Episode 238 - Michael Ian Black
Guest:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also eh what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark maron
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?
Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?
Marc:What-the-fuckineers?
Marc:What-the-fucknicks?
Marc:All right, it's what-the-fuckmas and what-the-fucknica, and it's that time of year.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I do apologize for maybe the, hopefully, the slight humming of power tools in the background.
Marc:It seems to be chainsaw, the chainsaw season out here.
Marc:Ever since that big windstorm, there's nothing but a chorus of chainsaws cutting up
Marc:trees that are on the ground now i got ernie out and back he's sanding the fence that i had to have replaced and that has to be done because i'm leaving town any look merry christmas can i just say that did you hear that and then i just stepped on a plastic container oh my god everything is breaking
Marc:All right, I'm back.
Marc:Let's do some plugging really quickly, if I could.
Marc:I'd like to tell you, if you live in Utah, the nation's only functioning theocracy, please come see me at Wise Guys, January 13th and 14th.
Marc:You can go to wiseguyscomedy.com, I believe, to get tickets there.
Marc:The big WTF live show in Boston at the Wilbur Theater on January 27th has tickets available.
Marc:I just added Barry Crimmins to that show.
Marc:So as of this...
Marc:reporting or as of this uh this episode we've got kenny rogerson tony v mike donovan jimmy tingle and barry crimbins these are all guys that when i started doing comedy i opened for and i couldn't be more excited to uh to be doing that i'll also be doing a uh an evening of stand-up there too on the same night early show is me doing stand-up the the late show is me doing a live wtf with some of that original boston crew and uh and frank santarelli i forgot frank santarelli
Marc:Oh my God, how many is that?
Marc:Kenny Rogerson, Tony V, Mike Donovan, Jimmy Tingle, Barry Crimmins, Frank Santorelli.
Marc:Oh, that's done.
Marc:That's the show.
Marc:There might be a special guest, but that is the show.
Marc:That's January 27th.
Marc:You can go to thewilbertheater.com and get involved with that.
Marc:Man, I don't know what to do with Christmas.
Marc:I'm trying to, in Hanukkah, I didn't light the candles.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Look, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Marc:I'm not buying a lot of people presents.
Marc:I never buy a lot of people presents.
Marc:i'm gonna buy jessica a few presents probably probably a handful i just think that's the way to go that's what you got to do and i find that if you're in a relationship especially a new relationship just buy a bunch of presents you know throw as much as you can you know just throw a bunch at the wall throw a bunch of stuff at the wall see what sticks don't don't limit yourself all right don't get into that you know i'm gonna buy one present for her or him i'm gonna get the present i'm
Marc:I'm going to decide exactly.
Marc:It's going to be the perfect present.
Marc:Be careful with that business with the one present thing, because like if you hang it all, if you're hanging all your hopes and all your gift giving on one present, then there's the possibility they'll receive that present.
Marc:And they're they're not going to like it, but they'll pretend to like it.
Marc:And, you know, they're pretending to like it and you're going to pretend like they're not pretending they're liking it.
Marc:And then you're going to question yourself because you thought it was the perfect gift and it was the exact right thing for them.
Marc:And then you realize, holy shit, maybe you don't know them and they're not going to be what you think they are.
Marc:And they're never going to change into that.
Marc:And that's sort of fucked up that moment of realization.
Marc:It should be a humbling thing and you should accept that.
Marc:But that moment and then then conversely, they're going to be thinking, well, how did he not know what to get me?
Marc:Why would he think this was the right thing to get me?
Marc:Does he not understand me at all?
Marc:And that one gift misfire in an early relationship can just be the, you know, that's just the first domino, man.
Marc:That is the first cancerous cell, the first emotional cancerous cell.
Marc:You'll never be able to let that shit go.
Marc:And then it'll keep coming back at you.
Marc:You know, why didn't you wear, why don't you ever wear what I got yet?
Marc:Well, I'm waiting for the right occasion.
Marc:So the lie continues and it just becomes pervasive.
Marc:And then there's a lot to learn from giving the wrong present.
Marc:You can see what you're,
Marc:Your your your person acts like when they're lying and you know, they're lying.
Marc:You can make note of that.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I don't know what I'm saying here.
Marc:It is the giving season.
Marc:So give a lot of presents to the person you love just to avoid that, because if you're only going to give one present, you know, save yourself some money and just break up with them.
Marc:Just break up with them or buy more presents.
Marc:That's the way our economy works.
Marc:Cover your bases.
Marc:Get as much stuff as possible to guarantee the love that you need.
Marc:That's what our economy is built on.
Marc:That being said, let's get away from that and enter some other part of the Christmas spirit or the human spirit.
Marc:Well, there's a couple of things.
Marc:First of all, I want to drink alcohol.
Marc:I have not had this feeling in many years.
Marc:I just want to report it.
Marc:I want to put it out there.
Marc:I'm not going to.
Marc:This happens when you don't drink and you used to drink a lot.
Marc:But man, I forgot what that hunger feels like.
Marc:I forgot what that craving feels like.
Marc:I don't know what's going on with me, man.
Marc:But, you know, I got Ernie out there working on the...
Marc:on the fence and you know he likes newcastle so i buy him a six in newcastle so i'm opening up you know boxes in newcastle putting them in the fridge i'm popping them open to bring them out to ernie at the end of the day and there's a you know i'm holding that beer i feel the weight of it i know the bottle is open i'm watching tv i'm seeing these kettle one commercials and it's the holidays and they're fucking delivering that message to me and somehow or another it just activated that craving
Marc:the phenomenon of craving, the deep soul hunger that is the sign and signifier of an alcoholic disposition, that I need that, not I want that, I need that.
Marc:And it comes from somewhere in your chest, somewhere just above your soul.
Marc:It comes from your heart.
Marc:There's some part of you that thinks the only way I can ease the discomfort in my heart is if I
Marc:Pour freezing cold vodka over it.
Marc:Directly over my heart.
Marc:So that chill and that anesthetizing feeling will just ease the stress of being me in this moment.
Marc:Wow, I got to go to a meeting.
Marc:I got to quit talking about this shit.
Marc:Pouring cold vodka over my heart and just letting the runoff just fertilize the once darkened soul.
Marc:that fed on that oh the poetry the poetry people these are the Christmas poems I'm not don't worry about it comes and goes it's seasonal and I also think it has something to do with reflecting it during Christmas you know I got Michael Ian Black on the show today and you know we did this conversation a little bit ago and and and look you know it's no surprise to you people
Marc:I've been an asshole, but there are some people that I have a difficult, strained relationship with from the past.
Marc:The past, man.
Marc:Christmas past.
Marc:It's almost Dickensian.
Marc:This is Scrooge.
Marc:I don't know that I was Scrooge, but I certainly was a different man when I was younger.
Marc:And there are some relationships I have that were incredibly strained and uncomfortable.
Marc:And Michael Ian Black was one of them.
Marc:And I have no malice towards him.
Marc:I genuinely have affection for him.
Marc:And I do believe on some level that the two of us enjoy the tension that is generated by who we are together.
Marc:And I don't believe he's a dick or a bad person.
Marc:I used to.
Marc:But nonetheless, you'll find during this conversation that there is this tension and he still is holding me to who I used to be.
Marc:There is no way sometimes to get out of the box that others have built for you.
Marc:If you aren't in constant contact with somebody or you don't have that experience where they see your evolution or they experience your change through action and emotion, that you are what you were to them because nothing has changed in their mind and there's no indication that you're different.
Marc:Even if there is an indication, they think it's a fluke.
Marc:So you can't get out of the casket they've built in your brain for you.
Marc:And you have to live with that sometimes.
Marc:There was another incident this week where another comic, a young comic, has decided that I don't give him the respect he deserves.
Marc:And I like the guy.
Marc:I've always liked the guy.
Marc:And there's a tension there.
Marc:And it's something deeper than just whatever goes on between us.
Marc:Everyone has relationships like this in their life.
Marc:But I know I've changed.
Marc:I know I've changed and I know how I feel, but sometimes you're not going to get the satisfaction of acknowledgement from that other person that you experience this with.
Marc:Sometimes you're always going to be your faults of a different time to that person.
Marc:This goes for ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, old friends, children sometimes.
Marc:Sometimes you're not going to get that acknowledgement.
Marc:You're not going to get a gold star.
Marc:You're not going to be pat on the head.
Marc:No one's going to come up to you and say, look, you're a big boy now.
Marc:Look at you.
Marc:You're not being a baby anymore.
Marc:Everyone around you, everyone in your life is not your parent or the parent you wished you had had.
Marc:At some point, you're just going to have to feel it, to feel that mild burn of, look, I know I changed and I just got to accept that.
Marc:You know, I know I'm a different person.
Marc:I know things didn't end up the way I wanted.
Marc:You're just going to feel that slight ache, that slight ache in your heart, that warmth.
Marc:Look at his warmth.
Marc:Turn it into wisdom.
Marc:Don't pour frozen vodka on it.
Marc:Don't do that.
Marc:Just continue to be different.
Marc:Continue to honor who you are as a changed person who has learned from their experience.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Merry Christmas.
Marc:We should talk to Michael Ian Black.
Marc:Do not pour freezing cold vodka over your heart and let it trickle down into the soul and fertilize the darkness.
Marc:Merry Christmas.
What?
Guest:It was a bit of a panicky morning for me.
Marc:Maybe I'll have to turn my phone off.
Marc:Health insurance.
Marc:You know when you don't know you're insured and then you call up and you're like, am I insured?
Marc:Does this cover this?
Marc:Shouldn't it be clearer?
Marc:Do you ever have trouble with that?
Marc:Like where you're like, are we covered for things?
Marc:How meticulous are you in knowing what the fuck is going on in your life?
Marc:Like, do you know what your house is covered for?
Marc:I don't know what my house is covered for.
Guest:You mean health insurance?
Marc:Yeah, insurance on the house, insurance on your health.
Guest:Vaguely, vaguely.
Marc:Right, vaguely, right?
Guest:But I have kids now, so you sort of need to know.
Marc:Oh, how to make sure they're okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How many kids you got?
Marc:Two, right?
Marc:Two.
Marc:Well, so, yeah, so I had a little panic this morning about that.
Marc:I'm very aggravated lately, but you seem fairly calm.
Guest:I'm nervous a little bit about doing this.
Guest:Did you record your intro for me already?
Marc:Not yet.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Do you want me to?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I didn't know, but I was trying to surmise in my head as I was eating Juevas Rancheros, coming over here, what you would be saying in your intro.
Marc:Well, no, I usually, what I'll do is I'll get this in the, I'll do this interview with you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then later I will put an intro on.
Marc:Like I didn't sit here and go, ah, Michael Ian Black's coming over.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:That fucking guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not feeling that right now.
Guest:Do you want some tension?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I wanted to come into this with as few expectations as possible and with no defensiveness on my part.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That was my intention.
Marc:Is that what I was feeling when you got to the door?
Marc:Because you came right in and you're like, all right, this is where I'm at.
Marc:That was you being open.
Marc:Trying to be.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Trying to be.
Marc:What are you doing in town?
Marc:Shooting a commercial.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For what?
Marc:Expedia.
Marc:Expedia.com?
Marc:That's the one.
Marc:Are you going to be the new guy?
Guest:No.
Guest:I think if every cycle or year, they use a couple different people that are vaguely recognizable.
Guest:And you go, oh, I kind of know who that is.
Guest:And then... How many are you doing?
Guest:Just one.
Guest:It's fantastic.
Marc:Yeah, well, you know, I looked at your schedule, and I know we dropped our CDs on the same day.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Now, incidentally, mine, which I checked today, has already fallen completely off the planet.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, it hasn't.
Marc:I swear.
Marc:Well, you had the Clever cover, the Dr. Dre cover, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a play on the Dre.
Marc:It was a play on the Dre.
Guest:I felt pretty good about it.
Guest:That might be the best thing about the album, is the cover.
Marc:Yeah, I tried to, you know, personally, I stay away from the goofy covers, but that was satirical.
Marc:I liked it.
Marc:I'm not raising my hackles.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I mean... It's not goofy.
Marc:No, I mean, it was clever.
Guest:It was well done.
Marc:It's satirical.
Marc:It was satirical.
Marc:I said that, which I like.
Marc:I appreciate.
Marc:I just... When I look at records from the old days, I always want... Which ones hold up?
Marc:You know, is someone going to look at that, the CD, 10 years from now, and go, ah, it's a Dre thing.
Marc:But that's already... How old is that record?
Guest:Like 15 years?
Guest:What is that?
Guest:The Chronic?
Marc:Yeah, 90... No, I thought it was very clever.
Marc:I'm seriously not taking a shot at you.
Guest:Whatchamacallit...
Guest:What's Steve Martin's one where he's got the bunny ears and he's a black and white shot and he's going nuts?
Guest:But that's a stage shot.
Guest:I mean, he's on stage.
Guest:So the distinction you're making is if it's not on stage, it can't be goofy.
Guest:If it's on stage, it can be goofy.
Marc:Well, I think there's a fine line because if you go right now to iTunes and look at some covers of comedy CDs.
Marc:Yes, I agree with everybody thinks that's a good idea.
Marc:When they make that cover, there's several options.
Marc:I agree with you.
Guest:And I'll show you John Panette's cover right now.
Guest:I was not going to name names, but that's the one I was thinking of.
Marc:But that is a history.
Marc:And I've made decisions like that in my life where I look at myself on TV.
Marc:I was confident in that decision.
Marc:I said, this is what I'm going to do.
Marc:You know, we're crazy.
Marc:We're insecure.
Marc:You make a decision.
Marc:You're like, you get behind it.
Marc:The Dr. Drake cover I thought was a good decision.
Marc:I still think it's a good decision.
Marc:No, I think I like it.
Marc:I do like it.
Marc:Again, really, I'm not knocking it.
Marc:But it is... I don't know that... Why do you think...
Marc:Do you think your fans don't expect stand up from you?
Marc:I mean, do you think?
Guest:Oh, yeah, they wouldn't.
Guest:Why would they?
Marc:Well, I mean, I know you've been doing it a long time.
Marc:I mean, I looked at your schedule and you were like touring like fucking James Brown.
Marc:I mean, you are you are a fucking road dog.
Marc:But that just started.
Marc:That just started in the last 18 months, two years.
Marc:Well, okay, so let's talk about where you are right now.
Marc:Is this where you thought you were going to be?
Marc:I mean, was this the plan?
Marc:Did you think you would be out there doing stand-up?
Guest:I wish there had been a plan.
Marc:I mean, I had no plan.
Marc:You didn't have a plan, did you?
Marc:Well, no, I just wanted to be a stand-up, but it seemed to me that your career...
Marc:I mean, you've done a lot of stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you've done a lot of TV.
Marc:And I have to assume that on the Ed show, is that what it was called?
Marc:Ed, yeah.
Marc:You were on every one of those.
Marc:No, but I was on most of them.
Marc:That was a good payday.
Marc:I mean, it should have, like, on some level, I imagine in your mind, you're like, I'm going to be a TV actor.
Guest:but i but before that i had been a tv actor it was no i'd been i'd been doing tv for that was big 10 years it was not for me it wasn't i mean i was you know i was number seven on the call sheet which you know for your listeners yeah uh means you know i'm there's a call sheet every day and number one is ed and number two is his girlfriend and number three is their best friend and number four and you know you go all the way down kind of in in terms of importance and characters i'm number seven
Guest:right and once you get past like number three four five right you don't really matter and i didn't get paid a lot right i mean i got paid fine i mean but you know i was getting i was getting a lot of money compared to you know what most people make but it wasn't like life-changing money or anything like that well i've talked to most of your guys yeah i i think i i've only got a few more state guys left yeah do you know who i have to interview still
Marc:i would imagine todd hollebeck the most uh uh probably the most obscure because he's not really in show business anymore i contacted hollebeck did you really i did contact him because i wanted him to do a bit did you hear that bit i did with the david wayne episode with the guy who said he was in the state yes well i wanted todd to do that but he was like what is this about like he got very defensive on the email that's how i read it so i'm like
Marc:Maybe I ought not bother that guy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He's lovely.
Guest:I'm sure he'd come on.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I've got, what's her name, Carrie still?
Guest:Oh, you haven't done Carrie, yeah.
Marc:No, I've not done Carrie, and I haven't done Marino.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:I think that's it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Who else is there?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I don't remember who's in the group anymore.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I talked to all you guys.
Marc:Was there a black guy?
Marc:No.
Marc:There was no black guy?
Marc:Yeah, but I'm not going to bring that up.
Marc:What was that about?
Guest:I mean, it was a very conscious decision on my part.
Guest:Because everybody else was arguing vociferously.
Guest:We should get a black guy.
Guest:We should get a black guy.
Guest:I'm like, no.
Guest:You had a gay guy and you had a girl.
Guest:We had a gay guy.
Marc:We had a girl.
Guest:You were covered.
Guest:As far as I can say, we were hitting every quota I was comfortable hitting.
Marc:And you did your Dr. Dre cover.
Marc:So you're good.
Marc:Everything is leveled off for you.
Marc:You've got all bases covered.
Marc:So when you started out, were you in the state?
Marc:Were you one of the leaders?
Marc:Because I talked to all you guys about this, and I'm yet to find one of you to say shitty things about the other in any real way.
Guest:I don't know why any of us would.
Guest:We all remain very good friends.
Guest:It suffered from a lack of leadership, the group.
Guest:And that was also one of its strengths.
Marc:There was a power vacuum?
Guest:No, it wasn't a power vacuum.
Guest:It was that as a college club, which was how it started, it was designed to be a kind of, you know, everybody gets a voice, hippy-dippy, everybody feels good kind of organization.
Guest:And in a way, that was a great asset for us because everybody felt like they had a voice.
Guest:And in a way, it was a real pain in the ass because everybody felt like they had a voice.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And so at different times, some of our voices were stronger and at different other times, we hung back.
Marc:But are you amazed at the...
Marc:continuing popularity of the fan base that you established through uh uh the the movie the wet hot american summer and uh and through the state i mean because it to me it's amazing because you you brainwash these children yes at 12 or 13 and they remain relatively loyal to you as grown-ups i am amazed it's a great thing i'm not begrudging them but do you get emails about the state still oh sure is that you yeah that's me that was hilarious did your phone just call mine
Guest:I don't see how that's possible.
Marc:No, I don't think so either.
Guest:Oh, it's Jake.
Guest:I got a Twitter that I think you and I are both mentioned on.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:And I think that's probably why yours went.
Marc:Oh, maybe.
Guest:Usually it's just- I just got this phone, so I don't really know how it works.
Marc:What kind of phone is it?
Guest:Oh, from Jake Fogelnest, who you probably follow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it says, I love you both.
Guest:I'm here for you guys if this needs to go to mediation.
Guest:Why do people expect that?
Guest:I thought the last time we were- Well, I just tweeted that said- No, I know.
Guest:Passive aggression.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I mean, I thought that the last time we did this-
Marc:That we covered most of the negative things, and we decided that it was all cool.
Marc:And then after that, I hung out with you and Aspen with your wife, Martha, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I've always liked her.
Marc:She's always been very pleasant, if not wary of me.
Guest:She is pleasant but wary, but that's a good descriptor of her in general, not just with you.
Marc:Right, but I thought she was being protective of you, and I thought, well, that's cute.
Marc:And then in my mind, it's like, it must be really...
Marc:difficult to be with him because he probably have to take that posture a lot but then it turned out i was really wrong and you guys are both very pleasant i think i hope we were i try to be i think i think i think like you i have matured and i'm trying to be more pleasant in my dealings with people well i think that you know it's not that i took a survey or anything or i'm not going to bring other people into this you already brought john panetta in just gratuitously i don't know why you would
Marc:Look, John Panette did a lovely cover of him eating something.
Marc:I mean, what else is he going to do?
Marc:I mean, I haven't seen him in a long time.
Marc:Have you ever had dinner with John Panette?
Marc:I don't know the guy.
Marc:I have had dinner with John Panette.
Marc:I sat down with John Panette at Nick's Comedy Stop in Boston, probably 1989, and I sat there and watched him eat and talked to him.
Marc:So for me to see him on a cover with a plate of food is no big surprise.
Marc:Right, deja vu for you.
Marc:Yeah, it was like, wait, that's the John I know.
Marc:That's the John I had dinner with.
Marc:And I think he's skinnier now.
Marc:But in terms of my mistake with you, was that I thought that I took you at face value for the character that you played on stage.
Marc:And I assumed that you were that guy.
Marc:Smug asshole.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because there was no way for me to know different.
Guest:Other than just say, hi, how are you?
Guest:It would be nice to talk to you the way you talked to John Panette.
Guest:Let's have dinner.
Marc:you think i should have done that no you shouldn't you necessarily shouldn't necessarily have but to make that assumption that the that the guy you see on stage is the guy you see all right let's be honest though let's let's just cut to the bullshit right now all right i you know this is all well and good i'm willing to take some hits i didn't why i i haven't even i haven't even uh unleashed my quiver of arrows no i know but we're not doing that right this is a new you right you were a smug asshole at one time
Marc:It wasn't just a stage thing.
Marc:Maybe it was a protective social element.
Marc:Wait, I'm not even being passive aggressive.
Marc:No, you're just being aggressive.
Marc:No, I'm not.
Marc:I'm just asking.
Marc:When we were younger and I was a defensive, hostile, sweaty Jew.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you were coming to Luna doing your thing.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That there was a time that perhaps I was not the only one that would have said that.
Guest:Is there a possible alternate explanation in your mind for what you were perceiving as smug asshole-ish?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Frightened.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Shy.
Marc:Very good.
Marc:In over his head.
Marc:Yes, possibly.
Marc:And a little bit of smugness.
Guest:The smug thing has...
Guest:followed me around.
Guest:Oh, so see, like, see, I'm not- No, you're not the only one who thinks I'm smug.
Marc:Because I'm not the kind of guy I'm not going to bring other people in the conversation.
Marc:I'm not going to say people don't like you.
Marc:But when I've had this conversation- Fuck!
Guest:I'm not going to say the other people don't like you, but- No, no, not but.
Guest:Not but.
Marc:Because when I say, when people ask me, do you really have a problem with him?
Marc:And I say, well, I always thought he was sort of a smug asshole.
Marc:And then I realized it was his character.
Marc:And they're like, oh my God, I thought that too, but he is a nice guy.
Marc:So there's no ganging up here.
Marc:Go ahead.
Marc:What?
Marc:What?
Guest:I mean, what do you... Yeah.
Guest:I think in your head right now... You can't cover your face.
Guest:I think in your head right now you're being gracious on a certain level?
Guest:Is that what's going on in your head?
Guest:Like you're being kind?
Guest:No, wait, because what I'm hearing is whenever I talk to people about you, I say he's a smug asshole or I thought he was a smug asshole.
Guest:And then other people say, yes, I thought so, too.
Guest:But so what I'm hearing is the whole world thinks I'm a smug asshole.
Guest:The people in my community, not necessarily people out there seeing me on stage.
Guest:I hate to be that guy.
Marc:No, everybody says that they are surprised.
Marc:What I'm saying is that your character was so convincing, and because of the fact that you were slightly detached, maybe shy offstage, people did not have a personal engagement with you other than your closest friends.
Marc:I'm not attacking you at all.
Guest:I have always been very self-conscious.
Guest:pretty shy.
Guest:I wouldn't say very shy.
Guest:And I think compensated for that on stage by playing this kind of overconfident, acerbic dickhead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're very good at it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Is it called snarky?
Marc:Would you say you're snarky?
Guest:The first time I heard that word was after I started doing those VH1 things.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Wasn't that the idea?
Marc:Wasn't everyone snarky on those?
Marc:No.
Marc:Didn't those VH1 things define snarky to some degree for some people?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, honestly, I'd never heard the word before, so I certainly wasn't trying to be snarky.
Guest:I was just trying to be funny.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think that tone, that character is a popular comedic archetype.
Marc:I think the slightly pompous kind of smart.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it works on television.
Marc:It works on stage.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Why do you always assume that I'm being passive-aggressive?
Guest:Because I'm just bringing 20 years of baggage that I have with you to this interview and I'm trying not to.
Guest:And I'm trying to take you at face value.
Marc:Well, do you want to address some stuff?
Guest:It's your interview.
Guest:It's your interview.
Marc:No, but I'm interactive.
Guest:I adapt.
Guest:Because this is what I hear.
Guest:Because when I listen to your podcast, which as you know I do,
Guest:And I hear you say something like to whomever, you know, that's a character that works well on stage or on TV.
Guest:The subtext of that is it's bullshit.
Guest:I don't do that.
Guest:I'm honest.
Guest:I'm whatever.
Guest:I lay it all out there.
Marc:That is your baggage.
Guest:I don't know that it is.
Guest:I don't know that it is.
Marc:No, that is absolutely your baggage.
Marc:I, if anything, if you listen to this show, you know that my respect and acceptance and my own fucking humbling in this world has brought me back to a place from when I was younger and I appreciate all elements of comedy.
Marc:I respect the fact that you put out a record.
Marc:I looked at your schedule today.
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck, he's really doing it.
Marc:I didn't say like that guy.
Marc:No.
Marc:I didn't say that.
Marc:Now, I may have said that at another time, but that is not who I am right now.
Guest:What would that have been?
Guest:That guy.
Guest:What would that have meant?
Guest:Like, what's the subtext in that?
Guest:In that guy.
Guest:Like, oh, he's going out on the road doing shows.
Guest:That guy.
Marc:Well, no, but there was a time where I had a very narrow perception of what I thought stand-up was, and that's what you're responding to.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I don't think there's any indication of that now.
Marc:I think I'm fairly gracious with people, and I don't really attack people.
Marc:No.
Marc:And it took a long time for me.
Marc:I think we trace most of our problems back to the fact that I refuse to accept that you guys could be stand-ups.
Marc:And that was really the core of it is that I saw you guys as successful television guys that came in from your sketch group and then you came into our world
Marc:And then you got on stage and you were doing our thing without doing it the way that I did it.
Marc:So I said, who the fuck are these improv guys with their toys?
Marc:But that's gone.
Marc:I don't have that anymore.
Marc:I don't have it anymore.
Marc:And you are really actually the only one out of all of you
Marc:that I think was capable of doing stand-up and that your character was solid enough for you to hold it on stage.
Marc:And you're really the only one that does, I think, actual stand-up when you go out.
Guest:I'm the only one who really started pursuing stand-up in the way that I think most people think of when they think of stand-up.
Guest:And that's only fairly recently.
Marc:And that's not to take anything away from Michael, but I think there's part of Michael that he'd like to do like half a lecture, then he'd like to draw some pictures and hold them up and then tell a couple stories.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, he's doing a different thing.
Guest:He's doing a more sort of, performance is the wrong word, but theatrical in a way thing.
Guest:And incidentally, he's great at it.
Guest:He's very, very funny.
Guest:And David, of course, is Orson Welles.
Guest:And David Lane has become Orson Welles, yes.
Guest:But I only started doing stand up, as I said, in the past few years, like stand up, stand up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And for me, it was a very conscious choice.
Guest:And the choice was or the thought process was this is something you've always admired and kind of wanted to do, but never really had the balls to do full bore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Give it a try.
Marc:Now, where did you come from?
Marc:Where were you born?
Marc:Geographically?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what's your family thing?
Marc:Because Michael Ian Black can't be your real name.
Marc:No.
Marc:I think we talked about this before.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Schwartz.
Marc:So you're Jewish?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Marc:100%?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're a little Jewish kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm surprised you didn't know that.
Marc:Well, I kind of knew it.
Marc:You're a little Jewish kid.
Marc:You have brothers and sisters?
Marc:One of each.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Older, younger.
Marc:Older brother, younger sister.
Guest:Your middle?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:oh okay i'm not psychoanalyzing but so you went to summer camp and stuff uh-huh uh nice what middle class background yeah yeah what what part of the world uh jersey really how come i didn't know all this stuff you never asked really i didn't ask the last time we couldn't get past our problems for me so what part of jersey northern jersey uh central-ish it's called hillsborough it's a little town it was a little town it's growing a lot now is that anywhere near wayne
Marc:When New Jersey?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Pompton likes New Jersey.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Butler, New Jersey, not ringing bell.
Guest:That's where my roots are.
Guest:What's weird is that, uh, growing up in New Jersey where I grew up, I was geographically unaware of almost every other town in New Jersey.
Guest:I don't know where anything is.
Guest:I didn't know the names of roads in my town.
Guest:I think I was so hell bent on getting out that I was, I was not at all ages.
Marc:Like, you know, with, by the time you were aware, you're like, I have to leave New Jersey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's muggy.
Marc:It's hot.
Marc:There are bugs, but the tomatoes are good in the summer.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:I'm not even aware of that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I'm aware that there's corn.
Guest:That's the only sort of agriculture that I'm conscious of.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, come on.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Are your family still there?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's just my mom.
Guest:She moved to Florida, which is even worse than New Jersey.
Marc:So did my mom.
Marc:You have not grown to appreciate Florida?
Marc:I hate Florida.
Marc:What part of Florida?
Marc:South Florida.
Marc:My mom lives in Hollywood, Florida.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But I've grown to appreciate Florida as being this amazing freak show, a densely populated fucking freak show.
Marc:When I go there, I'm like, this is insane.
Guest:I appreciate it on that level.
Guest:But Florida, to me, seems like a state full of people who have given up, who have gone...
Guest:Is that another word for relax?
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Maybe it is.
Guest:Maybe I'm just not able to process what it means to have a life of leisure and comfort and good weather.
Guest:Maybe I'm not able to process that.
Guest:And so I resent it when I see other people doing it.
Marc:You're 78 years old.
Marc:Why aren't you still in it?
Marc:No, I don't mean the seniors.
Guest:The seniors can do what they will do.
Guest:But the light guys who are like 48 and you see them at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon eating wings and listening to Buffett.
Guest:And you're like, what are you doing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you doing, buddy?
Marc:They're enjoying their life, having some wings.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Maybe they've got everything in perspective.
Guest:They probably do.
Guest:Maybe they're sort of like, I did what I could.
Guest:I'm sure.
Guest:But for me, I look at it, and for some reason, it upsets me.
Marc:Yeah, and you live in Connecticut.
Marc:I do.
Marc:Well, that's pretty lofty.
Guest:uh look at you you had this like you i wish you you people could see like the look in his eye this mischievous fucking glint of i'm taking a shot here i'm taking my first like conscious shot i want you to make i want it to be clear when they come no stop it you're not really that upset wait what what part of connecticut you don't want to say the rich part
Marc:yeah yeah little boutique stores oh nothing but run by housewives with rich husbands uh yeah it's sally's cupcakes it's just it's just doggy grooming stations everywhere you look really on your property no i wouldn't allow it anywhere near my property i have a dog and a cat yeah that's sweet all right so all right so the state that kicked ass
Marc:You hated this state.
Marc:You have to understand something about me.
Marc:There's a misperception about me as well.
Marc:I was unable to appreciate anything within the parameters of my life that represented other people doing well.
Marc:When I go back and watch things, you guys worked hard.
Marc:You created something.
Marc:You built MTV.
Marc:A lot of you are funny.
Marc:What?
Marc:I can't.
Marc:The problem is I didn't watch enough of them.
Marc:Honestly.
Marc:I'd be surprised if you watched any of them.
Marc:No, of course I watched.
Marc:You couldn't not watch it at some point.
Marc:MTV was invented and then it was all you guys for a long time.
Marc:But there's a couple of the guys that I could not.
Marc:I know Carrie is very funny.
Marc:But in my mind, I'm having a hard time placing Marino.
Guest:like i wasn't you know like i'm having a hard time placing him in the context of the state yeah in the state yeah you know him now yeah kind of yeah uh i feel close to you because we were around each other yes marino was the guy for those uh of you who may or may not know who know the state he had a character called louis who said i want to dip my balls in it over and over again
Marc:Whose idea was that?
Guest:That was a reaction to a note from MTV who said, we want you to do recurring characters.
Guest:And we said, we don't want to do recurring characters.
Guest:And they said, we really want you to do recurring characters.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As a fuck you to them, we created like the dumbest recurring character in the world, which was this guy who his only line is, I want to dip my balls in it.
Guest:And he says it over and over and over again.
Guest:And he's just celebrated on the sketch for having this catchphrase.
Guest:And they talk about the fact that he has this catchphrase and people just fall in love with this guy and encourage him to say, I want to dip my balls in it.
Marc:Did that actually translate into reality for Marino?
Marc:in terms of having people come up to him and say oh I'm sure I'm sure they I'm sure to this day they do it and okay but then you guys the thing that amazed me about you all is that you all seem to work together and stay together because then Viva Variety came which was an interesting show whose conception was that was that Tom's or your
Guest:It was mostly Tom Lennon who wrote a sketch called the Mr. and Former Mrs. LaPan Variety Program.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A-M-M-E.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was a European show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That we did on the state.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And when we were doing it.
Guest:We were sort of joking that it would make a very funny television show.
Guest:And so it was his initial baby.
Guest:And then myself and Ben Garant kind of fleshed it out.
Guest:And then Kerry Kenney came on and made it into Viva Variety on Comedy Central.
Marc:Now, was your experience with Comedy Central in that, like, when you had something as high concept as that, how long did that run?
Marc:It didn't run long enough, right?
Marc:We had like 40-something episodes.
Marc:Oh, you did that many?
Guest:Yeah, it was like 42 episodes.
Guest:That's a good run.
Guest:But Comedy Central was a much smaller network then, and they were more willing to kind of take chances, and they were just trying to get some attention and get eyeballs on their network.
Guest:So it was a better time to work there.
Marc:Well, they're still doing that.
Marc:And they got it with Tosh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Those are the eyeballs they want, and there's millions of them.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'll grant you that.
Marc:Do you feel like your age is a liability now?
Marc:On Comedy Central?
Marc:Just in general.
Marc:I mean, because you guys actually were the first kind of MTV comedy superstars, and they're still going after that age group.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:So Tosh, though a lot of people seem to like him, that age group is still kids on some level.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Do you feel now there's part of you?
Marc:Have you grown up successfully in that you realized, like, maybe I'm not going to get those kids?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I worry about that.
Guest:I don't worry about that.
Guest:I'm very conscious of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have moved and I'm in the process of moving my career to...
Guest:deal with that and and to deal with the fact that i am no longer going to necessarily be appealing to 14 year old girls yeah um they will always be appealing to me yeah but i may not be appealing to them yeah and so a lot of the things that i'm doing now are reflective of that grown up yeah i think so i hope so i don't have an opportunity to ask this much because i realize that
Marc:You know, as a comedian or as a comedic performer, when you build your audience that are kids, that eventually what happens is they grow up and not unlike you.
Marc:They have families and stuff.
Marc:So their time to sort of engage with what you're doing is is minimized.
Marc:Now, as somebody that came from the state, how much kind of not necessarily family, but how much do you feel like you've held on to some of those 14 year old girls all the way through?
Marc:Um, more than I would have thought.
Marc:You get emails that say like, you know, I watched you when I was 14.
Guest:I have a family now.
Guest:More that if I'm at a, doing a comedy show, a standup show, people will come up after the show and say, I've been watching you since I was in seventh grade and wasn't allowed to watch your show, but I snuck downstairs and that kind of thing.
Guest:And that's great.
Guest:You know, it makes you feel good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And are they surprised?
Marc:And they're old.
Yeah.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I just turned 40 this week.
Marc:It's wild, right?
Marc:It was tough.
Marc:Do you see people that you grew up with that you haven't seen in 10 years and you're like, oh my God, am I that old?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Marc:Oh, constantly.
Guest:You look good though.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Thanks very much.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:I think you look better now than you've looked in years.
Marc:Someone else said that.
Marc:I wonder why that is.
Marc:Maybe I was always supposed to be this age.
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:It might just be that.
Marc:I've reached it.
Guest:Well, you look, despite your body dysmorphia, you look trim.
Guest:You look fit.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:You look healthy.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I had binged on ice cream and yogurt-covered pretzels last night.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:But I'm not feeling bad about it today.
Marc:I've decided today I'm not going to feel bad about it.
Marc:You're going to let it go.
Marc:I'm going to try to let it go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good.
Marc:So you don't have any of that?
Guest:Oh, I do.
Guest:What is your thing?
Guest:I'm constantly worried that I am borderline obese.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So you have that one, the same one I have.
Marc:Yeah, I have the same thing.
Guest:Oh, that's fucking awful.
Guest:It's good and it's bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did your wife come out with you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:She's with the kids and we're...
Guest:Oh, you're doing that thing?
Guest:Yeah, because we were supposed to go away for my 40th to Maine for a few days.
Guest:Bar Harbor?
Guest:No, I can't remember what it's called.
Guest:She arranged it.
Guest:And then this Expedia thing came along and fucked that up, so we came out here instead.
Guest:You're going to bring them to Disneyland or what?
Guest:No.
Marc:Nothing?
Guest:No.
Guest:Are you staying by the beach?
Guest:They can sit by the pool and be happy, and that's good enough for them.
Marc:How old are they?
Marc:Eight and ten.
Guest:Oh, so that's good.
Marc:Here's a pool.
Marc:There's a thing.
Guest:Don't hurt your brother.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Don't hurt your brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you say that a lot?
Guest:Do you have two boys?
Guest:Boy and a girl, younger girl.
Guest:Don't hurt your sister?
Guest:No, it would be more don't hurt your brother.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, she's more meddlesome than he is.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:Are either of them smug?
No.
Marc:Come on, that was just a lighthearted one.
Marc:It was a lighthearted joke.
Guest:It was.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It was a delight.
Guest:It wasn't even an attack.
Guest:No, it wasn't.
Guest:It was just a lighthearted jab.
Marc:I want to keep going through the career real quick.
Marc:So Wet Hot American Summer was big, and it's still big.
Guest:It wasn't big.
Guest:It was tiny.
Guest:But it has a cult following.
Guest:Yes, over the years, it found a cult following.
Guest:And now I often get credit for having much more to do with that movie than I did.
Guest:I had almost nothing to do with it.
Guest:I was just an actor.
Guest:I showed up.
Guest:My buddies made it.
Guest:And I'm happy to be associated with it, but I feel like I get undeserved credit for having had something to do with it.
Guest:I didn't.
Marc:I just realized when I became actively contemptuous of you guys.
Marc:okay it wasn't uh not really described it was like well you guys came around but eventually like especially you i said like well this guy's got you know handle on this but the stella thing for some reason just it just killed me but you were you were an active member of stella i know i know but like i just couldn't understand how you got so many people to like you
Marc:And I could not understand at that time when you guys started doing that.
Marc:It was one of those weird moments in show business where you guys started doing the show out of nowhere.
Marc:The three of you doing this kind of Rat Packy thing with the suits and everything else.
Marc:Which I thought was cute.
Marc:But I just couldn't understand.
Marc:Out of the gate, there was like 500 people in the audience every fucking week.
Marc:And I would go up there and I know that I was full of contempt and weird anger.
Marc:And he seemed to want that.
Marc:But I think it was my problem, obviously.
Marc:But that's sort of where it happened.
Marc:I just couldn't understand.
Marc:How do you manufacture that much success out of it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:To this day, if anybody shows up at anything that I'm doing, I'm amazed.
Marc:You don't think it was mostly state people?
Guest:No, at that time, I'm sure it was.
Guest:When we started Stella, the state was still fresh in everybody's mind.
Guest:We had a big sort of New York following and presence.
Guest:We were very sort of social in the New York world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so Stella, which originated as a stage show, had a kind of cool New York vibe to it right from the get-go.
Guest:And so people just came.
Guest:And we had a lot of friends who were, you know...
Guest:moderately well known and so it sort of became a scene right right out of the gate oh that's right so that's what see i never understood all that stuff that page six kind of things but yeah i mean it wasn't quite that it wasn't quite that but yeah it was not so dissimilar right you guys were hanging around celebs a little bit i mean not that not that much but enough so that uh but it was organic it wasn't like which celebs can we get oh no because david wayne and you got you he hangs out with people
Guest:Well, he's a star fucker.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See that?
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way.
Marc:So then you get this big show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:See, your perception of my career and my perception of my career are wildly different.
Guest:Like, I don't think of the state as...
Guest:I mean, I'm proud of this date, but I don't think of it as wildly successful or as something that- It established you.
Guest:Yes, but you called, you said we were like superstars on MTV, which we were not.
Guest:We were never.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:We were never that.
Guest:We did well, but we never broke through into the popular consciousness.
Marc:But you were a popular thing and people thought they come upon it and the people that were into it were cool.
Guest:Yeah, but it was no more successful than like a moderately successful indie rock band, you know?
Guest:I mean, it was like that.
Guest:It was like that level of it.
Marc:Right, but that's what you want, right?
Guest:Yeah, but that's not what we wanted as a group.
Guest:We wanted mainstream success.
Guest:We wanted to take on SNL.
Guest:We wanted to become the Kings.
Marc:Did you ever get any sort of engagement with the SNL camp?
Marc:No.
Marc:You never got the pleasure of having Lorne Michaels dismiss you?
Guest:I think he...
Guest:took pleasure in uh in never even knowing who we were I think if it's such a he knew if there's if there's pleasure in ignorance he took it he knew I don't know did you ever meet with him no you never went up for SNL no I was never invited I was never asked I was never
Guest:You know, I think I'm pretty sure we were persona non grata in that world.
Marc:None of you guys ever went up to that?
Guest:Carrie Kenney did have an audition for SNL because, you know, I think they're always looking for funny women.
Guest:And so she had a commodity that the rest of us did not have, which was a vagina.
Guest:And so she got that opportunity.
Guest:We did not.
Guest:I don't know that I wanted that opportunity, but I guess I would have at least liked to have known that they were aware of us and thought we were doing good work.
Marc:I feel good about what's going on right now between me and you.
Marc:In terms of what?
Marc:Well, I'm thinking back on it.
Marc:And I deeply envied and resented you for a long time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now you're saying it wasn't all wine and roses, Mark.
Guest:Is that what you're seeing?
Marc:No, it's just the same as it always is.
Marc:It's like, you know, it's a different part of my life.
Marc:And I just saw you as a guy that kept getting fucking success and kept getting breaks.
Marc:And that to me was some sort of threat.
Marc:And I could just never understand how you facilitate that.
Guest:Well, this is this is to me.
Guest:This is the crux of our relationship.
Guest:You're defining it right now.
Guest:And I agree with it, which is.
Guest:I have always sensed from you this deep resentment about the fact that I or my compatriots have these opportunities.
Guest:And you know you had a lot of opportunities, too.
Guest:I mean, you've had many things that have gone well for you over the years.
Marc:But I never quite figured out how to fit in.
Marc:So I don't really see that.
Marc:I mean, you may see that.
Marc:But in terms of really kind of mainstream-ish success or casting or anything else...
Marc:Not really.
Guest:But I'm not sure how much of that was my fault.
Guest:But I haven't either.
Marc:I haven't either.
Marc:You were on a million shows.
Guest:Well, whatever.
Guest:Most of them because I sort of muscled my way into making them, not because the world was banging down my door.
Marc:Well, no, I appreciate that.
Marc:And I didn't muscle my way into anything but resenting people who muscled their way into things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The point that I feel like has always irked me is that I got from you throughout the years the sense that my success, and I'm using my success and my friend's success, was undeserved.
Guest:And the reason it was undeserved was ultimately because you didn't think we were funny.
Right.
Right.
Guest:And that you couldn't understand why anybody would.
Guest:That's the part that has always bugged me.
Guest:The resentment I can take.
Guest:The resentment I'm fine with.
Guest:It's the underlying shit of that, which was, and I don't think these guys are funny.
Guest:Any of them.
Guest:And...
Guest:So I probably personalize it more than the other guys, maybe because I live a little bit more in your world than those guys do.
Guest:And because I admired you and continue to.
Guest:And so that sort of deep knowledge of this guy who I think is really talented thinks, I don't know, just thinks I'm not...
Marc:talented i will give you that uh i'm uh i was a dick and there's no way around it i don't even know if i was looking i don't even i don't hear that you were a dick i want you to acknowledge that you don't think i'm funny no no i think you are funny but see the thing is is that i can only like i couldn't acknowledge almost anyone being funny i mean in order for me to really think someone was funny i can't explain what it is but i can't be objective they have to be dead no of course not
Marc:But I can't be objective about it.
Marc:Like my resentment would stifle my ability to even take that in on.
Guest:But I think my sense of it was that because we were doing something different than what you were doing, intellectually, like on every level, kind of different, you weren't willing to take the leap and say...
Guest:I'm not doing that, but I recognize that there's something to what they're doing that is interesting and compelling to people.
Guest:And then not take the further step of, and everybody who likes it are fucking assholes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I never thought the audience was assholes.
Marc:I mean, most of them laugh at anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:they're just sheep yeah you don't give a shit they're just they're not nice looking kid you know they'll follow him they're not assessing it as deeply as i am right no i'm a guy like i can go to the you know i used to go to uh i'll go to museums i'll enjoy performance art i like uh films that don't make sense you know i like art i'm able to that does because that's not that doesn't threaten you in any way that's not you're not competing with that right
Guest:You can go see Karen Finley.
Marc:I'd rather go see maybe someone.
Marc:Not Karen Finley, but that kind of thing.
Marc:Some of them threaten me, too.
Guest:You can watch the guy with piercings in his scrotum picking up weights, and that's going to be enjoyable to you.
Guest:And you can say, I see that that's art on some level.
Guest:But if we're running around...
Marc:You know, acting like pretending to be the guy who's got ways hanging from his crotum as a joke.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:No, I'd appreciate that more.
Marc:But I think what you're saying is right.
Marc:But I always appreciate the fact that you had talent and could hold the stage and all you guys could.
Marc:But I think what you're saying is right.
Marc:But it's changed.
Marc:I feel comfortable with you.
Marc:I don't find that there's... I know we have a dynamic that we like to embrace, but sometimes it gets a little too... And I'm doing everything I can.
Guest:Am I doing it?
Guest:Maybe I should.
Marc:Maybe I should.
Marc:No, am I provoking you?
Guest:Oh, shit, yes.
Guest:I am right now?
Guest:Not at the very moment, but throughout the interview, yeah.
Marc:But not as much as I could have.
Marc:No.
Marc:I just want some credit for showing up here.
Guest:And I'm giving you the credit and I will.
Guest:I don't need any credit.
Marc:Are you enjoying show?
Marc:Are you enjoying stand up?
Guest:Yeah, when I enjoy it, which is to say there are times where it feels like drudgery.
Marc:But I mean, when you got into it, because it was any of it fueled by fuck, what am I going to do?
Guest:yes but a lot of it was also what happened was Michael and Michael have issues which is the last TV show I did let's talk about that because that was funny you guys are funny together I enjoyed that show thank you Mark and I didn't resent it and I thought you were doing something funny the two of you well there was a show about aggression and passive aggression
Marc:Yeah, which is what you should be doing all the time.
Marc:See, that's what I took from you.
Marc:So I'm like, he's not really embracing as much.
Marc:He needs to get someone else in there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That would represent me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That spoke to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Showalter character spoke to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that show got canceled.
Guest:Too sweet.
Guest:Why is that?
Marc:Because...
Marc:See, why did they do that?
Marc:Because, like, I mean, you've got this great show.
Marc:You brought a lot of great production values to it.
Marc:It's clearly not going to play to 15-year-olds who, you know, it will play to some, you know, who get it.
Marc:But it's not broad.
Marc:So it's almost like, how did you not, did you think it was going to be doomed from the beginning or did you have high hopes or what?
Guest:We had high hopes.
Guest:I mean, we always go into things with high hopes.
Guest:And then they're constantly dashed.
Guest:When we were making Stella, which is the craziest, most absurd show in the world, we all thought, the three of us, me, Michael Showalter, and David Wayne, we thought finally we're doing something mainstream that people will embrace.
Guest:When we could not have been more wrong.
Guest:We were just idiots about that.
Guest:And the same thing with Michael and Michael.
Guest:We thought we promised them something.
Guest:We are delivering it on time, under budget, and the quality is excellent, we thought.
Guest:And the ratings were fine.
Guest:How could they not pick it up?
Guest:And they didn't pick it up.
Guest:What they tell you was a reason.
Guest:I don't know that they ever really gave us a reason other than they, and there's somebody very specific who represents they in this conversation, did not think it would ever be like a breakout hit.
Guest:There were other theys at the network who said, we should move forward with this because it's good.
Guest:And that wasn't enough.
Guest:Did you try to shop it around somewhere else?
Guest:No.
Guest:yeah i mean you know it's sort of like trouble working with him no oh no i mean we we have trouble the way friends who have known each other for 20 years have trouble which is to say we have you know a lot of shit between us but for the most part we get along great what do you mean shit well i mean we've been friends for 20 years so what was the biggest shit uh girls no no ideas
Marc:Michael being annoying?
Marc:No, I think it's just, you know, ego and both of us, both of our egos.
Marc:Yeah, I can't imagine it.
Marc:Yeah, you do have, they're different.
Marc:They're uniquely self-involved egos.
Marc:They are uniquely self-involved.
Guest:I think you saw that in the show.
Guest:Yes, and the show was about that.
Marc:Michael Showalter wants to be a professor.
Marc:Michael Showalter is a professor.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:But it's like he's so clearly that's really what he, you know, he's.
Guest:Well, it's in his mitochondria.
Guest:His parents are both professors.
Guest:He's done his best.
Guest:His darndest to sort of move away from it early in his career now.
Guest:He's literally a professor.
Guest:He's teaching screenwriting at NYU.
Marc:But I think, is he happy?
Guest:He loves it.
Guest:Yeah, because he just seems like that kind of guy.
Marc:It's a perfect fit for his particular ego.
Guest:He loves it, but at the same time, I think he wants to continue making movies and TV shows, and he will and does.
Guest:It's a hard thing we chose.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:It's a terrible, terrible profession.
Marc:Do you feel that now?
Marc:When did you begin to feel that?
Guest:Oh, from moment one.
Guest:Really?
Guest:From the first time I went on an audition when I was 15 years old for Burger King.
Marc:You were doing that then?
Guest:Trying to.
Marc:Did you do any child acting?
Guest:No.
Guest:I wanted to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But nobody would hire me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I stayed up.
Guest:I couldn't sleep the night before because I had this audition for Burger King.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was thinking, this is going to change my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to walk in there.
Guest:I'm going to be on a Burger King commercial.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then my whole life is going to change.
Guest:And then-
Guest:you know i lived in new jersey it took me probably two hours to get to the audition in new york in new york city i walked in uh i think they had me sing some sort of jingle for about six seconds yeah they said thank you and then that was my introduction to show business yeah get out get out and uh and it's been it's been it's been a series of those moments over and over again for the last 20 something years
Marc:But when you thought about where you really have that, well, I think that it seems like you've worked steadily enough and without enough of an interruption for you to really kind of say, you know, what the fuck am I going to do?
Marc:I think that every single day of my life.
Marc:How could you not?
Marc:Did you lose any sweep over the commercial today?
Guest:uh i was anxious about the commercial today yes i didn't lose sleep over oh i'm talking about this commercial right here and now not the commercial that i'm shooting this commercial this commercial well this is another this is another walk into burger king and hope that you don't get your ass kicked you know what do you mean what do you think i'm gonna say next
Marc:Essentially, yeah.
Marc:How did the shoot for Expedia go?
Guest:We haven't done it yet.
Guest:It happens this week.
Guest:What are your lines?
Guest:You want to run them?
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:It's so sort of straightforward and dry, but there's sort of funny things happening around them.
Guest:Something like...
Guest:When I travel, Expedia Rewards Program, I don't fucking know what it is.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:It was natural, though, right?
Marc:You should do it like that.
Marc:Just go to this site.
Marc:Here it is.
Marc:I don't fucking know what this is.
Marc:Okay, so when you've had those dark moments, what are the other options for you?
Guest:this is my life my life is trying to find okay well what else can i do what else what else can i do in show business in show business yeah well and and and not i mean i i like like you or like everybody have those fantasies of what would i be doing if i wasn't doing this and i don't have a good answer for that uh political consultant was the closest i ever came to thinking of of an answer i don't know that i'd be any good at it but yeah
Marc:Wow, that's interesting.
Guest:Like helping people campaign and that kind of thing?
Guest:Yeah, being Iago, basically.
Guest:I never wanted to be a fellow, but I would like to be Iago.
Guest:Yeah, you'd be good at that.
Marc:So let's get back to that moment where your stand-up became a reality.
Guest:So Michael and Michael gets canceled, and I'm not anxious to jump back into TV.
Guest:I've just had my heart broken two times in a row over the last few years with Stella.
Guest:It really does feel that way.
Guest:Oh, it's, you know, I'm incredibly proud of Stella, the TV show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And of Michael and Michael have issues, two radically different things, but both of which I think accomplished exactly what they were setting out to do and doing them well.
Guest:That said, you know, like in everything, there's people who hate them, but I guess I've come to expect that.
Guest:The trolls?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:How do you deal with them?
Marc:Are you okay with them?
Guest:I you engage sometimes I do engage um on Twitter generally and when I do usually what I do is if they just write something particularly nasty I just retweet it and that seems to purge it a little bit um and then I also know that my followers on Twitter will then go attack that person and that kind of makes me feel good um
Guest:So when that ended, I was having one of those existential moments of what the fuck am I going to do with my life?
Guest:It wasn't even like a financial thing.
Guest:It wasn't even like I need to make money.
Guest:I was okay.
Guest:It was more just about what do I want to do?
Guest:How can I be sort of what's interesting to me?
Guest:What can I do that I will feel good about?
Guest:And around that time, I started a podcast with my friend Tom Cavanaugh.
Marc:What's that called?
Guest:It's called Mike and Tom Eat Snacks.
Guest:How's that doing?
Guest:I don't know how you measure these things, but I think it's doing well.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's no WTF.
Marc:It's fun though, right?
Marc:It's really fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's an opportunity to be uncensored and hang out with my friend, basically.
Marc:And you do it once a week?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I started that.
Guest:I started writing a second book.
Guest:I wrote a book called My Custom Van, which is a collection of essays.
Guest:And then I wrote the second book, which comes out next year, which is memoir-ish, but totally different than the first thing.
Guest:And I decided that if I was ever going to pursue stand-up in a real way, if I was ever going to give that a shot, that I should do it then, in that moment.
Guest:And so I decided to.
Guest:And I hooked up with this amazing agent that
Guest:who basically said, laid out a plan and said, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, and at the end of it, you're going to do a Comedy Central special.
Guest:And I said, you just say, we're going to do a Comedy Central special.
Guest:And he goes, just trust me.
Guest:And so that's what we did.
Guest:And so this last year and change was about that, was about learning how to do standup, or starting to anyway.
Marc:And you've got it built in a bit of a draw.
Guest:A bit, yes.
Guest:A bit so that I can show up and it's not going to be embarrassing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There'll be people there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Never embarrassing?
Guest:uh you need a couple of those uh yeah there's always a couple of those yeah you know i tend not to play well in like the south yeah uh because they just probably don't know you they did no i don't i yeah they don't know i know i'm not like i'm not gonna see no no no i don't think it's it's not it's not anti-semitism or anything right well no no you're jewish is that why you chose that name yes shame deep deep shame
Guest:It's snappy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Black.
Marc:It's snappy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I like it.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's three names.
Marc:I think that probably had a lot to do with my initial opinion of you.
Marc:The three names.
Marc:Yeah, because it's only serial killers and assholes have three names.
Guest:But I didn't want to have the third name.
Guest:It was because of AFTRA and SAG and Equity.
Guest:All the actors unions, there can only be one Michael Black.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I had to either change that or just insert my middle name.
Guest:It didn't occur to me that it would sound pretentious.
Guest:Ian is your actual middle name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It didn't occur to me, you know, that don't do that because people will think you're just a fucking asshole when you use three names.
Marc:So your name is Michael Ian Schwartz?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Boy, your parents really tried to erase that Schwartz, didn't they?
Marc:I don't know where the Ian came from.
Marc:Yeah, I don't either.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know where that came from.
Marc:Maybe someone was a Jethro Tull fan.
Guest:To the best of my knowledge, no.
Marc:No, not at all.
Marc:To the best of my knowledge, no.
Marc:All right, so you've become a real stand-up.
Marc:I mean, I think you deserve it.
Marc:I mean, because you were actually doing stand-up at Luna.
Guest:When the sort of New York alternative comedy movement was sort of getting its feet, there was a show called Rebar, which preceded Luna, as you know.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Which...
Guest:I was invited to come to.
Guest:This is when we were doing the state.
Guest:And I've always admired stand-up.
Guest:I've always just thought, like I think most civilians, this is the scariest thing you could possibly do.
Guest:And I thought the same thing.
Guest:And I was sort of intrigued by that and went to see you and Todd and Louie and Jeff Ross and all these people who are doing it and just said, you know, I had this opportunity.
Guest:Why not try?
Guest:But I had no idea how to do it.
Guest:I didn't know how to write a joke.
Guest:Still don't really know how to write a joke.
Guest:And thought, let me try it.
Guest:So I sort of fooled around with that.
Guest:That grew into Stella.
Guest:But none of it was ever stand-up.
Guest:It was never standing on a stage and telling jokes.
Guest:Wasn't it though?
Marc:I mean, didn't you do a thing where, I remember, didn't you do a thing where you actually brought things up on stage to sell them or something?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:One night, I took things from my house.
Guest:That I didn't want.
Guest:And in New York, there's all these guys who sit up on sidewalks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Used to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they would just put like bed sheets out and they would just have random collections of shit.
Guest:It was the weirdest shit.
Marc:It was like a reel to reel, you know, like a dentist equipment.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and a napkin holder.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then a phone machine.
Guest:And so that's what I did.
Guest:I did that at Luna and didn't say anything, just brought it out, had like cassettes, you know, Thompson Twins cassettes that I wasn't going to listen to anymore.
Marc:See, I remembered that and I thought that was funny.
Guest:Yeah, but it wasn't like jokes.
Guest:I mean, it was just, it was conceptual.
Marc:But see, the weird thing about
Marc:you is that the same reason that I may have hated you as a person is the reason why you know you were a great stand-up performers that you were set in your character I mean the thing about the hardest thing about doing stand-up is having that character having a character at all other than jokes and you already had that I did but it wasn't necessarily as I got older and as I progressed and continue to progress it
Guest:It wasn't necessarily... It isn't necessarily where I want to remain.
Guest:I think you can be a smug asshole and have that be fun and funny for a while.
Guest:And for me, it's been X number of years.
Guest:But at a certain point, it becomes...
Guest:And so I'm trying to sort of break through that a little bit.
Guest:And part of that involves trying to learn how to really be myself and expose myself.
Guest:And that's hard to do.
Guest:Or talk about your kids.
Guest:Talk about my kids.
Guest:Talk about my life.
Guest:Talk about my feelings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, you know, for a long time I denied even having.
Marc:See, I felt that.
Marc:See, I can't help but have mine.
Marc:Maybe that's another thing.
Marc:How do I connect with this guy?
Marc:I'm going to try and reframe this whole thing as your fault.
Guest:It started as my fault.
Guest:And I was willing to own it from the get-go.
Guest:You need to do it for me, Mike.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I totally get it.
Guest:I didn't... Yeah, I... So that's been a real process for me.
Guest:Learning... It's going to sound so pretentious to say, but learning how to be myself and learning how to be myself on stage has also been a challenge.
Marc:Are you finding success in it?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Are you finding people are surprised?
Marc:buy it because you seem like there are certain guys I know from talking to him and hear him from knowing them that there's some people just and I don't think it's a bad thing you know keep their shit to themselves I'm gonna stand is that alright are you really why are you getting tired no I'm not getting tired but I just feel antsy okay alright you can turn it up yeah this is a first so you're gonna stand I thought it might be do you wanna I wanna lord over you okay I wanna look down on you what are you opening with
Guest:uh i'm not gonna i'm not see in my head it's not ladies and gentlemen michael come on just my legs are antsy and i'm feeling anxious and i thought let me stand what's your opening joke that you fucking you're the one that i don't see this i don't have one i mean the one that i opened my last my last my first special which was i'm michael in black you may know me from such shows as canceled yeah okay all right but you know you you don't open with that consistently you don't have a consistent opener
Marc:No.
Marc:All right, so now you're up, you're standing, the juice is flowing.
Marc:Now, okay, so, but what I was saying is some people keep their private life private.
Marc:Was that a kind of person you were?
Marc:Was that a choice you would need?
Guest:Oh, I still do.
Guest:I mean, there's a line I won't cross.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:I'm interested in myth, and I'm interested in the myth of the performer.
Guest:I'm interested in sort of creating a persona, and my persona is moving closer to who I actually am, but I'm not going to hopefully...
Guest:hurt the people that I love in terms of exposing them.
Guest:It might happen though, right?
Guest:It may.
Guest:But not on purpose.
Guest:The book that I just wrote, a lot of it is about my marriage.
Guest:The essays?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my wife, Martha, was very, and understandably so, nervous about that.
Guest:She didn't want me writing about her.
Marc:Everyone around you gets nervous when you're writing a book.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:You must be writing one.
Marc:Yeah, I am.
Marc:It's not moving as quickly as I'd like.
Marc:They never do.
Marc:Like, did you, like, really?
Marc:So have you been in a situation where you're like, I've got four fucking months?
Guest:Oh, my book is a year plus overdue.
Marc:Oh, that makes me so much happier.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I had to, but I had to, oh yeah, it should, it should make you feel great.
Marc:It does make me feel, wait, I want to get back to this because this sounded intelligent to me.
Marc:Um,
Guest:The idea of myth.
Guest:What does that mean to you?
Guest:So when I was growing up, when I first became aware of comedy was SNL.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And very early on, for whatever reason, because I wasn't really old enough to watch, but I became aware of John Belushi and I became aware of this thing that they were doing on that show with him where they would talk about him.
Guest:They would talk about John Belushi.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm putting that in quotes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:on air right and the kind of person that John Belushi was and the things that John Belushi did right and I was aware that the person that they were talking about could not possibly be entirely the same person that he is off stage off air that there is there is a disconnect between the real John Belushi and the
Guest:on the performer john belushi and i was but i also knew that there was a tremendous amount of overlap i knew that the real john belushi probably was doing drugs and and probably was kind of fucking up his life but to what extent i didn't know and i was very interested in what that line was where where those two things blurred and i've taken that with me my whole career and i have always thought of that as as the kind of mythology of performers when the state
Guest:started going i wrote these pieces called uh hi i'm michael lee in black yeah which were kind of like what you were talking about the smug asshole talking about how great it was to be on mtv and how you know much pussy i was getting and blah blah blah blah blah and it was about that it was about it was about um
Guest:that kind of mythology and very consciously.
Guest:So the group didn't want me to use my real name.
Guest:They didn't, they, for whatever reasons.
Guest:So we changed it to, I am, I'm an on air personality.
Guest:And so my character became on air personality and I did a bunch of them.
Guest:I did maybe half a dozen.
Guest:And then those trend, those turned into high were the state pieces where we would all sort of get up and we would all talk about our lives, but the lives would be very much in quotation marks, except that you could tell there was an element of truth to all of it.
Guest:And how much of it was true and how much of it was false.
Guest:To me, that was always really interesting.
Guest:And so I bring that to my stand-up now.
Guest:And so there's that line that I won't cross.
Guest:And the line's always moving about what's true and what isn't.
Guest:And what's interesting about stand-up, as I'm sure you know, is you can tell the absolute truth about something.
Guest:The most painful, awkward, bitter truth that you have.
Guest:And people will think you're kidding.
Guest:People will think you're making shit up.
Guest:And all you're doing is standing on a stage telling the truth.
Marc:And over the last... You're telling the truth in a context with a beat structure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So they think that that insulates it.
Marc:I mean, part of your job is to temper that truth so they don't feel... They feel like you're in control somehow.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I do think that's true.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the sort of under... The foundation of it will be truthful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Will be you essentially telling the truth, getting on a stage and telling the truth.
Guest:As I've moved forward in my stand-up, I'm moving, I think, more towards what you do, which is essentially that, figuring out ways to tell the truth.
Marc:It's interesting, though, because I think what you're saying is true, and I was just writing something before you came over here today, trying to figure out
Marc:what it was when I was a kid, like you're talking about Belushi.
Marc:But there's this weird thing when you see someone on a television and they're being a certain way, the part of you that you don't necessarily think, you don't even want to imagine that they have a real life.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:And now as a comic, I know like, well, John Belushi was probably spending a lot of time sleeping, spending a lot of time making people worried about him.
Marc:And a lot of time, you know, just out there fucking drinking and boozing.
Marc:Like he didn't really, whatever his life was, it was a train wreck.
Marc:And we know that now.
Marc:But you want that as well.
Marc:So you want the myth to hold true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yet you need it to be a myth in order to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Guest:And as an audience, you need to believe it's a myth because to believe otherwise would be scary.
Marc:And I guess the guys that end up in the big picture more authentic is the ones where people go, holy fuck, he was really like that.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't need that.
Guest:I mean, I don't need to scare people.
Guest:I don't need to be a myth in that way.
Marc:It sounds to me what you're trying to do is find a way to be comfortable with telling the truth as the character that you are.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But also redefining the character to be more in line with who I actually am.
Guest:Growing it up a little bit.
Guest:And...
Guest:You know, so to that end, like, for example, coming in here today, my agenda was not to be necessarily funny or to make a lot of jokes or to whatever, but just to try to do this, just to try to be honest and tell the truth, because it's hard for me.
Guest:It's hard for me to do that.
Guest:It's hard for me to sort of let that go and just trust that just being and being honest is compelling enough.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What's the hardest thing on stage that in terms of... That's all right.
Marc:Sorry, I thought I was off.
Marc:Happens all the time.
Marc:Is that your wife?
Marc:No, it's Hollywood, California calling.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:They're going to change the copy on the Expedia commercial.
Guest:No, I'm sure whatever this call is is going to change my life like that Burger King commercial.
Guest:Yeah, it always does.
Guest:So many years ago.
Marc:Yeah, they brought in somebody else.
Marc:They flew in a lesser-known person to do the Expedia commercial.
Marc:So what is the biggest challenge for you?
Marc:What are your biggest fears on stage in revealing this truth?
Marc:Which bits or what topics have you said, how the fuck do I do that?
Guest:It hasn't been anything specifically topic-oriented.
Guest:It's been more about how do I take...
Guest:my life my actual life and make that compelling to me and make that compelling to an audience because as i think everybody who lives with themselves doesn't feel like they're doing anything extraordinary or worth communicating particularly um but it but it is that stuff that kind of banal day-to-day stuff that actually is the most interesting if you can just sort of unearth it and mine it and and and look at it in a slightly different light right um berbiglia
Guest:said something once on an interview that I heard him on, which I thought was really true, which he said, audiences really just want to hear their lives reflected back at them, and nothing much more than that.
Guest:And I thought that was really sort of profound and true, that the things that often seem to me to be just sort of kind of like run-of-the-mill and unextraordinary are the things that people really respond to.
Marc:Well, I think along with that, because I don't necessarily honor that code because I don't know how many people really live like me, but I think that there are people that think like me.
Marc:But I think when you mine that particular area, it's how do you make them see it differently, something that is familiar to everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And obviously, like, this is like comedy 101.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except that I never had that, you know?
Guest:Like, the state existed in a totally insular way.
Guest:We... None of us came from comedy.
Guest:None of us knew anything about comedy.
Guest:We're all... We all taught each other whatever we knew.
Guest:So we kind of stumbled on sort of comedic...
Guest:lessons and truths almost by accident and had to sort of like teach each other how to do things how to write a punchline how to write you know just a decent premise we never had mentors we never we never we didn't know any other comedians there were no opportunities for us to perform outside of the performances that we were doing ourselves right but you watch tv we watch tv so yeah we had an instinct for it the way anybody has an i don't think i don't
Marc:I don't know many people that really look at it as a, well, I guess I know a few, but I think that you're obviously naturally funny and the tone that you found worked for you was the tone that you used.
Guest:Yes, but it was more than that.
Guest:For all of us, it was more than that.
Guest:Because for us, comedy became a very deep intellectual exercise.
Guest:Yeah, you guys are all smarties.
Guest:I don't know about that, but I think we were very passionate about it.
Guest:And we wanted to understand it.
Guest:And we wanted to have a sense of craft.
Guest:And I think when you're coming up through maybe the club system...
Guest:And you're hanging out with other comics and you're seeing them do their routines night after night and you're seeing how they're changing things and how they're working.
Guest:There's a sense of a peer community that you can bounce things off of and that you can learn from.
Guest:And then you're hanging out shooting the shit after shows.
Guest:We didn't really have that.
Guest:We only had ourselves.
Guest:And so it was very hard to measure our own success.
Guest:And we've performed very infrequently.
Guest:We only perform two or three times a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there was no way to gauge what we were doing.
Guest:And so I think the way we dealt with that was to sort of over intellectualize everything that we were doing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you also were there for each other, you know, being in a band and being a singer songwriters, two different things.
Marc:So how is the transition from, you know, like knowing that David or Michael were going to catch it if they could, like if you left something dangling or something wasn't, you know, there's an organic thing that happens.
Marc:And then all of a sudden it's just you.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But you seem more cut out for it.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:My ego insists that I do things by myself to a certain extent.
Guest:My ego insists that I get on a stage by myself and own that hour for whatever that is, good or for bad.
Guest:It's just me.
Guest:And if it goes great, then I get all the credit.
Guest:And if it goes shitty, then I will happily take all the blame.
Guest:But that I need to have that.
Guest:Not exclusively.
Guest:I still work with those other guys.
Guest:Showalter and I are writing a script together, for example.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:um but part of me needs to fly sort of solo at at in in certain respects see that you're cut out for it i don't know so outside of the script with show walter what are you working on outside of the expedia commercial uh this book that i that i just wrote i'm writing another book with megan mccain the uh you shooting any tv huh any television
Guest:Um, no, no, uh, I'm, I'm, I haven't been pursuing television at all because, because, because of the frustrations.
Guest:I did a pilot this year for E that went nowhere.
Guest:Um, and it was, you know, it's just the rigmarole and the bureaucracy and the lack of trust inherent in it.
Guest:It just really has started to, to grate on me.
Marc:You can't, it's like, you know, I don't know when it happened, but I finally just stopped giving a shit on some level.
Marc:i can't hang my hopes on that because even when you tell the comedy central story it's like so even it becomes vague on why it happens and it's got nothing to do with anything but a couple people going i don't know yeah it's it's guys in marketing going you know i don't know where we're gonna slot this i don't know how we're gonna make a poster exactly yeah and so you know it's not that i've given up on television it's that i'm just not pursuing it with the
Guest:With the urgency that I might have before.
Marc:Is there a relief in that?
Guest:Yeah, huge relief.
Guest:A huge relief in feeling like I'll be okay without that.
Marc:Well, thank God.
Marc:Because you've got a lovely family.
Marc:I do.
Marc:You seem well adjusted.
Marc:I'm fine.
Marc:You are?
Marc:Are we good?
Marc:I don't know more.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Why do you keep doing that?
Marc:Every time we get together, I walk away feeling like we're good now, finally.
Marc:And then you do that.
Guest:Maybe because I'm holding on to something that I can't let go.
Guest:Well, what?
Marc:just i don't know you don't trust me i know what it is you just don't trust me you know what it is you more than many other people maybe all other no many other don't say all other people i want your respect and i feel like i got to earn it but we but you have it i mean jesus christ we were just in aspen and i thought after we talked we had a good time on stage and we we we got laughs doing that bullshit that we always do then we sat down in the lodge and i talked with you and your wife we had a lovely thing and i'm like great
Marc:finally and then you come back in here then you're nervous and then it goes pretty well and then at the end of all this I still I say are we good and you're like I don't know what does that mean I think when you die I'll feel good laughing
Marc:So that's on you.
Marc:That's on you.
Marc:So now I want everyone to know that it's now in Michael's court.
Marc:He is holding on to this fight.
Marc:I think what he tried to say there was a nice thing, but he far transcended any passive aggression, any attack.
Marc:When you're dead, I will feel good because he'll have closure and he won't have to worry about it anymore.
Guest:I need the closure.
Marc:Yeah, you definitely have a hell of an ego.
Marc:It was good talking to you.
Marc:You too, Mark.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:Could you feel it?
Marc:Could you feel the love, the weird repelling and attracting tension that me and Michael Ian Black have had for years?
Marc:I do love talking to him, and I do love engaging with the guy.
Marc:I hope he has a Merry Christmas.
Marc:I hope you have a Merry Christmas.
Marc:Happy Hanukkah.
Marc:Happy all the other holidays.
Marc:Whatever it is that you're celebrating.
Marc:If you're not celebrating anything, have a nice sandwich or something.
Marc:Again, don't pour freezing cold vodka on your aching heart.
Marc:If that's a Christmas message.
Marc:Also, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Of course, we've got the...
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Whoa, I shit my pants Christmas style.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop available.
Marc:If you get the WTF blend, I get a few shekels on the back end of that.
Marc:You can donate to the show.
Marc:You can buy the new merch.
Marc:You can get the apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad, your computer.
Marc:The Droid app is available at Amazon.
Marc:Oh my God, it goes on and on.
Marc:Wise guys in Utah, January 13th and 14th.
Marc:Live WTF in Boston, January 27th.
Marc:Me doing stand-up in Boston, January 27th at the Wilbur Theater.
Marc:God, what the fuck am I going to get her?
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Merry Christmas.