Episode 260 - Jake Johanssen
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck sticks?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucking knots?
Marc:What the fuck a Ricans?
Marc:What the fucking avians?
Marc:What the fuck a Mullins?
Marc:Oh, that was fun.
Marc:Boy, I just listed a bunch.
Marc:And there's always a bunch more.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I'm glad you're here.
Marc:because I need to talk to you about some stuff.
Marc:I'll figure out what that is in just a second.
Marc:First of all, tonight through Saturday, that would be March 8th, 9th, and 10th, I will be at Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Marc:Very excited about that.
Marc:I haven't been there in about 12 years, and they're letting me back in.
Marc:How about that?
Marc:Sunday, I will be at South by Southwest at Esther's Follies at 4 p.m.
Marc:That's the 11th, interviewing Jeffrey Tambor in front of people.
Marc:Monday night, I will be in New York City taping the John Oliver stand-up show.
Marc:What else do I want to say about me?
Marc:Hey, if you haven't got my new record, my new record, what am I, an old guy?
Marc:Hey, you want to get my new record, my new CD, This Has To Be Funny is available at iTunes.
Marc:Do that.
Marc:If you haven't done that yet, I'd like you to have it.
Marc:I worked hard on it.
Marc:We're sponsored today by Independent Lens, the weekly documentary series on PBS.
Marc:Independent Lens is a great resource for you if you love documentaries or if you just love good stories.
Marc:It brings the best of documentary film to television and gives a platform to amazing independent filmmakers.
Marc:These are great movies on free television.
Marc:This week on Independent Lens, you can check out Butoh about the life of Benazir Butoh, the first Muslim woman elected to lead an Islamic nation.
Marc:And later this month, you're looking at me like I live here and I don't.
Marc:This is an intimate account of what it means to lose your mind.
Marc:I think I'm doing that.
Marc:Aren't I doing that?
Marc:It answers the question, how do you make a film about someone who's not sure who she is?
Marc:Yeah, I can relate to that.
Marc:Independent Lens airs Thursday nights on most PBS member stations, but check your local listings and check out Independent Lens on Twitter and Facebook for air dates and much more content related to the films.
Marc:That's exciting.
Marc:I'm glad these guys are sponsoring us.
Marc:This is actually important work.
Marc:Today on the show, Jake Johansson, the Jake Johansson.
Marc:If any of you are saying who Jake Johansson, shame on you.
Marc:Jake Johansson.
Marc:Let's talk about Jake Johansson a bit because he comes from a generation of comics that were a little a little older than me.
Marc:And it was a different world back then.
Marc:I mean, these were guys that got into comedy to be stand up comics and to headline stand up comedy shows.
Marc:He was part of the 80s comedy boom.
Marc:I got into comedy just after that original boom seemed to the wave crashed.
Marc:I remember when I started out performing at clubs as a middle.
Marc:And and it was always the same sort of thing.
Marc:It was like, yeah, it was it was packed last week.
Marc:And that went on through the mid 90s.
Marc:And I think the week they were talking about was somewhere in the early 80s.
Marc:But Jake came up during that time.
Marc:And that was a time when comics worked.
Marc:where there was a huge club circuit.
Marc:It's coming back a bit now, and I think that comics are finding their way and able to work for a living as a stand-up comic.
Marc:But back then, they were everywhere.
Marc:And the reason you got into comedy was to do stand-up comedy as a living.
Marc:And the interesting thing about Jake is that he is a pure comic.
Marc:He is a comic that still does stand-up comedy for a living.
Marc:That is probably generated four, five, six hours of original material.
Marc:The interesting thing about where we're at now comedically is there doesn't seem to be much respect for the hierarchy of stand up comedy.
Marc:And I'm not saying I'm a big fan of hierarchies, but Jake was huge.
Marc:When I got in, he was a huge club comic.
Marc:He was very respected.
Marc:And the interesting thing is, is now, you know, comedy is very cliquish.
Marc:There's outposts of comedy nerdism on either coast that seems to accept or reject comics of Jake's generation.
Marc:But he was one of the original comedy... You would think that his character was a comedy nerd.
Marc:His style was completely his own.
Marc:His joke writing was lyrical.
Marc:And his bits were long form.
Marc:And he was a huge comic.
Marc:And I think that people don't really put that into perspective as much or realize that there are guys like Jake out there still doing the work as a comic.
Marc:I mean, I think he did the San Francisco Comedy Festival and it changed his career.
Marc:This was a time where you could do a festival and it would change your career.
Marc:You started working.
Marc:The same thing happened to me.
Marc:But I think that what bothers me about it is that comedy has changed so much that the relevance of doing an hour.
Marc:I mean, if you grew up in the 90s, you probably remember seeing Jake's Hour on HBO.
Marc:You probably knew some of his jokes.
Marc:He was on Letterman dozens and dozens of times.
Marc:Conan, The Tonight Show.
Marc:He had some TV work over the time.
Marc:But this was a guy, unlike some other guys, that, you know,
Marc:Creates new material every year, and I don't think that he gets the respect that he deserves because comedy has changed so much.
Marc:In the green room now of the UCB or even of a club on the road, there seems to be an arrogance to the fact that a comic who's been doing it four years and just did his half hour on Comedy Central is somehow at the same level or beyond comedy.
Marc:somebody like Jake.
Marc:It's very upsetting to me in some ways.
Marc:I mean, there was a time where an HBO hour meant something.
Marc:It meant that you were being delivered.
Marc:You were being coronated into the upper levels of the comedy echelon.
Marc:It was a career changer.
Marc:And now they're giving away hours to everybody.
Marc:Comedy Central now has hours.
Marc:And the hours on Comedy Central are like the new half hours.
Marc:And the half hours are the new premium blends.
Marc:There's tons of comics that are generating material.
Marc:Which is great.
Marc:I mean, the more comedy, the merrier.
Marc:But it's just interesting.
Marc:I think that if you really looked at the people that actually get into stand-up comedy just to be a stand-up comic, that the percentages are much different.
Marc:And the fact that you have somebody like Jake...
Marc:who is still out there doing an original hour every year or so and still being unique and authentic to what he created.
Marc:And relative to what's going on on either coast in these small communities of people that are seeing each other every night and think that they are defining what comedy is, it's so small compared to the big country of comedy.
Marc:I'm just excited to have this opportunity because I'm like everybody else.
Marc:I'm not in the loop.
Marc:I'm sort of isolated up here in the garage.
Marc:There have been periods in my life where I knew a comic early on, and then all of a sudden I thought, well, what happened to that guy?
Marc:Where's he been?
Marc:Well, Jake's been out there doing stand-up comedy for a living for, what, probably 25 years, 30 years.
Marc:Does he get the respect he deserves?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I was excited to hear from him.
Marc:I was excited to have him in the garage.
Marc:I think that unlike a lot of comics from that generation who seem to disappear or not generate enough material or be sort of roadie, that Jake was always a guy that truly had a unique point of view and a unique voice and a very specific and unique style.
Marc:And I guess I find that it's just part of the weird ebb and flow of comedy that younger people make choices about which comics are accepted into the click now or which comics are accepted into their sense of what comedy history is.
Marc:I think it tends to be a little bit elitist, a little bit peculiar.
Yeah.
Marc:But I'll tell you, I got a lot of respect for guys like Jake who are out there busting their ass, still doing the job of stand-up comic.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know about this retiring thing.
Marc:I don't know that I can do it.
Marc:You're not retiring.
Marc:No, I can't afford to retire, and I don't think I... I'm not sure I ever will.
Guest:I don't want to retire.
Guest:What does it mean?
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:You're going to do... I already am doing a thing that I like doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, if I could...
Guest:In comedy, you don't really retire.
Guest:You just start getting paid less and less and less until finally it's so just, why don't you keep it?
Marc:Why don't you just keep it?
Marc:I'll just sit down and be over here.
Marc:But that guy, this is his dream over here to build this house.
Marc:And now all he does is drill and blow and nail.
Marc:And he's got dogs that bark.
Marc:And I don't resent him, but sometimes he suggested I put an on-air sign outside of the garage facing him.
Marc:Then he would respect when that came on?
Marc:Yeah, supposedly.
Marc:But he's retired.
Marc:I'm sure he's got something else to do, some other arranging or building.
Guest:I'd put the on-air sign out there and then get the motion sensors, get a noise sensor.
Guest:So whenever he makes noise, the on-air sign goes on.
Marc:Condone him to his house by suggestion.
Marc:In the garage, Jake Johansson, a person I've watched do comedy for as long as I've been doing comedy.
Marc:I believe I did a show that you hosted.
Marc:It's a long time.
Marc:Didn't you host a show that I was on?
Marc:I know it's a tough question.
Marc:Didn't you host Two Drink Minimum?
Guest:Oh, Two Drink Minimum, yes.
Guest:Yes, I did host that show.
Guest:I knew that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:A lot of people did that show.
Guest:That was a really big thing.
Guest:I mean, I was hosting it, so it was a fun job for me, but then a lot of people who did it, like you and- Everyone did it.
Guest:Brett Butler, and I mean, a lot of people went on and had huge success after that, but I mean, it was just one of those kind of like everybody does that show at that time, and then so-
Marc:There seem to be more of those shows.
Marc:They have the premium blend now, but people don't realize that they always had at least... There were more of those shows when we were younger.
Marc:Basic cable showcase shows that everyone did.
Guest:Yeah, well, and that one was a... You know, they made 26 of them.
Guest:It wasn't like Evening at the Imp...
Guest:Sorry, he's cranking it up over there.
Guest:He missed a spot.
Marc:You know, it gives a little texture to the podcast.
Guest:I can hear it from outside of the headphones.
Guest:I don't know if people can hear it on the headphones.
Guest:Now it may sound like we're just crazy.
Marc:Well, no, yeah, that's true.
Marc:Now we're just going to draw attention to it.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:We are crazy.
Marc:But yeah, there's more shows like that.
Marc:But I remember when I got to San Francisco, I moved to San Francisco, I guess, in 1992.
Marc:You were long gone, but mythic in that region.
Guest:Mythic is nice.
Guest:That sounds nice.
Guest:It sounds nice when people say that.
Guest:No!
Guest:Yeah, I had started there in 82.
Guest:That's the nice thing about listening to your show, is you kind of get perspective of like, this is what, I know what I was doing then, and now I'm listening to what everybody else was doing then, and I'm kind of building that big flow chart in my...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Brain about where everybody is and what they do.
Guest:Because you have this thing with a lot of people where it's like Mark Maron.
Guest:You're like Zellig.
Guest:Like Mark Maron.
Guest:No, he's the LA Comedy Store guy.
Guest:No, Mark Maron's a Boston guy.
Guest:No, I remember Mark Maron from San Francisco.
Guest:I am that guy.
Guest:I am like selling.
Guest:Because that was how I knew you from, you know, I would come back to San Francisco and work after I had moved to L.A.
Guest:And I think we you were kind of passing through.
Guest:And so we might have done a gig or two together.
Marc:I think the one time it was weird.
Marc:The only time I ever remember really talking to you was for some it was in a parking lot of one of the improvs.
Marc:And I don't remember what it was, but I remember it was not a happy talk.
Guest:Well, the parking lot conversation is always sort of the angle.
Guest:Just before we go home, let me just pinch this off.
Marc:But you said something.
Marc:I've tried to paraphrase it about something about you go to Hollywood.
Marc:Do you know where I'm going with this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, this is a kind of a conversation that I had with Tom Rhodes when we were talking.
Guest:He had his sitcom thing that didn't work out where you get down there and you're going to do your own show and you're so grateful and you think everybody else is smart and they're going to help you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They tell you, no, no, no, you don't know what's best.
Guest:Trust us.
Guest:We're going to make it better.
Guest:And then the show tanks and they all go on to another job and you go back into the dugout and wait for your next at bat.
Guest:And it's like, oh, what just happened?
Guest:And it feels like you come to Hollywood and everybody loves you and you get invited to this great party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're in there and you get a shrimp and somebody brings you a drink and you talk to a beautiful girl and you get her phone number.
Guest:And then somebody else says, hey, come over here.
Guest:I want to show you something.
Guest:You go out this door and you're in the alley and you can't get back in.
Guest:And you walk around the front and they don't know who you are.
Guest:You're not on the list anymore.
Guest:And it's like your shrimp is terrible.
Guest:And you I should have got more shrimp.
Guest:Hit the shrimp hard when you're in the party.
Guest:That's my advice to everybody.
Guest:Coming from San Francisco, you know, everybody hates LA and they feel like it's soulless and terrible.
Guest:And then you move here and something inside you dies and it doesn't bother you anymore.
Guest:You know, it's like, and you don't really miss the part.
Guest:You sound sad to people who still have that part of themselves.
Guest:Like, oh, that'll be terrible when I lose that.
Guest:But when it actually does die, you don't miss it at all.
Marc:You're like, it's nice here.
Marc:I'm happy.
Guest:It's warm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People are superficial, but look at their cleavage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you were like a defining member of that, you know, that big sort of first wave of San Francisco comedy.
Marc:There was definitely a thing happening there when you got there.
Marc:Am I right?
Guest:I moved there.
Guest:There was no I moved from the Midwest and there was no comedy scene in the Midwest.
Guest:There were clubs in Chicago that I that I'd only heard about.
Guest:I'd only heard about Zaney's Iowa.
Guest:And I was going to college.
Guest:And what was the original plan?
Guest:Well, I met this guy when I was in college doing this play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which then was made into a movie with Jim Belushi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so the guy who played the Jim Belushi part, and I played the, I guess it was Rob Lowe part, and he and I got to be friends.
Guest:And he supposedly was a comic in Chicago.
Guest:He was 10 years older than me, and I was 20 at the time.
Guest:You'd probably be good in Mamet.
Marc:Well, it was fun.
Marc:You've got a good clip for that conversation, for that rhythm, I bet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was good, and yeah, well, that was a key experience for me, that whole play, because I met this guy who was a comic.
Guest:First time I had sex was with the woman who played the person opposite me in the movie or in the play.
Marc:First play you ever did?
Guest:Yeah, first play.
Guest:Well, I guess I did a play maybe in high school or something.
Guest:What were you studying to be?
Guest:I was studying to be, at that time, I started off to be an engineer, or a veterinarian.
Guest:I switched to chemical engineering, because I was good in science and math.
Guest:I was a valedictorian, co-valedictorian at my high school.
Guest:So I was really a smart kid.
Marc:So much promise, Mark, so much promise.
Guest:You still got chops?
Guest:You still got math chops?
Guest:I was explaining to my wife yesterday about why the moon looks bigger when it comes up.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's up in the sky high because of how much atmosphere.
Guest:She could understand you.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:But she wanted to argue with me.
Guest:That's how she does it.
Guest:She wants me to explain something and then argues with me at the same time.
Marc:That doesn't sound right.
Guest:Like why she's right.
Guest:But I don't.
Marc:Anyway, that's that's in the veterinarian thing.
Marc:Do you come from animals?
Marc:I liked animals, but... But like Iowa's?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, we had a family vet, and I went out and hung out with him.
Guest:I can't believe I still wanted to be a veterinarian after I followed a big animal vet, like All Creatures Great and Small.
Guest:Remember that book?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I followed this vet around to farms and watched him put on a rubber glove and shove it up inside of a cow to check and see if the calf was okay, and I still wanted to be a vet.
Guest:But then when I got...
Guest:to to college you know i'm hanging out with the other pre-vet people i realized i'm not like them they're not like so i thought i'll switch to chemical engineering what were they like pre-vet people were very farmy oh really it was so it wasn't like i love animals i just want to help dogs it was like no we got to get the help that cow and we i've birthed a few cows i know but but now i'd like to really get into deep into how that all goes on and what you know how to make it
Guest:not your bag it wasn't my like i where's the dog people the cat people they weren't how do i tell a kid that his wizard's not gonna live yeah that's more what i was kind of into so yeah um and so then you moved into engineering or chemicals or yeah and then i auditioned for this play i had a friend who said oh you should audition for that and so i did and i got it and yeah they have the director and the
Guest:guy who was playing opposite of me worked at this restaurant, so I got a job at the restaurant.
Guest:I mean, it was sort of the death spiral of everything.
Guest:I lost my virginity, I quit living in the dorm, I moved off campus, and I got a job at this restaurant.
Marc:Baptism into the counterculture.
Guest:Two years later, I'm dropping out of college to go to San Francisco with this guy who was supposedly a comic in Chicago.
Guest:But the plan was I was going to drop out, save a little money.
Guest:He was going to go out, get an apartment, and then I would come out and we'd be roommates.
Guest:But he freaked out and came back before.
Guest:I've already dropped out of college and told my parents and my advisor and everybody else.
Guest:So it was like, when you're 20, 21.
Guest:Under his tutelage.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like, I know what I'm doing.
Guest:This guy's helping me.
Guest:And now I'm moving out by myself and staying with my cousin that I sort of barely knew.
Guest:But I couldn't stay at her house because her apartment was too small.
Guest:So I'm staying with her gay friend and his lesbian roommate.
Marc:And this is all new to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we're staying right on Church and Market Street, which is pretty close to the Castro.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I'm like in town and I, you know, I'm hanging around with the theater people in Iowa, so I had a pierced ear and it was kind of- You had the little round glasses and the haircut?
Guest:I had the round glasses.
Guest:I mean, I had like a baby face.
Marc:I totally looked like- Didn't you have that new wave haircut too?
Guest:Yeah, it was so like- You were like fresh meat.
Guest:I so looked like bait.
Guest:I looked like bait on the hook.
Guest:And so this guy, so I'm staying in this apartment, and this gay guy, I'm saying, so if I'm going to walk around, he's like, hey, if you're walking around, you want to get a beer?
Guest:You know where they have a good mixed crowd of gays and straight people?
Guest:Because I'm thinking I'm a hip 21-year-old.
Guest:You don't always think you're so growing up.
Guest:He says, you could just go down to this place, The Midnight Sun.
Guest:I don't know if you ever saw that bar, but it's not...
Guest:straight at all they only the only flowers they have are those the ones with the yellow the red palm thing and the yellow penis that sticks out of it and it's all Joan Rivers clips in there and it's all guys there's nobody in there but guys and you're in there and you order a drink and then it's like oh I gotta get out of here this is not where I'm supposed to be this is not how did the guy freak out though like you just the guy who you went out there with
Guest:He was 10 years older than me, said he was a Vietnam vet.
Guest:Was he a comic?
Guest:Since then, then I get out there and I'm doing comedy, but it takes like a year before I know Becky at the Holy City Zoo and I know anybody where I can kind of ask, so now it's...
Guest:Now it's a year after the fact when I'm saying, hey, this guy, you remember this guy?
Guest:He came out here, he did some sets.
Guest:They don't know who he is.
Guest:Then it's five, six years before I go to Chicago and I'm working at Zaney's where he said he started and they don't really know him there either, but they could have forgotten him.
Guest:Maybe he did a few sets.
Marc:Yeah, he just disappeared.
Guest:Yeah, I talked to him a few times after that because he kind of got me started, so I'm grateful, but he was just a complete...
Guest:Liar.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe not a liar, but I just went like, who was he?
Marc:He was using you to maybe give him a little push to do what he wanted to do.
Marc:Like he said, I'm this guy.
Marc:And then you were like, let's go.
Marc:And then you went and he's like, I'm not that guy.
Guest:He totally freaked out and was not that guy.
Guest:Then when he came back before I left, he ran up some bills on my phone.
Marc:He stayed at my house.
Guest:At the end, eventually he paid me back in his...
Marc:whatever step that is yeah yeah oh he did yeah he got sober and he made me the dough back that he it was some small like at the time it was a big deal like 300 bucks but but now 300 oh he got you know got closure good for him he really did me a solid favor so who is that guy I mean who was the uh like at that time what was San Francisco like because I know that like you know Bobcat had left Boston and Kevin Meaney had left Boston and Dana Gould had left Boston and Tom Kenny had left Boston and then there were people like you who showed up there and DeGeneres was
Guest:Well, I got there before that.
Marc:You did?
Guest:I got there.
Marc:You were a kid.
Guest:Kevin Meady might have been.
Guest:I was 21, and it was in 1982.
Guest:First time I went on stage would have been March.
Guest:So I'll be 30 years since the first time I went on stage in the beginning of next year.
Guest:You're a few years older than me.
Guest:What are you, 50?
Guest:51.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:This other guy and my, our plan was based on a Time Magazine article that he used to carry around with him about Robin Williams getting his start at the Holy City Zoo.
Guest:He had it in his wallet?
Guest:Well, it's just like, you know when you watch a movie and two guys have some half-baked idea of how they're going to get into show business?
Guest:It's like, it says right here, he started out at the Holy City Zoo.
Guest:So that's where we're going to go.
Guest:It's going to be in the phone book.
Guest:You know, there's no internet, so you've got to just look stuff up in the phone book or the newspaper and you go like, I...
Guest:So I went out there, and then I went on at the Holy City Zoo.
Guest:The first place I went on, though, was Cobbs.
Guest:I called up, and there was this guy, John Cantu, who was the manager, and I'm asking about when the open mic starts.
Guest:The Holy City Zoo must have been fucking amazing, though.
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:Well, so Robin Williams was already gone and doing his thing, but there was Jeremy Kramer and Stephen Pearl and Billy Jay and Dr. Gonzo and who else?
Guest:Paula Poundstone was headlining and Dana Carvey.
Guest:A. Whitney Brown, Kevin Pollack.
Guest:You know, those are all the guys who were headlining.
Guest:And then when you start to get MC gigs, you get to MC.
Guest:So you do your show and then you watch Dana Carvey do six shows during the week.
Marc:From right next to him.
Marc:Because the Holy City City seated like 12 people.
Marc:That place was insane.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, that was, I mean, I've done shows in there where it's like, I'm the host of the open mic, and it starts off, and there's four people there.
Guest:And there's so many, you know, there's 20, 30 comics going to go on.
Guest:And so there's four people there, and then it fills up to 100 people, and then it goes down slowly, slowly, and then there'll be six people there.
Guest:And then four of them will decide to leave and the other two don't realize that they missed their chance.
Guest:So those four people leave and now it's two people sitting there.
Guest:And there's guys always on stage going, no, just don't go.
Guest:There's one more guy.
Guest:Just please, just don't go.
Guest:Because when they leave, the show's over and people are in the back like, do you think you can make them stay till I go on and do my set?
Marc:And they really want to go on.
Marc:I remember that feeling of like, just keep them here.
Marc:Just don't let them go.
Marc:Because there's still a difference between standing up on that stage and two people and sitting at the bar and saying, just hang out a minute.
Marc:Let me tell you this thing.
Guest:Well, and there's, yeah, and there's also a difference between those two people who are in the audience drinking beer in a nightclub and you just walking up to two strangers at a bus stop and going, hey, here's some ideas that I, you know.
Marc:It's not much of a difference, but there's a slight difference.
Guest:Yeah, the one is show business and the other one is homelessness.
Marc:both can be irritating though yeah so all right so then that all goes down and uh but you stayed there for a while right because you were like a big act i mean you started to do i'm not trying to put that in the past tense i didn't mean to be condescending or rude you still are no that went completely over my head and then it's nice for you to go back and really point out this is where i insulted you
Marc:I didn't mean to because I saw you on your last Letterman.
Marc:That was your 40th Letterman?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it was fucking amazing.
Marc:You're always amazing.
Marc:That's nice of you to say that.
Marc:But you're a unique comic.
Marc:No one does.
Marc:It's very difficult to do what you do comedically.
Marc:You're not like a joke guy.
Marc:It's always long form.
Marc:It always comes back around.
Marc:You have a certain style to what you did.
Marc:Now, when you started out, was that what it was?
Guest:No, I mean, everybody's sort of terrible when they start out and you kind of figure out who you are.
Guest:I feel like I had a fast turnaround for the time.
Guest:But when I started, there wasn't really a lot of comedy clubs around the country.
Guest:There's a lot of comedy clubs in the Bay Area and you could really make a living.
Guest:working three weekends a month just in the San Francisco where you could sleep in your own bed and drive out to do the shows.
Guest:Right, the satellite gigs.
Guest:And then I would go to Boston for three weeks or four weeks and couch surf and do some gigs or go up to Seattle.
Guest:But yeah, I started out there and it took me probably four years to sort of figure out what I was doing on stage.
Guest:And then once that happened, it was pretty fast.
Guest:Like a year and a half later, I won the San Francisco Comedy Competition, which at the time was a huge deal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you could headline all the clubs in the Bay Area.
Guest:You were an instant headliner there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And draw.
Marc:By the time I did it, it was starting to wind down.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you remember who was in your finals?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:I think it was Eddie Strange.
Guest:I think Dana Gould might have been in that year.
Guest:And I.
Guest:I'm not positive.
Marc:What do you think about, like, when I went to San Francisco, I was there for two years and it was in the 90s already.
Marc:But there's something about what that city, how that city supports comedy that really, because you look at the comics that sort of came out of there and they're all very thoughtful.
Marc:They're very unique.
Marc:They're not, they're not, it's not like New York where you're on a defensive all the time and you're just punching jokes.
Marc:There's an environment there that sort of wants you to indulge yourself.
Guest:Well, New York is very, I find it to be kind of combaty.
Guest:The guys who come out of there, they're used to kind of, you go on and you talk to the crowd and you deal with them.
Guest:And in San Francisco, there was more, I think, and I think it was just the sensibility of the comedians as well.
Guest:I mean, it's the people who own the comedy club, but the comedians, they had their own kind of whatever, cliquish, snobbish, whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:However, you can put a positive spin in on it and a negative spin on it, but they put an emphasis on trying to be creative and be yourself or do something different.
Guest:I mean, the only real way that you can do something different is to be yourself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's true, isn't it?
Guest:I think it's true, but what do I know?
Marc:You know a lot.
Marc:You've lived a long time already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See, now that, I don't think you realized was an insult, but that actually hurt.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I mean, at some point.
Guest:No, no, I know what you mean.
Guest:You have a wisdom.
Guest:You get to be a certain age.
Guest:I'm 47.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So do you feel like this thing where people ask you how old you are and you almost feel like you're lying when you tell them?
Marc:Yes, because I don't see myself as a grown person.
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Marc:I'm not surrounded by things that alert me to the fact that I'm aging.
Marc:I do not have children.
Marc:But, you know, so I think that's one real indicator.
Marc:Like as that kid grows, you're like, I must be growing.
Marc:I must be getting older.
Marc:But I don't have that.
Marc:I have ex-wives, you know, and I have cats.
Marc:I don't.
Marc:The only thing that I have that indicates I'm getting older is my face and aches and pains.
Right.
Guest:Well, in the grind of the – there is that – most people have this job where they have to deal with these people, like it or not.
Guest:There's the guy that you like and there's the people you don't like.
Guest:For years.
Guest:For years and it just grinds on and on.
Guest:Ours, that's more of a kind of a changing carnival.
Guest:But over time, there's that like I'm –
Guest:in the hotel, sad in my underpants again.
Guest:You know, listening to your show, there's sort of a theme amongst comedians about the, and then I was crying in the airport.
Guest:And, you know, I've heard a couple of them, like Kathleen Madigan and a couple of other people mentioned that.
Guest:It's just like, oh yeah, you know, I'm glad you said that because
Guest:It's sort of a weird thing that I think most people don't have, but all comedians are like, sometimes you're flying there.
Guest:Sometimes you got up at 3.30 and you're at the airport at 4, 5 in the morning and you just feel like you made a mistake in your life and you're sad.
Guest:Or you're coming home and something terrible happened or the last show there was an argument about how many people were sitting.
Guest:It's like, oh God, and you're just sitting there crying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just a little bit.
Guest:Just a little bit.
Guest:Not like you're not putting on some terrible show where you're spitting and snotting and everything, but you're just having a little weep.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:There are those moments where you leave a show.
Marc:Have you had that moment where you get done with the show, you do a great show even, and then you're walking back to the hotel with nobody and you get to the hotel and it's like, what just happened?
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's your life.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's the weirdest feeling to me, the one that kind of doesn't make me cry, but I think it's just a funny part of this job is you fly somewhere.
Guest:So you get up early in the morning, you go to the airport.
Guest:You don't really talk to anyone except for how many bags are you checking and do you want to drink on the plane.
Guest:And you don't talk to anyone all day.
Guest:And sometimes you're at in the city, you wake up in the morning, you barely talk to anyone all day long.
Guest:And then they say your name and you go talk to 300 people for an hour.
Guest:And then you don't talk to anyone else till the next day.
Guest:Yeah, it's just sort of a kind of like this is I talk to all my I've all my conversations at one time in an hour during the day and then the rest of the time.
Guest:That's free.
Marc:I don't talk to you get that thing where do you I mean, like I've gotten to this point where I don't I like being in hotel rooms and I don't know when that happened.
Marc:I like it's quiet.
Marc:It's controllable.
Marc:There's you know, none of it is really my responsibility.
Marc:I like it.
Guest:I do, there is a part of being on the road and the walking around, listening to, I like to listen to your podcast or either glasses or it's just some kind of listening to some talking or an audio book and I'm walking around and I'm seeing the city and I'm just in my own little world.
Guest:Yeah, I like, yes, I definitely, that's a good thing.
Guest:But I've been some of the places, so listening to you, you know, that there's a few places that you go where it's like the club is great and you have a great time, but it's like a challenge, like that Edmonton gig.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I was there.
Guest:I love the club.
Guest:I love the people there.
Guest:The other comics were nice.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I can do the Late Show Friday.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:You know, we're going to just surf this kind of wave of whatever it is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Cranky, drinky.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're polite drunks in a way.
Marc:You know, Canadians, there's something about the drunks there.
Marc:They're more like childish.
Guest:They're not like, you're an asshole.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:Well, it's the nice thing about Canada is it's one of the few places where if you disagree with someone, you could actually get in a fist fight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the nice thing about it.
Guest:You know, they're not going to shoot you or kill you or stab you.
Guest:It's just like, no, I'm just going to punch you in the head because I disagree with you and then we'll be finished.
Marc:It's about hockey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when you go back to that cowboy hotel room, I had a hotel, you know, they put you in the hotel room.
Guest:Are you talking about the Mall of America or the mall, the big mall?
Guest:Yeah, where the hotel is in the thing, Fantasyland, so I'm on the cowboy floor, and it's a cowboy thing.
Marc:Yeah, I'm on that floor too.
Guest:The door has a big horse.
Guest:I get to the room, and it's like there's two queen beds, and then two bunk beds.
Guest:So I go back downstairs, and I go, this is just...
Guest:You know, nothing personal, but it just makes me sad to be in the room.
Guest:Like, I don't have two boys that would be sleeping in there, but just that those two bunk beds are just making me sad.
Guest:And she's like, we can't.
Guest:That's the only room we have for tonight.
Guest:Maybe tomorrow we can move, but I can't move either.
Guest:The next day, I'm not going to move hotel rooms.
Guest:It's just like, look, I already got out all my stuff and put it away.
Marc:Did you sleep in a bunk bed?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I thought about it.
Guest:I slept in the other two beds and I thought, maybe that's what I'll do.
Guest:That'll be my project this week is I'll sleep in all the beds in my room.
Marc:And then you get up.
Marc:I'll turn the air on for a minute.
Marc:You get up and...
Marc:You walk right out into that mall.
Marc:Did you go anywhere?
Guest:I got the feature acts, the other two acts actually were nice enough to take me out for lunch on Saturday, so I got out.
Guest:But it was, you know, the time to go when you're going to have good attendance and the club's going to be happy, they're going to make money, they can pay you your thing and whatever, is dead of winter.
Guest:That's when people want to go out and see a comedy show.
Guest:So it was 28 degrees below zero.
Guest:It's just like the moon.
Guest:When we're driving in from the airport and I see somebody walking, I'm like, should we help them?
Yeah.
Guest:Do you think we should stop and see if that person is going to die?
Marc:They're covered with gear, winter gear.
Guest:Well, yeah, it's like it's like that.
Guest:The thing, you know, remember that John Carpenter thing?
Marc:It's like, I think we should go.
Marc:She may be in trouble.
Marc:So now.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Because here's the other time I remember, you know, spending time with you.
Marc:There was a I auditioned for you.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:I auditioned for a show that you were doing.
Guest:Well, I've had a few.
Guest:This is the other thing.
Guest:This is the thing I like about your show.
Guest:I heard your Montreal speech, which is great.
Guest:People are listening to this.
Guest:They should definitely listen to that if you want to know.
Guest:What it's like to be a comedian when you're just sort of beat down and you the people who are supposed to care about you are like, we don't know what to do.
Guest:It's like, no, that is the only thing that's your job is to always know what to do.
Guest:You can't say you don't know what to do.
Guest:And then it's like, OK, so now you got to invent.
Guest:your life a new thing so why don't you have your own tv show well i had a chance to have my own tv show a few times i mean there's a lot of possible answers and the only answers you can give sound like they're defensive or jealous or or or you know rationalizations somehow yeah yeah i got how how i guess i mean i just can only blame bad judgment on the part of others yeah i mean that's the nicest way to say yeah i'm good and they're wrong yeah yeah
Marc:How many did you have?
Guest:When I first came to L.A., I immediately, it was a little before everybody was getting development deals, but it was like, you're great.
Guest:We're going to put you in a show.
Guest:NBC has these writers.
Guest:They've got a show that Brandon Tartikoff at the time likes.
Guest:They're his friends.
Guest:They got this deal.
Guest:We're going to put you in that show.
Guest:So I'm like, great.
Guest:And then his daughter had a car accident and he was away for a while.
Guest:And then when he came back, he saw what we had done and he was like, I think we're going to pass on that.
Guest:And then you may have come in.
Guest:And then I had one at Fox with my friend Tom Wilson that we actually – it was supposed to be a presentation, which was – that was the beginning of – No, this was during casting.
Marc:I mean, they were casting a pilot.
Guest:So this might have been Berg and Schaefer, two writers from The Letterman Show, wanted to develop a show, and they liked me, and I liked them, and so I met with them, and I –
Guest:we sort of collaborated on the idea of the show and I was going into auditions and then I actually had to audition then.
Guest:So I've been going in and meeting with them a couple of times a week and going to read other actors for the other parts.
Guest:And then the network says, you know, we'd like you just, it's not a big deal, but we'd like you to come in and read against a couple of other people for the part of Jake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, I was like, look, I don't mind.
Guest:I can come in and I'll show you what I'm going to do.
Guest:But if you're going to have other people read for the part of Jake, I mean, I,
Guest:that hurts it just hurts jake johansson right yeah yeah it's like you mean jake the jake that the writers like that i've been in the room kind of we're talking about jokes to put in the show and who would be great for the other characters yeah you mean that jake yeah yeah me you mean me we would just like to to have something to compare you to because there may be somebody who does you better that's all i mean just it's like wait it hurts that hurts oh god and then what happened to it
Guest:My manager was able at the time to negotiate them to like, look, why don't you have Jake come in and read?
Guest:And if you don't like him, then you can read other people.
Guest:But let's not let's let's wait and decide if you need to see other people until after you've seen him.
Guest:And so then that solved the problem.
Guest:They were OK and it was all OK.
Guest:But so you probably came in and read for the other guy.
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is the.
Guest:So I've had a few of those deals where you're on the show and now your other actors are coming in and.
Guest:reading with you yeah yeah and you have guys who you know are great and the and the producers like but the network wants some they've already got a deal with someone whose show didn't work out but they're paying them anyway so it won't cost them anything to stick them into your show yeah and that's who they want you to take and it's just like really you already made a mistake with this person yeah and now you want to put them in this show i mean i don't think people realize how much politics involves and is involved in this
Guest:And then some of it is like, well, I think we should take that person and then we can get who we want for this other guy.
Marc:Yeah, it's all politics.
Marc:And then, you know, you're just like you said before, which I thought was is so right.
Marc:It's like, how much life do we have?
Marc:I mean, when you're building a show around a guy who's got a life.
Marc:I'm not a guy that makes I don't build I'm not creating surrealistic landscapes I mean if I got a deal to do something it's going to be based on that chunk of my life and then when that goes south it's like I guess I gotta live more and hope I don't get too old to do this
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're the guy who has to wait to.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They just go on to the next thing.
Marc:And you're like, all right, so that chunk of my life is now garbage.
Guest:So I got a little bit cranky about this thing when I had to audition.
Guest:And one of the executives, not from the network, who I was supposed to read for, but the studio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's all these levels of helpers.
Guest:Was like, you seem like you're taking this a little personally.
Guest:And I was like.
Guest:And I said, can we go outside and just talk for just a second?
Guest:And we will go outside.
Guest:And I kind of explained like.
Guest:I'm the only I'm the only person in the room who's not getting paid right now while we're auditioning other actors you're all getting paid and if this show doesn't go you still this is your job and you'll just go do another part of your job but if this show doesn't first of all I have to get on this show because I'm not technically I don't have a deal to even be paid for for this little bit but if this show doesn't go it's going to take me six years to have another chance to do another show so it is in that sense I hope you can understand slightly more important to me laughter
Guest:than it is to you it's very personal to me how good this is i want it to be really good yeah because if it's not really good i'm i'm going back i'm going back to the happy hut i don't mind the happy hut i like it they know me there yeah it's free drinks yeah
Marc:But, you know, I want it to be good.
Marc:It's personal to me.
Marc:And how that guy responded to that.
Guest:It was a woman.
Guest:And she was very... She kind of got it after.
Guest:I didn't get mad.
Guest:And so she appreciated that I didn't get mad, I think.
Guest:And she sort of... I feel like she really didn't understand that.
Guest:I was explaining something to her that she only kind of got it from her point of view.
Guest:And once I said that, you know, it was all great.
Guest:Because I wasn't mad about it.
Guest:I was just kind of like, yeah, it is personal to me.
Guest:And I was explaining.
Guest:So we were all okay about that.
Guest:But...
Guest:yeah are you bitter about it are you bitter about where you're at yeah i don't think so i mean i kind of feel like if i could sign the piece of paper right now if there was if there was like you you sign this piece of paper and you'll sell out every live show you do that's under 500 people in attendance i would say yeah i'll sign that piece of paper yeah i mean that's fun
Guest:You go to the comedy club and they're happy to see you and the audience, it's sold out and people like you and you're having a good time.
Guest:You can make a nice living.
Guest:I mean, I have a house that's six blocks from the beach.
Guest:I wake up, I sit up in my bed, I can see the Pacific Ocean.
Guest:My wife is awesome.
Guest:I couldn't have got a wife like that if I wasn't.
Guest:A veterinarian?
Guest:Funny, yeah.
Guest:The veterinarian doesn't get to marry this lady.
Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, my daughter's hilarious.
Guest:It's really I have a very by any.
Guest:This is the weird thing in show businesses because they get you into this world of like, you know, I know you ask that question not not out of you.
Guest:You're like, really, it's like, how do you feel?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But most people think like, are you bitter because?
Guest:You really it's not so good what happened to you.
Guest:You know, you didn't get to be Robin Williams.
Guest:Well, not many people get to be Robin Williams by any standards of success in the world.
Guest:You know, when people come up to you after the show and say, oh, it's too bad that, you know, you don't have your own show.
Guest:It's like, you know, it would be great to have my own show.
Guest:I'd love that.
Guest:I'd love to have a career in movies.
Guest:I'd love to be doing a podcast.
Guest:It's got a bunch of listeners and selling coffee.
Guest:I'd love to be doing that.
Guest:You can do that.
Guest:Yes, I'm taking your seminar after this.
Guest:When we're done with this.
Guest:We can make that happen.
Guest:Yeah, because the homemade aspect of it, the idea of, like, I'm going out.
Guest:Jerry Seinfeld's show was awesome.
Guest:It was an awesome show, and I loved watching it.
Guest:No one ever said on Thursday night, you know what, I'm going to put, I'm going to stick $20 into the TV to watch that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when you go to Edmonton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To the mall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those guys, they got a babysitter.
Guest:They left their house.
Guest:They paid $20 to come and watch your show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And afterwards, they come up to you and tell you how much fun they had.
Guest:Sometimes they want to buy a T-shirt or a CD.
Guest:Some people want to just hug you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not bitter.
Guest:It started off as a little rationalization, I think, about like I like doing the live shows.
Guest:But the reality is now the proof is in the pudding.
Guest:When a guy like Jerry Seinfeld has the success of his TV show, all the money he could want and the ability to go on TV and do whatever else he would want.
Guest:But he wants to go out on the road and do stand-up comedy shows.
Guest:I rest my case.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I rest my case.
Marc:I think that as you get to, just from my own point of view, when you get older, and I'm talking about me, not you, that there's some part of you, because of what we do, and obviously I don't know what your situation is, but there's some part of you that realizes, like, I got nothing put away.
Guest:Well, you know, and I, I got a little bit put away.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's part, I think that the Seinfeld model in terms, in terms of popularity, that's one thing, but there, there comes a point like you're talking about before where you're on the road and there are those moments where you're like, I, in, in these weird dark moments, my darkest moments revolve around me thinking like, yeah, it would be just good to have a restaurant job that there's part of me that thinks that if I just had the job that was consistent,
Marc:Then I'd somehow be taken care of later.
Marc:There's something about having money saved because you made a lot of money.
Marc:That's very attractive.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, the idea of like I'm sitting on a pile.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That means that no matter what happens, I'm financially OK.
Guest:That that would be an awesome feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really.
Guest:The size of that pile doesn't have to be as big as you think it has to be.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:All right.
Guest:First of all.
Guest:And second of all.
Guest:You know, there was the boom and the bust of comedy clubs and some guy's got a club and he's going out of business because it doesn't work to give away tickets to rowdy shot comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he's like, what are we going to do?
Guest:It's like, well, I don't know what you're going to do.
Guest:We'll get a karaoke machine or a mechanical bull or, I don't know, pool tables.
Guest:But I'm going to keep going.
Guest:I'm going to do... This is all I got.
Marc:Yeah, I own a bar.
Guest:Yeah, you're going to do whatever you do.
Guest:And I'm going to keep doing the same thing that I'm doing because I...
Guest:Like I said at the beginning, they may cut your pay, but people are always going to want to come somewhere where they sit down and listen to someone who makes them laugh for an hour.
Guest:I think that's true.
Guest:I mean, it's just like there's not going to be a time where people go, you know what?
Guest:Things are so terrible, I don't want to laugh anymore.
Guest:Or things are so great, I don't want to laugh anymore.
Guest:Either way, it's like, really?
Guest:We go here?
Guest:I feel like stand-up comedy is an undervalued art form in the sense that you get to see very accomplished performers
Marc:things yeah in a very tiny venue oh yeah and it's it's great it's electric it's fun i mean i love doing it i think that being that you were part of that original comedy boom that everyone talked about like i think i came in on the tail end of that well by the time i started getting paid to do comedy pretty much when you'd go on the road it was always this i don't know what happened this week you know last week was packed and you know i got to think that they were talking about a week that was somewhere in the mid 80s
Guest:Well, sometimes they were talking about like, I'm spinning it down so that when I tell you we didn't hit the bonus number.
Marc:But like at that time, like I remember hearing this about you that you were there.
Marc:You were this guy.
Marc:I don't know what these weird things stick in my head that you would you would put your mailing list cards on the tables.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I feel like you were like ahead of the curve.
Guest:I was ahead of the curve on that.
Guest:I had a website very early in a banner with the website on it, but I was putting mailing list cards on the table.
Guest:I took the mailing list in and now I've since entered them into the computer and now I've got on my website.
Guest:You can sign up for you still have your original mailing list.
Marc:I mean, from when you started touring.
Guest:Well, I have those cards went into the one that's on the computer.
Marc:No, no, I know, I know, but you still have those original names?
Guest:I still have those email lists.
Guest:Well, it's now in a computer that I just say all the people from Colorado, I want to send them an email, and it sorts them.
Marc:But you've kept the names.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And some of them have stayed with you.
Guest:Yes, they don't all drop.
Guest:Well, I mean, the mailing list thing, the email, you know, you've got to be on email and you've got to Facebook and Twitter.
Guest:Like, I got on Twitter as soon as I heard about it, so I still only have, like, less than 400 tweets, but my first tweet...
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:I just heard it on NPR, so I signed up for an account, and I thought, you're just supposed to tell people where you are.
Guest:That's the original thing.
Guest:People will follow you.
Guest:I didn't tell people I was on it.
Guest:So people sort of found me over time, and now more and more people are finding.
Guest:So you just want a way to tell people, I'm coming to the town, or here's a funny joke, or whatever.
Guest:But the first ones were like, I'm having a steak with my friend in New York City at this restaurant.
Guest:I mean, I could have totally been stalked.
Guest:But it was really just like, I'm broadcasting.
Guest:Please come and be with me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Nobody showed up.
Guest:But now they do.
Guest:They hear your thing and they come to the shows and stuff.
Guest:So I was an early adopter on that stuff.
Guest:But just figuring out, what do you do?
Guest:You try and get the website so that you've got video on it, podcast.
Guest:Now everybody's got a podcast.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're going to get one.
Marc:It's very easy to do.
Marc:And I'll help you out.
Guest:I'll help you do that.
Guest:Thanks for helping me with my podcast.
Guest:Who would I talk to?
Guest:My neighbor.
Guest:No, what do you mean?
Guest:It's my neighbor again.
Guest:No, I'm not.
Guest:I know who to talk to.
Guest:I know how to do it.
Guest:You do?
Guest:We're good with that?
Guest:You don't?
Guest:No, we're going to have to talk about that, but not now.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Marc:I mean, the great thing about doing this is that you can just be you.
Marc:And put it out in the world and see if people come to it.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Well, and that is the thing I feel like with Twitter also is better because it's just like, I'm just saying this.
Guest:And if you want to listen, you can.
Guest:And I can listen to you, but I don't have to listen to you.
Guest:And if you talk to me, then we can have a conversation.
Guest:Have you got into it?
Guest:Have you gotten into some Twitter scraps?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:I'm hesitant.
Guest:I don't want, I'm not an argue guy.
Guest:Like politics, I've got opinions, but my thing is I'm doing a comedy show where everybody's going to laugh.
Guest:And so I want, if you disagree with my opinion, I still want to point out something funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Marc:You're not an angry guy that's just going to leave me.
Guest:Well, just a grinder, preach to the choir, you know, if you vote for the guy who I vote for, we're going to have a good time.
Guest:But if you don't, then we got a problem.
Guest:That's not my show.
Marc:How much do you turn over?
Marc:I mean, do you do a new hour every year?
Guest:No, I mean, that's kind of the way they do it over in Europe.
Marc:Well, that's right, but it's different.
Guest:Those guys turn it over and they name their shows.
Guest:I mean, that's a separate conversation that you and I can have when we're done with this conversation because really, who gives a shit?
Guest:And that may be my podcast, Who Gives a Shit.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I do give a shit because there is something that the theater element of the year, and I'm not condescending to anybody, but I mean, writing jokes at work in bars, you know, is different than presenting a new hour that's themed at a festival.
Guest:Absolutely, but also I think they're dealing with a much smaller population base.
Guest:America is a huge country, and one of the reasons that we have such a great comedy scene is that it's not like Vaudeville where you can do the same 20 minutes for 20 years, but you can go back to a city and...
Marc:you've got some new material and the people it's not the same people coming to see you whereas when you go to a little theater in some little town in ireland that's true these are the people who saw you last year right you don't want to hear the same joke after six years of going back you're like joe you know you know the people so you find that there's a big turnover because i still worry about that i mean i turn over material a lot but you get this weird thing and i don't know how you work but there seems to be at any given point in your career this core chunk
Marc:That kind of is the thing in the middle.
Marc:And then you'll put some stuff on either side of it, and that's your new stuff.
Guest:Or then I've got the closer.
Guest:You've got the closer that works good.
Guest:I was a guy who didn't get a CD as soon as people were doing CDs because I kind of thought, I'm doing a show.
Guest:I don't need to do a CD.
Guest:And then I thought, well, I should do a CD because then I'll have this material document.
Guest:minute and i can go on and do new material but there it'll be this is what i did then right and but i didn't really i thought selling the cd after the show is going to be slightly creepy but it turns out too i but it turns out it turns out to be great yeah they love it i really like it i like standing at the table it gives me an excuse this is why i'm standing here to sell the cd you don't have to buy the cd but this means that i'm here so you could say hello to me i'm not just a creepy guy who's you know back in the day checking out chicks that i might be wanting to visit with after the show
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's also that element when I was younger that the rejection possible.
Marc:It's like when people walk by and they don't buy your CD or say hi.
Guest:That's the other thing is I don't care about that.
Marc:But I used to.
Marc:It's nice to have a little bit of dough.
Guest:That's why I didn't do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can get into the psychology too.
Guest:If this was such an awesome show, I'm going to sell a ton of CDs and then three people buy one.
Guest:So I got the CDs and then I'm working with a guy who's got a t-shirt.
Guest:So I see him sell more t-shirts and my whole act.
Guest:You can buy...
Guest:Not the one that I'm doing, but you can buy my whole act or you can buy one of his jokes on his shirt.
Guest:And people are buying the T-shirt.
Guest:So now.
Guest:Okay, I give up.
Guest:So I got a T-shirt now.
Marc:So I'm standing there with a T-shirt.
Marc:What's your T-shirt say?
Guest:My daughter said this thing when we were eating dinner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we were eating and she was laughing and she had food all over her face and she just goes, I am happy.
Guest:So I get a little bit to tell what I talk about.
Guest:I am happy and I'm I'm happy, too.
Guest:And, you know, I did it in the special that was on Showtime and I think it's still on Netflix.
Guest:This will take about an hour.
Guest:No, this new one called I Love You.
Guest:When did that come out?
Guest:It came out 2010.
Guest:And it aired on Showtime a ton.
Guest:And then it was live streaming on Showtime.
Guest:And it's been on Netflix.
Guest:And then you'll be able to buy the TV, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Anyway, so I am happy.
Guest:So I sell a shirt that my daughter said, I am happy.
Guest:So you can buy a shirt that says, I am happy.
Guest:How are those selling?
Guest:OK.
Guest:Some people, I got another one.
Guest:about another joke that's a little dirtier and then people that's that's the one that yeah you know it's like okay i want to take that out of my act this is now i'm circling back we're still i haven't i'm not going to leave for dead that question that you asked me five minutes ago which was which was you know you're you're on stage and you have this core chunk that you do and then you wrote the other stuff around it so one of my problems is you know you've got the closer so it's hard to find the new i'd like to have something at the end where it's like
Guest:that was fun yeah yeah and i'm gonna leave yeah yeah you know so yeah i like that's sort of old school show but some people are just happy with like i this is i've been talking long enough i'll see you later yeah you know that's sort of a new i kind of do that yeah i used to be a closer guy but now i just sort of like to trickle off into something poignant i like that i'm you know i may i'm as i said i'm gonna take your seminar so this is that's all gonna be but you don't want those the laughter of the people to be like
Marc:I guess we're done.
Guest:I guess that's it.
Guest:Why don't you folks just wipe off and I'm going to go.
Guest:I'll see you later.
Guest:Just whatever you do now.
Marc:I'll be in back.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'll still be out there with the CDs.
Guest:If you want a closer, it's on this CD.
Guest:I got a closer on this one.
Guest:So.
Guest:So the material that I have trouble letting go is the thing that's sort of built to the end.
Guest:And I feel like that's sort of the end of the show.
Guest:It's not always the same material, but that's when it kind of gets to be more personal about my relationship, my wife or whatever.
Guest:And then there's the t-shirt one, the joke that the t-shirt is on.
Guest:So it's hard to stop doing the t-shirt joke when it's like, I'm using this money to pay for new teeth for my kid.
Guest:So...
Marc:You don't bring it up on stage, Joe.
Marc:What?
Marc:I just work with a guy that brought the T-shirt up on stage.
Guest:Maybe you should take my seminar, Mark, because you've got to bring the T-shirt up on stage.
Guest:You do?
Guest:You hold up the T-shirt, you hold up the CDs, and then you have a joke about it.
Guest:You make a joke.
Guest:You hold it up and you have a joke.
Marc:I haven't done that.
Guest:Yeah, you have a joke, so it's actually part of the show.
Guest:And then if you've got two t-shirts, then the second joke is some version of maybe that's on a shirt too.
Marc:You didn't know that was going to be on a shirt.
Guest:But so people, you pull the shirt out, people laugh.
Marc:You sell them a shirt.
Marc:If they want a shirt, who knows?
Marc:I haven't done that.
Marc:I haven't brought the merch on stage.
Marc:Maybe I should.
Marc:Maybe I should do that.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Marc:No, I'm learning.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Why not?
Guest:Look, the biggest ass pain about the merch is you got to check your bag.
Guest:You got to carry this big bag.
Marc:You got to count however many.
Guest:How many do I take?
Guest:You got to figure out how many you're going to take.
Guest:So you're going to do all that shit and then you're not going to hold it up.
Guest:Like this is what the thing that you're going to buy looks like.
Marc:I don't want to bring the thing back with me.
Guest:This has to stay here.
Marc:I'm begging you.
Guest:Take your shirt.
Guest:If only so I don't have to pay $25 to check this bag on the way home.
Marc:I can't remember what Louie said.
Marc:Like he had talked to you, you know, because I know you did a show with him in Chicago, right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And he like he's he learned something from you, like about your your work ethic.
Marc:He saw you go on stage at the improv one night after somebody that just fucking destroyed.
Marc:And as opposed to, you know, try to jump on that energy, you just got up there and you did your stuff and you waited and then you ended up turning the whole fucking room around.
Guest:Well, that's nice.
Guest:That is a I am very flattered to hear that he's telling that story about me because I would tell that story about Larry Miller.
Guest:I saw Larry Miller do that one night at the Comedy Magic Club, where it was like, I thought at the beginning, people were so not getting him.
Guest:But it was like a freight train leaving the station, man.
Guest:He just, he would just do the joke.
Guest:And it would not really get a laugh.
Guest:And maybe that feeling, you know, when you're the comic on stage where it's sort of quiet and they know it was...
Guest:was a joke but maybe now they're going to insert but they don't insert because he's confident yeah and he's and he does the next joke and you're like holy cow this is going to be tough and it was like afraid by the end of the show it was like and people are throwing mail at him and it was insane he just destroyed the room and so i kind of i got i learned that lesson i think for myself from ray booker
Guest:Do you remember Ray Booker?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's a comic in San Francisco.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he's a black dude with a little mustache, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And kind of curled like a... And he had... People loved him, and he swore and motherfucker this, and we did this show, and we were driving back, and I said, you know...
Guest:you know, that was awesome.
Guest:You had such a great set.
Guest:I went up and I just got my, and his thing was, you know, you go up, they hired you to do your act.
Guest:So you go up and you do your act.
Guest:And then if they like your act, that's great.
Guest:But if they don't like your act, you can say to the guy, you hired me to do my act.
Guest:And that's what I did.
Marc:So that means so I understand that.
Guest:I mean, my job is not to make people laugh no matter what they're doing.
Guest:My job is to go in and do my act.
Guest:And sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I might change my material a little bit depending on, you know, if it's if it's a little bit of a crazy night or I might talk to the crowd a little bit.
Guest:I'm not going to go up and go.
Marc:hey now i'm mr super dirty guy or now i'm right no i you know no you can't i don't have that face yeah yeah pull my pants down whatever the most you can do is some some crowd work in the sense that like there is no real kind of there's no uh alternative act for this situation right yeah there's not a there's not another sometimes subtleties will be taken out if necessary
Guest:Well, I do feel like that's what I would say to audiences, which sounds glib or flip.
Guest:But if you want to see a better comedy show audience, laugh more.
Guest:Because the more you're laughing, the more asides the comedian will put in.
Guest:I mean, it's the more relaxed the guy on stage or woman on stage will become and the more kind of interesting and intricate and Byzantine the show becomes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because if you just sit there and you only laugh at the greatest hits, then the comic is going to go like, I'm going to shrink down.
Guest:I'm going to cut the tags out.
Guest:I'm doing my act, but I'm just cutting right to the fastballs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's kind of a horrible decision to make when you have to make it, isn't it?
Guest:Well, that feeling where you go, where you do the early show and it's unbelievable.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you've done 50 minutes and you didn't get to 10 minutes of your act.
Guest:Right, it's great.
Guest:And then the late show, you do that 50 minutes plus the other 10 that you didn't get to and you're still only at a half an hour.
Right.
Marc:And you got to act like it's just another show.
Guest:And it's just what happened.
Guest:It's just like you, these, the crowd is just that sort of jello, like whatever you throw into them, they're like, they absorb it.
Guest:That's the sound you hear.
Guest:But sometimes those crowds are having a great time.
Guest:That's the other thing that I would say is like,
Guest:you you're the performer you see all of the shows you're on stage and so you see the seven shows you do each week and you could rank them as to which one you thought the audience responded the most but if you also then pulled the audience as they left on a one to ten you think this what was a show they might be all the shows might be tens or the show that you thought was a ten of audience response compared to the other one they say that was about an eight and a half but the other show we felt like they were dead those people all think it was a ten
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Marc:Now, are your folks still around?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Are they happy with you?
Guest:Yeah, they are happy with me.
Guest:They weren't happy when I dropped out of college at 21 and moved to California to be a comedian, but they supported it and they were, you know, they supported it.
Guest:They were nice.
Guest:I didn't even realize until 10 years later that my mother had said to my father, you go and tell him he has to go back to college.
Guest:And my father said, I can go and tell him that, but he's still going to do what he's going to do, and you just won't get to talk to him for the next five years.
Guest:So what do you want me to do now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:my dad he's so smart and they were so and then they did it they stuck to the plan and were completely supportive i just and now having a kid if my kid was 21 when you're 21 how old's your kid she's seven but uh when when you're 21 you feel like you're all grown up and then now when you get to be even when you get to be 40 or 30 yeah
Guest:35 whatever you look at 21 year olds and you they're like so young they really are like if I had a kid who was 21 I don't think I could be as cool as my parents were yeah you know yeah you're gonna find out what kind of business were they in my dad was he was a black sheep of his family because he grew up his father my grandfather was a farmer who moved from Germany when he was 12 by himself and paid off his passage to his uncle he worked on the farm to pay it off and then by the time he retired he
Guest:He was farming a thousand acres, 600.
Guest:He owned himself.
Guest:He was just bootstrapped himself up.
Guest:And then my dad's brother and his two sisters and there's, they all were in farming or crop insurance or that kind of stuff.
Guest:And my dad went to, he went into army and then he went into college to became an engineer and he was a corporate vice president.
Guest:So he, he was a black sheep of his farm family to become a corporate guy.
Guest:And then I'm the black sheep of the corporate engineer guy to go and be a,
Guest:is there still a show business this is show business mark that's the great thing about it is is there still a johansson family farm uh no i mean you could go see the house where my uncle lived and that kind of stuff but not really not really my parents now live in north carolina oh really so when you when i go visit them like are your parents your parents are around yeah right so when you go visit them is are they still where you went to high school and my dad is back there
Marc:He took a 10-year pilgrimage to different places, but he ended up back where I grew up.
Marc:My mother's in Florida.
Marc:Florida.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:But when I go back home, yeah, Florida, what a trip, huh?
Marc:She loves to party.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Florida's a fucking trip.
Guest:I love New Orleans, and Florida has a little bit of that sort of...
Marc:party party stay up like go crazy i don't know but it's but it's really just like hot and sticky i don't know how p they convinced everyone like no this is i just don't know i used to you know kind of generalize about it like it's just old people whatever but then you go down there and you're like there is something fucking weird down here
Guest:I've had a great time now.
Guest:See, I'm just trying to PR us back into our gigs in Florida.
Guest:I've had a great time working in Florida.
Guest:You know, the clubs down there and the audiences are great.
Guest:But yeah, it's a it's a kind of a crazy like trip.
Guest:Any kid abducted from a campground.
Guest:Florida.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's always some kind of weird alligators eating people, you know, you know, child pornography rings, you know, weird, uh, you know, drug situation.
Marc:Scarface, right?
Marc:It's all fucking Florida.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what, Oh, before I get, before I forget this boom that everyone talked about that you were part of in the eighties.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Did you feel like... Was there a period there where you felt it crash?
Marc:And you were... When... Where you're like, uh-oh.
Guest:I looked over and I saw John Fox putting on his parachute.
Guest:And I said, I think we're in trouble.
Yeah.
Marc:But was there ever a period there where you were really frightened for your profession or your livelihood?
Guest:Well, you know, in the middle of there, you do a little part in a movie.
Guest:You got a TV show pilot.
Guest:So those things kind of offset some of the stuff.
Guest:I was lucky enough that I was getting...
Guest:I was sort of in a zone where I felt like I've been coming here for long enough that I'm still going to have a gig or I might have to, you know, every year you've got your 80% of your gigs that you did last year.
Guest:So you're going to do those again.
Guest:And then the other 20% sort of rotate in and around.
Guest:So I didn't feel super freaked out, but I did.
Guest:There was a little bit of a panic in that where, where all at once the idea of how you run a comedy club is you give away all the free tickets and then you try and entertain whoever shows up.
Guest:Is that's a problem, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah, it's a problem.
Guest:It's a flawed... I mean, comedy clubs sort of run the cycle from, we're going to book great shows that people want to pay for the ticket and come and see, and then, well, you know what, we're going to fill out the seats that aren't there with free tickets.
Marc:But aren't they the worst?
Guest:and then they keep they have nothing invested if you don't pay for the show you don't respect the show so there's one thing to be said if there's 20% of the audience is getting in for cheap tickets that's not really a problem but when it starts to go over 50% then you can get into a thing of like no I really need for you to be quiet anytime when you're in a situation we have to explain to the audience that you're no you don't get it I've been in show business for 30 years I think you should be quiet while I say my show yeah
Guest:I mean that's not a good feeling.
Guest:It's not a good feeling for anybody.
Marc:It's not my job to babysit whatever problems you're having.
Marc:You can't.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like I'm not going to cry, but shut up.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:So you go through it.
Guest:So you don't want to be mad.
Guest:I don't I don't like to be mad.
Guest:I mean, I try and keep the attitude of like I do thousands of shows.
Guest:I've done thousands of shows.
Guest:I'm going to do seven shows this week.
Guest:I just did a great show.
Guest:This is your one show.
Guest:You're ruining your one show.
Guest:My advice to you would be to stop that.
Guest:But so anyway, when I'm on the road, that's how I started out is you do the radio to get people to come to the show.
Guest:So I don't mind.
Guest:That's part of my job.
Guest:It's a little bit of a... You know, when people say you have so much free time on the road, why don't you write a screenplay?
Guest:It's like...
Guest:I got to get up.
Guest:I get there and do a show right after I got off the plane.
Guest:Then I try and go to sleep, but I end up sleeping five hours and get up to do morning radio and three radios and a TV.
Guest:Then I take a nap.
Guest:Then I wake up and try and exercise and eat some lunch.
Guest:Now it's four in the afternoon, but really to me it's morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then your day's gone.
Guest:That happens for a couple days in a row, and then you do three shows on Saturday night, and you feel like you've just been wrung out and sopped up and wrung out, and you just are disoriented, and then you cry on the way home.
Marc:You go back to your life.
Guest:And you feel all better, and your wife says, I think you should take care of our kid right now because I've got to go.
Guest:I've got to get out of here.
Marc:How long have you been married?
Marc:We'll be nine years in October.
Marc:So you had a kid when you were 46?
Yeah.
Marc:Forty four.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Forty four.
Marc:And that's a good thing.
Marc:It is a good thing.
Marc:I, I highly recommend.
Marc:Cause I'm old and I, and like, um, yeah, I could have a kid.
Marc:Like I'm with a girl right now.
Guest:Well, here, and you could tell me this more than anyone.
Guest:Is your wife age appropriate or.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She's two years younger than me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, but she's hot.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:No, I'm not judging.
Guest:I can say safely say that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um,
Guest:But, yeah, so that's good.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You have a girlfriend, I think, that's 10 years younger than you.
Guest:Is that right?
Marc:A little more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That would be tricky for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't know if I can.
Guest:I have the music that I like and then also the cultural references.
Guest:And when you say something and they're just like, what?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not experiencing that.
Marc:My fear is that I'll just become old.
Marc:Well, that's not a fear.
Guest:That's reality.
Guest:It's going to happen.
Guest:That's reality.
Guest:But the good news is there's going to be a young, attractive lady changing your diaper.
Guest:If you play your cards right, that's how it works out.
Guest:But you've got to be nice now.
Guest:The thing is, don't say it out loud.
Guest:I wouldn't let her listen to this.
Guest:But if you play your cards right, if you're sweet to her now, then later on she's going to be like, well, he was so nice to me.
Guest:I really don't like this, but it's the right thing to do.
Guest:Makes me feel good about myself to change his diaper.
Yeah.
Guest:Something to look forward to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now, are you experiencing a career?
Marc:Because, see, in my mind, you're one of the great predecessors to, I mean, you do great comedy.
Marc:And I know that, I mean, you're grounded.
Marc:You have your own voice.
Marc:You do long-form bits that are actually somewhat universal.
Marc:They're not completely self-involved.
Marc:You're a great craftsman.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, uh, do you, I mean, when you see younger comics now, do you get the respect that you think you deserve?
Guest:One of the nice things I would say, you know, to go back about to the, you know, this is sort of a circle back on that bitterness question before, you know, it's like, I don't have a, I've had a lot of great experiences.
Guest:I performed for the president at Ford theater and got a reception at the white house.
Guest:It was Bush, the first Bush, you know, I, let's say personally for my voting habits, uh,
Guest:Maybe a different president would have been slightly nicer, but it was awesome.
Guest:My picture was in the Washington Post next to him, shaking his hand the next day.
Guest:I've performed in Hong Kong and Ireland, that Kilkenny Comedy Festival.
Guest:I've done HBO specials and a Tonight Show and all that other stuff.
Guest:The best...
Guest:the best moment of any comics career is the one that you forget the day you quit your day job that's the best yeah that's the best yeah that's what every comic wants and so that's the best day of my career the other things that are nice that happened to you to me is to to have audiences that like you to still be able to do your show the way that you want to do it and really they like you you like them you have a good thing
Guest:And then to have the respect of your peers.
Guest:And so I do feel like I have the respect of my peers.
Guest:Maybe not all of them, but you work with somebody and they tell you that you influence them or they're nice to you or they like you.
Guest:I mean, that to me, it does mean a lot to me that people are talking nice about me behind my back maybe.
Guest:I don't know if that's healthy.
Guest:No, it definitely does.
Guest:good or bad it's good but yeah I feel like I kind of have that I'm sure there's people who they're into another thing I mean there is that hard rolling tough guy comedy that edge where it's the dirty outrageous you know I'm changing the world with my talking you know yeah those guys I don't know what they think of me because I'm doing a completely different thing yeah from them yeah but you know like when like when Louie had you do that show was it did you feel that like what was that show because it was like he was headlining oh the Chicago show well so I get a call from my manager
Guest:That says, do you want to do this show in the Chicago theater?
Guest:And this is the money.
Guest:And I say, well, that sounds great.
Guest:Who's on the show?
Guest:And they go, it's Louis C.K.
Guest:And I go, who else?
Guest:They go, we don't know.
Guest:I go, what's the deal?
Guest:Well, you get this amount of money and you get your own flight and your hotel out of that amount of money.
Guest:And then you do the show.
Guest:And so I think, okay, well, it's kind of weird.
Guest:It's not the weirdest show I've ever done.
Guest:And the Chicago theater, I performed there before, so I'm going to do it.
Guest:And then I get there, and I say, hey, I'm going to be at the Chicago theater.
Guest:I get there, and Louie's like, no, this is my show, and you're the special secret guest.
Guest:And I go, well, somebody could have told me that.
Guest:Because I tweeted it, because I thought I was doing a show that my fans could come to.
Guest:I didn't realize they were both sold out before anybody even found out I was on the bill.
Guest:But...
Guest:It was awesome.
Guest:So he calls up and I go in and then I get there and I'm thinking, okay, it's me and Richard Lewis and Stephen Wright and we're going on.
Guest:Louis is going to MC and then he introduces me and then Richard and I think it was Stephen and that was the order.
Guest:But we're just doing 12 minutes each.
Guest:It's like 12 minutes.
Guest:And then he did what, a half hour, an hour?
Guest:He went out and did like 15 and then introduced me and I did 12 and then he did five and then he...
Guest:So he had already done like 20 minutes, and then he went on and did like 50 minutes to an hour at the end.
Guest:And it was awesome.
Guest:Louis is awesome.
Guest:And I was happy to be a part of the show, but I didn't really get that that's what it was going to be at the time.
Guest:But his fans are awesome.
Guest:They're there for him, and he gives this great introduction that included, I think, that story you told.
Guest:about me in the second show he kind of told that story when he introduced me and so I got 12 minutes it's like yeah I go out and I just kind of like okay here's how we start and then we do this and then we do that and here's another joke and here's another joke and I'll see you later did you feel like he was like well I guess the question relates to the other question was that it seemed to me that he put that show together to bring in people that influenced him and that he had respect for yeah so yeah it felt very good that felt very good you know the premise that
Guest:i'm some old guy compared to louis is a little bit like a time out for me i mean i get louis has recently blown up and he's hugely successful at selling out theaters but i mean i'm not that much older than louis and i haven't been doing comedy that much longer i mean five years maybe maybe six years longer than him you know it's not it's not like yeah it's not like and now the dinosaur
Guest:I don't think that was what he was planning.
Guest:No, no, but I'm just saying that was a funny element of it.
Marc:And how many guys do you talk to from the old... Matt Weinhold came over last night.
Guest:Do you remember Matt Weinhold?
Marc:I love Matt Weinhold.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:And he's one of my... I'm a dabbler in the science fiction horror comic book world, but I don't have like 100 plastic dudes in my bedroom.
Guest:And he probably shouldn't.
Guest:He did.
Guest:I went over to his house one time, and I was like, how do you get a girl to come in here, man?
Guest:But I went to his wedding a few months ago.
Guest:He's awesome.
Guest:So he found a girl.
Guest:He's married.
Guest:He's happy.
Guest:He brings over this movie, though, last night.
Guest:So he comes over after his writing job, and he's like, God, he's going to have a vodka.
Guest:And I was like, okay, I'm not going to drink, but let's watch the movie.
Guest:And so he's got a bag of movies.
Guest:This one, maybe this one, maybe this one.
Guest:He goes, this one.
Guest:is uh it's crazy but a lot of people are talking about i think we should watch this one so let me just say this is a public service announcement to you yeah and to all of the listeners human centipede yeah
Guest:Don't watch it.
Guest:Do you know about it?
Guest:You're in horror right now because it's the most horrific.
Guest:We're halfway through it and I pause to get some more tea and go to the bathroom and I have to say to him, I don't even think I can tell my wife what this movie was about.
Marc:I know what the human centipede is.
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:It's horrible.
Guest:I don't think we should even talk about it.
Marc:I mean, just, it's a public service.
Guest:Like, I just did you a favor.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, thanks, Jake.
Guest:You good?
Guest:Do we have more?
Guest:No, no, I think this is, I mean, this is good for one time.
Guest:I feel like we could get to, if we keep talking now, it could be.
Guest:Yeah, we start.
Guest:You know, you don't want to, it could be that diminishing thing of like, boy, it was so good.
Marc:I'm going to give you a seminar.
Guest:Yeah, we're going to do the seminar now.
Guest:Well, thanks for coming by.
Guest:Thank you.
Oh!
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:I'd like to thank Cenk Johansson again for being in the garage and talking about what it's like to be a real comic who does comedy for a living and has been doing it for a good long time.
Marc:I'm happy he's still out there.
Marc:I'm happy he's still generating material.
Marc:It's an amazing feat.
Marc:If you need any WTF-related stuff, go to WTFPod.com, get the apps, get on the mailing list, kick in a few shekels, buy a shirt, check out the premium stuff.
Marc:You can go buy some episodes if you don't want to get the app.
Marc:There's a lot of things you can do.
Marc:I will be at Acme in Minneapolis tonight through Saturday.
Marc:That's March 8th through 10th.
Marc:I'll be at South by Southwest on the 11th and New York City taping the John Oliver stand-up show on the 12th.
Marc:I feel like I'm a little edgy today.
Marc:Something just happened.
you