Episode 345 - Liam McEneaney
Guest:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck a sedum what the fuck sticks yeah i don't know if that's a good thing all right well uh i hope you're having a relatively happy pre-apocalyptic pre-holiday season and
Marc:It's weird when the things come together, the end of the world and the holidays.
Marc:They're sort of similar.
Marc:It always feels a little like the end of the world before the holidays.
Marc:Am I looking at it wrong?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for being here.
Marc:Thank you for listening to me.
Marc:I do hope everything's going well and you're not too frustrated with the seasonal bullshit.
Marc:I mean, the exciting holidays coming up.
Marc:What came out?
Marc:What did I say?
Marc:Did something...
Marc:Let me tell you what's going on.
Marc:First of all, Liam McEnany is on the show today.
Marc:He's a gentleman I met when he was almost like a child, a drunken round child as a comic in New York City.
Marc:He used to run a very popular show for the 40 people that could fit into the show.
Marc:We'll talk about that.
Marc:A sweet guy just came out with a documentary and a very surprising conversation, very moving conversation for me in a lot of ways.
Marc:Let me give you some dates, because I want you to know when I'm going to be by you, and I sometimes forget to do this, and sometimes I put it at the end of the show.
Marc:Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Improv in the Hard Rock, January 4th through 6th.
Marc:I will be there, and I can guarantee you my mother will be there at one of those shows as well, if that's any extra added reason for you to go.
Marc:If you want to see the source, the day she comes, I'll have her wait on the merch line.
Marc:January 10th, 11th, and 12th, I'll be in Raleigh, Raleigh, North Carolina at Good Nights.
Marc:I've not been down there since 1994 when I was an asshole.
Marc:I featured for the Reverend Billy J. Wirtz.
Marc:Is that his name?
Marc:And that's a whole other story.
Marc:So that's happening, January 10th through 12th in Raleigh at Good Nights.
Marc:Then January 13th, a special L.A.
Marc:area show at the Ice House in Pasadena.
Marc:Those shows are generally good.
Marc:I have not booked whoever I'm going to be working with.
Marc:We usually have a good time.
Marc:January 13th, that's a Sunday, at the Ice House in Pasadena.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Is that the Wilbur Theater in Boston?
Marc:A live WTF with many Boston-area comics or people from Boston.
Marc:I'll announce a lineup as soon as I solidify it.
Marc:And also doing live...
Marc:excuse me, stand-up show at the Wilbur in Boston, February 8th.
Marc:Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas.
Marc:I got one more show between then and now.
Marc:I didn't light any holiday candles.
Marc:I didn't do anything like that.
Marc:Most importantly, from the holidays, for your pre-holiday excitement, I am on Dave's old porn tonight.
Marc:On Showtime, my friend Dave Attell hosts a show where you sit and watch pornography with Dave Attell.
Marc:And I was nervous about this.
Marc:I got to tell you why.
Marc:There's some things I don't want you to know about me.
Marc:I don't want you to know that I watch porn occasionally.
Marc:I've watched it compulsively in my life.
Marc:One of my first experiences seeing sex was pornography before I actually had sex.
Marc:I don't think that's unusual.
Marc:But it was sort of interesting because I was like, I don't know, man.
Marc:I don't know if my people are going to like seeing me in this context.
Marc:But Dave is a dear friend, and it was time for me to be honest.
Marc:I watch porn occasionally.
Marc:I don't watch it.
Marc:I use it occasionally, but I also use my imagination as well.
Marc:I still do it the classic way, which is from my own fantasies, but occasionally I'll check in with the porn.
Marc:But it was sort of interesting because doing the show...
Marc:You know, Dave's primary concern was I was going to be some sort of buzzkill.
Marc:The guest was Christy Canyon, which is odd because when I was a doorman at the comedy store, she was sort of hanging around.
Marc:Pornography people, porn stars used to hang out at the store.
Marc:And I was, you know, perversely fascinated with with them, not in the way you would think, but just sort of like, wow, I want to talk to them.
Marc:How do they do that job?
Marc:I mean, how do you demystify sex to that point to where it's a job?
Marc:You know?
Marc:But she was on, so we actually had some past.
Marc:Not that we knew each other, but we were in the same little world for a little bit.
Marc:But Dave's primary concern was that, like, look, he literally walked up before the show.
Marc:I think I might have mentioned this before on the show.
Marc:He says, look, all right, this is about, there's a celebration of Christy, all right?
Marc:Don't bring her down.
Marc:Don't ask her about her father.
Marc:You know, I didn't do that.
Marc:But it's an awkward show, but I think that's what makes the show.
Marc:You basically sit on a couch and you watch porn with Dave Attell.
Marc:You're sitting there watching porn.
Marc:Now, I don't know about you, but when you watch porn, for me, it's really a solo flight.
Marc:It's a one-on-one, me and porn.
Marc:I've never watched porn with girlfriends or wives.
Marc:Didn't need it.
Marc:I didn't think to do that.
Marc:Seemed a little awkward.
Marc:But usually it's a very it's a solitary thing.
Marc:It's not something you do in front of a camera or with another person unless you're actively engaged with that other person in some sort of sexual business.
Marc:I guess what I'm saying is that I sat on my couch.
Marc:I watched porn with Dave Attell.
Marc:We commented on the porn.
Marc:We didn't jerk each other off, which probably would have made for a better show.
Marc:And then Christy Canyon came out.
Marc:We were watching Christy Canyon porn and we talked to her and that's what the show is.
Marc:So if you want to see me talk about porn to Dave Attell while we watch porn and then talk to Christy Canyon about the porn that we've just watched her in.
Marc:She's been out of the racket for years.
Marc:Then tune into Dave's old porn tonight and
Marc:uh to see that that's the 20th if you're listening on the day that i release that i'm sure they'll repeat it i'm curious about it and thank you dave for the uh he just sent some sort of basket full of chocolates that's what i get for revealing my inner porn fan i get a box of chocolates
Marc:Thank you, Dave.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:So enjoy that show.
Marc:Now back to Hanukkah, back to the season of giving.
Marc:Can we make a transition?
Marc:Can we do that?
Marc:I did not light one fucking candle this year.
Marc:I did not say one prayer.
Marc:I have not.
Marc:I bought a few close friends presents.
Marc:I have not bought my girlfriend a present.
Marc:I'm going to save that to the last minute and freak out and feel guilty and go go spend a lot of money on something she probably doesn't want.
Marc:It's weird when you get into a relationship and I've already given her plenty of apology gifts over the over the last year.
Marc:And, you know, we're at that point in the relationship where you're like, well, just tell me what you want.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We always we just get what we want.
Marc:You always get me what I want.
Marc:Well, do you want anything?
Marc:So now I got to figure out the surprise.
Marc:I got to figure out the curveball.
Marc:I got to figure out the the thing that she didn't see coming and then roll the dice on that and see what that is.
Marc:Nothing worse than the unwrapping the in the opening of the box of disappointment.
Marc:That that immediate moment, they're like, oh, and then that's followed by like, I can fucking bring it back.
Marc:No, no, seriously.
Marc:You can return and get something you want.
Marc:Oh, maybe.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Merry Christmas.
Marc:That was a letdown.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:Pow.
Marc:Just coffee.coop.
Marc:Just shit my pants.
Marc:It's iced.
Marc:I'm lying.
Marc:It's iced tea.
Marc:I'm drinking the iced tea that came out of the bottle that I almost slammed onto the head of somebody in a Trader Joe's.
Marc:Obviously, I didn't almost do that.
Marc:Look, you know what?
Marc:Let's get on with it.
Marc:I'm obviously in no mood, and I love you people.
Marc:Happy holidays.
Marc:Did I say that?
Marc:They're coming.
Marc:But who the fuck knows?
Marc:Tomorrow, none of this could be relevant.
Marc:The best thing that can happen is the world actually ends, but none of us realize it.
Marc:It's more of a subtle thing, a subtle apocalypse.
Marc:We just all at the same time.
Marc:We wake up Friday and we're like, something feels different, but everything's exactly the same, but it's fucking over.
Marc:Let's talk to Liam McEnany.
Lock the gates on these fucking...
Guest:Let me hear you now.
Guest:Hey, this is Liam McEnany speaking at my normal volume.
Guest:That's pretty good.
Guest:I'll probably go like this when I'm getting sexual.
Marc:Yeah, are we getting sexual?
Guest:Liam McEnany?
Guest:I have a lot about you that I want to tell you.
Guest:What?
Marc:I have a lot of dreams about you, Mark.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:Seriously?
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:Do you have some information about me that I need to know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You can tell me, man.
Guest:You know, I've watched all of your stand-up sets so many times, and I noticed the way you hold your mic is very gay.
Guest:Huh.
Marc:I had no idea that that was an issue, but I appreciate the input, and I'll be aware of it.
Marc:Somebody once told me that...
Marc:That I should never drink out of a straw on stage.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Because it just looked too weird.
Marc:So I don't.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:It seemed honest and concerned.
Marc:The guy who told me was like, don't do that.
Marc:And it wasn't like some sort of principle thing.
Marc:It was just that he had watched me using a straw.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he said, no.
Guest:Really?
Marc:And done for you.
Guest:So you specifically have like a weird straw technique?
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:See, I just never thought about that.
Guest:I would just, you know, I would always get drinks that had little tiny red stirring straws.
Guest:And you would sip through that?
Guest:I would sip and I would like pucker my face.
Guest:And a fella your size.
Guest:A fella my size.
Marc:With a little straw.
Marc:That's got to add to some comic effect.
Marc:Now, I'm not saying, you know, I don't mean to, I wasn't trying to be mean.
Guest:No, no, no, I'm a big dude.
Guest:Believe me, I'm like, I'm doing couch to 5K right now to like work it out.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Oh, it's this interval running program where basically it's a nine-week program, and you start out in the first week.
Guest:You go for 25 minutes, and you jog for 60 seconds, and then you walk for 90 seconds, and you jog for 60 seconds, and you walk for 90 seconds.
Guest:And then the second week, you jog for 90 seconds and walk for 60 seconds.
Guest:And the idea is at the end of two months, you're ready to run a 5K.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I haven't been working out much myself, and I'm hating myself for it, but I always push myself to run.
Marc:When I was at my peak, I could run four miles pretty good, nine-minute miles, but now I'm a little, it's a little harder.
Guest:I can do three and a half, three.
Guest:Ten years ago, I worked out really, I worked myself too hard.
Guest:And that's what broke you?
Yeah.
Guest:That was the end of it.
Guest:I clearly am broken.
Guest:I had a dot-com job where I did 30 minutes of work a day, and they never kept track of my whereabouts, so I would just go for a three-hour lunch.
Marc:Can we talk about that company now?
Guest:What does a dot-com job mean?
Guest:I worked at a dot-com job in 99 on the bubble.
Guest:It was called the Humor Network.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was the head writer of a joke of the day email list.
Guest:and that was it that was once you did your joke of the day you were pack it up that was it i would do my joke of the day and uh you know basically uh eventually they started asking me to do stuff like find advertisers for the company yeah because they weren't making any money sure and i was just like well if i'm if i'm the guy who's searching for advertisers i better find another job
Marc:So I don't know when I met you.
Marc:It must have been when you were a child.
Marc:I feel like you used to do, you started around the time my ex-wife started, so that must have been around 2000, in 99, 2000?
Marc:I started in 97.
Guest:I was 19 years old.
Guest:I started- But when did I meet you, Liam?
Guest:When did, oh, that was April 14th, 1999.
Guest:It's written in my diary.
Guest:I checked that out before I came.
Guest:No, it must have been 99.
Guest:Yeah, something like that.
Guest:It was the surf reality, I mean, the Luna Lounge scene, actually, the eating it at Luna Lounge scene.
Guest:The crashing of the wave.
Guest:The crashing?
Marc:The arc.
Marc:That was towards the end of that, wasn't it?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I got...
Guest:Like every scene, I got into it right when it was over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:But you were just like one of those guys who was just like a big deal in the alternative comedy scene.
Marc:A big deal in a small world.
Guest:Well, I didn't know that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I really thought, you know.
Marc:You do now.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm still a little deal in a very small world, so I totally... But at the time, I was like, oh, all these guys are super famous, because they're like the best... You guys were the best comedians in New York City, in my opinion, but I just assumed that you had a worldwide following.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But when I started stand-up, I would see guys on TV, and I'd be like, oh, the guy's on TV.
Guest:He must be really rich.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The illusion.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The illusion that TV pays money as a stand-up.
Guest:So I would see you on the A-list, and I'd be like, oh, that guy must have a house and a car, and he must be making millions of dollars.
Marc:Sure, on the $800 I made on the A-list.
Marc:I probably bought a house with that money.
Guest:I think I got, I think they gave me a meal.
Guest:Believe me, I learned as soon as I did premium plan.
Guest:The basic cable money isn't going to buy you a house, you learn that?
Guest:It's not even going to pay you like a month's rent.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, it's a sad truth that I don't think people realize.
Marc:So you started when you were 17?
Marc:I started when I was 19.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Queens, New York.
Guest:You didn't travel very far, did you?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Where in Queens?
Guest:Rego Park, right in the center, right in the middle of nowhere, Queens.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what kind of childhood, though, was that?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It's like a weird, it's always been a weird mix.
Guest:I mean, I still live there.
Guest:Excuse me, my voice just broke.
Marc:Your parents' house?
Guest:I live in the apartment I grew up in.
Guest:My parents moved away, and I just held on to the apartment because it's rent-stabilized.
Guest:And it's like, basically, it's always been this weird, it's an immigrant community, essentially.
Guest:And you always get these waves of immigrants who come through.
Guest:What's there now?
Guest:Very Russian.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It's all Russians.
Guest:Russian Jews?
Guest:Russian Jews.
Guest:All the Satmars and the, you know...
Guest:It's actually, it's the biggest community of Uzbeki, I can't remember the name of the Jewish community, but it's the biggest in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I Googled it because I had to show the daily news around my neighborhood.
Guest:They were doing a piece on you?
Guest:They were doing a piece on the neighborhood and they asked me to show them around.
Marc:This guy's been here since he was a kid.
Guest:kid maybe he knows what's going on this guy can't seem to escape he knows everything here yeah um but apparently like some of the biggest uh performers in in that community in the world you know the biggest uzbek performers in the world live near you the biggest uzbek performers of this particular jewish persuasion oh like just dance like famous dancers and singers have you gone to any shows
Marc:No, why not?
Marc:I don't know about them.
Marc:I don't know these.
Marc:I don't.
Marc:You can't say hi to the fellow that's out in the street and go, you know, is it the situation where there's all these weird posters for people that you don't know up in the windows?
Marc:That always had me in Astoria, you know, like Janansky, you know, and be a guy smiling and be playing somewhere in my neighborhood.
Marc:And I never went to go.
Guest:Yeah, there's that.
Guest:There's definitely that where it's like guys in weirdly garish outfits.
Guest:And it's like, you know, October 13th at a place that you never knew existed.
Guest:October 13th through 17th.
Guest:Nine shows of this guy in the weird outfit that I don't know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yeah, exactly.
Guest:But also it took them, I think, like 12 years to even start talking to me.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And you were there first.
Marc:Isn't that weird?
Marc:I was there first.
Marc:But they probably didn't talk to you like you were the intruder.
Guest:It was more like, I think they just, well, I don't know.
Guest:Most of them didn't speak English when they moved in the first place.
Guest:So did you grow up and you have such an amazingly Irish name?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:My mom's family are Jewish.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I was raised as a Buddhist.
Guest:So kind of hippies or...?
Guest:No, they're way too uptight to be hippies.
Guest:So were they Num Ya Ho Buddhists?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, Num Ya Ho Buddhists.
Guest:The culty Buddhists.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I actually am a little worried about how much I can say.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They're always, oh, whatever.
Marc:I don't think you're saying anything negative.
Marc:I mean, that thing seemed to work for Tina Turner.
Marc:Why can't it work for everybody?
Marc:I mean, it was a very, I don't really even, I don't want to be poo-poo it because a lot of people were into it.
Marc:It sort of took hold in the mid-60s, I think, right?
Guest:I feel like it's a very positive practice, but I feel like people, they're just like any religion.
Guest:There's people who are attracted to it who are very hardcore, and they're the ones who end up just running things.
Marc:No, I know that's the same with a certain program that I belong to.
Marc:What's that?
Marc:You know, the one.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:The secret society.
Marc:The secret society.
Marc:That keeps us sober.
Marc:It seems like if it weren't for control freak, fanatic, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, that thing would fall apart.
Guest:It's very true.
Guest:You do have to someone who...
Marc:Someone's got to be at central office.
Guest:So there has to be someone who's like, there's a specific kind of Oreo cookie that tastes the best that we have to spend the money on.
Marc:Those are the grunts.
Marc:But up the chain, there's got to be people that not only are into service, but also have some management skills to keep the money flowing into the right places.
Guest:But then you hear nightmare stories like, oh, I tried to get my group listed.
Guest:Well, that's different.
Guest:But we're called like the bleeding deacons.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they were like, that's not.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Those fights will always happen.
Marc:But tell me about this Buddhist thing.
Marc:So you grew up with the little shrine in the house?
Marc:Grew up with the little shrine in the house.
Guest:Did you chant as a child?
Guest:I did chant as a child.
Marc:Do you chant as an adult?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Actually, the thing is, I like the practice a lot.
Guest:What does it entail?
Guest:Please help me.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Well, Mark, that's the reason I'm here.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Bring it.
Guest:I feel like I can really fix your karmic levels.
Marc:I'm ready.
Marc:I'm ready.
Marc:Please.
Marc:Please do.
Guest:I feel like I've got such horrible karma following me through my life.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm probably the worst spokesperson for any Buddhist organization.
Marc:Why do you feel like you have horrible karma?
Marc:Let's get specific so I can give a framework.
Marc:We all talk about karma, but not everybody, but it's a word that's bandy about.
Marc:I'm not even exactly sure what it means.
Guest:I mean, essentially the idea of karma is like you put out a certain energy in the world and then it comes back to you.
Guest:And then it comes back to you.
Guest:Tenfold?
Marc:Is there a number?
Marc:Is there an exponential issue?
Marc:You put that out there, it's like a boomerang effect.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So watch out for the karma boomerang.
Guest:It's X times seven.
Marc:That's mathematical?
Guest:Yeah, it's X times seven divided by something bad you said about someone 10 years ago.
Marc:That's Buddhist math.
Marc:Buddha's math is, you put it out there, it's going to come back bad.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I mean, essentially, every religion is just like...
Guest:You reap what you sow.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's all about basically playing on your guilt feelings and just plucking at those, like, guilt nerves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then, you know, telling you, like, well, the reason why you're doing so shitty now is because you did a shitty thing to someone a year ago.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's payback.
Guest:Karma.
Guest:It's payback, you know, whether it's, like, the commandments or, you know, the... You will pay.
Guest:You will pay.
Marc:Spiritually, morally, maybe physically...
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny.
Marc:I always... There's a certain truth to it.
Marc:I mean, that is if you're not a sociopath.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I feel like good and bad things are going to happen to you.
Guest:No matter what.
Guest:Yeah, like no matter what you do, you know, good or bad things are going to happen to you.
Marc:Right, you can't let that...
Marc:The circle get too big.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, just because you did because you, you know, you hit a kid in grade school.
Marc:It's not why you got cancer.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So but there's a more immediate neighborhood of of output.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That that you could directly say, like, well, I said that and now I don't have a job like that.
Marc:That's the direct.
Marc:Immediate results of karma.
Marc:Fuck you, boss.
Marc:You're fired.
Guest:Hey, that's karmic return right there.
Guest:Hey, man, I get drunk at a company Christmas party.
Guest:I forget two hours of what happened.
Guest:I wake up and don't have a job.
Guest:That's not karma.
Guest:That's just life.
Marc:But I do think that those type of spiritual teachings apply to that.
Marc:It's basically sort of like, be careful what you do, what you say, how you act, because it will have an effect on your immediate life.
Guest:I mean, but if you read the Old Testament, and this is a very fascinating interview once I start talking about the Old Testament.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:Lay it out.
Guest:But if you read all those stories about the original Hebrews, those guys were savages.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:All those stories end in murder.
Guest:The story of the Ten Commandments ends with...
Guest:every tribe but two getting killed by the birth.
Marc:Well, they had to make it seem like something other than a bloodbath for it to resonate for centuries.
Marc:There has to be a lesson in this massacre, in this mess of us struggling to be better than other animals.
Marc:But no, in terms of Buddhist practice, so...
Marc:What do you do?
Marc:I mean, what is that about?
Marc:I don't think I've talked.
Marc:I know I have one friend who's a Buddhist, but we don't really talk about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But your father was brought up Catholic and your mother was brought up Jewish.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then what provokes them?
Guest:I think part of it, I mean, especially in the 60s, I guess, there was a lot of just spiritual seeking and the idea that, you know, what you had learned as a child didn't really, like, apply in the real world when you looked at it analytically.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And so the idea was to find something even crazier to hold on to because that has to be the truth.
Guest:I think that's what led to a lot of people looking at Eastern philosophy.
Guest:A lot of lost people.
Marc:That's what led to people losing themselves for decades sometimes.
Marc:Wandering about in languages and ideas that they don't understand.
Right.
Guest:Spending a year and a half living in India with no working toilets.
Guest:Did they do that?
Guest:My parents didn't do that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure, that's what you got to do if you want to find peace.
Guest:If you really want to connect with yourself.
Guest:Get out there and get dirty like Buddha did.
Guest:That's exactly it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, his whole story was basically he almost starved to death under a tree, and then he had a divine inspiration.
Guest:As a starving person would.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You do tend to hallucinate.
Yeah.
Guest:But what he learned was that starving wasn't such a great idea, which is why he became such a big fad guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was because he was just like, you know what else is a really good thing?
Guest:Not starving myself.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:That's basically the Buddha's story in a nutshell.
Guest:What was Buddha's name?
Guest:Was that Siddhartha?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:I'm not really an expert on this stuff because it's like, you know how people grow up Catholic.
Marc:Yeah, but I don't want you to be an expert.
Marc:It's just a unique, you know, it's like I imagine, yeah, things get watered down.
Marc:And obviously it doesn't require the same discipline as a religious Jew or practicing Catholic.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But there are things that you do for a reason.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What are they?
Guest:I mean, you're basically supposed to get up, you're supposed to chant.
Guest:You're supposed to chant.
Guest:You recite chapters of the Lotus Sutra every day.
Guest:And essentially the idea is that the Buddha was a man who was able to raise his karmic level to the point where he was a perfect human being.
Guest:And so the idea is if you practice, if not in this lifetime, then in some lifetime, you'll be able to achieve, attain a level of karmic, I guess, perfection.
Marc:So you keep coming back.
Marc:That's the reincarnation trip.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like, hey, you fucked it up this time.
Marc:Maybe if you get the right body, we can progress a little more.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you're not aware of that.
Guest:I don't believe that.
Guest:I think when you're done, you're done.
Guest:I really do think once you're done, it's over.
Marc:But the act of chanting, I think, is in itself peaceful.
Marc:That, you know, I will do that sometimes if I can't sleep, I have something that I repeat.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that process, is it, would you call it meditation?
Marc:I mean, how long does a chanting say, like you get up, you sit in a certain way?
Marc:I'd sit in a chair.
Marc:Oh, but is there, but are you supposed, is it considered a meditation or is it considered a?
Marc:No, it's not really meditation.
Guest:It's just like it's a practice of chanting and repetition.
Guest:And it really does mellow you out.
Guest:It really enables you to go inside a little bit and just like, you know.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, clean house.
Guest:Clean house, exactly.
Guest:I can't meditate because the wheels are always spinning in my head.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But if you're chanting, that occupies that thing.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what are the requirements of this?
Marc:Is there a community?
Marc:Is there a congregation?
Marc:Is there money involved?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Essentially what happened was a while ago, the priesthood went one way and then the lay organization went the other way.
Guest:Of the Namiho Renge Kyo.
Guest:Is there a name for that?
Guest:The Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so the lay organization has community centers is what they're called.
Guest:Or culture centers, I'm sorry.
Guest:They're called culture centers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All over the country.
Guest:And you can go and they're the big, you know, scrolls that you can chant to.
Guest:And there are people leading these chants.
Guest:And, you know, essentially it just sounds very familiar, but it's a requirement to, you know, the requirement for membership is a desire to improve your life.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Guest:And eventually if you practice, you will get a scroll of your own to put in your home.
Guest:You have to set up an altar.
Guest:You have to have candles.
Guest:You have to have fresh fruit as an offering.
Guest:You have to have a plant as an offering.
Guest:You have to burn incense.
Marc:You're creating a ritual space.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, no, I get it.
Marc:And there's no I mean, I think everybody does that to some degree with their life.
Marc:I mean, you have a corner of things that are important to you that have that you've invested with something that makes you it makes you feel better.
Marc:You know, this thing that's like I keep things.
Marc:These are I keep all kinds of shit here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I wouldn't call it a ritual space, but I make sure that these things are stacked a certain way.
Marc:And they're just little pieces of steel I found in the beach in Hawaii.
Marc:So I'm not saying, you know, it makes me feel better when they're stacked that way.
Marc:Well, as a human being, you crave structure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's what life is.
Guest:That's what panic attacks are.
Guest:That's what I heard is like a lack of structure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there's also the element of like, it's all going to go bad.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's all coming at me at the same frequency.
Guest:I was listening to something and someone was saying that panic attacks happen a lot in actors and musicians and people who crave structure and find themselves in environments that have none.
Guest:And that's certainly why I get panic attacks.
Marc:Well, there's that moment before you enter the ritual space, which is your performance space, where you're like, I don't know how this is going to go.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, and I was just a panic of transition from me to that guy up there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're successful enough at it, there's literally nothing you have to do before then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it's basically 10 hours from waking up to doing that of just lead up to thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Thinking about it's no good.
Guest:It's like getting launched into space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it kind of is.
Guest:It's like the ramp up.
Guest:You have the countdown and then you put that foot on stage and you can't go back.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But also, after years of doing it, you know which knobs to flip and the capsule's prepared.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And your suit should be secure.
Marc:Your oxygen is hooked up.
Marc:You should have a certain amount of confidence with the vessel after a certain point.
Guest:Can I ask you something?
Guest:What?
Guest:As someone who's better at it, I would consider better at it than me.
Guest:It's like, do you ever have that moment where you just take a foot on stage and you just know that for whatever reason the energy in the room is weird and it's just going to go horribly?
Guest:Give me some examples.
Marc:I'd like to hear the rest of those stories.
Marc:I mean, it's not...
Marc:Definitely, dude.
Marc:I mean, you know, especially if someone's already gone on.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can sense the vibe of an audience.
Marc:I believe that's true.
Marc:I believe you can sense it from the way they're laughing and what they're laughing at and how they're laughing.
Marc:I think that once you've been doing it long enough, you can hear where there's resistance.
Marc:You can hear where there's a pocket of problems.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can hear, you know, maybe what their evil is.
Marc:I mean, sometimes you're wrong.
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:An audience just hasn't popped.
Marc:I mean, there are audiences that don't pop.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's kind of difficult.
Marc:But after about 10 minutes of pounding your head against the wall, you're just going to have to accept the level of engagement that is being presented to you.
Marc:You can only work so hard.
Guest:The worst is there's a bad audience and I'm watching and I'm like, all right, when I get up there, I'm going to fucking turn around with my amazing stand-up.
Marc:comedy i never think that that would be the difference between you know the best i can hope for is that i'm comfortable not paralyzed with fear and i don't close down and get defensive uh-huh that that's how i go into it they seem to like me i guess i'll stay open see i have i have a good well it used to be 10 seconds but now i have a good three minutes of doing badly before i start to get mad at the audience uh-huh i used to get i used to just flip on the audience like
Guest:Bam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like even before I told the joke, if people weren't like if I felt like I didn't know, like if if I felt like they weren't going to start laughing as soon as I started speaking or if they weren't laughing during the setup, I would just get mad at them and decide they were a bad audience and punish them.
Guest:do you ever chant before you go on stage uh only you know what i actually only did that uh i i tour i've toured through europe a few times and i i've only done that like during my first european tour when i was just completely scared shitless at every every show yeah because i i have this mentality where if something goes badly i'm going to get fired from the world of comedy
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so when I enter like... It's that great Nate Bargatze joke.
Marc:He's like, you know, I can't quit.
Marc:You know, who would you quit to?
Marc:Have you ever heard his joke where he's like, what am I going to call Cosby?
Marc:I'm out.
Guest:But it's true.
Guest:The best joke.
Guest:You know, it's like I'm always convinced I have one foot out of the comedy world and that I'm...
Guest:You gotta stop that.
Marc:You think?
Marc:Yeah, because, you know, I was like that for a long time, but that's also, it enables you to remain, I think that protects your fear.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:That like there's part of you that thinks like, like, you know, I'm not really in it or I could always do something else.
Marc:It's like this safe haven in your head.
Marc:And I got to tell you, Liam, it's too late.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You're in.
Guest:I have no, I have no marketable skills.
Guest:You do.
Guest:You can figure something.
Guest:Believe me, I've made a resume.
Guest:But Andre Dubichet, who now writes for Conan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always, always said his motto was no plan B.
Marc:Yeah, I'm hip to that.
Marc:Well, I mean, there are ones, but after a while you realize, well, that's ridiculous.
Marc:And I've been doing a joke on stage about that.
Marc:There's that awkward moment where you hit a certain age and there aren't any more.
Marc:Whatever your fantasies were, you have that moment where you're like, well, I could always...
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Who deleted that folder?
Guest:I guess part of it is my mom went to law school when she was in her mid-30s.
Guest:She had two kids.
Guest:She also had Crohn's disease, which is like, if you don't know, is a disease of the stomach lining.
Guest:Basically, you get like the scarring in your stomach lining.
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:And it's stress activated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she essentially was like, well, I've got this horrible, painful, stress activated disease.
Guest:I will go to law school for three years.
Guest:Yeah, she did.
Guest:And it almost killed her.
Guest:And she had two kids.
Guest:And, you know, but the thing is, I always kind of look to that as an example, as always like, well, you know, there's there's always, you know, there's there's always, you know, deciding what you want to do and doing it.
Guest:But this is what I've always known.
Guest:I've wanted to do this, you know.
Marc:Well, your frustrations are like, I've known you a long time, and you've done a few things, and then you sort of had this success with this weird little room.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like, you've been kicking around for a long time.
Guest:I've been kicking around for a long time, and I always snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Guest:Things are on a roll for me, and then I always manage to just find a way to be like,
Guest:No, I'm going to do this other thing now.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:Like what?
Marc:How'd that?
Marc:Like what's an example?
Marc:You're a pretty sweet guy, which doesn't always fare well in this business.
Guest:I'm actually, it's so funny.
Guest:I'm either very sweet or extremely angry.
Marc:But who are you angry at?
Marc:You?
Marc:Are you a brooding, talking to yourself bearded man?
Guest:I'm definitely an angry lumberjack.
Marc:Well, you don't seem like the kind of guy that goes around hurting people emotionally.
Guest:I don't know things that people... All right, here's a perfect example.
Guest:Okay, I did a set at Eating It at Luna Lounge.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Years ago, this would be.
Guest:This would be when I was working at the Humor Network.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Dave Miner and Dave Becky approached me after the set.
Guest:It had gone well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were like, you know, we have this client...
Guest:Who's doing a one man show on Broadway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He needs help, you know, just writing some stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you want to like just sit down and be no credit?
Guest:No, like very little pay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, sure.
Guest:Here's my card.
Guest:Call me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They looked at me like, oh yeah, we'll call you.
Marc:Yeah, and that was that.
Marc:And that kind of sits with you.
Marc:That's like a tumor inside of your brain.
Marc:It's definitely learning.
Marc:But it was an oversight, wasn't it?
Marc:I mean, you weren't being arrogant.
Guest:I wasn't being arrogant.
Guest:I'm 100% sure it came off as a little bit arrogant.
Marc:Who was that performer I'd like to know?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:This is John Leguizamo.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't care.
Guest:No, what does he care?
Guest:What's he going to do?
Marc:Is he going to come do one of his characters at you?
Marc:One of his broad range of Latino characters?
Guest:He's going to come at you?
Guest:Listen, he is a sassy aunt in the Bronx that is going to tell me what's what.
Guest:No, I mean, but it was just like one of those things where I look back at it and I'm like, oh, the thing that normal people know what to do is to say like, sure, I'll call you first thing in the morning and set up an appointment.
Marc:Both your folks are still alive?
Guest:Both my folks are still, and they're still together.
Marc:And they live in a nicer place now?
Guest:They bought a house about 12 years ago.
Marc:As Buddhists and as parents, what do they think of your life?
Guest:They're very proud of me, actually.
Guest:My mom is a very talented artist, and she was a very talented singer and musician, but she just never pursued it.
Guest:It was just something that she wanted to do, and I think she said she was just afraid to pursue it.
Marc:But it doesn't eat at her.
Marc:She still enjoys doing it?
Guest:She doesn't do it anymore.
Guest:She's a lawyer now.
Guest:She has her own mediation, arbitration practice.
Guest:So I think that there's an element of she's actually proud of me for going after this.
Marc:For living through the disappointments that she chose wisely to avoid in her life.
Guest:What's your old man do?
Guest:He works for the Board of Education.
Guest:He's like a...
Guest:He's like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon.
Guest:He's six months away from retirement.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:You hear that a lot, I bet.
Guest:Six more months.
Guest:He doesn't want to go, but he's of the age to retire.
Guest:He's going to go on a full pension, and he's going to sit at home and play computer games and be happy.
Marc:Well, let me tell people about what exactly your place is in the world of comedy, certainly in New York City and now with this documentary that you've put together as a last ditch effort, a Hail Mary pass for Liam McEnany.
Guest:I certainly I talked the guy into funding it.
Guest:I still I mean, it was a great decision.
Marc:Well, you had this room, like I knew you because you did stand up with my ex and I knew you from around town and you're always a nice guy and you had some funny stories and funny jokes.
Marc:And then at some point I went back to New York and you had started this room and you're like, will you come do my room?
Marc:And I said, sure.
Marc:And the first time I went there, I was like, where's the rest of the room?
Marc:I mean, it's in a basement, in a bar, and what does it see, 20?
Guest:It's seated about 50 comfortably.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Comfortably 50?
Marc:Please.
Marc:There's no stage.
Marc:You sit there where the band was in a corner where you're not able to move.
Marc:There's a chair, and literally there are audience members a foot and a half away from you sitting at a counter.
Marc:And then there's a few tables in front of you.
Marc:And it's this long, narrow room.
Marc:And about two-thirds of the way down, you just see darkness and some faces sticking out.
Marc:And then there's a stairway that cuts into the room.
Marc:So it couldn't be a more seemingly difficult comedy situation.
Marc:But the fact is, it was brutally intimate.
Marc:And I got some good work done there.
Marc:And everybody has gone down there.
Marc:Who are some of the people?
Marc:Like, Lena.
Marc:Brian Kiley was there once.
Guest:Brian Kiley, Janine Garofalo, Mark Maron.
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:I'm right here.
Guest:Fred Armisen was there.
Guest:New York people.
Guest:A lot of people did it once.
Guest:You're really selling this thing.
Guest:I've done it several times.
Guest:The room is over.
Guest:I mean, I stopped doing the show last year just because it just was a lot of work.
Guest:And you had that band or that guy who played guitar and that girl who sang?
Guest:Yeah, Briefview of the Hudson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I just started doing shows at the Bell House, which is like a 400- Yeah, I've worked there.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:It's a great venue.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:I do that once a month.
Guest:In the name of the show?
Guest:You book it out and it's Tell Your Friends?
Guest:It's a Tell Your Friends show.
Guest:How did those draw?
Guest:Pretty good?
Guest:Great.
Guest:The last couple were sold out.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:It's just, I don't know.
Guest:I got to get on with my life.
Guest:I can't be booking a bar basement show for the rest of my life.
Guest:I can't do it.
Marc:Then you become one of those New York characters.
Marc:They do a doc on you when you were 70.
Marc:I started this.
Guest:yeah you become the bar's gone it's just a basement now my fear my honest to god fear is being like a paragraph in a chapter of someone else's story yeah you know yeah and I don't I don't want to be that you know it's like I I got into stand-up to do stand-up and to like do stuff I didn't want to you know just be you know that guy was just like oh man Liam McEnany remember remember that guy yeah he used to run that room in a basement right what happened to him what happened he hung himself with his belt in his parents bathroom but it's not his parents anymore it's his place
Marc:He hung himself in the apartment he grew up in in Queens.
Marc:A Russian Jew found him.
Guest:No, but it's like, I don't know.
Guest:What I really wanted to do was document this show and then just move on.
Marc:But was there a moment there where the clouds opened and God's foot was about to stomp on you?
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:I've always had good runs where something good will happen, and then there'll be two years of me working in a call center.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, well, where did that go?
Guest:What do you think that is?
Marc:Do you blame that on circumstance or do you find something in yourself that perhaps has this pattern recurring in you?
Guest:Well, I mean, like, you know, as you alluded to before, I'm a very heavy... I am a very heavy drinker.
Guest:And, like, that'll do it.
Guest:That'll... You know, especially I'll be like... Okay, so I did Premium Blend.
Guest:It's Comedy Central.
Guest:Comedy Central.
Guest:Showcase show, yeah.
Guest:Which was, like, a stepping stone for bigger things.
Guest:But at the time, I was like...
Guest:All right, well, I did premium blend.
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:Yeah, I've arrived.
Guest:All right, come get me, industry.
Guest:And then I waited on that for a little while.
Marc:But really, I mean, were you that naive or did you just find that your ego got away from you?
Marc:I mean, premium blend really is, on some level, it's a rite of passage more than anything else.
Marc:I don't even know if it's an opportunity.
Marc:It's not even.
Marc:It's a credit opportunity.
Marc:Right, but it's like a good first credit.
Marc:It's sort of a validation for a young comic that they're good enough to do eight minutes on television.
Guest:But I don't even know if I was.
Guest:I watched my set again last year, and I was like, ooh, I needed to work.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:It's like one of those things where I felt like I didn't...
Guest:i i entered this contest a little hard on yourself chief oh i hate myself yeah yeah you have no idea i probably do but like i'd entered this contest that comedy central used to have called open mic fights and uh the woman who used to be the head of east coast talent and comedy central was a woman named naomi frisch now naomi steinberg i know naomi frisch
Guest:And I feel like, honestly, she's one of the unsung heroes of comedy.
Guest:I'm sure she'd be happy to hear that.
Marc:She was involved with Luna towards the end there, too.
Guest:She booked Luna, but she discovered people that... She helped me out.
Guest:She helped you out.
Guest:She discovered Dimitri.
Guest:She discovered Eugene.
Guest:She basically gave a foot up to all of us who were in the New York scene at the time, especially...
Guest:And she used to see people come through Luna.
Guest:She used to hang out at Susie Felber's show at the Yield Triple Inn.
Guest:I don't know if you ever did that show.
Guest:Probably.
Guest:But she used to actually be on the ground and see us and see who was funny and who wasn't and give booking opportunities to comedians.
Guest:And so I entered this contest that they had and the grand prize was a spot on Premium Blend.
Guest:And I got a call from them that was like,
Guest:look you didn't you didn't get into the contest and I was like but we do want to book you for premium plans so you didn't make the cut for the contest but they want to throw you a bone on the TV show so you do it and then then you're like all right now what happens phone should start ringing yeah I was like oh well I'll just send out this tape and of course you know I'll get booked on this show and I'll do this and that and then eventually just nothing happened and so uh you drank
Guest:I drank.
Guest:I did some road work, but I wasn't really ready for the road.
Guest:That's how you learn.
Guest:That's how you learn.
Guest:I opened for Jim Norton the weekend after September 11th.
Guest:That's a rough crowd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The weekend after September 11th.
Guest:Everyone was just like completely, I was completely miserable and, you know.
Guest:It was in New York City?
Guest:It was in, it was at Bananas in Poughkeepsie.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And everyone was so shell-shocked and horrified and it was rough for anybody.
Guest:So, all right.
Guest:It was rough.
Guest:Didn't go well.
Guest:It didn't go well for me.
Guest:He did great.
Guest:The first show he was like, I don't know, maybe I'll just like back off of it a little bit and not really mention it.
Guest:And it just kind of was like not a great show all around.
Guest:And then the next night he was like, you know what, I'm just going to just go for it.
Guest:And he got on stage and he's just like, you know, like Route 90 runs through Poughkeepsie and he's just like, yeah, you know where those terrorists should have dropped a bomb?
Guest:Was Route 90 right outside.
Guest:And everyone went, wah!
Guest:And then he's like, we just got to drop an AIDS bomb on the Middle East.
Guest:And they all went, and then he did the rest of his set and he went like amazingly great because he had- Acknowledged it.
Guest:The elephant in the room.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:All right, so you got that from Premium Blend.
Marc:Well, there you go.
Marc:I got that from Premium Blend.
Marc:Well, what was the drinking for you like?
Marc:I mean, what were you doing?
Marc:I mean, what was your diet at the time?
Marc:I mean, because you did hit a wall eventually, but we'll get to that.
Marc:But I mean, how did you know you were fucked up?
Marc:You seem like sort of a jovial drunk.
Marc:As we've touched on, I have a lot of anger inside of me.
Marc:Let's get it out.
Marc:What's it about?
Marc:Sounds like your parents were okay.
Guest:I come from a long line of crazy Irish depressives and, you know, angry Jews, all of whom, you know, managed to bully their way out of the old country and into the United States and settle here and carve a life out.
Guest:And you just have to have that, like...
Guest:real drive and anger so yours is uh submerged mine is it's a depression is anger turned inwards yes i've heard that as they say uh and and so basically you know drinking lets you get that out you know it lets you feel your feelings yeah how and how they express themselves for you
Guest:Or it doesn't let you feel your feelings.
Guest:Yeah, it numbs them up.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I would just yell at people.
Guest:I mean, I would just get angry.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, the thing is I blacked out a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's scary.
Guest:The last year of my drinking, I would just run into people who would say like, hey, I saw you at this bar last night or I saw you at this party.
Guest:And the first thing I would say is like, oh, do I owe you an apology?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they'd be like, yeah.
Marc:Maybe you might think about that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then they'd show you a cut.
Guest:this ring a bell oh well you know it's like but i mean i would i would like i would get drunk and on the lower east side and i would walk up broadway and i would just walk up the middle of broadway up to like uh you know up and through the 20s to times square in the street in the street right in the middle of the street didn't anyone see you doing that and say like hey liam i think uh did were you walking through the middle of
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, it was like, you know, two in the morning.
Marc:So you're just one of those New York people.
Marc:That's that guy who walks in the street.
Guest:I'm that shuffling, talking-to-himself angry guy at two in the morning, like daring taxi cabs to hit him.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So how'd that, you know, pan out?
Marc:I mean, what was the wave?
Marc:When did you decide to make the movie and decide to stop doing that?
Marc:What was the event happening?
Guest:I was at a party, and it was a 4th of July barbecue, and I started at 2 in the afternoon.
Guest:And I remember brief snippets of it, but not a lot.
Guest:And then there was a party.
Guest:There was my friend's pool party in Williamsburg, and I decided it would be a good idea to take off my clothes, which is never a good idea for me to take off my clothes in public and jump in his pool.
Yeah.
Guest:In front of everybody.
Guest:In front of everybody.
Guest:And then my sister had to drive me home.
Guest:And then two days later.
Marc:Did they have to take you out of the pool?
Guest:No, I mean.
Guest:Come on, big guy.
Guest:No, I think I just, I think the hilarity had.
Marc:Had become uncomfortable.
Marc:Because that's the one, like, everyone's like, oh, my God.
Marc:And then you're still in the pool.
Marc:And then people are like, oh, it's a little weird now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, this is also a guy who, like, I had gotten drunk at a party five years ago and just thrown a phone book at his fiance's head because it was hilarious.
Guest:And then he didn't talk to me for four years.
Guest:So this is what's inside of you.
Guest:A guy who jumps into pools naked, throws phone books at girls.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, well, when I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with suicidal depression.
Guest:That's like, I mean, that's, you know, so it's like when I was 10, I just, I guess I told my mom, like, yeah, I just feel like jumping out of that window.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and my parents, you know, they did the right thing.
Guest:They took me to...
Guest:They took me to a hospital in Queens, where we live, called Elmhurst General Hospital.
Guest:And they took me, you know, they didn't have money.
Guest:They were very poor.
Guest:My dad had been laid off from his job.
Guest:He used to work for AT&T in the World Trade Center.
Guest:And he had been laid off from his job.
Guest:So they...
Guest:they didn't have any money uh he we were kind of living off of he was selling his at&t stock options then uh so so they didn't have money and so we went we basically went to the free pediatric psychiatric clinic yeah uh where i talked to this uh there's a guy i i wonder what he's doing today his name was dr kisnawala
Guest:He was, I guess, like an intern there.
Guest:And they prescribed this medication called the Cipramine, which was like, I guess it was kind of the dawn of giving kids psychiatric medication.
Guest:What year are we talking?
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I am, well, if we're in Hollywood, I'm 29.
Guest:But I'm 36 years old.
Guest:So this was in 1986.
Guest:1986, 1987.
Guest:And, you know, it was very strong stuff.
Guest:It was basically like elephant tranquilizers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I gained a lot of weight very quickly.
Guest:So that was the plan.
Guest:He's too heavy to jump out of the window.
Yeah.
Guest:Hey, if you can't move, you can't jump on the tracks.
Guest:But I got really zonked out.
Marc:This was at 11.
Guest:Yeah, talk about not feeling your feelings.
Guest:I was just completely gray.
Guest:It was like I was just encased in cotton, my brain.
Guest:And...
Guest:i gained a lot of weight which as you can imagine in a new york city public school no good when you're the fattest kid in school definitely but what's what's really funny is i look at those old school pictures now and like i looked like what a normal kid looks like now right you know like you're ahead of the curve i was if i had been born 10 years later you'd be just part of the obesity problem
Guest:And then all the other kids look like pictures from Angela's ashes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're just like so skinny.
Guest:Yeah, so I was diagnosed with suicidal depression.
Marc:How long were you on that medicine?
Guest:I was on that medicine for a few years.
Guest:Then they switched it up.
Guest:They switched it up a few times.
Guest:When I was like 16 years old, I ended up on Prozac, which is what I took until I was 21 and decided I was just done with therapy and medication.
Guest:And that came in a manic episode or sort of an aggressive decision?
Guest:Like, I need to feel.
Guest:I'm way more passive aggressive than that.
Guest:I just stopped going to my therapist.
Guest:And I stopped going to the psychiatrist.
Guest:And you started boozing.
Guest:Well, I started...
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:I started when I was like 14.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first drink I had was at a strip club on Queens Boulevard, which is now a Parrot Coffee in Sunnyside, across from the Alpha Donuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If anyone wants to take the Liam McEnany tour of Queens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now you know exactly.
Guest:But I was hanging out with my friend Evan Silverman.
Guest:Hello, if you're listening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We went to the strip club.
Guest:He was in a band.
Guest:He was in a shitty high school band called UBU.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And... Like UBU?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And their t-shirt had a picture of a finger pointing at you.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So you could be you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right on, man.
Guest:I don't know if I blew your mind there, Mark.
Guest:I'm still recovering.
Guest:Give me a few minutes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I went to see them play at the Village Vault.
Guest:My memory is, I have a very good memory for things that happened 15 years ago.
Guest:And I have a horrible memory for things I said 10 minutes ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, fortunately, all that's recorded.
Marc:So if you need a refresher course, I can send you the file.
Guest:well nobody's listening to this right no okay good not yet um so oh so we went to this all right so after after the show he was he played he played bass yeah after the show i was getting a ride from him and his bass teacher home and they were just like i don't know do you want to go home and i was like i don't know and they were like oh let's go to the strip club and his bass teacher said that and i was like yeah let's go to the strip club and i was like all right we'll go to the strip club
Guest:and we ended up your kids i'm 14 years old evan's 14 and the bass teacher is in his 40s yeah that's a little weird it's very weird so we went to the strip club and i immediately got that these women hated us like just for being guys and i found that very funny and so there was this one stripper that i ended up just talking to all night her name was jade how much that cost you
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:When you were a child, how did you get in there?
Guest:It was Sunnyside, Queens in the 90s.
Guest:She must have been thrilled to be distracted.
Guest:Well, that was the thing.
Guest:She would come over and we would joke.
Guest:She had this dominatrix hat, and I told her she looked like Ralph Cramden, the bus driver, which she thought was very funny.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:At one point, I didn't get this at the time.
Guest:Yeah, strippers often say they look like Jackie Gleason.
Guest:She must have been a real piece of work.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I have a feeling she had more self-esteem issues going on than what the fuck I had to say.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:She was just happy that you weren't leering over her and trying to get you to give you a handjob.
Guest:Yeah, she was probably happy I wasn't offering her $150 for a blowjob.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was your first drink?
Guest:That was my first drink.
Guest:We had Budweiser beers, and then we had breakfast with her.
Guest:That was the thing.
Guest:Then we had breakfast with the stripper, and then she said she was a DJ at a place called Club USA, and she's like, yeah, guys, come back, you know?
Guest:I'll be dancing here, and then my friend Evan would call the strip club every week.
Guest:So he got obsessed.
Guest:He did, and he would be like, is Jade dancing?
Guest:And they'd be like, yeah, of course, Jade's dancing.
Guest:Come on down.
Guest:And then he'd go, and she wouldn't be there.
Guest:And he would call me and say like, hey, man, I called the strip club.
Guest:They said Jade is dancing tonight.
Guest:You should come.
Guest:And I'd be like, no, I don't want to.
Guest:And then one time I went with him, and she wasn't there, and it was a bunch of depressing Russian strippers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, so then we ended up going to another, to a strip club in Ozone Park, uh, that was closing the next day.
Guest:And it was like a woman, like a very heavyset woman in her mid forties and a six, like a girl looked to be about 16 who was zonked out on drugs.
Guest:And, you know, she ended up just lying in the middle of the floor, fingering herself and
Guest:But that was fun.
Guest:So it was like we would go, we would get beers beforehand, or I would get beers beforehand, or I'd hang out with my buddies.
Guest:I always hung out with these dudes who were like...
Guest:You know, potheads or, you know, just just, you know, basically guys with no ambition, you know, like and just basically I did horribly in school because I was taking these heavy antidepressants mixed with.
Guest:I had this one friend who always had like just a bottle of absolute vodka in his backpack whenever whenever we were hanging out, which was.
Guest:So basically like, you know, every week we were just drinking, like we would split between two or three of us, just like heavy, you know, just straight out of the bottle, absolute.
Guest:Or, you know, I would get, I got like a bottle of gin from my parents, you know, from my parents, like this 108 proof gin.
Guest:And we split that and then we went to see the movie Speed.
Guest:And then...
Guest:During the opening credits.
Guest:Sort of like a speedball effect.
Guest:Well, he puked all over the couple next to him.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was your childhood.
Guest:That was my young adulthood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:From the age of 14 on, it was just basically binge drinking like crazy.
Marc:And then it led to... But the point, in fact, is that you had these massive depression problems.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That did teeter on anger.
Marc:And then you did premium blend.
Marc:You were booking this basement room.
Marc:And then something, you know, some fire got under your ass to do this documentary.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what is the documentary?
Marc:I mean, what inspired it and what is it?
Guest:Well, basically, it's called Tell Your Friends, the concert film.
Guest:And it's essentially just kind of like, you know, some of people I just like out of the New York comedy scene, you know, who were performing at my show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:What started it was I did a benefit for Save Darfur at the Bell House, actually, I don't know, four or five years ago.
Guest:And I was standing in the back and I was like, this is a really great show.
Guest:I wish these guys would let me tape them so that I could see it and other people could see it because this is such a great show.
Guest:I feel like people across the country who aren't in New York City
Guest:kind of are deprived of... I have a very New York-centric view of everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it's like, I just felt like people who don't live in New York City are kind of deprived of the chance of seeing, like, really great comics who are maybe working out stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, new stuff or stuff that's different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, because one of the things I always liked, especially when I started doing stand-up and the quote-unquote alternative comedy scene was in full force...
Guest:was the fact that there were people who would work really, really hard on these shows that... No one ever saw.
Guest:That no one ever saw.
Guest:That would happen once and then would just disappear into the ether.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think... You know what?
Guest:Someone made a film that has never surfaced, that I would really love to at least see the rough footage from, from that Night of a Hundred Stars...
Guest:Do you remember that show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At Luna when like everyone did one minute.
Guest:Did a minute, yeah.
Guest:Did one minute.
Guest:I was on one of those.
Guest:You were on one of those.
Guest:I met the first Mrs. Marin at the screening of the film at the Tonic downtown.
Guest:The second Mrs. Marin or the first one.
Guest:The first Mrs. Marin.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I know the second Mrs. Marin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the first, yeah.
Guest:And it was just like, but it's just like other than that.
Guest:um there was just no one really like documenting the scene right so there would be shows like that i put on like a gong show once uh that just you know people who are kind of well known now just kind of dropped by just dropped in yeah and did did like a crazy thing that they never did again
Marc:Yeah, I agree with you.
Marc:I do think that even with YouTube that there is no sort of organized, it's hard to get that feeling of those sets that nobody gives a shit about and see them.
Marc:I saw your movie, and I was in it too, wasn't I?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You have to be careful, dude.
Guest:You're turning into a respected old man of the comedy world.
Guest:Between that and Viriglia's movie.
Marc:Victor Vernado and you came over here and we shot some interview and it looked pretty good.
Marc:So your impetus was basically like, I run this show and there are these unique moments that happen in this basement.
Marc:Right.
Marc:and they're never gonna happen again.
Marc:I mean, I feel that way about a lot of my sets.
Marc:My favorite sets are ones where like, wow, whatever just happened there is not gonna happen again, and that was it.
Marc:And there's part of you that thinks like, well, that's pretty cool.
Marc:I mean, I know it, and it's a nice thing that we shared, but living in the society we live in, it's like, what am I, a fucking idiot?
Marc:I mean, it doesn't take anything to put a goddamn camera in a place.
Marc:I mean, there's moments where you actually get done, it's like, did anyone take that on their phone?
Marc:Because I'm never gonna remember that joke.
Marc:Because I'm just too irresponsible and insecure to record myself.
Marc:That's going to be lost.
Guest:I did a show recently that Reggie Watts closed out.
Guest:And I told everyone before the show, like, you can't use your camera.
Guest:No cameras, no video.
Guest:And it was my birthday.
Guest:And so Reggie sang, like, a birthday song.
Guest:And I spent a couple weeks afterwards searching YouTube just to make sure that nobody had secretly taped the show.
Guest:You wanted to see it?
Guest:Yeah, I wanted to see it.
Guest:It was like, you know, Reggie did like an improvised birthday song for me.
Guest:It's gone.
Guest:It's gone.
Guest:It's there and it's gone.
Marc:So the main comics performing in Tell Your Friends are who?
Guest:It's Reggie.
Guest:Reggie Watts.
Guest:Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Christian Finnegan.
Guest:Leo Allen.
Guest:Rob Paravonian.
Guest:Victor.
Guest:uh victor's just the director he's in it uh victor's a really good director yeah you know and we did this documentary angle also because i sat down with him to like you know kind of plan out the film or you know actually to pitch it to him because i sent him like clips because i i i feel like i get very bitter about comedy specials because i never got one
Guest:Yet.
Guest:Come on, don't be so defeatist.
Guest:Well, I was saying back then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A couple years ago.
Guest:A couple years ago.
Guest:When I was growing up, I always had this idea of the hierarchy of how your career is supposed to go, where it's like you're supposed to get a TV spot, and then you're on your way to being a real comedian.
Guest:Then you get like a half hour special and then you're a real comedian.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you start doing, you know, network television and then you're an established comedian.
Guest:And then you get a sitcom and you're, you're, you're dead.
Guest:Then it's over.
Guest:Then it's over.
Guest:Then it's over.
Guest:Then you won.
Guest:You win comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Here's your prize.
Guest:And so I, I essentially was like, uh, all right.
Guest:So then it got really, that didn't happen.
Guest:For me, like the for whatever reason, nobody wanted to book me for stuff, probably because I was a mess.
Guest:And I looked at tapes I submitted recently.
Guest:Well, a few months ago, and I was like, oh, I'm mumbling and looking down and forgetting how jokes end.
Guest:Maybe I wasn't ready to be on television.
Guest:So I was just like, well, you know, I sent him like clips of concert films like Woodstock and The Last Waltz.
Guest:Wow, you were thinking big.
Marc:I was.
Marc:All we need is 100,000 people and a farm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or perhaps if we could get Neil Young and Bob Dylan to close it out, it can look like this.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:That's very ambitious.
Guest:This is going to be the biggest comedy show ever.
Guest:The first thing Victor said to me when we were talking, it was like, it can't be two hours.
Guest:It has to be under 90 minutes.
Guest:And I was like, okay.
Guest:So we don't reach out to Bob Dylan.
Guest:We don't reach out to Bob Dylan.
Guest:But I'm in more stylistically.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Where it's like a lot of comedy specials that you see on TV, they cut to audience shots and there's the fucking crane that zooms over the audience.
Marc:Yeah, they're all the same.
Marc:They're all the same.
Marc:There's a sensibility that people can't seem to shake that was established a long time ago that if you're going to do... My feeling is, because I have to do a special at some point, is that
Marc:don't make it an experience that people are watching other people have an experience.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, that's what that's designed for.
Marc:It's like it's a big show, and then people at home are like, look at the show we weren't at.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But usually I think the thinking was that that's when comics are at their best, that if you put them in a room with 1,500 people, and the energy is pumped, and they're putting on the best show they possibly can because of that situation –
Marc:I think that for some of us, that's not necessarily the best example of a comic.
Guest:Well, if you look at like Mitch Hedberg, they released an album and they included his Comedy Central Presents special.
Guest:I did mine the same week as him.
Guest:But they also included his unedited special.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's like the special is just not even like, it's not even like watching Mitch Hedberg because it just cuts from joke to joke to joke to joke.
Guest:But then you watch the unedited special and it's him pacing the stage and kind of muttering aside.
Guest:And then he sat down, didn't he, at some point?
Guest:He sat down, and it's really like watching a Mitch Hedberg show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was the fun of going to a Mitch Hedberg scene live.
Marc:I think you're right.
Marc:I think that the flaws and the things that won't happen again and the stuff that is usually thought of as detrimental to the pace is really the heart of it all.
Marc:Right.
Marc:in a lot of ways.
Marc:And I think that as we all get tired of mainstream media or mainstream representations of what it's supposed to be, but it's still not appreciated by everybody.
Marc:I mean, some people have been programmed by those shows to think that way.
Marc:It's like, oh my God, why didn't they, he's not doing anything.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's a thoughtful moment there.
Guest:I mean, part of what
Guest:Part of my comedy experience is that I've always thought that the best parts of a performance lie in the weird spaces.
Marc:No, no doubt.
Marc:I mean, those are the best parts for me.
Marc:If something happens, it will not happen again.
Marc:So that's what you tried to capture with the film.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, dude, I started at an Anything... My first set was at an Anything Goes Open Mic called Face Boys Open Mic.
Guest:At Surf Reality, yeah.
Guest:This dirty little black box theater.
Guest:I followed a woman who...
Guest:Got on stage, pulled down her panties, scooped menstrual blood out of herself, painted a picture of a dick with it, and then did a performance piece about that dick, like a poem about that dick.
Marc:She gave her a special.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It would definitely be highlighted.
Guest:But it's like, that's the kind of thing that I always thought was very cool.
Guest:Like, just like weird, you know, stuff that's not just typical, like...
Marc:Well, the thing is, though, that there is a question of appeal and there's a question of craft and a question of integrity.
Marc:I mean, you know, if you're doing something to to make an impact in an art space that, you know, arguably, you know, is only for effect and is not necessarily an act or not anything that comes from a.
Marc:a craft i mean you know that has its place right i i don't know i know the what you're talking about is that you know there's a chaos to the to the type of performances that happen in those environments uh that you don't see much of and i i mean i just like i like the idea of controlled chaos there's a i mean you know like in in fine like
Guest:So so when we put when we put the film together, you know, one of the things I said was like, look, I don't I don't want to I don't want to create a thing that's like you edit, edit, edit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you cut to an audience reaction shot and then you cut back and they've cut half the joke out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, you know, all that kind of shit.
Guest:I don't want like a crane, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I don't want something slick like a product.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You want something that has all the elements of your self-sabotage built into it.
Marc:You want something that you can put out there that if it doesn't go well, it's clearly misunderstood because these were choices based on my own warped perception of what people would like.
Guest:Well, I didn't want it to be a failure film.
Guest:Like, I want people to enjoy it, obviously.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, there's a great moment where, like, Leo's doing a thing where he's like, who's funnier, a naked man or a naked woman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, who thinks a naked woman is funnier?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And nobody claps.
Guest:Like, it's just complete silence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just starts cracking up and laughing into his elbow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, that's the kind of thing that, you know, would get cut out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If it was on, you know, Comedy Central or HBO or I don't know about HBO, but, you know, like...
Marc:But it's like, so... Leo Allen was funny because I just did John Oliver's thing with him.
Marc:And there was a thing that I'm sure they didn't put in the final product that was great because he was doing his jokes and he'd obviously run them.
Marc:And somehow he just hit a snag.
Marc:And he could not remember...
Marc:You know, he had set it up but could not.
Marc:He was on stage and it was not happening.
Marc:Whatever was supposed to happen after the setup was no longer in Leo's head.
Marc:And I believe it was John, because they knew what the jokes were, actually went out there and primed him.
Marc:And, you know, to get him back on track.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was great because, you know, those things don't happen very often.
Marc:But, you know, when you're taping something, there's room for some mistakes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also to make up for them.
Marc:But I thought it was such a great moment because, you know, occasionally that happens.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, sometimes I do old jokes and, like, you know, I'll get halfway through and these are jokes I've done a million times.
Marc:And then you're just like, here comes the next part.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's no longer in my head right now.
Right.
Guest:but uh but anyways i didn't mean to distract you so so so he just started laughing he just started laughing and like it's just such a funny moment it's as funny as anything else he's doing right no those are those are great and i love that and so it's like you know i kind of wanted to to give the audience of just like the feeling like the great thing about woodstock and the last waltz is that you really get a feeling i love that you're still maintaining that these are barometers for whatever the hell you did
Marc:I love it.
Marc:And I'm not trying to be a dick.
Marc:I'm just saying that you picked the two greatest concert films of all time.
Marc:Well, why not?
Guest:No, look.
Guest:If you're going to go to someone and say, look, this is what I want to do.
Guest:In your mind, what did you capture?
Guest:I would say we didn't capture.
Guest:It wasn't as good as The Last Waltz.
Guest:Obviously, we didn't have $8 million budget.
Marc:Did everybody come out at the end and do Forever Young?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We had to airbrush cocaine out of my nose after... That's a very specific last waltz joke.
Guest:I apologize.
Marc:That was a Neil Young joke.
Marc:That was a Neil Young joke.
Marc:But during the process of this, you got sober in the middle of the taping?
Marc:I did.
Marc:The shit hit the fan for you on a lot of levels in the middle of this?
Marc:You decide to do this ambitious thing and you're still a fucking mess.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:For some reason, I was an alcoholic who just had very... You're going to make the next Woodstock with comedians.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, it's a very alcoholic way to think.
Guest:It's like, I'm going to go from never making a movie to making the greatest comedy film anyone's ever seen.
Marc:You're like Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now.
Marc:Yeah, that's exactly it.
Marc:I'm dealing with crazy Dennis Hopper.
Marc:Marlon Brando doesn't know his lines.
Marc:He's never read the book.
Marc:I might be making the worst movie ever.
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Did you see Heart of Darkness, that documentary?
Marc:I haven't seen Heart of Darkness.
Marc:It's a great moment where John Milius, the guy who wrote the plot clips now, versions of it.
Marc:Who's an interesting guy.
Marc:He said, you know, that, you know, I mean, Coppola was in the middle of a mania, you know, doing this thing.
Marc:And it just has become this money pit.
Marc:And he was out there in the... He had become Colonel Kurtz.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Essentially.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But Amelia says, you know, Francis had convinced me that we were making the only film that has ever won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yeah.
Guest:like he there's the uh the charisma of a manic genius well i mean that was basically how we got the money to do it was like i i just told our investor like this is going to be the next big thing this is going to be the barometer against how you how you get along with him now uh we're good he's happy yeah you know he might see some money sometimes do you have mania
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, you know, I obviously I are you bipolar legitimately or I've never been diagnosed.
Guest:I, you know, just haven't been to a psychiatrist or a therapist in 15 years.
Guest:So I might be.
Guest:I don't I don't go through extreme manic swings where like people call me and are concerned.
Guest:But what drove you to sober up in the middle of this fucking thing?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I had done a show with a guy.
Marc:But this is after the nude bathing?
Guest:This is before.
Guest:I mean, like three months before, I did a show with this guy.
Guest:My show, actually.
Guest:I booked him.
Guest:And I got off stage.
Guest:He closed the show with 15 minutes.
Guest:In that 15 minutes, I had had two and a half whiskeys.
Guest:And I offered him a drink afterwards.
Marc:I actually just felt that.
Guest:yeah oh i mean like i remember that oh are you kidding i i say it and i can taste it i can tell you exactly like it was it was jameson no no ice because god forbid anything fucking dilute what i'm drinking yeah i used to drink vodka like vodka mixers yeah but like this was when i was in 100 i was 190 pounds i was drinking these vodka mixers like crazy and
Guest:I had a girlfriend who convinced me.
Guest:I was convinced I had diabetes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was 100% convinced I had diabetes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Undiagnosed diabetes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that I basically couldn't afford health insurance to take care of it.
Guest:So I was 100% convinced that I was going to die.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So why not drink?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So why not drink further?
Guest:And she was like, well, if you're really worried about diabetes, these mixer drinks are really bad for your pancreas because they kind of overload with the juice.
Guest:So you should really stick.
Guest:You should just drink to straight alcohol.
Marc:All right, so this guy's on stage.
Marc:He closes with 15 minutes.
Guest:He closes, and I'm talking to him afterwards, and I'm like, hey, can I buy you a drink?
Guest:That was great.
Guest:And he's like...
Guest:yeah, actually, no, I'm good.
Guest:And I was like, well, what do you do?
Guest:You do the fucking thing?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:That's the attitude I had.
Guest:You do one of them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What are you?
Guest:AA guy?
Guest:What are you, an AA homo?
Guest:A god guy?
Guest:You get the god thing?
Guest:So he was like, well, yeah, I kind of do.
Guest:And I was like, well, I might be heading that way someday, kind of as a joke.
Guest:And he's like, well, when you are, just feel free to email me.
Guest:And then three months later, I had this experience.
Guest:My friends...
Guest:Well, I blacked out at 2 in the afternoon at this 4th of July barbecue.
Guest:And this is during the taping?
Guest:This was right after.
Guest:I'd had a thing where we did the taping.
Guest:I got really drunk.
Guest:I went home with someone I promised myself I wouldn't go home with.
Guest:I didn't remember that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Woke up.
Guest:Dealt with that.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:I'm trying to be nice.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Uh...
Guest:So you woke up and said, oh God, what'd I do?
Guest:I had so many adventures in sex and drinking that I don't know if I would say I regret them, but I would say I definitely would do things differently.
Guest:I would be a nicer person to women now.
Guest:I don't want to get into it, but I mean...
Guest:Here's a typical example.
Guest:I went on a date with a lesbian burlesque dancer.
Guest:So you're up for a challenge.
Guest:Dude, if there was a woman who was in any way inclined to hate me, I would date her.
Marc:That's where you fight the good fight.
Marc:That's the Irish spirit.
Guest:Oh, you hate me?
Guest:You have no idea what hating me is like.
Guest:Let me teach you.
Marc:I will get you to the level that I am at with hating me.
Marc:No one hates me more than I hate me.
Guest:Oh, you hate men?
Guest:Just wait till I'm through with you.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:But she would like strip to the theme of Top Gun.
Guest:She had like a, she had a flight suit.
Guest:She would strip to, and I was like, all right, this is, so we went on a really nice date.
Guest:We ended up hooking up, and I was, you know, I guess you would say suckling her.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I felt something kind of warm go down my throat.
Guest:And the next morning, I woke up.
Guest:And she's on her back.
Guest:She's playing with her nipples.
Guest:And there's white liquid.
Marc:There's milk coming out.
Guest:There's milk coming out.
Guest:And I'm like, are you lactating?
Guest:And she's like, yes.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:She's like, I have this condition where I lactate all the time.
Guest:And I was like, oh, really?
Guest:And then you're like, mommy.
Yeah.
Guest:No, I was like, I started flipping out.
Guest:I was like, I think I drank your breast milk.
Guest:She's like, I don't understand.
Guest:What's wrong with that?
Guest:And I was like, what do you mean what's wrong with that?
Guest:I think I drank your breast milk.
Guest:There's nothing wrong with it.
Guest:You probably needed it.
Guest:We got into an argument.
Guest:Over that.
Guest:Over that.
Guest:And then she was telling her friends like, I don't understand why he flipped out just because he drank my breast milk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You man.
Guest:You man.
Guest:And then I guess it turned out she was like trying to feel what motherhood would feel like.
Guest:So she was inducing lactation in herself.
Guest:And that was, I mean, that was just like the kind of, that was actually fairly typical for my dating life.
Guest:It's very exciting.
Guest:For a very long stretch of time.
Marc:Didn't one of your best friends when you were a kid get into some fairly horrible trouble?
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Oh, you mean one of my best friends from childhood who is in prison now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:Yeah, essentially what happened was... And this is while you were filming.
Guest:No, this was right when I got sober.
Guest:Like, essentially, they say in your first 90 days of sobriety are the hardest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's when you really have to... So you just shot this movie.
Guest:We just shot this movie.
Marc:You hit the wall.
Marc:You got sober.
Guest:Well, I'd hit the wall.
Guest:Like, I'd come out to L.A.
Guest:to interview you and a bunch of other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we ended up going to a party that my friend threw to screen his pilot presentation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I had the kind of drinking where, like, I cut my hand really badly opening a bottle of beer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And instead of calling it quits and being like, I'm not going to drink, I was like, I'll just drink twice as hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wrap that thing up.
Guest:Wrap that.
Guest:I, like, pressed toilet paper against it and, like, made a real ass of myself to someone I admire a lot.
Guest:And I got back to New York, blacked out at 2 in the afternoon, 4th of July.
Guest:July 6th, I got an email from the guys who threw the barbecue, who also run a podcast.
Guest:And they were like, you did this, you were racist to our friends, you said this, you offended us, and we want you to come on our podcast and talk about it at 3 in the afternoon.
Guest:And I was like, no, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to email this guy instead.
Guest:You know, just get my shit together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So this was like right.
Guest:We were still.
Guest:Email the sober guy you knew?
Guest:Email the sober guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Go to, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Get on it.
Guest:Get on it.
Guest:And yeah.
Guest:So this was like three weeks in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh essentially like three weeks in i got a call from my mom that was like uh look you know we uh i wanted to talk to you before you before you saw the news or read the paper and i was like oh boy this is yeah what did i do yeah
Guest:Who do I owe an apology to now?
Guest:And she was like, so it was, it turned out this kid I knew from like really my, one of my oldest friends from childhood, the son of my mom's best friend.
Guest:He had in college, he had been diagnosed.
Guest:I'm trying to think exactly what it was.
Guest:I think it was like a mixture of like a bipolar disorder and definitely schizophrenia.
Guest:And he had been on Medicaid and he had gone through this job training program.
Guest:He'd gotten himself trained as a chef.
Guest:He'd gotten himself a job.
Guest:And as soon as he was making money, he was no longer eligible.
Guest:He was making too much money to be on Medicaid.
Guest:So you get on this new thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, uh,
Guest:just trying to figure out like how much I can talk about.
Guest:Cause I like the court case is settled, but I don't know if the family's going to sue or what's going on.
Guest:But essentially long story short, his doctor was like, look, I can't really keep you on this medication.
Guest:I can't prescribe a new medication for you yet.
Guest:Can you take the medication that you're taking now and just stretch it out?
Guest:And he was like, well, okay, if that's what you say.
Guest:And of course, you know, he had these delusional episodes that came back cause he was no longer taking the medication the way it was prescribed.
Guest:And he was alone with his father who was an older man at that point.
Guest:This guy's my age.
Guest:And he was alone in the apartment with his father and he decided that...
Guest:his father had some people who were trump coming to beat him up and kill him and so he cut his father's throat uh and then he called the cops and he like in his mind it was self-defense yeah like in his like he it wasn't like a cold-blooded murder it was like a well i have to defend myself because you know jesus my father's henchmen are coming to kill me crazy um
Guest:Yeah, so, I mean, that was really... This is three weeks into your sobriety.
Marc:Three weeks into my sobriety.
Marc:Did you guys see the guy?
Guest:No, I couldn't.
Guest:I felt really bad.
Guest:I could not go to Rikers.
Guest:I couldn't handle going to Rikers.
Guest:His mom kind of asked people not to come to the trial while the trial was going on.
Guest:I did go to the sentencing, which was really just because as the wife of the victim, his mom was allowed to give a victim statement.
Guest:And so she used that as an opportunity to plead with the judge for leniency, and his sister did too.
Guest:And it was just hard.
Guest:It was really, really hard.
Guest:I mean, this was like...
Guest:I just remember him as a good kid.
Guest:He's definitely not a killer guy.
Guest:So that was going on.
Guest:Then I got booked to be on Caroline Ray and Friends, her Showtime special.
Marc:Yeah, right, I saw that.
Marc:You were good.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:Like Caroline just called me and was like, hey, I'm doing this special in two weeks.
Guest:Do you want to be on it?
Guest:It pays nothing and you have to pay your own airfare.
Guest:And I was like, all right, sure, I'll do it.
Guest:Because Caroline's like the nicest person on earth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it went out.
Guest:there and it was the it was it was like the night before my birthday was in San Bernardino and like a Hilton hotel room I was already just gaining weight like crazy as it is in this hotel room and I was like well this is the this is the rest of my life like I'm sober I'm not gonna be fun anymore
Guest:I'm in horrible shape.
Guest:No one's ever going to want to fuck me.
Guest:It's the kind of thing where you're too depressed to masturbate because you're like, I don't even want to touch myself.
Marc:I disgust me.
Guest:I disgust me.
Guest:And then I was like, well, it's almost my birthday and there's an IHOP next door.
Guest:I'm going to go...
Guest:It's like 1130.
Guest:I couldn't sleep.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to go to IHOP.
Guest:I went to IHOP.
Guest:I ordered a full breakfast, like pancakes.
Guest:And then the waitress came and asked if I want to check.
Guest:And I was like, no, I think I want another order of pancakes.
Guest:And she was like, really?
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I think I want another order.
Guest:And so then... Happy birthday to me.
Guest:Happy birthday to me.
Guest:And then I finished that and she came over and she's like, all right, can I bring you the check?
Guest:And I was like, this is going to sound crazy, but I think I want another order of pancakes.
Guest:And she's like, oh, no, honey, you need to go home and sleep it off.
Guest:I was like, oh no.
Guest:You were shut off by the pancake lady.
Guest:I was cut off.
Guest:So that happened.
Guest:Then I came back and... So I'd worked on Greg Giraldo's TV show on Comedy Central a few years previously.
Guest:And he was one of the guys who like...
Guest:I mean, it's pretty well known he had his demons and his addictions.
Guest:And he's one of those guys who kind of recognized me as a fellow traveler.
Guest:Because I worked on the first season of his show.
Guest:And it was kind of one of those things where I was working part-time and I was doing a really great job.
Guest:And, you know, it's like, I just had a blast and I got along really well with everybody.
Guest:And so of course I was like, well, how do I fuck this up?
Guest:And so they had like a season wrap party at a Mexican restaurant and which meant there were free margaritas.
Guest:So I wasn't eating, but I was just drinking these like huge margaritas.
Guest:and i guess the third margarita my hand just stopped working and so i just poured it directly into my lap like and it just landed and it landed in perfect circle circle in my lap so a i was falling down drunk and b it looked like i just pissed myself and uh so greg who is like one of the nicest guys like really like for all fucking tragedy
Guest:for all his demons, nicest guy, funniest guy, like the kind of guy who could walk into a room and immediately make everyone feel better just by being there.
Guest:Like he really had that kind of presence.
Guest:And so I remember I was just sitting on my couch
Guest:And the night before, I had gotten this text from a friend that was like, look, I just heard Greg was, you know, he was doing shows in New Brunswick.
Guest:He was in his motel room.
Guest:He OD'd on something.
Guest:And he's in a coma.
Guest:He's in the hospital now.
Guest:And I was like, okay, well, you know.
Guest:And then the next day, this woman I know who's a reporter for The Post called and was like, hey, look, do you mind?
Guest:My friend's doing a story.
Guest:Do you mind if he calls you and talks to you about Greg?
Guest:And, you know, do you have any information?
Guest:I was like, well, I don't.
Guest:I did the kind of thing where I was like, yeah, sure, have him call me.
Guest:And I just never returned the guy's call.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, I got off the phone with her, and I got another call waiting.
Guest:Like, I got a call waiting, so I was like, oh, look, I got this other call.
Guest:And that was a call that my ex-roommate, who I really adore, is, like, a great person, like, really was in a psych ward for getting drunk and texting suicide threats to...
Guest:uh, my, her ex.
Guest:Um, and, uh, the call was, you know, this person is in the, you know, is in the psych ward.
Guest:Uh, you know, she's not, she doesn't want her family to come.
Guest:Uh, you,
Guest:You know, would you, you know, the person who called me was like, I can't go.
Guest:I'm out of town.
Guest:I can't get anyone else to go.
Guest:Could you just go and make sure she's okay?
Guest:And I was like, all right.
Guest:And, you know, so this was...
Guest:literally right on the heels of, like, someone who I cared about, you know, had just, you know, was in the hospital in a coma.
Guest:And my ex-roommate was being held in Elmhurst Hospital, where I had gone as a kid, you know, to be treated for my suicidal depression.
Guest:And this was, like, the first time I had ever gone back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I...
Guest:And it was... I almost... Like, I really just wanted to bail.
Guest:Like, I really...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Ultimately, I could have just said, look, call someone else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But at the time, I was just like, well, you know, that certainly could have been me.
Guest:You know, I certainly have been crazy enough when I was drinking to have been committed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like a real there before the grace of God thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was just getting the sobriety thing.
Guest:And I was like, you know, I just got to take care of other people.
Guest:And so I went and like, as soon as I walked through the doors, it just, it just felt like a mistake.
Guest:And it was so, it was so inappropriate, but because I was the only person who had come up to that point, I was, I was the one who ended up sitting in this, in this like little room with her and her social worker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just kind of talking about everything that had gone down and is like,
Guest:inside i was screaming like inside like it's one of those things where i just kind of wanted to cry yeah i couldn't i could not be i don't know i just was like i gotta hold it i was like i was like if i start showing my feelings now it's never gonna stop and i'm gonna end up here too
Guest:so I got through that I called her ex-boyfriend not her one of her other ex-boyfriends yeah and you know we made sure she got clean underwear and this and that and then two days later I got a text from a friend that was just like I'm so sorry and I was like oh god and then turn out you know Greg had died right and so just you know
Guest:On my 90th day in sobriety there, I was at Greg's memorial service, like, looking at his wife and his kids, you know, next to his casket, bawling, you know.
Guest:Just really, you know, it's just like some of the people I respect the most in this room, you know...
Guest:and it really just kind of, it just hit, it just really hit home to me in a way that, you know, you know, when, when it's funny when I, when I talk in, you know, like sometimes people have you talk in meetings and I'll, I'll, I'll tell the story and this is true.
Guest:I was a week, you know, a week or two later, I was sitting in a fucking church basement listening to someone talk about God and their relationship with God.
Guest:And I was just like,
Guest:what kind of fucking God would have me quit drinking and then fucking, you know, throw all the shit at me?
Guest:And then I kind of turned it around in my head and I was like, well, maybe there is some sort of higher power that's looking out for me in this universe and looking out for all of us and kind of took me out of drinking right before the shit really hit the fan for me.
Guest:And...
Guest:Once I thought that way, I was like, man, I really am very protected.
Guest:It really took me a year to kind of get over my feelings about Greg's death.
Guest:But now I feel really not grateful that he's dead, but grateful that I could be there for that moment to see just...
Guest:just to see that and to feel that and to be present for that, just as a reminder for myself of the extremes that this fucking shit can take me to.
Marc:Yeah, and also you were there for other people, you showed up for other people, you were sober enough to show up for your friend and to process this stuff.
Marc:It's interesting when you first get sober that everything is amplified.
Marc:And then when things like that happen, it's incredibly difficult not to personalize them, but it's also helpful to personalize them and not drink.
Marc:Because if you can weather that stuff and not say, what's the point, but say, well, it's important that I showed up for that girl, it was important I showed up for the funeral, it was important that I process these feelings.
Marc:That gives you some, it carves some new grooves in your head that you can be okay and not drink and also not think about yourself all the time.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I will cop to a moment where someone was speaking.
Guest:It was very moving.
Guest:And then I just kind of turned around and Jon Stewart was standing about four feet behind me.
Guest:And for a split second, I had that comedian thought.
Guest:I was like, I wonder if I could go over and talk to Jon Stewart.
Guest:What a great opportunity.
Guest:That's the perfect place for it.
Marc:That wouldn't be weird.
Marc:I can guarantee you one thing.
Marc:If you'd had a couple of cocktails, you would have done that.
Marc:So there's another gift of sobriety that one of your stories is, I approached Jon Stewart for a writing job at Greg Geraldo's funeral and it didn't seem like the right moment.
Marc:Listen, I really feel like this is what Greg would have wanted.
Marc:All right, so the movie is, how is it available now, Liam?
Guest:It's going to be released on DVD and CD on A Special Thing Records.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Which, you know, they released your box set.
Guest:I'm really excited.
Guest:Those guys were my first choice after Warner Brothers said no.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You tried to get a hold of Scorsese and figure out exactly what he did with The Last Waltz and how that was put out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:listen Marty who's your guy who represented your film I know it's a long time ago but I thought maybe maybe his kids in the business now alright well great so that's going to be available when it'll be available December 4th it'll also be streaming I've got a company that's putting it on streaming sites and download and you know anywhere that you can check it out digitally great and how long you been sober now since July 6th 2010 congratulations thank you very much good talking to you man it's good talking
Marc:you do too mark thank you that's it that's our show it was i it was great to see liam he's a very sweet man go see his movie do do what you're gonna do i'm gonna go watch a movie hey go see that uh the silver linings playbook holy fuck david o russell's goddamn wizard
Marc:You would never think that you could push the envelope of a romantic comedy that hard.
Marc:And he did it.
Marc:And if anybody knows him, tell him I want to talk to him in here.
Marc:Could you do that?
Marc:Could you reach out to DOR for me?
Marc:Go to just, where am I going?
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:There's a lot of Christmas gifts there.
Marc:We are going to be reissuing or doing a second printing of the first 100 episodes of WTF on DVD.
Marc:That will be coming soon.
Marc:The Boomer Lives t-shirts are, I still look for them every day.
Marc:Every fucking day.
Marc:I go out there and just that weird hope, even though it's the hope is still there.
Marc:It's still alive.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Even though I know in my mind, it's probably not going to happen.
Marc:I just miss him.
Marc:But the Boomer Lives t-shirts are, you know, we've I've made more of those.
Marc:They're there.
Marc:The tote bags are there.
Marc:Everything's there.
Marc:You get the app and upgrade to the premium app, do all that stuff.
Marc:I'm going to run down these dates real quick.
Marc:January 4th through 6th, Fort Lauderdale, Improv at the Hard Rock.
Marc:January 10th, 11th, and 12th, Raleigh, North Carolina, Good Nights.
Marc:January 13th, The Ice House, Pasadena.
Marc:February 8th, The Wilbur in Boston for a live WTF and a live stand-up show.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Look.
Marc:If the world ends tomorrow...
Marc:I've really appreciated all you people.
Marc:And if it doesn't end tomorrow, I will continue to do that.
Guest:Boomer lives!