Episode 219 - Norm Macdonald
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
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 fuck, Nicks?
Marc:What the fuck, Nucks?
Marc:What the fuck, Ericans?
Marc:What the fuck, Amalins?
Marc:What the fuck, Stables?
Marc:What the fuck, Adelix?
Marc:What the fucking fuck?
Marc:Fuck yes.
Marc:Oh shit, fuck yes.
Marc:God damn right.
Marc:Oh, fucking hell.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I just read this article about cussing and I just want to keep fucking doing it because apparently it's not bad for me.
Marc:I'll get to that in just a second.
Marc:I'd like to tell you right now at the beginning of the show, I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I appreciate you listening to my show.
Marc:And today I'm very excited because I have Norm MacDonald on the show.
Marc:Now, I got to be honest with you.
Marc:I've not spoken to Norm hardly at all in my life.
Marc:I have a weird memory of Norm.
Marc:Not weird, but it's what's odd to me as I talk to people in my profession who I've kind of known for a long time just by virtue of us being in the same profession.
Marc:It's interesting where our paths meet and the memories that I have.
Marc:I don't know why I'm talking like this.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:But it's going to be very interesting because I definitely have...
Marc:you know, a certain way that I think Norm is.
Marc:I like Norm.
Marc:I think he's funny, but I have an idea of who that guy is.
Marc:So I'm very excited to talk to him.
Marc:Now, I would like to say this.
Marc:I don't promote myself enough.
Marc:I do promote things on this show, but I tend to forget that I have shows coming up.
Marc:We actually have a live WTF coming up at the Steve Allen Theater here in Los Angeles, October 25th.
Marc:Interesting show.
Marc:I'm going to have Josh Molina on.
Marc:I'm going to have Jonah Ray on.
Marc:I'm going to have Moranvio Vance on.
Marc:I'm going to have this guy, Steve Mazin, who made a movie about getting cancer and trying to get on Letterman and fucking Mojo Nixon.
Marc:mojo nixon i got in touch with mojo nixon you know someone suggested it i thought like shit yes i love skidding mojo let's see what mojo nixon's up to so he said he's going to come up he said bring a guitar he'll make something up that'll be good eddie pepitone jim earl of course on that live show on the 25th and for you bay area people or people who want to make the trip to the bay area san francisco punchline i will be appearing november 2nd through 5th and then the big show in seattle
Marc:Very excited about this.
Marc:It's really my first small theater show, Neptune Theater, Seattle, November 25th.
Marc:Go get tickets for that.
Marc:I'd love to see you up there.
Marc:So fucking A, right.
Marc:Am I fucking right?
Marc:Don't get offended by the fucks because I just read an article that psychologists, this isn't Scientific American, this isn't bullshit, psychologists have found that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain.
Marc:Oh yeah, shit's yes.
Marc:Now, look, I there.
Marc:The article is all about it's based on these college students.
Marc:They did a test where they had these kids put their hands in ice cold water and they were able.
Marc:One group said a sort of a kind of repetitive non curse word and neutral word.
Marc:And then they let the other kids say a curse word like fuck shit.
Marc:God damn.
Marc:This is cold.
Marc:Holy fuck.
Marc:And those that that bunch reported less pain and actually were able to keep their hand in the water for 40 seconds longer.
Marc:Now, the broader effects is that they think it's an emotional thing that that cursing is linked to the brain circuitry.
Marc:But they've decided that it's primitive.
Marc:like the evolutionary part, the fight or flight part.
Marc:So this is some deep primal fuck that when you say fuck or what the fuck or goddammit, you're tapping into that source that enables you to rise above pain for a second and move through whatever you need to move through.
Marc:Now, it's not specific about what kind of pain.
Marc:You don't have to be having your arm ripped off by an animal.
Marc:You know, it could just be traffic.
Marc:It could just be a slow and chronic, depressive sort of ache from either a broken heart or a bad childhood.
Marc:You could be in one perpetual primal fuck your entire life.
Marc:You just choose your moments.
Marc:You kind of operate at that kind of like fuck.
Marc:that's kind of going that's humming along at the core of your being and every once in a while you punctuate it with a fuck and then like bang man you get that relief you get that transcendence
Marc:from pain.
Marc:How do you like that?
Marc:Scientifically validated that getting a little more fuck in your life will help you get through those tough moments and enable your fight or flight response and ease a little pain.
Marc:I recommend it as I always do on this show.
Marc:I recommend the fuck.
Marc:Well, that's out of the way.
Marc:Let's do a little of this.
Marc:bow oh yeah just shit my pants fuck and i said shit too like i am feeling so good because the amount of uh fucking i'm doing and i in terms of saying it and there's enough going on in the other area of my life as well but but i i just wanted to share that with you just coffee.coop do that up i hope there's not a lot of kids listening to this i apologize for the profanity but i it's helping me cope
Marc:That's how I'll rationalize it.
Marc:Maybe you should be teaching your kids how to cuss as opposed to telling them that they shouldn't.
Marc:And maybe when they do it and they're reprimanded by strangers, insinuating that you're a bad parent, have the kids say, look, I'm dealing with pain in a very primal way.
Marc:I am honoring an evolutionary instinct that goes back to the beginning of mankind by shouting an expletive to deal with this situation.
Marc:that you're causing me.
Marc:You're causing me pain and anger.
Marc:That's why it's happening.
Marc:We got to change up.
Marc:All right, look.
Marc:My cat Boomer apparently doesn't like me anymore.
Marc:I don't know how it happened.
Marc:It's just all of a sudden he's nervous around me and he's decided that he doesn't like me anymore.
Marc:And that's going on with LaFonda as well because Jessica's in the house and she's taken the love of my cats away from me.
Marc:And I promised you, and I know you've been hanging with bated breath about my visit to the urologist tomorrow.
Marc:I don't think about death a lot.
Marc:I think about it in a general way.
Marc:I think about it like if I'm laying in bed at night, I think like, okay, I'm alive.
Marc:What if I didn't wake up?
Marc:Would I know that I'm not awake forever?
Marc:That kind of thing.
Marc:And it tweaks me out a little bit.
Marc:But as I said last Thursday, when you start talking about organs, I get a little tweaky.
Marc:But I think it's rooted in the fact that I'm afraid.
Marc:Who isn't afraid?
Marc:And when you go to a doctor, that's where it all gets real.
Marc:So tomorrow I'm going to the urologist and that's going to be the full on, you know,
Marc:You know, that experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, there's nothing to worry about.
Marc:I just want to make sure everything's OK.
Marc:I'm at that age now where I have to do that.
Marc:And so now I'm paranoid and I'm nervous because I got to go to a doctor.
Marc:So I'm seeing signs and symbols in everything.
Marc:I'm seeing omens and gifts everywhere I turn.
Marc:And what happened was I woke up the other day.
Marc:My cats aren't loving me.
Marc:Monkey's still OK.
Marc:He's on my team.
Marc:Monkey's on Team Mark.
Marc:But I look outside and I see a stray I've never seen before.
Marc:And it was there was something wrong with this cat, man.
Marc:There was something wrong with this cat.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Yeah, I've seen fucked up cats before, you know, and they all have their charm and you do sympathize with them or you get angry at them or whatever you're going to do with a cat, whatever you project onto a cat.
Marc:But this strange, weird, its tail is a little fucked up.
Marc:It was all black and I just saw it eaten out of the bowl.
Marc:And I opened the door to get him away initially, because I'd never seen it before.
Marc:I wanted to see what I was dealing with.
Marc:And the cat didn't respond.
Marc:I sat there clapping my hands.
Marc:The cat didn't respond.
Marc:So now I've got a deaf black cat eating out of this bowl who doesn't even know him there making noises to scare him away.
Marc:And then he looks up at me
Marc:And his eyes are all cross-eyed and off.
Marc:And his face is a little twisted.
Marc:It was like a David Lynchian cat.
Marc:I had this moment where I sort of slipped into some weird waking dream state because of the creepiness of this deaf, cross-eyed black cat eaten out of my cat's bowl.
Marc:And I, for some reason in that moment said, what does this mean?
Marc:This can't be good.
Marc:This creepy cat was sent from the underworld to deliver a message.
Marc:And I can't figure out what it is.
Marc:And I got to go to the doctor tomorrow.
Marc:Damn it.
Marc:Obviously, it has nothing to do with anything.
Marc:But if something is up in me, I'm going to blame that cat.
Marc:So, Norm MacDonald in the garage, nervous.
Marc:How the hell could you be nervous?
Marc:I mean, do you always get nervous?
Guest:I get somewhat nervous about things sometimes, sure.
Guest:Like everybody, right?
Guest:But, I mean, you've done so much, it doesn't go away?
Guest:It hasn't with me.
Guest:I mean, I don't get... God, now I'm stumbling.
Guest:It's all right, man.
Marc:You know, I'll open like this.
Marc:I think I have a weird memory of you...
Marc:that you probably wouldn't remember i think i was in i think i was in your hotel room the the when you were watching i showed up at your hotel room when you were just on your first letterman with caroline ray yeah yeah and i i think that i actually watched you not watch your first letterman on television is that possible i'm thinking well i would know i would not watch it that's for sure it's like 1989 is that about right
Guest:Yeah, I think I'm probably about that.
Guest:Yeah, that's funny because I know Caroline and I remember you and I remember Carol.
Guest:My memories are so vague.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, it was weird because I barely knew Caroline and we were sort of hanging around with this group of comics and I had a car and she goes, let's go to the hotel.
Marc:My friend Norm, it just did Letterman tonight.
Marc:So we go over there, and that was the first time I ever met you, and I don't know how much you even played the States.
Guest:I didn't know any comedians from the States.
Guest:That was my problem, yeah.
Marc:Right, and so I go up to this room, I meet you, and you're about to go on Letterman, and I'm standing there with Caroline, and you are on your bed face down.
Marc:With your hands hiding your eyes for the entire time.
Marc:Does that sound like a real thing?
Guest:No, that would be me.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:Well, you know how it is when you know how bad you are.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:No, I mean, I know that's how we perceive ourselves.
Marc:I don't know if it's really true.
Guest:You did well, right?
Guest:Well, we probably know more than another person.
Guest:No, we don't.
Guest:About ourselves?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:No, but I mean, are you not able to watch yourself now?
Guest:No, it's pretty hard.
Guest:Like, you know, because, um, um, I, I really like comedy.
Guest:Like I love comedy.
Guest:Like I guess all comedians do or whatever, but, uh, um, it's always, uh, you always think you're better than when you see yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In the moment it feels like you've, uh, you've won and then you watch it and you're like, Oh,
Marc:why am I doing that with my eyebrow?
Guest:It's like when you hear your fucking voice, especially me, because I don't think I sound weird, but then people come up to me and go, hey, I can do an impression of you, and that fucking guy sounds like a retard.
Guest:He's like, fuck man, is that what I sound like?
Guest:So it's funny when you have a weird voice because a lot of times, I don't give a fuck why people laugh.
Guest:But I've always been very material dependent in my stand-up.
Guest:I got work like a motherfucker to get last.
Guest:But people go like, oh, you can just talk with your weird voice.
Guest:I'm like, no, I can't.
Guest:Maybe you think that shit.
Guest:But I remember when I do, because when I first came to LA and I do auditions,
Guest:And then I would have the best material of the 10 guys.
Guest:I would get the most laughs.
Guest:But I would never get hired.
Guest:And then I realized why.
Guest:It's because they want the fuckers that can get laughs without material.
Guest:I can't do that.
Guest:That's what you need for a sitcom.
Guest:If you have a sitcom going and a guy has some good jokes, well, you can hire him as the writer.
Guest:You want the big fucking guy.
Guest:The charismatic guy.
Guest:Yeah, with no material at all.
Guest:That seems to have an emotional range.
Guest:Exactly, exactly.
Guest:When I did my first comedy festival thing, that Montreal thing.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:Fuck, I don't know.
Guest:Like 87?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know dates, but it was around there.
Marc:How long had you been doing comedy at that point?
Guest:Six months.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, but it was Canada, so we got a home court thing.
Marc:So that was like in American years, that's four years?
Guest:No, no, I'm saying because the Montreal Comedy Festival was in Canada, we had a quota to fill.
Guest:I would never have gotten on it if I was in the States.
Guest:But so I got my five minutes just at rote.
Guest:That's the way I used to do comedy.
Guest:I'd memorize every fucking word.
Guest:And so I had it all figured out and shit, right?
Guest:And so then I go there.
Guest:I meet Sinbad, right?
Guest:So I didn't know who Sinbad was.
Guest:And he goes, and he's completely relaxed.
Guest:I'm all thinking about myself.
Marc:Some sort of one-piece outfit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did.
Guest:His hair matched his shirt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were both orange.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So then he said, he was just so relaxed, and he said, hey, let's go.
Guest:I got to get some socks.
Guest:So we go to this fucking store, right?
Guest:When we first go into the store, there's no one there.
Guest:It's a small store.
Guest:So there's no one there.
Guest:The lady's in the back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the lady takes a minute to come out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, where's that lady?
Guest:There's nobody here.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah.
Guest:And so he comes out, he gets his fucking socks.
Guest:Nothing happens, right?
Guest:So then that night at the gala, I do my carefully constructed material.
Guest:Sinbad comes out.
Guest:He goes, what the fuck is going on?
Guest:He doesn't swear.
Guest:He goes, what's going on with these stores with socks?
Guest:I'm like, holy shit.
Guest:And then he's like, you go in the store and there's no one there.
Guest:And then people are agreeing with him.
Guest:I'm like, what?
Guest:None of it made any sense except that he destroyed and I didn't.
Guest:That's when I realized that I was missing a whole bunch of stuff because I guess at first you think you're good and stuff like that.
Marc:No, you are good, and I think that the fact is, really, if you were to look at it in another way, that if people are able to do an impersonation of you, that means you have a defined style.
Marc:Whereas, like, I guarantee you there's not a lot of people that can do Sinbad, though you did just do a pretty good one.
Right.
Guest:I was trying to do it as un-racist as possible.
Guest:But no, I think like, I don't know that much stuff.
Guest:But I think that with stand-ups, a lot of people, it's hard for a person that
Guest:creates material is usually a kind of a sensitive, shy kind of person, at least in my experience.
Guest:With you?
Guest:With the people that I've known.
Marc:In your experience with yourself?
Guest:Yeah, I was always crazy shy and stuff like that.
Guest:And also very self-conscious of looking like an idiot.
Guest:So I couldn't go on stage and run around and dance.
Guest:So when I see guys that can do it, like when I see John Cleese.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like this brilliant mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he can do.
Guest:Act like an idiot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:And also, of course, prior, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to say it's so weird because I'm the exact same way.
Marc:And I have not.
Marc:I don't think I've talked to anybody on this show that has that same thing where I am envious of a lot of comics that people would dismiss, you know, only because it's sort of like, well, how do they not feel like they'd be afraid that they're going to look like a dick?
Marc:Like, as soon as I've ever done anything physical, if I even think about it for a second, I'm like, I'm an asshole, and they don't laugh.
Marc:I know, yeah.
Marc:Like, just recently, I was on Fallon and somehow did an impulsive.
Guest:I saw you.
Marc:Dane Cook was very funny.
Marc:Never done that.
Guest:Yeah, it was very funny.
Guest:It came out of nowhere.
Marc:I didn't second guess it, and it fucking worked.
Marc:But if I would have said, like, for the five minutes, I was sitting there like, I'm going to do this Dane Cook thing.
Guest:Maybe it's because you were embodying Dane Cook.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, that I actually had the confidence of Dane Cook.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:Maybe that's why, right?
Guest:But yeah, I was always astonished, and I'm also like you, I'm envious of people that, because I used to be frozen on stage where I still don't take the mic out of the stand.
Marc:So you did comedy six months and you were at the Montreal, what is it, the Canadian scene is so different, because I talked to Russell Peters recently, and there's this weird work ethic that if you're one of the guys up there, you're gonna work, and you're gonna work for one guy, but you're gonna work.
Guest:Yeah, it was a great place to start because first of all, there's no industry in Canada.
Guest:There's no movies or television.
Guest:Isn't there a little?
Guest:I think there might be now, but when I was doing it, there was none.
Marc:Or it's horrible.
Marc:If you stay there long enough and you don't leave, that you will be given a television show of some kind for a certain amount of time.
Guest:They're awful.
Guest:Everything about Canada sucks.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, in terms of art.
Guest:Of entertainment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like all the entertainers leave and most of them don't want to go.
Guest:Most of them are mad because they weren't recognized in Canada.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They had to come to the States.
Guest:But so we didn't, anyways, we didn't have movies or TV to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we just did stand-up and we thought that's all there was, which was fun, like just being stand-ups and going around the country.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:doing stand-up.
Guest:And then when I got to LA, I suddenly, I was like, holy fuck, is everybody handsome?
Guest:Like I didn't, because we weren't handsome.
Guest:We were just fucking old ghosts.
Marc:Well, comics weren't supposed to be handsome.
Marc:No.
Marc:Louis C.K.
Marc:once said that to me, like furious at some point when, I think when Jay Moore first started doing comedy, like right when Jay Moore showed up on the scene, and this is not meant to piss off Jay Moore in any way, you know, Louis was aggravated because he's like, it wasn't for them.
Marc:He's good looking.
Marc:You know, I just want to do Letterman before I'm fat and bald.
Guest:No, it is very true.
Guest:Handsome.
Guest:I used to really have problems with handsome people, like Friends, you know, would bother me so much.
Guest:I watched Friends and then I said, fuck, these are the funniest super handsome people ever.
Guest:I'll give that to them, you know what I mean?
Guest:It's probably harder if you're so fucking handsome.
Marc:Well, yeah, because people expect you to have your shit together.
Marc:So I think that's the hardest sell for handsome people.
Marc:It's like, my life is fucked up.
Guest:It's like, look at you.
Marc:How is that possible, you fuck?
Marc:Really, is your wife bad?
Marc:You've got all your hair, asshole.
Marc:Hard to be a sympathetic character when you're really attractive.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you started out, though, who were your guys?
Marc:Like, who were the guys you hung out with?
Marc:Are they still around?
Marc:Do you still keep in touch with them?
Guest:In Canada, they're like the guys that were big.
Guest:You know, most people, Canada's like, it's the same with every fucking goddamn city I go to.
Guest:Everybody's like, this is the fucking best comedy city and all that horse shit.
Guest:And I remember I'd be on the road, wherever the fuck you were, you know, you'd be in...
Guest:dallas or something go oh man these are the funniest guys ever wait till you and there's always there's always the one mythic guy yeah yeah go fucking kenny that guy the funniest guy ever but he's a heroin addict if he wakes up he's hilarious and then he would shamble in on saturday night say something about aids or something you go what the fuck he doesn't seem that funny i guess he's funny if you know him that's hilarious
Marc:The local hero that could never get out.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then whenever they're past that prime of whatever made them popular in that small scene, then they finally go, I think I'm going to do it.
Marc:I'm going to go to LA.
Marc:And there are these broken men.
Marc:It's like, no, he used to be the guy.
Guest:He wasn't really the guy.
Guest:I met Rodney Dangerfield.
Guest:Do you remember the book?
Guest:I think it was The Last Laugh or something about Lenny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a secondary guy.
Guest:I wish I could remember his name.
Guest:Joe something.
Guest:There was a character in that book.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Wait, wait.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:Ansys, Joe Ansys.
Guest:So I read that book.
Guest:It was like the Bible.
Marc:The Lenny Bruce biography by Albert Goldman.
Guest:And so Ansys was the funny guy that never went on stage.
Guest:The brilliant, funny guy.
Guest:And I met him with Dangerfield.
Guest:You did.
Guest:Dangerfield came and did Saturday Night Live and Joe Ansys was with him.
Guest:I was like, Joe Ansys, what?
Guest:And then I waited about two hours for him to say anything funny.
Guest:and i was like i don't know maybe just fucking got drugs for them or something or maybe it just took longer back then you know maybe it wasn't about laugh efficiency well yeah and maybe also he was stuck in that time maybe lenny bruce like if he were right here now would not be very funny but you know i think that book i think goldman probably exploited that because like in my mind behind every genius there's some dude going that fucker stole my shit yes you know and and usually there's a reason well then why didn't you get on stage it's like i don't do that yeah shut up
Guest:And also the authors don't know shit.
Guest:Every time they do a fucking article, they come to you, I'm sure they've done articles on you, and then you try to tell them what's the real story, and they still fucking write what they want, like what they had already seen it.
Marc:They take it out of context, they frame it the way they want it.
Marc:Have you had a lot of experience with that?
Guest:A little bit, like people, there was a time, when I was on Saturday Night Live, everyone hated it, you know?
Marc:When you were doing Update?
Guest:Yeah, they hated Sandler and Farley.
Marc:You mean critics?
Guest:Critics, yeah.
Guest:So it was pretty, everybody was, oh, it's dead, Saturday Night Live is dead, and all that shit.
Guest:And so they came, and the guy had an agenda, obviously.
Guest:And...
Guest:But he was very unfair.
Guest:Like Sandler was very, very funny and nobody's funny.
Guest:It was funnier than Farley.
Guest:And then he presented it as if these guys were always doing schtick and everyone was looking away embarrassed and everything like that.
Guest:And I remember him laughing.
Guest:So it was very frustrating.
Guest:And they made Farley.
Guest:I'll never forget it was on cover of New York Magazine.
Guest:And they had Farley do a photo shoot where he had a television on his head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, it was kind of funny, but Farley's doing a big, like a crazy physical thing with this big TV on his head.
Guest:And then they put it on the cover and they said, it's comedy, comedy dead.
Marc:And how did he respond to that?
Guest:He wanted to go beat up the guy and Lauren told Lauren.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:You can't, you can't beat up people.
Marc:You can't beat up the, the, the, uh, the reporter.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he was really that angry.
Guest:Yeah, he was more angry, not for him, but because they attacked Sandler, actually.
Guest:He was very protective.
Marc:Well, that whole crew, you were part of that crew.
Marc:They seemed tighter than most SNL crews, like Farley, Sandler, Spade, you.
Marc:You guys seemed like a real kind of rat pack of comedic talent.
Guest:Well, we were pretty tight because, except for Farley, we were all stand-ups, so we didn't know how the fuck to act or anything.
Marc:Was Chris there, too, or no?
Guest:Oh, Rock was there too, yeah.
Marc:You were all sitting around going, I don't know how to do a character.
Guest:Yeah, we didn't know anything.
Guest:So all we knew was how to directly talk into the camera.
Guest:I mean, that's the only good thing we were good at.
Guest:But the rest of it was real tough.
Guest:And so I would plead with people not to put me in sketches, you know?
Guest:because sometimes I would think of a good idea and write the sketch and knew I could do it but I was so but anyways the point is like before us there was this great cast and even now there's this great cast of actors right which probably should be what Saturday Night Live is not stand up yeah
Guest:As a matter of fact, I think all acting should probably preclude stand-ups for the most part.
Guest:But now you know this, so they know how to talk to each other, shit like that.
Guest:Me and Spade, we didn't know.
Marc:I just can't remember, I can't imagine the cynicism approaching a sketch.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:With you guys.
Guest:No, that's what we'd mostly do is we'd spend the first half of the night writing the sketch and the second half of the night crumpling it up, saying how shit it was.
Guest:Because this is another thing that I noticed coming from stand-up into, because I was, never had any desire to be anything other than a stand-up.
Guest:Everything else would just accidentally happen from a stand-up, you know.
Guest:But for some reason in Hollywood, they go, oh, I guess because of Bill Cosby or Roseanne Barr or some people who've had success in stand-up, they go, well, he can do other stuff.
Guest:Build a show around him.
Guest:He can do anything.
Guest:Which is not an experiment.
Marc:Give him some children.
Marc:Throw him in a living room.
Marc:Not an experiment that's worked.
Marc:Well, was that part of Lauren's thing?
Marc:Wasn't that the season where he's like, let's use stand-ups?
Marc:It's sort of like that scene in The Right Stuff where it's like, I want test pilots.
Marc:I want stand-up comedians.
Marc:And what was the struggle?
Marc:How often did you deal with Lauren around that stuff?
Guest:Well, the great thing about Lauren is you could do anything you wanted.
Guest:He would tell you wise things.
Guest:Yeah, like wisdom or whatever.
Marc:He's like a little Buddha guy, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did it ever make sense?
Marc:Not to me.
Marc:You'd always walk away going, what the fuck?
Guest:To other people it did.
Guest:Like I remember one time he wanted me, this was actually with Weekend Update.
Guest:They wanted me to do Weekend Update.
Guest:with a lady.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like two of us.
Guest:And I was like, that sounds like shit.
Guest:I don't fucking, that sounds like shit.
Guest:Like, I'm like, if there's a lady and a dude, like, what are we making fun of local news?
Guest:What the fuck is that?
Guest:He's like, no, no.
Guest:He's like, you'll be, he had some crazy, he goes like,
Guest:I think he liked me because I didn't understand what he was talking about.
Guest:And he goes, you'll be Fred Astaire and she'll be Ginger.
Guest:You'll give her the sex comedy and she'll give you the sex.
Guest:And I was like, the dancers?
Guest:I didn't know what he was fucking talking about.
Guest:So anyways, I go, I don't want to fucking do it with a lady.
Guest:Let Frank and do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Franken was going to do it?
Guest:Yeah, it was Frank and me or somebody else.
Guest:So I didn't care that much about it because I could just do stand-up.
Guest:But anyways, what happened was it was funny.
Guest:Like Steve Martin walked in because he was hosting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Lauren, to embarrass me, went, let's see what Steve thinks about it.
Guest:And Steve Martin doesn't give a fuck about anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he goes, Norm wants to do what the lady thinks.
Guest:And he does this big, long spiel.
Guest:And Steve Martin's completely uninterested.
Marc:Been dragged into something he wanted no part of.
Guest:But luckily, he fucking just said out of the blue, he goes, oh, fuck.
Guest:He goes, I did this award show with some broad.
Guest:And they paired me up with her.
Guest:And she fucked everything up.
Guest:I guess they stuck him with something.
Guest:So then Lauren goes, oh, there's some support from an unexpected place.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's how you got the solo update?
Guest:Yeah, Steve Martin, because he was such a hero to learn.
Marc:You had a bad experience with an award show, and you get to run the solo on the update?
Guest:Yeah, it was awesome.
Guest:That was a fucking good moment.
Guest:But I would have been in big trouble with a lady.
Guest:But then later, they did it with a lady and a dude.
Guest:Because he kept saying, oh, remember, because I know Saturday Night Live, you know, like all of us, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was like, remember Jane and Dan?
Guest:And I was like, that was shit.
Guest:I remember Jane, you ignorant slut.
Guest:But I also remember all the rest of that fucking shit.
Guest:He had a hat on and pretended to be from the... They played characters.
Guest:And I was not interested in that because...
Marc:Dennis kind of changed it to Dennis Miller where where you do jokes when you do jokes and you don't you're not doing a parody of a fucking did know what what was the reaction to you when you first took update because I remember and it was you've definitely made it your own because you're one of those guys as you're sort of establishing here that you can only do what you do
Marc:yeah I can't do well I can't yeah the big problem I guess with me with update is I'm not politically aware of at all so I was like well I can't be political right you know I can't I don't know how to do it but it was interesting though because you're updating the way you do comedy there it rides that line of like you're you're almost like the the thing that makes it so cutting and shocking is it so fucking plainly said that this is what bullshit is
Marc:No, but it's a good thing.
Guest:Yeah, well, it was my plan.
Guest:I mean, no.
Marc:Just to cut through the bullshit.
Guest:Yeah, I thought, because I don't like cleverness that much.
Guest:Like, I always was, again.
Marc:What's an example of that?
Guest:Like, sexual innuendo rather than sexual.
Guest:Like, you know what I mean?
Guest:I don't like that my mother can giggle at some joke on Will and Grace, and then I can say to her, no, no, you know what that means, right?
Guest:You're talking about fucking the other guy in the ass, and then she's like, oh, no.
Guest:I'm like, it's the same fucking thing.
Guest:Why can't you just fucking...
Guest:Why can't they just say he's going to fuck him in the ass and you get the same laugh?
Guest:Isn't it something cowardly about cloaking it?
Guest:I don't know psychological shit, but it must be some level of dissociating yourself slightly from what you actually mean.
Marc:From the truth.
Marc:Like innuendo protects you from seeing the reality and enables you to laugh at it.
Guest:yeah yeah but why need a good god in these days why would you need innuendo yeah no to me i'm shocked that anyone thinks you could be shocked by anything yeah i i find that now the only thing that's shocking is when someone tells the fucking truth and then people are like what just happened right that guy can't come back like an update i was always saying i think i always thought i said the perfect joke would be if the punchline and the um
Guest:and the setup were almost identical.
Guest:And then I was saying, can we ever get a joke like that?
Guest:That would be the coolest.
Guest:And then we actually did get one joke that was pretty close to that, not perfect, but it was Lyle Lovett and Julie Roberts are getting a divorce.
Guest:And people close to the couple say the reason is because he's Lyle Lovett and she's Julie Roberts.
Yeah.
Guest:So it was pretty close.
Guest:The setup and the punchline were pretty close to each other.
Guest:I was happy with that one.
Guest:That was the grail?
Guest:Yeah, that was the grail.
Guest:I don't know if we completely got it.
Marc:That YouTube thing that was going around, I think it was, were you at a, where was that where you did the old jokes at the roast?
Guest:Oh, yeah, it was a roast, yeah.
Marc:What was your agenda behind that?
Marc:I mean, what were you thinking?
Marc:Because it got very popular, and everyone thought it was so fucking... It was like genius.
Guest:It wasn't genius.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It wasn't that it wasn't genius, but I just want to know why you did it.
Guest:Well, the real reason, it was because it was a roast for Bob Saga, who was a friend of mine.
Guest:And I don't...
Guest:I guess I don't like roasts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But... I mean, I shouldn't say that.
Guest:I guess I admire... I don't really admire people.
Guest:It's a certain style.
Guest:It's a certain style.
Guest:I've come to accept things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:But Saget said, can you come and roast me?
Guest:And Saget's like a really nice guy.
Guest:And I said, fuck, I don't know, man.
Guest:He goes, come on.
Guest:I don't know why he kept pushing it.
Guest:So I'm like, it was the night before.
Guest:And so this guy, Sandy Gallen, who produces these roasts and stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or Joel Gallen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know his name.
Marc:I only did one, and that was all I could take.
Guest:Yeah, that stuff.
Guest:And so he said, I said, I don't know how to do this stuff.
Guest:He goes, just be shocking.
Guest:And so luckily when he said shocking, I thought, oh, well, if I do the opposite,
Guest:I've heard people go, I got it.
Guest:I go, well, what the fuck is to get?
Guest:Like it's grade three arithmetic.
Marc:It's not a... So your choice was just to be like, I'm going to do these old beautiful jokes just to counteract all the bullshit of the roast.
Guest:There was jokes that my dad had... When I was a kid, my dad, when I was starting comedy, he gave me a book.
Guest:It was very touching.
Guest:He gave me a book that he had of...
Guest:Jokes you say to people at their retirement parties.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:To help me with my stand-up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it was very touching.
Marc:It was close to... Like one of those 101 jokes kind of thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that's where I got the jokes.
Guest:And a lot of them were like so antiquated.
Guest:Like there was one where I said to Gilbert Gottfried, like you remind me of a typewriter because your head is underwood or your neck is underwood or something.
Okay.
Guest:It was just so silly.
Guest:And they were all hilarious.
Guest:Everyone was laughing their ass off.
Guest:No, they weren't.
Guest:Like when you're standing up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First of all, you can't, you know how when you're on stage, you can't see the whole audience.
Guest:You can just see those.
Guest:Well, where did you do it?
Guest:Because when I did it, there must have been 2,000 fucking people.
Guest:A lot of people.
Marc:In this Hilton ballroom.
Marc:It was horrendous.
Guest:Yeah, it takes forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But because of the, you know, all I could see was the angry eyes of Alan Thicke at the first table.
Yeah.
Guest:just like being angry it was kind of shocking to me because I was like you know what was weird about that is that people fucking thought I was literally thought I was crazy like I was like I understand if you didn't like it I might not even like it I don't know if I would even like that kind of shit you know I could go that's self-indulgent bullshit
Marc:but to to actually fucking think i'm like uh serious you know yeah i mean yeah yeah like that well they people love to do that i mean did you watch the charlie sheen one yes yes and i tell you what i love sorry well what do you like it i mean because like a lot of people were saying that that was just it's there's no line whatsoever and that you know it is something other than just being funny and that it's gotten you know kind of just brutal and painful to watch
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, yeah, because when we get interviewed as comics, people always go, like, is there any line?
Guest:And we go, no, but there's lines.
Guest:Of course, there's fucking lines.
Guest:You're a human being, hopefully.
Guest:But I remember they were talking about William Shatner Rose already told me this, that...
Guest:William Shatner's fucking wife had just drowned in a pool three months earlier, and they had to get all the comics together and go, look, no jokes about his wife drowning.
Marc:And they were all like, ah, fuck.
Marc:Yeah, what are we going to do now?
Guest:And I was like, would it even occur to you to fucking do that joke?
Marc:The guy's still wearing a black ribbon, and his clothing is torn.
Guest:I love Patrice on that, though, because I love Patrice.
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:And he did it.
Guest:I never saw a guy that did the roast so good, because he didn't do all that good.
Marc:Well, I mean, that line is interesting because it's really a personal line.
Marc:I mean, when you're a comic, you know when you've crossed the line.
Marc:I mean, that's really the line.
Marc:It's like, what can you get away with?
Guest:Well, I guess the line's up to you as to whether you want to... When I was on SNL, you start to read an update.
Guest:You start to read newspaper articles and forget that they're people, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I had a hellish thing with this private citizen...
Guest:I never did a joke again about a private citizen after that.
Guest:But someone had been hit on the Brooklyn Bridge and the story was funny because their liver was over here and then their spinal column was over here.
Guest:It was all spread across the bridge.
Guest:What was the joke?
Guest:The joke was he's recuperating in the hospital and he's fine.
Guest:But it was so absurd because he'd been spread by.
Guest:Anyways, then I get a phone call and I go, oh fuck, that was a real person's
Guest:Friend or father.
Guest:Yeah, just phone me and I'm like, I don't know.
Guest:You know, their fucking husband got torn apart on the Brooklyn Bridge and then they turned on the TV.
Guest:I'm like, hey.
Guest:Hey, let's go around.
Guest:They turned on the TV to get their mind off of things.
Guest:I know.
Guest:So, you know, you understand after a while.
Guest:And even with politicians, like they're still human beings.
Marc:Yeah, barely.
Marc:But yeah, they're the worst kind of fucking people in the world.
Marc:All of them.
Guest:I'm glad to hear you say that because everybody thinks you're all leftist and everything.
Marc:Well, I mean, you know, I definitely land on the lefty side of things on, you know, ideological terms.
Marc:But I found that from doing political talk radio, just, you know, being, you know, carrying water for any of them.
Marc:You just got to realize the quality of people you're dealing with.
Marc:You're dealing with fucking corporate whores who are operated by business interests.
Marc:So, you know, really, it's going to come down to, you know, however you view politics.
Marc:The question is, do you give a shit about poor people?
Marc:And are we being taken advantage of?
Marc:Right now, if people want to frame that as, you know, Obama's a communist and draining us of our livelihood.
Marc:Well, that's your particular delusion.
Marc:And that's fine.
Marc:I mean, but but I just got disillusioned with all of it because these are not quality people.
Marc:I mean, I did a joke about Michelle Bachman on real time.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:Yeah, and I was getting flack from a very small portion of the right that they were like, he's a misogynist.
Marc:I'm like, she's a fucking pig.
Marc:She's a fucking politician.
Marc:Can you name me two politicians that command any respect whatsoever?
Marc:Why do we respect these people?
Marc:These people are car salesmen.
Marc:They're idiots.
Marc:They're more disingenuous than anybody as performers.
Marc:And they basically figured out a way to bait and placate morons into voting against their self-interest.
Marc:That's an amazing skill, but is it respectable?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Do you respect a guy that sells you horse shit in the guise of a health supplement?
Guest:I agree with you.
Guest:I mean, I think politicians are terrible.
Guest:I mean, people attack evangelists, but at least evangelists offer something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, they after the immediate relief of someone's, you know, pain and aggravation with another line of bullshit.
Marc:But but nonetheless, I mean, they're pretty evil, too.
Marc:Well, I mean, you know, with politics, it's like, yeah, I don't like to get into it that much anymore.
Guest:Let's not get into this shit, man.
Marc:OK, buddy.
Guest:I can see people not laughing now.
Marc:No, I mean, but, you know, laughter... But, you know, I know that you've gotten into a little bit of flack around it, but you're... Flack around what?
Marc:Around politics.
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:Well, just say, you know, you've said things that people have reacted to, but you're not like a political comic, you know?
Marc:I'm not political.
Guest:I've only said things on purpose to provoke people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Once in a while.
Guest:Once in a while.
Guest:You like doing that, though.
Guest:Once in a while.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I've never... But I've never...
Marc:because i don't know enough and because i and because i don't respect uh political uh humor when it's nothing but gossip yeah and mostly comics and people like us you know people who are obviously first amendment warriors to a certain degree we like living the way we want to live so it's really just going to come down to to money it's like you know how do i keep my money i mean that's the biggest political question that most righties ask themselves it's like how do
Guest:to keep as much as my money as possible and if that's a if that's in a minority opinion how do we get this majority of poor people to get me to keep my money and believe that they're doing the right thing yeah it's a tough fucking thing because if every apparently i read this if all the money in the world was equally divided among everybody everybody would be dead fucking poor
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's these moments where I don't talk about it as much as I used to, but then there's moments where you're like, there's a moment that I could... I was on a fucking radio show the other day, and this was an interesting thing because it's about professionalism.
Marc:I don't do political talk radio.
Marc:I've got my political views, and they're fairly general.
Marc:I'm not trying to support any politician, but I have the way I think about things.
Marc:But there are politicians that represent the opposite of what I think.
Marc:So I'm on this talk show
Marc:with a guy it's a fox affiliate but you know i'm there to plug my comedy and talk about my podcast and be funny with this dude who's a talk show host he's a radio professional he runs an entertainment show for the most part but he's been dying to talk to ran paul about the bridge situation because i'm in louisville kentucky he's the fucking senator they got bridges falling down and he's been trying to get this guy on the show and the guy just he calls in when i'm there
Marc:You know, so like now I've got like if I was doing political talk radio, I mean, it would have been like, you know, what the fuck are you thinking?
Marc:You know, you and your libertarian bullshit and how are we going to pay for this?
Marc:Like I would have jumped in and done that.
Marc:But there was this moment where it's like I just done a segment with this radio professional.
Marc:He was like, God, it's great to talk to a guy who knows how to be on radio.
Marc:We're having a good time.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:The senator's on the phone.
Marc:I got to sit there and go.
Marc:Oh, do I do this?
Marc:Would it be worth it to sabotage it for some lefty credibility?
Marc:And then I realized, like, dude, he's a radio guy.
Marc:You're a comedian.
Marc:You're having a good conversation.
Marc:He's trying to talk to this guy about a local problem.
Marc:Just shut the fuck up and let him do his job.
Marc:And then when you come back, get back to what you were talking about.
Marc:And I chose to do that.
Marc:But I did walk out saying, like, you pussy.
Why the fuck?
Marc:You had such an opportunity there.
Guest:I was on Politically Incorrect a couple of times.
Guest:Fuck, man.
Guest:You have to have an opinion about every goddamn thing on that show.
Marc:Or you can just do a little homework and write some jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember at the break, Scott Carter going, enough with the jokes.
Guest:I'll never forget it.
Guest:I'm very unlearned.
Guest:Before the show, Scott came in.
Guest:Who was the...
Guest:The producer, yeah, he's been on the show, yeah.
Guest:So he said, what do you think about China and Taiwan?
Guest:And seriously, I only know those words, you know?
Guest:So I was like, I don't know anything.
Guest:Like, can I have another subject?
Guest:So anyways, then we get out, because Bill believes this.
Guest:Anyways, when we get out, the fucking, we're introducing the guy beside me, the smart guy, right?
Guest:He wrote a book on China and Taiwan.
Guest:So fucking Bill Maher, he starts with me.
Guest:He goes like, what was China and Taiwan?
Guest:I go,
Guest:I go, I don't know.
Guest:I'm fucking going to ask this guy.
Guest:What do I do?
Guest:I'm a nightclub comic.
Guest:What?
Guest:That's what made me laugh about that show.
Guest:Everyone's opinion's equal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like a nightclub comic and an expert.
Guest:And then another thing I find funny about that show is the comedians try to be very serious and then the serious guys are trying to get jokes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So it's like- Yeah, it's not always our shining moment.
Guest:I do like Bill, though.
Yeah.
Marc:No, Bill's great at what he does.
Marc:He started out a straight-up joke dude, and he knows his shit, and it's pretty amazing.
Guest:You know what's funny about him?
Guest:I don't know if I should say this or not, but he's probably aware of it.
Guest:When he does his monologue, have you noticed when he does his monologue, he does Johnny Carson?
Marc:No, yeah, definitely.
Marc:He definitely models himself.
Marc:I think that's been his style for a long time.
Marc:He definitely takes the posture.
Guest:But I find it very funny because he's got the posture and the timing and everything.
Guest:And then she came in his face.
Guest:Crazy words come out.
Marc:Carson would have loved to have done that.
Guest:Yeah, he probably would have.
Marc:So when you grew up, I mean, what was the story in terms of... You say your dad gave you a joke book, but were you guys... You got along with your folks and everything?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:When I was very young, I was very, very, very shy and very afraid of everything.
Guest:I mean, people say they're shy when they're kids, but I was like...
Guest:it was a pathology aren't you still afraid of everything i am i mean i try to hide it and deal with it but on a day-to-day basis i i know i'm not afraid of everything i'm afraid of very few things like what uh illness yeah yeah how'd you get it how'd you get peace of mind out of the other shit well when i was i um when i was very i this is a weird thing that happened to me when i was young yeah
Guest:I don't know if this means anything.
Guest:Let's try it.
Guest:I remember it, but it was a moment I had that wasn't religious or epinephic or anything, but it transformed me to some degree is that I was always fucking so afraid of everything.
Guest:And if I went to a store, I'd have to walk around forever before I could even face a person in the store to buy a pack of gum.
Guest:I don't know why the fuck I was like this.
Guest:But anyways, when I was nine, we lived in rural Ontario, and there was a blind person
Guest:friend of my dad's that I had to, he said, take him to the store.
Guest:And I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:Like I have to take this blind fucker and I'm already shy and shit.
Guest:So I'm taking him to the store and then the fucker wants me to explain everything.
Guest:Describe everything to him.
Guest:So I'm like, there's some grass over here, and now there's a lamppost, and this guy's all happy.
Guest:What about the lamppost?
Guest:I mean, it's just a lamppost.
Guest:So it goes on and on, but something happened to me during, it sounds bizarre, but something happened to me where I was actually, instead of always looking inward, which I think I'd always done before that one time, I was looking outward anyways.
Guest:And while I was talking to him, I suddenly had a sort of hysteria.
Guest:Like I was laughing.
Guest:I started laughing and stuff.
Guest:And I don't even know why I'm remembering this, but I started laughing about everything.
Guest:And everything seemed like...
Guest:Very, very funny to me.
Guest:And then a couple weeks later, I saw a homeless guy and he was talking about, he was talking, he started talking to me.
Guest:And he was talking to me about John D. Rockefeller.
Guest:He's like, I was at John D. Rockefeller's funeral.
Guest:And all this shit.
Guest:And I was laughing at him and shit.
Guest:And then he started laughing.
Guest:And I was like, it's all fucking crazy shit.
Guest:Like something came to me.
Guest:yeah where i i started and uh so now i find everything funny except like fucking real serious like i'm no fear of going on stage right about death and shit right and so uh but the other thing i but the problem with laughing is i i will get uh it will build to a hysteria sometimes that i have to uh crank a couple of benzos to uh oh yeah a panic attack really yeah i can get you can laugh yourself into an anxiety attack
Guest:Absolutely, yeah.
Guest:I start laughing and then it gets out of control, like hysterical.
Guest:And I still have extreme sensitivity to things.
Guest:Not to life things, but to literature or art or something like that.
Guest:I have incredible sensitivity.
Guest:I kind of have to...
Guest:Stay away from it.
Marc:Like what's an example?
Guest:Like a painting or a... Yeah, fucking paintings.
Guest:Like I don't know anything about art, nothing at all.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But I have had fucking experiences that have been so hard on me.
Guest:Like one time I was in New York and somebody dragged me to a fucking art museum, which I hate art.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was looking at this picture, this girl...
Guest:And I was like falling in love with her.
Guest:She was so fucking beautiful, this fucking girl in this fucking picture.
Guest:And then a guide was telling me the fucking thing was written, you know, drawn in the 16th century.
Guest:Obviously this lady was dead, long dead.
Guest:And here I am fucking in love with her.
Guest:And so I'm like, ah, fuck it.
Guest:It was like so hard on me for so many days.
Guest:So I try not to, it sounds crazy, right?
Guest:Not really.
Marc:But I can be very... It sounds like that's a very good painting.
Guest:It was an incredible painting.
Guest:But like, you know, it would make me cry.
Guest:I didn't cry at my dad's funeral, though.
Guest:Like real life stuff seems so prosaic to me that it never really touches me much.
Marc:So you have a sensitivity towards, well, I mean, that's what art's supposed to do on some level.
Guest:I guess for people like me that can't,
Guest:access feelings or something, it gets me.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, I get that with, I can get that with television commercials sometimes if I'm not protecting myself.
Guest:Oh, you mean like where they really can manipulate you?
Marc:Well, yeah, well, you jerk me around, but like I remember there was this kid.
Guest:I can be manipulated without and know I'm being manipulated.
Marc:Yeah, like some movies, I'll just let it go.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:But like, you know, if my girlfriend's afraid of something or needs some help, I'm like, I don't know what to.
Marc:Yeah, this is crazy.
Marc:I mean, maybe you should call a friend.
Marc:I can't.
Guest:Maybe it's because we live in fantasy lives.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:I remember a kid when I was in grade school, we read Old Yeller.
Marc:And the dog gets, they got to put the dog down, right?
Marc:That's a motherfucker.
Marc:Yeah, and this kid, Jeff, was just like sobbing uncontrollably as he read out loud.
Marc:And they had to take him to the nurse because he couldn't put it together.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:They call it Stendhal syndrome.
Guest:Oh, so there's a name for it?
Guest:Well, apparently there was this guy, Agostin Stendhal or something, some 16th century guy, but he had an art museum that was so beautiful.
Guest:I don't know if it's anecdotal, but he was at an art museum where people would come in and have nervous breakdowns from the beauty of the art.
Marc:But that can go either way with you.
Marc:It can be laughter or sadness.
Guest:Yes, it's mostly laughter.
Guest:Sadness doesn't throw me into anxiety.
Guest:the laughter.
Marc:What's the feeling though?
Marc:Like at a joke or you're with friends or something and you can't get it out of your head how funny it is and then you get anxious because you can't stop laughing?
Guest:Yeah, I guess it's that.
Marc:Like I laugh a lot.
Marc:That's fucking great.
Marc:As a comic, that's a gift.
Guest:I tell you, I've never trusted people that don't laugh.
Guest:Like I've worked on shows and shit sitcoms and stuff like that where the motherfucker doesn't laugh.
Guest:He's the head writer.
Guest:I'm like, you're not laughing at nothing?
Guest:It's all math to him.
Guest:Yeah, it's math.
Guest:It's like haiku or some shit.
Guest:But the best guys I've met are the guys that are able to laugh and fucking, you know.
Guest:So when you grew up, what did your folks do?
Guest:Well, my dad, we were like real poor and stuff, but later my dad became like a teacher, so we had a little bit of money.
Guest:We lived like on a rural.
Guest:With animals?
Guest:Farm.
Guest:It was a dead farm.
Guest:It was my father's father's farm, but by this point I'd become dead.
Guest:It was interesting because everyone was old where I lived except me and my brothers.
Guest:So I was with old men all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I liked them a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I really liked them.
Marc:Do you still like old people?
Guest:Love them.
Guest:I love super old people because it helps you with perspective, you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, there's a fucking thing.
Guest:There's a thing.
Guest:Like, I love country songs and shit, but there's this myth about the old guy that never forgot about the girl and he's drinking and shit.
Guest:That's not true.
Guest:Like, when you meet old people, you know what I mean?
Guest:You go, hey, heartbroken?
Guest:They go, huh, what?
Guest:You know, they don't care.
Marc:I don't even remember her.
Guest:Yeah, it's all like comedy to them.
Guest:They go, yeah, there was... I shit this morning.
Guest:Everything's good.
Guest:Exactly, right.
Guest:They have incredible perspective.
Guest:And then I was thinking, if you only get that perspective instantly, just pretend you're a fucking old man and forget it instantly.
Marc:Well, it's so funny that so many young people dismiss old people as burdens.
Marc:No one dies in the house anymore.
Marc:Everybody's put out to pasture somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:and uh like i have to fight sometimes when i see really old people i i my immediate i get this visceral kind of like oh god are they okay oh that they might die that they might die or that like you know like i'm gonna be that like if i'm lucky i get to be the guy that might make it across the street
Marc:You know, that's a big payoff, and, like, it fucking throws my mortality in my head.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:Yeah, but... I don't like... I mean, I'm not saying I like infirm people or being at deathbeds.
Marc:No, right.
Marc:No, no, I know what you mean, but, like, if you... Like, when you talk to old people that they've lived through things, they have a perspective and a wisdom from actually living life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, like, you don't learn a lot from an old agoraphobic, where it's like...
Guest:I remember, what's his name?
Guest:Rodney Dangerfield said a great thing to me.
Guest:I mean, he came to do a Saturday Night Live.
Guest:Remind me to show you this picture I have of him.
Guest:Of Rodney?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I never met Rodney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he came to do a Saturday Night Live.
Guest:Well, there's two things that are very funny.
Guest:One is when we were booking Rodney, like Lauren said, oh, Rodney's going to be in town, put him on update.
Guest:He'd always do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We'd have to somehow force this person on update, and we wouldn't know what to do with him.
Marc:But you had respect for him?
Guest:Oh, I loved Rodney.
Guest:Yeah, I loved Rodney.
Guest:So Jim Downey, who was a great writer and a Harvard, a true intellectual, and so he's like, how are we gonna do Rodney?
Guest:And then so he had an idea where I would go, Rodney, you know, you've been in the business now 50 years,
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:He goes, I got no respect, no respect at all.
Guest:They do a couple jokes.
Guest:I go, I can't believe that.
Guest:What about your, certainly your children have respect for you.
Guest:He goes, I don't respect.
Guest:Well, what about your bartender?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And he'd say, I have my bartender.
Guest:I said, double.
Guest:He brought out a guy who looked like me.
Guest:I can't believe this.
Guest:Your own bartender?
Guest:So that was my, we'd pitch it to Rodney.
Guest:Daddy pitches to Rodney over the phone, and Rodney goes,
Guest:He goes, what the fuck are you talking about?
Guest:He goes, let me talk to Norm, you know?
Guest:So then he gets on with me, he goes, who is this fucking guy?
Guest:He goes, doesn't he know my whole thing?
Guest:There's no respect?
Guest:This fucking cocksucker thinks I, you know?
Guest:So then I told Danny, he said, yeah, like Rodney just thinks of a writer as a guy you paid five bucks to in the back.
Guest:But anyways, Rodney came to the show and we had dress rehearsal and then the show.
Guest:So he's like, why do we have to fucking do dress rehearsal?
Guest:He goes, I can't do Rodney.
Guest:Why do we have to do dress rehearsal?
Guest:You know, I know my fucking jokes.
Guest:I just go, I don't know, Rodney.
Guest:You just have to do it.
Guest:And he goes, ah, fuck, it's shit.
Guest:He goes, I tell you, kid, it's all waiting.
Guest:He goes, fuck it.
Guest:He goes, movies are shit.
Guest:All you do is fucking sit in a trailer and wait.
Guest:He goes, fucking TV is shit.
Guest:He goes, it's all shit.
Guest:He goes, always remember this.
Guest:And he looks me in the eye, right?
Guest:He goes, stand up, man.
Guest:Stand up's the only thing.
Guest:Then there's like a two minute pause.
Guest:He goes, stand up's fucking shit.
Guest:So I'm just alone in a room with him.
Guest:So I shake his hand.
Marc:He negated the entire world.
Guest:Oh, the funniest thing was Josh.
Guest:Josh was with us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was an intern at Saturday Night Live.
Guest:So I guess I have a bit of a cruelty sometimes in me.
Guest:But Josh would always tell this joke to me.
Guest:And I got him to tell this joke to everybody because I thought it was funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd say, Josh, this is how he talks.
Guest:He's right here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would go, there's two gay guys.
Guest:And one of the gay guys goes, the other gay guy, I have a new game for you, hide and seek.
Guest:I'll hide.
Guest:You try to find me.
Guest:And if you find me, you get to fuck my ass.
Guest:I'll be behind the couch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was just retarded joking.
Guest:So I'd make him tell everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember I made you tell Rodney?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was the greatest moment.
Guest:Fucking Rodney were stuck in this real narrow hallway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Rodney, you know, standing there all curmudgeonly.
Guest:And he's like twitching.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Moving around.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Rocking.
Guest:And I go, you got to hear this joke.
Guest:And so then Josh stumbles through the joke.
Guest:And at the end, Rodney looks at him and he goes, I tell you, kid, I'm not much for jokes.
Yeah.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I got most, for most of our jokes in the history of ever.
Marc:Well, yeah, I remember the weird thing about Rodney, like I, you know, I never really met him, but I was, Oh, you didn't?
Guest:No.
Marc:How'd you not meet him?
Marc:Well, I mean, I like, because I wasn't an established comic, you know, really.
Marc:And, uh, like I worked the door at the store and he came on once.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:uh and i used to see him around a bit but like what broke my heart was this weird they did this roast of him like or a tribute at the aspen comedy festival yeah and then the dudes that they got on it was like paul rodriguez i think saget was there and they're like three or four other guys and i had this weird moment where i realized that you know he was sort of a marginal character within his own generation of comics like he was so you know depressed and and miserable truly apparently
Marc:Right, and I just had this moment where I realized, oh my God, he's like a lone wolf.
Marc:His peers aren't even, they couldn't get anyone else to fly in and show some fucking love.
Guest:Oh, I never thought of that, right, right, like the older guys.
Marc:Right, we're the dudes of his generation.
Marc:Then he started to realize you never see him on the roast or anything, that he must have been this lone fucking wolf out there just with his own misery.
Marc:And that thing Carl LeBeau said was, that's the best thing I ever heard, was I had LeBeau in here.
Marc:and rodney you know took a liking to kennison you know and lebow was sam's best friend and uh i remember rodney used to call kennison when this before he was on medication because i think the last decade of his life he was medicated and i think he had some peace but uh but apparently he like kennison had been up for two days and you know was doing the kennison thing and like just sitting there and uh and rodney walked in and said oh look at little nero
Guest:Yeah, Ron, he's fucking sharp.
Guest:He's just seen it all.
Guest:He's just seen it all.
Guest:I'm always amazed at guys.
Guest:I don't know if it's admirable or not.
Guest:Because I quit drugs when I was 10 or some fucking thing.
Guest:I got scared immediately.
Marc:What drug did you do?
Guest:I'm exaggerating.
Guest:But when I was very, very young, I got very frightened very quickly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'm always like, holy, with those old guys, I go, Jesus Christ.
Guest:You went through all those coke where you think you're going to die and you're still doing it?
Guest:It was always amazing.
Marc:With him, yeah.
Marc:He had a hell of a constitution to put himself through that.
Guest:I remember Saget told me...
Guest:One time, fucking remember when he had a heart attack and a brain fucking aneurysm at the same time or something.
Guest:He was in the hospital.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just left, you know.
Guest:Pulled the thing out.
Guest:Yeah, he just fucking went to the comic club.
Guest:So Saget said he walked in.
Guest:This was two days earlier.
Guest:He had been in this major operation.
Guest:And he said he saw Rodney with two, like, hookers, you know.
Guest:And Rodney was waiting for Ron Jeremy to show up.
Guest:It was two days after the... And he's like 70.
Guest:And he's 70.
Guest:So then Saget said to him, he said, Rodney, he goes, how are you doing?
Guest:And he said, Rodney, he said to him, how am I doing?
Guest:He goes, I'm with two whores.
Guest:I'm waiting for a guy who can suck his own dick.
Guest:How are you doing?
Marc:What a fucking classic, man.
Guest:I know, man.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:One of the fucking kind.
Guest:Like when I think of, because everybody always asks you who the best comics are and everything, and of course your mind always goes to Pryor and those guys.
Guest:But you always forget about Rodney.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:I remember when I was a kid, I was reading the My Favorite Joke section of the Parade magazine.
Marc:It used to come in the Sunday supplement, and they used to have this last page.
Marc:It was just comedians' jokes.
Marc:And I remember reading his, and I still remember some of those jokes.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:The one that I never, for some reason, sticks out in my mind.
Marc:It's like, I get no respect.
Marc:I woke up this morning.
Marc:I got out of bed.
Marc:I put my hand on the bathroom door.
Marc:The knob fell off.
Marc:I put on the faucet.
Marc:The faucet handle fell off.
Marc:I got to tell you, I was afraid to go to the bathroom.
Marc:I mean, you know
Marc:where it's gonna go but reading that stuff and realizing that people actually wrote those jokes and like for a guy like that does jokes I think he wrote them right yeah yeah yeah well I think that like he probably I think that he had people that give him jokes I mean what a vessel it's like you know when these guys get famous then every joke is attributed like Groucho Marx I'm sure if I can
Marc:Yeah, that happens all the time, though.
Guest:Did you have that feeling?
Guest:Or Yogi Berra, like every retarded thing everyone ever says, they just say it was Yogi Berra.
Marc:Well, there used to be something that bothered me about this idea that even there's a blind side to even very intelligent people when they watch, you know, Stewart or Bill Maher or anybody on TV, Dennis Miller, they're like, you know, like, it's amazing, all his jokes.
Marc:How does he write all his jokes?
Marc:It's like, he doesn't.
Marc:Of course not.
Marc:You know, and like, you know, there was some part of me when the writer's strike hit where I'm like, I felt like now they're going to know.
Yeah.
Marc:The cat's out of the bag.
Marc:Who's going to write their own jokes now?
Guest:I don't know what that is.
Guest:That would be interesting to just have the guys write their own stuff.
Marc:Well, I think a lot of them can, and I don't begrudge anyone to have writers, because I think when you get to a level, like, I mean, you obviously, when you did update, people wrote jokes for you.
Marc:Of course, yeah.
Marc:But if you're a guy that's got that defined a voice, I mean, it's a gift.
Marc:And if people can actually write for you, then it's like a beautiful thing.
Guest:It's pretty kind of easy to write for someone.
Guest:Like, I noticed in sitcoms, which I have no fucking idea.
Guest:I don't even like them, but I worked on them.
Marc:Well, you did one for three seasons, right?
Marc:You had to run, what was it called again?
Marc:Norm Show.
Marc:So it went down with your name on it.
Guest:Yeah, that's the bad thing.
Guest:But no, I didn't know anything.
Guest:I didn't want to be honest.
Guest:I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
Guest:The only thing I said is, well, Seinfeld has a sitcom.
Guest:I think I can act as good as Jerry Seinfeld.
Guest:That's how you got it?
Guest:And he had the biggest sitcom in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, because I never thought, I mean, I can't act.
Guest:But I surrounded myself with actors, and it was okay.
Guest:But man, when I started writing sitcoms, because when you come from stand-up, where the fucking joke has to be good, I started writing, I wrote on Roseanne.
Guest:And I remember, I'd look at the script, I'd go, holy fucking, the whole thing's gonna bomb.
Guest:Everybody's gonna be booing you.
Guest:Because the jokes were so bad.
Guest:Jokes were so shit.
Guest:Because, you know, a stand-up, it's so fucking hard to get a joke together.
Guest:And they're going, nah, nah, it'll work.
Guest:And then, of course, it works, because they lather up the audience.
Marc:And they love those characters.
Guest:And they love the characters, yeah.
Guest:And that's also the thing about...
Guest:People that can create a sitcom, they create characters and everything like that.
Guest:Then you can go on and write.
Guest:It's very easy to write characters that are already written.
Marc:I think sitcoms are all about the relationships between the characters.
Marc:People gravitate towards the emotional dynamic of an ensemble, and it's got nothing to do with jokes at some point.
Guest:Like you watch The Honeymooners, they got no jokes at all.
Marc:No, you just love those people.
Guest:A couple of fat jokes, but other than that.
Marc:You just want to see Art Carney and Jeff Gleason.
Guest:But I remember on my show, I go, can't we think up some fucking situations?
Guest:Like it's supposed to be a situation comic.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the situation you're coming up with is I'm dating a girl?
Guest:That's the funniest situation?
Guest:Because, you know, I said, I remember fucking reading, like you could read a thing of The Honeymooners and fucking be smiling.
Guest:You go, Ralph thinks he's a millionaire.
Guest:You go, fuck, this is going to be funny.
Yeah.
Guest:But then it's like, you know, on Friends, it's like, Jennifer thinks she might have feelings for Matt.
Guest:What the fuck is funny about that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so what happened to the sports show?
Marc:Did that hit you pretty hard?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I tried to structure a question in a sensitive way.
Guest:It didn't hit me hard at all.
Guest:It didn't?
Guest:No.
Guest:What?
Guest:Because I never expect success.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:No, never, no.
Marc:But you can always go back to stand-up.
Guest:Well, that's my luck.
Marc:But you were out of that.
Marc:Did you stop for a while doing stand-up?
Guest:No, I always did.
Guest:I mean, I did less of it, but I would always... You know, because especially when you're doing shit that you don't like, it's good to go on the road.
Marc:Because you have complete control of that thing.
Guest:Yeah, and you can be funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's all on your terms and you live or die by what.
Guest:Because it is a very odd experience to be saying to be being not funny in front of a crowd that is laughing hard at your fucking not funny shit.
Guest:You know, which is sitcom.
Guest:You feel that.
Guest:holy fuck man it's like you're in a fucking nightmare you're like what is going on here like that didn't fucking that wasn't funny and they just wait till you stop talking yeah and they laugh because they're participants these fucking audiences yeah they're doing their part they're doing their part right and you know that's what i loved about saturday night live is they could fucking things could bomb like really only saturday night live and the early letterman
Guest:you could see people fucking bomb.
Marc:Oh yeah, no laughs.
Guest:And there's no other place on TV.
Marc:Every other place, every joke works.
Marc:It's an amazing moment.
Marc:Even when you watch old Dick Cavett shows, and that was a popular show, and you're watching, if you watch him now, the audience almost does nothing.
Marc:He'll get a joke off and he's like,
Marc:nothing because people didn't have the same expectations that they do now these fucking people who run the uh who run tv right made it like this right that you know there's something about you can be funny without there being a ridiculous moronic joke every fucking 30 seconds you know people can can accept people just being people for a minute sure there's that horrible i wish talk shows would maybe you can do it or something but the uh
Guest:You know, Carson, you'd never see the audience.
Guest:No, you never see the audience.
Guest:And you listen to the audiences.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:They're out touching the audience.
Marc:I mean, that was the first thing that I noticed about Jay.
Marc:And I've never done a show.
Marc:And I got no beef with him.
Marc:I just don't watch the show.
Marc:But all of a sudden, he's out there touching people.
Marc:And I'm like, what's he doing?
Marc:Is this a zoo?
Guest:It's funny because Letterman and Leno do that.
Guest:And really, the guy who...
Guest:What if he doesn't touch him?
Guest:Well, but I mean, they're there.
Guest:They're like, he's, you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, but that's a theater.
Marc:It feels like a real thing.
Guest:It is, but it's not completely separate like on late night.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where they're up in a little pen?
Guest:Yeah, right, exactly.
Guest:The old Conan show?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Where's the audience?
Marc:They're up there in the pen, six feet up, and they're just sitting back there in a box.
Guest:And just talking about it now, I think probably the guy who changed it and did it the best was fucking Arsenio.
Guest:What?
Guest:He was the real guy that could go there.
Guest:I guarantee you that's the only time this is being said in this country right now.
Guest:No, but Leno is so uncomfortable slapping people's hands.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:This guy was the genius at doing the monologue.
Guest:I don't even remember jokes.
Guest:I think he'd just do topics.
Guest:Yeah, he would just talk.
Guest:He would just say anything.
Guest:He was not about saving a moment.
Guest:But the audience, I mean, the audience in that show was so into the, so part of the show, you know.
Guest:So now what happened with the sports show?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:It was just, it was on Comedy Central and I, you know.
Guest:I watched it.
Guest:It was funny and I'm not a sports guy.
Guest:Yeah, it was all right.
Guest:But you're funny.
Guest:It was, that's nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, it was, it was because I think it was, I don't know.
Guest:I don't really give a fuck, but it was.
Guest:You really don't give a fuck.
Guest:I don't give a fuck about too much.
Guest:It's funny because people think I should.
Guest:When I got fired, I still get asked about SNL.
Guest:Thanks for not asking me about it.
Guest:I don't know why now I just brought it up.
Guest:But when I got fired from SNL,
Guest:People still ask me, like, ah, fuck, don't you hate that guy?
Guest:I go, ah, fucking what?
Guest:No, he didn't think I was funny.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:I understand.
Marc:And also, there's so much politics involved in that bullshit.
Marc:I got actually a weird question, and I don't know if you can answer it for me, but I'm obsessed with it, and I discuss it with people that have been on SNL, but you come into it specifically.
Marc:Before you got fired, there was a point there where you were negotiating, and you might not go back to the show, correct?
Correct.
Marc:no there wasn't ever a point where you were sort of like you know not deciding whether or not you were going to renew your contract no me no no why well no because they brought me in you know like i met with lauren i did the whole i jumped what yeah i jumped through all the hoops really i was i was the you were the guy but what i but like what i understood later i just i i didn't get it obviously and it went nowhere good you know
Marc:Right, but someone came up to me, a fucking writer, who I don't remember his name, but he was on the beat back then.
Marc:I can't remember his name.
Marc:But after I went through all that, he came up to me and said, yeah, they were just trying to pressure Norm.
Guest:Oh, no, that's not true.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Because I told Lauren at one point I'd do it forever.
Guest:I said, what if I was like Walter Cronkite?
Guest:I won't ask for much money.
Guest:I'll just fucking, I'll do it until I'm 65.
Guest:And he's like, watch.
Guest:But no, that couldn't have been it.
Guest:But it could have been, it was probably they were getting ready to get rid of me.
Guest:Because they always pretended it was Don Ohlmeyer.
Guest:But I think it was, I don't think that's true.
Marc:You just think it was in-house?
Guest:I think it was everybody.
Guest:Because it was a particular thing where we had a lot of autonomy on update.
Marc:And they tried to tie it to OJ and everything else.
Marc:Yeah, they did.
Guest:And what do you think?
Marc:So you just think it was a business decision?
Guest:I think it was that we had a lot of autonomy on Update, which didn't make the other people feel very happy.
Guest:It was like the news division in the network.
Guest:Don't touch my news division.
Guest:Yeah, you're right.
Guest:It was like that.
Guest:And we had Jim Downey, it was me and Jim, and Jim was very, Lauren was a little like rightfully respective of Jim and let Jim on his own.
Guest:So anyways, I think the whole show was tired of me not taking marching orders.
Guest:oh really i think so like lauren would uh lauren hints at things like he would go like i don't know if you really because i do michael jackson jokes or something because i don't really know if you want michael jackson to you want a lawsuit by michael jackson oh he's suggesting and then i go that's cool like a retard i'm just answering his question i go that'd be cool michael jackson suing me and i'm in court with him and he's like i would never get his stuff till later and then i go oh yeah that's a
Marc:So he would say basically in a slightly passive aggressive way, maybe you shouldn't do that.
Guest:He would.
Guest:And I'm such a retard that passive aggression does not work on me.
Guest:I need aggression.
Guest:What's that innuendo thing you have a problem with?
Guest:Can't you just say don't do that?
Guest:I seriously, I keep missing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wish the guy would just go, don't do it.
Guest:And then I wouldn't do it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But he says, he suggests things and I go, okay, fuck it.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:So are you working on something now?
Guest:I mostly do stand-up.
Guest:I mean, there's always like... You're not hosting the poker thing anymore?
Guest:Retarded thing.
Guest:Oh, the poker.
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:Poker's illegal now, so I'm not sure.
Guest:It's illegal?
Guest:Yeah, they shut down all the sites.
Guest:So how are you doing with that thing?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:The gambling thing.
Guest:Oh, fuck, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gambling is a, I don't know, you know, I kind of, like I went broke like a few times when I actually had lots of money.
Marc:Gambling.
Guest:Three times.
Marc:Gambling.
Guest:With gambling, yeah.
Guest:And I mean broke, dead broke.
Guest:Like, and,
Guest:So would you call yourself a degenerate gambler?
Guest:Well, degenerate has an epithetic connotation.
Guest:A negative connotation, yeah.
Guest:But certainly compulsive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I don't know what it was.
Guest:I'm not a psychiatrist, but I do know this.
Guest:When I would go broke, because they say gamblers want to lose and stuff, which always seemed odd to me.
Guest:But I will say the three times that I went broke for a lot of money,
Guest:I had a very freeing feeling.
Guest:I would go to the coffee shop and have a coffee and have nothing.
Guest:A lot of me is trying to get the fuck as ascetic as I can in my life.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So it was a Zen thing?
Marc:If you wrote a book on Zen, it would be like, go out, make a bunch of stupid bets, lose everything, and enjoy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Zen and the art of being a retard.
Guest:But not because it would bring me peace of mind or anything, but because every...
Guest:I bought a house for the first time ever and it was like I was walling myself into a fucking mausoleum or something all of a sudden I'm like what the fuck I'm like I don't want to be here I don't want a bunch of stuff to have to fucking mostly because I'm lazy I guess
Guest:I don't want to have a fucking footstool because then I have to clean it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I feel the same way.
Marc:Well, it's exhausting because there's no end to you.
Marc:You become tethered to it and you worry about it.
Marc:You got a house.
Marc:It's like, who's going to fix that light?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do I got to call a guy?
Guest:Do I got to hire a guy to call the guy?
Guest:And I'm sure, you know, and I know guys because we're not rich, but we know rich guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That have fucking massive houses and shit.
Guest:And you go, fuck, it seems like a nightmare.
Marc:Well, you know what I realized?
Marc:I just realized it two days ago.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:I got a two bedroom house here.
Marc:And if you notice when he went to pee, that second bedroom just got a bed and my girlfriend shitting it all over the floor.
Marc:And the fact that there's nothing in there every day, it's like a curse.
Marc:I walked by that room.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know what to do with that room.
Marc:Like, you know, like I'm worried.
Marc:I think that my entire house, I got, I found a little termite damaged.
Marc:It looked like 50 years old.
Marc:I'm like, is there even wood underneath this stucco?
Marc:Or is there just sort of like brittle?
Marc:I don't know what's anyways.
Marc:Are you, do you rent?
Guest:No, I own this fucking place.
Guest:I think if you rent, you can move.
Guest:I think that's, you know,
Marc:Of course, but I bought a house.
Marc:I bought this thing.
Marc:Everybody told me to buy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was built in 1924.
Marc:And you're like, but that's nice.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:The floor is not insulated.
Marc:It's a fucking oven in there when it's hot.
Marc:And when it's cold, I feel like I'm living in a refrigerator.
Marc:I just had a rat die under my house for three days.
Marc:But that's the kind of person I am.
Marc:The rat's sitting under there dead.
Marc:I know there's a dead thing under there, but I don't want to fucking crawl under there and get this dead thing.
Marc:So I'm like, I'll ride it out.
Marc:How long could it take for it to completely decompose?
Marc:I can live in this shitty smell.
Marc:And then eventually I call my gardener and I'm like, do you know a guy?
Marc:They say, oh, I'll do it.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, my God.
Marc:And for 50 bucks, he climbs under there.
Marc:He pulls his fucking rat out.
Marc:And I'm like, it takes 60.
Marc:I'm a sport.
Marc:Here's $10 more for taking 20 minutes to do something I'm too much of a pussy to do.
Marc:But what I realized two days ago was that if you're making $20 million a year, to pay a guy $100,000 to watch your cars is nothing.
Marc:To pay a guy $60,000 a year to cook every fucking meal for you and spoon feed it, which they'll do for $60,000, is meaningless.
Marc:So I think it's really about that.
Marc:But I don't have a mind that works like that.
Marc:I want to do it all myself.
Marc:I'll hire a Mexican guy to go into my house, but I'll feel bad about it.
Marc:I'll give him some water.
Marc:But if you have enough money to not give a shit and just pay people to wipe your ass for you, you've earned it.
Marc:I guess that's your big payoff.
Marc:But for you, I don't know that you could live with that.
Guest:no i i that wouldn't be fun for me what was the biggest bet you ever made oh god almighty um i don't know i i one time i i mean the most i lost in one night where i because three times i've lost everything that i've ever had how do you do that i mean not not immorally but i mean like how do you physically do it well yeah i mean like you know you you like you make one more like what is the process of that
Marc:What's the evolution?
Guest:It's funny because it's a, the only time I ever went to a psychiatrist, he said like, I was like, because it was for gambling.
Guest:I was like, how the fuck do I get out of this?
Guest:And he's like, oh, you gamble to avoid life, you know?
Guest:And I'm like, but my thing was, well, isn't that why you do everything in life?
Guest:You just fucking avoid us, you know what I mean?
Guest:It's too painful.
Guest:Yeah, why do you?
Guest:So I said, but it's painful to think about, but because because now it would be nice to have the money, but you just lose it by.
Guest:But it's just like any escape, I guess, because I was never a drug or alcohol guy.
Guest:But when I watch a game and I have a bunch of money on it, then I can understand what's going on.
Guest:Nothing's ambivalent or anything about it.
Guest:And there's stakes.
Guest:There's stakes.
Guest:You know exactly the rules.
Guest:You're completely involved, and you're completely escaped from your life of the real.
Guest:The real fear.
Guest:I'd rather fear losing money on a football game than ruminate all fucking night about my upcoming illness.
Guest:Oh, that, yeah.
Guest:No, not my show.
Guest:My biggest problem is ruminating about death.
Guest:If I could get over that somehow.
Marc:You do that regularly?
Guest:I try to read fucking books about it and shit.
Guest:Have you read that Becker book?
Marc:Denial of Death.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's my favorite book in the world.
Marc:Oh, it is?
Marc:Yeah, I have both.
Marc:I have all his books.
Marc:I'm getting his newsletter.
Marc:And he's dead.
Marc:He's dead.
Guest:The Becker Foundation.
Guest:It's helped me a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, the whole idea of that is the transferencing, to feel part of something bigger than yourself to define your life, and you can do with that what you want.
Marc:I mean, it's better if it's God than gambling, I think, in some way.
Guest:God is the best.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's what I'm trying to get to is God.
Marc:Well, let's get to God piecemeal.
Marc:So, like, you still haven't walked me through losing everything.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, how you do it?
Marc:Yeah, because you've got a house, you had a lot of money saved up, and then so you make one bet, and then you realize you're about to lose everything.
Marc:Do you make phone calls to people saying, like, I just need a little more?
Guest:Well, you kind of at the end of it, you know it's happening.
Guest:I guess it's like I've never had substance abuse problems, but I guess it's like people that know they're going to hit bottom and kind of want it.
Guest:because it does get, it's exhausting to be obsessed with something.
Guest:So you are, I guess, trying to do it, trying to finish it off, finally.
Guest:Because if you have 450,000 in the bank, whatever the fuck it was, and then you lose 400,000, you go, fuck it, I don't want to fucking have 50,000 to remind me that, I don't want money to remind me that I had more money.
Marc:So that's how you do it.
Marc:So that's how you do it, yeah.
Marc:And you did that three times?
Marc:Three times in my life, yeah.
Marc:And how long have you been off it?
Guest:I've been off it like probably five years or so.
Marc:Yeah, and you're trying to get some spirituality in your life?
Guest:I'm trying to, because the only real joy I get, other than I love watching comedy,
Guest:But anything deeper than that is I read a lot of literature and stuff.
Guest:I'm not educated, like I never had any schooling, and I don't read nonfiction much, but I read lots of literature.
Guest:Like who?
Guest:Tolstoy, Faulkner.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:faith keeps coming up and I'm like these motherfuckers are smart yeah I mean you know like I was I was like you know uh Pryor's this fucking most deep profound guy I haven't fucking heard you know from my limited perspective then all of a sudden I'm reading books I'm like holy fuck
Guest:This guy knows everything.
Guest:I was reading Tolstoy, I was like, fuck, one word, one sentence, this guy.
Guest:But then I was like, why are all these guys, it all comes down to faith.
Guest:It seems to every fucking great novel I read, it seems like faith is the only salvation.
Guest:But I don't know how to get it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, I don't know how to just suddenly believe.
Marc:Or surrender.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know how to do that.
Guest:I'm too stupid or proud or pretend I'm smart or whatever.
Guest:Or afraid.
Guest:Probably afraid, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, to surrender, it's hard.
Marc:It's like this equation that your brain has to do where you realize that you have very little control over anything.
Marc:That moment where you realize, like, you know, just about all of it.
Marc:is out of my control yeah and there's only two things you can do in that moment which is either i'm fucked or it's okay and and how you support it's okay is with some kind of faith i guess yeah i i because i've come to it a long time ago that i have no control over anything but i i've been struggling with faith i'll just throw myself into um
Guest:religion sometimes, but the problems with that is then you get into churches and stuff, and then you get into men and stuff like that, you know what I mean?
Guest:And then you go, oh.
Guest:It's very easy to fall into the trap of going, like, religion's bad.
Guest:I mean, God's bad because
Guest:this fucking priest fucked a kid which is retarded you know what i mean why does that make god bad right any fucking sense just means the people that represent him yeah yeah yeah questionable so um you know so then if you go to any church obviously it's led by fallible men and you can't believe in them so you got to kind of come you know come to it yourself somehow but i really i don't have the answer of how you do that or anything
Guest:Where are you at with it now?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:The only thing I've ever explored is Christianity.
Marc:And that kind of.
Guest:I liked it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's just extremely hard to keep believing.
Guest:It's really fucking hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's the hardest thing to believe.
Guest:And I think I'm not deep enough.
Marc:I don't know if that's true.
Marc:I think that just by nature of the fact that you're a comedian and that part of the way you understand things is by cutting through bullshit with jokes.
Marc:I mean, especially you.
Marc:I mean, you cut through bullshit.
Marc:I mean, you call bullshit on just about anything very concisely and in a very funny way that when you're sitting here trying to sort of like stay...
Marc:uh in in a place of faith into the you know the you know the sort of the jesus thing and the you know the and whatever you're choosing to hang that faith on there's going to be part of you that thinks like that's just bullshit there is
Guest:Especially when it's specific like that.
Guest:But then I don't want to be a fucking idiot that goes like, you know how sometimes you meet people, they're like, I'm spiritual.
Guest:You're like, what?
Guest:They're like, I have my own thing.
Guest:I'm like, why don't you work at Burger King?
Guest:You figured out a fucking whole thing by yourself?
Marc:Yeah, well, they've got their own thing that enables them to work at Burger King without hanging themselves.
Marc:That's a pretty powerful guy.
Guest:Certainly, if I'm not going to accept Christianity, I'm not going to accept some fucking 17-year-old girl's fucking idea.
Guest:Well, maybe you should just get a job at Burger King.
Marc:Maybe the humility of that will shed a little light.
Marc:Because it's exactly the same...
Marc:feeling I think you probably had when you had to deal with the blind guy, that there's something outside of you, there's bigger struggles that are had by many people, and they seem to survive.
Guest:I've actually thought about working with blind people because I look back on that time, and it really was the first time you really look outside yourself.
Guest:It's pretty incredible, the things that you observe.
Guest:Even as a writer or anything, I think it would be incredibly important.
Marc:Well, I think that's important for a spiritual thing, too, is to not think about yourself first.
Guest:Yeah, I think most spiritual people, I think you're exactly right.
Guest:But I think a lot of people go, that's the way to find it, is to look inside yourself.
Guest:But I think you're right.
Guest:I think it's not.
Guest:It's to look outside.
Marc:It's to try to get past your ego.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To get that thing hammered down to almost nothing, to where you actually think about the better of somebody else over yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Holy fuck, I would never be able to do that.
Marc:right well that's very contrary to like there's this other whole movement now the positive thinking people all you gotta do is throw that switch man everything's okay hey don't be negative i fucking can't deal with that shit but you got but you can see in acting or in comedy that that works i know
Marc:like the person that goes hey man i'm cool everything's gonna be good and it is yeah yeah that's like it's it's horrendous but is it really i mean just because you're denying your flaws and you know everything else i mean you can sort of fake it till you make it or there's a lot of slogans act as if whatever it is but but still it's like you know they say that eventually this will just kick in in earnest
Marc:Yeah, until one day you're like, it's not kicking in.
Marc:This is fucked up and you guys misled me and fuck all of you.
Marc:The truth is it's dark and horrible and we die alone.
Marc:Fuck you guys.
Guest:Yeah, what is it called?
Guest:Act as if.
Guest:Act as if.
Guest:I guess I understand what that would mean.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But all these books and all these things.
Guest:the bowel cancer hasn't read the book.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:They don't read anything.
Marc:They're fucking cancers.
Marc:Whenever people start talking about organs, I fucking check out.
Marc:I mean, I can handle a lot of dark shit.
Marc:I can fulfill my head with stuff.
Marc:But when people start saying, like, I had kidney failure, I'm like, oh, God.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:That's why those fucking, the scariest movies of all of us to me were like the Cronenberg movies because it was always the inside shit.
Marc:Biological.
Marc:I was thinking about The Fly recently.
Marc:Like...
Marc:Or that moment where he's climbing up the wall and he's like, pretty weird, huh?
Marc:You're like, oh, God.
Marc:And then when he breaks apart and there's a giant fly inside of him.
Marc:Can we turn this around somehow to end this thing?
Guest:It's like my act.
Guest:When I do my act, I never think of a fucking ending.
Guest:Yeah, just trickle off.
Guest:Just fucking unravel.
Guest:I guess this is, we good?
Guest:You're done?
Guest:You guys feel okay with what happened here?
Guest:Every week I go, why didn't I think of something?
Marc:Do you do that thing where you look, it's like, okay, I've done an hour and 15, and I don't know that, you know, how it's structured really matters.
Marc:I'm done.
Marc:That's what I'm like.
Guest:And then I know people are kind of silent.
Guest:They're like, where's the big thing?
Guest:What's the matter with him?
Guest:Well, I'm glad you're doing okay, man.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, I'm glad you are, man.
Guest:This is awesome.
Guest:This is so... Sorry it's so hot.
Guest:It's so cool.
Guest:It is hot.
Guest:But it's cool you got this thing that's your own, and you don't have to listen to... Yeah, no one can really tell me what to do except bad Mark.
Guest:I talked to Bob Costas, you know, and he does, you're not a sports fan, but.
Guest:I like him, he's all right.
Guest:He's great, but he does baseball.
Guest:These fucking baseball guys know everything.
Guest:And it was after I got fired and shit, and he said, oh, fuck, he goes, I know how it is.
Guest:He goes, I got people in my ear, these producers telling me,
Guest:I'm like, you do?
Guest:Like, he calls baseball games.
Guest:Even he's got fucking guys like, they say this, you know?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, he says people are saying it in his ears, and he's like, it's always nonsense shit, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's nice that you have a place where a guy doesn't go, hey, ask him this.
Marc:No, I'm very grateful that it's working out, and I love doing it, but I do have a guy within me that says, like, oh, the other shoe's going to drop, dude.
Guest:Oh, well, of course.
Guest:But something is going to happen.
Yeah.
Marc:Thanks, Norm.
Guest:That's the bad part.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Let's weave it there.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Love you, buddy.
Guest:Love you, too, man.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:What a great conversation.
Marc:Completely surprised.
Marc:You guys?
Marc:Norm MacDonald.
Marc:Sweet, thoughtful, reflective.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:I loved that conversation.
Marc:I really did.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:Great guy.
Marc:Anyways, that's our show.
Marc:I am Marc Maron.
Marc:Why am I doing that now?
Marc:I already do that at the beginning.
Marc:Look, go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Please get on the mailing list.
Marc:If you want to kick in a donation, we got shirts.
Marc:You know, if you do the $10 a month thing, you get a shirt, you get some stickers, you get my unconditional love.
Marc:If you do the $250 one-time donation, you'll get three CDs, a couple of shirts, some stickers, my double unconditional love.
Marc:But you can also just go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:We've got new videos.
Marc:You've got links to the YouTube page that we've got now.
Marc:You can see the entire episode catalog.
Marc:You can get the app for Droid, iPad, iPod Touch, or the other thing.
Marc:You know, the apps.
Marc:You can get that stuff.
Marc:You can get a link to justcoffee.coop.
Marc:You can read the blog.
Marc:You can leave comments.
Marc:WTFpod.com I am fucking sweating right now.
Marc:I'm sweating in my garage.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Guest:Okay.