said out there.
Marc:Which is like almost always the case.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like what's being said out there is just this weird kind of, you know, beast of its own.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It feeds itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, sometimes you're going through the thing everyone's talking about, and sometimes you go, no, that's in the past, actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You guys are going to have to let this go.
Guest:I have a whole other thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I have a whole other thing where I'm chain-smoking.
Marc:Trying to stay alive.
Marc:And trying to keep a kid alive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And trying to figure out how to do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And these people are like, what an asshole.
Marc:And be like, wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Without Coke, I've gained a lot of weight.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You never got fat.
Guest:I'll tell you this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A critic saw me at City Winery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he wrote...
Guest:As if, it's so funny with everything I went through that I still zeroed in on this.
Guest:He wrote, he looks healthier.
Guest:He looks heavier.
Guest:And I was like, just the first part.
Guest:We don't need the second part.
Guest:His suit doesn't fit.
Guest:Yeah, his suit.
Guest:The buttons are pulling.
Guest:Just say he looks healthier.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, you get that kind of like weird rehab puffiness.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I mean, I was kind of a... Plates of carbs.
Guest:I was quite a cigarette and amphetamine person.
Guest:You were smoking?
Guest:All the time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I quit a couple weeks.
Guest:I quit in early November 2021.
Guest:But was that something you did as a kid, too?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, you smoked your whole life.
Guest:Yeah, I smoked my whole life.
Guest:Yeah, I got a chest x-ray recently, and they said, how long did you smoke?
Guest:And I thought, let's see, I was 13, and I quit when I was 39.
Guest:Me too, dude.
Guest:And they were like, oh, 26 years.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, when you say it like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, do you count the teen years?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they go, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fucking crazy, dude.
Marc:14, I started when I was 14.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I can't like- Did your parents smoke?
Marc:My mom smoked occasionally.
Marc:But it wasn't like a house where the kids are allowed to smoke.
Marc:No, but like my high school, we could smoke.
Guest:That's so interesting.
Marc:There was like 3,400 kids in my high school.
Marc:It was a public high school.
Marc:What are they going to do?
Guest:You could smoke outside.
Guest:They couldn't stop them.
Guest:You would get Saturday Jug, they called it.
Marc:No, they couldn't contain it.
Marc:It's not like you could do it in the school, but you could definitely smoke.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I went to a camp where you could smoke.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:A music and arts camp when I was 15.
Marc:I remember my aunt bought me a carton of Marlboro Reds.
Marc:Just smoking it up.
Marc:Just smoking at camp.
Guest:Yeah, and playing guitar.
Guest:It was like the perfect thing.
Guest:I was always fascinated by those kids where you go to their house, and they'd just be smoking, and their mom would come in and ask for a lighter, and everyone was smoking.
Marc:Yeah, it was a rare thing, but it was kind of amazing, wasn't it?
Marc:It was kind of amazing, and I couldn't have envied it more.
Marc:That they were normalized that much.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I mean, I guess I really quit in 2008.
Marc:You know, just when I got sober, I think 99 by 2001, I was done.
Marc:63, 73, 83, 93.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you look at it?
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:Do you, do you have two periods?
Guest:Is it like a comedy store, Sam Kinison?
Guest:Then did you actually stop everything or were you not really, really sober to the early?
Marc:Dude, I, it took me the first time I got sober, uh,
Marc:Was 1987.
Marc:And that was like total abstinence from- I went to rehab.
Marc:Oh, I didn't know that.
Marc:I left LA after that Kennison thing and I was psychotic.
Marc:I had coached myself into psychosis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, I was hearing voices in my head and I had to leave because a voice told me.
Marc:And, you know, all I could- Did it name the place you should go to?
Marc:Well, I just- Go to Tucson.
Marc:I did go to Tucson.
Guest:Oh, very nice.
Marc:oddly, because my brother was in school there, and I didn't know what to do.
Marc:I packed up everything I had in my car, and I just left in a panic, and all I knew was, like, I got to get a new passport because I'm going to have to get out, and I didn't even know why.
Marc:But then I got home, and I'd gotten a month or a space from the store, and I said, I got to check in.
Marc:Because I'm like, you know, I'm at this weird point where if I don't have silver pinky rings on and a skull on my shirt, I'm going to be in trouble.
Marc:I was out of my mind.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then I went to, I thought I was seeing the signs, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Skulls.
Marc:Yeah, well, they were protecting me.
Marc:And you'll see in all those early pictures, there had to be some representation.
Marc:Of the skull.
Marc:Yeah, I had a little skull pinky ring.
Marc:I had a skull on my shirt.
Marc:but then I would stay sober for, I never got the program.
Marc:So I would stay sober for like a year and a half max.
Marc:So I got out of rehab, went back to New York, started over again within a certain, within a year and a half I was using again, you know, went to California, uh, kind of like sober up here and there.
Marc:And then, you know, again, I get totally sober for like a year and a half.
Marc:It wasn't until I met, you know, Mishnah in, you know, 99, uh,
Marc:where, you know, she kind of walked me through the basic stuff about the program.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Like, I did not get the program.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So it took me whatever, like, I've got, what, 25 years this year?
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:26 years this year.
Marc:So that would have been 99, but the first time I got sober was in 87.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was a lot.
Guest:Just periods of abstinence then, falling back.
Marc:Yeah, but falling back.
Marc:By the time I met her, I was bloated and sweaty, and I had kind of resigned myself to the marriage I was in.
Marc:And I thought, like, my thinking was I was hosting a local TV show in New York.
Marc:I can't even remember the station.
Marc:I'm like, all right, well, if I can just get jobs like this, I'll be okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I just wanted to be dead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then Mishnah just like appeared out of the clouds.
Marc:And I'm like, I want to be with her.
Marc:And it just still happened.
Marc:She was sober.
Marc:I looked up.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:So all the basic ideas of we're going to meetings two, three times a day.
Marc:I had nothing to do.
Marc:So when I first got sober, you get that crew running around New York, doing two or three meetings a day, totally locked in, sponsored.
Guest:Yeah, no, I left the second rehab I was in, and my counselor was like, a minimum 180 and 90 days.
Guest:You have to do two a day, 490 days.
Guest:He was like, there's no world where you're going to be fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:occasionally going to a, I mean, he's like, it's the pandemic.
Guest:They're all on Zoom.
Guest:You're going to go to a minimum of two.
Guest:Did you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like I, it was, well, that was the thing that stuck with me.
Marc:It's like, you got to put it at your first.
Marc:And you're lucky the pandemic was happening in a way.
Marc:Because to put your sobriety first above and beyond everything else and the belief that everything will fall in place after that is a solid thing.
Guest:Though with my ego, it was weird because it felt like everything shut down because I had a drug problem.
Guest:I can't even get a hold of my guy anymore.
Guest:Yeah, I was like everything.
Guest:I was like, yeah, everyone's taking this hard and we're all just pausing.
Guest:No one's going to work.
Guest:Everyone's getting their food delivered.
Marc:And you're like, but wait, if I come over with a mask, can I still get the drugs?
Guest:Oh, please.
Guest:I didn't even know that the nasal tests hurt until well after getting sick.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Because people used to complain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, oh, they stick it up there.
Guest:And I was so numb.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That I'd go to get different COVID tests for things in the early pandemic.
Guest:I was like, what are people talking about?
Marc:Yeah, it took a long time.
Marc:And sadly, or maybe not.
Marc:I don't go to many meetings.
Marc:You know, one of my best friends is, you know, very sober.
Marc:And I talk to him often.
Marc:There's people I call.
Marc:But I don't go to many meetings.
Marc:And it probably wouldn't kill me.
Marc:But I find that there's other issues.
Marc:Like, I'm not worried about drinking or using drugs.
Marc:But there are some weird, you know, Al-Anon-y, you know...
Marc:graduate level recovery that i could probably engage in then i don't quite do it but i'm back in therapy we'll see what happens yeah and i'm old dude but you're young yeah some people are not young old you're just you right thank god and i probably have something to do with you know my commitment to boots and no kids and you wear any skulls now
Marc:I don't, dude.
Marc:I don't have any skulls.
Marc:So you're really vulnerable.
Marc:Very vulnerable.
Marc:The constant reminder of death is firmly planted in my head now, so I don't need to stave it off with my skull shirts.
Guest:So are you going to go on a vacation come this fall when you're done?
Guest:I don't know if I know how.
Guest:I know, but are you going to try?
Guest:You think I should?
Guest:Yeah.
Okay.
Guest:You were doing the podcast into the IFC show, into the podcast.
Marc:I did the podcast no matter what I was doing, dude.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I might spend time in New Mexico, but I don't know where to go.
Guest:Somewhere else.
Marc:How about somewhere?
Guest:How about going somewhere else?
Marc:Well, we might have to leave.
Marc:Wait, do you mean like to see family or?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Well, not so much to see family.
Marc:Yeah, a vacation.
Marc:I used to go to Hawaii frequently.
Marc:Hey.
Marc:I used to go to Kauai.
Marc:Like Chef Gordon.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:But once I brought the fourth girlfriend to Kauai and I was saying things like, I've been here.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's so funny.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:This land's very healing.
Guest:I told that to my last three girlfriends.
Guest:Yeah, or wives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Where have you gone?
Guest:Hawaii is great.
Guest:What do I really like?
Marc:You could go to Ireland.
Marc:I like Ireland.
Marc:I went to Ireland with Lynn, and I go there to work.
Marc:I didn't go this year.
Marc:I'm kind of sad about it.
Marc:I was at the Kilkenny Festival the same time as you, I think.
Guest:That was a fucking nightmare.
Guest:It was?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were going on runs.
Guest:I remember you were the first person I knew that ran without music playing.
Guest:Oh, interesting memory.
Guest:I just thought it sounded that, you know what, that when you were asking about taking time off and being at peace with yourself, I have noticed that I cannot do most things in life without music playing or some audio playing.
Marc:I just find with exercise, running specifically, I mean, I understand the music thing and I've done that a lot.
Marc:I remember you told me now, you just listen to your breath.
Marc:And I was like, that sounds... But also time goes by quicker when you don't listen to music.
Marc:Because yeah, there's something about songs that measure time.
Marc:I just find that if I'm running without music, my brain wanders like it does in real life.
Marc:Then all of a sudden time goes by.
Marc:But like with songs, I'm like, all right, I know this next time.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Here's the bridge.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Or whatever.
Marc:Or, you know, whatever your song list is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that's just crazy.
Marc:That's weird that, like, I have been exercising for a long time.
Marc:Yeah, Ireland is fucking great, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you journey?
Marc:Do you take trips with friends?
Marc:Like, I always picture you guys are, like, I talked to Kroll the other day.
Marc:I'm like, are you guys spending family time together?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You do?
Marc:You bring the kids and all that stuff?
Guest:Yeah, well, our kids are...
Guest:Close enough in age.
Guest:And then Dan Levy.
Guest:He's got, what, nine kids?
Guest:He has nine now.
Guest:Yeah, wow.
Guest:And they live in an ultra-Orthodox community on Beverly and the Bridge.
Guest:He's got three.
Guest:And his daughter, Penny, was born across the hall from my son.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Same night.
Marc:Isn't that nice though?
Marc:So do you guys do the whole, are you like traveling like Newhart and Rickles?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then, you know, I'll get some terrible New Year's Eve show and he'll open the show and we'll bring our families and make a vacation out of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we always think this will be great.
Guest:We'll get adjoining suites and, you know, then just, it's just, we're all in one living room with kids running around.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Not great.
Marc:Different kind.
Guest:Have you gone to Europe and stuff?
Guest:I have gone to Europe with Dan Levy, but it was for stand-up.
Guest:Oh, but never like, let's bring the families.
Guest:Skiing?
Guest:But we would.
Guest:No, I won't ski.
Guest:I'm not going to do that.
Guest:Have you ever?
Guest:Yeah, when I was younger.
Guest:And now I think about it.
Guest:Comes right back.
Guest:It's a little exhausting.
Guest:You got to get way on the line.
Guest:Look what happened to Tony Danza and that awful Michael Smith Kennedy or whatever.
Guest:Oh, the hit the tree thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doesn't it seem too wild?
Guest:Yeah, it seems too dangerous.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:Also, I will say this.
Guest:We're talking about being in a great place in life.
Guest:I do sometimes think like, yeah, but what if you blew out your knee and you couldn't?
Guest:You know, work out and go do stand-up and do all these things.
Marc:And you had a pain medication prescription.
Marc:For sure.
Guest:But I do think about that in terms of, like, any injury that would lay me up.
Guest:I'm like, you'd be okay.
Guest:You have a wonderful family and support system and a wonderful wife.
Guest:But, you know, let's not pursue it.
Guest:Yeah, let's not push it.
Marc:Strapping on skis.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:At the Aspen Comedy Festival.
Marc:Yeah, I had some dental work done.
Marc:They gave me an oxycodone prescription.
Marc:And it was one of those things where, you know, I know well enough about stuff.
Marc:And oddly...
Marc:I only took one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The day of.
Marc:And then I'm like, and then they sat in my cabinet for a long time.
Marc:And then I didn't feel any craving or anything, but I'm like, dude, just throw them away.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I threw them down the toilet and I got two emails from fucking concerned, progressive, sensitive people that said, you really shouldn't throw them down the toilet because it goes into the water supply.
Marc:I'm like, I don't give a fuck.
Yeah.
Marc:We're going to throw them away.
Marc:It's like people that take the batteries and paint.
Marc:The water supply.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's going to get into the water.
Marc:Yeah, the oxycodone.
Marc:Not the tens of thousands of gallons of Prozac in people's piss.
Marc:It's my oxycodone.
Guest:It's your oxycodone that will get the world, that will get all the L.A.
Guest:tap water drinkers.
Guest:All the L.A.
Guest:tap water drinkers.
Marc:I think they were primarily worried about it fucking up the almond groves.
Marc:Oh, we do need more almonds.
Yeah.
Marc:No, I don't know what they were worried about.
Marc:And I understand their sentiment.
Guest:But that's so interesting that you just said, and then I threw him down the toilet and people got mad at me.
Guest:And you left out the part where you told everyone on your podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's an interesting piece of your life where you do an action and then there's.
Marc:I talk about it.
Guest:You even missed the.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's all going to be gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm not going to know what people know anymore.
Guest:Hey, listen, if you miss it and you want to come back and do it, just come back and do it.
Guest:Don't think because you did a, I assume, big farewell and countdown and everything.
Guest:Well, here's the thing.
Marc:You can't.
Marc:I sometimes feel bad for people that feel trapped by their finale.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, I don't like, I don't.
Marc:I just don't want to do this without Brendan because this guy is a genius and he's been watching my back forever.
Marc:And just me talking without someone then taking the talking and making decisions after the fact, it's not always great.
Marc:You know, in terms of like, you know, sometimes I'm too candid and I'm not always aware of what's going to cause trouble.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And to have a good producer, like I would say things on here and while I'm doing my monologues, I'll say like, you're probably going to take that out.
Marc:But all right.
Marc:That man, I have to say he is quite good because the flow of it, I would never guess things are out.
Marc:Yeah, he's the best.
Marc:So I don't think I'll do this without him.
Marc:And so and then the other thing is, it's like, well, you're an interviewer.
Marc:There's jobs.
Marc:You know, you could do that.
Marc:I'm like, why?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:How am I going to do it as good as this?
Marc:Yeah, like on a TV.
Marc:Yeah, what's the point of it?
Marc:Like, I can't, what am I going to do?
Marc:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:But I'm just going to, I'll do the stand-up, and maybe I'll get better as an actor and do that.
Guest:And then if you ever want to interview someone, there's always terrible Paley Center panels and 92Y.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whenever you feel like, I'd like to host an evening.
Guest:Get me into the live moderating game.
Guest:Symphony Space, 92Y.
Guest:I've done those.
Guest:I've done those.
Guest:FYC events.
Guest:The future is bright, my friend.
Guest:Well, maybe I'll just kind of figure out a TED Talk.
Guest:Do people still do those?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Guest:Good talking to you.
Guest:Hey, man, congrats.
Guest:Thanks for having me again.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There you go, folks.
Marc:John Mulaney.
Marc:I like that guy.
Marc:And I feel like we're friends.
Marc:Everybody's live with John Mulaney.
Marc:The episodes are available on Netflix.
Marc:I think, as he said, we're not sure if there's going to be new ones, but go check out what they were up to.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Hang out for a minute.
Marc:Hey, folks, Full Marin listeners get a bonus episode tomorrow where Brendan and I go into more detail about our decision to end the show.
Marc:We'll give you the whole story.
Marc:Like, I don't really have any apprehension about our decision.
Guest:No, it's so funny because I walked over here and I was like, you know, I was pretty sure that, you know, we were on the same page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I didn't know 100 percent that if I said like the way I felt about it, like there might be you might have a different feeling or you might be like, wait, but end it entirely.
Guest:Like, shouldn't we keep it going somehow?
Guest:But like right away, I was like, I think the smartest thing to do is for us to end this.
Guest:And you were like, yep.
Marc:Well, people have always said to both of us, you know, in my mind, it was always good.
Marc:If anyone said, how long are you going to do it for?
Marc:I'm like, as long as Brendan wants.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said the same thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But so that then becomes a thing where we actually do have to figure it out.
Guest:And oddly, I think we're both on the same page.
Marc:Well, it became it was that thing.
Marc:What it was, it was really.
Marc:I think, you know, because we have pretty good boundaries with each other.
Marc:And, you know, to our credit, you know, nothing has ever really polluted our professional or personal relationship, whether it was ego or wanting to do other things.
Marc:But I think that conversation we had a few months ago about just the level of burnout we were operating at and acknowledging it, because I don't I won't acknowledge.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And I think that you were sort of ahead of me in identifying it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how could it not be that?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Because of the nature of my work and how I work and being self-employed, I never even factored that in, that it's even a real thing.
Marc:That bonus episode post tomorrow for full Marin subscribers to sign up, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.
Marc:Here's some guitar that after I came up with it, I realized it's pretty close to a Cat Power song, but that's good.
Marc:.
Marc:.
.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.