Episode 305 - David Koechner
Guest:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:How?
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:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, firefighters?
Marc:Yeah, how's that one?
Marc:What the fuck, Knicks?
Marc:What the fuck, Stanis?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for dumping me into your head this morning or this afternoon or this evening or whenever it is.
Marc:Have a nice flight.
Marc:Have a nice run.
Marc:Have a nice drive.
Marc:Clean up that house.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:And if I can help you in any way, I will be right here in your ears.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's how it's going to go today.
Marc:If you're in Victoria, in Esquimalt, I'll be at the Blue Ridge Comedy Festival tomorrow, Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th.
Marc:Never been there.
Marc:Hope it's nice.
Marc:Looking forward to it.
Marc:Today on the show, David Koechner.
Marc:Wow, David Koechner.
Marc:If you don't know David Koechner, I should maybe reel off some things.
Marc:He was in Anchorman.
Marc:He's been in everything.
Marc:He's one of those guys.
Marc:He's one of those character actors.
Marc:He's been on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Marc:He was in the Dukes of Hatch.
Marc:blizzard talladega nights he was in that uh he was on the naked trucker and t-bone show did not succeed on television but that live show that character was fucking nuts kochner will be here shortly what have i been doing what have i been doing you ask well i was in salt lake city haven't talked about that to you this is a city that i've gotten much more comfortable in i used to be scared i used to be frightened of the uh the mormon contingent
Marc:Until I realized, hey, there's a lot of lapsed Mormons.
Marc:There's a lot of cool Mormons.
Marc:There's a lot of pleasant people there.
Marc:Why be freaked out?
Marc:It's a weird city, but weird can be good.
Marc:And quite honestly, there's a place in Salt Lake City called Bruges.
Marc:I think it's pronounced.
Marc:It's just all they sell is Belgian waffles.
Marc:And I think the guy must come from Belgium.
Marc:I went there.
Marc:I had a sandwich.
Marc:This was a cheat day.
Marc:Now, obviously, the cheat day has lasted well into yesterday and today because I'm fucking the backlash of dieting is ridiculous.
Marc:It's ridiculous to diet because all that denying yourself shit just leads to an avalanche of I'm going to put food in my face.
Marc:It's not good for me in any way.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:But this waffle place, holy shit, I don't know what they do.
Marc:They're like magic waffles.
Marc:They're magic waffles.
Marc:All the people in Salt Lake City are wandering around, many of them wearing magic underwear.
Marc:And I don't know if they all realize that they have magic waffles right there.
Marc:I'd never tasted anything like it.
Marc:It wasn't just a waffle.
Marc:It was a Belgian waffle, and it was like crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, and I had ice cream on it, and that was following this weird sandwich I ate with lamb sausage and french fries on the sandwich.
Marc:That was crazy.
Marc:I had a nap.
Marc:I mean, I literally ate a sandwich with lamb sausage, french fries, some sort of sauce.
Marc:Then I had the waffle with ice cream, went back to my hotel room, laid on my bed, and could not feel my hands.
Marc:That's how that went.
Marc:Now, if I could discuss the shows in Salt Lake City, very odd.
Marc:I did two shows, and I think I had an experience that I've never had before on stage.
Marc:I think it's worthy of some discussion.
Marc:I think I may have facilitated a divorce, but I doubt it.
Marc:I've never really had...
Marc:this experience and they were lovely audiences you know great people came out nice people you you get the feeling that they're the people that come out you know to see me like I got the feeling that there's definitely people in um in you in Salt Lake that are sort of like thank god you're here we're you know we're surrounded you know there's that vibe you know we're surrounded I'm just glad we can all meet in one place and that there's others like me
Marc:But so I get on stage.
Marc:I'm brought up by the guy, Spencer.
Marc:Funny guy.
Marc:He brings me up and I literally set foot on stage.
Marc:I had not even grabbed hold of the mic in the stand and a guy sitting up front with a woman and another couple.
Guest:The guy says, hey, you were funny on TV last night.
Guest:And I'm like, well, thank you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Louie.
Guest:Louie.
Guest:And I know that tone.
Marc:That is drunk guy tone.
Marc:So I'm like, all right.
Marc:I haven't even opened my mouth yet to do any material at all.
Marc:And this guy is in it.
Marc:He's like, yeah, that was funny.
Marc:You were funny.
Marc:And I'm like, OK, I appreciate that.
Marc:Are we going to keep talking?
Marc:He's like, I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, you know, it was good.
Marc:And he's not the kind of drunk guy.
Marc:There's two.
Marc:There's a couple kind of drunks.
Marc:There's guys that are just like assholes like you suck.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:And then there's this other kind of drunk that sort of everything they say is just some version of I'm sorry, but I can't control myself.
Guest:uh it's a self-pitying drunk and this guy was one of those i'm like so are we gonna talk he's like yeah i shouldn't be yeah well you know i i'm glad you'll go ahead go ahead and everything should just end with i'm an idiot i can't stop my mouth i'm gonna like right now i should just be saying i'm drunk i'm an asshole i can't control myself
Marc:There's nothing worse than that kind of drunk because you really have no, there's nothing, you can't shit on them because you literally, I could go, you know, you're drunk and it's like, I know, I know, I'm drunk again.
Guest:You know, it's like, well, you're fucking up my show.
Guest:I'm an asshole.
Guest:And I'm like, oh my God.
Marc:And his wife or it turned out to be his wife, I found out later, was literally like talking to him, you know, trying to shut him up.
Marc:And he's he's like, she wants me to stop.
Guest:I got to stop.
Guest:She wants me to shut up, you know.
Marc:And then he just kept talking and and she eventually just gets up and leave.
Marc:So he's sitting there by himself in there, I believe, with this other couple.
Marc:And I'm like, well, and I start doing my act.
Marc:And I keep looking at him because I'm waiting for him to step in.
Marc:And he's saying like, yup, yup, you know, that kind of shit.
Marc:And I'm trying to deal with it because he's friendly enough.
Marc:But then at some point I do a joke and he's just like, that wasn't good.
Marc:That doesn't work.
Marc:That didn't work.
Marc:And this has been 10 minutes of this stuff, you know, and I had been, you know, you want to do a good show.
Marc:You don't want to be completely distracted.
Marc:He's like, no, that's not funny.
Marc:Basically is what he said.
Marc:So I just very honestly, I looked at him.
Marc:I said, you have to go.
Marc:You have to go now.
Guest:And he, and he, without missing a beat, he goes, I know, I know.
Guest:And I'm like, well, are you going to go?
Guest:He goes, yep, yeah, I'm going to go.
Guest:And I'm like, okay, well, then go.
Guest:And he goes, turn the other way.
Guest:Just turn the other way.
Guest:I'll go if you look the other way.
Guest:I'm like, really?
Guest:He's like, yeah, just don't look at me.
Guest:Turn the other way.
Marc:So I accommodated this guy.
Marc:Now, you realize his wife had left, you know, 10 minutes before.
Marc:So I turn the other way, and then he leaves.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I just stood there.
Marc:I'm like, you got to be kidding me.
Marc:How weird is this?
Marc:And I do my show for a little while.
Marc:And then his wife comes back in.
Marc:And I see her sit down.
Marc:And then the woman she's sitting next to looks at me.
Marc:And I'm like, what's up?
Marc:And they're sitting right up front.
Marc:And she goes, she left him.
Marc:I'm like, she left him?
Marc:Where did she leave him?
Marc:He's probably in the parking lot wandering around, angry.
Marc:And she's like, nope, this is it.
Marc:She left him.
Marc:I know in my mind, I've been in this situation before.
Marc:I've seen this situation before.
Marc:Whatever was happening there, it happened dozens of times.
Marc:I looked at her.
Marc:I said, he's got a drinking problem.
Marc:And she goes, I know.
Marc:And I'm like, well, you should go to a meeting.
Marc:And then she says, I've tried that.
Marc:So now it's like, it's not really a comedy show.
Marc:It's some sort of hands-on, yeah, I've got to balance this because I still have to do comedy.
Marc:And the audience, I mean, it's very exciting when something real happens, but it was a little gnarly.
Marc:And I'm like, so that's it?
Marc:Well, you got kids?
Marc:And she's like, two.
Marc:And it's like, oh my God, how am I going to transition to comedy here?
Marc:So I start doing comedy.
Marc:I start talking about drugs a little bit.
Marc:I start relating to her and she's like laughing.
Marc:But I could tell she was about to cry and it was upsetting.
Marc:But, you know, the whole show is very intricate.
Marc:And I looked at her.
Marc:I said, you know, you know what's going to happen, right?
Marc:You're going to walk out there and he's going to be out there in the parking lot with the with the sad face on going, I'm sorry, I did it again.
Guest:I'm an idiot.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I'll stop.
Guest:And she's like, exactly.
Marc:I'm like, well, you've got quite a night ahead of you with whatever the hell you've unleashed here.
Marc:And so that was that.
Marc:I made her laugh and everything was cool.
Marc:And after the show, I was selling T-shirts and things and...
Marc:and she walked up to me she waited to walk up to me she goes can i hug you and i'm like yeah and i give her a hug and i'm like you're all right i'm like and she's like yeah it'll be all right it'll be all right with just that exasperated face of like i've gone through this all the time i felt bad i don't know what happened i don't know where they're at but uh but i wish them the best but i'll tell you nothing nothing worse than a loud self-pitying drunk because you can do nothing with them
Marc:You're an asshole.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm an asshole.
Guest:I can't stop talking.
Marc:So what do you know about cats?
Marc:Because mine has stopped meowing.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Like this guy, there's something wrong with his meow.
Marc:The short answer would be it's dead.
Marc:No, I saw him this morning.
Marc:He's not dead, but he's going.
Marc:I'm trying not to panic.
Guest:It sounds to me like he is trying to do some beatboxing.
Guest:Does he want to be in show business?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, he hasn't told me that, but when people hang around as long as he has, you start to wonder what this is about.
Marc:Is it that you just want food or do you want a fucking break?
Marc:Because he's been on the podcast twice.
Marc:Has he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's looking for a way in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I've given him plenty of opportunities, but he chickens out at the last minute.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Fear of success.
Marc:That we share.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, the hardest thing for me is not to see his loss of voice as some sort of strange cosmic sign of what's to come for me.
Marc:Does it mean that I will lose my voice?
Marc:That the one thing that I have?
Marc:No.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So I think the first time I saw you, honestly, was I just vaguely remember you kind of like barreling into Luna Lounge, sweaty.
Marc:I think you just started doing SNL.
Marc:And I said, who the fuck's that guy?
Marc:And someone said, he's the new guy on SNL.
Marc:And I'm like, there's a new guy on SNL?
Marc:Where did he come from?
Marc:Where do they make these people?
Guest:It's interesting because I was thinking the same thing to myself.
Guest:When was the first time we met?
Guest:And it was at Loon.
Guest:I was trying to remember.
Guest:I knew it started with an L in Manhattan.
Guest:Is it in the East Village?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Ludlow Street.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then I do remember this.
Guest:You were drinking a Diet Coke and I think wearing red Levi's.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Red Levi's?
Marc:I mean, that might be... I think so.
Marc:Maybe a rust-colored Levi?
Marc:Perhaps.
Marc:Yeah, maybe a brownish rust color.
Marc:I remember there was a pair of those that I was very into.
Marc:Earth-tone Levi's.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:That's possible.
Marc:And that would be the first time we met.
Marc:Was I sweating?
Marc:Did I seem like I was on Coke?
Marc:Jeez.
Guest:You did not seem like you're on coke because you were drinking diet coke and I think maybe that was a sober time yeah me I think so mm-hmm and Yeah, I was probably sweating because this would have been still the summertime in New York and I just gotten hired So we were checking out the alt scene there in New York.
Guest:I went with Mark McKinney We'd both just gotten hired.
Guest:We want to check out
Marc:right venues were there right did i i don't think i went up i don't think you did i think you just came and you sort of hung around then you left yeah and of course i probably said like where the fuck did that guy come from i mean he's on snl i mean like because at that time i always thought like what i i should know everybody of course who's up for this they didn't call me about this kechner right i didn't get i didn't approve that but i thought you were originally i thought you were part of that uh that ohio the uh the iowa crew
Marc:Oh, the Higgins.
Marc:Higgins and Toby Huss.
Marc:Higgins Boys and Gruber, yeah.
Marc:But you're not.
Marc:No.
Marc:You come from another part of the country.
Marc:Chicago.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then before that?
Marc:Missouri.
Marc:What the hell's going on there?
Marc:I know.
Marc:Tell me.
Marc:I mean, you're like a shit kicker guy.
Guest:Yeah, but I always battled against that.
Guest:I was very aware early on that there was something else for me.
Marc:What is it like in Missouri?
Marc:All I picture is Dorothea Lange photographs and people leaving the Depression.
Marc:People leaving is very good.
Guest:Thomas Hart Benton.
Guest:It's very rural.
Guest:It is a blue state.
Guest:It's determinedly stubborn.
Guest:Here's the thing about Missouri.
Guest:It's called the show me state.
Guest:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which, first of all- It's a blue state?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Red.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:My apologies.
Marc:I was going to say, which map are you looking at?
Marc:It's conservative.
Marc:Like, surprise, Missouri's a blue state.
Marc:That would be wonderful.
Marc:Something was released into the air and everyone thought properly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, it was highly conservative.
Guest:They're pretty narrow-minded.
Guest:I'm from a very small town.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Did you shit in the house?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, we sat in the house.
Marc:Because when people say rural, and I think Missouri, there's still an outside chance that you're like, I'm going out back.
Marc:My dad did.
Guest:My dad had an outhouse, and so did my mom.
Guest:My parents grew up in humble means.
Guest:Of course, they grew up during the Depression.
Marc:Right, Dorothea Lange pictures.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so my father, the thing they would say, stuff like the weekly wiper about the newspaper.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It took me a long time to understand that.
Guest:I mean, oh, that was toilet paper.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's how poor people were.
Marc:The weekly wiper?
Marc:The weekly wiper.
Marc:I thought they had some version of a kind of makeshift bidet situation where they just had a pitcher of water and just smashed their bits.
Guest:No, because it would freeze during the winter.
Marc:Oh, you knew.
Guest:So, I mean, you had to go shit and piss in an outhouse.
Guest:Well, I guess the question is, did they read the paper?
No.
Guest:That is a good question.
Guest:They were literate.
Guest:But like on my mother's side of the family, very religious.
Guest:Eleven kids in my mother's family.
Marc:What religion?
Guest:Catholic.
Guest:Eleven kids in that family.
Guest:She was the youngest, but the oldest four were in the religious.
Guest:The oldest four were priests and nuns.
Guest:Irish?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Irish Catholic.
Guest:My father's side of the family, all farmers.
Guest:What'd they farm?
Guest:everything corn soybeans wheat so your dad had a sense of soil oh yeah yeah yeah uh but then he uh was a manufacturer yeah uh he moved when he moved to town i mean they so they lived outside of town yeah what was town town was tipton and at the time my god i don't know a thousand people well there are there are like eight tiptons yeah there's a tipton iowa tipton kansas tipton nebraska tipton george i think no i'm definitely thinking of the tipton missouri yeah yeah that's the one that's the one that everybody that's the one i'm from
Guest:I drove through.
Guest:I did some shows in Indiana.
Guest:I had to drive from South Bend down to another place.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I had to go through Tipton, Indiana.
Guest:So I had to stop somewhere and say, hey.
Guest:And they couldn't have cared less.
Marc:You had to say, hey, I'm from Tipton, Missouri.
Marc:I'm from Tipton, Missouri.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're like, who's the weird guy?
Marc:Really weirdo?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Go on, Hayseed.
Marc:So wait, so how many brothers and sisters do you have?
Marc:Five.
Marc:There's six of us.
Marc:There's six of you, and you know them all?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Know them like- No, I mean like you guys talk and stuff.
Marc:I'm always curious about that.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:I knew that I was very different from them.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:Oh, yeah, always.
Guest:How old?
Guest:Where are you?
Marc:I'm the third.
Guest:I'm the third.
Guest:My brother, Mark, myself and my brother and my sister came in quick succession.
Guest:We're all a year apart.
Guest:And then there was a couple years, then my next two sisters, then my youngest brother's nine years younger than I am.
Guest:But I always knew I was different.
Guest:You don't want to say black sheep, but I just thought differently.
Guest:I knew I had to get out of town.
Guest:I knew there was something else going on.
Guest:I knew I had a different desire.
Guest:they pretty much stayed home and would still be there if it was a little bit larger my brother took over my father's business my three sisters live in kansas city which is an hour and a half from that's bigger yeah yes and then my brother joe bought a pharmacy two pharmacies in a town the size of tipton in kansas so he's a drug dealer yes and very much so and all right so wait what's uh what what business was your what was your dad's racket
Guest:He was a manufacturer of livestock transportation vehicles for turkeys.
Marc:That's pretty specific.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I had to be specific because if I say turkey coops, people think he made pens for turkeys in people's backyards.
Marc:That's a layman's job.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What your dad did was something bigger.
Guest:He made livestock trailers.
Guest:For turkeys.
Marc:So when you're driving down the highway in the middle of the country and your car is being pelted with feathers and bird shit.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you're like, holy fuck, what is that filled with?
Marc:It's turkeys.
Guest:And where did it come from?
Guest:Keckner Manufacturing in Tipton, Missouri.
Guest:There were only two manufacturing plants for turkeys, for turkey coops.
Guest:One was in Tipton, one was in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Marc:So I'm thinking that once or twice, maybe even four times a year, your dad came home with a fresh fucking turkey.
Marc:No.
Marc:Never.
Marc:We didn't raise birds.
Guest:People didn't give us birds.
Marc:What do you mean they didn't give you birds?
Guest:What kind of ungrateful... We sold the... Because these coops would be purchased by the large corporations that farmed out birds being raised all over the country.
Guest:Like... Lewis Rich, for instance, or used to be Ralston Purina.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Purveyors of these animals.
Marc:They're not like Tom's Turkey Place.
Guest:Yeah, but what they'll do is they'll hire farmers to raise the birds.
Guest:Then they have to go pick them up and take them to the one central processing plant.
Marc:Right, so it had nothing to do with the farmer.
Marc:It had everything to do with the processing plant.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:So you never had to witness the turkey holocaust.
Marc:No.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:But when I was in sixth grade, we did go to the local meatpacking plant.
Guest:For our sixth grade class trip, we went to Yance's Meatpacking Plant.
Marc:Yance's.
Guest:Yes, another German name.
Guest:And we watched a cow be slaughtered from its entry into the squeeze chute, it being shot, pulled up, throat slit, and then the whole process of that cow run through the entire slaughterhouse.
Guest:What year was this?
Guest:I was in sixth grade, so this would have been in the 70s.
Guest:Well, how did you handle that?
Guest:We all were laughing and giggling and punching each other and just going through like, ha ha.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what?
Guest:We're out of class today because everyone in that in that class had a farm except me.
Guest:Actually, we were the only ones who weren't active farmers.
Guest:You weren't the crying kid, though.
Guest:No one cried.
Guest:No one batted an eye because everyone had seen an animal be killed.
Guest:Everyone.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because they were all farmers.
Guest:And you had?
Guest:Well, I'll tell you a story.
Guest:I remember being young, and outside of our house in town, we had a root cellar.
Guest:And a root cellar is two things.
Guest:It's an emergency shelter for tornadoes, if it needs to be, or that you'd keep- Potatoes and beets.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Down there, and they'd keep all year long without any need of a heater or cooler or anything else.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Now, it is on a slanted angle, so it's like almost opening up into the ground.
Guest:And I remember my dad, someone was over because a guy who was a bulldozer operator was going to do some work for my dad out near his manufacturing plant.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And they were talking casually, and someone had been sent to get some potatoes down from the root cellar.
Guest:So we open the doors and dad looks down.
Guest:There's a small rabbit there.
Guest:This is going to horrify your listeners, but this is just the way things work.
Guest:There's a small there's a baby rabbit there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my dad in in mid conversation casually reaches down, picks up the rabbit and then twists its head off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because he's a farmer.
Right.
Guest:He grew up a farmer.
Guest:Now, what would that rabbit be to any farmer?
Guest:Just a pest.
Guest:It's a varmint.
Guest:It's going to eat the crops.
Guest:Now, I tell that story to just... Here's the thing.
Guest:I intrinsically understood what he was doing.
Guest:It didn't horrify me and make me think, Daddy, that's a pet.
Guest:I was like, huh.
Guest:Because it was as casual as opening a can of...
Marc:Of course.
Marc:There's one.
Marc:Got to get rid of it.
Marc:Which is like, here, I can twist this thing off.
Marc:It's going to eat our potatoes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The first time I heard that.
Guest:Or even more likely eat livestock, eat crops.
Guest:But yes, the first time you heard that.
Marc:Well, no, the first time I was introduced to that, it kind of blew my mind because I had a rodent problem.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:in my apartment in new york and i had a friend jim who was from montana or somewhere and i'm like i got mice and he's like you just got to kill them all and i'm like but they're mice and you know i feel bad i don't know what kind of trap he's like who cares they're they're pests they're like cockroaches and i and i couldn't make that jump but it was because he grew up in in that environment right where like it's not in there's nothing cute here this is a problem and you also think about it this little rabbit was going to die anyway it for some reason was under this door well that's a rationalization i don't think your father was going to think that anyways
Guest:No, the thing is, I'm saying for your listeners, if you go through the process of that thing, okay.
Guest:Well, I don't want them to think I'm a horrible beast, but they're going to think whatever they want to.
Marc:I don't think, I think they're going to blame your dad as you probably do.
Marc:I don't blame him.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Wonderful guy.
Marc:Hard worker.
Marc:Well, the weird thing about the Germans.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Outside of whatever happened between them and my people, which is a few generations back where I'm not going to hold you responsible for any of that.
Guest:We'll get into that in a minute.
Guest:Are we going to get into that?
Guest:We can.
Guest:Well, I'm actually not even a German.
Guest:I'm not even a Kekker.
Marc:Here we go with the denial.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're one of the good Germans.
Marc:I get it.
Guest:I'm not German at all.
Guest:My grandfather was adopted.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And his last name would have been Williams.
Marc:What does that even mean?
Guest:It's either British or Irish.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And if you look at my translucent skin, you can see that I'm 100% Irish.
Marc:Well, I'm sort of fascinated with the Germans in general in the Southwest and in the Midwest.
Marc:There's so much documented history that I don't know and speculate about.
Marc:But there's a lot of...
Marc:Scandinavians and Germans were really the people that farmed the entire region of the Midwest, Southwest, and upper Midwest.
Marc:Because from what I understand, and I'll just educate you a little bit.
Marc:Please.
Marc:There was a period in American history where the landowners realized they had all this property that was almost unfarmable because it was so shitty that they put out a general casting call around the world to people that come from hard climates and knew how to farm.
Marc:They'd give them a deal and give them a chunk of land if they could figure out how to plant seeds and this shit.
Marc:And that's why you have Scandinavians all up in the Midwest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I would like to reference Ian Frazier's Great Plains for that.
Marc:If you'd like to read all about that, a very condensed version of American agricultural history and the history of the American Indian.
Guest:Yes, Dave Keckner.
Guest:You should put an Amazon icon right on your website with that.
Guest:So if they actually, if they go to your website, then buy it, then you get a tiny taste.
Marc:That is actually a very good idea.
Marc:And I don't know why I haven't thought of that.
Marc:You're saying that create a WTF book club where I can make a little rule.
Guest:Or make it if they come to your website and look at recommended reading via you, then you get a little taste.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:And why shouldn't you?
Guest:Because you become then the bookseller.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And you can do that with Amazon.
Marc:That's a good idea.
Marc:We'll make note of that.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I don't have to.
Marc:It's recorded.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you have all these brothers and sisters.
Marc:You get along with them.
Marc:And your mother, you have millions of aunts and uncles and cousins.
Marc:I can't even imagine how many cousins you have.
Guest:My father's side, 36.
Guest:My mother's side, 47.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you do this before you got here?
Marc:You said, I know this is going to come up.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:I know that as a matter of course because of our- Could you name them all, seriously?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Boy, if I saw the faces, I'd be like, which one are you?
Guest:At one point, I could have named all of them.
Guest:But there's a- Maybe not the older ones because there was- My mother was the youngest of 11, so there were some of her nieces and nephews that were nearly her age.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Guest:And so beyond that, I know that number because when my wife and I got married, in my family, you have to invite all the first cousins.
Guest:Not only the aunts and uncles, but the first cousins get invited as well.
Guest:So I remember that number.
Guest:It was a large list.
Guest:Now, were you brought up with the Jesus in a big way?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, they were very Catholic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Very Catholic.
Guest:Did you hold on to the Jesus?
Guest:No.
Guest:I did until about sophomore in college, and then I remember really, really needing answers because I was from a small town.
Guest:Then I moved away, and so you're trying to figure yourself out.
Guest:Who am I?
Marc:I remember going to- So you're in college, and you're like, there's a hell.
Marc:I might be going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, certainly the Catholic faith is based on shame and guilt and fear.
Guest:And so you've got a healthy dose of that and you're trying to intrinsically reject that anyway and intellectualize it all.
Guest:And then I had to go to a Catholic college.
Guest:I had to by parental decrees.
Guest:Either you go to a community college or if you want to go to school, school, you go to this one Catholic college for at least two years.
Marc:Either you cut your possibilities for a future almost entirely or you go to a Catholic college.
Guest:Or you can work for dad at the plant.
Guest:Go to community college, work for dad, or go to a Catholic college and roll the dice.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The service is always an option, I guess.
Guest:So I'm sitting there- Was that an option?
Guest:Did you think of that?
Guest:I did at one point.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because you were- Gotta go.
Marc:Were you fucked up?
Guest:No, no, just because you've got to get out.
Guest:I've got to see the world.
Guest:I've got to see something else.
Guest:Than this.
Guest:Than this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I remember sitting in the afternoon in a church and wanting answers.
Guest:I'm almost begging, like, somebody speak to me.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:And I remember...
Guest:when i didn't hear anything getting up and leaving going okay so we're good because i was asking pretty hard and i didn't get anything then the next year i went to the university of missouri and took a philosophy course and read bertrand russell's why i'm not a christian right and i thought well what this makes sense yeah sure for the first this all makes sense all war yeah all these bad things yes bertrand yeah the christian finally some answers yes now since then
Guest:You've gotten old and beat up and you're starting to drift back to it.
Guest:Well, certainly spirituality and the universality of whatever it is that we're all participating in.
Guest:Yeah, the charade.
Guest:This energy.
Guest:I'm not even talking about it.
Marc:This ridiculous game with no meaning.
Marc:Is that the one thing you're talking about?
Guest:Well, a meaning to be named later when we get to the next whatever level of this video game that we're playing.
Guest:So you're optimistic.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Well, I don't even know.
Marc:Are you sure you're going to be included in the next level?
Guest:Well, we know that, yeah, you have to be because by the mere fact of our whatever we call consciousness right now has to in some way lend an idea that we have another evolutionary model that we're going to go to spiritually or consciously or whatever.
Marc:I like the way that sounds, but I'm afraid that if you were to really try to explain it to me, we'd be here a long time.
Guest:That's okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Who are you competing with?
Marc:There's only one person.
Guest:It's yourself.
Guest:There's only one person.
Marc:Well, if that's the case, I'm losing.
Guest:Well, but you don't have to.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:The hardest thing is to make that choice every second that always be on the whatever, upside, the positive side, the winning side of whatever you want to do.
Guest:And that's the only thing we have to acknowledge.
Guest:Rather than focusing on why something won't work, we only...
Guest:give it the energy of this is absolutely definitely going to work.
Guest:But these sound like platitudes and affirmations.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Yeah, platitudes, affirmations, but a disposition that was hammered on the anvil of disappointment.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That is so well put.
Marc:narcissism that you know whatever is in my perception and whatever i perceive as being part of my mental makeup whatever's coming at me yes is by virtue of coming at me the only way i absorb it is make it a part of me i'm the absorber i would say that is a actually a very healthy choice to make and i've been listening to some deepak chopra and he said i thought something was quite of course everybody which wants to twist the whole the
Marc:basic notion down to one thing he calls it the you don't live in the world the world lives in you and that's just the statement you kind of made so that's right the world lives in me yes and that means that someone's got to run it exactly yes so i've now that now whether or not the world that is living in me he has any uh bearing or or or relationship to the world externally to the actual world right who could say like does pete holmes know that i own him no he doesn't
Marc:but in my world pete holmes is working for me not only that yeah that's and you know what everyone should be working for you everyone is working for me that's perfect it's amazing it's a big responsibility to be king and a lot of times but are you a noble king are you a good king are you a just king i'm all those things unless i'm irritable and then it's like i'm a cranky king some some shit goes down right and then and then i'm a contrite king
Guest:But then why did it go down?
Guest:If you're the king, you're in charge of being irritable.
Marc:Hey, I'm not perfect.
Marc:Ask Jesus.
Marc:All right?
Marc:I'm not perfect.
Marc:Everyone's flawed, dude.
Marc:Who also works for you.
Marc:Of course he does.
Marc:He works for everybody, from what I'm told.
Marc:Right?
Guest:You were talking about codependent.
Marc:Yeah, I'll say.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Jesus is the king of doormats.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I guess, you know, it's such a... He's the patron saint of all codependency.
Marc:I died for you.
Marc:That's heavy, man.
Marc:You didn't have to do that, yo.
Marc:I mean, really.
Marc:Could have just went on, built some things.
Guest:That's the end of every argument you ever have with Jesus.
Guest:Do you know what I did for you?
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Let me show you.
Marc:That is the end of the argument.
Marc:That is what Catholicism is based on.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Do you know what I did for you?
Marc:Ungrateful.
Marc:Ungrateful.
Marc:Sinner.
Marc:Sinner.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sinner.
Marc:God, we cracked the nut.
Marc:Original sin.
Marc:Let's talk about you hammering your affirmative disposition on the anvil of disappointment, my friend.
Marc:so a young dave koechner uh done with turkey coops not not looking for a future in turkey transportation vehicles right says i'm going to get out of here you go to college you read bircher and russell and your mind is blown right uh you're what'd you major in uh political science oh and and did you go to class yes okay i went to class until my junior year when i realized
Guest:I had no real shot of having a political life because at that point I was taking the administrative classes and started to understand, oh, I see.
Guest:You're either very wealthy, so you can get into any game you want, or you have a family business that is politics, or you're the brightest person in any room you walk into.
Guest:And that supersedes anything, whether it's poverty or- So you check no on all of those?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm smart enough for something.
Guest:You could have been a candidate.
Guest:Yeah, in a way.
Guest:But then you're compromising everything.
Guest:And believe me, when I started down that path to political science, I really had a sense of I could make a difference and I wanted to help the world.
Marc:And sure, that inevitably leads to show business where you compromise everything, but you don't think you are.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:You still think you're doing it on your own terms.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, if you're Marc Maron, you are.
Marc:Well, that was born out of desperation, my friend.
Marc:It's a pure stroke of luck and timing on that one.
Marc:Don't give me too much credit for being just two steps, two clicks away from suicide.
Marc:And I decided to-
Guest:jump on a mic and which is ultimately uh certainly putting destiny in your own hands well yeah yeah yeah so i'm just i'm fortunate it worked out this way or i or else i'd be some you know someplace crying wondering why i couldn't get a job at a restaurant and if you did succumb to that thing you your final thoughts and i thought hopefully words would be do you see what i did for you
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Let's see if that works.
Marc:Like, obviously, this being alive thing's not working out.
Marc:Perhaps if I play this suicide thing right.
Marc:You'll be a deity.
Marc:Yeah, I'll be a deity.
Guest:And your either biography, unauthorized, or autobiography should be hammered on an anvil of discontent.
Guest:That is a beautiful.
Marc:I said disappointment, but discontent.
Guest:Disappoint.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:Disappointment.
Guest:In searching, I then decided to leave the quest for political science.
Guest:And I went and visited a friend in Chicago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I saw the second city.
Guest:And then I saw a poster that said they taught classes.
Guest:And then a light went off.
Guest:Oh, that's how people do that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So then I moved to Chicago and started taking classes.
Marc:So you're telling me that in college when you were searching, and I was talking about later in life.
Marc:I don't know that you're going to tell me that you always had this positive chipper disposition all the way through.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So in college, you didn't wake up sweating and have a floating vision of Del Close in your dorm room.
Marc:Who's the large bearded man that's asking me to keep going forward?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know who that was.
Guest:I knew that the people on Saturday Night Live had come from Second City.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But I didn't know how someone begins on that path.
Marc:But at that time when you left college, were you looking at Saturday Night Live and saying, I like that and I'm going to do that?
Guest:I was watching.
Guest:I still couldn't.
Guest:I was too afraid to admit to myself that's a path I'd love to go down.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because I didn't know anybody who was an actor.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't know anyone who had done that.
Guest:Even in college, I never hung out with any theater people.
Guest:That wasn't for any arrogance or dislike of that.
Guest:I just didn't gravitate toward that.
Guest:Were you a football player?
Guest:In high school, not a very good one.
Guest:I was very small in high school.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:When I started high school, I was five foot tall, 99 pounds.
Marc:So you didn't start growing until SNL?
No.
Guest:Until just now, actually.
Guest:It's happening.
Guest:Look at my hands.
Guest:No, I was still growing when I got to college.
Guest:I was not done growing.
Guest:I was 17 when I first got to college and then turned 18.
Guest:But anyway.
Guest:Chicago.
Guest:Not a real athlete.
Guest:Yes, Chicago.
Guest:And then I was like, okay, this is it.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:This is what I want to do.
Guest:And it's hard because when you're from a small town...
Guest:There's not a culture that says you can do anything.
Guest:We want you to succeed.
Guest:No, anything.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Hey, don't you get too big for your britches?
Marc:Don't leave because we need you here.
Guest:Well, we don't.
Guest:If you leave, then in that in a way that shows me being less successful just by virtue of staying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you might take a few people with you.
Guest:Well, or whatever.
Guest:That just means I failed.
Guest:It's like, no, it doesn't.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Misery loves company, I think, would be the adage that we could attach to that.
Guest:And Missouri.
Marc:So you get to Chicago.
Marc:You go see Second City.
Guest:Go see Second City.
Guest:Go see the, whatchamacallit, the poster.
Guest:And then I go back to Columbia, Missouri, where I'm living, and decide I'm going to move to Chicago.
Guest:And then, if you want to hear a story, I get arrested.
Guest:I now dropped out of college.
Guest:I'm going to save my money and move to Chicago.
Guest:You dropped out?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I quit going to all my classes because I realized, all right, poly-size isn't for me.
Guest:I'm not going to waste my time doing this.
Guest:I know I'm going to go do something else.
Marc:So you didn't look at other departments in the school?
Marc:No.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Not a good plan.
Marc:Poly-size is not working out.
Marc:I'm leaving college.
Guest:My mother had gone to college a little bit, and my aunts and uncles on my mother's side had all gone, but I didn't have anybody counseling me, like saying, hey, you really need to stick to this or that.
Guest:Here's how you decide what you want in life.
Guest:None of that.
Guest:it's all unknown territory so i'm figuring it out uh go back my roommate was growing pot downstairs because we were living in this uh house and we had both the first floor and the downstairs he was growing some pot downstairs and not uh not well he'd been growing them for months and they were just still little things and that was before like the big buds right like it was just a pot plant so it was like 70s pot
Marc:Yeah, he was just trying to grow it for his own use.
Marc:It wasn't hybrid, stinky weed.
Guest:And plus, he didn't have a good grow light.
Guest:He just had a fluorescent light.
Guest:Didn't know what he was doing.
Guest:Some guy had come by.
Marc:But you're my age, so this was literally that shitty pot.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was way before things that smelled like skunk.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I really wasn't smoking pot every once in a while.
Marc:You're not a politician.
Marc:You can own this shit here.
Marc:No, that's fine.
Guest:It gets worse for me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So then some guy had come by to whatever, spray the house.
Guest:Bug guy?
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Bug guy.
Guest:A former cop.
Guest:So then he comes and I come home.
Marc:Do-gooder.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I come home from work one day.
Guest:I was working at a restaurant.
Guest:There are state police, local police, and sheriffs.
Guest:All at our house.
Guest:And they're going to arrest my roommate for manufacture of marijuana, right?
Guest:All they need me to do is say, I didn't have anything to do with it.
Guest:I write, okay, yeah, you know, poor Larry.
Guest:They say, can we, we want to look at the rest of the house.
Marc:So without even thinking, you threw the guy under the bus.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:He'd already confessed to it.
Guest:He said, these are his.
Guest:I had nothing to do with it, which was true.
Guest:I didn't have anything to do with it.
Marc:All right, so you weren't a rat.
Guest:So then they said, we want to look at the rest of the house.
Guest:I'm like, great, just get the fuck out of here.
Guest:Now, this is late August.
Guest:That May, I had been at a party where there was some cocaine and someone had had a bullet, one of those bullets.
Guest:Sure, I remember that.
Marc:You kind of twist a little thing on the side and you do a bump.
Guest:And they had given that to me or whatever and I'd had it.
Guest:I'd thrown it into a desk drawer, completely forgot about it, right?
Guest:And apparently there was just enough, there was nothing in it but just dust, like residue around the glass.
Guest:They find that in the desk and I'm like, what?
Guest:I didn't even, to show how much, how little I used.
Guest:You said, fucking Larry.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They said, what's this?
Guest:I said, I don't know.
Marc:Oh, Larry.
Guest:So they take it in and have it analyzed and I get arrested, I don't know, two months later on that for felony possession of cocaine.
Guest:That's Missouri.
Right.
Guest:right yeah because here's the thing if i'd had a good lawyer could say we we want our own independent test they'd say well they can't be one there wasn't enough there to even do it right so that delayed my departure for chicago for a year so i had to sit in a year yeah yeah because i had to sit and do probation i had to pay off a lawyer i had to uh you had a parole officer oh yeah probation officer ridiculous and probation officer and what you had to do community service how'd you nope just i had to check in every once in a while
Marc:Really?
Marc:Ridiculous.
Marc:And you went before a judge?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And how'd that go?
Marc:I got five years probation.
Marc:That's fucking ridiculous.
Marc:Isn't it?
Guest:Isn't that the fucking craziest thing ever?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:That judge, probably a poli-sci major.
Guest:Probably a poli-sci major.
Guest:And apparently, whatever, I'm not going to tell him.
Guest:I don't even remember the lawyer's name.
Guest:Nice guy.
Guest:But I'd heard stories that all these guys had partied together.
Guest:Like, oh, come on.
Marc:They all do.
Marc:That's the thing about politics.
Marc:It's like on any level in any business, it's just a network of people that do each other favors.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's all of it.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:I agree.
Guest:I agree.
Guest:And especially at the very top echelon.
Guest:And that's why there's really not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties that are
Guest:changing money in the temple.
Marc:It's all about placating people who think they're still middle class into buying into the bullshit that maintains the status quo.
Marc:Manufacturing consent.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Let's call Chomsky.
Marc:Can we?
Marc:Do you have his number?
Marc:That'd be hilarious if you did.
Marc:I do.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:It'd be interesting.
Marc:It would be mind-blowing if you did.
Marc:It's like, I was just talking to Chomsky yesterday.
Marc:I still keep political science as a hobby.
Marc:Can you imagine if you had Chomsky in your context?
Marc:I'm sure I could get hold of him.
Guest:That's pretty awesome.
Marc:I guess so, if you really want to just, you know, get really long-winded messages.
Marc:I just had a few thoughts, Mark.
Marc:I thought I'd leave them on your phone.
Guest:I know you.
Guest:I'd like to come back on your podcast and discuss.
Guest:Inbox full.
Marc:Inbox full.
Marc:Fucking Chomsky.
Marc:Two messages.
Marc:Two messages.
Marc:And then it's all.
Marc:They all fold up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe that's my next.
Marc:That's a good name for something.
Marc:Fucking Chomsky.
Guest:Very good name.
Guest:All right, so so then that that delayed my departure Chicago then I went the movie Chicago What were you doing during that year?
Marc:Did you go back to school you worked at no?
Guest:No, I worked at a restaurant and took like in a management position or something to make more money To save to go and move to Chicago.
Guest:All right, so you load up your wagon Ford Escort nice all of my possessions I stay at a YMCA there's any posters Let's think
Marc:What cassettes were you playing in the car?
Guest:Did you make a mixtape?
Guest:Someone had made me a mixtape, I'm sure.
Guest:I'm sure, let's see.
Guest:There would have been some REM, some U2, some ACDC.
Marc:Good, mixing it up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Highbrow, lowbrow.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm on the pulse, but I'm still got a rock dick.
Marc:Oh, the replacements.
Marc:Huge replacements.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Hell yeah.
Guest:Hell yeah.
Guest:So all of that from that era.
Marc:So you're going, you're drinking on the way, smoking some reefer?
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Not smoking reefer, but drinking quite a bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Always drinking.
Marc:Well on your way.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then in Chicago, that was an amazing time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:An amazing time.
Marc:For drinking.
Guest:Well, for drinking and for studying and being with an amazing group of people that you do.
Marc:Explosion of self.
Guest:Truly, yeah, it really was.
Guest:I mean, once I started doing it, I was like, yes, this is exactly what I should be doing.
Marc:So what were you doing?
Guest:Studying improvisation.
Guest:At Second City?
Guest:Well, before, Second City and also the ImprovOlympic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's IO as it's called now, and that's where I started studying with Dell and met up with a bunch of great people.
Marc:You actually did classes with Dell?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, for three years.
Marc:Like, I've talked to maybe one or two people about Dell.
Marc:Now, like, Dell Close is known as the... The guru, yeah.
Marc:The grand wizard of Chicago improv.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:What was your impression of him?
Guest:Well, you're aware of his reputation, and he didn't suffer fools, and he was very short with anybody.
Guest:He had very little patience for shit.
Guest:and so it was like either get on board or get the fuck out basically that mean to be on board what was the lesson one do it well right respond honestly and truthfully in the moment to what the fuck is happening on stage you don't need to make anything up just be there and this is herald structure well yeah right long form but this is before it has become what it is now it's more pure long form then they still had games in it
Guest:But, you know, well aware that Dell had instructed, you know, Belushi and Murray and had come up with a concept for SCTV's television show.
Guest:Like, why don't you set it in this independent TV studio and these are all the shows.
Guest:Like, that was Dell's idea.
Guest:And Dell would talk about stuff like be an archetype on stage.
Guest:Like, let that be your guide.
Marc:Like Comedia Della Arte.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, more like your fire or your ice and let that be the thing that gives you voice in the scene.
Guest:And you're like, holy fuck.
Guest:And he's reading.
Guest:He's, you know, he's telling you to read Joseph Campbell, read, you know, anything about the gods and use that to inform your work.
Guest:How did that inform your work?
Guest:Well, you'd read it and go, what the?
Guest:fuck am i reading i don't get it yeah so basically for me what del close was you better try your best this shit is really really important it's not about fucking off and making a dick joke it's about really trying to mine for truth that's what i got from it i was just in what in the moment and in yourself that's the best you could be yeah which nowadays is known as the temple of marin finally finally we finally have a temple
Marc:And his lieutenant behold.
Marc:But what did that mean?
Marc:When you say fire and ice, that seemed to be specific.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So, for instance, if you're on stage and you're doing an improvised scene, you're supposed to come clean to it.
Guest:Don't have any idea.
Guest:But if you decide to inform your person with the idea of either fire or ice, that's going to affect how you speak to a person.
Guest:So if I say I'm ice and you and I have a conversation, it's going to be whatever ice means to me.
Guest:For instance, I could be cold.
Guest:I could be blustery.
Guest:I could be sleety.
Guest:Any adverb or adjective that I could use to inform my response or whatever I say to you.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And through those exercises, what do you think you found?
Marc:Back then we're just now.
Marc:I mean, how did it because like, you know, there are certain people that have a defined comedic presence and a lot of that is natural.
Marc:But but I have to assume that like with you, you come from the sort of, you know, gregarious blustery kind of like, you know, kind of steamroller guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But were you like that before you entered?
Guest:I would say, yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, my father's side of the family, I would say that's very typical of all of their behavior.
Marc:But were you funny?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was always funny.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Back in, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was the class clown.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I'm just trying to figure out, like, what did you come away with three years of work with Del Close?
Marc:I mean, what were the skills that you found yourself with?
Guest:I think just the skill for improvisation is listening and responding and heightening.
Guest:So whatever you say, the other person, for instance, in improvisation, you yes and it, right?
Guest:So no matter what is said, your response is some way to further that last thing that was said.
Marc:Okay, let's do one.
Marc:Like, okay, I have a little bit of a headache.
Guest:I have the worst headache.
Marc:And do you think we have the same headache?
Guest:I don't know, but I think mine's just a little bit bigger.
Guest:Mine would take whatever the largest pill you could think of taking, even if you had to saute it in a pan of oil, I might need that.
Guest:Now, that's one way of doing it.
Guest:I'm thinking about cutting my head off.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I have a very sharp knife right here in this drawer.
Guest:So that's one way of doing it.
Guest:So we're both agreeing it.
Guest:The other thing is you've got a headache, and so my job would be to ensure that you still get a larger one.
Guest:So you have a headache.
Guest:Okay, I have a headache.
Guest:I'm about done with tuba practice.
Guest:Just hold on.
Guest:You are well aware that between two and three, I practice tuba.
Guest:I don't think the tuba is what's causing it.
Guest:You're absolutely right.
Guest:It's probably the vice that you have around your head.
Guest:Now, that's desperation.
Guest:But it's yes-anding whatever it is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I could say, like, you don't think it's me hitting my head like this?
Guest:I hadn't thought of that until just now.
Guest:And so now that we've, if we've gotten that far, then someone should edit that scene, right?
Guest:Because we can't get any further.
Marc:We can't?
Guest:Well, we could, but we're not on our feet right now.
Guest:And so verbally we can make one up.
Guest:But we've, that's, we heightened pretty quickly.
Guest:Couldn't you just say, oh no, it's spread to my hand.
Guest:Or I could also say, either it's you punching you in the head, or maybe I should stop doing it too.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That was a good lesson.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's all just simple.
Guest:Now here's the, here's the,
Guest:Irony, that's counterintuitive to acting because in any scene, an acting scene, you're supposed to actually be opposed to one another in one way.
Guest:Your wants would cause a dramatic relationship to ensue.
Guest:So it's not necessarily agreement.
Guest:So agreement works best in improvisation, but it doesn't necessarily work best in drama.
Guest:Conflict is drama.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And you can't do conflict in improvisation?
Guest:You can, but a lot of times it doesn't... Now, you can both agree to argue.
Guest:You can both agree... As long as both people agree to keep doing what they were doing.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:If you say, I think we should go east, and they go, ah...
Guest:East.
Guest:I was thinking West.
Guest:Now, a teacher might go, you didn't agree with him.
Guest:Well, in a way I did because now we've got something to do and the audience is drawn into that relationship, right?
Guest:Because now these people want two different wants.
Guest:So now that scene is going to be about negotiation or dominance or confusion.
Guest:Do you teach?
Marc:I sometimes do.
Marc:I could feel that.
Marc:No, it's good.
Marc:I learned a little bit.
Marc:I've asked for improv lessons on this show before, and now I feel like I really got one.
Guest:Well, I would say this.
Guest:What I tell people, it truly is as simple as a conversation.
Guest:Because if we all commit to having a simple conversation, it means, A, I'm just going to listen and respond honestly.
Guest:That's improvising.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Now, what happens once you get on stage, and this is something Del used to say, you get, I forget what it was, 10% or 20% dumber.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because now all of a sudden there's an agenda, but really there isn't.
Guest:You're just still having a conversation on stage.
Guest:And if you're naturally funny anyway, and you're listening and you're heightening what the last person said, it's delightful.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because there's no real work.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You don't have to do anything.
Guest:I get that.
Guest:And the minute someone tries to be funny, it usually breaks.
Marc:And there's a lot of that going around.
Guest:It's most often.
Marc:Oh, that's a shame.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Why don't people fucking honor Del Close anymore?
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's a new church.
Marc:Yeah, there is.
Marc:The new church of like, look at me.
Marc:Of Marin.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what happens in Chicago?
Marc:You go through the thing.
Marc:Did you do the touring company and all that shit?
Guest:I did eventually.
Guest:I did the ImprovOlympic for a number of years.
Guest:And then I tried to get hired by Second City three times.
Guest:And they never hired me.
Guest:And I have a theory as to why the woman that ran the ImprovOlympic used to put names on a list for the head of Second City.
Guest:Like, here's the people you should hire.
Guest:So I have a suspicion that she'd see whatever names that...
Guest:The other person had checked and go, okay, those people are definitely not going to get hired.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So it took a while.
Guest:And then they eventually hired me.
Guest:And then I got into the touring company and then to a resident company.
Guest:And then from there to Saturday Night Live.
Marc:Well, what was that process, the Saturday Night Live process?
Guest:They had come to town.
Guest:I had auditioned for Mad TV.
Guest:And Thomas, the casting director, had shown my tape to Lorne.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And Lorne really liked what I'd done.
Guest:And they actually put me on a small holding deal.
Marc:Right.
Guest:that they never paid me for because that was going to happen i was going to be on a holding deal if i didn't get hired by saturday night live so i kind of knew i was going to get hired so i'd done that the we were in the resident company i went they fly to new york you do your audition then you wait then you have your second audition and then you wait and then they fly you out the third time to say congratulations you're hired you didn't have to go in the meet with lauren oh yeah that's the final one
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how'd that go for you?
Guest:It was very odd because you don't really know you just got hired.
Guest:At least that's what my experience was.
Marc:You had a good experience with Lorne?
Guest:Yeah, he was fine.
Guest:He didn't let me go.
Guest:It was West Coast that decided I was no longer necessary.
Guest:you said you had a good time that first year oh yeah west coast what do you mean west well it was the first year that saturday night live had had competition late night with mad tv mad tv and then howard stern's show right so the numbers had dropped it was an entirely new cast except for norm mcdonald stayed on david spade and tim meadows that was the year right and this was there was the year after it had gone dramatically
Guest:bad for saturday night live that's the the new york uh time or new yorker article or what was the new york magazine article called saturday night dead and uh so they they jettisoned most of the cast and the ratings had kind of gone down so we were not getting normal ratings and i really thought shit this is gonna be the last year for this show yeah um so anyway west coast was able to have more say in what norm lauren was doing
Guest:really yeah so they lauren wanted to keep me but uh the west coast thought i don't like that guy apparently don olmeyer didn't like the fops i don't know if you remember those guys myself and mark mckinney did these white-haired wig guys they were they were courtesans basically those guys yeah which were almost a hit but then they weren't so they're like i don't know what those guys are and they seem uh you know somewhat uh fey
Marc:or twee whatever you do you do infuse your characters at times with a peculiar sexuality well why wouldn't you no i i look i mean i well we're all sexual humans but that's interesting i think it's very interesting to put a question mark in there of like what is this or that is this person yeah because what did i see you do recently at uh john glazer's premiere what's that character
Guest:That is Roy, who is actually gay.
Marc:No, but also like, I think the naked trucker guy, he seems to be some sort of weird kind of like, you know, Hunter S. Thompson trucker.
Marc:I'll fuck anything.
Marc:Anything goes kind of guy.
Guest:That is about as big a compliment as I could ever get.
Guest:A Hunter S. Thompson character.
Guest:That's fantastic.
Guest:And yes, Gerald would just as easily give someone a handjob for $15 as he would lift a box full of Snickers from a 7-Eleven.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Anything goes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's no moral compass.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's all just part of business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But after Saturday Night Live, I mean, were you crushed?
Marc:Were you frightened?
Guest:Yes, I was completely crushed.
Guest:I was devastated.
Guest:I couldn't believe it.
Guest:Were you married at that time?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:In my head, I thought I'm only going to stay here three years and then I'm going to leave because I don't want to stay too long.
Marc:You had a career plan.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I believe that, as they say, the universe hears you and they just sped it up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I was very fortunate because here's what Lauren told me.
Guest:He said, Dave, you're an artist.
Guest:Don't lose that.
Guest:So I believed him.
Marc:Isn't it amazing how we believe certain people that have power, you know, the Buddhas in the world?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:but i i but he is also true i believed i still do that i'm an artist and i'm sure you do too and that uh that i'm an artist uh i always say that right i usually open most of my interviews like i cut it out but i just want you to know like generally my opening line to anyone who comes in here is that dave keckman he's an artist i love your opening music by the way who is that john montagna m-o-n-t-a-g-n-a john is that called bass player from brooklyn is that called the mark maron theme
Marc:WTF.
Guest:Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Marc:Let's get back to you, your life coming off the rails.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was I was devastated.
Guest:I couldn't believe it is a long waiting process because I saw it in the paper first that I might not be my contract might not be renewed.
Guest:And then I had to wait officially until the end of summer, like August 17th is when I officially found out.
Guest:Nope, you're not coming back.
Guest:So then I decided, well, I have to move to Los Angeles.
Guest:That's where it's all going to happen.
Guest:I was actually on a backpacking trip with my buddy, James Grace.
Guest:We were backpacking through the great Northwest and someone called who was managing me at the time and said, you need to get here now.
Guest:And so I came to town and had some auditions and all that.
Guest:I was very fortunate.
Guest:I got some holding deals and got work right away.
Guest:So it
Guest:It did work out, you know, like that.
Marc:So there was no prolonged drinking?
Guest:Oh, no, that was going on the entire time.
Marc:Oh, right.
Guest:Oh, that was a steady drumbeat.
Guest:That was my muse.
Guest:From the time I hit Chicago through, I often look back and go, wow, had I put as much energy into focusing on writing and creating something tangible, it would have been miles ahead.
Marc:Now, did you find yourself drinking because of your idols or you were just wired that way?
Guest:No, I was wired that way.
Marc:And you seem very clear now.
Guest:Well, my wife and I are taking a year off.
Marc:Drinking?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Each other?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Both?
Guest:Both of us.
Guest:But just, we have five children, so it can't hurt.
Marc:So you decided to do some parenting?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's very nice.
Marc:Just an experiment.
Marc:Generous.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just because, you know, give the liver a break and give the kids a break from the screaming.
Guest:But no, I just, you know, you dedicate to something and you certainly can only help your life if you're completely sober.
Guest:And I'd say it is.
Guest:I've lost weight and certainly more clear.
Marc:Now, okay, so after, but after SNL, I mean, it seems that's when your career really took off in terms of the bit parts and this and that.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:I was very fortunate in that I was able to get steady work.
Marc:And you were in with that crew?
Marc:Were you friends with Will Ferrell and Carell and all those guys?
Guest:Will and I had met that first year on SNL, and we had then become friends, and so that certainly helped.
Guest:And Carell?
Guest:Steve and I knew each other from Second City.
Guest:His wife and I were hired to Saturday Night Live together and she and I were in a company at Second City together.
Guest:So I'd known those guys for a long time.
Guest:But a lot of people don't realize a lot of times it's not up to the actor to hire another actor.
Guest:No, because producers do that.
Guest:I was very fortunate that I auditioned for, say, like Anchorman and got the job because those guys couldn't.
Guest:In fact, Adam and Will had told me like they didn't want to say we think it should be this guy because they knew that sometimes when people say we think this guy, for whatever reason, arbitrarily, they'll automatically choose someone else.
Marc:power who knows why right politics suggestion politics whatever so i was just fortunate in that i think i understood what adam and will were the tone of what they were doing and you know understand what they were doing comedically yeah it seems like there's definitely a school of comedy that that you're part of and that seems to be it i mean you were in you know talladega nights you're in uh you know the uh but you know thank you for smoking was a little different yeah that was like when i saw you in that i'm like he's like he's he's almost a real guy here
Marc:Were you almost a real guy?
Guest:I was nearly, very nearly a real person.
Marc:You know what I'm saying.
Guest:Yeah, I do, exactly.
Guest:Well, it was not a caricature.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was a nearly dramatic part, right?
Guest:Yeah, it took a little bit of acting rather than sketchy, if you will.
Marc:Right, and I think that same with The Office.
Marc:That guy can be real.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I think so.
Marc:he's a disturbing guy yeah yeah very disturbing he's you know he's got a very dark loneliness to him right yeah and what did you think of uh you know in terms of the the survival of um the naked trucker show i mean that to me that was like a long shot right yeah i mean it was such a it was so peculiar and so specific and like the live shows were great amazing but i mean did you really think uh do you think you were going to get a good run on comedy i did i did um
Guest:I was not sure at first because that's not how we wanted to do the show.
Guest:If you remember VH1's Storytellers, you'd see these musicians in a small venue and there'd be a crowd down front and they'd have these jibs, these cameras going from the back, right?
Guest:Because you could see more intimate, right?
Marc:Right, right, right.
Guest:I felt that's what we should do and dissolve to these stories.
Guest:But...
Guest:Comedy Central had this model of Chappelle and Mencia where it's the host throw to sketches.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Which was counterintuitive to what we do on the stage show or did in the stage show.
Guest:But I thought, well, they're the network.
Guest:They must know.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And like that, I'm not blaming them because that's all they knew.
Guest:They couldn't wrap their heads around something else.
Guest:And I don't think we were effective in articulating, no, it really should go this way.
Right.
Guest:And so that's the way it went.
Guest:I think that's what hurt us mostly was, but there was not an awareness of who we were.
Guest:We weren't the Smothers brothers.
Guest:We're like, oh, them, they have their own show.
Guest:Now it's the Naked Trucker and T-Bones and America's going, who are they?
Guest:And I would say to their fault, to their credit, they put us on the air.
Guest:But a big mistake was they sold the show as blue collar comedy.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And which killed it because it wasn't blue collar.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:What were those guys going to do with it?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:So we should have had the because you were showing in terms along those lines, you were showing exactly what the blue collar comedy people were trying to hide.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Which was that, you know, their people are just populated with freaks and misfits.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That'll do any underbelly.
Guest:You have a look.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I will splay it open and now cook it for you.
Marc:Have you ever seen pictures of photo documentaries of swingers, enclaves?
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:It's always those naked trucker guys.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Everyone's just sort of like, yeah, we're just hanging out in our lounge chairs.
Marc:Someone's fucking my wife right now.
Marc:There's a tip jar.
Guest:I don't know if he'll leave anything.
Guest:He usually doesn't.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I don't insist on condoms, but it's strongly recommended.
Marc:She's pretty clean.
Yeah.
Guest:So kids are out of the house.
Guest:But yeah, so they sold it as roadhouse comedy.
Guest:So I think people from the Colbert Nation and The Daily Show already made up their mind, I'm not watching that.
Guest:And then the blue collar fans were thinking, what is this?
Guest:So it just didn't work.
Marc:now in terms of it was very funny though it's got great jokes throughout no it was a great show it was great to see live and i love uh i love gruber i love gruber yeah the best i haven't seen him in a while he moved back to utah his parents are up there and i think they're he wants to spend time with him yeah wow yeah he's uh yeah he's uh he's always great yeah and those uh those higgins boys seem to always do well for themselves
Guest:Right.
Guest:Steve's now over at Fallon.
Guest:He was the head writer when I was there at Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And his brother works consistently.
Marc:He was the head writer when I auditioned.
Marc:He was in the room with me and Lauren.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Very awkward.
Marc:It was the same year.
Marc:It was the same year.
Guest:Did you have anything to do with me tonight?
Guest:I didn't know you yet.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You were in your rust-colored pants and I had not met.
Marc:I was probably wearing those pants.
Marc:I commit heavy to pants and shoes.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:If I'm wearing them, I'm wearing them.
Marc:You were wearing Doc Martens at the time.
Marc:I'm sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or something similar.
Marc:I got these going now.
Marc:These are Red Wings, my friend.
Marc:Red Wings, American-made.
Guest:These are Lucchese's, American-made.
Marc:Oh, those are fancy.
Marc:Are those ostrich?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, very fancy.
Guest:Most comfortable shoe I've ever worn.
Marc:Sure, if you're from Missouri.
Guest:Oh, you try these on.
Guest:What size are you?
Guest:You should get yourself.
Guest:With this power of this podcast, you should get...
Marc:You think that the Lucchese company is going to throw me some cowboy boots?
Marc:Oh, I should.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:I haven't worn them in a while.
Marc:I don't know if I can carry that off.
Marc:Yes, you can.
Marc:You think I can still do that?
Guest:Yeah, they will look very hipster.
Marc:Are people still doing that?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:We can make cowboy boots happen again?
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:They never go away in some places.
Guest:But these aren't pointy.
Guest:That's a nice boot.
Marc:But Lucchese makes cowboy boots, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you wear Western wear a lot?
No.
Guest:I have gone in and out of it.
Guest:There are some nice Western shirts I don't typically wear these days.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But these boots are my daily wear.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So are you happy with, I see you as one of the hardworking American comedy character actors.
Marc:Are you happy with the amount of work you're getting?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, well, I could, you could always, I would love a steady, steady job in town.
Marc:Did you, did you realize when you got into show business that that might not happen?
Guest:No, I never considered that.
Guest:Honestly, I've never once thought like some actors think I'll never work.
Guest:I've never once given that thought.
Guest:I knew once the day I decided I'm going to be an actor in my head and in my guts, I knew it was going to work.
Guest:And I don't think you can really have any other decision in your body once you decide to be in show business.
Yeah.
Marc:This is that thing we talked about at the beginning.
Marc:Now, at some point, there must have been darkness.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:There must have been doubt.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:And when there's doubt, guess what happens?
Guest:What?
Guest:Work dries up.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you attach it all to yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the system you put in place for yourself is that in my darker times, I wasn't getting work and it was because I was dark and because I was drinking too much.
Guest:No, ironically enough, I had plenty of work when I was drinking, always did.
Guest:But there have been times, drinking aside, really that hasn't affected, I don't think,
Guest:Yeah, it one way or the other.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It might be your whatever your disposition.
Guest:I tell you, it was a real kick in the balls when the trucker show was not renewed and when it didn't do well on Comedy Central.
Guest:That was probably the darkest for me, actually darker than getting let go from Saturday Night Live, because here was the thing that we had done so successfully for so many years.
Guest:And for it to not work at the next level, I was really, between sixes and sevens, I was like, I don't know what.
Guest:That was my best foot forward.
Marc:So now you were no longer grounded in your belief that everything was going to be all right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, I didn't focus enough on everything that had been so great in my life.
Guest:I focused on that didn't work.
Guest:And my wife's like, okay, that'll do.
Guest:That's enough.
Marc:Where's she from?
Guest:She's from Kansas City, Kansas.
Marc:So you've got some tough Midwestern stock.
Marc:She's the best.
Marc:My wife is maybe the greatest ever.
Marc:Does she frighten you?
Guest:She comforts me and she frightens me.
Guest:No, that's not a good relationship.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I've decided that's the root of the best relationships.
Marc:If you're not afraid of your significant other, then you'll probably try to get away with anything.
Marc:I'd agree with that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You just was framing in a nicer way.
Guest:No, I will.
Guest:To be completely brave.
Guest:Yeah, I'm afraid of her.
Guest:But then it sounds like then it makes it sound as if she's a person to be feared.
Guest:No, I will say this.
Guest:She's fierce.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And she's she's amazing.
Guest:She's amazing.
Marc:You think you'd be lost without her?
Guest:Probably.
Guest:I mean, I wouldn't know.
Marc:You got five kids?
Marc:We have five, yeah.
Marc:What's the oldest?
Guest:Twelve.
Guest:Youngest is 15 months.
Marc:Do you like them in general?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They're a joy.
Guest:Honestly, they are.
Guest:And I wouldn't know life.
Guest:Here's the other thing.
Guest:I don't know life without them, and I wouldn't want to.
Guest:So it's there.
Guest:That's my life.
Guest:So, again, you don't like the cosmic stuff.
Guest:You got a choice.
Guest:You enjoy it or you don't.
Guest:You better find comfort in it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, I think that's practical.
Marc:That's not cosmic.
Guest:That's practical.
Guest:Now, there's pressure there sometimes.
Guest:I've got a lot of mouths to feed, and that's a practical reality.
Guest:And sometimes that is daunting.
Marc:Do you guys hit your kids?
Marc:No, no, you can't.
Guest:That just causes anger and pain.
Marc:Good for you.
Guest:Were you hit?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We were both spanked.
Guest:My wife and I were both spanked.
Belts?
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:I'm sure at some point.
Guest:Belts are not what I remember.
Guest:I remember hands more than belts.
Guest:And there was this one very long yardstick, which was less effective than they thought.
Guest:My dad is a promotional tool.
Guest:He used to give out this four-foot measuring stick.
Guest:Can't call it a yardstick.
Marc:Did it say?
Marc:A yard plus one.
Marc:Did it say Kechner?
Marc:It did.
Guest:Kechner Manufacturing.
Guest:And I wish there was still some around.
Guest:I'd send you one.
Guest:Kechner Manufacturing, Turkey Coop.
Guest:Because he used to make more than Turkey Coops, other farm implements as well.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You're like, sure.
Guest:I'm not interested.
Guest:No.
Guest:What other kind of farm implements?
Marc:No, seriously.
Marc:You bring up implements.
Marc:I want to know.
Guest:Farrowing crates.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:Really for farrowing?
Marc:Farrowing.
Marc:Do you want farrowing?
Marc:No, I have no idea.
Guest:When pigs are... When sows are feeding their piglets, that's called farrowing.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And so they have a pen they put them in when they're supposed to feed the piglets.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So the mother sow cannot, they will tend to roll over and smash the piglets.
Guest:So this pen keeps her upright so the pigs can suckle.
Guest:And then if she decides to move, they have a place to run out to.
Guest:Those are farrowing crates.
Marc:And that saves the farmer from having to throw away or waste piglets, right?
Marc:Nothing worse than waking up and you're like, oh, Christ.
Guest:Nothing.
Marc:Throw out a couple of piglets.
Guest:Nothing worse than bacon too soon.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just throw those little piglets away.
Marc:No tragedy in it.
Marc:Just a waste of livestock.
Marc:Going back to the rabbit.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Broken piglets.
Marc:Okay, farrowing crates.
Marc:What other implements?
Guest:Gas barrel stands.
Marc:What's that?
Guest:You would have on a farm, you'll have a 500-gallon tank that you put on a stand six feet in the air so gravity can... And you fill it full of fuel.
Guest:And so you don't need a pump.
Guest:It's the gravity that just fills the tank of whatever implement, a tractor or...
Guest:gas can that doesn't get a pump in the air exactly and that's okay so we got farrowing crates gas stands uh uh forklifts he made forklifts well i'm sorry i'm sorry uh hay baling forks that would lift up hay bales okay the the the word escapes me now oh man i'm sure you probably remember what they yeah uh but but needless to say this is what the yardstick represented
Guest:Yes, those things would be a Referenced on the back of that yardstick the yard plus one stick four footer that wasn't anyway Because it was too wide and and and longer it was not great for striking a child's behind Okay, but it could seem daunting be like oh, you know what a shorter stick would be more effective and hurt a hell of a lot worse But you didn't tell him that you just act I didn't hurt much
Guest:But, you know, I understand why because that's all they knew.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It basically is like, I'm very frustrated with you to the point of anger.
Guest:You've refused my request, my stern requests.
Guest:And now this is the consequence.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Get in line.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They do yell at the same time.
Guest:No, I'm sure I got it more than anybody.
Guest:I was, I was a little shit.
Guest:I've seen, uh, old super eight of me and I'm not sure I, I should be alive.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like you little fucker.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I want to punch you in the throat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have kids like that?
Guest:Uh, I'm sure.
Guest:I mean, it takes an immense amount.
Guest:You've got to really, you fill those lungs with oxygen, right?
Guest:Your own, like, walk away.
Guest:I'm a hoverer.
Guest:I will go like, all right, now do it.
Guest:And my wife will go, can I talk to you?
Guest:Which I know means get the fuck out of the room, which makes me go, don't you tell me what to do.
Guest:So then I know like, ah, I need to take a walk.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you don't, but your kids are generally the young troublemaker?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They, you know, they all do.
Marc:But is there one that you're like, that one's gonna, yeah.
Guest:They go through phases and here's the thing if they if they're acting up that means they're not getting something right and I get that Just the the irony is you feel like you don't want to give them more attention But it means they need some they're not getting in some need is not being met Do you ask do you say that like with the mild frustration?
Guest:What do you need child?
Guest:Well that tone alone will make them shut down and get angry and they'll go nothing I
Guest:I hate you.
Guest:Oh God.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you really, the hardest thing is to divest yourself of any, you know, outward emotion because it's just that frustration.
Guest:Cause then they're like, Oh, you just wounded me.
Guest:You're, you're supposed to be my safe Harbor.
Guest:And you just gave me a, a shitload of, you know, emotional.
Marc:I'm starting to think that all of your positive spin on things is directly relatable to you being a father.
Yeah.
Guest:I would hope so.
Marc:I mean, like, I think that the responsibility of it has made you more diplomatic and optimistic in your life.
Guest:Well, I, yes, that and being an actor, I think you don't have a choice other than being optimistic.
Guest:Don't you think so?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I'm not an actor.
Marc:in show business being a person a show person that you have to remain optimistic in the face of relentless disappointment yes sure sure unless you want to build your character a little more your character is going to be built for you yeah by merely hanging in there yeah yeah saying i won't quit we're winston churchill sure i don't quit but that doesn't mean i can't sort of feed a bitter river within me
Guest:Well, I think that's inevitable.
Guest:But yeah, that's the darkness, right?
Guest:The bitter river, because that just creates... That's just the river you're going to start floating in.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's bad.
Guest:And you let go of the rock, and now you're... You're floating.
Marc:No boat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So we've been in there before.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:We're out right now.
Marc:We're good.
Marc:We're on the banks of the bitter river.
Guest:We're good.
Guest:We're walking.
Guest:We're building bridges.
Marc:Thank God, Dave Koechner.
Marc:Thanks for hanging out.
Marc:Hey, thanks for having me.
Marc:Okay, that's our show, the wonderful Dave Koechner.
Marc:Sweet guy.
Marc:Hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:A couple of things here at the end that I need to get out, to get into your head.
Marc:Look, my buddy over at Earwolf, Jeff, who runs Earwolf, he wanted me to tell you that James Adomian, who will be on WTF soon, released his debut album, Low Hanging Fruit.
Marc:And Earwolf also has the full Comedy Bang Bang Summer Tour Sale.
Marc:You can get all that over at Earwolf.com, so do that.
Marc:And also, I wanted to thank a very special listener in a fiscal way.
Marc:Look, this guy, his name is Matthew Pierce, donated 500 bucks to the show, wanted nothing in return.
Marc:And I just wanted to say an on-air thanks.
Marc:Thank you, Matthew.
Marc:That was very sweet.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Oh, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels if you want.
Marc:Pick up the app.
Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.
Marc:Go to iTunes WTF Premium for all those episodes that are there.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:I write to you every week.
Marc:I'll do it.
Marc:I do it.
Marc:I write things down.
Marc:Next week, some big shows.
Marc:We got Julie Klosner.
Marc:We also have Tenacious D.
Marc:You can tell people if you want.
Marc:Tenacious D. Next week.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Just Coffee.
Marc:I finished mine.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Maybe a little... Pow!
Marc:Wasn't quite enough to shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:I don't know where Boomer is.
Marc:He's been meowing, but I don't know.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:Boomy.
Guest:Boomy.
Hey, buddy.
Come here.
Marc:The world is waiting.
Marc:The world is waiting.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:All right, fuck it.
Marc:Hey folks, on a sadder note, a very, very funny writer, funny performer, an amazing wit, and a very unique and intelligent humorist, David Rakoff passed away.
Marc:And I just wanted to send my condolences out to his fans and his family.
Marc:uh and and acknowledge this sad day uh it happened a few days ago but um but he was he was a sweet man a very funny man and uh we lost a a real uh humorist uh with david rakoff so uh godspeed i don't think he would believe in that but uh we're gonna miss you