Episode 212 - Chris Hardwick
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Marc Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck Knicks?
Marc:What the fuck a Mullins?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:Did I say that already?
Marc:Oh man, I know there's a bigger list.
Marc:I just can't do it right now.
Marc:I can't do it.
Marc:I'm in New York City.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Finally, the Chris Hardwick episode is up today.
Marc:I know a lot of you were a little like mad that I didn't put it up, but I said I was going to put it up, but I'm putting it up because Hardwick's TV special is on BBC America this Saturday, September 24th at 10 p.m.
Marc:Eastern.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The Nerdist TV special.
Marc:So that's why I had Chris on today.
Marc:See, I'm not such a bad guy.
Marc:I am in New York, though, and I am about to lose my mind.
Marc:I'm in New York.
Marc:I'm tired.
Marc:I'm covered with sweat.
Marc:I feel slightly kind of battle fatigued just from being on the subway train.
Marc:I learned a few things this trip.
Marc:Bad haggler.
Marc:I'm a bad haggler.
Marc:I'm staying right down here on Canal Street.
Marc:Right where all the knockoffs are and the cheap things.
Marc:And I go in to buy a lighter because I want to smoke a cigar.
Marc:I say, you got lighters?
Marc:The guy's like, yes.
Marc:And he walks me over and he shows me a lighter, not even a name brand lighter.
Marc:And I go, how much?
Marc:He goes $1.50.
Marc:And I went, oh, come on.
Marc:$1.50.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:$1.25.
Marc:He goes, I'll give you one for a dollar, the smaller one.
Marc:I'm like, no, $1.25 for the big one.
Marc:And he goes, $1.25.
Marc:And I just put it down and walked out.
Marc:I left mid negotiation as if I were teaching him a lesson.
Marc:I was pissed off that he, I left in the middle of a haggle.
Marc:I wasn't even trying to haggle.
Marc:I don't even know what I was trying to do.
Marc:I went down the street and paid $1.50 for a lighter.
Marc:What a fucking idiot.
Marc:Needless to say, I've had a great time in New York, and there's a couple things I've got to tell you about.
Marc:before I get into the fact that I can't even be nostalgic anymore because everything that I once knew here is kind of gone.
Marc:It's a little sad.
Marc:I might have talked about this before, but I go to the Lower East Side so I can walk around and see if I can kind of walk in the heart that I once had when I lived down there for so many years, wandering around those streets, sweating in the summer, festering.
Marc:The fall is the most beautiful time.
Marc:And there's just nothing left.
Marc:I don't even know, not that I need heroin, but I don't even know if they sell heroin down there.
Marc:Clearly, that's been gone for a while.
Marc:There are restaurants.
Marc:There's a cafe, a lovely Italian restaurant, where they used to sell heroin right next door to my old apartment.
Marc:But if you do, I swear to God, the tone of the Lower East Side right now, I imagine if you are looking for heroin, you might be able to find some
Marc:some locally grown poppy heroin, organic heroin, perhaps, that is sold to you in either biodegradable plastic envelopes or perhaps hand-pressed paper bindles.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know where it is.
Marc:I wasn't looking for it, but I miss that tone, that texture.
Marc:I miss that part of the Lower East Side.
Marc:I'm just exhausted.
Marc:I mean, it's been a long couple of days, and the subway is really where I learn.
Marc:Usually, you know, you get into a New York...
Marc:frame of mind that's a song isn't it not unlike plain brain where you just sort of put your blinders on you get in it you're in the groove but i get on the subway now and i just feel assaulted by the aura of others i cannot separate from myself from the sweat and stink and the fact that there's somebody sitting right you know or standing right in front of me holding a guardrail i'm on the chair his dick is pretty much face level to me and i gotta deal with that
Marc:And I got to deal with just being surrounded.
Marc:My boundaries are too porous to have people pressing their lives into me involuntarily through some sort of weird orgone energy, if you dig what I'm saying.
Marc:It's draining.
Marc:I can't shut it down anymore.
Marc:I get exhausted and anxious.
Marc:Beautiful city, though.
Marc:I got to say, I do love it.
Marc:It's just getting a little hard, a little hard for me to come out here.
Marc:I did go see some old friends.
Marc:I traveled way out to Queens to interview a long an old friend of mine.
Marc:It was it was very interesting, you know, and I'll get that up.
Marc:I don't need to tell you who it is right now.
Marc:One last thing, though, about New York and about Monday show.
Marc:We had a big live WTF.
Marc:I mean, it was a big clusterfuck of a WTF, and I'm so proud of it, proud of it, that we're going to put it up Monday for a couple of reasons.
Marc:I know there are some live ones that we haven't put up yet, but this one was special.
Marc:It was at the Bell House.
Marc:It was one show.
Marc:And I'm just going to go down this lineup for you because here's what I did.
Marc:I got Ira Glass.
Marc:He was a special guest.
Marc:He came out first.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Then I got Morgan Spurlock.
Marc:OK, then I got Elna Baker, who talked about becoming a non-Mormon after being a Mormon.
Marc:Mind blowing.
Marc:Then I got this Professor Wayne Kostenbaum, who wrote this insanely interesting book that I can't put down called Humiliation.
Marc:Then I got Joe Mandy.
Marc:who's always good in a pinch.
Marc:Hilarious.
Marc:Then I got Nick Griffin, who I haven't talked to in a while.
Marc:Hilarious.
Marc:Then I got Nick DiPaolo.
Marc:And he brings Artie Lang.
Marc:I haven't seen Artie Lang or heard about Artie Lang in months.
Marc:And the last I heard, it wasn't good.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, folks.
Marc:He came out swinging.
Marc:He sat down.
Marc:He was fucking hilarious.
Marc:And I want to put it up Monday because I want everyone to know Artie's okay and that he's fucking hilarious.
Marc:I just want it out there.
Marc:So we're putting that up Monday.
Marc:What an amazing time.
Marc:Ira Glass talks about blacking out and throwing up and being drunk.
Marc:I got to put it up Monday.
Marc:Is that okay with you guys?
Marc:Is there other things we need to talk about?
Marc:Don't get me wrong.
Marc:I love New York.
Marc:I'm just tired.
Marc:I'm covered in grime.
Marc:You know, I took a train to Queens and then I took a train.
Marc:And also I'll tell you, if you listen on Monday, I'll tell you why, how it got started, what my New York trip was like at the beginning.
Marc:And it has to do with Hasidic Jews and me being incredibly aggravated.
Marc:Did I mention that the pilot premiere went great?
Marc:Thank you all for coming out to the New York television festival.
Marc:We had a wonderful turnout and everybody liked the show.
Marc:I was thrilled to see it on a big screen.
Marc:I hope that it becomes a show.
Marc:I'm very excited about that.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Enough about me.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Enough.
Marc:Let's listen to Chris Hardwick and me back in the garage.
Marc:I'd like to believe that I'm capable of organizing things, but I'm really just not.
Marc:I mean, look at this.
Marc:Like, there's nothing I can do about this table.
Marc:No matter what I do to it, there's no way it's not going to end up like this.
Guest:You know, I've noticed just having a girlfriend for so long who is neat and tidy.
Guest:Where do I get one of those?
Guest:It's something you have to... I should totally rent her out.
Guest:Yeah, you should, man.
Guest:Eat and tidy girlfriend.
Marc:Pimp her out.
Guest:Honey, $800 a week.
Guest:I mean, come on.
Guest:All you got to do is clean his table up.
Guest:It's $3,200 a month.
Marc:Tell him he's funny.
Guest:And then you pack up a few things.
Guest:You go home, fold the napkins, put them in the drawers.
Guest:Nothing sexual.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not even house cleaning.
Marc:No.
Marc:It just needs to feel like things are organized.
Guest:The sexual release comes out of the fact that the towels are color coordinated and in the right drawer.
Guest:I just don't know how it happens.
Guest:It is a daily process.
Guest:It's a daily process.
Guest:Here's sort of a weird example.
Guest:My finances used to be a mess when I was a fat drunk.
Guest:My finances were a mess.
Guest:I never knew how much money I had.
Guest:And then when everything started cleaning up, I made this deal with myself where I went into Quicken and every morning I would automatically download whatever transactions happened that just cleared.
Guest:And I would just categorize them.
Guest:It took me four minutes every day.
Guest:But the result of that was at the end of the year, everything was done.
Guest:And all I had to do was just send the file to my tax guy.
Guest:So it's just about consistent, tiny actions preventing that one horrible action where
Marc:where what eventually what'll happen is just go fuck everything and you'll just throw it into the trash can all of it at once it's uh discipline man it's those little things but i mean i can do that and still everything will become a fucking mess and then i don't know how to even manage all the shit that comes in between mail emails text things at the post office it just seems like a never-ending tidal wave of shit i have to deal with and then i hired somebody to deal with that and now like i'm worried about her whether or not she deals with
Guest:So then you have to manage her dealing with everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Chris Hardwick in the garage again.
Marc:Uh, but I'm doing my podcast this time.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:Is it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Cause I, I, I, you know, I'm excited about all the stuff.
Guest:I mean, I get gushy cause I just get excited, but I feel like whenever, cause you know, you're, you just did your show and the pod, your podcast is going well.
Guest:And I just feel like it's nice to see your friends succeed.
Marc:Oh, you starting off on such a nice foot.
Marc:How am I going to be a dick now?
Guest:You can still jam your foot down my neck and be like, shut up, nerd.
Marc:Well, no, I'm glad that you appreciate that.
Marc:I am starting to feel some unity among us, that when something good happens for a fellow podcaster, it's a benefit to all.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:I mean, so you can sort of, I just did Jeff Ulrich, Scott Aukerman's partner.
Guest:I just did his podcast.
Guest:The business of podcasting.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And I said, listen.
Marc:With nervous Jeff Ulrich?
Marc:With nervous Jeff Ulrich.
Marc:He was great.
Guest:But what I love is that you can either have this sort of altruistic approach of, hey, it's great when we all succeed because everyone should be happy and everyone should get what they want.
Guest:And you guys are all funny.
Guest:That's such a lie.
Guest:And then there's the selfish point of view, which is, hey, when one person does well, then it raises the game for everyone because it raises awareness.
Marc:All I know is that on a day-to-day basis, and it's so irrelevant because it's not even based on anything tangible in a real way.
Marc:As long as you're beneath me on the iTunes count, I'm fine.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:As long as Nerdist, when you go above me in the top ten or wherever we may be.
Guest:It's a fun top.
Guest:But you've been on top more lately.
Marc:No, I think in the big picture I've been on top a lot more than you.
Marc:But I'm saying that just on a day-to-day basis.
Guest:That's the foot on the neck.
Marc:But it doesn't even matter.
Marc:I mean, I know what my real numbers are.
Marc:You know what your real numbers are.
Marc:That's just this public display of some algorithm that I don't even understand what they base that on.
Marc:It's not based on downloads.
Guest:I'm not 100% sure.
Guest:I think some of it has to do, because Apple won't tell you what it's based on.
Marc:It's based on subscribers, comments.
Marc:New subscribers, comments, ratings.
Marc:Right, it's got nothing to do with actual numbers.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:I mean, if it had to do with actual numbers, Corolla would probably always be on top because he's been, he does like five days a week.
Marc:He usually is always on top.
Guest:But you, because you've been, you know, you're sort of becoming the guy of like, you're sort of becoming the face of comics with successful podcasts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like between the New York Times piece and the Entertainment Weekly and all that.
Guest:So, you know, that's going to drive your numbers up.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, I can see my real numbers are and I'm fine.
Marc:Everything's cool.
Marc:But it's just so weird that that thing I'm I'm kind of obsessed with it and I'm ashamed of it.
Marc:Out of all things to be obsessed with in my life, it's got to be that fucking iTunes.
Guest:No, it's you shouldn't be obsessed with it because that's just sort of an innate biological structure in your brain.
Guest:And that's that's the best road marker you have for how you're doing in, you know, in the field.
Guest:but it's not my road marker is my real numbers the i the itunes thing is just something everyone sees and i think but you're you know how many times you check it we're animals and we're competitive animals i probably you know truthfully i probably i probably check itunes once once or twice a week and just kind of go on and see like where are we okay good yeah not not to see i don't expect to be number one i just want to make sure we haven't dropped down to like 50.
Guest:Or, yeah, dropped out of the, you know.
Guest:Like, oh, my God, the dream's over.
Guest:Like, we had a dip in numbers around the Christmas holidays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I told Matt and Jonah, I was like, it's been a fun ride.
Guest:It's probably downhill from here.
Guest:And Matt's like, no, on the holidays, this is what happens.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:But also, like, you've got listeners, and we are doing some form of audio entertainment.
Marc:So they are our people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It would take something drastic for you to just be like, I'm not really a nerd.
Marc:Look, I'm an asshole.
Guest:And also, I know that when I started doing the podcast, it wasn't it wasn't about that.
Guest:It was about having my own thing.
Guest:And it was also about getting people in the room, getting people in the room.
Guest:And I'm going to I'm going to do it no matter what.
Guest:Like, I know they're going to be dips if if, you know, less people listen this month than last month.
Guest:I'm still going to do it.
Marc:Where are you getting most of your new listeners from, from the G4 show or from, you know, what do you know?
Guest:I think it's just a composite.
Marc:But like, what all are you doing?
Marc:Let's name the projects.
Marc:Let's go down the list of Chris Hardwick projects.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So there's the attack of the show and web soup, which are both on G4.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How many people watch that?
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:I honestly, I genuinely don't know.
Guest:I never ask because... It's available on television?
Guest:It is available on television.
Marc:On Time Warner Cable?
Guest:It's probably available on Time Warner Cable, not on DirecTV.
Guest:I mean, you know, the numbers are good for G4, probably not massive.
Marc:Who is their audience?
Marc:I mean, what is that network directed towards?
Marc:I don't have time to watch anything but shop.
Guest:It's fine.
Marc:You watch Chopped?
Marc:No.
Marc:It's on the Food Network.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:You've got a food problem.
Marc:I do it for assigning labels.
Marc:You're an anorexic freak.
Guest:I'm a naturally skinny individual.
Marc:No, I don't buy it.
Marc:How far did you run yesterday?
Guest:I didn't run yesterday.
Guest:I work out like twice a week.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I swear to God.
Guest:I work out twice a week.
Guest:When I eat, I pretty much eat what I want.
Marc:I guess I'm hung up on it because I remember when you were sort of bloated.
Guest:Well, that's because I was drinking 15 beers a day and eating pizza at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Marc:Oh, so no more pizza.
Guest:Not at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Like, I have good... Like, if I'm eating a dessert, I don't feel like, I have to eat this whole thing.
Guest:I'll eat, like, half of it and go, I get it.
Guest:I get the idea.
Marc:Oh, fuck you.
Guest:I just don't have a problem with food that way.
Marc:Oh, come on.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Even if you're full, you mean when you're full you stop eating?
Guest:I don't eat until I'm full because then I just feel sick.
Guest:But I did not have that control with drinking at all, ever.
Guest:Never had that control with drinking.
Guest:Never stopped.
Marc:So, okay, so you got the G4 shows.
Guest:Yeah, G4 shows.
Guest:I don't know what the audiences are.
Marc:But you don't know who they're marketing towards?
Guest:Yeah, like, you know, young males.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I mean, everyone bandies around some form of 18 to 34, 15 to 34, or whatever.
Guest:So it's predominantly male audience.
Guest:I do a Chelsea show every couple weeks.
Guest:yeah that's right you're on that thing yeah I don't know how much that drives to the podcast because does she introduce you as the host of the podcast yeah some like if I feel like promoting it but I just don't know I don't know if a lot of nerds watch that show it's a slightly different demographic yeah so I don't know how much that's driving people to the podcast
Marc:Angry independent women and gay men.
Guest:But it's a fun show to do.
Marc:No, she's got her own thing going.
Marc:I got props to her.
Marc:I don't know how to... I'm sure I do fine on that show, but I haven't really pursued trying to do it, but I would like to get her on my show.
Marc:Has she done your show?
Marc:No, I never asked, just because... She runs a weird ship there, though, right?
Marc:She's really the queen of that thing.
Guest:She is, and also, I just... I'm the kind of person where, when I go into a situation like that, I just don't want to make it more complicated.
Guest:Like, I don't want to be the cog in the wheel that's like, hey, will you... Because I feel like... You just want to keep your thing going there.
Guest:Well, I just... It's like, they're nice to have me on the show every couple weeks.
Guest:I come in, I do my jokes, I leave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just feel like...
Guest:I'm sure, because she's blown up in the last couple years, everyone's always tugging at her for shit, and I just don't want to be... If she's not familiar with the podcast, I don't want to be like, will you do my podcast?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So if she... So you don't have a friendly relationship with her necessarily.
Marc:You're a guy on her show.
Guest:Yeah, I'm a guy on her show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I've hung out with her socially twice.
Guest:She's always been really cool to me, but it's not like... Boozing?
Guest:What was it?
Guest:A Christmas party, so... Oh, sure, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't, but...
Marc:I feel like every day is a Christmas party over there.
Guest:It seems like they have fun over there.
Guest:It seems like there's always a margarita's afoot somewhere.
Marc:All right, so there you are.
Marc:So you're on Chelsea twice a month.
Marc:Two shows on G4.
Marc:Yeah, two shows on G4.
Guest:Got the podcast.
Guest:We just shot the... I'm doing stuff for BBC.
Guest:I'm doing interstitials for BBC.
Marc:Now is that BBC America?
Guest:BBC America, yes.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Is that going to be on BBC in London as well?
Marc:Or in England?
Guest:I don't know, but I doubt it.
Guest:Because...
Marc:So this is their trying to, I mean, have they been around a long time?
Marc:Yeah, BBC America's been around for a little while.
Marc:Oh, because they do the British news here.
Marc:They do.
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Guest:And they show Doctor Who.
Guest:They show Top Gear.
Guest:They show British programming.
Marc:And you love Doctor Who.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I've always, for me, being a, when I was growing up in the 80s, I was, like, nerdy culture was very hard to find in America.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there were a lot of British comedy expats.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like nerds had to seek it out like it was a video game treasure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, you know, we'd watch The Young Ones or The Day Today or, you know, any of the Chris Moore stuff.
Marc:But that's just Anglophile comedy taste.
Marc:Now, what defines a nerd?
Marc:I'm trying to get some clarity around this.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:Well, no, because I don't think I'm a nerd, really.
Yeah.
Guest:My definition of nerd, because we would get a lot of shit in the beginning of the podcast for calling it Nerdist, and then people were like, I listen, you guys didn't talk about fucking video games.
Guest:I'm like, well, that's an accidental quality of what some nerds are attracted to.
Marc:But when you came up with that name where you're like, this is it, this is an all-encompassing brand, this is a movement, this is a... No.
Guest:No, when I came up with the name, I just thought, I want to have a website that's about a bigger idea than just me, because I won't write about myself every day, but at least...
Guest:And for me, I was growing up in the 80s, nerds, there was no ironic coolness to it.
Guest:It was just like I got beaten up and I was in chess club.
Marc:You were in chess club?
Guest:Chess club, computer camp.
Guest:I have fucking chess trophies.
Guest:My mom still has them.
Guest:Computer camp, debate club.
Guest:I was president of the Latin club.
Guest:Any kind of academic thing I was into and no girls in sight anywhere.
Guest:And so then it sort of became okay to...
Guest:It became ironically, retroactively cool to be nerds because so much nerd culture and technology and gaming permeated pop culture.
Marc:Well, now, yeah, it sort of took it over.
Guest:Yeah, it took it over.
Marc:So you didn't have any grand designs like, nerdist universe.
Guest:I mean, I guess in the beginning I thought, oh, it'd be fun if, but it was just a way to...
Guest:To to write about things that I was interested in that didn't that were about me because they were point of view related, but not about me personally all the time.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let me try to get at the core of what because I think we might have talked about it for some reason in my brain.
Marc:I just wants to insist that that you're you're completely fabricated.
Marc:That the whole thing's just bullshit.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:No, no, I'm not being mean.
Guest:I don't think you're being mean at all.
Marc:Because my memory of you, first and foremost, was that you were on TV with Jenny McCarthy, and you were a fucking cool guy.
Marc:Really?
Marc:With those hair drapes?
Marc:Nah.
Marc:No, but I mean, but that was rock and roll.
Marc:That was what it was.
Marc:That was the 80s.
Guest:I was never comfortable on that set.
Guest:I was never comfortable.
Marc:Do you understand?
Marc:I can misunderstand it.
Marc:I absolutely understand.
Marc:You were cute and you had the boobs there and you were doing the thing.
Guest:I absolutely understand what you're saying.
Guest:I would say the same thing to someone.
Marc:When you started, like, okay, so what was the upbringing?
Marc:So when you were in elementary school, you were doing chess club, no girls, nobody liked you.
Marc:Dad was a bowler.
Marc:professional bowler but that was the other thing I went bowling with you and I was like fuck this look at that got his own ball Mr. Twisted slide it around make the ball do tricks that doesn't impress anybody that's really the most impressive thing that I've seen you do is the bowling thing you can make it like just go all the way right almost to the edge you can hook it I can hook the ball into the pocket spin that fucker throw it out to the first board and bring that fucker right back into the pocket and then you go look dad
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But for me, I grew up, we moved a lot when I was a kid.
Guest:My dad was on the Pro Bowlers Tour.
Guest:He opened a bowling center in Memphis, Tennessee in 1981.
Guest:And I was an only child.
Guest:You're still an only child?
Guest:Still an only child.
Guest:I have a half-brother who lives in Tennessee, but we didn't grow up together.
Marc:But only child, that's a lot of pressure.
Marc:Like, you're like, don't die.
Marc:Don't die.
Marc:Please don't die.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Like, I just, you know, my mom's adorable, but she hugged a little too hard.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Don't please.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, in high school, I remember coming home like an hour late and she was just in the kitchen like, where were you?
Guest:I'm like, are we dating?
Marc:What the fuck's going on?
Marc:And yes.
Marc:And yes.
Guest:I love your joke.
Guest:One of my favorite jokes of all time is your joke about like.
Guest:I'm not in love with my mom.
Guest:Yeah, you can fuck your mom.
Guest:But you know that when you go to college, you get that weeaboo in the night.
Guest:Right there.
Guest:You can fuck her right there.
Guest:Then you can fuck her.
Marc:How do we ever do that joke?
Marc:It's a gorgeous joke.
Marc:Where I say, I love my mother, but I'm not in love with it.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:And then people groan, and I'm like, what?
Marc:You can totally fuck your mom.
Guest:It is a great joke.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just, I don't do it that much.
Marc:It's gnarly.
Guest:It's a good one.
Guest:If you think about putting it back in a rotation, I think it's a gorgeous joke.
Marc:Okay, I'll do it.
Marc:I'm happy.
Marc:I'll do it on Conan.
Marc:We'll see how that goes.
Guest:So, I...
Guest:As an only child, you know, I was very kind of introverted.
Guest:And so all of my interests were, you know, computers.
Guest:And, you know, I got I got my grandfather was a technophile.
Guest:So he had all the gaming systems and I got my first computer in 1981.
Guest:And I had all, you know, all the gaming systems.
Guest:I played the arcade systems in the bowling centers.
Guest:And like I said, Space Invaders, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Gorf, Robotron, 2084, Defender, Galaga, your one.
Guest:Asteroids.
Guest:Asteroids.
Guest:Yeah, the vector graphics.
Guest:Galaga.
Guest:Galaga.
Marc:I was good at Galaga.
Guest:Galaga was great.
Guest:And you can get a lot of those emulators on – I have the Atari 2600 emulator on my phone.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because Galaga, you'd be always surprised where it's like, oh, new things.
Guest:yep galaga and and galaga was uh so there was a certain badge of honor to you know to the video game world back then all the stuff you saw in king of kong was what it was like back the first time i played video games was at um at a bowling alley albuquerque new mexico nice on uh lomas i can't i'm not a holiday bowl maybe yeah
Marc:I was never a good bowler, but that was the only place where we get a machine.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:I see.
Guest:And I love to call my dad when I'm in another town and I see a rundown bowling center.
Guest:So like, I would totally call my dad and go holiday bowl.
Guest:And he'd go, yeah, I was bowling a tournament there.
Guest:I got a blow job back behind the dumpster in 68.
Guest:Fucking awesome.
Guest:Like my dad, my dad is just like this, this blow job geo map or whatever.
Guest:Cause in the sixties bowling was cool.
Marc:People would blow bowlers.
Guest:And bowlers got blown, and they were treated like athletes, rock stars, and obviously it's not quite the same.
Marc:So do you like the movie Kingpin?
Guest:I love the movie Kingpin, and my dad's take on it is, yeah, it's a cute movie, but I did hustle, and that wasn't how it was.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, I know, the Amish don't bowl either.
Guest:Where are you going to suspend your disbelief?
Marc:But there was that sort of hustling element to it?
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Like, my dad's got the fucking greatest stories about... Have you had him on your podcast?
Guest:No, because he lives in Florida, and we're not set up to take calls.
Guest:But I will get him on one of these days just to sit and chat with him.
Guest:He's got the greatest, like... Yeah, you know, he used to have to sneak out of his house to bowl pot games at night.
Guest:Like, in the middle of the night, they'd close the bowling center down, and...
Guest:He'd bowl again.
Guest:He was like, yeah, one time these carnies were in town.
Guest:There was a carnival.
Marc:So they had underground bowling games?
Guest:Underground bowling games for money, like illegal pot games.
Guest:And he goes, so these carnies were in town, and I used to hustle.
Guest:So these guys came in, and I told them I was a 150 average bowler, and the guy puts a gun on the table.
Guest:And my dad goes, what's the gun for?
Guest:And the guy goes, let's make sure you're a 150 average bowler.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So naturally, my dad was a 150 average bowler for that game.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:So they called him, huh?
Guest:Yeah, they totally called him on it.
Guest:I've always wanted to do life-threatening bowling.
Marc:Who would have thought?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Anything that anybody can gamble on can become life-threatening.
Guest:Yeah, as long as there's money, there's a politic, and there's a gun.
Marc:Yeah, so your parents stayed married throughout your... No, my parents split up when I was 11.
Marc:Oh, so that must have just sent you back further into yourself.
Guest:Yes, I'm sure it did because we moved again.
Guest:I went to Denver after that and then ultimately to Los Angeles.
Marc:Did you have those weird trips where you go visit your dad and then you'd be at a bowling alley and he'd be like, that's my kid.
Marc:And you'd sit around talking to some floozy that would later blow your dad.
Guest:Possibly.
Guest:You don't remember it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, for me, I spent most of my time in the bowling center, either bowling or in front of a video game.
Marc:Remember when the video games had cigarette burns on them?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Yeah, like the plastic on the cabinets.
Guest:It was all melty.
Guest:I used to have to try to clean those off as the sort of prom porter.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:You worked at a bowling alley?
Guest:I worked at my dad's bowling center when I was a kid.
Marc:So he had a bowling alley.
Marc:You're saying bowling center.
Marc:I picture something different.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:That's just a vernacular.
Guest:It doesn't mean anything, really.
Guest:It was ingrained to me like a bowling alley meant a really divey place, and a bowling center was more family-oriented.
Marc:And was it...
Guest:Yes, it was.
Marc:It absolutely was.
Marc:It didn't get divey over time?
Guest:Never got divey.
Marc:So were you like doing all this stuff?
Marc:Like, you know, give me a size seven shoes.
Guest:Spraying the shoes.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Having to run down the lane and knock the dead wood.
Guest:Got dead wood on 10.
Guest:Got to knock the pin off the lane when it falls into the gutter.
Guest:Did you have a restaurant in there?
Guest:There was a restaurant in there.
Guest:French fries.
Guest:A very prominent bar.
Guest:French fries.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Billy Burgers, they would call them.
Guest:That's your dad's name?
Guest:My dad's name was Billy.
Guest:Billy Hardwick?
Guest:Billy Hardwick.
Guest:What happened to the bowling center, man?
Guest:Still there.
Guest:30th anniversary still is he still on it yeah it's in florida it's in tennessee memphis tennessee so he runs it from florida runs it from florida yeah my stepsisters kind of run it and you know he's you know he's still my dad's a control freak too so he's still on the phone every day really what's going on how the fries how the fry everything going okay league down all right you know billy burgers up billy burgers up billy burgers well those early what's on a billy burger i don't know it's just come on it's just meat and and it's a fucking burger that they you know that's nothing special just
Guest:Just branding.
Guest:My dad ejaculates on every button.
Marc:Oh, after he gets blown by that.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:So everyone wins.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So how many, what other video games did you have in the center?
Guest:I named a bunch of those.
Guest:We had Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong, Tron, Mario Brothers.
Guest:Yeah, I leaned on him to put an arcade in the bowling center.
Guest:And so it was huge.
Marc:So you were sort of like cutting edge.
Guest:I was an early adopter.
Marc:Did he make money with a bunch of kids playing hooky and hanging around all night?
Marc:I guess so, yeah.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:You're younger than me.
Guest:Yeah, I'm 39.
Marc:For real?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:I really am.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:I know I don't look older than that.
Marc:All right, 39.
Guest:I was born in 1971.
Marc:All right, you got it down, you know.
Marc:All right, so I'm 47.
Marc:So that means when I was in high school, that's when Space Invaders came out.
Marc:So I must have been 15 or 14.
Marc:So you must have been a little fucking kid when that shit came out.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:So were you hustling fucking teenagers?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I wouldn't have been allowed to do that.
Guest:But, yeah, I mean, there were, you know, there were certainly, like, there were street rat kids who would come on, you know, like... How old were you when you could go through a whole fucking rack of Space Invaders?
Guest:Oh, it was pretty early on.
Guest:I mean, it didn't... The thing about the video game culture was that
Guest:It didn't take long to kind of dominate the game.
Guest:You'd go in, you'd see a new game, and you're like, all right, what's the take on this?
Guest:You'd watch a couple kids play, and then you would plunk $20 down, get a roll of quarters, and then just go.
Marc:Figure it out.
Guest:Figure it out, yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, you could...
Guest:it like really you could kind of get a game down and figure out i mean back then the programming wasn't that complex you they all had patterns you could figure out as soon as you saw as soon as it was like it was like looking at those stereogram pictures where you blur your eyes and the image comes out which i can never fucking see yeah but as soon as you could spot the pattern it was done like you right you want you own the game right and that that that never took super long dragon's lair was a great uh laser disc based game yeah i never i never could turn over a game ever but i yeah so i never locked in that kill screen guys there's gonna be a kill screen
Guest:You're going to see a kill screen over here, you guys.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:It's from King of Kong.
Guest:There's a point in Donkey Kong where the game just automatically kills you.
Guest:You've been playing it so long that you get to a certain level and then you just die.
Marc:And you got there?
Guest:Yeah, and they're just like, you're done.
Guest:yeah yeah next yeah you'd be like are you really gonna play it because how can we make money these game designers minds they never imagined initially like someone's gonna play this game for 27 hours straight so we'll just kill it you know i remember defender had some good noises defender had good noises you had hyperspace with defender uh oh yeah but you might blow up if you hyperspace so there was a little bit of a crap shoot you don't know you fucking know yeah
Guest:But all those early eight big games and vector art-based games.
Marc:So now when did the competition with your dad end as far as your bowling career?
Guest:That never... Well, that's interesting.
Guest:It never happened.
Guest:My dad had a terrible relationship with his father, and so he never...
Guest:He never felt like he had to put any pressure on me.
Guest:He was always like, you need to do whatever you want to do.
Guest:I left home when I was 17 because my father was an asshole and I didn't get along with him.
Guest:And I'm never going to be that to you.
Guest:So bowl or don't bowl.
Guest:Just do what makes you happy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I bowled up until I was about 13 when my parents split up and we moved away.
Guest:And...
Guest:I did all these crazy... I was a good bowler.
Guest:I did the Mike Douglas show in 81.
Guest:Really?
Guest:1980, yeah.
Guest:Just bowling against Jimmy Walker.
Guest:Did he say dynamite?
Guest:He said dynamite, yeah.
Marc:Was he not going to say not dynamite?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So did he say, this kid is dynamite?
Guest:It figured in there somewhere, yeah.
Marc:But what do you mean?
Marc:They set up an alley?
Guest:We went to a bowling center.
Guest:With Mike Douglas.
Guest:With Mike Douglas in Hollywood.
Guest:And...
Marc:Because you were some wonder kind?
Marc:How'd you get the gig?
Guest:Yeah, because I was a really good bowler.
Guest:Because I was eight, and I was shooting 240.
Marc:So you were this freak that would do the talk show circuits?
Guest:I was the Tiger Woods of bowling, but I was Caucasian.
Marc:What other talk shows did you do?
Guest:I did, oh my god, I did the Richard Simmons show.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:They exercised on the lanes.
Guest:It was the weirdest thing I've ever done.
Marc:So he did a shoot at a bowling alley specifically to showcase you?
Guest:Well, they did a shoot at a bowling alley and then they brought me in as someone who was involved in that world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The freak.
Guest:The kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did local news shows.
Guest:I did Captain Kangaroo.
Guest:I was on Captain Kangaroo.
Marc:You were on Captain Kangaroo?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Bowling?
Guest:They did a remote segment where I bowled against, I went to Florida and bowled against.
Guest:Do you have footage?
Guest:I don't know where any of it is.
Guest:I'm sick about it.
Guest:It just, it didn't survive a move or something happened.
Marc:Oh, you had it on videotape?
Guest:I had it all on VHS tape and it's gone.
Guest:I don't know where any of it is.
Marc:So did your mother move to California?
Guest:My mother remarried in 85, and we moved to Denver with my stepfather, and then in 88, we moved to Los Angeles.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:In 88, I was 16, turning 17.
Marc:So you're three years out of the bowling racket, and you're in L.A.
Marc:I'm in L.A., yeah.
Marc:Hanging out, running around the streets.
Marc:Where'd you live in Los Angeles?
Marc:Pasadena.
Marc:Right over here.
Guest:Not that far from here.
Marc:So you'd go out at night, drive into the strip?
Yeah.
Marc:no i was never that adventurous no for for the insane booze bag i became in my 20s i was a surprisingly tight-ass teenager but how did you go from like when you started doing like you're on captain kangaroo that was he a nice guy did he smell funny i never met i did not meet bob keeshan it was a remote shoot so i never met him and you did the mike douglas show you did local news shows yes and what other big breaks were the bolt when you were the bowling freak
Guest:Well, when you think it can't get any bigger, it didn't.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:I quit bowling when I was 13.
Marc:But you still got it.
Marc:It's like muscle memory, huh?
Guest:Yeah, it's kind of muscle memory.
Guest:Oh, yeah, this feels familiar.
Marc:But do you ever just say, like, I want to go bowling?
Guest:Yeah, I just never have time anymore.
Marc:But you used to bowl recreationally?
Guest:Yeah, but bowling is one of those... It's like the same reason why it's hard for me to play chess anymore because I played competitive chess from most of the time I was in school.
Guest:And it's very difficult for me to just do it for fun.
Guest:That's where I get really competitive.
Guest:And when I'm playing chess...
Guest:I'm trying to, I'm trying to think eight moves ahead with every piece and it, it, it hurts my brain now.
Guest:And so I just, I can't do it for fun.
Guest:Like I have to do it the way that I was programmed to do it.
Guest:Competitively.
Guest:Very competitively.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With all things.
Guest:You know, who is a fucking insane chess fanatic is Jim Norton.
Guest:And I never had, would have had any idea, but when I did the opening Anthony show and Norton was on, I mentioned chess and he's like, Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was watching this documentary and Kasparov and he starts naming up and we start talking about Bobby Fisher and,
Guest:Karpov and Kasparov and all these great chess players, and he's an insane chess fanatic.
Marc:Well, there was a bit of time there in New York at the Comedy Cellar.
Marc:You know, there's that whole chess scene in Washington Square Park.
Marc:So there were dudes that used to sort of linger around and go do that chess hustle.
Marc:I didn't know him.
Marc:It was a little before his time.
Marc:I didn't know he was a chess player, but I know CK was trying to get good at it.
Marc:I don't know if he ever did.
Marc:But are you like, how are your chess chops?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I'm sure they would be terrible now.
Marc:Do you have it on your phone?
Guest:I do have chess on my phone, and I'll play it every once in a while, and then I just start to feel the pressure of competitive chess.
Guest:I mean, you know, it's like these are field trips, and you're going to the middle of Tennessee to play in these school tournaments, and you're trying to psych out other kids, and it's worse than being bullied by jocks because they'll just hit you in heels.
Marc:Yeah, with the brains.
Guest:These guys are trying to get under your skin, and you sit down, and they're like, do you feel okay?
Guest:You look a little pale.
Guest:And even though you know they're trying to psych you out, it gets under your skin.
Guest:You're like, does he think I'm that fucking stupid that I don't know what he's doing?
Guest:And then your head's out of the game.
Marc:So it's just a weird... Now, did your dad, as time went on, and even though he told you you could do whatever you wanted to do, did he feel like, you know, my son's become this nerdy freak?
Marc:Like, what did I create?
Marc:What's with the chest and the...
Guest:No, I think he just didn't get a lot of what I... You know... I think he just... Like, all the comedy that I loved and the things that I was into were just different from what my parents were into.
Marc:Was he a boozer?
Guest:Yeah, my dad's a drinker.
Guest:Yeah, he's still... We had a hilarious conversation.
Guest:I mean, he drinks a few beers a day now.
Guest:He's 70 years old in a couple weeks.
Guest:It's like, why, you know, not have a few beers a day now?
Guest:I don't give a shit.
Guest:But he...
Guest:We had a conversation last year.
Guest:I was visiting him and he goes, yeah, you know, so I'm doing like seven or eight beers today because at a certain point you just got to slow down.
Guest:I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
Guest:And he's like, what do you mean?
Guest:Like he literally, it's like when a dog chews your slipper and you're like, why did you do that?
Guest:And they're like, no, I just found a chewy thing.
Guest:It's my nature.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He didn't know.
Guest:Like, he just didn't occur to him.
Guest:I literally laughed in his face.
Marc:Because, like, did you have any idea that he was drinking much more than that every day?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, well, it's just, you know, like, he never drinks before 5, but at 5 p.m., like, he cracks open a Bud Light.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just sips it, you know, and just throughout the night, he just is very casual.
Guest:He doesn't get drunk anymore.
Guest:Doesn't freak out.
Guest:Doesn't go out and get nuts.
Guest:Go get his bowling ball.
Guest:Yeah, it does.
Guest:Why?
Guest:You did this to me.
Guest:And he just throws it through his trophy case.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The old man can still knock some stuff over.
Guest:But none of that.
Guest:None of that.
Guest:None of that.
Guest:He's a very casual drinker.
Guest:But, you know.
Marc:So how do you get from, you know, being this nerd kid to being this sort of like, you know, suave kind of, you know, MTV personality?
Marc:What was the trajectory of your TV career?
Marc:There was no suaveness with MTV or ever.
Guest:The ridiculous story of it is when I was in college.
Marc:Where'd you go?
Guest:I went to UCLA.
Guest:I entered UCLA as a math major.
Guest:A math major?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jesus fucking Christ.
Guest:And then I found the math program.
Guest:How are your math chops?
Guest:Well, they're not.
Guest:I mean, I was in math probably for about a year-ish.
Marc:What'd you top out at?
Marc:Calculus?
Calculus.
Guest:What did we top out?
Guest:I don't even remember.
Marc:Did you make it through calculus in high school?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I went to like crazy prep school and did all the AP classes and like Latin and like all this crazy shit.
Guest:You speak Latin?
Guest:Well, you know, Latin's not a spoken language.
Guest:It's a written language.
Guest:No one really speaks it anymore.
Guest:It doesn't mean you can't speak it.
Guest:You can speak it.
Marc:Is nerdist Latin?
Yeah.
Guest:No, Nerdist is not Latin.
Guest:There are different camps about like the church has its pronunciations and the Romans, like there's Roman pronunciation for Latin.
Marc:Did you get involved in that controversy hard with?
Guest:I went to Allboys Catholic School.
Guest:So I had, you know, like one year I had a secular Latin teacher and then another, the next year it was like a Jesuit Latin teacher.
Guest:And so then they change all the pronunciations and you're like, oh, long vowel here.
Guest:And then you don't pronounce the V and then here's the W, you know.
Marc:So were you brought up with an active engagement in the idea of hell?
Guest:Well, not so much, but certainly in an idea of my mother's Italian Catholic.
Marc:For real?
Guest:For reals.
Marc:And she still holds on to that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, she's not, you know, she's not fire and brimstone.
Guest:But the Jesuits that taught me, they're fairly, in terms of interpretation of their religion, it's a very liberal sect of their religion.
Guest:So they teach...
Guest:My mother cried the day I told her that my theology teacher was teaching us a symbolic interpretation of the Old Testament where she was like, no, it literally happened.
Guest:I'm like, well, no, it probably didn't literally happen that way.
Marc:Yeah, when you told your mother that hell is optional.
Guest:It's optional.
Marc:It's optional.
Guest:And then these stories.
Guest:And I'm like, no, you don't understand.
Guest:At one point, there were all these tribes that had to vie for superiority.
Guest:And so they pulled all these different mythologies together to create this one unified.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:you know but it was all political it's at a time when politics and science and and and religion were the same thing right um and so in a weird sort of her heart it broke her heart a little bit so in a weird sort of way yeah the you know the the the jesuits kind of woke me up to like it was the first time i was like oh you know i never really questioned it before but i guess yeah well
Guest:Of course.
Marc:So it's like one of those brain blossoms where you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got this little portal into what it felt like to have freedom of mind.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So it's not like, oh, wait, because then you start getting into these weird these weird kind of paradox, these moments of paradox where you go.
Guest:Okay, on the one hand, I know I heard a priest say we have free will, but on the other hand, I heard him say that everything happens for a reason, and those two concepts cannot exist in one spot.
Guest:You either have free will or things happen for a reason.
Marc:Well, maybe you can have free will, and in retrospect, you say maybe things happen for a reason.
Marc:But in fact, like a second of there's a beat between the two.
Marc:Wouldn't it be a free will?
Marc:And then a second later, you're like, oh, that's of course.
Guest:But don't but don't.
Guest:Do you ever have this moment where you go?
Guest:It would be really great if I had religion.
Guest:It would be really great if I just had a sense that I didn't have to question everything.
Guest:And I just had that sort of like, well, everything's because this wizard in the sky said this and I feel OK, like a prefab belief system.
Marc:Well, I have, as I get older, having not had religion or ever really being brought up with it in any real way, I find that the closest I get to it is realizing that almost everything is out of my control.
Marc:And there are certain things I'm never going to understand.
Marc:Because, first of all, I don't have time to research them.
Marc:And I actually have very little control over everything.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So if I can stay in that and not start projecting stuff into some sort of fear, because I think the only thing that you buy with religion is is a manufactured or dogmatic piece of mind.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So you don't have to ever kind of go into some existential tailspin.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:That's why we suffer.
Guest:These are part of the reasons why we suffer from anxiety and depression and these types of things.
Guest:Because we, you know, you start trying to grasp things that are to some extent ungraspable by your mind.
Marc:Well, it comes down to meeting and what's it all mean?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, what is the point of it all?
Marc:And, you know.
Guest:It's got to mean something, right?
Guest:It's got to mean something.
Marc:Well, it does.
Marc:It means whatever's happening now or whatever you've accomplished or treating other people well.
Marc:But in the big picture, who the fuck knows?
Marc:Maybe that's the one glitch that we have.
Marc:It doesn't mean much of anything.
Marc:And we're really not that much different than other animals in that way.
Marc:And we just can't sort of integrate that into the human spectrum of things because we have such a deep understanding of it.
Guest:Are you worried about dying?
Marc:I don't think about it, but, you know, lately, you know, I realized, you know, like, you know, everyone's going to get cancer and, you know, something's going to happen.
Marc:I don't know if I'm worried about it.
Marc:It seems I think it just comes that moment.
Marc:I hope it's relatively painless.
Marc:I don't have to suffer too much.
Marc:And I think that it's just that one moment.
Marc:And I think after that, you know, I'm not going to speculate, but I'm not going to I know I'm not going to be worried anymore.
Guest:I mean, listen, you didn't have awareness pre you being here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I don't mind going back to that.
Guest:It might just be a state of non-awareness.
Marc:I just don't want to die in a weird way, you know, like standing up or, you know, like in a crowd.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or, you know, or something too dramatic.
Marc:Ladies and gentlemen, Marc Maron.
Marc:Hey, guys.
Marc:Oh, and it's on YouTube.
Marc:Yeah, I wouldn't mind that, actually.
Marc:But that'd probably be the only thing you're remembered for.
Marc:Mark who?
Marc:That dude who died on YouTube.
Marc:Oh, fuck, that was awesome.
Marc:Didn't he have a podcast?
Marc:Who fucking gives a shit?
Marc:Check out the video.
Guest:We had a show and a career.
Marc:Here's a mashup of all those clips from Conan and him dying on stage.
Marc:How did we get here?
Marc:All right, so you're a math major.
Guest:I was a math major.
Guest:Then I studied some animation for a while, but ended up in the philosophy department.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Jesus Christ, Hardwick.
Marc:You're a lot broader than I thought.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, I really pigeonholed you into a whole fucking horrendous idea.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:If I had seen me on MTV and I did, I would have done the same thing.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, we've been in the same social circles for 15 years, 20 years now.
Marc:Almost.
Marc:And I tend to always hold these people that I know barely to these ideas of who I think they are.
Guest:Because it's easier to do that because the idea of... And I think it's one of the reasons why... You ever find that older people just kind of become racist or they become...
Guest:I just I think to actually go in and explore someone's story and understand who they are just takes a lot of energy and there's only so much energy in the day.
Marc:But also we never talk to each other.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:I mean, it's like I'm completely willing to expand.
Marc:But most of the people that in different points of my life where I where I think that what we're talking about.
Marc:sort of comes into play where you know you're at a point in your life where you're defining yourself and it's sort of like i'm me and this is me and oh that's that guy and i just talked to him for 10 minutes so now he's that guy and then you move on you don't want to you no one's going to escape that guy status until you're like oh shit you're not you know i might not talk to you earlier but also like back you know like backstage at shows or whatever and you see a bunch of comics and yeah i you know i just wonder
Guest:I mean, I'm a lot more comfortable, certainly more comfortable than I used to be, but just having these moments of abject insecurity and going, okay, if I'm insecure, are they insecure?
Guest:Because they seem okay to me, and I don't have that.
Guest:Whatever they have, I don't have, and I don't belong here.
Guest:Just all of that...
Guest:I think you're in your head.
Marc:Well, yeah, but the trick about comics is like most of us are insecure, at least at some point and probably more so than others.
Marc:But, you know, if you're the guy that's going to start voicing that you're kind of, you know, you're going against the grain of the community.
Marc:It's like your job is to suck it up and act like you can do this.
Guest:But I feel like as we all get older, it just doesn't matter.
Guest:It certainly fucking doesn't.
Guest:Everyone's got fucking problems.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Whatever.
Marc:Last night I did a benefit and I was second up and the will turn was packed.
Marc:And I had that moment backstage where I'm sitting there with Tom Papa or a towel or somebody.
Marc:I'm like, ah, fuck.
Marc:This is going to fucking, I don't want to, I don't want to tank this.
Marc:I'm like, why the fuck would I tank, you know, at the stage, the stage of comedy I'm at with a full hot house?
Marc:Why am I even thinking that?
Guest:You wouldn't, but it's good that you think that way.
Guest:It's good because it means that a, you care about what you're doing and also it keeps you on your toes and you won't, you know that if you have that, if you have that, it's, you won't get lazy.
Marc:I guess, but I mean, I don't need to be that crazy.
Marc:At some point, I should be like, I'm going to fucking ace this.
Marc:Why can't I have that once in a while?
Guest:I don't think I've ever... I think... Because I think you present yourself from a different part of your brain when you get into, I'm going to ace this mode.
Guest:And it just, for some reason, it doesn't...
Guest:resonate as well you don't get that you don't ever feel like I'm gonna ace this you must you have that you have that competitive nature and I don't think I don't skills I don't think about it my best my best shows I just I don't know but like you're about to go sing whole lot of love karaoke night you're gonna ace that no I don't know that I'm gonna ace that I could open my mouth and it comes out wrong or it's in the wrong key and I can't sing it or my voice cracks or like done it over and over again
Guest:But I still I still always have that linger.
Guest:I think that I think that that fear is a little bit of the fire behind us that drives us a little bit and make sure that we stay relevant.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Have you taken any bigger risks with karaoke?
Guest:No, I haven't been to karaoke.
Guest:I haven't been to karaoke in years.
Guest:I haven't been in years, but I used to love it.
Marc:And I was your song, right?
Guest:Yeah, and then at a certain point, you're like, am I really the guy that just sings the same three songs at every karaoke bar?
Guest:Like, I really have to go around and drop my dick on the table that much for my ego.
Guest:I think for me, I was karaoke-ing at a time when I was just quitting drinking.
Guest:I was very insecure about myself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it helped you?
Guest:I'm not as good as...
Guest:Because I did the Rock of Ages show in L.A.
Guest:before it went to Broadway.
Guest:And I could never have done the show.
Guest:They asked me to do the show on Broadway, and I never could have done eight or nine shows a week.
Guest:I can sing a couple songs okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm not good like a trained singer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm good for a comic.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And so at a certain point, I kind of realized I'm literally just jerking myself off by going to these rooms and doing the same three songs, and this is dumb, and don't I get enough attention on stage as a comic, and I don't need to do this.
Marc:Well, let's go back to when you weren't a comic, and you were a math major, and somehow you ended up on MTV.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:I was always...
Guest:comedy uh you know comedy computers and video games were my main obsessions when i was growing up i going back to steve martin um in the 70s my parents were very they fostered that they bought me the albums uh albert brooks you know the comedy minus one comedy minus one yeah um it tells you to turn the record over all of it crazy kooky calls yeah
Guest:Loved, you know, obviously like Carlin and prior Sunset Strip.
Guest:And then and then like the ninth annual young community, that comedy boom in the 80s.
Guest:I videotaped everything and watched everything.
Guest:And so it was always a driving force in my life that I never related to other kids about was comedy because no one loved it as much as I did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then cut to, then I'm in college.
Guest:I'm doing standup in college with a small group of people like Mike Furman and a couple other people.
Guest:We're at clubs?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Just like dorm shows.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It would have infuriated you.
Guest:And it infuriates me in retrospect.
Guest:I was saying I was a comic, but really I was performing four times a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we would meet once a week, help each other write.
Marc:Yeah, that infuriates me.
Guest:So I was like, yeah, I'm a comic.
Guest:I'm like, oh, no, I'm just doing four dorm shows a year.
Guest:This isn't really.
Guest:So then I was a contestant on a game show called Studs.
Guest:I was a contestant.
Guest:I remember that show.
Marc:A dating show.
Guest:I was a contestant on a dating show when I was in college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a car.
Guest:Some kids were going.
Guest:They were auditioning for the show.
Guest:I'm like, I like attention.
Guest:I'll go.
Guest:And so I went.
Guest:Did you get the date?
Guest:I went on.
Guest:Well, you go on.
Guest:Three guys go on dates with the same girl, I think, as Howard.
Marc:Do you fuck her?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Nothing happened.
Guest:Far too awkward with women to, you know.
Guest:I mean, my defense mechanism was always to go into comic joke mode.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And college girls don't respond well to that.
Marc:Was that part of it, though, that show that was getting laid?
Marc:Because, I mean...
Guest:They're at least making it seem like people got laid.
Guest:They had a plaque on the wall of a guy they called the hat trick who was the only guy that ever fucked all three girls.
Guest:And he actually got them all and they called him the hat trick.
Guest:Never would have happened with me.
Guest:I was very uncomfortable in girls and always kind of went into Steve Martin.
Guest:My default was wild and crazy guy mode.
Marc:You actually did the bit?
Guest:Not the bit, but that kind of like, hey, like the thing that he was.
Marc:You're making me uncomfortable.
Guest:The thing that he was satirizing was the character.
Guest:Like it was it was a it was a epic pilot fail.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So so I go on this show and the producer of that show a few months later is casting an MTV show called Trashed.
Marc:I auditioned for that.
Guest:Okay, so I hosted Trashed, and then... Shit, what was that show about?
Guest:It was... Every few years, MTV would try to replicate remote control, where they would have a quiz show... You fucking auditioned for Trashed.
Marc:...with sketch elements.
Marc:Or was I on it?
Guest:I don't think you were on it.
Marc:All right, so what was the show's premise?
Guest:People would bring... Teams of people would bring on personal possessions, and then they would get destroyed if they didn't answer enough questions, but... I mean, like, the entire staff were people you know.
Guest:It was like Posehn, Doug Benson, Dana Gould...
Guest:like that group no I remember I remember I was up for probably the hosting job because I auditioned for a couple of those yeah and the show failed almost immediately yeah but they kept me around and then they they placed me in singled out and and I never felt comfortable in that show because I was constantly surrounded by people that I couldn't relate to or talk to in college like all these fraternity and sorority types and I was in a fraternity in my freshman year and I hated it I was so uncomfortable
Guest:I hated being judged.
Marc:So you're telling me you were uncomfortable and singled out the whole time?
Marc:What I realized after the first season was... But now, as somebody wanted to do comedy, you knew you were being pushed into host mode.
Guest:Yes, but I didn't have enough experience to understand it yet.
Guest:And so the first season of the show, the set was loud, and so I was shouting into the microphone over people.
Guest:And then after I watched the first season of the show, I realized...
Guest:Oh, no one on the set can hear what I'm saying.
Guest:These amplification devices just are for the home viewer.
Guest:So I got quiet and I just started like mildly insulting the people that I couldn't stand in college that were coming on the show and making like kind of nerd rage, backhanded...
Guest:comments to and that's sort of what kept me that that was sort of my voice on the show and that's what kept me sane on the show and and it didn't listen i will be the first person to tell you i did not pop from that show jenny popped from that show and carmen popped from that show but not the kid with the floppy hair making and then video game jokes and three's company references and then you i always got you confused with the other kid who was the other guy that wore the hats and stuff wasn't there another uh personality another young hosty personality on mtv
Marc:Not Dan Cortez.
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:Oh, Cortez.
Marc:I remember that.
Guest:He was a PA.
Guest:Cortez was a PA.
Marc:For Lisa Berger or something?
Marc:For Lisa Berger.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they threw him in, who's now running E. Yeah.
Guest:And they threw Cortez in front of the camera because it was MTV.
Guest:He didn't cost any money.
Guest:He just was spunky.
Guest:And so that's where MTV Sports came from or whatever.
Marc:And Jon Stewart was.
Guest:You wrote it.
Guest:You watch it.
Marc:He was on there too, right?
Guest:He hosted a show called You Wrote It, You Watch It, where people would write in.
Guest:It was right around the same time as the state.
Guest:People would write in, and then I think they would make sketches out of the letters that people would write.
Guest:And there's Jon Stewart in these fucking ridiculous gas station jackets, and he had his floppy hair curtains like we all did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he and that was all the generation after remote control right after remote control.
Marc:That was what broke this whole thing open.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Comics on MTV.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Remote control.
Guest:And then it was like half hour comedy hour kamikaze like all of both of those.
Guest:You did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How was the I mean, because you were you were around like you were doing comedy during the comedy boom and then into the 90s and.
Marc:Well, I think I got my first TV gigs in 89.
Marc:So the first time I was on TV was on Evening at the Improv in 1989 in Caroline's Comedy Hour.
Marc:And then I did another set of those in 91 or something.
Marc:And so I was working then.
Marc:Like I started working as a comic in 88.
Marc:And I started getting the first, you know, those shows.
Marc:There were the cable shows in 89, 90, 91.
Marc:And I think that it was around that time, you know, Benson was starting out.
Marc:Hussein wasn't really yet, but I mean, Benson was one of my contemporaries and then Attell and all those guys.
Guest:Dana Gould probably.
Marc:Dana Gould was actually like, he started very young.
Marc:So he was actually well in, he was already headlining, I think by the time, by 90, easy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It gotta have been.
Guest:I love watching guys like Dana or Odenkirk doing all of those, uh, those eighties specials.
Guest:And seeing just seeing the what to me as a young comedy watcher was, oh, no, what they're doing is different.
Guest:What they're doing is not the same as everyone else.
Guest:Like that, that that's they're saying something real that I like.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Well, Dana was like certainly like he was sort of a wonder kind, you know, I mean, he I remember he was doing a stand up in Boston, probably in his teens before I knew him.
Marc:And he'd gone to San Francisco probably by the time he was like 20 or 21 and already like had an hour.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I mean, he was way ahead of the curve on that and always very inspired.
Marc:But I remember Benson and those guys, and I remember us all hanging around and crossed, but there was a crew, certainly.
Marc:But I remember the MTV half hours.
Marc:They were shot in New York.
Marc:It was sweaty.
Marc:It was summer, and Lisa Berger was around.
Marc:I remember that.
Marc:It must have been...
Marc:shit, 90 maybe, 91?
Guest:So that's sort of right when the boom of comedy is starting to fizzle.
Marc:The first one was done.
Marc:I mean, by the time I really started working, you were already going to clubs and they were saying like, yeah, it's fucking over.
Marc:And that's when I started in the ashes of that first comedy boom.
Marc:And somehow I've managed to survive into this second one, which is happening now.
Guest:I think it's a good, I think it's kind of good to start then, because if you can survive it, then...
Marc:but kamikaze was weird because that was i remember that shoot because i had a horribly discomforting set and the idea was it was being hosted by john bowman's floating head yeah it was like no host yeah there was something weird about it was that weird it was that weird vibe that mtv tried to like oh we're gonna do it weird yeah it's gotta be weird gotta do these weird let's strap a camera to this dog's head and just let him sniff crotches we'll get the shots
Marc:I just remember I was so fucking nervous about everything, everything.
Marc:Like I remember backstage, I remember at, at kamikaze, they wanted to shoot these interstitials or these things, these little pickups here and there with comics.
Marc:Like they, and I remember she said, act like you just got shot, you know?
Marc:And I watched Dave do his cross and he did the whole like, like he played it up and I was just so nervous.
Marc:I couldn't do it as good as him that they, they ended up, she said, all right, bang.
Marc:And I just fell down.
Marc:Oh,
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:No, it wasn't funny.
Marc:She looked at me weird, and I remember it.
Marc:I remember it to this day.
Guest:I used to watch you all the time on Short Ascension Span Theater.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, that had an impact.
Marc:I was angry and weird.
Marc:I was much in the same position you were.
Marc:I was given this show.
Marc:I thought I was a rebel and an angry comic, and I had a trajectory that I was on, and I was doing the real deal, and I was broke, and I got this offer to host a clip show, and I'm like, fuck.
Marc:The amount of shit I put my producers through on that show to get writers to not make me look like you.
Right.
Marc:I'm not just going to be a host.
Marc:I need to be a comic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You did your own thing.
Marc:I mean, but people liked you on that show, dude.
Guest:So I guess, but it wasn't really, I mean, it wasn't like, I mean, that show didn't, people seem to remember that when they talk to me about that show, they seem to remember it.
Guest:a lot better than i remember it going i i seem to remember people i mean they aired it a lot and i there was a certain demographic that watched it but i seem to remember people saying this fucking ridiculous show is the death of mtv this is the worst like courtney love accepted a humanitarian award that mtv presented her and she was like mtv's great except for that shitty show singled out i'm like really courtney love just took a dump on us like yeah you know and so are you still friends with jenny
Guest:You know, maybe once a year we'll shoot each other emails and go, how's it going?
Marc:Great.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Did you ever make out with her?
Guest:I never made out with her.
Guest:I never made out with her.
Guest:You know, I've always been sort of a serial monogamist, and so I had a girlfriend the entire run.
Marc:Oh, you mean you could have made out with her, maybe?
Guest:No, I don't feel like that was ever on the table.
Guest:But truth be told, and people don't believe me when I say this, but...
Guest:That kind of Playboy Bunny style, like big boobs, like platinum blonde hair.
Guest:Except for Julie McCullough.
Guest:Julie McCullough was like the first Playboy that I saved and pleasured myself to on a regular basis.
Guest:Julie McCullough's girl next door shoot from like 85 or 86 or whatever it was.
Guest:But outside of Julie McCullough...
Guest:I think still is at the Playboy Mansion.
Guest:And very sweet.
Guest:I just, that wasn't my type of girl, like big boobs.
Marc:No, me neither.
Marc:I can't, no.
Marc:It's like, it never, it always seemed a little.
Guest:So people are like, eh, because I get it all the time.
Marc:Fake boobs, blonde hair, I don't care.
Guest:Hey man, you must have been all up in that.
Guest:I'm like, no.
Guest:And they're like, are you gay?
Guest:And I'm like, because I didn't fuck the right girl?
Guest:I would have been all over that.
Guest:I'm like, I bet you wouldn't have.
Marc:Yeah, but also, I worked with her.
Marc:She was my co-host.
Guest:Yeah, people just assume that if you work with people, you're going to throw your cock at them.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:That's why I'm grateful.
Marc:Hey, did you fuck Ed Asner?
Marc:Did you fuck Ed Asner?
Marc:I did.
Marc:You guys worked together.
Marc:You must have fucked Ed Asner.
Marc:Yeah, it was weird.
Marc:But I figured out of respect for him, this is what he needed to do.
Marc:He's an old man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:but uh all right so then okay so you do that and then when you're on a boat too was there a boat boat date yeah boat date shipmates was uh that was really the that was really the the beginning of the the hard downward spiral was uh the beginning of the bottom the beginning of the bottom yeah so you know mtv finished in like 98 maybe and i worked in radio for a while and did a bunch of failed pilots that are you're almost on ryan seacrest trajectory
Guest:Yes, yes.
Marc:Sometimes I say that Chris Hardwick's the nerd Ryan Seacrest.
Guest:I sort of feel like that sometimes just because I tweeted that once.
Guest:You did?
Guest:I said, Seacrest and I have very similar careers except he has more money and less nerds.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So I was going to start calling myself C++ Crest, which is a programming language.
Guest:And he tweeted back to me like, I'll parse code any day with you, bro.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So it was very sweet.
Guest:Did you hang out?
Guest:Did not hang out.
Guest:But just in terms of...
Guest:I mean, I think he's done an amazing thing.
Guest:He's a fucking industry, that guy.
Marc:It's insane.
Marc:And you have no idea who he is.
Marc:I don't know who he really is.
Marc:Yeah, that's one of those classic sort of things.
Guest:But I think you see a lot of it.
Guest:The Hicksian pull back the face.
Guest:No, but you see it in the fact that you can't make $100 million a year and not be an obsessive...
Guest:fiend you just can't yeah you have to have a certain gene I think you I think the I think the roadmap is in all of the production deals and the nine shows and doing the radio and not stopping for a minute I mean I am that way and I'm sure that it's because like I said to you when I got here
Guest:You said, how are you doing?
Guest:I go, I'm really busy, but I love it that way because I hate being alone with my thoughts.
Guest:I mean, clearly I'm a workaholic because I'm probably running from something.
Guest:And, you know, before it was booze and now it's I can control my career and I'm going to fucking I'm going to at least feel like I'm steering something.
Marc:Well, OK, so like if you're running from something in those moments where I see it sometimes when I talk to you that, you know, your eyes just sort of go distant.
Marc:And and then I'm like, what's going on now?
Marc:I'm rebooting.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:control alt delete but is it like when when you when you have those moments i mean what do you feel sadness or anger or fucking lost um no it's it's just uh four other things that i need to remember to do that i know i'm gonna forget because i didn't write them down but beyond that
Marc:But I mean, like, if you feel like you're running from something, what is it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, part of it is, you know, as you and maybe you felt this, too, as you start to kind of get into your late 30s, you start to you start to really like it.
Guest:It's sort of what you said earlier.
Guest:I'm not afraid of death.
Guest:What I'm afraid of is dread.
Guest:it's a, it's a dreaded moment of death or it's a, you know, like more people are afraid of dying in an airplane crash, but more people will die from heart disease.
Guest:Like it doesn't stop people from shoving cheeseburgers in their mouth.
Guest:Cause if you die of a heart attack, you just fucking drop dead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, but I have dread.
Marc:I mean, dread is a, is crippling.
Guest:I'm like dread is the major component of anxiety.
Guest:You become afraid of being afraid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, you know, there's, there's a component of that.
Guest:There's a component of being afraid of my own fear.
Marc:Do you panic when you left with too much time?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:I teeter on hypochondria a little bit.
Guest:And, you know, what was pointed out to me by my girlfriend, Janet, is she said, it only happens when you're home for a few days and you don't have anything to do, which is rare.
Marc:But it also happens because you don't feel okay.
Marc:You don't feel okay.
Marc:And you want somebody to make it better.
Marc:I mean, I have found that when you're panicking or anxious or having hypochondria, basically you just want someone to say, it's okay.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You're going to be okay.
Marc:And then you go, fuck you.
Marc:You don't know.
Marc:It's just cancer.
Marc:But that's a whole other thing.
Marc:That's called a marriage.
Guest:Well done.
Guest:But part of the obsessive mind, I think, is when, you know, if you're a workaholic or an alcoholic or whatever your holicism is, you're spending so much time in the external world.
Guest:And then when you take a break from that, your brain is still on auto drive.
Guest:And so it literally just turns on itself and begins to cannibalize itself.
Guest:And I think that's a lot of that mechanism too.
Marc:I got to fix something.
Guest:I got to fix something.
Guest:Oh, I got to fix me.
Guest:Oh, I'm broken.
Guest:Oh my, that doesn't feel right.
Guest:That's probably a thing.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:MS?
Guest:You know, like it's just a fucking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got something in my Achilles tendon right now.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Guest:That's not.
Marc:Have you ever hurt your Achilles tendon?
Guest:Um, no, but I've, I've had, uh,
Guest:um just i've had back issues and so that'll compress uh that'll compress an artery and then so your leg feels a little numb and you're like well that's clearly that's either parkinson's or ms or some some neurological problem right but so you get that thing where you're like i'm fucking not i'm not cutting it i'm not cutting it i'm not okay something's wrong and it had to be pointed out to me that is your anxiety manifesting itself because you're not you you can't be alone for a couple days without like i gotta be in work mode
Guest:But I do genuinely love to work.
Guest:Everything that we do is just like the chess game.
Marc:No, I do too, but don't you ever get that thing where it's sort of like, when's the other shoe going to drop?
Guest:Sometimes, but I'm a lot better with that.
Guest:I'm a lot better with that now.
Marc:Who's your therapist?
Marc:She's good.
Marc:She must be.
Guest:She's good.
Guest:A lot of it is emotional compartmentalizing things.
Guest:Emotionally compartmentalizing things.
Marc:Have you been able to trace that back to being an only child or your parents divorced or anything like that?
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:I mean, just a sort of weird abandonment or the weird kind of like... I mean, I'm sure there's a million things, you know, and like for a period of time, I didn't talk to my dad and, you know, like my dad had, you know... Are you able to let somebody make you feel better?
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Because, you know, a lot of it was...
Guest:You know, my mom was very overprotective, and so I'm sure there's, you know, like if someone just says, like you said, like someone just goes, everything's okay.
Guest:You're like, all right, that's all I needed.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I'll go back down to the playground.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Literally.
Guest:It's just like when a kid falls down, if you laugh at them, he's like, oh, everything's okay.
Guest:I'll go back and play.
Marc:Let's talk about this bottom that happened on a ship.
Guest:Okay, great, great, great.
Guest:Shipmates, so I didn't work for a few years.
Marc:Oh, so were you freaking out about work, or did you have that moment where you're like, I'm not doing what I want to do?
Guest:I was drinking so fucking much, I wasn't even thinking about it.
Guest:And then, so Shipmates comes along, everyone's trying to remake Blind Date, because Blind Date was doing very well.
Guest:And so this was Blind Date on a cruise ship.
Guest:And I...
Guest:I turned it down six times cause I said the same thing you said about short attention man theater.
Guest:Like I'm not going to be a fucking dating show host again.
Marc:I fucking, I will look, were you doing standup yet?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I, yes.
Guest:I started doing standup full time in 98.
Guest:Um, so I was doing standup.
Guest:Uh, I remember when he started.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:that was like 92 well that was the first i think that was in college when i was toying around with it then i didn't really do it again till no like 90 oh really so what about 95 when when did you start coming around luna you're already done singled out oh luna luna was 2001 it was yeah oh shit luna was 2001 because that was around the time i was going out to do 2000 2001 that was around the time right when i was leaving yeah yeah right about that time and um
Guest:And then so I'm there.
Guest:I go to do.
Guest:I finally accept the offer because it was so much money.
Guest:I just couldn't turn it down anymore.
Guest:And I had no money.
Guest:So I took it and I said, I'll do it.
Guest:But you have to let me make the nerdiest jokes I can make.
Guest:And they go, we won't.
Guest:You can say whatever you want.
Guest:So, you know, I'm making fucking Harry Potter jokes on a dating show in 2001 and no one said anything.
Guest:And so it became fun.
Guest:Then the show popular, um, in some markets and another, you know, with syndicated television, if it gets a good time slot on a channel, people have heard of, they'll watch it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if not, they won't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, but overall it was popular ish, not super popular.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And then 9-11 happened and I was in New York for that.
Guest:And then it just this crazy spiral.
Guest:And then it was, you know, just two straight years of the drinking got really bad because I was so fucking scared and just so afraid of for my life and my career and all this craziness.
Guest:So.
Marc:So you made 9-11 about you.
Guest:Well, of course.
Guest:We all, you know, a lot of us did.
Marc:Oh, this is probably because I. Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And also this means that I'm not going to be able to.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like your dad's joke about, yeah, my stepmom have cancer.
Guest:I have the worst life.
Marc:I wish it was a joke.
Marc:It's only a joke the way I say it.
Guest:We make it about ourselves.
Guest:And so I had never really thought about my career long term.
Guest:I was very much like job to job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I quit drinking and realized, oh, I might have some control over this.
Guest:You have free will.
Guest:I'm going to actually go out of my way to create the career that I want rather than waiting for something to come along.
Guest:And so that's when everything changed.
Marc:So you had the chops.
Marc:You had some comedy chops.
Marc:You had hosting chops.
Marc:And you said, I'm going to be true to myself and just build my own thing.
Guest:But not like not like you guys.
Guest:Like I still, you know, for me, the first five years of comedy was basically doing comedy mostly in L.A.
Guest:and New York, which, you know, if you're doing comedy mostly in L.A., not to insult L.A., but you're not really, really doing comedy to like not real stand up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're performing for other performers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People who it's a little more inside.
Guest:So it wasn't until I started going on the road that I realized like, oh, well, none of these jokes work.
Guest:Most people don't give a fuck about how auditions work.
Marc:But you're pretty persistent up there.
Marc:I mean, like, you know.
Guest:I think that's a compliment.
Marc:No, no, it is.
Marc:I mean, you step into long stuff.
Marc:You've got a certain pace.
Marc:You don't really buckle.
Marc:You keep plowing along.
Marc:You're not, you know.
Guest:Thank you, quote unquote.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:No, no, I hear what you're saying.
Marc:I have walked away from watching you work saying that's a good bit.
Marc:That might be as close to a compliment as I can.
Guest:I will accept your complice salt.
Guest:Is that the first time you said that?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's a word I started thinking of when people, when I would start going on the road and people didn't know who I was and there were maybe four nerds in the audience and someone would come up after a show and go, listen, I don't know what everyone else was thinking about, but I thought you were great.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm like, oh, that's accomplice.
Marc:Hey, you're really likable.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're a good guy.
Marc:You're so brave to get up there the way you do.
Marc:Dude, you're good.
Marc:You're good.
Marc:You're getting laughs.
Guest:You have way more courage than I do.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:But watching guys like you and guys like Louis talk about real things and actually talk about yourselves, that was very hard to do because I'm actually kind of a private person.
Guest:And also it doesn't... Did you see the being funny, the thing with Ricky Gervais and Louis and Seinfeld?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it was fascinating because Ricky Gervais...
Guest:Who is, you know, he's a comedic actor.
Guest:He's now been doing stand-up for the last few years.
Guest:Still has, because he's a young comic, still has a lot of these weird emotional trappings that you have when you first start doing stand-up.
Guest:Like, I can't do the same jokes more than once.
Guest:I have to, you know, comedy is doing a thing.
Guest:It's not just getting up talking.
Guest:That's too easy.
Guest:Why would I just get up and talk?
Guest:It has to be a bit.
Guest:It has to be a thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it took me years to start to even just now settling into, oh, no, you can just talk about yourself and you can derive comedy from that.
Guest:It doesn't have to be.
Guest:And then I need a tag.
Guest:And then that's got to have an old twisty part.
Marc:Yeah, no, it doesn't have to be that, but sometimes you realize you're doing that anyways.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That, like, that's innately, like, after you do comedy a while, you realize, like, well, that's sort of a unique joke for me because it is a twist.
Marc:And then, you know, I think you probably think in tags more than you think.
Guest:Maybe, but I always – I look at guys like you or Louis Black or Patton or Paul F. Tompkins, and I just think you guys have it down to the point where you can – and I don't mean to take any of the sexy art out of it, but you're sort of – it's become a streamlined machine, and I can throw –
Guest:You know, I could throw any topic at you and it's going to come out as you in a relatively well formed comedy thought because that because your machine is greased and, you know, you know who you are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:OK.
Marc:OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But we're forced to.
Guest:Don't you feel like more than any profession, you're sort of forced to deal with who you are because you do comedy?
Marc:Well, I think that for me, I'm in a zone where I've never been before.
Marc:I'm very much comfortable in my skin on stage and even a little more off.
Marc:And that's never happened before.
Marc:So I'm actually, I found a little leeway to have a better time than I used to.
Guest:You do appreciate it.
Marc:Yeah, I never used to because I was so full of panic and dread and anger that like I just was like, I'm going to fucking I just got to get to this and get to that and get in.
Marc:But now, like, I actually like the audience more, even if they're shitty.
Marc:And, you know, I can, you know, like I was in Canada and I had the late shows were unmanageable almost.
Marc:And but it was like, I know how to do this.
Marc:You know, like, it's fine.
Marc:I can deal with that guy.
Marc:I can deal with this.
Marc:And all of a sudden, he's like, I earned the right to have a good time, even if I'm not doing it.
Marc:So it's different.
Guest:What's your take on Canada for comedy?
Marc:I think they're very polite audiences, and sometimes they're great audiences.
Marc:And I found that even when they got drunk and a little out of control, it seemed cultural and not aggravated.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:They definitely did not police the room as well as they should.
Marc:But there's a feeling up there.
Marc:It's like, yeah, this is how it is.
Marc:Second show Friday, man.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, but that guy, he showed his ass.
Marc:He should have been taken out of the room.
Guest:Which is kind of funny because, you know, where you're at, where people are going out of their way to see you.
Marc:A few.
Marc:It's still not a whole club's worth.
Guest:No, really?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Seriously?
No.
Marc:Not, I mean, not in Canada.
Marc:I mean, I feel, you know, there are certain cities, but I mean, I feel enough support now to where, I mean, I like, I still do comedy clubs.
Marc:So I don't, you know, I'm not doing rock clubs where it's only going to be my people.
Marc:So I like the challenge of performing for people that don't know me at all, which there are plenty.
Marc:So now I literally, as part of my act, say like, look, I got a lot of people here who know who I am.
Marc:Very well.
Marc:And then I got you people that have never fucking seen me before in my life.
Marc:So we're going to try to bridge this gap.
Marc:So it's sort of exciting, I think, for both parties to have that experience.
Guest:What is it you look for when you're watching a comic and you go, that guy?
Marc:I just want to see his vulnerability.
Guest:Interesting.
Marc:You know, if I can't, you know, if I can't feel his personness, like even if they're, they're avoiding it, there's a vulnerability up there that, that I can, I sense immediately.
Guest:And you think that, does that make it more real for you or just, you just connect with it?
Marc:Which just means it's, they're taking a risk other than wondering whether or not they're going to get a laugh.
Guest:I never thought of it that way.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:That's such a great way to think about it.
Guest:Yeah, because so much of the way that I used to write and still write to some extent is just about comedy-based and not like, no, I want to tell you who I am and here's a thing that I feel.
Guest:I was never comfortable with that before.
Marc:But even if it's not that, you can sense that this guy, he can't be doing anything else.
Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:There's nothing else this guy can be doing.
Marc:I mean, you know, this is it's all in for this guy.
Marc:You see it less now, you know, because there's a lot of people, you know, anyone can write a joke.
Marc:And really, sadly, a lot of people can tell them fairly well on stage the jokes they wrote.
Marc:But until they start, you know, till that isn't just protecting against engaging.
Marc:It's just it could be anybody.
Yeah.
Guest:That's that's that's really fascinating.
Guest:And I totally get, especially now, why you would see my stuff and then go, OK, I sort of, you know, like because I don't I'm not I was never vulnerable on stage because I hated being vulnerable.
Guest:You know, we might.
Marc:Are you ever vulnerable off stage when somebody is not attacking you?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:The comment threads.
Marc:right no I think that's but I think that that speaks to something I mean like you said you're a private person sure and and even the experiences that one chooses to share up there I mean you're only going to do as much as you can handle yeah it takes sometimes I share things it's pretty insane that I'm sharing them and they're not even funny and people are like I don't know why he's telling us this yeah and in my mind it's like well it's got to be funny because you're shocked or you're you know you're having an experience right what are you going to do with my feelings you know and I don't
Marc:I don't know that that's always the best form of entertainment.
Guest:I tell you, I saw you at the Laugh Factory once and it was fucking awesome because... It's rare that I go there.
Marc:I know.
Guest:But to see the type of comic that tends to flourish there is more of a... Hey, everybody!
Guest:Hey, remember what it was like to have a sandwich when you were a kid?
Guest:They just remind people that things existed and people equate that with like...
Guest:Oh, safety.
Guest:I recognize the thing.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:Identification.
Guest:No, you just feel safe.
Guest:And then to watch you just get up and sit on a stool and start talking about the bipolar coaster and your dad and all these real emotional things.
Guest:And it went over well.
Guest:And I was like, holy shit.
Guest:That was...
Guest:And the next comic after you again was just like, taking shits, people!
Marc:But see, I knew that, too.
Marc:And I knew, like, you know, I sacrificed this compulsion to kill with this compulsion to reveal myself.
Marc:You know, so, like, learning how to exist in that territory on stage, that took a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But...
Marc:You know, you're doing good.
Guest:Everything's everything's great.
Guest:I'm very happy with the way everything's going.
Marc:Well, so let's, you know, briefly and as a way to to to bring it around.
Marc:I mean, so you majored in philosophy.
Guest:Yes, I majored in philosophy.
Marc:So what did you take away from that experience?
Guest:I took away from the experience in a nutshell that philosophy, I feel like innately can't really be a major in college because so much of it is so much of it is subjective.
Guest:I think so much so much of the idea of philosophy and, you know, like meta ideas, so much of it is subjective.
Guest:You know, I write a paper about, you know, why.
Guest:what I thought could be the idea of existence blinking.
Guest:Like when you blink your eyes, everything around you goes away.
Guest:This sort of solipsistic idea that everything is an extension of your own experiences or whatever.
Guest:And so I would write a paper and they would grade it.
Guest:And I'd go, well, this is my opinion.
Guest:How can you grade my opinion?
Guest:I'm not spitting facts back at you.
Guest:And so I feel like philosophy...
Guest:like turned on itself in a weird sort of way.
Guest:I was like, well, if nothing really has any innate value, why am I in school?
Guest:And why am I taking classes?
Guest:And why can't I just go read books somewhere else?
Guest:And so, you know, that was kind of the experience I took away from it.
Marc:But also you didn't want to get involved.
Marc:Because philosophy as an academic pursuit remains an academic pursuit.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:What do you do with it?
Marc:And you're just adding to, you're completing, it's an ongoing equation based on the equations of other philosophers that came before you.
Guest:The thing that drove me to it was Steve Martin.
Guest:Was like, oh, Steve Martin was a philosophy major.
Guest:And I always remember he said, it screws up your thinking just enough for comedy.
Guest:And I was like, yes, okay, that's what I want.
Guest:That's what I want.
Guest:I became a philosophy major because of Steve Martin and comedy.
Marc:Did it get you that?
Guest:i don't know i don't know because that would because you know the philosophy groupies were another group that i just i didn't relate to either just these these like fat sweaty dudes in trench coats in in the summer smoking cigarettes outside being like how do i know a table is the same table that you see and i'm like because at a certain point you just have to agree on something
Guest:You just can't fucking, we can't stand here and debate that we see the same orange forever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So.
Marc:So that's funny.
Guest:So I found it to be kind of an exercise in futility at a certain point.
Guest:You just kind of have to go, this is what it is.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And this is what I'm experiencing now.
Guest:So the end.
Marc:Well, that sounds like it did help your comedy.
Guest:I guess.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Good talking to you, Chris.
Marc:Thanks, Marc Maron.
Marc:All right, that's it.
Marc:That was me and Chris.
Marc:I think it went well.
Marc:Remember, if you want to watch Chris's Nerdist TV special, it's on BBC America this Saturday, September 24th at 10 p.m.
Marc:Eastern Time.
Marc:Listen to WTF on Monday for that insane lineup.
Marc:Ira Glass, Morgan Spurlock.
Marc:Elna Baker, Joe Mandy, Wayne Kostenbaum, Nick DiPaolo, Artie Lang, Nick Griffin.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Go to the website, WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get all your WTFPod needs met.
Marc:Got a lot of great merch, a lot of new shirts, new posters.
Marc:Going to have some buttons up there soon.
Marc:Get on that mailing list.
Marc:You can also buy my CD.
Marc:That would be nice.
Marc:It's still out there if people are enjoying it.
Marc:Get that at iTunes.
Marc:Or if you go get it at the merch section on WTFPod.com, I'll sign it for you.
Marc:And, of course, the app.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:I'll be in Louisville, Kentucky at the Improv tonight through Sunday.
Marc:I just want to get that out of the way.
Marc:Bit of a plug fest today.