Episode 218 - Jack Gallagher
Guest:Lock the gate!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest: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 fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:Ah, fuck it.
Marc:What the fuckamolens?
Marc:What the fuckanadians?
Marc:What the fuckanucks?
Marc:That's the same thing.
Marc:Hey, look, I can't do it all day.
Marc:I can't do it all day.
Marc:I am Marc Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I'm out in the garage.
Marc:It's hot as fuck.
Marc:Where's the fall?
Marc:Oh, I remember.
Marc:I live in Los Angeles.
Marc:There's no fall.
Marc:I think we had fall for about an hour the other day.
Marc:I have to go to get my prostate checked.
Marc:Looking forward to that.
Marc:That once a year thing.
Marc:Yeah, that's going to be fun.
Marc:If you just keep it once a year, it's clinical.
Marc:If you enjoy it, it's not really a negative thing.
Marc:I'm not going to enjoy it.
Marc:I'm freaking out.
Marc:As I get older, I can't I can't think of I don't like hearing about kidneys or prostates or livers or pancreases going bad.
Marc:As I get older, I want to be in denial that all those things have their own jobs and some of them can crap out on their jobs.
Marc:And that's what leads to the end of things for you.
Marc:All things stop for you because one of your organs craps out unless someone can give you an organ like a kidney.
Marc:Breaking Bad after Cranston last week, I was amped.
Marc:I could not wait.
Marc:I had to do everything I could to not email my one contact at AMC to send me a screener as if he would.
Marc:I waited like everyone else because I'm just a normal guy.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Stop with the assumptions that maybe I'm happy or that maybe that I'm losing my edge or I don't feel vital to you because I'm not as fucking worked up.
Marc:Believe me.
Marc:Believe me.
Marc:I'm fucking worked up.
Marc:It's just after a certain point, I can't be complaining about bullshit.
Marc:I mean, things are going OK.
Marc:I can't be doing what I did in San Francisco the other day at a restaurant after I did a show, woke up, needed to get the get to Oakland Airport, wanted to get some breakfast.
Marc:I'm on a little bit of a fucked up diet right now.
Marc:I'm on this slow carb thing, this four hour body thing or my version of it.
Marc:And.
Marc:You can only eat a certain way.
Marc:So I go into a restaurant.
Marc:They take my order.
Marc:I say I want an egg white omelet with just vegetables.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So give me this omelet, the California omelet.
Marc:It's got vegetables, avocado in it.
Marc:No cheese, egg whites, nothing else on the plate, please.
Marc:No potatoes, no fruit.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So then another person comes over and takes my order again.
Marc:I tell the same thing.
Marc:A California omelet, egg whites, nothing on the plate but that, okay?
Marc:No cheese.
Marc:I told that to two people.
Marc:I waited 20 minutes.
Marc:I got to get a car to get a plane.
Marc:They bring out the omelet.
Marc:I cut into it.
Marc:There's cheese in it.
Marc:So as opposed to just going, oh, you know, I guess the chef wasn't paying attention.
Marc:Could you make another one?
Marc:I stood up and go, how much for my drink?
Marc:How much for my drink?
Marc:And they said, you can have it.
Marc:I'm like, all right.
Marc:I told two people, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Marc:Can't I stop that?
Marc:I can't be that guy.
Marc:I can do that in my head.
Marc:So then I tried to make it okay in my mind.
Marc:Of course, I was like, wow, the service industry is really the only industry we have left in this country because we don't make anything here anymore.
Marc:And that's why we're having trouble.
Marc:One of many reasons outside of the financial collapse done by a bunch of crooks.
Marc:but the fact is all we have is a service industry so we don't make anything here but eggs and we also manufacture you know need an appetite you know exploit desires in order for us to buy things make us all feel a little off so we can buy things and eat eggs but i wanted my eggs the way i wanted them and you would think that this is where my brain goes this is a you know this is a uh this is a a job that people do i just didn't want cheese it wasn't a crowded restaurant
Marc:But I didn't judge.
Marc:I tried not to, but I did throw a little bit of a shit fit and walked out of the restaurant.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I felt bad about it.
Marc:So I go down to the street carrying that load of baggage.
Marc:I carry my anger baggage from the egg debacle up the street down to another restaurant that's a little further down the street.
Marc:I order an omelet.
Marc:I say egg whites, just vegetables, side of steamed vegetables.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:I waited 15 minutes that time.
Marc:Again, not a very full restaurant.
Marc:I've made omelets before.
Marc:It doesn't take 15 minutes.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:Guy brings it out.
Marc:It's yellow.
Marc:And I thought maybe they're eggbeaters.
Marc:So I said, is that egg whites?
Marc:And he goes, oh, no, you want egg whites?
Marc:And I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me out loud, I said, and put my head in my hands.
Marc:And the guy was shocked.
Marc:He's like, I'll get egg whites.
Marc:Like, I brought all that baggage from the restaurant that I went to before and from my entire life into that counter at that restaurant and made that guy feel bad.
Marc:And then he brought me the almond.
Marc:I said, I'm sorry.
Marc:There was an incident earlier that involved a similar situation.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:So I apologized.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry, Breaking Bad.
Marc:I was very satisfied with the finale.
Marc:I was completely sated.
Marc:I do not like the fact that I have to wait, what, a fucking year for the next ones?
Marc:That's a new trend in television where we are okay with waiting almost a year to pick up where we left off.
Marc:I want it now.
Marc:I want them to shoot them now.
Marc:I want it to continue on forever.
Marc:I'd like it to be on every other day if possible.
Marc:How about they do it in coinciding with my show?
Marc:Maybe twice a week.
Marc:New episodes from Breaking Bad.
Marc:I know you can't do it that fast, but I thought it was spectacular.
Marc:Some people are asking me where I stand on the Occupy Wall Street thing.
Marc:I stand for it.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:You know, get the message together.
Marc:It's not a political message.
Marc:A lot of people out of work, a lot of cooked books, a lot of bad money, a lot of big problems, money people taking away everything, taking away our livelihoods and our opportunities.
Marc:I'm completely behind it.
Marc:Am I going down there?
Marc:No, I have not gone down there.
Marc:I'm trying to do what I can, you know, here at the house to occupy Wall Street here at home.
Marc:It's doable.
Marc:It's fucking doable.
Marc:I'll give you an example of what I did.
Marc:First thing I did was set up my tent down below, a little lower down on my small piece of property.
Marc:The tent is there.
Marc:I've got some signs made.
Marc:uh that you know that said you know you know fuck the bankers um we are the you know we are the 99 i have that one uh i have um i'm against everything in my house that was made by a corporation that is on the the stock exchange that doesn't treat people well that's a long sign
Marc:And I haven't really held that one up yet.
Marc:My neighbors are already having a hard time with what I'm doing.
Marc:But I tell them that everybody should be doing something.
Marc:I wrote my cousin, who is a stockbroker, who I really haven't talked to since we were probably 14.
Marc:I'll just read what I wrote.
Marc:Neil, how's it going?
Marc:It's been a while since we played guitar at my grandma Goldie's house.
Marc:Give us our country back and kill yourself.
Marc:You still play Mark.
Marc:So that's something.
Marc:I've begun to walk around my house and actually verbally abuse things that I own that are made by questionable corporations.
Marc:That's become a chore.
Marc:It's a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.
Marc:I'm working towards just standing on the street in front of my house and saying, fuck you, fuck you, and everything that's in you.
Marc:for exploiting the workers and for bankrupting the country with the people that make you and the people that pull their strings and the politicians that defend them and lobby for them at the demise of working people in this country.
Marc:So later today, I'm going to yell that at my house.
Marc:There's a few things I need that are made by these corporations, so I can't throw that shit away.
Marc:Maybe I'll move it outside like you put bread outside over Passover if you don't want to throw it away.
Marc:So that's what I'm doing.
Marc:I'm trying to do my part and support.
Marc:Did I mention that Jack Gallagher is on the show today?
Marc:Jack Gallagher is a great comic.
Marc:He was a comic in Boston.
Marc:He's been in some TV shows.
Marc:He's very smooth.
Marc:He's the generation just ahead of me.
Marc:but I never really sat down and talked to him.
Marc:You've seen him on Kirby Enthusiasm.
Marc:He plays the doctor, but I had a very interesting chat with Jack about, about his life and, and what it's like to, to raise a son with autism.
Marc:He's got two sons and, you know, he's done some, some videos.
Marc:A different kind of cool is one of the Jack Gallagher videos about his son who does have autism.
Marc:So that, that's a, that this is a new sort of area for us.
Yeah.
Marc:Hold on a minute.
Marc:The phone company's bad, right?
Marc:I mean, they're shitty, aren't they?
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Let me just do this to my phone.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:And whoever made this phone in China, no American workers and for bankrupting the country.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:All right, let's talk to Jack Gallagher.
Marc:I don't like, it's weird as busy as I am, I don't love it.
Marc:Don't love what?
Marc:Being busy.
Marc:There was a time as a comic, and I'm sure you know it, that you could sit for a whole day and not have anything to do.
Guest:Oh yeah, and that didn't bother me at all.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:No, kids get in the way of that though.
Marc:I bet.
Marc:In a big way.
Guest:You know what the funny thing is?
Guest:After the kids get older and you start having time again, it's like my wife and I started dating again.
Guest:oh my god it's like oh we can go out and kids aren't around and they can take care of themselves and you forget how to be uh like lovers and friends because your parents for so long i now are you finding that that that process is going well oh it's going great i love my wife my best friend 31 years in august we've been married i
Guest:well that's amazing yeah it is amazing considering it's she's married to me the same the same one the whole time i do a joke on my act i've been married for 31 years and people applaud and then i say well it's a total of three women 31 years but no same woman 31 we've been together for 35 years that's old school man known her more than half my life and we've grown up together i mean she's she's unbelievable i mean i can't say enough good things about her that's she's put up with so much crap from me
Marc:Yeah, I imagine.
Marc:I mean, you seem like a good guy, but I know that with a name like Gallagher... I'm not going to walk out on you.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:Let's make it clear.
Guest:The bane of my existence has been that last name.
Guest:You're not related in any way to him, but you do have some, I'm imagining, Irish roots somewhere.
Guest:One time, the only two times we've been... One time we've been connected was at the first one-man show I wrote, I think, called Letters to Declan.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I did it down at the Brea Improv, and he was at Knott's Berry Farm.
Guest:And we got reviewed in the same article, and the headline was two Gallaghers.
Guest:One's a fool, one's a philosopher.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I was the philosopher.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:And it had just been years of people saying, do you smash watermelons?
Guest:Have you seen that guy?
Guest:He's bald.
Guest:He's short.
Guest:Could we be any different?
Marc:You actually got that?
Marc:Oh, I got that for years.
Marc:Are you the brother?
Guest:Oh, I get any combination of Gallagher.
Guest:Oh, or this is the other thing.
Guest:People will say, what's your last name?
Guest:Gallagher.
Guest:Oh, like the comedian.
Guest:And then I don't say, well, I'm a comedian.
Marc:But on another level, isn't Gallagher like Smith in Ireland?
Guest:Yeah, it's a very common name.
Marc:It's a classic Irish name.
Guest:But there's only two of us in comedy.
Guest:But it's all right, man.
Guest:I mean, I could have changed it, but I had this weird pride.
Marc:I never got you mixed up with Gallagher, but having started in Boston when I was very young and gone to college in Boston and started comedy in Boston, you, I think, were already gone.
Marc:And all that was left was a promotional headshot.
Marc:And I think I remember it.
Marc:I think you were standing and you had your leg crossed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or something like that.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:I remember that shot.
Guest:Yeah, that was actually one of my first head shots.
Guest:Some guy said, do something goofy.
Guest:So I think I haven't seen that in a long time.
Guest:I think I actually was holding my leg up with my hand or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I remember that guy.
Marc:And by that time, you had left.
Marc:And you weren't like old guard, but you were like a guy that got out.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:You seemed like a grown up to me when I was starting out.
Marc:That that guy somehow grew up and left.
Marc:I remember Dana Gould was impressed with you, that you had a great reputation.
Guest:Dana Gould was impressed very much with me at the beginning.
Guest:Very, very much with me at the beginning.
Guest:What does that mean?
Marc:Dana Gould was doing you?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:For a while.
Marc:What was he, 12 when you started?
Guest:I met him at the University of Massachusetts.
Guest:He was going to school there.
Guest:I did a gig.
Guest:And after I came off stage, he came up to me and said, I want to do just what you do.
Guest:I want to do this.
Guest:And I said, well, good for you.
Guest:And he was very excited.
Guest:And then he came to Boston.
Guest:And there was a bit of an overlap for a time between our style.
Guest:But he was like 16.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was very, hey, look at him.
Guest:Hey, I think he's a funny guy.
Guest:I respect him.
Guest:And people say to me, he's doing you.
Guest:He's doing you.
Guest:Still?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Way, way, way back when he was starting.
Guest:But my thing is, look, when you play baseball, you copy somebody's swing.
Guest:You play golf, you sing, you copy, you sing.
Guest:So if you like someone, and I'm not saying that he does that.
Marc:No, I call it a drive shaft.
Marc:There's a delivery system that is contagious.
Marc:I think Dane Cook would call it the essence, which I think is a little deeper and more philosophical.
Marc:But there is something, even if you read someone's books and then you write.
Marc:Sure, absolutely.
Marc:But it usually goes away.
Guest:And he was searching, and he's very funny, and he's well beyond...
Marc:doing me at this point you know he's a he's a brilliant guy and he certainly has got a tremendous amount of balls in terms of what he'll talk about on stage yeah yeah but I watched Robert Klein and there was a you know the elements Dana was one of those guys who I think was so impressed with Carl and with you and you know I mean but like where did you come from and do you come from one of these majorly huge Irish families I came from a pretty there were five kids that's a lot you know three older sisters and a younger brother and and I grew up in a really tiny town south of Boston called West Bridgewater
Guest:Oh, Bridgewater.
Guest:There's a prison there, right?
Guest:Yeah, my wife's from Bridgewater.
Guest:I thought you were going to say my wife was a prison.
Guest:I'm from West Bridgewater.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Guest:Completely different towns.
Guest:But tiny, you know, graduating class of 90 kids, 5,000 people in the town.
Marc:Now, who was your guys?
Marc:I mean, like, I can't even picture.
Marc:So you started doing comedy in what, the late 70s, early 80s?
Guest:Started doing comedy at the University of Massachusetts when I was going out there to get my teaching degree.
Guest:Then I moved to Boston and started doing it.
Guest:I'm like the guy from Boston who was part of that original crowd who nobody knows.
Guest:Lenny Clark, Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, Stephen Wright, Bobby Goldthwait.
Guest:I was there for a long time.
Guest:George McDonald.
Guest:George Warren McDonald.
Guest:Billy Campbell.
Marc:The McDonald brothers.
Marc:Tom Gilmore.
Marc:Bill Campbell's a guy used to think he'd get you confused with for some reason.
Guest:Well, smart guy, funny guy.
Guest:But Tony V from Boston says to me all the time,
Guest:When anybody talks about Boston, I bring your name up.
Guest:Because nobody, you know, Boston Comics, Dennis Leary does this Boston Comics come home every year.
Guest:I've never been invited to come home once.
Guest:It's guys from New York.
Guest:Would you want to come home?
Guest:I don't know, but I'd like people to know that I was there.
Guest:I was part of that original group.
Guest:Stephen Wright and I did Open Mic Night the first night together.
Guest:The Ding Ho?
Guest:No, Comedy Connection on Warrington.
Guest:Yeah, the little one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Billy Downs.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Billy and Paul.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Paul Barkley.
Guest:So I was there for all that.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:79.
Marc:So that was the original crew.
Marc:Kenny Rogerson.
Guest:Kenny Rogerson.
Guest:Kevin Meany.
Guest:Lenny Gavin.
Guest:Paula Poundstone.
Guest:Paula was there for a short time.
Guest:Then Goldthwait came.
Guest:Then Tommy... Tom Kenny.
Guest:Tom Kenny showed up.
Guest:And Dan...
Guest:Spencer.
Guest:Dan Spencer and those guys.
Guest:Paul Kozlowski showed up.
Guest:So that was kind of the second wave.
Guest:But I was part of that very first wave of doing the Ding Ho, Stitches, Comedy Connection.
Guest:I started a lot of those rooms.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Because I think I must have been the third wave.
Guest:I remember you coming.
Guest:And I have this really funny memory of you that I associate with.
Marc:I have one with you, too, I think.
Guest:You and I worked at Catch a Rising Star together in Harvard school.
Marc:I middled for you?
Marc:You middled.
Marc:I didn't open it?
Marc:It wasn't a hosting?
Guest:I don't think so.
Marc:I think you middled.
Guest:But I remember being struck by, wow, this guy's really smart.
Guest:And you reminded me of Crimmins.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you had that kind of Crimmins anger.
Guest:Well, you were smart.
Guest:Political stuff.
Guest:And I was talking about my dog peeing on my leg.
Guest:But I have this visual of you.
Guest:It's this strange association.
Guest:I remember standing outside Catch.
Guest:And I think it was downstairs.
Guest:But I remember you like bolting upstairs onto the sidewalk of Harvard Square and just like presenting yourself and talking to you.
Guest:And I had read this liner note.
Guest:This is such a weird thing.
Guest:But I had read this liner note about the Lovin Spoonful, about this guy interviewing Zal Janowski, who was the guitarist for the Lovin Spoonful, and him bombing out of his apartment and showing up on the sidewalk and just saying, what do you need?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I associate you with that for some reason.
Marc:And I look like John Sebastian.
Marc:You do.
Marc:It's a cyclical kind of thing.
Marc:Well, I think that must be where my memory comes from.
Marc:Because I always thought, like, you know, you had, like, I literally had this image, like, oh, my God, I'm working with my dad.
Marc:I feel like I'm being judged in a parental way here.
Marc:I didn't do that though, did I?
Marc:No, but you were clean.
Marc:You had a life.
Marc:You were talking about a life that you had.
Marc:I was probably sleeping on a floor and living out of boxes.
Marc:But yeah, so that whole Boston scene, but you must have left pretty quickly.
Marc:And I can understand that.
Marc:I get a little flack for being down on Boston, but there's something about Boston.
Marc:If you're there for like five or seven years, it wears on you, though.
Guest:And there are guys who stayed who are hysterical guys, funny guys.
Guest:Mike Donovan.
Guest:One of the funniest guys I've ever known.
Marc:Mike Donovan, sure.
Marc:Yeah, that's a good point.
Marc:Mike Donovan.
Marc:Gavin's probably still around.
Marc:He was hilarious.
Guest:Sweeney's still around, which is fine.
Marc:Yannetty was part of my crew.
Guest:Yeah, those were like the second wave was those guys.
Guest:But when did you leave?
Guest:I started doing colleges.
Guest:See, I grew up in this Irish Catholic family where it was this work ethic was you go to work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my parents, especially my dad, never considered comedy to be work.
Guest:Work was a hobby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First Tonight Show.
Marc:Right.
Guest:After I did The Tonight Show the first time, he was all over it.
Guest:How many years were you in?
Guest:Not long.
Guest:I did The Tonight Show, I think, five years after I started doing it full time.
Marc:And they booked you out of Boston?
Guest:No.
Guest:I was living in L.A.
Guest:I moved to L.A.
Guest:and was living in L.A.
Guest:and I auditioned a bunch of times.
Guest:It was Jim McCauley at the time.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I auditioned like five times before they accepted me.
Guest:And it went well?
Guest:It went great.
Guest:I didn't get to the couch, but I got the okay.
Guest:Yeah, thumbs up.
Guest:And the best...
Guest:compliment seriously in my career was danny robinson was my agent he was a big guy yeah his dad was that apa yeah yeah his dad was uh doc severinson's manager uh-huh so doc severinson calls danny's dad bud danny calls me to tell me that the day after i did the tonight show shot carson's doing one of my jokes around the office oh i had imitated this poodle being nervous yeah and danny calls me and says carson's doing the nervous poodle to everybody i was like oh
Guest:Holy shit, you are kidding me.
Guest:That was fucking, I could have stopped right then.
Guest:Yeah, you were like, so then what happens?
Guest:And I did the second shot and died.
Guest:Did you really die?
Guest:I didn't do well.
Guest:I didn't get invited back.
Guest:And it's a long, long story.
Guest:And I talk about it in one of the plays I've written.
Guest:But I just didn't, it was my fault.
Guest:It was their fault.
Guest:Macaulay called me and said, you want to do another one?
Guest:They loved you.
Marc:How soon after?
Guest:It was soon.
Guest:It was like two months later.
Guest:three months really yeah it was like right away huh and i was like why and i thought i had done so well the first time i was like why didn't they call me what the fuck right i killed they need me yeah uh i've been really sick i mean i'm making excuses but i've been really sick and uh i shouldn't have done it i shouldn't have done it but i didn't want to cancel and macaulay called me and said come on in we'll go over the set yeah and i said okay and then he said you know what
Guest:you did so well the first time, you'll do fine.
Guest:Get five minutes and just go.
Guest:And I did, and it went okay, but it wasn't as good as the first time.
Guest:And the next time I did it was with Leno, so it took years.
Guest:And it was crushing.
Guest:It was not a good time.
Marc:It's not a good feeling when you're on doing that five-minute set, and you just know.
Marc:Because when you do comedy long enough, you know, okay, that's their level.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm not getting above that level.
Guest:Can't break the ceiling.
Guest:And it was about two minutes in, and I thought, holy shit.
Guest:And then it gets in your head, and you're like, shit, I've got to fix this.
Guest:I've got to fix it.
Guest:And I couldn't fix it.
Guest:And the first time I did it, I look over at Carson afterwards, and he's giving me the okay.
Guest:And I was on cloud nine.
Guest:And then the second time I did it, I look over at Carson, and he's looking at the producer like, what's next?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:And I was just crushed.
Marc:So, okay, but like going back to Boston, because I think it's interesting that you definitely like, you have a regional disposition.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're Irish and you do, you know, you have Boston in you.
Guest:And I grew up doing that stuff with those guys, that group of Irish Catholic guys who were doing stand-up.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was a great time.
Guest:Everybody was friendly and supportive and cooperative and...
Marc:Well, I think a lot of people don't realize that, and I think I've talked about it a bit, but I'm trying to remember if I've really interviewed anybody that was of that.
Marc:Because when I came in, you were dealing with that.
Marc:You were dealing with the Clark brothers.
Marc:There was Mike who booked, and there was Lenny.
Marc:You were dealing with George McDonald, Don Gavin, Sweeney.
Marc:You were working with these guys.
Marc:Kenny Rogerson.
Marc:When I started, it was one-nighters.
Marc:You'd go out.
Marc:I'd do a half hour.
Marc:Then you'd do 45 at some place like this hotel we're at right now.
Guest:Put a mic up.
Marc:up in the corner be out by the pool yeah why not we'll try it absolutely and it was booked by subcontractors but I was talking about it with someone today the the girl who's working for me had gone to Boston and she'd gone to this uh Rick Jenkins is operating a room he was of my generation the comedy studio which is the alt comedy oh I remember that comedy studio I remember hearing about it yeah it's upstairs at the fucking Hong Kong
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In Harvard Square.
Marc:In Harvard Square.
Guest:I remember, I'd never been there, but I remember people talking about it.
Marc:But she said, are there other comedy rooms?
Marc:And I'm saying, Jesus, this, you know, Boston was a powerhouse of comedy.
Marc:Yeah, it was amazing.
Marc:It was regional, it was provincial, but there were definitely, you know, there was Knicks, there was the comedy connection, Catch a Rising Star came later, and I think that was even, you know, that was looked at as sort of highbrow by the local comics.
Guest:Yeah, there was Sam's, Played Against Sam's.
Marc:Played Against Sam's in the
Marc:Basement, Barry Katz's place in Stitches, the original Stitches, which was green and in the front of the Paradise Rock Club.
Marc:And then it moved to some sort of weird demonic vortex.
Marc:Oh, is that right?
Marc:Well, it moved to the old Ark, which was on Beacon Street.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:There's two.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Just shy of Kenmore Square, which was this.
Marc:There was something wrong with that.
Marc:It was built over an energy that was bad.
Guest:No, see, at a certain point in Boston, you could do.
Guest:You could work.
Guest:Four shows a night in four different places and make a ton of cash.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And a lot of that was due to Crimmins.
Guest:Crimmins started that.
Guest:He did?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because when we were starting, you were working the Comedy Connection, they'd pay you $10.
Marc:He's one of the great unsung heroes of political comedy.
Marc:He's unbelievable.
Marc:And I remember seeing him, and he used to do, usually 10 minutes into his set, he would be exasperated.
Marc:He would break down and say, OK, there are three branches of government.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:People would be looking at him, a drool coming out of the size of their mouth.
Marc:He was a brilliant driver.
Guest:Smart guy, knew, just, I mean, he used to intimidate me because in Boston, at the beginning, there was no...
Guest:Open middle headliner.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You just went on.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And you'd have to follow, you know, my first month into work and I had to follow Lenny Clark.
Guest:So you got good fast and you didn't work.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Or Gavin or Sweeney or whomever had been working for a long time.
Marc:They were really fast.
Marc:Well, I mean, Gavin and Clark were fast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you'd go up after them and the crowd would be like, who are you?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:You got nothing.
Guest:You got to get right into that pace.
Guest:And you got to do it or you stopped working.
Guest:So it was an education.
Guest:And Crimmins was a guy who started paying people more money and the money just started going up and up and up and up until you could make 150 bucks a set.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:So you can make $600, $700 a night if you got in cabs and went to Stitches.
Guest:Then you go back to the Ding.
Guest:Then you go to Play It Again, Sam's.
Guest:Then you go to Connection for the Late Show.
Guest:And you just cab it around town and pop in.
Marc:And then maybe on the next night, you drive out to Weymouth.
Marc:You go to Worcester.
Guest:Yeah, Worcester.
Guest:Out to, there was someplace in Worcester, there was a restaurant that had a hole in the middle of the room.
Guest:And I remember one time, Steve Wright and I went out to do it.
Guest:And on the way, we bought those little plastic guys with the parachutes.
Guest:And during the show, we'd throw them over the thing, and they'd go down into the restaurant.
Marc:There was a hole.
Guest:There was a hole in the middle of the room.
Guest:You'd stand at one end.
Guest:There's a giant fucking hole with people standing around it.
Guest:And you had to do comedy to the hole.
Guest:You just talked to the hole.
Guest:And then maybe people on the side would hear something.
Guest:But it was 50 bucks.
Guest:And it was 45 minutes away.
Guest:What the hell?
Guest:You're going to make 50 bucks.
Guest:You needed one of those a month to make you nuts.
Marc:so you're doing cart you're doing one-nighters with uh stephen wright yeah and how did now like when you were working with him now because you couldn't be more opposite right and and you talk about real life he talks you do story format and this is this you know this abstract dude who had one speed right because i like i remember working with hedberg and with guys like that you know it could go or couldn't right and what was your experience with him
Guest:Well, when it worked, it worked great, and it worked 99% of the time because he was so off the wall.
Guest:Stephen and I, he's still one of the people that I keep in touch with.
Guest:And we got along great.
Guest:He came to my wedding.
Guest:We were really good buddies, really good friends.
Marc:Well, I think a lot of people just associate him with that pace, but he's actually a New England guy.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the pace is pretty much that offstage.
Guest:I mean, I don't think I've seen him run.
Guest:But, you know, he's just a good, solid guy.
Marc:So I guess the big question is in terms of your early career, I mean, there was that sense there was a like there was I think there was a pull of the local industry to keep comics in town.
Marc:Yeah, there was also a pull of, you know, you know, shadier figures within that industry to to harness that talent and then to run them into Vegas or to manage them out of Boston.
Marc:But it took a sort of a certain amount of balls and wherewithal to say, you know, I got to get the fuck out of here.
Marc:Yeah, well, I got an agent.
Marc:In L.A.?
Marc:In New York.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:APA, Lou Viola.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Lou, I just saw him, sure.
Marc:He's still a friend.
Marc:He shows up places.
Marc:Just saw him.
Marc:You're like, what are you doing now?
Marc:Like, hey, you know.
Guest:Just saw him.
Guest:My family went on vacation in New York.
Guest:We had dinner with him and his girlfriend and still a really good friend of mine.
Guest:Yeah, he's a nice guy.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Guest:Solid guy.
Guest:Honest.
Guest:Losing one of those guys that when I would fuck up at a gig, he'd call me the next day and go, don't ever fucking do that again.
Guest:Whatever you did, what the fuck are you thinking?
Marc:What could Jack Gallagher have possibly done to render that?
Guest:But it would happen occasionally.
Guest:I opened up for the four tops once and it went poorly.
Marc:But anyway.
Marc:What'd you do, a bunch of black jokes?
Guest:I just didn't go.
Guest:Hey, how about these guys?
Marc:Dancing like crazy.
Marc:God love them.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, you know me.
Guest:I'm like the whitest white bread in the bag.
Guest:No, I was outside at some park in Atlanta.
Guest:It didn't go well.
Guest:Anyway, I got an agent.
Guest:I started doing colleges.
Guest:I did a bunch of colleges.
Guest:I...
Guest:Went to San Francisco and did the comedy competition, did pretty well.
Guest:What year was that when it was still important?
Guest:80... I can't remember.
Guest:Jim Samuels won it.
Guest:Oh, he passed.
Guest:Jim Samuels was first, Kevin Pollack second, me, Durst, and Carrie Snow were the final five.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that opened up the West Coast for me.
Guest:And then at a certain point, the agency said, look, you've done everything you can do in Boston.
Guest:If you're serious about this move, go to New York or L.A.
Marc:So they pushed you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I moved to L.A.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, I passed the audition at the Improv and I worked at the Improv and I did a variety of, you know, auditions and pilots.
Guest:I did a couple of pilots.
Guest:I was on Cheers.
Guest:I did a guest spot on Cheers.
Guest:I did a...
Guest:They brought the Twilight Zone back for a couple of seasons.
Guest:I did an episode of that as a guest person.
Guest:I did a little part in Heartbreak Ridge with Clint Eastwood.
Guest:You did?
Guest:A very tiny part.
Guest:They always give those to comics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Were you the guy going, that way?
Guest:I was the emcee in a club.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's funny because I went to the premiere with my wife and we're like sitting in front of Sammy Khan.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And...
Guest:I'm on stage literally now.
Guest:I'm not exaggerating.
Guest:My name is in the crawl longer than I'm on screen.
Guest:So at the end of the movie, the crawl stars, it says guest starring.
Guest:And my wife, this loud, guest starring.
Guest:I was like, honey, please, come on.
Guest:And then, you know, I did that for a bunch of time.
Guest:And then I got an audition for a job in Sacramento.
Guest:to host a daily kind of talk variety show in Sacramento.
Guest:So I moved to Sacramento thinking, well, I'll do this and see how it goes.
Guest:And I've been there for 20 some odd years now.
Guest:It's on television?
Guest:It's not.
Guest:It's off.
Guest:It lasted nine months.
Guest:It was terrible.
Guest:It was a great experience because I learned how to be on TV.
Guest:I learned how to read a prompter.
Guest:And since then, I've done a ton of work for PBS.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I co-host a nationally syndicated PBS show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the guy was running this show in Sacramento.
Guest:Didn't know what the fuck he wanted.
Marc:Right.
Guest:He kept saying to me, funny.
Guest:You're being funny.
Guest:Don't be funny.
Guest:Let's have fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not funny.
Guest:Fun, not funny.
Guest:That was the whole motto.
Guest:Fun, not funny.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I'm a comedian.
Guest:I don't know if something pops up.
Guest:I say something funny.
Guest:So it was just kind of a disastrous experience.
Marc:So you're in L.A., and you're obviously a working actor, you're a working comic, you're touring.
Guest:A working actor's stretching it.
Guest:But, I mean, you were doing episodic.
Guest:Yeah, every now and then I'd get a spot.
Marc:But the big dream was to have a sitcom.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:And you did a couple of pilots for reels?
Guest:Yeah, I did... No, not all the way through.
Guest:I did a presentation pilot.
Guest:But...
Guest:Very little happened while I was there.
Guest:More stuff happened when I left.
Marc:That always happens.
Marc:Because I left.
Guest:And I wrote a one-man show.
Guest:Which was the first show?
Guest:Letters to Declan.
Guest:When my son was born, Declan, who's now 19, had a really rough birth.
Guest:So I started writing letters to him, seriously, that I still write to him and his brother.
Guest:I'm going to give to them when they get older.
Guest:And so I wrote a show based around that.
Guest:And it created a ton of heat.
Guest:And I got offers from everybody.
Guest:And I signed with ABC for a sitcom deal.
Guest:And so that, I spent two years developing that show.
Guest:And then the show got on, was supposed to get on the air as a mid-season replacement.
Guest:You know, that whole process is such a pain in the ass and it's debilitating.
Guest:And it's not based on anything that makes any sense.
Guest:No, because seven days before the show was supposed to premiere, they canceled it.
Guest:Before the show, everyone on the air.
Guest:I've got ads and TV guide.
Guest:Billboards were up.
Marc:That's fucking horrendous.
Guest:And you know why?
Guest:It's my second one-man show.
Guest:I had a meeting with the vice president of primetime ABC after it got canceled.
Guest:And he said to me, long story short, it had nothing to do with you.
Guest:It was a political thing.
Guest:You were just the guy it happened to.
Guest:So they used my show as a pawn to get somebody else to quit because they weren't happy with him.
Guest:And they embarrassed him by using my show in a way that would embarrass him politically in the industry.
Guest:And that was the title of my second one man show is Just the Guy.
Guest:Because he said to me, don't take it personally.
Guest:You're just the guy that happens.
Guest:How can you not take it personally?
Marc:Well, yeah, but that's the fucking thing that kills me.
Marc:And I'm just, is that, you know, when we do a show based on our life, that's our life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not like we're going to be like, well, I'll just make up a life.
Marc:Because that was it.
Marc:This was my window here.
Marc:And this was what happened.
Marc:And this is what made sense to make this happen.
Marc:And all of a sudden, you just become a chip on a board.
Guest:And they move you around.
Guest:We'll put them after Home Improvement.
Marc:Right, but to actually make a move with your life and your creativity to just, you know, get rid of somebody.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Fuck.
Guest:It took me a long time to recover from that.
Guest:That was devastating.
Guest:So I wrote the second show, and I've been very, very lucky because in Sacramento, they've been, you know, the community's been great to me.
Guest:If you fly into the airport in Sacramento, I'm the voice welcoming you to Sacramento.
Guest:Jack Gallagher will welcome you to Sacramento.
Guest:Don't park your car in the green... That's me saying it.
Marc:Did they tell you like, no jokes, no jokes?
Marc:Don't be funny.
Guest:Fun, not fun.
Guest:Hey, you got a bomb?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Let her take it out of your pants.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Weave it in your car.
Guest:But I've been lucky because there's a theater in Sacramento that has commissioned the last three of my one-man shows.
Guest:So how many guys get a theater calling them up and saying, can you write a show and then give you seven weeks?
Guest:I did 60 performances of my last play.
Guest:Because they call me up and say, you got something in mind?
Guest:And they walk me through the process.
Guest:I mean, people write one-man shows all the time.
Guest:I've had four produced.
Guest:Because this theater says to me, great theater run by the Busfield brothers, Timothy Busfield, the actor, and his brother, Bach, who runs the theater, who's a great guy.
Guest:Call me up and say, you got an idea?
Guest:We'll develop it.
Guest:And the last one I did ended in last November.
Guest:I did 60 performances of it.
Guest:So I'm loving this.
Guest:The last one was the one that I watched.
Guest:Different kind of cool.
Guest:And thank you for watching it.
Guest:Because I send it to people and they never watch it.
Marc:No, I sat there, and I watched it, and I enjoyed it.
Marc:And I'm sort of fascinated with the one-man show process because I've done them.
Marc:I've done a couple.
Marc:One that was actually complete.
Marc:Other ones that were sort of like, I'm working on a one-man show.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I got it out.
Marc:I feel better.
Marc:I'm done.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:Yeah, I know that.
Guest:How's your one-man show?
Guest:It's over.
Guest:I did it.
Guest:Yeah, I did it.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:Did it for one night at Largo.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Everybody loved it.
Marc:Yeah, it was great.
Marc:I felt better, you know.
Marc:But I didn't... Well, my second one-man show that was legitimate about the divorce, there were just no good guys, and there was no winning, and nobody changed.
Marc:And...
Marc:And people left feeling a little drained and uncomfortable.
Marc:Yeah, he's in trouble.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:That's not the response you want.
Marc:But the process from doing the first one-man show, because it was conscious, you were obviously, you'd had enough of Hollywood on some level.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And what was going on in the clubs that made you decide that?
Guest:Mark Anderson ran the improvs.
Marc:I remember that guy.
Guest:He was a little odd.
Guest:He had all those rooms, and he said to me,
Guest:Declan had just been born yeah and he said if you write a show I'll give you the San Francisco improv for a month yeah and I got I got nothing to write about everybody's doing a one-man show and it's about you know how big their penis is or you know I didn't see that one well I was you know every at that point everybody was writing Jeff Garland did one about eating probably yeah he did several where they were one-man shows but the only part he wrote I want to eat cheese with you right but the only part Jeff Garland would write of his one-man show would be the title of the show and then
Marc:Jeff's a good friend of mine.
Marc:He's the funniest guy I know.
Marc:He's hilarious.
Guest:He's the only guy that calls me up and doesn't say who it is.
Guest:He calls me up at like 10.30 at night.
Guest:I'll answer the phone and he'll say, listen, I'm on the 101.
Marc:And I know who it is.
Marc:I've had him on a couple times.
Marc:He's hilarious.
Guest:But Mark said, if you write a show, I'll give you the improv for a month.
Guest:And at that point, I was working clubs still.
Guest:And Declan was really young.
Guest:And I thought, if I could stay home for a month,
Guest:That'd be amazing.
Marc:You might be able to enjoy your child's first month of life.
Guest:So I wrote the show.
Guest:I started doing it to San Francisco Improv.
Guest:Lisa Leingang was the manager then.
Guest:She really helped me develop it.
Guest:I wound up, I got great reviews, and I wound up being there for five months.
Guest:They just kept extending it.
Guest:Then I took it to Washington, D.C.
Guest:for three months.
Guest:Then I signed the sitcom deal, and then my world fell apart.
Guest:after I let ABC... You know, it's like the Godfather thing.
Guest:I get out of L.A., and then they suck me right back in.
Guest:Just when you think you're out, they suck you back in.
Marc:But also, you now have one kid, and you're excited.
Marc:This might be a turning point.
Marc:You're about to happen.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I'm going to be huge.
Marc:Yeah, and then that blows up.
Guest:It crashes and burns, and then it's over.
Guest:And it's such a typical cliched Hollywood story.
Guest:One day, I can get the vice president of ABC on the phone, and the next day, he's in a meeting.
Marc:Well, you're lucky that he told you personally.
Marc:A lot of times things go away and no one will tell you.
Guest:It took six months, but I'm still friendly with him.
Guest:I sent him a copy of the latest play.
Guest:He didn't watch it, but I sent him a copy.
Marc:The ex-head of ABC?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Good guy, Stuart Bloomberg, who's a good guy.
Marc:And he was very honest with me.
Marc:I think I met that guy, too.
Marc:Yeah, he's a good guy.
Marc:Well, you still act.
Marc:I mean, you were the doctor on The Curb.
Marc:Yeah, I did Curb.
Guest:How many episodes?
Guest:four or five episodes.
Marc:Did you know Larry before?
Guest:No, I just did the audition.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was a fun audition because what happened was... You were funny.
Marc:You're a great straight man.
Guest:Yeah, what happened was I went to do the audition as I walked into the audition room.
Guest:You know what there's like six people on a couch and Larry and Larry says, can you excuse me for a minute?
Guest:I got to go make a phone call.
Guest:I said, yeah, go ahead.
Guest:So while he's out of the room, they explain the scene to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the scene is you're pissed at Larry.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because he won't pay your wife, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So as soon as Larry walked in the room for real, he stuck out his hand and said, I'm Larry Davis.
Guest:I said, shut the fuck up, Larry.
Guest:Sit down.
Guest:I know who you are.
Guest:what the fuck is going on so we did the scene and then he stopped he said whoa you just you just started right in on me yeah well i figured what the hell i got nothing to lose yeah and i got the gig and i did four or five of them and the last one i did he said i said to him you know i think i'm the only person who's not a name who keeps coming back yeah i said can i can i refer to myself as a recurring character yeah and larry david you know that waited for
Guest:yes you can oh excellent so now he gave me permission it was like the pope blessing yeah but you know i did that but but mostly you know i'm i'm still in sacramento with my family you know the second one man show is about the abc debacle debacle the third one man show third one man show is called what he left my mom died after a long illness she was sick for a long time with sort of a mental illness and she died
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:She had some, I had a sister who died when she was very young, like 40.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And my mom never got over it.
Marc:Huh.
Guest:Just kind of sent her into this little pit of despair that she was depressed and never got over it.
Marc:Did she have that thing where, what do they call it, failure to, like she lost her will to live kind of thing?
Guest:Sort of.
Guest:She just would go in and out.
Guest:It was really sad.
Guest:She was such a vibrant person.
Guest:And then when Sharon died, she just kind of lost it.
Marc:The heartbreak.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So my mom died.
Guest:And then 19 days later, my father died.
Guest:Unexpectedly, like out of nowhere.
Guest:And when he died, he left nine hours of audio tape talking about his life, which my younger brother Bill got him to do.
Guest:We knew he was making the tapes.
Guest:We didn't know what was on him.
Guest:When he died, I got the tape.
Guest:he just sat there with the like we are recorder and said when i my name is john and the beginning ones are funny because my name is john gallagher yeah and at the end he's like you know god damn it pain in the ass son of a bitch if i ever see him again got really honest and he talked about a lot of stuff you don't want to hear you talk about sure like he had a nervous breakdown and i remember the nervous breakdown because i was like 11. i remember them taking him out of the house in his robe shaking and
Guest:And saying to my mom, where's dad going?
Guest:And she's saying he just needs to see a doctor.
Guest:But we were Irish Catholic.
Guest:He didn't talk about that.
Guest:I mean, I remember walking up to his bedroom.
Guest:My mom saying, your dad's sick.
Guest:And the door was shut.
Guest:Don't bother your dad.
Guest:Well, the door was shut for days.
Guest:And I remember going to and putting my ear against the door.
Guest:And then I remember just thinking, fuck it.
Guest:and opening the door.
Guest:And I'll tell you, I remember this like it was yesterday.
Guest:There was a little light coming in from the bottom of a shade.
Guest:And my dad was lying in his bed, curled up in the fetal position, shaking.
Marc:Your dad.
Guest:My dad.
Guest:And you're 11.
Guest:And I shut the door and thought, fuck.
Guest:And I pretended it didn't happen.
Guest:And then a couple days later, they took him away.
Guest:But he talks about this on the tape, what happened.
Guest:When they took him away, I mean, they took him away?
Guest:My sister drove him to a hospital.
Guest:For how long?
Guest:He was gone probably for, I don't recall, I was so young, probably a couple weeks.
Marc:But it's interesting, that vivid moment of like, well, if he's not in control.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, who's running the ship here?
Guest:Who's running the show?
Guest:And we're going to flounder because my dad was one of these guys who was detached, but he was in control.
Guest:What was his racket?
Guest:He was a salesman, sold everything from life insurance to roofs.
Marc:He was a hustler.
Guest:And what do you think?
Guest:What brought on that thing?
Guest:Yeah, I know exactly what brought it on.
Guest:He got caught.
Guest:They thought he was embezzling money.
Guest:And he was not embezzling money.
Guest:He was selling life's a long story.
Guest:It's all chronicled in what he left.
Guest:He was trying to...
Guest:It's a long, complicated thing.
Guest:He was trying to help these people not get their policies canceled because they couldn't make their premium payments.
Guest:And we lived near Brockton, Massachusetts, which was a really depressed town at that point, still is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was waiting for some money to be shifted into his account from bonuses.
Guest:So he was moving money around.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they caught him doing it.
Guest:And they threatened to expose him.
Marc:He was just sort of doing a Robin Hood thing.
Guest:He was trying to.
Guest:He did it poorly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't know how much of this he was...
Guest:But his description of what he was doing is he was trying to help people.
Guest:Knowing my dad, I don't think he was trying to do anything illegal.
Guest:But what he did was probably illegal.
Guest:And he thought he could cover his ass.
Guest:He didn't think anybody would find out.
Guest:It was going to be like three days.
Guest:If I can do this in the next three days.
Guest:And they caught him.
Guest:There was a window.
Guest:And he left.
Guest:I mean, I talk about this in the play.
Guest:He talks about it on his tapes.
Guest:He felt demoralized.
Guest:He's a failure.
Guest:He drove.
Guest:He just started driving.
Guest:Wound up in a hotel somewhere in Connecticut or something was going to kill himself.
Guest:and finally decided to come home so i found i got these tapes and at the same time i got the tapes my sister was talking about they were going to sell the house i grew up in yeah so i wrote a show about him and the house and my relationship with him and i used sound bites from his tapes in the show
Guest:I would say, my dad did this, and then they'd play his voice saying, I drove to this.
Marc:How is that in effect?
Marc:Good, huh?
Marc:Oh, it's unbelievable.
Marc:Yeah, I have a similar situation with my father.
Marc:He's in a little hot water now, but it's interesting when... Well, I've always thought that...
Marc:I mean, you've been in therapy.
Marc:And there are certain things you have to work through yourself.
Marc:And then when your parents, either because they get too old to realize they shouldn't tell you shit, they dump something into your brain.
Marc:And there's actually a moment where you're like, I probably could have not.
Marc:I didn't even know that.
Marc:Yeah, I would have rather just not known.
Guest:My dad became one of my really good friends as we got older, and I would talk to him on the phone every day.
Guest:I'd call him every day, because he was a good guy.
Guest:And when I got past the point of him being my father, and I realized he was just this frail guy who didn't know what the fuck he was doing,
Guest:He had five kids.
Guest:He's trying to keep his head above water.
Guest:He didn't have a college education.
Guest:He hustled, man.
Guest:And he was a good guy.
Guest:And we never were hungry.
Guest:And we never went shoeless.
Guest:And we had jackets in the winter in Boston.
Guest:And he did all this.
Guest:And I didn't give him any fucking credit for it until I started thinking, this is fucking hard to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he became my friend.
Guest:And then he passed away and I missed him.
Guest:And so I wrote this show about him and it's a really touching sort of... I wanted to get that one right because it was my sort of tribute to him.
Guest:Just a normal fucking guy.
Guest:Just one of these guys you pass on the street and not even give him a second glance.
Marc:Well, it seems like thematically, from what you're telling me about this show and what I watched in the show, is it a different kind of cool?
Marc:It's called a different kind of cool.
Marc:Is that, you know, as...
Marc:evolving empathy that we look at things in a certain way, and certainly fathers, that when you really think about the age my parents had me at and what was I doing at that age.
Marc:Yeah, I think that all the time.
Marc:And you're just like, how the fuck?
Marc:Why did I expect them to know what they were doing?
Marc:Well, that's a good way to look at it.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because I don't.
Marc:Well, that's what I always say.
Marc:I say, like, you know, when your parents say they did the best they can, they didn't.
Marc:They did what they could.
Guest:That's a great way of putting it.
Guest:You did what you could.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You could have done.
Guest:You could have tried harder, maybe.
Marc:Some things.
Marc:There were some things.
Guest:But then, you know, you have kids, and Declan was...
Guest:But then Liam comes along, and Liam is the subject of a different kind of cool because you watched it.
Guest:When Liam was seven, he's going to be 16 in the fall.
Guest:But when he was seven, he was diagnosed with autism.
Marc:But my question in looking at the show and in your experience and how you portrayed it in the show was that
Marc:I mean, it must have been... Something must have been apparent before 7.
Marc:I mean, how strong was the denial on your part?
Marc:Because you talk about that, that you were adverse to having him tested.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't want him labeled.
Guest:Because once he's labeled, he's labeled for life.
Guest:And I didn't know at that time that we could control the label.
Guest:Right.
Guest:that it didn't have to be what I thought it was going to be.
Guest:There was some denial now looking back.
Guest:You don't know you're in denial.
Marc:No, no, I was just curious when I was watching it.
Guest:No, he was always a smart kid.
Guest:He was always one of these, you know, he started reading at four.
Guest:Just, I say in the play, he walked behind my wife and read an ad out of the newspaper from top to bottom at four.
Guest:And words that were, you know,
Guest:But there was some social problems, issues with him.
Guest:And so it got to the point where we needed help.
Guest:And in the second grade, we had him tested.
Guest:And they said he's autistic.
Marc:What kind of social problems?
Guest:Perseverating on topics.
Marc:I hear that word a lot because my girlfriend works with autistic.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Perseverating where it's a repetition.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:Talk about the same thing overnight.
Guest:An interest in one thing.
Guest:A lot of autistic kids are interested in trains, railroad trains.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't know why.
Guest:But Liam has, he's grown out of that but was way into trains.
Guest:Difficult to, doesn't look at you when he talks to you.
Guest:It's like stuff I talk about in the play.
Guest:Like when we're talking to each other and I'm saying something, you nod your head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where'd you learn how to do that?
Right.
Guest:That's through osmosis.
Guest:Your parents didn't say, nod your head when somebody talks to you.
Guest:He didn't pick that stuff up.
Guest:So he has to learn that stuff.
Guest:For years, we tried to get him to ask questions.
Guest:And I don't know if I talk about this in the play, but we wanted him to ask a question.
Guest:Because he would just talk to you about his day, what he'd been doing.
Guest:And so we tried to have conversations.
Guest:And the question we wanted him to ask was, how was your day?
Marc:Just worked on that forever and ever and ever with his therapist with occupational therapy now is that about actually Being able to to have concern or to be taught to listen to someone else It's a it's a really weird situation because
Guest:he has to fit into a certain degree to function in society.
Guest:I don't want him to change.
Guest:That's the lesson I learned is that I don't want him to change.
Guest:I want him to stay as this person that he is, which is completely different and unique and, and honestly, a really different kind of cool.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But he has to function in society.
Marc:He's authentic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's one of a kind.
Marc:Right.
Guest:He is.
Guest:Well, you talk to him and you go, wow, this kid is, he's interesting.
Marc:He's funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's different.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Um,
Guest:But he has to fit into society.
Guest:And this is the thing as a parent.
Guest:When I'm gone, I want him to be able to function.
Guest:And there are certain things that you have to do to function.
Guest:And one is to engage other people.
Marc:But these kids have needs, but they may not have interest in other people necessarily.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:And I don't care if he's interested in it.
Guest:But is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:He loves other people and he wants to talk to people and he wants to engage you in conversation.
Guest:He just has a hard time with it.
Guest:It's very difficult to describe.
Guest:He just has a difficult time with it.
Guest:He doesn't know how to do it.
Guest:You have to teach him tiny steps.
Guest:And things that you and I picked up just, again, through osmosis, he's had to learn.
Guest:Like asking you, how was your day?
Guest:And I remember walking across the playground with him at school.
Guest:He was in like the fourth grade and he just turned to me and said, so how was your day?
Guest:And I called my wife and said, he just asked me how my day was.
Guest:It was like this giant fucking breakthrough.
Guest:And she said, Liam?
Guest:And I said, Liam Gallagher asked me how my day was.
Guest:And I remember saying to him, good, good day.
Guest:And now he'll say, you know, I mean, he's a 15-year-old kid.
Guest:He's got the same interests that a 15-year-old kid has, and he's just different.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:Now, in terms of... There was something about...
Marc:Like, I've known peculiar people, and in comedy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Tell me about it.
Guest:I can tell you.
Guest:And they call it on the spectrum.
Guest:That's the autistic spectrum.
Guest:I've met a lot of guys growing up.
Guest:I can point guys that are on the spectrum to you that we both know.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Him, him, him.
Marc:Yeah, they're savant-like.
Marc:They have a certain brilliance around certain areas, but they have a complete blind side to other areas.
Marc:And there were people I grew up with that had that before this diagnosis became as broad as it is.
Guest:As prevalent as it is now.
Guest:One in every 110 kids is diagnosed.
Marc:And a lot of them are very bright.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:One out of every 10 is on the spectrum.
Marc:Explain that.
Guest:One of every 110.
Guest:110.
Marc:So what is that spectrum?
Guest:The spectrum goes from kids who sit in the corner and don't have any control of anything, can't speak, to Asperger's kids, which are at the far end of the spectrum, who can tell you anything you want to know about the cosmos.
Guest:They might have one or two areas that they're experts in at 14 years old.
Guest:And Liam is probably on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Rain Man and 10 being Asperger's.
Guest:Liam's probably a 7 or an 8.
Marc:And there's physicality issues as well?
Guest:He does a lot of stimming.
Guest:It's called stimming.
Guest:where he'll shake his hands real violently, or he'll jump up and down, or he'll make a fist and push it into his forehead sometimes.
Guest:And I ask him why he does that, and he says it just kind of relieves the pressure.
Guest:It makes perfect sense.
Guest:It does, because we do it.
Guest:Sure we do.
Guest:Whether it's...
Guest:or jumping up or punching something.
Guest:Or exercising.
Guest:And he'll say to me, yeah, he'll say to me, I'm stimming a lot today.
Guest:And it breaks your heart sometimes because he'll say to me, Dad, I know this autism causes me to do this and I want it to stop.
Guest:But I'll say to him, look, it's what makes you creative.
Guest:The kid's written a Simpson script.
Guest:He's created a whole town in his head of people that are actually, you know what I mean?
Guest:He's just got this great imagination that I don't want to squelch that I was trying to for a while.
Marc:Well, the realization around that was a mixture of concern and fear for the kid.
Guest:Yeah, and embarrassment.
Marc:And embarrassment.
Guest:I was embarrassed of him at times.
Guest:And I'm no longer embarrassed of him.
Marc:Well, you talk a little bit about that moment you had with that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A guy came up to me and said, is he going to get over this?
Guest:And I said, what?
Guest:You know, jumping up and down, acting the way he acts.
Marc:But you knew what he was talking about, right?
Guest:I knew what he was talking about, but I wanted him to tell me.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I mean, it's your kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What am I going to say?
Guest:No, he's not going to get over it.
Guest:And at the time, I didn't say anything to him.
Guest:I wish I had, but at the time, I wasn't confident enough in myself and him, Liam,
Guest:to deal with it the way i should have dealt with the people do that all the time see the thing about liam is there's no physicality there's no physical cue that tells you he's different he's not in a wheelchair he doesn't have any muscular dysfunction he he he doesn't have anything as a physical see if we see people with a physical cue yeah you know i'm gonna have to deal with this a little differently right but liam's not that way you start talking to him and it takes you about a minute to realize okay there's something a little different happening yeah a little skew
Guest:You know, and that throws people off.
Guest:There are people who just blow them right off, don't want anything to do with them.
Guest:And I was embarrassed of him at times because he's my kid and we'd be standing places and he'd be bouncing up and down and I'd be, dude, stop bouncing.
Guest:But then I had this moment with him, this really revealing moment where I was working really hard with him.
Guest:I mean, I rewrote textbooks for him.
Guest:I just wanted everything to work.
Guest:And I had this really telling moment with him where he...
Guest:He basically told me I was doing it the wrong way.
Guest:And he told me he was doing the best he could and that he was really trying hard.
Guest:And why was I so angry all the time?
Guest:And I thought, shit, I'm not doing this right.
Guest:So I just stepped back and I let him be himself.
Guest:And I watched what he did and I sort of followed him.
Guest:And now we have a way we get home.
Guest:I mean, he's my bud.
Guest:I understand him better.
Guest:It was me.
Guest:It wasn't him.
Marc:So you figured out how to communicate on his terms because it's not physical therapy.
Marc:It's not like we're not treating a sprain.
Guest:I came to the conclusion I didn't want to change him.
Guest:I was trying to change him.
Guest:He's not a boring person.
Guest:I was trying to make him into every white bread person I know.
Guest:No, don't do it like this because this is the way everybody does it.
Marc:I imagine that weird mixture of concern for what he's going to have to go through.
Marc:that had to trump your embarrassment at some point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it wasn't about me anymore.
Guest:It's like, well, this isn't about you.
Guest:It's not, surprisingly, not everything's about you.
Guest:It was about him and making his life as nice as possible for him and setting up a pathway for him.
Guest:And people deal with this all the time.
Guest:And this is the reaction I get from people is I have an autistic nephew.
Guest:I have an autistic child.
Guest:My grandchild is autistic and we don't know what to do.
Guest:Well,
Guest:I'm letting him live his life.
Guest:I'm trying his hard... You know, when he goes off the path, I tell him, you're going off the path.
Guest:Dude, don't do that.
Guest:That's not right.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, whatever.
Guest:I mean, you know, if he's... I can't think of a specific... But I do it with his older brother.
Guest:You know, it's like being a parent.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, don't do that again.
Guest:That was ridiculous.
Guest:Or whatever.
Marc:Now, what about, like, does he have friends?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's hard for him to make friends.
Guest:Because he's different.
Guest:And at 15, you want him to be like everybody else.
Marc:And he's a little naive.
Marc:It usually just takes one guy who's got his shit together to sort of take him under his wing and say, you know, back off.
Guest:He wanted to go to school.
Guest:He's just started his freshman year.
Guest:He just finished his freshman year.
Guest:And one of his goals was to make friends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he has a couple of really close friends, Andrew.
Guest:and drake and then he made friends at school and he's he goes to a small school that focuses on technology because he's one of these kids it's a technological whiz really computers yeah he collects vintage gaming systems and you know he's one of these kids that really he wants to be he wants to develop video games he wants to go he knows the college he wants to go to he he's
Guest:He's a smart kid.
Marc:I have to figure that industry is full of people on the spectrum.
Guest:And people say to me all the time, what's going to happen with Liam?
Guest:What do you mean what's going to happen with him?
Guest:I say, Liam's going to be that guy in the cubicle next to you who's a little quirky, who's a little, does things his own.
Guest:That's what Liam's going to be.
Guest:He's a handsome, bright, smart kid.
Guest:He's just got some social.
Guest:And this is the frustrating thing.
Guest:They don't know what causes this.
Guest:they don't know no ideas like you must have looked at everything i've talked there's the preeminent research facility in basically the world for autism in sacramento it's called the mind institute yeah and i've researched that i've talked to the head of research the director of research and they tell you we have theories but we don't know what are the theories uh one theory has to do with antibodies that and this is a really i can't explain this one to you because it's really complicated but
Guest:antibodies that are in mother's breast milk that form some sort of a weird thing in the brain with kids.
Guest:The big theory, one of the biggest theories now is called the accelerated brain theory.
Guest:When your brain develops normally, I can use that word in quotes,
Guest:Everything happens at the, you know, so you can, it connects at the right pace.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you can crawl and walk and talk and all that stuff.
Guest:The accelerated brain theory says that one side of the brain grows more quickly than the other side.
Guest:So misconnections are made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that you have more stuff going into this area and not enough going into that area.
Guest:But they don't know at this point.
Guest:There is no, they don't know.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:After a certain point, I have to imagine that it doesn't matter.
Guest:precisely it doesn't matter and people say the vaccines caused it uh too much mercury yeah it doesn't matter that's the perfect i mean that's how we think it doesn't matter we are where we are right i can't go back and change anything right so i'm gonna make this what it is and we don't treat him any differently than his brother we don't treat him any differently than anyone else we say it takes you a little longer to catch on to stuff or it takes you a little longer to do this or it's harder for you to do that but look you're better at this yeah you can do this better than anybody we know
Guest:and how's his brother handle him his brother is tremendous they're in San Francisco right now and what's the age difference five years Declan's 19 and Liam's 15 Declan loves him and they get along like two peas in a pod and Declan is so patient and this is just this metamorphosis that's happened recently because for a long time Declan was frustrated by him because Liam does you know he'll talk about the same thing over and over again like he loves Calvin and Hobbes the comic strip and he can quote you every single strip verbatim um
Guest:But Declan went through this little period, I think after he moved away from home, where he... I can't say enough about how well they get along.
Guest:They love each other, and they're up in San Francisco now together for a couple days.
Guest:Declan lives there now, and Liam's spending a couple days with them.
Guest:And Declan will send me these videos of them at the movies or them on Haight Street.
Guest:I got this great picture of Liam smoking a cigarette on Haight Street.
Guest:It's a fake cigarette.
Marc:You sure about that, Dad?
Guest:I'm pretty positive.
Guest:I smelled his breath when he got in the car.
LAUGHTER
Guest:No, they get along great.
Guest:Declan's a great kid.
Guest:He's a smart kid.
Guest:Looks out for him.
Guest:He sticks up for him, and he knows, you know.
Guest:I mean, we're all sort of protective of him because he's our baby, even though he's 15.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he does have these challenges.
Marc:Is he going to be able to drive and stuff?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's studying for his learners permit test right now.
Guest:He wants to get a driver's license.
Guest:He wants to go to college.
Guest:He's already talking about living away from home.
Guest:He'll ask us questions Declan never asked, like, how do I know when it's time to pay the gas bill?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or how am I going to do my laundry?
Guest:What kind of food do I buy and keep in the refrigerator?
Guest:How long do I keep fruit?
Guest:Really?
Guest:He'll ask you all these questions.
Guest:I say to him, dude, it'll all come.
Guest:Just don't worry about that stuff.
Guest:But he's ready to go.
Guest:Dad, when I move out, you're going to be sad?
Guest:Will you be sad when I'm gone?
Guest:Well, yeah, sort of, maybe a couple days, half hour.
Marc:It's interesting all that forward thinking about just so he knows that he'll have some control over the future environment.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you know, it's not a debilitating thing.
Guest:People think every kid with autism is Rain Man.
Marc:Right.
Guest:He's a human being.
Guest:He's just different.
Guest:We don't like different.
Guest:We don't like different.
Marc:Well, I like that.
Marc:I like that framing of it, that there's an authenticity to it.
Marc:There's a uniqueness to it.
Marc:He's not dysfunctional.
Marc:No.
Marc:No, not in the least.
Guest:He's more functional than a lot of normal people I know.
Marc:It's about, it's really, and I think in the show you framed it really beautifully in that, you know, it's about someone who can't hide themselves.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And that should be embraced.
Guest:Absolutely, because we hide who we are.
Guest:Constantly.
Guest:Out of fear of not.
Guest:Yeah, you are who you want other people to be.
Guest:To think you are.
Guest:And there's a great quote from a John Steinbeck novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, that I love.
Guest:And then I've told my kids.
Guest:And it is, you wouldn't care so much about what people thought of you if you knew how little they did it.
Guest:And so Liam's not worried about that.
Guest:Liam doesn't care what you think about him.
Guest:He goes about his... He just doesn't... He's never bullied or hurt?
Guest:Oh, he's been bullied tremendously.
Guest:And he's had people hurt his feelings and call him stupid and retarded.
Guest:And he doesn't know why people do that.
Guest:He's the gentlest soul.
Guest:He gets angry.
Guest:I bought him a punching bag.
Guest:he said dad i need something that's constructive stimming i gotta i got yeah i gotta get this you know i'm mad and i want to and i'll hear him in his room punching the punching bag that's good but he doesn't understand why people are mean to each other he understands it but he doesn't get it yeah he's got this gentle soul that you think why would i want to change this person who says to me why did why would people call me names right why they don't even
Guest:He had a group of girls who were giving him a really hard time asking him if he was on crack all the time because he has this kind of weird way of walking sometimes to hold his head to the side.
Guest:And he said to me, why do they do that?
Guest:They don't even know me.
Guest:They don't know who I am or what I'm like, and they call me names.
Guest:And I think, well, that's the way people act.
Marc:They want to box you in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's a good man.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:It's sort of not taken over my life, but it's something I spend a lot of time on.
Marc:Well, what's the most profound change it had in terms of who you are and how you see yourself?
Guest:Like everybody in this business, I was always very concerned about what people thought of me and how I came across and my image of what people thought of me.
Guest:And I think what he's taught me is that I try, and this isn't easy to do, everybody says they don't care what people think about them.
Guest:I have gotten to the point where I care less about what people think about me.
Guest:I take criticism for what it's worth and less to heart if I don't think it's relevant than I used to, if that makes sense.
Guest:He's taught me that it's okay to be different, that it's okay to be who you are and not try to be who everybody wants you to be or who you think you need to be.
Marc:And in terms of like, because we're all pretty self-centered people as comedians in general.
Marc:Yeah, I would say, look at me, the light's on me.
Guest:It's like with hecklers, you know, you want to get a fucking show.
Guest:The lights are on me, I've got the microphone.
Marc:Yeah, has it like, you know, in terms of like, there's one thing to, you know, to have kids, but in terms of like, you know, like it seems that through the process of acknowledging your dad's frailty and then, you know, acknowledging this condition, you know,
Marc:that the humanity of both of those things, I mean, has it made you more sympathetic?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, it's your kid.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:You can't describe to somebody what it's like to have a kid.
Guest:And you can't describe to somebody what it's like to think that there is something wrong with your child, something wrong that they'll never get over.
Guest:I mean, it breaks your heart.
Guest:You lie in bed at night and look at the ceiling and think, what the fuck can I do?
Guest:I'd do anything.
Yeah.
Guest:But the realization that there's nothing there to fix, that there's nothing wrong with him, that he's just different, has made me much more accepting of looking at other people and thinking, I mean, I don't care.
Guest:Every rotten thing that's ever happened in the world has been done by a person.
Guest:Every shitty thing, basically, except for natural disasters, has been caused by some asshole person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think now I think I just don't I don't know.
Guest:I just don't judge people as harsh.
Marc:You must kill the bully in you.
Marc:That's for sure.
Guest:Yeah, I was never a bully.
Guest:I got bullied.
Guest:I was the kid that I've been both shoved in lockers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was a skinny, tall, little skinny kid.
Guest:And I remember in high school just trying to avoid certain kids because I knew I was going into the fucking locker.
Marc:And how has that affected the, you know, I mean, in a sense, obviously you're doing shows about it, but what about, what's your stand-up like these days?
Marc:Do you do the stand-up?
Guest:I do, you know, I can't, I don't work, I shouldn't say I can't, I don't work in clubs anymore because I'm close to 60.
Guest:And nobody, you know what the age level in clubs is, nobody wants to hear their fucking father on stage complain his back hurts.
Guest:So I do a lot of corporate events.
Guest:And a lot of the stuff I do is tied into...
Guest:lately has been sort of tied into the autism thing how is that uh in in what way are you providing a lot of relief for people i think so i get i can't you know it's weird and and i'm sure you have the same thing with the success of this podcast people write me letters thinking i know what i'm doing right and if you watch the play you realize i don't know what i'm doing i have just gotten to a point where i'm more comfortable not knowing what i'm doing you have some acceptance
Guest:Yeah, and I think that's fine.
Guest:I think that's what people with any sort of difference in their lives find comfort in somebody else talking about it because these are things you don't generally talk about.
Marc:And talking about it like a comic will in the sense that we can disarm it a little bit, that the pain is tempered by a sort of a wit and an acceptance of it.
Guest:Yeah, one of the nicest letters I got.
Guest:I've gotten so many letters from people doing this show.
Guest:It's like a 79-year-old guy wrote me a letter and said, I saw your show.
Guest:I don't have anybody in my life with autism, but my wife has Alzheimer's.
Guest:And I realized after seeing your show that I'm not letting her be the person she needs to be right now.
Guest:And so this gig I did yesterday was I incorporated some of this stuff.
Guest:I'm trying to get the play out there more.
Guest:I'm trying to get people in Hollywood to look at this and understand this is a timely issue.
Guest:But you know what it's like.
Guest:If you don't live in Hollywood, you can't be serious about stuff.
Guest:I can't get people to watch the play.
Guest:I can't get people to read the script.
Guest:It's like.
Guest:I sent it to people.
Guest:I mean, you watched it.
Guest:My friend Lou, Lou Viola watched it.
Guest:I sent it to Dave Becky, who's an acquaintance of my old manager, who I knew forever.
Guest:And he never got around to watching it.
Guest:You know, people are too busy.
Guest:But the reaction from people watching this play is something I have never experienced before in my career.
Guest:I did 60 performances.
Guest:I got 60 standing ovations.
Guest:That's never happened to me.
Guest:And people come up to me afterwards and say, I never thought I'd hear anybody talk about this in a way that was funny.
Guest:that was clinical to a degree and that touched on all the stuff that I feel because I have someone in my life who has Down syndrome.
Guest:So it's changed the way I go about doing my, it's just changed.
Guest:Having him as a kid, having kids in general changes you, but having Liam as a kid has changed me considerably in terms of what I want to do.
Guest:I would like to have people understand more about people who we just discount for one reason or another.
Guest:Out of fear.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Out of our own discomfort.
Guest:So I was saying to you, people discount him when they start talking to him and it goes a little bit sideways instead of going sideways.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:OK, good.
Guest:I'm going to go over and talk to Joni over here.
Marc:Well, I think there has to be some empathy for them, too, in the sense that they don't know how to handle it.
Guest:And I feel fine about that.
Guest:It's the difference between that guy saying to me, is he going to get over it?
Guest:At that point in me thinking, you fucking asshole.
Guest:And now thinking, I understand you're really uncomfortable with my son.
Guest:And that's your problem.
Guest:That's not because look at him.
Guest:He's smiling and you got your hands in your pocket jiggling your change.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's what it is.
Guest:People are uncomfortable.
Guest:And they have to learn.
Guest:If you spend 20 minutes with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You'd want to spend another hour with him and say, tell me more about this thing you were talking about because that's interesting.
Guest:Because they're unique.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what people can't get a handle on.
Guest:And that's not a crusade for me.
Guest:I don't want to go out and start beating the drum.
Guest:But I think that this show has some legs because this is something that people don't know anything.
Guest:Everybody thinks it's Rain Man.
Guest:Oh, so he can, you know, if you drop toothpicks on the ground, he can tell you how many?
Guest:No, he's not a savant.
Guest:He's got autism.
Marc:But if you happen to ask him about Calvin and Hobbes.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Hey, I'll tell you a really funny story.
Guest:We're riding in the car one day.
Guest:The four of us are in the car and we're going to San Francisco.
Guest:And I'm telling him I see a CHP on the side of the road.
Guest:And I tell my wife, hey, I read this thing in the paper where the cops are pulling you over and they're making you say the alphabet backwards.
Guest:as a as a sobriety test can you do that and she says no i can't do it so declan's sitting in the back seat and i say declan can you say the alphabet backwards and declan being who he is says yeah give me a second and i look in the mirror i can see him writing the alphabet down i said no no no no no no liam is in the way back in the station wagon that faces backwards right so liam can you say the alphabet backwards he was maybe nine yeah and he said the alphabet backwards faster than you can say it forward
Guest:And my wife said, you put him up to this.
Guest:I said, no way.
Guest:And I said, how do you do that?
Guest:And he said, I just see it in my head and I see it backwards and say the letters.
Guest:Explain that to me.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:So he's got these little, that used to be his party trick for a while.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Liam, say the alphabet backwards.
Marc:CBA.
Marc:It's an enviable talent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's other stuff that gets in his way.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And he knows that and he wants to get by it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he'll say, I wanted this autism thing to stop making me do that.
Marc:Well, to have that much self-awareness and to know that you have these cognitive, you know, that you have a cognitive awareness of actions that you don't have complete control over, I imagine he may get a grip on some of those.
Marc:I hope so.
Guest:I mean, but on the other hand, you know, he's a healthy kid.
Guest:There's nothing wrong with him physically.
Marc:Just for his own comfort.
Marc:I mean, not out of any judgment.
Marc:But I think that, I don't know, what kind of cognitive success do they have with that?
Marc:Because he seems to have a lot of self-awareness.
Marc:So if he's gotten his head to, you know, to take a beat and not engage, can he do that?
Guest:yeah he's he's learning how to do that that's great that's something he again yeah has to learn how to do as opposed to to just picking it up sure sure it's gotta be him and so he's he goes to a bunch of different groups you know and learns social skills and stuff like that and we read books and it's it's a it's hard to describe for people who aren't in the you know everybody's got something in their lives that they deal with and this is not a huge thing it's it's
Guest:But it's changed, it's just changed the way I think of my life, really, my career.
Guest:And, you know, for a very long time, my career was the most important thing.
Guest:Like everybody else, it caused problems in my marriage.
Guest:It caused problems with my friends and family.
Guest:And then certain things happen.
Guest:The show fucking up, the sitcom.
Guest:Certain things make you stop and go, wait a minute, maybe I'm doing this wrong.
Guest:And then when Liam came along and it's your kid and you go, something's not right here.
Guest:You just instinctively put every amount of effort into it that you can to try to help them.
Guest:to try to make it okay.
Guest:And then you realize, you know, okay, well, I'm doing too much or I'm doing too much.
Guest:I mean, you know, I was fucking that kid up, man.
Guest:I was doing the wrong things.
Marc:Yeah, but in life at all, now you're engaged in life and you got that whole other side that isn't selfish, connected in the world, and it's fucking great.
Guest:I'm still selfish, though.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:I still want everybody to like me.
Marc:Well, you did good.
Marc:And I like you.
Marc:Are we all right?
Marc:It sounded great, sure.
Marc:I'll ask the questions you ask.
Guest:Are we okay?
Guest:Yeah, we're okay, man.
Guest:It's great talking to you.
Guest:It's good talking to you, too.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:We'll be right back.
Marc:okay so let's uh let's do the plug thing here wtfpod.com go there get your just coffee.coop wtf blend and i'll get a few shekels on the back end of that donate a few shekels at wtfpod.com got some new merch and new merch coming for the holidays some uh some buttons and some uh some tote bags are on the way get on that mailing list to wtfpod.com and uh
Marc:and I'll send you a little thing every week.
Marc:Also, my buddy Matt Bronger, he's been on this show.
Marc:Very funny guy.
Marc:If you're in the Portland area, tomorrow night he's recording his album for Comedy Central Records at the Alberta Rose Theater in Northeast Portland.
Marc:That's October 14th.
Marc:There's an 8 o'clock and a 10 o'clock show.
Marc:It's going to be hosted by Matt Dwyer, and it's going to feature Ron Funches.
Marc:Is that how you pronounce his last name?
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But anyways, tickets are available online at albertarosetheater.com for Matt Bronger's CD taping tomorrow night in Portland at the Alberta Rose Theater, 8 and 10 o'clock.
Marc:Is that my phone ringing?
Marc:Who the fuck is calling me?
Marc:Hold on, maybe I better get that.
Marc:Hello?
Guest:Hey, Mark.
Guest:Yo, Mark.
Guest:It's Dom.
Guest:Dom Irera.
Guest:Are you fucking kidding me?
Guest:No, I'm not kidding you.
Guest:I hadn't even started yet.
Guest:I just called to say hello, see how you doing.
Marc:It surprises me when you call because you know why?
Marc:Why?
Marc:I don't think I've ever talked to you on the phone before.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:Uh, it's possible.
Guest:I mean, you know, I don't know that I ever needed to talk to you before, but I'm happy to talk to you.
Guest:It's great to hear.
Guest:I was seeing, I was watching that George Harrison documentary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you always reminded me of John Lennon, but like a happier, more creative type of John Lennon, you know?
Marc:Yeah, you know, I wish I could get as much as he got done done, because I just don't think that's going to happen for me.
Guest:He got done a lot, but he...
Guest:He got done a lot before he was 20.
Marc:I know, and that's not going to happen for me, because I could go through a box that I have here in the garage that says Mark, age 20, and there's not much in that box.
Guest:When did you start writing your creative brilliance?
Marc:I started writing my creative brilliance probably in high school.
Marc:There was a very important two or three poems I did that made the class very uncomfortable, and
Marc:And and then I would scribble things down in college that I thought was very important.
Marc:And unfortunately, I can't I can't read my writing from then.
Marc:So it's lost until someone can translate it.
Guest:Well, I understand there's a dark side to you, but I've never seen it.
Guest:I've only seen your joyful embracing of life side.
Marc:Well, that's the thing about me is like everyone knows this about me.
Marc:I keep a lot hidden.
Marc:I keep a lot to myself.
Marc:You know, I don't share what's going on with me ever.
Guest:Well, you share your gift with the world, Mark.
Guest:I saw you do stand-up at the comedy store a couple weeks ago, and I got to tell you, I mean, you know what I like?
Guest:The fact that you teach so much.
Guest:I mean, a lot of guys, they try and be funny, but you're actually a public speaker.
Marc:Wait a minute.
Guest:That doesn't sound like a... No, no, but it's good, though.
Guest:It's interesting.
Marc:Interesting and public.
Marc:All right.
Guest:No, I love your stuff.
Guest:You know that.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:We did a little bit of an improv the other night.
Marc:That was exciting, where you decided to, while you were on stage just about to close your set, you decided to just start a conversation with me in the back of the room, and the audience loved it.
Guest:See, I like when they don't think we're all in competition with each other, that we can actually goof around, that we're actually at a comedy club.
Guest:That we can act.
Guest:It's not like this formal thing.
Guest:Well, I like the second guy, but the third guy I didn't like.
Marc:Yeah, they know that once we talk to each other in a public forum that we're all just one collective of decent guys that love each other.
Guest:Yes, that's what comedy is about.
Guest:It's pretty funny when you think of the Palestinian comedian following the Jewish guy.
Guest:As far as things like that go, there is an element of truth to it.
Guest:I don't think we sit around nurturing each other, that's for sure, but there's some camaraderie there.
Marc:No, there definitely is.
Marc:We definitely have an understanding, and we understand that we're all in this together, and we like each other, and we like to watch each other, and we'd really like to really hope for the best for each other, but that's just difficult.
Guest:Well, it's difficult.
Guest:I think the hard thing is when somebody really sucks and they do really well, and you try not to act like you're bitter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, you know what?
Guest:Good for them.
Guest:What does that have to do with me?
Marc:Yeah, that would be the middle section of my career.
Marc:There's about 15 or 20 years there where that was all I did.
Guest:I remember one time somebody said to me, does it bother you that Eddie Murphy's getting all these movies?
Yeah.
Guest:And I go, well, why would it bother me?
Guest:Like, if he didn't get them, like I was going to get cast in 48 hours?
Guest:You know?
Guest:And Eddie Murphy beat me out again.
Marc:Yeah, because I went in for that.
Marc:You know, they wanted a 22-year-old black kid, but I said, no, I can do this.
Guest:I like when people say, how come you don't do a series?
Guest:Why don't you do movies?
Guest:You know, I never thought of that.
Guest:That's a good idea.
Guest:Let me cancel my Slappy Bananas gig and do a series now.
Marc:They always talk to us like it's our choice.
Marc:Hey, you should do that.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Let me write that down because I'll forget.
Guest:A movie with De Niro, that's a good idea.
Guest:That's good exposure.
Marc:So what do you got coming up, man?
Guest:I got my big Northeast tour coming up, which I'm really happy.
Guest:I'm going back to New York City, you know, where I started with the improv and all.
Guest:Working Gotham.
Guest:Next week.
Guest:Well, that's a good club.
Guest:Have you been there?
Guest:But I like the place.
Guest:You ever work there?
Marc:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:It's an interesting shape.
Marc:It's one of those very horizontal clubs.
Marc:It's very wide.
Marc:So what date is that?
Guest:That's the 14th and 15th.
Marc:All right, Gotham Comedy Club.
Marc:So I remember seeing pictures of you on the wall at the improv when you were a young man.
Guest:Oh, I know.
Marc:The original improv.
Guest:Before my head swelled.
Guest:You know, I don't know if I ever told you that story about what the...
Guest:I had to take steroids for shingles.
Guest:And I do the Craig Ferguson show.
Guest:My doctor's a real goomba from Philadelphia, and he uses antiquated words.
Guest:He goes,
Guest:Man, I saw you in Ferguson.
Guest:You look like a fucking Chinaman.
Guest:Who says Chinaman?
Guest:Right?
Guest:He goes, what the hell happened to you?
Guest:I go, you look like you're on steroids.
Guest:I go, I was.
Guest:You gave them to me.
Guest:Oh, sorry.
Marc:Is that what was going on?
Marc:You were on steroids?
Guest:Yeah, I had to take a really strong dose of steroids because I couldn't get rid of the shingles, which is, by the way, the most painful thing ever.
Guest:It was the only time in my life I ever groaned and didn't cum.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was really painful.
Marc:So I should make note not to get shingles?
Guest:Don't get shingles.
Marc:I'm writing that down.
Guest:Make that note.
Marc:And where else are you going to be?
Guest:I'm doing Providence on the 20th.
Guest:And Boston on the 21st, and Springfield on the 22nd.
Guest:Boston's a different thing now.
Guest:It's not the Comedy Connection anymore.
Guest:It's the Wilbur Theater.
Guest:Have you done that?
Marc:No, I haven't.
Marc:I think I'm going to do a live WTF there in January.
Guest:Yeah, you should do it.
Guest:You have fun up there.
Marc:Okay, so Boston at the Wilbur, when?
Guest:21st.
Marc:That's going to be a big show.
Marc:That's exciting.
Guest:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Guest:I love going to that town.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:I was there before the Red Sox had won their first World Series, you know, after 100 years.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And a guy says, they said to me, who are you a fan of in baseball?
Guest:I go, I'm not a big baseball fan, but I like the Red Sox and the Yankees.
Guest:You can't like both.
Guest:I can do whatever I want.
Guest:I'm from Philly.
Guest:How can you tell me who to like?
Marc:Did it start a fight?
Guest:Oh, but you know how angry they get.
Guest:That's the only place you ever still see street fights.
Marc:Yeah, there's a type of Gaelic anger there that runs very deep.
Guest:Yeah, and the guys didn't even go home from work.
Guest:You see, at 1 o'clock in the morning, they got the white shirt and the tie on, and they're battling out front.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then they can go home wounded, and maybe their wives won't be mad at them for being drunk and abandoning their children.
Guest:As they bleed, they're right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:Well, it's good talking to you.
Marc:People should definitely go see you at Gotham and at the Wilbur.
Marc:You're one of the best, buddy.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Good to talk to you.
Guest:I love you, man.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:I love you too, man.
Marc:Talk to you later, Dom.
Marc:Okay, so go see Dom.
Marc:Enjoy your life.
Marc:I'll let you know how it goes.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Is that just a general thing?
Marc:In general, I'll let you know how it goes.
Marc:Thanks for listening.
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