Episode 181 - Brian Posehn
Guest:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Marc:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucking compulsive gamblers that I'm seeing down in the basement here or the lobby or the casino of the Foxwoods Casino here in Connecticut?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:Was that too long?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I'm sorry if I sound edgy.
Marc:I'm sorry if I sound weird.
Marc:I've been at the Foxwoods Casino in whatever the name of the town is, Connecticut, for three days.
Marc:Three days.
Marc:This is not my natural habitat.
Marc:Is this anyone's natural habitat?
Marc:Who the fuck comes to these places?
Marc:Where do these people come from?
Marc:Do cracks in the earth open and release these people, these troll-like obese people, these people dragging oxygen tanks behind them, and Asians, hundreds of Asians, thousands, it seems.
Marc:Again, I've resolved my issues with Asians, but there seem to be a lot of Asians up here in the woods of Connecticut.
Marc:This place is in the middle of the fucking woods.
Marc:Maybe I should slow the fuck down.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I got to slow down.
Marc:Oh, just take a breath, man.
Marc:Take a breath.
Marc:It's all right, dude.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You chose to take the gig.
Marc:You were in New York.
Marc:You did two great shows at the Bell House.
Marc:What a great time that was.
Marc:Thanks for coming out.
Marc:First show.
Marc:Very interesting.
Marc:Little odd.
Marc:I know it was a difficult experience for some of you.
Marc:It was hot.
Marc:The air conditioner wasn't working.
Marc:But boy, did it turn out to be wild.
Marc:And the second show was genius.
Marc:I'm not calling myself a genius.
Marc:The ensemble was amazing.
Marc:Tom Sharpling.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I got to be honest with you guys.
Marc:I think me and Sharpling got to do a show together.
Marc:I don't know what the show is, but if you're not listening to the best show, you really should be listening to the best show.
Marc:That's Tom Sharpling's show, WFMU.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:For a long time, I didn't think we were friends or we were going to be friends.
Marc:But after the other night, and you'll hear it when I put that show up, I think him and I should just do a general review show.
Marc:I think it should just be Mark and Tom review shit.
Marc:Mark and Tom talk about things they want to talk about in a slightly critical bent.
Marc:And they talk to each other.
Marc:I'm pitching that.
Marc:I'm pitching that to you people.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's get back to this.
Marc:I'm at Foxwoods.
Marc:All right.
Marc:The show's not.
Marc:They're fine.
Marc:The club is fine.
Marc:I really appreciate you what the fuckers coming out to the shows.
Marc:I know this is not your natural environment.
Marc:I see hipsters coming in.
Marc:Well, not hipsters, but, you know, people of my ilk, perhaps people with some facial hair and a plaid shirt that's short sleeved.
Marc:They walk in.
Marc:I realize that they're in an alien environment.
Marc:I'm in an alien environment, but we're going to do this.
Marc:So the shows have not been that populated.
Marc:I don't mind playing for small audiences.
Marc:It's been very interesting up here.
Marc:And I'm happy to say that I have not gambled compulsively, though I understand it.
Marc:I fucking understand it.
Marc:But I am so happy at this point in my life that if I lose $100, $150, I feel like such total shit that I cannot gamble anymore.
Marc:That's what I'm telling myself today.
Marc:I have one more day here.
Marc:I've allotted myself $300 to lose.
Marc:I am down $175.
Marc:I could walk, folks.
Marc:I could walk.
Marc:I don't know if that's going to happen.
Marc:Ryan Singer is here, we're planning on getting off the grounds today to avoid the tables.
Marc:And quite honestly, there is no glamour in this shit.
Marc:I have never seen, casinos are so consistently populated with what seems to be, I can't even explain the people who are up here, but they all seem to have something in common.
Marc:That is, they seem to have given up on themselves.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:Could that be the theme?
Marc:I mean, they've just given up on themselves, and they'll just sit there and play nickel slots, dollar slots, blackjack, and it looks like when they're not sitting at a table, all they're doing is eating ice cream or Twinkies or Cheetos, just sitting alone, shoveling them into their face until they no longer fit on the couch, and then once or twice a year, they waddle into the Foxwoods Casino.
Marc:That's what it looks like to me.
Marc:Oh, and Asians.
Marc:And again, I don't understand what that's about.
Marc:And everybody's got a fucking system.
Marc:Everybody's got a system.
Marc:I sat down at a table.
Marc:I thought, well, I'm here.
Marc:Let's do some blackjack.
Marc:This will be fun.
Marc:I sit down at a table with an available chair.
Marc:It's me, two Asian guys, an Asian lady, and a guy with an oxygen tank.
Marc:All right?
Marc:And a compulsive gambler guy who within 30 seconds lost like $500 on three hands.
Marc:And it looked like he had a face that was in a type of grimace.
Marc:that could only be relieved temporarily by winning one hand of blackjack.
Marc:I saw him win one, the grimace turned into half a smile, and then he doubled everything and lost everything and walked away within seven minutes losing $500.
Marc:And as he walked away and made a phone call, I realized that that guy was probably here every night and he was calling someone to get more money.
Marc:So where's the glory in that?
Marc:And then the Asian people, they're just giving me stink eye.
Marc:I'm the last guy on the round of the table.
Marc:I get the last card.
Marc:It's all on me to play appropriately, which I don't like.
Marc:I don't like to be beholden to rules where I want to take some chances.
Marc:And I'm just getting stink eye from these three Asian people.
Marc:One who had a goatee, and that makes me automatically think he has some wisdom.
Marc:So I made a choice for a card, and he looked at me and went, duh.
Marc:I swear to God, he made that noise.
Marc:And then he...
Marc:He nodded in a yes, and I felt like I had been accepted into some long tradition of things.
Marc:And I felt like we were friends and that I would listen to him throughout the next three hands as to how to take what card and when to hit.
Marc:He was a wise man because of the goatee and the strange guttural noise he made and the nod of approval.
Marc:So that's been my experience.
Marc:But I do want you to rest assured I am not a compulsive gambler.
Marc:I cannot get into it.
Marc:I have too deep a fear of losing money.
Marc:And as I've always said, I'd much rather play here at an Indian casino than I would in Vegas.
Marc:Because when you played in Indian casino...
Marc:Quite honestly, if you lose, you feel like you're helping in a way.
Marc:You feel like you're giving back.
Marc:You know, they've been through a lot.
Marc:I had nothing to do with it, but I do have a bit of guilt, a bit of burden.
Marc:Yeah, I lost $175.
Marc:It's the least I can do.
Marc:It's the least I can do for what we did to their people.
Marc:And this place is in the middle of a beautiful, beautiful Connecticut landscape.
Marc:It's just rolling hills full of pine trees for miles and miles.
Marc:And then this monstrosity, this fucking monument, if you were to look at it from a satellite, it would look like a malignant consumerist tumor on the Connecticut landscape.
Marc:I'm just hoping that one day...
Marc:You know, when you look out and you see half of the Foxwoods Resort and then you see the rest is just beautiful, pristine countryside, you hope one day that that is what survives, that the casino will somehow just be pulled down into the earth and live under the earth with the people that seem to come out of the earth to gamble here.
Marc:I have Brian Poussain on the show today.
Marc:And, you know, I've known Brian Poussain for years.
Marc:And I don't think we've ever talked more than two minutes.
Marc:And I didn't know if he could talk for more than two minutes.
Marc:And I am thrilled to say that he can.
Marc:And we had a lovely conversation.
Marc:And I hope you enjoy that.
Marc:Brian Poussain in the garage here at the Cat Ranch.
Marc:I'm glad you came by because I feel like I remember you in such a weird way.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Well, I mean, we were in San Francisco.
Marc:You were a San Francisco guy.
Marc:You were starting out when me and Blaine and Patton moved there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you were just this tall guy, long hair.
Guest:You always wore a hat of some kind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I was already balding at like 22, I think.
Guest:I was holding on to that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:Because you didn't wear glasses.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I was wearing contacts at the time.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, but...
Guest:God, when we met, if it was 90, I would have been 20.
Guest:92.
Guest:92, I would have been 26.
Marc:Like, you were just this massive force, and I could never quite register where you were coming from exactly.
Marc:I didn't know.
Guest:No, back then I just wrote what was funny and I'm so glad I get to do this because I feel like a lot of people come on and they talk about like, oh, you always hated me and that kind of thing.
Guest:But I always looked up to you and it was like you and Rhodes, when you guys first came to the city, I was like, oh, these guys know who they are.
Guest:And I didn't at that point.
Guest:I was sort of reaching for things.
Guest:Like, in 87, when I started, I called myself the Piranha.
Guest:And I wanted to be like Sam Kennison in Dice.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:You had one name?
Guest:Well, no, I called Brian Piranha Posehn.
Guest:Oh, okay, all right.
Guest:But it was also like when, you know, Bobcat had a nickname.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And Slayton was the pit bull.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:And it was one of those things, you know, it's like, oh, I need this.
Guest:I need a hook.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, I had no clue.
Marc:I had no idea that you were once the Piranha.
Guest:Oh, yeah, awful.
Guest:And then...
Guest:But when you met me, I was kind of the grunge comic, you know?
Guest:Pearl Jam had broke real big, and I was really into that stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'd been a metal kid, but then grunge came out, and I was still buying Pantera records and that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But grunge became this thing, and it wasn't like I wasn't...
Guest:I wouldn't call myself a poser, but I just was kind of looking for a hook.
Marc:An identity.
Marc:I did that, Christ.
Marc:I sit here and condescend sometimes, but look what I'm doing with the hair on my face.
Marc:At some point, you're going to level off on something.
Marc:You just hope that whatever's on the inside matches it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you were older, and then also you'd been doing it longer, and you'd already had the comedy store and all that.
Guest:So when you came to San Francisco, you and Rhodes, I mean, Rhodes had started at, what, 16 or something?
Marc:Yeah, and we didn't know each other.
Marc:He was there a little before me.
Marc:Yeah, that was Rhodes, the long-haired Rhodes.
Guest:Right, but my point was you guys knew who you were on stage.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And when you first came, and even Patton, I don't know if he would ever admit it, we were all like...
Guest:Wow, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Marin and Rhodes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:These are these two defined characters.
Marc:I think Patton would admit it for maybe a week window.
Marc:Like, you know, there's a week or two where.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where he looked up to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we were roommates.
Guest:He and I hooked up right away because we were like he was like two years younger than me and had about the same amount of time on stage at that point.
Marc:Did he move in with you?
Marc:Because where did you come from that area, right?
Guest:Yeah, I come from Northern California, but I was living with Ngayo Bilem at the time.
Marc:That's what I remember.
Marc:I remember this, going to your house to smoke pot and then leaving retarded.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just the goofy snow in our house.
Guest:We had like every, we had like the six-foot pong, the three-foot pong.
Guest:Right, that was it.
Guest:Like I went over there and it was like I'm standing on a stool.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sucking on a pipe.
Guest:We had that giant one where you needed a spotter.
Guest:If you weren't me, if I could do it, I could reach.
Guest:Ha, ha.
Guest:With my crazy giant arms.
Marc:Then I just remember Ngai was one of those guys.
Marc:You were always pretty quiet, so I never really knew what was going on in your head.
Marc:I didn't ever assume that you didn't like me, but I always assumed that I don't have any idea how to talk to that guy.
Guest:But do you remember we went to New York?
Guest:We all did Two Drink Minimum?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yes, I did.
Guest:I look at that night.
Guest:You really kind of opened my eyes to... I'd never been in New York before, and you obviously had.
Guest:That was the one where Jake Johansson hosted?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:But you and I left.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think at one point, if I remember correctly, we were probably high.
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure.
Guest:I'm having a little black spot with it.
Guest:But I think you were like...
Guest:you've never been here?
Guest:You know, one of those things.
Guest:Like, oh, dude, you got to see this.
Guest:And then you took me to clubs.
Guest:And we went to the improv and we saw Mark Cohen.
Guest:And I was like, this guy is the biggest fucking hack I've ever seen.
Guest:And you were like, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Cohen's really funny.
Guest:And he's making fun of that.
Guest:He's doing hack jokes on purpose.
Guest:And I went, oh.
Guest:I was just like this naive kid to comedy still.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's amazing because the improv was still around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We went there.
Guest:So you got to see that.
Guest:We went to a couple different places that night.
Guest:The original brick wall.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Did we go to Lower East Side and eat or anything?
Guest:We probably got a slice at some point.
Guest:But no, I remember just kind of the older comic, even though you weren't that much older than me.
Guest:What are you, two years older than me?
Marc:I'm 47.
Guest:Yeah, I'll be 45 in July.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it wasn't like I was like, come here, little boy.
Guest:No, but it was like...
Guest:I knew.
Guest:Like I said, you were more schooled and more worldly in stand-up.
Marc:I'm so glad I took you to that place, the improv.
Guest:Yeah, no, I remember that night.
Marc:Because that place was like, that was the original place, and there was all those weird old pictures of Andy Kaufman.
Guest:And we didn't do sets.
Guest:We just watched.
Guest:We just hung out.
Guest:We had a drink.
Marc:I don't even know where I was at with them.
Marc:I was living in New York.
Marc:I was living in San Francisco.
Guest:Well, they knew you.
Guest:We walked in, and they were like, Mark, it was one of those things.
Guest:Like, yeah, you guys can hang out.
Guest:And we hung out.
Guest:And I remember watching Cohen and going, I don't get this.
Guest:And you go, no, no, no.
Guest:And then even after we left, I was like, that guy is pretty bad, dude.
Guest:And you're like, no, he wasn't.
Guest:And you kind of explained it to me.
Guest:And then Cohen wound up being one of my good friends.
Guest:He did, right?
Guest:Yeah, and I wound up really thinking he was hilarious.
Marc:He was a big stoner.
Marc:The thing about Cohen was there was these different kinds of acts, and he was a great emcee.
Marc:He was so fucking fast.
Guest:He was also kind of an East Coast kindler.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Where he was kind of messing with the form.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And at that point, I didn't know that.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I just thought he was doing lame jokes.
Marc:Well, there was an arrogance around San Francisco.
Guest:Like, you know, San Francisco, like, this is where the comedy artists reside to some degree.
Guest:Yeah, and I guess I fell into that a little.
Guest:I mean, I came from Sacramento.
Guest:I started in, like, some shitty open mic up in Sacramento.
Marc:What the fuck is going on in Sacramento?
Guest:Who knows now?
Guest:Oh, it's total meth.
Marc:Yeah, I just, like, every time I go up there, I don't know, you know, what's holding the city together.
Marc:I know there are probably decent people up there, but I've never gotten a sense...
Guest:Downtown's cool.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm going back up there and I'm not going to do the comedy club anymore.
Guest:I'm trying to do that in most cities now too.
Guest:I'm just going to do a rock club up there and play to the cool people and then get out of there.
Marc:Yeah, in one night.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I have done a few rock clubs, but I find that there's some part of me, I think it's out of spite or entitlement that I'm like, I'm going to comedy clubs because if I can sell tickets now, I owe it to myself to be victorious in those places.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Where were you just at?
Marc:And you were in Florida?
Guest:Yeah, I did a couple of rock clubs.
Guest:I did Tallahassee and Pensacola.
Guest:Do you fill them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I do really good or really well.
Guest:I've been having a blast.
Guest:You know, I still, when I do comedy clubs, I do well there too, but then there's still those people.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And it's like, you know, I still get bachelorette parties.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:You know, and I still get the 60-year-old lady, the conservative lady with her arms crossed going, is this guy going to talk about his penis the entire time?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, I am.
Guest:Sadly, it's all I have.
Marc:Dude, I was in Madison.
Marc:They told me before the show that there was a party of 100 sorority girls and their dads.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I saw you tweeted about that.
Marc:And then there was a bachelorette party up front, and then a right-wing drunk dude started heckling me.
Marc:And I was like, is this the trifecta?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So did you have any...
Guest:fans in that crowd in that i did i had about a hundred but i i had the guy so this is a big room it was i had the guy kicked out which i don't usually do but i knew because of the situation was already going to be difficult i didn't have time to babysit him like standing up giving me right right mock standing ovations i just had one of those in minneapolis what do you do and they kicked him out before i could oh uh because the guy brought a bottle in and i didn't see that part but i just saw as soon as i walked out
Guest:The arms crossed.
Guest:He just looked like a, you know, and some of these guys like me, but he just looked like a mixed martial arts guy.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I can't call him a fucking asshole.
Guest:He'll kill me.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:Well, that's what happened at this place.
Marc:The guy said, why don't you come down here?
Marc:And I'm like, that's it.
Marc:Get the fuck out.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Get him out of here.
Marc:And it was good because none of the he had already fucked with the first guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So there was none of that, like, judging me for being a pussy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Isn't that fucked up that I think that?
Guest:That, like, I should be able to manage this.
Guest:Yeah, but I was at that show at Largo.
Marc:Oh, where I got decked?
Marc:How many people were there?
Guest:I was with Wrath, and Wrath's the one who saved you.
Guest:Yeah, he pulled that guy off.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Thank God, because I don't know how much of it.
Guest:Thank God we were out in the back getting high.
Guest:Thank God we wanted to watch you.
Marc:Lucky for you.
Marc:Man, I'm so glad people pulled that guy off of me.
Marc:He seemed baffled by the whole thing.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So, okay, so here's what amazed, not amazed me, I don't want to appear condescending.
Marc:There was a period where I chose to go do comedy and everyone else chose to come to LA and perhaps find a community and do interesting things with other people.
Marc:And the next thing I know, you're part of the Mr. Show crew.
Marc:And because I had no real knowledge of you really speaking for longer than a minute or a minute and a half, I was like, how the hell did Brian Poussain, does he even talk?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I wrote.
Guest:I mean, that was the thing.
Guest:The guys that didn't make that transition, were you writing sketches?
Marc:No, no, I wasn't judging you, but it was just sort of like, where did that come from?
Marc:How did you align yourself with those guys?
Guest:Well, I think part of it was I wasn't as established as you guys, some of you other guys, so I panicked.
Guest:When comedy clubs started closing,
Guest:I was like, what am I going to do?
Guest:You know, I don't want to MC around the country, and I don't even know if I'll be able to make a living doing that.
Guest:So at the end of my run in San Francisco, I was already writing jokes or writing, you know, that kind of stuff.
Guest:Like, I got to work on a late night show, or I got to get an MTV job.
Guest:And I hooked up with Rath, Dave Rath, my manager at the time.
Guest:Is he still your manager?
Guest:Yeah, oh yeah, forever.
Guest:And I'll never leave the guy.
Guest:And me and Patton, he found Patton and I, and he...
Marc:Along with 400 other comics.
Marc:You guys said I'm kidding.
Guest:But we were kind of as big guys besides Janine.
Guest:And he kind of pushed us into that.
Guest:He got me my first writing gig down in L.A.
Guest:And I went down like it was a temporary thing, like in 93, 94, where I thought I was going to go back to San Francisco.
Guest:But at that time, I really was like, I got to get off the road.
Guest:I can't make enough doing this.
Guest:And clubs were closing.
Guest:We lost the improv around that time in San Francisco.
Guest:That was a fun room.
Guest:So, yeah, but it was kind of the scary time as a stand-up, for me at least.
Guest:It was like, how am I going to do this?
Guest:I have to try something else.
Guest:And I didn't ever think I would fall into acting.
Guest:I mean, I really just wanted to come down here and get writing gigs.
Marc:Well, it's amazing to me that you had the wherewithal to acknowledge at that time, because I talk about this on the show a bit, that I never considered it.
Marc:And I think it's a responsible thing to do.
Marc:So even despite the THC haze,
Marc:You took responsibility for yourself.
Guest:Yeah, but in your defense, I kind of think that you were maybe more of a pure stand-up at that point.
Guest:I think I probably am still.
Guest:Well, no, but you know what I mean?
Guest:I think there are guys that that's not all that you do, but that's your focus.
Marc:But when I talk to young guys today, or if they write me, I say, look, don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Marc:I mean, if you can write, there's work there.
Marc:Now, were you a disciplined guy in high school or what?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Guest:Wait.
Guest:I barely made it out of high school.
Guest:I literally, at my senior year, I had to start doing other things to get credits to graduate with my class.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, I had to go up to junior college up in Santa Rosa and take a film class at night.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Well, that must have been good.
Guest:Was that a good thing?
Guest:Yeah, it was fun.
Guest:It wound up being really positive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it was bad at home because my mom, you know.
Guest:What kind of family you come from?
Guest:A single mom, and I'm the only child.
Guest:My dad died when I was two, so my mom struggled, went to college while I was little, and grew up in the Bay Area, and then went to San Jose, and then moved to Sonoma at nine years old.
Guest:and uh just was miserable yeah you know you talk about you know like where does this come from and you know and i was the kid that uh memorized comedy to kind of make friends yeah uh oh really oh yeah yeah were you always really tall i mean were you the outsider guy yeah i'm really really skinny that was the funny thing like that's what people made fun of me for and now i'm a big fat asshole like
Guest:But, like, that was one of the things I got ridiculed for was that, like, I had these weenie arms and, you know, just super skinny.
Guest:They called you weenie arms?
Guest:No, no, they called me Turtle because I was so shy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would, you know, I would hunch.
Guest:And I came my first day of fourth grade at this new school in Sonoma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm wearing a green jacket.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I look like a turtle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and it stuck and like there were kids in junior high and high school that called me turtle and had no idea why yeah you know but you chose piranha i mean later yeah yeah you weren't gonna go with turtle yeah well i'm i could have been the snapping turtle fighting back you know ridiculous so well that's so like not having a dad around because i talked to a lot of uh dudes you know it seems to me that that when you don't have uh
Marc:dad around or the dad is not around like my dad that there's some kind of uh you sort of there's a you have this push inside of you right i don't i can't quite explain it but there are guys i know like you know like louis like judd i mean there's so many cats who did well in comedy and really used comedy to to save their asses well that their dad become a serial killer well that was a choice sure and you were when were you at that crossroads oh man
Marc:I read the books.
Marc:I did, too.
Marc:I did the work.
Marc:What was with us in that thing?
Marc:I got those books up here.
Marc:I mean, there was a period there when me, you, and Patton were completely submerged in morbid curiosity.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I think it was really, it is the most extreme, most disturbing irony.
Marc:If I'm going to criticize ironic disposition,
Marc:To sit there and go like, you know, Manson's kind of cool.
Guest:I was more of an Ed Gein guy.
Guest:I liked the crazy, you know, small town guy.
Guest:A little more creative.
Guest:A little more creative.
Marc:You know, he took it to another level.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And he was hands on.
Marc:You know, Manson subcontracted the killing where Gein would be like, you know, it was more intimate.
Guest:Well, that's how Patton and I bonded.
Guest:Like we, we met in the, um, when he had moved there that week and I remember thinking he was really funny when he, you know, the first time I saw him like at a pizza place and there's like four people in the audience and we're both just doing whatever we wanted to do.
Guest:It was like a North beat.
Guest:No, no, it was,
Guest:out by the water actually yeah yeah yeah um and it was awful but uh we i did like a river's edge joke and a reference to that movie yeah yeah and he had some other like serial killer thing and we started talking and then we did this uh competition together and uh the san francisco competition i was gonna what year
Guest:92.
Guest:Must have been 92.
Marc:That was our first year there.
Marc:That was me and Patton's first year there.
Guest:And he did better, I think, in that.
Guest:But the first week, we were driving all these gigs.
Guest:Remember, you'd have to go to Walnut Creek.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I had to drive Rick Kearns around like, I don't know how to get on Letterman.
Guest:I mean, I've been around him long.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had a Christian guy.
Guest:I can't even remember his name.
Guest:The black dude?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was a white guy.
Guest:Patton would remember because he didn't smoke as much pot as I did back then but we bonded because this guy this poor bastard was driving us around and we're just talking about serial killers and all this dark stuff and all the movies that we loved and comic books you know yeah that's like when anime Akira first coming out yeah kind of thing and we're already into you know Asian cinema Jackie Chan and all that so we bonded over all this stuff
Guest:And this poor guy had just had no idea.
Guest:But it was the forming of our friendship.
Guest:I mean, it was the nights driving out to Wanda Creek, driving to San Jose.
Marc:The ongoing conversation about the nuances of comic books.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I couldn't stand my roommate's situation.
Guest:I loved Engayo.
Guest:but we lived with, like, three, four other people in that house.
Guest:So I'd tell Patton, I got to get something else going.
Guest:The stoner co-op.
Guest:Yeah, it was awful.
Guest:And there was no way to get work done there.
Guest:You just smoked pot all day long.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it was ridiculous.
Guest:And even at that point, I was like, I got to, you know, I got to kind of focus.
Marc:It was one of those houses where people were just around comparing different types of weed.
Guest:Yeah, and Patton already was so focused and so driven that I was like, you know, it wasn't like I got to do what he, you know, I got to follow this guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:Maybe it was part of that, but anyway, we wound up getting an apartment together, and then he and I started writing sketches together, so that was kind of building while we were going to the Holy City Zoo and getting up and... Watching that place die.
Guest:Yeah, and then following, you know, opening for Proops.
Guest:I got to open for him a lot, so it was like you and Proops and Rhodes were kind of these older guys, even though, like I said, you weren't that much older.
Guest:Proops is probably... Is he 50?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Who knows who who Proops is?
Guest:But Proops...
Guest:Like, I used to love the way we'd go to Walnut Creek, and he'd have idiots, and he just would not tolerate them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd just rip them, you know, new ones.
Guest:Relentless.
Guest:Yeah, it's so great.
Marc:Kind of dance circles, swim circles around their brain.
Marc:Well, that's great that Patton was there, because I think he was always, like, Patton's one of those guys that was, you know, a good student.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He really had discipline.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're lucky.
Guest:He went to college.
Guest:I went to junior college and, like I said, barely made it out of high school.
Guest:Dropped out of junior college.
Guest:I was going to be a journalist, and I interviewed the band Fishbone in Sacramento.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were assholes.
Guest:And I went back to my journalism teacher, and it was for the school paper.
Guest:And I go, I can't write this article.
Guest:You know, these guys gave me nothing.
Guest:And it was around the same time I was dabbling with stand-up.
Guest:And I just dropped out of school, and I said, I'm going to do this for a couple of years and see what happens.
Guest:Fishbone turned you away from the life of a journalist.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I swear to God, they were the...
Marc:They were a good band.
Guest:They were great, but the guy didn't give me anything.
Guest:I interviewed Angelo, the singer.
Guest:I remember saying, who's your biggest influence?
Guest:And he's like, Bugs Bunny.
Guest:And I'm like, great.
Guest:Yeah, that's how we're going to go.
Guest:You're not even being funny.
Guest:You're just being a dick.
Marc:But you've got to thank him.
Guest:You should write him a letter.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:If I ever meet them, I will say thank you for my life.
Marc:Was your mom okay with it?
Guest:She actually was.
Guest:You know what it was?
Guest:She was just so happy that I found anything.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Were you pretty miserable?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like I said, just barely making it through.
Guest:And we went through a time.
Guest:She kicked me out when I was 17.
Guest:and uh uh no uh ripped her off she went on a vacation and and i was a spoiled little brat i didn't get to go on the vacation right because i you know uh didn't have any money couldn't help her yeah you know she barely could afford to go yeah but anyway so i trashed the house while she was gone and and uh you know stole stuff from her oh really i was an what'd you do as a shitty kid did you go sell it or
Guest:No, no, I would use her credit card to buy records and that kind of stuff.
Guest:And this is the greatest thing.
Guest:My mom thought I was on drugs, and I wasn't until she kicked me out.
Guest:She kicked me out, and I went to Phoenix and found speed.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:A lot of talking.
Guest:That's like when meth was invented at the end of the 80s there.
Guest:The old weird kind of yellowy kind.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, crystal meth.
Guest:And Frank CR.
Marc:How long were you fucking on that?
Guest:I was jicking around with it for a couple of years, but then wasn't even a weed head till.
Guest:Got your teeth still, though, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Kept your teeth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What'd you learn on speed?
Marc:Because that stuff, like, I never got into it, but I did it a few times, and I'm like, this is great for an hour, but then you're up for three fucking days.
Marc:You know, you're drawing mazes.
Guest:Fixing things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I lived at my grandfather's house, and I would, like, take his vacuum cleaner apart in the middle of the night.
Yeah.
Guest:Stuff like that.
Marc:Did you retain any of that knowledge?
Guest:Oh, no, no.
Guest:But, yeah, that was that.
Guest:And then, like, I thought it would get me through college, you know, through, I was starting JC up there, American River College.
Guest:Oh, so you were doing it to study.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah, those papers turned out great.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:Super well written and focused.
Marc:Well, I'm glad that you didn't fucking stick with that drug.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And then I found weed.
Guest:I worked at a record store, Tower Records up in Sacramento, and worked with a bunch of potheads.
Guest:And, you know, grew up in Sonoma, so I was around weed, but didn't like those kids, didn't like the kids that smoked pot when I was in high school.
Guest:So it took me finding this kid who, you know, had a good taste in music and was my buddy and wound up being my roommate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's the guy who turned me on to good weed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We'd go to the dealer that, like, collected obsidian and had, like, teenage boys, you know, straight out of, what's the movie?
Guest:Boogie Nights.
Guest:Boogie Nights.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Swear to God, this guy had, like, shirtless boys, you know, doing errands in his house, doing chores and stuff.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And we were so grossed out.
Guest:I was already, by that point, wasn't doing any...
Guest:And he knows drugs, really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had already stopped that.
Guest:Phoenix had, you know, put the lid on that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, but we would go to score weed, and this guy was like, one of those assholes that's like 164th Indian.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he was totally obsessed with it, and like collected obsidian and arrowheads.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd show us his arrowheads collection, and then there's some weird kid that's, you know, vacuuming his house for blow.
Guest:And the weed, me and my roommate would just...
Guest:like, we gotta get the fuck out of here.
Marc:Oh, that's the worst.
Marc:The guy, there's nothing worse than the drug dealer with a collection.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because, like, you know, they want to get you high, so you're like, oh, yeah, great, because you want to get high.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then, like, before they give you your shit or after, then they're like, so why don't you guys hang out?
Marc:And you're like, oh, no.
Guest:Margaret Cho had that great joke around that when we first met in San Francisco of, like, just having to be and pretend you're their friend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and the whole time you're just like, just fucking give it.
Guest:You know, like,
Guest:That was her punchline.
Guest:That always made me laugh because I'd had that guy at that point.
Marc:But the sadder part of that relationship is when you do want to hang out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Where you're like, what are you guys up to?
Marc:You got beers?
Marc:You're just watching the other people come and get out.
Marc:And then it's only a matter of time before you become one of the boys vacuuming.
Marc:So you got to get out.
Marc:Now let's talk about this nerd idea.
Marc:Because there is the nerd paradigm.
Marc:You are a definer of the comedy nerd paradigm.
Marc:And I think there are some people that are true nerds and some people that are not.
Marc:And I believe that you are.
Marc:And do you believe you are?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember when Patton and I, maybe five or six years ago, somebody wrote me on the internet saying, you and Patton can't call yourself nerds anymore.
Guest:You have girlfriends and you're successful.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was like, well, I still am a nerd.
Guest:For me...
Guest:Nerdiness is just about obsession.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's the way I've always been.
Guest:I mean, for as long as I can remember, when I would get into something, I would get into it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It would become the thing, whether it's finding Kiss at nine years old and having to find every Kiss record, and then at 10 years old, finding ACDC and having to go deep.
Guest:Were you in the Kiss army?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then comics and whatever thing I would get into,
Guest:I would obsess.
Guest:You were into ACDC at 10?
Guest:Well, whenever that was.
Guest:How great were those first six albums?
Guest:78, so I must have been actually 11.
Marc:Did you stay with them through all of it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, when they lost Bond, I got into the... Yeah, well, I was in high school when Back in Black came out, so you kind of had to listen to that.
Marc:But then after that, I'm not as...
Guest:Couple, for those of, what's the, yeah, for those about to rock, we salute you, that one.
Marc:And then there's the Rick Rubin produced album, was it Ball?
Guest:By that point, I was into heavier stuff.
Guest:By the mid 80s, I was into thrash metal.
Marc:So you started with Kiss.
Marc:Kiss was my- And then would you move through hair metal a little bit?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:Well, I got into traditional stuff after, it was like ACDC and then it was Van Halen at the end of the 70s.
Guest:No shame in that.
Guest:Right, and I love them.
Guest:And then early 80s, it was a lot of the LA bands, Motley Crue, Rat.
Yeah.
Guest:and then British bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest at the same time.
Guest:And I was always the kid.
Guest:That's a lot to take.
Marc:Iron Maiden and Judas Priest at the same time.
Guest:But I was such a loner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a lot of guys, and it was also the same way with comic books, where you had to pick one, like you couldn't be a Marvel guy, and like DC, you had to like-
Marc:Who'd you even have that conversation with?
Marc:Well, I didn't.
Marc:Oh, okay, good.
Guest:But I found out about that stuff later.
Guest:And with metal, it was always... I liked all metal.
Guest:I was never, like, looked down on the hair metal guys.
Guest:I just liked it all.
Guest:I liked, you know, the stories.
Guest:I liked the energy, the aggression.
Guest:And, you know, Van Halen, I liked the party stuff.
Guest:But then I also liked...
Guest:when Iron Maiden would do a 12-minute song about rhyming the ancient Mariner and that kind of thing.
Guest:So I got into all of it.
Guest:And then when I would meet other metalheads, they were like, dude, you can't like that and that.
Guest:Motley Crue's gay.
Guest:And I'm like, I can like whatever the fuck I want to like.
Marc:Yeah, you're a radical, open-minded nerd.
Marc:Metal nerd.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think they pick allegiances is what happens.
Marc:And I think that happens in all areas of nerd land.
Marc:And it's one of the problems I have is that if you aren't a party loyalist, then they have to reckon with you as an outsider.
Marc:Who's the drifter with the beard?
Marc:You know, with the Motley Crue record.
Marc:What does he bring here?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But Patton was the same way when we met.
Guest:And so we bonded over that.
Guest:And we both were pretty nerdy.
Guest:But he was...
Marc:way more well read than i was and and uh so but i turned him on to stuff he turned me on i think that's the way it should be yeah you know because then you're just using it to you're using it like jocks use it right you know like you're like team what a team marvel or team you know that and then you get to this sort you know your default is to condescend to anybody that doesn't like what you like
Marc:Fuck them.
Guest:And then as far as it be coming into my comedy, you know, I stopped doing standup for a while.
Guest:You know, when I moved down here.
Guest:After Mr. Show?
Guest:Well, like during, you know, I was.
Guest:Well, let's get into that transition.
Guest:I got Mr. Show from being on stage in front of those guys.
Guest:And well, David knew me first from San Francisco.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cross was coming up to the city a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember when Lisa Langang was booking the improv and Janine would come up.
Guest:That's how I met them.
Guest:And so when I came down to L.A., I was their friend.
Guest:And I was already a fan of the Ben Stiller show because it was on my last year in San Francisco, even though Fox barely had, you know, I saw like two episodes and then Fox fucked it up or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I looked up to those guys, and I was really into sketch from SCTV, and that was my thing.
Guest:Everybody at my high school liked Saturday Night Live, and I was always way more an SCTV guy.
Guest:Never thought that I could do that.
Guest:And just started messing around around then, like I said.
Guest:So when I came to L.A., I already had a sketch packet.
Guest:I had samples to show Bob when Bob asked for him.
Guest:And Bob asked a lot of people.
Guest:And the way I got in was I was ready.
Guest:And Bob's intense.
Guest:Yeah, but when people go, well, how did you make that leap?
Guest:And I didn't.
Guest:I'm like, well, I was fucking ready.
Guest:I wanted to make that leap.
Marc:And then you guys just went over.
Guest:And we bonded over being dicks.
Marc:You and Bob?
Guest:Well, yeah, that was the other thing.
Guest:Like, I had this quiet reputation in San Francisco, but I also kind of had the reputation if you cross me, you know.
Guest:You would dick out.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had those things.
Guest:Like, I don't know if you remember, but I would get into arguments with people over music all the time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I kind of had that surly, you know, surly stoner thing.
Marc:I think I do remember the one time that I saw you get angry about something.
Marc:I was like, holy shit.
Marc:It's in there.
Guest:Yeah, it was probably Pearl Jam or something.
Marc:But you loved Pearl Jam.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:And that was a big argument.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you must have taken a lot of hits for that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there was Primus and stuff like that.
Guest:Barrett used to give me so much shit for liking Primus.
Marc:How can you not like Primus?
Marc:I don't know if you can, like, I can't listen to him a lot, but at least you have to sit there and go, this guy seems to have his shit together.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:You know, he's got a vision here.
Guest:But that was my nerdy thing.
Guest:I would defend those bands to the death.
Guest:But...
Guest:So Kirk and I met at Virgin Records and he had heard about me through Cross and knew that I had moved down and he came over and he's like socially retarded and he came over and tried to connect with me.
Guest:Edgy.
Guest:So what do you do?
Guest:Yeah, but he also had heard that I was funny so he came to talk to me
Guest:And I'm wearing like a sub pop jacket that says loser and long hair and a hat and whatever.
Guest:You still had the long hair.
Guest:Yeah, at that point.
Guest:And I was just like, oh, hey, man.
Guest:Probably gave him nothing.
Marc:What did he say?
Guest:And with that first conversation, it was awkward.
Guest:Nothing happened.
Guest:But then, you know, he went back to Cross going, hey, this kid's kind of a dickhole.
Guest:And Cross is like, yeah, but he's pretty funny.
Guest:So then, you know, Rath ran that room, the Diamond Club.
Marc:I don't remember that.
Guest:I think I missed it.
Guest:You weren't here, I don't think, at that point.
Guest:And it was this great space.
Guest:that they talk about in the Mr. Show book and that spin article that just came out where we were doing shows almost every night.
Guest:Like Laura Milligan would host a show.
Guest:As Mr. Show?
Guest:No, no, it was before Mr. Show.
Guest:And it was right before those guys got their deal.
Guest:So they were doing shows there because they knew Rath.
Guest:And I was doing, I did my own sketch show where I, I called it a one-man show, but I used like Karen Kilgariff and all these other people to act in these sketches.
Guest:I wrote all the sketches.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I performed in every sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I used Benson too, because Benson was my writing partner in MTV when I first moved down here.
Guest:What was that project?
Guest:We got this shitty job called Trashed.
Guest:It was like- I remember that.
Guest:It was remote control, but we would destroy your stuff.
Guest:Right, I remember that.
Guest:So it was like college students would come on and bring their surfboard.
Guest:Yeah, I remember auditioning for that.
Guest:If they win, they get to keep their surfboard.
Guest:Chris Hardwick was our host.
Guest:Right, I think I auditioned for that.
Guest:Fresh out of college.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was really his first hosting job?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But anyway, we were doing these shows every night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when Bob, I even asked Bob to be in one of my sketches.
Guest:And he read the sketch and he liked it.
Guest:It was kind of an SNL style sketch.
Guest:And then it jumped off and went this crazy place.
Marc:What does that mean when you think SNL style sketch?
Marc:Because I don't quite understand.
Marc:Like, I don't understand sketch sometimes.
Guest:Well, it was traditional live.
Guest:It felt like a traditional live sketch.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then it went to a different place.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had a different twist.
Guest:And it was, the premise was, and this is the one that he liked the most, but...
Guest:It was a guy who falls asleep when he lies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so he has his boss over.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I have Karen's playing my wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've got to make this impression.
Guest:It's just kind of a traditional jumping off point.
Guest:Like, oh, the boss is coming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to make a good impression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then you find out that when I talk to him, you know, and I'm telling him like, hey, I really think you're great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I can't get through this.
Guest:And like he's getting madder and madder.
Guest:And it was just one of those.
Guest:And he liked it.
Guest:He liked the structure and he liked the writing.
Guest:And so when they got their deal, I was, you know, one of the first people they talked to.
Marc:And then the acting sort of when did you make the transition?
Marc:Because there was definitely like, you know, you've come into yourself.
Marc:You look good.
Marc:You know, you seem like you're whole and together.
Marc:There's no confusion anymore.
Marc:But there was a decision to to put the glasses back on to cut the hair and become sort of a character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I owe the haircut to my ex.
Guest:I don't know if you knew this girl, Paula.
Marc:I probably met her.
Guest:She I went out with her for about five years.
Guest:We met.
Guest:on Trashed, the MTV show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then she wound up being the wardrobe girl for Mr. Show for the entire run.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And what happened was, you know, I was wearing the hat every day, and underneath the hat, it was looking grim.
Guest:It was...
Guest:It was getting worse and worse.
Marc:And that's what you were hiding, though, right?
Guest:You know, my dad died at 23, and he was bald when he died.
Guest:How'd he die?
Guest:A rare blood disease, and then the fucking hospital fucked it up and gave him something he was allergic to, and he went into a coma.
Guest:When you were two?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was it a genetic thing?
Guest:Was there a fear of... No, it wasn't, but it was some really rare thing.
Guest:I mean, yeah, there was always the fear.
Guest:I...
Guest:One of the reasons I have a kid at 43 is, you know, I thought I was going to die always.
Guest:I never thought I would live to be as old as I am.
Guest:And just because of him, not that there was any real reason.
Guest:The doctor never said, hey, you're going to be like him.
Guest:I just thought I was.
Guest:And so I never, you know, anyway, wanted to hook up or, you know,
Guest:It was really that active of fear in your mind?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't want to bring a kid in and die on him.
Guest:And I still think about it all the time.
Guest:Now I'm a big, unhealthy bastard, and I'm afraid that, you know.
Guest:He's going to clutch your chest.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:Like, his second birthday's in one month, and I'm like, am I going to die on his birthday?
Guest:No, I swear to God, dude.
Marc:I'm sorry you're going through that, bro.
Guest:No.
Guest:And that's the other thing.
Guest:Like, when I listen to the show and you talk about darkness and all that, like, I was going to therapy the whole time you knew me in San Francisco.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, right before I moved, the reason I was able to move to San Francisco is both of my grandfathers died within one month, and they were my only male role models, and they both died, and one of them died really horribly.
Guest:He had Parkinson's and dementia, and he went on a walk and never came back.
Guest:And I looked for him for about two weeks up in Sacramento, and I was doing stand-up at the time, but then...
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:Get off the... 90, 90, 91, right before I moved to the city.
Guest:And I was able to move because I got his inheritance.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now, did they find him?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's so, like, cliche.
Guest:Cub Scots found him.
Guest:He's just out in the woods.
Guest:Yeah, and, like, it was shitty because...
Guest:People thought they found him.
Guest:I was on TV, local TV up in Sacramento, you know, going, hey, if you see, you know, holding up pictures, if you see my grandfather.
Guest:So people were calling in and saying, oh, I saw him.
Guest:You know, he took the light rail system.
Guest:He was downtown.
Guest:He never left Fair Oaks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He never left his little neighborhood.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He fell into the American River.
Guest:He fell off a cliff.
Guest:And, you know, I don't think he suffered.
Guest:Like, he hit a rock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was fucking awful.
Guest:But me and my uncle were looking for him for two weeks.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So when you met me, I was at a therapist two or three times a week at that point in San Francisco.
Marc:To deal with specifically the abandonment or the dying?
Guest:Abandonment and death and just, you know, who the fuck am I and why is this happening to me?
Guest:Like, why...
Guest:You know, and that had a lot, you know, like the metal also helped with that, but then also kind of made me a dark guy.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Well, that's like also that morbid fascination we had with serial killers and everything else.
Marc:I think that like when you come from a, whether it's, you know, a lack of personal identity or you have that dread, you know, because I had that dread.
Marc:I always thought I was going to die as complete fucking obsessed with, you know, disease.
Guest:But where did that come from?
Marc:I think mine came from the fact that my father was a doctor and he was not very emotionally attentive.
Marc:So I knew somewhere innately that if I was dying, he would pay attention to me.
Marc:But I think that makes sense that that would lead to a morbid fascination with killers.
Guest:Harold and Maude thing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You find comfort in it somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a little misdirected.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but what I think is interesting is like I've been dating woman who lost her mother at two and she's got that same fear.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That like her mom died of some freakish thing.
Marc:But it's definitely she's like, I'm going to die at that age.
Marc:So did you literally think you were going to die 24?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marc:That's wild.
Guest:I would say that to kids in high school, you know, would hang out with friends down at the creek, and you're having those deep conversations and that kind of thing.
Guest:It was like, you know, I'd have these friends that were like, I'm going to die young because I'm a rebel.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm going to die young because I'm supposed to.
Guest:Ugh.
Marc:Have you been able to process that much?
Marc:I mean, do you find some reprieve from it?
Guest:I don't think about it as much as I used to, and pot for a long time doled that, you know, and then therapy, and now it's... The kid, it's such an awesome thing that I just...
Guest:I just want to stay healthy.
Guest:And I know that's my way of controlling it is getting healthy and doing what I can to keep my body alive.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:And also, I think that you seem... It's just good.
Marc:You're the kind of guy where when you came into yourself, it doesn't always happen.
Marc:Some people decide on personalities early on.
Marc:They somehow commit to it.
Marc:I don't know how that happens.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there are those of us who are sort of struggling for a sense of self for years, and when you see it happen, you're like, oh my God, well, good for him.
Marc:It's almost like you arrive in your body.
Guest:Well, we never finished that.
Guest:So that's, it came after Mr. Show.
Guest:It came after kind of taking a break and then doing Just Shoot Me.
Guest:Oh, that's right, Jesus Christ.
Guest:Yeah, I fell into a great acting gig where I was recurring.
Guest:but I was doing enough episodes to where I could live off that every year.
Guest:You got insurance.
Guest:I did it for four years, and it was pretty great.
Guest:And then I was also writing.
Guest:I sold a couple movies.
Marc:Didn't you write with Dave Anthony a bit?
Guest:Yeah, but I wrote with Patton first.
Guest:We sold a movie to Meramax about stand-up.
Marc:And they didn't make it?
Guest:No, they didn't make it, but you got paid.
Guest:Oh, hell yeah.
Guest:Did a couple of those, got some punch-up jobs, and sort of didn't need to do the road.
Guest:And it wasn't like I got back into stand-up because I needed to, but I missed it.
Guest:And everybody was doing Largo, and that was kind of the place where I fell into myself, or when I figured it out.
Guest:As a comic.
Guest:Yeah, as a comic, really, where I...
Guest:Like I said, there was maybe four years where I wasn't – I was maybe doing one set a year even, you know, or if that – Yeah.
Guest:So there's, like, no stage time to get you better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what it came from is kind of being more real and talking about the things I actually cared about and – Rock and roll.
Guest:Yeah, but then also –
Guest:and bringing in the nerdy references and those kind of things.
Guest:And that's kind of when I went, this is already who I am, but this is now definitely who I am on stage.
Guest:I'm finally being myself.
Guest:Oh, that's fucking great.
Guest:And comedians of comedy wound up being a really great thing for me to kind of get out and work harder and make that first hour.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:My first stand-up record's only five, six years old before that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:didn't really have an act you know not only do you have a great comic disposition but you know you have a look and and certainly they use that yes and you're aware of that right you don't sit there and go you're not just hiring me because i'm big and nerdy looking well it's funny so back to the hair yeah i cut my hair and i swear within a week i got my first audition and i nailed it it was for empty nest it was uh you know that bad sitcom with uh christy mcnichol was on it and uh and the guy from soap and i went on
Guest:that show my first audition nailed it yeah and uh went on the show that week and uh went oh i can do this yeah i can be the guy that comes in and says something retarded and walks out and get those kind of laughs yeah yeah and be not this character-y guy yeah and i'd grown up liking those guys on shows i was thinking you know there's that guy again yeah there's jim j bullock too close for comfort yeah i think
Guest:Faye guy that comes in and says something weird and walks out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and then there's the guy on Coach.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who fit my look.
Guest:Is it Fagrebaki?
Guest:Bill Fagrebaki?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I think it's a character actor.
Marc:Pretty classic comedy archetype.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sort of the large nerdy dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I went, oh, I can do that.
Guest:I can be the goofy neighbor or I can be the guy that works with Spade at the, you know, just shoot me and walks in and pushes the mail cart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Says something weird.
Guest:Everybody shakes their head and I walk off and high five the director because I killed.
Guest:And you can also be the big gay guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That I had.
Guest:Well, that story, you know that story?
Marc:I don't know any stories.
Guest:Well, Sarah hired me.
Guest:To play Brian.
Marc:It's not Sarah Silverman program, right.
Guest:The character is Brian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's basically playing myself in the script.
Guest:First script never comes up that I'm gay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So with the pilot cells, we're doing our first real episode.
Guest:And I turn to Steve Agee after reading a couple of things, the guy who plays my boyfriend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, dude, are we gay?
Guest:And he's like, are you a fucking idiot?
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:Sarah calls me and says, will you be on my show?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We didn't even talk about it.
Guest:It never came up.
Guest:And I think that's what she wanted.
Marc:To have gay guys that don't act gay.
Guest:What people loved about that show, or what they loved about our characters, is we weren't that type.
Guest:We weren't what you've seen on sitcoms since the beginning of sitcoms.
Marc:Yeah, it wasn't a stereotype.
Marc:And that was fun, huh?
Guest:Yeah, it was a blast.
Marc:Yeah, I had A.G.
Marc:in here about he had this long story.
Marc:I should have him back in about when he had to cry.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that was a tough one for us.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:My kid was just real little and was already having... His head was growing too fast, and so I was kind of freaking out, and...
Guest:So I was looking at pictures of my kid backstage and listening to Tori Amos' version of I Don't Like Mondays, you know, the Boomtown Rap song?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's not what you'd think I would listen to anyway, but my wife turned me on to her.
Guest:But it's so moving.
Guest:And then I'm staring at pictures of my kid, and the tears just came.
Guest:And then I'd go, I'm ready.
Guest:Let's do it now.
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:I'm in a bad, bad place.
Guest:I'm picturing my kid dead, and I'm listening to Tori Amos on my headphones.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you both had a cry?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We both had a cry because it was about us losing our son.
Guest:We make a robot who's our son.
Guest:It was such a goofy thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A fucking robot, you know, and then I pray to Satan to make the robot come to life.
Guest:And it's super silly, but our director, Rob Schraub, who wrote the episode, he's really brilliant.
Guest:One of the smartest guys I've gotten to work with, like Odenkirk Smart, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he was like, I want you guys to play this stuff real.
Guest:I know it's a goofy script, but I want you to play the death reel.
Guest:And so we did.
Guest:And Steve and I, we actually worked on it for a couple weeks leading up to it.
Guest:We never would do that.
Guest:You wouldn't have rehearsal time on that show because there's no budget for it.
Guest:But for that, like he wanted this to be, you know, cliche, a very special episode.
Guest:He wanted it to be really cool.
Guest:And so we we read that together and we thought, you know, it's like, are you guys going to be able to find this place?
Guest:And on the set, I found that place.
Guest:I don't know how Steve did it.
Marc:Well, no, he had, like, you know, he was really wrestling with it.
Marc:And I can't remember what the arc of his frustration that he wanted to do it, but I remember what happened was he built up to a point where he was so frustrated that he couldn't cry that he ended up crying and he couldn't stop crying.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I think he had a slightly tougher time than I did because I've done a little more acting, but I'm not schooled in acting.
Guest:No, right, sure.
Guest:I moved here, you know.
Marc:Like, I think that, like, you know, I can access crying pretty, you know, I think I'm crying now.
Guest:but uh but no but he had a it was very challenging for him and then once I can't remember if there was a therapist involved or that he was frustrated and and then I remember on stage him being mad at himself and me I'm trying to go through my own thing but then also going buddy you're gonna find it don't worry about it you know and then he said he couldn't stop he became a really good friend yeah we didn't really know each other before the show yeah we'd maybe gotten high at Sarah's once or twice and played Goldeneye yeah uh but then uh it was the show that made us good friends
Guest:yeah he's a sweet guy yeah but he said he couldn't stop crying so your kid's okay oh yeah yeah the head thing went away i can't imagine with your imagination where you were going with that oh my god and my you know and i'm the husband so i'm trying to keep the wife from going crazy and losing her mind every time we'd have to go to cedar sinai yeah with a four-month-old baby and a six-month-old baby and have them do tests and um
Marc:You have two kids?
Guest:No, no, no, but I mean, but that's like he was four and six months when he was going through this thing, and his head was growing too fast.
Guest:You noticed it?
Guest:No, they told us, and, you know, they would show us the chart, and here's where it should be, and here's where it is.
Marc:So you're picturing some sort of bottled baby freak thing?
Guest:Oh, no, I mean, I grew up in, you know, my mom worked with developmentally disabled, so I thought I was going to have a hydrocephalic kid, you know, a waterhead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what...
Guest:one of our doctors said he was going to be, you know.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:And this guy wound up being such an asshole, but he was a specialist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we had to do all these tests, you know, and just taking your kid to have them do MRIs on them and all that stuff, and it's no fun.
Marc:Yeah, the baby that young?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just horrible and frightening.
Guest:And then I'd have to leave and go do stand-up, so I was like...
Guest:I had a breakdown at Denver Airport.
Guest:It was really grim.
Guest:I'm sitting by myself and calling my regular doctor going, hey, can you help me through this?
Guest:She'd been my doctor since I moved to LA.
Guest:So I'm like, can you call?
Guest:Because I don't know what's going on and I don't understand this.
Guest:And she's like, well, it doesn't sound good.
Guest:I talked to the other doctor.
Guest:And it was just a rough, rough couple of months.
Guest:But then it...
Marc:And pot doesn't necessarily help that shit, does it?
Guest:No, I mean, it would numb me, but then there'd be the times where I'm not.
Marc:But don't you, you never got looped, like, you never started spinning plates?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I did.
Guest:I quit.
Guest:Yeah, because of that?
Guest:I've been, it'll be three weeks this week.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Just now?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, no.
Guest:And I've never even talked about it on anything yet, and it's weird because I'm the pot comic.
Guest:Like, I've just had to do shows.
Guest:where I talk about getting high with the audience, and then the audience afterwards, you know, in Florida a couple weeks ago, you know, when that was my first week being sober, and I'm like, I have to make it through this.
Guest:I don't want to be this guy anymore, and I don't like the way it makes me feel.
Guest:It doesn't make me high anymore either.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It's just a way of life.
Marc:It's like cigarettes.
Marc:You're just getting normal.
Guest:Yeah, and then listening to the Kevin Smith episode where he's a new guy to the pot, you know, and I love him, and I'm a big fan, but to hear him talking about it, it's like, oh, I wish I could do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bring that back.
Guest:It just doesn't feel like that anymore.
Marc:What did it start to feel like?
Marc:Let me just ask you this.
Marc:When I stopped, I mean, I haven't done anything in a long time, but pot, I'd go on and off it because it'd get to a point, I had this weird thing happen where you really don't know if you're high or not, but you do know that you're detached.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Marc:Yeah, and I went, my great aunt was dying up in Boston, and I went with my first wife to visit her, and I'd been smoking daily for a long time.
Marc:and she was losing it.
Marc:She was getting... Dementia.
Guest:Dementia, that's it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And she's just kind of fragmented, and she's looking at me, and she goes, what's wrong with Mark?
Marc:He looks haunted.
Marc:And I'm like, that's got to be the thought.
Marc:But so you just stopped.
Guest:Yeah, and it was... I don't want my kid... I want to get healthy, but then also...
Guest:I don't want to have to have that talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, it's okay for you.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that's part of it.
Guest:But then I also hated who I was, and I hated that that became my thing.
Marc:That defined you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've always been...
Guest:kind of a rebel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that sounds lame, but I never want to be like everybody else.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it just became, and I started to be, you know, and I knew that was part of my reputation.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I held onto it for a long time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But it was a couple different things.
Guest:I've been
Guest:thinking about it for a while, and talking to a therapist about it for a while, and finally a couple weeks ago, she's like, if you're serious about this, this is what you need to do.
Guest:And you should, you know, even though you think meetings are for assholes and you don't need a meeting, you should go to a fucking meeting.
Guest:And I called a friend and went to a meeting.
Guest:That really helped, and I've only been to two so far.
Marc:Pot meeting?
Guest:No, no regular.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's great.
Guest:I didn't want to go to N.A., because that's like guys with real problems.
Guest:It's a little crazy, yeah.
Guest:You know, I'd feel like such a pussy.
Guest:Whatever works.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I spend $200 a month on weed.
Guest:You know, like...
Marc:Some guy saying, I washed my leg from gangrene.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:In jail.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good, man.
Marc:Do you feel better?
Marc:I do.
Marc:What are the most noticeable differences?
Guest:I feel like a cloud's lifting, but it's taking a little while.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm cranky again, but I went through a period at Mr. Show where I quit, and Dino Stamatopoulos took me aside, one of the head writers.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I had him in here, yeah.
Guest:And he actually said,
Guest:hey, you're an asshole when you're not high.
Guest:You should get high again.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Satan speaks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I bought it.
Guest:And I started smoking pot again.
Guest:Because I do get mood swings.
Guest:Just a couple of days ago, I got really cranky.
Guest:And for two days in a row, my wife noticed and said, she even almost was to the point of,
Guest:God damn it, go out in the backyard and smoke.
Guest:But I'm not gonna.
Marc:Well, that's the weird thing when you're obsessive, that if there's a little kernel of something that makes you cranky, lock in, lock in.
Guest:Well, that became the thing.
Guest:And that was one of the reasons I wanted to quit, is because I realized my dogs would be whining, and so I'd have to go out in the backyard and get high.
Guest:And, you know, Rath would call me with bad news, so I'd have to go out in the backyard and get high.
Guest:Because that also...
Guest:Once the baby came and then weed became delegated to this thing you couldn't do in your house anymore, it's no longer free, I can't do it in the living room, I can't do it in my office.
Guest:And even when she was pregnant, I couldn't do it anymore.
Guest:She can't be walking through a cloud of smoke to go into the kitchen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it became this outside thing.
Guest:So once it became an outside thing, it was like, I feel like a loser.
Guest:Like I'm in my nice backyard, but I'm out here because I have to be out here with this fucking gross habit.
Guest:And that was sort of the beginning and the end for me of finally going, I have to stop this thing.
Guest:It was like a couple different things at once.
Marc:well that's great i mean i i hope uh yeah talk to me six months from now when i'm back right in it but you know yeah but that's all right i mean you know any sort of uh you know i'm not i'm not encouraging it but any sort of distance you can take from it to just it's almost like you know i gotta see who i am for a few weeks and you just chose not to go the edible route or any of that shit you just want to be off it i just want to be clear-headed for a little while that's great i have some stuff i need to do i have some writing i need to really focus on you working on something
Guest:Yeah, I'm working on Metalocalypse now, but I also, like all of our friends, have the book deal looming, you know?
Guest:So the only way I'm ever going to write that book is if I sit down and do it.
Marc:One's yours due.
Guest:Yeah, no shit.
Guest:No, I don't actually.
Guest:I'm at the point where I've got a couple people that want to hear the pitch, and I don't even have the pitch yet.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:So it's one of those.
Guest:Yeah, I just got one.
Guest:I got to focus and sit down.
Guest:Yeah, and they'll probably be like, we think maybe you ought to do a pot book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They want it to be the metal nerd thing, but I want it to be more telling all my stories.
Guest:I have a lot of different stories about how I got here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We got a couple in today.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who are your guys, your metal guys right now?
Guest:uh still my main two bands are iron mane and metallica and then rush which isn't even metal but uh rush is one of my favorite bands of all time and uh you know i met them do you meet them not yet i kind of don't want to yeah you're probably better off were they not great well i mean i used to work for a restaurant when i was in high school that catered concerts and i ended up seeing rush like two or three times and i was not a huge rush guy oh no
Marc:You know, I mean, I, you know.
Marc:Well, I know, yeah, you went Velvet Underground and all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah, well, back then it was probably Stones and, you know, something.
Marc:But I'm not, you know, I'm not a, you know, I'll nerd out but not for very long on things.
Marc:Like, I don't, I'm still committed to the bands that I was programmed with as a kid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, I met those guys.
Marc:I literally had to drive up to my boss's house to get the guitar player.
Marc:What's his name?
Guest:Alex Lifeson.
Marc:Alex Lifeson, a fan, because he was too hot in his dressing room.
Marc:And it was just like one of those things where, you know, I walk in and he's like there with his, you know, like a guitar, just like practicing on a classical, getting ready.
Marc:I'm like, do you want me to put the fan here?
Marc:And he wouldn't even look up and giddy leaves.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:But they were rock stars.
Marc:I mean, you don't expect, they weren't, I didn't look at them as assholes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, because they always had that, you know, that.
Guest:They were kind of the smart rock stars too.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Marc:You know, you're like, you almost didn't want to interrupt.
Marc:I mean, he's sitting there practicing on a classical guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In his dressing room.
Marc:Now, have you been able, because I see, like, when I talk to people that are true fans of people, have you been able to meet like Les Claypool or anybody that, you know, that you've always wanted to meet?
Guest:I haven't met Les, but I've met almost everybody else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the fact that,
Guest:one of my closest friends is the guitar player for anthrax is still surreal to me you know like anthrax is one of those bands that they had a sense of humor too and then they also uh had stephen king influenced uh lyrics and and i was big stephen king guy yeah still am and uh
Guest:So for that guy to be at my wedding and for that guy to be who my wife and I take couples trips with, my wife and his wife are best friends, it's still weird.
Guest:He's appeared on both my records and the fact that Scott Ian is one of my friends, it's like something I used to fantasize about.
Guest:And now you're not high anymore.
Guest:You're going to be like, it's just really happening.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The fog is lifted, and it's still weird, yeah.
Guest:And then meeting Metallica, I met them growing up, and they weren't nice when I was a teenager, but now I'm friends with Kirk, the guitar player.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And then all these younger bands that I like, they liked me from Mr. Show and all these other places, so it's cool.
Guest:Are you able to turn off the fanboy shit?
Guest:Uh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, well, the first time I met Scott from anthrax, I was shaking.
Guest:Like I thought my leg was going to lock up.
Guest:Like, you know, you know, when you're nervous and you, and you straighten it out and then you're like, Oh, I'm going to fucking pass out, you know?
Guest:And, uh, cause I walked into, I went to see anthrax by myself, like, you know, cause I don't have a lot of metal friends cause all our friends like Elvis Costello and all that shit.
Guest:which i like yeah but there's definitely the pop nerds and the metal nerds right yeah but all our close friends oh yeah you know especially my really close friends patten would never go to a metal show with me yeah you know or any of these other guys so i used to go to metal shows by myself if i couldn't get the wife to go yeah and i was at this anthrax show and uh
Guest:The roadie came up and goes, hey, does Scott know you're here?
Guest:And I'm like, no, I don't know, Scott.
Guest:And he's like, well, he'll freak out.
Guest:Do you want to go meet him?
Guest:And I'm like, fuck yeah.
Guest:I was at the House of Blues, and they're about to go on.
Guest:I walk into the dressing room.
Guest:It's all Anthrax and Slayer is hanging out.
Guest:They're not even on the bill, but all the guys from Slayer came to the show to hang out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm shitting.
Guest:And I'm by myself, so I don't even have, like, my friend who I can go, dude, is this fucking happening?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's all in my head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm playing it cool, like, because he's nerding out on me.
Guest:He's like, Mr. Show's the greatest show ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's yelling at the guys in Slayer who have no fucking idea because they don't really have a sense of humor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And anyway, he's like, this guy's fucking funny.
Guest:And he wrote on one of the funniest shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm just losing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and i thought i would never talk to this guy again and then we wound up being friends we really connected and and uh like the roadie like got my info yeah and uh kind of the roadie helped us kind of become friends because i was hanging out with the roadie a couple times after that right oh that's a fucking great story yeah and what else who what are some other classic meetings
Guest:Having Dio come to my house.
Guest:He passed away, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We lost him last year.
Guest:He came to your house?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I hosted this show.
Guest:It's like the Medal Awards, basically.
Guest:They have them in Britain every year, but America never had a real heavy metal award.
Guest:And it's the third year now coming up.
Guest:I'm going to be presenting in a thing.
Guest:But the first year, two years ago, I hosted it.
Guest:More Metal Than You wasn't out yet, but Metal by Numbers had done well in that area.
Guest:And I got like two million YouTube hits and all these metal kids knew me because of that.
Guest:And so I made that lead.
Guest:The second record?
Guest:The first record.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I had this song.
Guest:And Revolver, this big American Metal magazine, they asked me to host.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we're doing this bit.
Guest:and I write this bit for the opening, like me kind of preparing, like how do I make myself metal?
Guest:So I have these guys come to my house, and Scott was my friend by then.
Guest:So he's in the bit, and then we had Vinnie Paul, the drummer for Pantera, one of my all-time favorite bands.
Guest:He shows up, and that's already weird.
Guest:And then we got Dio to be in the bit, where I'm praying to Satan.
Guest:And then Dio shows up, and I'm like, Satan?
Guest:And he's like, no, it's Ronnie.
Guest:And I turn around, and it's a funny thing.
Guest:And I've gone backwards and masking on my turntable and all that.
Guest:And I summon Ronnie James.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's the coolest guy ever.
Guest:And we're hanging out because we're shooting, and that shit moves slow.
Guest:And so at one point, Ronnie James Dio is in my backyard, sitting on my chase lounge by my pool, and I'm just in my living room going, fuck, taking a picture of him through my window.
Guest:Look who's in my backyard.
Guest:And then we bonded.
Guest:He wound up being a really nice guy who loves comedy.
Guest:He knew who I was.
Guest:He knew who some of our friends are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was really surreal and just the sweetest older guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But somebody I've liked since 1980.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Isn't it interesting when you find how aware they are of their...
Guest:being a performer like a lot of times you meet these metal dudes or dudes who are in bands but that once they get off stage they're just guys yeah yeah and and but they're very considered a god in that world yeah yeah you know like well yeah he's one of those guys was he your guy when you were in high school uh yeah i mean uh mob rules and uh when when when ozzy left black sabbath uh yeah i i i
Guest:Well, a lot of Black Sabbath nerds will get mad.
Guest:I kind of like the Dio version of Black Sabbath more than I like the Ozzy version.
Guest:I have all those Ozzy records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I love the Ozzy solo stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'd put Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules ahead of any of those older Sabbath records.
Marc:Just because of his voice and the drive?
Guest:Dio, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He just made him a different band.
Guest:He made him more evil, I think.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was something about them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:More epic.
Guest:Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Guest:I really dug that.
Guest:I always liked guys with operatic voices, like Bruce Dickinson's one of my favorite singers for Iron Maiden and
Marc:Yeah, you know, and Mishnah took me to see them once, and I didn't know much about them.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you guys sort of bonded around the metal shit.
Guest:Yeah, well, I was like, you know, who's this cute girl that knows Megadeth?
Guest:Like, that never happens.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, I've been to Megadeth shows.
Guest:I was like, where the fuck was she?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I don't know if she's into it anymore, but she was definitely an Aussie, you know, Megadeth.
Marc:But I went to an Iron Maiden show.
Marc:And I do, like, I don't know their catalog, but I'll listen to Run For Your Life.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:Run To The Hills.
Marc:Run To The Hills, yeah.
Marc:Sorry, now I feel like, no.
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:Now all your nerd people are going to be like, oh, Maren, trying to fucking.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:Patton did this thing.
Guest:Patton met Dio and...
Guest:He goes, he went up to Dio and he goes, hey, oh, no, he tried to bond with him because he thought Dio has the song last in line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he thought the song was next in line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're getting on a plane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, hey, you're the next in line.
Guest:And Dio turns around and goes, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Oh, so Patton's like, why didn't that joke fly?
Guest:And I'm like, because you got the reference wrong, idiot.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, I would love to see Jeff Patton's face on that.
Marc:Failing a joke.
Marc:That's one of those moments that no matter how callous you are as a comic, that's going to hurt.
Marc:You fucked it up.
Guest:Dio wound up being such a nice guy that Dio was like, oh, you knew who he was and was cool to him and all that.
Marc:It's also interesting.
Marc:I guess in the Sabbath with Dio and the Sabbath with Ozzy, they're two different types of metal clown in a way.
Marc:And I don't mean that in a negative way.
Marc:I know what you mean.
Marc:that their personas are different in terms of how they approach the evil personification thing.
Marc:Ozzy is sort of like, I'm a little crazy.
Guest:When he was so drugged up, Dio was never like that.
Guest:Dio was pretty more focused.
Marc:Did you meet Ozzy?
Guest:Yeah, not that he would remember, but not like hanging out.
Marc:I can see you hanging out with Les.
Marc:You still like Les?
Guest:Yeah, I love him.
Guest:I'd love to meet that guy.
Marc:The fact that they performed Pink Floyd's Animals is astounding to me, because I love that record.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, I mean, I listened to the fuck out of that record at some point and that he honored it somehow.
Marc:It's because it's sort of it's it's not it's a pretty huge Pink Floyd album, but it's not the one everyone knows.
Marc:But like the arc of that album is so fucking beautiful.
Marc:I mean, do you listen to them?
Guest:I do.
Guest:But the weird thing for me is I hated him in high school.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, because they weren't heavy enough.
Guest:And The Wall was super popular.
Guest:So the kids that liked The Clash, I didn't like then, and I like now.
Guest:And Pink Floyd, I didn't like then, and I like now.
Guest:Elvis Costello, I would never listen to back then.
Guest:Because I was so just... Those guys were just into their thing, the guys that liked that then.
Guest:And they thought I was retarded for drawing Iron Maiden on my folder.
Marc:But you need the drive.
Marc:Your music moves you in a certain way.
Marc:Well, fuck, Brian, it's great talking to you, and I'm so glad things are working out.
Marc:I'm glad we finally got to do this.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:I don't think we've ever had more than a 10-minute conversation.
Guest:I think this is the longest we've talked since New York 20 years ago.
Marc:Which I barely remember, and I apologize for that.
Marc:That's all right, man.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Marc:Okay, that's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that, people.
Marc:I really like talking to Brian.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTF needs.
Marc:Got the brand new site.
Marc:Get on the email list.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Go to the App Store.
Marc:Get yourself a WTF app.
Marc:You can hear all those old episodes streaming.
Marc:with the app premium.
Marc:You can also go to the site and pick up some of those premium episodes from the old days.
Marc:Robin Williams, Carlos Mencia, Louis C.K., Judd Apatow, Zach Galifianakis, Dave Attell.
Marc:Who else is there?
Marc:We're putting new ones up all the time.
Marc:If you missed out on those originally, you can download the MP3s at WTFPodShop.com or go to WTF Premium on iTunes.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:I got to go.
Marc:I got to get out of here.
Marc:Thank you so much.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I hope I make it out of Foxwoods.