Episode 174 - Sally Wade

Episode 174 • Released May 11, 2011 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what the fuck buddies?

00:00:27Marc:What the fuck in here is what the fuckers?

00:00:29Marc:God, did I mix that up?

00:00:31Marc:What the fucksikins I was asked to say for my hood?

00:00:35Marc:Okay.

00:00:36Marc:Yeah, I got plenty of those.

00:00:38Marc:You can keep sending them, but I'm not encouraging it.

00:00:40Marc:I swear to you, I've gotten every one possible and I'm not going to make the list longer.

00:00:45Marc:Nonetheless, I am Marc Maron.

00:00:47Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:49Marc:I'm here.

00:00:50Marc:This is an exciting show.

00:00:52Marc:Today is a special day.

00:00:55Marc:It is George Carlin's birthday today.

00:00:57Marc:That is May 12th.

00:00:58Marc:And today our guest is Sally Wade, who was George Carlin's last guest.

00:01:05Marc:She'll tell you what she wants you to call her.

00:01:08Marc:I've been corrected on a couple of things.

00:01:11Marc:They weren't married.

00:01:13Marc:Girlfriend is a little too, that's a little, it's weird.

00:01:17Marc:Significant other is weird.

00:01:19Marc:Sally Wade was with George Carlin for the last decade or so of his life.

00:01:23Marc:He she was with him when he passed away.

00:01:26Marc:She has recently released a book called The George Carlin Letters, the permanent courtship of Sally Wade.

00:01:34Marc:And I'm very excited to talk to her because it is a special day.

00:01:38Marc:It's a special day for me in the sense that remembering George Carlin is important.

00:01:44Marc:For everyone, remembering what whatever part of George Carlin that you loved is important because George Carlin was one of a kind.

00:01:53Marc:He was a great, great comic.

00:01:55Marc:And I don't know anybody of my generation that was not influenced by George Carlin.

00:02:02Marc:And George Carlin, to his credit, worked pretty much until the day he died.

00:02:07Marc:generating new material.

00:02:09Marc:Some people became critical of him later in his life.

00:02:12Marc:Why can't I turn my phone off?

00:02:14Marc:especially in touching moments like this.

00:02:17Marc:But to me, George Carlin was always a great comic.

00:02:21Marc:And sometimes I don't even, I don't even really acknowledge just how much impact he had on me because you don't realize it sometimes.

00:02:28Marc:I mean, I've got my comic heroes.

00:02:30Marc:He's certainly right up there, but I don't always put him as number one somewhere.

00:02:35Marc:You know, he's usually in the top four and that changes as you get older.

00:02:39Marc:You know, who do you think?

00:02:40Marc:Who do you talk about?

00:02:41Marc:Who influenced you the most?

00:02:42Marc:But I'm sitting here

00:02:44Marc:in my garage right now with a vinyl version of Class Clown.

00:02:51Marc:Now, Class Clown was the record.

00:02:53Marc:I'm holding the record in my hand.

00:02:56Marc:Not unlike I did when I was 14, 13, 14 years old, sitting on the floor with my brother in my room.

00:03:06Marc:We had separate rooms then.

00:03:08Marc:And sitting there and playing this whole goddamn record over and over and over again.

00:03:15Marc:Side one, class clown.

00:03:16Marc:A, bilabial fricative.

00:03:18Marc:B, attracting attention.

00:03:20Marc:C, squeamish.

00:03:22Marc:Two, wasted time.

00:03:23Marc:Sharing a swallow.

00:03:24Marc:Three, values.

00:03:26Marc:In parentheses, how much is that dog crap in the window?

00:03:29Marc:Side two, this is all on a chalkboard sitting behind silly little George Carlin.

00:03:33Marc:I'm holding the record.

00:03:35Marc:One, I used to be an Irish Catholic.

00:03:37Marc:Two, the confessional.

00:03:38Marc:Three, special dispensation.

00:03:40Marc:Heaven, hell, purgatory, and limbo.

00:03:42Marc:Four, heavy mysteries.

00:03:44Marc:Five, Muhammad Ali, America the Beautiful.

00:03:46Marc:And six, of course...

00:03:49Marc:the seven words you can never say on television.

00:03:53Marc:Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

00:03:56Marc:Doing that from memory because I sat there and remembered it.

00:04:00Marc:I would play it over and over again until I got it right.

00:04:02Marc:It was important stuff.

00:04:04Marc:George Carlin was important and great.

00:04:07Marc:And today's his birthday.

00:04:09Marc:And then you open up the record and there's all these pictures of Carlin when he was a little kid, his neighborhood, his church.

00:04:18Marc:It's all right here.

00:04:20Marc:Oh, my God.

00:04:21Marc:And then this album would not have been possible without the loving help.

00:04:24Marc:And he reels off all of these sisters and fathers and Corpus Christi School, New York City.

00:04:33Marc:Wow.

00:04:34Marc:I mean, just holding the record, man.

00:04:36Marc:It's got the original sleeve.

00:04:38Marc:Wow.

00:04:40Marc:And now I'm sitting here with Sally's book, which is also filled with letters and pictures of George Carlin from her time with him.

00:04:48Marc:Now, the one thing I will tell you about Carlin and my only personal experience with him, I'm sorry I did not have the opportunity to get him on this show.

00:04:57Marc:And it seems like it's that generation or a little before of comic appreciation this week with Jonathan Winters.

00:05:04Marc:I'm so glad that you all enjoyed the Jonathan Winters episode so much because it was really a thrill for me to go up there.

00:05:12Marc:And it really was.

00:05:15Marc:And with Carlin, man, I mean, I went to see him when I was probably 14 years old.

00:05:20Marc:I had a broken foot, a broken ankle.

00:05:23Marc:I remember being on crutches.

00:05:24Marc:I think I went with my dad.

00:05:28Marc:And I remember it was at the Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:05:32Marc:And I was beside myself to watch George Carlin do live comedy at that time.

00:05:38Marc:I mean, that's 19, what, 77, something like that.

00:05:42Marc:And I wanted nothing more than to meet the guy.

00:05:44Marc:And I waited to meet him.

00:05:48Marc:And and he came out and he signed an autograph for me.

00:05:53Marc:He couldn't autograph my cast because it was one of those stupid fiberglass casts.

00:05:56Marc:Can't sign those.

00:05:58Marc:So he just he gave me his autograph and I and he was so pleasant and and thankful and nice.

00:06:04Marc:I always remembered that.

00:06:07Marc:But this guy was, I mean, I listened to this record.

00:06:10Marc:I got to be honest with you.

00:06:11Marc:I listened to it on vinyl just to remember it, to have that feeling of dropping that needle into the groove.

00:06:18Marc:You knew where the pops were.

00:06:19Marc:You knew where the cracks were.

00:06:20Marc:But you knew that the comedy was coming.

00:06:23Marc:And that one groove with the seven words you can't say on television, bang, over and over and over again, bringing friends over.

00:06:30Marc:Listen to this.

00:06:33Marc:So this has been a very nostalgic week in terms of but this is directly my my my childhood.

00:06:41Marc:You know, Jonathan Winters was a little before me, but Carlin was definitely my childhood.

00:06:45Marc:And he's he's missed, believe me, by his fans and certainly by Sally, who we're going to talk to in a minute.

00:06:54Marc:But I do think that this book that she put together, the reason it's so profound and interesting is that we all have an idea of who our heroes are and what they are really like.

00:07:04Marc:Like, as you know, I've been reading very slowly this Keith Richards.

00:07:08Marc:autobiography, and it's just elevating the myth of Keith.

00:07:12Marc:I mean, I have more respect for him now.

00:07:15Marc:I mean, he's not the greatest person in the world, but he's definitely much more than I ever anticipated.

00:07:20Marc:And with this book, The George Carlin Letters, which is really a collage

00:07:25Marc:depicting a relationship of a lot of different things, pieces of script, pieces of story, pictures, notes passed back and forth between Sally and George.

00:07:32Marc:But it certainly shows a side of George Carlin that I had no idea about and that I don't know, even if I'd gotten him on this show, that I would have seen this side, the romantic, the person in love, the person that writes silly, cute letters to his...

00:07:54Marc:His his gal and just all the insight around that and around seeing this whole different side of a person that you've known your whole your whole life in a certain way is certainly very fascinating and moving to the point where I felt a little a little uncomfortable that I was knowing this stuff about about George.

00:08:16Marc:But it was certainly rounded him off in my mind as a as a person.

00:08:21Marc:So I think today, on his birthday, it's very appropriate and very fitting for us to talk to Sally about the book, about George, and about her feelings.

00:08:32Marc:And I hope you enjoy the conversation.

00:08:36Marc:I'm looking forward to it.

00:08:37Thank you.

00:08:45Marc:I don't generally have... I interview in a weird way.

00:08:51Guest:Oh.

00:08:51Marc:I mean, I just generally talk and see what happens.

00:08:54Marc:Yeah, okay.

00:08:55Guest:Well, you know what?

00:08:55Guest:The first date, the real date that I had with George, I had notes in my pockets.

00:09:02Guest:Yeah.

00:09:03Guest:In case I ran out of things to say.

00:09:04Guest:You did?

00:09:06Guest:So every once in a while I'd go in the ladies room and look at the next thing, you know, the next joke or whatever.

00:09:12Guest:Yeah.

00:09:12Guest:And come back out and, you know, say it as if it was spontaneous.

00:09:16Marc:You were prepared.

00:09:17Guest:But it must have worked because the lunch lasted three or four hours.

00:09:21Guest:So now.

00:09:23Marc:So you were when you came out here.

00:09:26Marc:To Los Angeles.

00:09:27Marc:Where'd you come from and what was the dream there?

00:09:30Marc:How old were you?

00:09:31Guest:What was the dream?

00:09:33Guest:I was probably 21.

00:09:35Guest:Yeah.

00:09:37Guest:I just got in a...

00:09:40Guest:My grandfather's 59 Ford.

00:09:43Guest:Yeah.

00:09:44Guest:You know, I didn't have any money.

00:09:45Guest:I had a plant in the car with me.

00:09:47Guest:Yeah.

00:09:48Guest:I drove out.

00:09:49Guest:I didn't have any snow tires.

00:09:50Guest:It was the middle of the wintertime.

00:09:51Guest:Right.

00:09:52Guest:And I drove out on the shoulder the whole way because of all the ice and snow.

00:09:55Guest:Yeah.

00:09:56Yeah.

00:09:57Guest:And when I got to L.A., I didn't have any... I thought I'd go to San Diego and... Hang out.

00:10:04Guest:Yeah, do something.

00:10:06Guest:But I couldn't find a job there, so I came back to L.A.

00:10:10Guest:And about three weeks later, I had my first writing, TV writing assignment.

00:10:15Marc:So it didn't take me long.

00:10:16Marc:How did that happen?

00:10:17Marc:I mean, had you written?

00:10:18Marc:I mean, did you have a plan?

00:10:19Guest:No, I had no plan.

00:10:20Guest:Well, how did you get a job?

00:10:22Guest:Well, I liked stationary stories.

00:10:24Yeah.

00:10:24Guest:Which means what you like to buy.

00:10:26Guest:Different color paper and pens.

00:10:29Guest:And the office furniture I thought was cool.

00:10:32Guest:And so I thought, you know, how would I have a job where I didn't have to dress up every day.

00:10:38Guest:Right.

00:10:39Guest:I mean, I'm sure a lot of people, it crosses their mind as well.

00:10:42Guest:So...

00:10:44Guest:I took a television writing class so that I learned what a script looked like.

00:10:49Guest:Right.

00:10:50Guest:And wrote a script.

00:10:54Guest:For what?

00:10:54Guest:Got an agent.

00:10:55Guest:Actually, the first script that I wrote was for Barney Miller.

00:10:59Marc:Really?

00:10:59Guest:But they didn't buy it.

00:11:00Marc:Yeah.

00:11:00Guest:But a lot of other people...

00:11:04Guest:hired me from that script.

00:11:07Marc:That's great.

00:11:07Marc:That was a great show.

00:11:09Marc:They don't make shows like that anymore.

00:11:10Guest:No, but it killed the people working on it.

00:11:12Guest:What do you mean?

00:11:12Guest:Because they would work all night long.

00:11:15Guest:And they all died early.

00:11:16Guest:I mean, the guy that produced it, I can't think of his name.

00:11:19Marc:Hal Linden, he's still alive, isn't he?

00:11:21Guest:Yeah, no, the producers of it.

00:11:22Marc:Oh, really?

00:11:22Guest:Yeah, and he would give people cars to stay on later.

00:11:26Marc:Why did it take so long?

00:11:27Guest:Because he didn't want them to go home.

00:11:29Marc:Right.

00:11:29Marc:Why did it end up being so grueling?

00:11:32Guest:uh some people are just totally obsessed with their tv show yeah and having the tv show stay on the air yeah and it had a uh basic male mentality there that you know you had to stay and work or you weren't you know a real yeah i guess a lot of those shows a lot of these writers i talk to are pretty uh strung out it does get a little grueling depending on who the uh the task master is

00:11:56Guest:Well, I can get, you know, I can be grueling.

00:11:59Guest:I can be tough on myself.

00:12:00Marc:Yeah.

00:12:01Guest:But when you work for someone else, it's kind of, yeah.

00:12:04Marc:What was your show?

00:12:05Marc:What did you write on?

00:12:06Guest:I wrote on different shows.

00:12:08Guest:I wrote for different shows.

00:12:09Guest:I wrote...

00:12:10Guest:I wrote a lot of Norman Lear stuff.

00:12:14Guest:You worked with Norman Lear?

00:12:16Guest:Yeah, I did a lot of their shows.

00:12:18Guest:I did Sanford and Son.

00:12:22Guest:I did What's Happening.

00:12:23Guest:I did about 10 of those.

00:12:25Guest:I don't know if you remember that little girl D that they had on the show, but I was the smart-ass voice for her, believe it or not.

00:12:32Marc:They brought you in to write D?

00:12:34Guest:Well, yeah.

00:12:35Guest:I mean, they had me write 10 or 12 shows so that I would get that voice.

00:12:40Right.

00:12:40Guest:Wow.

00:12:41Guest:So that was sort of my early training.

00:12:44Guest:And then I wrote a screenplay.

00:12:49Guest:And I got a lot of other work.

00:12:52Guest:It was sort of a romantic relationship, bittersweet story.

00:12:56Marc:How old were you when this was going on with the TV writing?

00:12:58Marc:In your mid-twenties?

00:13:00Guest:Mid-twenties, yeah, to late.

00:13:03Guest:And then I got married, tried to move back to the Midwest.

00:13:08Marc:Where?

00:13:10Marc:Kansas?

00:13:11Guest:Missouri.

00:13:13Guest:I don't even like to correct people on that.

00:13:16Guest:It's the same thing.

00:13:18Guest:I mean, there is Kansas City, so I don't know why they don't just call both states Kansas.

00:13:23Guest:But I moved back there.

00:13:25Guest:It didn't quite work out.

00:13:27Guest:And I kept coming back out here.

00:13:29Guest:And then I did a show...

00:13:33Guest:for the Beach Boys.

00:13:35Guest:I had a two-part show on one show for the Doobie Brothers.

00:13:42Guest:I was on staff at another show.

00:13:43Guest:I had a TV movie.

00:13:44Guest:I had development deals.

00:13:46Marc:I had a lot of stuff.

00:13:47Marc:Were those the days where they were doing variety shows with those bands?

00:13:50Marc:Because I kind of vaguely remember a Beach Boys Christmas show.

00:13:52Guest:No, it was on a sitcom.

00:13:54Marc:Oh, really?

00:13:54Guest:Yeah, those were the sitcom days.

00:13:56Marc:They made a sitcom for the Beach Boys?

00:13:58Marc:No.

00:13:58Guest:It was on What's Happening.

00:14:02Guest:No, the Beach Boys was on You Again.

00:14:05Guest:That was the name of the show.

00:14:07Marc:Oh, it was just an episode?

00:14:08Marc:Yeah.

00:14:09Marc:It wasn't like a Beach Boys sitcom?

00:14:10Guest:No, but it was to promote their new music.

00:14:15Guest:So you have to write parts for them.

00:14:18Marc:Yeah, I can't imagine.

00:14:18Guest:And I remember with the Doobie Brothers, they flew me to Chicago to travel around with the Doobie Brothers to try to...

00:14:26Guest:get used to their personalities.

00:14:30Guest:And we were driving around all night.

00:14:33Guest:I think they were doing drugs, but not in front of me.

00:14:35Guest:And we went to see, I think it was Al Green.

00:14:39Marc:Oh, that must have been good.

00:14:40Guest:Well, it took him several hours to come out.

00:14:44Guest:And I think he was pretty wasted by the time he did.

00:14:47Marc:Was this after the fall of Al Green?

00:14:49Marc:I wonder when that happened.

00:14:50Marc:It was in the 70s.

00:14:52Marc:Yeah, it was late 70s.

00:14:54Marc:So was it before, it must have been before he became a preacher?

00:14:57Guest:I think the next day he became a preacher after that show.

00:15:01Guest:Really?

00:15:01Guest:I mean, yeah, there was no way to repent except to, you know.

00:15:04Marc:To do that?

00:15:05Marc:Yeah.

00:15:05Marc:It was that bad a show?

00:15:06Marc:Yeah.

00:15:07Marc:But the Doobie Brothers, so did you figure out how to write for them?

00:15:10Guest:No.

00:15:11No.

00:15:11Marc:I can't imagine traveling with a rock band who maybe, maybe they're comedic.

00:15:17Marc:Yeah, no.

00:15:18Marc:So when you left LA then to go back to Missouri, were you like, fuck this town, it was wearing you down kind of deal?

00:15:24Marc:Were you running away?

00:15:26Guest:Well, I was on staff at the Elliot Gould show.

00:15:29Marc:I don't even remember that.

00:15:31Guest:When was that?

00:15:32Guest:That was ER.

00:15:34Guest:That was...

00:15:38Guest:About 20 years ago.

00:15:40Marc:He had a sitcom, Elliot Gould.

00:15:41Marc:Yeah.

00:15:42Guest:And so I was, I really, I don't do well working for people.

00:15:51Guest:Yeah.

00:15:51Guest:You know, I'm a little bit like George in that respect.

00:15:54Guest:Just anything that has to do with working for other people.

00:15:58Guest:Yeah.

00:15:58Guest:It's...

00:16:00Guest:We end up not getting along or whatever.

00:16:03Guest:It's just a clash of personalities.

00:16:04Marc:Have a hard time with that authority.

00:16:06Guest:Yeah, hard time.

00:16:07Marc:Yeah.

00:16:07Guest:Real hard time.

00:16:08Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:16:09Marc:So you leave for Kansas, you get married, and then you come back.

00:16:15Guest:Well, I was coming back and forth during the marriage.

00:16:19Guest:So I began to live here, and my ex-husband lives there.

00:16:25Guest:He still lives there.

00:16:26Marc:What's he do?

00:16:27Guest:He has a computer company.

00:16:29Marc:And you guys talk still?

00:16:31Guest:Oh, yeah, we're friends.

00:16:33Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:16:33Guest:He's with another woman who has a couple of boys, so that's good for him.

00:16:39Marc:Oh, that's good, yeah.

00:16:40Marc:Yeah, he's a nice guy.

00:16:41Marc:And when did you meet George Carlin?

00:16:44Guest:uh let's see 13 years ago 13 yeah uh a little longer than that now because the anniversary anniversary of his death is coming up in another month so it's been almost three years i can't believe it um was that like was that was pretty sudden yeah

00:17:08Guest:Yeah.

00:17:10Guest:Well, meeting him was sudden, but no, the relationship happening itself wasn't sudden.

00:17:14Marc:Well, the death was sudden.

00:17:16Guest:Oh, the death.

00:17:17Marc:Yeah.

00:17:18Guest:It was sudden, but looking back, you know, I could have seen more of the signs.

00:17:23Guest:Yeah.

00:17:23Guest:It's just that there were always small signs along the way because of his heart disease.

00:17:27Guest:Uh-huh.

00:17:28Guest:So he seemed invincible.

00:17:29Guest:Right.

00:17:30Guest:In some respects.

00:17:31Guest:And about a week before then, he'd had one of his best shows in Vegas.

00:17:36Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:17:37Yeah.

00:17:37Guest:And he took his cell phone.

00:17:38Guest:He always said, don't call me when I'm on stage.

00:17:41Guest:I don't know why.

00:17:41Guest:Yeah.

00:17:42Guest:You know, because he could call me.

00:17:43Guest:In fact, one time he called and had the audience sing happy birthday to me.

00:17:47Guest:Oh.

00:17:48Guest:That was really sweet.

00:17:48Guest:So I called him back.

00:17:49Guest:Yeah.

00:17:50Guest:And he didn't take the phone.

00:17:51Guest:You know, he wouldn't answer the call.

00:17:52Guest:So in his very last performance, there was some playoff games.

00:17:58Guest:It was either basketball or football.

00:18:01Guest:I don't know.

00:18:01Guest:I never kept track of the sports.

00:18:05Guest:He was watching everything all the time.

00:18:07Guest:But anyway, I was texting him the scores on his cell phone so that he would go over and look at it every now and then.

00:18:13Guest:On stage?

00:18:13Guest:Yeah.

00:18:15Guest:And I was making it very entertaining.

00:18:17Guest:I'd tell him when the cheerleaders went to the bathroom and

00:18:20Marc:Oh, and he wasn't letting the audience in on that?

00:18:23Guest:No, and it was just right there on the table with his notes.

00:18:27Guest:So I feel good that, you know, he did take his cell phone out that last day.

00:18:33Marc:Oh, that's sweet.

00:18:34Marc:So you met him, like, in the middle of all this craziness?

00:18:37Marc:Because, you know, I got the book.

00:18:39Marc:I'm talking to Sally Wade.

00:18:40Marc:The book is The George Carlin Letters, The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade, and you were married to George for how long?

00:18:48Guest:well we weren't legally married well right we're married on jupiter yeah uh we called it marriage i mean he called me his wife sure i don't know what to call myself but he actually called me his spouse without papers uh-huh because he didn't like significant other uh-huh he hated that yeah so it's a little it's a bizarre girlfriend yeah at what age do you stop yeah right yeah so um on jupiter now this is a theme in the book this jupiter business what do you mean he got married on jupiter

00:19:13Guest:Well, from the first day we met, we decided that that was our home planet.

00:19:19Marc:Okay.

00:19:20Guest:And from there, a whole series of creative endeavors occurred.

00:19:28Guest:We kept a journal.

00:19:29Guest:We would write every night stories.

00:19:31Guest:We'd pass a paper back and forth.

00:19:33Guest:And he was Jupiter Geo and I was Jupiter Sal.

00:19:37Guest:And we'd come up with these fanciful tales of what was going on around us.

00:19:41Guest:So, and I put a couple of those in the book, but honestly, I haven't been able to read them all because they're very personal.

00:19:48Guest:They're more personal to me than my personal life.

00:19:50Guest:And...

00:19:53Guest:It's very emotional for me to read them.

00:19:55Marc:Yeah, I'm sure.

00:19:56Marc:And this book is very interesting the way it's put together.

00:20:00Marc:It's almost like a collage of a relationship with a narrative and certain time markers from the beginning.

00:20:07Marc:There's all sorts of pictures.

00:20:08Marc:There's cutouts.

00:20:09Marc:There's your notes.

00:20:10Marc:There's his notes.

00:20:12Marc:There's different styles of writing involved in it.

00:20:15Marc:So it's actually kind of a multimedia experience.

00:20:17Marc:Yeah.

00:20:17Marc:The book itself.

00:20:19Marc:And from the beginning, it seems like some of the narrative revolves around this relationship you have with this dog.

00:20:27Marc:Now, that's a real dog.

00:20:30Guest:Yeah, Spot was our real dog.

00:20:32Guest:No, Spot.

00:20:33Marc:Passed away.

00:20:34Guest:Well, Spot is still around.

00:20:35Guest:We always considered him to still be around.

00:20:37Marc:Okay.

00:20:38Guest:We never considered him gone.

00:20:39Marc:Now, what role did Spot play in the beginning of your relationship?

00:20:42Guest:Well, Spot introduced us in the bookstore.

00:20:44Marc:Yeah.

00:20:45Guest:So he claims credit for the entire relationship.

00:20:48Guest:And by the way, he thinks this book is about him.

00:20:51Guest:Of course.

00:20:52Guest:Yeah.

00:20:52Guest:But then he's only read his chapter.

00:20:54Guest:Yeah.

00:20:54Guest:So what was that first meeting?

00:20:57Guest:The first meeting was in a bookstore, in Dutton's bookstore in Santa Monica, which is kind of a famous landmark that went out of business, unfortunately, about a year or so ago.

00:21:09Guest:And I heard his voice.

00:21:12Marc:And you knew him, of course.

00:21:13Marc:Yeah.

00:21:13Marc:I mean, you knew him.

00:21:14Marc:Yeah, sure.

00:21:15Marc:You were a fan.

00:21:16Guest:No, I wasn't really... I didn't dislike him.

00:21:19Marc:It wasn't on your radar necessarily.

00:21:22Marc:Yeah.

00:21:23Guest:But I had also done... I had started writing my own material and had done a little stand-up myself.

00:21:31Guest:Oh.

00:21:32Guest:So I was familiar with the whole process.

00:21:35Guest:Right.

00:21:37Guest:And...

00:21:38Guest:Anyway, I heard his voice and he was coming around the corner and I thought, well, you know, you see a lot of celebrities in L.A.

00:21:45Guest:It's no big deal.

00:21:46Guest:And I said to myself, well, Spot was never on a leash.

00:21:51Guest:I said, if he bends down to pet Spot, I'll say hello.

00:21:54Guest:That'll be my sign.

00:21:56Guest:And Spot went up to the counter to get a cookie.

00:21:59Guest:Because the guy that owns the store had dog cookies.

00:22:01Guest:It had nothing to do with George, I'm sure.

00:22:04Guest:But George bent down to pet him.

00:22:06Marc:So that was it.

00:22:07Marc:Game on.

00:22:08Guest:And we started talking about how he was going from a performer to a writer.

00:22:17Guest:He really wanted to write more than he wanted to perform.

00:22:20Marc:Just because he was tired or was there an audience issue with him in his mind?

00:22:24Guest:No, I think it's just that he enjoyed that process.

00:22:27Guest:And he had that book out, Braindroppings, which was essentially his first real book.

00:22:33Guest:And I was talking about how I was going from a writer to a performer.

00:22:37Guest:And he was telling me that he thought that was much harder than the other way around.

00:22:41Guest:Sure.

00:22:42Guest:Because I have a lot of stage fright.

00:22:44Guest:Right.

00:22:45Guest:And my style is, you know, it's nothing like the George Carlin.

00:22:49Guest:I'm more like Jack Benny.

00:22:50Guest:If you like Jack Benny, you'll like me.

00:22:52Marc:You're a reactor.

00:22:52Marc:Slow burn.

00:22:53Guest:Yeah.

00:22:54Guest:Slow.

00:22:54Guest:I've got stuff in my pockets.

00:22:56Guest:I forget what I'm, you know, saying.

00:23:00Marc:On purpose?

00:23:00Marc:Yeah.

00:23:01Guest:Okay.

00:23:02Guest:So, well, not always on purpose.

00:23:05Marc:Yeah.

00:23:06Guest:Yeah.

00:23:06Guest:But I give it to myself on purpose so that it'll look real, but on purpose, but it's still part of my personality.

00:23:13Marc:Sure.

00:23:14Marc:Yeah, it keeps you in the present.

00:23:16Guest:Exactly.

00:23:17Guest:And it keeps them in the present.

00:23:18Marc:They don't know what I'm doing next.

00:23:20Guest:Neither do I. Because I could suddenly do something else.

00:23:24Guest:But besides that, I was just going to say that he used to kind of try to coach me.

00:23:29Guest:And he'd say things like, faster, faster.

00:23:32Guest:Louder.

00:23:34Guest:While you were on stage?

00:23:35Guest:Yeah.

00:23:36Guest:Well, not when there was an audience.

00:23:39Right.

00:23:40Guest:I don't think that helps anyone be funny.

00:23:43Marc:You know, I don't know.

00:23:44Marc:Two comics in a house together.

00:23:45Marc:I tried that once.

00:23:46Guest:Oh, no, no.

00:23:47Guest:This was great, except for that.

00:23:49Guest:And we decided, you know, no more of that shit.

00:23:51Marc:No more of the, I'm going to help you with your stand-up shit.

00:23:54Guest:I know.

00:23:55Guest:And I tried to help him, of course.

00:23:56Marc:Yeah.

00:23:57Guest:I know that sounds absurd to you.

00:23:59Marc:No, no, no.

00:23:59Guest:But I would give him notes.

00:24:01Guest:And after his shows, I would give him notes.

00:24:05Guest:I'd say, you know, that suicide bit.

00:24:07Guest:Yeah.

00:24:07Yeah.

00:24:07Guest:15 minutes into it you should at least say something that's funny You know, I mean it's just and actually he ended up getting fired from MGM because of the suicide bit was depressing everyone well, I think it's an interesting thing that happened with your relationship is that the

00:24:26Marc:In what I've read from the book, that at the time that you met him, he was just barely out of the tunnel or still in the tunnel of grief around his wife passing, correct?

00:24:38Guest:Yes.

00:24:39Guest:Well, he waited a year.

00:24:41Marc:No, that was very interesting in the book that you had met him and he was locked into some sort of defined grieving process that he had given himself a certain amount.

00:24:51Guest:He had assigned himself a year that he would wait.

00:24:56Guest:I, in the meantime, he had invited me to Vegas to see his show before the year was that.

00:25:02Guest:Sure, because you met at the bookstore.

00:25:04Guest:Well, I didn't know he invited everyone to Vegas to see his show.

00:25:07Guest:I thought we had a date.

00:25:07Guest:Yeah.

00:25:09Guest:And so, I mean, you saw what I had on today.

00:25:12Guest:I had on a jacket, but I had on a brown suit jacket to see George Carlin.

00:25:16Guest:I put on a brown suit jacket.

00:25:18Guest:Yeah.

00:25:19Guest:Whatever.

00:25:20Guest:You got spiffy.

00:25:21Guest:You got spiffy.

00:25:22Guest:I did.

00:25:23Guest:Yeah.

00:25:25Guest:Didn't fit in, but I was spiffy.

00:25:26Guest:Yeah.

00:25:27Guest:And I called him before I went to the show.

00:25:29Guest:Uh-huh.

00:25:30Guest:I didn't know where he was, but I called the hotel, and they rang through to his room.

00:25:36Guest:And I don't think he knew who I was, but he probably did.

00:25:40Marc:Yeah.

00:25:41Marc:He's probably playing it cool.

00:25:42Guest:He said, yeah, he said, say hello after the show.

00:25:45Guest:Yeah.

00:25:45Guest:And he said he'd comp my ticket.

00:25:47Guest:Yeah.

00:25:49Guest:I didn't know he comped everyone's ticket.

00:25:51Marc:Right, you really thought you were special.

00:25:52Guest:I said, I already bought my ticket.

00:25:54Guest:No, I didn't want him to think that I just wanted a free ticket.

00:25:57Marc:Right, right.

00:25:59Marc:You weren't going to come off as trying too hard either.

00:26:01Marc:No.

00:26:01Marc:Right.

00:26:02Guest:So, even though I bought a new car to go to Vegas.

00:26:05Guest:No, come on.

00:26:06Guest:Yeah, I did.

00:26:07Guest:Because I was driving an old Jeep.

00:26:09Guest:That's pretty spiffy.

00:26:10Guest:You got a new suit and a new car.

00:26:12Guest:Yeah, I had a new car.

00:26:12Guest:I put new sod in the yard.

00:26:14Guest:Well, that was before our first date.

00:26:16Marc:Right.

00:26:16Guest:So I'm getting ahead of myself.

00:26:17Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:18Guest:Anyway, I went backstage.

00:26:19Guest:He said, there's spots, Mom.

00:26:23Guest:And then he walked me to my car.

00:26:25Marc:Thank God.

00:26:26Guest:And I knew he didn't walk anyone else to his car.

00:26:28Marc:Right, right.

00:26:30Guest:But then he said, I'll call you in three or four months, and we'll go have a bagel.

00:26:34Guest:Huh.

00:26:35Guest:And I thought...

00:26:37Guest:Who says that?

00:26:40Marc:Did he explain the reason why?

00:26:42Guest:No.

00:26:43Guest:But it was because he wanted to wait that full year.

00:26:46Marc:Right.

00:26:46Marc:What I was going to talk to you about is it seems that, okay, so once you started being with him, and it seems like in the relationship in the book, is that you were really in love.

00:26:55Marc:He was very constantly excited to write you notes.

00:26:59Marc:There's all this creative activity going on.

00:27:02Marc:between you.

00:27:03Marc:And there's certainly a much softer and much more vulnerable side to George Carlin than most of us has seen.

00:27:09Marc:And it's just interesting to me about what you were saying about the suicide bit is in this decade that you were with him, if there was any criticism ever levied against George Carlin in his later career, it was that he had become completely misanthropic.

00:27:22Marc:and overly cantankerous, and that some of the humor was draining out, and that what was happening was that there was a sort of rage there.

00:27:31Marc:I don't believe that, but it's just sort of interesting to me.

00:27:36Guest:I've heard that.

00:27:38Marc:I've heard that.

00:27:38Marc:But it's interesting to me at this time, this is obviously one of the most significant relationships he's ever had.

00:27:43Marc:He's feeling a lot of love and a lot of tenderness for you, and on stage he's doing this suicide bit that even you said has no laughs.

00:27:50Marc:Now, what do you think was, what was going on around that?

00:27:54Guest:Well, honestly, in order to be a successful comedian, you have to say things that other people won't say.

00:28:03Marc:Right, no, yeah, obviously.

00:28:05Guest:So sometimes you get a little carried away with that, in my opinion.

00:28:10Guest:Hey, I don't want to levy any criticism towards him, but one day I was walking around the house before he did the suicide thing, saying, who has time for suicide?

00:28:20Guest:It's way down at the bottom of my to-do list.

00:28:22Guest:I'm so busy.

00:28:23Guest:Suddenly...

00:28:24Guest:He said that.

00:28:26Guest:No, I said that.

00:28:28Guest:So he created this whole routine around it, which was pretty funny originally, but then he kept adding to it.

00:28:35Guest:So it was 15 minutes, then it was 20 minutes instead of just five.

00:28:39Marc:Right.

00:28:40Marc:Now, when people talk about Carlin, he was very much known to be a fairly anal organizer, a cataloger.

00:28:48Marc:Everything was very scripted.

00:28:51Marc:There wasn't a lot of improv.

00:28:52Marc:And he seemed to have an incredibly compulsive nature around the creative process.

00:28:57Marc:Now, when you live with somebody like that, I mean, is that true?

00:29:00Marc:What was home life with George Carlin like?

00:29:02Guest:He changed everything.

00:29:04Guest:He changed that a lot.

00:29:06Guest:He started to open up on stage, and he actually started to go places like Leno and Letterman and not have a script, which was unheard of.

00:29:18Marc:Well, they're scripted.

00:29:20Guest:He started to talk from his...

00:29:22Marc:Oh, I see what you see.

00:29:23Guest:But he just had everything memorized.

00:29:24Marc:Yeah, I know.

00:29:25Marc:I heard that about him.

00:29:26Guest:And I would, you know, I'd rehearse with him on the way to the show.

00:29:30Guest:And I'd say, you know, you've got to drop this because you can't memorize things word for word for these shows.

00:29:35Guest:It doesn't, you know, you're trying too hard with this.

00:29:38Guest:Yeah.

00:29:38Guest:And at times it comes off as, you know, you're a little bit nervous because you're not spontaneous and just talking.

00:29:44Guest:If I was right now thinking about what words I was going to say.

00:29:46Guest:Right.

00:29:46Guest:I would be using different words.

00:29:48Guest:Right.

00:29:48Marc:Well, that was sort of his thing, too.

00:29:50Marc:I mean, he was a real wordsmith.

00:29:52Guest:But he really loosened up.

00:29:53Guest:And he still came up with the words.

00:29:55Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

00:29:56Guest:He still had access to all those words, plus more.

00:29:59Guest:So he started to loosen up a lot.

00:30:02Guest:He started to loosen up on stage, etc.

00:30:04Guest:Although...

00:30:05Guest:Speaking of him being anal and not real spontaneous, he always said to me, whatever you want to do, just let me know and I'm up for it.

00:30:13Guest:Yeah.

00:30:14Guest:And so then I'd tell him what I want to do and he'd say, well, you didn't tell me that.

00:30:18Guest:Yeah.

00:30:21Guest:And he'd go off and think about it for a while until it sort of became an idea he might have had at one point.

00:30:29Guest:Uh-huh.

00:30:29Guest:And, you know, that he might be able to still fit it in.

00:30:32Guest:Right.

00:30:33Guest:And then he could, you know, you could see him sort of, you could watch him assimilating the idea.

00:30:39Guest:Uh-huh.

00:30:39Guest:Until suddenly he was ready to do it.

00:30:41Guest:Uh-huh.

00:30:42Guest:So he did have that side of himself, but he wasn't stuck in it.

00:30:47Marc:And it's sort of like maybe along the same lines in that what I think what people would say about him later in his career was that he did get darker.

00:30:57Marc:And I think that thematically, he deals a lot with the same issues throughout his career in terms of what he talks about outside of like weird little nuanced things, the observational stuff, but certainly around God and around language and around politics.

00:31:12Marc:He was fairly radical, and it seemed like he got more radical than...

00:31:15Marc:As he got older.

00:31:16Guest:He used to say, I don't have to believe my own rhetoric.

00:31:19Guest:This is what he said to me.

00:31:21Guest:I just have to pose the question.

00:31:23Marc:Right.

00:31:23Marc:Well, that's a comic shub.

00:31:26Marc:And that was the line he was writing.

00:31:28Guest:So people think, you know, that his word was gospel in a sense of it being true and the truth.

00:31:37Guest:When actually it was really done to make people think and for the humor value.

00:31:45Guest:And he was a philosopher.

00:31:46Guest:Yes.

00:31:47Guest:You know, he did pose these questions.

00:31:50Guest:And with the answers, the ridiculous answers that he came up with made you use a different part of your brain that you hadn't thought of this stuff before.

00:31:59Guest:But that didn't mean he'd suggest, you know, the thing where he was talking about

00:32:05Guest:jerking off and hanging yourself in the process whatever that's called yeah yeah yeah yeah auto erotic association yeah that didn't mean he'd recommend it sure sure you know i don't remember but yet a lot of people take things like that for gospel what was his bid on what was the angle i don't remember the angle it was i mean it had something to do with uh a lot of guys

00:32:26Marc:Yeah, they seem to be doing that.

00:32:27Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:32:28Marc:Because they were dying of it.

00:32:29Marc:Yeah.

00:32:30Marc:Now, let's talk a little bit about this softer side of George Carlin.

00:32:36Marc:Because, I mean, you've certainly brought out the best of this guy in terms of there's an emotional thing there.

00:32:43Marc:That one of the things you're talking about, even the influence you had on him around opening up a little more and relaxing a little bit, is I'm not sure where that... I guess that came from with him.

00:32:54Marc:I mean, he comes from...

00:32:56Marc:from radio originally kind of you know and he was always very scripted and very meticulous down to his facial expressions i mean i listened to class clown hundreds of times when i was a kid and there's just there was just this momentum and language too he had a lot of he was a bit of a control freak material wise it's yes

00:33:12Marc:And like, you know, when you see this anger towards in the last decade, but also like in your book, you see this amazing, overwhelming, you know, passion and romance and poetry of this guy and this sensitivity.

00:33:24Marc:It almost seemed like around when he met you and your relationship with him sort of really softened him up probably for the first time in his life.

00:33:32Marc:Do you feel that?

00:33:33Guest:And he was happy.

00:33:34Marc:Yeah.

00:33:35Marc:And was he not?

00:33:36Marc:I mean, was as a comic, you know, not necessarily, you know, we don't need to talk out of school in terms of his past emotional relationships.

00:33:43Marc:But as a comic, do you feel like, you know, he was just kind of he would just plow through because he was a workaholic, you know, that, you know, he was always thinking and this was his job.

00:33:53Marc:I mean, he generated about a new hour every year.

00:33:55Marc:Did he was he finding any joy in that when you met him?

00:33:58Marc:Or was it just a job?

00:34:00Guest:I think because of, you know, the pain that he'd been through and all of that, it was kind of hard, you know, because he was grieving at the same time.

00:34:11Guest:Right.

00:34:12Guest:So, you know, I wouldn't venture to guess.

00:34:16Guest:You know, people on stage come to life.

00:34:20Guest:Right.

00:34:20Guest:Regardless of their emotional state off stage.

00:34:23Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:34:24Guest:So...

00:34:26Guest:He may not admit to all the joy he felt on stage when he was doing that, even when he'd get angry.

00:34:33Guest:Right.

00:34:34Guest:Because if people would laugh when he was angry, that would make him happy.

00:34:38Guest:Right.

00:34:38Guest:So he didn't do it with the intent of...

00:34:43Guest:of being angry he did it with the intention of making people laugh right and that was his method of his coming from his own emotional state at that time but you're saying that he was like that after he fell in love but it was mostly just

00:35:02Marc:um building on the act yeah right that you know there were separate things yeah and that uh you know whatever had been percolating along with him for the last 30 or 40 years was just sort of i think also as you start to really acknowledge your own mortality and you get older there's no way for things not to get a little dark well you know the the first lunch that we had we talked we had a long conversation about the difference between doing and being uh-huh

00:35:28Guest:And he had reached a stage in his life where he wanted to explore what it was like to be.

00:35:34Guest:Uh-huh.

00:35:37Marc:You mean just sort of like, you know, without, you know, trying to control things, trying to work things through his head.

00:35:43Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:43Marc:Maybe trying to have a good time.

00:35:44Guest:And he'd been doing his whole life.

00:35:45Guest:Right.

00:35:47Guest:And he just was ready for kind of a, you know, I hate to use the word spiritual, but he was ready for that process to begin with him to make a transition into his heart self.

00:36:04Marc:And how did that manifest itself?

00:36:06Marc:And what was the process of that?

00:36:07Guest:that's when he became the romantic.

00:36:10Guest:And it doesn't mean he was less funny.

00:36:13Marc:No, of course not.

00:36:14Guest:Because he was hilarious as a romantic.

00:36:17Guest:So when people say, oh, this is a different side of George.

00:36:19Guest:Well, not really.

00:36:20Guest:You know, he's still funny.

00:36:21Marc:Yeah, sure, sure.

00:36:22Guest:And he still says goofy, dumb things, for example.

00:36:25Marc:Yeah.

00:36:26Guest:In the middle of the night, he'd say, I need to blow a big fart, and then I'll be right back.

00:36:31Marc:Yeah.

00:36:31Guest:You know, not many guys will tell you that.

00:36:33Guest:It's kind of a George Carlin line.

00:36:35Marc:Well, some guys would just do it.

00:36:37Guest:Yeah, well, he's that polite, though.

00:36:40Guest:Then when he'd get back, he'd say, you know, did you miss me?

00:36:43Marc:Yeah, so he was always pretty funny.

00:36:46Guest:Oops, gotta lie to match.

00:36:47Guest:So there was always humor.

00:36:49Guest:And I thought, I can't keep all that from other people.

00:36:55Guest:I have to let people know what this romantic humorous side of him was.

00:37:00Marc:Well, you have a lot of the, what portions, when you go do readings, do you read portions of the book?

00:37:05Marc:No, you don't.

00:37:10Guest:Well, you know, some of it is not that tame.

00:37:13Marc:Right.

00:37:14Marc:You know, right.

00:37:15Marc:Some of the poems, you know, what are some of the favorite things that that he wrote to you or that, you know, some of the things he exchanged?

00:37:22Marc:I really love the idea that that you would do these writing exercises just for fun.

00:37:27Guest:Well, they weren't exercises.

00:37:28Guest:These were reports we were filing back on the planet Jupiter so that they would know that we were saving the planet down here.

00:37:36Guest:Oh, okay.

00:37:36Guest:So they weren't just frivolous reports.

00:37:39Guest:Right.

00:37:40Guest:They were a serious deal.

00:37:41Guest:We felt like we were fighting...

00:37:43Guest:people from the planet Saturn.

00:37:46Guest:We called them Saturnians.

00:37:48Guest:So anyone who we didn't like, like a waiter that was slow, someone like that, we immediately turned them into, well, we recognized them as an evil Saturnian.

00:38:00Marc:And so you identified people that were enemies of Jupiter?

00:38:04Guest:Yes.

00:38:06Guest:And that was our mission, to protect our home planet that...

00:38:10Guest:was sort of like a spiritual concept to us.

00:38:13Guest:It was a place that we were gonna live someday.

00:38:16Marc:It was a fantasy world that you guys had.

00:38:20Guest:Beyond fantasy, we...

00:38:26Guest:From the very first date, real date that we had.

00:38:31Marc:After the bagel date or after?

00:38:33Guest:Yeah, after that.

00:38:34Marc:Yeah.

00:38:34Guest:It was at a party and we walked down the street and we had a long discussion about the trolls under the bridge.

00:38:42Guest:Uh-huh.

00:38:43Guest:Yeah.

00:38:43Yeah.

00:38:43Guest:so and and our own inner trolls because mine is sort of short and squatty with a real crooked eye and his is huge in my vision i mean it's like his is like 12 feet tall i can see it on stage when it comes out i could see when he was doing an hbo show yeah that's what i saw the inner troll yeah like one of the later ones when he's wearing all black

00:39:07Guest:Well, that too.

00:39:08Guest:But it wasn't about the look.

00:39:09Guest:It was about the attitude.

00:39:11Guest:And then he'd come off stage after a performance and I could see the energy just kind of come back into being George again.

00:39:18Marc:Are you a spiritual person?

00:39:23Guest:I'm not unspiritual.

00:39:25Guest:I'm not wacky with it.

00:39:28Marc:Well, I just, I mean, there's so many notes in here.

00:39:33Guest:Let me.

00:39:34Marc:Between the two of you.

00:39:35Marc:Yeah.

00:39:35Marc:It's baffling.

00:39:37Guest:Yeah.

00:39:37Marc:And I like that you kept them all.

00:39:39Guest:I tried to leave mine out.

00:39:40Guest:You know, I tried to put most of his in.

00:39:42Marc:But I mean, there's like, there's so many on, like, I'm so familiar with hotel stationery.

00:39:46Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:39:49Guest:You know, he saved all this.

00:39:51Marc:He did.

00:39:51Guest:Yeah.

00:39:52Guest:I mean, I have rooms and rooms full of stuff.

00:39:55Guest:This wasn't just a box of stuff, a collection that I put in a book.

00:39:59Guest:This was culling through...

00:40:02Guest:massive amounts of stuff and if i needed it to illustrate a point right i would use it it's not that the other stuff is better or worse uh-huh i would just use things of his because it felt like we were writing it together i bet so so he does do that he did because i had always heard that he had like like hundreds and hundreds or maybe thousands of index cards with jokes on them is that true no oh okay myth no one myth shattered yeah

00:40:33Guest:He was very organized on his computer.

00:40:35Marc:Right.

00:40:35Guest:But he didn't have that many joke jokes.

00:40:38Marc:Right.

00:40:39Marc:They were long form things that he'd write.

00:40:41Marc:Yeah.

00:40:41Marc:Okay, so you literally have rooms of scraps of paper.

00:40:44Marc:I still do.

00:40:45Guest:And I've always done that myself.

00:40:47Guest:So my papers would pile up.

00:40:49Guest:He always knew.

00:40:50Guest:One day I realized the difference between him writing down a note and me writing down a note is that he could find his note.

00:40:58Marc:Right.

00:40:59Guest:And I had no idea where mine went.

00:41:02Marc:Wow.

00:41:03Marc:Who helped you put this together?

00:41:05Guest:Well, there was an art.

00:41:09Marc:I mean, it's really kind of amazing.

00:41:11Guest:Yeah.

00:41:12Guest:I thought that the art person, the art design person, did a really good job of being creative with it.

00:41:20Guest:But it was, you know, I'm the one that had to figure out what to put in and where.

00:41:24Marc:And there's so many postcards of him, like, you know, saying that he missed you, that he's going to be home soon.

00:41:29Guest:Well, you know what?

00:41:30Guest:There's a language chapter.

00:41:31Guest:There's a lewd chapter.

00:41:33Marc:There's a romantic chapter.

00:41:34Guest:There's a romantic chapter.

00:41:36Marc:Like if I were to read one of these out loud, it would make me feel like I was intruding on you guys.

00:41:46Guest:You know what I mean?

00:41:47Guest:Really?

00:41:48Marc:Well, no.

00:41:48Marc:I can't tell you how good it feels to be with you on this Valentine's Day.

00:41:53Marc:It all seems so preordained and so perfect.

00:41:55Marc:Our love is the most wonderful thing I have ever experienced.

00:41:58Marc:I treasure you beyond existence itself.

00:42:00Marc:Please stay in my arms forever.

00:42:02Marc:You already have a permanent spot in my heart.

00:42:05Marc:Senior Cupcake.

00:42:07Marc:Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's like when you're a comedian and you grow up really knowing George Carlin as a specific force of nature that really helped define just about all of us of my generation.

00:42:22Marc:And then all of a sudden you're reading his love letters.

00:42:26Marc:It's like, I don't know if I should be reading this.

00:42:29Marc:It's too touching for me.

00:42:30Marc:But most of them... I'm not saying it in a bad way.

00:42:33Marc:It's very lovely.

00:42:34Marc:But it's just sort of... It's very vulnerable stuff.

00:42:38Marc:And it introduces you to this whole side of him that is just... Well, most of them are pretty...

00:42:42Guest:Funny, for example, hey shower girl, you're my queen and I worship you.

00:42:47Guest:Also, you're a real cool lady.

00:42:49Guest:You're a farting guy, Gio.

00:42:53Guest:Or, hey cookie, I went out to find money and buy tampons.

00:42:57Guest:Love your guy.

00:42:59Guest:I mean...

00:43:00Guest:They're still written like George Carlin.

00:43:02Marc:No, I know, I know.

00:43:03Marc:But they're so sweet.

00:43:04Marc:It's overwhelming.

00:43:05Guest:But that was him.

00:43:07Marc:I know.

00:43:07Marc:It's hard to... But you don't want to know a guy's sweet?

00:43:11Marc:No, of course I do.

00:43:12Marc:I'm not saying I don't want to.

00:43:13Marc:But you know what?

00:43:13Guest:I've only heard that from men.

00:43:15Marc:Uh-huh.

00:43:15Guest:That the sweetness can, you know, make them...

00:43:20Guest:Feel like that.

00:43:21Marc:But it's not a bad feeling.

00:43:23Marc:It's just sort of, you know, I can't remember.

00:43:26Marc:See, maybe it's a reflection on me.

00:43:29Guest:George never hung up the phone without telling the person on the other end that he loved them.

00:43:35Guest:And sometimes he'd forget he was talking to the plumber.

00:43:37Marc:No, come on.

00:43:38Guest:I'm not kidding.

00:43:39Guest:And he would say that he loved them.

00:43:41Guest:So it's, you know, I just wanted people to know that he was like that.

00:43:45Marc:No, it's awesome.

00:43:47Guest:Yeah.

00:43:48Marc:Because, you know, there's a misconception perhaps on my part that, you know, you think that a guy that is that volcanic in terms of the amount of jokes that he was able to produce and the amount of thoughts he was able to have, and most of them coming from an angle of this is fucking ridiculous.

00:44:03Marc:People are ridiculous.

00:44:04Marc:We're ridiculous and we're doomed.

00:44:07Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:44:08Guest:That was who... And then he's saying to me, you know...

00:44:12Guest:When do you want to eat?

00:44:13Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:14Marc:Or writing you sweet letters about farting.

00:44:16Marc:Yeah.

00:44:17Marc:I mean, obviously this had to exist with him, but it's just very fascinating to see it.

00:44:21Guest:Except this was him.

00:44:23Marc:There was never periods of darkness with him?

00:44:27Marc:I mean, look, I'm a comic.

00:44:29Marc:I know what women... You're the first spouse of a comic or a significant other or girlfriend or whatever you want to call yourself that I've ever interviewed.

00:44:37Marc:And I know that I've put every woman in my life through a tremendous amount of shit.

00:44:41Yeah.

00:44:41Guest:no he didn't that's that's spectacular you know maybe maybe he already went through that you caught him at a good time and this was a second relationship for both of us right i'd been in a long-term relationship with a guy that i went to college with and decided i didn't want to do anything that way again and he was in the same boat so what we did was jupiter also was like

00:45:05Guest:It also meant like a bubble that represented that our relationship was greater than either of us individually.

00:45:12Guest:And we made that more of a priority.

00:45:14Guest:And he drove that.

00:45:18Guest:You know, he drove that boat, that ship.

00:45:20Marc:Uh-huh.

00:45:21Guest:And...

00:45:23Guest:I couldn't have done it by myself.

00:45:25Guest:Right.

00:45:25Guest:And it's not that we didn't argue.

00:45:26Guest:I have a chapter in here called Trouble in the Bubble.

00:45:29Guest:And we come up with axioms.

00:45:30Guest:You know, if we had to start to have an argument, we'd write down exactly what we wanted the other person to say and leave it out on the table and we'd both word it together.

00:45:43Guest:And it's a whole, it's kind of a goofy, romantic way of never having the same argument again.

00:45:50Guest:Right.

00:45:51Marc:And also a way of disarming the argument before you actually let it destroy anything.

00:45:54Guest:Yeah, and I think he's the only guy I've ever met who said, I'm sorry, I did that wrong.

00:46:01Guest:I really fucked up here.

00:46:02Guest:I'm not going to do that again.

00:46:04Marc:Like what?

00:46:06Guest:That apologized.

00:46:07Marc:I know, but like what were some of them?

00:46:09Guest:My ex-husband wasn't big on apologizing or saying that he ever did anything wrong.

00:46:14Marc:Well, what were some of George's liabilities in those areas?

00:46:17Marc:What would he apologize for most frequently?

00:46:21Marc:Just being cranky?

00:46:23Guest:No, it wasn't really a central theme to it.

00:46:26Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:26Marc:It was just... Relationship stuff?

00:46:29Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:31Marc:And what's the drug stuff chapter about?

00:46:33Guest:That's going to be very disappointing for people because that's what I say in the beginning of it.

00:46:40Guest:By the time he met me, he wasn't... You know, you go through phases in life.

00:46:45Guest:Yeah.

00:46:46Guest:In fact, the first line is, well, this chapter's going to be disappointing to any druggie who reads it.

00:46:52Marc:I don't think he was ever associated with being a druggie other than a pot smoker, really.

00:46:56Guest:Yeah.

00:46:57Guest:But he used to...

00:46:59Guest:He used to take, I was talking to him one time, and he said to me, hang on, I've got to take some Tylenol.

00:47:05Guest:And I said, why do you have to take some Tylenol?

00:47:07Guest:And he said, because I think I'm getting a headache.

00:47:09Guest:And I said, don't you want to find out first?

00:47:12Guest:And he said, no, because by then it'll be too late.

00:47:16Guest:And then...

00:47:18Guest:And then I said, but what if you don't get a headache?

00:47:22Guest:He said, well, I'm still in the clear because I've taken Tylenol.

00:47:25Guest:And he said, well, when did Noah build the ark?

00:47:29Guest:Before it rained.

00:47:30Guest:So he was a big believer in self-medicating before the problem actually happened.

00:47:36Marc:Well, Tylenol is nothing too horrible.

00:47:39Guest:No, but I mean, that was an example of... Of his mindset?

00:47:43Guest:Yeah, we'd watch a show on restless leg syndrome, you know, a commercial about medicine for it, and I'd think, well, who would be stupid enough to take that?

00:47:52Guest:Or, men, are you urinating frequently?

00:47:55Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:47:56Guest:And I'd say, boy, that is a dumb commercial.

00:47:58Guest:I'd look over at him, and he'd just kind of be, you know... Am I urinating too frequently?

00:48:03Guest:No, looking a little guilty, so I'd go in the bathroom and look in the medicine cabinet,

00:48:07Guest:there was the medicine on frequent urination and restless leg syndrome oh really yeah so he liked taking a bunch of stuff uh-huh you know he was a big self-medicator but it wasn't the the you know wasn't drugs no he wasn't interested in he stopped smoking marijuana when he was with me in the early early days oh really yeah

00:48:29Marc:Why, because he wanted to be present or you didn't like it?

00:48:33Guest:I told him I didn't like the smell of it.

00:48:36Marc:He didn't drink, really, huh?

00:48:38Guest:Well, when I first met him, he was having a few beers in the afternoon.

00:48:43Guest:So one day I said, you know...

00:48:46Guest:I noticed you're having a beer in the afternoon.

00:48:48Guest:Not always, but once in a while if he'd be in Vegas or whatever.

00:48:53Guest:So he said, you don't want me to do that?

00:48:54Guest:And I said, no, let's not do that.

00:48:58Guest:So we kind of made up a rule where he'd get two glasses of wine and

00:49:04Guest:He made the rule.

00:49:06Guest:I said, you set your own rule here.

00:49:09Guest:And he set a rule for what he would do, but he only stuck to it when he was around me.

00:49:14Marc:Right.

00:49:15Marc:So the road rules.

00:49:17Marc:Yeah.

00:49:17Guest:But then I noticed that and wrote him a note.

00:49:20Guest:I talk about that in here.

00:49:21Marc:Did he have to... Did he drink before he went on or prepare in that way?

00:49:25Guest:No.

00:49:26Marc:Take an edge off?

00:49:27Guest:No.

00:49:27Marc:I couldn't imagine it.

00:49:28Marc:No, he... So on his toes up there.

00:49:30Guest:Yeah, I mean, you have to focus so much.

00:49:32Marc:Oh, yeah, he was intensely focused.

00:49:34Marc:And it just kept going.

00:49:35Guest:I don't know how he did that.

00:49:36Guest:I've tried to stand the length of... His performances used to be an hour and 20 minutes.

00:49:42Guest:Right.

00:49:42Guest:In the first years that I was with him.

00:49:44Guest:Yeah.

00:49:44Guest:Rather than, I think, an hour and 10 minutes.

00:49:47Guest:And maybe at times an hour.

00:49:49Guest:Only when he was trying to get home to watch the season finale of Desperate Housewives with me.

00:49:54Guest:But I tried to stand for an hour and 20 minutes.

00:49:58Guest:And I just get too tired just standing.

00:50:01Guest:So he's up there moving around.

00:50:02Guest:I guess maybe you lose, you know, you do lose yourself in it.

00:50:06Guest:And I loved watching him in the theater in the round where, you know, he...

00:50:12Guest:You could see the front and the back and the sides and all that, and he put his whole body into it.

00:50:18Marc:Was there any, in terms of your time with him, that he's really known and respected in the comedy world as somebody who was as pure a comic as you could be?

00:50:31Marc:This was a guy who generated a new hour of material almost every year for, what, 30 years?

00:50:38Marc:Two years.

00:50:38Marc:Every two years.

00:50:39Marc:Every two years for what?

00:50:42Marc:Because of HBO.

00:50:43Marc:Right.

00:50:44Marc:1970 forward or however long it's been.

00:50:47Guest:But he was one of the guys that would substitute five minutes here and there in the old act until he got that.

00:50:53Marc:Right.

00:50:54Guest:He didn't write a whole new act.

00:50:56Marc:Oh, right, right.

00:50:56Marc:And go out with it.

00:50:57Marc:So he'd pick places to try new material.

00:51:00Guest:Yeah.

00:51:01Marc:And then he'd build a new act on that.

00:51:02Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:51:03Guest:And he'd have two years to do that.

00:51:04Marc:Right.

00:51:04Marc:So he'd have an hour.

00:51:07Marc:And then after the show ran on HBO, he'd tour that hour.

00:51:11Marc:And during that time, he'd drop in the new bits and make note of it and build the next hour.

00:51:16Marc:Right.

00:51:16Marc:And that was a two-hour arc.

00:51:18Guest:Right, and before that, he would only do what would lead up to the next HBO show.

00:51:22Marc:Right.

00:51:23Guest:But a lot of his stuff would evolve radically, like the bit on children, how he hated children.

00:51:29Guest:But it became a bit about...

00:51:33Guest:The parents were scheduling them.

00:51:36Guest:Right.

00:51:36Guest:But it wasn't that originally he was just hating out there hating children.

00:51:40Guest:Right.

00:51:41Guest:But when you're on stage, things come to you because you have to protect yourself.

00:51:45Guest:You know, you have to.

00:51:47Marc:I agree with that.

00:51:47Guest:Make even more sense.

00:51:48Marc:Well, that's what I think that's where a lot of the comedy comes from is in that defensive moment.

00:51:52Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:51:53Guest:Yeah.

00:51:54Guest:You have to, you know, you go home and say, oh, I got to do something with that or I can't live with myself.

00:52:01Marc:That's right.

00:52:02Marc:And but as in terms of his real life, did he hate children or because it seems like what you're saying is that the bit evolved from, you know, hating children to realizing children were victims.

00:52:13Guest:Right.

00:52:14Guest:And that they should play with sticks and they're overscheduled.

00:52:17Marc:Right.

00:52:18Marc:Like the old days.

00:52:18Guest:And have free time.

00:52:19Marc:Right.

00:52:20Guest:Which George never had, by the way.

00:52:22Marc:Right.

00:52:22Guest:We never had.

00:52:23Guest:Even our vacations were called work vacations.

00:52:26Marc:In what sense?

00:52:26Marc:Because he was always writing?

00:52:28Guest:We both were.

00:52:29Guest:We just, neither of us know how to take a vacation.

00:52:31Marc:What'd you do for fun?

00:52:33Guest:Right, and write together, and laugh, and take out the trash.

00:52:38Marc:But there's pictures of you fishing, didn't you go fishing?

00:52:41Guest:Yeah, we did stuff like that, too.

00:52:43Guest:You did?

00:52:43Guest:Yeah, and he showed me all around New York, and I couldn't have a better tour guide.

00:52:48Marc:His, from when he was a kid, trying to put that together, that must have been interesting.

00:52:53Guest:Yeah.

00:52:53Marc:How much of that was still around?

00:52:54Marc:Where did he grow up in New York?

00:52:55Guest:He grew up, it was on the west side up near Harlem.

00:53:01Marc:Oh, really?

00:53:02Guest:Around 118th or something like that.

00:53:05Guest:I don't know the exact street now.

00:53:07Guest:And with his mother.

00:53:10Guest:He had an older brother that was in school or something.

00:53:14Guest:Are they still alive?

00:53:15Guest:Is his older brother still alive?

00:53:16Guest:Yeah.

00:53:17Yeah?

00:53:17Guest:But mostly it was George and his mother, and she was at work most of the time.

00:53:23Guest:She was an interesting character herself.

00:53:28Guest:She was a workaholic too?

00:53:29Guest:I don't know that, but she was... Anytime he didn't understand a word or whatever, or he'd ask her, she'd say...

00:53:37Guest:Look it up.

00:53:38Guest:So she was the one that gave him his love of language.

00:53:42Guest:And his father had won speaking contests as well.

00:53:46Guest:So he had a whole language thing going from a young age.

00:53:50Guest:And to me, the language carries through...

00:53:54Guest:the class clown to the angry stuff.

00:54:00Guest:Always.

00:54:00Guest:It's always there.

00:54:01Marc:Yeah, I mean, that's what's his thing.

00:54:03Guest:Whether people are looking, if you're looking at the emotional content of it, you're looking in the wrong place.

00:54:10Guest:That's the thing he's doing to, you know, get your attention.

00:54:15Guest:Yeah.

00:54:16Marc:Well, he was not, like, it just always, I think what really strikes me to sort of build on

00:54:22Marc:on what my reaction was in terms of seeing these personal notes was that his disposition on stage was very defined.

00:54:32Marc:And he wasn't up there taking emotional risks.

00:54:36Marc:He was up there using language to cut out certain hypocrisies, to reveal certain truths, and to sort of make us all see things differently.

00:54:45Marc:He wasn't like... There's not a lot of comics that take tremendous emotional risks.

00:54:50Marc:That was, I think...

00:54:50Marc:in a fundamental way, as he evolved out of whatever he was with Jack Burns and out of the Sullivan years into somebody who took more of the Lenny Bruce legacy and ran with the provocative stuff and pushing the envelope of language.

00:55:06Marc:And those were the days.

00:55:08Guest:Sure.

00:55:08Guest:When you weren't supposed to talk about this, and he was.

00:55:11Marc:Right.

00:55:12Guest:Do we have days like that anymore?

00:55:14Marc:Well, I think so.

00:55:15Marc:I think what happened with him... What are the topics?

00:55:19Marc:Well, I think the topics are what some of the stuff that he did and some of the stuff that even if you talk about suicide in a certain way or you talk about religion, I mean, you're not going to get arrested or crucified, but certainly I think he still had that desire to challenge people all the way through.

00:55:37Marc:Yes.

00:55:37Marc:Even if it was about something mundane that he could exploit to show a larger hypocrisy, I think that's what he was still gunning at.

00:55:44Marc:Yes.

00:55:45Marc:Yes.

00:55:45Marc:And it seemed to me that later in his career that he might have been, you know, there were people like Bill Hicks who would, you know, alienate audiences, alienate audiences consistently.

00:55:54Marc:And I don't know.

00:55:55Marc:I know that George watched other comics in the sense that he had appreciation for them because I know he had a response to he had said something about Mitch Hedberg once that they.

00:56:04Marc:Yeah, he liked Mitch.

00:56:05Marc:it seemed that as he got more aggressive that he really began to give lesser of a shit about how he was you know how his content was judged and the natural evolution was him to keep pushing and I think that came off as a little angry that's true but it wasn't because he didn't give a shit right in fact

00:56:23Guest:He had bad audiences like Bill Hicks.

00:56:29Guest:Everyone now thinks, oh, he was always on and he always had a good show.

00:56:36Guest:And that's not true.

00:56:39Guest:It's always a struggle out there.

00:56:41Guest:You always have a bad show.

00:56:43Marc:Sure.

00:56:44Marc:And I imagine that people that... They've lost their money in Vegas.

00:56:48Guest:They've lost their house.

00:56:49Guest:They've been drunk since they got there.

00:56:53Guest:They've been up all night.

00:56:55Guest:And they're paying for the floors in the Bellagio.

00:56:59Guest:And they're sitting there listening to these jokes and thinking...

00:57:03Marc:I'm fucked.

00:57:04Marc:Yeah.

00:57:05Marc:They're not even thinking about the joke.

00:57:06Marc:Yeah.

00:57:06Guest:And who's this guy?

00:57:07Guest:You know, what happened to the seven dirty words and stuff routine?

00:57:11Marc:Right.

00:57:11Guest:Right.

00:57:12Guest:And right.

00:57:13Marc:Well, I think well, I think that's that answers the question about how you can be provocative is that if you have an audience that you've built over 30 years and you start to push the envelope with them, that's a tremendous risk.

00:57:24Guest:And I think it gets harder when you get older.

00:57:26Marc:Sure.

00:57:27Guest:So I think also maybe he used some of his emotions about that on stage.

00:57:33Guest:Because, you know, when he's a younger guy, you don't have to push...

00:57:40Guest:I think he felt he had to push harder so that people wouldn't say he wasn't still relevant.

00:57:48Marc:That's right.

00:57:49Marc:That makes sense to me.

00:57:51Marc:Now, when you guys were alone in terms of him reflecting on his career, because as I was saying before, that he is the purest comic that we've really known in that he kept working and remained relevant until the end.

00:58:04Guest:Yeah.

00:58:04Marc:Was there any...

00:58:06Marc:a bitterness about not having opportunities or not being a television presence or not being in movies more, the standard sort of show business whining that goes on around people.

00:58:21Guest:I think there was a disappointment about movies at one point.

00:58:26Guest:And he...

00:58:27Guest:He did a movie and realized, once again, can't work for other people.

00:58:31Guest:You know, there's too much shit going on here and I got to wait for them to do stuff.

00:58:35Guest:Uh-huh.

00:58:36Guest:Yeah.

00:58:37Guest:Might as well just go out on stage and speak directly.

00:58:40Guest:Right, right, right.

00:58:42Guest:That was his thing.

00:58:43Guest:He was a one-man show.

00:58:45Guest:Uh-huh.

00:58:46Guest:Uh-huh.

00:58:48Guest:And...

00:58:50Guest:Although together at home, you know, it was my job to make him laugh.

00:58:54Guest:Yeah.

00:58:55Guest:And see, I can't bridge that with people.

00:58:57Guest:People are never going to get this.

00:59:02Guest:The book.

00:59:02Guest:Yeah.

00:59:03Guest:In the sense of who he really was.

00:59:05Marc:I think they will.

00:59:06Guest:You do?

00:59:06Marc:Yeah.

00:59:07Guest:Because that bothers me.

00:59:09Guest:I want them to really know George as a whole person.

00:59:14Marc:Yeah.

00:59:16Guest:Because this mattered more to him than his career.

00:59:19Marc:Yeah, the stuff that's revealed here.

00:59:21Marc:Yeah.

00:59:22Guest:Even the day-to-day stuff.

00:59:23Marc:Yeah.

00:59:24Guest:You know, of offering me Kleenexes and making sure I don't, you know, use more than one or two because he's being frugal even though he has a whole house full.

00:59:32Guest:You know, that's the stuff that he cared deeply about.

00:59:38Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:38Guest:I mean, he would listen to music.

00:59:40Guest:Yeah.

00:59:41Guest:And cry.

00:59:42Guest:Yeah.

00:59:43Guest:and most people don't know that yeah like like what songs were what stuff moved him led zeppelin no probably not led zeppelin but you know i mean he had some music that he would listen to and and it would you know it would spark some we would see the cirque du soleil sometimes and he would cry it's very it's very moving to see people doing something spectacular yeah

01:00:08Guest:And I think also that bit where the twins are doing something in the air.

01:00:14Guest:I mean, I always wanted that kind of intimacy with myself.

01:00:19Guest:And I think George and I even had that.

01:00:22Marc:Sure.

01:00:23Marc:Well, it feels like in these letters and the way that you capture the relationship.

01:00:28Guest:And I certainly didn't paint a perfect picture of either of us.

01:00:31Marc:No, but I think the effect that it had on me.

01:00:33Guest:To say it's like my mother who's never tasted alcohol in her life and is the daughter of a Baptist minister.

01:00:38Guest:I have a chapter on that.

01:00:41Guest:It's just goofy.

01:00:43Guest:It's goofy.

01:00:44Guest:I want it to be a goofy book.

01:00:46Marc:Well, I think it's I found it I found it fascinating and moving.

01:00:50Marc:You know, like my discomfort was not like I can't read this.

01:00:53Marc:It was like it was sweet, you know, because like even I'm an angry bastard.

01:00:58Marc:And, you know, and the women that I've been in love with, you know, have disarmed me just because of something that you can't identify.

01:01:04Marc:And the idea that you were able to make him laugh is completely reasonable because he adored you.

01:01:10Marc:So, you know, that kind of indescribable engagement that you have with somebody that you love is is is a very real and important thing.

01:01:20Marc:And I think that you really do feel that in the book that, you know, this guy was, you know, was thinking about you all the time and that you sort of, you know, kind of opened him up.

01:01:30Marc:I mean, I definitely see that.

01:01:32Marc:Yeah.

01:01:33Marc:And now if we can for a second, around the time that you said you felt you knew that he was ill or that things were closing in on him, what was that time like?

01:01:47Guest:Towards the end?

01:01:47Marc:Yeah.

01:01:48Guest:Because he had had a few close calls in the years that we were together.

01:01:52Guest:And this was the kind of guy that he was.

01:01:56Guest:He went into the hospital when we were in Chicago once, and I got worried about him performing in places where they didn't have a hospital.

01:02:04Guest:Nearby.

01:02:05Guest:Yeah, because his heart was racing.

01:02:08Guest:And I actually think he was nervous because he didn't usually get nervous performing, but he had to perform in front of people with the lights on and they were eating.

01:02:18Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:02:18Guest:He hated that.

01:02:19Marc:Yeah, but he had to do it.

01:02:20Guest:Yeah.

01:02:21Guest:So anyway, he got nervous, went in the hospital, and to calm me down...

01:02:25Guest:He came up with this character called the Golly Girl.

01:02:28Guest:We were always coming up with characters.

01:02:29Guest:But he came up with one where he was talking like a girl from Chicago.

01:02:33Guest:And he's saying, golly, everything's going to be okay.

01:02:36Guest:And golly, we're going to this hospital now and we'll be there.

01:02:40Guest:Golly, isn't this fun town?

01:02:43Guest:He was just...

01:02:45Guest:He was the epitome of sweet.

01:02:50Guest:I'm sorry, but he was sweet.

01:02:52Guest:You couldn't meet him in person and spend any time with him.

01:02:56Guest:In fact, I had a comedy coach that I'd met in Toastmasters that I had practiced my comedy with every day for about 15 years.

01:03:08Guest:And he actually died a few weeks before George did.

01:03:11Guest:And we spread his ashes in Malibu.

01:03:14Guest:jack guru jack i called him but um jack and george and i had thanksgiving dinner once at uh the place in santa monica the deli there it's only places so uh so anyway we drove jack home and i was talking about how i wanted a dessert there and drove jack home he dropped george dropped me off he said i'll be back in a minute he went over there and got the dessert and came back

01:03:40Guest:You know, he was just, you know, before he'd get out of bed in the morning, he'd have a Starbucks iced tea, a bagel, the New York Post, whether we were in New York or not, and Western Horseman for Spot.

01:03:55Guest:You know, some outdoor magazine.

01:03:57Guest:Or some trashy tabloid, you know, that he figured he could use.

01:04:01Marc:The dog?

01:04:02Guest:Yeah.

01:04:02Guest:So Spot's writing a book, by the way.

01:04:04Guest:And George was editing it.

01:04:07Guest:Uh-huh.

01:04:07Guest:So, I mean, he, not because, he liked, I had to kind of draw the line with George, because he wanted to be involved in everything I did.

01:04:15Guest:He wanted to be involved, he wanted to kind of take charge of it, and he wanted to help, and, you know, all of those things, where at times I'd just kind of say, okay, let's, you know, you go do that work, you do the little thing you do at the computer, okay?

01:04:30Guest:I got some important shit to write over here about Spot.

01:04:33Guest:So...

01:04:35Guest:But, you know, I have tons of tapes of us working together.

01:04:39Guest:I can't listen to those either.

01:04:41Guest:I've got boxes and boxes of them.

01:04:42Marc:Well, I mean, eventually you'll be able to.

01:04:44Marc:Now, when he did pass away, he just... What was the last engagement that you had?

01:04:52Guest:He was... Well...

01:04:58Guest:In the week before he died, he was having trouble walking and breathing.

01:05:03Guest:And so he was going to have exploratory surgery on a Monday.

01:05:09Guest:And he went into the hospital Sunday just to be ahead of the game.

01:05:15Guest:And I drove him over there.

01:05:16Guest:I asked him if he wanted me to call all the...

01:05:20Guest:the people in his life that would want to know, you know, his daughter Kelly and his manager and people like that.

01:05:27Guest:And he said, no, I'll do it.

01:05:29Guest:And then he said something like, you know, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want something to happen at the house for you to call an ambulance there.

01:05:38Guest:And I thought, well, that's an odd thing to say.

01:05:39Guest:And he spent his time packing his suitcase to go to the hospital and

01:05:45Guest:And he was very careful, and he'd show me exactly what he put in his bag and what he was going to use when he got there.

01:05:56Guest:so when we got there um he got out of the car and he was we were joking and laughing and he was skipping inside i said slow down george you know you don't have to skip so we immediately slowed down we went to the emergency room we were joking about his shoes and we were throwing them around the room and just jokes

01:06:18Guest:And he said, go home.

01:06:20Guest:I hadn't had any sleep because I'd been worried about it that night.

01:06:22Guest:So I went home to sleep, and as soon as I got home, the hospital called me and said, get back.

01:06:28Guest:So I tried calling the doctor.

01:06:30Guest:It was a Sunday, so nobody's in.

01:06:32Guest:I tried calling the hospital back.

01:06:34Guest:Nobody would tell me what was wrong.

01:06:37Guest:So I ran every red light to get over to St.

01:06:40Guest:John's.

01:06:41Guest:And...

01:06:45Guest:they had given him fluids and it flooded his lungs.

01:06:51Guest:And I feel bad because I was telling him to hang on.

01:06:55Marc:Yeah.

01:06:58Marc:And why do you feel bad about that?

01:07:00Guest:Because... He was ready?

01:07:03Guest:Yeah, and I didn't want him to think he was failing.

01:07:07Marc:Right.

01:07:07Guest:Because it's considered such a failure in this society.

01:07:10Marc:To pass away?

01:07:11Guest:Yeah.

01:07:12Guest:That he couldn't live.

01:07:14Marc:Right.

01:07:14Right.

01:07:15Guest:And he just kept saying he was sorry.

01:07:23Guest:And after he was gone, they put him in a room to try to revive him, and it didn't work, and I just went in and laid down with him for a while.

01:07:40Marc:well you know it seems did you feel that maybe when he was packing that bag that he knew

01:07:46Guest:Yeah.

01:07:48Marc:Because some people know that.

01:07:49Marc:Yeah, he knew.

01:07:49Marc:You think so?

01:07:50Guest:Yeah.

01:07:51Guest:And he left.

01:07:53Guest:When I got back, he had the note, which is the title of the book, The Permanent Courtship of Sally.

01:07:58Guest:He had that propped by my computer.

01:08:00Marc:Really?

01:08:02Marc:That's the note he had?

01:08:03Guest:Yeah.

01:08:03Guest:And I didn't want to put the George Carlin letters on the title.

01:08:07Guest:Yeah.

01:08:09Guest:Because I didn't want it to sell for that reason.

01:08:11Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:14Guest:Well, of course, they talked me into it because nobody knows who Sally Wade is.

01:08:16Guest:Right.

01:08:17Guest:So, and he had all the music that he'd ever recorded for me up on his computer and just the words scrolling in huge letters.

01:08:28Guest:I love you.

01:08:29Guest:I love you.

01:08:30Marc:And this is before he went to the hospital.

01:08:32Guest:But I didn't see it until I got home.

01:08:34Marc:Oh, God.

01:08:36Marc:That's really powerful.

01:08:39Marc:Well, I'll tell you, I'm sorry for your loss, and certainly everybody in the, everyone who ever knew George Carlin is sorry for your loss, but this is a real gift, this book, and it really, I think it's going to give people, it's going to do what you want it to do, which is show him as a whole person.

01:08:58Guest:Well, you know, we used to, whenever we talked, we'd,

01:09:02Guest:turned to the side to make sure an invisible camera caught what we said.

01:09:09Guest:I mean, he would find tunnels so he could shout about how much he loved me.

01:09:13Marc:Yeah.

01:09:15Guest:So I knew that he wanted me to tell people.

01:09:18Marc:Have you been getting any criticism otherwise?

01:09:22Guest:I have gotten a few on Facebook.

01:09:25Guest:You know how Facebook is.

01:09:26Guest:It's a cross-section of a bunch of nutcases.

01:09:30Guest:I mean, a lot of people are really sweet.

01:09:31Guest:I don't want to put Facebook down.

01:09:33Guest:And they've been very supportive.

01:09:35Guest:I mean, 29,000 people on the site are very supportive.

01:09:39Guest:But a few people say, you know, how could you...

01:09:44Guest:How could you write something like this?

01:09:46Guest:And I'm thinking, wait a minute, this is about love.

01:09:48Guest:It's not a trashy tabloid.

01:09:51Guest:So nobody asked the people who write trashy tabloids why they did it.

01:09:57Guest:They just, you know, reading it to find out what happened next.

01:10:01Guest:And it's, I think, a message that he wanted to leave.

01:10:07Guest:Yeah.

01:10:08Guest:It certainly has given me something to do for the past few years.

01:10:14Marc:To deal with the grief.

01:10:16Marc:Yeah.

01:10:16Marc:And also honor his path.

01:10:19Guest:I saw a therapist yesterday.

01:10:20Guest:She said, well, what stage of grief are you in?

01:10:22Guest:And I'm thinking, writing?

01:10:23Guest:Is that a stage?

01:10:25Marc:Did they leave that one out?

01:10:27Marc:Yeah.

01:10:30Marc:It seems like you're well into acceptance.

01:10:33Guest:Well, I don't know about that, but I'm doing the best I can.

01:10:39Marc:Well, thanks so much for talking to me, Sally.

01:10:41Marc:You're welcome.

01:10:42Marc:I wish I had Kleenex.

01:10:43Marc:I'm going to go get you Kleenex right now.

01:10:46Guest:Okay.

01:10:52Okay.

01:10:52Marc:Somebody please, please remind me to get some Kleenex.

01:10:58Marc:You know, I got the air purifier.

01:11:01Marc:I got just a box of Kleenex.

01:11:03Marc:Would that be so difficult?

01:11:04Marc:What a lovely conversation.

01:11:05Marc:And she's a lovely woman.

01:11:07Marc:And the book is really sweet.

01:11:09Marc:So if you want to, you can go get the George Carlin letters, the permanent courtship of Sally Wade by Sally Wade, with appearance of George Carlin in spirit and in words, and just a beautiful collage of a book.

01:11:21Marc:I'm a little moved, a lot moved.

01:11:26Marc:Please go to the new WTF pod dot com.

01:11:28Marc:New site between us.

01:11:30Marc:I think we're still in a soft launch mode, but it's a new site.

01:11:33Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:11:34Marc:Donate a few shekels.

01:11:36Marc:Kick a few shekels and get some merch.

01:11:39Marc:We can listen right on the site now.

01:11:40Marc:And there's also comment boards.

01:11:42Marc:I know how much you like comment boards.

01:11:44Marc:I'm going to be doing some video stuff there.

01:11:46Marc:I'm very excited.

01:11:48Marc:Great looking site.

01:11:49Marc:The new WTF pod dot com.

01:11:51Marc:Also, please, if you can and if you want, if you want to buy some of those older episodes, the Dane Cook, the Carlos Mencia, the Louis C.K., the Judd Apatow, the Dave Attell, some of the Live at Comics episodes, you can go to WTFPodShop.com or you can do a search for WTF Premium on iTunes.

01:12:10Marc:JustCoffee.coop is our sponsor always and forever.

01:12:15Marc:Pow!

01:12:16Marc:I just shit my pants.

01:12:18Marc:I did.

01:12:19Marc:That's good coffee.

01:12:21Marc:San Antonio, LOLs.

01:12:23Marc:Laugh Out Louds.

01:12:24Marc:Tomorrow, Friday, May 13th, the 14th and 15th.

01:12:28Marc:I will be there.

01:12:30Marc:And also, I'd like to take this moment to congratulate my friend, Brendan McDonald, and his wife, Dawn, on the birth of their son, Owen Thomas McDonald, clocking in at 5 pounds and 12 ounces.

01:12:42Marc:God bless.

01:12:43Marc:Mazel tov.

01:12:44Marc:I'll talk to y'all later.

01:12:47Marc:Marc Maron, out.

01:12:50Marc:That was ridiculous.