Episode 304 - Sebastian Maniscalco
Marc:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark marron
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fucking Asians?
Marc:What the faculties?
Marc:No, I like that one.
Marc:They keep coming in.
Marc:I seem to be reading them and using them.
Marc:So you're free to send them.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for joining me here.
Marc:I'm in my garage.
Marc:I don't know where you are, but I hope it's going well.
Marc:Or I hope it's tolerable.
Marc:Or I hope that you're not too on the fence and that fence isn't dangerous.
Marc:I'm here for you, man, woman, kids, whatever it may be.
Marc:A lot of you people saw me on Louie last week and many tweets and many compliments.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:I had a great time doing it.
Marc:I'd like to clear up some stuff about that scene.
Marc:I think I'm free.
Marc:to give you my experience of shooting an episode of Louie.
Marc:And that's perhaps something you people would want to hear.
Marc:But first of all, let me tell you who's on the show today.
Marc:Sebastian Maniscalco, who goes by the name Sebastian on the show.
Marc:Always an interesting guy to me.
Marc:I used to see him at the comedy store.
Marc:He's very put together.
Marc:He's very clean.
Marc:I think I could use the word anal, very focused, very structured to the point where his hair is in place, but in a way that's...
Marc:That's comedic.
Marc:I don't know that he would consider that.
Marc:But I always found it an interesting... He's an interesting character, and I'll be talking to him in a few minutes.
Marc:Let me get you up to speed on where I'm performing.
Marc:I will be at the Tripany House here at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles August 14th doing an hour of material I'm trying to work out if you'd like to come to that.
Marc:I will be at the Blue Bridge Comedy Festival in Victoria, B.C.
Marc:That's August 17th and 18th.
Marc:I will be back at the Tripany doing a...
Marc:similar hour of stand-up on august 21st and then on the 28th we're doing a live wtf that features if i can remember it ari spears jake fogelnest dave hill jim earl's gonna be there and there's another one i got it tj miller i don't know that guy and quite frankly he uh he generally makes me a little uncomfortable so i i think that's going to be uh you know something interesting because i've never really talked to him he's
Marc:He's a funny fellow and he has very odd energy that makes me a little squirrely.
Marc:So that should be a good show to go to on August 28th at the Tripany House.
Marc:So look, all right.
Marc:So you guys saw Louie.
Marc:There's been a lot of questions about the Louie episode I was in.
Marc:How much of it was it real?
Marc:Was there still tension?
Marc:Nice legs because I wore my boxers.
Marc:And if this is a spoiler for you people, then go watch it.
Marc:All right, it was last week.
Marc:If it's sitting on your TiVo and you can't find the 22 minutes to watch it, it's not on me.
Marc:And I'm only going to talk about my scene.
Marc:I'll tell you how it all unfolded.
Marc:Now, many of you have heard the Louis C.K.
Marc:episodes of my show.
Marc:If you haven't, they're available on iTunes.
Marc:You can go do the search on WTF Premium, I think.
Marc:And those episodes are available.
Marc:And we work through a lot of stuff.
Marc:But a lot of people speculate.
Marc:They speculate as to whether or not we ever followed up on our friendship or we ever really made amends during that show.
Marc:Is everything okay with us?
Marc:And I am here to tell you, yes, it is.
Marc:It is okay with us.
Marc:We talk occasionally.
Marc:And when he emailed me to ask me if I wanted to be in a scene in the show, I was thrilled because he had asked me during the second season if I wanted to be in a scene in the show.
Marc:And I was thrilled as well.
Marc:But he said, okay, you have to be here in two hours.
Marc:You got to leave for New York tomorrow morning.
Marc:And I'm like, I can't.
Marc:I can't do it.
Marc:I got other other commitments.
Marc:But this time I was going to be in New York and it all worked out.
Marc:So he sent me the scene.
Marc:It was a scene you saw.
Marc:Now, I don't know what to expect when I get to a shoot.
Marc:I was given.
Marc:I wasn't calling Louie.
Marc:I was not the needy actor guy or the fucked up friend who's like, no, wait, what am I going to meet you at the place or what?
Marc:You know, I did it.
Marc:I was professional.
Marc:I'm not a fucking fool.
Marc:It was organized to his production people, and then I was told where to go.
Marc:I showed up.
Marc:I think it was at 10.30 or 11 o'clock in the morning on a street.
Marc:Didn't know how long I would have to wait.
Marc:Brought a couple of shirts.
Marc:I didn't know what was needed to me wardrobe-wise.
Marc:And I figured I'd be spending the day there.
Marc:I saw Louie's like, oh, I'm great.
Marc:I'm glad you're here.
Marc:And, you know, we're going to be shooting in a minute.
Marc:I'm just finishing up this other scene.
Marc:And then I went upstairs.
Marc:It's all very small production.
Marc:There's one camera.
Marc:There's a set person.
Marc:There's a production people.
Marc:There's the wardrobe person.
Marc:There was food there, which is always good for me.
Marc:Well, can I eat that while I'm waiting?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Eat all you want.
Marc:OK, I've got the whole day available to eat this free food.
Marc:So we go up into the apartment where they shoot the scene.
Marc:And I've got my script and Louie's got his script.
Marc:They set up the camera.
Marc:The only thing I had in my head for this scene, you know, because I was pretty much playing myself, was wearing boxers.
Marc:Because I'm in a strange apartment, it obviously wasn't shot in my house.
Marc:It was supposed to be my apartment in New York.
Marc:I'd brought a poster or two.
Marc:They had some artwork that someone did of me.
Marc:And I just wanted to wear boxers because I didn't know if I was going to be comfortable in that space because it's not my space.
Marc:It was clearly someone else's space.
Marc:But I wanted to feel comfortable.
Marc:So I wanted to wear my underwear and my socks.
Marc:That's why I said to Louis, he says, I said, what do you want me to wear?
Marc:Do you think I can wear boxers?
Marc:I think I should wear boxers.
Marc:And he said, yeah, yeah, wear boxers.
Marc:Great.
Marc:But then I had a problem.
Marc:I don't want my cock.
Marc:in the shot.
Marc:I would prefer if my, my penis did not come out of the boxer fly.
Marc:Is there anybody who can, uh, is there underwear around?
Marc:I need a pair of underwear to wear under my boxers.
Marc:So we don't get the, uh, the cock shot.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I got enough to worry about.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And of course, wardrobe usually has packages of underwear for exactly this type of purpose, either to, to, to have extra underwear for people.
Marc:I don't know who shit their pants or don't want whatever.
Um,
Marc:This doesn't need to get disgusting, but they had extra underwear.
Marc:And I was really assuming that I get a package of new underwear.
Marc:I mean, how much could they cost?
Marc:But the wardrobe person gave me clearly a washed pair of used underwear.
Marc:And that was a little it was a little off putting.
Marc:But, you know, the budget is the budget and this is the way it works.
Marc:And, you know, I've certainly, you know, my my junk has been in pretty junky places and a pair of washed underwear that may have been used is, you know, didn't really freak me out.
Marc:So I put on my boxers and I went through the scene.
Marc:Louis explained to me the sequence that the scene was involved in.
Marc:We went over the lines a few times.
Marc:And then we got right to it.
Marc:We started shooting.
Marc:Now another question is improvising.
Marc:What was their improv?
Marc:Well, no, Louis wanted to stay pretty much to the script.
Marc:But towards the end, we did a couple of reads.
Marc:They shot it a couple of times.
Marc:I was moving too fast.
Marc:The only direction that Louis really gave me was when he had his beat not to talk over it, to shut up.
Marc:And let that beat build.
Marc:If you know the scene where I tell him that he had said what he'd said before, there's a moment there where he sort of is stunned and pulling his thoughts together.
Marc:And he just wanted to make sure that that moment had a nice build.
Marc:So that was really the only direction there.
Marc:And then the scene at the door, the great moment in this scene.
Marc:for both of us, I think, was we did it a few times and we got most of the shots done.
Marc:And then there was the exit shot where he's leaving.
Marc:And I say, you know, I could you could give me a call or whatever.
Marc:And one of the scenes when we did it, when we ran through it, as as Louis was walking out, he just out of nowhere said, how are you doing?
Marc:You know, that was the moment where he was going to check in with my life as he was leaving the house.
Marc:And my response was, oh, thanks.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:That's very nice of you.
Marc:And we left that.
Marc:So that was really the only improvised bit of business that sort of became part of the scene because it was so fucking perfect.
Marc:And that's the way that went.
Marc:And the amazing thing is that I was in and out of there within two and a half hours.
Marc:Louis is at the he knows exactly what he wants.
Marc:He's directing it.
Marc:And, you know, he's getting the angles in his head.
Marc:Boom, boom, boom, like two and a half hours.
Marc:It was unbelievable.
Marc:now in terms of louie and i uh our friendship uh things are great you know when i was in new york when we shot the scene he had some time the next day i went over to his house he showed me some footage we ate some uh chinese cuban chicken and rice i took a ride with him downtown i saw his ex-wife and his kids for the first time in a million years look louie and i have known each other for probably almost 25 years now and i was you know thinking about our relationship and what people think of our relationship in terms of uh
Marc:the interviews we did, but I know very few people for as long as I've known him.
Marc:If you really think about the number of people you know in your life and how many relationships have actually stood up to the test of time or even politely, politely, how many people do you check in from?
Marc:I mean, I'm 48 years old and there's a few people in my life that I've known half my life, but there's very few of them that I maintain a relationship with.
Marc:So I don't think that whatever Louis and I experience is any different than anyone else's long-term friendships.
Marc:I mean, you start to live different lives.
Marc:It's harder to check in.
Marc:Life gets away from you.
Marc:All of a sudden, you're looking down behind you at 20, 25 years, and you're like, holy shit, what's going on?
Marc:But I do think that the episodes I did with him in that conversation certainly was a turning point for us, and certainly we do keep in touch now, and it's a beautiful thing.
Marc:If you can get a couple of people in your life that you've known for that long, and when you get back together, you're not strangers, and it doesn't take long to get back to where you were, into that groove, that's something that you should cherish.
Marc:Life is short.
Marc:There's only a few of those if you're lucky.
Marc:Oh, I forgot.
Marc:The one other thing that I improvised was when, you know, after we got done talking, sitting down, and I said, so are we good?
Marc:I did throw that in.
Marc:And again, for clarification, Louie and I are good.
Marc:We're good.
We're good.
Marc:Sebastian.
Marc:Mark.
Marc:What is your last name?
Marc:Maniscalco.
Marc:Maniscalco.
Marc:See, I've fucked that up over and over again.
Marc:Everybody does.
Marc:Is that why you just go with Sebastian?
Guest:Sometimes I have to because nobody understands the last name.
Guest:Maniscalco.
Guest:Yeah, it's not that hard when you actually break it down into fourths, but when you first look at it, you're like,
Marc:I said that about Marin, but people can't seem to get that right.
Marc:Moran, Marin, moron.
Marc:I don't fucking understand it.
Marc:You know, it's weird because when I moved to LA and I just started hanging around when I got, I don't remember what year it was, but I remember going into the comedy store.
Marc:I remember seeing you.
Marc:And then like a few days later, I went to the Four Seasons for a meeting and you were working there.
Marc:And it was one of those moments where I was like, he's a funny guy.
Marc:I'm not going to say hello to him in this situation.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I don't want to do that to him.
Marc:I'm just going to remember him as a comedian and let this go.
Marc:Did you work there for a long time?
Guest:I worked there 98 to 2005.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's how I paid my bills.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Well, I mean, you got to work.
Marc:But it was one of those weird times where because you're so together on stage and you had such a thing going.
Marc:When I saw you there, I was like, I'm not going to.
Marc:I'm just going to let that.
Marc:I'm not going to embarrass a guy.
Yeah.
Marc:Believe me, it wouldn't have been the first time.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Dom Herrera has come in there.
Guest:Well, it's a big meeting place for industry people.
Guest:Everybody.
Marc:Did you have to wait on people?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Dom.
Guest:I waited on Dom.
Marc:And he knew you from the thing?
Guest:Well, I started to talk to Dom.
Guest:I go, you know, Dom, I'm a big fan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, inspiring comedian myself.
Guest:And he was meeting with the Montreal Comedy Festival.
Guest:Bruce Hills.
Guest:Bruce Hills.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm trying to get on this show.
Guest:You know, it's hard when you're a waiter and you're also doing comedy to validate that you're really good because you're still waiting tables.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, me and Dom talked to this day about, you know, how he saw me and he's like, yeah, when you told me you're a comedian, I'm like, oh, here's another waiter who's a comedian trying to get in the game.
Guest:You talk to him about it means he busts your balls about it still.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's wild that you saw me there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody has come in there.
Guest:It is a huge meeting place.
Guest:I've waited on everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I actually used to do comedy during my break.
Guest:I used to leave the Four Seasons and then do my set at the Comedy Store in my uniform and then run back and pick up my tables again, which is virtually unheard of for the Four Seasons.
Guest:I mean, they got such a standard of service over there.
Guest:How'd you get away with that?
Guest:You know, I told my boss, I said, I didn't come out here to wait tables.
Guest:And I looked at it as if I was going to miss a spot at the comedy store, I would be missing, A, on growth of material.
Guest:You never know who's going to be in the audience.
Guest:So we kind of worked it out.
Guest:I said, let me go on break, and I'll go do comedy.
Guest:I come back.
Guest:And the guy was really good about it.
Guest:How the hell were you able to pull that up with that fucking place?
Guest:It took 33 minutes to do the whole thing, to get to my car, to do the set, to come back.
Marc:But would you have to call Tommy and say, how are you running?
Marc:Are you on time?
Marc:Could you get me up soon?
Marc:You'd have to call the store first and say, where are you at?
Guest:And then decide when to take your break.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd be like, where is he?
Guest:Bobby Lee just got up.
Guest:He's eight minutes in.
Guest:I said, OK, I'm leaving.
Guest:And then I would time it just so when I got out of the car, I took my name tag off, and boom, I was on stage.
Marc:Is that when you started dressing well on stage?
Guest:I always used to dress... I don't know.
Guest:I came from a family who really dressed up nice and presented themselves well.
Marc:Because you're one of those guys.
Marc:I was afraid that you were going to get dirty here.
Marc:I was afraid that you were going to walk in and go, oh, it's fucking filthy in here.
Marc:Well, no.
Guest:I had to bring some Clorox beachplads with me, but...
Guest:No, I always grew up neat, clean.
Guest:That's kind of the thing in my house growing up.
Marc:But it's also part of your personality.
Marc:I don't know how to explain it.
Marc:You have a very unique style.
Marc:It's very controlled.
Marc:I don't want to say anal, but you seem very clean up there, and you talk about it a little bit, right?
Guest:yeah it's i i'm a very neat guy i always like things in order um you know yeah everything in the house stacked nice nice thing if i if like i know people are coming over things are gonna be neat put it this way there wouldn't be a loose bag all right let me take that away are you one of those people that like you're sitting here going when the fuck is he gonna no bag is there's a bag here no no not at all where'd you where'd you come from
Guest:I grew up in Chicago, Illinois.
Guest:Right in the city?
Guest:Well, Harlem and Belmont.
Guest:I spent like six, seven years there, and then we moved out to the suburbs of Arlington Heights.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, grew up in a middle-class family.
Guest:My father's a hairstylist.
Guest:My mother was a hairstylist.
Guest:really i've never heard that before in my life a hairstylist or a barber see it's two different things you can't call my dad a barber he'll it's a whole different thing this guy styles hair okay doesn't use clippers yeah so uh yeah he had his own salons and then uh my mother is a secretary was a secretary at a school and
Guest:And, you know, it wasn't no drama in the family.
Marc:Other than your father being a hairstylist.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's fairly dramatic.
Guest:Well, I didn't think so.
Guest:No.
Guest:I just thought that was the norm.
Guest:He came home with gel and I was like, oh, this is a good styling.
Marc:So that's where you got it, I guess.
Marc:That's where I got it.
Marc:So he had like a real like a salon where upscale salon had some people working for him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did he have a fancy name?
Marc:Montescalco is already pretty fancy.
Guest:Well, it's him and his brother, so it was called Luigi Insalvo Hair Studio.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Which could also be a pizzeria, but that was the name of one.
Guest:Sebastiano's was the name of another one.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:So what do you deal with, mostly upscale women?
Guest:Upscale, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't really super high-end, but it was one of those places where you came in, you put a robe on, and you get your hair done, and it was an experience.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I've only known one other guy whose father was in hair.
Marc:Blaine Capach, you know him?
Marc:He's a comedian.
Marc:His father was like a rural barber, worked out of the house.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you didn't have any of the blue liquid with the combs in it?
Marc:No, that was my grandfather.
Marc:He was a barber.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So this was passed down?
Guest:This was passed down.
Guest:I don't know what happened to me, but- Your grandfather was a barber.
Marc:Did he have an old barbershop?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Did shaves and everything?
Marc:Where was that, in Chicago?
Guest:Sicily.
Marc:In Sicily?
Guest:Sicily, yeah.
Marc:So you're only two generations out?
Guest:My father was born in Sicily, and he came here when he was 15.
Guest:And I recently went back and actually saw the old barbershop, which is now a travel agency.
Marc:Oh, heartbreaking.
Marc:You went back with your dad?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he had to go look at it with that weird sadness?
Marc:It's like when he grew up in it?
Guest:i was crying really i swear it hit me like a ton of bricks i've never been to sicily yeah he hasn't been back since he left 50 years ago really so here he is we have a time i had the time to take my father to italy i'm like let's go see where you know you came from and he's telling me this is where i learned ping pong this is you know where i played soccer and i
Guest:I had to take a knee.
Guest:And he was like, what's going on?
Guest:I go, Dad, it's a little too much.
Guest:I heard of all this stuff growing up, but now here we are seeing it.
Guest:And yeah, I guess hair was in the family.
Guest:My uncle does hair, my father does hair, my grandfather does hair.
Marc:Sicily, I've been to Italy, but I've been to Rome and Florence and Umbria.
Marc:But Sicily is its own thing, right?
Guest:Yeah, it's its own little island over there.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, and you've never been there.
Marc:That must be a trip.
Marc:Because I remember my father, when he wanted to go see his old house in Jersey City, I drove him back there, and it was during a very bad point in Jersey City's history.
Marc:He's like, I'm going to get out and take a look.
Marc:I'm like, stay in the car.
Marc:We'll just do a drive-by.
Marc:And that's that.
Guest:Sit still, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So how long did you spend in Italy?
Guest:We were there two weeks.
Guest:I went to Rome and Florence as well, and then we went to the Amalfi Coast.
Guest:Food is good, right?
Guest:Well, the further south you get, the better the food is.
Guest:And Sicily is the south as you can go, right?
Guest:And the food is amazing.
Marc:Like, what's Sicilian dishes?
Guest:Pasta con sardi, which is a pasta made with sardines and a red sauce.
Guest:They also make phenomenal gelato on a brioche.
Guest:It's like an ice cream sandwich, but it's like a brioche bread.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:Yeah, the pasta dishes are pretty much the staple.
Guest:Do you cook?
Guest:I try.
Guest:I mean, I don't do it a lot, but when I'm home and I got a little time, I might make a little pasta.
Guest:I might grill some steak, make a nice side or whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I fucking wish I could cook.
Marc:Yeah, nothing.
Marc:I mean, I can do all right.
Marc:I mean, I know how to do it, but I wish I knew how to.
Marc:Like, I had this opportunity.
Marc:They want me to maybe be on a Celebrity Chopped.
Marc:Oh, do that.
Yeah.
Marc:But I'm not that good.
Marc:I mean, how am I going to last a round?
Marc:I guess it's fine if I don't want to make a fool out of myself.
Guest:Believe me, you can pull it off.
Guest:You can't pull a dish together?
Marc:No, I can pull a dish together if it's not too complicated.
Marc:I'm a little worried about dessert.
Marc:I mean, dessert's the tough one.
Guest:Yeah, you got to do a dessert.
Marc:Yeah, you ever watch Chopped?
Marc:You got to do the appetizer, then the entree, then dessert.
Marc:I mean, I'm fucked on dessert.
Marc:I can't bake.
Marc:I can't do anything that creative.
Marc:I'm just going to make a mess.
Marc:Maybe I can fake my way through an appetizer and an entree.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:yeah i think you could get through that but yeah dessert made apple pie something something just easy no i don't know maybe i should do it i don't know oh i would fuck yeah so when you how old how you've been out here a long time so how old you're a little you know like 10 years younger than me what are you 38 i'm 38 yeah been out here 98 i got out here
Marc:So you've been out here 12.
Guest:So you came out when you were in your 20s.
Guest:24.
Guest:I came out.
Guest:I graduated college.
Guest:What did you study in college?
Guest:Corporate Organizational Communications out of Northern Illinois University.
Guest:One of those vague.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:It's the only school I could get into.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the major you chose?
Marc:Corporate Organizational Communications.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:First, it was accounting.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Didn't do well there.
Guest:Then it was journalism.
Guest:Failed the journalism test to get into the journalism school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At that point, I was like, just get me in.
Guest:Just let me get a major.
Guest:Because I knew I was going to do comedy throughout pretty much my whole life.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just knew it was in me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I wasn't a class clown.
Guest:I just told a lot of funny stories at the kitchen table.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's kind of my first audience.
Guest:You got a big family?
Guest:My mother, my father, my sister, that's it.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So, you know, where a lot of kids just maybe ate and then ran to go play with their friends, I ate and sat there for two hours and talked about what happened at school.
Guest:And I just love telling stories.
Guest:But were you a fan of people, a fan of comedy?
Guest:Fan, loved Johnny Carson.
Guest:I would sit up late and watch Johnny Carson.
Guest:Loved his monologues.
Guest:Just grew up on John Ritter and Three's Company.
Guest:Loved the physicalness of him, even though he wasn't stand-up.
Guest:I just loved the way his face could tell a story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, yeah, always a fan of comedy.
Guest:Loved to laugh.
Guest:I loved to laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And didn't know how I was going to get into it, coming from the suburbs of Chicago.
Guest:My dad's a hairstylist.
Guest:You know, how do you get into entertainment?
Guest:You don't know.
Guest:It was foreign to me.
Guest:No one knows.
Guest:No one knows.
Guest:I just think you come out here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You come out here and someone shows up and goes, you're the guy.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:They got a place for you to stand.
Marc:Here's a microphone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's kind of this.
Marc:That's really the story.
Marc:But wait a minute.
Marc:Let's get back to corporate organizational communications.
Marc:What the fuck does that even mean?
Guest:Human resources, maybe?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You got the major in it.
Guest:Yeah, we just did like projects.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I couldn't even tell you.
Guest:I used to tell people it's like marketing.
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Marc:That's the same thing.
Marc:I don't know what that means either.
Marc:I don't know either.
Marc:Did you get anything out of it that helped you at all?
Guest:Friends.
Guest:I got friends out of college.
Guest:That's about it.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't a big student.
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:Northern Illinois, NIU and DeKalb, Illinois.
Marc:I don't know anything about that.
Marc:I do know that it's very, you know, there's certain parts of Illinois that are very white and sort of thick.
Marc:But, you know, the further you get out from Chicago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a lot of thickness in northern Illinois.
Guest:So where was the first time you did comedy?
Guest:Northern Illinois I opened up for the headlining comedian that was coming to the school they had a contest yeah of Who you know who wants to open up and do 10 minutes in front of the so I went and I won the contest and I and I opened up who was it
Guest:You don't remember?
Guest:His signature was Arrgh.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Pirate.
Guest:Bald head guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:God, I don't know his name.
Guest:Was he from Boston?
Guest:Don't know.
Marc:Arrgh.
Marc:Arrgh.
Marc:And he was bald headed.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:You never researched it?
Marc:I looked it up a long time ago.
Marc:Would you look up Arrgh?
Marc:Bald?
Guest:Comic?
Guest:Bald comedian pirate.
Guest:He showed up, but I don't remember the name.
Marc:So you did that, and how much did you do?
Marc:What did you do?
Guest:I did like five to seven.
Guest:It was awful.
Guest:It was primarily a black crowd, and they started screaming Sandman, and I didn't know what the hell Sandman was.
Marc:Was the headliner black?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:But everybody that came to the show pretty much was a black crowd.
Marc:A cop?
Marc:At college?
Guest:At college.
Guest:I don't know why, but it was.
Guest:That's the way it was?
Guest:It was a college gig that apparently the black people came to.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they weren't having any of it.
Guest:No.
Guest:They didn't want it.
Guest:How did the headliner do?
Guest:He did good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He did good, but, you know, the first time, I didn't know what I was doing.
Marc:You'd never done anything that you'd never.
Marc:Never.
Marc:You just, you had some ideas in your head.
Guest:Yeah, I figured, yeah, you know, I tell the joke about how nobody pays attention to the car alarm when it's going off in the parking lot.
Guest:And that was like one of the premises.
Guest:And it died.
Guest:It died.
Guest:It was bad sweat.
Guest:It was bad.
Guest:You had to do it again.
Guest:I had to do it again.
Guest:I mean, it's just one of those things.
Guest:It's like you don't become a bodybuilder overnight.
Guest:You got to, you know.
Guest:You knew that all along?
Guest:I knew it.
Guest:I just knew it.
Guest:It's just, I had it in me.
Marc:Yeah, you didn't.
Marc:I just had to find it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:You never got that sort of like, oh, what the fuck am I doing?
Marc:I'm an idiot.
Guest:no i i you seem very focused and very confident it bothers me but you know that's okay yeah i mean i can i can live with it uh well good i'm glad you can't by the way i brought you i i oh shit what do you got i got uh some chocolates oh god damn that's very nice of you i don't know if you're into chocolates but what's inside of those nuts like walnuts
Marc:There goes, I guess this isn't day one of the four-hour body.
Guest:No, this is the best chocolates I've ever had.
Marc:Is that salted?
Marc:Oh, Christ.
Marc:When did they start putting salt on chocolate?
Marc:When did sea salt become popular?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:So you come out here, and then where'd you end up doing stand-up?
Marc:Did you do Black Rooms, or did you do Chicago?
Marc:You did that one time in college, you graduate college, you're like, fuck it, I'm coming out here.
Guest:Graduated college, worked for United Airlines Employees Credit Union as a temp employee.
Guest:And then I worked at night at a place called the Living Room Waiting Tables.
Guest:I saved up enough money.
Guest:I saved up $10,000 to come out here in 98 March.
Guest:I got a place on Fuller in Hollywood.
Guest:Right by the Runyon Canyon.
Guest:And then I started taking a comedy class at the Comedy Store with Sandy Shore.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And the Sandbox.
Guest:So Pauly's sister, Mitty's daughter, was teaching a comedy class.
Guest:Outside of the Comedy Store, in the belly room.
Guest:Right, and you didn't know better.
Guest:I don't know, but I go, this is my thinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sandy Shore, daughter of Mitzi.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She likes me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I maybe get into the, this is my way into the comedy.
Guest:She's a little nuts though, right?
Guest:Well, she had said right from the get-go, me and my mother don't get along.
Guest:And then I'm thinking, that's it.
Guest:There's $600 I just blew on the comedy class.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But actually, it did help me find a nice little safe place to talk to people, the classmates on stage.
Guest:I would come in with my new material every Sunday.
Marc:Any of those guys still in the game or what?
Guest:I don't see any of them.
Guest:In my class, I don't see any of the people I took class with.
Marc:So what you're able to do, I don't understand what happens in a comedy class.
Guest:It's basically a safe environment for you to do stand-up comedy.
Marc:In front of 10 other comics or however many people were in the class.
Marc:And you're in the belly room, which is the room I auditioned in when I auditioned at the store.
Guest:I was getting like, you know, the 130 spots and whatnot.
Marc:Did she have her shit together or was it already kind of scrambled?
Guest:well when i met her uh it was 98 and i i got passed and i i didn't even know about door guy or nothing i just knew i had an audition for mitzi shore right and i i came and did five and then i came back and did seven and then i got passed as a regular i just start getting my little spots she talked to you
Guest:she thought i was then i came then i started coming back a week after i got passed i saw her in the kitchen i had a full suit on yeah and she thought i was an agent yeah and i was like okay i'll just play like i'm an agent right i don't want to say hey you passed me last week i don't know i just played like yeah everything's great
Guest:But no, I haven't really, I fear the woman.
Guest:I don't know how to, I didn't know how to speak to her.
Guest:I would just very, like I would bow.
Guest:Join the fucking club.
Guest:Yeah, I would bow.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:And leave.
Guest:I mean, it was.
Guest:But where the hell does that come from?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's the energy.
Marc:Because it's only a certain people.
Marc:It's only comedy store guys.
Marc:I mean, I had that for years.
Marc:I mean, you'd work the door and God forbid someone was in her fucking parking space or in her goddamn booth or else you didn't know what was going to happen.
Marc:She's like this queen of this empire, but it only affects people who somehow lock into it.
Marc:I mean, some people go into that place and they're like, this place is fucking creepy.
Marc:And they're gone.
Marc:But guys like us, you start out there.
Marc:You just look around that place.
Marc:You're like, oh, this is home.
Marc:And she apparently is the queen of this.
Marc:And you act like a moron in front of her.
Marc:You're like, oh, there she is.
Marc:Terrified.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But now she's barely cognizant and you're still terrified.
Marc:Terrified.
Marc:Isn't that bizarre?
Marc:Because you don't know whether she's going to take away what you have.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what it really comes down to.
Marc:There's a power there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just out of nowhere, she's going to be like, ah, his hair is funny.
Marc:I don't want to kick him out for a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you're for no fucking reason.
Marc:You're like, what just happened?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You did something with your teeth.
Marc:And you're like, oh, the fuck, I'm that guy now?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you're the guy whining.
Marc:I can't come back.
Marc:I didn't have it.
Marc:My jacket was wrong.
Marc:And I don't fucking know.
Marc:That's the scariest thing is that you're going to be sort of exiled for bullshit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:but you never happened huh never got fucking never got uh they're very good to me at the comedy star now what did dice have any influence on you yeah and people ask that of you yeah because it seems that you know i mean you're obviously different but there's something about the calculation of your movements and the the clip phrasing the very articulated uh uh kind of performance that you go through it's a little like a little reminiscent
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I grew up on him, although I wasn't allowed to listen to him because he was filthy and whatnot.
Guest:I'm not a filthy... I don't like filthy humor.
Guest:It's not really my style.
Guest:You don't like it as a listener or you don't like doing it?
Guest:I don't like doing it.
Guest:It's not really what I'm about.
Guest:But I enjoyed kind of sneaking a Dice Clay record when he was coming up.
Guest:For some reason, I thought it was very unique and whatnot.
Guest:And I definitely think he had an influence on me.
Guest:But, I mean, this is how I kind of speak generally.
Guest:So I don't know if it's part of me and part of listening to him and whatnot.
Guest:I worked with him for three or four years on the road opening up for him.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's another guy I was scared of.
Marc:Well, he's scary.
Yeah.
Marc:I'll tell you, I had him in here.
Marc:And for whatever reason, you just know he's just not going to take any shit.
Marc:And you don't want to be on his bad side for any reason.
Marc:Because he's a little like Mitzi in that, like, how am I going to piss him off?
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:Right?
Marc:So he's coming over here.
Marc:It's the middle of summer.
Marc:And all I'm thinking is, like, I don't got air conditioner in here.
Marc:He's going to, like, be aggravated.
Marc:And I'm going to have to listen to him going, there's no fucking air conditioner.
Marc:You know, that was my biggest fear about having him sit there was that he was going to be uncomfortable.
Marc:For the air conditioner.
Marc:Very intimidating guy.
Marc:How'd you get the gig opening for him?
Guest:Comedy store.
Guest:He, I guess, kind of came in.
Guest:What year was this?
Guest:This is 2003, 2004.
Marc:So you're like four years, five years in?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got how much time?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:15, 20?
Guest:15, 20, if that.
Guest:And he, I guess, liked what I was doing, and he came up to me in the parking lot.
Guest:He's like, what are you doing next week?
Guest:You want to do Vegas?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, yeah.
Guest:I didn't care what the pay.
Guest:I didn't care.
Guest:Just let's go do it.
Guest:And I went, and he was performing at the Stardust at the Wayne Newton Theater at the time.
Guest:And this is like, I called home, and they thought I made it.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:My mother's like, this is it.
Guest:You could quit now.
Guest:Right, you're done.
Guest:You're playing Las Vegas.
Guest:So I opened up for him, and I, in my head, thought this was going to be a whole different experience than what actually happened.
Guest:I'm thinking, Dice Clay, Las Vegas, we're going to do the show, we're going to party, it's going to be a ball.
Guest:I didn't know the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so we get to vegas and he's got a house and he's like um he got a house there yeah he's got a house there he's like we're gonna go shopping you know what i thought we're gonna go to a casino so we literally shopped for three or four days looking for couches and furniture for his home and he would have me go sit on the couch go sit on the couch
Guest:How does that feel?
Guest:Lay down.
Guest:I go, nice.
Guest:It's $4,000 couch.
Guest:It's going to feel better than anything I've ever sat on.
Guest:So we shopped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I said, why are we going out?
Guest:He goes, okay.
Guest:Little home.
Guest:What?
Guest:Did he find a couch?
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:We furnished his whole place.
Guest:Couch, carpeting.
Guest:Oh, the carpeting was unbelievable.
Guest:He would put in carpeting and then he didn't like it, had to take it out next day.
Guest:It was...
Guest:So how much did you tour with him?
Guest:About two years, two and a half years.
Guest:So a lot of gigs?
Guest:Yeah, we did Vegas a lot.
Guest:We did Indian casinos a lot.
Guest:We went out.
Marc:Now, at that time, when I knew him,
Marc:When I was a doorman, I noticed what he did.
Marc:He'd gather people.
Marc:He always had this roving band of freaks with him.
Marc:And everybody had a nickname.
Marc:And I used to make a joke.
Marc:I was like, don't get too close to Dice or you're going to end up with a nickname.
Marc:Did you have one?
Guest:He called me at first Chaz.
Guest:Chaz?
Guest:Was it Chaz?
Guest:For no reason.
Guest:Or no, Chaz-a-ray.
Guest:Chaz-a-ray?
Guest:Chaz-a-ray.
Guest:There's a character in a movie and Dice actually told me, he goes, you know what you should do?
Guest:And I don't know if he was joking or whatnot.
Guest:He goes, you know, you got a good build on you.
Guest:What you do is you put like a cucumber or something in your pants and don't even say nothing.
Guest:Go on stage and just think, you know, like just let the showcase the cock.
Guest:I'm like, what?
Guest:And I'm actually, this is like, I'm four years in.
Guest:I'm thinking, should I do that?
Yeah.
Guest:Is that what it's going to take?
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, it's so funny.
Marc:Because when I first auditioned at the store, Mitzi said, you're a poet.
Marc:You should wear a scarf.
Marc:And I swear to God, for about three weeks, I fucking wear a scarf.
Marc:I'm assuming.
Marc:Fear?
Marc:The fear?
Marc:I thought, what do I know?
Marc:Maybe she's right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:She just had these random moments.
Marc:She tells some guy, you should get a puppet.
Marc:You never know.
Marc:I figure a scarf's better than a puppet.
Marc:I can handle a scarf.
Marc:Was it an ascot or was it like a winter scarf?
Marc:I didn't go into detail with it.
Marc:Not a winter, but just a-
Marc:Yeah, the dress scarf.
Marc:Yeah, it was not my bag, but I was open to it.
Marc:Did you ever put a cucumber in your bag?
Marc:No, I never did it.
Marc:I never did it.
Marc:How long did he ride you on that, Cesare?
Guest:That was a good month and a half, two months with the cucumber.
Guest:You got to do the cucumber.
Guest:I said, that may be nice.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:I was like an uncomfortable laugh.
Guest:I would go, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:Yeah, he was such a character.
Marc:You know, I tell you, man.
Marc:Out of all the backlash about him and whatever anyone said about him, I remember in his heyday, I was a doorman at the store when he was popping.
Marc:I saw Kennison go up and become big, and then right after that, Dice would pop just as big.
Marc:So I saw him...
Marc:when he was at the top of his shit with the hands and the lighter.
Marc:I mean, he looked thin.
Marc:He was focused.
Marc:And it was a spectacle to behold.
Marc:But I was never a huge fan.
Marc:Nothing against him wasn't a sexist thing or anything else.
Marc:It just seemed very simple to me.
Marc:But I knew he was a unique performer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, you know, years later, like, when I went back to the story, like, a year or so ago, I hadn't seen him in years, and he comes in.
Marc:And, you know, I just watched, you know, a dozen fucking comics that are interchangeable.
Marc:You know, that, you know, whatever.
Marc:I'm not mentioning names.
Marc:I'm not even saying it is a bad thing.
Marc:But, you know, a lot of guys, they...
Marc:You know, they're young.
Marc:They have what they have.
Marc:And then he gets up there and he's not doing any of his shit.
Marc:He's heavier.
Marc:You know, he looks different.
Marc:He looks beefy.
Marc:He's not putting on any effect.
Marc:And he just did like 40 minutes about going to Staples.
Marc:And I thought, it's fucking hilarious.
Marc:it was like finally a guy with gravitas gets up there you know he knows what he's doing but he's not doing any of that shit and then he started to realize what a unique kind of vision he has got a very specific way of looking at things because he's just picturing him having you sit on a couch it's hilarious because you know he would do that in completely seriously oh yeah yeah but what did you pick up from that experience uh i mean did he ever you ever get off stage he's like look you know what you're doing up there
Guest:uh i did get off stage early once because i was rattled by the crowd and oh really yeah i mean these crowds were you know we're going to tacoma washington and his fans are like they don't want to see you don't want to see anybody but him yeah so i did get a little rattled off uh you know from some people screaming at me i don't know it was very inaudible but it was at the time where i'm like oh god i'm you know so i think i bailed maybe two minutes early than i was supposed to
Guest:And he got really, you know, he told me, he's like, you know, you do your time.
Guest:All right.
Guest:The hell are you getting off stage like that?
Guest:You know, so it was like a horrible feeling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Guest:And, you know, it really I learned a lot.
Guest:I learned a lot about performing in front of large groups of people, violent people, you know, going on the road with a comedian.
Guest:And, you know, like he didn't have me do any of like the other stuff.
Guest:He had like a bunch of guys, like you said, like a crew that would.
Guest:How many comedians on the show?
Guest:It was just me and him.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And then he would have a road manager.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he'd maybe send the road manager to do weird stuff, stuff that I didn't do.
Marc:You're lucky then.
Marc:You're good.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:He had enough respect for you not to go out and get the soda.
Guest:Yeah, he even said, you know, he don't do that.
Guest:He don't do that.
Guest:So I guess he knew that I didn't do that.
Marc:Wasn't like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's got to be some other stories about being on the road with that guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:In a nutshell, shopping.
Guest:And the dress, just like he would go out.
Guest:I was shocked.
Guest:At the airport, I thought maybe, I didn't know when the outfit came off.
Marc:What was he wearing?
Guest:The jacket and the glasses?
Marc:Oh, the gloves.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:The shorts.
Marc:To the airport.
Marc:Doesn't come off.
Marc:Doesn't come off.
Marc:I think he was wearing knickers when he came over here.
Marc:They were some sort of capri pants.
Marc:What, are you going to argue with him?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:No, he would fly first class, and then he would tell me, you know you're flying last class, right?
Guest:I'd go, yeah, whatever.
Guest:So I would go in the back, he would go up front, and then we'd meet at the gate.
Marc:I just picture... Anytime I think of him standing anywhere, just standing, as who he is now, it's funny.
Marc:And I don't know how... Is he aware?
Marc:Because there's that... He's aware.
Marc:He knows what he's doing.
Marc:He's goto.
Marc:I mean, there's that moment where he wears all this shit, and he does this thing, and it's like, I look good.
Marc:But he looks funny.
Marc:He looks funny.
Marc:He knows that, right?
Marc:He's goto.
Marc:He would hope.
Marc:So...
Guest:So that's a hell of a fucking experience.
Guest:Yeah, no, it was fun.
Guest:He was good to me and we had a good run together and I asked for a raise, which that was frightening.
Guest:After how long?
Guest:About a year.
Guest:I said, Dice, listen, I think I need more money.
Guest:And he's like, a raise?
Guest:He goes, you know what you ask for and what you get are two different things.
Guest:I said,
Guest:yeah okay whatever i go i just i'm losing money going on the road here because i'm making i was making more money at the four seasons right but i looked at it as this is a great opportunity right but you know he was gracious he gave me a raise and what did that signify the end of your employment at the four seasons no i worked there you would just take nights off to go open for him yeah jesus christ you got that fear huh yep you're not you're not one of those guys yeah i was never a guy let me sleep on your couch i was never that i too filthy right
Guest:Clean.
Guest:I don't sleep at anybody's place.
Guest:I always wanted to have enough.
Guest:My parents instilled, do you have health insurance?
Guest:I'm the guy who's paying for health insurance through this whole thing.
Guest:Through the waiters that get you a deal over there?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I paid out of pocket.
Guest:Responsibility.
Guest:That's how I grew up.
Guest:Everything needs to be taken care of.
Guest:Health insurance.
Guest:Bills need to be paid.
Marc:No late fees.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:So you were never the kind of comic who was like, fuck it, man.
Marc:No.
Marc:You're not in debt?
Marc:No.
Marc:And you got good credit.
Guest:I did that.
Guest:I got great credit.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:I did that once.
Guest:I did that once.
Guest:I decided I'm going to try something else.
Guest:I'm going to sell satellite dishes out of the, actually it was the ghetto.
Guest:It was the Baldwin Hills Mall in a kiosk.
Guest:I was going to sell dish network satellite dishes.
Guest:And I faltered there for a year.
Guest:I was making no money selling satellite dish to people in the ghetto.
Guest:It just doesn't work.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So that's the only time I slept.
Guest:That was before or after the Four Seasons?
Guest:That was during.
Guest:I was getting sick of waiting tables.
Guest:This is 2002, 2003.
Guest:I was getting sick of waiting tables.
Guest:I go, I'm going to do Dish Network, and I'm going to go on call at the Four Seasons, and I'm going to do Dish Network.
Guest:Well, Dish Network didn't pan out, so I went back to the Four Seasons.
Guest:That's a commission sale?
Guest:Yeah, $100 a sale.
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:I had people coming up to me.
Guest:I said, I need a credit card number.
Guest:A guy wrote down seven numbers on a piece of paper, and he said, I go, what is this?
Guest:I need a card, guy.
Guest:I was getting calls from my house.
Guest:I had a flyer with my home line on it.
Guest:And people would buy the service and they would call me at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning.
Guest:Not working?
Guest:Not working!
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:The dish, it ain't working.
Guest:And one woman called me and she says, I'm not getting CNN.
Guest:I go, well, it's a different channel.
Guest:It's 200.
Guest:So I hear on the phone.
Guest:You're actually letting them, you're engaging.
Guest:I'm doing customer service at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Marc:That's what you went to college for.
Guest:I went to college for corporate communication.
Guest:so i tell her to push 200 and i hear boop boop boop she's using the phone as the remote i go oh my god so i stopped i stopped taking calls after that but that was like that was probably one of the worst years of my life because i went into that yeah and you weren't getting the gigs and i wasn't getting the gigs
Marc:Well, you just started headlining recently, right?
Marc:2005, I quit the job.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Guest:But you were a feature primarily?
Guest:I didn't do feature road work.
Guest:No.
Guest:I didn't do a lot of that.
Guest:I just did a lot of comedy store stuff, Laugh Factory stuff.
Guest:I didn't go on the road and put in feature time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:2005, I started getting a lot of corporate stuff.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Well, you cleaned it.
Marc:Was that part of the reason you would stay clean?
Marc:Well, I guess on all levels, you're just not a dirty guy.
Marc:No.
Marc:Literally and mentally.
Marc:Yeah, I showered and I put cologne on to come here.
Marc:I know, I noticed that.
Marc:I always notice that about you.
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck.
Marc:When you get on stage, I'm like, Jesus, he really puts himself together, this guy.
Marc:You do that whole thing about shorts.
Marc:I mean, I remember that.
Marc:I was with my girlfriend in the main room and you were going, who the hell wears shorts?
Marc:What kind of man?
Marc:Isn't that...
Marc:And I'm like, he really doesn't wear shorts.
Marc:And I tried to picture you in shorts.
Marc:Doesn't work, man.
Marc:Doesn't work.
Marc:Didn't grow up with shorts.
Marc:What do you mean he didn't grow up with shorts?
Guest:It's just I don't know.
Guest:It's it doesn't it doesn't.
Guest:Shorts are for working out or whatnot, but I would never wear shorts to go to dinner.
Guest:right it's just not my thing flip-flops the whole thing it's just not where i'm at yeah it's like slacks what do you what do you what do you go to the beach what do you i don't even like the beach sand it's too dirty then it gets in the car no i'm not a beach guy i didn't grow up at a beach well i understand that
Marc:But, I mean, you went to Sicily.
Marc:You come from water people.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's nice to hang out there.
Marc:Were you a freak in your family?
Marc:Did your parents say, Jesus, how come this kid is so clean?
Marc:I mean, your father's in the hair business.
Marc:He's got to be a little bit of a character.
Marc:He's working with hair.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He had a ponytail.
Marc:Yeah, you would not have a ponytail, right?
Marc:So he's bald with a ponytail.
Marc:Yeah, bald with a ponytail for a while.
Marc:That's classic.
Marc:Yeah, and how'd that play?
Guest:Well, my mother hated it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because my dad still thinks he's young.
Guest:He thinks he's 33 years old, and he does hair.
Guest:He's around women all day.
Guest:So he had the ponytail for a while.
Marc:So that's how you rebelled?
Marc:Everything was organized?
Marc:Everything was organized.
Marc:It was not fuck you.
Marc:It was like, stay out of my room.
Marc:I want to clean.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Nah, don't clean.
Guest:I got the bed.
Guest:I don't even like the maids cleaning my room when I go on the road.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Oh, everything is tight.
Marc:You make your own bed on the road?
Marc:Yeah, I do.
Marc:That's a little nuts.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It is weird.
Marc:Do you have a girlfriend or anything?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How do you manage that?
Guest:She's not as clean as me, but she'll probably argue that she is.
Guest:But no, she's not as clean as me.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Something about making the bed.
Guest:I make the bed every morning.
Guest:Every morning.
Guest:It's nothing like getting into a nice, fresh bed at night.
Marc:No, I get you.
Marc:I get you.
Marc:But I mean, it took me a long time in relationships, especially with women.
Marc:It's just sort of like...
Marc:I'm a little bit of a control freak.
Marc:I wouldn't say I'm clean.
Marc:I stack things.
Marc:I'm a little unstacked right now, but you'll notice on the table, not clean, but things are in piles.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that's my version of it.
Marc:That's a pile.
Marc:I don't know what's in the pile, but it's in order.
Marc:But if you have to look for something right now, do you know where it is?
Marc:Vaguely.
Marc:I mean, it depends what it is.
Marc:What, are you going to test me?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I'm just looking around.
Marc:Like I know somewhere in a box down there, there are videotapes of me from the 80s.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:So if I need that, yeah.
Marc:Well, they're labeled.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't do that.
Marc:Someone did that.
Marc:Oh, God.
Guest:No, I had someone come in and organize.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:When did you get an assistant?
Guest:When did you say, hey, it's time I need somebody to help me?
Marc:Well, see, I tend to do everything myself, and then you start to realize, like, holy fuck, I can't.
Guest:Do you like relinquishing the responsibilities to somebody else?
Marc:Well, no.
Guest:Since you're a huge control freak.
Marc:Well, I'm not that huge a control freak.
Marc:I just, like, I get overwhelmed, and I like to, you know, at some point, you've got to compromise.
Marc:You're going to have to put your trust in somebody to get some shit done.
Marc:And if you know what the tasks are, I'm not saying, like, could you go, you know, could you write these checks for me?
Marc:Here's my bank card.
Marc:Here's your credit card.
Marc:Go do this.
Marc:I'm not at that level.
Marc:I'm not doing that.
Marc:I'm like, do we have to mail shirts out today?
Marc:Did you follow up with so-and-so to see if they can do the show?
Marc:It's pretty rudimentary stuff, but...
Marc:It's stuff that when it's out of my way, I can put more energy in other shit, like tweeting.
Marc:I still do all my own tweeting.
Marc:I do all my own Facebook updates.
Marc:I do my own writing.
Marc:I don't have any of that.
Marc:But it's just if you can figure out some specific things that they can take off your plate without making you crazy, you can do that.
Marc:Why, you need one?
Marc:We tried one, and it just didn't work out.
Marc:We didn't have enough work.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, that's the other thing.
Marc:I get so much shit going on here.
Marc:Like, if she wanted to say, like, I'm just going to organize this stuff, that could be a year's salary.
Marc:Go look at this place.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And then all of a sudden you get the, it's like, how much joy owe you?
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck, really?
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:And then you look at the boxes they're labeled.
Marc:I'm like, oh, okay.
Marc:You label the boxes and put stuff in there.
Marc:No, I mean, look, what did you have?
Marc:What did you need them to do?
Marc:What were you worried about?
Guest:It was a shared thing.
Guest:My girl is an artist.
Guest:What kind of artist?
Guest:Does large-scale contemporary art, modern art.
Guest:Painting?
Guest:Yeah, painting.
Guest:You were dating a painter?
Guest:No.
Guest:You live with her?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:A studio in the house.
Guest:She paints, and she's good.
Guest:And she sells?
Guest:Yeah, she got a gallery at Rosark.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Rosark Jewelry.
Marc:See, now that is one of the messiest fucking professions in the world, and that's a whole other form of creativity.
Marc:Got her own little spot.
Yeah.
Marc:The paint don't leave that room.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Do you say things like, did you check your shoes?
Guest:Well, I say, you know what?
Guest:Maybe we should, because she leaves it kind of messy in there.
Marc:That's her space.
Marc:She's a painter.
Marc:What do you want her to be like you?
Marc:What is she going to do?
Marc:Did you close all the tubes up?
Guest:Are there any brushes out?
Guest:Yeah, maybe we should soak the brushes, put away the cans.
Guest:But, yeah, no, she's got her own little spot.
Guest:So we thought maybe we need an assistant that we'll share.
Guest:But, you know, it just...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:The place is so neat.
Guest:She's like, what do you want me to do?
Guest:Everything's organized.
Guest:The problem I had is she brought her own food, and she cooked it in the microwave, and it'd get like a stench in the house.
Guest:The assistant did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bringing over chili?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you're going to reheat it in the thing?
Guest:Dried goods, sandwich, chips, nothing with stench.
Marc:That's too much, man.
Marc:I tell you, your girlfriend must be a real trooper.
Marc:Or she must be frightened all the time of her own footprints.
Marc:I don't know how you do it.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:So now, how'd you get in cahoots with Vince Vaughn for that thing?
Guest:Dublin's Comedy Club.
Guest:That was that scene, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I got on the tail end of that, and Ahmed Ahmed was Vince Vaughn's roommate.
Marc:I'm Adam Ed's a comic.
Marc:I've had him on.
Marc:Now, for people listening, the Dublin Sing was a bar on Sunset, and that kid, Jay Davis, used to book this.
Marc:It was like a half comedy show, half dance party or something.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck it was.
Marc:It was not my bag, but that's like Dane Cook sort of built his momentum out of that.
Marc:I did it a couple times.
Marc:It was one of those things where I'd be backstage looking out there.
Marc:I'm like, there's no fucking way that this is going to go anywhere but badly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was just like this clusterfuck.
Marc:I mean, you had to fight for their attention.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Am I recalling it correctly?
Marc:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Marc:It was almost like every night was spring break there or something.
Guest:Totally that vibe.
Guest:Did you do well there?
Guest:I did good.
Guest:I didn't do fantastic, but I did good.
Guest:I guess I held their attention every once in a while.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, small stage.
Guest:I'm not really a huge fan of small stages.
Guest:I got to move around and...
Guest:kind of confined but uh it was all right it was good for what it was i mean they had like a lot of celebrities pop in yeah it was a hang it was like a big thing yeah yeah yeah and that's where vince vaughn hung out every once in a while and um we all kind of met and 2005 he called me up or he didn't call me people call me up and said uh you know he got a tour bus he wants to go and do 30 cities and 30 nights across the country and
Guest:At the time, I'm working at the Four Seasons.
Guest:I had to get a month off to go do the tour.
Guest:And we made a little documentary out of it.
Guest:And again, I'm thinking this is it.
Guest:This is my break.
Guest:You thought that with Dice.
Guest:Now you're thinking with Vince.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Vince Vaughn.
Guest:Thousand theaters it's opening up in.
Guest:And I thought, boom, people are going to go see it and whatnot.
Guest:That's only a few years ago, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:2008 it actually came out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In my head, you don't know.
Guest:I'm just thinking this is like the biggest celebrity or comedic actor of our time, and people are going to go see it.
Guest:Well, it wasn't the case, but it's developed a following over streaming and DVD.
Marc:Did you become close with Vince?
Guest:No, I mean, on the tour, he was, you know, we hung out and whatnot.
Marc:So tall.
Guest:Tall guy.
Guest:He's really tall.
Guest:Tall guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seems like a nice guy.
Guest:Ahmed's a nice guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're all great.
Guest:We had a great time.
Guest:I mean, I don't talk to Vince now.
Guest:Not that there's any... Brett's a relatively nice guy.
Marc:He frightens me a little bit.
Marc:Brett's intense.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't know what the hell's going on with that guy.
Marc:So now you did the, what was it, the Comedy Central hour?
Guest:Did the Comedy Central hour before I did the half hour.
Guest:I had the hour shot already.
Guest:Budweiser paid for my hour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's why I shot the hour, because they paid for it.
Guest:You happy with it?
Guest:The first hour?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was okay.
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:I'm not really happy with any of it.
Guest:Why?
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:Oh, see, now we're getting at it.
Guest:What do you mean you're not happy with it?
Guest:A lot of times I look back, and for whatever reason, and I don't know if you feel this way, but if you ever look at yourself on a special or a TV show, for whatever reason, it doesn't feel the same as it would if you were just at a club doing their stuff.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I look back at it and I go, eh, you know, I'm a lot more looser than that.
Guest:Oh, right, with the time thing, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's just, I don't know, I feel like it always could be better.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And I'm never really happy with a lot of... Yeah, I've learned how to accept... The only thing I know about me and looking back, like, I still don't watch myself too much on TV.
Marc:I don't really listen to these once I do them.
Marc:But I can.
Marc:Because I get hung up, like, you know, like...
Marc:if you just looked at my Conans over the years, like all 40 of them and the desperation involved in me dressing myself, I can't even, I don't know how it happened.
Marc:I don't know how I showed up on Conan with leather pants once.
Marc:I don't know how I walked out with that decision.
Marc:I don't know how I walked out because I didn't have clean socks.
Marc:I wore white socks with jeans and you could see them because I crossed my legs.
Marc:I don't know how that shit happened.
Marc:There's shit that I look at in myself and I'm like, I decided to do that.
Marc:I knew I was going on television
Marc:And I decided to do that.
Marc:That haircut, those glasses, it's fucking horrendous.
Marc:Well, this is more appearance you're talking about.
Guest:What about the material?
Marc:Well, the problem with me is that my jokes finish themselves over time.
Marc:I write on stage.
Marc:So what happens is I'll have a chunk and then I'll do it on panel.
Marc:or on stand-up, but it's not quite done, then all of a sudden the tag comes.
Marc:I just put out a record last year, and the closing bit of the record has a great tag now.
Marc:I mean, it's a fine story, but now it's got closure, and I'm like, fuck.
Marc:Now that's it.
Marc:So I do realize that I am me.
Marc:I mean, the one thing that I've learned is that I watch myself, and I'm like, well, I'm being myself.
Marc:That's the best I can hope for.
Marc:If something's not tagged right or whatever, what are you going to do?
Marc:So you did the hour before the half hour.
Marc:So you like the half hour better?
Guest:Half hour I do like a little bit better, although there's a couple jokes on the hour that I really, really like, and I wish they were on the half hour, but that's okay.
Guest:What's the half hour for- Half hour, they were both for Economy Central, but Economy Central used to not allow you to do an hour before a half hour.
Marc:Yeah, but now the fucking hour is the new half hour.
Marc:yeah i don't know what's going on it i mean they call me if they're like you want to do an hour and then all of a sudden i realize they're gonna be we're shooting hours in fucking san francisco the week of and i'm like i thought it was a special i mean now it's just like it's just a comedy central hour i mean fuck you know 10 years ago it's like i'm doing an hour special who the fuck does that everybody now
Guest:everybody's gonna do an hour but what's special i mean what what is what is the thing now i mean what what do you do what what puts you on the map i mean you coming from out of the 80s do you as far as like you started in the 80s so what like you did a tonight show no and that wasn't that like uh you were on the map after that no dude i mean
Marc:I did my first Letterman probably late.
Marc:I did my first Letterman in probably 92, 94.
Marc:I started doing Conan when he started.
Marc:I talked to Bill Maher about this.
Marc:This whole idea that, you know, you did the Tonight Show and all of a sudden, boom, you were selling tickets is horseshit.
Marc:I mean, there's part of you that thinks like, well, there's only three channels on.
Marc:So you got to have most of the countries watching that.
Marc:But still, the one thing you can't manufacture is people liking you.
Marc:I mean, you can only do what you do.
Marc:I mean, I did my Comedy Central half hour the same night that Mitch Hedberg did.
Marc:And mine disappeared.
Marc:And his made him.
Marc:So whatever it is that's going to make people go, that guy, who the fuck knows?
Marc:I mean, that's the wild card of show business.
Marc:I mean, if you suck, you suck.
Marc:But if you're talented and you got something, then the project of finding your audience, who the hell knows how to do that?
Marc:I don't fucking know.
Marc:I mean, I was at the end of my rope.
Marc:I'm talking in my garage, and all of a sudden, everyone knows who I am, or at least the people that listen to this.
Marc:This is the biggest thing I ever did.
Marc:I didn't plan on this.
Marc:And then this happened, but I do know that it's the most honest representation of myself.
Marc:Like I said, I've sort of been on this path to sort of figure out, you know, how do you get all of me?
Marc:The one thing I think you're talking about that I relate to, and I don't know if you've experienced it, is like you see me in a live environment
Marc:It's a very different experience than having a plan.
Marc:The cameras are there.
Marc:You're stopping and starting maybe.
Marc:You've got your set exactly.
Marc:It's all very predictable.
Marc:Like my half hour on HBO, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
Marc:I didn't plan anything.
Marc:And people remember that at least.
Marc:But there's some difference between the live experience and the television experience.
Marc:But here, they're going to get me for better or for worse.
Marc:They're going to know me.
Marc:Whether they're laughing or not, I don't know.
Marc:But they definitely know me.
Marc:So when people say they like this, I'm like, well, then you like me.
Marc:I don't have a show.
Marc:If they see a show and they're like, yeah, we like that.
Marc:I'm like, I didn't really do that great.
Marc:You don't want to say that to people.
Marc:Like, I really liked your hour.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't like it.
Marc:They care for it.
Guest:I did my best, but it just didn't look good.
Guest:But do you get the same type of excitement doing your podcast as you would doing a live performance?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, it's a whole different thing.
Marc:I'm basically talking to myself out here, or I'm talking to you, or I'm talking to somebody in that chair.
Marc:I mean, when I do stand-up, that's still the shit.
Marc:But now, the fact that people are coming out to see me, and when I started, it was like, I gotta be able to do comedy for anywhere.
Marc:Anybody, anywhere.
Marc:And I spent a lot of years doing comedy for a room full of strangers with four people that knew me.
Marc:The saddest thing about being me, one of them, performance-wise, is that I always had some loyal fans, but very few of them.
Marc:So these four people, I'd come to their town, and they'd come thinking, like, it would be a big Marc Maron show.
Marc:And then they realized they're really the only ones there.
Marc:They're the only Maron fans sitting there among 30 people in a place that sees 200.
Marc:And they're sort of like, wow, we thought, don't tell me about it.
Marc:I'd like to think that, too.
Marc:But...
Marc:Thanks for coming out.
Marc:We thought it was going to be past.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:They just think their experience is isolated because they're watching you on TV.
Marc:It's on TV.
Marc:We'll go.
Marc:And they get there and they have that horrible look on their face like, what happened?
Marc:Look, you guys are special, I guess.
Marc:But no, comedy is still the thing.
Marc:How are you drawn on the road?
Marc:It's good.
Marc:The Showtime special is bringing a lot of people up.
Guest:Oh, that just happened.
Guest:And Showtime is airing it left and right, which is nice.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's really your break.
Guest:Yeah, two club dates I did, and I'm seeing the difference in people.
Guest:I mean, they're not all sold out, don't get me wrong, but I'm definitely seeing a lot more people coming out from the show.
Guest:They got you running through those improvs?
Guest:Improvs, you know, just in Austin at Cap City.
Guest:So whatever, whatever it comes to.
Guest:That's a big room.
Guest:That's a nice... It's like a barbecue house.
Marc:There's a fucking picnic table.
Marc:It's a giant fucking ceiling.
Marc:It's like an airport hangar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I remember one time... Here's the sad thing about the Cap City.
Marc:I love that club.
Marc:But there's the off nights, like the Wednesday and Thursday.
Marc:We're just going to do it in the front bar.
Marc:All right.
Marc:But the front room is really a great little room.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can really get a... It looks fun.
Marc:Oh, it's great.
Marc:It's like comedy store vibe.
Marc:Everyone's right there.
Marc:You got control over the thing.
Marc:And the big room is a big room.
Marc:Yeah, I'd like to go back there.
Marc:It's pretty groovy.
Marc:But yeah, I mean, you seem like sort of a...
Marc:It's interesting because you're about as far away from whatever.
Marc:You're like an older style of comedy.
Marc:You define to me you're part of the legacy of what the comedy story is and what comedy is.
Marc:And then there's this whole alternative thing.
Marc:And to see you next to a guy with a beard who doesn't tuck his shirt in, I wonder.
Marc:It's just two different things.
Marc:Who opened for you in Austin?
Marc:And were you like, Jesus, can't this guy comb his hair?
Marc:This is what we got now.
Yeah.
Marc:Like, you're so classy, and I just know that half of the comics working out there can't even put shoes on properly.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I don't understand.
Guest:I can't get over it.
Guest:People are like, well, you're funny.
Guest:You don't look funny.
Guest:What are you saying?
Guest:You look funny.
Guest:You ever work with the beards?
Guest:Every once in a while, I get a beard.
Guest:There's a beard that comes through town every once in a while.
Guest:No, you're not going to find a guy who's as clean as I am.
Guest:No, I get that.
Marc:But you take what you can get.
Marc:If they're funny, they're fine.
Marc:No, of course.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:But it's just very funny to picture you, like you and Brendan Walsh on a bill.
Guest:beard and t-shirt and it's like there's a night and day of it but that's part of your whole shtick that's i don't know it's just part of who i am i guess and so no more uh no more four seasons no more four seasons i left there 2005 and i haven't gone back just making just you know just making somebody and getting by and paying the bills and you doing any uh you've been going out for tv and whatnot
Guest:Not as much.
Guest:This year, I'm going to concentrate on that more.
Guest:All the years prior has been auditioning and whatnot, but you never know in these auditions.
Guest:For a comedian, your validation, what you're doing is the laughter.
Guest:If you get the laughter.
Marc:and then when you're in your room and there's you know it's a little cold it's a little cold hurts a little bit so you got to get over that it's horrible just to see you know a producer a director a casting person then you know people you don't know why are you in here got the guy at the camera you're reading with somebody that's not putting anything into it and you're reading sometimes the fucking thing about about those things is that you're reading jokes that are bad
Marc:And you spend your life writing jokes that you can tell that you believe in that are good, and then they want you to just kind of plop these poops out of your mouth.
Guest:It's tough, man.
Marc:But you're fairly specific.
Marc:Never got any mob parts.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:I went out for a part in How I Met Your Mother, and they wanted a dice-like guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm thinking, if I don't get this...
Guest:I'm going to take the corporate communications degree and go get a job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I went in, and I did the lines, and I thought I did great, and I didn't get it.
Guest:So I left out of town.
Guest:And as soon as I leave out of town, they called me.
Guest:The guy that they hired dropped out, and they wanted to hire me for a two-liner.
Guest:So it's kind of almost like the Hollywood story.
Marc:You'd have to cancel a gig.
Marc:I couldn't cancel.
Guest:It was a corporate thing.
Marc:What are these corporate things?
Marc:I mean, you do a lot.
Marc:You make a lot of bread on the corporates?
Marc:The corporates is good.
Marc:How does that work?
Marc:I mean, generally, what do you do?
Marc:Generally- I don't do them.
Guest:I'm not the right guy.
Guest:I did one last- Oh, I did a fundraiser for a library.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Basically, you go in.
Guest:It's a banquet hall.
Guest:They have a dinner, and then they have the entertainment.
Guest:Anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour, 30 minutes to 40 minutes.
Guest:It's me.
Guest:You go up cold.
Guest:They had an opener for this one.
Guest:And then the last one I did in Miami for a company called Prime Source.
Guest:I just went up and did about 40 minutes.
Guest:All clean.
Marc:All clean.
Marc:All clean.
Marc:But do they do the thing where it's sort of like, could you make fun of so-and-so?
Marc:He's the guy that does the thing, and this is our human resources person.
Guest:Yeah, you get that every once in a while.
Guest:I never listen to it.
Guest:Not that I never listen to it.
Guest:I just pick out people in the audience, just like a club.
Guest:If it happened and it's fun, you can't go on a specific guy and go,
Guest:So I hear you do the accounting.
Guest:It doesn't sound right.
Guest:It's just like, what do you do here?
Guest:And then you make fun of it.
Guest:And they love it.
Guest:They love it when you start making jokes about the people that work in the environment.
Marc:You ever do music shows?
Guest:You ever open for music?
Guest:A lot of music acts when I was with William Morris because they represented a lot of music.
Guest:So I used to go.
Guest:That's a hell gig, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did all soul performer.
Guest:Al Green.
Guest:How'd they match you up with that?
Guest:I told him, I go, send me out on these music acts, because I didn't want to work at the Four Seasons.
Guest:I go, whatever you got.
Guest:Whoever needs an opener, I'll do it.
Guest:They sent me out for Anita Baker, Al Green.
Guest:God, what's his name?
Guest:The guy that sits down and plays the band.
Guest:I can't believe I can't remember his name.
Guest:The blues guy.
Guest:Oh, B.B.
Guest:King?
Guest:B.B.
Guest:King.
Guest:You open for B.B.?
Guest:B.B.
Guest:King in Las Vegas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And these were tough acts because you literally come out.
Guest:I'd introduce myself because there was no union guy to introduce me.
Guest:So I'd have to introduce myself, come on stage.
Marc:How's everybody doing?
Marc:B.B.
Marc:will be out in a minute.
Guest:You have to explain why you're there.
Guest:And although the black rooms now, not opposed to when I first started, now they really gravitate to what I'm talking about.
Guest:Yeah, you can get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when you were opening for solo acts, it was tough.
Guest:No, when I did the Northern Illinois University gig when they were screaming for me.
Guest:But it took a while for them to find out what was going on with these music acts, the crowds.
Guest:But after a while, they got it.
Marc:Do you feel like there's a difference between a black audience and a white audience?
Guest:I don't treat them different at all.
Guest:I just do my thing.
Guest:It's a confidence thing, though, really.
Guest:Yeah, the black audience senses scary.
Marc:If you're sitting there going, he knows he's in front of a black audience.
Guest:Yeah, I don't do that.
Guest:I just go out there and let's talk about it.
Guest:It's everyday stuff I'm talking about.
Guest:It's not groundbreaking material.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:This is everyday stuff.
Marc:Yeah, you don't have an act where you talk about growing up as a black guy?
Marc:No, I don't have that.
Marc:I don't have that.
Marc:Maybe I should start writing in on that.
Marc:My mother.
Marc:So have your parents, they're good with you now?
Marc:Do they believe it?
Guest:My parents were always 110% behind me on this.
Guest:But nervous, maybe?
Guest:They were.
Marc:They had to be.
Guest:But they weren't like, you're not going to do this.
Guest:But my parents recently got divorced.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So now I'm going to start talking about a little bit more personal stuff that I'm dealing with as a 38-year-old guy.
Guest:having a 66-year-old mother date online.
Guest:Is she okay with it?
Marc:You don't know yet.
Marc:It's all right, she's not here.
Marc:Just don't do it on TV yet.
Marc:Believe me, she'll be listening to this.
Guest:What were you on?
Marc:A podcast.
Marc:I don't understand.
Guest:Tell me when you're on the television.
Guest:No, she listens to everything.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:But no, I was just over there yesterday, and we're going through her Match.com hits.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's like, I didn't think I would be here.
Guest:I thought my parents were going to grow old and die together.
Marc:I mean, they divorced after, what, 30, 40 years of marriage?
Guest:Yeah, 30-some-odd years, yeah.
Guest:Just had enough?
Guest:Well, my father veered off the path of monogamy and fell in love with another woman, I guess.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And he copped to it?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Or he got caught?
Marc:Well, he got caught.
Marc:He got caught.
Marc:That's heartbreaking.
Marc:My dad did the same thing.
Marc:Did he?
Guest:But later on in life?
Marc:I tried to do a joke about that.
Marc:I used to say this thing about...
Marc:I say, you know, I got problems, but I really think it was because I just never really got over my parents' divorce.
Marc:I was 35.
Marc:It's true, though.
Guest:I don't know how you... You know, it's tough.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:For my mother to be dating at this age, it's a tough thing.
Guest:I mean, your mother dating?
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:And it's weird because...
Marc:I don't feel incredibly close to... I was a little detached from the whole thing.
Marc:I didn't see my role in it.
Marc:I didn't rush to anyone's rescue or anything.
Marc:I was out of the house.
Marc:I was in my own shit.
Marc:And the shit hit the fan.
Marc:And I think that in retrospect, I could have been a little more sensitive to the struggle that my mother went through.
Marc:Because the old man is going to be him.
Marc:They're just going to find someplace warm to sleep.
Marc:And they're fucking fine.
Marc:They're dudes.
Marc:You got your mother wandering around.
Marc:never been fucking single yeah you know trying to you know get you know get a new house living you know meeting these fucked up old men i mean that's the scariest thing when she told me about that when she was dating she's got to do what she lives with now he's all right but at first uh you know i was on stage once and they came he came to see me i said my mother's here and that's a guy who's fucking her and like oh god
Marc:It was a little rough, but I mean, it was true and it was funny and he was uncomfortable about it, but let's get it on the table.
Marc:But when she told me about the dating thing, you know, because a lot of these dudes, the dudes at that age, when they get older, I mean, a lot of them, either they're widows or they're divorced and they're like, you know, they want to live it up.
Marc:And these are old guys.
Marc:You never, like the shit that I heard about, they're just weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:because like a lot of them didn't live like she's down in florida which is just a clusterfuck of freaks you know people that work their whole life and now all of a sudden they retire and they're like now i can live and they're like well you're too old to do anything yeah but just weird stories and yeah you know losers and yeah it's difficult but she she got a good guy and he loves her and they're okay
Marc:She's just new to it, your mom?
Guest:Well, I mean, yeah, it's just two, three years.
Guest:And she just moved out here last year.
Guest:So she's here.
Guest:She's here.
Guest:I got my sister out here.
Guest:So my sister has a little baby.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Guest:We got like a little family going out here now.
Guest:My father's still in Chicago.
Guest:But, you know, I got my mother, you know, going out with guys now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I don't know how to date.
Marc:I mean, I'm a comic.
Marc:I'm like, you like me?
Marc:All right, I think it's good.
Marc:And then that's it.
Marc:But you seem like a guy.
Marc:You dress up for things.
Guest:I'm a big date.
Guest:I'm the king of dating.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Oh, I love dating.
Marc:I mean, I like the actual date.
Guest:What is it about?
Guest:How do you date?
Marc:Is there rules?
Guest:Just going out and experiencing stuff.
Guest:Like feeling it out, right?
Guest:The food and the thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Taking the girl to a place that you know of that she's not familiar of.
Guest:I'm into that.
Guest:I'm huge into it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, it's nice, man.
Marc:I mean, it's nice.
Marc:I mean, I don't like, I can't really remember real dates.
Marc:Every date I've been on was just a nerve wracking mess.
Marc:Like, so you're kind of guy, maybe you go on a couple of dates before you have sex with somebody or,
Marc:I mean, I know you're with somebody now, but back in the day, maybe not have sex.
Guest:It wasn't about that for me.
Guest:It was like, you know, if we do, we do.
Guest:If not, you know.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It was more about, like, the experience.
Guest:Oh, good for you.
Guest:Than, like, oh, I paid $200.
Guest:I'm not getting into your pants.
Guest:I never understood that.
Guest:You hear guys like...
Guest:I'm going to drop this much and I'm not going to get anything.
Guest:Well, what are you doing?
Guest:Go pay for it then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For me, it was more like, let's go out, enjoy the night, see where it takes us.
Guest:Old school.
Marc:Listen to you.
Marc:That means you actually made decisions around whether or not you're compatible with somebody as opposed to just jumping into bed with some freak that you can't get rid of for a year.
Marc:Yeah, you're an odd comic.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:Am I in the right business?
Marc:What am I doing?
Marc:You're doing good.
Marc:You're doing good.
Marc:So are you helping your mother at least?
Marc:Are you saying, I don't know about this guy?
Guest:Well, yeah, me and her, we don't trust nobody.
Guest:So it's like we ripped a guy to shreds.
Guest:I go, there's three or four different things he said in the beginning of his profile that made it look like, love public affection, love cuddling.
Guest:I go, this guy's a pervert.
Guest:That's all he wants to do is get in your pants, delete the profile.
Guest:she listen to you uh she she laughs yeah she laughs because she knows she thinks the same way yeah and is she having some is she having a starting to have a good time with it anyways well i mean yeah she's putting herself out there it's not a it's not about for her finding another husband or another it's just about finding a companion someone to hang with yeah yeah i mean she's happy she's got a new life out here she's doing great she's got her granddaughter she's got her kids that's good
Guest:It's all good.
Guest:What about the old man?
Guest:Old man is, you know.
Guest:You talk to him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're tight.
Guest:We are tight.
Guest:I mean, granted, whatever he did, you know, what are you going to do?
Guest:Do you like her?
Guest:It's not that I don't like her.
Marc:She's very sweet, very nice.
Marc:But on some level.
Guest:But it's like, you know, she's kind of the reason why I'm disruptive.
Guest:So it's like, you know.
Guest:But he's happy?
Guest:He's happy.
Guest:As long as he's happy and she takes care of him, she takes care of him.
Guest:They're all good.
Guest:Everything's good now.
Guest:Good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's a good thing.
Marc:It was great talking to you, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And I wish you the best of luck.
Guest:Thanks for having me on, and all the best to you as well.
Guest:Thanks for the chocolate, buddy.
Guest:You got it.
Marc:That's it, people.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:That was Sebastian Maniscalco.
Marc:Hell of a name.
Marc:That's why he's using primarily the first one.
Marc:Hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:Please go to my site.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Wow, I just shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop, available at WTFPod.com, along with a lot of other things, amazing T-shirts and posters.
Marc:You can see the episode guides, see who's been on the show.
Marc:You can get on the mailing list.
Marc:You can check my calendar for those dates that are coming up, i.e., the August 17th and 18th dates in Victoria, B.C.
Marc:You can check out all the upcoming Trippany House at the Steve Allen Theater dates coming up.
Marc:That's at WTFPod.com.
Marc:You can do all that.
Marc:I'm sweating in here.
Marc:I'm fucking sweating.