Episode 315 - Key and Peele
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 fuckaholics?
Marc:What the fuckalepiguses?
Marc:Yay!
Marc:What the fuckalepiguses?
Marc:There you go.
Marc:There's one.
Marc:There's one for the ages.
Marc:knocked it out of the park i just tried to make a baseball noise hitting a bat didn't happen i am mark maron this is wtf thank you for joining me on my show i'd like to mention right out of the gate that i have to pee so that's going to be happening as you listen to this you'll know that i have to pee and i don't know why i put you through that i don't know if it's going to add an extra tension it's not a crisis situation maybe i'll just hold it in for the excitement of that type of relief and
Marc:I guess that, you know that, I don't know, your life has got to be pretty empty if you're holding your pee in because it'll be better when you finally do it.
Marc:I'm sure there are people out there that do that.
Marc:But whatever, to each their own.
Marc:Today on the show, Keegan, Michael Key, Jordan Peele.
Marc:Key and Peele from the Comedy Central show that bears their name.
Marc:Very funny sketch show.
Marc:Very funny guys.
Marc:Great conversation.
Marc:And I didn't really know either of them, but I had a lovely chat with the fellas.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Okay, September 29th.
Marc:Ferndale, Michigan, outside of Detroit.
Marc:God, I'm stuttering.
Marc:Detroit.
Marc:Detroit.
Marc:Outside of Detroit.
Marc:The Magic Bag Theater.
Marc:I'll be there September 29th for two shows.
Marc:That should be good.
Marc:I don't want to forget to mention that LaFonda is back.
Marc:That drama is over.
Marc:She's fine.
Marc:The wedging herself through a two-inch crack didn't seem to injure her.
Marc:Before she came back, I did walk up and down the block for at least an hour going, Fonda!
Marc:Fonda!
Marc:LaFonda!
LaFonda!
Marc:So she's back, and I'm happy about that.
Marc:I watched literally 47 seconds of Here Comes, what is it, Baby Boo Boo?
Marc:Is that it?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Here Comes, what is it called?
Marc:What am I, 90?
Marc:Jesus, what do I got to Google that?
Marc:I'm glad that I know how to Google.
Marc:Here comes Honey Boo Boo.
Marc:47 seconds of that I watched and I felt embarrassed.
Marc:I was embarrassed for me watching it, for them doing whatever the hell they were doing.
Marc:It's become some sort of television is now some sort of horrendous shame minstrelsy.
Marc:Just a parade of people that embarrass you.
Marc:And I'm not using menstrual Z in the classic sense.
Marc:I'm saying that this is a different type of vaudeville that is not based in race.
Marc:It seems to be based in the desire to humiliate oneself, either in the name of celebrity or in the fairly thin facade of self-help.
Marc:To be on television.
Marc:I don't know that I thought I could have foreseen a day where checking in for some entertainment on the box in my living room was like, hey, maybe I'll sit on my couch and feel horribly uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed about what I'm watching, but yet unable to stop.
Marc:This is the parade of shame that is reality television.
Marc:I guess it makes us feel better about ourselves.
Marc:But I think it just makes me feel sad and embarrassed for everybody.
Marc:The theater of shame.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:Jesus, what the hell happened to everything?
Marc:What happened to hiding that and transmuting that shame, mutating that shame into something that's enjoyable?
Marc:For fuck's sake, if you're going to be a clown, put on the makeup.
Marc:I saw my ex-wife briefly today.
Marc:Not the second one, the first one.
Marc:We're going way back.
Marc:Going way back to the first wife who lives here as well, practicing therapist.
Marc:I was just crossing the street in Echo Park.
Marc:And I hear that, hey, Mark.
Marc:And it's so bizarre when you see somebody that was so much a part of your life that you loved and were with.
Marc:And then the subtext of it, that you destroyed her life for a while.
Marc:But nonetheless, I saw her and just that first moment where I turned to look and she's in her car and I see her face.
Marc:There's that moment where it just all comes rushing back.
Marc:That familiarity of that chunk of my life.
Marc:Her face just became a portal into another part of my life when I was younger and more fucked up.
Marc:But nonetheless, I was with her and had hung my hopes on that idea of marriage and being with her.
Marc:It's very bizarre.
Marc:We chatted for a moment.
Marc:But it's almost like time travel, man.
Marc:It's almost like you're there for a second.
Marc:You literally become that person.
Marc:I became that guy that I was with her for that second.
Marc:And there's something confusing.
Marc:There's a crossing of wires that occurs in the brain with the memory when you see somebody that jars all that stuff.
Marc:And all of a sudden you become that manifestation of you.
Marc:You travel back in time or time just...
Marc:sort of congeals around what was once between you.
Marc:And there's that brief split second that after all is said and done, here I am living in love with another woman, and I've had another ex-wife since her.
Marc:But there's a brief flash of a second where you're just sort of like, all right, should I just get in the car and we can go?
Marc:Everything cool between us?
Marc:Sorry about the last 15 years.
Marc:Everything's cool, right?
Marc:Where do we live?
Marc:Just for a split second.
Marc:It was very nice.
Marc:It was polite.
Marc:It was good to see her.
Marc:It's weird, man, seeing people.
Marc:It's weird now that, too, with this show, man, you know, I've had so many guests.
Marc:I've done 300-plus episodes.
Marc:300-plus.
Marc:That's a number.
Marc:So many people.
Marc:Brian Posehn.
Marc:Brian Posehn why'd that come up oh I ran into him he's got some things but also like Brian Posehn when I talked to him it's been a while he'd quit smoking weed a daily weed smoker let's do that let's call Brian Posehn and because I knew he wanted to talk about these shows he's got coming up but I also wonder how's he doing with that weed thing let's call Brian Posehn
Guest:Mark?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:How are you doing, man?
Marc:How'd you know it was me?
Guest:You were supposed to be calling at this very moment.
Marc:How is that a surprise, then?
Marc:How are we going to play this off like it's some sort of spontaneous thing, Brian, if you answer the phone by saying my name?
Guest:I'm sitting in a green room in a comedy club in Dayton, and I want you to save me.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:I was waiting for you.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Marc:I'll talk you down, man.
Guest:With bated breath.
Guest:With bated breath.
Marc:I'll talk you down.
Marc:What time is the show?
Marc:Are you going on what?
Marc:Like soon, right?
Marc:The opener's already on?
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:No, it's 10 o'clock show, so he'll be on in a little bit.
Marc:So you already did one show?
Guest:I made it through the first one.
Guest:I made it through last night.
Guest:You know, of course, Thursday is when my crowd shows up.
Guest:So tonight is the regular people.
Marc:Regular people.
Marc:That's always scary, right?
Guest:Yeah, always.
Marc:Who's middling for you?
Marc:Like the guy?
Marc:Good guy?
Guest:Yeah, it's Jeff Tate.
Guest:He's really funny.
Marc:Oh, fucking Tate's hilarious.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The great thing about Tate is like after this show, you can watch him get drunk.
Marc:yeah sure maybe you guys can go eat and he'll uh he's uh he's always up for an adventure take yeah i'll eat my potato skins while i watch him do shots what uh so how's that going man no pot still wow that's phenomenal and you feel all right
Guest:yeah man it's it's gotten better well way better since the last time i talked to you you know it's uh it's it might have been like one of the easiest things i've ever done for something that i stress so hard on yeah you know what are you finding is uh the most different uh about being not on weed i'm i'm funnier really
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I, I'm, I'm almost sure of it.
Guest:Most people tell me, but I feel funnier.
Guest:I feel, and I was worried about that, you know, cause I wrote jokes for 25 years high.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, I think I'm more real and just more in the moment.
Guest:Absolutely on stage.
Guest:Like I riff way more than I ever did in the last, uh, 20 something years.
Uh,
Guest:Punchlines will come to me, and jokes that I'm kind of tired of, I'll have more fun with.
Marc:So you're less self-conscious?
Guest:Yeah, and less polluted is the main thing.
Guest:I don't have anything against pot, but I got to the point where...
Guest:I was just a fucking incoherent mess most of the time.
Guest:Like, I think if I would have done your interview when I was high, like, you wouldn't have been able to air it, you know, because that's just how I felt back then is, like, I felt so, so...
Guest:not funny and so not in the moment and just so you know kind of closed down and and uh you know just kind of phoning it in like underwater yeah yeah i think i think the last time i talked to you you're like fresh off the weed you're all like hey i've got look at i've got a new personality look what i've been hiding for 25 years yeah now i'm more used to it and i'm just i'm really having fun with it actually on stage i mean
Guest:You know, there's times where you still, you're like, why am I here, you know, alone for five days in a hotel room?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And those are the times where you kind of wish you had it to dull everything, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, no, that's when you get out there and take that weird walk around the mall.
Guest:Yeah, no shit.
Guest:I do that.
Marc:He's like, hey, are there any deals on movie theaters, you ask the club owner?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So now let's talk about this thing that we're going to, the big thing.
Marc:What's the big thing?
Guest:It's a new tour.
Guest:It's kind of me doing my own comedians of comedy.
Guest:I had so much fun doing that.
Guest:I recommend that to anybody that's tired of comedy.
Guest:doing an hour every night, you know, you go out and you close the show and you do 25 minutes and
Guest:You do all the jokes you want to do.
Guest:And so it's a new tour.
Guest:It's me, Kyle Kinane.
Guest:And it's Pete Holmes and Ars Barker.
Guest:And then Fortune Feinster is doing it.
Guest:And she's the only one I'm not familiar with.
Guest:But I've seen her.
Guest:And she's funny.
Guest:But we're not, you know, everybody else is a friend.
Guest:The big thing is our first show is kind of intimidating.
Guest:Like I told you the last time I talked was that, you know, it's Club Nokia downtown.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, who knows if we'll sell it out, but I just want to make it not embarrassing.
Marc:Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles.
Marc:It's called, what's it called?
Marc:Mutant Comedy?
Guest:Comedy Mutant.
Guest:Comedy Mutant.
Guest:September 21st is our first date.
Guest:And then, you know, we're going to go around the country and do, you know, colleges and then do small theaters and that kind of thing.
Marc:Let me just understand something.
Marc:Is there, is this, you're going to be driving?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:I think we'll fly in.
Guest:I mean, we're just trying to make it, you know, you know how these things are, you know, it's like I want to make it worth it.
Guest:And then also, you know, then it, you know, I can't go back to that market once I've done.
Marc:Right.
Marc:My concern was that, you know, when I think about the comedians of comedy and then like I immediately thought about being in a car for long stretches of time with Pete Holmes and it got me uncomfortable for you.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah between pete and arch and and uh yeah it might not be that fun but no i think i'm only going to see them at the shows like i would drive anywhere with kyle you know for i would drive i would drive across country twice with canane yeah but i would have a hard time driving if it was me and kyle we'd be listening to tesla yeah and uh i'd be driving because he'd be drunk right and uh
Guest:But it would be a good time, because he's funny when he's drunk.
Marc:But the thought of driving even from my house to the Vaughns down the street with Pete Holmes is... I'm exhausted thinking about it.
Marc:Exhausted.
Guest:And I'm not saying... You know you're recording this, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Pete's very funny.
Marc:We have an understanding.
Guest:No, I get you.
Guest:I mean, for you and I...
Guest:You and I have a sort of similar energy.
Guest:You might not think so on the surface because you seem like you're a little more awake than I am.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, because you have your caffeine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But really, compared to Pete Holmes, our energy is totally different.
Guest:Like, it's a little jarring when you get into a room with somebody who has that much...
Guest:love for life, you know, and is that awake?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's a, yeah.
Marc:And that's a, that's a very positive spin on what Pete has.
Marc:I, uh, but you know, like don't, don't, don't get nervous.
Marc:Pete loves when I talk about him, even if it's shitty, that's the kind of person he is.
Marc:I mean, you got to respect a guy that even if you're saying negative things about him and, and, and though I do like him, that he's just thrilled to be brought up.
Marc:In Pete's mind, all this means, whatever happened here, is that we talked about him for about three minutes.
Marc:And that's just a wonderful thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if we bring up Arge, if I throw Arge under the bus, Arge is going to be like, what the fuck?
Guest:I heard what you said on what the fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, no, I'm not going to throw Arge under the bus.
Marc:Because I don't always understand Arge.
Marc:I don't understand.
Marc:You know, I mean, I see him on stage and I'm like, wow, that was funny.
Marc:And everybody laughed.
Marc:He gets off stage.
Marc:I'm like, hello.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:I don't know where you are.
Marc:That's a nice guy, though.
Marc:And very funny.
Guest:That is a really good way of putting that, too.
Yes.
Guest:That is my relationship also.
Marc:And Kyle, you know exactly what you're getting.
Marc:You know, he sits down and he brings the history of his crankiness with him.
Marc:And he's fucking hilarious.
Marc:They're all hilarious.
Marc:It sounds like a great time, man.
Guest:Yeah, but Kyle is cranky, but he's smiling most of the time.
Guest:He's like the happiest curmudgeon I've ever been around.
Guest:It's not like a Dave Anthony negativity where it's just a black cloud surrounded by frowns.
Marc:Yeah, it's not a draining crankiness.
Marc:It's an embracing crankiness.
Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I was just Twittering with Dave Anthony, and of course he saw a vulnerable moment and took a shot at me.
Marc:And I told him if he was a comic book superhero, he'd be called the deflator.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:Well, good luck with it, man, and have a good show tonight.
Marc:So the big show is September 21st?
Marc:First.
Marc:At Club Nokia Comedy Mutant with Brian Possein.
Marc:Did I say it right that time?
Guest:Yeah, there's a full Comedy Mutant website.
Guest:If you follow me on Twitter, I've been tweeting about it.
Guest:I'm the Brian Possein.
Guest:And if you go to my website, BrianPossein.com, there should be a full link up.
Guest:to Comedy Mutant.
Guest:And it's our first date, and I hope it does well so we can do more of them.
Guest:And so maybe I won't be in Dayton alone.
Marc:Yeah, what cities do you have definitely lined up?
Guest:That's a good question.
Guest:First off, just L.A., and then we're circling San Francisco.
Guest:We're looking for a date in the winter, which is hard because then I don't get to play Cobb.
Guest:So we've got to figure it out.
Marc:Why don't you take the tour to Cobbs?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's sort of bigger than that size room with this many guys, but we'll see.
Marc:Okay, buddy.
Marc:Well, good luck with it, and have a good time tonight.
Guest:Dude, I appreciate you letting me talk about it.
Guest:It's really cool of you.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Go make a Bachelorette cry.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Have a good one, dude.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:Well, that was a nice chat.
Marc:It sounds like he's doing very well, my friend Brian.
Marc:Go see his shows there at the Nokia, the Comedy Mutants.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:It's already been a full show.
Marc:And I'm going to share with you now a lovely conversation I had with Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.
Marc:So let's do it.
Marc:I apologize about that moment I just had at the door where I said something like, I got to, my girlfriend, I can't.
Guest:You don't want my girlfriend to kill me.
Marc:So what happened there?
Marc:Well, what happened was, you know, so I made coffee earlier.
Marc:I woke up early.
Marc:And so I make a pot for both of us.
Marc:And then I had two and I made you one.
Marc:So I literally had to go make her coffee for when she finally decides to get out of the room and have some, because I didn't want to deal with, like, you want to make me coffee?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I just watched that sketch you guys did, the bitch sketch.
Guest:I said bitch.
Guest:I said bitch.
Marc:Yeah, I don't, you know, before, I've been married twice, and I never understood the terror of loving a woman.
Guest:You never had that fear.
Marc:No, I just assume that, you know, I'll just keep pushing until they cry and go away.
Marc:There was never the fundamental respect necessary to actually.
Marc:In the first place, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I think it was there, but, you know, there's like either you're going to.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I just there's a diplomacy to it.
Marc:You're both married.
Marc:You're not married.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:Just me.
Guest:Just me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And there's a diplomacy to it.
Guest:There is, yeah.
Guest:No, there is.
Guest:And there's a bunch of unwritten rules.
Guest:My thing is if you can last long enough, you figure out the rules.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what it is.
Guest:And then the other thing is when I'm getting pissy at her about something, my rule, and I try to follow this rule, but sometimes your fucking ego just gets in the way.
Guest:I try to follow this rule is treat that person like a stranger.
Guest:Because there are days when you're- Like where you say, what are you doing here?
Guest:Who are you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes my behavior is abject.
Guest:I can be fucking mean and cool.
Guest:And then you're like, you would never treat a stranger this way.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:You would never treat a stranger this way.
Guest:That's a good pointer.
Guest:Be as polite to your girlfriend or me to my wife as I would to my wife.
Guest:As they went to a stranger who I don't care about at all.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, my problem is eventually we'd get to like, you know, look, we don't really, it's awkward.
Marc:Can you leave my house?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because I don't know you.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Really, because you just kind of help yourself out.
Guest:If I get into a fight with a girl, I've already lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where do you go immediately?
Guest:Well, immediate, just inside turmoil, just frustration because you're talking to somebody with a different set of rules.
Guest:You're talking to somebody who you can't win, and if you win for a second, they'll fool you into thinking that it's over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they'll...
Guest:Yeah, it's like trying to put water in a bucket with holes.
Marc:I always thought that was generalizing, because I don't know.
Marc:I've been with a lot of women, and I've had long-term relationships with women, but I never wanted to believe the sort of men are different, women are different.
Marc:I know, I know.
Marc:But the fucking thing is, a lot of it is kind of true.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The one that really gets me, that just drives me crazy, and it's true, they want to tell you their problems, not so you can solve it or pitch a possible way to get around, just to fucking get it.
Guest:They just want you to listen.
Guest:They just want you to listen.
Guest:How fucked up is that listening?
Guest:That's all you want to say.
Guest:What kind of expectation?
Guest:What do we expect from this transaction?
Guest:You just want me to sit here on my ass and listen?
Guest:I find it insulting to my reasoning skill.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:My problem solving.
Marc:Well, they've already got it figured out.
Marc:They just need to vent.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:They need to audition it.
Marc:I get sort of self-conscious about it, but I just learned that you just got to shut the fuck up.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I mean, because you want to fight all the time.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I mean, I just want to like that's ridiculous.
Guest:Yeah, I can't tell you how often my wife says to me.
Guest:She goes, God damn it.
Guest:Can we can we be done?
Guest:Can we just be done now?
Guest:And no, I'm trying to win the marriage.
Guest:I'm trying to win the marriage.
Guest:Can we be?
Guest:Can we just be finished?
Guest:But I will.
Guest:I saw a play last night.
Guest:What play?
Guest:Red with Alfred Molina.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He plays Mark Rothko, the artist.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:The suicidal, depressive, abstract expressionist.
Guest:Yeah, the guy who I love.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And the whole play was about him.
Guest:The overall theme was about the fact that the Seagram's building was being built in New York in the late 50s.
Guest:And they commissioned him to put all his paintings up in the Four Seasons restaurant.
Guest:And eventually he said, well, fuck them.
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:I can't do the commercial.
Guest:He convinced himself it was going to be okay.
Guest:And then his assistant said, it's bullshit.
Marc:How was Molina?
Guest:He was fantastic.
Guest:And I was just saying to Jordan that there's a characterization, a persona that I think he has when he plays Americans.
Guest:But when you meet him,
Guest:As an Englishman, you go, oh, this guy's brilliant.
Guest:He's very effervescent.
Guest:And you can't believe how he plays these kind of curmudgeons.
Guest:And then you meet him, and he's just like a thoroughly Englishman.
Guest:Cheerio.
Guest:Cheerio.
Guest:So you met him after?
Guest:Yeah, just because my friend was playing the opposite, the other role.
Guest:But the best line in the whole play was, this goes back to what Jesus said, Mark.
Guest:He said, silence is accurate.
Guest:Fuck yeah, it is like the silence is accurate and I was like god.
Guest:I'm never gonna forget that line We're not for this particular not for this In general John Cage Mark Maron not talk for an hour.
Guest:Yeah, maybe sweat maybe a little of this Some tummy rumbles right
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So we just had it's early.
Marc:We have water.
Guest:So you can just shook the water bottle and the top went off.
Guest:I can't believe I didn't electrocute anybody.
Guest:Look at your fucking Denzel Washington tear.
Guest:On my face.
Guest:Just a solitary tear.
Guest:A solitary tear of water.
Guest:I wish I could do that.
Marc:I feel like we're, you know, Jordan's still fueling up.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I think that's your, it's 10 in the morning, which is pretty early for an interview, but like, like Keegan's like, blah!
Guest:And
Guest:But that's the dynamic.
Guest:That's the dynamic.
Guest:Around 6 o'clock p.m., it'll switch places for a second.
Guest:I'll smoke weed.
Guest:He'll lose his carbs.
Guest:My vim and my carbs.
Guest:You know, the way we look at our relationships, it's like Garfield and Odie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Every day is Monday for me, and he doesn't need to speak English.
Marc:And I run laps.
Guest:He doesn't need to speak actual English.
Marc:Are you an exercise guy, though?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you're... And I'm not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a Madden guy.
Guest:He loves to manipulate pixels and have them exercise.
Guest:My thumbs are world class.
Guest:But he likes sports.
Guest:I do.
Guest:He does like sports.
Guest:I'm getting into football big time.
Guest:Is that a new thing?
Guest:Pretty new for me.
Guest:All sports or just?
Guest:No, I'm a mixed martial arts.
Guest:Huge fan of mixed martial arts.
Guest:Yeah, I love it.
Marc:I don't know what it is about me, but I find it all tedious.
Marc:I just don't get behind it.
Marc:I understand the skill of it.
Marc:I like watching it for a minute, but generally it's like, who's the good guy?
Marc:Which color is ours?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You've got to lock in.
Marc:In order to really enjoy sports, you have to lock in.
Marc:You've got to be like, that's my guy.
Marc:Those are my guys.
Guest:You have to know the dudes.
Guest:You have to know the stupid things about real life.
Guest:You have to know, you know, how long ago did he beat his wife?
Marc:You know, you have to know these kinds of things.
Marc:Did the jail time, you know, put a fucking, fuck his head up?
Guest:Am I allowed to like this guy?
Guest:Will he be able to receive the ball the way he received whatever he received in prison?
Marc:Well, you guys do have a... Let me tell people who's here.
Marc:Not that it matters necessarily that I do it, because I'll do it at the beginning of the show at some point.
Marc:But Key and Peele are here.
Marc:Do you use all three names?
Marc:Keegan, Michael, Key.
Marc:Keegan, Michael, Key.
Guest:You might be the first person to have said that correctly in like six months.
Guest:Oh, man, everybody.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:You look at somebody.
Guest:Look them right in the eye and say it's Keegan Michael Key.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Michael Keegan.
Guest:You'd literally watch them write down the name Michael Keegan.
Guest:Different guy.
Guest:Different guy.
Marc:They're not going to let me in.
Marc:Is there another guy?
Guest:There's a shitload of Michael Keegans.
Guest:Is that why you made it Keegan-Michael Keyes?
Guest:My stage name, it's my real name.
Guest:My parents gave me this name.
Guest:Keegan-Michael Keyes.
Guest:Keegan-Michael Keyes.
Guest:Hyphenated first name.
Guest:I have a hyphenated first name.
Guest:What the fuck is that about?
Guest:My dad, he was an odd bird about names.
Guest:My mom said, my mom still says this to this day.
Guest:She goes, we had all these names for you because they had time.
Guest:I'm adopted.
Guest:So they adopted me and they had time to figure out what the name was going to be.
Guest:And my mom had this list of names.
Guest:And she said, what about this?
Guest:My dad had an excuse for every name.
Guest:He goes, I got in a fight with a guy in high school named Ryan.
Guest:A guy in high school?
Guest:Get over it, Michael.
Guest:And he said, no, not Tom.
Guest:No, not Ryan.
Guest:Tom's like Uncle Tom.
Guest:Not Jim.
Guest:Jim Crow.
Guest:Fucking A. They were really worried about that.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's 1971.
Guest:What's the problem?
Guest:So my mom said, what about Michael?
Guest:What about we just call him Michael?
Guest:And he goes, no, because everyone's going to call him Junior.
Guest:They're going to call him whatever we tell him to call him.
Guest:How does Michael lead to juniors?
Guest:His name was Michael, so I would have been junior.
Guest:Then my dad goes, let's look in a baby book.
Guest:They're looking in the baby book.
Guest:They find Keegan.
Guest:It's a Gaelic surname.
Marc:I could see that.
Guest:Yeah, and they go, Keegan, little fiery one.
Guest:It means little fiery one.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Great, great name.
Guest:So my dad has the brilliant idea let's hyphenate the name you can have the Michael I get this they negotiated her and it was for shit because now I don't have a piece of mail in my entire life that is my name spelled correctly on it It's just you know Michael Keegan it's Michael Keegan key some people say key Michael ain't nobody in the world's name is key Michael nobody come on man don't don't stretch Don't stress read just read the words that are on read the word the paper
Guest:So they hyphenated the first name, and then Key is our last name.
Marc:My dad's good.
Guest:Stand out.
Marc:But you guys, what about you?
Marc:Jordan, that's all right.
Marc:I love Jordan.
Marc:Yeah, it's easy, right?
Guest:You should be an Englishman.
Guest:Your name's more English than Alphina.
Guest:Jordan Peele.
Guest:Jordan Peele.
Guest:Jordan Peele.
Guest:Jordan Peele.
Guest:Jordan Peele.
Guest:No joke, my mother at one point was going to name me Noah.
Guest:My name would have been Noah Peele.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sounds like a joke.
Marc:That's a true story.
Marc:She did not think of that one.
Guest:Noah Peele.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:I'm no good at puns.
Marc:I'm still drinking coffee.
Marc:Lowest form of humor.
Guest:She wasn't either.
Guest:But it was true.
Guest:It's a true story.
Guest:She wanted to name me.
Guest:I remember she said, I was into biblical names.
Guest:I was into water-related biblical names.
Marc:So she named you after a river and not a biblical character.
Marc:There's like 900.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:A river.
Marc:A thousand names.
Guest:exactly yes you get the River Jordan that's good it worked out cuz right when I hit right like right when I got to you know middle school was when Michael Jordan became the coolest perfectly yeah yeah popular kid just because of my name were you popular were you popular I did okay just I was one of these kids that you know I got along with everybody whatever whatever faction on New York Upper West Side
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Went to IS-44, PS-87, right up there on the 78th.
Guest:I have no idea.
Marc:I know the area.
Marc:I mean, I don't know the PS system or what that would have been.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think I did shows at PS-122.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:But the Upper West Side, it's over by Stand Up New York, by Broadway, 78th.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like almost- You did shows at PS-122.
Guest:PS-122, one or two.
Guest:Where is that now?
Marc:That's like right down on, is it 2nd Avenue?
Guest:Is that the one that's like an art installation?
Marc:Yeah, it wasn't a school.
Marc:Years ago, I used to do presentations for youngsters.
Marc:I was a motivational speaker for inner city children.
Marc:In Manhattan.
Guest:No.
Guest:So where'd you grow up?
Guest:Detroit, Michigan.
Guest:Like in the city?
Guest:In the city, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I grew up in the city.
Guest:Do you go back there?
Guest:Every year, twice, three times a year, yeah.
Marc:But I mean, when you were a kid, like how much, because everyone here's, I mean, Detroit comes up more times than I can count on this show.
Marc:And in my experience, like I always condescend to it like, oh, fucking Detroit.
Marc:Like it's become this punchline, but it's really sad what's happened.
Marc:It is.
Marc:And it's starting to turn.
Marc:I'm doing a show in Ferndale in a couple weeks.
Marc:I grew up about a mile from Ferndale.
Marc:And that's within Detroit?
Marc:I have no sense of it.
Guest:No, Ferndale is the northernmost.
Guest:I live as far north and as central as you can in Detroit.
Guest:I live a block south of 8 Mile Road, like the movie 8 Mile.
Guest:I live right at 8 Mile.
Guest:and I went to school in the city.
Guest:The city goes down by miles, so I went to school at Six Mile, and I went to college across the street from my grade school, but I went to high school in the suburbs, in a northern suburb, which it's a pretty polarized area, and it certainly was in the 80s.
Guest:There was a shitload of white flight after the riots, and then a bunch of white flight in the 80s, because we had a super gangster mayor for a long time, and he didn't... I don't want the help of any white people.
Guest:I don't want white fucking people in here.
Guest:We don't need any help.
Marc:I'm like, we actually...
Marc:White flight he pushed them out.
Guest:It was white shove you know and No, but but it's it's it's a funny thing you talk to especially you talk to anybody in Silver Lake Yeah, who has been to Detroit.
Guest:Yeah, they love it Yeah, you talk to somebody from the west side has been Detroit and they talk about what a shithole it is, right?
Marc:It's like it's a it's a vibe It's a definitely a vibe because the people in silver like it's like it's turning around I've got a friend who opened up a donut shop right gourmet donut right where people were dead right exactly
Guest:I love the bond that you have with every Detroiter you meet.
Guest:It's like you guys have been through war or something together.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I met a Detroiter just recently.
Guest:She was a costumer on the film I just did.
Guest:And then all of a sudden we're hanging out.
Guest:It's like you've been through a war together.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And because we're hopeless romantics, that's the problem.
Guest:It's because of our parents and grandparents.
Guest:They lived in one of the greatest cities in the history of the United States.
Guest:Right.
Guest:that's not where I grew up.
Guest:I grew up in a different city.
Marc:But when you go back now, I mean, because I was there, I went once, but I can't remember, maybe it was Pontiac.
Marc:I don't remember how, it was close to Detroit, close enough for me to take a ride.
Marc:Someone drove me around.
Marc:And it was just, it was horrifying.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:And now- Like a whole city could just die.
Marc:They actually thought about, I think, didn't they actually consider on a government level to pull in the boundaries of the city and just sort of detach from large swathes?
Guest:swaths of... Yeah, what they wanted, what the ideal is, what we'd love to happen in the city, I don't know if it's going to happen, the problem is the infrastructure is for a city of 2 million people.
Guest:There's 890,000 people there.
Guest:And there are acres and acres of neighborhoods that are abandoned.
Guest:And what they want to do is rip all the houses down and start an urban farming collective in the city so that the city would be pockets of neighborhoods with literally swaths of urban farmland.
Marc:I don't know if that can happen.
Marc:I don't know if it can happen.
Marc:Did you hear this from someone in Silver Lake?
Marc:LAUGHTER
Guest:they had the greatest idea yeah it's completely sustainable local local yeah exactly right so yeah it's been but you know my best my two best friends growing up i've known them for 35 years they're both firefighters in detroit they work a lot yeah and oh yeah and and that's where there's still kids setting fires yeah it's crazy well just people just like it's a hobby yeah you just set fire to a band what do you want to do today let's go set fire to an abandoned house yeah
Guest:Gangs with magnifying glasses on a leaf.
Guest:Just hanging out.
Marc:Hello, officer.
Marc:I'm studying a bug.
Marc:Did you ever think about buying property?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Every time I hear about that, you can get a house for $5.
Marc:Why not buy 10 of them and just sit on it?
Guest:You never know.
Marc:That's the whole thing.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:Isn't anyone doing that?
Marc:I don't know why I'm talking to you like you're the mayor of Detroit.
Marc:You seem to be very connected to it.
Guest:Like, you know, we're going to bring it back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, my people, people are, there are people who are buying property there.
Guest:And then there's lots of, there's young people in the suburbs, kind of the near Western suburbs that are moving back into the city.
Guest:Like my mom lives in a really nice neighborhood.
Guest:I grew up in a nice neighborhood.
Guest:Lots of neighbors, all different types of people, all different ethnic groups, gay people, everything.
Guest:We grew up in this great neighborhood.
Guest:Only a couple of gunshots a day.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it was it was it was a nice little little enclave.
Guest:Yes Yeah, and and and so it was I had we had a pretty good childhood I would have never survived at a high school in Detroit.
Guest:I just wouldn't have my parents were like we got to have the money They got to go to private school.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, no, they would have fucking devoured me Was that black flight then yeah, yeah, yeah, and my dad
Guest:Not the blackest black man.
Guest:My dad grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My grandparents- He was the only one.
Guest:I can now tell the story freely because it's one of my favorite stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My grandmother just passed away and she was like, don't tell anybody.
Guest:I'm like, grandma, it's the sexiest story ever.
Guest:But my dad grew up, he was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
Guest:This is my adopted guy who raised me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and some shit went down, and I don't know, and the family's never talked about my aunt.
Marc:Vague shit.
Guest:Yeah, my aunts don't know what it was, my uncle doesn't know what it was, and my grandma is gone now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they moved to Salt Lake because her father, now dig this, a black man who lived in Salt Lake, a black man who lived in a dry state.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A Mormon state ran a black man who ran a speakeasy, an after dinner club in Salt Lake City.
Guest:And so my grandma said to my grandfather, you can get a job there.
Guest:So they worked and she would just tell me about how they used to wear these fucking cool aprons under their other apron.
Guest:They go, what would you like for supper, sir?
Guest:And the people would order food and then say like another entree, which was code for a drink.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they go smuggle a thing.
Guest:And she goes, I'd come and sit down at the table and just get, and you'd hand people shots underneath the table.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:Old school.
Guest:It was straight old school speakeasy.
Guest:This is your dad's dad?
Guest:My dad's, my dad's dad.
Marc:You had to leave Memphis for vague reasons.
Guest:For whatever reason.
Guest:And it was cool.
Guest:They lived, my dad, they left Memphis, like he was about 10.
Guest:My dad was 10.
Guest:And my grandfather played in the Negro Leagues, like a Negro minor league team.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then he couldn't play anymore, and he moved to Salt Lake City.
Marc:Because of what happened?
Guest:Whatever it was.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:And I'm telling you, if my aunts, they would tell me.
Guest:They would tell me.
Marc:You got to get that piece of the story.
Marc:I got to.
Marc:All right, Jordan, I just got half of the black history of America.
Marc:What do you got?
Guest:I got some white history.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Keek is kind of like my blocker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just give him the ball.
Guest:Just give Jordan the ball.
Guest:Do you see two bikers on a race and one of them is just taking all the wind?
Guest:He's hitting the drag.
Guest:He's using the drag.
Guest:You're just back there with your hands up.
Guest:Start pedaling real late.
Guest:Then you blame him when you lose.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:What was my draft?
Marc:What were you doing?
Marc:Growing up in New York, though, that's a whole other thing because that's different than growing up in any other city anywhere because it's its own thing.
Marc:There's nothing like New York City.
Marc:There's no real... That's right.
Guest:there's no real separation there's no well i mean neighborhood wise but once you're in it and your interests reveal themselves to you you got it all right there you have every yeah you can just as a kid i would walk around and i you know i think the only thing that really uh connects new york is the only thing we have in common is that we all hate our neighbors you know what i mean you all have to be on a train with them every day every day yeah
Guest:For at least 15 minutes, there's a guy right next to your face.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you just got to deal with that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's eventually, that's what I used to love about New York, but eventually what drove me away.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:It's so tight.
Marc:It's like an inform.
Marc:You're in the subway, and you're like, I don't need this anymore.
Marc:I got to go.
Guest:I'm really done with this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I'm a New Yorker through and through.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I don't drive.
Guest:I still don't drive.
Guest:I've been here 10 years.
Guest:I was wondering about that.
Guest:You come in a cab.
Marc:I came in a cab.
Guest:There's only one other guy.
Marc:who I actually had to get a car for.
Marc:One other guy in the history of this show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:325 episodes.
Marc:Richard Lewis.
Marc:Richard Lewis.
Marc:Was not going to drive.
Marc:Richard Lewis.
Marc:Yeah, me and Richard Lewis.
Marc:I think he can drive, but I don't think he can handle it.
Marc:I think that's that was the problem there Yeah, well that does freak me out about driving.
Guest:It's how people transform It's like just I just watch people get just so angry.
Marc:Yeah, just so angry.
Marc:It's like that's how we get it out here Yeah, exactly my chick is very good at that cuz she drives like long distances for her work and like when I'm in the car with her and I'm just like God
Marc:She's like, there's nothing.
Marc:There's nothing you can do about it.
Marc:It's almost some sort of weird lesson in spirituality.
Marc:There's no control over this situation.
Marc:You have to surrender.
Guest:So I just do it like a New York existence here.
Guest:I carved out a little Manhattan-sized chunk of Hollywood that I walk around.
Marc:Where?
Marc:By the UCB?
Marc:What else is there?
Marc:There's nothing.
Marc:That swath of Franklin between Tamarin and Gower.
Marc:Tamarin and Bronson.
Guest:Where do you really need to walk?
Guest:To the supermarket and home.
Guest:That's all I need.
Guest:You've got it down to a science.
Marc:I have to applaud it.
Marc:Is that where you live, though, by there?
Guest:Yeah, I'm right under Runyon Canyon.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, like, I'm right on Hollywood there.
Guest:There's a Ralph's on Sunset, like, two blocks away from me.
Guest:And then every now and then I got to drop, like, you know, an obscene cab bill.
Guest:But then, you know.
Marc:I mean, I get that.
Marc:Like, it seems like most New Yorkers end up somewhere around, like, we ended up right by the UCB.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There seems to be people sitting outside.
Marc:It's New York.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I've had that happen wherever you go.
Marc:When I tour and people are like, you know, when I lived in New York, oh, you're from New York?
Marc:We got to take you to that area.
Marc:And it's just like one block.
Marc:There's a bookstore, a coffee shop, and a guy talking to himself.
Marc:They're like, what?
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I feel right at home.
Marc:Right here in the middle of Wichita.
Marc:Yeah, I'm done with it, though.
Guest:Well, in Hollywood, the neighborhood like that, it's sadder than New York.
Marc:Well, it's not designed to be walked.
Marc:It's not.
Marc:Because this city in and of itself, if you're walking, you're somehow at a disadvantage.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're the walking guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when we're in the car and we're looking at you walking, the only thing you're thinking is like, oh, I wonder what happened.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there's also something- That poor guy.
Marc:The guy's just walking with a Ralph's bag.
Guest:There's also something sadder about the homeless people here than at New York.
Guest:In New York, they're professional homeless people.
Guest:That's where homeless people go to make some real coin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But here, it's like this is where people have come to be something more than homeless.
Guest:And turned into homeless people.
Marc:I can see that.
Marc:I think that you've generated a heartbreaking story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're just assuming that any homeless guy is like, he was probably just like me, going out on auditions.
Guest:And one day he was taking the bus to an audition.
Guest:I mean, walk down Hollywood Boulevard, for instance, which is the creepiest place to me.
Marc:Consistently.
Marc:It's like that one part of New York right by Port of Authority that no matter what they do to it, there's something corrupt in its bones.
Marc:In its bones.
Guest:In the pizza places.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like the Laugh Factory tried to build a comedy club in the old peep-arama, like right there on 42nd and like 8th.
Guest:You just couldn't get the peep out of the arama.
Marc:No, you couldn't get it out of there.
Marc:You can't get it out of there.
Marc:But Hollywood Boulevard feels like that.
Marc:They can build as much as they want, but there's a vortex of sadness.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They can put up a hard rock.
Guest:It's not going to change the fact that there's like transients.
Guest:Yeah, there's a dude doing heroin in a SpongeBob costume outside.
Guest:A dirty SpongeBob.
Guest:A dirty ass.
Guest:That's creepy.
Guest:You see, you know, that's one of the things I don't know a lot of people know, but those, you know, those people that dress up on Hollywood.
Guest:Right, there's a documentary on them, I think.
Guest:Documentary.
Guest:Finding Superman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or, yeah, something like that.
Guest:Something like that, yeah.
Guest:Confessions of a Superhero.
Guest:Confessions of a Superhero.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And that, you know, yeah, so you just walk and you see tourists with their little kids hugging Incredible Hulk, and you're like, no, that dude has HIV.
Guest:Your kid just got hepatitis right there.
Guest:From the Hulk.
Guest:From the Hulk.
Guest:It's Hulk-sized hepatitis.
Guest:Not that you could get HIV from hugging the Hulk, but you know what I mean.
Guest:It depends how close that hug is.
Marc:and how angry he is yeah what do you mean by hug but no i think but i also think of one of the reasons that uh that the homeless are different here is that they i like unlike new york there's there's in new york you're like when it gets cold you're like where the fuck are these where do they go yeah like it's my cats where do the cats go when it's like snowing people like homeless people a lot of times they go to where they can sleep
Marc:anywhere all year round.
Marc:It's a climate thing.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's not all broken dreams, dude.
Marc:No, okay.
Marc:Talk me down.
Marc:No, I like that you built a story around these guys to keep your ambition in check.
Guest:Well, it's also very, it seems very meth-y.
Marc:Meth-y.
Guest:There's a lot of meth around, yeah.
Guest:Not a lot of meth in New York.
Guest:It doesn't seem like this.
Guest:No, it's definitely a suburb.
Guest:There's not a lot of meth in New York.
Guest:What the fuck is there?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's not.
Guest:I don't feel like it's- Should I make a call?
Guest:I got a guy.
Guest:I'll ask him.
Guest:Let's do it.
Guest:You've never done math.
Marc:I have done math.
Marc:You have?
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:But not in the Breaking Bad ages.
Marc:I haven't done anything in 13 years.
Marc:Okay, yeah.
Marc:There was a couple of times where I did, it was called Crank then.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That was meth.
Marc:Yeah, it was Crank.
Marc:I did just try to change the name.
Marc:And it was always kind of yellow and weird, and it was made by, it was more of a mom and pop business back then.
Marc:They have these corporations now.
Marc:Yeah, they have these large cartels.
Marc:Quality control.
Marc:Organized labs.
Marc:No, it was just, you never knew where it came from.
Guest:That's the scariest one to me, because all the imagery surrounding meth is just
Marc:It destroys you quicker than most drugs.
Marc:I mean, because there's nothing organic in it.
Marc:Not that that's the difference.
Marc:It's like snorting Ajax.
Marc:It's garbage.
Marc:But the high for about an hour is great, but what you do with the other 72 becomes a real challenge.
Oh, gosh.
Marc:For an hour, though, you understand everything.
Guest:I mean, at this point, I can't even take a hangover.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:Let alone meth.
Guest:No, it was a pretty nasty drug.
Guest:I love that you said 72.
Guest:So that means the last hour of the fourth day, of the first day.
Guest:And then it's three straight days of shit.
Marc:Three straight days of shit.
Marc:A lot of projects, a lot of drawings, maybe some cleanings.
Marc:Good time to call relatives.
Marc:I feel great.
Marc:I feel great.
Marc:I used to call my mom when I was on Coke all the time.
Marc:Did you really?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I do two wines of Coke.
Marc:I call my mom.
Marc:She's like, how are you doing?
Marc:I'm like, I am excellent.
Marc:Everything is going great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just love the random five in the morning calls.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Yeah, call her three in the morning.
Guest:Mom, I'm up.
Guest:And I want to talk about something that happened when I was four.
Guest:Are you ready for this?
Guest:We're doing this now.
Guest:We could never do that with my mom, because she would just know.
Guest:My mom was just a substance abuse counselor.
Guest:It's just like, it was out of the question.
Guest:Is she really?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, for years.
Guest:Still?
Guest:No, no, she retired a few years ago, and she's loving it.
Guest:She loves being retired, because now she just goes to jazz concerts and hangs out and goes to chamber music concerts in people's homes.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Oh, yeah, she loves it.
Guest:Yeah, but for years and years, and the best thing were clients.
Guest:The amount of genius it takes to justify your behavior, if you could put that energy, you could be the president of the United States.
Marc:Believe me, I know it.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's no one's fault, but never their fault.
Marc:Never their fault.
Marc:Situational, completely situational.
Marc:A guy came over.
Marc:He had a problem.
Marc:We had to save a dog.
Marc:You know, and there was no way.
Marc:What?
Marc:What?
Marc:That's why you're in jail?
Marc:That's how it started.
Marc:That's how it started, man.
Marc:That's how I got.
Marc:There was a dog in trouble.
Guest:I'm trying to help this guy.
Guest:Him and his schnauzer.
Guest:I'm trying to help this guy out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So funny.
Guest:So what did your old man do?
Guest:He was a social worker, too.
Guest:He worked for the mental health department for the state of Michigan.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with a lot of like, how are we doing?
Guest:Yes, everything.
Guest:I mean, I can't tell you how many times in an actual argument in our home, the word was, well, actually, I think that you're projecting and sublimating right now.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:I have said this to my mother in my life more than 15 times.
Guest:Actually, at this moment, I have to be honest, I'm enraged.
Guest:I'm enraged with you right now.
Guest:I'm enraged.
Guest:But never throwing or screaming.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Just, I'm enraged.
Guest:I'm going to go.
Guest:I'll be back.
Guest:I'm going to take a walk.
Guest:I'm going to clear my head.
Guest:And then we can have some dialogue.
Guest:I can interface.
Guest:this is the conversation you turned out great i know a lot of i know a lot of people who have like shrinks kids shrink shrinks kids well i think social workers are a little different yeah it's more practical it is it is yes it is focused on the result of getting fucked up more cognitive because they're definitely because they're in the trenches right not to say that's like
Marc:There's no time for intellectualizing.
Marc:Yeah, you got to get it down.
Guest:You got to get your system in place.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:And try to keep these fuckers out of your house.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Don't slip up and give them your phone number.
Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:I do kid Keegan, though, because I kid him, but I'm not even kidding.
Guest:He must have some kind of repressed anger.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:He's the happiest guy, nicest guy, so...
Marc:You're waiting for him to snap.
Marc:I think that's what he's saying.
Guest:Well, no, we play ping pong every day.
Marc:I snap every day.
Guest:And he's one of these guys, he misses a point, and he just goes from the happiest, sweetest guy to cock in my mouth.
Guest:That's my go-to.
Guest:Cock in my mouth.
Guest:My go-to is cunt.
Guest:Just want to say the worst thing possible at that moment Yeah, but you're okay Jordan's mom is one of the most delightful people I've ever met.
Guest:She is fucking love your mom.
Guest:What is she?
Guest:My mother is she's a administrative assistant for a company in New York been you know forever forever
Guest:oh yeah uh you know what's her name single mom cindy williams lucinda williams both names of uh other famous women so she's cindy at the office like she's probably cindy yeah probably cindy or maybe lucinda i'm guessing cindy uh-huh um and she you know yeah she raised me alone and you know uh you know i i never had any idea that we were almost broke you know the best thing moms do it's the most miraculous thing moms do is make sure
Marc:Make it seem like everything's okay.
Marc:Everything's fine.
Marc:Like you're not poor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think she made Garbage Pail Kids seem like they cost $50 a pack.
Guest:So I was like, thank you, Mom.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:This is the best thing.
Guest:As long as you don't bring it to school and there's some kid with shoes.
Guest:So it was like an Upper West Side.
Guest:What's he got?
Guest:I want those things.
Guest:I want those foot mittens.
Guest:Mom, can I get foot mittens?
Guest:No, you've got garbage mail kids.
Guest:So it was an Upper West Side version of Life is Beautiful for me.
Guest:Oh, hilarious.
Guest:No, but I had a great upbringing.
Guest:She did a great job.
Guest:Still same apartment, Upper West Side, rent control.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The one you grew up in.
Guest:Was it like a two bedroom?
Guest:No, it's not a two bedroom.
Guest:It's a one bedroom.
Guest:It's really two rooms.
Guest:She turned the living room into her room.
Guest:I got the bedroom, which was the sort of smaller deal, and it was close quarters.
Guest:Hard to bring girls home.
Guest:It was hard to bring girls.
Guest:No, it was impossible to bring girls.
Guest:It just didn't happen.
Guest:She just had to not be home.
Marc:It just didn't happen.
Marc:That's a good thing about New York.
Marc:You can always find a corner somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the good thing was I was not cool enough to bring girls home anyway.
Guest:I never really had to.
Guest:And that's when the story took a turn from the sad.
Guest:Now Jordan's a homeless man.
Marc:I moved to Hollywood.
Marc:He moved to Hollywood as a homeless man in Los Angeles.
Marc:Did some math.
Yeah.
Marc:But he still hangs on to the dream of being homeless by walking back and forth to Ralph's with his bag.
Marc:It will happen.
Marc:You're preparing yourself.
Guest:You know your route.
Guest:I just want to have the skill set.
Guest:He just said he hangs on to his dream of being homeless.
Guest:I had one homeless dude.
Guest:I was walking right on that route that you're describing where I walked to Ralph's, and there's a Burger King or a Wendy's around there, and one dude comes to me and goes,
Guest:Hey, man, can I get a dollar?
Guest:They got hamburgers for one dollar hamburger, man.
Guest:He's like, all right, man.
Guest:I gave him a dollar, and he just looks at me and goes, one dollar hamburger.
Guest:I was like, all right.
Guest:What do you want me to do?
Guest:All right, I gave him another dollar.
Guest:One dollar, man.
Guest:Hamburger is so confusing to me.
Guest:Well, he thought it was working.
Guest:I think I finally get this work thing.
Guest:You just repeat the same behavior in an efficient way and people keep giving you money.
Guest:I think I can do this.
Guest:Some hilarious characters.
Guest:If this is work, I can do this.
Guest:And then there are dudes you wonder, like, so which came first, the voice or the homeless?
Guest:Exactly, yeah.
Marc:You're saying it's a character.
Marc:They're working on their homeless character.
Marc:I need help.
Marc:Let me try that another way.
Marc:I need help.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Not too sad.
Guest:I need help.
Guest:No, too cool.
Guest:Too cool.
Guest:No, that's not going to work.
Guest:Everybody's still in their SNL audition, walking down the street.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's your image.
Guest:Probably shouldn't have crossed your eyes on that one.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, that's too goofy.
Marc:Too goofy.
Guest:Too goofy.
Marc:You oversold it.
Guest:You oversold it.
Guest:Yeah, oversold the crazy.
Marc:So where did you guys go to school?
Guest:Oh, I went to University of Detroit.
Guest:Did you study theater?
Guest:I did, yeah, and I went to Penn State to get my master's degree.
Marc:In theater?
Marc:In theater, yeah.
Marc:So you're all worked up.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You're all loaded.
Marc:You're loaded with...
Marc:Movement, Alexander technique.
Marc:There you go, Alexander technique.
Marc:Short play.
Guest:Mask work.
Guest:Mask work, mime, object work.
Guest:I love how it was mime for hundreds of years.
Guest:And it was.
Guest:I did study Meisner.
Guest:That's what I did.
Guest:Hundreds of years.
Guest:But improvisers call it object work.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, object work.
Guest:Object work.
Guest:Nobody wants to be gay and do mime.
Marc:Object work.
Marc:It sounds way less ironic.
Marc:Well, I think that implies that it's not really where you stop.
Marc:You can't say, like, well, I do object work.
Marc:That's what I do.
Marc:So they just want to make sure you understand it's on the way to something else.
Marc:It's an exercise.
Marc:Let's get the object work taken care of.
Guest:It's not Carrot Top.
Guest:It's a whole art form itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:Sarah Lawrence.
Guest:Sarah Lawrence College.
Guest:Right when they let guys in?
Guest:Just about.
Guest:Slightly before.
Guest:You fooled them slightly before.
Guest:White chicks.
Guest:They started in the 70s, but by the time I got there, it was still maybe 40% guys.
Guest:I knew a girl that went there, yeah.
Guest:60% gay women.
Guest:So it didn't work out for me in the end the way I thought it might.
Marc:Well, no, I think if you situate yourself right, you're a right to passage for a gay woman.
Marc:No, it was a good- You're a confirmation.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:You could be confirmation cock.
Marc:Yeah, I don't like it.
Marc:Not for me.
Marc:Not for me.
Marc:Thank you, though.
Guest:There's a good percentage of- I need the clarification.
Guest:There's a good percentage of women especially that go there that, you know, you can tell they want to come out and they haven't had that opportunity or place to come out of the closet.
Guest:And this is like, you know, you go there and there's a banner that says queer in a year or your money back.
Guest:So it's like, you know, I want to go to Sarah Lawrence.
Guest:I want to study poetry.
Guest:There's not a banner.
Guest:I swear to God, when I first went there as a prospective student.
Guest:Like it's over the gate?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's not like an official banner.
Guest:It was like a welcome prospective students.
Guest:But it was still, it was promoting the school in that way.
Guest:So all the parents and we were going on this tour and it was like advertising, you know, by the way, if you're gay, you can come here and it'll be fine.
Guest:That was the selling point of the school, as you're saying.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And so, of course, I was like, so 70% women?
Guest:Oh, snap.
Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:What did you study over there?
Guest:My declared major was puppetry.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It actually was.
Guest:So here's the thing.
Guest:You don't have to have an actual regular thing.
Guest:You have this sort of focus of study.
Marc:Oh, they did that?
Marc:They did that.
Marc:It's like a hippie school thing.
Marc:It's a hippie school.
Marc:You can major in pens.
Marc:In pens.
Marc:In ballpoint.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You can take your classes in quill.
Guest:Or dry quill.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, I ended up leaving after two years because I had been acting sort of as a kid a little bit.
Guest:In New York?
Guest:In New York at this place called Ta-Da!
Guest:Exclamation point.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, kind of.
Guest:Kids musical theater.
Guest:That's a fantastic place.
Marc:Down the village?
Marc:Below 14th Street?
Guest:You know, I don't know where they are right now.
Guest:They were at 28th Street for years.
Marc:there was one that uh uh my first wife was involved with that like had gotten sad like a children's theater you know like the guy who ran it was a drunk queen so and so didn't show up i'll wear the costume i'll be the princess you find other kids in his trunk you know she didn't stay that long
Guest:No, that was not the place.
Guest:This one was a wonderful place for me as a kid.
Guest:Just go after school, and they taught us real professionals, and they treated us like adults there.
Guest:But that's some of my experience.
Guest:And then after a couple years at school, we did an improv group, sketch group called Judith at Sarah Lawrence, and that's when I left.
Marc:That's when it all clicked into place?
Guest:That's when it all clicked into place.
Guest:This is what I'm good at.
Marc:Let's talk about the decision to major in puppetry.
Marc:Let's talk about that moment.
Marc:What led up to that moment?
Guest:It was sort of like, fuck you, life.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, kid of the Muppets.
Guest:I'm an artsy guy.
Guest:I was always into the performing arts.
Guest:And so, you know, I'm always the kind of guy who's like looking for the niche, looking for the unexploited thing, which ended up, you know, sketch and improv ended up being sort of like working with the most elaborate puppet we have, which is ourselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We're all puppets, man.
Guest:We're all puppets.
Right.
Guest:And the puppeteer, man.
Guest:That's the question.
Guest:Who's the puppeteer?
Guest:Who is it that's sticking their hand in our ass?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Making me say this.
Guest:Cut the strings, bro.
Guest:So, you know, I think it ultimately came from the theory that I love puppetry.
Guest:I love art.
Guest:And this was something that- Were you making puppets?
Guest:In school, I was.
Guest:Yeah, in school.
Marc:What were some of those early puppets?
Guest:Well, I did a whole project with shadow puppetry, which was- That's sort of classic, right?
Guest:It was classic, and it was a very classic, very sort of Thai puppetry.
Guest:Oh, it was, like that Wailing-Kulit stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess I didn't learn that much.
Guest:You know more than me about that one.
Guest:But I did some shadow puppetry.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:You just got reference raked.
Guest:I get reference rate by him all the time.
Guest:Are you kidding me?
Guest:I'm the worst.
Guest:He just drops it.
Marc:It's just like someone hits you with something, you kind of half agree and realize your ass is bleeding.
Marc:Why didn't I just say I don't know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man, I'm an idiot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's okay to say I don't know.
Guest:Or when everyone's talking about a movie that you're supposed to know, so you just don't talk.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just nod.
Guest:I'll tell you what, man.
Guest:Jordan, you saw it, right?
Guest:Oh, no, I haven't seen it.
Guest:Oh, you let us talk about it.
Guest:People should just know you're lying when you give, you know, the stock answer is always, I've seen parts of it.
Guest:I've not seen the whole thing.
Guest:I've seen parts of it.
Guest:What does that even mean?
Guest:Or did you see that movie?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, you didn't.
Marc:You didn't see it.
Marc:How about this one?
Marc:I think I did a long time ago.
Time ago.
Marc:When did that come out?
Marc:Two years ago?
Marc:Two years ago.
Marc:Oh, before the brain injury.
Guest:You don't forget movies.
Guest:You don't think you saw it a long time.
Marc:Eventually, you will.
Marc:You will?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Especially if you studied them or saw a lot when you were younger.
Marc:It just happened to me the other day.
Marc:We did it like the Sam Fuller movie.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Neither of us can remember the name of it.
Marc:It's something B. Does it have a letter in it?
Guest:I literally can't remember.
Guest:White Dog is the only one I can remember the name of, but the other one is the one I saw.
Guest:Or did I say parts of it?
Marc:If you're a film geek, you're going to... If you're a geek, I think part of being a geek is remembering everything, but if you see a lot of movies because you love movies, they're going to fall through.
Marc:That makes sense.
Guest:I'm a film geek myself.
Guest:I have actually... I play a game with some friends where... This is the geekiest game of all time, but it's so fun.
Guest:We have these cards with celebrities on them, with stars, and there's all these cards with scripts on them.
Guest:And the whole point is you actually bid on these stars with poker chips and put together these hypothetical movies.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He invented this game.
Guest:He invented this game.
Guest:It's great.
Marc:So it's like an imagination game?
Marc:It's like Dungeons and Dragons for film geeks.
Marc:It's fantasy Hollywood.
Marc:It's fantasy Hollywood.
Marc:It's fantasy Hollywood.
Marc:Is this catching on?
Marc:Well, you know- So you just have pitches for scripts.
Marc:That's basically it.
Guest:You end up with pitches for scripts, and then you, with dice, you roll out to see how the actors performed in them, how many millions of dollars they bring in.
Guest:And then with that money, you bid on new celebrities.
Marc:See, you're doing things.
Marc:I'm doing things.
Guest:I'm, you know-
Marc:You're creating a whole new outlet for stoner geeks.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Stoner nerds around the world.
Guest:I'm over to my house.
Guest:Movie nerds.
Guest:No, there is a small... That sounds like something you can put on TV.
Guest:Yeah, for a stoner set of files.
Guest:That game?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I would... You should trademark the game.
Guest:I should do one of these.
Guest:I should do a podcast where we just play it because it's so fun to listen to.
Marc:It'd be interesting if you could do it on TV and you had actors there willing to, like, you know, when you guys figure out a scene, you could actually have them do the scene from the movie.
Marc:Yeah, and you could see the actors improvise the scene from the movie.
Marc:Oh, that'd be amazing.
Marc:Mark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He might have to cut you in.
Marc:He might have to do some of this.
Guest:Do it at UCB.
Marc:No, yeah, that's a great idea.
Marc:That's a great idea.
Marc:Just use improvisers acting as the actors.
Guest:The thing is, everybody's faced with these constant, like, okay, so I'm making a badass Western film starring Andy Dick and Nathan Lane.
Guest:It's like, fuck, what's going on?
Guest:How are we going to do this?
Guest:So, you know, then you go, you know, you make, you know, you know,
Guest:Day on the Stagecoach!
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You do the whole trailer where, okay, there's two traveling vaudeville guys in the Wild West, and they get caught up in a hardcore bank robber.
Guest:Or a range war.
Guest:A train robbery.
Guest:A train robbery, yeah.
Guest:And it's somewhat... They go to the entertainment car.
Guest:Right, just for set pieces.
Guest:So some set comedy pieces.
Marc:They're going to try to entertain the robbers out of killing them.
LAUGHTER
Guest:And that's the thing.
Guest:And then nine times out of ten, you go, you know what?
Guest:That's an awful movie.
Guest:I could see that being produced.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:And even making money.
Marc:Oh, and making money.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:All right, so, okay, shadow puppets, and then what?
Marc:So, shadow puppets.
Marc:I really want to know what... I want to hear the moment where you're like, now this puppet's going to take off.
Guest:This is going to make the difference.
Guest:You know, I think the problem is I never got to that point where I was making something that...
Marc:It wasn't really a commercial thing.
Marc:It was more of an art thing.
Guest:Yeah, it was more cool.
Guest:My aspirations were to end up, I don't know, in special effects someday.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Guest:Oh, I didn't know that.
Guest:Or somehow doing some sort of off-broadway.
Marc:Being over in Henson's factory, working for Henson.
Guest:Being the modern-day Henson.
Marc:Saying something like, so this is the original Kermit?
Marc:Can I touch it?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, I got it.
Guest:You know, the whole, you know, Tim Burton and all that stuff growing up I was in love with.
Guest:So, you know, I just, I wanted to create an artistic empire, really.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:And so, you know, it all just got funneled through this thing.
Guest:And now, you know, I get to share my voice with Keegan on this show.
Marc:And, you know, I'm also working on other... Well, no, it's great that you... I like when people who... I respect people who know they're creative and they got no choice.
Marc:There's so many people that are creative and are like, that's crazy.
Marc:I'm going to go do this.
Marc:But there are people, like both of you guys, you're like, well, there's no second thought about it.
Marc:I'm going to throw my whole life into this ridiculous idea.
Guest:This could be the worst advice of all time, but I do agree that the fallback plan is a deceptive...
Guest:It's just limping in.
Marc:You can't limp into this thing.
Marc:I've been doing a bit on stage about it.
Marc:If you actually find success in creative fields, your fallback plan is really just like a pillow.
Marc:It's never really fully thought through.
Marc:It's just this idea.
Marc:I've been talking about how you get to this age where there just isn't anything there anymore.
Marc:You have that moment where you're at your lowest low and you're like, fuck this.
Marc:I could always...
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess who deleted that?
Marc:A couple of things.
Guest:Marine biology probably takes some study.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You did not do the requisite amount of work to have a fallback plan.
Guest:I can't even get a restaurant job.
Guest:That was the last job I had.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Hey, here's a 49 year old grill guy.
Guest:I used to know how to do this.
Guest:Where'd the eggs at?
Guest:And if you know, you can, if you know, you can be unsuccessful at something and still be happy.
Guest:That's what it is.
Guest:That's the,
Guest:I don't think people look at it that way.
Guest:That's how I look at it.
Guest:I knew I left school because I knew if I'm an improviser, if I end up working for Pennies on the street, but I'm doing comedy and improvising in that world, I'll be fine.
Guest:It was never- You think so?
Guest:Yeah, that was my-
Guest:Dollar for hamburgers!
Guest:I don't know if I actually would be fine, Mark, but I know that that was my strategy.
Marc:That made you feel better.
Guest:That made me feel better.
Guest:That was my fallback, was happiness.
Guest:How's that going?
Guest:It's working out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is working out.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:It never occurred to me that I could do anything else.
Guest:I studied psychology because that's what my parents knew.
Guest:But then when I got into the theater, here's the thing.
Guest:You have to have...
Guest:False modesty doesn't get you fucking anywhere.
Guest:Like you have to have some confidence.
Guest:You can call whatever you want to call it.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:If somebody doesn't like the concept and they want to call it arrogance, good on them.
Guest:They can call whatever they want.
Guest:But I call it confidence.
Guest:If you don't have any confidence, the worst part is people make these decisions when they're 16.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because they have unbridled passion about life.
Guest:You don't have passion about this.
Guest:They haven't been hit either.
Guest:They haven't been hit.
Guest:No, no one's socked them in the side of the face yet.
Guest:And so they don't understand.
Guest:You know, those parents out there who have that conversation with the kid, it has to be so scary and frustrating for the parent when they go, no, I don't think you do need to do theater.
Guest:But the kid just screams, they're weeping at their parents going, I have to do it.
Guest:I don't think you have to do it.
Guest:Now, there are people who have to do it.
Guest:It's just a small number of people.
Guest:I'm just sorry, you're not in that group.
Guest:There's so many people who think they're in that group and they're not.
Guest:It's just like there's not as many geniuses in this world.
Guest:It's just that you have to really dig something so much.
Marc:Like lately, I've been sort of like, it gets a little heartbreaking sometimes because I think a lot of times if people grow up with parents that are willing to support them and whatever you want to do, whatever your dream is, go chase it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:if they're lucky, they got a parent that's like, well, maybe not that one because that's, you know, because parents are usually strict out of concern.
Marc:They're, they're, they're not exactly, you know, they're like, you know, there's a lot of heartbreak in that, you know?
Marc:And like, you're, you're, you're sure you want to do that because you might, because like when I, sometimes when I think about people who are acting now or people who get into acting, it's such a childish dream in a way.
Marc:I want to be a princess.
Marc:You know, I want to be a knight Yeah, it's a very people now.
Guest:It's like they want to be famous.
Guest:It's not they want to be active They don't want to they don't want the life of auditioning and getting turned down I don't know what actors do dude when I see actors that I haven't seen in a few years.
Guest:I'm like where the fuck yeah Oh, yeah, we asked that all I'm like you see someone who worked ten years ago or the worst I always feel like when you've been when you were on a show and
Guest:you were on a show you had a you know a nine to five or a two to six whatever you want to call it you had a you had a job and it god forbid the show goes for seven years and so you get a little bit of syndication money and then and then i don't see you for 10 years yeah what have you what have you money did you save money i think some people do make bank i mean when you do this after a while even in comedy you're like when any anyone
Marc:gives you a chunk of money, you're like, well, that's going in the mattress.
Marc:I can't touch that.
Marc:I'm not buying anything.
Marc:I don't know when that's going to go away or come back.
Guest:You know what the scariest thing to me is that in comedy, there's this point where so many...
Guest:huge, the best comedians of all time, or at least for me growing up, hit a sort of plateau.
Marc:Yeah, they're only a window of a few years of relevance.
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah, for most.
Guest:And why is it so hard to evolve?
Guest:That's what I'm afraid of, because I know that everyone must be looking out for this.
Guest:I fear that there's going to be a point where my comedy is going to stop evolving.
Marc:Well, and sadly now, most of the it's there's there's a couple of ways to look at it.
Marc:I mean, you look at somebody like Dane, you know, who created an army of 15 to 20 year olds.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So now 10 years later, they're 30.
Marc:They're starting families.
Marc:They have jobs.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So where are you going to get them to come back?
Marc:Right.
Marc:right no no yeah so really it seems in my assessment of it there's about if you become a huge comic there's you know maybe a five-year window where you got to make fucking bank yeah yeah well yeah or else you evolve but you have to have the the traction to evolve you know and you have to have the balls to evolve that's what it is you have to have the balls to evolve like someone like you know somebody who completely a friend of mine that completely recreated himself is emo phillips yeah
Guest:think about what emo that esoteric stuff he was doing in the 80s and you're like and and it was ballsy to have that style because who's who's gonna come to that he found an audience and now you know he's in it he's 50 he's in his 50s he's a he's he's a parent he just he just realized I have to do it if I want to stay on the road you got to do something if you want to stay on the road you can't wear the Michael Jackson outfits well what's he been doing for the last 15 years he does he works he's on the road but I mean I don't see him anymore I mean I I
Guest:That's a hard life.
Guest:It's a tough life.
Guest:It's like you're doing the road and you're doing that new – something that we said at the beginning that really gets to me is there are times – and I don't know if you feel this way.
Guest:There are times we're on stage where there are these moments where you want to be a pioneer and you want to change something.
Guest:And then sometimes we'll be on stage together and you'll just tell a joke that's just –
Guest:It's a Richard Pryor joke wrapped in a little new thing, and people are still losing their minds.
Guest:It's a point of reference.
Guest:It's a nice old school.
Guest:A nice old school white people do this, black people do that joke.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And they don't go away.
Guest:So the thing is, it's also how do you find your relevance in that five-year window?
Guest:You want to make hay in an important way.
Marc:Well, how thought about is that with you guys?
Marc:And I'm talking to you guys.
Marc:I'm not talking about black people.
Marc:You half-breeds.
Marc:You people.
Guest:Our interesting thing is we're not stand-ups.
Guest:We don't have that stand-up pedigree.
Guest:We're improvisers.
Marc:We're actors.
Marc:You were both on MADtv, and you met there.
Guest:that's where we sketch comedians we met before that but but but uh we met we met a year before that but when we that's how we became uh affiliated with each other well how did that work out because generally those those shows have one working black person and our show and at one point in time our show had four working black people at the same time yeah on the show did they get an award or something yeah i think our executive producer was bucking for an award yeah yeah um
Guest:I think that our experience on stage as comedians is a completely different experience.
Guest:Also, we have each other.
Guest:But for us, it's experiencing the vibe of the audience and what people are doing in the audience.
Guest:So much of our humor comes from the moment.
Guest:The moment.
Marc:Well, I think like when I watch you guys, the thing is with, with the team situation, like a comedy team, which doesn't exist that much anymore, but you guys have the, you have what they should have, uh, which is, you know, you got the, you know, the over the top fucking like ball of energy and then you got the laid back dude.
Marc:So you're able to play the types.
Marc:And I see like, you guys are standups cause I see when you do it, you both know your roles, but you genuinely, the thing that makes you unique.
Marc:And I think the in the moment thing is I think you genuinely get a kick out of each other.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like, there's definitely moments where, you know, you make each other laugh in a real way.
Marc:That's not part of the act.
Marc:Like, I'm going to laugh at him now.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay, this is fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I think with us, it's not.
Guest:Sometimes.
Marc:There's a discovery there.
Guest:There's a discovery.
Guest:Like, there'll be times when it's like, part of what we do is in the middle of the act, one of us always knows it's carte blanche.
Guest:You can always look at it and go, what are you doing right now?
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:What is going on with you right now?
Guest:Which is a luxury that, you know, as you know.
Marc:In character, you mean?
Marc:That's an unspoken thing?
Guest:Like, I mean, we're just very we're very organic.
Guest:We're allowed to be as organic as we want to be.
Guest:And, you know, like when we do shows, understand that's the package you're buying.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Is that, you know, that's that's the way the show works.
Guest:Now, we might in the very near in the near future, we might really write a show and do it on stage.
Guest:We might.
Guest:I don't know when we're going to do that or, you know, but you want to.
Marc:I'll tell you exactly when.
Marc:It's when you've done all the seasons you can do of the show you're doing now.
Marc:A year goes by and you both go, we should put something together.
Marc:I think we can still sell some tickets.
Guest:We can make some money on this.
Guest:I'm really enjoying this part of my life right now.
Marc:Well, the format is good.
Marc:I mean, it seems like, well, I don't think it was Chappelle's originally, but I think the idea where you're presenters of your own bits.
Marc:Your own material, yeah.
Marc:And the characters are, you're both so fucking good at characters, and you both seem to, like there seems to be, in a lot of the bits, especially the two guys who were looking for a job,
Marc:Two guys were looking for one of the ones that are always sort of auditioning to try to make things funnier.
Marc:Oh, oh, Van Davion.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Van Davion and Mike.
Marc:A lot of that is improvised, right?
Marc:Oh, it's all improvised.
Marc:It's all improvised.
Marc:And the reason that works is you guys have such a commitment to character and you find a lot of room to work within those characters.
Marc:And like, that's great improvisation to where...
Marc:You're kind of in it, but the characters are tight enough that whatever happens is going to work.
Guest:We know the game of the character dynamics so well that we're just like, just tell us the episode.
Guest:We can do Vandavian and Mike.
Guest:Do you discuss that, though?
Marc:Do you guys strategize around characters?
Guest:There's a lot of strategy.
Guest:You sort of pinpointed a very specific case because that one is actually an online sort of supplement to our show.
Guest:van davian and mike so it has a slightly different feel to our show you'll notice you have more freedom right right and and and on our show we you know we write a little bit we write hard obviously we write hard no definitely you don't you don't end up in a spaceship if you're not writing that's right floating through a green screen yeah but the you know the van davian and mike thing that was an opportunity all right let's now let's showcase you can feel that though
Marc:You can feel it.
Guest:Just showcase that we can just get in characters and live.
Guest:And I think for a lot of people, it's even more magnetic.
Marc:Oh no, it's amazing because you can feel that energy.
Marc:You can feel things that have never happened and will never happen again probably.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But it's also delicious that it's happening in a context.
Guest:So that's the thing.
Guest:Characters always provide a context.
Guest:And then you go, oh, oh, I now, for the audience member, it's scintillating to say, oh, I know what that guy's about to do.
Guest:I don't know what he's going to say, but I know what he's going to do in this context that they've
Guest:The most Van Davian and Mike, these characters, if you don't know Van Davian and Mike, they're these guys that we play who are trying to be writers on Key and Peele.
Guest:And they sort of break down Key and Peele bits and give better examples.
Guest:They're better examples that usually have to do with penises and stuff like that.
Guest:Yeah, everything is scatological.
Guest:And so the strategy that we got just getting into those characters was based on two observations.
Guest:One, Keegan just loving this YouTube video of a black dude who was obsessed with Game of Thrones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, who did like a weekly thing where he was, you know, just, man.
Guest:He did a vlog every week.
Guest:You remember the best, on the first point, unless it's part of the second point, the best part is that that guy goes, the guy talks like this.
Guest:He's like, okay, this week, man, Tyrion Lannister was doing the thing and the thing, and the other thing happened.
Guest:Like, you hear the way I'm speaking?
Guest:And then the best video is that video where his friend, where they reveal that, you know, Ned Stark has died.
Guest:And all of a sudden, he's way more ghetto.
Guest:Than he is in the other vlogs.
Guest:Man, they killed my nigga Ned, man.
Guest:Why these motherfuckers kill my nigga Ned?
Guest:I'm like, why are you talking like that?
Guest:He's beside himself.
Guest:He was beside himself.
Guest:Distraught, but blacker.
Guest:He's crestfallen and blacker.
Guest:When did you get crestfallen and blacker?
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:It wasn't that way in any of the other vlogs.
Marc:I mean, look.
Marc:It's just a natural thing that happened?
Guest:I don't know what happened to him.
Guest:Yeah, it was just a natural thing.
Guest:And then the other observation was just this, you know, what we call the begrudging black guy laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With a dude that does not want to sort of show weakness by laughing, so you have to do something real stupid and they'll be like, you're being stupid right now.
Guest:You being stupid right now.
Guest:We wanted to encapsulate that, and that's Mike.
Marc:Well, the funny thing about, the thing that resonated with me when I watched a few of them was that, you know, that you're, what's your character's name, Van?
Marc:Van Davion.
Marc:His constant need for approval from the guy that doesn't talk.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's the best thing where you keep deferring to this dude who doesn't even want to talk.
Guest:It's like he's the captain of the boat and I'm the maidenhead.
Guest:I'm the woman on the front of the boat.
Marc:It's the first thing you see.
Marc:Was that a conception or did that just unfold like that?
Marc:I think it unfolded.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:It seems like a detail.
Guest:It came from the fact that this character, the begrudging laugh thing.
Guest:You don't want to show that weakness.
Guest:And so that character then went on to not want to look like he's trying to be famous.
Guest:He actually wants to be on camera.
Guest:He doesn't want to look like he's trying too hard.
Guest:The best thing he does is when Van Damien goes, he has an idea.
Guest:So, you know, we telling him, go, what?
Guest:No, go ahead and say it.
Guest:Put some dicks in the mouth.
Guest:Put some dicks in the mouth.
Guest:No, go ahead.
Guest:Tell him, man.
Guest:Tell the camera.
Guest:Nah, man, you do it.
Guest:You.
Guest:It's your idea.
Guest:Nah, man.
Guest:Don't be stupid.
Guest:You.
Guest:Why you want?
Guest:Just say it to the camera, man.
Guest:Come on, do it.
Guest:Do it.
Guest:Okay, we are saying that what you could do is like, if you would put like a whole bunch of dicks in his mouth at the same time, that would be funny.
Guest:But it's Mike's idea, though.
Guest:It is Mike's idea, though.
Guest:That was my idea, though.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:He wants to make sure he gets the credit.
Guest:He just doesn't want to say anything.
Guest:It's so funny.
Guest:Then get out of the fucking frame.
Guest:If you don't want to be on the show, get out of the frame.
Guest:No, no, I'm good back here.
Guest:I'm good back here.
Guest:The best compliment we can get about our show is, y'all niggas crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like the best thing.
Guest:For black people, man.
Guest:Look at Ricky Lindholm and Kate Micucci to Garfunkel and Oates.
Guest:Ricky and I are friends.
Guest:She said the most glorious comment they've ever gotten is, these bitches is retarded.
Yeah.
Guest:These bitches is retarded.
Guest:This is the best compliment you could possibly get from black people.
Marc:And what do you get?
Marc:Well, see, that's an interesting thing.
Marc:Because there's weird kind of angry progressives that get mad at me for talking about race with black people.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:It's bizarre to me.
Marc:Why do they get mad at you?
Marc:Well, no, because progressive intellectuals have decided that we're living in a post-racial world, so that means do not talk about it.
Guest:That doesn't sound very post.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:You've just made it un-post.
Marc:By telling people not to talk about it.
Marc:They're getting mad at me because I'm insensitive.
Marc:They're accusing me of racism and insensitivity because when I have Mindy Kaling on, I want to know what kind of food her mother made because she's Indian.
Guest:To me, post-racial means we can talk about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what it means.
Guest:To me, actually, it means we can talk about it or not talk about it in a more nonchalant way, like in a Canadian way.
Guest:We were in Montreal for Just for Laughs.
Guest:That dynamic is so interesting because...
Guest:You literally people identify themselves as dark skinned Canadians.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm just a Canadian who has a lot of melanin.
Guest:That's what I'm a Canadian.
Guest:Yeah, I'm a Canadian.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And but, you know, that's the fabric of our country is I'm Irish American.
Guest:I'm Polish American.
Guest:I'm Ghanaian American.
Marc:But I don't think I have no problem with that.
Marc:The last thing I want is to deny people cultural identity to make some homogenized fucking mess of people with no history at all.
Guest:Right, yeah, exactly.
Guest:I mean, that's what makes it work.
Guest:And then, of course, it's not a post-racial world.
Guest:It's just they're wrong.
Guest:Those progressives are wrong.
Marc:They're right.
Marc:They should wake up and realize it's Mexican.
Right.
Marc:Definitely not post-Mexican.
Marc:It's straight up Mexican.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think that's one of the things that the way you guys have approached race and what you're doing is a new, it is an evolution of the dialogue.
Guest:I think for us, race often is, race is our trampoline into a bigger life theme.
Marc:But I think you guys never, you don't play on the old stereotypes unless you're inverting them completely.
Marc:Like you don't even acknowledge them.
Marc:Like you take it for granted that that shit is behind us.
Marc:Even when you're doing a slave riff, you're dealing with narcissism.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And insecurity.
Marc:You're sort of taking it another way.
Marc:It's like Stockholm Syndrome.
Marc:There's an acknowledgement that, okay, we're up for sale, but why are we second?
Guest:You know, it's like sketch, the best sketch shows, you know, that have ever happened, when they happen, in the moment they happen, it's like they're breaking the rules, right?
Guest:And so many of these rules, some of the rules have been broken, you know, living color, shattered, you know, what black people could do on television.
Marc:Also, just those stereotypes that in what you guys are doing, you're really dealing with smaller social circles and things that don't need to be identified.
Marc:Even in the fraternity sketch, the choice of hair was relative to where we are culturally.
Marc:It had nothing to do with race.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just these two guys happen to be in this situation.
Guest:It's my phrase.
Guest:They happen to have melanin in their skin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this guy's an idiot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:White idiot, black idiot, he's an idiot.
Guest:Quit fucking, don't brand a dick on my chest.
Marc:That was an inspired piece of writing.
Marc:Did you guys come up with that?
Guest:Yeah, that was me smoking a joint.
Marc:And drawing?
Marc:Were you drawing?
Guest:Did you have to work that out on paper?
Guest:I had to figure out what Greek alphabet letters would make a dick.
Guest:I mean, he has the ideas, and then what he'll often do is he'll come to me and say, now, what would be the letters?
Guest:What would be a pie?
Guest:I think I got something.
Guest:You could just load it up with the information I need to make it happen.
Guest:You're the trivia computer.
Guest:Tell me what the letters are that I need to make a dick out of a Greek alphabet.
Guest:Is this a letter?
Guest:Is this shaft?
Guest:That is.
Guest:The shaft is a letter.
Guest:We'll make the two parts of the pie.
Guest:They're called curi.
Guest:The curi of the pie.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:um but yeah it's uh you also have like you obviously have a respect for the tradition of what is stereotypical black comedy it's like you were saying before there is there is still a black people white people thing yeah i think that's not going away well growing it's not growing up i felt i i always felt
Guest:sort of pigeonholed as uh because you know i grew up in the era where any black dude on television was just you know the cool dude who wins in the air and winks yeah and maybe snaps and magical dust comes off his fingers you know and martin lawrence was the first dude who inspired me as far as uh just the notion that
Guest:You could have a comedically hilarious black character who is an unlikable guy and whose faults are out there for the world to see and who loses in every show.
Guest:And that's what he had in his show.
Guest:He sort of, you know...
Guest:He was a Daffy Duck persona, which I had never seen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that specific thing definitely inspired me to like, look, let's get in there and change.
Guest:Most people are going to write a slavery scene.
Guest:At the end of it, the slaves are going to- Win somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Backhand a white bitch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:which is which is revisionist history right yeah you know and is that's i i felt like that was all the the only possibility for a while small box small box small box yeah and i feel like uh you know black people african americans we're we're a wide variety of types of people you know we we're good people we're bad people we're interesting people we're boring
Marc:people yeah when I interviewed Donald Glover I was like so taken by the fact there could be a black nerd whose dad liked craft work yeah right right does this happen right right exactly of course we're not a monolith right right but that's my insensitivity I don't think insensitivity is racism and that that the only way that you know white people brains can be expanded beyond stereotypes that we've been fed our entire lives right right exactly is when there's a conversation or there's guys like you who are broadening
Marc:The experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of what you're depicting.
Marc:Of what we're depicting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, the Dungeons and Dragons thing is great.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because like, you know, the whole black nerd thing, that was all new to me.
Marc:But of course it exists.
Marc:I just don't know them.
Marc:I have two friends.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And I'm 49 years old, and I'm not going out a lot.
Marc:So if you're not going to do that sketch, I'm just going to assume that, you know, it's all JJ.
Marc:You know, what do you want from me?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And, I mean, that sketch, Dungeons & Dragons, that's what we aspire to.
Guest:I mean, that Dungeons & Dragons sketch, the two guys in the movie theater who end up being- That's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because that takes the fucking, you know, hacky kind of black people talking to the movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the best part of that scene is when you guys look away.
Marc:At the white guy at conference?
Guest:Yeah, like when the guy tells him to be quiet and you guys act like you weren't the guy.
Guest:Oh, my God, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We tell on him.
Guest:We tell on him, yeah.
Guest:Right, and you weren't the guys that did it.
Guest:And then we do the white thing where we just look up, yeah.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:Thank you for stopping and interrupting the film.
Guest:Yeah, that was very funny.
Guest:The secret to what we do, the things that are successful have some relation to, all right, let's stay that one step ahead of the audience.
Guest:Yeah, that's our big thing.
Guest:What's expected.
Guest:And so with something like that sketch where you can set them on the direction of we talk about this a lot, we're thinking, oh, okay, I've seen this one.
Guest:I know where this is going to go.
Guest:And then if you flip it on them, then you have them forever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't quite, well, it went to, like, the two places it went were that they were commenting as intellectual film, you know, guys.
Marc:But then the next beat was, you know, all the way to the reverse.
Guest:To make, yeah, of acting in that quote-unquote white way.
Marc:They're disturbing our viewing of the film.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But also, I watch a bunch of stuff, and I was laughing out loud at the helicopter thing, because I just... Goofy shit is just... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's still the best.
Guest:And this season has more Goofy shit.
Marc:There's more Goofy this year.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Oh, there's more Goofy this season.
Guest:That character will appear again.
Guest:Oh, my God, that was great.
Guest:What, the helicopter thing?
Guest:Well, the guy from the helicopter thing.
Guest:He has survived.
Guest:We've changed context.
Guest:We've changed context.
Guest:We changed the context, but... I don't think we're going to be... We had him attacked by a German ship.
Guest:I went to the police academy to go interview some guys in the canine unit.
Guest:So I'm wearing the big... He's like one of the fucking trainers, and I'm wearing the big 30-pound dog suit.
Guest:That's all.
Guest:That's it?
Guest:You'll see.
Guest:We've put him through the ringer this year.
Guest:The first day of work, I got attacked by an attack police dog, and I got blown away by a high-powered hose.
Guest:And I don't want to tell you anything about that.
Guest:Mark, given your stripes, I think you'll dig the other one.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So when's the new season start?
Guest:26th of September.
Guest:26th.
Guest:And we changed days, too, and we're very happy the network did this.
Guest:We're very interested to see, because now we're coming out after South Park.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which we think... We had Tosh as an opener.
Guest:A lead-in last year.
Guest:Really great numbers-wise, but we think... Did you hold it?
Guest:We held pretty well.
Guest:It's like 82% we would hold.
Guest:We held pretty well, yeah.
Marc:I think South Park is actually a little more thoughtful.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It seems more our show.
Guest:It seems more a show that would be a lead-in into our show.
Guest:I mean, obviously, it's a narrative and we're sketch, but we think it's going to work.
Marc:It's smart satire.
Marc:Right.
Marc:As opposed to like, look at that guy just hurt himself.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah, it's one of the best shows ever, isn't it?
Marc:It's amazing that it keeps... I haven't watched it in a long time, but they've done some really brilliant things.
Guest:They really have.
Guest:They really, really have.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so that starts then.
Marc:And where are you guys in the production schedule?
Marc:You done?
Marc:We're starting to lock episodes.
Guest:This week we did all the live stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So this is the first... This weekend is going to be the big...
Guest:And then we get to kind of sit on our asses for a little while and go sound mixing and locking the episodes.
Marc:You were there for all the editing?
Guest:Everything.
Guest:EPs, it's the best.
Marc:And this is the third season?
Marc:Second season.
Marc:Second season, yeah.
Marc:It's a big deal.
Marc:It is a big deal, yeah.
Guest:Third season, maybe we won't show up for the editing.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:Third season.
Marc:Now, what about writing?
Marc:How many guys you got?
Marc:Just you two still, or what?
Guest:Is it five staff writers?
Marc:Five staff writers.
Guest:ourselves and two other eps and two other and they were there at the beginning too uh yeah well we wrote we had four staff writers last year five this year how'd you pick them the pilot was you and i wrote the pilot together completely but then they gave us notes on this with the help from the eps yeah the eps we hired them we were the staff and then they would write and then they and then they would just kind of give notes on our writing and who you got right and you got sketch guys or comics or
Marc:They're mostly sketchy.
Guest:We don't have any comics.
Guest:We do not have any stand-ups.
Guest:No stand-ups on the staff.
Guest:It's all sketch guys.
Marc:You wanted team players, huh?
Guest:Yeah, that's just it.
Guest:It's two completely different mentalities.
Guest:It's that stand-up gladiator shit.
Guest:Easy.
Guest:The communes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we understand it.
Guest:If you're a stand-up, we understand you've got to take care of yourself.
Guest:You've got to take care of yourself.
Marc:I think a lot of stand-ups become writers, as long as the stand-up dream has sufficiently died.
Guest:I would say, I think a lot of sketch staff- UCB guys.
Guest:Yeah, and there's a lot of sketch on TV.
Guest:I think they use competition as the fuel.
Guest:And we use collaboration, I think, pretty successfully.
Guest:Everybody respects everyone.
Guest:Everyone gets a majority.
Marc:Well, this is what I find in general is that the evolution of comedy show business from stand-ups to sketch, it's a much more pleasant and community kind of thing.
Marc:Oriented experience, yeah.
Marc:You're not generally dealing with five socially retarded angry Jews in a room.
That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:With weird behavior problems.
Guest:Every stand-up, your worth is very connected to how the person before you and how the person after you did.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Tell me about it.
Guest:Last night.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:It almost lends itself to personality disorders.
Guest:Improv, it's much fluffier because, of course, if you do well, usually your partner is done well.
Marc:Everybody gets credit.
Marc:At least you've got a friend up there.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Not a lot of flop sweats.
Guest:Definitely all boats rise.
Guest:All boats rise.
Marc:Thanks for talking, guys.
Marc:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:Good luck with the new season.
Guest:Thank you, man.
Guest:Our pleasure.
Marc:Well, that's our show.
Marc:Great guys.
Marc:Funny guys.
Marc:That was a great conversation.
Marc:Watch your show.
Marc:It truly is an inspired sketch show.
Marc:Key and Peele is on Comedy Central.
Marc:So what do we got to do now?
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Go to the merch.
Marc:Check out the new posters.
Marc:Get a t-shirt.
Marc:Check the episode guide when you're thinking like, I wonder if so-and-so's been on.
Marc:Let's just do a search.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:I'm going to try to listen to that.
Marc:Oh, I can't.
Marc:Only the most recent 50 are available.
Marc:Oh, maybe I should get the app and upgrade to premium so I can listen to every episode.
Marc:I can stream them all into my head.
Marc:Maybe you should do that.
Marc:Maybe you should go to your calendar and mark September 29th if you're in the Detroit area so you can see me at the Magic Bag Theater.
Marc:All right, that's it.
Marc:I've had it.