Episode 213 - Artie Lange, Nick DiPaolo, Nick Griffin, Joe Mande, Wayne Koestenbaum, Elna Baker, Morgan Spurlock,
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF.
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:With Mark Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucking nicks?
Marc:What the fucking mollens?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF Live at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York.
Marc:Again, what a great crowd.
Marc:What an amazing show we have planned for you.
Marc:There's more guests than you can ever imagine just behind that curtain.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm thrilled to be here.
Marc:Look, it was touch and go for a couple of days since I got here.
Marc:I don't even know how to talk about this because I don't want to sound anti-Semitic.
Marc:As a Jew, I don't want to sound anti-Semitic.
Marc:But here's how it started.
Marc:And then I got a lot of guests, so I don't want to ramble on forever.
Marc:So I land in New York City at Kennedy.
Marc:I got a car service.
Marc:I'm not a big celebrity, but I wanted a car service.
Marc:That's not asking too much, right?
Marc:So I called the car service with my confirmation number, and they said, okay, keep your eye out for a black Camry.
Marc:A Camry?
Marc:I literally had a moment where I'm like, a fucking Camry?
Marc:Is that what this has come to?
Marc:You can't send me a shitty town car so I can at least feel like I'm being driven by a car service?
Marc:I got to get in the back of a Camry with some guy who's going to be right there?
Marc:There's no elegance or importance to that.
Marc:So I was pissed off about that.
Marc:And then because there's a Dunkin' Donuts right there where you get the baggage at JFK, I don't know, there's some part of my brain that I'm starting to believe is driven by Satan, where if I see a Dunkin' Donuts, I'm like, fuck, I got to get Dunkin' Donuts.
Marc:And that coffee does something to me.
Marc:There's something wrong with it.
Marc:I don't know what's in it, but it creates a lot of turmoil in my brain, and it creates a rage I can't contain if everything doesn't go well when I'm on Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
Marc:So I go out and I see my Camry, the guy with the number.
Marc:I get in and, you know, I don't want to judge, but he's one of them.
Marc:It's not racist.
Marc:Wherever you went with that will define your own racism.
Marc:It's on you.
Marc:It's on you.
Marc:Whatever you just did in your head, that's who you are.
Marc:But I get in, and immediately, it's like a brand new Camry, so he's like, you know, pull down the armrest where the thing, he's concerned that I'm going to spill my Dunkin' Donuts in his car, and that's all he's concerned about.
Marc:And the seat's uncomfortable, and he's right there, and you can see the back of his neck.
Marc:He keeps looking back like I'm a child who can't fucking drink in a car, like I'm going to let any of that sacred juice spill out.
Marc:That shit is so fucking intense.
Marc:So I'm protecting my coffee.
Marc:And then he fucking just goes and sneezes.
Marc:He doesn't cover his fucking face.
Marc:So now I'm in this viral container getting jacked up on Dunkin' Donuts.
Marc:And he's a complete asshole.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:All right.
Marc:But then I drive to a hotel.
Marc:Usually I stay at the Le Bleu.
Marc:The Le Bleu Hotel.
Marc:But this time I was at a place called The Condor.
Marc:I didn't know what it was.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It was just another boutique hotel.
Marc:And it's in Brooklyn.
Marc:So I signed off on it.
Marc:And I'm like, okay.
Marc:And I didn't know where I was going.
Marc:So then we drive...
Marc:into, like, Jewish colonial Williamsburg.
Marc:And... And, you know, we drive in, and I see them.
Marc:And I have a visceral reaction to them.
Marc:And I'm a Jew, but when I see them, it's literally like, oh, God, they're here.
Marc:They're there.
Marc:They're all around.
Marc:It's like that.
Marc:Like, I freak the fuck out.
Marc:You know, because they're in a time warp.
Marc:It's not Poland.
Marc:It's not 1850.
Marc:You know, and...
Marc:And they, I don't know, I cannot identify what happens in me, but all I knew was like, this is fucked up.
Marc:I don't want to fucking be here.
Marc:Are you kidding me?
Marc:They dropped me off in front of this hotel that's right on Franklin Street and by Fleshing Street.
Marc:I don't even know where that is, but all I know is that I was across the street from the Suco Depot.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Jews know what that is.
Marc:Sukkot is a holiday where you build a hut and you dangle fruit from the fucking ceiling.
Marc:So not only is it is it happening apparently, but they're the Sukkot Depot where you could get a Sukkot was right there.
Marc:And I'm like, this is so fucking crazy.
Marc:And I was immediately miserable because they just freaked me out.
Marc:I don't even know how to handle them.
Marc:And I don't know if it's anti-Semitic or not.
Marc:They creep me out.
Marc:They fucking creep me out.
Marc:I'll just be honest, you know?
Marc:And I think in some part of my brain, I was taught somehow that they're the real Jews and you should respect them until, like, when I lived on the Lower East Side, I'd see them cruising for hookers on Second Avenue.
Marc:I'm like, I thought, how could... They're all rabbis in my head.
Marc:Why is a rabbi getting a hooker, you know?
Marc:So I get out, and I'm freaked out, and then, like, I realize the hotel's owned by Hasidim.
Marc:They didn't have Hasidim work there, because who the fuck would go to that hotel?
Marc:But I don't want to be anti-Semitic.
Marc:This is just my feelings, and I think it's more some weird humiliation thing with me.
Marc:So, and then they give me a room that has two twin beds, and my first thought was, like, is this part of the religion?
Marc:I mean, do they have another room?
Marc:Are we supposed to sleep like it's 1950?
Marc:And I'm alone, but I didn't want to sleep in a fucking children's bed, so...
Marc:And they said, no, we don't have any other rooms.
Marc:And then I'm furious, because Anthony Bourdain's supposed to come, and I've got to interview him.
Marc:And he's meeting there.
Marc:Like, ten minutes after I get there, he's meeting me at this hotel.
Marc:I'm in a strange place with these strange Jews around.
Marc:And I'm literally about to complain to Anthony Bourdain, who goes into real strange places.
Marc:You know, like, I had to stop myself from going, yeah, I don't know, they're all over.
Marc:You know, and...
Marc:But he comes, we do the interview, it's fine, but I'm livid.
Marc:I can't get anywhere.
Marc:It's not near anything.
Marc:It's not by Bedford Street.
Marc:There's nowhere to walk.
Marc:There's no place to eat unless you want to eat at some freaky time zone.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:The only fucking subway is the G. The fucking G?
Marc:Who the... They're useless.
Marc:I mean, you might as well say, like, you're on the moon.
Marc:Good luck.
Marc:The G?
Marc:And that's how angry I was, though, because I'm like, is there a subway nearby?
Marc:And the guy at the desk goes to G, and I'm like, fuck that.
Marc:Who the fuck even uses that train?
Marc:It never comes.
Marc:It shouldn't even exist.
Marc:So I'm furious, and I call the people that are in charge of me, and I'm not a prima donna, but I'm like, you've got to get me the fuck out of here.
Marc:And the cell phone didn't work in the building, so then I'm like, this is part of the Kabbalah conspiracy.
Marc:They know my feelings against my own people.
Marc:They don't think I'm a real Jew, and now I can't call for help.
Marc:So I go out on the street, use my cell phone, and I see them.
Marc:They're all over, and they're going into buildings and things.
Marc:And...
Marc:They're freakish, man.
Marc:They're just... They're Semitic hillbillies, all right?
Marc:They're inbred.
Marc:I mean, some woman with their fucking wig on was rolling a blonde child with the... A blonde child?
Marc:With curls down the street, one eye in his forehead?
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:But they probably think, like, it's the Messiah.
Marc:So... I think I'm being too hard on them.
Marc:But I... And I think it's my own problem.
Marc:but they're giving me the stink eye.
Marc:Like there's three of them across the street looking at me like I'm fucking weird.
Marc:I'm like, whatever.
Marc:And then a cab pulls up because I was waiting for a cab.
Marc:This was the most telling moment to me.
Marc:I'm waiting for a cab, and I'm screaming on the phone before the cab gets there.
Marc:I'm like, they're all over.
Marc:I can't even... I'm afraid to say fuck, but I'm fucking pissed.
Marc:I probably just upset a rabbi.
Marc:And then a cab pulls up because I need to get a cab, and I open it, and there's three of them in there.
Marc:I open the cab, and I just see this old man with the curls and the beard, and there were two women in there, and this is what I did.
Marc:I open it, and I'm like, ooh, sorry, and I shut the door.
LAUGHTER
Marc:Like, in my mind, I'm like, I just interrupted a secret meeting.
Marc:It completely fucked my head up.
Marc:I just blame the Dunkin' Donuts coffee, because I shouldn't hate my own people.
Marc:Anyways, I fucking got out of there, and I'm ashamed of it.
Marc:That's all I wanted to share.
Marc:Let's start our show.
Marc:I don't even know if I have time for emails.
Marc:How about one or two quick ones, all right?
Marc:This is sort of an interesting one.
Marc:No subject, okay.
Marc:Was listening to the podcast opening about you and your buddies eating the spicy chicken, pussies.
Marc:But here's where this gets a little odd.
Marc:It made me think of this story my mom used to tell me and my friends when we would get stoned together.
Marc:She died this summer, and when I get reminded of her, it makes me smile, so thanks.
Marc:Here's a story told from her point of view.
Marc:My ex-husband really liked hot peppers, and one night after dinner with hot peppers, me and him got into bed and started to fool around.
Marc:When he went to put his fingers inside of me, I got a burning sensation, and I realized that he had not washed his hands after dinner.
Marc:Don't groan, this guy's dead, Mom.
Marc:Have a little respect.
Marc:He had not washed his hands after dinner and still had the pepper juice on them.
Marc:It hurt so bad that I was about to cry.
Marc:And all he had to say was, feed it bread.
Marc:Just imagine all my teenage friends shock and horror at hearing my mother tell them this.
Marc:Like I said, thanks for the memories.
Marc:You're welcome for the memories.
Marc:Oh, come on, one more good one.
Marc:Mentioning my father's boobs causes him serious laughter.
Marc:Hi, Marc Maron.
Marc:This is gonna be a humiliation theme night, I think.
Marc:My name is Benjamin, I'm 19 years old, and I love listening to your show.
Marc:Anytime I listen, I feel like I learn so much more about myself, and from the way you describe your relationship with your father, I'm being led to believe that we are even more similar than I originally thought.
Marc:The only time I've ever really hear my father's laugh was when I'm insulting him.
Marc:My father will barge into the living room, fuming mad, and without a shirt on, he'll yank the cable cord out of the box and say something like, I'll snap this in half, to which I respond, oh, look, man boobs finally got his period.
Marc:And he will burst out in laughter.
Marc:I'm not sure why that works so well for me.
Marc:Sometimes he will be yelling at someone else, and I'll walk by and say, sup, boobs.
Marc:It's like kryptonite to him.
Marc:He just dies laughing.
Marc:What's more interesting is that my sister, Lily, cannot get away with it.
Marc:I'll walk past my dad, sup, boobs, hysterical laughing.
Marc:Then my father turns his head to Lily, and she'll jump up and say something like, you have boobs.
Marc:Then for the next couple minutes, we may hear crying.
Marc:It's incredibly strange.
Marc:Right now, I'm not sure what it all means and why my dad loves when I insult him.
Marc:It seems unhealthy.
Marc:Hope you get to read this.
Marc:Thank you, Benjamin.
Marc:Thank you, Benjamin.
Marc:All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to bring out our first special guest because I want him to be here for the whole thing.
Marc:Please welcome Ira Glass to the stage.
Guest:Here, yeah, sit here.
Guest:Ira Glass.
Guest:I'm having a weird experience tonight here at Bell House because every fourth person I see walks up to me and says, huh, the other night.
Marc:Yeah, let's talk about that, Ira.
Marc:I miss that, but apparently you got shit-faced.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, two nights ago at Eugene Merman's Comedy Festival, there was a show that was the drunk show that my wife, Anahid, produced.
Guest:And so I couldn't say no.
Guest:And so it was a bunch of us on stage, including Rachel Maddow and John Hodgman and Leo Allen and Jodi...
Marc:Lennon.
Guest:Lennon, thank you.
Guest:And some others too.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember, and basically the gig was we were supposed to get progressively drunker over the course of the show.
Marc:Were you playing quarters or some sort of highbrow quarters?
Marc:Basically.
Guest:Yeah, there were a bunch of funny games and things.
Marc:Shakespeare's second play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember the first 15 minutes of the show.
Marc:Oh shit, you blacked out?
Marc:Because...
Guest:Which I've never done.
Guest:I've literally never done.
Guest:I woke up.
Guest:I remember the first 15 minutes in detail.
Guest:Rachel Maddow, John Hodgman.
Guest:I remember what they said.
Guest:I remember what I said.
Guest:I remember somebody made a speech about the 12 steps.
Guest:And then I remember nothing else.
Guest:And I woke up the next morning in my clothes smelling a vomit.
Guest:Ira Glass!
Guest:Ira Glass!
Guest:And it's just gone.
Guest:It's like, dude.
Marc:Well, I guess you didn't see these pictures then because there's a series.
Guest:Are you serious?
Marc:Yeah, oh yeah, this is you.
Marc:I literally have no idea.
Marc:Did you even know whose dog that was?
Marc:So you blacked out and threw up on yourself.
Marc:See, this makes me, like this humanizes you, Ira.
Marc:I think that this is an opportunity.
Marc:I saw it when I heard about it, and I knew you were going to be on the show.
Marc:I was like, what a great thing that has happened to Ira Glass.
Marc:He's gotten drunk in public and vomited on himself and has no idea what happened in about a two-hour chunk.
Marc:And I wish that I could do this American Life episode of you recounting that lost time.
Marc:I wish that I could find...
Marc:you know, witnesses that I would put together and sort of go, this is a story about a man who doesn't drink often.
Marc:And move through that with a series of witnesses.
Marc:But it'd have to be a really good story.
Marc:But I have a feeling you were probably just fucking passed out somewhere.
Guest:Yeah, no, I honestly don't know what happened.
Marc:Your wife didn't tell you?
Guest:She's keeping it from you?
Guest:Well, she said what anybody would say in the situation, which was she said, you didn't embarrass yourself.
Guest:Ah, that's her job.
Guest:Which I'm choosing sort of to believe.
Guest:And then I'm bruised.
Guest:And then I said, well, why am I bruised up and down my body?
Guest:And she said, because all six of you formed a human pyramid.
Guest:which collapsed, and you were at the bottom.
Guest:And so I know that that happened.
Marc:That's so much better than waking up with a transvestite hooker.
Marc:Because that would have been like, you know, if she had let that happen, I would say you would have something to talk about with her.
Marc:But just a human pyramid, that's as shameful as it got?
Guest:I don't know what else happened.
Guest:I mean, I really don't, and I haven't inquired.
Marc:See, now I really wish that I could have Anahit up here to tell the truth.
Marc:Because at some point, you vomited on yourself, and that's really the high point of the story.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, Elena Baker, who's here, was in the show, and Jody was in the show.
Marc:Yeah, but no one told you.
Marc:Usually... I haven't inquired.
Guest:I don't want to know.
Marc:The one time I woke up in a McDonald's, I went to a high school football game...
Guest:That's the last time you blacked out?
Marc:You were in high school?
Marc:No, I blacked out later, and that was a really scary one because I didn't know what happened, and I went home, and my wife at the time, my first wife, played a message I'd left on the answering machine, and it was just me saying, I'll be home as soon as I can get out of this dream.
LAUGHTER
Marc:I have no recollection of what happened.
Marc:I vaguely remember being led to a cab by a couple, and my shirt was inside out.
Marc:That's all I got.
Guest:So you haven't blacked out a lot.
Marc:No, but the McDonald's thing was one of these stories where I came to, I was in high school, and I came to at our McDonald's.
Marc:I had gone to a game in Santa Fe, 60 miles away.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And I was with friends and I drove.
Marc:And I came to in the McDonald's in Albuquerque with no car.
Marc:And people were starting to come in from the game.
Marc:I was alone in a booth.
Marc:And some girl who I liked came up to me and said, why do you have rice in your hair?
Marc:And I could not answer that question.
Marc:And apparently, I was laying in the bleachers, vomiting like a fountain.
Marc:And it had gone into my hair.
Marc:The worst part of that story is no one apparently thought, like, he may die in asphyxiate.
Marc:But I'm sure they were like, ah, fuck, look at that.
Marc:What do you got on the vomiting?
Guest:I remember throwing up in the back room over there.
Guest:That's the only memory I have of the entire... With people around?
Guest:I know that it was just me and my wife in the room, which I'm glad about.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what brings marriages tighter, is those moments.
Guest:I was talking to her.
Guest:I hope it's okay with her that I tell this story.
Guest:She's blacked out once while drunk, and the thing that she did is... You know my cousin, Philip, is this composer, this famously composer?
Guest:Ira Glass and Philip Glass.
Guest:She drunk-dialed Philip Glass...
Guest:And she didn't know what happened either.
Guest:And Philip's girlfriend called her up the next day to say, like, hey, you were pretty drunk last night.
Guest:And Ani's like, what are you talking about?
Guest:She's like, you drunk-dialed Philip at 3 in the morning and woke us up.
Marc:She's probably just wanted to see if he's answering.
Marc:And she went... That is so... That really is the level one Philip Glass joke.
LAUGHTER
Guest:That's the best you can do.
Guest:Professional comedian.
Marc:Really, has it ever been framed on the answering machine level?
Marc:I mean... Have you ever done that to his face?
Marc:Hey, Philip.
Guest:He's told me the Philip Glass knock-knock joke, which is knock-knock.
Marc:Who's there?
Marc:Knock-knock.
Marc:Who's there?
Guest:Knock-knock.
Marc:You get it.
Marc:And he probably loves that joke.
Marc:All right, so we're going to... Before I... Like, now that you've been humanized for everybody here as a man... Why do I need to be humanized?
Guest:I'm human.
Marc:I know, but, like, you know, people, like, they... I'm human.
Guest:I'm a human being.
Guest:What... How do you perceive me that you don't think I'm human?
Marc:Ira Glass performs The Elephant Man off-Broadway.
Marc:I...
Guest:No, I don't perceive you as not human.
Guest:What a weird thing to say to somebody, now that I've made you human.
Marc:I didn't make you human.
Marc:Did I say make you now that I've made you human?
Marc:No, I mean, you know, people, like, I think people are very curious, you know, about Ira Glass's life when he gets off of the radio.
Marc:You're a radio guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And a lot of people don't know a lot about you, and now we all know that you threw up on yourself and blacked out.
Yeah.
Marc:And that's a wonderful thing.
Marc:When I heard about that, I'm like, this is wonderful that Ira's out socializing and doing stuff like that publicly.
Marc:It's about fucking time that we see the real Glass come out vomiting and not being able to explain his evening.
Guest:Okay, point taken.
Marc:Okay, just a couple other questions and we'll move down.
Marc:What does Ira Glass eat for breakfast?
Marc:Puffins.
Yeah!
Woo!
Marc:Really?
Marc:No.
Marc:Seriously, Ira Glass gets out of bed.
Marc:Do you stretch?
Guest:No.
Marc:Do you get out of bed?
Guest:I get out of bed and try to avoid the dog from biting me.
Marc:That's a very exciting beginning of the day.
Marc:He's a pit bull.
Marc:So you get out of bed frightened?
Marc:You're like, oh, oh, God.
Guest:I actually have to be very cautious because the dog will get very protective of Anahid if I make a wrong move getting out of the bed.
Marc:Look what we're learning.
Marc:He's a blackout drinker and he has a vicious dog that protects his wife from him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My God, Ira, this is a big night.
Marc:And then what happens?
Guest:Then I quickly throw on some clothes, the same outfit every day pretty much.
Marc:You're like Albert Einstein.
Marc:You just have two.
Marc:You have a white shirt and pants.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Every day.
Marc:So it's consistency because you're thinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just I hate shopping because I hate myself and I don't know what clothes to wear.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I get into an existential crisis when I have to choose clothes because I think, well, who am I that I would wear this shirt rather than this one?
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm not proud of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a period about 10 years ago where I would have to get drunk in order to buy clothes, but now I don't have to do that.
Marc:No, now apparently just get drunk to get into human pyramids.
Marc:You've grown up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow, you used to get junk just to buy clothes.
Guest:Just once or twice to get over the hump.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So you get shit-faced and then go buy clothes.
Marc:No, you just need a little buzz.
Marc:A little buzz?
Marc:A little buzz.
Marc:Did you ever come home with something and be like, look what I got.
Marc:It's a Nehru jacket.
Marc:Yes.
LAUGHTER
Guest:Of course.
Guest:But I just took that as, like, the kind of, like, tax on the way that I was doing it.
Guest:Like, if you're going to go and get drunk before you go shopping, you just have to accept there's going to be a certain amount of shrink.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, there's going to be a certain amount of, like, mistakes that are made.
Marc:Do you wear them as sort of a shame, like, shame pants?
Marc:No, they just stay in the closet.
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, because I have to wear them then to, like... Yeah, to fully feel the shame?
Marc:Like, why are you wearing those pants?
Marc:Because I'm punishing me!
LAUGHTER
Marc:Well, I think we've learned a lot.
Marc:I mean, is there a part of your day?
Marc:So you have coffee?
Marc:What do you have, a little oatmeal?
Marc:Some muesli?
Guest:No, I don't do any of those things.
Guest:I walk to work, and then I either get a piece of fruit or some yogurt or something, and then just, like, go right to work.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:And then you get into the work.
Marc:Now, what do you do?
Marc:Like, what does Ira... This is not interesting.
Marc:Are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:People here are, like, there's... Out there, there's hipster mouths agape.
Yeah.
Marc:They're like, oh my God, he's mortal, and he has a dog, and he drinks to shop.
Marc:Do you eat cereal in the morning?
Marc:I eat cereal constantly.
Marc:Sometimes I'll make oatmeal in the morning.
Marc:Sometimes I'll wait a while.
Marc:Sometimes I'll get some Trader Joe's bran flakes and flax seeds and blueberries and raspberries and vanilla soy milk just so I can honor my mother's weird eating disorder and maybe poop really good later.
Marc:Ira, this is life.
Marc:It comes down to that.
Marc:It's like, how can I plan my poop to be better?
Marc:That's what we're all heading towards.
Marc:Where's that, this American Life episode?
Guest:I've literally never had that thought in my head of eating something to regulate the poop.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I just introduced you to that?
Guest:I'm not going to start it either.
Marc:Maybe you should think about it.
Guest:I'm going to look at that idea, just go down the road, and I'm going to wave goodbye to it.
Marc:Talk to me in 10 years when you're wondering why you can't poop good.
Marc:And then you realize, like, did my life, is this all my life is now?
Marc:And the only answer you can give yourself is yes.
Marc:I don't want to think about poop.
Marc:I had that feeling that you would be that guy.
Marc:We all do it, Ira.
Marc:You're judging me.
Marc:You're a guy that threw up on himself the other night, and I think it's high time you start thinking about poop and grow the fuck up.
Marc:Ira Glass, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Stay here, though.
Marc:You can move down and get that other mic.
Marc:I'm going to leave Ira up here because I feel like maybe I was mean to him, and he can just chime in whenever he wants and make me small.
Okay.
Marc:Our next guest is documentary filmmaker and raconteur Morgan Spurlock.
Marc:Morgan Spurlock.
Marc:Have a mic.
Marc:Ira, we're good, right?
Marc:Yeah, we're good.
Guest:Wait, are you worried that I'm mad at you?
Guest:He looks furious.
Marc:No, I just feel like maybe... We are totally good.
Marc:Okay, this is Morgan.
Marc:Do you know Morgan?
Marc:I do know Morgan.
Marc:It's very surprising to see Morgan when he's not making a documentary of some kind.
Marc:i thought you'd come out with a camera this is it this is going to be good is it going to be an all documentary night like michael moore is next and then i don't that would be difficult he loves the cupcakes backstage by the way yeah michael stop so have some self-respect michael you can't eat justice um
Marc:He's not here, he's not here.
Marc:The first time I met Morgan's burlock, I had no idea who he was and neither did you.
Marc:It was like, I can't even remember what year it was, but I get this call.
Marc:Do you remember how it would have been like 2002?
Marc:I don't even know how it happened, but he's like, I got this great idea.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's an animated thing and we're going to do a bunch of them.
Marc:And he goes, it's called Tommy Tourette's.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Who better than Marc Maron for that character?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you had this big vision.
Guest:This is like pre-Super Size Me.
Guest:I had this web company.
Guest:And so the whole goal was to create programming on the internet that we were then going to sell off to TV shows.
Guest:Me and 8 million other people had that brilliant idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But at no point did either of us think that it was in any way offensive to people that might suffer from this horrible.
Guest:We're like, this is a genius idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But wasn't the idea was it was a series of animated shorts of this character that just can't control himself in a work environment.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So your idea was like, we'll have Tommy Tourette's 2.0 and then you'll just keep upgrading and everybody will want this thing.
Marc:It was just a guy that walked around the office going, is this the copier?
Marc:Fucking, I can't stand this shit.
Marc:Fuck that.
Yeah.
Marc:And you were like, this is great.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:And so we started off.
Guest:We launched the whole thing.
Guest:We couldn't afford to do the whole series.
Guest:And we said, well, you know what we'll do?
Guest:We'll do South Park.
Guest:And South Park launched with a Christmas episode.
Guest:So what we'll do is we'll make a Christmas card where Tommy Tourette's will sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And so we made this animated Tommy Tourette's Christmas card where you could up the level of Tourette's in the video as you watched it.
Marc:So it was like, we wish you a, fuck, shit, fucking, don't marry, fuck, Christmas, right?
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Guest:And so we sent that out at Christmas, and that was the end of it.
Marc:And then all of a sudden I see you like, then Super Size Me happens in what year?
Guest:2004, it premiered.
Marc:And then it's like, I know that guy.
Marc:That's the Tommy Tourette's guy.
Marc:And then I realized, like, this dude.
Guest:I have no idea what you're talking about.
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:But then you did that other thing where you, I remember being part of that, too, where, or at least witnessing it, where you walked around Washington Square trying to get people to eat poop and stuff.
Guest:When we were doing the same Tommy Tretz thing, we created this web show called I Bet You Will, where we would bet people to do stupid things for money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so what we did is we'd go out and bet people to do stupid things.
Guest:And one of the things was we had a prop guy make fake poo that we planted in the park.
Guest:Oh, it was fake.
Guest:It was fake.
Guest:It wasn't real poo.
Guest:And did some guy eat it?
Guest:And so we bet some guy to eat it.
Guest:And so we paid him like 500 bucks.
Marc:He didn't know it was fake?
Guest:He thought it was real poo.
Guest:So it was all just like this fantastic psychological warfare that was going on.
Guest:Somebody did that for $500?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, he's talking about poop for the rest of his life now, Ira.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That show was not on NPR.
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm just thinking about, like, so you tell him after, like, when does he figure out that it's fake?
Guest:Oh, no, we never told him.
Guest:No, we never told him.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:So on the first bite, is he like... Unless he's listening to this podcast, he still thinks he's the guy who ate poo on a show.
Guest:Wait, wait, so what did it taste like?
Guest:Like, what flavor did it taste like?
Guest:I didn't even try it.
Guest:It smelled so bad, I didn't even go there.
Guest:It was brown flavor with chunks.
Guest:You made fake...
Guest:You made something that was disgusting as actual poop?
Guest:But it was made out of real food.
Guest:It was made out of real food and cheese products.
Guest:But it looked and it had the same consistency of a fine dog log.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:See that?
Marc:We should find this guy.
Marc:He should be on an episode of This American Life.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Remember the old John Waters film where Divine eats the poo?
Marc:That was real poo.
Guest:You saw it come out of the dog.
Guest:That's the way we roll in Baltimore.
Guest:It comes out of the dog.
Guest:I don't know how I feel about this poo fakery that you're introducing to American cinema, my good man.
Guest:This aired on MTV.
Guest:I wouldn't know if I'd call it cinema.
Marc:How did you feel about Divine eating poo when you saw it?
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:It was shocking.
Guest:It was mind-blowing.
Guest:World-changing.
Marc:So, all right, so then you go from there to the eat and poop, and then you make this fucking rocking documentary.
Guest:We sold that show to MTV, and we ended up doing 53 episodes of this show for MTV.
Guest:And then when they canceled the show, we had, because at that point, I had amassed about a quarter of a million dollars in credit card debt.
Guest:After post 9-11, like I couldn't, there was no jobs, there was no production.
Guest:And so I kept my company going with credit cards, kept paying people with credit cards.
Guest:And so during the course of making that show, I paid off about $50,000 worth of that debt and had, and made about 50 grand.
Guest:So I had like 50 grand in the bank.
Guest:And so I said, well, I could either
Guest:take this $50,000 and throw it into that bottomless pit of debt, or we could make a movie.
Guest:Because that's logical.
Guest:And so we got the idea for Super Size Me, and that's what we made.
Marc:And that was it that launched you.
Marc:A guy who almost kills himself
Marc:Eating shitty things made you a star.
Guest:See, I threw up out of a window.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, just like national public regurgitation.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it was fantastic.
Guest:So it was just like, so now we have that in common.
Guest:Yeah, we do.
Guest:It's like we have bonded now over vomiting.
Guest:We have.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Okay, but then you went on to do, there's a lot of things.
Marc:I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, is your vision, like, what was the series called where you have people live uncomfortably?
Marc:30th.
Guest:30 days.
Guest:That wasn't kind of the mission, but it just kind of happened.
Marc:So the idea with that was, like, let's take this guy... Yeah, you take somebody... I'm not being condescending.
Marc:I just don't have bad memory.
Guest:It's just your nature.
Guest:No, I'm not.
Marc:Okay, wait.
Marc:Let me ask you a question, my what-the-fuck audience.
Marc:Would you rather I do research?
Marc:Look, I fucking have his wiki page right here.
Marc:I could have been like, I could have made notes and his credits.
Marc:You know, I understood.
Marc:Did I get to the kernel of what the show was?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Moving on.
Marc:No, I enjoyed the two episodes I saw.
Guest:The only idea was like you'd take people and put them in a situation where they'd have to kind of question their own beliefs, like in a situation that's kind of antithetical to their own.
Guest:And it would make them very uncomfortable.
Marc:Right, but it was good, right?
Marc:Did you find, like, people, did you learn from that?
Marc:Did people learn?
Marc:Did you go back when, didn't you put, like, a Christian dude in a gay household or something?
Guest:Yeah, there was a guy who ended up living and moving into the Castro with a gay guy who was completely against homosexuals in the military and gay marriage.
Marc:And how did that end up for that guy?
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:It changed that guy's life.
Guest:The two guys became friends.
Marc:Do you follow up with these people?
Guest:Well, there's the best story that came out of that episode.
Guest:The gay guy in the episode, Ed, was walking down the street in the Castro, and this guy comes up and hugs him after the show.
Guest:And he's like, what was that for?
Guest:He goes, I got to tell you, I came out to my parents seven years ago, and they threw me out of the house.
Guest:And they haven't called me, they haven't written to me, they won't talk to me.
Guest:And 15 minutes after that show aired last week, they called me for the first time.
Marc:Which was amazing.
Marc:So that's fucking great.
Guest:Yeah, so to have something like that happen out of a show is incredible.
Marc:That is incredible.
Marc:And now what one are you working on now?
Marc:Didn't you just have one at a festival?
Guest:I just had, yeah, I just had a film at the Toronto International Film Festival called Comic-Con Episode 4, A Fan's Hope.
Guest:That we, yeah.
Guest:that we filmed at San Diego Comic-Con last year.
Marc:Can you spoil it a little bit?
Marc:Has anyone seen it?
Guest:Well, it's a film that's all about kind of the geek-tastic universe of San Diego Comic-Con.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a film that we made with Stan Lee and Joss Whedon.
Guest:We followed seven different people into Comic-Con.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I tell the story of this kind of, you know, nerd mecca, you know, through their experiences.
Marc:Nerd mecca.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And were you satisfied with it?
Marc:You like it?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:I love the way the film came out.
Guest:It's spectacular.
Marc:Now, what's this project you want me to be part of?
Guest:there's a there's a show that we do there's a show that we do for hulu called a day in the life which um we've been doing for thank you that guy saw it that's the thank you thanks for watching that's the power of hulu that one guy thank you sir tell your other friend season finale this wednesday um so each episode we spend one day with somebody like from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to bed and uh i think you'd be great for the next season oh that'd be what do you guys think
Marc:Let's build it around an event, like maybe a doctor's visit or something.
Marc:Yeah, something, yeah.
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:Or go to Whole Foods with me.
Marc:And I'll steal something.
Marc:Or maybe we can make the rounds.
Marc:Look, I'm not going to pitch myself to you, but I appreciate the offer.
Marc:So where do you got to go now?
Marc:I know you got to leave.
Guest:I'm part of a benefit tonight for Burma Relief that I got to go to tonight.
Guest:So I'm part of one of the hosts for the thing.
Marc:Oh, you're going to host a segment?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I'm like one of the people who's hosting this benefit to raise money for Burma.
Guest:What time does that start?
Guest:It started at seven.
Yeah.
Guest:Now I feel guilty.
Guest:See, I'm not kidding.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:What are your duties at this thing?
Guest:You didn't even dress.
Guest:No, I'm going to change in the car.
Guest:It's like I got my suit in the car.
Guest:And then are you going to go on stage and make a speech about healing?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Healing.
Guest:What are you going to say?
Marc:i'm gonna say uh we should all do our part to pitch it and help wow thank you guys thank you guys dig deep everybody dig deep morgan spurlock ira glass just gave morgan a dollar for burma thanks a lot buddy good to see you please welcome to the stage the author of the new york uh regional mormon singles halloween dance elena baker ladies and gentlemen
Guest:Hello.
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Thank you for coming.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:So what did Ira do when he got all fucked up?
Guest:Okay, I actually, I had Edward Fortyhands the whole show, but I remember much more than Ira.
Guest:The best he got, he had to do drunctionary.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:And the word was gerrymandering.
Guest:yeah and he drew three circles that looked like a snowman and a line and another snowman and we didn't know what it was sure and so he just kept pointing like obviously that's gerrymandering
Guest:That's a really hard word to do while drunk.
Guest:And the show, it was 12 Steps, the drinking game.
Guest:So we read each step of AA and had a game for each step.
Guest:So like step one was admitting you're powerless over alcohol.
Guest:So Leo Allen had to put on a beer costume and arm wrestle everyone.
Guest:Wait, I remember.
Guest:I arm wrestled.
Guest:It's so nice of you.
Guest:And I lost.
Guest:I lost.
Guest:But I really thought I was going to win because he doesn't look that strong.
Marc:You know what's beautiful about...
Marc:The intelligent comedy community is their empathy and their sympathy for people that have a real problem in their life.
Marc:And I just really want to thank you guys for keeping the level high with people that are dealing with a sometimes deadly disease.
Marc:I personally can appreciate that.
Guest:Step five is admitting that you have a problem.
Marc:Oh, you don't got to tell me.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So we brought Dan St.
Guest:Germain, who's sober now.
Guest:We brought him out to tell his rock-bottom sober story.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:The guy's, like, ten minutes sober.
Marc:You probably sent him out.
Marc:Call Dan St.
Marc:Germain and make sure he's all right.
Guest:So we told his sober story, and we were supposed to heckle him the whole time.
Guest:That's what we did on stage?
Guest:Yeah, you were great.
Guest:Dan... Dan...
Guest:Dan started his story by saying, I live with my parents, and Ira jumped up and was like, wait, whoa, whoa, you live with your parents?
Guest:And then Eugene Merman, who was also in it, said, wait, Ira, you do stories about people who live underwater.
Guest:Why is that so shocking?
Marc:Is Anahid here?
Marc:Because I think we really need the vomit story.
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:He was backstage vomiting after the show.
Marc:But other people were around, right?
Guest:Other people were around.
Guest:She took him into the room and closed the door and just said to us, Ira is sick.
Guest:It all happened behind closed doors.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let's get into this Mormon business.
Guest:All right.
Marc:Now, are you done with that?
Marc:Or where are we at with that?
Guest:Well... So sensitive.
Guest:Very sensitive.
Guest:Well, I moved to New York when I was 18.
Guest:I was a Mormon for nine years practicing.
Guest:Didn't drink smoke.
Guest:I never tried coffee.
Marc:Did you wear the silly underpants?
Guest:I didn't because you have to go on a mission or get married to get those.
Marc:You have to earn the funny underpants?
Guest:You do.
Marc:I had no idea.
Guest:Yeah, you don't just get them.
Marc:What?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Did you know that?
Marc:That's one of the payoffs?
Guest:I did know that, but I don't know why I know that.
Guest:I don't look down on you for not knowing that.
Marc:Now, okay, maybe I'll try to be more sensitive because this is real.
Guest:And in the new Mitt Romney presidency, you will pay for anything you say now.
Guest:Wait, are they going to take my name and put it in a mountain?
No.
Guest:you will be baptized after you die how is that fucking right i've actually done that you've baptized dead people yeah i mean it was back in a time where i didn't think that was wrong or weird i mean i thought it was a little weird you just getting i don't i'm this i'm gonna get in trouble you're not supposed to talk about what happens what happens when you get in trouble with the mormons
Guest:You get excommunicated, which I've been afraid.
Guest:I've been not practicing for about a year and a half.
Guest:It was a really hard step to take.
Guest:I've essentially lived a year and a half of my life like a teenager, doing everything you all do in a very natural sense, and at each moment thinking, this is horrifying.
Guest:Act like it's normal.
Guest:But yeah, so for the last year and a half, I've been afraid that at some point I would get excommunicated.
Guest:But you're not supposed to talk about what you do in the temple, but you're like, go.
Guest:Wait, wait, so when they baptize, what does it mean if the person is dead and not present?
Guest:And do they use water?
Guest:Yeah, you get in a big vault.
Guest:It's like a water vault.
Guest:A water vault?
Guest:But then the person isn't there, right?
Guest:What's a water vault look like?
Guest:There's, I believe it's 12 oxen.
Guest:There are statues of oxen.
Guest:This is a real place?
Guest:So it's a place called the water vault.
Guest:Don't go chasing water vault.
Marc:And you go in it, and they close the door, and there's 12 oxen.
Guest:You have to wear white, so they put you in a little white jumpsuit.
Guest:And then you get in the water, and they say, I baptize you.
Marc:Did someone just say yeah?
Marc:Do we have an assassin here?
Guest:Are you a Mormon?
Guest:Basically, they baptize you for someone's name.
Guest:They read the name and then they baptize you.
Guest:It's not that weird.
Marc:No, it is fucking weird.
Marc:You're in a room that's got oxen statues in a pool wearing a special outfit, you know, calling up the names of dead people in order to deliver them to a cartoon character of some kind.
Guest:And how many people will you do at a stretch?
Guest:Would you do like 15, 20, 25 dead people at a run?
Guest:Do you have to go underwater for each one?
Guest:You have to go completely immersed, and it just depends on your endurance.
Guest:Some people can do five.
Marc:Does somebody hold the record?
Marc:I did 97!
Marc:I'm the fucking super dead baptizer.
Guest:I feel like I'm being really, really mocking of this ridiculous... Yeah, to be honest, I think the idea behind it is a nice idea, which is that this is a new religion, and so all those people who lived before didn't get a chance.
Guest:If we baptize them, they don't have to choose, but in the afterlife, they'll have the opportunity to say, okay, or no.
Marc:Yeah, but on some level, it's almost like necrophilia.
Marc:It's like, that guy would have wanted to fuck me if he were alive.
Marc:Now I have the opportunity because he can't do anything about it.
Guest:Why would this be God's system?
Guest:Why does he need you to do the fake baptism?
Guest:Why can't he just come to you after you're dead and say, do you want into this religion?
Guest:The real answer is that we can only do things if we have a body.
Guest:And if we don't have a body and we're a spirit, then you can't have the choice.
Guest:So you need somebody with a body to make the choice for you.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Like, I feel like everybody was... Their souls just got raped.
Marc:Like, everybody in this room felt a little soul rape.
Marc:Because, like, you had to go from, like, all right, yeah, I'm doing things.
Marc:Now I'm out.
Marc:And look at that guy.
Marc:Hey, don't fucking do that!
Marc:That's what happened to me, anyways, just now.
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:So, okay, so I see it's still, like, sort of difficult for you.
Marc:So, drinking, fun?
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember the first time I drank.
Guest:I just remember thinking, like, everyone is so agreeable.
Guest:Like, I am making so many friends, and I didn't know why.
Guest:It's just like, tonight is so fun.
Marc:And did that also happen with the sex?
Guest:Oh, that's another story.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I mean, part of the, do you know the landmark forum?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You didn't go right from Mormon to that, did you?
Guest:Well, what happened was I was still Mormon, but I was like figuring out what I wanted to do or not.
Guest:And for Christmas, someone bought me the landmark forum.
Marc:Wait, I don't know what that is.
Marc:What is it?
Guest:Mark, can you explain it?
Marc:It's the hot-rotting of Est.
Marc:It's a similar sort of, like, system of Est.
Marc:You know, you can stop things from being put in your head.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I mean, and so... But for Christmas, someone bought me that, and it was expensive, so I was like, I guess I'll... But also the notion of, like, what do we buy our Mormon friend?
Guest:She likes colts.
Marc:So... I guess just a Landmark Forum t-shirt.
Yeah.
Guest:So I went and part of, this is true, the way I stopped being Mormon was that they, I went and I thought it was really ridiculous the whole time and I was kind of judging it in my head.
Guest:And then the guy called me up from the audience and he said, I feel like you're a cynical person about this.
Guest:And he said, just try on for a minute the idea that there is no God and that life is meaningless and empty and that there's no hope.
Marc:That guy's hilarious.
Guest:So I tried on the idea.
Guest:I was like, I thought of a really sad moment.
Guest:My dog died.
Guest:I thought of that moment.
Guest:And then I tried it on.
Guest:I didn't take it off.
Guest:And I left.
Guest:And I gave my very first blowjob.
Guest:LAUGHTER
Guest:to to that guy the guy had been dating but it was I mean I probably cried the whole time thinking about my dead dog oh my god that's the hottest thing I've ever heard
Marc:A crying blowjob.
Marc:Whoa.
Guest:And that's how it all went downhill.
Marc:Thank you for sharing.
Marc:Elena Baker, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Let's move down.
Marc:You can stay here, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:My God, a crying blowjob.
Marc:How did your boyfriend feel about that?
Guest:I mean, each step of the way.
Guest:I mean, I feel bad for him.
Marc:I just want to hear how he coached you through that.
Marc:Can you give me a couple of quotes?
Marc:Like, it's okay, baby.
Marc:You're doing a good job.
Marc:What did he say?
Guest:Just let the tears land.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:whatever you thought you did to offend the mormon church there's like hundreds of masturbating mormons out there right now they're like finally one of our own is free
Marc:This next guest, this is a very interesting story because this show is actually theming out just perfect.
Marc:I got this in the mail from a publisher.
Marc:I will name the publisher if I can.
Marc:Oh, it's a Picador paperback original.
Marc:I'm on some mailing list.
Marc:And look at the cover of this book.
Marc:It's just called Humiliation.
Humiliation.
Marc:So I'm like, what the fuck is this?
Marc:And I cannot stop reading this book.
Marc:I'm fucking obsessed with it.
Marc:I don't even know how to describe it to you.
Marc:But it's sort of like a 200-page meditation on the idea of humiliation and its impact on art, aesthetics, culture, individuals, psychology.
Marc:It's one of these books where I've decided that every answer I need for the rest of my life is in it.
Marc:And I have the author of the book here,
Marc:Please welcome Wayne Kostenbaum to the stage.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Grab a mic.
Marc:Now, to set you up a bit, you are a professor.
Guest:Yes, I am.
Marc:Where at?
Guest:The City University of New York.
Guest:Graduate center.
Marc:And what do you teach?
Guest:I teach English literature, but also culture and anything I want.
Guest:Oh, so you're a broad... I have taught humiliation twice.
Guest:Wait, you've taught a course?
Guest:It's a class.
Guest:This is based on a class I taught.
Marc:It just says humiliation in the syllabus?
Guest:It's humiliation.
Guest:It's a graduate center.
Marc:Is there no explanation?
Guest:There's a little explanation.
Guest:I say that we're going to talk about the role of humiliation in...
Marc:art and literature and in aesthetic process which means like what you do right well no my my life is based on humiliation that's why but there's some stuff in here like i don't even know how to get into this because i just underline shit this is what i do like i read things and i'm like holy fuck i gotta underline that and in this one i'm suggesting that we define humiliation as the intrusion of an unwanted substance or action upon an undefended body wow yep
Marc:There's something about the idea of humiliation.
Marc:Because I think that comics, that my biggest fear in life is to be embarrassed.
Marc:That is my biggest fear.
Marc:I had a mother that inevitably I would sit at a table at a restaurant.
Marc:We'd have the menus.
Marc:And my mother would say, can you give me spaghetti without the pasta and maybe just the tomatoes and then grill some vegetables?
Marc:Like every thought.
Marc:So, like, she embarrassed the shit out of me.
Marc:So somehow or another, I do stand-up comedy to not be embarrassed.
Guest:Well, we had the same mother because the behavior in restaurants in my family is atrocious.
Guest:It's just really extremely embarrassing.
Guest:My sister says, spicy foods are difficult for me.
Guest:How hot is this?
Guest:My brother says, is this filling enough?
Guest:What's the portion size?
Guest:And then you're just sitting there like, can we just fucking eat, you freaks?
Guest:No, that's why I became a writer.
Guest:So I could write about these things.
Guest:But of course, you humiliate yourself every day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you change it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You make it kind of a heroic drama.
Marc:I mean, like that film.
Marc:I like the sound of that.
Guest:You know, I like to flatter straight men.
Guest:It's one of my hobbies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's actually true.
Marc:See, that was both, that was both complimentary and also dismissing in some way.
Marc:Like, I felt special for a minute and then you took away.
Marc:I think you humiliated me a bit because I was like, I could, you know, maybe if this works out well, something weird could happen.
Marc:And then...
Guest:and then all of a sudden you just lump me in with everybody no no no i humiliated myself but i also i had what happens when i had a moment of insight i realized i said a kind of thing i called you a hero i thought i've been doing that for 40 years i'm always calling straight men on quests heroes and so i had to i'm an honest guy and i say exactly what the reigning truth seems to me at the moment okay so let's get back to this so am i still a hero or where are we at with that
Guest:No, I think you're a hero.
Guest:I don't... I think you are a hero.
Marc:Okay, we're good again.
Guest:You're a self... No, this is serious.
Guest:This is not flattering a straight guy.
Guest:You're a self-documenter.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And that I admire, and that's the legacy.
Guest:That is the humiliated... Oh, my God.
Marc:I'm putting that on my resume.
Marc:Self-documenter.
Marc:You're a self-ethnographer.
Marc:A self-ethnographer?
Marc:Like of my own country.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:This is fucking awesome.
Guest:You anatomize the little, the crevices between, the crevices that usually go without saying.
Guest:That's your specialty.
Guest:It's getting grosser and grosser.
Guest:Crevices.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I think that I'm on a date.
Guest:I am.
Guest:See, funny that I got in crevices so soon.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Can I just read like a couple more things?
Marc:Because I think that there's a lot of poetry to this.
Marc:For a long time.
Marc:Civilization has been in the business of siphoning the body away from the scene of vocal expression, of interpersonal confrontation.
Marc:More and more, the industries of communication and entertainment, with their globalizing quest to amuse, stimulate, connect, secretly work to deaden or desubjectify the human voice.
Guest:Yes, that's true.
Marc:He wrote that, man.
Marc:Holy fuck.
Marc:I don't even know what that means, but I'm fucking blown away.
Guest:I won't say crevices, but I will say that because you are using your voice and this is live, we are not the culprits in that deadening of human sensibilities.
Guest:They're just doing it to us.
Guest:Yeah, no, we are resuscitating the live voice with all its risk.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And this is the one that really moved me because this, see the truth of the matter is, is I once said, and I hate when I say that about myself, but I once said that the, like when people talk about edgy or they talk about, you know, shocking, that a lot of that shit has been played out.
Marc:that what was once known is like, wow, I'm offended.
Marc:That shit is all dead.
Marc:There's nothing you can do that is really edgy other than be honest, because that makes people uncomfortable.
Marc:And I think that I'm aware of that, but there's a vulnerability to that, and the risk of humiliating yourself is high.
Guest:But how would you define humiliation?
Guest:Would you say revealing a slightly embarrassing thing about your past is humiliating?
Marc:Well, there's a lot.
Marc:There's those, and then there's also like shitting in your pants when you didn't plan to.
Guest:There's also... But the thing is, mentioning it, of course we know the big difference between actually shitting in your pants, say, on this show, and mentioning it is that it's very funny to mention it.
Guest:It's not in the least funny to do it.
Marc:Well, I think Ira was humiliated because he woke up with vomit all over himself.
Marc:Was that true?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Why would I say it if it weren't true?
Guest:Why would I lie?
Guest:Oh, I'm going to go on stage and make that up.
Guest:Well, you don't look like a guy that has vomit, would have vomit on you.
Guest:That is why Mark thought it was important to discuss it at length.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:No.
Guest:And up until... I have to say, I don't think I'd had vomit on myself until Saturday night at the age of 52.
Guest:I don't think I'd actually ever thrown up on myself.
Guest:You know, I vomited in third grade, and it's taken me decades to talk about it, and I talked about it in this book, and I applaud you for taking only two days to mention it in public.
LAUGHTER
Marc:Now, let me just tell, because I'm having a hard time fully explaining the point of this book, it was so moving to me.
Marc:And this last story in here literally made me cry.
Marc:But you do this thing at the end where you literally talk, you just capture in paragraphs humiliating incidents in your life.
Marc:And to me, they read like jokes.
Marc:And I just think that, like, what is, in your view, after writing this book and having this meditation on humiliation, why are you so obsessed with it and what does it mean to our culture?
Marc:Why is this important to you?
Guest:Well, you know, I'm actually not obsessed with humiliation.
Guest:It's just I have been humiliated a lot in my life, as we all have.
Guest:Every day.
Guest:And because I'm a writer, I dwell on humiliation.
Guest:the things that I should not be saying.
Guest:And I know that when I'm writing, I stare within and I say, what is the, you know, I warm up and I've taken years to warm up and then the moment comes and I say, what is the thing I have never said or that defies saying?
Guest:And then I type it up and it looks very clean and neat on the page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Look at right here.
Marc:A kid in seventh grade gym on the soccer field called me a WAP faggot.
Marc:I was flattered to be mistaken for an Italian.
Guest:I remember how happy I was.
Guest:I still do.
Marc:In seventh grade, when the history teacher explained the extermination of the Jews, a classmate, not Jewish, said, Hitler was a smart cookie.
Wow.
Marc:And you took that.
Guest:No, I might have... I don't know if his phrase was actually smart cookie.
Guest:It was something like that.
Marc:Okay, I know there's like some... No, I took it.
Guest:What was I to do?
Marc:Like this one.
Marc:This is beautiful.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Seventh grade.
Marc:One night I jerked off for hours without stopping.
Marc:Don't be embarrassed.
Marc:He's right here.
Marc:He wrote it in a book.
Marc:The next day, my swollen penis looked like a dreidel.
Okay.
Marc:Afraid that the swelling would never die down, I told my mother that I had an upset stomach and begged to stay home from school lest I reveal in P.E.
Marc:class my deformity.
Guest:It's true, you know, and I've often wondered about that dreidel shape, which after a very active sexual life of many, many years, I've never ever seen on myself or anyone else ever that exact dreidel shape.
LAUGHTER
Marc:So there's part of you that's been trying to recapture the dick dreidel for your entire life?
Marc:Maybe that should be the name of your next book, Recapturing the Dick Dreidel.
Guest:Did the little Hebrew letters form on the sides?
Guest:You know, it came without letters.
Marc:I just, for some reason, it validated me.
Marc:I was like, this is the field book.
Marc:This is why we create.
Marc:It's because we're humiliated and embarrassed.
Marc:Because I get that.
Marc:Even with the Hasidic Jews yesterday.
Guest:I felt your...
Guest:Self-loathing.
Marc:I felt embarrassed for them.
Marc:I hated myself.
Marc:And then I got angry at them.
Marc:I'm like, you know, fuck you.
Marc:You're no better than me.
Marc:Okay, granted, you'd never wake up in the morning and say, what am I going to wear today?
Guest:But I mean, but you know, there's... But no, internalized anti-Semitism is...
Guest:is huge, and I treat it as something in a way interesting rather than simply something to be transcended.
Guest:I write a lot about it.
Guest:The same thing, the sense of visceral disgust at my own kind.
Hmm.
Marc:That's my next comedy record.
Guest:And, you know, you were talking about those prostitutes.
Guest:One of the only times I've been solicited while a passerby in Manhattan was by an Orthodox Jew.
Guest:I was walking along the West Side Highway or West Street years and years ago.
Guest:It was the day before my oral exam in graduate school, and I was just sort of going over, you know...
Guest:Keats and Byron and this Orthodox guy pulled over in a Rambler or whatever, and he asked me, you know, like, did I want to give him a blowjob or something?
Guest:I said, how do you know I don't have AIDS?
Guest:And he drove away.
Marc:Wasn't willing to really take that risk, huh?
Guest:Yeah, no, it was 1985 or 1986, and that was, I think, the ethic then.
Guest:That's what you said to Orthodox Jewish men.
Marc:I was hoping for, like, a sweeter punchline to that joke.
Guest:But, you know, I've told the story many times.
Guest:I've written a poem about it.
Guest:It's odd how I hug that story to my breast as some kind of deep validation that though I loathe my own kind, they finally knew to want me.
Marc:Wayne Kostenbaum, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Right now, I want to bring up my buddy Joe Mandy.
Marc:He's a comedian.
Marc:Joe Mandy, ladies and gentlemen.
Guest:Here.
Guest:I should have brought my book and read excerpts out of that.
Guest:Yeah, what's your book?
Guest:I wrote a book called Look at This Fucking Hipster, and it would have just been like, I'm a cunt.
Guest:That would have been it.
Guest:I don't think it would have resonated.
Marc:What do you think of this humiliation thing?
Marc:Do you have memories in your mind that never go away?
Guest:Yeah, I think I'm an expert on humiliation.
Guest:I could submit a story for the poop, This American Life.
Guest:Bring it, baby, bring it.
Guest:Let's hear it.
Guest:You want to hear it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, it was the first night I was ever at Jewish summer camp.
Guest:I was 10 years old, and also the night I discovered I had irritable bowel syndrome.
Guest:This was inevitable.
Guest:And, like, Shabbat, it was Shabbat, and Shabbat at Jewish summer camp is, like, a real big deal.
Guest:Yeah, candles.
Guest:Yeah, you get candles and Kool-Aid and, like, awful roast chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I ate way too much of that.
Guest:And then right after eating way too much, you do Israeli dancing.
LAUGHTER
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then then you go to bed.
Guest:So it was like 10 o'clock and I just danced my little Israeli ass off and went to bed.
Guest:And then like at two in the morning, I woke up and like, you know, you know, like when you when you wake up and, you know, you only have like 10 seconds before you just shit all over yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that happened to me.
Guest:I woke up, and I, like, had the countdown, and I was, like, on a top bunk, and I'm 10 years old, and it's, like, 10, 9, 8, and I'm going down a ladder, like, 7, I put on my flip-flop, 6, 5, and I run out the door, and then at 3, I exploded, because I only had 7 seconds, apparently.
Guest:And, um...
Guest:I just shit all over the outside of my cabin, and I'd never once, like, I've never been away from home before.
Guest:I'm freaking out, and I started crying, and I didn't know what to do, so I just ran.
Guest:I ran away, and I just ran.
Guest:You ran into the woods?
Guest:Well, I ran down this, like, dirt path, and, like, half a mile down, there was this structure called Noah's Ark, obviously, and that...
Guest:That's what housed, like, the showers and the toilets.
Guest:And I, like, threw all my shitty clothes into a trash can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then took a shower, but I still had problems.
Guest:So I was, like, running back and forth from the shower to the toilet, like, over and over again, just crying, like, two hours.
Guest:It was awful, like, the worst night.
Guest:And then I was just, like, naked and dripping wet and had to run back to my cabin.
Guest:Naked?
Guest:Naked.
Yeah.
Guest:i'm gonna put my shitty clothes back on yeah um so then i had to run back to my cabin to get like soap and a towel because i didn't feel like i had showered properly and then like went back and it was like a whole it took like hours and i was awful and then like four or five in the morning i somehow crawled back up into my my bunk and cried myself to sleep and then in the morning my my bunkmate seth he uh woke woke me up he was like wait he was like joe
Guest:Joe, wake up.
Guest:Joe, do you hear about the bear?
Guest:I was like, what?
Guest:And I come outside and my entire, all my cab, my bunk, my cabin mates are like in a semicircle surrounding this giant pile of shit.
Guest:Like poking it with a stick.
Guest:And they're like, a bear shit on our cabin.
Guest:And then my counselor, who I think kind of knew what happened, was like, it must have been a tiny bear looking right at me.
Guest:So... And did you look at him with a knowing look and, like, say, like, yeah, it's true.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wait, did Morgan Spurlock really leave?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was going to pitch a movie to him.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:It was going to be called Circumcise Me.
Guest:And he only eats foreskins for 40 days.
Guest:It's...
Guest:You know what's hilarious about that?
Guest:Wait a year, he'll do it.
Guest:Wait, can I just point out, this is like a bad joke, four Jews and a Mormon are sitting at a table.
Guest:We'll all be Mormon eventually.
Guest:Apparently.
Guest:Down the road.
Guest:I win.
Marc:So, Joe, what's, you know, I mean, I follow you on Twitter and it's always very exciting.
Marc:I'm sorry you feel that way.
Marc:No, you're a shit starter, and it's good.
Marc:Have you pissed anybody off lately?
Guest:Yeah, I got into a big Twitter fight with this NBA player named Gilbert Arenas.
Guest:I wrote this thing on my blog.
Guest:I had been following him for a while, and I'm kind of obsessed with him.
Guest:He's a maniac.
Guest:And every day he would change his profile picture to just dumb jokes, like these JPEGs that have bad, dirty T-shirt type jokes.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And he would do that every day.
Guest:And so then I wrote a blog kind of, I just wrote a thing with like, he's a maniac.
Guest:Look at all these Twitter profile pictures.
Guest:And then I wrote like why he, I thought he thought they were funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically calling him a huge misogynist psychopath.
Guest:And he found it and read it and then was like, who's Joe Mandy?
Guest:And then he was like, oh, I was right.
Guest:He's a no talented comedian, but he spelled right W-R-I-T-E.
Guest:So then I was like, you're 100% right, WRIT.
Guest:And then that started this whole four-hour thing.
Marc:Do you ever get one-upped by trolls?
Marc:Because I find when I engage with... He's not a troll, but I mean... I'm close.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Like a goblin.
Marc:I don't know what I am.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But when you engage in that shit, there's a rush to it, though, right?
Marc:You're like, this is fucking awesome.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you get to a point where you're like, oh, my God, I just look stupid for even doing this.
Guest:I don't really engage with the people who do that to me.
Guest:Oh, you don't?
Guest:I don't know if that's hypocritical or what, but I had a guy who had an anonymous Twitter account and was writing really pointed criticisms of my comedy.
Guest:And if he was here tonight, because he clearly lives in New York, he would have been really mad at that because he's like, all you do is talk about shit.
Guest:Oh, you love shit.
Guest:And like feces.
Guest:And so he was doing that.
Guest:And I always wanted to write back.
Guest:But I was like, what am I going to write back to this guy?
Guest:And then I started.
Guest:But he had no followers.
Guest:And he was following me alone.
Guest:And no followers.
Guest:So then I started following him.
Guest:Right?
Guest:and then he stopped but then but he still had his like timeline up so it's just at joe mandy at joe mandy at joe mandy at joe mandy and then like then a couple weeks went by and then he like wrote like a at reply to like some porn star like i really think you're pretty and then um and then i just faved i like favorited that and then he like deleted his whole account so like i silently got rid of him you know
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:He didn't think you were a real person that would engage with him.
Guest:Like I had enough time to monitor his tweets to porn stars.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:Such a great...
Marc:Have you engaged any politicians right away?
Guest:Yeah, I write David Vitter all the time.
Guest:My new thing is I follow Grover Norquist.
Guest:You know, and my thing is I spend a lot, way too much energy trying to come up with witty things to write these people, but Grover Norquist, at least once a week, I'll just write him and I'll just say, like, suck a dick.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Because he only has like 10,000 followers.
Guest:I know he sees it.
Guest:So it's just like once a week, I'm just like, suck a dick.
Yeah.
Guest:That's fine.
Guest:I mean, it's just for me, but I think it's fine.
Guest:Nothing yet?
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:He may have sucked a dick.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't have proof.
Marc:But, I mean, do you fight the urge to do something more pointed so you could engage him?
Guest:i i'm like i think these things take time and eventually i think i will get him to suck it so you're doing a lot of have you been like doing a lot of stand-up where are you at with that now yeah i'm doing a stand-up i'm doing coming soon really yeah when is it like next week i think
Guest:is that your first like big yeah it is and I was supposed to actually I was supposed to do it a while ago and I was supposed to close with my Somalia joke I think I did that at the end and so I was really excited to tell that joke and then we got it all settled and we were I was gonna get a date and then I got the New York Times that morning when everything was approved and the cover was like the front page was this giant picture of a Somali baby like you know and I like the worst I was like my first instinct was just like god you gotta be fucking kidding me you know
Guest:There goes that joke.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So then I gave money to the World Food Program.
Guest:But I'm not doing that joke.
Guest:I can't do that joke, and it's really upsetting.
Guest:And what'd you replace that with?
Guest:A shit joke.
Guest:No, I'm just kidding.
Guest:A shit joke.
Guest:Shitting at a summer camp.
Marc:So have you been like headlining or what?
Marc:Yeah, I'm starting to headline a little bit.
Marc:And how does that feel?
Marc:Are you going out to just regular comedy clubs where people don't know you?
Guest:Yeah, I'm doing like headlining.
Marc:Are you fighting a good fight?
Guest:I'm trying.
Guest:I'm trying.
Guest:I feel like sometimes it's just like, oh, you don't like me.
Guest:You know, and it's like, oh, I'm here for another 40 minutes, so let's just figure this out.
Guest:I have really strong opinions about bagels.
Guest:Want to get into that?
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:No?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Here we go.
Marc:So that's happened, that moment where you're like, oh, there's nothing I'm going to do to get these people, and now it's just going to be negotiation.
Guest:Yeah, and I'll also, like, I'll just get, I have a joke comparing religions to movies, and I basically, I call Judaism Fast and the Furious, and I call Christianity Too Fast Too Furious.
LAUGHTER
Guest:Because it, like, borrows heavily from the original.
Guest:But, like, in the sequel, you have Ludacris.
Guest:And I was like, I love Ludacris.
Guest:I just don't think he's the son of God.
Guest:Nothing, you know?
Guest:And then I'll be like... Because, like, when I watch Too Fast, Too Furious, I'm like, he's not the son of God.
Guest:That's just Ludacris.
Guest:That's just Ludacris.
Guest:And then it's kind of tense after that.
Yeah.
Guest:You'll figure it out.
Marc:Joe Mandy, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Oh, this is the most powerful show ever.
Marc:Ladies and gentlemen, a comic I've known for, I think, 20 years.
Marc:He's one of the funniest guys I know, and I always love seeing him because he is more unhappy than I am, and that's always the greatest intro for a comic.
Marc:Please welcome Nick Griffin to the stage.
Thank you.
Marc:Hello, buddy.
Guest:Good to see you.
Marc:It's nice to see you, Nick.
Guest:Hello, everybody.
Guest:Is there any water?
Guest:We've been doing this a long time.
Guest:Yeah, 25 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I felt like you hated me for 23 of them.
Guest:Did you really?
Guest:Well, yeah, of course.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Because that's weird, because I thought you hated me.
Guest:I remember walking into clubs here in New York City and...
Guest:I was always scowling because I was afraid.
Guest:I'd see you scowling and be like, what the fuck?
Guest:That guy's doing my thing.
Marc:I always thought that you fucking hated me.
Marc:That was one of the weirdest things when I finally talked to you where it had nothing to do with me.
Guest:No, of course not.
Guest:It never does.
Marc:I always thought, what the fuck is that guy's problem?
Guest:We still haven't figured it out.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know what my problem is.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Have you made any progress in assessing it?
Guest:Yeah, I think I'm just afraid of everything and people.
Guest:I want everyone to like me, and so I immediately hate them because I know they're not going to like me, and then they'll like me, and I'll hate myself for hating them previously.
LAUGHTER
Guest:and this is all in the opening five minutes yeah this is every show i do every night so um yeah anything like monumental happen lately nothing big has happened lately i um i uh i'm single and i was on the subway the other day it was a packed subway usually i'm not out you know during russia or anything but i was
Guest:I saw this beautiful girl on the subway.
Guest:Have you ever had this happen where you see a beautiful girl on the subway, and you want to say something, and it was great, because I was, like, on the pole, and we were all packed in there, and she's on the pole, and we're looking at each other, and I'm thinking she's looking at me, and I was like, couldn't help myself.
Guest:I said, would you like to go out sometime?
Guest:She's like, no.
Guest:And I had four more stops, you know, just...
Guest:Just staring at her like this.
Guest:That was your opener?
Marc:Are you sure?
Guest:Yes, of course it was my opener.
Guest:I don't know what stop she's getting off.
Guest:People should have it on their shirt.
Guest:I'm getting off at two stops or I'm getting off at Canal Street.
Guest:If you want me, you know, say something quickly.
Dude.
Guest:I know, I know, I know.
Guest:I don't know what to say.
Guest:It's a series.
Guest:You were all talking about humiliating experiences.
Guest:That's life, isn't it?
Guest:It's just one after another after another.
Marc:I feel that way.
Marc:I don't know if it's really life for everybody, but it's certainly how I view it.
Marc:I actually get humiliated for other people.
Marc:There are moments where I'm walking down the street just on a regular day, and people are walking around me, and I have a tremendous feeling of like, holy fuck, it is not easy for anybody.
Marc:right look at this parade of sadness and and anyway but but but on some level like i think like it's true like if these people look at that smiling guy he's not going deep enough you know he's just like you'll see a few people you're like oh my god how can it be easy for that person they might as well be like you know just sad monsters like ah
Marc:And then, like, I start to resent everybody for being so sad and bringing me down.
Marc:And then I start to think, like, well, you know, you got to take care of the monsters.
Marc:And that's where I go with it.
Guest:Yeah, I'm always shocked that so many of us ended up in comedy because we're so miserable in so many ways.
Guest:And I'm...
Guest:I'm not kidding.
Guest:And not only that, but we're like, I didn't start out prepared at all to be a comic.
Guest:Like, I was always afraid of people, and I was always nervous, and I used to go number two in my pants all the time.
Marc:Yay, shit.
Marc:Shit theme.
Marc:Shit.
Marc:Big shit theme.
Marc:Well, I'd heard them.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I said the magic word.
Guest:I went to Catholic school, and you couldn't go to the bathroom.
Guest:Like, they didn't want you to go to the bathroom.
Guest:They thought you were going to be doing something there other than what you were supposed to be doing.
Guest:And so there was a rule.
Guest:You couldn't go to the bathroom.
Guest:And I remember getting so nervous that I couldn't go to the bathroom.
Guest:I would go to the bathroom in my pants.
Guest:And I remember I went to my mom, and I said, you know, you've got to do something.
Guest:So she sent me to school with a note that said, Nick can go to the bathroom any time he wants.
LAUGHTER
Guest:And I remember my friend grabbing it and reading it, going, Nick can go to the bathroom anytime he wants.
Guest:What is that, like a talent or something?
Guest:Is that what he... Is that like if at the end of the day there's nothing to do?
Guest:You know, Nick will shit for you because he can go to the bathroom anytime he wants.
Guest:I had that note till I... I mean, literally, I took it to school every year, the beginning of the year, till like eighth grade.
Guest:So you would raise your hand and you'd walk up with the note?
Guest:No, and I'd just go, I gotta pass.
Guest:I gotta pass.
Marc:I trump you, lady.
Marc:But you were never married, right?
Marc:Because I'm trying to remember.
Guest:I was married, yeah.
Guest:How would that go?
Guest:I was married.
Guest:Yeah, I was married three years.
Guest:Yeah, I have a joke that I was married three years.
Guest:We were supposed to be together until one of us died.
Guest:I never even had a fever.
LAUGHTER
Guest:It was a very brief marriage.
Guest:It didn't work out very well.
Guest:And I was crushed, though.
Guest:I remember wanting to get out of it, and then I was crushed that it was over.
Guest:So I'm still recovering seven years later.
Marc:No, it takes forever, man.
Marc:It does.
Marc:It takes forever.
Marc:But I feel like you're internalizing it.
Marc:You've got to dump it on other people.
Guest:Well, I'd been talking about it in my act for years and years, but apparently it didn't hit home for some people.
Guest:Didn't remember that I was divorced.
Guest:Grieving for a decade about it.
Guest:Nothing, huh?
Guest:Nothing, not a thing.
Guest:Not a thing.
Marc:Have you tried emailing her?
Guest:No, no, we haven't.
Guest:She, I moved out.
Guest:She said, well, what happened is that I was not feeling well about the whole marriage.
Guest:And I said, I got to move out for a while.
Guest:And she said, well, if you move out, we're getting divorced.
Guest:And I said, I got to move out.
Guest:And so she went and got these divorce papers you can get in L.A.
Guest:off the Internet.
Guest:You can just hear.
Guest:And as a, you know, she kind of... Yeah.
Guest:And I went...
Guest:And then she filed them, and I'm like, oh, fuck.
Guest:And now I'm divorced, yeah.
Guest:And so I remember just thinking, why did I do that?
Guest:And I felt that way when I said, will you marry me, too?
Guest:So the whole thing was just like a big... I never felt great about any of it.
Marc:Just between us, like, occasionally, and it's been years since my wife left, and everybody knows that, but I've got to be honest with you, not too long ago, I sent an email...
Marc:Did you really?
Marc:Just wait, just wait.
Marc:Subject line.
Marc:How you doing?
Marc:Body of email.
Marc:Everything good?
Marc:Sent it.
Marc:And I thought, you know, I don't know why I did it.
Marc:And then, like, about a month later, I went out and took a picture of the cactus garden she planted.
Yeah.
Marc:Fucking subject line.
Marc:Remember this?
Marc:It's doing good.
Marc:Sent it.
Marc:Wow, this is horrible.
Guest:Do you ever masturbate to your ex-wife?
Marc:Never.
Marc:I never masturbate to my ex-wife because, you know, frankly, whatever.
Marc:I don't, um...
Marc:I don't masturbate to my ex-wife, but I've got some in there that have been there for about 20 years.
Marc:Some masturbation fantasies.
Marc:Right, they come back.
Marc:Yeah, but I don't ever age them.
Guest:Yeah, of course not.
Marc:You want them, how you remember them.
Marc:You're sort of like, well, I better update that to an age appropriate.
Marc:That girl's much older now.
Marc:Go to Facebook, it's like, yeah, you know, I'll keep the one that I had in high school.
Yeah.
Marc:Do you masturbate to your ex-wife?
Guest:I do.
Guest:She had great legs.
Guest:She had great legs, and I always... I just haven't... I remember having sex with her and seeing the leg in a certain way, and that stuck, and I haven't been able to get a leg in that to top it.
Marc:So that keeps coming back, but... I think I might... Like, maybe there's been a couple fantasies where I masturbated at my ex-wife, like, yeah!
LAUGHTER
Marc:What do you think of that?
Marc:Where are we at now, huh?
Marc:You're way angrier than I am.
Marc:I want it to come out.
Marc:You've got to let it out, Nick.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:I try.
Guest:I just...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know how to get it out.
Guest:I don't know how to keep it out.
Guest:Sometimes I get it out, and then I take it back.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Before it gets too far away?
Marc:Yeah, I go, ah!
Marc:That's what define means.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:Well, you suck that back in, then a tumor will grow inside of you with your wife's face on it.
Guest:She was a pretty woman.
Marc:Let's bring out some real raging anger.
Marc:Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Griffin.
Marc:Yeah!
Marc:Oh, my God, is this amazing?
Marc:I still promise you one more special guest.
Marc:But right now, I'm going to bring out an old friend of mine who I opened for.
Marc:One of my first gigs doing comedy was for this guy.
Marc:He just had a Showtime special on, and he's a fucking beautiful man.
Marc:Nick DiPaolo, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:Oh!
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:How are you, Nick?
Guest:How are you?
Guest:Yeah, good to see you.
Guest:Jesus, you're doing good.
Guest:I'm a little fucking jealous.
Guest:I should be happy for you, but I'm really not.
Guest:I mean, you know, you're kind of funny, but what the fuck?
Guest:Do they paper the room here?
Marc:These are nice people.
Marc:They listen to me.
Guest:This is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, you're right.
Guest:Because I'm sick of... I just came from a club in Michigan.
Guest:Oh, how'd that go?
Guest:Well, this is how it goes.
Guest:This is... This is what comedy audiences have turned into, the mainstream club.
Guest:It's like a pack of 12 girls at one table trying to cheer up that one miserable fucking friend.
Guest:Ooh, Diane had a miscarriage.
Guest:Let's take her to the funny bone.
Yeah.
Guest:I gotta make some girl laugh who just left a zygote in the toilet at the low cineplex like eight hours before the show.
Guest:And I'm trying to joke with her and she's not having any of it, you know?
Guest:Was it a boy or a girl?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was only six.
Guest:Was it a boy or a girl?
Marc:A lot of people thought you were actually going to be sensitive at the beginning of that.
Marc:Like, oh, he's sensitive.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:I heard, tell me if this is true, this is a popular myth amongst the comedy circuit.
Marc:Did you or did you not make a bridal party, a bachelorette party, bride-to-be cry in Sacramento?
Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sacramento and about eight other cities.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, one of them, you know, they trashed the fucking feature act, the guy before me.
Guest:They ruined his show.
Guest:You know, I'm like, where's your fiance?
Guest:And she's like, oh, he's canoeing or something.
Guest:And I'm like... Canoeing?
Guest:That's what she said, canoeing in Canada.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, that's what they call eating whipped cream out of a stripper's asshole canoeing.
Yeah.
Guest:She gets upset.
Guest:Like, that's so fucking mean.
Guest:On that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, but then her friend starts saying, take off your clothes to me and shit.
Guest:And I go, shut the fuck up now.
Guest:And one of them throws a beer at me.
Guest:Holy fuck.
Guest:So then I said to the bride-to-be with the stupid crown on her head with the dick hanging off it that I... I don't want to say... Why are you making me repeat this?
Guest:This is going to ruin the whole fucking show.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:This is the truth of comedy.
Guest:Well, I...
Guest:I just said I hope you find a lump in your armpit tomorrow morning.
See?
Guest:And then I got really mean.
Guest:Some about her baby dying and shit, but, you know.
Marc:Come on!
Marc:You can't throw a drink at me.
Marc:I can't understand why she cried.
Guest:I don't, um... She threw a fucking drink at you.
Guest:But in all fairness, and then I had to be escorted back to the hotel by two cops.
Guest:The whole room turned to me after I said that.
Guest:Even the guys are like, you can't say that to her.
Guest:I'm like, are you defending this bitch?
Guest:Fuck you, too?
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:And it was a Friday night, first show, 250 people.
Guest:And when I finally, you know, they started filing out.
Guest:They're trying to get their money back.
Guest:And I played to 45 people.
Guest:So this is the beginning of the show?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then I'm sitting there after that show.
Guest:There's a second show.
Guest:And I'm sort of hanging out in the back of the club as people are filing in.
Guest:And everybody that's coming in is going, what happened?
Guest:The people in line said the headline's a fucking asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And how'd the second show go?
Guest:Fine, you know, it was fine.
Guest:But I still had to have a cop escort because there was guys in a pickup truck waiting for me on the first show.
Guest:But Bobby Slayton got arrested at the club the week before, so it's not me.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:For what?
Guest:He got in a big brawl and he punched an off-duty cop that he didn't know was a cop.
Guest:And he used the N-word to some fucking... But that was Slayton, not me.
Guest:Don't get all quiet at me, fuck.
Guest:I gave up that shit after the Bachelorette fucking incident.
Marc:But...
Marc:Do you know that, like, I actually, that was the first, one of the first gigs I did was with you at Captain Nick's in Agunquit, Maine.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Around circa 1990.
Guest:Was it like 1990?
Guest:And to give you an idea of my career, I was going, I'm playing that place next weekend.
Guest:But it's Captain Bill's now, so, you know, it's fucking... Do you remember doing those fucking gigs?
Guest:You were all nervous.
Guest:Of course I was.
Guest:Because it was your first gig back.
Guest:You took some time off for alcohol issues or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, I don't remember.
Guest:Self-esteem Jewish shit that I couldn't understand.
Guest:All this fucking guilt.
Guest:I'm like, why?
Guest:You run the fucking media.
Guest:What are you guilty about?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Yeah.
Guest:This is like meet the press in 1970.
Guest:Yes, we do, Nick.
Guest:We run the media.
Guest:You're on my favorite limb, though.
Guest:You are.
Guest:He's a funny bastard, isn't he?
Guest:Seriously, I fucking hate every... I hate the rest of him, but he's truly funny and very fucking smart.
Guest:And I don't say that to him.
Marc:We all have meetings, and we talk about you every week.
Marc:Your name, your picture comes up on the slideshow.
Marc:We're like, yep, keep that guy down.
Marc:He's just starting to get funny.
LAUGHTER
Guest:I don't drink anymore either.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you're never a big boozer, were you?
Guest:It got that way.
Guest:I was just good at fucking hiding it, you know.
Guest:What was the moment where you were like... Well, I got charged for sodomy at a wine tasting.
Guest:You did not.
Guest:I don't even know what that means.
Guest:I don't either, but it kills all over the country.
Guest:But, uh...
Guest:I almost got a DUI coming over from the comedy cellar last summer.
Guest:I was shit-faced.
Guest:Had like 10 drinks of me.
Guest:Hadn't eaten in like 12 hours.
Guest:This is how fucked up it was.
Guest:They had like both feet on the gas pedal.
Guest:Couldn't even feel my feet.
Guest:I'm in the left lane, West Side Highway, and there's a town car in front of me doing like 55.
Guest:I'm doing like 155.
Guest:I come right up on his ass, and I flash my lights.
Guest:Just in time to see two blue lights in his back window as an unmarked car.
Guest:You were behind him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And this is why I love New York.
Guest:This is what the cops said over the PA system.
Guest:That's right, asshole.
Guest:Pull over.
Guest:That's a direct quote.
Guest:I'm like, this guy knows me.
Guest:But I got out of the ticket somehow.
Marc:How'd you get that?
Guest:Did he know you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I got out of the ticket.
Guest:He even made me blow into that thing.
Guest:What do you call it?
Guest:A drunkizer?
Guest:The head of his dick.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, and the ticket went right away.
Guest:Have you tried this, ladies?
Guest:It's like magic.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:He couldn't get a good reading.
Guest:I had to do it for like 45 minutes.
Guest:But...
Guest:You didn't want me to do shtick up here, I know.
Guest:I do, of course I do.
Guest:I was afraid to come here, I gotta be honest.
Guest:I was afraid for you to come here.
Guest:I know.
Guest:You know, I just hear this whole hipster thing.
Guest:I just had this image, I was gonna get here and like, you know, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are gonna be playing hacky sack in the lobby or something.
Guest:And I fucking, I really did.
Marc:I'm sure speaking of funny.
Marc:Dave hates hacky sack as much as you do.
Marc:Why are these lines drawn?
Marc:We all came out together.
Marc:We love you.
Guest:Yeah, well, you don't fucking show it, but look, this show's been on what?
Guest:You've been doing this for what, 11 years, this podcast?
Guest:No, I tried to get you on three times.
Guest:You did, but I had shit to do.
Guest:I had to do bananas in Hasbro Heights.
Marc:All right, let's talk about this.
Marc:A lot of people don't know that Nick and I, we started in the late 80s, but you used to be, you worked with Barry Katz, and you and Louie and God knows who else shared that fucking apartment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were like Louie C.K.
Marc:'s roommate, but it was this weird apartment that Barry Katz just let comics stay there, and it was a fucking weird nightmare, right?
Guest:Well, it was a nightmare.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I come home one night and Ed Regine, you guys don't know who he is.
Marc:Let me explain.
Marc:Ed Regine was a regional act in New England who later got, I think, busted for turning back odometers on rental cars or on cars he was selling.
Marc:An Italian guy like in his 60s.
Marc:Right, in his 60s.
Marc:He used to wear a wig and do Tina Turner.
Marc:I mean, he was like...
Marc:He was... He literally got into comedy to stay out of prison.
Guest:All right, there you go.
Guest:So I come back to the apartment, which is a one-room studio, about four feet by five feet.
Guest:With bunk beds in it?
Guest:Yeah, bunk beds.
Guest:Which turned out good in this story.
Guest:Like, I'm on... Ed Regine's sitting on the couch with, like, a black prostitute, like 19 years old.
Guest:She looked like Whitney Houston in her prime.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Ed's haggling with her.
Guest:Ann Barry over money.
Yeah.
Guest:So I come in.
Guest:I'm in pretty good shape back then.
Guest:I took my shirt off, climbed up in the loft, and they're fighting with my money.
Guest:I go, get up here.
Guest:She comes up here.
Guest:They leave, and I got laid for fucking $25.
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:I spent $25.
Guest:What the fuck were they asking?
Guest:I mean, I only spent $25.
Guest:And she was gorgeous.
Guest:She left crying, though.
Guest:I remember her leave.
Guest:She left crying with her headphones on.
Guest:That's all I remember.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Did she cry during the blowjob?
Marc:Because that's a Mormon thing.
Marc:Did I miss something?
Marc:The only thing that happened here is a lot of people got a little uncomfortable with that story because hookers are not part of their general experience.
Guest:What, here?
Guest:You wouldn't know from the fucking neighborhood.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:What, do you have to know how to drive a forklift to live around here?
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:It's a fucking scary place.
Guest:I was afraid to come down here.
Guest:I'm thinking, are you married now?
Guest:You're married, right?
Guest:I'm fucking married.
Guest:What else you want to talk about?
Guest:How's that going?
Guest:It's actually going better than, you know, I'm supposed to.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:My wife, I do.
Guest:I got a rep, you know.
Guest:My wife's very insecure.
Guest:I love her.
Guest:She's good looking.
Guest:She's funny.
Guest:She's smart.
Guest:She's the most insecure woman you'll ever meet.
Guest:I don't know why she's so insecure.
Guest:I'll give an example.
Guest:Like, we'll be sitting on the couch tonight watching a movie late at night.
Guest:Beautiful actress will come on the screen, so I'll start jerking off, right?
Thank you.
Guest:And she gets furious.
Guest:Like it's my fault Tyne Daly still looks good.
Guest:That's why I love this crowd.
Guest:If I'm at the funny bone, I say Betty White to dumb it down and they fucking laugh their ass off.
Guest:But I went with a dykey chick and it killed her in Hipstonville.
Marc:You're applauding my audience for knowing who Tyne Daly is.
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:They're not going to get that at the funny bone in Nebraska.
Guest:Tyne Daly.
Guest:Is that a black guy?
Guest:This is awesome, man.
Marc:I'm really happy for you.
Marc:It's so much happier than you used to.
Marc:It's so good.
Marc:I didn't know it was going to happen.
Marc:It's the wife.
Marc:We get along pretty good.
Marc:You mellowing a little bit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The special was great.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Is it still on Showtime?
Guest:Where are we at with that?
Guest:Oh, the fuck no.
Guest:It's like I did it in a vacuum.
Guest:Nobody's seen the fucking thing.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:My parents called and some strong middle that fucking opened for me in Arizona.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:This is why I'm doing your show, though.
Guest:When the album came out, Raw Nerve, by the way, iTunes and Amazon, it was like number four for like two weeks, and I kept checking it every night, and I kept seeing your fucking face in a WTF, and I'm like, what the fuck is he doing, this guy?
Marc:Maybe I should talk to Mark now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I never felt like we had any tension ever.
Guest:You didn't?
Marc:Not really.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, like I said, I can hide that shit.
Marc:We had our political problems, but those aren't real problems.
Marc:No, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you know, it's going to go how it's going to go, right?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Can't wait.
Guest:Come on, even you guys got to make it.
Guest:You don't even like this fucking guy.
Guest:Oh, here we go.
Guest:You don't even like him, please.
Guest:The guy's overqualified to be president.
Guest:See, that was a nice way of saying that.
Marc:Yeah, that was nice.
Marc:I think maybe we should leave it there.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And bring out, you guys, you want to bring him out?
Guest:Yeah, well, my latest venture, since I'm not doing a podcast, I don't have the patience.
Guest:You've been doing this for a few years.
Marc:You can make it a podcast after you do it.
Guest:Go ahead, set it up.
Guest:I'm going right to radio.
Guest:I don't have time for this shit.
Marc:And who are you doing the show with?
Guest:This guy, you might have heard, he's been in a lot of B movies, but he's known for his, you know, he's a sidekick on Howard Stern.
Guest:Give it up for Mr. Artie Lang, ladies and gentlemen.
Guest:Artie Lang!
Guest:Artie Lang.
Guest:Hey, what's up?
Guest:Here, Nick.
Guest:Wow, everybody was about to leave.
Marc:How fucking good does Artie look?
Marc:How fucking good does he look?
Guest:Boy, the lighting must suck in this place.
Guest:Thank you, though.
Guest:That was very nice.
Guest:Everybody leaving, it's like the respect George Gobley used to get on The Tonight Show.
Marc:You look fucking great, though.
Marc:You look clear-eyed, you're a little svelte, you got color in your face.
Guest:Yeah, it's the first time I've had color since the late 70s.
Guest:I started drinking in a dark kitchen in 1981 and didn't come out.
Guest:But now I feel good.
Guest:I'm sober.
Guest:I went to rehab and a couple of psych wards and, you know, I got a tan.
Guest:The psych ward, what the hell was that like?
Guest:That was fantastic.
Guest:I'll tell you, you haven't lived until you've played Scrabble in a psych ward.
Guest:I played, this is a true story, I played Scrabble in a psych ward.
Guest:Here's the Scrabble game.
Guest:It's me, which already makes it a shitty Scrabble game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And an 80-pound girl who was a crystal meth addict.
Guest:By the way, I learned this in rehab, crystal meth is a good drug if you need to walk to St.
Guest:Louis one weekend.
Yeah.
Guest:And a 400-pound schizophrenic guy who was on Thorazine and methadone, but he didn't get his medication yet.
Guest:So that's the Scrabble guy.
Guest:So the Thorazine 400-pound guy goes last, and when it gets to be his turn, there's an open G. Yeah.
Guest:And all he does is put an M and an R next to the G. Yeah.
Guest:So it just says GMR.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, I'm scared shit of this guy, so I go, great word.
Guest:Let's fucking add that up.
Guest:That is fantastic.
Guest:Let's just add that up.
Guest:What is the M of three?
Guest:That's a double-letter word.
Guest:And the 80-pound chick, she's pissed.
Guest:She goes, that's not a word.
Guest:This is her cause to fight.
Guest:I'm like hitting her under the table.
Guest:It's a fucking word.
Guest:It's a fucking word.
Guest:I'm like, sweetie, we're in a psych ward playing Scrabble.
Guest:Life is over.
Guest:Let's just fucking...
Guest:Let's just go with it.
Guest:GMR's a word.
Guest:She goes, it's not a word.
Guest:And he goes, yes, it is.
Guest:And she goes, what kind of word is that?
Guest:He goes, it's an abbreviation.
Guest:And she says, for what?
Guest:And he goes, game room.
Guest:And if you think about it, GMR might be the abbreviation of a game rule.
Guest:He could be right, you know?
Guest:So again, I'm scared shit of this guy, so I go, great, let's add that up.
Guest:What do we got?
Guest:Let's add it up, GMR.
Guest:And she goes, abbreviations aren't allowed.
Guest:She's scared.
Guest:This is the fight I'm in the middle of.
Guest:And he goes, yes, they are.
Guest:She goes, no, they're not.
Guest:And he goes, well, you're not a genius like I am.
Guest:And he goes to punch her in the face.
Guest:So I get in between them, and I save the woman's life.
Guest:I'm pretty sure I saved her life.
Guest:It would have been like Mayweather Ortiz.
Guest:I don't think she had a shot.
Guest:And whether she was looking or not.
Guest:And...
Guest:And I saved a woman's life, which I'm a little ambivalent about.
Guest:I don't know if it's a great plus to the planet.
Guest:She's probably fucking a cat on Christie Street right now.
Guest:Arguing with an ATM on Broadway about something like that.
Guest:But... How long were you over there?
Guest:I was in a psych ward for a month and a half.
Marc:After the thing?
Guest:After, yeah.
Guest:I had a couple little issues that I had to deal with.
Guest:I was doing drugs at an incredible pace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it was hurting every aspect of my life.
Guest:I was...
Guest:I was going on dating sites to try to get dates, you know?
Guest:And they ask you questions on those sites, like you're going to be honest, you know, a guy like me.
Guest:One of the questions was, what's the worst thing you've ever done?
Guest:Like, I'm going to get a lot of dates being honest with that question.
Guest:What's the worst thing I've ever done?
Guest:Once I kidnapped a baby and traded it for angel dust.
Guest:What are you doing Friday night?
What?
Guest:Want to go to Ruby Tuesdays and get some mozzarella sticks or something?
Guest:So I was in trouble, man.
Guest:I've been to hell and back, man.
Guest:I really have.
Guest:But I feel good, and I went to rehab for three months, the psych ward.
Guest:Where'd they send you for the rehab?
Guest:I went to rehab down in Florida in the summer, which is fantastic down there in the summer.
Guest:That's how I got the tan and melanoma.
Guest:When you're in rehab, though, there are people like, you know, Artie.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's Artie's here.
Guest:That's always great.
Guest:A guy came up to me who was a cop and said, I have your book.
Guest:If I get my wife to send me your book, will you sign it for me?
Guest:And he goes, I know this is breaking anonymity, but...
Guest:Will you sign the book for me?
Guest:And I'm like, yeah.
Guest:So there was a public phone and you could just hear everyone who was on the phone.
Guest:So I walked by the phone and I hear the guy screaming at his wife.
Guest:He goes, just send me Artie Lang's book.
Guest:I can't tell you why.
Guest:So I signed it for him.
Guest:It was very nice.
Guest:I went to rehab with a friend of mine, this kid, Anthony.
Guest:My favorite rehab story this guy has is one time, we're 22 years old, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm in the passenger seat of a car, and he's in the front seat, and there's three guys in the back, and we're all smoking weed and drinking.
Guest:And he decides it would be funny to start steering the car with his head.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:So he starts steering the car with his head.
Guest:And we're driving down a main drag in Elizabeth, New Jersey, like on a Tuesday afternoon.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And he goes, look, guys, I'm steering the car with my fucking head.
Guest:And we're all high going, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Guest:It's the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Guest:And he goes, look, I'm steering the car with my head.
Guest:And we're like, ha, ha.
Guest:that's hilarious but the problem is he did it like a little too long yeah and he he somehow wriggled his head into the wheel like so it was it was stuck between the horn and the wheel so now he's high on weed and drunk and stuck in the steering wheel of a moving car yeah
Guest:So he starts to freak out and he goes, and we all think he's still fucking around because we're high.
Guest:Now he's screaming and steering the car with his head.
Guest:He's a comedic genius.
Guest:So after a couple of minutes, he drives through a bakery window.
Guest:This really happened.
Guest:He drives through a bakery window.
Guest:Now, nobody got hurt, thank God, but when the cops got there, they didn't want him to lose his buzz before they got him out of the wheel.
Guest:So as they're cutting him out of the wheel, they give him his sobriety test.
Guest:So he's like this.
Guest:And the cop goes, sir, do you know your ABCs?
Guest:And he's like, yeah.
Guest:And the cop goes, say them.
Guest:And he goes, A, B, C, C.
Guest:Just fucking arrest me, man.
Marc:And they did, right?
Guest:And they arrested him, yeah.
Marc:So what are you doing for fun now?
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:I don't know what fun is anymore.
Guest:I like the... I don't know.
Guest:I... You know, again, I'm trying to exercise.
Guest:That's not going that well.
Guest:Are you smoking?
Guest:I smoke a ton of cigarettes.
Guest:I'm pissed off that Marlboro stopped giving out those miles, man, you know?
Guest:I mean, I'd have enough for a kayak, but...
Marc:What are you doing for exercise?
Guest:Well, exercise, I like playing basketball, but it's tough playing basketball with these 24-year-old kids nowadays because no one just plays anymore.
Guest:They all run plays like they're the goddamn Knicks.
Guest:You're guarding a 22-year-old and he tells them, let's high pick and roll.
Guest:Run a high pick and roll.
Guest:Three, four.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck?
Guest:I'm like wearing a Ramones shirt.
Guest:I don't know what a high pick and roll is.
Guest:I got a 23-year-old kid mad at me that I can't run a high pick and roll.
Guest:We're in a fucking game on the playground.
Guest:It's like, you know, I just had a chicken cutlet.
Guest:I'm not running a high pick.
Marc:So what's the show that you and Nick are doing?
Guest:Me and Nick are going to do a sports entertainment comedy type show that is going to be fun.
Guest:It's like a national network show.
Guest:Nick and I have been wanting to do... Nick and I, you'll appreciate this.
Guest:Nick and I were coming back from a gig in Buffalo once.
Guest:And I don't know, Nick loves telling this story about the... We were in Buffalo and we looked at the real estate section of the paper.
Guest:Like, what you can get a house for.
Guest:What is it?
Guest:One house is like 14 rooms, three Mexican maids, indoor pool, five tennis courts, 11,500.
Guest:Buffalo's one of those streets where you can get an indoor, above-ground pool.
Guest:I guess one of those is it.
Guest:And so we're like at the Hampton Inn, we just call each other and go, why don't we just buy 11 houses here and see if something works out?
Guest:This had to be like eight years ago.
Guest:We're coming back from the gig on one of those planes where it's so small, like my head couldn't fit under the overhead.
Guest:Those are rough, right?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So my head's at like a 45-degree angle, and Nick just says, fuck it, all right, let's just open a pizzeria.
Guest:I make a good gravy, and I'm like, all right.
Guest:So since then, we've wanted to work together, and now we can do a radio.
Guest:We're going to do a radio show starting in the next couple of weeks together.
Marc:Nationally syndicated.
Guest:Nationally syndicated.
Yeah.
Guest:I filled in for Dan Patrick a couple times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's, you know, I have my little radio show in New York.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The right wing shit doesn't fly here in Manhattan.
Guest:It's easy to talk about, you know.
Guest:But we're going to do very limited sports because I know you, you know, I can see a crowd's drooling over a sports fucking show right here.
Guest:But, you know, it's like sports at our convenience because it's a 10 o'clock at night show.
Guest:So by the time 10 p.m.
Guest:rolls around, you've heard about everything.
Guest:So it's not X's and O's.
Marc:It's just going to be you guys sitting around talking.
Guest:Yeah, and I'll stare it into race.
I think...
Guest:Maybe you can launch from the sports into race.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Sports is a microcosm of society.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:No, it is.
Guest:That's the shit we're going to talk about.
Guest:We're not talking X's and O's, so you might be.
Guest:I used to be a degenerate gambler, too, which is why I dress like this, but I... So I don't do that anymore because that's what we call a trigger, you know.
Guest:It's so fun betting all the money you have in the world and not doing coke watching the game.
LAUGHTER
Guest:What fun would that be?
Guest:No, no fun.
Guest:You got to layer that shit, man.
Guest:Sorry, you got to layer it.
Guest:Layer's the perfect word.
Guest:But because of the gambling thing, I know a lot about sports, and so does Nick.
Guest:So it should be a fun show.
Guest:I think we're going to have a good time.
Marc:Well, I'm so happy you're fucking healthy and alive.
Marc:I'm alive.
Guest:I'm alive.
Marc:And it was great to see you.
Marc:Artie Lang, Nick DiPaolo, Nick Griffin, Joe Mandy, Elena Baker, Ira Glass, Wayne Kostenbaum, Morgan Spurlock.
Marc:What a fucking amazing show.
Marc:I really appreciate you coming out.
Marc:Thank you for listening to WTF.
Marc:You're a great audience.
Marc:Kick on that music.
Woo!