Episode 361 - DC Pierson
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck in the ears?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:Really?
Marc:That just happened?
Marc:I had a brain seizure, brain skid, brain fart right in the middle of my intro.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Is that a sign?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening in today.
Marc:If you're listening to this on the day that I release this show.
Marc:is uh is valentine's day is it not it is and tonight i will be in cincinnati ohio at bogart's performing for 200 people i'm assuming there'll be some couples there i'm assuming there'll be some people there that are just maybe alone or angry or not in couples so i'm gonna have to service a quite an eclectic crowd
Marc:of expectations on Valentine's Day.
Marc:Now, some people have no expectations on Valentine's Day.
Marc:My girlfriend is one of those people.
Marc:She says she has no expectations.
Marc:She does expect an engagement ring soon, soon-ish.
Marc:I wanted to do some sort of Valentine's Day thing.
Marc:DC Pearson is on the show today.
Marc:He's a novelist.
Marc:You might know him from Derek Comedy.
Marc:He's an actor.
Marc:He's written The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To.
Marc:He's got a new novel out called Crap Kingdom.
Marc:So let's talk about love.
Marc:Because love, as you know, today is Valentine's Day and it's challenging.
Marc:And I just want to reach out to the people that are like minded, the people that know me, that understand me and perhaps relate to me that when you're sitting there looking at the person you love with nothing but judgment, hate, contempt.
Marc:If you're for instance, if you're arguing with a fictional person.
Marc:Person representing if you're arguing to air in your car.
Marc:So if you ever find yourself in your car mumbling out loud your side of an argument against your lover who is not there.
Marc:You might want to take a breather just for yourself and just say, dude, what's going on?
Marc:Just know this, that when you... This is that day.
Marc:It's a manufactured day.
Marc:It's a day of apologies.
Marc:It's a day of contrition.
Marc:It's a day that you just hope that your chick eats enough chocolate to forget what a dick you are.
Marc:It's a day where you're expected to behave nice or maybe you're in a couple where it's like, we're not going to honor that because every day is Valentine's Day, which is bullshit.
Marc:But just know...
Marc:That when you're sitting there looking at the person you love with nothing but hate in your heart, that that just means you love her more than you can even understand and even wrap your brain around.
Marc:That the flip side of love is the ability for them to get so far under your skin and into your guts that
Marc:that they just make you shake with anger inside just just realize in those moments that they've got such a beautiful hold on you and you should just let that go just let it dissipate just you know switch the turn the knob in your head to compassion and say like why are you getting angry at this person whatever she's doing is exactly why you love her
Marc:Why don't you deal with your own shit, selfish person?
Marc:Why don't you stop thinking it's all about you, selfish guy?
Marc:Why don't you stop believing that you somehow have control over another person or there's some sort of strange remote control robot that you have like this miracle charm to just make them behave the way you want them?
Marc:Let them be, man.
Marc:If you love someone, set them free.
Marc:Is it that simple?
Marc:You don't want to do that because that's a slippery slope.
Marc:But if you love someone, I would suggest shutting the fuck up generally.
Marc:I mean, I've learned that that's a good approach.
Marc:Sobbing is always a good approach.
Marc:Yeah, I think that giving a woman a bouquet and a present, maybe a piece of jewelry, some chocolates, and then just breaking down and crying like a child and then saying, Happy Valentine's Day.
Marc:That might be what's necessary.
Marc:But I will say this.
Marc:I will say this.
Marc:Love, to me anyways, is challenging.
Marc:Because frankly, it frightens me.
Marc:Because if I love somebody, that means they can hurt me.
Marc:And I don't want to be hurt.
Marc:So that's the kind of guy I am.
Marc:So if it's like, hey, I feel a lot of love here, feel a lot of love coming at me.
Marc:Wow, I should protect myself against that.
Marc:I'm feeling a lot of love for this person.
Marc:I should probably stuff that down and do something else with it.
Marc:Perhaps turn it into something green and horrible.
Marc:Let the love flow, people.
Marc:Don't be like me.
Marc:Don't make it a chore.
Marc:Everybody's crazy.
Marc:Everybody fucking is, there's no normal.
Marc:There's no easy relationships.
Marc:And if there is, if your relationship is really easy, I would start, you know, I would put some of that spyware on their computer.
Marc:If like everything is perfect, it's time for spyware.
Marc:Happy Valentine's Day.
Marc:I didn't just laugh at myself, did I?
Marc:Come on, you guys.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Love.
Marc:Let love rule.
Marc:All right, listen to Lenny.
Marc:Let's talk to DC Pearson.
Marc:This is a young guy who's got his shit together.
Marc:You know how that goes with me.
Marc:Enjoy.
Guest:I did an audio book of this book.
Guest:The new book?
Guest:Yeah, the new book.
Guest:And I'd done the old one pretty recently as well, like six months ago.
Guest:And it's really easy to get up your own butt when you're doing an audio book.
Guest:I feel like you start it and you're kind of like, okay, do I sound?
Guest:And then by the end you're like, I'm Wilson Wells.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, right.
Marc:You start off sort of like, do I have to NPR this?
Marc:Do I have to be breathy?
Marc:Do I have to... Well, that's the same with anything.
Marc:You're kind of stiff at first, or you're too self-conscious, and then eventually you get into the fuck it mode, and you're okay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like how... All right, DC Pearson is here.
Marc:Now, you have two... These are books.
Marc:I'm holding books right now.
Marc:You're holding books.
Marc:The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To, a novel.
Marc:Yeah, it's my first book.
Marc:And then a new novel.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Crap Kingdom.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Dude, I just spent almost two years writing a fucking book of essays and it nearly killed me.
Marc:Who are you, you punk, to just spit out two full-on fucking novels in, what, in like four years' time?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But let me ask you first.
Marc:I don't want to appear condescending.
Marc:I think I should set you up in the best way I know possible.
Marc:You seem to be sort of a comedic jack of all trades.
Marc:You come from a different generation than me.
Marc:I've had Donald Glover on, and he's one of your compatriots in Derek Comedy.
Marc:There's three of you.
Marc:What's the other guy's name?
Guest:The other writer-performer is a guy named Dominic Dirkus.
Guest:And then there's two other people.
Guest:There's a director, Dan Ekman, and a producer, Meggie McFadden.
Marc:But you're like 30 years old?
Marc:28, yeah.
Marc:Okay, you're 20 fucking eight years old.
Marc:I'm going to try to hide my resentment.
Marc:I get some of you guys in here that seem to have all of your shit together.
Marc:By the time you're 28, to the point where, you know, you've been involved, you shot your own movie, you wrote two books, you've done like hundreds, it seems, sort of short sketch pieces for Funny or Die and through Derek Comedy, through College Humor and whatnot.
Marc:And I just, your work ethic is inspiring and I need to know, how the fuck does that happen?
Marc:How are you so goddamn well-adjusted, D.C.
Marc:Pearson?
Guest:It doesn't feel like being well-adjusted.
Guest:It feels like a constant kind of like keeping all of these plates up in the air because if I don't, then it's not, one of them isn't going to pay off.
Guest:If I don't keep all the irons in the fire, then one of them won't get hot enough that I can then be like successful.
Marc:So it's just you're a crazy, oh, successful ambition.
Marc:Yeah, the ever elusive.
Marc:Ah, see, maybe that's what the secret is, to know what you want and work towards that.
Marc:Holy fuck, let me write that down.
Marc:My general MO is just sort of like, I'm going to do stand-up.
Marc:That's that.
Marc:I'm done with my list.
Marc:It worked.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:It totally worked.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:I'm almost 50 and it's just turning around now in the last couple of years.
Marc:Yeah, it worked, I guess.
Marc:If you consider going through horrible years of turmoil and self-abuse.
Marc:Yeah, I've listened to all of them.
Yeah.
Guest:When I moved to L.A.
Guest:like three years ago, and I just started listening to this show, and I think Robin Williams was the first one that I listened to, and then I went back and started listening to all of them, and it was really like, oh, someone else is out there in L.A.
Guest:just staring into the void.
Marc:The void?
Marc:Every day you stare into the void.
Guest:That's a friend of mine, and I, when we first discussed moving to L.A., or we had been here for a while, we were sort of just like, we both realized at the same time, like, do you ever just like around 2.30 p.m.
Guest:just in your house, and you just start kind of, and you just feel it?
Guest:Drifting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You feel the tug.
Marc:There's a tug that happens.
Marc:Like it's, yeah, it's usually mine comes a little later.
Marc:Mine's like a four 30 between four 30 and nine void thing where when you, well, when you sort of choose your own life, right.
Marc:And you're doing your own thing.
Marc:And then there's those quiet times where you're like, you know, maybe I can just sit with myself for a little while.
Marc:And then the void just starts to peel you.
Marc:You feel like it's pulling you apart in your living room, right?
Guest:You really do.
Guest:Yeah, because there's so many things you can do.
Guest:And there's also a website called Deadline Hollywood where you can go and see all these deals that people are getting.
Guest:And things like that.
Guest:So you just you always find your way over to that or to something else that reminds you of the achievements of your peers or friends or, you know, secret enemies or whatever.
Guest:And then you're like, oh, I like it.
Guest:And then and then you just start going, why didn't I do that?
Guest:And then you're but you didn't do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the person that did that probably started doing that years ago.
Guest:And you didn't even you didn't even put yourself in the running for that thing.
Guest:But for some reason, right there on the couch, oh, I should.
Guest:OK, now I know I should have done that.
Marc:that's an important realization and the fact that you had it in your 20s is profound that's the hey this has got nothing to do with me realization right that their success has nothing to do with they didn't do that at me right yeah well it's a conscious revelation i have to now actually absorb it into how i actually feel but it's something i know on a conscious level but that's just but that's interesting to me because you know before you're coming over here you know i'll be honest with you i was in a slight panic i know you've wanted to do the show for a long time and i know that
Marc:you've accomplished a tremendous amount of output in all different forms.
Marc:But it's sort of a world that I'm not quite on top of.
Marc:I'm significantly older than you.
Marc:So there was this panic in me.
Marc:It's like, DC Pearson, what has he done?
Marc:And then I'm like, oh my God, he's fucking done everything.
Marc:What have I done is the bigger question.
Marc:I'm sitting here looking at two novels that writing is a tricky thing.
Marc:And it's it's difficult.
Marc:And it's certainly I, you know, to write fiction to me is is, you know, commendable and difficult.
Marc:But when you started doing these, like, was this a plan where you're like, I know the market, you know, I'm going to write like young adult fiction.
Guest:Well, the first one is about high school kids, the boy who couldn't sleep and never had to.
Guest:But it's grown up lit like it has like swear words and boobs and drugs and stuff in it.
Guest:And when it came out, I was really proud of it, and it had a good critical reception, and it did decent.
Guest:But a lot of people thought that it was young adult fiction because it's about young adults, even though it was targeted toward an adult market.
Guest:But how adult?
Marc:You're talking about the sort of infantilized generation of 20 to 25-year-olds who were emotionally in high school?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Any emotional high schoolers out there from 10 to 92.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:But I didn't really have a particular market in mind for it.
Guest:I didn't sit down to write it because I was like, this is how I'm going to capitalize.
Marc:When did you start writing it?
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I guess I was pretty much just out of college, so probably like 22, 23 years.
Marc:But see, that's amazing to me because, you know, everyone's got this dream.
Marc:You know, there's the difference between somebody.
Marc:I mean, your output is is pretty astounding because I can't tell you just on a creative level how many people I hear from or who I've talked to in my life who have these dreams in college of doing things.
Marc:And then, you know, just sort of like, yeah, I'm going to write a book.
Marc:I'm going to get to it.
Marc:I really want to.
Marc:But the actual act of doing it is a tremendous amount of discipline.
Guest:I read a thing or probably just saw a headline and then now my mind has tricked me into thinking that I read something.
Guest:But on like CNN.com a while ago that was talking about how like if you if you talk about doing something like I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
Guest:You it actually activates the same part of your brain as doing the thing itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you can really scratch the neurological itch of like, I want to do this thing just by talking about it.
Guest:And so there was a really long period of time where I refused to talk about anything that I was doing.
Guest:You know what amplifies that?
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Weed.
Guest:I wouldn't know.
Guest:Despite my appearance, I cannot smoke weed.
Marc:Well, no, but like sort of like, you know, weed is one of those great facilitators like, oh, yeah, man, I'm going to fucking.
Guest:i'm gonna do that yeah i'm gonna start it next week and then like you just play it out the entire arc of the success of your project and then that's it it's done yeah well you can always have the night before you start the thing you can have that night before you start the thing any old time you want to yeah okay well tomorrow it's all changing i'm gonna wake up for some reason for me it's always like i'm gonna wake up eight for some reason eight is the magic number of achievement i'm gonna sit at the thing and do it
Guest:Why don't I just wake up then?
Guest:If I just woke up then, I would have more.
Guest:I'm going to.
Guest:OK, starting on Monday and it's like Friday.
Guest:So it has enough time to sort of erode.
Marc:But so this like this book became sort of popular in it was it was before the success of Derek and it was before a lot of the other stuff.
Marc:I mean, how did the book come about the first book?
Guest:The first book, actually, I sort of finished writing it after we had made our movie Mystery Team and they sort of happened concurrently.
Guest:So we had shot our movie up in Manchester, New Hampshire, and we came back to New York where we were all living at the time.
Guest:and um i had already i had written a first draft of the boy who couldn't sleep and i had written it basically entirely because i was uh out of college yeah and i was temping at barnesandnoble.com right and uh i saw a friend of mine on the subway and she was like oh i really like like the short stories that you write online and stuff and i was like oh cool thank you yeah and uh then she was like you should write a novel and i was like oh i'd
Guest:Yeah, I want to do that someday.
Guest:That's definitely a goal of mine.
Guest:And she got super serious and she was like, you know, a lot of people say that, but not a lot of people ever do it.
Guest:And now in my memory, she just like disappeared after that because that was so ominous.
Marc:Those are called guilt angels.
Guest:Yeah, and that's really all I respond to, I realized, is sort of like fear and guilt and panic.
Guest:I don't really respond to a lot of positive motivators.
Guest:It doesn't feel like I don't just really respond to like getting inspired.
Guest:I sort of respond to just negative fear and jealousy based ones.
Marc:Yeah, I'm driven by spite.
Guest:That sounds like a record label.
Marc:Yeah, I completely identify with that.
Marc:But, you know, I think that's sort of the that's the darker face of ambition.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Some people are positive and sort of like, I know what I want.
Marc:I'm going to do everything I can to get it.
Marc:And other people are like, fuck that guy.
Marc:I can do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I feel like everyone has that.
Guest:And I feel like the reason a lot of people in L.A.
Guest:read a lot of like self-help and motivational books is so you can disguise that in sort of more positive terminology.
Guest:But I do feel like a lot of ambition comes from sort of a more Citizen Kane, there will be blood kind of place than it does like a Deepak Chopra movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's probably true that there's some sort of innate animal competitiveness once you figure it out.
Marc:But it gets so diluted when you're dealing with like show business product.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:There's no survival of the fittest when you're like, I did a three minute sketch video.
Marc:You know, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's not like, you know, you're not going to.
Marc:Well, you might attract a different grade of of woman or whatever.
Marc:I just don't it separates from animal behavior after a certain point.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, and also because the the in show business, I feel like the the path from the inception of the idea to whatever completion is going to be or it being released is so meandering and potentially just goes off into the wilderness.
Guest:So you could be like, I sold the thing.
Guest:And then it never comes out because it gets trapped.
Marc:But this is you talking as a guy that's like put all this stuff out into the world and obviously those obstacles and the disappointments that come with getting something made or getting a part or anything else, you know, that becomes the, you sort of have to eat that as you get older once you get into the machine.
Marc:But I mean, where the hell did this all start?
Marc:I mean, where do you come from?
Guest:I'm from Phoenix, Arizona.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You grew up your whole life in Phoenix, Arizona?
Guest:Until I was 18, yeah, and then I went to school in New York.
Guest:I know Phoenix, Arizona.
Guest:Yeah, well, I know you're like a Southwest dude, right?
Marc:Well, I grew up in New Mexico, and my first wife was from Phoenix.
Marc:My brother lives in Phoenix currently.
Marc:I mean, I kind of have a sense of Phoenix.
Marc:What does it feel like to you?
Marc:Well, initially, when you first experience Phoenix outside of downtown, which now they're trying to sort of revive in a way, it's just sort of like all these strip malls are identically colored.
Marc:And then I found out that there's sort of a law that you can't, you know, you've got to maintain this sort of desert thing.
Marc:So everything, you know, every mall, which is everywhere, like it just seems to be a never ending series of strip malls that are sort of nice and they all look roughly the same.
Marc:And but the desert thing, I like the desert thing.
Marc:I like this sort of like infinite horizon business.
Marc:But I also know that there's a type of whack job in Phoenix.
Marc:There's a type of political whack job and as sort of like, not off the gritty, but it definitely has, there's like half cowboy, half fanatic sensibility to the place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the first book came out of it a little bit, but there was kind of and I didn't realize it until I went to New York that like there was this feeling when I was growing up because it was kind of coming out of the boom of like the 80s and like a lot of new real estate and stuff like that and new like developments painted in the colors that you're talking about, where I think they went from in Arizona of a cowboy thing.
Guest:for so many years from when it had started to then like, no, we're going to like respect the people that we took this land from.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now we're going to name all of our elementary schools like after Native American tribes and stuff.
Guest:But they're not here anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but they have casinos.
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:And they have very catchy jingles in their casino commercials.
Guest:But the fact that everything that I grew up with sort of grew up around me was something that I really took for granted because that's the only thing that I ever knew.
Guest:So when I went back east and they would be like, this building has been here since before George Washington.
Guest:And I had no conception of that whatsoever because I was used to like, this building was here when R.E.M.
Guest:'s murmur was first on the charts.
Marc:so there's like yeah that's all that's mind-blowing to me too that when you go even like if you travel abroad and there's buildings there from 600 AD like if there's like a couple saints thrown under there sure sure and you're holy you're like holy shit this wall is three times as old as our country and yeah but like to be in a city that sort of sprouted as you grew up it's weird but I mean in terms of how you grew up there I mean where do you what kind of background do you come from to be so fucking driven and focused uh my
Guest:parents were both in computers whatever that means like I feel like most people in Phoenix who I grew up with their parents would be in computers but nobody knew exactly what their parents did because there was companies like Intel and Motorola there that I think had like fled from California in like the late 80s early 90s yeah so there were a lot of big factories and big facilities and whatever so everybody's parents were just sort of in technology but you never knew exactly what they did
Guest:My dad is an entrepreneur a couple times over.
Guest:All of his companies have done like computer aided training things.
Guest:So they make training stuff for companies.
Guest:So it's like they did, for example, several years ago, like a thing for Ikea where they teach Ikea employees via computer how to be Ikea employees.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sounds like the most Ikea thing ever.
Guest:Now that I say it out loud.
Marc:Is part of it the pronunciation of the products?
Guest:Like glug.
Guest:Yeah, glug.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah that's a chair yeah just they all sound like german dignitaries basically um i honestly don't know it seems like it would be part of it it's a whole multimedia so he creates these things where uh so that was a big business like he produces them yeah i mean my parents were both in computers so they would go to a lot of trade shows and come back with like you know extra large t-shirts with pictures of microchips on them and stuff plenty of that stuff key chains i would and i i because i was around that the first flash drive so
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some of the they were big as a room.
Guest:Those flash drives.
Guest:But yeah, so they they would I was kind of inundated by that.
Guest:So I was like really obsessed with Microsoft.
Guest:And I was probably the only kid in fifth grade that knew like, yeah, OK, Bill Gates.
Guest:But do you know about Steve Ballmer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Number two of Microsoft.
Guest:He was the genius.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I spent about 10 to 15 years being really into Microsoft.
Guest:And then until that became like hyper uncool.
Marc:Were you sort of preoccupied with the sort of Apple versus Microsoft thing and the personal mythologies of Gates and Jobs?
Guest:Now that you mention it, I really do remember feeling a certain sense of schadenfreude as maybe like an 11-year-old of like, Steve Jobs left Apple, man.
Guest:It's not going well for him.
Guest:There was some Time Magazine cover with like the Apple logo or of like a little computer and it had X's over its eyes.
Guest:I was like, that's what you get for not being Microsoft.
Guest:I'm going to go not ride my bike.
Guest:These were heroes to you.
Guest:Yeah, which is real sad.
Guest:yeah it's sort of funny the balmer and the what's the other guy's name wozniak right yeah he was the apple guy right like there were these side men that were like those guys are the real guys you know these other guys are you know well because it's the same thing is is music nerdery i feel like where it's like okay yeah everybody knows but do you know about this one studio musician who played he's the secret weapon he's the genius and where is he now he's in a trailer
Guest:So, yeah, so I guess what you're saying is I should make a documentary that plays South by Southwest tracking down, like, the great number two sidemen in computers.
Marc:Sure, man.
Marc:You know, I feel that because this just happened and it's documented that I am your partner in producing that.
Marc:All right, great.
Marc:Look forward to your share of respect and acclaim.
Marc:No, it's actually a funny idea, the number two guy.
Marc:Because I used to talk about behind every genius there's a guy saying, that guy stole my shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, and it'd be interesting to sort of, that's, it's actually a pretty interesting angle because in every profession there, there are those guys.
Guest:You hear that a lot about like the pioneers are the ones that get the arrows.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Lenny Bruce and Joe Ansis, you know, there's even in comedy, you know, there's the dudes that clearly kind of co-opted, you know, the, the personality or the riffs of somebody else.
Marc:Cause that guy couldn't quite pull it together.
Marc:There needs to be the, the sort of ambitious, you know, a guy without conscience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I feel like that's become even more of a prominent thing or an idea in culture now is like the synthesizer, like the person that brings it all together.
Guest:It's not the person that came up with it.
Guest:It's just the person that like curated it.
Guest:And now there's a lot.
Guest:People have a lot invested in trying to make that seem like it's the same thing as creativity.
Guest:And maybe it is.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:That's just like a sort of kind of interesting word for thievery.
Marc:The ability to to to collate a lot of different ideas into one idea that you then call your own.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think that, well, you know, everything leads to the next thing.
Marc:But synthesizer, I don't know if that's on business cards now.
Marc:Synthesizer.
Guest:I am an electronic keyboard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's up?
Guest:I'm a Moog.
Guest:How are you?
Guest:I'm a human Moog.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So when did you start doing like, you know, as a kid, what was your trip?
Marc:I mean, like, I don't want to put you into the nerd under the nerd umbrella, but you sort of are.
Guest:I mean, it would be accurate.
Guest:It wouldn't be a lie.
Guest:You know, it was a lot of Monty Python and a lot of reading.
Guest:I, you know, read just my dad would buy like airport paperbacks to go on business trips.
Guest:And then he had one that had a dinosaur on it.
Guest:And I was like, what's this?
Guest:He's like, oh, it's Jurassic Park.
Guest:You'd really like it.
Guest:And so I read it and it was about a month before it was about a year before the movie came out.
Guest:So when the movie came out, I was a very excited for it, but B also had the ability to say to other kids like, that's not as good as the book.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Even though it had taken me like six months to read like two pages a week.
Marc:There weren't that many of that kind of dinosaur in the book.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:There's,
Guest:There also weren't that many hard words that I'm very impressive for being able to read.
Guest:So there was a lot of that, a lot of being into a kid with advanced reading comprehension, kind of a story that I often think of as being my origin story is when I was in maybe like second grade, they announced there was going to be a school talent show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was really excited about it.
Guest:I was like, oh,
Guest:I really want to do something for the talent show and second grade second grade and we're driving home and my mom's driving me home and I'm like I want to do something for the talent show I'm so excited and she turns me she's like and she was clearly pained by this and this was like the nicest way she could put it but she was like sweetie you know you can't read in the talent show right
Guest:Because I think that she thought that I was thinking and looking back on it, this is not an inaccurate thing to have thought was that I thought I could just go up there and just silently under a spotlight, just like hold up the Hobbit and then just start not reading aloud even just like look at how fast those pages are turning.
Guest:We can give him a quiz about this and he'll remember a lot of it.
Guest:That would have been a great thing to do.
Guest:Andy Kaufman of second grade but Andy would actually write out loud but for you to just sit there and read quietly this is what I've been encouraged to do why can't I do it on stage in a public forum what did you do I didn't do anything I didn't have a talent no
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:Maybe that's kind of why I went into acting stuff and comedy stuff is because then there's that more immediate gratification.
Guest:And it's something that you can do.
Marc:But you were never like you never they never forced an instrument on you.
Guest:I did play alto sax in I started in middle school because you could get out of P.E.
Guest:if you were in band.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's it, man.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And Lisa Simpson plays the saxophone and she's my favorite Simpson because she reads books.
Marc:That's the dividing line, though.
Marc:Like to actually make that choice.
Marc:It's like I'm going to play an instrument so I don't have to hang out with those guys.
Guest:It really is one of those decisions where you're sort of like ordering a meal you're going to eat for the rest of your life.
Guest:At that moment, you're like, yeah, OK, I'm going to take band, not because I'm into it, but just because I won't have to do physical activity.
Marc:Or learn the sort of the, you know, all the lessons of teamwork, healthy competition.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:See, like now, like someone else's success or, you know, something you read in the trades is going to send you into a spiral because everything you take personally.
Marc:Had you just chosen PE over band, you might have been like sort of like, this is just the way it is.
Marc:I'm going to keep fighting the good fight.
Guest:Are you saying I had inadequate Red Rover?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:As did I. Yeah.
Marc:It's one of the, it's one of the, is there a vitamin we can take for that?
Marc:No, no, there's, there's no learning it now.
Marc:There's no, we're just a, we're, we're, we're doomed to be jealous and be driven by spite.
Guest:What day do you think that freezing point happens where it's just like, you're locked in.
Guest:This is you.
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:You tell me you're closer to it.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know either.
Marc:I like, I think that for me, I think it happened.
Marc:And then like, at some point I became very uncomfortable and contemptuous of what I had settled on.
Marc:so then i decided to manufacture another personality that i would just place over that to protect that guy right and now like after about like an iphone case sure yeah except that you know that all the buttons were connected to this other fake thing like the actual software of what i was was being you know sort of shielded so you're saying it's one of those like early computers that wasn't really a computer there was just a dude inside there yeah and a huckster would just take it from town to town like
Guest:Look at the amazing computational machine.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:There's just a guy in there sweating.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And people were like, I don't even like the way that machine looks, really.
Marc:So that machine needs to get its shit together.
Guest:Yeah, I guess what happens when you make a whole artificial personality and people reject it?
Guest:People are just like, nope.
Marc:I don't think it was an artificial one.
Marc:It was just a manifestation of some of my worst traits, like anger, defensiveness, the need to cause problems everywhere.
Marc:But then it sort of came full circle.
Marc:I feel like I'm talking a lot about me to you.
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:No, it's not.
Marc:OK, I've gotten away from that.
Marc:So your parents, I guess it seems to me and like I talk about this, like they both seem to be, you know, they were on the you were all on the same page and they didn't.
Marc:Yeah, I find that somebody who who seems to get things done obviously had pretty supportive people.
Guest:Yeah, they, they, they were super supportive, um, all the way down and I was like the oldest child.
Guest:So I think it's kind of, uh, I have two younger brothers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The middle one is like super capable, quiet, uh, you know, business minded.
Guest:He's like about to graduate from ASU business school, um, keeps to himself mostly, but is nice and sociable and has like normal seeming friends and relationships.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then my youngest brother is basically what everyone agrees is like kind of a carbon copy of me, like just sort of, you know, bookish, but very outgoing and like funny in some in so far as like five years ago, he would like make a joke.
Guest:Nobody would laugh.
Guest:And I would tell him like that's part of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like you just are going to be funny only to yourself for like a long time.
Guest:Take the hit.
Guest:You got to take the hit.
Guest:That's that's that's all.
Guest:It's all in the game.
Guest:It's all in the game.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:So.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:Oldest of three boys.
Marc:How did you get out of Arizona childhood without becoming some sort of right wing whack job?
Guest:I had a brief conservative phase in high school that I'm now entirely ashamed of.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I got really into... I got into it via computers.
Guest:I got really into, like, blogging.
Guest:The early days of blogging.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the late 90s and early 2000s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I would just read these blogs of people that I liked, but a lot of the early blogosphere, if you want to call it that, especially after 9-11, was started by these, like, new, like, neoconservative people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they seemed really smart and really sort of in touch, and it seemed kind of...
Guest:countercultural almost to be conservative to me in a weird way.
Guest:Cause all my friends were very, just kind of like a liberal and Bush sucks.
Guest:And I'd been like that.
Guest:And then suddenly nine 11 happened.
Guest:It's like, but what if he doesn't, what if he gets it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What if he, what if he, everyone thinks he doesn't get it, but he really does, which just now that I'm saying it sounds like the most hipstery thing ever.
Guest:It's like, you guys all don't like the movie transformers cause it's too commercial.
Guest:What if I love it because it's like pop art.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So maybe I thought Bush was pop art.
Marc:No, I think that's a rationalization.
Guest:absolutely so how how far did you go with this concern not very it was mostly involved being in front of my computer and reading things and then arguing with my history teacher oh really yeah yeah a lot of that that i'm reading conspiracy stuff or it wasn't super duper conspiracy it wasn't like it wasn't total conspiracy like wingnut 9-11 right an inside job uh kind of thing um it was just sort of people being like yeah bush we got to get into it you know smart young people can also be into bush and i was like yeah i'm a smart young person
Guest:Uh, and then I went to college and then it just all completely, like as soon as I stepped off the plane, just faded away.
Marc:But when, when you were, so you were like 18, 17 or 18 when nine 11 happened, did you, was there, did you feel a tangible kind of fear or freak out?
Marc:Or I mean, like, did it shatter something?
Guest:I mean, I was in, I remember I was in journalism class the morning that it happened and feeling like all the other kids were being unnecessarily flippant about it.
Guest:So I asked my teacher if I could go down to the drama room where people were real.
Guest:Not in those exact words, but that was pretty much my thought process.
Guest:I was like, can I go down to the drama room with my fellow sensitive people, please?
Guest:Because I was a huge theater kid and I dabbled in journalism.
Guest:So I fled down to the drama room and everyone was really feeling it.
Marc:where people were emoting properly.
Marc:So you just walked into the drama department.
Marc:Everybody was crying and in a panic.
Guest:Sharing a single bag of granola.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Trying to figure out what's our move.
Guest:What is our, the Mountain Point Theater Company's response to this?
Guest:We've got to put together a statement.
Guest:The world is waiting with bated breath.
Guest:What will our production of Edward Albee's one-act play, A Zoo Story, say about this?
Marc:Yeah, it has to be informed now by the environment we live in, which is an environment of fear and confusion and vulnerability.
Guest:What will our short-form improv group, Rebels Without Applause,
Guest:Is irony dead?
Guest:Are we still able to do British accents the way that we once did?
Guest:They're now our allies in the war on terror, so maybe it's a tribute.
Marc:Yeah, now it's like there is no humor anymore, and we have to sort of adjust our humor to that.
Marc:So, yeah, so you went on stage on September 13th and took it on.
Guest:you were a big huge theater kid huge huge theater kid I see that musicals even oh yeah I would always get the non or I would always get the like talk singing role in musicals like I played Ali Hakem in Oklahoma who has a song that he I would clearly get the parts that they had written for some funny man of the 50s that they wanted to put in the thing but couldn't sing so I would excuse me get a lot of like talk singing roles and a lot of dirty old man roles for sure can you sing
Guest:No, I love music, but I have no real aptitude for it.
Guest:I stopped playing alto sax after I got into theater and I quit unceremoniously after my first semester in marching band in high school and just left and was like so thrilled about leaving that I just left my alto sax in the in the band lockers and never went back to get it because it would have been too awkward.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you sacrifice a sax.
Marc:Did you own that?
Guest:Yeah, my parents had bought it, and then they asked me about it about three years later.
Guest:Like, whatever happened to that?
Guest:And I was like, uh.
Guest:Some lucky guy found it.
Guest:What if that was the start of some amazing saxophonist's career?
Guest:Hey, there's another movie idea.
Guest:Get on it, genius.
Guest:All right, great.
Guest:The Magic Sax.
Guest:Man, you are co-producing a lot of shit today.
Marc:If I just get some new reads, this thing looks like it's in pretty good shape.
Marc:Oh my God, I'm gifted.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He really has a great self image.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those three notes.
Guest:And he's like, I got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I built a character.
Guest:Well, those are powerful.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Didn't even.
Guest:It was like a close, close encounters of the third kind.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Bring in the aliens.
Guest:I always, I always have to find aliens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember, um, I was, when I was in high school, I got really into like, you know, writing plays and stuff like that.
Guest:Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Guest:Back up.
Marc:Let's, uh, what, what, what, what, what,
Marc:See, this is an interesting area for me because when I was in high school, I was working in a restaurant near the university.
Marc:So I was very sort of tapped into what college kids were doing when I was like 14 or 15.
Marc:And I remember going to see a production of Sam Shepard's Tooth of Crime, I think it was.
Guest:That's like the rock and roll one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a big fucking play.
Marc:And it's bizarre.
Marc:And it's hours long.
Marc:And it revolves around the record business.
Marc:But it's all very sort of coded.
Marc:And there's two camps of musicians.
Marc:I can't remember what it was.
Marc:But when I saw it, I'm like, holy shit.
Marc:There's a whole other fucking thing going on out there.
Marc:And it's way beyond anything I can even wrap my brain around.
Marc:Did you have that moment?
Guest:I did have that moment.
Guest:But that moment happened in terms of like going to see college kids and their productions or their like improv shows or their plays or whatever.
Guest:But a lot of them would involve every time I went to see one would have a girl in it that I had dated all throughout high school who had then gone away to college and left me for the founder of her improv, her college improv troupe.
Guest:So I would, but I would still go to see her more than once.
Marc:How many people did you, this one girl, this one girl, she came back home.
Guest:Yeah, she, she was, we met in high school.
Guest:She was two years older than me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:she was dating a guy who was my friend who was a senior and he was in theater and he was cool and he had a beard and what?
Guest:And we would play video games over his house and stuff like that.
Guest:And then she sort of singled me out as like, this kid's cool.
Guest:We're going to start hanging out.
Guest:He's going to be my friend.
Guest:And so she would come and like pick me up and we would go hang out.
Guest:And there was a summer where she would just come over to my house every day after she got off work at Cold Stone Creamery.
Guest:So she smelled like ice cream.
Guest:She would wake me up and we would go hang out.
Guest:And everyone was like, you guys are fucking, you guys are fucking.
Guest:And I'm like, no, we are not.
Guest:We are friends.
Guest:And it's one of those things where everyone can see it, but you, because we weren't fucking, we weren't doing anything, but we were emotionally falling into this sort of like sordid high school, weird, non-sexual affair.
Marc:The teasy thing, you know, the sort of like right to the edge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, well, yeah.
Guest:Then so we officially started like we were like, I'm like, I like you.
Guest:We should we should do, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We should follow through on this.
Guest:Two person French resistance of like dry humping.
Guest:And so, yeah, we started there was a summer where it just sort of turned and became like, oh, no, we're actually fooling around behind your boyfriend's back.
Guest:But.
Guest:in order for it to not go over the line, we're not going to kiss on the mouth was the rule that we, the insane rule that we invented for ourselves to be like, but we're not actually doing anything wrong.
Guest:So we like pretty womaned ourself, I guess.
Marc:So, okay, so you didn't kiss on the mouth.
Guest:No.
Guest:But did you do?
Marc:Yeah, we fooled around, did a bunch of other stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Terribly.
Marc:Hands on.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:But no kissing on the mouth.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:That's beautiful and bizarre.
Marc:And so.
Marc:It's right up there with Catholic women who, to maintain their virginity, will only allow anal sex.
Guest:See, I was raised Catholic, but not super Catholic.
Guest:So I feel, but I feel like it really gets in there.
Guest:I feel like in for a penny, in for a pound a little bit with that stuff.
Marc:There's definitely that sort of weird framework to your plan.
Marc:Like, you know, like this isn't real if we're not actually kissing on the mouth or exchanging tongues.
Guest:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And so how long did that go on for?
Guest:For a summer.
Guest:And then I finally hectored her into breaking up with that guy and she broke up with him and then we started dating.
Guest:And so she was in school for another year where we were actually going out as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Marc:Was she your first sex?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Really?
Marc:How long did it take with the not kissing on the mouth?
Marc:Did you actually have sex and not kiss on the mouth?
Marc:No.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:No, we did.
Marc:Because that would be just weird.
Guest:like right now it's just mark it was so hot i'm sure it was it was uh really really i think messed me up and programmed me in a weird way where for a long time it was very difficult for me to feel a real enthusiasm for a relationship that started normally and continued normally like once you kissed on the mouth you're like well we're done
Marc:This is the pinnacle.
Marc:Yeah, this is what we were working towards.
Guest:Also, I got to say, nothing could have been more disappointing than that first kiss.
Guest:Yeah, I was just like, oh yeah, okay.
Guest:I see why this is the prelude and not the dessert.
Marc:That is hilarious.
Marc:That's what she worked towards.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then so she graduated and she went to college and then I was still in high school, but I was like, we're going to stay together.
Guest:She's only in Tempe.
Guest:That's a, you know, 15 minute drive away.
Guest:So I'd go to see her in improv shows and stuff like that.
Guest:And we would hang out a little bit.
Guest:And then she told me that her, the head of her improv group was like into her.
Guest:He's like, he told me he likes me.
Guest:And I was like, well, that'll be, you're not going to do anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She's like, no, that's insane.
Marc:Then they went to see she's breaking the first rule of improv.
Yeah.
Guest:no yes and i think the rule might actually be yes say yes and and then go tell your high school boyfriend that you didn't okay there you go um and so i was like okay cool well that'll be but what a loser that guy is huh anyway you're gonna continue driving the 20 minutes to see me and hang out in my parents uh house with my yoda posters on the wall why wouldn't you want to do that um and then uh and then yeah then they went on a trip to chicago an improv trip to chicago to the mecca of
Guest:of improv.
Guest:And then she came back and then she came over to my place one night and she was like, AJ and I, his name's AJ.
Guest:I don't, I don't care.
Guest:Um, this is all relatively public information.
Guest:Uh, was like, uh, we, he like kissed me and I was like, Oh man, what a dick.
Guest:I was like, well at that point I was like, Oh no, they must've been fooling around for months at this point if he's only kissing her now.
Um,
Guest:But so I was like, oh, well, yeah, but that's going to.
Guest:And she's like, I'm going to go date him.
Guest:And I was like, all right.
Guest:And now it couldn't make more sense thinking back on it.
Guest:And I'm so surprised that she didn't do it earlier.
Guest:But in the moment, I was like, what what does this guy have that I don't have?
Guest:He was a senior in college.
Guest:And so it was like she was going to the other end of the age spectrum.
Guest:Makes total sense.
Guest:And then he graduated and he went to grad school at NYU.
Guest:And a couple of years went by and I was graduating from high school.
Guest:And she had told me because we had started like seeing each other intermittently as friends at that point that he was founding a comedy group.
Guest:at NYU and she knew that I was thinking about going to NYU.
Guest:So I reached out to him.
Guest:He was working in like a graduate student capacity at the dramatic writing department.
Guest:And that's how I found out about this department called dramatic writing.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, you should apply here.
Guest:So I did.
Guest:And I applied early decision and I got in and then I went there and I went and I auditioned for his group.
Guest:I got in.
Guest:He was like the director slash guru of it.
Guest:And then that's where I ended up meeting all the guys in Derek.
Marc:So this again is the recurring theme.
Marc:You're like, fuck that guy.
Marc:What does he have that I don't have?
Guest:Right.
Marc:And then you just sort of like, you know, I'm going to I'm going to confront him on his own turf and I will transcend this situation.
Marc:So out of just, you know, teenage fury.
Marc:Your entire career was dictated by teenage fury at being outmanned in your mind by this older dude.
Marc:I know.
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't, it really, I mean, on a conscious level.
Guest:What's he up to now?
Guest:He lives in Canada and he makes video games.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:I saw him at Christmas.
Guest:We played shuffleboard.
Guest:He's really good.
Guest:Well, let's just be candid here.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Did you win?
Guest:No, he's really good.
Marc:You mean at shuffleboard?
Marc:No, I mean at life.
Marc:Um...
Guest:Are you are you?
Guest:He's a nice guy.
Guest:And I credit him with having met all those dudes and basically for having the life that I have now.
Guest:So it's all good.
Marc:It's so diplomatic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I mean, that's a good story.
Marc:So, you know, getting back to what we were talking about.
Marc:So all your early theater experiences were tainted by this woman who stole your heart and then started, you know.
Guest:fucking a dude that was older and an improv guy right and that compelled you in some way it must have or I mean it weirdly I think that I sort of at that point developed a capacity for like burying the hatchet or at least it feeling like I was burying the hatchet because after a while so I was upset at them obviously but
Guest:and heartbroken and then eventually like reached out to him to be like oh can I like put a play that I wrote in your like festival that you run at ASU and he was like sure and we like went and met up and like talked and like started working together and then so we sort of like started to have this relationship and some of you know I feel like so that's like the most fruitful long-term artistic choice that I ever made was just being like
Guest:And as it ended up turning out, just being like, hey, do you want to like work together on this thing rather than being like, oh, fuck that dude.
Guest:Did they end up?
Guest:I'm glad I did.
Guest:They know they they ended up she ended up married to another guy that she had met in her college comedy group.
Guest:And they now live in like northern California.
Guest:And I think he's like a computer genius.
Guest:So no more comedy for any of them.
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:And then she about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, wrote me a really nice Facebook message where she sort of like apologized for all that stuff after years.
Guest:And I still haven't written her back because I haven't gotten up the I haven't.
Guest:It's one of those things where when you sit down and you immediately feel emotionally drained just by even thinking about writing back to the person.
Guest:And I really have no ill will towards her anymore.
Marc:I think you just put a package together of your books and your DVD from the movie and a couple of links to all the working.
Guest:A really fun thing happened where when I started doing a storytelling show called DC Pearson is Bad at Girls and I would promote it, so many people that I've been romantically involved with over my life came out of the woodwork just be like, hey, how are you?
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just to kind of check in and I think sort of feel me out for where we at and is he talking shit about me on stage?
Marc:Do you find that, like, see, I have an issue with this now, actually.
Marc:Do you find that their idea of talking shit is different than yours?
Marc:Because, like, I don't think that I talk shit, and then, like, when somebody actually hears it, they're like, why would you fucking tell people that?
Guest:about us i don't know first of all i don't know um i don't know what their definition of talking shit is i feel like any talking about anything i i my guilt mind reads it as talking shit so then i immediately feel really bad but then sometimes the stories are so good that i'm like i have to do it there you go and it happened and i was there and i asked and fuck them they're not around
Guest:Right.
Guest:I met Stephen Tobolowsky one time who you've had on here, like an amazing storyteller and whatever.
Guest:And I loved his podcast and all of his stories.
Guest:And I was really like inspired by him.
Guest:And I asked him, I was like, I'm telling all these stories that involve people that I was romantically, you know, entangled with.
Guest:And I'm talking about things that they did and said.
Guest:And I just don't want it to come off, you know, bitter.
Guest:I don't want it to come off hurtful.
Guest:And because he tells a lot of stories about like long term previous relationships that he had that didn't end well.
Guest:And he just told me, he was like, I just never try to read into their state of mind.
Guest:I can say what they did because they did it.
Guest:And I can say what they said because they said it.
Guest:And I'm just telling the truth as I see it.
Guest:But I don't read into their like, and then she thought she was going to do this to me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, like not trying not to read into their intentions.
Marc:But you can frame that in that, like, you know, I think what she was doing.
Guest:Oh, I think is huge.
Guest:I think and I feel.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:That'll get you anywhere.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Well, what I'm feeling right now is or.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So that gets me along a long way.
Marc:So these first plays, like were they serious plays or were they comedies?
Guest:Well, that was why I started to mention it is because that first girlfriend, I would always have an idea and it would be seemingly normal.
Guest:But then I would add like a weird layer onto it where there had to be like a talking kidney or astronauts or aliens or something like that.
Guest:To replace the Greek chorus idea you wanted to have.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, a talking kid.
Marc:Yeah, you got to have something.
Marc:Keeping you up to speed.
Marc:There's your kidney.
Marc:So did you actually have a talking kidney?
Guest:I thought about writing one that had a talking kidney in it.
Guest:And my, at that point, maybe even ex-girlfriend was like, why do you always have to have like a weird thing in it?
Guest:Why can't you just write something normal?
Guest:And I thought about it and I was like, nah, DC Pearson things have talking kidneys in them.
Guest:They just do.
Guest:That was your brand.
Guest:That was my brand.
Guest:Talking kidneys are bust.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm the guy that has the talking inanimate objects or organs.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's my hook, man.
Guest:Or aliens or cyborgs or something.
Guest:Because I feel like you can, if you are, I guess if you want to use the word nerd, who's like very distant from their emotions.
Guest:If you go down into your emotions in a diving bell of like aliens and cyborgs and science fiction, you can get a lot deeper than if you're just like, I'm just going to think about feelings for a while.
Marc:You can get deeper how that that it gives it gives you a landscape of different types of devices to express these feelings.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:And I think you can kind of entertain yourself and hopefully the reader enough just with the pop elements of, again, cyborgs, aliens, minotaurs, whatever.
Guest:And actually go and find something that you wouldn't have been able to find.
Guest:I feel like maybe an author that's more used to just writing realistic fiction and is maybe more in touch with their actual feelings.
Guest:Like, say, like a John Irving, for example, doesn't need a whole lot of cyborgs.
Marc:But I think you also sort of describe, you know, the the purpose of mythology.
Marc:Is is really to to create this landscape where where where dramas are played out that are specifically speaking to human emotions in in a coded way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think I think you nobody wants to accept just a total reflection of themselves up there because that's we see that every day.
Guest:Yeah, that's what you left the house to get away from.
Marc:Sort of what I do.
Marc:But but yeah, I know what you're saying.
Marc:I mean, the point well taken.
Marc:Believe me, it's not easy.
Marc:Just sort of dumping the raw goods out there.
Marc:But if your first inclination is to yell and scream as opposed to, why not just have a kidney do the yelling and screaming?
Guest:And then people can hate the kidney.
Marc:Don't hate me.
Marc:That's my kidney talking, guys.
Marc:He's right there.
Marc:It's a kidney suit.
Marc:We put a lot of money into this.
Guest:There's a lot of that.
Guest:And there's a lot of that sketch comedy to react.
Guest:Don't you guys understand how hard we had to look for like a really old lamp to put in the sketch?
Marc:But I think that what seems striking to me and what you're saying is that that when you that you're coming upon this.
Marc:Not in the same way that, you know, people who take UCB classes or come up through Second City that, you know, there is a way of creating sketch.
Marc:There are certain, you know, there are these devices where, you know, you just have to turn for the weird or turn for the unexpected.
Marc:But it seemed to happen sort of organically for you that you weren't thinking about writing sketch.
Marc:You actually were like, I'm writing a play.
Marc:It seems to me missing something.
Marc:It should be this.
Guest:Maybe it was inspired by Monty Python.
Guest:I feel like the conceit would always come first.
Guest:Like I wrote in high school a play about a guy who's going to be an astronaut.
Guest:He gets plucked out of obscurity to become an astronaut.
Guest:And then when he's supposed to go on the shuttle mission, he just gets thrown into a locker where he runs into Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin that have been in there for years and years and years.
Guest:A large locker.
Guest:Yeah, a big locker.
Guest:Or a cell, let's say.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All astronauts, basically, they never go up to space.
Guest:They're just ground up and made into astronaut food that's then sold at NASA gift shops and stuff like that.
Guest:And so it was a lot of stuff like that where I just had like a really silly premise that I would then you would start with the premise and then hopefully find something in it.
Guest:And I haven't read this thing since I was in high school.
Guest:It's probably terrible.
Guest:But you would hopefully have something that has an actual or at least attempts to have more emotional relevance than you would think that a thing with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being played by your 15 year old buddies and like fake beards and like a female friend of yours playing like a psychic monkey would normally have.
Marc:So the idea was that they were there warning this guy.
Guest:Yeah, if you don't know what's going to happen, if you don't go up.
Guest:Or no, if you this is what happens to us and it's just inevitable.
Guest:And Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had been left there for years as other astronauts had gone by for reasons that escaped me now.
Guest:But but and I can't remember what the message of it was, but I'm certain that it had one.
Marc:I think that now I've got another pitch for you.
Marc:Please.
Marc:D.C.
Marc:Pearson curates an evening of high school sketch and play projects.
Marc:where you actually pull up an old play that you did in high school and you encouraged some of your other buddies to do stuff that they did when they were in their teens.
Guest:Yeah, that sounds all right.
Guest:I feel like none of us would be detached enough from it.
Guest:It's one of those things where you can laugh at it, but then when somebody would come up, you'd be like, yeah, man, that was terrible.
Guest:And you're like, hey, man.
Marc:Because you're still in there from being 15 years old.
Marc:Don't hurt that guy.
Marc:No.
Marc:He was just trying to get by, that guy.
Guest:No, don't hurt that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, both the first book and the second book are both kind of steeped in like high school theater nerd culture for better or for worse, because I feel like a lot of people that are here in L.A.
Guest:just like me are, you know, mostly just high school theater casualties.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Kind of a seminal experience for me was reading this biography of Orson Welles for a book report when I was like a junior.
Guest:And at the time, because my school, even though it was a public school, had a really robust theater program, I
Guest:I was in like four student directed one acts and like a main stage play.
Guest:And I would just run around before school and after school doing all this stuff and still tried to do my homework.
Guest:And I read in the Orson Welles book how he had bought an ambulance that he had then decommissioned so that he could go from his intermission of his like, you know, Macbeth that he was doing downtown or something and then go all the way uptown to do like a radio performance and then like go back and then do the next act of the play.
Guest:And I was like, fuck.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I think it really appealed to the sort of junior workaholic.
Guest:I'll bet you he never had to confront his emotions.
Marc:That sounds great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's what drove you.
Marc:That's an interesting...
Marc:Guy to to sort of like it's always interesting to me to see where people glean these like little fragments of wisdom that they sort of like, you know, that's what they model their life after.
Marc:And yours was sort of like that.
Marc:You can just keep going.
Guest:Well, he is a weird guy because he obviously achieved such an amazing thing at such a young age and then just proceeded to sort of dither around and dither around in like a really genius way.
Guest:Obviously, all the rest of the stuff that he did for the rest of his life.
Marc:But I'm sure he did a few commercials he wasn't proud of.
Marc:And I think that you're right on track with that.
Guest:Yeah, I just read this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Marc:You're actually doing the commercial part before you've actually arced out.
Guest:Yeah, I'm moving Orson Welles' career around.
Guest:You want to do Citizen Kane last when you can enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah, when everyone said, like, he's tapped now.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's like an interesting thing, too, that I'm trying to do is sort of enjoy the things I'm trying to.
Guest:I don't know if it's working or not.
Guest:But if you achieve something to try to enjoy it as it happens and not as though it's just a stepping stone on its way to something else, because I think there was a lot of things like like say when our movie went to Sundance or whatever, where I was like.
Guest:OK, well, this will it'll sell here at Sundance and then we'll do and then you sort of map out the rest of it in your head.
Guest:So like you just got to keep your head down and work through this thing where it's like you might you should be probably just enjoying that thing because who knows if it's going to go somewhere from here.
Guest:And so I look back on experiences like that and I'm like, oh, I kind of wish I would have taken it in a little bit more.
Marc:Yeah, no, that's definitely truth.
Marc:But whether or not you can actually do that, who the hell knows?
Marc:I mean, I think that people like you who are driven like that, it's sort of like, you know, let's just keep going.
Marc:You know, because there's that fear of like, well, I can't rest on my laurels.
Marc:I don't want to get too comfortable.
Marc:Like, what if I just say like, oh, I'm so proud of this.
Marc:Then maybe the spirit that possesses me that drives me to do things will go like, yeah, you're good.
Marc:I'm out of here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:Well, my girlfriend and I were talking about this last night because I'm just doing a lot of stuff right now.
Guest:You guys kissing on the mouth and everything?
Guest:Soon.
Guest:Soon.
Guest:I swear to God.
Guest:How long have you been with her?
Guest:A year and some change.
Guest:Yeah, don't rush into that.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, my first relationship was a year and a half long.
Guest:So I'm like, if I kiss her at that year and a half mark, I'll get at least another six months out of it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:That's why my lips are so swollen with anticipation right now.
Guest:And you're giving me that look.
Guest:Um, but she was saying she was just like, don't you're going to do it.
Guest:You're going to do all these things that you have to do.
Guest:You're going to get the work done.
Guest:You're just that type of person.
Guest:You don't have to be so hard on yourself in terms of being like, I'm a piece of shit because I was supposed to email this person back and whatever.
Guest:And she was like, just let yourself be yourself.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I think that if I'm not this hard on myself that in my head and I don't beat myself up, what if I don't do it?
Guest:What if I'm not the maximum amount of hard on myself that I could be?
Marc:Where the fuck did this panic start?
Guest:I...
Marc:my i mean because like i don't know i've been you know there's something you get something out of that i mean i'd like to think it's just about you know that you know when you sit there and process it right now it's like well yeah that's that's my process that's how i keep going on but there must be you know some fundamental thing where you're you need to feel like a piece of shit and you find comfort in it somehow
Guest:Well, there was two things.
Guest:First thing, a couple weeks ago, my car is full of trash, as most people's cars are, or maybe they aren't.
Guest:And I was in a grocery store parking lot.
Guest:I opened my car door, and an old Starbucks cup fell out that had probably been in there for six months.
Guest:And rather than putting it in the trash can that was two feet away, without even thinking about it, I just picked it up and just put it back in its little place in the car where it had been for six months.
Guest:Like, oh yeah, that's supposed to be there.
Guest:And I feel like, and then I sort of thought about it and I was like, oh, that's emotional pain.
Guest:That's how like pain works sometimes where you've been with it for so long that you're like, that's where that goes.
Guest:And rather than letting it go, you're like, no, that's what happens if I move that, then all of the other Starbucks cups might cascade.
Marc:Yeah, I'll never stop crying Starbucks cups.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Great imagery, Mark.
Guest:Great imagery.
Marc:I can write sketch.
Yeah.
Guest:But, no, I think it came from my mom.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:This is like weird self-psychoanalysis because I haven't been to real psychoanalysis yet, but I can't wait.
Guest:When do you think that happens?
Guest:I guess when I get the next level of SAG insurance where you get free mental.
Guest:Oh, it's an insurance?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Or maybe it shouldn't be.
Marc:Maybe it comes when you just hit the wall.
Oh, man.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Guest:You might hit the wall.
Marc:What is that going to look like?
Marc:It's going to be, you know, nothing is going to have any meaning anymore.
Marc:And you're going to wonder whether or not you've actually wasted your life and your heart has been detached since you were a child.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:Sorry, man.
Marc:What were you going to say?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I was just going to say, so my amateur psychoanalysis, I, um, my mom, uh, had, uh, breast cancer all throughout my growing up from like second grade to, uh, and then it went away and then she passed away when I was in eighth grade.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And, um, uh, and then my dad remarried a year later to like this amazing, awesome woman who's now my stepmom, obviously, cause that's how that works.
Guest:But I feel like that I've felt a very palpable sense ever since then of like, I can keep things together.
Guest:I can like hold something up in a weird way.
Guest:Does that make sense?
Guest:Like, I don't know.
Marc:You went through that hell of seeing your mother in that process and then her passing away that you just, you know, you just learned to contain your emotions.
Yeah.
Guest:Maybe I think or I think just keep to keep moving forward, because if you sort of keep moving forward and doing stuff, it feels like you're keeping something together.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:You don't have to experience the pain.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think that's what that 2 p.m.
Guest:looking into the void thing was about, where you're kind of like, I'm not doing exactly anything right now in this moment.
Guest:So I could either face things that I haven't faced or I could think about, oh, what haven't I done?
Guest:And then try to do that thing that I've forgotten to do.
Marc:So you think it's really about self-avoidance in a way?
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Or emotional, not to process.
Marc:And also I think when your mother or a parent passes away when you're younger, the fragility of life becomes very fucking clear.
Marc:People can just...
Guest:go yeah and for sure i got shit i gotta well i definitely do have um again amateur psychoanalysis what like i guess like attachment d issues in front of it whereby like if my girlfriend is coming over she's like i'm coming over and then it's been like 30 minutes and i know exactly how long it takes her to come over and park and then show up and then it's like another 10 minutes i'm like okay she's dead yeah
Guest:um yeah that's hard that's horrible and that's been throughout my entire throughout my entire life with just about anything that I care about you kind of are not so much I guess um uh reveling in it a lot of the times in your enjoyment of it you're just kind of going like this could this could be gone yeah you know in a weird right right no I think that's real and I don't know if that's common to children of whatever no I think abandonment stuff and and just that that weird panic of of not you know wanting to get things done before that can just happen at any second um
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, that's but it's an interesting dynamic that your girlfriend just maybe stopped for gas.
Marc:And when she gets to your house, you're like, you're alive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Thank God you're alive.
Guest:She's like, what's wrong with you?
Guest:I just I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It really does result in a sort of puppyish wig waiting by the window.
Guest:Like, there she is.
Guest:Yay.
Guest:Thank God she made it.
Guest:And then you do sort of experience a brief, weird rush of like, oh, it could have gone the other way.
Guest:Even though it couldn't have gone the other way.
Guest:She wasn't in surgery.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But yeah, that's a tough place to live, buddy.
Marc:But I'm glad you're on to it.
Guest:Sorry, go ahead.
Marc:Well, let's sort of like kind of fast forward into your relationship with Donald and the creation of Derek.
Marc:So you go to NYU and you immediately get involved in what are the programs there?
Marc:Because I think just for some of my listeners,
Marc:uh you know around you know there's always this great mystery of like well how do you make it you know or how do you you know how did all this stuff happen you know i talked to donald you know he's not unlike you he's a very gifted talented dude and you know and realize those things at a young age and also realize how to to uh you know to own it and and to uh to sort of maximize you know the the talent that he has in a lot of different areas as did you
Marc:and and i think uh to a lot of people who are creative people you know just that fact is is like you know how does that even happen because there's so much insecurity that comes with with with creating and and with you know also just you know owning the fact that you either have talent or you don't and that sort of dictates you know how hard you have to work and and whether or not you're cut out for this shit so so when you got to nyu you were pretty focused and
Guest:Yeah, I was studying writing for TV and but just immediately got really into sketch stuff.
Guest:And that sort of became, excuse me, the primary thing that I did in this comedy group that the guy that I mentioned with my high school girlfriend had gone on to found.
Guest:And what was the name of that group?
Guest:Hammercats, which still persists, I think, is like an NYU like club.
Guest:They still do like sketch stuff.
Guest:And so it's like an ongoing group on campus.
Guest:And just really threw myself into that and still focused on school stuff.
Guest:But it really became what high school theater had been to me in high school, where that was my real reason for getting up in the morning was putting together these shows.
Guest:So we would do like a monthly show of like all new material.
Guest:And a lot of times.
Guest:So basically, after the first generation of kids graduated, myself and Donald and Dominic ended up running the group.
Guest:And we would try to put together these monthly shows of new material, but a lot of people in the group would not have brought in new material.
Guest:So we would just have to kind of generate a lot of sketches really fast.
Guest:So the three of us would write together in Donald's dorm room and we sort of just found like, oh, we really like each other's.
Guest:sensibility or whatever.
Guest:Um, and then Dominic's roommate was this guy, Dan, who he was in film school with and his girlfriend slash, uh, the guy who, uh, the lady who produced all of his, um, short films was this girl, Maggie.
Guest:So we sort of ended up shooting a bunch of the sketches that the three of us had written for this college group.
Guest:And then that sort of became Derek.
Guest:And we ended up transitioning out of the hammer cats group and just into doing our own five person thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it really coincided in a crazy way with YouTube being a thing.
Guest:Because we were going to just put our own sketches on our own website, but we didn't have the money to buy the hosting and the servers that we needed.
Guest:And so that Lonely Island sketch, Lazy Sunday, had come out and made YouTube into kind of a thing.
Guest:And so in a computer lab one night at NYU, I was just like, oh, this is a thing.
Guest:I'll just upload these videos that we've made that I just have in my email onto this YouTube site.
Guest:and so we ended up calling the group Derek Comedy kind of just in a way of being like, this is comedy because we weren't sure that people would know what it was otherwise because it was kind of such a new... YouTube was kind of such a new medium at that point.
Marc:That's kind of interesting that you were kind of... It was sort of like with podcasting.
Marc:I had no idea that this would become a vehicle for what it's become, the medium itself, so it was just sort of a synchronicity.
Marc:It was sort of a luck...
Guest:uh well not luck but i mean you just were at that moment yeah and when you dumped them onto youtube what happened um they ended up they did okay at first but then um we were we had this live show that we would do at ucb monthly and we had made this like three-part sketch that we were really excited about showing but it didn't get um dan wasn't able to like get it all exported or whatever in time
Guest:um and so he was feeling really upset about it so he emailed a guy a friend of ours at college humor yeah he was like hey will you like link to this sketch that we just put up because we couldn't play it at our show and the guy was like sure so he linked to it and it was a sketch called bro rape just really classy classic sketch comedy title yeah um but it was about like um sort of super macho bros um raping each other yeah as you would it was like a dateline investigation into this phenomenon
Guest:Because hyper-masculine dudes then kissing is always funny.
Guest:And so that really connected with their audience of hyper-masculine bros.
Guest:Who knows why?
Guest:And so they all started coming to our website and looking at our sketches that we'd already made.
Guest:And then from then on, we kind of had a much larger audience for anything that we would put out.
Guest:So...
Guest:We tried to keep the level of quality really high and we didn't put out a ton of things.
Guest:We didn't put out a ton of topical things.
Guest:We didn't put out like a Sarah Palin impression or whatever.
Guest:Keep it evergreen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Keep it timeless.
Guest:Timeless concepts like bro rape.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Bro rape never goes away.
Guest:It really, since the Greeks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's in the Bible.
Guest:It's called something different.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:And then so we just sort of attracted a following kind of through that.
Guest:And then instead of paying ourselves because YouTube started having like revenue sharing stuff and we started touring a lot and we would sell merchandise.
Guest:We just decided it's not going to be that much money if we split it between the five of us.
Guest:So let's start an LLC and put all this money into there so we can hopefully make like a larger project.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then a few years down the road we ended up writing and then shooting this movie Mystery Team.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That ended up going to Sundance.
Guest:And then because it got picked up for distribution we all ended up moving out here.
Guest:And so that's kind of how we all ended up out here doing our various things that we're now doing.
Marc:See, that's an amazing story of persistence and synchronicity and just being at the beginning of something new.
Marc:But you guys had the fortitude and lack of drug problems, apparently, to realize this works, whatever we're doing.
Marc:People seem to dig it, and it doesn't seem like we're stalling on our creativity.
Marc:We want to do a movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And because you all come from these different areas and you had the director and you had somebody who knew how to do that, you guys knew how to write and perform.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That it all sort of happened organically.
Guest:And also Donald had been, I was just thinking about this recently because 30 Rock just ended.
Guest:Donald wrote at 30 Rock for, I want to say the first like three seasons.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And his experience in the writer's room there really...
Guest:helped us out with the writing of the movie because he came from, you know, working all day and being in the room for 12 hours where they would just sit on a joke for six of those 12 hours and not move on until it was just as perfectly worded in joke math as it could be.
Guest:And so he really had this intensity about like, we have to do that with this script.
Guest:Like it has to be really funny on the page.
Guest:And it really worked out for us because even though it took a lot of time and it sort of, you know, sabotaged a number of nascent relationships that I was in.
Guest:It basically made it so that the script that we wrote was the script that we shot.
Guest:So instead of showing up and kind of like, you know, improvising and doing stuff that would have been super fun to do and maybe would have turned out, you know, something interesting as well.
Guest:We just had to write jokes and shoot them because we had no money and no time.
Guest:So we just had to do what we had written.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I think that gives the movie hopefully a feeling of like not being a little more in the vein of like when comedies used to be like written and then shot instead of like written.
Guest:And then we show up and we kind of just set up two cameras and we just like play.
Guest:And that's something that I've gotten to do in other contexts.
Guest:And it's a blast.
Guest:And sometimes I think you get really fun stuff out of it.
Guest:But I do think also to like new groups or sketch comedy people or whatever can fall into that trap sometimes of like,
Guest:we've written this thing, it's okay, it's like an outline, but then we'll just show up and we'll just go, man, because we're so funny when we're just hanging out.
Guest:Like, why wouldn't we be funny when we get there?
Marc:But interestingly, that, you know, depending on the juice of a moment and getting that laugh and that moment just out of the need to get a laugh, you know, without a script, is very hard to repeat.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:And I think that, you know, sometimes, I mean, if you have a lot of money and you have a lot of time, you know, you can, you know, I know like people like Judd Apatow and certain other, you know, television shows now
Marc:People just shoot hours and hours of dicking around until something clicks.
Marc:But the confidence in the writing and the need to be tight and for that to work, it's a whole different thing.
Marc:It's another thing to marvel at.
Marc:And I think that like...
Marc:um 30 rock is a great example of that that thing is just like a machine that the timing and the pace and the the sort of precision precision of the comedy is so what that show is i mean you don't even care that it doesn't matter what they do it's just the comedy is so fucking tight and yeah and something and something for something to be that dense and that breezy so many people had to sit in a room for so many hours with their hoods on their hoodies up eating bad food just being like
Guest:OK, Gorbachev.
Guest:No, that's not the right specific.
Guest:It's one word, you guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's one word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that so that discipline that he brought over from 30 Rock was, I feel like a huge asset and also really happened to tag in with the way we had to shoot the movie, which was fast because we didn't have a lot of money.
Marc:But also, you both seem to be incredibly ambitious and incredibly hardworking.
Marc:Like, that's one thing I find when I talk to people is that, you know, people are like, I don't get it.
Marc:When is this going to happen if I just put like, well, you have to work your fucking ass off.
Marc:You know, and generate good shit.
Marc:Oh, yeah, it seems tiring.
Guest:You know, I think I think something that I that is very nice of you.
Guest:I think of you as being a super duper hardworking person.
Guest:And when I was for the first three or four years of living in L.A.
Guest:and listening to WTF and knowing that I could wake up and it was always going to be there on Monday and Thursday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like clockwork.
Guest:I don't think people necessarily realize how much that must take on your end to kind of... Well, you know, I got to pace around going, what am I going to talk about with this guy?
Guest:Oh my God, I got to go online.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Going online can become very daunting when it's not going online that you want to be doing.
Marc:It's just any time you get in, it's just a fucking rabbit hole.
Guest:I always find, I have to say really quick, just while we're on the topic of sketch, I find that your impressions of sketch to be fascinating.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:I'm like, well, sadly, you know, I'm sort of an old guy in certain respects.
Marc:And like when I talk to people of your generation, which I can say without being condescending, you know, it's really specific to my experience and what I hold on to as being, you know, the stand up ethos.
Marc:Like, you know, over time, I've become very impressed with it.
Marc:And it's just like, I don't know that I could write a sketch.
Marc:You know, I can barely write a joke for myself.
Marc:But, you know, the sort of weird flights of imagination that are necessary to sort of generate sketch is not really the way my brain works.
Marc:So either I don't get it or I'm like, holy fuck, where did that come from?
Marc:You know, but but I am also impressed with people's ability to work with each other and the juice that sort of comes from that.
Marc:It's just not what I come from.
Guest:Yeah, I think that like, well, I think that for us, it was just sort of like we happened to have that chemistry and have a similar level of commitment, because what would often happen in previous collaborations that we'd all been in with sketch stuff would be like you would get some people that were there because they were like, this is what I want to do for my life.
Guest:I love kids in the hall.
Guest:I love Mr. Show.
Guest:This is what I'm doing.
Guest:Then you get other people that were like, my British accent is so funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people will see how funny it is.
Guest:And then we'll go out for drinks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that differing level of commitment was always really, you know, was a problem.
Guest:So when we all had the same commitment level and the same dedication to it, that was that was pretty exciting.
Guest:But now I feel like now transitioning into trying to be a stand up.
Guest:I find that my standup sometimes is a little like sketch damaged, if that makes any sense.
Guest:Like it will be a lot of like, okay, this thing happened to me at the grocery store.
Guest:And then I thought this and rather than just kind of taking you and me, the audience, we're discussing this.
Guest:And then it's like, welcome now to my weird, elaborate, act out imaginary world.
Guest:And you're either really in for the whole four minute ride or when we get to the end of it, you're just like, why didn't you just talk to us, man?
Guest:Why didn't you just say something to us?
Marc:Why was there a talking kidney with the tomatoes at the supermarket?
Marc:That didn't happen.
Guest:Yeah, they reject it outright.
Guest:They're like, come on, man.
Marc:It's a rejected talking kidney.
Marc:It's hard when you transplant those things.
Guest:Oh, nice.
Guest:They're like, I want out.
Guest:I'm not going to function for you.
Guest:I don't match up with your blood type.
Guest:but yeah i mean and i now and now trying to be a comic like if i'll do a show as a comic where then somebody goes it's all comics and then somebody goes up and does a sketch yeah now i feel like this weird touristy ability to be like oh they're doing that yeah yeah with the wigs really i'm a comic you don't have the balls to get up there with just you entirely hypocritical because i've been that guy for so long it was like okay where are the wigs under all the chairs they need to be under
Marc:Well, no, I think that that's interesting that coming from that, that you sort of like you just got bored of it.
Marc:I mean, that's all that is, really.
Marc:I mean, you were like, you know, I get this.
Marc:And there's some part of you that, you know, after you work with other people and you feel the excitement of doing that and you create all this stuff, you do everything becomes sort of a format eventually.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It just like that's the form.
Marc:And like any artist, you're sort of like, I'm kind of tired of that form.
Marc:And then you like whatever form you're going to invest in.
Marc:It's like this is where the real fucking balls comes in is like, you know, just getting up there by yourself.
Marc:And, you know, I mean, that's a it's a heroic journey.
Marc:I'm glad that, you know, you see that.
Guest:It's pretty fun and it's sort of been a journey from going like, okay, again, where are the wigs?
Guest:I ran around town all day trying to get them and the talking kidney costume to just like, wait, I'm up here with a microphone and it seems like I'm being more rewarded for just saying stuff that's coming to my mind than I would be if I came up here with something very prepared because there's like, I feel like, especially in LA from standup audiences, like a weird anxiety about things that seem too slick.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Uh, where they're kind of like, if he's really just kind of like making it up or whatever, we feel like privileged.
Marc:Well, also there's a, there's a different type of, uh, discovery possible.
Marc:I think, you know, like when you're up there, you know, there are those interesting moments as a standup where you're in the middle of something and you're like, ah, this is, I gotta fucking, you know, I gotta change course here.
Marc:Like I'm, I'm avoiding something.
Marc:And, you know, it sort of corners you in a way because you can't sort of like, you know, throw the fucking riff over to the talking kidney.
Marc:No, you're sort of like, it's on me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And let's see where this goes.
Marc:And sometimes you say things as a stand up where you're like, I don't even know if I should have said that.
Marc:But, man, that was fucking great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's been it's been fun.
Guest:But and then the past like four years of being in L.A.
Guest:has felt like, you know, trying to keep all of these various endeavors and plates in the air and keep them moving forward.
Guest:And then just seeing hopefully, you know, one of them paying off because like when my first book, aren't they all paying off a bit?
Guest:I think I would say so.
Guest:But I mean, I guess I just have this sort of impression in my head that one of them will someday be like wildly successful, whatever that means, where it will just sort of be undeniable.
Guest:Whereas I, you know, I feel like everything up to this point has been a qualified success.
Guest:But these are all just things that are in my head.
Guest:I realize they're not distinctions that actually exist.
Marc:But no, but you put a lot of quality work out there.
Marc:I mean, for fuck's sake, you guys even like, you know,
Marc:Donald Glover is, you know, doing earnest rap music.
Guest:That's it's and it could not give me greater joy.
Guest:The fact that like he used to do it in his dorm room as like not a goof.
Guest:He really enjoyed it.
Guest:And you could tell he really enjoyed it because he always wanted to be doing it and he was always doing it.
Guest:But it really was a hobby.
Guest:And I remember when he had his like first record release party in that guy with my high school girlfriend, the guy that founded our sketch comedy group, his basement was
Guest:with like an amp and a microphone and like six people.
Guest:And then he was nominated for like an MTV video music award up against like Kanye and Jay-Z last year.
Guest:And so it's kind of like, I don't know, it's a really beautiful to see something that he was always like, yeah, you know, I do it.
Guest:I do it.
Guest:I do it on the side.
Guest:I'm proud of it, but it is this thing I do on the side and see that take on.
Guest:It's like full.
Guest:I'm like, he is...
Marc:That guy now is really... He's a childish Gambino.
Guest:Yeah, it's like he's going to London to make an album or something.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And it's really, really, really cool.
Marc:But the point is that you have done work with him on these musical pieces.
Marc:On these rap songs.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The early ones, yeah.
Guest:Because he knew that I really liked hip-hop and we would always talk about, like, you know, rap and stuff like that.
Guest:And I kind of... I think I asked him one time when he was putting together his first album.
Guest:I was like, could I... Because he sampled a Yola Tango song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, Yola Tango is my favorite band.
Guest:Can I be on this song?
Guest:He was like, sure.
Guest:So I'd never really rapped before.
Guest:I'd never recorded a rap before or whatever.
Guest:But I just...
Guest:Went around listening to the instrumental and like wrote something and then did it.
Guest:And I was like, this is so fucking fun.
Guest:I love this so much.
Guest:And it's continued to be fun because I don't do it for a living.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it has really stayed.
Guest:Whereas most of my other enthusiasms eventually jump their banks and become like something that I'm trying to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then connected to my career somehow.
Guest:This one is just for me right now.
Guest:Like like the rap thing is just phenomenal.
Guest:fun and it's silly and i'll still get tweets from people either being like i listened to this song from donald's album five years ago oh dude you rule you gotta rap more or people being like i listened to that song for five years ago fuck you yeah you're the worst because they're listening to it it would be like i feel like listening to like if you were going to listen to like an early stones album and mick jagger had been like oh a friend from around the pub get on the mic do something and then people are like what the fuck is this guy doing on this stones record fuck this dude and if they're mad at me i totally get it
Marc:But it's just it's like it's amazing the synchronicity of it that, you know, that this crew of guys that you were working with and women that, you know, that he's doing this thing and you're like, he's my friend and he's like, he's into it.
Marc:And now I'm going to do a little of this.
Marc:I mean, to be a person that has, you know, done like extensive sketch work, short film work and then made your own movie, written two books and also done some rap.
Yeah.
Marc:And still think that like, you know, sometimes at some point I'm going to be successful is, is pretty daunting.
Guest:And I'm trying to make all that stuff kiss this year.
Guest:That's my, that's my goal.
Guest:I'm trying to kind of with the release of this book, trying to figure out a way to make all those things work towards hopefully the book selling a lot.
Guest:Cause I'm proud of it.
Guest:And I, I think, you know, it's very, it's very me.
Guest:It's very, you know, like fantasy, but also very neurotic.
Guest:And I feel like, you know,
Guest:Crap Kingdom.
Guest:Crap Kingdom, yeah.
Marc:Well, something interesting happened around the first book that got it a lot of attention.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So I have a Google alert out for the name of the book, which is where they email you when the name of your book shows up somewhere on the internet.
Guest:And it was a Yahoo Answers page, which is that page where people can go and say like, hey, what...
Guest:temperature does you know they can ask the internet and people can reply instead of just googling it and uh somebody had said like hey i got assigned to read this book the boy who couldn't sleep and never had to for summer reading and i have to write a paper about it but school gets back in session in like 14 days and i just got it from the library because the library is being remodeled so it was closed yeah and i i you know i'm really busy and i have work so i can't read it so can somebody summarize it for me including all relevant information where i think that was i think their exact words including all relevant information yeah
Guest:And so I was like, oh, this would be fun to write back to it.
Guest:So I just answered the question because nobody had answered it yet.
Guest:And I was like, hey, I'm D.C.
Guest:Pearson.
Guest:I wrote this book.
Guest:I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I didn't read books in high school.
Guest:There were books in high school that I didn't not read because there were absolutely books that I just didn't read and would just still try to participate in class discussions to see how far I could get with it.
Guest:um but of all of the books you would be assigned in high school um mine feels like a weird choice of one not to read because it's not in middle english you know what i mean it's not chaucer it's you know in modern day kids are playing video games and it has boobs and swearing and stuff so it just seems like a weird choice for me not to have read or for you not to want to read but that's fine and then i gave them suggestions for fun ways that they could like try to get it read like
Guest:inviting people over and they could all read it together and maybe they impress somebody with how well they read and then they end up making out.
Guest:Um, cause I feel like the world is powered by promises of makeouts, uh, but delayed makeouts for months and months and months.
Guest:No mouth.
Guest:No, no, sir.
Guest:Um, and, uh, so yeah, so that I posted it and then I, that ended up kind of going viral, uh, and was on like the New York post website and good morning America and stuff like that.
Guest:And I ended up getting to go on the BBC and
Guest:Because of it, which is an Anglophile was a total.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Total dream of mine.
Guest:I do a do a very, very, very.
Guest:I was in my girlfriend's parents place in Idaho.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got to call into this BBC radio show at like six or for them six in the morning for us.
Guest:Like, you know, however late at night.
Guest:And, uh, it was like the classiest morning radio show you've ever heard.
Guest:Cause it was still a round table, like those shows they have in America where it's like, y'all hear about this?
Guest:But like, it was like, did y'all hear about this?
Guest:And then like, they had somebody from the UN there and they were talking about Africa and all these things.
Guest:And then they were like, and I think I was like on the lighter side kind of thing.
Guest:And so the guy...
Guest:And I'm on the, I'm on Skype or whatever.
Guest:And you hear them be like, okay, are you ready to, we're going to, and he's like, so on the lighter side of it, has children now heading back to school or whatever.
Guest:And then they had me on for, it was one of those classic things where they were like, so what did you do?
Guest:And I told you what I just told you.
Guest:And they're like, all right.
Guest:And, and I was like, and then they're like, okay, here we go.
Guest:And then they just moved along.
Guest:And I was like, wow, I was just on like the classiest morning zoo radio program ever.
Guest:This is really neat.
Guest:And then they talked to Nelson Mandela, I think.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Well, it's a, well, yeah, I hope you set them up well.
Guest:I did realize, though, because of that, and I think of certain people reacting to it, that people read things on the internet in the tone that they write things on the internet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you might think you're having a tone of kind of playful nudging, like, hey, maybe you want to read the book.
Guest:But if they write things on the internet in a sort of like, fuck you kind of tone, they read things in a fuck you kind of tone.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's sort of like, maybe you ought to, you know, it's condescending.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So a couple of things.
Marc:So the new book, Crap Kingdom is out this week.
Marc:It's coming out March 7th.
Guest:March 7th.
Guest:I'm doing a lot of stuff in connection with it.
Guest:I'm driving really hard trying to get on the New York Times bestseller list.
Guest:And if people pre-order it, I write their name into a custom rap song.
Guest:I've already done a hundred names.
Marc:Where can they get involved?
Guest:You can go to crapkingdom.com or just Google Crap Kingdom.
Guest:It's pretty much it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, that sounds fucking awesome, man.
Marc:And let's talk about briefly the choice to do these insurance commercials.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:What company is it again?
Guest:I like the use of the word choice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're for Allstate.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're the long-haired guy on the Allstate.
Guest:I'm the long-haired dude in the Allstate commercial that crashes into the back of the other guy's car.
Marc:Is it just one commercial?
Guest:It is just one commercial.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:But you have this look now.
Marc:You're doing the long-haired Jesus-y thing.
Marc:So it's very defining.
Guest:Which, as I say in my stand-up, I can't change because I've written four minutes of material that I like about it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:And is rapidly becoming a prison.
Guest:Um, but, um, yeah, I just, I've been auditioning for commercials for forever.
Guest:That's basically what sort of allowed me to write the first book.
Marc:So you still see that kind of work as just feeding the bigger plan.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Um, and it's not something you want to do necessarily.
Guest:It's not necessarily my highest aspiration, although I do think people should have car insurance.
Guest:I'm not anti-car insurance.
Guest:I'm not like a Muslim dude that's like eating a McRib in a commercial.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But so I luckily haven't had anything where I've done commercial work that is directly counter to my belief system.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I definitely have gone out for a Walmart commercial before and thought about like, what will my hyper liberal podcasting vegan comic friends think if I book this Walmart commercial?
Guest:And I'm like, they'll probably be fine with it.
Guest:But in your head, you immediately imagine everyone in your life yelling at you for lacking integrity.
Marc:Sure, but will you be able to live with it?
Marc:Yeah, see, that's the bigger question.
Marc:You didn't get that commercial.
Guest:No, I didn't get the Walmart.
Guest:Damn it.
Guest:And then, of course, you get on hold for it, and you're like, maybe I'll get that Walmart.
Guest:commercial and then you don't get it like i feel like the quintessential example of that was like right out of college i was auditioning for stuff really needed money was like not making rent and i auditioned for this uh low low budget feature called frankenstoner yeah and you're reading the size like this is the frankenstoner this is the worst thing i've ever read my entire life this sucks this has no integrity man and then they call and they're like hey uh we're placing you on availability for frankenstoner you might and i'm like and then after that you're like i really want to get this frankenstoner thing i'll make it my own yeah and then they can't
Guest:I'll put the bolts full of weed in my neck and I'll just do it, you know?
Guest:And then they called and they're like, yeah, you didn't get Frankenstoner.
Guest:You're like, God damn it.
Guest:And then you get so mad at the business for having made you want Frankenstoner.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So badly and then denying it to you.
Guest:They played me.
Guest:They played.
Guest:This one goes all the way to the top.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They knew that I was insecure and now they look what they did.
Guest:They made me compromise my own integrity in my mind.
Yeah.
Guest:I would love it if Frankenstoner had just turned out to be like a weird art project that like Joaquin Phoenix was doing to like, let's see how many people we can get in here and get them to really want Frankenstoner.
Marc:It's like some sort of Faustian experiment.
Marc:But what would you do for this amount of money and fame?
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, good luck with the book.
Marc:Thanks for talking.
Marc:I think it went great.
Marc:I was nervous.
Guest:uh i was i was nervous i had no less than three different dreams last night of how this was gonna go how'd you feel the best of all of them yeah absolutely we in a dream uh now what are we in a dream whoa so you had a good time you think i'm on good i think so all right thanks man
Marc:That is our show.
Marc:Have a happy Valentine's Day.
Marc:Have a happy Valentine's Day.
Marc:Come see me.
Marc:I'll be in Vancouver on Saturday night if you're listening from that area.
Marc:Vancouver, I've been doing a live WTF with Matt Bronger, Brendan Walsh, Andy Kindler, Margaret Cho, Carmen Lynch.
Marc:I'm doing a live stand-up show on Sunday in Vancouver at the Vancouver Comedy Festival.
Marc:Both of these are Vancouver Comedy Festival shows.
Marc:I've got shows coming up in...
Marc:Portland and Seattle.
Marc:Eugene, maybe.
Marc:We're hoping.
Marc:San Francisco's coming up.
Marc:Milwaukee's coming up.
Marc:Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's coming up.
Marc:It's all happening.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Check the schedule.
Marc:Get all your WTFPod needs met.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Do whatever you got to do over there.
Marc:Leave some comments.
Marc:Be nice.
Marc:On Monday, we got Eddie Pepitone for a full hour.
Marc:You guys have been wanting that.
Marc:You'll get it.
Marc:Jessica had a dream that Boomer came back.
Marc:So sad.
Marc:Boomer lives.
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