Episode 252 - Bill Lawrence
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Marc Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:Wow, I sort of slacked.
Marc:In my opening, I had a little speech thing.
Marc:What the fuck, everybody?
Marc:Nice to be here.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I appreciate your input.
Marc:I appreciate your gifts, your emails.
Marc:I do what I can to get back to you.
Marc:I am completely thrilled.
Marc:I really am.
Marc:I'm having a good time out here in the garage.
Marc:I would like to say, before I really get the show going, thanks for all the amazing response to the Matt Graham episode that happened on Monday.
Marc:It seemed to be a very provocative episode.
Marc:People kind of fell on either side of how they felt about the entire event, of him revealing what he revealed, of me witnessing it and everything else.
Marc:But I have some sad news.
Marc:But I also have some good news.
Marc:I had mentioned Matt's cat, Ruth, was ill.
Marc:Unfortunately, he passed away.
Marc:And I got a call from Matt.
Marc:He's very upset.
Marc:And he wanted me to mention that.
Marc:But I did want to say this as well.
Marc:In spite of that, and with a heavy heart, Matt is going to be doing his one-man show.
Marc:Now, whatever you thought of that interview or whatever it made you feel, if you're in New York and you want to see Matt take the stage again and do his stand-up and do his one-person show and be himself on stage, this is an opportunity.
Marc:It's February 16th and 17th at 7.30 p.m.
Marc:at a place called the Kimball Studio.
Marc:That's 78 Fifth Avenue.
Marc:It's on the 10th floor.
Marc:If you need some more information, go to Matt Graham's Facebook page.
Marc:That's Matt, G-R-A-H-A-M.
Marc:He's doing okay.
Marc:And despite what any of you think, Matt and I had a great conversation, not unlike many conversations we've had.
Marc:I've known him a long time, and he's had his disposition for a long time.
Marc:But I think I've watched tapes of this show.
Marc:You should go see him do what he does.
Marc:I just wanted to tell you those two things about Matt.
Marc:And what else do I want to tell you before I start babbling?
Marc:Oh, quinoa flakes.
Marc:Quinoa flakes.
Marc:Not great.
Marc:Not great.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:Bought some.
Marc:Didn't know what to expect.
Marc:Didn't love them.
Marc:They're okay.
Marc:But I know that quinoa is a miracle thing.
Marc:But didn't love them.
Marc:That's just a little tidbit of information.
Marc:Another tidbit of information.
Marc:Tim Ferriss, the creator of The 4-Hour Body, has emailed me.
Marc:I guess me tweeting about not being able to hang on or stick with his diet has caused him some trouble in the sense that he's like, how can I help this guy?
Marc:So I think it's I mean, it is a testament to the success of the podcast that that the creator of a diet wants to get in touch with me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I feel guilty.
Marc:I mean, what am I going to email him every day to go over what I'm trying to do?
Marc:I mean, I feel pretty good, but I think that his diet is healthy.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:Now I'm nervous.
Marc:It's one thing to try to do a diet.
Marc:It's another thing to have the taskmaster of the diet actually in contact with you.
Marc:We'll see how that goes.
Marc:Valentine's Day is coming up.
Marc:And I did want to say this.
Marc:I get a lot of gifts and a lot of interesting things from you people.
Marc:And I appreciate all of them.
Marc:My garage is now just wall to wall stuff.
Marc:Not only my stuff, but stuff that you guys create.
Marc:And this woman, Peggy, sent me this necklace that I gave to Jessica, my girl.
Marc:And it's an actual it's a heart necklace.
Marc:It's a silver heart, but it's an anatomically correct heart.
Marc:It's pretty intense and pretty beautiful.
Marc:And it actually opens like a locket and you can see the ventricles in it.
Marc:And I asked her to make me a ring.
Marc:She made me a clatter ring with an actually anatomically correct heart on it.
Marc:And in return for that, I said that I would send you her way.
Marc:And this is an act of passion.
Marc:She sent me the gift just thinking I'd like it and I loved it.
Marc:But you can go to www.peggyskemp.com.
Marc:P-E-G-G-Y-S-K-E-M-P.com.
Marc:And check out those hearts, man.
Marc:Interesting fucking present.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Not misleading you there.
Marc:Today on the show, Bill Lawrence.
Marc:Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, Cougar Town.
Marc:and other things had a great conversation with bill and it's sort of timely because cougar town's back uh there was a question as to whether it would be back but it is back it'll be back next week uh tuesday the 14th valentine's day isn't that it is and we'll talk to to bill in just a second i hadn't experienced the the other day i was up in san francisco had a great time at sketch fest i think i might have mentioned that um but
Marc:But here's the deal.
Marc:I had to move.
Marc:I wanted to do my girl a favor.
Marc:So I told Jessica she'd been paying rent on some stuff at a storage unit up in Burlingame when she lived in the area.
Marc:So there was just this stuff.
Marc:I always have a problem with that because I got stuff in a storage unit, too.
Marc:And then you start to wonder, why am I paying rent on that stuff?
Marc:Why do I want my shit to live comfortably in a storage unit?
Marc:What am I holding on to there?
Marc:And I started to picture storage units as being this weird.
Marc:These they're they're almost like they're the equivalent of a literal hard drive of people's random effects in life that each unit has the artifacts of entire lives.
Marc:Granted, there's shit in there that may be business oriented, but there's just I know my own unit and I don't know what the hell I'm holding on to it for.
Marc:It's like my past is locked up over there and I'm trying to figure out what the fuck to do with it.
Marc:So I want to go get her stuff.
Marc:Now, mind you, mind you, when did I just say, mind you, Jessica and I have been together now.
Marc:We've known each other two years.
Marc:We've been together a while.
Marc:And yes, it seems as though she's moving in.
Marc:She was doing it piecemeal.
Marc:But it's what was interesting to me is we go.
Marc:So up there, a couple of things happen.
Marc:Storage units are fucking weird places.
Marc:They're just weird.
Marc:They're just hallways with doors and locks and behind each door and each lock are the artifacts of people's lives.
Marc:And you just wonder what's in there and what they're holding on to.
Marc:And I think I was a little tainted by Silence of the Lambs.
Marc:There's that one scene where there's an antique car and a head.
Marc:So I assume that there's a good chance that there are body parts, heads, things that shouldn't be anywhere in storage lockers.
Marc:And that kind of creeps me out.
Marc:But it also creeps me out.
Marc:You go there and then there are those people that just sort of check on their shit.
Marc:I'm just going to visit my shit.
Marc:It's like a hospice for a dead past where you just go, well, you're still alive because I can come over here and see you every once in a while.
Marc:But there's never that many people there.
Marc:And we went there and there was just this moment in the storage space where for some reason that we saw this dude.
Marc:He was a big dude and he was instantly scary to me because he was in a storage space because you think you judge him.
Marc:I'm like, what's he doing here?
Marc:He doesn't seem to be moving anything.
Marc:What is he keeping in a storage space?
Marc:Am I going to be part of that storage soon?
Marc:Should we be frightened?
Marc:Freak Jessica out.
Marc:She wouldn't get on the elevator with him.
Marc:I did because I like to face my fears.
Marc:And I'm here to talk about it.
Marc:I'm not, you know, cut up in a jar in a storage space, but there is something heavy about storage spaces.
Marc:And then there was another guy.
Marc:There were some other people there unloading stuff and everything.
Marc:Everything becomes suspect at a storage unit.
Marc:And one guy, I think, farted on the elevator.
Marc:And it's horrible to do that.
Marc:You know, because we got to go up and down, and now I saw it as territorial, and now I had to look at the guy that did that in the elevator and not say, you know, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Marc:You couldn't do it in your storage space, or maybe you didn't want to store that smell.
Marc:You needed to let it out of you in a fucking elevator, you asshole.
Marc:So there was that judgment going on.
Marc:But I think the poetry of the whole thing, despite discussing someone else's gas...
Marc:Is that what was fascinating is I've known Jessica for a couple of years.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:We're getting along great.
Marc:But I didn't know her stuff.
Marc:I know the stuff that she has here.
Marc:It's mostly clothing and random things.
Marc:But all of a sudden we're unpacking the storage space.
Marc:And I don't know why it was that that moment that I realized that this woman who I've been with for a while had a life.
Marc:She had a life.
Marc:She had a room.
Marc:She had things on the walls.
Marc:She had toys and hats and sewing machines and odds and ends and candles.
Marc:And all of a sudden, and pictures of her family from when she was a child, which I never saw.
Marc:It was almost as if I thought, like, what kind of monster am I that I just take this person who I have deep feelings for, its surface value, and judge her on the clutter that is her now?
Marc:And I bought her a dresser, but it wasn't enough.
Marc:And then I realized, like, well, we weren't living together.
Marc:So now I have to be introduced to her stuff.
Marc:And there's books and everything else.
Marc:And it was all of a sudden this entirely new dimension of this person was added to her and also to my house.
Marc:Now I have an awful lot of Pez dispensers and DVDs and books and games and things that I didn't have before.
Marc:But, you know, pictures of her family.
Marc:It was just it amazed me that I'd never really.
Marc:Had a picture of this, like her whole life, whatever artifacts got her to where she is now was in the storage space.
Marc:And now I'm thinking about my storage space and I know it's in there.
Marc:There's just files and files and files of divorce papers.
Marc:There's a few chairs.
Marc:There's a shitload of my first CD that I did.
Marc:I self-produced and is unsellable now.
Marc:There's a bunch of books and magazines.
Marc:I save magazines.
Marc:Like somewhere in my mind, this is the thing about hoarding is that I can hide my hoarding in a storage space because I've got magazines.
Marc:For some reason, I think that the newspaper the day Clinton got elected that I bought on the street in New York is going to be worth something.
Marc:But I've got a bunch of shitloads of Harper's.
Marc:Ad busters and weird comic books and stuff.
Marc:And I think part of me thinks when I go through that stuff and I've done it two or three times to get rid of it.
Marc:But you're like, no, no, no, no.
Marc:This article is important.
Marc:And I, you know, I got to save this.
Marc:I'm never going to fucking read those magazines.
Marc:I got to throw some shit out.
Marc:But then I think about it, if Jess had thrown a lot of her stuff out, I wouldn't know her the way I do now.
Marc:Just from one U-Haul drive to a storage space, she became this whole and unique person with a past when before she was just this person that was living with me that talked about a past.
Marc:So maybe I should keep that shit, you know, for when it's important, for when I pass and people want to know.
Marc:Let's get down to the nitty-gritty about...
Marc:The legalese involved in Marin's second divorce.
Marc:It's all available.
Marc:I'm paying 100 bucks a month to keep it comfortable.
Marc:So you had a legitimate sinus infection.
Guest:I did.
Guest:Yeah, not just when people say... I think I got a sinus infection.
Guest:It's part of the bullshit.
Guest:It's the same way when people say, you know, I'm not contagious anymore.
Marc:Yeah, how do they fucking know?
Guest:I have no idea.
Marc:How does anyone know that?
Guest:I feel like you're contagious because you're coughing like a crazy person.
Marc:So where'd you come up?
Marc:What's your background?
Marc:You said you saw me in New York.
Guest:I grew up on the East Coast and went to college.
Guest:William & Mary, Pat Noswalt, and Jon Stewart went.
Guest:Jon Stewart was...
Guest:God, what was he then?
Guest:He was John Leibowitz?
Guest:John... John Leibowitz.
Guest:Yeah, but he was a good... There's comedy clubs everywhere, and I just loved it, but I was a shitty comedy.
Guest:Where was that?
Guest:Williamsburg, Virginia.
Marc:There was comedy clubs everywhere?
Guest:There was comedy clubs everywhere in the U.S.
Guest:at that time.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:But even Williamsburg, since it was a tourist trap, had the local comedy club.
Marc:Patton went there too, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And John.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you're... I'm right in between them.
Guest:John's older than me.
Guest:Patton, Oswalt, and I are the... I think I'm a year older than him.
Guest:And I don't remember ever meeting him, but one friend of mine told me I met him once, and I was a horrible douche to him.
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, he invites that sometimes.
Guest:I think he used to be like a snarky guy in someone's dorm or something, and I was just an asshole.
Guest:And he just busted his balls.
Guest:I tried to be a comic for all of a year after school, and I lucked out these...
Guest:George and Howard saw me and said that I was just a horrible comic.
Guest:George Shapiro, Howard.
Guest:Howard West and said I was a good writer.
Guest:So I lucked out.
Guest:How the fuck did they see you if you were doing comedy a year?
Guest:No, you know what I mean?
Guest:I came out here.
Guest:I had no... I don't even know.
Guest:Are we even talking?
Guest:We're just bullshitting, right?
Guest:No, we're talking.
Guest:Oh, this is podcast shit?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:All right, cool.
Guest:Yeah, I thought we were just doing small talk.
Guest:Yeah, you know what?
Guest:It's all small talk.
Guest:I know, right?
Guest:I got to L.A.
Guest:and I didn't know anybody...
Guest:west of the Mississippi, and my folks, I'm like, I've got to find somebody to represent me.
Guest:The game out there is to get an agent or anything.
Marc:But when you were in college, your goal was I was going to do show business.
Guest:Since I was in high school, I wanted to be a comic.
Guest:I loved stand-up even as a little kid.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I lived in Connecticut.
Guest:My parents would take me into Caroline's and shit like that when I was young and knew I loved it.
Guest:I had old Bob Newhart records and old Bill Cosby records.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, obsessed.
Guest:Can still do a lot of people's bits.
Guest:I can still probably do some of your stuff by memory.
Guest:I always could hear stuff and then just remember it if I thought it was a great bit.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I remember something that you said.
Guest:I hope I remember it.
Guest:It just cracked me up.
Guest:It was put a tinfoil hat on, and if you squint your eyes shut real tight, you can just kind of see information.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The demented ramblings of a crazy person.
Marc:You can understand everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so when stuff struck me, stand-ups, I could really lock it down.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you kind of had a fundamental way of understanding how comedy works written anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I came out here to hopefully be a comic or be a writer or something.
Guest:I wanted to do it after high school.
Guest:And my folks, they said that if I went to L.A.
Guest:after high school, that I'd have their emotional support.
Guest:And if I went with a college degree, they might give me some financial support.
Yeah.
Marc:So they bribed you with a negotiation into going to college.
Marc:In other words, they were saying, like, that might not work out.
Marc:Yeah, it might not be a good thing.
Marc:And we're not really completely convinced that you can do it.
Marc:So why don't you go get an education, just in case we're right.
Marc:What kind of background were they from?
Guest:You know, my dad is an American blue blood.
Guest:He's a...
Guest:Real deal?
Guest:Yeah, my great-great-grandmother is Sarah Lawrence, Sarah Lawrence College.
Guest:Get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you're like a real prepster.
Guest:William Van Duser Lawrence IV.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So you come from that whole thing.
Guest:Yeah, and my mom is- I don't want to be an asshole, but you kind of looked the part.
Guest:It's not bad.
Guest:I look from everybody you ever met from Connecticut.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah, I'm that guy.
Marc:You wore the Dock Siders and- Yeah, I'm kidding, sure.
Marc:Ralph Lauren shirts all the time.
Marc:I wore socks today just so you wouldn't mock me, man.
Marc:You'd probably kick some ass in your day.
Guest:just because people had a douche yeah just because they had less money than you or came from the other side of the tracks but no you know the the truth is that my mom is uh total white trash first person uh in her family to ever go to college so was there was there some concern amongst the blue bloods that your dad was polluting it was a solid mix it was my mom got a full scholarship to rollins college in winter park florida you know and because she was really smart
Guest:She's a Florida person?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom's whole family are largemouth bass fishing guides on the St.
Guest:Johns River in Florida.
Guest:How'd your dad hook up with her?
Guest:My dad went to Rollins because it's where spoiled little fuck-ups go.
Guest:Oh, so he fucked up.
Guest:And my mom went there because she got a free ride to college, and that was the way she could go to school.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I love it when aristocratically-blooded people dip into the working people.
Marc:Yeah, you mix old blood and see what happens.
Marc:What does it mean exactly, though?
Marc:I've always wondered that, to be a blue blood.
Marc:Does that mean there's some sort of secret well of money that goes on for generations?
Guest:I think it depends on how your family works.
Guest:My dad...
Guest:And his brother are the first guys.
Guest:Here's what it means.
Guest:They're the first guys in their family to work for a living in many, many generations.
Guest:So what's the van?
Marc:Were you part of the Dutch?
Marc:Yeah, Van Duser.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So it's like years and years ago, William Lawrence married somebody, Van Duser.
Marc:Like the New York Duchess?
Guest:Yeah, New York Duchess.
Guest:He was a real estate magnate.
Guest:The original William Lawrence was, I've read a bunch about it, he wasn't a good guy and he was a real estate baron and kind of a heartless businessman.
Marc:Lawrence was.
Guest:Yeah, and he met this woman named Sarah Bates
Guest:who was, you know, he got changed by a lady.
Guest:It's a romantic story, because she was a poet and an artist, and she believed that- What generation are we talking about?
Guest:1700s?
Guest:18.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And she believed that women didn't have a fair shake in the arts, and he didn't give a shit until he wanted to get laid, obviously, but he married her.
Marc:So there's a bit of
Guest:And when she died, he had their estate turned into a Sarah Lawrence College and all girls college for the arts as kind of a gift to to, you know, to her memory.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So the Van Duzer side, though, is that like part of that whole like kind of original pre American Revolution Dutch landowning?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So there was arranged marriages and- I'm sure there was, man.
Guest:I don't go back that far, you know what I mean?
Guest:Because I barely- Do you want to follow the money?
Guest:The trail?
Guest:Because eventually there'll be a money trail.
Guest:But yeah, so my dad and his brother, their whole thing with family dough is if you're going to have a life worth of women at all, you can never touch any family money.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:That stuff's- If you're that guy, if you're just a trust fund guy- Because they grew up with those guys.
Marc:All you end up doing is ending up with a needle in your arm saying you hung out with Andy Warhol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All my dad's friends that lived that life, none of them lived a good life after childhood.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because they're complete retards.
Guest:There's no reason to do anything.
Guest:There's no reason to have ambition.
Guest:They just drift.
Guest:Yeah, I had that with no money.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:You pulled it off.
Marc:Early on, I think I had a very subverted ambition.
Guest:That made me laugh my headphones off.
Guest:It's hard to pull off with no doubt, man.
Marc:Not if you're massively depressed and completely filled with bitterness.
Guest:You're a dark comic.
Guest:Well, it went away.
Guest:I'm getting lighter.
Guest:You are, by the way.
Guest:But that's what's fascinating about this show for me is the change.
Guest:Because I told you, I studied comics and just liked it.
Guest:And the change in your vibe.
Guest:I mean, you still kind of have an angry undercurrent to your stand-up and stuff.
Guest:But it's not as dark.
Marc:Yeah, I think what happened is I just shifted into talking about what was really going on underneath whatever that angry shit was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, because there's something about comedy that you have this weird tool where you can make people laugh and you can make people think, but you can also make people miserable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that can be the subtext, but it was sort of becoming my main thing.
Marc:It's a weird talent to have.
Marc:It's a useless talent.
Marc:It's the guy you don't want to part.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:He's the one guy that might be able to convince one girl that he's a genius and then drain her of her life force.
Yeah.
Marc:that's how that works so all right so you grew up pretty which part of connecticut which town main streets uh ridgefield uh-huh ridgefield westport greenwich new cane and all the you know the bullshit i do know the bullshit i went to school at bu did you know bc was down the street yeah i knew of you guys yeah i knew you existed i met you before
Marc:I think I had a couple of friends that were kind of part of it.
Marc:But is there some sort of club that your dad belongs to other than just being blue blood?
Marc:You know what?
Guest:My dad, I don't want to sound hokey, but he broke the mold.
Guest:You know, he went out, he married a girl that he loved, you know, regardless of background.
Guest:There's no arranged marriage.
Guest:Yeah, worked the work to his whole, you know, worked from 21 till he retired for the same company to did it all himself, you know, and and maybe.
Guest:I mean, I had a great childhood, but by the same token, so concerned that I don't become one of those guys.
Guest:I had to work, had jobs since I was 15, did all that shit.
Marc:Were you hanging out with any of those dudes, the ones that are fairly famous?
Marc:What's the guy that raped and killed that girl in the park?
Guest:William Kennedy Smith, that guy?
Guest:No, the other one.
Guest:yeah now you don't do those it was the only thing I remember about that Connecticut was that I knew one of the guys is 60 minutes there was a scandal at Choate of people that were selling below you know yeah and I knew one of those dudes just because yeah I went to a high school you could get like an eight ball in the bathroom preppy blow dealers man oh you can you you'd go I still say now okay I went to public school yeah I
Guest:And then I'm like, yeah, but then again, the public high school in Ridgefield, there's like sobs and beamers, you know, in the kids' parking lot.
Marc:Sure, it's all a matter of where it's located, right?
Marc:Well, that's hilarious.
Marc:So then you, well, that's a pretty charmed childhood in a way.
Guest:I did, I lucked out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I lucked out constantly, man.
Guest:I have a life philosophy.
Marc:Wow, this sounds like a sad story.
Guest:No, seriously, I literally, everything, I annoy people.
Guest:At least I acknowledge I'm the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.
Guest:Everything goes my way, man.
Guest:It's working out for me.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's not without talent, clearly.
Marc:I mean, how did you get from, I mean, you got big management and you come out here, they saw you do stand-up.
Marc:Was that what happened?
Guest:Basically, you had a connection.
Guest:The one person my mom knew from Hollywood, she was an auctioneer, was this guy that wrote for the old Dick Van Dyke show.
Guest:And he said, my managers, my agents were these guys named Howard West and George Shapiro.
Guest:I don't even know if they work in the industry anymore.
Guest:Shapiro and West.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was watching Seinfeld and those guys produced that show.
Marc:Yeah, I know that I met with those guys.
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:But I thought your manager was George Shapiro.
Guest:My managers, they were agents, and then they went to managers.
Guest:But they were also producers and stuff.
Guest:So I just tracked them down and harassed them.
Guest:You know, when you come out to L.A.
Guest:or New York to get an agent, you have like...
Guest:20 people you can write letters to to try and get them to meet with you and help you out i had one and they were it so i just tortured those guys until they met with me oh you pestered him tortured him tortured him and then you know how'd that look you just kept calling calling sending scripts trying to write funny letters sending packets of jokes you know here's a it's funny that you that a lot of people forget that you have to do that and that it's interesting that it helps that you weren't insecure because like i was also that kind of person where i got a manager and as soon as i felt like he wasn't paying attention to me
Marc:I'd call him every day.
Marc:I'd yell at him.
Marc:It was horrible.
Guest:You gotta.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's the weirdest.
Guest:I mean, so many kids come out here thinking like, I'm going to write something or I'm going to perform and that's going to happen.
Guest:And the job is really getting somebody to sell you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And just getting them to pay attention to you.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:I'm fucking here.
Marc:You're not the only guy.
Marc:I know comics.
Marc:I introduce them to somebody.
Marc:They're like, yeah, I called him.
Marc:I never got word back.
Marc:It's like, we have to call him five times a day until they're like, what the fuck does he want?
Marc:And then go, I'm here.
Guest:Let's do this.
Guest:I teach a little bit, and I tell kids that there's Writers Guild and some colleges and stuff.
Guest:You teach college kids?
Guest:Well, it's a cherry gig, man.
Guest:You get to go in and be a Hollywood guest lecturer.
Guest:At the Writers Guild, they have this showrunner's training program or a writer's training program.
Guest:And one of the things you tell all of them is it's not mean-spirited, but you have to realize that all these guys picture you as a bag of money.
Guest:And you have to somehow convince them early on that you're a big bag of money and not a tiny bag of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:i remember the scam i didn't never did that i never had the bag of money scamming man with howard and george you know and they had done sign they were already producing seinfeld they had writers and comics and i was that dude that used to work with them the writer richie uh do you know who i'm talking about kind of a slightly heavy set kind of intense rambling jewish dude because i met no way rambling jewish dude yeah would you
Guest:in hollywood hold on that narrows it down to let me google that rambling jewish dude oh it's the imdp page for everyone the the i scanned those guys with uh it taken me like a year to write nine scripts and i i pretended you know i gave them one and then pretended that i wrote the other eight
Guest:Three weeks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm a really prolific writer.
Guest:I'm the type of guy that's going to be giving you guys stuff every day.
Marc:What did you give them?
Guest:Just packets of jokes, material, spec scripts for sitcoms, you know.
Guest:And what was your first gig?
Guest:My first job, oh, God.
Guest:Oh, you know what's weird?
Guest:I had a bad view of how Hollywood worked because those guys are so old and tied into Hollywood.
Guest:They signed me after like six months.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:First, they convinced me I was a shitty comic, and they were right.
Guest:and that i could be they want you to get out for that right away oh yeah they thought they saw yeah there's money in writing there's not money in uh and uh you know and they had a billion stand-ups yeah they don't stand-ups to them are sort of like is he still doing it yeah and i don't know what to do with him is there a booking agent that no he's not funny and they're and you know those guys had jerry and they had andy kaufman in the day and so they they had their big comic rides and i wasn't going to be that but uh
Guest:I signed with those guys on a Wednesday and Monday.
Guest:I was a staff writer on a sitcom called Billy, and I only remember it.
Guest:The boss is really nice, and they helped me.
Guest:It's a comic, Billy Connolly.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Billy Connolly.
Guest:Yeah, dude.
Guest:Funny comic, and he had taken over for- Did you talk to him?
Marc:I did.
Marc:Because I'll tell you, man, I had breakfast with him once just by coincidence, and it was one of the more intense experiences I've ever had.
Marc:He goes right to it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I'm 10 minutes in and hearing about why he stopped drinking and it was waking up on a plane, missing a tooth.
Marc:Yeah, and you don't have a say, and all of a sudden you feel like you're being energized.
Marc:You're like, I am using Billy Connolly as a battery for my life right now.
Guest:Plus, I had the weird experience of when he's really going, I can't.
Guest:It's not that his accent's that harsh, but I don't pick up accents well at all.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's right.
Guest:And so I'm just nodding at the right spot.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I hope that was a nod moment.
Guest:Following his timing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that sounded like a beat.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure, yeah.
Guest:The only thing I remember about that gig is no one knew about that TV show and the cast and crew gift.
Guest:It was a jean jacket that said Billy on the pocket, and it had a heart dotting the I. And that's my name.
Guest:And the guy's like, hey, here's your present.
Guest:I'm like, I don't fucking want this.
Guest:People are going to think of an idiot.
Guest:I'm Billy.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:Just the guy that wears his name on his jean coat.
Guest:It's so sad.
Marc:There's two things wrong with that, depending on what year it was.
Marc:Gene coat and name on it.
Guest:I was the wrong guy back then to be doing that stuff, too.
Guest:I had white hair, peroxide hair.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I was trying not to be Connecticut guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're anti-Connecticut guy and just like classic Hollywood douchebag guy.
Guest:Classic Hollywood douchebag cliche, partying too much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:Shoot, 1991.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So then, okay, so you go from Billy, which obviously didn't last.
Guest:Nah, but those guys, you know, I lucked out every guy I've worked for.
Guest:People make jokes that Hollywood is full of dicks, and I think that every business is full of assholes, but just Hollywood, their higher profile.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, most of the people for me really helped me out and championed me.
Guest:And so that guy, you know, those bosses hooked me up to my next job.
Guest:Those bosses kept going.
Guest:I'd say the downside was I got fired off of every job I had until I created the show, pretty much.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For what reason?
Marc:You were a staff writer?
Marc:You never were the head writer?
Marc:I got fired off of Friends, The Nanny, Boy Meets World.
Marc:Well, see, I think that those might be badges of honor in the big picture.
Marc:I hope so.
Marc:You're doing all right.
Marc:I mean, why would you get fired off of Friends?
Marc:Did you piss off?
Marc:I just like in my fantasy, like, you know, Schwimmer comes in and says, I'm not going to read this shit.
Marc:And you're like, fuck you.
Guest:You know, I didn't have...
Guest:I thought I could do things better.
Guest:I didn't have the amount of respect that I think a young kid should have for the people that are actually paying a lot of money to sit around and write jokes.
Guest:So you were a dick.
Guest:I was a little bit dicky.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And see, I like it when dicks succeed.
Guest:It makes me happy.
Guest:I regret it because friends...
Guest:I don't think I was being a bad person.
Guest:I was just being a snarky, wise-ass to somebody in charge.
Guest:And to get fired, and then literally overnight, that show is the cover of Rolling Stone and just absolutely everywhere.
Marc:Sounds like you had a slight... It's an epiphany.
Marc:Well, yeah, you had Titus syndrome, Chris Titus syndrome.
Marc:You just piss off the wrong people and you're fucking shut down.
Guest:The best thing about that show is the two bosses, the one that fired me just kicked me to the curb.
Guest:The other one was nice and thought that I had gotten a little bit of a bad rap and set me up with my next gig with this guy, Gary Goldberg.
Guest:And he had created all these TV shows, and he mentored me, and we created Spin City together.
Marc:All right, well, let me ask you a couple questions about television.
Marc:Now, you must have been a good writer.
Marc:You wouldn't, because I often tell comics now, because I seem to be professor comedy sometimes, and I get a lot of emails from dudes.
Marc:And when I started, it was like all I wanted to be was a comic.
Marc:And quite honestly, I couldn't do anything else.
Marc:I mean, when I watch Breaking Bad, or even when I watch- It's a great show, Bob.
Marc:But it's one of those things like with Scrubs, you did something completely new, I think for television, for people television.
Marc:And it's like there are some, I look at things and I'm like, I don't know where the fuck that comes from or how you do that.
Marc:So I know I can't do that.
Marc:Was there a part of you with this rebellious spirit that thought that,
Marc:The shows you were writing on were shit, or that TV was shit.
Marc:I know you don't want to say anything.
Guest:No, no, I got no problems, being honest.
Guest:Look, some of the gigs, I thought that, you know, I didn't have that level of respect for, like, here's an example of a show I wasn't on, Family Matters.
Guest:I thought that show sucked.
Guest:I never wrote on it.
Guest:That show made quizillions of dollars for lots of people, and lots of people in the world loved it.
Guest:So I never connected over to me that that must have merit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, so on some jobs I was felt that I was above the material, which was a, when you were young, that makes you look bad.
Guest:And it's a wrong attitude.
Guest:You're getting paid.
Guest:The fact that you're making, even as a staff writer back down, it was like 2,600 a week to write jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who gives a shit if they suck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My, my dad used to say, you think I enjoyed selling copy machines?
Guest:What are you fucking idiots?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you don't have to enjoy it.
Guest:It's America.
Guest:It's sales.
Guest:That's your job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then the Friends, I actually thought it was a well-written show.
Guest:I didn't have a talent that some people have, which is the weirdest thing about writing on a TV show is your job isn't to write what you think is funny.
Guest:It's to write what whoever created that show thinks is funny.
Guest:And also to write for the characters.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there's a subtle difference there, you know, that I could always write things in my own voice, and I wasn't always great at writing in another showrunner's voice.
Marc:Oh, I get it.
Marc:You know, the things that comics can do is write, they can host, they can act sometimes, and they can do stand-up.
Marc:You know, that's it.
Marc:So I would, you know, try to be proficient at all those different things.
Marc:And the thing that I was never able to do, because I was more of a dick than you, was work with other people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the fact is, is that when someone gets into writing, if you're good enough, you'll be carried.
Marc:I mean, you can run for a while.
Guest:It's a fraternity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you don't ruffle feathers and you're over a bar of talent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I always say that to people.
Guest:If you're over that bar, it ultimately becomes about patience and your ability on some levels to not be a boat rocker.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:To contribute, to be someone that people like having around.
Guest:And you can make a career out of that.
Guest:And then the next step, you're right.
Guest:Um, I think the next step to creating shows and stuff is, uh, uh, you know, I don't want to sound self aggrandizing, but it becomes less about the funny and more about structure and having like some kind of vision for a world, you know, which, uh, uh, uh, and I certainly don't put myself.
Guest:I'm embarrassed because I feel like I'm talking about myself, but you said Breaking Bad, for instance.
Guest:I look at that world, and I'm like, that is fucking awesome.
Guest:I mean, I couldn't come up with that world.
Guest:I don't know how he structured that world.
Guest:I want to believe that he's got an end plan for Walt, that he knows where that show ends.
Marc:Well, I just talked to him.
Marc:I just talked to Cranston, and it became very clear to me
Guest:that he did have a general sense of what was to happen yeah like uh you know a beginning point an end point but it seemed like a lot of the middle was was still open for kind of creativity well i think that's what's cool if you if you do ever equate television to art um you know you you have to let the characters and the work kind of own where it's going to go next well i mean because even what you picture in your head it changes the second that there's people saying those words and
Marc:Well, talk to me about that.
Guest:So you co-created Spin City.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gary, you know, as cool as Mike Fox wanted to get back in TV, and he really liked... Talk about a fucking hero, dude.
Marc:I saw him on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Guest:What a dude, man.
Guest:He's such a good guy.
Marc:It's like the humility of just having that horrendous problem and then also sort of like owning it and working within the comedy of that.
Marc:That's fucking profound.
Guest:He changed...
Guest:I think that you have these seminal experiences when you come into entertainment or any industry that shape who you are as a guy.
Guest:And for me, the first time that I worked with an icon or an idol of mine for him to be actually the guy that you'd hope he'd be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know that's such a gift considering how many hollywood stories you're going to hear of like hey i finally met so-and-so and he's a douche yeah i mean and uh and mike was just a great dude and he wanted to do a modern sitcom you know like friends or you know with with lots of scenes as a grown-up as a grown-up and but he wanted gary there to kind of uh you know make him feel safe and gary's a great showrunner and uh
Guest:uh so gary plucked me out of you know i was 25 he plucked me out and we created the show and wrote the pilot together it was a it was unbelievable experience yeah gary goldberg sent me to show running camp you know he he taught me how to do all this stuff not to do anything i didn't go to film school now what does it mean to be a showrunner
Guest:It means that you're not just the head writer.
Guest:You edit the show.
Guest:You do final cut.
Guest:You put the music in.
Guest:You cast it.
Guest:You talk to the actors at rehearsal.
Guest:You're in charge of the director.
Guest:You get to be king shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like director of a movie.
Marc:You get to do everything.
Marc:And they're a good showrunner is in demand always.
Guest:It's it's a you can work forever if you can show that you can pull it off because it's a weird skill set because it's not just you know, you went out there to be a funny writer.
Guest:And if you have the weird ability to do the other things without making everybody hate you and without hemorrhaging money because you're always behind, it's you can work forever.
Marc:So then your jobs are really how to take the script, integrate the story, decide what needs to be cut.
Marc:You outline it.
Guest:You do the final draft usually yourself.
Guest:You take it over the weekend and do a pass to try and make it sound the same.
Guest:You cut it.
Guest:You pick the songs.
Guest:When you walk down, if the director has made it so it's not funny, you say, this joke's going to be funnier if you put these two people here.
Guest:I mean you do it's a great gig you do everything the only downside is it gets you it pulls you away a little bit of what you got out there to do in the first place which is right funny shit you know but it gives you a whole other skill set and it's probably a lot more work and the reason that it's in demand is there's no training ground for it it's not that you have a special innate
Guest:skill necessarily i mean some people have an acumen right but gary i remember because he spent the first two years he'd be like this is how you edit the show this is how you talk to actors they're all fucking crazy yeah i'm like this this is how you how do you talk to actors what's that you like children one of the biggest guys good one of the biggest gags ever was he uh he's always you know i asked barry boswick who's a great guy wants what he thought about his character while we were trapped in gary's office and like two hours later gary's like never fucking ask an actor that unless you have an escape plan you know i
Guest:He's like, you got to ask him shit like that on the move or why you're getting in a cab.
Guest:Because he's like, they've thought about it.
Guest:They've thought about it way too much.
Guest:And I remember thanking Gary.
Guest:I didn't know why he was teaching me how to do all this stuff.
Guest:I'm like, what a benevolent dude.
Guest:And then like in the second year, he said, because he never moved from L.A.
Guest:to New York.
Guest:He was just there back and forth.
Guest:And during the second year, he said, hey, you think you got it?
Guest:And I'm like, yeah.
Guest:And he's like, all right, I'll see you around.
Guest:Like, oh, now I understand why he's teaching me to do this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So he can just sit and watch the money come in and you can do the work.
Yeah.
Marc:So that was on for what?
Marc:How many years?
Marc:Six years, yeah.
Marc:And Sheen was on that towards the end, right?
Guest:Yeah, Mike was only going to do it for four years.
Guest:It was a weird experience because it was in my 20s, and we knew going in, just Gary and I, that he was ill.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:He was at the beginning of that?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, part of his plan, I mean, this is how, you know, ahead of the curve that guy was.
Guest:He knew he had big plans.
Guest:You know, he knew he was sick.
Guest:He was going to do it for four years.
Guest:He wanted to syndicate that show.
Guest:And he knew already that he was going to be kind of a public voice for Parkinson's eventually, you know, and that he was, I mean, that, you know, he could have told you early on that the Michael J. Fox Foundation was going to absorb the National Parkinson's Foundation and be the main thing.
Guest:He knew it was going to be a big deal.
Guest:So we knew he was four years and out.
Guest:And then we had to cast somebody else, uh, after that.
Guest:And that was Charlie.
Marc:And how was Charlie at that point?
Guest:Uh, lovely dude.
Guest:I gotta tell you, man, it's a, I can, I love laughing at this train wreck shit usually.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And this is the first time I've ever had the experience that when, you know, when Charlie first came on there, I only met him once or twice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause I, you know, I, I, I had left and, uh, uh,
Guest:He came with his dad and he had just gotten really sober and clean and saw it as his big second shot.
Guest:And because of that, behaved impeccably as the nicest and kindest guy to cast crew and writers and was treated in kind.
Guest:And so it's the first time I've seen one of these kind of
Guest:you know burnout that moments that i haven't been able to enjoy it with the rest of the people the the dark comedy of it really makes me sad because something there's you know there's a there's an off button that went there somewhere yeah yeah i i agree did you watch the roast yeah and did it hurt you you know what's fucked up man a lot of stuff made me laugh yeah but and then but then the only thing that hurt me was the uh you when you if you're a introspective guy the what what am i laughing at
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Which is tough.
Marc:What does it indicate about the culture of television and American culture in general that it's not so much that there are no lines.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But to what, you know, where is the cutoff between entertainment and just being fucking evil?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't you think it's a snowball rolling down a hill, though, man?
Guest:Because with Charlie, I feel, too, that when you see on a mass level that it's okay to laugh at the meanness of this, I think it bleeds into other things that you're suddenly allowed to laugh.
Guest:You know, and it...
Marc:No, yeah, there's no real end to it.
Marc:And it brings up issues.
Marc:It's not even political recklessness.
Marc:It's just fucking, you know, decency.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That like, are we, do we need to fucking hurt to feel?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, are we that numb?
Marc:You know, because like I've said lately that the only real edginess is honesty, you know, because that makes people uncomfortable and people don't really know what to do with it.
Guest:Yeah, you say what they're really thinking.
Guest:Like to talk to somebody about this specifically would make them uncomfortable.
Marc:I'd be okay with it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And then that's weird, but there's something about meanness that reveals a rawness that sometimes can provoke an emotion.
Marc:But when it's done like that, it's like, ah.
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I've been spiraling about this because it's a great documentary about Bartman, about that Cubs fan and how abusive that entire city and the media was to that kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:wait i don't know the story uh you gotta watch it you'll love it but it's basically the cubs were finally gonna have their chance to win the world series and this kid reached over on a foul ball and tried to catch it and knocked it out of the cub left fielder's glove if the moises aloo if he had caught it the cubs would have won that game and arguably won the world series right uh instead you know he knocked it out of his his home team he's a huge cubs fan yeah uh out of his uh uh
Guest:You know, the player's glove.
Guest:They went on to lose that game and be knocked out.
Guest:And the documentary is how the media turned on and Bartman became a word.
Guest:They have video of everybody in the stands throwing beer on this poor kid, you know, and swearing at him and how he handled it.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Guest:I've been a fan my whole life.
Guest:It was a mistake.
Guest:And just owned it.
Guest:And yet, even this young innocent, they didn't drop it.
Guest:And they didn't let it go, that city and the people.
Guest:And he became a pariah there.
Guest:And it was literally a documentary about it.
Guest:How old is he now?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I would say probably got to be 40 now.
Guest:Did they talk to him?
Guest:No, they talked a lot about him.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So they couldn't get him through the interview.
Guest:It's a sad, sad story.
Guest:So if he's not in it, they couldn't.
Guest:Yeah, and it's got media people basically saying, you know, it's...
Guest:It's something, you know, because Chicago still hasn't won since.
Guest:And, you know, he's like the Red Sox, you know, the Buckner thing went away, you know, because the Red Sox eventually won.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they had Buckner on there going, you know, there's got to be a line as a fan that you just said what it means to be a decent person and a moral human.
Guest:Right.
Marc:i know and it's just odd that they didn't get him for the if they couldn't get him for the interview then he's probably still i think he's still a damaged dude from that yeah to me so that's the interesting story i mean if he said i'm not talking about it you know like he's in some sort of shame witness protection program
Marc:Over a baseball game.
Marc:He changed his identity because of public shame.
Marc:All right, we'll get into Scrubs.
Marc:Now, at what point did you realize that... Spin City's a great show.
Marc:You work with great people.
Marc:And certainly it talks a little bit about public perception.
Marc:But did you feel that it was a smart show and that it had a... I thought it would do... You know, it's weird, man.
Guest:You talked about people TV.
Guest:Network TV, I think what you shoot for sometimes are shows, hopefully, that...
Guest:What you're really shooting for is a show that everybody will watch, Mass Appeal, and your goal is to say, hey, is there something that is smart and funny enough that my friends and I would still watch it and like it and not hate on it, but that also has a chance to get Joe Q. Public, who's not a TV nerd, to actually like it.
Guest:I thought Spin City walked that line pretty well.
Marc:And now, okay, so we talked a little bit about your attitude, but was there time, even though you're a working writer, you're still generating something that people are going to judge in a fairly big way.
Marc:Was there times where you were working on other shows where you were ashamed of what you were doing?
Guest:Oh, when I was younger, you mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I was younger, yeah.
Guest:You know, I got...
Guest:I worked on Boy Meets World, and it was a hokey kid show to me, and I got fired, rightfully so, for not understanding the emotional spine of the show.
Guest:But I remember the thing that pissed me off.
Guest:Why, because you hated kids?
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not doing great with mine.
Guest:I remember because I wrote this one episode of the show, and I'm like, I'm going to try and make it good, even though I don't love the show.
Guest:And I did put in this line.
Guest:Because it's a kid show and it's about a kid.
Guest:The first time a kid becomes embarrassed by his dad.
Guest:It's like a rite of passage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wrote this line because I knew he would like a young kid said, hey, I can't believe I hurt my dad because I love him more than anybody in the world.
Guest:Cheesy line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The showrunner took that line and he had that kid.
Guest:He became a theme for the episode.
Guest:So he had that kid say it like nine times in the show.
Guest:Like it became the thing that the kid says.
Guest:The callback.
Guest:So that when it went on TV, back then there's still message machines.
Guest:I came home and my machine was like, you have 27 messages.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all my fucking idiot friends that I grew up with going, can't believe I hurt my dad.
Guest:I love him more than anybody in the whole world.
Guest:Hey, Bill, I just wanted you to know I can't believe I hurt my dad.
Guest:I loved him more than anybody in the world.
Guest:And it just sent me into a rage spiral.
Guest:Friends, huh?
Guest:What am I doing?
Guest:This sucks.
Guest:You could trace a straight line from that message machine to me getting shit-canned about like a week later, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, it consumed you?
Guest:Yeah, it did, it did.
Guest:It filled me with self-hate, you know.
Guest:I just wanted to be a cool guy, and I wasn't a cool guy.
Guest:Well, if you didn't go to Harvard and you weren't on the Lampoon, you couldn't get the cool guy writing gigs.
Marc:Yeah, but didn't they understand that your family was Sarah McLaren's?
Guest:I felt like I should have worn a T-shirt or something, right?
Marc:Real blue blood, you Jewish assholes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's weird that we've taken an anti-Semitic turn, but I'm okay with it.
Guest:No, I did it, and I do it frequently as a Jew, but it's just interesting.
Guest:But I feel like you're allowed.
Guest:Yeah, no, I am allowed.
Marc:It's more of a tightrope for me, my friend.
Marc:But that's an interesting idea, that there's Harvard, and then there's real American aristocracy.
Marc:I mean, you know, Harvard was put in a place to train and educate that aristocracy, but then they had to bend their ways a little bit so they wouldn't get in trouble, and they had to eventually let Jews in, and now we have the Hollywood fraternity
Guest:of Harvard people.
Guest:It's rightfully so.
Marc:But actually, you know, I probably should call myself out on that.
Marc:I mean, people have brought it to my attention that it is not as Jewish as it used to be.
Marc:That show business is very diverse.
Marc:It is.
Marc:And that, you know, it's not, you know, a bunch of... Except for women.
Marc:No, I'm sorry.
Guest:That's probably true, though.
Guest:I would say it's the toughest road in TV still, TV writing.
Guest:For women.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's a few.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, no, there are.
Guest:I just think the deck's still stacked against them.
Marc:So Scrubs was, I think, by most people's assessment, a groundbreaking show in structure.
Marc:Oh, thanks, man.
Marc:Do you feel that was there a way that you what was the inception of you know, I've sort of, you know, detaching from a straight ensemble and making a little fucking wild.
Guest:Yeah, I'll tell you the the cool thing about Scrubs and you've been kind of building to it was I I'd never thought it'd be on TV and I just why write it because it was a weird show.
Guest:I had a buddy that I went to college with.
Guest:He's one of my closest friends.
Guest:His name's JD.
Guest:And when we would have a beer, hearing him talk about his first day of work, like as scary as anybody's first day of work.
Guest:Is he a doctor?
Guest:He is.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, as scary as anybody's first day of work except you're responsible for people living or dying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was insanely interesting to me.
Guest:And then he's the nicest guy in the world.
Guest:Seeing him get darker and darker in his humor...
Guest:you know showing up somewhere he's like i was able to make it on time because luckily this dude kicked on the table before i had to operate that stuff it's just work yeah it's just work i'm like that's a good tv show and uh i love this book called house of god about the medical industry i read that book it's a good book holy fuck i read that book a while ago wasn't was hospital based on that
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They made the hospital's loosely based on it, but it also started the vernacular for all medicine.
Guest:But they did a House of God kind of movie once as well.
Marc:But it was like that George C. Scott movie, I think, with Patti Chayefsky.
Guest:Patti Chayefsky.
Guest:Such a weird movie with the Indian.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because my father's a doctor.
Marc:And I remember when that movie came out, I was a kid.
Marc:And he went and saw it.
Marc:And he interned at that fucking hospital.
Marc:No way.
Marc:At Metropolitan in New York.
Marc:And he said it was just like that.
Marc:And I'm like, it killed me just like that.
Guest:That's what I loved, man.
Guest:Because my wife's dad was a surgeon at Lenox Hill.
Guest:And he was like, it was that fucked up.
Guest:It's that fucked up.
Guest:The people dynamics.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm going to write a weird show.
Guest:It'll never be on TV.
Guest:Best case, people think I wrote a cool pilot.
Guest:But a comedy.
Guest:Yeah, comedy.
Marc:Because that's different because now I'm seeing it in a different way just by you describing it to me because the mainstay of hospital shows was just, it was easy drama.
Guest:People didn't like it.
Guest:That's one of the first roadblocks is people didn't like the idea of doctors being anybody other than people that kick doors open and yell stat.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Especially the...
Guest:the networks and stuff and that you you could run any you know doctor shows can last forever because you can run any kind of fucked up you know drama through a hospital without that i i my whole pitch was i said you can do broad silly fucked up comedy and you can switch gears in a heartbeat because you're in a hospital you know and uh uh and have life or death stakes and do shows that actually have some emotional stakes and they didn't believe we could do it and uh uh but they were cool enough to give us a shot i don't know how it happened it was a very weird situation
Marc:I don't know that my father had a great sense of humor, but they become very practical about things that would be horrifying to regular people.
Marc:Without a doubt.
Marc:And talking about the sort of weird humor, I knew a guy that was in medical school, and him and his buddies took a dick out of the pathology lab, like an amputated dick, and brought it to a baseball game and threw it in that trough urinal.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:just didn't watch people react to it i'd say i find that shit funny all right it's we all the medical stories we did in that show are real uh even the pilot and it was something that i remember because the network said this is bad for your hero you know you have a hero character on the network show my buddy jd who's a cardiologist he's a cardiologist heart surgeon now uh he uh uh he said on my first day
Guest:You know, when you get a code, whoever is the closest first into the room runs the code.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he's running into a room of some patient that's having a heart attack.
Guest:And he's like, as I'm running, I realize if I get there fucking first, I got to run this thing.
Guest:And he's like, so I stopped and hid in the closet.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I put that scene in the pile and it's still in it.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:And he's like, because, you know, there's other doctors coming.
Guest:So it's not like you're going to let the guy die.
Guest:He's just like, I was not ready to do that yet.
Guest:And the second that that was in a TV script, the network was like, this is the guy we're supposed to root for.
Guest:He's hiding.
Guest:I know.
Guest:He's 23.
Guest:He's 23 years old.
Marc:And you sold him on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you've made an amazing balance.
Marc:But there was also sort of like departures into weirdness.
Guest:That's what I like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That I think...
Marc:You know, I don't remember, like, it seems that a lot of shows now are doing a little more of that, where you can sort of detach from the integrity of the ensemble to just serve comedy purposes.
Guest:That was a comedy writer wank that actually worked, which was...
Guest:There's had been shows with voiceover before, but it was a passive voiceover.
Guest:It was like a narrator.
Guest:This is what happened.
Guest:And then this happened and this happened.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I said, look, man, if you're gonna do a voiceover, wouldn't it be fun to do somebody with a weird fucked up perspective that gave you the excuse to do all the, you know, smoking pot jokes that comedy writers sit around and riff on for hours and never get in shows.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so that was part of the pitch for me.
Guest:It was, you know, that this, that, that,
Guest:There's a first-person narrator, but everything is slanted towards his worldview, and you get to see what's going on in his brain, and it's an excuse to depart completely from reality without ever compromising the drama or the story that was going on, because you know it's fake.
Guest:It's just in his head.
Guest:It gave us an excuse to do insane shit.
Marc:Just open the doors to comedy writing.
Guest:Yeah, and I don't think people had done that yet.
Marc:You saw it unanimated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's all animated is.
Marc:You were inspired by The Simpsons?
Guest:Without a doubt.
Guest:I was inspired by MASH and The Simpsons for this show.
Guest:MASH is the only TV show I'd ever seen that combined comedy and drama.
Guest:And they flipped a switch.
Guest:The second they got into the hospital room, it worked.
Guest:And The Simpsons...
Guest:The world, as the world expands, it just got weirder and weirder.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And they brought these, even the secondary characters all had a point of view and something funny to say.
Guest:And the non sequitur stuff, it just, it killed me.
Guest:I think it's probably, if not the best comedy ever written, one of the top five, you know.
Marc:Yeah, if you can lock into the animated thing.
Marc:I'm kind of weird.
Guest:Cartoon's tough for you?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Not for you?
Guest:I love them.
Guest:But we had the same discussion about South Park, which I think is brilliant.
Guest:South Park I can watch.
Guest:Yeah, my wife loves those jokes, but she's like, well, I'm not watching a fucking cartoon.
Marc:I guess I never... It's not that my brain isn't geared that way, but I can watch South Park because I get a real kick out of a couple of the kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Marc:Ike Cartman is funny to me still.
Guest:The guy still makes me laugh.
Marc:I don't watch it regularly, but when I tune in, I'm always happy to see it.
Marc:That's my big problem is I don't watch anything regularly unless I get obsessed with it.
Marc:Yeah, and then you go all out, right?
Marc:Yeah, and then it's just I'm in.
Marc:What besides Breaking Bad and Mad Men now are your obsessions?
Marc:Well, I watched...
Marc:I watched the shit out of The Wire, but I waited until it was all done, and I rented it, and then it was three episodes a day.
Marc:I was a crackhead for the show.
Marc:I couldn't sleep, and I had to go through that.
Marc:I did the same thing.
Marc:With The Wire?
Marc:I tried it on TV, and it was too hard.
Marc:Well, because if you missed one episode, I'm like, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:It doesn't seem like anything's happening.
Marc:And I think I watched two, and I'm like, there's nothing happening.
Marc:And if you don't watch it like you read a novel, you're fucked.
Marc:I don't know what... I'm sort of obsessed with the show Chopped, and I'm not proud of that, but... I watch it constantly.
Guest:I've watched... Look, you're tapping into something I like, too, which is my big pet peeve, is people that take great pride in saying they don't watch TV, or especially writers that say...
Marc:I would watch TV all day if I really... If I could get paid to do it, I'd do it all day.
Marc:I got a girl who I think was brought up by television, literally.
Marc:I think she's my girlfriend.
Marc:And because of the way she grew up, she basically relied on television for any sort of emotional support.
Marc:So she's there all day long, but she watches House Hunters.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:People do it.
Marc:Maybe it's a sort of a hint.
Marc:I'm like, this place is fine.
Marc:Why the pressure?
Marc:I get it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know, but but I find I watched a bit of I kind of liked intervention, but those kind of reality shows, I get to a point where I don't know if they're exploitive or helpful.
Marc:Like to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dr. Drew's rehab thing.
Marc:I watch.
Guest:I don't do that.
Marc:Same thing, though.
Marc:i can't do that because i don't like the celebrity thing because it doesn't look like as earnest as it may seem that they're trying to help people if you have a bunch of you know strange you know uh kind of completely egocentric uh disasters uh they know in their hearts that this probably gonna work out yeah and they're watching they're watching to watch the car crash and when you watch something like intervention to me as a guy who's sober i was like you know this should be they should make a library out of this yeah
Marc:You know, for people who are trying to get sober so they can look what you... This is what it looks like when it's not treated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The problem for me is that the end of Intervention is, you know, is bleak.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:For me.
Guest:Because, you know, 9 out of 10 of those stories end with the reality.
Guest:They go out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Well, that's the reality of people who try to get sober.
Marc:Then you watch Hoarders and you're like, after a few episodes of that, I feel filthy and this is wrong.
Marc:It's wrong.
Marc:It is wrong.
Marc:Because there's no helping those people.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:It's perverse.
Guest:There's a show, an extension of that now, that's Weird Alments.
Guest:So it's like people that eat hair.
Guest:I saw that.
Guest:I saw that.
Guest:I watched one episode.
Guest:Yeah, I couldn't.
Guest:It's the sign of the apocalypse.
Marc:It is when you've got a woman sitting there eating dryer sheets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And by the way, and you're settling down maybe with like a takeout pizza to watch that shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And she's just sitting there.
Marc:It's like, I can't stop.
Marc:It makes my mouth feel fresh.
Marc:I'm like, it's fucking chemicals.
Marc:And you can't.
Marc:But I tend to get locked into certain things, but I don't have a schedule that lets me do it.
Marc:I TiVo things sometimes.
Marc:I'm not consistent with it.
Marc:I don't know where people find the time.
Marc:What do you want?
Guest:I'm obsessed.
Guest:I've seen all the same shows, but I got locked into Game of Thrones this year.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Fascinating.
Guest:It's weird, too, because I don't like that fantasy shit, usually, and there's dragons in it and magic and stuff.
Guest:You know what impressed me?
Guest:I think I got hooked as a TV writer.
Guest:did they set this uh sean bean big movie guy up as the star of the thing and then three quarters of the way through spoiler if you haven't seen it they fucking kill him i'm like that was just so ballsy yeah you know so it made me that hooked me and say what are these guys doing they're doing something bigger than just a tv show now right i mean because that's the type of thing that if i try to do that on a network they would think you were doing a practical joke yeah because they they're not willing to gamble no yeah
Guest:No, he was like, hey, we got someone that people like that they're going to tune in for, promote them.
Guest:Let's leave him on until they hate him.
Guest:And then we're going to cut his head off.
Guest:I'm watching that episode.
Guest:Right?
Guest:And I'm like, this is going to be interesting to see.
Guest:He's going to get his head cut off.
Guest:It's going to be interesting to see how they get out of this.
Guest:And then they don't.
Guest:I'm like, no fucking way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They did.
Guest:So I got hooked in.
Marc:It's well done.
Marc:I didn't lock into Boardwalk Empire.
Marc:I watched Curb by default.
Marc:I ended up watching it because I like it.
Marc:I like the people on it.
Guest:You got to have the weird experience that I have, which is watching TV when you know somebody either in or involved with every show tempers it a bit.
Marc:It's very hard for me to cross over into knowing.
Marc:Like with Louis, I know Louis well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, I love what he's doing.
Marc:But, you know, at the beginning, you know, to see him evolve as an actor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because comics are innately self-conscious.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what makes them different than actors.
Marc:Actors are sort of, for the most part, empty vessels that, you know, when you talk to, you're like, really?
Marc:There's nothing?
Marc:And some of them, you know.
Marc:No, I agree with you.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:When I watch Louis, like, I'm like, I saw he's thinking about something else.
Marc:I'm very sensitive to the nuance of how he's a performer.
Guest:How he's a person, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I don't know what it's like to have that on a writer's level.
Guest:You know, I want to be a fan.
Guest:You're constantly in the situation, hey, did you like it, from your buddies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I want to be a fan and watch everybody that I like stuff, and I know that sometimes things working or not working are no fault of your own, but it's complicated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Louis thing that I'm intrigued by, you know what turned me off at first?
Guest:What?
Guest:Because I love him as a comic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You can't be a fan of comedy and not love it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But more than...
Guest:most shows, when that show's credits come on, it literally is like, written by Louis C.K., starring Louis C.K., edited by, craft servicing by Louis C.K.
Guest:The transportation for all people involved was provided by Louis C.K.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So initially, even though, man, I respect it that he's grabbing it and doing that, and it's a great fucking show.
Guest:I really like it.
Guest:I had this weird, this is a bad thing to say, but I had this weird reaction of, why does he need to do that?
Guest:Why does he need to say all that stuff?
Guest:Because it used to, it's like a pet peeve of mine
Guest:was like, there are writers out there that even though they have staffs, you know, most every showrunner takes a staff writer's draft or someone else's draft and then rewrites it on the weekend to make it sound like what's in their head.
Guest:But most people don't then.
Marc:Well, I think that, well, for him, like, I think he's doing everything.
Marc:I think it really is.
Marc:And I think the way he pieces it together in his mind is they actually function as short films.
Marc:And he's working with, to his credit and kind of amazingly, when I knew him as a comic and he was making his first short films, he's using the same cinematographer that he used 20 years ago.
Marc:That's very cool.
Marc:And he's using the same set deck that he used 20 years ago.
Marc:And it's a small crew.
Marc:He shoots with a small group.
Marc:And when I first met him, when he made his first feature, I mean, he went and spent a shitload of money to use an Avid.
Marc:And he's a computer savvy guy.
Marc:So he has seen this stuff kind of build down from sitting there with an Avid and moving and transferring.
Marc:And editing it himself.
Marc:Right, transferring it from film.
Guest:onto you know onto the computer and moving shit like that so i think that he's just figured out a system for himself i mean the real question is he does it though see because like what i was what i was asking you you said you know him i see that guy differently if he's a guy that's actually doing all the work himself you know as opposed to contracting it out and then taking credit as opposed to having other people that he's not that guy that's good
Marc:But what the real question becomes with something like that, not unlike Chappelle and Neil Brennan, is that at what point or does he ever say like, you know, I'm tapped out.
Marc:You know, I need to stab this.
Guest:There's a huge risk of burnout if he's going to do that because the show is just gaining steam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I would guarantee that half of my shit at the beginning was out of flat out jealousy.
Guest:It drives me crazy that he's able to do that and pull it off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a much more intimate show than what you're used to doing.
Guest:There's no Shangri-La, and I would assume that everybody in network TV wishes that they could go do their cable show where people leave them alone and you don't have to worry about that shit.
Guest:And I would imagine that the same thing exists on the other side for some people, that they had some of the, whether it be network budgets or access to the things you can do.
Marc:And also there's a sensibility there that what makes a show unique is that it seems to be sort of cutting its own way.
Marc:And a lot of people don't know quite what to do with it.
Marc:Because a lot of it is emotionally jarring.
Marc:It's not always funny.
Marc:And it's very odd.
Marc:And that's him.
Guest:My favorite thing about the show is that you don't know what to expect from episode to episode tonally.
Guest:And it's so the opposite of what I do, where you're expected to recreate the same tone week after week to not knock people off their bearings.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Well, now, okay, so do you resent that box?
Guest:Yes and no.
Guest:I mean, I think anybody that's successful in network TV that complains about it is a dick on some level because it's a super fun job and you're getting paid well to do it.
Guest:But it is.
Guest:It's a different beast.
Guest:It's consistency.
Guest:You're creating, hopefully on some level, the type of comfort food that people want to sit down and eat.
Guest:I don't think it's as challenging as some of the cable shows to the viewers.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And intentionally so.
Guest:Well, that's why, theoretically, they watch cable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that's what cable's about.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:All right, so what... Now, how did Cougar Town come about, and what is your issue with the name?
Guest:You know, this is a horrible Hollywood story, man, because, look, Cougar Town was the first thing I ever did out of business.
Guest:And...
Guest:Were you hurting?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:But, you know, look.
Guest:You want to work.
Guest:I like working.
Guest:And one of my favorite things, too, is I really enjoy, you know, every job you get, you get to.
Guest:Some of the people on Cougar Town are the same people I've worked with for 17 straight years.
Guest:Crew members, you know, all the way up to writers and stuff.
Guest:It's a blast to keep going, you know.
Guest:The funny thing about Cougar Town was I was doing Scrubs, and Disney called, and they said...
Guest:uh this will get me in trouble but it'll be worth it i think i said it once before guy that i like at disney that helped me a lot said uh courtney cox wants to do a comedy again but she'd like to do it with someone uh you know like you and uh um and you knew her from friends i i did you remember you you were that kid i did i gave her because the one time she spoke to me at friends was at the end of the first year she came up and said uh uh is it because she's an unbelievably nice lady okay and she came up and said uh hey um
Guest:If no one else says it, I know we're here because the writing's funny, and you guys bust your hump, and we get all the credit.
Guest:I just wanted to thank you for that.
Guest:Chris.
Guest:You should call me Chris.
Guest:No.
Guest:By the way, I didn't correct her.
Guest:I was a puss.
Guest:She was hot, too.
Guest:So I said nothing.
Guest:I'm like, hey, you're welcome.
Guest:Yeah, I'm Chris.
Guest:Yeah, I'll be Chris.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:And I'll be Chris forever.
Guest:But so I said no.
Guest:I wasn't interested.
Guest:And I hung up the phone, and I went back into the writer's room, a bunch of jaded writers, cynical writers.
Guest:And I said, hey, you know what sucks?
Guest:is uh you know we're here busting our hump trying to come up with shit and i know the way network tv works if i was to go in this is just a joke i said if i was to go into the president of abc and say courtney cox is going to do a sitcom uh when she gets divorced at 40 and goes back and fucks a bunch of younger guys and it's gonna be called cougar town so i wouldn't have to say anything else and i could sell it and then it became a joke for like two weeks because we were like
Guest:Yeah, and in between scenes, you know, a fucking animated claw will pull the scene off the screen.
Guest:We're just mocking it.
Guest:And then literally about the three-week mark, I'm like, should I do this?
Guest:And a smart younger writer on the show who saw an opportunity, his name's Kevin Beagle, and I liked him.
Guest:He's like, I'll fucking do that with you.
Guest:I don't care, man.
Guest:You know, I'll do it with you tomorrow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we went in and pitched it to ABC.
Guest:And I literally said what I just told you.
Guest:And the president of ABC at the time said, I could totally market that and sell it.
Guest:And to us, it was just a big laugh, you know.
Guest:And yeah, we were thinking, hey, maybe we can make some campy fucking show that we won't want to kill ourselves, you know, about.
Guest:And it'll be like Megan Mullaly and Will and Grace just out fucking having a grand old time.
Guest:And we tried to do it, and we just hated it.
Guest:And Courtney didn't like it either.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because Courtney, for whatever reason, the color of going out and chasing young tail and fucking him and finally having her 20s and her 40s, it did not wear well on her as an actress, and she didn't enjoy it.
Guest:We put an ensemble of funny actors around, and every week she's off.
Guest:But she wasn't really fucking him.
Guest:No, but I think it's just not... Image-wise?
Guest:Not even an image thing.
Guest:I just don't think that... You know how certain actors you can't see doing certain things?
Marc:And also, I guess, isn't it that the fact is that that is sort of the heightened idea of...
Marc:It's a sexualized notion of what a cougar does.
Marc:If a woman was really doing that, it would reveal such underlying problems.
Guest:It's such a cliche.
Guest:And look at it on the week to week, too.
Guest:You establish a regular cast, and yet one actress has to spend half of her time in every episode off with some guest cast member.
Guest:who she's not close with and who doesn't know her comedic rhythms.
Guest:So after four episodes of that, we just said, fuck it, and we'll change the show.
Guest:And we decided as a group that the show was about how adults while away the time.
Guest:And it's basically... As they get older.
Guest:As they get older, yeah.
Guest:Drinking wine.
Guest:And shooting the shit and tried to change the title.
Guest:But we were in this weird position that the very reason I knew that the show would sell was why people came and checked it out at first.
Guest:It was a noisy title and the network promoted the shit out of it.
Guest:It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Guest:So they wouldn't let us change the title.
Guest:And it became the only thing we could do is from that point on all the title cards on the show.
Guest:We take shots at its worst title show.
Guest:It's not about it.
Guest:She hasn't.
Guest:It's called Cougar Town.
Guest:I think this year's premiere is her getting engaged to her 44 year old, you know, boyfriend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, how is it?
Guest:How have the numbers held up?
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:You know, I think that... Has it changed since the first... Yeah, I mean, I think that the show will be on for a long time just because in the modern landscape, it's so nice that people go, hey, the hit, it's not a hit.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But I think ABC owns it and it does well enough.
Guest:But we certainly, you know, I always make at least one giant mistake every TV show and I certainly blew it at the beginning of this show.
Guest:Because the people that turned in and saw and felt the same thing I did, some of them didn't come back because we had big numbers right away.
Guest:And then when we changed the show, since we changed the show, we kept a very loyal audience about the same numbers.
Marc:And I'm assuming that this is an age group that is not generally marketed to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I got sort of obsessed with Men of a Certain Age.
Guest:I love that show.
Marc:It was so emotionally solid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I started to think, like, why are they taking it off?
Marc:It's because it's got nothing to do with anybody they're interested in selling things to.
Guest:Yeah, you know what?
Guest:I lucked out that our 18 to 49 rating is high enough that the show's going to be on for a long time.
Guest:But you're right.
Guest:It's a...
Guest:Put it this way, it's a weird position to be in that I know that I probably would not have been able to sell a show called Midlife and say, it's about what a bunch of adults that live in the same cul-de-sac do to spend the time once they're in that long stretch of your kids are grown and you just work and hang out.
Guest:And even if I had been able to sell it, it wouldn't have gotten the plum time slot.
Guest:It wouldn't have gotten the huge promotion.
Guest:And I called it Cougar Town and now I'm stuck with it.
Guest:Well, what?
Guest:Why don't you change it?
Guest:You don't change the title for three reasons.
Guest:Three?
Guest:Four reasons.
Guest:We've been giving... I'll tell you something interesting.
Guest:They gave us the option this year of changing it, but here's the first year, the second year of the show, they wouldn't want us to change it when we tried to.
Guest:You could call it Sad Fuckfest.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Call it midlife.
Guest:Call it the drinking age.
Guest:Call it anything.
Guest:I thought you'd thought about it.
Guest:I know, dude.
Guest:They wouldn't let us change it.
Guest:They wouldn't let us change it.
Guest:Sunshine State.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They wouldn't let us change it because it was on after Modern Family and it was working.
Guest:So they're like, number one rule in network television, don't fuck with something that's working.
Guest:And the biggest reason, though, is our show gains a full ratings point in that silly demographic that 18 to 49 doesn't matter in DVR, same day plus seven.
Guest:And if you change the title of your show, the technology doesn't exist.
Guest:Everybody that has seasoned past your show disappears.
Guest:Oh, they're going to miss it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Disappears on all of them.
Guest:And they've got to re-up.
Guest:So they might not.
Guest:So you would have to cross your fingers that those people like it enough that they're going to take the time to go reprogram their thing.
Marc:So you're living with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're not going to change it.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, it fills me with self-hate.
Guest:By the way.
Guest:Does it really fill you with self-hate?
Guest:Here's why.
Guest:Can I tell you why?
Guest:uh it's not what the show's about it's a bad hacky joke it always was a bad hacky joke and i'm actually proud of the show itself i can't tell you how many conversations i've had first of all with people are like i'm not gonna watch a show about older women fucking younger men it's not that but here's an example i got to meet see jane goodall speak it was just where at a little dinner party she came to a dinner party to talk about gorillas
Guest:Yeah, she was talking about it.
Guest:She was fundraising, obviously.
Guest:But it was super cool.
Guest:I brought my daughter.
Guest:How old are your kids?
Guest:I should know that.
Guest:My daughter's 11.
Guest:But for her to see this woman, it was cool as shit.
Guest:And then this guy came up to me.
Guest:And this is when I'm already pissed off.
Guest:I'm like, people still think that this show is about that.
Guest:And it's not.
Guest:Because they don't watch it.
Guest:Yeah, some of my friends.
Guest:I'm like, check this show out.
Guest:You'd actually like it.
Guest:It's a bunch of middle-aged folks drinking wine and fucking around, you know?
Guest:uh this guy comes up to me and he goes hey you know i i work with jane i actually run the cougar fund it's a cougar preservation fund yeah and he's like i'd love if you guys can ever throw us a shout out just on your title cards or whatever you know because we're really doing important things for to save those animals i'm like of course and he's being nice he's like 77 and he's like uh he's like i love the show you know when you're trying to be nice to someone he's like i love watching those older gals chase those young guys you know i see a lot of my life i'm like fuck you you know
Guest:you and your animals in my head i'm like you've never fucking watched it don't try to be nice it's not about that just fucking just say thanks and walk away you know you don't know you think it's about that because of the shitty title but it's not about that
Guest:I did say that.
Guest:I said, hey, thanks for watching.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Glad you like the show.
Guest:Glad you love it so much.
Guest:All those older women, fucking younger men, I could kill you.
Guest:That's what burns, man, is I still, I liked, you know, everybody that says it.
Marc:So your self-hatred, if you have it, it just, it comes from being, you know, misunderstood or trivialized.
Guest:Cheeseball.
Guest:Yeah, it's a cheesy title.
Guest:I knew it.
Guest:I made the joke of it.
Guest:Now I'm stuck with it.
Guest:And at every moment that I have where someone goes, oh, what show are you doing now?
Guest:I go, Cougar Town.
Guest:I go, oh.
Guest:And they don't even watch it.
Guest:No, man.
Guest:And so, like, I liked that Scrubs had a slight cool fact, and I dug it.
Guest:And by the way, you know what the big bullshit is?
Guest:I've heard all these people, some on your show, that pretend, A, not to read stuff about themselves, and B, that it doesn't affect them.
Guest:It's bullshit.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:Like, I'm supervising a young writer's project this year.
Guest:I was psyched because someone wrote an article about it, and I went on.
Guest:Of course, I went to the comments, and there's, like, eight nice ones about him, and then 9,000 ones that say I'm an untalented douche.
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:fuck i mean and uh which is fine because in the scheme but to be i can't be that guy that goes hey i don't care i always care i was i was trying to be a comic once i want people to love me so badly you know why that one hurts though is because like and someone brought this to my attention but i sort of realized it myself is that if they hit the thing that you hit yourself with yeah you're fucked yeah like if if they're like there's nothing worse than comments that make you go
Marc:I guess I kind of... I kind of... Yeah, I am kind of... Fraud always gets me.
Marc:Right, so it honors your criticism of yourself, and then you're like, they see me.
Marc:Fuck them, though.
Guest:Fuck, it hurts, man.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:You, as a comic and actors here, they get it more, but what I'm obsessed with is I think that there's a future in television that writers...
Guest:can brand themselves you know and and maybe there's a reality especially since tv is such you know niche um viewing people that kind of now fanboy habits you know that you can get to a point that what you're selling is not hey look joe schmoe stars in my new show that it's like hey it's a new you know it's a new vince gilligan show you know right it's a new whoever show and people turn out for it
Guest:The double-edged sword is the second as a writer that you go, hey, it's important to put my name out there.
Guest:You open the door to the shit that you've never dealt with that comics and actors and real public figures have.
Guest:I'm not equipped for it.
Guest:I hate it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's horrible.
Guest:You're a sensitive guy.
Guest:It makes me want to vomit.
Guest:I just want to be liked, man.
Guest:It's my biggest weak point.
Guest:My wife always says you're a pussy because you care so much about people that don't matter like you.
Guest:Your wife says it to you, too.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:So she just feeds the hate.
Guest:She's a hard ass.
Marc:So then you walk away going, oh, I'm a pussy.
Guest:pussy too my wife my wife is the heavy by the way and when those things come out if my wife sees me reading them the next day there'll be a comment from a random person it's always her yeah like fuck you okay you fucking jealous fuck well i mean okay so so you got this show you're happy with the show but is there
Marc:I talked to a buddy of mine yesterday who I hadn't seen in 15 years, the director, but he made this very sort of weird declaration to me, and I hadn't really talked to him, and I know what he's done.
Marc:And he said, look, I chose this path to where I knew what I wanted to do.
Marc:you know what my dream was as a creative person or as an artist but I knew I wanted to make money too so I chose this middle path to sort of navigate what you're talking about how do you do something that you can respect yourself but also make it you know appealing to as many people as possible is there some project that you have in your mind where if you could say fuck it you know I've got you know I've got enough money I've got the freedom to do this what would it be yeah you know I've lived my life by this weird uh work professionally by this code of you do what you have to to get to do what you want to
Guest:But some people never do what they want to.
Guest:And the double-edged sword of it is that entertainment specifically, television specifically, if you do one thing successfully, everyone around you, not in a mean-spirited way, conspires to keep you doing that same thing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Your agents, your managers, the studio, all they want is like, hey, you did that.
Guest:It created a lot of money.
Guest:You were satisfied on some level because you enjoyed the show and you love providing work and a great work environment, hopefully for the people that you like and gotten to work with a long time.
Guest:We're going to give you this money to keep doing it again and again and again.
Guest:Bring that thing.
Guest:you do to it that's that's why there's no content on um uh the internet yet okay one of the reasons that nobody's found out a way i think to to make the internet anything but a marketing device and making actually like a solid this is where i go to watch this show device is because everybody that's good enough to pull that off the studios will come in and go hey here's jj abrams here's a bunch of dough to uh not ever do that right you know and only do that stuff here on networks you know right
Guest:trey and matt you know the guys that did south park if someone did that today it could kill on the internet they will never they won't you know maybe they'll get to a point that they'll do an internet show because money doesn't matter but yeah so it clearly doesn't matter at this point i mean but they did a pretty amazing thing by amazing by the amazing but i mean like but like that model because they started in a weird way i just meant that that could happen now on the internet with someone and it'll change everything
Marc:But they got one of those interesting deals where they created so much buzz and they took so much care in maintaining control and owning it.
Marc:They're just processing money.
Guest:It was really brilliant.
Guest:I saw their Broadway show.
Guest:I was blown away.
Guest:Was it good?
Guest:Dude, I could care less about that stuff and it blew me away.
Guest:It was so funny.
Guest:Part of the experience, especially being a comic yourself, is sitting next to mom and pop Broadway showgoer.
Guest:I was next to a couple.
Guest:It had to be mid-60s.
Guest:And the first the first song, you know, starts as one of the early songs starts as kind of a Hakuna Matata Lion King rip off.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the refrain comes.
Guest:And, you know, it's African villagers singing about the real Africans.
Guest:I want to God.
Guest:God tries to fuck me in the mouth, ass and cunt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And seeing how those people next to you react.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, who probably saw Annie a couple months ago.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:To me, I was like, this is insane.
Guest:But anyways, to answer your question, the other thing is that you've been married.
Guest:I've been married.
Guest:This is my second marriage.
Guest:This one's worked.
Guest:I've been married for 12 years.
Guest:I was married once when I was really young for 10 minutes.
Guest:You got two kids?
Guest:I get three, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you live your life to your means.
Guest:You constantly adjust things.
Guest:I think too.
Guest:And so the only way you get to that place that you can go do what you really want is you got to draw a line in the sand.
Guest:And what I mean by that is I signed a, I signed a four year deal with Warner brothers that I know that the people that are paying me and rightfully so it's a business are paying me to do the same thing for the next four years and,
Guest:And I had to talk to my wife and talk to my friends involved in business and say, this is it.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:That I'm going to do this four years.
Guest:And I get a lot out of it.
Guest:I'm not complaining.
Guest:I love working with the people I work with.
Guest:My greatest fun now is when you get to start a younger writer out and maybe help them through the system in a nice way without fucking them over and stealing their money and stealing their ideas and shit.
Guest:But if you don't say four years from now, I'm not going to sign any more deals and we're going to change our life accordingly so that we aren't living as if we're going to get paid like a professional fighter forever, you know, and and go do something fun, you know, and see what see what happens.
Marc:So this is a four year deal outside of Cougar Town.
Guest:Yeah, I work for Warner Brothers now.
Guest:Yeah, which is TV writing.
Guest:When you get to the showrunner thing, it becomes like professional sports, which is it's very weird and fucked up.
Guest:And it's why these some of these Hollywood businesses are run so poorly that you get like Cougar Town exists because I worked for ABC at a four year deal with ABC, which is you get the same salary for four years like you're on a sports team, whether you put a TV show on or not.
Guest:And if you get a show on, they charge it off.
Guest:You don't get paid anymore for getting a show on.
Guest:All right, so you just sit there and you try to write a script.
Guest:Yeah, and if you get a show on, you own a big chunk of it, so obviously you're trying to, but it's not like you get paid anymore than if you were just at your house sleeping.
Marc:That's like a bungalow deal.
Marc:You've got an office at Warner Brothers.
Marc:You've got a production company over there.
Guest:Yeah, so Warner Brothers wants me to do a bunch of TV shows for the next four years.
Guest:I like the people there.
Guest:What do they ask for?
Guest:How many scripts?
Guest:I sold three pilots this year, so I'm going to try and shoot three new shows next year, and we'll see.
Guest:One's one that I wrote.
Guest:One I wrote with a buddy who...
Guest:He's a good showrunner himself, so he could totally do it if it got picked up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And one, I'm supervising a talented young kid, you know, that hopefully keep him from getting beaten up because he's right on the cusp, you know, of being a stud.
Guest:But more often than not... A writer stud.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:More often than not, when you go through the system before you've got a track record to go, fuck you, I'm going to do it the way I want, they just devour you.
Guest:I mean, the cliche is true.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every young writer has this moment where you go in to pitch an idea.
Guest:Say it's about a young couple in their 20s, and you're like, I'm going to write a comedy about what it really means to be married at 24.
Guest:It's going to be edgy and dark and fucked up and people drinking and then breaking up and getting back together.
Guest:When you come out of that meeting...
Guest:You know, you're gonna be like, all right, they have a precocious 10 year old now.
Guest:You know, he's that he's really smart.
Guest:He talks like a grown up.
Guest:And, and the reality is, is because when you're in there, what those people generally say to you is we like this, but you know, maybe we could see it as an eight o'clock show, you'd love them to have a kid and be more stable.
Guest:And if you do that, you know, we'll go ahead and buy it.
Guest:But if you don't, you know, you're gonna have to move on.
Marc:But then you've got nothing hanging on your old idea.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You just only watch yourself try to accommodate executives, and then as each step you take to do that, your original idea diminishes.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So you're writing an entirely different show.
Guest:You have to add to that.
Guest:So say you're a young married guy in real life that has a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You've got to chase the dollar.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And you're right, though.
Guest:The end result of that is, hey, this sucks.
Guest:You guys feel guilty for making me do all this shit?
Guest:No, that was you.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because you take the heat for it.
Marc:Because the only experience I had with that is I had a deal.
Marc:I pitched a show about a guy who ran a wedding video business.
Marc:And his big claim to fame was that he had won the Oscar for best short film and fucked up all his opportunities and ended up back home in this family-operated wedding photography.
Marc:Yeah, that's funny.
Marc:Yeah, but then all of a sudden it became sort of like, well, maybe he has a kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, he doesn't really have a kid.
Marc:Well, how do we bring a kid into it?
Marc:And then we bring in like a kid who he didn't know he had that comes in on the pilot because he fucked a waitress.
Guest:See, so this kid that I'm doing, Jason Belville, his name is a Canadian showrunner.
Guest:That would happen to him.
Guest:Why does he want to work with me?
Guest:Hopefully I'll help him get through the pilot process.
Guest:Protect him from that.
Guest:I have a support crew, and then I'll go, we're not fucking doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's good that you're helping people out.
Guest:Yeah, but it's not selfless, dude.
Guest:I mean, come on.
Guest:He's your guy, then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I hope to Gary Goldberg him someday.
Guest:Hey, you get it now, dude?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:I'm going to go try and write theater.
Guest:Because that's the end.
Guest:I love theater.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You would write musicals?
Guest:Musicals and plays.
Guest:I joke about it.
Guest:Like who are your playwrights?
Guest:I'm a huge Tom Stoppard guy.
Guest:I was a David Mamet guy for a while.
Guest:I liked the percussive style and shit.
Guest:But Tom Stoppard's the stud.
Guest:I pride myself on being the straightest guy that can probably sing Les Mis in French.
Guest:I know Broadway music.
Guest:You're a latent musical guy?
Guest:Yeah, it's embarrassing.
Guest:My wife fucking hates him.
Guest:She won't even go.
Marc:I cry at them.
Marc:I don't sing them.
Marc:Sometimes I write them spontaneously.
Marc:Seriously?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Like just around the house.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to watch TV.
Guest:Yeah, you know it yourself.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's interesting how when you talk, sing, how you can see how kind of wonderfully fun a musical could be.
Guest:Yeah, all your problems go away.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You can talk, sing anything.
Marc:It seems not as dark.
Marc:I haven't taken a shit in four weeks.
Marc:That's why musicals saved the depression.
Marc:I mean, why do you think Fred Astaire and all that dancing was great?
Marc:Who can watch that with a frown on their face?
Marc:If you're asking for money with a cup and you're dancing, it's a whole different thing.
Guest:I suppose I'd like to do a movie sometime, but mostly just to...
Guest:say that i did it because i i generally feel like you know it's really funny man in television people are always like hey you got all the success why don't you do a feature film and if you know anything about the business it's because doing a movie sucks unless you're not you know unless you're like scorsese or somebody that has the power to control it it's just getting money just a process of getting off the ground on a tv show you get to do final cut
Guest:write it cast it choose the costumes pick the music and do everything and then you go to a the first time i almost did a movie yeah it was just a horror show is everybody second guessing you and giving you shit about every little thing and you see how things get dumbed down and how they end up sucking all right one last question why is every episode uh named after a tom petty song
Guest:I have roots in rural Florida, and the guy Kevin Beagle does too.
Guest:So we set the show in Florida, and we literally just did it because we dig on Tom Petty so much.
Guest:Isn't he great?
Guest:We thought it might be a way to...
Guest:Connect us to him in any way, shape, or form, because I'm a lifelong fan.
Guest:I think he writes the ultimate pop song.
Marc:And they're great American songs.
Marc:It's like townie poetry.
Guest:He's a guy that does not get his due, right?
Marc:He really doesn't.
Guest:A direct line from that Wall Street Journal calls me up and asks me to comment on a piece they're writing about Tom Petty.
Guest:So that's win number one.
Guest:And then it finally came to fruition literally two weeks ago.
Guest:He's using a stage right next to ours to rehearse.
Guest:Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are rehearsing for a gig that they're doing in Cabo.
Guest:I think it's like a private birthday or wedding gig or something.
Guest:And I immediately, being a suck-ass, got an In-N-Out burger truck for our crew and said, hey, knock and tell them those guys, all their fucking guys, can do it too.
Guest:And then, by the way, total high school, they're rehearsing.
Guest:I'm holding the door open to listen.
Guest:And a big old security guy comes out.
Guest:He's like, get the fuck away from it.
Guest:I'm like, hey, sorry, man.
Guest:I was just trying to hear.
Guest:And then literally 10 minutes later,
Guest:tom petty's having a burger he's like are these the guys that name every episode of their show after me he's like get them over here yeah and uh they can come in and watch us rehearse oh shit i know right and uh the same guy that just almost scared the 19 year old piss out of me is like which one of you fuckers is bill lawrence yeah i'm like you know and uh i get to give him the smug look as i walk in he's like tom says you're cool does he he says i'm cool
Guest:And I sat in there.
Guest:So that's why, literally that moment is why they're all titled after Tom Petty.
Guest:It was worth it.
Guest:I did.
Guest:It paid off.
Guest:The only embarrassing thing was we're in there and they're practicing.
Guest:And at the end, Tom Petty is like, hey, should we rehearse Free Fallen?
Guest:And by the way, I'm supposed to be like an invisible fly on the wall.
Guest:And I'm in the back going, yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And he's like, no, you know what?
Guest:I think I know that one.
Guest:We're going to get going.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:I don't think I was supposed to talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was he a good guy?
Guest:He was a great dude.
Guest:Oh, man, because I love him, man.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:He couldn't have been.
Guest:He was definitely stoned, but he's a good dude.
Guest:Well, yeah, I think he does that.
Guest:I think he likes the weed, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and he likes so many good records, too.
Guest:By the way, he's the ultimate guy.
Guest:People aren't huge fans.
Guest:You can start rattling off songs that they like that he knows.
Guest:I mean, that he did.
Guest:They're always amazed.
Marc:Yeah, all the records, all of them.
Marc:I mean, I didn't quite understand the last DJ, but everything other than that, I still listen to him.
Marc:He's one of the guys I still listen to.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Did you watch that Bogdanovich documentary?
Guest:I did.
Guest:It was pretty amazing.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:All right, Bill Lawrence, good talking to you.
Guest:Hey, Mark, that made my day.
Guest:That was super fun.
Marc:That Bill Lawrence is a lively guy.
Marc:Intense dude.
Marc:Great time talking to him.
Marc:Do not go away yet because there's a couple of things I didn't plug and these are me things.
Marc:First of all, Starfish Circus with Greg Berent and Dave Anthony and me and some other special guests.
Marc:We're going to do that show.
Marc:It's their show at Largo at the Coronet.
Marc:That's www.largo-la.com.
Marc:That's Wednesday, February 15th.
Marc:At 8 p.m.
Marc:That'll be a fun show.
Marc:Those guys are funny and I have a good time with them.
Marc:But in a bigger way, we got the Los Angeles Podcast Festival.
Marc:You can find information on this at www.lapodfest.com.
Marc:There's a Kickstarter there.
Marc:We're trying to raise 20K.
Marc:It's going to be a huge event.
Marc:Some of the biggest names in comedy podcasting.
Marc:We're going to do it at the Sheraton Delfina in the historic Barnum Hall.
Marc:It's in Santa Monica.
Marc:It's a three-day event, October 12th, 13th, and 14th.
Marc:And there's going to be a bunch of live podcast recordings.
Marc:It's going to be amazing.
Marc:I'm going to do one.
Marc:Jimmy Pardo's going to do Never Not Funny.
Marc:Todd Glass is going to do The Todd Glass Show.
Marc:Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini are going to do Comedy Film Nerds.
Marc:Barent and Anthony are going to do Walking the Room.
Marc:Jackie Cation is doing The Dork Forest.
Marc:Mike Schmidt's doing The 40-Year-Old Boy.
Marc:Al Madrigal, Maz Jobrani, and Chris Spencer are doing The Minivan Men.
Marc:Lynette Carolla and Stephanie Wilder-Taylor's
Marc:are doing for crying out loud go to www.lapodfest.com and check out the details on that oklahoma city i'm coming to your town i will be at the city arts center that's saturday february 18th 2012 that's this year 7 30 p.m you can go to my calendar at wtfpod.com
Marc:And go there anyways.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:See what you can get app-wise.
Marc:Supportjustcoffee.coop.
Marc:And check out my calendar to see if I'm coming to your area soon.
Marc:That Oklahoma City date is Saturday, February 18th.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I'm never going to get Boomer in here.
Marc:Not today.
Marc:Not with the construction.
Marc:I can tell you about that.
Marc:Maybe next time.
you