Episode 357 - Gary Gulman
Marc:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark maron
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fucking avians?
Marc:What the fuckricans?
Marc:I did it again.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:It's Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening to my show.
Marc:Thank you for being supportive and enjoying it.
Marc:I'm glad that so many of you have liked the recent shows.
Marc:Can you still hear a little sickness in my voice?
Marc:Now I'm in that zone.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Relax.
Marc:Pull it together.
Marc:Gary Goldman is on the show.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Gary Goldman is a Massachusetts comic.
Marc:He came up in Boston after me.
Marc:He's going to be with me at the live WTF on February 8th at the Wilbur.
Marc:That night I'll be doing a live WTF and a live standup show.
Marc:But this weekend, I'm going to Albany.
Marc:Tomorrow night, I'll be at the Egg with Mike Lawrence.
Marc:It's going to be fun.
Marc:I'm thrilled to be there with you people.
Marc:And then I'm in D.C.
Marc:at the 6th and I, the old synagogue there.
Marc:I'm playing a synagogue, yes.
Marc:They use it for other people.
Marc:It's not just a Jewish venue.
Marc:It's not specifically Jew.
Marc:And that is sold out.
Marc:That show is sold out.
Marc:DC, sold out.
Marc:Albany, not so much.
Marc:But not bad.
Marc:But not bad.
Marc:I don't want to forget what I'm getting at here.
Marc:I'm going back to Boston.
Marc:I have a lot of years there.
Marc:I drank a lot of things there.
Marc:I snorted a lot of stuff there.
Marc:I studied things there.
Marc:I had sex a lot there early on.
Marc:So not great sex.
Marc:There's a lot of me on the streets of Boston, as some of you found out if you listen to the George, the George, the George Hodgman episode, the John Hodgman episode.
Marc:So I'm going to be in Boston the following week.
Marc:I'm very much looking forward to that.
Marc:And I was trying to think back in Boston about like for some reason, the thing I can't get out of my mind is the first time I did stand up comedy was not when I actually started doing stand up comedy.
Marc:That sounds odd, but I did stand up comedy.
Marc:A bit like in 1984 when I was still in college, there was a summer there where I'm like, I'm going to do it.
Marc:I'm going to do it.
Marc:I tried it with another dude, comedy that is.
Marc:And I'm like, I'll do it myself.
Marc:I remember that summer.
Marc:I was living on a porch, an enclosed porch.
Marc:It was summer in Boston.
Marc:It was thick.
Marc:Horrible, muggy, can't sleep no matter what.
Marc:Even if you're just laying there naked on a bare mattress with nothing touching you, you're still hot and gross.
Marc:You feel like you're blanketed in humidity.
Marc:The air is almost viscous.
Marc:And I was drinking a lot, and I was doing these open mics, and all I was doing was drinking in open mics.
Marc:And I remember there was this period where, like, I just remember buying a half gallon of vodka.
Marc:Like, I was getting on here and there, but it was just torture.
Marc:Waiting around, had nothing to do during the day.
Marc:I was working at this Jewish deli.
Marc:I was showing up all sweaty, pukey, fucked up.
Marc:And I just remembered, like, I wasn't doing very well at comedy.
Marc:Was not happy.
Marc:I bought a half gallon of vodka.
Marc:And I was like, all right.
Marc:I'm going to set out to make the perfect Bloody Mary.
Marc:And I'm going to do it with this half gallon of vodka.
Marc:Because someone had just told me about the horseradish Bloody Mary with the Tabasco.
Marc:Like, there was a lot of options.
Marc:There was a lot of variations on that.
Marc:And I think in about two days, three days, I hit it.
Marc:I hit the perfect Bloody Mary, but of course, at that point, it didn't fucking matter.
Marc:And I was just laying there.
Marc:There's nothing worse than being a drunk in humidity.
Marc:Because you can't even tell what's making you nauseous anymore.
Marc:You can't sleep anyways.
Marc:That's how you know you're fucking out there on the booze, is that when the drinking, it may knock you out, but it also disrupts your sleep pattern.
Marc:But I'm happy to say, as I don't know if I made it clear, I did.
Marc:I did finally make the perfect Bloody Mary.
Marc:And it didn't matter because I couldn't remember it.
Marc:I don't have any recollection of a lot of it.
Marc:The process.
Marc:I know people were coming going.
Marc:I had roommates and it was like one of those weird if you sped up the montage where people were going about their days and you saw two roommates.
Marc:you know, getting ready for work, having coffee and me just sitting on a couch with the half gallon of vodka and the tomato juice and the horseradish and the lime juice and the celery and the salt and the pepper and the Worcestershire and all that.
Marc:And then like, you know, you see them come home from work.
Marc:I'm still sitting there.
Marc:More of the vodka is gone, but you know, and there's maybe some other vegetables, you know, and then like another day goes by and they're up for work and I'm like sitting there, there's less vodka.
Marc:And obviously there's, you know,
Marc:maybe a half-eaten sandwich and some other things.
Marc:It was like that, just non-movement and days rushing by until the vodka was gone.
Marc:And then I guess at that point, I would be sleeping on the couch uncomfortably, perhaps in my pants.
Marc:Gary Goldman is on the show tonight.
Marc:Go to my website if you want to see the tour dates.
Marc:Very excited.
Marc:Albany tomorrow.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Marc:Me and Mike Lawrence.
Marc:Me and Mike Lawrence in D.C.
Marc:following weekend.
Marc:Boston.
Marc:Good times.
Marc:Enough said.
Marc:Let's talk to Gary Goldman.
Marc:Well, what movies are your movies?
Marc:I mean, what movies do you base your life on?
Marc:Or your understanding of movies on?
Guest:Jeez.
Guest:The movies I've watched the most are probably Broadway Danny Rose, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Goodfellas.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I'll watch Broadway Danny Rose if it's on, but I'll actually...
Marc:Go out of my way to watch Crimes and Misdemeanors maybe once a year.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I'll watch Goodfellas whenever it's on, even if it's dubbed.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'll watch it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Even if it's on the movie channel.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't care.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Annie Hall, Diner.
Guest:I haven't watched Diner in many years.
Guest:Oh, my God, Mark.
Guest:Yeah, it's really great.
Guest:I'm not comfortable with the word nuance.
Yeah.
Guest:That was the coolest thing.
Guest:That's where I discovered Paul Reiser.
Guest:Me too.
Marc:And I loved him.
Guest:Loved him.
Guest:He stole that movie, including the sort of roast type thing that he does at the wedding.
Marc:I went and sought him out at the comic strip when I was in college.
Marc:Because I saw that.
Marc:Diner came out when I was probably a senior in high school.
Marc:And that guy was like, that's funny.
Marc:But you really had to be hip to know about that movie.
Marc:No, I mean, I came out.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I just remember it was one of my friends, when it came out, I guess I was 12 or something, my friend's older brother was a movie fanatic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had it on VHS and he loaned it to me.
Guest:And that got a real release.
Marc:Yeah, okay.
Marc:I mean, it was a real movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, but I thought Reiser was hilarious.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:I think we're the same guy, you and me, the same type of Jew.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you just listed all the movies that I'll watch.
Marc:Oh, that's cool.
Marc:What music do you listen to?
Marc:What would you grow up with?
Marc:Are you like a Springsteen person?
Marc:Are you a Beatles person?
Marc:Are you a Stones person?
Guest:I'm more Beatles versus Stones.
Guest:If it was Beatles or Stones, I would choose Beatles.
Guest:Grateful Dead at all?
Guest:Not so much The Dead, but I love Dylan.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was really great listening to the album.
Marc:Visions of Joanna.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:On 180-gram vinyl.
Guest:Mono, baby.
Guest:It...
Guest:I wouldn't lie.
Guest:It was different than digital or CD.
Marc:Isn't it weird?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's why you never heard it before.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But how old are you?
Marc:You didn't grow up with records.
Marc:42.
Marc:Oh, you did grow up with some records.
Guest:My brothers had Frampton Comes Alive.
Guest:I have that.
Guest:Boston, Boston.
Guest:first Boston yeah and more than it yes yes yes which was a monster yeah and then some Aerosmith stuff and then some Doobie Brothers and they played it on we used to get a lot of hot stereos from my my uncle who was a fence so you can hold on to this for a few weeks
Marc:He was very generous, but nothing ever had a receipt.
Marc:Yeah, and he probably did some of it get taken back.
Marc:I got a buyer for this.
Guest:There were things that if we weren't using, like the gumball machine, we had a set of the gumball machines that were clearly from a supermarket.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You had real gumball machines.
Guest:Yeah, they were real gumball machines.
Guest:They were not thanks for the gumball Popeye gumball machines.
Guest:They were legitimate stolen gumball machines.
Guest:There were also pinball machines that would occasionally be in my mother's garage for six months.
Guest:You'd just come over with a truck and I leave this here for a few days?
Guest:Yeah, but it would sometimes be months.
Guest:That's your mother's brother?
Guest:That's my mother's twin brother, although he passed away this year.
Guest:He was a criminal.
Guest:He had dyslexia, but at the time he was diagnosed, because he would have been 80 this year, he was diagnosed as retarded.
Guest:I mean, that's the expression.
Marc:Look, my girlfriend works with severely dyslexic, and I imagine forever that they were retarded.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not institutionalized, but he went to a separate school and everything, and they thought he was just a real problem.
Guest:And it turns out he really found his way.
Guest:He really did.
Guest:He was a survivor, this guy.
Guest:He could really get over.
Guest:He could really get over.
Guest:Who was he fencing for?
Guest:Criminals in Charlestown, it seemed like.
Guest:Charlestown.
Guest:We had a lot of aunts and fake uncles who had Charlestown addresses, and occasionally she would put... There was this one mother who was sort of the Ma Barker of Charlestown, and she would put her kids on a bus to his home in the South Shore, and they would lay low for a little while.
Guest:He never spent time in jail or anything like that.
Guest:But were they part of Whitey's operation?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:Yeah, these were small-time crooks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jews?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:They were Italians, and they were the bastard children of a friend who he had grown up with.
Guest:He just had one name.
Guest:I don't know if I can say it, but he only had one name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he fought a lot of fights for my uncle.
Guest:My uncle was a very entertaining man.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And he had, what, two older brothers?
Marc:I have two older brothers, yeah.
Marc:Sisters?
Marc:No?
Marc:No, no sisters.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's good to have the older brothers, though, for the music alone.
Marc:How much older?
Marc:13 years and nine years.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:They were more like fathers.
Marc:But that's sort of like, that's wild.
Marc:So you were nine years old when your nearest brother was 18.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they were mostly in college while I was growing up.
Guest:So I was pretty much an only child.
Guest:Was that sad though?
Guest:Did you see them leave or one was already gone?
Guest:It was incredibly sad.
Guest:It was so lonely in that house because my mother is not an actor.
Guest:She was probably rather depressed growing up because my father left really young.
Guest:But the point is that, yeah, it was really sad because there wasn't a lot of life in the house.
Marc:I was wondering about that with kids who have that big of a difference between...
Marc:their closest siblings.
Marc:Cause like, like I talked to Jack white and literally there's like seven or eight years between him and the other six or five.
Marc:So that means like by the time he was like eight, he had to watch like four of them leave.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I didn't fucking put that together with him and it's been driving me nuts.
Marc:Cause I would have liked to have asked him what that feeling was like.
Guest:Yeah, can I remember my, you know, they would come home in the summer, but then they had girlfriends who had spent a lot of time with the girlfriends.
Guest:And you were like the kid, this is my kid brother.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was pretty precocious.
Guest:You had to be, because the only way you could get any face time was to really be interesting and funny and rather smart.
Guest:But it also put me in a weird position where the kids my age were sort of immature to me, and it was hard to fit in with.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:With them.
Marc:Well, I know that feeling.
Marc:They're sort of like, I'm going to appeal to the adults.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But what's weird is in retrospect, when you meet that kind of kid, you kind of see the kindred spirit thing.
Marc:It's like, I know where you're coming from.
Marc:And wow, it's really annoying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was exactly like you.
Marc:And I wish it.
Marc:I hope it goes OK for you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Tough road from here.
Marc:What town did you grow up in?
Marc:Peabody, Massachusetts.
Marc:Peabody.
Guest:Yeah, just on the North Shore next to Salem.
Marc:It came up again.
Marc:I saw Peabody earlier today because I was looking at some guys doing a book tour, and it said Peabody, and I know I've been to Peabody.
Guest:Yeah, there's a great Barnes & Noble there.
Marc:Oh, that's why he's going up there.
Marc:Yeah, next to the North Shore Mall.
Marc:I knew a girl.
Marc:I dated a girl in college.
Marc:I think she might have been from Marblehead, though.
Marc:Oh, ooh, wealthy Jewish.
Marc:No.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Her name was Lisa DeChamps.
Marc:Not Jewish?
Marc:No.
Marc:Wealthy?
Marc:No, I don't think so.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:At BU.
Marc:Kind of a crazy redhead.
Marc:I think she went on to become a nurse.
Marc:Yeah, BU.
Marc:Yeah, I went to BC.
Marc:What kind of Jew goes to BC?
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:I got a football scholarship.
Marc:Sometimes I make it Jewy.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:LAUGHTER
Marc:i've got a jewish jock in here gary goleman is here so i you know this is a rare thing for me to talk to a jewish jock yeah there aren't many no it's like when you're growing up and even before my generation like sandy koufax that was it you can't talk to a jew about baseball for 60 seconds without any call facts yeah oh my god and also like i didn't realize this but in the early 1900s or 1920s there were a lot of jewish boxers yes and
Guest:Yes, you talk to my father for a second.
Guest:He'll tell you all that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:My father professed himself an amateur boxer growing up.
Guest:I guess he boxed in the Navy or something like that.
Guest:He grew up in the Bronx, so he knew how to handle himself.
Guest:He never taught me how to handle myself with my fists, but he has a lot of old fight stories and boxing.
Guest:Yeah, he's an old Jewish bull.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:That's his identity.
Guest:Are the folks married?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:They divorced when I was one and a half.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:So you've got one parent and two brothers that are out.
Marc:So it's just you and your mom?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I always think about that nature and nurture argument about how they used to say that an overbearing mom could cause a gay song.
Guest:And there's just no way.
Guest:Are you sure, Gary?
Guest:Well, so far.
Marc:There's still time, Gary.
Marc:I could Todd Glass it right here.
Marc:If you talk to a gay man, he'll say, you're on the cusp.
Marc:It's only a matter of time, my friend.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What'd your mom do?
Guest:My mom started off, she worked at a stationery store at the mall.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, it was a Hallmark store.
Guest:And she took off to her brother a little bit because to this day, I do not have to buy birthday cards or any kind of greeting cards because she has a drawer.
Guest:Stockpiled, huh?
Guest:That she stockpiled after years of working there.
Guest:And they're so dated.
Guest:They're from the 70s and 80s.
Marc:But she was pilfering.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like there's disco balls on them?
Yeah.
Marc:How are Hallmark cards dated?
Guest:Well, the thing is that the peanuts still hold up.
Guest:If it has Snoopy or something on that, they still hold up.
Guest:They're probably vintage, but they're a certain style.
Guest:Ziggy is no longer available.
Guest:I don't think they make greeting cards with Ziggy, but she still has a collection of Ziggy's greeting cards.
Marc:My brother loves Ziggy.
Marc:Nothing went well for Ziggy.
Marc:So miserable.
Marc:He was so miserable.
Marc:Ziggy was like Rodney Dangerfield's inner child, Ziggy was.
Marc:Yeah, softer, gentler, Rodney, without the coke issues.
Marc:Oh, Rodney.
Marc:Well, the funny thing about you is that, well, outside of your stand-up, is that we didn't come up together.
Marc:I never really knew you that well.
Guest:No, we'll be one of the few WTFs where there's no, yeah, let's just let bygones be bygones.
Guest:There'll be none of that.
Guest:In fact, I only have wonderful, encouraging relations with you.
Guest:It's always been good.
Guest:And we met at a crossroads in our life.
Guest:Well, not met, but we hung out at 2009 Montreal Comedy Festival.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You were at a crossroads.
Marc:You had bought a farm or something.
Guest:I had bought a farm.
Guest:With a for a fiance and she at that point you were the person who Settled it down for me.
Guest:I said she wants $10,000 to move out and you said you got off easy give it to her
Guest:And I wrote a check within a week and I was free and clear.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I still had to collect the pieces of my life and move on.
Guest:And I just sold the farm this past summer at a tremendous loss.
Guest:And I think at that time you had just started the WTF podcast.
Marc:I started, yeah, 2000.
Guest:And we're finishing up a divorce maybe.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And I saw you do that one-man show, which was amazing.
Guest:I loved that.
Guest:That was heart-wrenching.
Guest:The Ring of Fire.
Marc:Yeah, I opened with Ring of Fire.
Guest:Yeah, that was beautiful.
Marc:It's so funny that when you tell me the advice I gave you, that is so weird, hardened, but reasonable thing.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:I could tell just by the earnestness.
Guest:You didn't think about it.
Guest:You didn't, well, you could go, just pay her.
Guest:Just pay her.
Guest:It was a smack in the face, which I needed because there's part of me that, like I always say that Christians have an angel and a devil on their shoulders to guide them.
Guest:And Jews, we have 5,000 years of our family on our shoulders.
Guest:Which sometimes looks like a devil.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You got off easy with the devil.
Guest:The devil would be much easier.
Guest:He's very coherent.
Guest:But $10,000, where do you get off giving $10,000?
Guest:It was to get my mom's ring back.
Guest:She was holding my mom's engagement ring hostage.
Guest:And, you know, of course, after I told my mom what I went through to get the ring back, she said, oh, you should have just let her have it.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, that is so funny.
Guest:But had I let her keep it, my mom would have never ever seen her.
Marc:Oh, you can't win.
Guest:You did the right thing.
Guest:There's no way you can win.
Guest:Yeah, there's no way.
Guest:You did the right thing.
Guest:My mother has a memory.
Guest:Do you still use your Atari?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We spent $220 for that at Sears.
Marc:Yeah, you would have never heard the end of it if you would have let her scound with the ring.
Marc:No, there's no winning.
Marc:You did the right thing.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But you didn't do it for her.
Marc:That's the thing, or else you'd be kicking yourself.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah, you didn't even owe her that.
Marc:But the thing was, do you want this to be done?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When do you think the first time you came out here was?
Marc:You were probably still with Barry, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I moved out here in 2000 because I had a development deal.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So that's when I met you.
Marc:And I'd never seen you before.
Marc:And I just saw this big, charming Jew.
Marc:And I'm like, who the fuck is this guy now?
Marc:Oh, great.
Guest:I'm at the point where I get that now, where I see Pete Holmes and I want to hang myself.
Marc:He's so wonderful.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:No, I adore him, but he's like so young and I'm just like, oh, that was me once.
Marc:Yeah, it was you.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:I was the new flavor.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, the thing I wanted to say is that we may not have any beefs or spend time with each other, but the interesting thing is you're going to do the live WTF
Marc:In Boston.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you grew up with all those guys, and I started with all the same guys that you did.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:So you were doing, like, I started my career doing one-niners, opening for Cy Bell, opening for Dougherty, opening for- Who was the guy that died?
Marc:Oh, Dave Fitzgerald.
Marc:Dave Fitzgerald.
Marc:Opening for George McDonald, for Mike McDonald, for Warren McDonald, for all the fucking McDonald's.
Opening for-
Marc:for opening for Gavin, opening for Sweeney, opening, I started with Joe Yannetty.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I mean, like, so all the dudes that were old dudes when you were coming on were the dudes that I started with in terms of opening for them.
Marc:They were already headliners.
Marc:But so you're, you know, you were DJ Hazard, Teddy Bergeron.
Marc:I fucking drove those guys places.
Guest:I will say this is that I had an easier time, I think, because I hear stories like I've been opening for Louis on the road and he tells stories of those guys and they could be really, really abrupt and mean.
Guest:And I think it was sort of like I was the youngest child in a family so that by the time I came around, they had mellowed and they were very encouraging.
Guest:They were all sober.
Guest:So there was none of that.
Guest:They would fly off.
Guest:And in some cases, I remember there's a story of Lenny Clark punching Billy Martin in the face.
Guest:That's a famous story, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that famous story.
Guest:So they kind of sort of embraced me and took me under their wing.
Guest:Also probably because they were older themselves and were like, well, that whole thing where we haze the young guys is over.
Marc:Well, I don't even know if it was hazing.
Marc:I just think they were hungry.
Marc:And, you know, it was really, I think for a lot of them, like, you know, how do you get out?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And can you get out?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And do you leave?
Marc:You know, because I remember, you're right, though.
Marc:When I was opening for them, they were probably all right in their prime.
Marc:You know, like Lenny had, he had moved to L.A.
Marc:already, you know, and he was out here.
Marc:But he hadn't gotten his big deal yet.
Marc:Kenny Rogerson had already, you know, fucked up something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he was right there.
Marc:I was around when he did his first Letterman.
Marc:Like in that stuff.
Marc:I was there when Bobcat Goldthwait left.
Marc:Like he had a garage sale at Stitches.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And left.
Guest:I remember starting like- What did he sell at the garage sale?
Guest:Do you remember any of those things?
Marc:I don't remember.
Marc:It was kind of funny though.
Marc:Yeah, it was hilarious.
Marc:It was a funny idea.
Marc:I was in college at that time.
Marc:I hadn't started doing comedy yet.
Marc:But I remember being there.
Marc:Dave Cross was at Emerson.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And I just met him.
Marc:And we were kind of hanging around trying to do open mics and stuff.
Marc:And the guys who I started with, like Jonathan Groff, Fitzsimmons was a little later.
Marc:Louis started after me, but when I went back, Noxy was around.
Guest:God rest his soul.
Guest:He was wonderful.
Marc:And like I remember when Dana Gould, before he left San Francisco, he must have been like 18 or 19.
Guest:I heard he was like a prodigy, like a phenom.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He still is kind of.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But the old guard, I mean, I don't know what experience you have, but when I started, there really wasn't any alternative comedy.
Marc:No.
Marc:And when I went back, you know, after I went to LA for a year and then I came back and I started to, I did the riot and came in second.
Guest:But I was hanging out- Who'd you come in second to?
Marc:Sue McGinnis.
Marc:wow but um but there was catch rising star and at that time you know it was louie and cross and janine and everybody but then there was also everything else boston regional comedy so working for barry and those guys like other guys i was at catch with couldn't work nicks and stuff but i would work nicks so i was this weird crossover act very rare there were only a few yeah
Marc:Right, and I would go out on the road with these guys and do the one-nighters with Santorelli and all these guys.
Marc:And it was a trip.
Marc:That was how I broke in, was going to that basement in Alston where Barry had his office and picking up my directions.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Now, bring back a check for $5,000.
Marc:You can take $100.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, he wouldn't even say that.
Marc:How much I'm getting paid, they're like $75.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was no MapQuest or nothing.
Marc:You had to go to Alston.
Yeah.
Marc:to get your check and also to get your fucking direction sheet to drive who the fuck, to Peabody, to do a... Well, they probably had a gig there.
Guest:Speaking of MapQuest, I want to admit something.
Guest:I took a dry run today, which is something I hadn't done since I tried out for the Bay State games.
Guest:To get here?
Guest:In high school.
Guest:To get here.
Guest:Because, you know, I love this show, and the worst thing... Because I always hear everybody come on, they're like, ah, how do you find it?
Guest:It's such bullshit.
Guest:And I'm talking to you, Richard Lewis.
Guest:This was so easy.
Guest:to get to it was a breeze i'm staying at uh brian kiley's house all right so okay so you're doing your little show how where'd you start how'd that come about i mean nicks i didn't i didn't open mic at nicks and all you had to do was was call in and bring six people which i thought this was after the heyday oh yeah it was it was october of 93 october 8th 1993 they'd already tried the dance club and yes
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So you didn't really come up in the... Because later in Boston, there was the comedy studio thing in Cambridge, which did not exist at all.
Marc:There's a whole generation of guys that came out of Rick Jenkins' place.
Guest:I took Rick Jenkins' class at Brookline High or something like that.
Guest:He taught a class when I was 22 or 23.
Guest:But he didn't have the comedy studio, I think, until like 97 or 96 or something like that.
Guest:but let's go back so you you're like okay so you're a kid you're all alone you and your mom your brothers pop in occasionally yes you got along with your old man or you didn't uh he would come on sundays and we would have we would have a nice time we would watch movies we would watch uh the patriots lose he would sit in the house with your mother in the other room yeah my mother actually uh god love her she was like a saint because you know he left her he he had an affair and that was that did he stay with that woman uh no
Guest:No.
Guest:It was just the beginning.
Guest:He married somebody else who was a very wonderful woman, thank God, because she really mellowed him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a really tough character.
Guest:And then- Like how?
Guest:He was very strict.
Guest:And I remember I would be- What's the word?
Guest:Inspected on Sunday when he would come-
Guest:And I always thought this was a normal thing for every kid, but my nails would be inspected to make sure they were clean.
Guest:The other day I saw a scrub brush at a Rite Aid and it brought back these memories.
Guest:I hadn't used a scrub brush in 37 years or something.
Guest:Since your dad made you?
Guest:Yeah, because he was concerned about my nails and then how I had put on my socks and all these things.
Marc:Was that about you or is that about your mother's parenting scrub?
Guest:It was absolutely about my mother's parenting skills and him trying to undo all the lackadaisical mothering that my mother had done all week.
Guest:I had no bedtime.
Guest:There were no things.
Guest:And so I remember the main reason I wouldn't have wanted my parents to be together was because the bedtime when I stayed at my dad's very rarely was like 830.
Guest:It was ridiculous.
Marc:So your mother, she had raised your two brothers and she was done.
Marc:She was done.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:There was not going to be a lot of effort put into this one.
Guest:I kind of raised myself, and I had a million hobbies.
Guest:There was plenty of clothing around.
Guest:It was all hand-me-downs.
Guest:Yeah, right, exactly.
Guest:Yeah, and luckily I was tall fast, so things started to fit around 8th or 9th grade for my brothers who were in college.
Marc:And then you outgrew everything.
Guest:And then I outgrew everything, and then I just started wearing sweatpants and t-shirts every day.
Guest:The golem.
Guest:Yeah, because my brothers are like 5'10 and 6 feet even, and I'm 6'6", so it was- What the fuck?
Guest:I outgrew them very quickly.
Guest:Are you taller than both your parents?
Guest:Uncle Norman was a giant.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Uncle Norman was 6'5 and 450 pounds.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's who?
Marc:Your father's brother?
Guest:No, that's the fence.
Marc:That's my mother's twin brother, yeah.
Guest:The dyslexic fence?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Uncle Norman, who also had a horrific swearing problem.
Guest:It wasn't Tourette's.
Guest:He just called everybody a cocksucker and a motherfucker.
Marc:So he was dyslexic, but people thought he was mentally retarded and he was a giant.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like a Jewish Lenny from Mice and Men.
Guest:Yes, but he was loud and clever.
Guest:He was sort of like had the personality of George from Mice and Men, but the body of Lenny.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My brother used to call him Fagan because he would hire the kids in the neighborhood to do landscaping and all these things around.
Guest:And he would pay them off with a lot of stolen goods, candy and all these things.
Guest:Did he wear those gloves with no fingers?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Marc:That's all I remember from Fagan.
Marc:It was Ron Moody, right?
Marc:In the original Oliver with the gloves with no fingers.
Marc:I love those.
Marc:I have them.
Marc:I buy gloves with no fingers.
Guest:They're the hippest gloves you can have.
Marc:My girlfriend has a pair, yeah.
Marc:Oh, they're the best.
Marc:All right, so was there any concern that perhaps you had acromegalia or something?
Marc:I don't know what acromegalia is.
Guest:rondo hatton acromegaly is gigantic oh no no no no and i didn't have marfan syndrome either which which killed the uh famous volleyball player flo hyman in about 1985 but you heard about it yeah i'd heard about marfan syndrome which was what you just didn't stop growing you didn't stop growing and also there was a hole in your aorta and things like that but there was gigantism with andre the giant had which that's acromegaly yeah tunnel vision and things like that so i didn't i didn't have any of that but no one thought you did at some point
Marc:Because you grew so quickly?
Marc:You're a Jew?
Guest:That would have required them having some concern over my well-being, because I was also incredibly depressed growing up, and that wasn't a thing that you noticed back then, I guess.
Marc:No, you can't look under someone's brain and scrub that out with a brush.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yes.
Marc:No one looked in your head.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your mother was negligent or more your buddy?
Guest:I wouldn't say she was negligent, but yeah, she was a buddy and she would take me to movies that were rated R and things like that.
Guest:It was sort of like that almost famous kid where he was just raised among adults and I was friendly with my mom's friends who were 40-year-old women.
Guest:It was very bizarre.
Marc:Is that how you lost your virginity?
No.
No.
Guest:No, I lost it to an actual woman my age.
Marc:Oh, no good stories.
Marc:But you must have wanted to have sex with some of your moms, right?
Guest:No, there wasn't a single one.
Guest:I mean, I was born when my mom was 38, so all her friends were older.
Marc:That wouldn't be right.
Guest:Yeah, there was no interest.
Guest:Is she still around?
Guest:Yes, yeah.
Guest:In fact, I was there for Thanksgiving last week.
Guest:Still in Peabody?
Guest:Still is in Peabody.
Guest:And your dad too?
Guest:My dad lives at the VA in Bedford.
Guest:He had diabetes, so he had part of his leg amputated.
Guest:Yeah, but he's actually been pretty good with it.
Guest:He's a real survivor.
Guest:He's a really religious, but knows nothing about Judaism.
Guest:He really can't remember anything, but he is constantly knocking.
Guest:He's just superstitious.
Guest:He's constantly thanking God for...
Guest:I can't get over Jews and their ability to, it could be worse, everything away.
Guest:Well, it could be worse.
Guest:Like, you lost your leg, Dad.
Guest:I could be dead.
Guest:There's no limit to it.
Guest:I guess it's admirable, but why isn't he angry at God?
Marc:Because he's made it.
Marc:I mean, how old is he?
Marc:86.
Marc:What's he got to do?
Marc:I guess you're right.
Marc:You can't do much better than that.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:But we're Ashkenazis, so he's got another 14 years left, according to a recent New Yorker article.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yeah, he's 86, and yeah, he's doing pretty good.
Guest:He's still the same feisty, competitive person.
Marc:You go visit him over there?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Whenever I'm in town, I go visit, and...
Guest:This time he wasn't talking to he had a best friend there who was another man of 85 years old named Vito But Vito was he wasn't cheating at gin.
Guest:He was just lying about what the score had been between in games My father hadn't talked to him for for months because of it because my father is so goddamn competitive It's just it's ridiculous.
Guest:They don't change.
Marc:Well, I mean, maybe that's what's going I guess so is it like, you know, I'm not gonna die until I
Marc:Yeah, he's trying to outlive these nuts.
Marc:He's out of spite.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What do you attribute your survival to?
Marc:Spite.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:It's as good a motivator as any.
Marc:Believe me, most of my life was driven by spite.
Marc:Cut back on it.
Marc:Cut back on this guy.
Guest:I can completely understand that.
Guest:You don't seem like that kind of guy.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I hold grudges and slights like a bench vice.
Guest:But competitive, was your dad competitive with you?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Because he was gone.
Guest:I think my oldest brother is very competitive with me athletically and career-wise.
Guest:But you're gigantic.
Guest:Yeah, but he was one of those really driven athletes who was really aggressive.
Marc:And you probably had a lot of natural ability.
Guest:Yes, and he used to say this, oh, if I had your height.
Guest:If I had your height was this lamentation of his life.
Marc:Don't want to write a book called that.
Guest:Yeah, it was just so sad.
Guest:It was so sad because I had these athletic gifts, but I didn't have a dominant personality.
Guest:You weren't driven.
Guest:I was not driven at all, and I actually resisted the combat.
Marc:What did he end up doing?
Guest:He's a millionaire CPA.
Marc:He did all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a workaholic, so he was very driven.
Guest:But we were really poor, so I admire that aspect of his life.
Guest:And what's the other one do?
Guest:He went into the business my father had, which was interior decorating, and he runs that company now.
Marc:What, for design or furniture wholesale?
Guest:Curtains.
Guest:He installs blinds.
Marc:So he's got one of those, it's almost like the aluminum siding business.
Marc:He's a commission sales.
Guest:It's a classic Eastern European Jewish thing.
Guest:It was either that or wallpaper hanging.
Marc:So he's the wholesaler and he's got guys who are going out and working on commission?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:He installs the drapes and the blinds himself.
Marc:So he's the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he's got all the deals.
Marc:You go to a store and you can see the different treatments.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He has a store where you can see all the treatments.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Exactly right.
Guest:How do you know that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My father used to be the guy who went to the people's houses with books and fabric and examples.
Guest:Right, in the car.
Guest:And helped them pick it out.
Guest:But he worked for his uncles.
Guest:It was a very Willy Loman existence for him.
Guest:It was very sad.
Guest:I always felt bad for my dad because he hated this job.
Guest:And then my brother went into it and I think he bought out my uncles or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it was a big business.
Marc:So your dad was a salesman for your uncle.
Guest:He was a salesman for his uncles who, by the way, because the Europeans had so many kids, these uncles were only like a year or two older than my dad.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But was he one of those guys that had tried other things and he just kind of- He worked for an investment place called the IDS that he talks about.
Guest:These were like the salad days.
Guest:He refers to it at the time when he was a fat city.
Guest:But the best I can recollect is this probably lasted for about two or three years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was probably like the Reagan 80s where everybody was kind of well off for three or four years.
Marc:So those were the glory days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These were the salad days and he might have had some fur on his coat or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they were short-lived and they were undone by the divorce.
Guest:I think that seems to be the demarcation point between living large.
Marc:So did you see any similarities between the Albert Brooks character and your father from the movie, from 40?
Guest:Well, there's a narcissism to my father that I...
Guest:I kind of saw in Albert Brooks in that the entire world revolved around his needs and everything and the fact that my father remarried a couple of times.
Guest:But my father was very old school and the wife cooked and cleaned and all these things.
Guest:He was just very...
Marc:Isn't weird, though, that narcissism thing is that, like, as a kid, you sort of have your father framed a certain way.
Marc:And, like, you know, you hear about the salad days.
Marc:Like, he presents it like, you know, like, everything that he is, these are because of choices he made.
Marc:And you're sort of proud of him.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you get old enough and you get a few miles on you.
Marc:And you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:He's not half the guy I thought he was.
Guest:There's that saying that...
Guest:I think it's attributed to Twain about he never realized how smart his father was until he got older.
Guest:It was the exact opposite for me.
Guest:I never realized how simple my father was.
Guest:He was a decent person, but his vocabulary was not very strong.
Guest:Also, things that we just take for granted now about leaving a job and looking for either a better one or one that you're happy at.
Guest:My father never even...
Guest:never even considered it and it was just uh and he and he went from one wife to to the next and things like that he couldn't be alone right and he he was you know he didn't really have a mother growing up so he's probably always searching for a mother and and you know looking back on it i always say that they they did a good job for what they had to as as role models as far as parents yeah they did what they could they didn't do the best they could right
Marc:But you got out, you didn't get beat up too bad.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you made something for yourself.
Marc:I have a college degree.
Guest:I have a job I love, so that's good.
Marc:Well, what was the football scholarship?
Marc:So you played in high school?
Marc:Yeah, but I only played one year in high school.
Marc:But you made a mark, apparently.
Guest:I really did.
Guest:What was your position?
Guest:I was a tight end.
Guest:So pretty much, they didn't pass that much.
Guest:They would pass four or five times a game.
Guest:Everybody was so much smaller than me, so I would just run over the middle, and I would catch it, and then...
Guest:You were a genius.
Guest:There's a photo that I have of like three or four guys, the defensive back from maybe 5'7", 5'8".
Guest:I was 6'6", 255 pounds, a 17-year-old.
Guest:And so it took two or three of them to tackle me, but I didn't fight back or anything like that.
Guest:I had very good hands.
Guest:I could jump high, and I could run fast.
Guest:And you chose football over basketball.
Guest:Because there were...
Guest:At that time, there were 95 football scholarships in a college.
Guest:So each year, 25 would become available.
Guest:Whereas basketball, each year, maybe three, sometimes only two would become available.
Marc:So this was really a survival thing.
Marc:Your parents probably couldn't have necessarily afforded it.
Guest:Couldn't have afforded college.
Guest:No, I would have gone to... My brothers both went to University of Massachusetts on aid.
Guest:which at that time was incredibly generous in Massachusetts.
Guest:It was before two and a half.
Guest:Yeah, UMass Amherst.
Guest:It was before the tax cuts and everything like that.
Guest:So it was a lot easier to go.
Guest:And then, so I got to go to a private college, but that was- But that's what you were gunning for.
Marc:It wasn't that you had any passion for sports necessarily.
Guest:No, I was just a really good student and I couldn't, yeah, my ticket out of the ghetto.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The Jewish ghetto.
Marc:Of your mother's house.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, um, yeah, which was a life.
Guest:How many years did you play at BC?
Guest:I played two seasons and then they wanted to switch me to offensive line, which was just, there's just no, there's no way I could have carried the weight that that requires.
Guest:And, and also the, the, the concussions and everything like that.
Guest:I hate, I hated playing offensive line.
Marc:You said no.
Guest:They also had a new coach, so I stopped playing, and then I was able to get a lot of aid and some grants because of my situation.
Guest:I have very good grades, so they were incredibly generous with me there.
Marc:That's great, and also they were happy to have a Jew.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We've got one yeah back off.
Marc:Yeah, I was I was living in Chesson Hill which is a very Jewish place amongst Catholics I know yeah, but I guess there's a few Jews there, so that's great So then you you did great in school you did all this stuff and you squandered it I did by pursuing a career in show business.
Guest:Yeah, well I worked at Price Waterhouse Cooper's and Lybrand for about a year and a half.
Marc:What do they even do?
Guest:They're CPAs.
Guest:Yeah, but why are they in charge of the Oscar box?
Guest:Oh, they just are fair counters.
Guest:They know how to add and subtract, and they're trustworthy.
Guest:Okay, so that's it.
Marc:That's what they're known for.
Guest:Yeah, but even if you had that account, that job would be incredibly tedious and boring.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I know another friend who started in accounting and went into stand-up.
Marc:Russ Maneeve.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, I didn't know that.
Guest:I know Russ.
Guest:He's a great guy.
Marc:Yeah, he bailed on the accounting life.
Guest:Oh, it was brutal.
Marc:Well, why'd you go?
Marc:Because your brother did?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:That seemed to work for him.
Guest:My brother got married at 25, so I thought I would get married at 25.
Guest:And then when I didn't, I was like, oh my gosh.
Marc:You just wanted to beat him in every angle.
Marc:It wasn't so much.
Marc:It was just a pathway that I knew would work.
Guest:He seemed happy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what, you took accounting in college?
Guest:Yeah, I took accounting.
Guest:Hated it.
Guest:Hated it, but it was the only career that people were getting jobs in at that time.
Guest:It was right before Clinton's miracle happened, and I graduated in 93, so the only kids I knew who were getting jobs out of college, which is such a stupid reason to study something, but that's how I was thinking at the time.
Guest:Very Jewish thinking.
Marc:Yeah, the education is important.
Marc:You need to get a job with college because now nobody fucking, it seems like college degrees are important, but no one, I was very nonspecific about mine.
Marc:I never thought about working because I was brought up in an entitled household, but you were brought up.
Marc:I was brought up in upper middle class Jews.
Marc:My dad was a doctor.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I wanted to express myself and fucking, you know, read books and direct plays and act and shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My parents are like, great, go ahead.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, there was never that impending doom of like, you got to eat.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I had.
Marc:I have that now.
In fact.
Marc:You grew into that.
Marc:Yeah, I grew into that because they squandered most of what they have on some level.
Marc:Not that I'm expecting them to bail me out, but God forbid anything bad happens, there's not a lot there.
Marc:There's no big payoff.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My brother slash father, the oldest one, was very clear when I wanted to go into stand-up.
Guest:He said, well, that's great, but you can't make a living at it.
Guest:And that was all that mattered.
Guest:And then you said, can I borrow a little money?
Guest:Luckily, I never had to borrow because it would have been like that scene in Diner where Kevin Bacon has to confront his older brother to borrow money for Mickey Rourke.
Guest:And he's like, I hate you, and yet I'm here.
Guest:Give me some money, Howard.
Yeah.
Guest:But I always thought that that was a better relationship with his brother than I have because I couldn't be that honest with my brother and I couldn't ask him for any money.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:Did he give him the money?
Guest:He didn't.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:He told him that his trust fund was making him very lazy and he's, oh great, $150 a month is making me lazy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Marc:I forgot that part.
Marc:So you never, so now you graduated from BC and you did the fucking accounting thing for two years.
Guest:Yeah, but I was doing the open mics at night and living that life until whenever they put you on.
Guest:It was kind of exciting because it was like I was staying up till 2 o'clock in the morning waiting to get on at some shithole and then getting up.
Guest:I had this double life and it was exciting.
Guest:I was coming in late to work.
Guest:It was the first time I had rebelled.
Guest:Ever since I was a little kid, I just followed the rules and everything.
Marc:It was kind of exciting.
Marc:I was such a bad kid.
Marc:And when did you bail on the job?
Guest:I bailed on the job about a year and a half in and then I got a job as a Starbucks barista and then I worked as a substitute teacher at my old high school and it was the perfect timing because a lot of my old teachers were still working in the building and I got to see them from the other side.
Guest:I got to sit in the teacher's lounge with them and I realized that all my favorites were clearly mentally ill.
Guest:They were either bipolar or had some schizophrenic leanings, but they were so entertaining when I had been there.
Guest:And by that time, the system had really beaten them down.
Guest:Anybody with any kind of a personality at the school had either taken the early retirement or- Just cynical.
Guest:Yeah, there was one guy who they just had relegated to being the person who took care of the kids who were in something called in-school suspension.
Guest:He just looked after them.
Guest:He didn't really teach a class, but he used to dress up as Casey on the opening day of baseball every year and act out Casey at the bat, and it was very exciting, but clearly he was unhinged.
Guest:He would have an unlit cigar every day in class the whole time.
Guest:He was a real throwback.
Guest:That's so weird.
Guest:So you're in the teacher's lounge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With these people that- And you could still smoke back then, so that was exciting to see them smoking.
Marc:It was always weird to see your teachers be people.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, they were real humans.
Guest:And for some reason, even though I was being paid $45 a day and doing open mics and those gigs you do for Dick Doherty where you drive four hours to make $25- Gary, you're very funny, but you're green.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:He said to me, you know what your problem is?
Marc:You're insecure.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That's a code word.
Marc:You're Jewish.
Marc:Yeah, is it?
Marc:Yeah, that's what your problem is.
Marc:He was a character.
Marc:So you kicked around up there and you built out until you could headline or to just middle?
Guest:No, I never headlined.
Guest:What happened was I did the Montreal Comedy Festival in 1999.
Guest:As a new face.
Guest:Yeah, which was like the last year that they were giving up development deals.
Marc:You became what?
Marc:Barry's guy?
Marc:How did you hook up with Barry Katz?
Marc:I hooked up with the Barry Katz.
Marc:I did an audition.
Marc:He must have thought you were kindred spirits because you're both tall Jews.
Guest:Yeah, but I have posture.
Marc:Yeah, and you have the worst posture.
Marc:Amiable sorts.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Amicable, I mean.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I didn't work with him until later.
Guest:I worked with this woman called Maureen Taron.
Guest:I know Maureen.
Guest:Yeah, she's actually my manager now.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I love her.
Guest:She got out of the business for a while.
Guest:She's wonderful.
Guest:So I did an audition for her at the old Boston Comedy Club.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then nine months later, or six months later, I guess December 24th, 1998 was the last time I worked as a teacher.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just, I did Montreal that summer and I got a development deal with Fox and I did Leno and Letterman and I lived off the development money.
Guest:So you never really headlined?
Guest:Not until after Last Comic Standing.
Guest:Yeah, I featured for friends of mine.
Guest:I featured for Dane Cook, and I would go out with some other guys.
Guest:That's right, you were in that fucking bus movie.
Guest:Yeah, I was in the bus movie.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:Now I'm remembering why I was resenting you.
Guest:Like, who the fuck is this guy?
Guest:I would headline in Boston.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a few other places where they would pay you $500 and call you a headliner.
Guest:But I couldn't do the improvs or anything like that because even though I had these development deals year after year, I had...
Guest:I mean, I've done Leno and Letterman and all these things.
Marc:But do you look at those things as debilitating in retrospect?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, because, okay, so you're Dane's buddy.
Marc:You're in that posse.
Marc:But it's very hard to be part of someone else's fucking momentum.
Guest:It's hard for a comedian to be in somebody else's orbit.
Marc:Yeah, because it's not going to help you.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's just there's no way it's going to help you.
Guest:It did help, I guess, because featuring for him, I got a lot of 20-minute spots.
Guest:And, you know, in L.A., at the time, I don't know what it is now, but when I lived here, to do three or four spots in a week for eight minutes was really the most you could ask for.
Marc:But you're also a long-form guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so it was very difficult.
Guest:So those 20-minute spots that I was doing in front of a friendly audience and a full audience four or five nights a week were very helpful.
Guest:But as far as that tour goes, it was like I never felt like... Well, I knew that nobody was there to see me, and it just felt... Were they good audiences?
Guest:They were great audiences.
Marc:But that's cheating.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember a couple of years ago, I did the Montreal Forum.
Guest:Not the Montreal Forum.
Guest:Edmonton, whatever it was.
Guest:The Edmonton Big Arena.
Guest:But I also had a show at a mall in front of 60 people.
Marc:I know that room.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what's his name?
Marc:Rick Bronson's room.
Guest:Rick Bronson's room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I actually preferred the 60 people because they were all there to see me.
Marc:Or they weren't there to see anyone in particular.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:You just had to do the job.
Guest:Yeah, I had to do the job, whereas the arena people were queued up, and they knew where the punchline was, and they would applaud and laugh.
Marc:But let's talk about that, because it's not uncommon.
Marc:There's a few guys that I knew who were in this situation.
Marc:I wasn't one of them to... Well, I mean...
Marc:I had a deal, but I never, ever assumed that it would mean anything.
Marc:I've had deals in my life, but there were a couple guys.
Marc:Who was your agent?
Guest:Were you a fan?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Andy Cohen at ICM.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you snagged this money.
Marc:I don't know how much they juiced you, but how many deals did you have?
Guest:I had four in total.
Marc:Just one after the other?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you ever make a pilot?
Guest:Never made a pilot, Mark, yeah.
Marc:I would write them and it would be so heartbreaking.
Marc:It's heartbreaking, but were those deals all the same amount of money?
Guest:No, they became less and less every year.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:But nonetheless, that's a lot of money.
Marc:But they were life-changing, I will say.
Marc:It's a lot of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there you were, a strong feature who had no real experience touring on his own outside of regional gigs in Boston, making more money than most people in this country make in five years, if that, and it's not working out.
Guest:No.
Marc:And then so you go one after the other.
Marc:Nothing gets made until like it's like, well, we can't get you another deal.
Guest:You've had four and they've all stopped giving deals because the reality show took over.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:But probably better off.
Marc:Oh, definitely.
Marc:But because I think I vaguely remember talking to you that you probably you hit a wall and you ran away.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now, you went and bought the farm with the deal money, I'm assuming.
Guest:Oh, no, no, no, no.
Guest:2006, I moved back to New York because I wanted to do more stand-up.
Marc:Rebuild.
Marc:You got distracted by money.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the possibility of fame.
Guest:And being on a sitcom.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, this happened to Bill Burr, it happened to Kevin Hart, it happened to a lot of people.
Guest:I will be, I'm not saying this to sound sanctimonious or anything like that, but I really felt like in 97 or 98 when they were giving the deals that I thought the only guys who were really selling tickets were guys who were on TV on sitcoms.
Guest:And I thought, well, what I really wanted was to do more shows in front of more and more people.
Guest:But I saw that a lot of people were doing that by getting sitcom deals.
Marc:So it was the football paradigm again.
Guest:Yes, completely.
Marc:If I can get in the game, I can get what I want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then all of a sudden there were guys who were doing it without having a TV series.
Guest:Dane probably being the most famous one.
Guest:And then finally in 2006, I said, well, I'm much happier when I'm just doing stand-up.
Guest:I don't care for all the acting classes and the auditions and everything like that.
Guest:So I returned to New York to work on my...
Guest:Yeah, and I think to a certain extent the same thing happened with Billy Burr and little Kev, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, and it turned out very well for those two.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So best of luck.
Guest:Yeah, so I returned in 2006, and then I met a girl, and she was a conspiracy theorist.
Marc:That's always a good sign.
Guest:In 2008, was convinced that the market falling and my savings were evaporating.
Guest:She said, we should buy a farmhouse because the world is coming to an end.
Guest:And I was so credulous that I, and she frightened me and she was so convincing that I did it.
Guest:And nine months later, she got very bored with renovating this farmhouse.
Guest:I was also broke from renovating the farmhouse.
Marc:I guess it became clear to both of you that the world wasn't ending.
Guest:It didn't end, and that's when all the trouble, yeah, the stock market started to rebound.
Guest:If only the world did end.
Guest:Yeah, it would have been a love story.
Guest:It would have been perfect.
Guest:Yeah, we would have been living off the land.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:She left me.
Marc:Fighting zombies.
Guest:She left me.
Guest:Oh, this was the other thing.
Guest:You had cats.
Guest:I had dogs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That my girlfriend had bought and left to me, essentially.
Guest:That was the only thing I really got in the separation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they got me through it, I will say, because I had to get up for them and take care of them.
Guest:Otherwise, I just would have slept till 1 p.m.
Guest:every day.
Marc:So you were devastated.
Guest:Devastated.
Guest:Devastated, yeah.
Marc:So you had you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a fucking bitch, huh?
Guest:Life can be a motherfucker.
Marc:For everybody.
Guest:But it forced me, because I was so broke and I owed so many taxes, that I had to go on the road that year like 46 weeks.
Marc:No matter what, anywhere.
Guest:Yeah, I took every gig.
Guest:And it made me a better stand-up doing all those hours.
Guest:And yeah, that was very helpful.
Guest:So I guess I'm trying to find a silver lining.
Marc:What the silver lining is, is that the one thing that I learned after being left this time,
Marc:was that we get very invested and married to a delusion of what our life should be.
Marc:And there are things that happen in your life that all of a sudden shatters that.
Marc:And you're basically given yourself.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, like everything that you thought was going to happen or how you thought it was going to go get shattered with heartbreak of some kind, you know, whether it's it's career wise or emotional wise.
Marc:And either you get bitter, which means you hold on to the delusion with no evidence of it ever happening.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or you get fucking human and you realize who you are and you do what you need to do.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I didn't think of it in such explicit terms, but I think that's what went on.
Marc:Yeah, you were basically, you know, that's that moment where, you know, you are Gary Goleman, you're an adult, and life is hard.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Oh, my God, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And probably those development deals just put it off and deferred it.
Marc:Oh, fuck, of course, yeah.
Marc:Past all those things.
Marc:Oh, they give you the delusion much larger than you ever anticipated.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah, that's fucking bitch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:These curses.
Marc:They're not curses.
Marc:They're... Like, if you can end up with yourself in a comfortable way and realize what you're capable of and what your limitations are and also learn...
Marc:you know, maybe not to be careless with your heart or to, you know, or to approach that stuff differently.
Marc:I mean, you learned about, you learned about relationships, you learned about finances, you learned about, you know, what you can and can't do as a performer.
Marc:You learned, you know, that you have the same sort of survival instinct that your father does, perhaps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that, you know, and that, you know, your brother was never going to, you know, this is something that separates you from your family.
Marc:I mean, your brother never set up his life to even indulge us.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:You know,
Marc:God forbid something comes crashing down for him, but he insulated himself in a world that was secure.
Marc:And you made this other choice, and it broke apart, and you survived it.
Marc:So look at you, man.
Marc:You're a Jewish warrior.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:That's a really nice way to...
Guest:I forget which philosopher I had studied in college.
Guest:It might have been existentialist, Camus or somebody, but just the idea of there never being any security.
Guest:You can never have any security.
Guest:You don't want to go too far that way either.
Guest:But the idea of... I feel like my brother devoted his entire life to being secure.
Guest:He had an insecure moment when my father left when he was 14 or 15.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Never again.
Guest:He said, never again will he not be in control of everything like that.
Guest:The Holocaust or my father leaving.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Any of those books, they make you feel so guilty for complaining about anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Are there Nazis at your door?
Guest:That was the big question.
Guest:If there were complaints in my house, are there Nazis at your door?
Guest:No.
Guest:Then what's wrong?
Marc:What are you crying about?
Marc:Because my bike's broken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it's crazy.
Guest:Did you ever visit the, I always wanted to ask you this, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, there's a Holocaust museum?
Marc:No, no, it wasn't there when I was there.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:I may not go back for it.
Marc:Do I need to?
Marc:I went to the big one.
Guest:No, you do not need to go to it.
Guest:I mean, it was nice.
Guest:It was a nice gesture.
Guest:It was very simple, and I just, the reason I remember it so clearly is because I had been paid for a week there in cash, and I had probably four $100 bills in a 20, and I looked too quickly, and I put $100 into the transparent box,
Guest:there for donations.
Guest:You want me to get it back for you?
Guest:No, here's the thing.
Guest:It was a tremendous dilemma at a Jewish Holocaust museum to ask them to go into this thing to make change for the hundred.
Guest:I didn't want to become an exhibit, so I wound up giving $100, which turned out to be like a third of my pay for the week.
Guest:It put me in a horrible position, but I'll never forget that.
Marc:But position with who?
Marc:It sounds like he might be right with God.
Marc:Something you could tell your father.
Guest:I'll tell you, I don't know what your dad was like, but my dad was an Old Testament god.
Marc:My dad's confused.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's married to a Latino Christian.
Marc:And the last time I saw my father, he's like, I don't know, you know, this Nostradamus end time shit.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I also remember you saying that he also wanted to build a roller coaster or a carnival or something like that.
Guest:That was a metaphor.
Guest:Oh, a metaphor.
Guest:Okay.
Yeah.
Marc:that wasn't exactly all right but he had he had grand plans in the middle of the night yeah yeah yeah sure like how we are in too much coffee yeah yeah all the time yeah no but they're ridiculous like this is you know how can i lose you want a list give me a few minutes
Marc:But all right, so basically, all right, so she left, killed you, but are you level now financially?
Guest:Yes, I'm finally caught off with the IRS, and I sold the house.
Guest:That must be a good feeling.
Guest:It's a great feeling, and yeah, I feel like I'm a...
Guest:I've been rich and miserable, rich for me, which is to say I had a shower door instead of a curtain.
Guest:I wasn't worried about money.
Guest:To me, that's rich.
Guest:I've been poor.
Guest:This time around, being poor, I was actually happy because I rediscovered my love for writing jokes and performing and getting on stage.
Guest:I also, I mean, we hung out there for a little while one night.
Guest:The Comedy Cellar has been a tremendous social boon for me.
Marc:Oh, it's very supportive.
Marc:It's a great place to hang out.
Marc:If you can sit at the table.
Marc:Once you're invited over to the table and you're not one of those people at the other table.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's very interesting because there is a table very close to it that you can reach and touch it.
Guest:You can still talk.
Guest:Yeah, don't bring your chair any closer than the talking distance.
Marc:Yeah, you can talk from that table.
Marc:But to sit in the corner table...
Marc:It's high school cafeteria.
Marc:It's remarkable.
Marc:In New York, it's definitely a special seat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you are a strong enough performer and star that you're able to actually bring somebody to the table who's not even a comic.
Guest:That's a very special level.
Guest:Not many people can get away with that.
Guest:I've had girlfriends where they will say, yeah, you got to be a comedian to sit at this table.
Guest:So it says more about me.
Marc:right then yeah but also like i've also brought girls in there and i'm like you know i don't want to bring you i don't want to put you through that no oh no because it's a lot gentler yeah now you just don't you know you never know when you know it it really depends on the mix but you know if keith is there and keith robinson and norton is there oh my god and uh and colin yeah well colin's you know he can go either way i'm very gentle
Marc:I never know if he likes me or he doesn't like me.
Marc:But if Keith's there and if Patrice was alive, I'll sit in another restaurant.
Marc:If I go there with somebody, I'm like, you know what?
Marc:Mark, you're a phony bitch.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And who's this bitch you're with?
Guest:I'm like, hey.
Guest:I don't know, buddy.
Guest:Nice to see you.
Guest:Oh my gosh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was interesting that when I first started, Patrice was maybe a year in, but he already had that attitude and the confidence on stage in Boston.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And he had jokes that were just wonderful and would kill, and he abandoned almost right away because they were too set up.
Marc:He didn't want him to like him too much.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was just, he was a provocateur even a year in.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:He was a force of nature.
Guest:He was something else.
Marc:But yeah, but that table, I'm glad it was there for you.
Marc:I mean, it definitely has helped many a comic out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But quite honestly, I never know how in I am over there.
Marc:Like she wouldn't let me work at that place until I did an HBO half hour.
Marc:I mean, yeah, I was never like, and when I, when I'm in town there, you know, I'm like, I'm here for the weekend.
Marc:I'm going to do a bunch of spots at the cellar.
Marc:She's like, I gave you a 1230, but everyone is in town.
Marc:Atal is here.
Marc:Mark Cohen.
Marc:You know, I'm like, Oh my God.
Marc:Not Mark Cohen.
Marc:I never feel like I'm always happy.
Marc:I don't really go there much when I go to town.
Marc:I haven't been to New York in over a year now.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, I got to go back.
Marc:Yeah, you really should.
Marc:Yeah, I want to go back and do some shows.
Guest:I'm in that place.
Guest:They do three shows.
Guest:Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday, four shows Friday, four shows Saturday, two shows Monday, two shows Tuesday, and they're always sold out.
Guest:So it's a great place if you want to try out stuff, especially if you're going to go on late night.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I love the room, and I fought hard to get in there.
Marc:And I have a lot of appreciation for it.
Marc:I just haven't been going back to New York as much.
Marc:And the last few times I went, I was doing live WTFs or doing other shows.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:Sometimes, you know, I mean, it did definitely help me out a lot, you know, in the same way.
Marc:When I moved back to New York, when I was going through the divorce and I, you know, everything had fallen apart and I took that job at Air America again, I would go down there and and just sit there with those guys.
Marc:And, you know, definitely it definitely helped me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because sometimes it would be, they'd be the only people I talk to all day.
Marc:And they'll bust your balls and you need it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, because, you know, you don't want to get lost in self pity, you know, and, you know, and they won't, they, they just, it's too draining for them to deal with babysitting.
Marc:So they'd rather just, you know, kind of like bust your balls and people forget that we're a community of people and that, you know, and that we do take care of each other.
Guest:But, and there are a few guys who you can be really deep with and, and talk about your, surprisingly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, uh, Nick Griffin is, is one who, who, who has been there as far as relationships.
Guest:And I can just talk to him for hours about, about, uh, Kurt Vonnegut and my, my, uh, demise with my relationships and all of them.
Marc:Like, you know, if you need them to be very deep, if you need to focus and, you know, they get us like, you know, you know, Jim Norton is a sweet guy, you know, Keith,
Guest:yes all you gotta do is you got one rally with him and if you hit him hard enough yeah yeah yeah he's a person yeah yeah yes it's it's a mate when he's not there it's missing something and i i really i really miss him but i i think it really hit me at patrice's funeral when like colin spoke and keith spoke and these people spoke and that would
Guest:A lot of people were all crying, but then we would laugh because Colin was making fun of Voss for trying to sell DVDs out front of the church and all these things.
Guest:And it was like, wow, we're very lucky that we're amongst these very funny but also deep and special people.
Guest:So we're really...
Guest:we're really very lucky.
Guest:I mean, you go to a funeral of most people in your life and it's not as funny.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, that's true.
Guest:But it's also not as deep and nobody really admits to having it missing and loving and things like that.
Marc:I didn't go back for it.
Marc:I feel bad about that.
Marc:But I definitely had my feelings.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:And I talked about it.
Guest:I loved your episode with Patrice and the follow-up after he passed away.
Guest:Those were wonderful.
Guest:Those are some of my favorite WTFs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Along with Norm Macdonald.
Guest:Norm Macdonald was one of my favorites.
Marc:Oh, I loved it.
Marc:Who knew that all that was in there?
Guest:Also that he was so insecure about his ability to just be funny without the writing.
Guest:Like he was convinced that it was all about the writing.
Guest:When I feel like anything he says makes me laugh, but that was very inspiring.
Marc:I loved that one, yeah.
Marc:You know what I always hated when you're going through?
Marc:Like, you know what someone said to me when I was going through a divorce?
Marc:It was like, so what?
Marc:You'll make new money.
Marc:And I'm like, are you sure?
Guest:That's a foreign idea to Jews, that money comes and money goes.
Guest:It was always my non-Jewish friends who would get me through the money troubles.
Marc:It's a foreign idea to people who don't live the life we live.
Marc:Look, if you go through a divorce and you own a company and the company is doing fine, you're like, yeah, I'm going to make it back.
Marc:But when you do what we do, it's like, I don't spend money because I don't know when the money's going to come.
Marc:And then you've got these people, it's like, hey, it's best you get rid of her.
Marc:Money comes and goes.
Marc:I'm like, does it?
Marc:It's only come once for me.
Marc:It only goes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had a little bit once, and I don't know.
Guest:I saved it all, and now it's gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've tried to hoard, and the next time around, and I've had several next times around where I just behaved in the same way.
Guest:I'm a fool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:Then we're in the right profession.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:We're fools.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Thanks, Gary.
Guest:Oh, that was a nice, tight ending.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
All right.
Marc:That is our show.
Marc:I didn't make this clear before.
Marc:Thank you, Gary.
Marc:That was a lovely conversation.
Marc:And thank you, people who came out to the live WTF at the Tripany House at the Steve Allen on Tuesday.
Marc:Appreciate that.
Marc:We had a nice crowd.
Marc:Good show.
Marc:It's going to be a fun one to listen to.
Marc:If you need anything WTF related, go to WTFpod.com.
Marc:Get on that mailing list.
Marc:What else?
Marc:You know the score.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Upgrade the app.
Marc:Get all 350 episodes.
Marc:There is a new box set available.
Marc:We've done a second printing of the first 100.
Marc:They're available on the website.
Marc:First 100 WTFs on MP3 files that you can rip and do your thing with.
Marc:Oh, a lot of good ones coming up.
Marc:Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner separately next week, Monday and Thursday.
Marc:That's great stuff.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Do what you need to do.
Marc:Do I have an in-tune guitar now?
Marc:Is this the way we're going to end things now?
Marc:Boomer lives.