Episode 298 - John Oliver
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?
Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?
Marc:What-the-fuckineers?
Marc:What-the-fucking-ots?
Marc:What-the-fuck nicks?
Marc:Going old school.
Marc:What-the-fucksters.
Marc:Yeah, how about that?
Marc:This is Marc Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am sick.
Marc:I am congested and sick.
Marc:Damn it.
Marc:You go a while, you think you kick them, you beat them.
Marc:The bugs, the viruses, and then bam!
Marc:Head full of snot.
Marc:That's where I'm at.
Marc:Head full of snot, voice of scratch.
Marc:You don't know how much you can tell, but I'm just sharing that with you.
Marc:I'm sharing that with you at the top of the show here.
Marc:Today on the show, John Oliver from The Daily Show, thrilled that I got to talk to John.
Marc:Great guy, funny guy, decent person.
Marc:Not out here in L.A.
Marc:very often.
Marc:We did the interview at 7.30 in the morning.
Marc:That goes on record as being the earliest interview ever.
Marc:I have ever done in my garage we were both barely awake felt like we woke up together wasn't that awkward but you know what I'm saying you get the idea a couple of things before we move into my stuffy head tonight for the first time I will be on Chelsea lately don't know what to expect do not really uh run in those circles uh
Marc:I don't know anything about pop culture for the most part unless it comes through someone else.
Marc:Usually the woman sitting on my couch at her iPad saying, oh my God, Tom Cruise got divorced and Katie Holmes are getting, oh my God.
Marc:And then I'm like, what?
Marc:Oh, is that happening?
Marc:Oh, good to know.
Marc:My girlfriend, Jessica, is basically my portal to the pop culture world, so maybe she'll team up with me and put things into context for this Chelsea Lately break.
Marc:So let's move into it.
Marc:Let's move into what is happening.
Marc:Breaking Bad, I am so fucking thrilled that that is back.
Marc:I cannot tell you how many tweets and how many emails...
Marc:inquiring or drawing attention to the fact, though I didn't see it, that Walter White at the opening of the season premiere of Breaking Bad looked like me.
Marc:Did not even register, I guess because I'm not donning the full beard, but I'm flattered.
Marc:But stop asking me if I know what's going to happen.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:I'm right there with you.
Marc:I'm just so thrilled to be back in the world of Breaking Bad.
Marc:It's kind of interesting when reality...
Marc:And what you're watching on television kind of doesn't converge.
Marc:But I started thinking about narratives that what happens in life, what has closure, what doesn't have closure.
Marc:I'm watching Breaking Bad.
Marc:I'm compelled by Breaking Bad.
Marc:In the middle of Breaking Bad, my cat, LaFonda, almost as if she was presenting it, started throwing up in the living room, just started gagging.
Marc:And this is not a pukey cat.
Marc:And there was a moment there where she...
Marc:Cat vomit came out of her mouth, but she was so shocked by it that it seemed to frighten her.
Marc:And my cat LaFonda was running in fear from her own act of puking, which I've never seen before.
Marc:But in thinking about puking, I've experienced before.
Marc:It's one of those things where you're like, I have no control over this.
Marc:Why isn't it stopping?
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:Can I run from the experience that is emitting out of me?
Marc:So I saw Fonda do this, and in my mind, of course, anthropomorphizing as I do, she was embarrassed and ashamed and frightened at what she couldn't control.
Marc:Who hasn't felt that?
Marc:So I have to pause Breaking Bad, and then I go back to the bedroom to see if she's okay.
Marc:I don't know if this is the beginning of something awful, but cats puke.
Marc:They puke.
Marc:But there she was in a corner, you know, by herself.
Marc:You know, Monkey was looking at her, which in judgment, I thought.
Marc:And I was sitting there going, are you okay?
Marc:Are you okay?
Marc:And I actually feel like she was embarrassed.
Marc:That she was embarrassed that she threw up.
Marc:And that she was forced to appear as out of control of that.
Marc:And it took her a few minutes and she got up on the bed and she was distrusting of me.
Marc:I saw the look in her face.
Marc:It's like, you know, that was horrible.
Marc:It was embarrassing.
Marc:And fuck you for seeing that.
Marc:That was what I got from her.
Marc:Fuck you for seeing me in that position like I had any control over that.
Marc:But she eventually relaxed and there was nothing wrong with her.
Marc:In the immediate narrative of my cat running from her own vomit and then going to the bedroom and processing it, there was transcendence and humility and closure.
Marc:Also along the same lines of Breaking Bad, if I could be so bold, I've got a fucking cold and somehow or another I've got it in my head that Sudafed is the best cold medicine.
Marc:And there's no reason to think that.
Marc:So I had to sort of track that thought in my mind.
Marc:Why is Sudafed the best cold medicine?
Marc:But not just Sudafed, the good stuff, the good Sudafed, the real Sudafed.
Marc:Why have I decided that's the best cold medicine?
Marc:You know why?
Marc:Because I got to go to the pharmacy and ask them for it.
Marc:And in some places, sign for it.
Marc:Or in some places, show my driver's license for Sudafed.
Marc:There's something about the jolt.
Marc:of actually buying something that could be used for something addictive and exciting and evil.
Marc:Just being part of buying something that if there was much of it could be used for the evil drug that is meth that I just want to have proximity to that.
Marc:It's ridiculous.
Marc:There's plenty of other cold medicines.
Marc:Some of them are even better than others, better than Sudafed.
Marc:But no, man, I want to risk it.
Marc:I want to push the envelope and sign for my cold medicine because that's how I roll.
Marc:Ridiculous.
Marc:Because look, I just woke up too, man.
Marc:I don't know whose idea this was.
Guest:So, you know, it's an intriguing talking at this time of the morning is, you know, an intriguing concept.
Guest:And I challenge anyone to start this earlier.
Marc:I tell you, I think this is the first time I've done it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, who's the closest to 7.30 a.m.?
Marc:I think I did it at 10 a.m.
Marc:once.
Marc:Really?
Marc:On a Sunday, though.
Guest:So I've set a new bar by two and a half hours.
Marc:Yeah, this is Wednesday.
Marc:I mean, Sunday at 10 a.m.
Marc:I can see that.
Guest:So I challenge someone to start at a time that's got a six in front of it.
Marc:Okay, all right, maybe someone will take that challenge.
Marc:I don't know who.
Marc:John Oliver is here.
Marc:I'll tell you, not that it makes a difference when you're going to listen to it or what you think the reality of the situation is here, but it's...
Marc:It's not even 7.30.
Marc:We're early.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:7.30 a.m.
Guest:So do you want... That is... This is the kind of time that functional people get up and do things.
Guest:I know, I know.
Marc:And now look at us.
Marc:Is this an hour that you're familiar with?
Guest:I mean, what do you... Yeah, unfortunately it is.
Marc:Because you're showered, you were clean.
Marc:I have to go, thank you.
Marc:You know, I didn't shower, I just wet my hair.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I slightly resent the surprise in your voice when you say you're clean.
Guest:I'm just going to try and take that for the compliment that it actually is.
Guest:Your teeth are probably brushed, everything.
Guest:No, they're not properly brushed.
Guest:They're definitely brushed.
Guest:That is a line that I'm not willing to cross in the morning, and I haven't been since I was 11 years old.
Guest:The discipline is what makes you what you are, I think.
Guest:Basic physical discipline.
Guest:It is basic, but I'm not willing to... Floss?
Guest:Did you floss?
Guest:Yeah, I floss a little bit.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:It means just what I said.
Guest:It means a little bit.
Guest:You do it.
Guest:It's not a tenacious exercise, my flossing.
Guest:But every day?
Marc:you know all right okay no let's let's say well let's say once every two days let's say that yeah once once once every two days i floss well that's not regular flossing so i mean i just see already i found a weakness you see that so you're vulnerable it's 7 30 you're you're uh sort of like i of course i brush my teeth right now the flossing you say i've already lied to you
Marc:You lied, and then you went back on the lie, and now it's wide open.
Guest:Now I think we're just differing over our definition of the word regular, because I think once every two days is regular.
Guest:I know I'm coming with a British concept of dental hygiene there, but once every two days... I wasn't even going to go there.
Marc:Yes, you were.
Marc:No, I wasn't.
Marc:I was not going to do the British teeth, what's the issue thing.
Guest:It's just a different concept.
Marc:But what is it about British teeth?
Marc:Is it genetics?
Marc:I mean...
Guest:It's not genetics.
Guest:I think it's more like a, I think it's more, obviously, you know, we have a national health service.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you go to the doctor when you have to, not when you feel you should or as Americans all the time.
Marc:Well, that's one of the concerns about a National Health Service here in America.
Marc:Yeah, because you go too much.
Marc:There's no question that's true.
Guest:You go too much, you take too many drugs, you're overprescribed for everything.
Marc:Are you talking to me?
Guest:Well, I'm talking both to you as someone who embodies America's attitude towards health care, because I'm fairly sure that you probably go to the doctor too much.
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:I'm horrified.
Marc:Really?
Marc:No, I won't go.
Guest:You're just worried about it all the time.
Marc:No, I worry about things.
Marc:My approach is like, well, that hurts.
Marc:I'll see if it goes away.
Marc:I learned that because I learned that if you go to the doctor and you're like, what is this?
Marc:A lot of times they're like, I don't know.
Marc:Why don't you wait it out?
Marc:So I go ahead and tell myself to wait it out.
Marc:And most of the time it passes.
Marc:Yeah, you're more British than you think you are.
Guest:Is that how that works?
Guest:Well, that kind of repression of reality and your own emotional reaction to something is something that is quintessentially British.
Marc:I never knew I had that.
Marc:Yeah, well, congratulations.
Marc:Now I feel like I'm emotionally protected somehow.
Marc:that I can move through the world with... You're protected from yourself, not from reality, but from yourself.
Marc:I can move through the world with sort of a faux confidence.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:And that is how we conquered the world.
Guest:You just embodied the history of the British Empire in one beautiful sentence.
Guest:But there was a determination there.
Guest:There was a spirit of victory.
Guest:It was moving gentlemanly through the world with a faux confidence.
Guest:It was literally turning up to India and saying, that thing would look nice over there, and I think I can help you with other stuff.
Guest:Do you know what?
Guest:I'll do this.
Marc:Okay with you?
Marc:No?
Marc:Does this gun mean anything?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's the question.
Marc:Like, I've always assumed in my life that British people actually had their shit more together than Americans.
Marc:But I find as time goes on that's not true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They just stifle much more things.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:We're emotional volcanoes.
Marc:Yeah, well, you're stuffers.
Marc:You stuff it down, and then hopefully... Where does it blow up, though, John?
Marc:Where is that happening for you?
Marc:In the car?
Marc:Are you screaming in the car?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Collectively, it blows up during any royal events.
Guest:You see that.
Guest:British people will express emotion at moments of public celebration.
Guest:So we'll do it through sport.
Guest:We'll do it through, you know, you saw the Jubilee.
Guest:People were acting completely emotionally, irrationally during that.
Guest:They don't care.
Guest:Did you go for that?
Guest:Did you go over there?
Guest:No.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:Because I don't care.
Guest:Do you not really care?
Guest:Yes, I don't care.
Guest:Most British people don't care.
Guest:That is displacement emotion.
Guest:You know, like when Diana died.
Marc:Well, we got to bring that up.
Marc:People were sad about that.
Guest:People were sad.
Guest:But it was more, I really think it was more people mourning.
Guest:loved ones that have passed on that hadn't for generations that they had not properly mourned for because they hadn't been through that emotional process unexplored grief she becomes the lightning rod for everyone you've known who's died over the last well that's so that's the jesus idea you know i mean she died for everyone she was our lady jesus
Marc:But no, but you're telling me that if I were to hold up a picture of Queen Elizabeth, it would do nothing.
Marc:No, I'm not going to look.
Guest:I'm not going to tell you that.
Guest:I'm not going to tell you that there wouldn't be a deep stirring somewhere.
Guest:Because that's my queen, Mark.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:No, honestly, I wouldn't really care.
Marc:no i know you wouldn't care but i mean there's but really but it seems like that that not caring was sort of an active decision you grew up with that we know it's not because it's she's like water in in uh in england on some level isn't she i don't have any any powerful reaction against her you know there are republicans you know there are anti-monarchists in england right who want her gone right i think i what they want a new system do they
Guest:Well, they just want her gone.
Guest:I think they find her presence irritating.
Marc:She's been there since most of you, longer than you've been alive, certainly.
Marc:That's definitely 60 years.
Guest:That was the whole point of the Silver Jew.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:60 years without dying once.
Marc:Still...
Marc:I'm still alive.
Marc:That's a human achievement.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's pretty good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:60 years is raining, and she's like 110, right?
Marc:How old is she?
Marc:She's... 97?
Marc:No, she's not 97.
Guest:80-something?
Guest:No, have some respect.
Guest:I'm trying to.
Guest:Now you're making... It's okay for me to say this.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:You don't get to say this.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:What is with that old lady?
Guest:Hey.
Guest:You beg your pardon?
Guest:That old lady.
Guest:See, by criticizing you, you're now making me more proud of it.
Guest:Now, if you showed me a picture of her, I'd probably just automatically stand up and salute without even knowing fully what my emotions were.
Marc:I know.
Marc:You're like minutes away from colonizing my garage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:You come from England because there's a lot of things people don't know about you because not unlike many British people, you sort of push it aside and just plow on with your ideas about things.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:You're not wrong.
Marc:I'm not disagreeing with you.
Marc:You know, you thought, oh, this is going to be easy.
Marc:We'll just go ahead and talk about bullshit for a while.
Marc:No, but I don't know that anyone knows.
Marc:I don't know anything about you, really.
Marc:You just sort of appeared on our soil, you know, with a career, you know, which upset some people.
Marc:Not me.
Guest:What, by some people?
Guest:Let's just try and move some people to me.
Guest:Every time you say some people, we'll both imagine the word me.
Marc:Okay, so when I'll try to picture, when you say America, you mean me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I get how this works.
Marc:No, but I mean, how old are you now?
Marc:35.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:yeah okay with the flossing thing now everything's vague uh yeah 35 actual years and that yeah that concept of the calendar is something we probably both agree on yeah 35 human years good and uh but what part of england were you born in not that it's necessarily gonna i'm not gonna be able to go like oh of course
Guest:No, this is going to be meaningless, but I will walk you through it.
Marc:No, but I'm going to hit something.
Guest:Okay, well, I was born in Birmingham in the middle.
Guest:It's my family from Liverpool.
Guest:Ah, see, no, the Beatles.
Marc:The Beatles.
Guest:There you go, you hit on something.
Guest:The Beatles.
Guest:I think you feel like you hit on more than you actually did there.
Guest:And then I was raised in Bedford, which is about an hour north of London.
Marc:But did your parents see the Beatles like early on?
Guest:No, but they had Beatles albums.
Guest:So did I. Yeah, well, there you go.
Guest:So you and my parents have that in common.
Guest:I will say that you, my parents, and literally millions upon millions of people have that in common.
Marc:But they were close to the source.
Marc:They were right close to the source.
Marc:They were at the well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Liverpool is a working class suburb or part.
Guest:Well, no, you can say city.
Guest:It's a working class city.
Marc:It's a city in the country of England.
Marc:It's not a suburb.
Marc:It's an actual city.
Marc:It's not like a suburb.
Guest:It's a large industrial port town.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:When the shipping industry died, the city for a time died with it.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:We have a lot of those around here that you travel to and mock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Um...
Guest:I don't know how you managed to inflect so much in one word.
Guest:That's my gift.
Guest:It stifled my career for years, that power.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You'd be so good at voiceovers if you could monetize contempt.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what is where you grew up?
Marc:What was the business, the family business?
Marc:Well, my mom and dad are teachers or were teachers.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:so you were well that's good that you were taught early on that education is important yes now i'm projecting that on you no that's that is that's a lucky guess and you were like i assume a good student i was a good i was i was no i'm trying to be honest i was i think i appeared better than i was i was good at bullshitting
Guest:I was good at papering over cracks of knowledge.
Guest:And I also went to quite a bad school.
Guest:So I was in the top stream of... This could be your career resume as well.
Marc:I mean, you're bullshitting, you're appearing better.
Marc:Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's that British thing, the confidence.
Guest:But, you know, the school I went to was quite rough.
Guest:So I was...
Marc:Did your parents teach at that school?
Marc:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Marc:What did they teach?
Guest:My dad, he became a head teacher by the time... Is there an American equivalent of that?
Marc:Principal.
Marc:He was a principal?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was hated.
Guest:Well, that's why I didn't want to go to his school.
Guest:He wanted me to go there because it was a much better school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I wanted to go with my friends to the school my friends were going to.
Guest:And also, I wanted to go, I think understandably, to a school that didn't have my dad in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we had to play my dad's school at sport.
Guest:And I remember we played rugby against my dad's school.
Guest:And I was in the scrum at the start of the game.
Guest:And it's an oddly intimate thing.
Guest:It's men grabbing hold of each other in a scrum and pushing.
Guest:I remember one kid from his school saying, oh, you're John Oliver, aren't you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, yes.
Guest:And I hadn't quite got to the S of yes.
Guest:This fist just punched me in the face.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I think I made a good school choice.
Guest:That's for your father.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what you got to hit.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're going to pay for the crimes of the elder.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Well that was well that was he do you know if he was a Liked principal as I think he was actually very good because he was um he was a social worker in Liverpool and he never went to You know to universe he didn't have a he didn't have many qualifications and he the school that he went to when he went to principalize it mm-hmm was
Guest:extremely rough and he kind of turned it around he was always interested in going to the worst schools and helping uh the roughest kids he was always interested in the kids that needed help the most oh my god he's a social worker at heart rather than we should pitch this television show it sounds like one of those great shows where you know you got all the roughian kids and then the principal that seems kind of strict at first comes in and all the kids are like meh
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he builds their trust and loyalty.
Guest:Yeah, he didn't look like Michelle Pfeiffer.
Guest:It wasn't that kind of thing.
Guest:No?
Guest:No.
Guest:And I'll get a sense in your head that you're expecting them just to be young street British urchins who burst into song at every moment.
Guest:That's not the case.
Guest:They just sigh and feel sad.
Marc:There is no, can I have some more?
Marc:No, that's right.
Marc:They didn't pickpocket their way.
Marc:no all right so wait so but a social worker that's pretty noble i mean was this something like in in the world that you come from which is you know the old world uh the oldest but yeah certainly old certainly older than here sure no you have walls in england that are older than our country that's true yeah i know i'm very although i was just i was just in rome and oh my god they beat us and how great is it there it's so great did you go the vatican yep
Marc:Isn't it amazing?
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You're like, wow, there's a lot.
Guest:They're making a big statement.
Guest:And that statement is, look at this.
Guest:Did we not do well?
Marc:Believe or don't believe, but we kind of won.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, there's that too.
Marc:But I also found that in Italy, when you go to even smaller towns, that they have huge cathedrals that a lot of work and artisanry went into.
Marc:And I realized when I was there, because I'm not a believer.
Marc:I wasn't brought up a believer.
Marc:I'm a Jew, but I didn't even believe in that.
Marc:But when you stand in a cathedral...
Marc:That is that awesome.
Marc:You buckle a little bit.
Marc:It gives you pause.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're like, oh, my God.
Marc:If I were just a frightened working peasant, I would walk in there and just drop to my knees.
Marc:And that's now.
Guest:That's making you feel that way now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:300 years ago.
Guest:I don't think there's much argument there.
Guest:That's you'd walk and think, I think I'm wrong about this because I've never seen anything like this in my life.
Marc:Oh, yeah, they just blast you.
Marc:And they got the best architects, the best artists to just build these fucking mind-fucking, you know, things.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:To make you doubt your skepticism in an almighty.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Who else could do this?
Guest:Because it barely seems fathomable that mankind could do it.
Guest:But I've flipped around because I used to...
Guest:I remember a while back going to Milan Cathedral and having that feeling because it was at a weird time.
Guest:There was incense in the air and there were literally monks doing some plain song in there.
Guest:And that was where it hit me.
Guest:You think, uh-oh, I think I've got some thinking to do.
Guest:Then you get outside and you kind of shake it off.
Guest:I think I'm okay.
Guest:Now I think having gone through that, when I was at the Vatican, it is more like an absolutely overwhelming...
Marc:uh sensation of what mankind is actually capable of it actually became less religious and more wow yeah see what you can do in the name of god you see what you can look at this toilet you can make people do with fear yeah yeah but i i i found that uh when i was at the vatican because i traveled around italy that like the vatican in terms of the cathedral there i was like it's all
Marc:right yeah it's not it's definitely not the best it's not the best there was in my recollection there's more gold around like it's a little more streamlined like it's uh it doesn't have the same ancient feeling they keep it up a little better somehow although the uh the little four-pronged pulpit i believe that's not the technical catholic that is pretty amazing the four-pronged pulpit you know where the pope stands with that twisting black
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Columns.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's so little rough.
Guest:There is some heavy mindfucking going on there.
Guest:Oh, and it's only built on the top of St.
Guest:Peter's tomb.
Guest:That's all.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's all.
Guest:In case you're wondering, that guy underneath published St.
Marc:Peter.
Guest:But still, doubt away.
Marc:Even if your brain tends towards skepticism, there's such an ancient ritual, a series of rituals in place where you're like, whether this stuff actually does anything or not, it does.
Marc:It does.
Marc:It's almost cult-like.
Marc:I mean, is there any argument to be made that the original crew around Jesus was a cult and then this is all built on a series of strange, layered, historical rituals that over time have...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What about the basement of the Vatican?
Marc:Have you heard those stories?
Marc:What do they got down there?
Marc:You want to hear a weird story?
Marc:Carter Castara, he was an artist, and he did a piece of art that it was neon lights that would flash Jesus' face and then the devil's face.
Marc:It'd go on and off like that.
Marc:The Vatican bought it.
Marc:That there was a period where I think the Vatican was buying religious-themed art just to get it out of circulation, put it in the basement.
Marc:I tell you, they are very threatened.
Marc:Even this is in the last 20 years, 25 years, threatened by the power of other ritualized artifacts that attack them.
Marc:Like, I bet you piss Christ that's in the basement.
Guest:But I still think that they...
Guest:I still think that they were smart enough to know that that concept of, you know, an otherworldly fear of what is underneath this building is something that is intentional.
Guest:Because, you know, they have grills in all the floor.
Marc:Barbecue and grills?
Guest:No, just like as you're going down, as you're looking at it, you think, oh, that's obviously, you know, they were thinking about ventilation and that makes sense.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then you find yourself peering down and you think, I'm sure there's part of them thinking, well, if you put grills in there, people are going to think, what's down there?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:That's the dark part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't need to know what's down there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's where the power is coming from.
Guest:You want to put anything in this bowl?
Guest:I think just as an emotional cover bet, I do now.
Marc:It's weird though, right?
Marc:It's not a paranoia, but you assume that because of how old it is.
Marc:And then you go everywhere in Rome, there's pieces of saints.
Marc:There's little bits of cut off fingers, heads, ears.
Guest:Yeah, and people have done amazing things.
Guest:Under the cosh of complete terror.
Guest:Look at the Sistine Chapel.
Guest:That thing was absolutely mind-blowing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You look at that wall to the side.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you realise that that one man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Michelangelo putting himself through hell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Physical and emotional hell.
Guest:Laying on his scaffolding on his dad.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Going through this, and there's that portrait in one of the corners where he's supposedly done himself as a portrait.
Guest:He painted himself as an old man with his hand over his face.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, oh, God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I didn't see the Pope, and I was surprised at how huge the whole Vatican City was.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They've done well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you waited online?
Marc:How long did you wait online?
Marc:Did you have any cachet?
Marc:I'm like, I'm John Oliver from The Daily Show.
Guest:Oh, yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah, the Vatican really respects basic cable humor shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You just get waved straight in by a Swiss guard.
Guest:Yeah, come on in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:British guy, this way.
Marc:The Pope was waiting.
Guest:Not so much if they know your name.
Guest:Yeah, well, actually, it wasn't that bad.
Marc:Did the Pope perform while you were there?
Guest:Although people were cutting the line.
Guest:Which, again, that seems a bold move when you're going into one of the most iconically religious places on Earth.
Marc:Yeah, but they also know they get in, they ask for forgiveness, done deal.
Marc:What you're going to do?
Marc:They're cool.
Marc:They're just getting a few shots in before they make it to the- That's the weak spot of the Catholic Church, the Achilles heel.
Marc:That's the trick.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can never be pure, but you can always apologize.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so what else did you find moving in Rome?
Marc:A lot of good fountains.
Marc:What's the one from?
Marc:Trevi.
Marc:The Trevi Fountain from Adolta Vita, right?
Guest:It was the Coliseum more than I thought.
Marc:Oh, wasn't that great?
Marc:You sort of got to go to the outside of town and yeah.
Guest:I wasn't expecting it to be quite as mind-blowing to be inside.
Guest:It's all mind-blowing, dude.
Guest:It really knocks you around, just standing in this thing that is still upright to some extent and just imagining what those wolves have seen.
Guest:Oh, God, yeah.
Guest:And even when they start describing stuff, saying this is where two lions would fight in the middle sometimes, there's part of you which thinks, yeah, I could watch that.
Guest:Yeah, of course you could watch that.
Guest:I mean, I know we shouldn't do that anymore.
Guest:Most of me doesn't want to watch it, but part of me thinks, yeah, I could watch two lions fight.
Marc:No, now we've replaced that with sad, pathetic people who try to dig themselves out of their own trash and maybe find cats.
Guest:Also, walking around Rome, you can kind of see why Italy has had a problem with fascism.
Guest:Because it's built around exceptionalism so much.
Guest:They have these buildings which were designed and still are designed to say, this was the greatest moment in humanity.
Guest:We were the best.
Guest:And then it's tied with the fact that there is still this kind of emotional idiocy in the country.
Guest:Because I went straight from the Coliseum back to the hotel and turned on the TV and there was a game show and there were two guys on it in blackface.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:So that's still going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you think, oh, there you go, Italy.
Guest:This is why you had problems.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:These two things together.
Guest:That's why every place has problems.
Guest:Or a Molotov cocktail.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:There's the powerful class.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then there are the rubes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And some of them are angry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it behooves the power to keep them stupid.
Marc:So you had the Vatican and you had the other thing going on.
Guest:The Forum, there was that bit where the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, where there was women who would, for 10 years, had to keep this flame alight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was all they had to do.
Guest:And if it went out, they were burnt to death.
Guest:And you think that's barbaric.
Guest:And then some part of me was going back to the head of the guy going, look,
Guest:All you had to do was keep this alight.
Guest:I asked one thing of you.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Just keep the flame going.
Guest:I don't think that's too much.
Guest:And you couldn't do that for 10 years, and then you're done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, oh, well, two things, I guess, because they weren't allowed to have sex either.
Guest:But, you know, I guess you don't want the distraction of boyfriends in this situation.
Marc:But somebody fell asleep on the job, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so rugby, that's your sport?
Guest:No.
Guest:Soccer.
Guest:I just play, yeah.
Guest:Soccer's my... Don't...
Guest:I don't even like saying that word.
Guest:Soccer.
Guest:I would rather be misunderstood.
Guest:It's football.
Guest:No, I understand what you think it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, we did it first.
Guest:I mean, that's just... It's a different game.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:And it's called soccer.
Marc:No, it is not.
Marc:You're telling me that soccer, football wasn't soccer to begin.
Marc:Where did soccer come from?
Guest:Smart guy.
Guest:Soccer came from, was before rugby.
Guest:Because I think rugby was invented with guys playing soccer and one of them picked up the ball and ran with it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:At a place called Rugby.
Marc:england right and everybody got excited like something new that they decided to bend the rules a little bit and make an entirely new sport i think i think basically he picked it up everyone got annoyed attacked him and they thought there's a sport in this look i'm not a sports guy i'm glad that you seem like a very uh you know reasonably minded person around uh competitive things i am a sport i love sport
Marc:But you learned that.
Marc:At some point, because you were in school, and this happens in America too, but this is just not my experience.
Marc:Everything was very life or death for me.
Marc:If I was on a team that was losing, it was probably my fault or my bad luck.
Marc:Teamwork never worked for me.
Marc:I never understood the joy of competing with a bunch of other men and owning losing as much as you own winning.
Guest:Yeah, I think there are moments in sport, especially when you're a kid, that really hurt.
Guest:I remember missing a penalty when I was 12 years old, just like a local competition, and it probably took me three years to get over it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just felt like at that point it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, even though it wasn't.
Marc:Can you explain to me what that means?
Marc:The penalty thing?
Guest:Oh, it's like a shootout in hockey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the game is on the line.
Guest:It's been a draw the whole way through.
Guest:So you've got a free shot.
Guest:yeah you get a free shot and it's each team gets five of them and then you know it should be a no-brainer but it's all built around individual failure right because then you are the person who hasn't lost it right in that single moment right single kick of the yeah yeah i understand this and it it absolutely broke me did what did you get uh were your teammates like you they didn't care i didn't care because we're children
Guest:yeah i think those things oh yeah well you know we'll just do something else later and tomorrow but for something and my only redemption for that was that years years and years later at the edinburgh festival uh there was this uh charity football match uh that i played in and i had to take a penalty yeah and i scored it and i nearly burst into tears closure yeah full circle it was there was an internal closure
Guest:No one knew what you were going through.
Guest:No one knew.
Guest:And were probably concerned as to why in this equally meaningless game, there was a guy who doesn't cry visibly on the edge of tears.
Guest:We're done.
Guest:We're done.
Marc:It's weird that there are things that we carry around like that.
Guest:Well, actually, I think that goes... I scored another goal in that game, I think I remember, and we won.
Guest:And my dad was watching.
Guest:My dad always wanted me to be a footballer more than he wanted me to be anything else.
Marc:Like a professional footballer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And as a joke, I kind of took my shirt off.
Guest:Sometimes footballers do that in celebrations.
Guest:So I took my shirt off and I ran up into the crowd bit and gave it to my dad as kind of a joke.
Guest:And he was moved.
Guest:I've never really seen him move much in his life.
Guest:And I think he realized this is as close as I could give him the son that he wanted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a comedian, which, you know, no parent wants.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But for one day in a meaningless moment, being a footballer, giving the T-shirt to him.
Guest:But you were doing it.
Guest:He kept it at home.
Guest:He has it.
Guest:That's beautiful because it was a joke.
Guest:It was a joke, but there was something else going on there, I think.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I had my moment of redemption.
Guest:In a sense, he had an acceptance of the disappointment I felt in this boy.
Yeah.
Guest:He has done the best he could, which was not enough, but I think I've realized we've maxed out, and now we can both move on.
Guest:I think there's the same sense in his mind of, it is done.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:Then, I guess it was Edinburgh, so I must have been like 25, 26.
Marc:Okay, so that was where your father, that's where he saw you?
Guest:Yeah, he was up in Edinburgh as well, and they just came to see this game.
Marc:They didn't come to see you show?
Marc:Oh, they...
Guest:I think they did, but I don't like them coming to see you.
Marc:But he came to see the game.
Marc:Yeah, because that means... I completely understand that.
Marc:But at 25, you were probably a comedian for, what, five years already?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he just knew you were going to be playing football?
Guest:No, every time I used to go back at Christmas, he would ask how comedy was going, and then he would just remind me of the conversation, of course, you know, this is not what I wanted for you.
Guest:I'm really, he's going great, but remember that I wanted you to be a footballer.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Remember that's also what I wanted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But both of us have to somehow accept that that is, and then I couldn't even say the word over because that, you know, I haven't, still now I haven't.
Marc:fully accepted that but it's so so that's a genuine it's it's interesting to me because a father who's a social worker and a teacher and somebody who appreciates learning and and moving in that direction really just wanted you to be a thug yeah you just well that's even now i know that i probably wouldn't get along with the culture of footballers most footballers in england are assholes no your own team would beat you up
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And also, I would probably feel socially uncomfortable around them.
Guest:But there is still a child in me that wants... You've got to understand, I went to... When my dad first started taking me to games, I would wear... To Liverpool games.
Guest:I would wear... I would make him let me wear my full Liverpool kit.
Guest:So this is me at eight, nine years old.
Guest:My full Liverpool kit underneath whatever I was wearing.
Guest:Because there was a part of me as a child that felt if someone got injured on the field...
Guest:I'm ready.
Guest:They would just turn to the crowd and say, does anyone have a kit so that we can carry on?
Guest:And I would say, yes, my name is John.
Guest:I'm eight years old.
Guest:And clearly, somewhere in me, I think that this is going to turn out well.
Guest:That this eight-year-old is going to be able to physically compete with this 29-year-old super...
Guest:Fit.
Marc:Athlete.
Marc:But that's the dream.
Marc:That's touching.
Marc:I wish I had that.
Marc:I didn't... I wore cleats.
Guest:I wore cleats to the game as well.
Marc:You're ready to go.
Guest:So you just hear this clip-clop of this eight-year-old kid going, let's do this.
Marc:And your father let you do that because he thought this is going to happen.
Marc:He's this committed.
Guest:If this is what it takes, I can see it now.
Guest:I'll tell this story.
Guest:I'll tell this story to journalists when I'm talking about my child that won the cup.
Yeah.
Guest:And where was your mother during all this?
Guest:Just, I think, at home with her head in her hands going, what is wrong with these men?
Marc:but i have that too do you find that there's part of you like that equally has contempt for uh and not necessarily athletes but the type of like the same thing that made you think that you weren't able going to be weren't going to be able to hang with this type of man yeah you know certainly in a group for very long without reprisal yeah where you will be you would be without natural selection kicking in yeah
Marc:Do you find that, because I'm dealing with this on stage now, I'm talking about the idea of masculinity.
Marc:Because you're intelligent or because you didn't chose that way, there's a natural condescension there that probably is unintentional, because I'm sure you have respect for their skill set.
Marc:Oh, I love it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But so if you were around them, if you got to sit with your favorite players... I couldn't do it.
Marc:I couldn't do it.
Guest:I met, by chance, David Beckham in Las Vegas.
Guest:I was doing the Vegas Comedy Festival.
Guest:And I was in a restaurant with some friends of mine.
Guest:And he was sitting at a table being not bothered by anyone because this is America and it's not the same cultural explosion around here.
Marc:It's not that important.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The haircut was popular for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I could not speak when I saw him.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And then one of the guys was actually worked with the agency that he was with, and he said, let me go and talk to him.
Guest:I've actually met him a few times.
Guest:Let me bring him over here.
Guest:I was saying, please do not do that.
Guest:Please do not do that.
Guest:I can't do this.
Guest:And he went, he brought him over.
Guest:All my friends were kind of talking.
Guest:Oh, nice to meet you.
Guest:Nice to meet you.
Guest:And, you know, he said, nice to meet you, John.
Guest:Nice to meet you.
Guest:I've heard you're a comedian.
Guest:And I just fell apart.
Guest:David, I really like it when you play football.
Guest:It was, there was a pause.
Guest:It was tense.
Guest:All I knew, I knew that he was moving to Milan to play in the off season with the team there.
Guest:And so I just said, oh, hope you have a really good time in Milan.
Guest:That seems like a good move for you.
Guest:And what did he say?
Guest:He just said, oh, thanks very much.
Guest:Yeah, thanks very much.
Guest:And do you know what?
Guest:This gets really embarrassing now.
Guest:The guy from his agency, he had clearly asked him if he would sign something after the fact for me because about a week later, this package turned up to my house and it was a football with two John, nice to meet you, David Beckham on it, and I have it in a case in my office.
LAUGHTER
Marc:That's sweet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Or is it pathetic?
Guest:No, it's not pathetic.
Guest:No.
Guest:I think it's a bit of both.
Guest:Let's meet in the middle on that one.
Marc:I mean, these guys are mythic, powerful people.
Marc:They represent...
Guest:Well, especially Beckham, because he looks like, just going back to Roman statues, he looks like he's made of marble.
Guest:He's perfect.
Guest:His only ecclesial is his voice.
Guest:That's his only moment of weakness.
Marc:He has a high voice.
Marc:Yeah, but then I'm sure you can speculate about what that must have played, the part it played in making him what he was.
Marc:Oh, I hadn't even thought of that, but I like that.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:He had to transcend that horrible feminine voice and show those bastards.
Guest:With the artistry of his athleticism.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but did you walk away from that encounter feeling the same way you felt when you missed the penalty?
Guest:No, actually, I walked away from that encounter thinking that went exactly as well as I think it was always going to.
Guest:I don't think there was a way of me...
Guest:getting better control of my feelings I've just I have a weak spot and there's also there's no way like as a comic you meet another comic even no matter how much you respect them you've got an in but with him you know you've got I have no in we have nothing in common other than the country that we were born in and your dreams yeah and but and the fact that but unfortunately he must know that the fact we were born in the same country makes it even more aware that I cannot relate to him on a human level he was much more comfortable with the American guys because they don't care about him yeah I care about him yeah
Marc:I know.
Marc:I wish there was some more you could do.
Guest:Maybe you could have dinner.
Guest:You know, you were talking about picking up a picture of the Queen, I would feel nothing.
Guest:You showed me a picture of David Beckham, I would clam up a bit.
Guest:You'd weep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd just say, it looks really good.
Guest:I remember that game.
Guest:So he was on the team that you liked?
Guest:No, he wasn't.
Guest:He was on England's team.
Marc:No, I didn't.
Marc:Who's your team?
Marc:Liverpool.
Marc:So you're a Liverpool guy to this day?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You inherit your team in England.
Marc:And now, your mother taught what?
Marc:Music.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what did she play?
Marc:Piano?
Marc:Yeah, she played piano.
Marc:She played cello.
Marc:Do you play piano?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, not really.
Guest:I played the violin.
Guest:You played the violin?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you were really pulled in two directions, weren't you?
Guest:Yeah, I was, because I played on all the school sports teams, and I did drama and music as well.
Guest:So I was the one...
Guest:thing that floated between those two worlds so i would turn up to like rehearsals for things with you know mud and blood on me yeah and i would turn up to uh you know sporting events with a violin case imagine which of those was more difficult you can wash the blood off you cannot make that violin case disappear it's too bad that your parents weren't more strict and made you play the violin because then you could have might have been a sports oh no they kind of did make me play the violin
Marc:And your contempt for that didn't drive you harder into sport?
Guest:I went as hard into sport as I could.
Guest:But I had physical... I wasn't good enough.
Guest:You just weren't good enough.
Guest:I can't even believe I'm saying that out loud now.
Guest:I wasn't good enough.
Guest:I was never going to make my career as a professional footballer.
Marc:And exactly what year did you realise that?
Marc:Probably about three years ago.
LAUGHTER
Marc:So it's still raw.
Marc:It's still fresh.
Marc:I'm sorry, man.
Marc:I'm sorry we hit upon this.
Marc:It's early, too.
Marc:I'm surprised you're not weeping.
Marc:So do you ever pick up the violin anymore?
Marc:No.
Marc:Nothing?
Guest:No.
Guest:Because I found that incredibly frustrating.
Guest:Because the better and better you get playing the violin, the better music you get to play.
Guest:And you realize how it should sound.
Guest:And you also realize you're never going to be able to make it sound like that.
Marc:So you took two big hits.
Marc:I mean, the violin was probably first.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's the problem.
Guest:When you get good, because I maxed out where you could, like, in terms of grades.
Guest:It's like grade one to eight, and I took grade eight, and I was bad.
Guest:And I passed it, so, you know, technically, I was pretty good.
Guest:But you had no feel for it.
Guest:I knew I was bad.
Guest:There was another girl in my school.
Guest:Oh, a girl.
Guest:And she, yeah, she could... It's really...
Guest:I think we're both right again there.
Guest:And she could really play.
Guest:And I knew that I could practice for a thousand years and I was never going to make it sound like she could.
Marc:Isn't it interesting what builds the comedic persona is that like, you know, you were hit in the face with the realization that like it was nothing but glass ceilings.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they were lower than I would have liked.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but the sports thing, like, you know, you just genetically or whatever, you kind of hit a wall with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But music, like, theoretically, if you would have dedicated your life to it.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:Too much discipline.
Guest:Yeah, because also you realise that you just can't do it, especially with the violin.
Guest:Because you kind of, it's not like exact keys.
Guest:You know, I used to get so frustrated when I was practising, especially like towards the end when I had really beautiful pieces of music.
Guest:And you know how you want it to sound.
Guest:And you know how they're supposed to sound.
Guest:And your fingers and your hands can't do it.
Guest:And you just want to smash your violin into a wall.
Guest:And you're raping a masterpiece.
Guest:That's the gift that music gives you.
Guest:You can destroy a masterpiece.
Guest:You just want someone to put their hand over your hand and say, stop it.
Guest:Let's go out and let's bury this in the garden.
Guest:You can't do this.
Marc:The dream and the instrument.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My moment of the end of my sporting career, and I've been talking about it on stage because I'm hung up.
Guest:What did you play?
Marc:I didn't play much of anything, but I'm physically able to play things, but teamwork is beyond me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And losing is just horrifying.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But I was a chubby center fielder in Pee Wee Little League.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:Yeah, because they kind of put you out there.
Marc:My team was terrible.
Marc:I was about 10, and I was kind of fat.
Marc:I didn't want to be there.
Marc:My mom just wanted me out of the house.
Guest:Center fielder.
Guest:So you have that almost movie cliche of a ball arcing through the air towards you.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's what it was.
Guest:And too much time to think about it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And it was my big moment because I was out there just kind of kicking the dirt.
Marc:And I heard that sound, the crack of the bat.
Marc:And I look up and it's coming right at me.
Marc:And I'm backing up and I've got that mixture of complete fear of fucking up and also fear of the ball.
Marc:But knowing that I should have this.
Marc:And I'm backing up, and in my memory, there's a sprinkler.
Marc:I'm not sure that there was.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:And I fell down, and the ball hit me on the face.
Marc:That's how I was.
Marc:I had it.
Marc:I was under it, as they say.
Marc:And then I was crying.
Marc:I was crying in center field, not fielding the ball, not even following up my mistake with any action other than tears.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:the team was disappointed my coach was baffled and angry but he couldn't quite show it and that was it I think that that moment that was like it's a vector I don't know how to use that but that moment everything went the other way no more sports no more teams my mother was on my shit list and it just I still haven't recovered from it I'm literally trying to process it on stage last night I'm trying to write a bit where I walk
Guest:10 year old mark off the field and tell him what his future holds for him and why this moment is important yeah as he looks at the floor and doesn't listen yeah yeah and he's crying yeah he's crying that's fantastic yeah and that is i mean that is that's like a movie that my favorite movies are sports movies because those moments i love those moments where things go to slow motion and where there is sweeping music behind it
Marc:But now I know in my life that I never, like, because of that moment, I was not, I should have caught it.
Marc:I didn't catch it.
Marc:I didn't get it.
Marc:Yeah, you should have caught it.
Marc:Right, but I didn't even care about the game.
Marc:I'm not clear on how the game operates.
Guest:Well, that was probably obvious to your teammates.
Guest:You let them down and you lost that game.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And it was that moment where I realized, like, you know, I think that I can only blame myself.
Marc:I think I didn't catch that ball.
Guest:Oh, I can tell you, you can definitely only blame yourself.
Guest:That was entirely your fault.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Unless this hypothetical sprinkler that I think we both know was not there.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But I think the sadder thing is I might have done it on purpose.
Marc:I mean, that's what I'm trying to find.
Marc:That there was some part of me that was like, you know what?
Marc:You don't get any control in that moment, Mark.
Marc:No, but I... Right, okay.
Marc:But the way I'm trying to spin it is like, hey, look, you know, any attention is attention.
Marc:So now the game is completely about me.
Marc:I'm the crying man.
Marc:In center field.
Marc:So now it's like the game has stopped.
Marc:We have the problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That kid.
Guest:Now everyone has to deal with that kid.
Guest:What's that kid's name?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:My name is Mark.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I am leaving the field crying and my mother's going to buy me ice cream.
Marc:I won.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I won.
Guest:And you will remember this day.
Guest:And if you don't, I definitely will.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Something happened here, kids.
Yeah.
Marc:and you don't understand it and I don't understand it but I'll work it out on stage one day it sounds like there's a bit in it yeah yeah I wish I had known that it's taken me what 40 years yeah I'm seriously just processing yeah that's great so when did you get you went to college where Cambridge is that the Cambridge
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so that's fancy.
Guest:It was fancy, yeah.
Guest:I didn't particularly like it, but yeah.
Marc:Did you have to wear an outfit?
Marc:No.
Marc:Those days are over?
Guest:Those days are not entirely over.
Guest:Yeah, those days are over, but there are some people there that are not willing to accept that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What is the structure of Cambridge?
Marc:Because I know that I resent people who go to Ivy League schools here.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:But that seems to be even higher than that.
Marc:Like, you know, the Ivy League... You don't even have the class system.
Marc:Sure, right.
Marc:The Ivy League here was to accommodate, you know, a sort of subverted class system in this country.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where you're just shameless about it.
Marc:No, this is it.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:This is the upper class.
Guest:Yeah, and I came from, you know... From Liverpoolians.
Guest:Well, I came from, you know, a state school...
Guest:uh you know quite a you know bad state school and i felt very uncomfortable there almost all the time well how how did you pull that off just on grades or it was a gift or some sort of affirmative action that as well yeah i'm afraid to say i think they had they have to hit a quota for how many yeah you know what percentage of state school well this someone seems to be sort of gifted yeah and i was definitely aware that i was probably less smart than some of the other people there but that i came from a school that they could tick a box
Guest:uh-huh but but i was i was i was i was pretty smart but i was i was not i was not as smart as you know i definitely had an imposter syndrome there in almost every level intellectual and social but aren't those a lot of those uh a lot of the people their legacies anyways i mean it i have to assume there has to be a large contingent of not smart rich kids oh yeah
Guest:But they're going to go on to do... I was going to say great things, not great things.
Guest:Let's say profitable things.
Marc:Yeah, they're going to go on to have money still, to manage the money that they were born with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, I mean, with that in place, you must have been driven by some sort of spite.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:I was fully driven by spite.
Guest:But I did comedy there a lot.
Guest:At Cambridge.
Guest:Yeah, there's this group called the Cambridge Footlights, which is...
Marc:Yeah, basically a comedy group is where... So you were the lower class clown that we've allowed into the school.
Guest:Yeah, and the guy I worked with a lot of colleagues, this guy called Richard Ayoade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember when we met each other... Should I know who he is?
Guest:No, not necessarily.
Guest:He's on a show called The IT Crowd in England.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you went to school with him?
Guest:He did a movie called Submarine.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I went to college with him.
Guest:So the first week we really liked each other.
Guest:I remember he came to my room and we were both so angry about the place we spent the whole time standing up.
Guest:We literally never sat down and we must have been in there for a while.
Marc:just ranting at each other just kind of venting of what is this place and how do we navigate this it was freshman year yeah yeah and it is a four-year program three years it's three years yeah but we wrote a lot together while we were there and that's but three years as opposed to four it must be more intensive like i'm trying to figure out how uh an education at that level is structured i mean how does it work what was your major english and and what what do you i mean how is it different also it's not a major it's just that you one thing all your eggs in one basket
Marc:But you didn't do any language or anything like that?
Marc:No, literature, whole thing.
Marc:The whole thing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did they assume that you knew French or anything else?
Marc:It's worse than that.
Guest:Imagine you have all these hang-ups, class hang-ups going into a place that you feel that you don't socially or mentally belong in.
Guest:And the first semester was on Old English, going in the green light, that kind of stuff.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'd never read Old English.
Guest:Lots of the kids that have been to these private schools... The Canterbury Tales are Old English.
Guest:Yeah, but that's a different language.
Guest:That's halfway to a different language.
Guest:So I was sitting in a room for these first lessons, looking at this page of something I did not understand, with these letters swimming around in front of your eyes, thinking, I definitely should not be here.
Marc:But none of the other kids knew either.
Guest:No, they knew, because they'd been taught it at school.
Guest:Oh, so they don't like Canterbury Tales at school.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Canterbury Tales.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I majored in literature and I read that stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm not sure what I took from it.
Guest:Well, probably the sense of this isn't as good as anyone thinks it is.
Guest:Who wrote The Green Knight?
Guest:That was going The Green Knight.
Marc:Because I remember having to read that one.
Marc:Is that a Chaucer one too?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I think, I don't know.
Marc:John Dunn, were you going to say?
Marc:No, John Dunn was a lot later.
Guest:He was that poet who was just shitting himself in the eyes of the Lord.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There were some good ones.
Marc:I enjoyed some of that.
Guest:I liked Blake.
Marc:Blake was great.
Marc:The sunflower, the lamb, the paintings.
Marc:He was nuts.
Marc:He sure was.
Guest:Was that your focus, Blake?
Guest:No, I liked Blake.
Guest:Yeah, I liked him the best.
Guest:I liked Beckett.
Marc:I liked Beckett when I was there.
Marc:That's much later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I skimmed the canon of English literature.
Marc:Just dipped in here and there.
Marc:But Blake was one of those guys where, like, I always felt when I was studying that stuff that, like, God, it really is amazing, but I can't seem to put it into context, and I can't see... Because, like, Blake, the simplicity of it is fascinating, but if you don't put him into a historical context...
Guest:uh you know it's just gonna be like well that's cute yeah that's right that's right and it's very difficult to really you know get into it you have to you definitely have to understand what it meant to be as crazy as he was at that time yeah and to be printing this stuff on your own and making your own paintings and printing those on a human level of what his neighbors must have thought of him yeah naked in a tree as he often was that's tough to live next to now
Marc:imagine how it was then yeah but they were my neighbor's a poet he's just don't talk to him he's just he's fine he's fine he's actually harmless yeah but he must have i oh i mean this is all available information i'm not going to sit here and speculate about blake but there are those but people like blake enable you to appreciate certainly in comedy uh because you you you run into this a lot that the kind of tormented you know gifted genius that may not survive his talent yeah
Marc:Like, you know, that's one of the great things about being in the arts is that if you're in it long enough, there's a guy will come along and you'd be like, oh, well, yeah, he is great, but we'll see what happens.
Guest:Well, no, but also I think I really like, I really responded to knowing how much he was suffering when he was doing it.
Guest:That's what I liked about the Sistine Chapel so much because reading this stuff about just how miserable he was for a decade.
Guest:Michael Andrews hated it.
Marc:He didn't even think he could do it.
Marc:I don't even think he was the first choice.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:And he had doubts.
Marc:He had religious doubts.
Marc:You know, it was the whole thing.
Guest:And he wasn't a painter by trade.
Guest:Personal pain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I loved that.
Guest:In the same way that I loved in the comedian documentary of Seinfeld.
Guest:I loved seeing how much he was suffering to put that set together.
Guest:I hate to hear.
Marc:compare them so quickly again i'm dipping in you're skipping a lot from blake to becky it's just it's the the fundamental essence from michelangelo to jerry steinfeld that i you know even even as a comic you really put the brakes on there didn't you uh i i get it thematically but i'm gonna have to throw a flag on that one yeah yeah well because with with michelangelo like he was proving himself to to a god that he was on the fence with and and blake was sort of like i'm just gonna build my own gods yeah
Marc:I'm going to create my own mythology.
Marc:Fuck the ones that are established.
Marc:I have my problems with theirs.
Marc:So I'm going to create a mythological universe that I've decided upon and support it.
Marc:And Jerry Seinfeld was sort of like, yeah, couches.
Marc:I mean, I understand.
Marc:The suffering of the artist.
Guest:But I think there's even a bit in it where he's talking about a duck joke.
Guest:And he's saying, I can't get my duck joke to work.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:and it was clearly causing him pain.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I identify with... To be honest, I identify more with that than I identify with Michelangelo struggling over the system.
Guest:Well, of course you do.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you know, and that's why we're comedians.
Marc:We're not painting anything.
Marc:We're getting away with a fucking trick.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:There's not going to be... It's a card trick without the skills to actually do a card trick.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, we're still talking about Michelangelo.
Marc:How many years later?
Marc:You know how many people are going to be talking about us in 400 years?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's going to be a lot of digital detritus everywhere and some guy in a room will find like, what was this period of time where people thought this was important?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This seems very insular.
Guest:I guess it doesn't really, it was literally nothing, wasn't it?
Marc:and and like Beckett I never read oh he's good yeah but he I mean I can't even pretend to as I usually do to know things about him other than waiting for Godot he was he didn't he also wrote prose as well yeah and poems a novel yeah I didn't like his poetry as much yeah it was too difficult yeah but his uh his novels are pretty crazy
Marc:Did you like, were you an Ezra Pound guy or who were the other poets and modern poets?
Marc:Nobody?
Marc:What made you like Beckett?
Guest:I like Philip Larkin.
Marc:Yeah, he's funny.
Guest:Yeah, he is funny.
Guest:I agree with that.
Guest:And then almost everyone will say that's really depressing.
Guest:But I found his utter unremitting misery quite funny.
Marc:No, your parents fucked you up.
Marc:That's his piece.
Marc:That's his famous one, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but I ordered a book of his stuff, and I'm like, well, that's the other thing about us as comics is that misery is hilarious.
Guest:Maybe you're taking this too seriously.
Guest:There was a really jarring moment of that.
Guest:You know McSweeney, 826 McSweeney?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I went to, I like to do a little bit of work with their literacy thing when I can with Sarah Vowell, who's a friend of mine.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so we went to this thing.
Guest:We were talking to these kids about these stories that they were writing.
Guest:And they were talking about, you know, what was happening to them at school.
Guest:And this one, like 15, started saying, well, this is my idea for a thing.
Guest:You know, there's a lot of cutting going on at my school at the moment.
Guest:You know, people cutting themselves and...
Guest:You know, just to show people.
Guest:It's happening more, and I want to write a story about it.
Guest:And without thinking, I was listening, I went, yeah, there's something funny in that.
Guest:That could be funny.
Guest:And I hear this kind of... And it's just Sarah kind of putting her hand on my arm going, yeah, I don't know if that's...
Guest:Oh, I'm not saying it... Definitely, I'm saying it could be funny.
Guest:If you want to take it that way, that sounds like it could be funny.
Guest:Yeah, there's a way to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How old was the kid?
Guest:Like 15.
Guest:Not old enough.
Guest:To process that?
Guest:Yeah, and look, I pulled back pretty quickly.
Guest:But there was a moment where I realized, yeah, that's...
Guest:The fact I have that instinct is definitely a problem.
Guest:And not just in this room.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In every room.
Marc:You just should have taken one step further.
Marc:Let's beat it out.
Marc:I mean, what's the setup?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:The guy's cutting himself.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I'll show you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't use the real names because then that's going to make me feel terrible.
Guest:It's emotional slapstick in a way, isn't it?
Marc:I guess it isn't.
Marc:If you really take it over the top and there's blood spraying all over the place and the kid just wants attention.
Guest:Come to think of it, that was honestly the last time I did something like that.
Guest:That's what I think.
Marc:Not good with putting kids, you know, guiding them.
Guest:They're serious.
Guest:Those kids, they were serious.
Guest:There's nothing wrong with that.
Marc:I was a pretty serious kid.
Marc:I believe that.
Marc:In Cambridge then, you were part of a theater group or a comedy group?
Marc:Comedy group, yeah.
Marc:And you just wrote your own comedy?
Guest:Yeah, Richard and I did two-man shows together all the time that we were there.
Marc:Were they ridiculous?
Marc:Were you doing your version of Godot?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:Nothing as meaningful as that.
Marc:They were just silly.
Marc:Python-esque?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Were they your guys?
Guest:Python?
Guest:Python I loved.
Guest:I loved a guy called Armando Annucci.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Very much.
Marc:And who else?
Marc:Stand-ups that you liked?
Guest:Yeah, I loved Dylan Moran, Stuart Lee.
Guest:I loved American stand-ups.
Marc:Stuart Lee, that guy changed my life.
Marc:I talked to him.
Marc:He changed my life.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because I... Please say that he pushed you out the front of a bus or something.
Guest:It was a bus coming down.
Guest:He dived in front.
Guest:I'm doubting he did.
Marc:No, we played catch, and I caught every one.
Marc:No, I had not met him, and Hari Kondabolu turned me on to him because he knew I would like him, and I got sort of obsessed with watching him.
Marc:And then when I was in England, I interviewed him.
Marc:And his journey as a comic, because there's very few people that have as unique an approach as he does.
Marc:And just, he's not going to do it any other way.
Marc:And it's very deliberate and it's got a very specific pacing.
Marc:And when he told me about quitting comedy,
Guest:Yeah, he stopped for a long time.
Marc:Specifically because the audience, he was aggravated.
Guest:Yeah, he lost their stomach for the fight.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But then the thing that turned him, that when he came back, the fight became different because the way he saw people who didn't get him
Marc:did not anger him.
Marc:He became empathetic to their issue.
Marc:Yeah, he's right.
Marc:Well, that's right, but that's a big moment, and him talking about that changed my perspective on it.
Marc:Basically, he was like, you've made the wrong choice tonight, and there's nothing I'm going to do.
Guest:That is a baseball-in-the-face moment, but it is true.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It is true.
Marc:Do you know him?
Marc:I do, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you guys are pals?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
Marc:But he was one of the guys you were watching because he's been around for a long time.
Marc:Yeah, he's been around for a long time.
Marc:He's part of the original sort of British new wave.
Guest:Yeah, I liked him.
Guest:I liked Chris Morris and then... Munnery?
Marc:You dig Munnery?
Guest:I love Munnery, yes.
Marc:I interviewed him too.
Marc:He's an interesting guy.
Marc:You know what's interesting about him is that in the world we live in, his comedy is so specific and unto himself that I love the idea that he does pieces in parks and things occasionally.
Guest:Yeah, well, he has his wife.
Guest:man restaurant yeah yeah yeah he was doing that in Edinburgh and I think it's lost on a lot of people but I like that he continues the fight but it's found on enough people yeah yeah yeah so when did you first get up there and do the thing well you know I was I wrote comedy at university and then I tried stand-up just before I left and I loved it and I so I was doing stand-up ever since
Marc:and you were right do you you seem fairly uh quick quick yeah extemporaneously uh riffing on things were you a guy that wrote things out or you just kind of ran uh yeah a bit of both yeah like yeah yeah bullet points and then talk around it and then write on stage
Marc:And you entered the London comedy scene?
Marc:Did you move to London?
Guest:Yeah, I moved to London after college.
Marc:And you did those places, Junglers and the comedy store?
Guest:No, not Junglers.
Guest:They were a little more... It was a slight separation because those were quite chain clubs, so there's a lot of stag and hen nights or bachelor, bachelorette parties.
Guest:It's hard to do anything but crowd control.
Marc:That almost makes it sound like a good thing.
Guest:Yes, you're right.
Guest:It's giving those evenings charm that they do not deserve.
Marc:No, absolutely not.
Guest:So no, I did kind of more small clubs.
Guest:There's a lot of clubs, a lot of backroom pubs where there are gigs.
Marc:But with more groovier kids, a hipper scene, safer perhaps?
Guest:I don't know if it's quite the same.
Guest:Yeah, I started off with Daniel Kitson, who's my best friend.
Marc:Is he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's an interesting guy.
Marc:He's got an interesting ethic about him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Everything just dissipates into the ether.
Marc:There's no reason to save anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is the moment.
Guest:There is a reason to save.
Guest:I think he knows there's a reason to save stuff.
Guest:It's just how exactly to do it.
Marc:They have equipment for that.
Guest:Yeah, I think he records stuff.
Guest:Does he?
Guest:Yeah, I think he's just going to decide on when and how to distribute it.
Marc:Is he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I've met him a couple of times.
Marc:I saw him...
Marc:Oh, in Melbourne, I saw the one-man show about the guy who moves into the house.
Guest:So this is one of the story shows.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:I mean, he's a very interesting performer, but he refuses to leave evidence of himself.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:He leaves no trace.
Marc:He would not be sitting in the chair that you were in.
Marc:Yeah, it's interesting.
Marc:He's a very unique guy.
Marc:He's your best friend?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I know Andy's Altman, too.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You've worked with him for years.
Guest:Yeah, for years.
Guest:I wrote with Andy for years, and we do a podcast now every week.
Marc:It's doing well, The Bugle.
Marc:Yeah, and I've done his show.
Marc:I did his show in Edinburgh.
Marc:It was one of the highlights of a very horrible, horrendous month of my life.
Marc:I remember that was just after I'd met you.
Guest:I met you in Aspen, and I think I said to you, you have to go to Edinburgh.
Guest:You have to go.
Guest:You're going to love it.
Marc:you're the guy that did that uh-huh yeah yeah in aspen that was what year was that the end of it when when was that wow yeah i think it might actually have been the last one yeah well i went to uh to edinburgh but i was just in the middle of the divorce and everything and i was not i didn't know what i was getting into oh yeah i don't know if you were in a great personal place to take on everything that edinburgh had as well as how many times yeah how many times have you done it
Guest:A lot of times.
Guest:I did it every year until I moved over here.
Marc:But that was a thing, right?
Marc:That being from the UK... You structure your year around Edinburgh.
Marc:And you try to build an audience there?
Guest:Yeah, you try to build an audience there and you write a new hour each year to do it up there.
Guest:Did you build an audience there?
No.
Guest:I guess technically I built an audience, but when I left, it was not huge.
Guest:So yeah, I built an audience from almost no one to some people, not from no one to the world.
Marc:Why do you think that you didn't surface in the UK?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I guess I made a living out of it.
Guest:I wrote on radio shows and so on.
Marc:In the UK, doesn't everyone with a little bit of talent and persistence eventually end up doing something because it's a fairly intimate media landscape?
Guest:If you have the tenacity to just not stop, then I think that is partially true, that it is a slight meritocracy.
Marc:yeah and well that's good it certainly isn't that here yeah it's too big yeah it's too big here so but what are you uh attributed to in the sense okay you were making you know you were writing on shows and stuff but why didn't you become a comedy star in uh i can't answer that um i'm sure you've thought of it not really i you know i was i was pretty happy just writing doing what i was doing but here you're a fucking star what you have just stretched that term to semantic breaking point what do you mean
Guest:I don't think you could honestly use the dictionary definition of the word star with me.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm on TV a bit sometimes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But people know you.
Guest:You're the British fellow that hands us our ass when necessary.
Guest:And I think the very fact that that is who I am, the British fellow on that TV show, not John Oliver.
Guest:And I'm happy with that.
Marc:As you should be.
Marc:And, you know, I know that no one talks too explicitly about Jon Stewart, but you have a good relationship with him.
Guest:Yeah, I love him.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I deal with that.
Marc:There's two things that happen on these microphones.
Marc:There's the Lorne Michael syndrome and occasionally the Jon Stewart syndrome.
Guest:I've not met Lorne, I'm afraid, so.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but nobody has anything bad to say about Lorne Michaels.
Marc:And no matter how much I poke and prod because of my one shitty experience, your emotional archaeology act.
Marc:There must be rock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it is the same with Jon Stewart.
Marc:But but your relationship with him obviously has spanned years now.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Six years.
Marc:Because I have my own history with him and I don't want to bring any baggage to this.
Marc:But do you have a friendly relationship?
Guest:I'm telling you, he's fantastic.
Guest:And I know that that's probably not the answer that you're looking for.
Marc:No, he has a good factory over there.
Marc:He's making good product.
Marc:He's a great comic.
Guest:He's a great comic.
Guest:He's a great manager.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's fantastic.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:There's no problem.
Marc:Do you want to compare him to Michelangelo?
Marc:Or are you just going to leave that on Seinfeld?
Guest:Is John painting the Sistine Chapel?
Guest:I guess he's not the Sistine Chapel.
Guest:He's probably carving David.
Guest:David's interesting.
Guest:I didn't see him.
Guest:I didn't actually see him.
Marc:Why didn't you go see David?
Guest:I think I ran it.
Guest:I was only there for four and a half, five days.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I did.
Guest:Coliseum in the four and one day.
Marc:He's got very big hands.
Marc:Big hands and big feet.
Marc:really yeah they're they're actually uh they're they're larger than they should be and a big head but it's pretty stunning because he's just standing there yeah and you know you look at the picture of david you know your entire life in books yeah and then all of a sudden it's like it's right there there he is that's the amazing thing about rome is like postcards pictures you know you've seen all this shit yeah and you know you've only seen it the size of my cup right here yeah and then when you see it in person you're like i love when things live up
Marc:to you know to why they're photographs so often where you're like oh it's horrible like like the seven wonders of the world like you know it's easy to condescend niagara falls but if you ever stand before them you're like until you feel it pays off yeah no one goes to the grand canyon and says yeah you know yeah i haven't seen that yet you haven't no i really want to see that isn't there an angle that you can get the show to pay for for you to go to go and make fun of it yeah look at this big crack
Marc:Well, no, but there's actually, I believe, an Indian tribe who had rights to the land built some sort of very interesting bit of, I don't know, a structure where it sits on the edge and you can walk out.
Guest:Yes, I've seen that online.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It looks great.
Marc:It seems like you could mock something there.
Guest:Well, that is one of the odd, odd things about moments of working at The Daily Show is that you find yourself at moments of genuine history with the sole purpose of slightly undermining it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it hurts you?
Guest:No, it feels odd.
Guest:I was at the inauguration, President Obama's inauguration, and that moment, it was extremely cold, and there is nothing but a warm feeling of positivity and hope.
Guest:And the stuff I was doing was a little more cynical.
Guest:Now, I stand by all of what we were doing
Guest:after the fact to actually do it there you could definitely sense that this is a little weird to come here to make fun of this sure sure but you're a guy that has no respect for the queen so i mean it's not hard for you to it's not hard that's right i have a picture of the queen in my wallet just open it up
Guest:Still nothing.
Guest:Close it up.
Guest:Okay, we're good.
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:To mock the charade and pomp and circumstance of these horrible people that are supposed to command our respect as they just ruin the world for people that are trying their hardest to get by.
Marc:I understand it.
Guest:Are those the new words to the American national anthem?
Marc:Yeah, they should be.
Marc:But I mean, you do come from, you have transcended a background that would entitle you to that anger in some respects.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think that coming from the class system, you do have a bit of conscious spite against establishment.
Guest:It's there all the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a side of myself that is quite ugly.
Guest:And I think it's hard for Americans to understand.
Guest:I have American friends who can get quite frustrated when they feel that kind of chippiness, that class chippiness, which just doesn't translate here in the same visceral way.
Guest:And I find it really hard to let go.
Marc:Well, the established powers of this country have gone above and beyond to make sure that no one ever addresses class.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And gives everyone this ridiculous hope that they will transcend their lot in life, which is unique to them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because people buy into that because that's a great dream.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, on some level, the class system at least enables people to know their place.
Guest:That, I think, was the aristocracy in Britain's point.
Yeah.
Guest:Listen, I know you're hungry.
Guest:I know you're living in filth.
Guest:But if I may give you one redeeming feature to your current situation, you know your place, do you not?
Guest:And it is here.
Guest:You're exactly where you need to be.
Guest:Get away from my outfit.
Guest:Now don't touch my robe.
Marc:Well, exactly.
Marc:But on some level, and I'm obviously not defending the class system, but I'm saying that the fury that comes from that.
Guest:Yeah, it's in your deep.
Guest:It's a poisonous thing.
Guest:You've got to be a little bit careful with it because it's deep in your...
Marc:You have to actually watch your tongue?
Guest:No, not watch your tongue.
Guest:You have to watch how much.
Guest:You don't want it to consume you.
Guest:You don't want to have that chip on your shoulder your whole life.
Marc:When here it's just sort of like someday I'm going to get what that millionaire has.
Marc:Or there's the idea that everybody in America has this entitlement and this shot, at least at the disposition of somebody who's winning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that, right.
Marc:In Britain, you're not even entitled to that.
Guest:No.
Guest:There's much more inherent negativity if you're British, which is that, well, they don't want me to have it, so I'm never going to get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, let's go to the football game.
Guest:Right, let's go and have a drink.
Marc:Well, you've transcended it.
Marc:That's not true.
Marc:No, you've done all right for yourself.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:And the show that I did with you, the Marc Maron show.
Guest:We should plug that.
Guest:Yeah, the Marc Maron.
Guest:John Oliver's New York stand-up show starts on July the 20th for six weeks at midnight on Comedy Central.
Guest:It's starting on July the 20th against Batman.
Guest:yeah and i uh i appreciate you having me on twice there was yeah there was do you remember before you went on stage this time do you remember you were caught in the midst of like literally just before i'm about to bring you on this time you're in the midst of you know your regular yeah implosion yeah i don't know i don't know about it i can't do this
Guest:I remember taking you by the shoulders and saying, you can do this, Mark, because you're a professional comedian and you're good at this.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:At that time, I was thinking about it afterwards and I thought, I felt like I was putting my hands on a little league baseball player.
Guest:And now you've told that story.
Guest:It felt like you can do this, kid.
Guest:You can do this.
Guest:Get out there and you take some cuts.
Guest:Yeah, you can catch that ball this time.
Marc:Catch that ball.
Marc:And we did all right.
Marc:And even if that means you catch it in your mouth, you've still caught it.
Marc:Yeah, it's actually more impressive if you catch it in your mouth.
Marc:Just don't let it bounce off your face this time.
Marc:And we did it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, thank you for the pep talk.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And thanks for coming by.
Guest:You're all welcome.
Marc:All right, that is it.
Marc:How was that for you?
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:That was a fucking fun interview.
Marc:Any interview where there's a little bit of talk about William Blake, that's great.
Marc:I really appreciate John coming by, and as you know, his John Oliver stand-up show, I will be on it.
Marc:He will be on it, obviously, but I will be on it.
Marc:I don't know what episode, but I love that guy, okay?
Marc:Can't say it enough.
Marc:Please go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Pick yourself up, you know, get yourself some merch, some T-shirts, some stickers, whatever you need.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Get the premium app.
Marc:Get the app at all.
Marc:See who's been on the show.
Marc:Get on the email list.
Marc:Pick up the Mark and Tom show.
Marc:Pick up my CD.
Marc:That's still available.
Marc:Do anything you want to do.
Marc:Comment.
Marc:Don't be a dick.
Marc:Seriously, I don't understand what it is with some people.
Marc:You know, sometimes it's just what women guess.
Marc:I'm not on board with some of you commenters.
Marc:I do read them occasionally, and I find some of you disappointing.
Marc:More than you find me disappointing for one episode.
Marc:You can put one comment on there, and I'm disappointed with you as a person.
Marc:So that's what you're up against.
Marc:All right?
Marc:But do go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Come to Zaney's tomorrow night, July 20th and 21st.
Marc:Watch me on Chelsea lately.
Marc:I'm going to watch me.
Marc:I have no idea how that's going to pan out.
Marc:That's tonight.
Marc:And, you know, I think that's it.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop at WTFPod.com.
Marc:I'm not drinking any now because I have a cold.
Marc:I'm all hopped up on Sudafed.
Marc:I need to read a paper.