Episode 382 - Hank Azaria
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:It's a big week, folks.
Marc:It's a big week, and I got to be quite honest with you.
Marc:I'm not in the studio right now as you hear this.
Marc:I'm in New York City.
Marc:All right, let me give you a couple of things are going on.
Marc:First of all, we're doing three shows this week.
Marc:Today is Hank Azaria, and I got to be honest with you about that.
Marc:I had no idea about Hank Azaria.
Marc:I had no concept of him as a person, and it was a pretty fucking enlightening conversation.
Marc:But he's an intense guy, and I think I learned a lot about him, and also he shared a lot about things that I think will be somewhat enlightening to you guys.
Marc:So today we got Hank.
Marc:And Wednesday, I'm going to put up a live show from Vancouver where Margaret Cho does a short performance piece about my cock.
Marc:So if that interests you, I would listen to that show.
Marc:And then Friday, Huey Lewis is going to be on.
Marc:I had an opportunity to talk to Huey Lewis, and I'm like, why wouldn't I want to talk to Huey Lewis?
Marc:He's fucking Huey Lewis.
Marc:And also, I guess I can talk about myself now, can I?
Marc:My book is out tomorrow, Attempting Normal.
Marc:So that's exciting.
Marc:That comes out tomorrow.
Marc:Obviously, the show, Marin on IFC, premieres this Friday, May 3rd at night.
Marc:What time does Marin premiere?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Let me Google it.
Marc:Marin, IFC, premiere.
Marc:Okay, Friday, May 3rd at 10 o'clock, 9 central.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:I just Googled myself.
Marc:God forbid I prepare.
Marc:It's my own fucking show.
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:Okay, so I'm in New York this week, you know, starting, well, it would have been the day before yesterday.
Marc:And I got all this stuff going on.
Marc:I just want to keep you abreast of what's happening.
Marc:Tomorrow night is Tuesday.
Marc:That would be the 30th.
Marc:And I am doing the Jimmy Fallon show.
Marc:And I'm very excited about that.
Marc:I like Jimmy.
Marc:He's a nice guy.
Marc:Now, Wednesday, I'm doing the Howard Stern show, which I've never done.
Marc:I've never done Howard Stern.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, I'm a little nervous.
Marc:There, there's something about him.
Marc:There's something about me.
Marc:There's something about the fact that I've kind of wanted to be on his show.
Marc:I want to be, I've always wanted to be on the show, but I was never one of his guys.
Marc:And now I'm going to do Howard Stern and I'm nervous.
Marc:I don't, I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:I don't know why I'm nervous, but I want you to know I'm nervous.
Marc:I'm nervous to do Howard Stern.
Marc:All right, there it's out there.
Marc:So obviously after this week, things are going to slow down a bit and we'll start to see what happens, you know, with the show, with with the book reactions.
Marc:As I've said before, I'm very happy with the way it came out.
Marc:The first episode of Marin features Dave Foley and it features Internet trolling.
Marc:Well, Dave Foley is one of my favorite guys, but internet trolling is like an anti-hobby.
Marc:It's something that occasionally you'll find me engaging in, the internet troll thing.
Marc:So that's all going to happen.
Marc:But I know it's been somewhat of a plug fest the last few weeks, just with everything that's going on.
Marc:I do want to tell the people if...
Marc:Milwaukee, if I could, that I will be out there at the Pabst Theater.
Marc:What day is that, Mark?
Marc:May 4th, Saturday.
Marc:So come out if you're there.
Marc:Also, go to my website, wtfpod.com.
Marc:I got a lot of book events in May.
Marc:I'm doing Powell's books on May 12th.
Marc:That's in Portland.
Marc:I'm doing this big gig at the Saban Theater with Judd Apatow, moderating here in L.A.
Marc:on May 15th.
Marc:I'm doing I'm doing the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco for Sketch Fest on May 17th for the book event.
Marc:I'm doing something at Six and I in D.C.
Marc:on June 11th.
Marc:I imagine that's a synagogue that I that I performed at the last time.
Marc:Must be right.
Marc:Wednesday, June 12th.
Marc:I will be doing the Barnes & Noble in New York, and I'm going to do a book event in Bryant Park in New York on June 13th.
Marc:I'm also doing something in Boston that's not up on my calendar.
Marc:But all this stuff is there for you at WTFPod.com.
Marc:You come out.
Marc:I'll sign the book.
Marc:We'll hang out.
Marc:It'll be good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Where am I?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Got Hank Azaria coming up in a second.
Marc:But first, can I call?
Marc:Would you mind terribly if I called Amy Schumer?
Marc:Let's get Amy Schumer on the phone because I know her show is premiering on Comedy Central April 30th at 1030, 930 Central.
Marc:And I love Amy and I want to check in with her to see what's going on.
Marc:So let's get Amy Schumer on the phone here.
Marc:Hello?
Marc:Amy Schumer.
Guest:How are you?
Marc:I'm fine.
Marc:How are you?
Guest:Good.
Guest:I'm waiting to see, like, more clips of your show.
Marc:Yeah, well, you mean there's not enough?
Marc:Every half hour, every 15 minutes, not enough?
Marc:You want some more?
Marc:You want me to send you a reel?
Guest:Well, I mean, I've only seen the teaser.
Guest:Is there more?
Marc:No, I thought you meant on IFC.
Marc:They seem to be running it frequently, which I'm happy about, but it's... Oh, yeah, totally.
Guest:It looks so badass.
Guest:It feels like you're on the precipice of just the revolution.
Guest:I mean, like the audience.
Marc:Well, that's very nice of you to say.
Marc:Well, if I do more, you want to be on one?
Marc:I think I can make that offer.
Marc:Okay.
Okay.
Guest:Sorry, I should have said that less aggressive.
Guest:Oh, yeah, but I would love to.
Guest:I would love to.
Marc:I got your voicemail before.
Marc:It was very cute.
Marc:It was almost childlike.
Marc:You just said your name with your middle name.
Marc:yes yeah that's exactly how i feel did you record uh did you record that message when you first got your first cell phone when you were 14 or what how when i recorded it when i got my first period yeah yeah while i was bleeding for the first time oh that's oh that's nice let's see that's a nice backstory to a phone message this is sweet a lot of people don't know that about me when does your show start it starts on april 30th yeah and how many did you make
Guest:We made 10 of them.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I don't know any comics that watch each other's shows, really, but I would love to know your genuine thoughts on it, for real.
Marc:Well, I will give them to you.
Marc:Are you happy with it?
Guest:I am.
Guest:I'm really happy with it.
Guest:But, yeah, I'm just like, I want to just hear, I want to see what comics think.
Marc:I know exactly.
Marc:I know exactly what you're talking about because screeners are mine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, I want people to watch it, but, I mean, we only care about each other, I feel like.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I mean, I had screeners go out and people were coming up to me and I get, you know, someone actually met Myra from the Nerdist podcast.
Marc:He was very honest.
Marc:He said, look, I didn't want to watch it because I just didn't know whether it was going to be good or not.
Marc:And, you know, I'm happy to report that that it was like we all have that.
Marc:Not only are we self-involved and we don't want to watch other people's shows, but there's also that fear that if you do watch it, you will someday be in the position to say something to the face of that person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I suck at lying about that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you try to be diplomatic.
Marc:Like, no, I really hope that, you know, people enjoy it and that you get an opportunity to maybe make more of them as opposed to saying, you know.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:If it's someone that knows you, they're just like, I'm like, yeah, you just try to say something that's not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:God, you can tell you worked really hard on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:that's a good one yeah your hair looked really good in the in the one i saw yeah so wait what is the format of your show it's uh scenes like you know sketches and um it's man on the street and stand up and then every episode i interview someone of a profession or just like some person i've never gotten to talk to like a
Guest:like a stripper or a dominatrix or just like a ballerina.
Guest:You know, I was just like, are you hungry?
Guest:Just like, you know, I just, I feel like my, I'm getting more and more isolated as a comic.
Guest:So it's like, I just don't even talk to people anymore.
Guest:So we had to find people on Craigslist for me to talk to.
Marc:You just went on Craigslist and said, you know, Amy Schumer needs help.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Will you please, please talk to this girl?
Guest:No one wants to hang out with her.
Guest:Yeah, and I talked to a guy, a Jesus cam counselor, and it's just really awkward.
Guest:I made them leave all the long silences between us, just staring at each other.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Like, do you think I'm going to hell?
Guest:I'm half Jewish.
Guest:And he just did.
Guest:He was just like... Did he say yes?
Guest:He said, well, you go to church, right?
Guest:And I was like, no.
Yeah.
Guest:And he was like, well, Christ is the way to heaven.
Guest:I was like, okay, okay.
Marc:Yeah, good to know.
Guest:Good to know.
Marc:Well, that sounds cool.
Marc:So you basically talk to people that you're curious about and people that do other things that you wouldn't know anything about necessarily or interested in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Just like a model, just somebody that's so beautiful.
Guest:I'm just like, do you just get shit for free?
Guest:Do you just, you know?
Guest:And everybody was really honest.
Guest:She was like, yeah.
Guest:Like, people are so nice to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And she's like, I know that's not right, but it's just like, it's great.
Guest:I think it looks great.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so who else was involved?
Marc:Do you have other comics on?
Marc:Who helped you put this thing together?
Guest:The writing, well, the writing stuff was Jesse Klein as the head writer, and then it was Tig Notaro and Kyle Dunnigan, and
Guest:Gabe Liebman, and Kurt Metzger.
Guest:So it was all comics.
Marc:Holy shit, that's powerful.
Guest:Isn't that a funny room?
Marc:Yeah, and smart, too.
Marc:Smart and funny.
Guest:Yeah, it was really all over the map, and I didn't do that on purpose.
Guest:And Grace Edwards, who was our writer's assistant,
Guest:is black.
Guest:So I was like, wow, we are really, this room is just like unbelievable.
Guest:Every different lifestyle, every different race is represented.
Marc:Thank God for that black writer's assistant, right?
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And they did an interview with us and they posted pictures and she was in it and I was like, phew.
Guest:I was like, yeah, there she is.
Guest:Good job, Grace.
Guest:I didn't even think about it, but after the fact, I'm like, that's awesome.
Marc:We are a balanced production.
Guest:Yeah, look at us.
Guest:Everybody's welcome in this room.
Marc:Well, I'm happy for you.
Marc:It sounds very exciting.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yeah, when is your show starting?
Marc:May 3rd.
Guest:Damn, are you going to have a premiere party?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Guest:You don't know?
Marc:What do you do?
Marc:What do you do?
Marc:Do you go to a place with a TV?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I have no plan.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Isn't it embarrassing watching people watch you?
Guest:Did you ever have a viewing party with Fred, like when you were on a movie or on something, and you're like, oh, look, it's me, you guys.
Guest:Let's eat chips and watch me.
Marc:No, I have not done that.
Marc:No, I have not done that, and it's very nerve-wracking, but I feel pretty good about it.
Marc:You feel good about yours?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:We feel good about our shows?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Yeah, I do, and I'm on the road, and so at the beginning of the show, they've been showing a scene from it, and I'm just backstage staring into the audience's
Guest:eyes and souls just like when they laugh i'm like okay thank god that worked i'm good i'm good yeah all right so premiere is on the 30th and what nights does it what night is it on it's tuesdays at 10 30 on comedy it's right after tosh on comedy central god good spot right so wait where are you are you and jeselnik on or off we're off
Marc:All right, so now it's like it's for blood.
Marc:It's a fight on the airwaves now.
Guest:No, no, no, not at all.
Guest:I think we still have genuine admiration and support for each other.
Guest:And he works really hard.
Guest:So I'm just kidding.
Guest:Imagine I take it back to the stuff you say to people when you don't.
Guest:Yeah, he works really hard.
Guest:And he's out there plugging away.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:And we are...
Guest:We are very, um, we are very cool with each other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You guys will get back together.
Guest:I mean, I have, of course I hope he dies alone, but that's, you know, that's not, that's not because I'm not a great person who just wants people to watch her TV show.
Marc:Yeah, no, I think that it sounds like you have a lot of heart when you say that.
Marc:All right, well, I'm happy for you.
Marc:I'm happy for you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And I will certainly watch your show so I can honestly say to your face what I think about it.
Guest:I promise to watch your show.
Guest:You promise?
Marc:No, I will promise to watch your show and you promise to watch mine, but then we have to look each other in the face and be honest about how we thought each other's show was.
Guest:Yeah, and then we can ritualistically cut ourselves together.
Marc:Only if we both think the other show sucks.
Guest:I know.
Guest:No, but I believe in both of us.
Marc:I do too, Amy.
Marc:I do too.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And look, we're going to get through this together.
Marc:Whether it's success or disappointment, we're going to get through it together.
Guest:Together.
Marc:Forever.
Marc:Thanks, Amy.
Marc:Bye.
Marc:Okay, so that was Amy Schumer.
Marc:So watch her show April 30th at 1030, 930 Central, Comedy Central.
Marc:I had a pretty amazing conversation with Hank Azaria.
Marc:So let's talk to Hank Azaria.
Guest:You mean you keep some shit?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, we've moved a lot in the last few years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I now have, like, we kept... The last two houses we were in, we thought we were going to be in for, like, the rest of our lives.
Guest:Like, here's where we're going to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we decided to move.
Guest:So we furnished them and fixed them up as if this is it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so now I have, like, three houses worth of shit in storage.
Guest:But, see, I have that, too.
Marc:But what are we holding on to?
Marc:I mean, what do you... I mean...
Marc:Don't you have shit that you literally have not even looked at for five years?
Marc:Shouldn't it be like, all right, if I haven't even engaged in that shit, why can't I just let it go?
Marc:Yeah, I'm basically a hoarder except my stuff is removed from me.
Marc:Right, it's not around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that is a hoarding thing.
Marc:There are people that have storage units for their hoard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I might technically qualify as that.
Marc:I feel like I might, but I like lately I've been looking at stuff and I'm like, why can't I just, why can't I just do?
Marc:I'm the same way with fucking food though.
Marc:Like there's part of me, like if I get served food, if I don't eat it all, I feel like I'm doing a disservice to the ecosystem.
Marc:Like, you know, that's a waste.
Marc:Some, some pig gave his life for this.
Marc:I was about to say, isn't that a Jew thing?
Guest:But the pig thing takes that right out.
Guest:It could be anything.
Guest:Noodles.
Guest:Isn't that more of a, I feel I'm the same way, but I feel it's more of a compulsive eating Jewish thing.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, well, for me anyway.
Guest:I don't feel guilty like I should finish this plate.
Guest:I find it hard not to because it's in front of me.
Marc:Because you've got to eat it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess I mix it up.
Marc:I guess I go either way with it.
Marc:But you're in great shape.
Marc:Let's go over that because I need to start training again.
Marc:Let's talk about that.
Marc:Can we?
Marc:You want me to train you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't find a trainer.
Marc:Is Hank's area available?
Marc:We can talk.
Guest:What did you do already today?
Guest:Come on, you did something.
Guest:I was on the treadmill this morning.
Guest:I watched last night's Nick game on the treadmill this morning.
Guest:I did some push-ups and sit-ups.
Marc:Push-ups and sit-ups.
Guest:How many are we talking?
Guest:I did four sets of about 100 push-ups.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:100 each set?
Guest:I started out with 130, and then it ends up down to 40 or 50.
Guest:And you ran on the treadmill?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For how long?
Marc:How many miles?
Marc:Four miles, about 40 minutes.
Marc:I do about four miles when I do it, but I'm out of shape.
Marc:You don't seem like you're out of shape.
Marc:It's like I'm not fat, but I'm not toned.
Marc:My core is not engaged.
Marc:My core is drifting.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, that's happening to all of us.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:All right, so the four miles at what?
Marc:Like, what are you doing?
Marc:Like, eight and a half minute miles or nine minute miles?
Marc:No, when I run outside, it's about that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But on the treadmill, I take it easier.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:For some reason, I don't understand.
Guest:And what'd you eat for breakfast?
Guest:A fruit.
Guest:I have, like, do fruit in the morning.
Guest:this is the good stuff hank this is where oh i've there's a guy named dr bo wagner okay okay he's a nutritionist in the valley and i'm completely i i don't i've whatever i've i've fallen in i believe he does the whole thing like food combining eating for your blood type yeah the whole and he insists that you have to do it all you can't do like it partially yeah
Guest:And somehow if you do it all, it actually, and if you focus on what you can eat and not on what you can't eat, then it all works out well.
Guest:And I have to say, you can eat like a pig.
Guest:It's not about portion control.
Guest:If you eat the right things, you can, like I'll eat insane amounts of fruit all morning.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, I find the liability of those types of situations, which I go in and out of.
Marc:I do the four hour body thing.
Marc:I've been sort of emaciated in my life and I've never been happier.
Guest:When you were emaciated?
Marc:Oh yeah, it's the greatest feeling in the world.
Marc:I feel better when my pants are loose too.
Marc:Right, but then people come up to you like, are you all right?
Marc:What do you mean am I all right?
Marc:They're walking around thinking you have cancer or AIDS and you're like, I feel better than I've ever felt in my life.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, it's hard to, it is, you know, because if you get in really good, I've heard you actually talk about this.
Guest:When you get in really good shape, you kind of get gaunt looking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, oh, that's.
Guest:You do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a little, especially the older you get.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's a tough, tough balance.
Guest:But how long have you been like this?
Guest:I've been in shape or obsessed with food and training.
Marc:There's a fine line, isn't it?
Marc:Like, you know, like you have to admit that I'm obsessed with food.
Marc:Oh, totally.
Guest:Oh, no, I've had, I have food issues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:yeah where do you think it comes from for you i was a fat kid i was a chubby kid yeah me too and i got like anorexically thin in my teenage years to show your mom or i don't know you know i was it but it was a problem it was like you know yes yeah it was i mean i wasn't like hospitalized right that bad but you know it was uh i got too skinny yeah me too like a well my mother was anorexic oh really yeah
Marc:So I was always judged along those lines, right?
Marc:So it was like, you know, I do a joke on stage.
Marc:It never gets a laugh.
Marc:I think it should.
Marc:I say for the first nine years of my life, I think my mother just saw me as her fat.
Marc:And if she just ate less, I would disappear.
Marc:I think it's hilarious.
Marc:You would too because you're an eating guy.
Marc:But when I do that on stage, people are like, oh God, that's sad.
Marc:No, well, I relate.
Marc:I don't know if I'd laugh either, but I relate.
Guest:But do you find that it comes from that?
Guest:Were you judged for your fatness?
Guest:You know, I'll say this flippantly.
Guest:I actually do think it's a Jewish cultural thing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, I grew up with a lot of Italian kids, too.
Guest:I think it's similar.
Guest:But they have faster metabolisms, my Italian friends seem to.
Guest:So it was less of like a weight issue.
Guest:Because it was a mixed message growing up, right?
Guest:You have to eat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yes, but my God, look at your pants don't fit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And eat something.
Guest:What?
Guest:Look at you.
Guest:You're fat.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's like the old Richard Lewis joke.
Guest:Don't go outside.
Guest:See if I care.
Guest:It's like, I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:There's no decisive discipline or closure on instruction.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's always, you know, it's on you.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I do think that by the time I was a teenager, it became a will thing.
Guest:Like, I'm going to control what goes in my mouth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even if I can't control anything else about my life in this house.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I'm going to say what goes in.
Guest:Oh, and it seems to bother you that I'm not eating enough?
Guest:Even better.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I'm a rebel on top of it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then getting in show business, I got obsessed with...
Guest:looking good and doing that yeah and and i did that yeah and you just like that was it well to me look you always look good you've never in in your history and show business no one's ever said like jesus as areas uh they've never said it but it's happened you've gotten fat oh yeah i mean i'm fat but look if you look at tuesday it's documented in certain roles if you look at it in tuesdays and maury i was about i'd say probably 30 pounds heavier than i am really yeah it's documented i like the way you said that it's out there you can see it
Guest:if you want to see it.
Guest:I couldn't destroy all of them.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I tried like Schwarzenegger to grab all the tapes.
Guest:I couldn't do it.
Marc:So was there some sort of... How did you grow up?
Marc:Where did you grow up?
Marc:I grew up in Forest Hills, Queens.
Marc:So you're a New York kid.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:just for just not not far from the city yeah jewish household yes what kind of jews heavy hardcore no see i didn't even know you were jewish until today i'm a sephardic jew so you're a spanish jew a dark jew exactly a swarthy jew yeah the exotic jew the mediterranean yeah good for you yes yeah got a lot of mileage yeah i bet i can pass for italian yeah that's what i thought with that name too what is this area it's an old old sephardic name it's in the haggadah
Guest:it is rabbi's area right in there right oh yeah it's right there during the passover we all say it yeah absolutely yeah huh and uh how religious none i mean i was bar mitzvahed i got tutored like a year before sure you learn the songs yes yeah learn the greatest hits and then uh took the cash yeah and they asked me you want to be bar mitzvahed and i was like yeah i mean that's a lot of money i'm turning down if i don't do that that's what we're working towards here
Marc:I become a man, I get paid for it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But what did your old man do?
Marc:Garment business.
Marc:Classic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On the Worry side or what?
Guest:No, he was in Midtown.
Guest:He did really well by the 70s.
Guest:It's a crazy gambler's life, that garment business.
Marc:Yeah, it was a knockoff business?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would knock off the designer stuff for secretaries and housewives in Cleveland, whatever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Had a huge business for a while.
Marc:It's amazing, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're just like, right when this shit comes out, they're like, get that.
Marc:Where's that guy?
Marc:Cut something like this.
Marc:Let's get it out.
Guest:My dad, he actually went to FIT and he was very gifted at doing that himself.
Guest:He was like- Oh, really?
Guest:Taken apart.
Guest:He loved drawing the patterns and making the thing and the cheapest way to do it.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Could he sew?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he was.
Guest:You would see your father occasionally just laboring over a sewing machine?
Guest:I got my dad still with us.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:For his last birthday, I got him a portable sewing machine.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I know he just loves to, and just some fabric to just do whatever he wants with.
Guest:And he does?
Guest:I don't know that he actually does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I got it for him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So was it an insane sort of life?
Marc:Did you go down there to his shop and shit and see what was going on?
Guest:I would.
Guest:It was an exciting life.
Guest:It was kind of a Mad Men kind of life, how I remember it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:With amazing characters.
Guest:You know, like Myron Cohn came out of that whole world.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was an amazing world.
Marc:Gangsters, quick talkers, hustlers.
Marc:A lot of gangsters.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Because if you had a thriving garment business, then you at least had...
Guest:If not silent partners, you had to make nice.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:With what was going on.
Guest:Your trucks didn't get anywhere.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Or they got lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or the whole shipments would end up in another store.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Disappear.
Guest:So there was a lot of Damon Runyon-esque characters.
Guest:It was an amazing thing to see.
Guest:And what'd your mom do?
Guest:Housewife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, she's from Woodside.
Guest:She's from Queens.
Marc:Yeah, she never had a gig.
Guest:She actually, in her early, early 20s, like when she was 20, 21, she worked in publicity for Columbia Pictures.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:In New York.
Guest:She loved it.
Guest:In the movie business?
Guest:She was.
Guest:Sephardics speak Ladino.
Guest:They speak a Spanish dialect.
Guest:So my parents were both bilingual, and my mom worked in the South American territories in the publicity department.
Marc:For Columbia Pictures.
Marc:For Columbia Pictures.
Marc:Selling movies to Latino people.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:They both speak Spanish?
Marc:They do.
Marc:So that was the Sephardic version of Yiddish almost?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Ladino is the Sephardic version of Yiddish.
Guest:I never knew this.
Guest:This is an education to me.
Guest:It's an amazing language.
Guest:It's written in Hebrew characters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's phonetically, it's phonetic Spanish written in Hebrew characters.
Guest:And wherever, my family was from Greece and Turkey.
Guest:and it gets it's weird you never i never associate it's weird because just being a stereotypical thinker i never associate jews with greece and turkey it's very exotic you do only the sephardics were there from spain originally originally from spain in 1492 everyone out everybody out yeah yeah yeah and they a lot of sephardics went there a lot went to amsterdam a lot went to paris a lot went to italy north africa yeah uh
Guest:And then wherever the Ladino... You know, wherever they went, it got... Like with Yiddish, it got mixed in.
Guest:So my family speaks a dialect that has a lot of Greek and Turkish thrown in.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:I never heard of that before.
Guest:Yeah, it's interesting.
Marc:And do you understand it?
Guest:No.
Guest:I do not.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:But there's great... They love it.
Guest:It's dying, too.
Guest:It's a shame.
Guest:I should have done... I feel guilty.
Guest:I should have really done like an oral history.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And recorded it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because now that my grandparents are gone, they really...
Guest:lived it.
Marc:And there was like Greek, Turkish, and Spanish.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And Hebrew.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:It's an amazing, my grandmother spoke like four languages.
Marc:And they came, were both your parents born outside of the country?
Marc:They were both born here.
Guest:All four of my grandparents are from the same little town, from Salonika, Greece.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:One's from a nearby town in Turkey.
Marc:So what was it like?
Marc:What was the food like?
Marc:What kind of like when your mom cooked?
Marc:It wasn't this classic Eastern European Jewish stuff.
Marc:She must have cooked like Middle Eastern stuff or Mediterranean.
Guest:Very Greek inspired Spanish.
Guest:Like there's this beans and rice was big.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But their version was called Fijones, which is this like kind of a cassoulet kind of dish.
Guest:Slow cooked.
Guest:yes really really good and a lot of like uh phyllo dough like um pasteles they call them little pies of uh like really of feta cheese this was jewish food yeah it was yeah it was very mostly some of the greek food i want well that's the kind of jew i wanted to be it was the food was better than your average like schmaltz on a piece of bread yeah it was so so was there any like do you have brothers and sisters two sisters really yeah so was it a crazy house was your dad crazy
Guest:I would say that it's, I lovingly say my family was crazy, but they were, my dad was, you know, he was that generation of kind of stoic.
Guest:We won World War II, but we're not going to mention anything about it.
Guest:He didn't go, did he?
Guest:He did.
Guest:He was very, very young.
Guest:And he packed parachutes in the Air Force.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And was in the Japanese theater, the South Pacific.
Guest:Really?
Guest:On a boat?
Guest:Yeah, he was... Oh, actually, you know, he never left the country, actually.
Guest:He was only in for a year, and he was getting ready to go to the South Pacific and then got lucky and never went.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that probably is lucky.
Guest:But...
Guest:He was that, you know, that generation stoic.
Guest:I barely saw him.
Guest:You know, he worked 99 hours a day.
Guest:Smoked cigarettes?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Four packs a day.
Guest:No filters?
Guest:Four a day.
Guest:No, he smoked the menthols, though.
Marc:Ooh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he was that guy.
Marc:Just like, you know, like brown, stained fingers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And out all day.
Guest:And poor guy now, you know, he's got lung cancer.
Guest:Oh, sorry.
Guest:He's got emphysema.
Guest:But he quit 25 years ago, but...
Guest:Four, you know, four packs.
Guest:He'd have one, you know, he'd be working at his desk.
Guest:I'd go there and I'd be playing on the ground.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'd have one in his mouth, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And one going in the ashtray.
Guest:And he'd fucking reach for another one.
Guest:Till he realized, I got two going.
Guest:It was unbelievable.
Guest:And he's at the machine.
Guest:Yeah, he's at his desk.
Guest:Or he'd go out to the floor.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he was fun to watch.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:He loved it.
Guest:I got that from him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, do what you love.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And how old is he now?
Guest:He's 80.
Guest:He just turned 86.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So he made a long run.
Marc:Yeah, he did.
Marc:He's still at it.
Marc:And does he live with you?
Marc:No, they're in Miami.
Marc:They're both still alive?
Marc:They are.
Marc:Both my folks.
Marc:You got some good genes, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They're in for the long haul.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:And your mom's still all together and everything?
Marc:Yeah, they're both.
Marc:They really are doing well.
Guest:She set them up down there?
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They moved out.
Guest:And my father actually moved the business down there years ago.
Guest:They didn't retire down there.
Guest:And I helped them out a little bit, but they're okay.
Marc:Yeah, I always wonder about that.
Marc:Because I know that if I had a lot of money, I wonder if I would just be like, it's all right, here's a house.
Guest:I've done versions of that in and out.
Guest:For them or for others?
Guest:It's the other family members.
Guest:It can get a little complicated.
Guest:You need to get...
Guest:The rules in place.
Guest:Right, like this is a one-time thing.
Guest:Or, you know, let's just make sure exactly what we're doing here and what this means.
Guest:And then, you know what, let's maybe get it in writing so there's no discrepancy later about what was promised and what wasn't.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Even with a gift?
Marc:Even with a little help?
Guest:Well, the problem is it depends on how you define a gift and what exactly that means.
Guest:And, you know, so...
Guest:Yeah, it's funny.
Guest:Money can create problems you don't expect.
Guest:That is for sure.
Guest:Every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Every day.
Marc:The amount of resentment and weirdness possible around even small amounts of money is profound.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think it's at the root of all difficulties on some level.
Marc:It's hard to argue with that.
Marc:It is.
Marc:But it's weird how petty it can become, too.
Marc:At some point, you're like, I don't have a fortune.
Marc:But all of a sudden, one day, you're like, hey, you know what?
Marc:It's just money.
Marc:And the next day, it's like, that's $5 that I don't have now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, also, the more... This is true.
Guest:I've been really lucky.
Guest:I hit kind of the show business lottery.
Guest:Yeah, you won life.
Guest:Yes, with The Simpsons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when you make that much money and you start enjoying that much money, I mean, you don't have to go the whole route of like...
Guest:You know, how like maybe some young rock stars or some sports guys, young athletes will go with blowing it all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you then create a lifestyle for yourself that you that traps you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That you have to feed.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It requires it's like a money, a money.
Marc:It's like shoveling money into an oven.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Just run this machine.
Guest:That's your life.
Guest:That's a lot why I downsized a few years ago.
Guest:I'm like, what am I doing?
Guest:This is crazy.
Guest:Where were you sitting when you had that moment?
Guest:How big of a situation were you involved?
Guest:I was in a big house.
Guest:Were you?
Guest:You're alone?
Guest:No, I was with my wife and child.
Guest:But partly why I moved in, like, you know, I've only been married a year.
Guest:My son's four, almost four.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And we've been together for like seven, eight years.
Guest:But, you know, it kind of all hit us fast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was a little freaked out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, you know what?
Guest:With the kid.
Guest:The whole thing.
Guest:You know, just like, yes, with the child.
Guest:I'm actually doing a web series, doing about five.
Guest:It freaked me out so bad.
Guest:to becoming a father i mean it's we the story is actually an interesting story we were katie and i had been together for a while and i was more upset was less to me about do we get married because she didn't really care about that right then do we have a kid i'm in the same situation okay yeah so it's a thing yeah you know because it's like is there a big age difference she's seven years younger than i am do you talk about your age how old are you
Guest:You know, I'll be 49 in a week, a week from today, actually.
Guest:Oh, yeah, okay, I'm 49.
Guest:Okay, good, I get it, yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, so this was like, what, five, six years ago.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:She was like 36.
Guest:So she's, it's pressing.
Guest:If it was going to happen, it was going to happen then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and she put no pressure.
Guest:She wasn't like, hey, what do we do?
Guest:She was like, I don't know if I want to do this either.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But I was more like, well, if we're going to do this, we should freaking do it now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we...
Guest:I got obsessed with it, and I started asking all my friends.
Guest:I have a weekly poker game.
Guest:I love poker every week.
Guest:I hear about that.
Guest:And I started bugging my friends who are all dads.
Guest:I'm like, what did you guys, did you want it?
Guest:Is that why you got married?
Guest:Because you want kids?
Guest:Did it change your life?
Guest:Is it worth it?
Guest:And they were like, shut up.
Guest:You know, who cares?
Guest:Just have a kid or not.
Guest:We don't give a shit.
Guest:Do whatever you want to do.
Marc:I'm the same as you.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:I mean, some guys don't even think twice about it.
Marc:It just fucking happens.
Marc:Most don't.
Marc:Me, I'm like, you know, I don't have kids.
Marc:I'm 49.
Marc:She wants one.
Marc:And I'm like, okay, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it now.
Marc:But my brain, I'm like, I go right from like, hey, let's have a baby.
Marc:Oh my God, it's dead.
Marc:There's nothing in between there.
Guest:Well, there's a lot in between.
Guest:No, I know, but not in my brain.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I was like, when you say it's dead, you mean.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:It just goes out.
Guest:Your life or the baby.
Marc:no the baby like i just a panic you know like it's like how do i you know what if i don't you know i mean like there's a lot of selfish thoughts that go on like you know people have kids they deal with kids they adapt to them where animals were designed to deal with it she's going to take care of it it's not not all on me you know if you if you have a uh uh you just have to i just this is what i'm doing what i'm doing in front of you right now is what i do whereas i should you know she's upset because she says i want you to be excited about it i'm like i'm freaking freaked out about it
Guest:I was, yeah, I should send you, well, here's what happened to us.
Guest:I should send you my little, because we actually started shooting a documentary film about it.
Guest:About your panic?
Guest:Yes, because my poker buddy said, you know what we should, I said, look, if Katie walked in and said she were pregnant, the only thing I'm qualified in life to do is prepare for a role.
Guest:That's all I know how to do.
Guest:So what I would do is follow you morons around.
Guest:What I do when I get a role is I'm playing a baker.
Guest:I go down and look at a baker, what he does for a while.
Guest:Do you really?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, whatever, right?
Guest:I try to talk to somebody like, oh, so this is what it is.
Guest:All right, good.
Guest:And...
Guest:So I followed dads around and say, oh, this is okay.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my buddy said, you know, that would be a decent documentary.
Guest:Let's, let's just do that.
Guest:And we started doing that.
Guest:I started shooting this kind of angst ridden.
Guest:Cause I don't like kids particularly either.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:I do not.
Guest:What do you feel when you're around them exactly?
Guest:Um,
Guest:Look, I feel the same.
Guest:I'm sure you relate to this.
Guest:I feel the same way about children that I feel about most people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because most of them are fucking annoying.
Guest:You know, so.
Marc:They're good for a little while, maybe a couple hours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then just because they're children.
Guest:George Carlin was very big on this.
Guest:Just because they're kids, it doesn't make them wonder.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:You know, they're people and like a lot of people, they can be pains in the ass.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So, and I don't, I was very nervous around them and didn't feel like I could relate to them very well.
Guest:I felt much too selfish as a human being to like give to a child.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:That's it with me too.
Marc:You know, and I think that's important.
Marc:That moment where you realize like, you know, I got my own thing going on here.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I don't want to give up.
Guest:It took a long time to get it to how I like it.
Marc:Yeah, but do you feel any guilt about that feeling?
Guest:I felt a lot of guilt, which is why I would be torn about maybe I should have a kid and maybe that would open me up in ways I'm not anticipating.
Guest:How can I use this to my advantage?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I can play dad's great after this.
Guest:I'm getting to that age.
Guest:I need that.
Guest:But so we start shooting.
Guest:Me going to people and saying, I don't get it.
Guest:I don't like children.
Guest:Why do you want to have them?
Guest:And we're talking to some famous people and my friends and experts, different people.
Guest:And then my dog of 16 years begins to die.
Guest:And so it's an old dog.
Guest:She was an old dog.
Guest:And we, you know, that's what was happening.
Guest:So we started shooting that and it, and I had to care for her.
Guest:So you know how it gets at the end with your animal.
Guest:You had to care for her so much.
Guest:She was blind and deaf and insane.
Guest:And I had to take care of her all day.
Guest:I come from a euthanizing family.
Guest:You know, I learned my lesson on this.
Guest:We, we, you know, you always get it wrong.
Guest:We should have put her down about a month before we did, but you can't let go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doctors telling you, well, she might, you know, like what?
Guest:She's 16.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got angry at the doctors.
Guest:I was like, why would you tell me that this medication might work?
Guest:But anyway, so we're shooting this, and it's the day we decide to put the dog down, which was a big day.
Guest:I'm like, okay, I think we got to stop the fight here.
Guest:We got to call it.
Guest:And Katie, my girlfriend at the time, gets up and throws up.
Guest:I'm like, you're taking this.
Guest:You're having an odd reaction to this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she kind of gives me a funny look.
Guest:And I said, you know, literally, I'm on the phone.
Guest:I'm calling.
Guest:Can you send someone to put them down instead of us coming there?
Guest:We're like arranging all this.
Guest:And I say to her, to me, you seem pregnant.
Guest:Are you pregnant?
Guest:What's going on with you?
Guest:And she just kind of gives me this look like I can't even describe to you.
Guest:Meanwhile, by the way, I'm shooting all this.
Guest:All right.
Guest:It's on camera.
Guest:You have this.
Guest:And I said, are you pregnant?
Guest:She goes, I don't know.
Guest:I said, well.
Marc:With that weird insensitivity and almost shock.
Marc:Are you, what is happening?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I was, I was like, what are you, what are you telling me?
Guest:Are you pregnant?
Guest:It was like a Woody Allen moment.
Guest:Like, what are you trying to say to me, Don?
Guest:Are you pregnant?
Guest:What's happening here?
Guest:And she goes, maybe.
Guest:I said, well, are you concerned about it?
Guest:She's like, yeah.
Guest:I'm like, well, let's get a test.
Guest:She's like, I have one.
Guest:I said, you're concerned enough that you bought a test.
Guest:She's like, mm-hmm.
Guest:I said, well, did you take it?
Guest:She's like, no.
Guest:I said, well, go fucking take it.
Guest:So she marches off.
Guest:So supportive.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I was freaking out.
Guest:She marches off.
Guest:I've got a camera in one hand.
Guest:I'm on the phone with my dear friend on the other.
Guest:I'm like, dude, Katie's off taking a pregnancy test.
Guest:And she comes back.
Guest:It was a very cinematic moment.
Guest:She appears in the kitchen doorway, framed very nicely by it.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Just, yes, thank God, because I'm shooting.
Guest:Sobbing, just nodding yes.
Guest:Nodding uh-huh.
Guest:I'm like, okay, we're pregnant.
Guest:My dog's dying at my feet.
Guest:I don't know what's happening.
Guest:And my buddy goes, okay, dude, put down the phone and go hug her.
Guest:And thank God he said that.
Guest:I swear to you, I wouldn't have done it.
Guest:I would have just been like, what the fuck is happening?
Guest:And I'll tell you this.
Guest:And I did, and we're shooting this whole thing.
Guest:And in that moment, I had a real, you can't fake this or know what's going to happen.
Guest:I had a genuine burst of joy.
Guest:I was like.
Guest:In your heart.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I just was happy that she was going to carry my child.
Guest:We were going to do this.
Guest:And listen, I've gotten a couple other women pregnant in the past, and I did not have that moment of joy.
Guest:Or I was scared I would.
Guest:This is going to ruin my life.
Guest:Yes, that was the reaction.
Guest:So I took it like, well, this is probably a good sign.
Guest:And we hugged.
Guest:And then the documentary changed into, we are actually having a baby.
Guest:Oh, my God, what do we do?
Guest:And then now it's morphed into, it's going to become a web series.
Marc:But outside of that, you know, that's a profound thing.
Marc:Like, because that moment of joy was something you could never anticipate and was completely antithetical than how your head was working or how you thought you were wired.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:And this wasn't even with the kid coming, having here.
Marc:That must have been a pretty good moment.
Marc:You must have felt like a fucking person.
Guest:I did.
Guest:And, you know, I ran into a friend of mine who said, you know, who I knew a long time ago.
Guest:We were actually, now we have kids.
Guest:And she said, you know...
Marc:you you it's like it's it's it's amazing the kid thing isn't it yeah he said you become a human being and to extent i actually do believe that's true i i believe it too and i intellectually know it i know it you know because you know my fears around it are more like you know i'm going to be you know 70 when the kid's 20 but you know if i make it that long and and that's that's a selfish trajectory yeah too
Marc:but but like i see guys and you know them too they i mean they're in our world yeah who are childless and there there is something you know they're great guys and you know they are who they are but there's a there's a there's a selfishness there that is kind of infantile yeah and and you and you you know i i understand it as a choice and everything but i do acknowledge that whether it's a choice not to have kids or not they don't have them and they're peculiar yeah i think you know you're your weird uncle at best at that point right it kind of
Marc:yeah so okay so outside of the documentary well then we the kid came 10 weeks early and so my whole thing was is this worth it what do you do how do you take care well yes you know i mean but you're a guy you got you got money for for miles so that that that's out of the that you're not it's not a worry no which is like in my mind that's my only worry you know outside of dying it's a genuine concern
Marc:Right, but you don't have that one, but there's still these other problems.
Guest:But even still, I still thought about it.
Guest:Don't underestimate my selfishness because I had plans for that money.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like what?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You just want to be free to do what you... Let's put it this way.
Guest:And this is going to sound a little obnoxious, but it's true.
Guest:Before I had a wife and a child, I didn't really think about...
Guest:you know, I could never outspend myself.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It wasn't like I was that lucky with the money that it wasn't like a concern.
Guest:I would, you know, do what I wanted to do.
Guest:I know it all fell in the realm.
Guest:It was okay.
Guest:And then there became, you know, with a family and a child and feeding them too and houses and educations and all kinds of things.
Guest:You're like, wow.
Guest:And then, you know, the housing bubble and the economy, all of a sudden I got like sacked out of field goal range, if you will, financially.
Guest:And all of a sudden I'm like, well, I have to think about this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the whole point of once that kid's born, what I didn't realize was that you're just, and especially with a preemie who has to be in the hospital for seven weeks.
Guest:Oh, he came early?
Guest:Yeah, two and a half.
Guest:He was only two and a half pounds when he was born.
Guest:How many months in when he came out?
Guest:He was 10 weeks early.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Scary.
Guest:Very scary.
Guest:And thank God he's fine now.
Guest:But you get so grateful that they're okay.
Guest:I mean, and your first thought is...
Guest:oh my God, is he going to be all right?
Guest:And honestly, your second thought is a selfish one.
Guest:It's like, am I going to be all right?
Guest:Like, am I going to be okay to, God forbid, if he needs, if he's a special needs kid or what happened.
Guest:But you had them in the right order.
Guest:You should, you know, reward yourself.
Guest:I did.
Guest:No, I did.
Guest:And I must say it's true.
Guest:I first thought of him like, oh my God, what is he going to go through?
Guest:And listen, people go through all kinds of things.
Guest:But that must have surprised you.
Guest:It did.
Guest:And that's part of the whole journey of this.
Guest:And then you do realize that
Guest:Just for them to be okay, you'll take it.
Guest:You'll do whatever you need to do in exchange for them being all right.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And in a sense, it is, for me, anyway, a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic actor, it was the only thing that really I can say that he's first, genuinely, in my heart.
Guest:I can't say about anything else.
Marc:That's amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, because you didn't anticipate that.
Guest:No.
Marc:That's beautiful.
Marc:And he's okay.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:He's growing and everything's good.
Guest:He's fine.
Guest:They have little, you know, he's got little issues.
Guest:They're no big deal.
Guest:Like when they're preemies, they have like vestibular issues.
Guest:He still has a little bit like that he'll grow out of.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Like in an elevator, the motion of it will make him, well, I'll have to hold hands because you get some, you know, his inner ear is not, you know, they come out too early and develop fully.
Guest:And he's got like, oh, some heat, like he's sensitive to noise still a little bit.
Guest:But these are, you know,
Marc:That's great.
Guest:And you get along with him.
Guest:And yeah, he's he'll be four soon as much as you can get along with a with a three year old.
Marc:But are you finding that the experience in and of itself in terms of that the selflessness sort of happens naturally?
Marc:And, you know, in that you like all those things they say about it where you do what you got to do.
Marc:And it's not really an effort that, you know, like I'm saying that.
Marc:You actively, it comes natural.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It's not like, look, there are times you do have to, they can be tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like what they say with parenting is true.
Guest:It's like long days, the years are short, you know, where it went and the days are long.
Guest:It's just like, wow, we've been really at it for a long time today following Junior around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is a, it's such a love ball.
Guest:It's the kind of love that you felt like when you had a crush on a girl when you were like 14.
Guest:It's like that kind of overwhelming, you know, that you don't remember anymore by the time you're 30.
Guest:It's like that kind of love just transposed.
Guest:You know, we're just like, you know.
Marc:And do you, like, my big fear is, like, I'm very sensitive.
Marc:You know, I imagine you're relatively sensitive.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:When it comes to you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That there are those moments where, like, even with my brother's kids, I'm like, that kid doesn't like me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he's like, that's, it's a kid.
Guest:You have to get over that.
Guest:No, you really, you really, it's a big, listen, it makes you grow, like, your job is to love them, not for them to love you, and it's true.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And even your job, I, I suffered too much.
Guest:I was, I loved him so much and wanted to be, um,
Guest:You know, I know your parents were.
Guest:But like I say, that generation, you know, my dad was so busy and my mom was, too.
Guest:And it seems to me like our generation, we were like kicked out the door at four and like ride your bike to the thing and go figure it out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, I think that's true.
Marc:And I think it was primarily, you know, I mean, I feel like you're being, you know, sort of sympathetic to whatever the hell they went through.
Marc:But I sort of hold my parents responsible for being selfish.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you could say I have to at times, you know, like it gets a point where you like, well, I'm this way because there's something happened there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like you, you obviously, but I think you're absolutely right.
Marc:They're like, Hey, you can figure out who you are.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it was that generation.
Guest:I mean, look, I used to feel actually kind of upset about that.
Guest:And A, a lot later in life, I realized a lot of that was me.
Guest:Not everything I came out to be, they were responsible for.
Guest:No, no, absolutely.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But what specifically were you upset about?
Guest:Well, you know, I didn't love that.
Guest:It was tough for me to get my dad's attention too much growing up, you know, and he was so, I mean, you know, work really did come first, you know, and he was providing for us and that was the roles, you know.
Guest:Well, that's why they always got captured as a hero.
Marc:Your father is out making money for us.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Don't, you can't have anything against that man.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You're eating.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Food on the table.
Guest:So what do you want?
Guest:So eat your feelings.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Stuff them down.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We're joking, but it's kind of true.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I, yeah, you know, I wasn't thrilled with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And how do you feel now though?
Marc:Like, yeah, I don't know what you did to process that because I mean, at some point you do have to take responsibility.
Marc:You can't be this adult walking around saying, I hate my parents or that, you know, it's their fault.
Marc:No, it's terrible.
Marc:No, it's horrible.
Marc:People hate it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're like, grow the fuck up.
Marc:You know, there has to be some self parenting.
Marc:Eventually, you got to at some point say, like, I'm going to take care of this kid who, you know, is busy eating himself to death.
Marc:But but but I mean, now that you still have your parents with you and as do I. Yeah.
Marc:Does she still get triggered?
Marc:Because I can sit with my father and I can accept my father's insanity and know that he's completely selfish and doesn't behave really any differently.
Marc:And I think what the point is, at some point, you can't expect them to.
Guest:No.
Marc:The window's closed.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They're not going to play ball with you now.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Look, I've done a lot to get over this because it troubled me a lot.
Guest:And therapy helped.
Guest:And having somebody to whine about it, too, helped a lot.
Guest:As opposed to friends.
Guest:Who literally, I mean, I have an amazing shrink.
Guest:I don't seem to much anymore, but...
Guest:He talks like this.
Guest:He's a New York guy.
Guest:He sounds like Mickey Rourke in the early days.
Guest:And he literally, he was this kind of guy.
Guest:I would be in there whining about this very stuff, and he would literally go, he'd listen to me about 20 minutes and go, yeah, all right, shut the fuck up.
Guest:Your problem is you're a fucking baby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's what he said like what he's like yeah all this this didn't happen i didn't get this this is all shit that if i told you would happen to somebody else you wouldn't give a shit but because it's to you it's like a fucking crime everybody had this shit grow the fuck up and it was like the best thing i ever got told what's this guy's number he's amazing um phil stutz i can say his name yeah uh he just wrote a book about this stuff and uh
Guest:Is the book called Shut the Fuck Up?
Guest:Essentially.
Guest:No, it's called The Tools.
Guest:It gives you tools to work with this shit.
Guest:Specifically this stuff.
Guest:Narcissistic grown men.
Guest:Yes, he specializes in people in show business and that specific kind of narcissism that we all have and self-obsession that actually we kind of have to have.
Guest:It's part of our job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then gets out of hand and gets away from us.
Guest:And you feel like you've moved through it?
Guest:Well, eventually I kind of had to say to my mom and dad, here's what I was upset about.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Now, how'd that moment go?
Marc:Because I know what they usually say.
Marc:What did yours say?
Guest:We did the best we could.
Guest:They did.
Guest:Yeah, they did.
Guest:And, you know, the short answer is what I realized over time is they're absolutely right.
Guest:They absolutely did.
Guest:I don't hold anybody... If somebody's doing their best with what they've got and really believes in their heart that they're giving you their level best, how can you really fault them?
Guest:I mean, you can.
Guest:You can understand what was deficient and what you didn't get and what you didn't like.
Guest:But it's hard to hold a grudge against somebody who really was doing... I mean, that's what I'm doing with my son...
Marc:is my best.
Marc:But you're self-aware, and you bring a complete emotional vocabulary of your own struggle with this stuff.
Guest:Yes, and I hope to parent him reflecting that.
Guest:Look, that generation won World War II.
Guest:I don't think we could have.
Guest:I don't think we could have.
Guest:Is that yours?
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:Yes, that is mine.
Guest:But we're better parents.
Guest:We're better in that way.
Guest:Because we have an understanding of all this stuff.
Guest:And we can't hold that over our kid.
Guest:You know, like we won World War II.
Marc:That's what we did.
Marc:Cut us some slack.
Marc:Well, it kind of.
Marc:We're free because of us.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:You're not dead or speaking German.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So, yeah, and it didn't, you know, my father kind of, it was kind of amazing.
Guest:I went to him and I said, you know, Dad,
Guest:I kind of have a lot of resentment because you weren't there a lot, you know, when I was growing up.
Guest:And, you know, I just I missed you, you know.
Guest:And he just he took it all to listen to me.
Guest:And he just went, yes, I was.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Pretty much.
Marc:And you've got to eat that.
Marc:Yeah, what do you do with that?
Marc:I mean, okay.
Marc:Said my piece.
Marc:Your piece is yes I was.
Marc:Well, my dad will actually bring up memories of me that I'm surprised he has.
Marc:I don't know if yours does that.
Marc:Where you think they're not there, but then he'll say like, what about that time you were with that girl and you were crying?
Marc:How the fuck did you?
Marc:I don't know how you remembered that.
Guest:No, you're all lucky.
Guest:I don't have too many of those.
Guest:And your mom, too?
Guest:I mean... You know, my mom kind of took it all in as well, and then that gets a little more aggressively.
Guest:That went a little bit more in the realm of, oh, so I guess everything wrong with you is my fault.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:And in the end, you know, look, I'm glad I said it once, and it was useful because then I can stop with it already.
Guest:I've said my piece.
Guest:And look, I love them, and we have a great relationship now, and I can give to them, and they're in their later years now, so...
Marc:uh it gets easier then too because a lot of the some of the heart rougher edges get smoothed off you know at least in my from my parents they get tempered by time very much when you see time just crushing your parents yeah you gotta you because you're not gonna sit there and go ah so who's winning now who's winning i'm winning
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:If I say you were in there, you were in there.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Marc:What are you going to do, little man?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:You want your medicine?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, I said it.
Guest:I said my piece.
Guest:They said theirs.
Guest:And then we can all live happily.
Marc:Did you feel like, you know, because I'm finding lately that, you know, because of, you know, we share these issues that, like, for a long time, I didn't get a sense.
Marc:Like, it sounds like your mother, you know, despite, you know, whatever guilt was going on, was at least nurturing on some level.
Marc:Like, yeah, because with my parents, I feel like they're just these freaks that I grew up with that seem to have problems.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Were they not attentive at all as parents?
Marc:Well, no, they were, but they were panic attentive.
Marc:They were like, it wasn't like, you know, you're a separate thing.
Marc:You're like, you know, if something happens to you, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Marc:It was sort of like what you were talking about with your fears of kids.
Marc:There was a selfishness there that I think they were primarily concerned because they didn't want to deal with the aggravation of something happening to me.
Guest:There was some of that, too.
Guest:And again, I don't mean to like...
Guest:excuse my parents or anything but I think it's very generational I mean I don't know any parents back then who weren't like that to some extent certainly all my friends yeah and it was also that first that sort of weird first initial rise of the middle class like your dad was the first generation to really make you know a good living and you know be able to move out to Queens and do whatever you know right it was all about that it was like if we're doing that yeah you know we're providing you the Ozzie and Harriet model so what more do you want yep yep and wanting more is really whining
Marc:So tell me about this moment.
Marc:I'm curious about this moment where you're like, you know, we got to downsize.
Marc:I mean, what were you sitting in that moment?
Marc:So you got the kid and you got the wife and you're like, all right, maybe we don't need the palace.
Guest:I mean, what was... Well, to be honest, a lot of the motivation for getting the huge house was I was so freaked out by all of a sudden living with... Because we weren't even living together when we got pregnant.
Guest:But you've been married before.
Guest:I was married before, yeah, for a year.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, we were together for a long time, only a year.
Guest:You and Helen were.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, that didn't go particularly well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was a little phobic about marriage, too.
Guest:I wasn't too excited to jump back in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had been, you know, kicked in the nuts, kind of.
Guest:So I was a little freaked out by the whole thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were heartbroken at the end of that one.
Guest:Very.
Guest:I mean, yes, I left, but I was heartbroken.
Guest:Yeah, it's a horrible feeling that you never feel like it's going to go away.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:I've only been married once, but I've had that heartbreak four or five times in my life, and it's fucking horrible.
Marc:Because especially when you're as self-involved as we are, there's no way to process it.
Marc:And the weirdest thing, I don't know if you realize this, but it does fade.
Marc:But when you're in it, you're like, oh, God.
Guest:It does, but especially when you're young, you don't know it's going to.
Guest:No.
Guest:And you do a lot of bad things not knowing that if you just sit with it, it'll be all right eventually.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Make them cry, hurt them as much as possible, go fuck their friends.
Marc:There's a lot of things you can... Or stuff to yourself or, you know, whatever.
Marc:I'm outside and I have a gun.
Marc:That's a little extreme.
Guest:Never quite went there, but, you know...
Guest:You dive into certain lifestyles and things you want to drink and put in yourself to numb out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:For extended periods of time.
Guest:You did that?
Guest:You had the dark times?
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:And they were fun, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was your thing?
Guest:Booze?
Guest:I liked to drink.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Out in public.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I didn't, you know, I wasn't like, I'm going to sit alone with this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, I didn't see any point of a martini without a blonde and vice versa.
Guest:I call it a Jewish speedball.
Guest:I wanted both of those at once.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you could get them.
Guest:And at that time in my life, I could.
Guest:And it was fun to sort of wake up out of a marriage like, I'm famous enough to really have a lot of fun here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:And I don't regret a lot of it, but it's also a bit self-destructive and kind of horrible.
Guest:Are you still friends with her?
Guest:Ish, yeah.
Guest:I'm friendly.
Guest:We're not like...
Guest:over each other's house every other day.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But yeah, we have a lot of mutual friends.
Guest:So it's okay.
Guest:She wishes me well, I wish her well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So okay, so let's go back to the current.
Marc:So she was pregnant and you end up getting married.
Guest:Well, the house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, look, if we're going to do this, I need a really big house so that I can be on one end of it while you guys are doing whatever you do.
Guest:Like Charles Foster Kane.
Guest:The table just keeps getting longer.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I was like, if I just need to be in my wing, I can be.
Guest:If I can pretend I'm single for a day or three.
Guest:I'm going to build a bar in that wing.
Guest:Well, by that point, no.
Guest:We had given that up.
Guest:But, you know, so...
Guest:But then after a year or two, I'm like, I don't need this.
Guest:I'm very happy with all of us together, and I want us all to be close.
Guest:This is so much money to carry this place that I don't need.
Guest:And then with the economy and everything, it just became ludicrous.
Guest:But you grew up.
Guest:Yes, that too.
Guest:That's a simpler way of saying it.
Marc:I mean, that really sounds like what happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Marc:It was a good thing.
Marc:So when did you start acting?
Guest:Oh, it depends.
Guest:I mean, my whole life, really, but I didn't realize it.
Guest:I mean, you know, I would memorize comedy albums and perform them by age six and things like that.
Guest:Like which ones?
Guest:Steve Martin, George Carlin.
Guest:Those are my probably two favorites growing up.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's weird because we're the same age, you know, and those are the records.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Let's Get Small.
Marc:Yeah, and Class Clown.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, all George Carlin stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Did you ever get to meet him?
Guest:I never got to meet George Carlin.
Guest:I was really, that was one of those deaths that really hit me hard.
Guest:We're at that age where now the deaths are like, oh, no, that feels like a friend of mine is gone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, and friends, too.
Guest:I mean, we're getting to that age.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We're actual friends.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But you never got to work with him or anything?
Guest:No, I've met Steve Martin a couple of times.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:How was that for you?
Guest:That was actually great.
Guest:I sat next to him at some dinner party a long time ago, and he was really sweet and hilarious and funny and engaging.
Guest:Yeah, I've never met him, but I've watched him eat breakfast.
Marc:And I was at a festival.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And he was just sitting over there.
Marc:You think you know people just by liking their work or watching them.
Marc:But he struck me as very sort of heavy hearted.
Marc:And I don't know if that was really true, but I was just looking at him like...
Guest:Yeah, I mean, maybe the night I ran into him, no, he was convivial and very funny.
Guest:But, you know, he's definitely an intense, he's pretty open about how he's not lighthearted.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, a lot of us are, you know, comedic people are not notoriously jovial.
Marc:So, okay, so you're listening to comedy records, you're memorizing them.
Guest:Well, you know, I didn't realize, and I'm a mimic and voice guy, and I would do all that growing up and didn't realize till, you know, I was about to go into college that that might be a marketable skill.
Guest:In fact, even...
Guest:In college, I really started acting earnestly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And thought, maybe I want to actually try this when I'm out of school.
Guest:And still didn't connect up that maybe the fact that I memorized every TV show or movie or comedy album I ever heard and could mimic the voice almost exactly and the mannerisms and the timing meant that I might have a marketable skill there.
Guest:I didn't connect the two.
Guest:But you never thought about being an impressionist necessarily.
Yeah.
Guest:Not really.
Guest:I admired them greatly.
Guest:I loved Rich Little growing up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And David Fry and Gorshin and them.
Guest:But I had a very brief stand-up act.
Guest:You know, I was at the Comedy Store, I think, when you were doorman back then.
Marc:What, in 86?
Marc:Late 80s.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:More like 87, 88.
Marc:Yeah, I might have just missed you.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You were doing stand-up?
Guest:You know, I was in a sketch comedy group back then and we wrote some stuff and I had like a few minutes left over and I was so green that I went up just at the comedy store as a lark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I didn't even realize it was an audition situation.
Guest:You were already acting by then, weren't you or no?
Guest:yes but i wasn't doing much i hadn't gotten the simpsons yet i would get like a job every six months yeah and uh went up and and mitzi made me a regular yeah and i was like are you kidding me i don't have an act i don't i went up i have the three minutes you just heard is what i have i don't so i would get thrown out there yeah you know and i i did it for like six months and i
Guest:Did it just long enough to realize how hard it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that you actually really have to work very, very hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To get 10 minutes that's worth anything.
Guest:Were you getting pressure from the other guys who was around?
Guest:Were you in the crew there?
Guest:No, I was completely.
Guest:You know, Pauly Shore was then just becoming huge.
Guest:And Dice was.
Guest:is pretty big already.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know, I like, you know, back then you, there was no MC in that room.
Guest:You'd introduce each other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Still like that.
Guest:Pauly Shore would, you know, never remember my name when I was coming next.
Guest:I'd be like, oh dude, please.
Guest:Who's on next?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Oh dude, what's your name again?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had no game.
Guest:I didn't even realize that a big part of stand-up was, especially in that room, was just deflecting the masses.
Guest:Just basically being an insult comic at what was being thrown at you.
Guest:Harnessing that thing.
Guest:I would just be like, I'll wait, you guys are done, and then I'll continue, I guess.
Guest:And you were just doing voices?
Guest:no I didn't do really any impressions I just did I didn't even think like I should probably do some I did a couple like I would do stupid things like Captain Kirk going to the bathroom or something or Gavin McCloud from The Love Boat Captain Steubing you know for a second but mostly I would just do silly observational things I watched TV all day it was Kirk and Steubing that was it huh pretty much and I talk about The Love Boat a lot
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was in repeats then.
Guest:Oh, but I was, listen, that's what I grew up with.
Guest:I would talk about, I don't understand what's happening on this show.
Guest:Who are these people?
Guest:And I talk about cartoons.
Guest:I was talking about cartoons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I grew up watching them.
Guest:I talk about Bugs Bunny a lot.
Guest:Did you do okay?
Guest:No, I did not.
Guest:Some older comedians took pity on me.
Guest:They really did.
Guest:And they said, kid, when they're yelling shit at you, you have to say stuff back.
Marc:Do you remember who said that to you?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:Who was that guy?
Guest:Was it Jackie Diamond?
Marc:Yeah, he wasn't an old guy.
Marc:He was a guy acting like an old guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Bang, bang.
Marc:That guy.
Marc:Pow, I'm a gun swinger.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, Jackie Diamond, Michael Rosenberg, I think is his name.
Marc:He's from Newton, Massachusetts.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:He did that schtick.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think he said to me, okay, let me give you a couple of things you can say when they're saying nasty shit to you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he gave me the old, sir, I don't bother you at work.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:When you're on your knees at the bus station in the men's room, I don't yell stuff at you.
Guest:Classics.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which is me like, oh, that's brilliant.
Guest:Did you make that up?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:And so he gave me a couple of things to say, which I would use.
Guest:Thank God for him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I can only remember getting through my act one time.
Guest:I just, you know, never... One night, for some reason, I did really well.
Guest:I'll never forget it.
Marc:In the original room?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One night I just killed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the rest I just would like a lot of... And I'd go on at 1.03.
Guest:I had that spot, 12.04.
Guest:Good feeling, though, killing, right?
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you didn't hang in with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got to a point where I was starting getting acting jobs more consistently.
Guest:What was the first big one?
Guest:I think at that time, I did this independent movie with Woody Harrelson that was terrible, but it was called Cool Blue.
Guest:It was kind of a big deal for me at the time.
Guest:And I...
Guest:I got that and then I got into an acting class of a guy I admired very much.
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:A guy named Roy London who passed away about 15 years ago who was an amazing acting teacher.
Marc:Was it one of those sort of cult of personality classes?
Marc:Meaning what?
Marc:Well, I mean like a lot of the prominent acting teachers like have their system and they're known for something and they have a very tight group of people that believe in their system.
Guest:I say proudly no.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:He was incredibly self-loved to teach, never let it be filmed or become anything bigger than what it was and had a lot of big people in there.
Guest:early in their careers like who like brad pitt and gina davis and jeff goldblum and gary shandling and i think i heard about i think gary talked about this guy he would actually i think directed some like gary would like use him like he'd bounce everything off him like script wise right like is it authentic is it coming from a place of need and reality and blah blah blah oh really yes that was his trip that i mean that was things he could speak to
Guest:Very much.
Guest:Roy was what he, you know, I came in there a guy who was working already and was good with voices and shtick.
Guest:And for five years in there, he never let me, like, whoops, never let me do a character or a voice.
Guest:He was like, you have to be you up there.
Guest:You know, you have to...
Guest:To me, I wanted to be an actor to be not myself.
Guest:And to my tremendous chagrin discovered in order to be a really good actor, you have to actually display yourself to people in one way or another.
Guest:And I was profoundly uncomfortable doing that.
Guest:And it took Roy years to kind of help nurture me through being okay doing that.
Guest:And how would he do that?
Guest:You know, it was... I had this crazy thing as an actor where, first of all, I'd have to be myself.
Guest:I couldn't, like, be a character or whatever.
Guest:I'd have to just play something close to myself and not gussy it up with a voice or whatever.
Guest:And then I'd do this thing where I'd be kind of going along okay for three or four lines in a scene, and then I'd kind of hear myself like a line reading sounded tinny, or I feel like I wasn't authentic enough in that moment, and then I would shut down.
Guest:You know, I'd just be like, I need like there.
Guest:It took him like a year or two.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:What just fucking happened to you there?
Guest:You just like you were going along in the scene and then all of a sudden you're like you're like nowhere.
Guest:You're like energies all pulled back.
Guest:I said, well, I kind of heard myself suck and now I can't go on.
Guest:And it just I'm like a boy with the details of how we worked through that, but it took him a while to sort of like.
Marc:Well, that's but that's an interesting moment, because like, you know, in that moment, you were like, you know, basically you're going, you idiot.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And in, you know, what's wrong with you?
Marc:You can't do this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:That is what it was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're that hard on yourself, you know, almost immediately.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And that, you know, I, that still, I can only say that it's recently that I've, in the last few years that I've gotten over that kind of perfectionism to the point where you beat yourself up and can't enjoy what you're doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've done whole movies that I didn't enjoy because I was just so overwhelmed with, oh, I'm screwing this up or it's not going to be good enough.
Marc:But have you figured out where that comes from for yourself?
Guest:To bring it full circle, it's directly related to things like eating disorders and anorexia.
Guest:Well, I know the control thing is.
Guest:It's perfectionism.
Marc:But where did that come from?
Marc:I mean, I'm no therapist, and I was awfully hard on myself, and I still am, and I know that there are control issues at hand, but something must come from... We get something out of it.
Marc:I'm not sure what the hell it is.
Guest:I think that I felt like...
Guest:And for whatever reason, I had such a low opinion of myself, didn't like myself so profoundly that I had to perform perfectly to sort of compensate for that.
Guest:I had to do it exactly right or else I, you know, the stakes were so high.
Guest:Like if I made a little mistake, then I'm shit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, so...
Guest:And, you know, that got so bad, like, that I couldn't audition anymore.
Guest:I'd, like, get paralyzed.
Guest:And this guy, Phil Stutz, you know, this fucking guy, he made me realize that, you know, what I'm afraid of in these auditions isn't so much being judged by other people, but the number I'm going to do on myself afterwards.
Guest:You know, I'm afraid of how much I'm going to mentally beat myself up for days.
Guest:Did you do it before, too, though?
Guest:I mean, like, leading into it, were you like, oh, I'm going to suck.
Marc:This is going to fuck.
Marc:oh yes it's a worse man you know like I don't like somehow some of that shit has dissipated for me but I mean it's just it's draining right I mean it's just exhausting it's horrible it's miserable no I had to actively really like work on not doing that anymore
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and when I kind of got a hold of that, that's when, you know, a lot of my behaviors got better too and I got happier.
Guest:It's like kind of all, you know, and was capable of like being a father and things like that.
Marc:I'm just wondering, like, you know, even for myself, like I, I,
Marc:why the hell did we have such a low self-opinion?
Marc:And it must have something to do with the fact, like you were saying, that our parents were like, all right, you're four, take care of yourself.
Marc:So if you had no cap on it, if you didn't have someone saying you're good, that's good, good for you, you shouldn't do that, you're doing a good job at that, maybe that's not a good idea.
Marc:Like that guidance, if you're left at a young age to just sort of decide who you are, how are you going to win that?
Yeah.
Guest:And believe me, you know, I blame my parents for some of it.
Guest:But like I said earlier, I really, the older I get, the more I believe, you know, I think I was that waiting to happen.
Guest:I really do.
Guest:Especially, you know, something when you have a child.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you see that they kind of are who they are coming out.
Guest:And we can help a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:By how we handle it and what we do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Good parenting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Being attentive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not overly and all the things.
Guest:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:But they really, especially when you see two kids, I know people who are wonderful parents.
Guest:They really are.
Guest:I admire that, how well they do it.
Guest:They have three kids and all those three kids are different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And one has this low self-esteem and another one doesn't.
Guest:And so which are they bad parents for?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:OK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Who the hell knows?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm very aware, especially later in life.
Guest:And I feel like I owe my parents this.
Guest:It's probably what makes me feel quite warm towards them is that, you know, make stuff I might have believed before.
Guest:It might have been me.
Guest:I was a tough one.
Guest:I was a tough little nut to crack there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And also like a lot of the qualities that they have, like you have to start thinking like, well, they did something right.
Marc:They're still alive.
Marc:They're still kicking.
Marc:They have good work ethic.
Marc:You know, they have certain charismas.
Marc:You know, like, you know, my father's a fighter and, you know, you got to be a fighter.
Marc:You know, you got to start leaning on the good things.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I mean, my mother's love of books and theater and TV and film and all things artistic and her genuine appreciation and love for people who do that.
Guest:And my parents both.
Guest:And my father's passion about his work, he really imparted that to me.
Guest:Like an honest day's work is like the best you can do in your life.
Marc:Yeah, and stay busy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, just on a personal level, what tools do you use day to day to shut that fucking voice up?
Guest:You know, these are some cliche names.
Guest:I meditate.
Guest:To me, exercise is a lot for that.
Guest:If I go for a run, it's very hard for me to be bummed out or down on myself after a run.
Guest:You did something.
Guest:The endorphins.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I know it's the chemical thing.
Guest:It's a very healthy form of addiction that works.
Marc:But like when the voice comes in your head, you know, you just did a thing.
Marc:You know, you just did it.
Marc:About like performing?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You just did a scene and you get it.
Marc:Okay, cut.
Marc:And you're like, I'm a fucking idiot.
Guest:Oh, listen, Phil Stutz had a whole routine for that.
Guest:I teach young actors how to deal with this.
Guest:There's a thing called the afterburn, after a scene or after an audition, and that's when that moment where you're raw and you're ready to kill yourself.
Guest:First, you do what's first called the principle of correction, which is, no, excuse me, principle of validation first, which is just what we forget to do, acknowledging yourself for the good things you did.
Guest:And not just like, oh, I did that moment in the scene well, or that joke went well, but just I showed up.
Guest:I had the courage to try this.
Guest:I put myself out there.
Guest:Just that is quite a... We shouldn't take that for granted that we're doing a good thing there.
Guest:Then...
Guest:Then whatever you did do right, okay, I did this, what went well, okay, professionally.
Guest:Then you get the principle of correction, which is, all right, I'm going to look at, I'm going to take the time now, I'm going to take 20 minutes or half an hour to really look at what I fucked up.
Guest:I dropped that line, I blew the timing on that joke, that wasn't particularly believable the way I did that line.
Guest:And you're allowed three times to go through it, and you try to imagine what you might do better next time, what you can learn from it, what you can take from it.
Guest:What is there positive to grow out of that?
Guest:And then after that 20 minutes or half an hour is up, your job, your job in life is to let it the fuck go.
Guest:You're not allowed to think about it anymore.
Guest:Don't use it as a bat to hit yourself with.
Guest:And preferably go reward, like if you want an ice cream cone, whatever it is, go do something kind to yourself.
Guest:Go jerk off sadly at home.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:anything porn anything is good just leave it your job and if you find yourself thinking about it again I still would say you're in fucking violation and you have to fucking stop and that's it and I practiced I literally practiced that and eventually got pretty good at like take the time to look at what I did and and take 20 minutes beat myself up and think what I can do differently next time and then my job is to be nice to my girlfriend and have a nice day
Marc:uh-huh you know yeah yeah well those those are very helpful i mean i i have to assume that like with voiceover work you know at the very least you know with the simpsons or whatever work you're doing along those lines i mean you can do a bunch of them right yeah i mean with voiceover you know if you don't feel right you're like can we do another take
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or, you know, you do a million versions, you can improvise or whatever you can do.
Marc:But when you do something like quiz show or you're on a movie set, you know, where you're really, you know, at the behest of a director and, you know, there's a lot of other things going on.
Marc:I imagine the stakes are much higher.
Marc:They are.
Guest:But listen, don't underestimate how much I can.
Guest:The early days, The Simpsons, I'd get so angry at myself, even though I tried it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fifty eight different times.
Guest:And just, you know, as an actor, I took it as a big moment of growing up.
Guest:Once I had the courage to just try it a bunch of different ways, you get sort of fearfully locked into this is the one right way to do the scene.
Guest:And I used to really get obsessively locked into I got to keep trying to get that perfect take as opposed to no takes going to be perfect.
Guest:Let me try it this way this time and that way that time.
Marc:I guess as a control freak, you know, on some level, you know, being able to create characters that repeat themselves, at least with the voice.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, that's the guy.
Marc:You know, once you identify, you know, the character or the voice.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I imagine with all the Simpson characters, you're like, well, that's in place.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, like that voice, he's that guy.
Guest:So that must be satisfying.
Guest:That is.
Guest:But then you got to, you know, each week's a new script.
Guest:You got to make it work in a new way.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:You know, so yes, I felt comfortable that the character existed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that I could, you know.
Guest:recreate it faithfully if that's the voice whatever it is but uh you know man it took me a long time to just some of it might be just old age you just get tired of yeah fighting yourself can you name all your simpson characters i don't think so i can name like the top 10 i guess
Guest:But I've done like, there's too many to mean.
Marc:And how did that relationship start?
Marc:I mean, I feel like, I'm sure you've covered this stuff a million times in a million different outlets, but I mean, how did- You want to talk about it?
Marc:I'm happy to talk about it.
Marc:But I mean, it's a fascinating thing for me because one of my big I hate myself things is that I've got speech impediments that are just, I can't fix them.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah, I have a rolling L. S's are very difficult for me.
Marc:Oh, kind of a liquid L?
Marc:Yeah, because I do it from my throat.
Marc:I go, la, la, la, la.
Marc:I always thought that sounded cool, by the way.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not really an L. It's more of a kind of a W-ish kind of.
Marc:Well, it's an L. My son can't say L. He can't?
Marc:No, he says Quazy.
Marc:Yeah, I'm close to that.
Marc:He'll get it.
Marc:But I'm very insecure about my voice, but you seem to have this amazing instrument with it.
Marc:Is it just innate?
Marc:Or did you work at it?
Guest:Both.
Guest:I was definitely born with the ability, like with plastic vocal cords or whatever, to mimic.
Guest:My friends lovingly refer to me as the freakish mimic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can pretty much copy a lot of people.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Closely.
Guest:Can you do me?
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:All right.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:No, your voice is kind of too close to mine.
Guest:I could if I like...
Guest:Took a week or two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I probably could work something.
Marc:When you do a characterization of it, do you find that there is a natural almost satirizing going on when you do other people's voices?
Marc:Like when you do impressions, I mean, you do one perfectly.
Marc:Like this is a difference between like, say, a Phil Hartman and a Daryl Hammond.
Marc:Like, you know, Daryl Hammond does it almost perfectly, whereas Phil seems to tweak it somehow.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And add a caricature element to it.
Marc:Yes, to make it funny.
Marc:And is that innate or is that an instinct or is that a choice?
Guest:That's an interesting... I've actually never been asked that before.
Guest:It's an interesting question.
Guest:I think some of both.
Guest:And I think it depends on the case.
Guest:I think some voices I do, I'm trying to direct his impression as I can.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And some I'm sort of heightening for effect.
Guest:And then often, you know...
Guest:Look, like, I've talked about this stuff a lot.
Guest:Most of my Simpsons voices are just bad, bad impressions of other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Either celebrities or people I knew.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you do a bad impression of someone, that's a lovely original character voice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know... Chief Wiggum, who talks like this, that's a pretty bad Edward G. Robinson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's kind of a...
Guest:yeah ish edward g robinson yeah but it's a funny character voice but it's also different enough like i would not identify that as edward g robinson because you know you watch all those warner brothers cartoons where a guy's doing edward g robinson because he was a cultural icon right yours is sort of like a few removed well also it's so now old right that it's new right right um and i get away with a lot of that because now i'm old so it
Guest:Right, so no one remembers the source.
Guest:Well, Professor Frank, of course you know, it's just the Nutty Professor.
Guest:But no one knows that anymore.
Guest:Right, but there's a little more gravel to it.
Guest:Well, because it's coming out through me.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So instead of, if I had to actually play the Nutty Professor, I'd probably spend about a month polishing it to get it exactly...
Guest:You know where it needs to go.
Guest:But for The Simpsons, I don't need it.
Guest:It's just a character voice.
Guest:Woody Allen used to talk about how he thought early in his career he was doing a direct Bob Hope impression.
Guest:That's how he felt.
Guest:He was doing this coward who's not right now.
Guest:You know, that kind of thing.
Guest:And he thought he was going to get busted on it.
Guest:He was amazed that all the reviews weren't like, who is this asshole who's doing Bob Hope?
Guest:You know, but it's coming out through a Woody Allen filter, which is completely its own thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, so a lot of my voices are like that.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:Well, that makes sense.
Marc:So like constructing voices and working within voices, I mean, that's much different than, you know, having to take all this work that you did with London and in being authentic and approaching, you know, acting roles.
Guest:No, but...
Guest:paradoxically or ironically or whatever, Lee, it made my Simpsons stuff, I think, much better.
Guest:Because I wasn't just, even though those characters began as just kind of funny voices I was doing, I think they deepened into being comedically funnier when I would invest myself.
Guest:I remember it marked change in my brain going, instead of thinking about how it would be funny to deliver this line, I'm going to imagine myself in this circumstance.
Guest:How would I deal with it?
Guest:And that was more important than how Chief Wiggum would say it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Okay, so you brought a lot of emotional information.
Guest:That started filling things out.
Guest:I couldn't have done the funnier stuff I've done, like in the Birdcage or Quiz Show, unless I had studied with Roy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's amazing.
Marc:So now you've won a few Emmys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've won a lot of life.
Marc:You're doing good.
Marc:Yeah, by many standards, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what are you still hungry for in terms of what would make you happy at this point professionally?
Guest:You know, I'm very ambitious and, you know, would love to be able to be at the... You know, all the TV shows that I've done have pretty much failed immediately.
Guest:I would have loved if one of them could have, you know, hit.
Marc:What was the one you did with my friend Al?
Marc:Al Madrigal.
Guest:The last one, Free Agents.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Now, okay, so this is something that...
Marc:This is something I don't have a lot of experience with because I don't work in television that much.
Marc:This is the first thing I've ever done that's going to happen next month.
Guest:I saw your pilot, by the way.
Marc:You did?
Marc:I did.
Marc:It was very good.
Marc:Oh, thanks, man.
Marc:I really enjoyed it.
Marc:The one with Dave Foley?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, the presentation with Ed Asner.
Guest:Yeah, Ken Jeong.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was the presentation.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Oh, you liked it.
Marc:Good.
Guest:I did.
Guest:That's nice to hear.
Guest:How'd you see that?
Guest:Because I'm getting, hopefully getting, one of the things I'd like to do is I'm getting this movie going with Funny or Die.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Isn't the internet an amazing thing, by the way?
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's awesome that you can do this.
Guest:It's a double-edged sword.
Guest:Well, it is, but it's incredibly cool.
Guest:Yeah, oh, absolutely.
Guest:That you can do that.
Guest:You're doing what we're doing right now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That you created this, and that's because there was another place to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have felt some frustration like that in my career.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I had a bunch of characters and I went to Funny or Die one day and pitched like seven of them.
Guest:And they said, oh, let's do that one.
Guest:And we made this little short that, you know, that they finance because that's what they do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it got popular.
Guest:And now and now they're, you know, making small films and we're going to most likely make one.
Guest:We're really close to making one.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's about a baseball announcer, a guy, kind of an old school baseball announcer who talks like this.
Guest:His name was Jim Brackmeyer.
Guest:And he has some personal problems.
Marc:But in all those problems, I'm assuming he doesn't change his voice.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:His voice stays like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and uh i found it really funny the idea of a guy who talks like this in extreme circumstances like what if he has to go on the air drunk because he just saw his wife fucking a guy yeah yeah and it kind of gets away from him on the air that's kind of the premise of the short yeah yeah and then uh you know what if he's really wasted yeah how does is he still like this yeah you know like man oh man i am seeing colors i'll tell you that right now
Guest:there's an after image on my hand effed up but um anyway yeah so the ability that i mean that's been uh the ability to be able to do that has been like kind of a dream exciting yeah because like you know it's all in your own terms and people are going to take they're going to come to it the way they're going to come to it and you know there's none of that weird pressure and people saying oh you can't do that or you got to do this or we need more of this guy
Marc:But I guess my question was, I was trying to figure out how you got my pilot, and then we started this story.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.
Guest:One of the guys we're considering directing.
Guest:Oh, Luke.
Guest:Yes, Luke.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:So we're going to meet with him soon, and we took a look at that.
Marc:Yeah, he's a good guy.
Marc:He did four of the series, too.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:They're starting up soon.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:I can recommend him.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:I know Rob Cohn for a long time, too.
Guest:Rob's great, too.
Marc:I haven't seen any of your episodes he directed.
Marc:He directed two, and I think that's what he wants to do now.
Marc:It's new to him, but he's very great to work with.
Marc:The difference between the two is Luke works fast, he has a plan, and he's very efficient, and he's got a good sense of comedy.
Marc:and uh and you know things move pretty quickly you know i think uh rob as a director is you know has been in the comedy community for years yeah so you know he's got a plan he'll shoot some uh he'll shoot some stuff he'll get your coverage but then he'll go like or i just let's just fuck around for let's do a couple takes right where you push it right and so he left that option did you like one way more than the other
Marc:Well, you know, the weird thing about pushing it is that, you know, I think in the big process, as long as you have some control over the process, which you do, I mean, you don't want to push one and then go like, I didn't like that one.
Marc:And everyone's like, but we all liked it.
Marc:Yeah, but I don't want in there.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We all liked it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you got to deal with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, so it's really up to, you know, how much.
Guest:Are these really, are they sort of loosely scripted or very specifically scripted?
Guest:No, they're scripted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you pretty much stick to them?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Are you writing them?
Marc:I assume you.
Marc:Yeah, we, they're all based on my life and what it is now.
Marc:There's, you know, a podcast element in it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And all the stories are sort of pulled from my life.
Marc:But we, you know, there were four of us and we did script them.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:You know, some of the, you know, the people playing themselves, like Ken did.
Guest:Right.
Marc:There's one of those in every episode.
Marc:Those are a little looser.
Marc:But the stories, you know, were pretty scripted.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was my first time really acting, so it was kind of.
Guest:Oh, is that right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:In any real way.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I've been in a couple of things here and there, but I had to show up and be me, you know, for that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, that was kind of interesting.
Marc:It's weird, isn't it?
Marc:Well, yeah, because I'm not a trained guy, but I, you know, I can be present.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, I'm not, like, I do have that ability.
Marc:I wouldn't have.
Marc:known that you hadn't acted a lot you did really yeah you did very well well thank you i think it's about being present right yeah a lot of it yes which is hard to do right either you have that ability or you don't yeah and i i think i did you know i don't know we'll see what happens yeah but like what i was going to ask you though in dealing with something like um the the the last series uh oh yeah free agents now this was it was your idea your show no oh it was a casting
Guest:Yeah, they came to me, and I liked it.
Guest:I really liked John Enbaum, the guy who was going to be running it, and he did a great job.
Guest:You ever see a show called Party Down?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He did all of those shows, and I really liked that show.
Marc:I liked his voice a lot.
Marc:So in retrospect, how did something like that fall apart or lose its way?
Guest:You know, look, most of the other shows that I had that failed, I was kind of glad by the time they failed because I felt like we didn't really get it.
Guest:Which ones are you talking about?
Guest:Oh, a show that I did that I think was called Imagine That for NBC like 10 years ago.
Guest:A show way, like, I don't know, almost 20 years ago called If Not For You, this little romantic comedy thing for CBS.
Guest:By the time, I felt so like...
Guest:Huff did all right, though, right?
Guest:Well, Huff I was proud of and glad of.
Guest:And that was your show?
Guest:No.
Guest:Again, I did produce it and I had a lot to say about it.
Guest:But again, they came to me.
Guest:But it gets really hard.
Guest:I don't know if you've experienced this.
Guest:I don't know if you've gone down this road.
Guest:But when you work with a writer and you're trying to sort out...
Guest:you know, tone and agree on what it should be, it can be rough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I've had a lot of tough experiences with that.
Guest:With the creators.
Guest:Yes, even when it's come out well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's still, like, certainly on Huff, Bob Lowry and I, we really had a hard time with each other.
Guest:We sorted it out, but it was, it's tough.
Guest:It's both your babies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're like, and who's gonna... Right.
Guest:And...
Guest:But that show I really liked and was kind of sad when it stopped, although it was so hard to make, Huff.
Guest:It was like heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching and a lot of hours.
Guest:It's hard to be that bummed, especially when you have The Simpsons job, where you can just go kind of kid around for two hours and they pay you a lot of money.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Free Agents, it was hard work, but I thought that was good.
Guest:I think they made a mistake pulling that show so quickly.
Marc:A lot of times they don't give... You had a lot of talent down there and a lot of comedy talent.
Marc:And I think an ensemble either has to... You've got to give it time...
Marc:to everyone get their rhythms and pop it, or sometimes they just don't give it that time.
Guest:They don't, and for whatever political or logistical reason, I mean, our ratings weren't good, but no ratings are good on NBC right now.
Marc:How do you judge ratings in a media landscape where a two is great?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, we've got the numbers now, by the way, that we got them.
Guest:We'd be considered almost a hit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even in one year later, two years later.
Marc:I can't imagine the heartbreak.
Marc:See, I think that's one of the reasons why I avoided, you know, even getting involved in that machine.
Marc:I've always been sort of, you know, a definitive kind of personality.
Marc:But like I never did the whole kind of audition thing or several deal thing.
Marc:It was never offered to me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I mean, the heartbreak of it all.
Marc:I don't know how you accommodate that after a certain point.
Guest:You know, like my little cute spiel about how you deal with auditions.
Guest:Sure, same thing.
Guest:To me, I had to approach it in a sort of programmatic, I'm going to approach this like a Jedi exercise that's going to take frickin' practice and take a no and build from there and take what I can.
Guest:Or else you go bananas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just go nuts.
Marc:Yeah, you just turn into a cynical, bitter, weird...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, listen, I can go down that road still.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Easily.
Guest:I have days where that side wins.
Marc:You should just make that a character.
Guest:Fuck everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I relate.
Guest:I've been in phases like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:And we have a common friend in Greg Berent.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you guys were working on something.
Marc:What's the status of that?
Marc:That's pretty much dead, sadly.
Guest:It sounded interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought it was really, it was a lot about these issues we're talking about today.
Guest:And we tried to put that into a sort of alternative series.
Guest:And they were interested, and then I guess they just didn't like our script enough.
Guest:That was HBO?
Guest:It was at, who does Breaking Bad?
Guest:Oh, AMC.
Guest:AMC.
Guest:It was at AMC.
Guest:And what was the setting?
Guest:It was like a Seth MacFarlane type guy who I would play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who's got this hugely successful cartoon show and these characters in it who wakes up one day.
Guest:He's got a book due.
Guest:He's going to write a coffee table book about the show because he's such a control freak, hasn't farmed it out, and he's got a week to go before the deadline.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And...
Guest:he has been sober for a long time, and he has dental work that night, takes a bunch of Vicodin, and sort of at white heat kind of gets to writing the coffee table book, which is a blurb about each character.
Guest:But this whole...
Guest:Instead, he writes this crazy manifesto and kind of vomits out whatever every character really means to them, him and who they are in his life.
Guest:Like, you know, whatever.
Guest:I forget the names of the characters we had.
Guest:Like, but Ozzie the Octopus is my mom and here's why.
Guest:And, you know, Eddie the Anchor is my dad and here's why.
Guest:Writes this whole crazy, you know, tell-all basically about his life as seen through who these characters are.
Guest:And...
Guest:Then has to sort of and his editor is like, what's the matter with you?
Guest:I can't publish this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also, if I did, what are you going to do?
Guest:You're going to just like out everyone in your life who you love and you're going to go let the book just hit them like a tsunami to go tell them what you really think of all that.
Guest:So he wants the book to come out, so he has to go to each person in his life and tell them, look, a book's coming out, and here's kind of what I really think of you.
Guest:Here's why you're this character.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:That's the premise.
Marc:Was there animated elements?
Guest:Yes, there'd be like a minute or two of animation a week where you see the character in action from the show, and then you kind of see him dealing with... Oh, that sounds great.
Guest:It was interesting.
Marc:Yeah, they just didn't want to risk it or...
Guest:I think they just ultimately didn't like what we did with it.
Guest:It wasn't their cup of tea in the end.
Guest:We took some notes from them and then we delivered something back and they were like, yeah, we don't think you guys cracked it.
Marc:That's a horrible moment.
Guest:Greg and I felt bad because Greg, I work with Jerry Stahl on it too.
Guest:He's a good friend of mine.
Guest:They gave me a long... We worked for a long time on this thing.
Guest:They really gave me a lot of time.
Guest:And then to just have it kind of go, nope.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I felt worse for them.
Guest:Yeah, Jerry's a machine, man.
Marc:He'll fucking churn stuff.
Marc:He did, and he did.
Marc:Here's the idea, and you'll get 50 pages from Jerry.
Marc:You're like, what?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah, he was amazing.
Guest:Well...
Guest:It's good to talk to you.
Guest:You too.
Guest:You feel good about it all?
Guest:I feel good.
Guest:I think we covered a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think we helped you a lot.
Guest:I feel that we help you at all.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I got a lot off my chest.
Marc:It was, uh, you're saying you feel, was I too self involved?
Marc:Did I make it too much about me?
Marc:No, no, I was just kidding.
Marc:Oh, that was a completely frivolous comment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now I'm going to walk out of here.
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:Well, thanks for doing it.
Marc:And, um, and well, good luck with the kid.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:And everything else.
Marc:It sounds like you're doing well.
Guest:Yeah, I'm pretty happy.
Guest:All right.
Marc:That's it, folks.
Marc:I don't know if you knew Hank, but you know him now.
Marc:And I thought that was a great talk.
Marc:Let's recap.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Check in with all my upcoming book events in May.
Marc:Please watch my show.
Marc:Marin premieres this Friday, May 3rd at 10 o'clock and on IFC.
Marc:Pick up the book.
Marc:I'll be in Milwaukee at the Path Theater on May 4th.
Marc:That'll be a good show.
Marc:And I can quite honestly tell you that you can count on me getting back to my normal, sort of slightly aggravated, self-critical self shortly.
Marc:I feel that upon us.
Marc:I feel it might be coming back.
Marc:So you can look forward to that.
Marc:And also look forward to three shows this week.
Marc:On Wednesday, the Live from Vancouver show.
Marc:And on Friday, I'll be back here with Huey Lewis.
Marc:Stern, Wednesday.
Marc:Fallon, tomorrow night.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm getting tired of myself promoting myself.
Marc:Boomer lives.