Episode 398 - Danny Lobell
Guest:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also eh what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark maron
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucksicles?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:Thank you for joining.
Marc:I know I've got a lot of new listeners.
Marc:A couple of things I want to say up front.
Marc:First of all, almost 400 episodes.
Marc:Very exciting guests next week.
Marc:One I've been trying to get forever, and I'm a big fan of, and the other had a profound... They had a profound impact on my childhood, and I think a lot of the childhoods of people who listen to this show, if they have anybody who lives in the United States, next Thursday, my guests...
Marc:were very important to me and to America and to comedy and to pot and to weed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I guess that's a big enough hint, but I was just thrilled to have them both with me here in the garage.
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:And that, on top of Monday's 400th episode, just unbelievable.
Marc:Is this my life?
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Before I forget, our guest today is Danny Lobel.
Marc:I'm sorry it's going to get Jewy again.
Marc:A little bit Jewy.
Marc:It's just the way it is sometimes.
Marc:All right, another thing.
Marc:Before I forget, I'll be in Buffalo at Helium Comedy Club this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Marc:I think that's June 20, 21, and 22.
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:All right, so that's that.
Marc:You know that.
Marc:Buffalo.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I just got back from the East Coast.
Marc:We did D.C., we did New York, New York City, did Boston, Massachusetts.
Marc:What an event.
Marc:What a number of events.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I took Jessica with me.
Marc:It was our first post-engagement traveling.
Marc:And here's what I learned.
Marc:No more traveling for work with the girl.
Marc:No more traveling for work with the fiancee.
Marc:vacation fine work travel no good because you got to focus in you can't be doing other things you can't balance that what am i trying to tell you people we got to dc she'd never been to dc i wanted to show her around dc and i don't know if it's us or if other people have this issue or it's maybe it's because we're engaged and things are a little hotter they're both uh more intense and sort of more relaxed and more intimate but more frightening to me
Marc:But I don't think that has anything to do with it.
Marc:I got to be honest with you.
Marc:Every time I travel with her as a couple, within the first 24 hours, we get into a fucking fight, like a real deal bullshit fight.
Marc:And this time it played out in Washington.
Marc:So we went from initial engagement.
Marc:We went through we went from tensions to actual conflict.
Marc:and then to resolution right there in our nation's capital.
Marc:And I don't think this process happens this quick ever in any sort of political situation, but this was personal.
Marc:I wanted her to see DC.
Marc:I've grown to become excited when I see DC.
Marc:It doesn't matter what's going on there or who's in the buildings.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not talking about that.
Marc:I'm talking about looking at the grand scope of it, the monuments, the buildings, the history.
Marc:I've grown to become impressed that someday...
Marc:Our government will once again live up to these buildings or the idea of them or something will happen.
Marc:It will evolve.
Marc:I have hope.
Marc:I have hope.
Marc:for america i have hope for america but bottom line is i wanted to show her a couple things she'd never been to the smithsonian i'm not sure i had been to the smithsonian so i said well what's in there and she was remembering the uh night at the museum movie or something she said i think the kitty hawk plane is there and i'm like oh okay you want to see the you know the plane from kitty hawk the wright brothers so uh did some research we went to the original smithsonian that that doesn't have anything in it really there's a garden that's not even that impressive the building itself is kind of nice it's old it's okay whatever so then we go to the air and space museum
Marc:And I never knew what a guy I was.
Marc:Latently.
Marc:Latent.
Marc:I'm a latent, you know, dude, dude, I guess.
Marc:I mean, I got in there.
Marc:I'd never been in there.
Marc:I'm like, ooh, space capsules.
Marc:Look how small the space capsules are.
Marc:One guy went up in that capsule at the top of a rocket.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:I would go crazy.
Marc:I would crawl out of my skin.
Marc:I could never be an astronaut.
Marc:Ooh, three guys were in this one.
Marc:Oh, this one's going for two guys.
Marc:I think this one was for a monkey.
Marc:How did people fly in those things?
Marc:These are the questions I was asking.
Marc:If you're wondering, I wasn't saying this in an excited way because I'm dragging a woman around the aerospace museum, much more excited than I anticipated.
Marc:They had missiles.
Marc:We went and saw the Kitty Hawk plane and things were okay.
Marc:You know, she doesn't do well with big crowds and it was kind of crowded.
Marc:So we're getting a little irritable.
Marc:We hadn't eaten yet.
Marc:So in my mind, you know, she's a vegetarian and I, uh,
Marc:You know, I know for a fact that the Museum of the American Indian happens to have the best food court of the Smithsonian system.
Marc:You go downstairs in the Museum of the American Indian and they have food from all the different regions of the indigenous peoples of our country.
Marc:You know, you get stuff like squash mush, cornbread, buffalo, all kinds of weird vegetable dishes, but it's great stuff.
Marc:And in my mind, she's like, I'm not really hungry.
Marc:I'm feeling queasy.
Marc:I thought, well, I'd certainly...
Marc:I could coax her into finding some lovely food of our of our of our indigenous peoples there in the Museum of the American Indian, which I didn't go to the exhibit.
Marc:I just went for the food.
Marc:I want to get some cornbread, maybe some stew, something something earthy.
Marc:And we get down there and I'm like, look at it.
Marc:Like when I look at food, especially a lot of food, especially a lot of separate buffets, I get a type of excitement that I, you know, I almost a glaze goes, you know, comes over my eyes and I enter some other level of ecstasy just knowing that all that food is around me and there are all these possibilities and it all looks so interesting and there's pork involved and there's buffalo involved and there's, but there's also some maple probably.
Marc:There's some maple, there's some grains, probably some corn involved
Marc:products there because of the Indians she's like well just get whatever you want and I'm like well aren't you going to eat she's like no I told you I'm not eating here and I just was like well fuck it I'm not eating here either and we go outside and she's like I knew you would do this I knew I'm not doing nothing and then it just went into a full on fuck off kind of ridiculous fight there was drama on the grounds of the Museum of the American Indian people were watching as the conflict you know started to take off
Marc:You know, I got worked up.
Marc:I didn't yell too loud, but I got animated.
Marc:I'd like to say that I'm no longer yelling, but I do get angrily animated.
Marc:She got animated.
Marc:She stormed off.
Marc:I stormed after her.
Marc:And I go, well, fuck it.
Marc:Fuck this.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:I'm done with this.
Marc:And she walked her way.
Marc:I walked mine.
Marc:And we began to walk around the grand mall of the Capitol.
Marc:And she's walking one way towards the Capitol.
Marc:I'm walking away.
Marc:But I'm also watching her from afar.
Marc:And I'm like, what's going to happen?
Marc:This is bullshit.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:She's over there.
Marc:We're in Washington.
Marc:We should be enjoying our day.
Marc:Did I fuck it up?
Marc:Did she fuck it up?
Marc:What difference does it make?
Marc:It's a fucking mess now.
Marc:It's our first day on vacation and everything is falling apart.
Marc:The marriage was now tentative.
Marc:The engagement was tentative.
Marc:Everything became very drama filled.
Marc:And then she texted me from the other side of the mall and said, well, what are we doing?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:I said, I don't know.
Marc:This is stupid.
Marc:And then, you know, so we were negotiating.
Marc:We were negotiating a peace treaty.
Marc:And she goes, where are you?
Marc:We went back and forth.
Marc:I said, I'm coming around to the Capitol.
Marc:She said, me too.
Marc:And then we enacted the peace treaty right there in front of the Capitol.
Marc:I'd like to say on the Capitol steps, we hugged, we kissed, we made up.
Marc:We decided we'd never do that again.
Marc:So if that is not a good American story, I don't know what is.
Marc:And then we went and saw dinosaurs.
Marc:So we went from outer space.
Marc:During that fight, all I wanted to be was in one of those capsules on the top of a rocket.
Marc:I just wanted to be in a space capsule, one of the ones that only seated one person, orbiting the Earth saying, fuck it.
Marc:Fuck it all.
Marc:This is bullshit.
Marc:Just flying through space.
Marc:Just me to nobody flying through space.
Marc:I'm done with this shit.
Marc:I'm done with it.
Marc:Just orbiting the Earth until splashdown.
Marc:But then we went and looked at dinosaur bones.
Marc:I don't know when the last time you looked at dinosaur bones, but we were holding hands, looking at dinosaur bones, marveling at the fact that they were 50 to 60 million years old.
Marc:And there's a sort of hopelessness involved in looking at dinosaur bones.
Marc:You're like, how are we already at the end of our rope as a species?
Marc:And there are certain things that have been plugging along for fucking millions and millions of years.
Marc:How are we struggling as a species when there are these bugs?
Marc:I guess I should ask Rogan.
Marc:He's up on this stuff.
Marc:Maybe I should get more involved with the science of things.
Marc:Well, that was D.C.
Marc:Then we went to New York City and, you know, I did some.
Marc:The D.C.
Marc:reading was great at six to nine.
Marc:Thank you for coming out.
Marc:Thank you for bringing me presents.
Marc:Thank you for those records.
Marc:Whoever brought me those are very they're great.
Marc:It was great to see everybody.
Marc:I saw my grandma's neighbor.
Marc:I said, well, you know what I'm saying?
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Then we go to New York the next day, took the train up, took the train.
Marc:The romance of the train is diminished by the fact that you were only driving through the shittiest parts of town.
Marc:If you romanticize train travel, just know that you will be looking out at industrial garbage, rotted out vehicles and the shitty side of the tracks for your entire journey up into Newark, up them through Union, Trenton, whatever, Philly, all the worst parts of all those great American towns and cities you will see on your journey on the train.
Marc:The event at Barnes & Noble went great.
Marc:There must have been 300, 400 people there.
Marc:Thank you for coming out.
Marc:The next day at Bryant Park, we got rained out, and Julie Klausner interviewed me in the New York Public Library, right there in the building with the lions in front.
Marc:Had a great time.
Marc:The only thing I came away from New York with was like, I'm glad I don't fucking live here anymore, and they should not allow cars on the island.
Marc:Then we went up to Harvard Square the next day.
Marc:It was lovely.
Marc:Did the event at the Brattle Theater where I once saw Spalding Gray do swimming to Cambodia.
Marc:And I had a great event there.
Marc:Thank you for the cookies.
Marc:Thank you for the comic books.
Marc:Thank you all for coming out.
Marc:And we stayed an extra day in Harvard Square.
Marc:And I really wanted to sort of bask in the sterility of the Ivy League game.
Marc:You know, Harvard Square, I worked there when I was younger, and there's always a few street performers and a little grit, but it seems very controlled grit.
Marc:It is right there next to Harvard.
Marc:Nothing big or bad is going to happen.
Marc:And I still have this Ivy League envy in me.
Marc:I still think that if I'm just watching people in their blue blazers, old guys, dressed like professors, sitting there probably thinking big thoughts,
Marc:You know, getting ready to go teach their class at the world's most elite college.
Marc:I think, like, why didn't I do that?
Marc:And I said that out loud, and Jess says, you know, you wouldn't be making much money, and it'd be okay, I guess.
Marc:But you have friends that do that.
Marc:Do you really want to do that?
Marc:I'm like, I guess you're right.
Marc:But maybe there's still time.
Marc:Perhaps if I stay at it, and I keep it my own groove, that this groove will be teachable.
Marc:And someday, instead of...
Marc:rising up through the ranks of show business I will be put out to pasture at one of the great colleges of our great country and I will have a class where I will talk about things maybe
Marc:So I told you I had Danny Lobel.
Marc:Danny Lobel on the show today.
Marc:Danny Lobel used to host a thing called Comical Radio in New York City, and all the comics did.
Marc:It was over at one of the buildings.
Marc:I think it was an NYU building.
Marc:Oh, geez, I don't remember.
Marc:But he really hosted one of the first comedian podcasts, and he's a comic from New York.
Marc:Kid's been out and about doing his thing, but he also grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, so you know I'm not going to be able to not ask about that.
Marc:He also has got some good stories about some comedians that we all know, and I think you'll enjoy it.
Marc:He's a sweet guy.
Marc:His album is out.
Marc:Did I mention that?
Marc:Danny LaBelle's album is out?
Marc:I got it right here in my hand.
Marc:Danny LaBelle, some kind of comedian, is available now from Stand Up Records.
Marc:The guys who put out my first three records.
Marc:All right, so let's talk to Danny LaBelle.
Marc:One of the pioneers.
Marc:I don't even know if we'd call it podcasting, but comical radio was a big deal.
Guest:I would say it was the very first comedy podcast ever.
Marc:Yeah, no, it was great fun.
Marc:And that's where I met Pat Cooper.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:I remember that day specifically because it was like Pat had been on...
Guest:Maybe 13 times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With the day that you came in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was on so many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when I wouldn't have him on, I'd get a call.
Guest:How come you don't have me on anymore?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, of course I'd have you on.
Guest:I would never say no to Pat Cooper.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At a certain point, I'd interviewed him.
Guest:I'd re-interviewed him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had no more questions for Pat Cooper.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he'd just come in and he'd want to rant about, usually about Kathy Griffin and the D-list.
Guest:She's going to mess up the D-list and she's going to become A-list and then her career is going to be over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I figured, you know what?
Guest:He's a comedy legend.
Guest:If he wants to come in and rant on this, you know, nothing show, whatever it was, you know, let him rant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was my attitude by time 13 that Pat Cooper came in.
Guest:Well, we learned something that day.
Guest:What were you going to say?
Guest:Oh, I was going to say, I remember you came in and you said, what is this show?
Guest:You don't even ask him any questions.
Guest:You just have a man screaming into a microphone.
Marc:And I wanted to be like, Mark, I asked him all the questions.
Marc:You're done already.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, but there was a big moment in that show because remember he said, like, I'm a name.
Marc:Rickles is a star, right?
Marc:There's a difference between a star and a name.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That stayed with me.
Marc:Do you remember that?
Marc:Yeah, I do remember that.
Marc:Isn't that what he said?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There is a difference.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:But you interviewed a lot of guys.
Marc:Who were some of the other old guys?
Guest:George Carlin three times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He came in once and did two phoners.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:What was it like having him in there?
Guest:it was uh astounding you know i when he he had such a presence about him yeah that uh you know when you're around certain people there's an energy to them yeah yeah yeah he brought such this gigantic energy with him yeah yeah yeah and when he walked in like i felt like the hairs on my on my hand stand up you know yeah yeah and then there was this feeling of like before he came in i'm like i gotta do this thing with george that nobody's done i'm gonna you know i gotta get some kind of interview that nobody's ever got out yeah then when he walked in there i'm like anything he says
Guest:it'll be fine yeah well that's amazing so that must have been not that long before he died yeah no the the time he came in was less than a year before he died wow but we i i got to know him pretty well for the last few years of his life yeah um it was a remarkable thing because i worked for jackie mason who's another person who yeah what a miserable fuck that guy is
Marc:I got to beef with him only because he said something to me that hurt my feelings.
Marc:But, I mean, I respect him.
Marc:I know he's a real deal.
Marc:He's a great comic.
Marc:But he just said something mean to me.
Guest:He's certainly good at hurting feelings.
Guest:I'll give you that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like why?
Marc:Well, I mean... You had to put up with it?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:In what capacity did you work for?
Guest:I sold his merchandise at his Broadway show.
Guest:And... You were his merch guy?
Guest:I was his merch guy, yeah.
Guest:How old were you then?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Um...
Guest:Probably about 22.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Were you doing stand-up yet?
Guest:I was doing stand-up.
Guest:I started doing stand-up seriously when I was 19, like going out every night.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The thing with Jackie, I don't know if you remember, I had a magazine, and I actually had you on one of the covers of it.
Guest:What was it called again?
Guest:Comical Magazine.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember.
Guest:So I got an interview with him, and I did the whole interview...
Guest:Over the phone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was an old MP3 recorder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, not MP3.
Guest:An old mini disc recorder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the whole thing, I hit it wrong or something.
Guest:The whole thing was screwed up.
Guest:So when I played it, I was like, oh, shit.
Guest:He's expecting this interview to come out.
Guest:And I didn't want to come clean that I fucked it up.
Guest:I didn't want to seem like a fuck up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I called him up with quote unquote follow up questions.
Guest:But they were the same questions.
Guest:Did he know?
Guest:He caught on.
Guest:I have another.
Guest:I said, can you clarify one more thing about how you started out in comedy?
Guest:What do you mean clarify?
Guest:I told you this.
Guest:I already told you this.
Guest:How can you clarify?
Guest:I told you.
Guest:He goes, did you fuck up the recording?
Guest:And I go, yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:he goes all right fine i'll do it again come down to the where was it the wellington diner and come down to the wellington diner we'll we'll sit down we'll redo the interview yeah so i come i come down and and this is i also just started up uh the podcast around this time yeah
Guest:and we do the interview and it goes great yeah at the wellington yeah and i'm like oh man we have a real connection we we also have it's hard to find i grew up an orthodox jew and yeah he did and it's it's kind of a an alienating thing yeah and we had this in common yeah we bonded on it and uh i was like oh this went so well yeah i don't want this to be over like i'll never see the guy again i go you know i also have a podcast yeah uh i'd love if you came in and did the podcast
Guest:And then he just flipped out and what the fuck is wrong with you?
Guest:You know, you take advantage.
Guest:You got a guy to give you an interview and you fuck up the interview and then you get a second interview.
Guest:Now you want a fucking third interview.
Guest:What do you think?
Guest:I got nothing but time for you.
Guest:He just went off on me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Completely destroyed me.
Guest:I left and I was like broken up.
Yeah.
Guest:The next day, he called me up.
Guest:He's like, I was very harsh on you last night and I feel kind of bad about it.
Guest:If you want, I'm going to be having dinner at such and such a place.
Guest:If you want to join me, I'll buy you some spaghetti.
Guest:We'll make it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was like, all right, I'll go down there and just sort of smooth it over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it'll be done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we hit it off like for real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he's like, what are you doing tomorrow?
Guest:I'm going to be at the Auburn Pen at five o'clock.
Guest:They get rid of all the still donuts and they give them to you for nothing.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So...
Marc:So that's familiar.
Marc:An old Jew that wants free donuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we start hanging out for about two years, about almost every day.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he says, you got this magazine, but you got no money.
Guest:You're real schmuck.
Guest:He says, you're scraping along.
Guest:You can't even buy a coffee.
Guest:So he says, come and sell merch for me at my Broadway show.
Guest:So he gave me that job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one day that I was off, there was also another old guy that would sell, like, you know, some days were my days, some days were his days.
Guest:Something named Morty or something, a friend of his.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like Morty's day, you know, and he calls me up.
Guest:I'm walking.
Guest:I remember exactly where I was.
Guest:I was walking around Times Square.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I get this call.
Guest:He goes, hello, hello.
Guest:He always starts, hello, hello.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He says, let me ask you a question.
Guest:You like Georgie Carlin?
Yeah.
Guest:And it took me a second to pry.
Guest:I go, you mean George Carlin?
Guest:Yeah, I love George Carlin.
Guest:I got so excited.
Guest:He goes, who the fuck asked you if you love George Carlin?
Guest:It's nauseating.
Guest:You don't get so excited about Starstruck.
Guest:I just ask if you like George Carlin.
Guest:I go, yeah, I like George Carlin.
Guest:He goes, all right, so George is coming to the show tonight.
Guest:I thought it might be a good opportunity for you, a young comedian.
Guest:You'd maybe like to meet him.
Guest:So I know it's not your night, but if you want to come down, I'll introduce you.
Guest:so i came down and afterwards he called me into the back room and the broadway show and i just hang out with jackie and george it was how i met george carlin and it was like the coolest thing and jackie was super nice to me and and he's like this guy is a brilliant young guy he's wonderful you're gonna love him so george carlin said cool yeah let's exchange information and uh and i asked george to do an interview for that magazine and he's like you know george is very serious he goes
Guest:Here's my address.
Guest:Send me a letter.
Guest:And so I send him a letter.
Guest:A real letter.
Guest:A real handwritten letter.
Guest:And one day I have a voicemail and I check my phone.
Guest:Hello, Danny.
Guest:It's George Carlin.
Guest:I got your letter.
Guest:Very nice.
Guest:He goes, now my schedule's looking very busy.
Guest:Call me back in nine weeks.
Guest:So I go on my calendar, I put a mark, nine weeks to the day.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Call him back nine weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, things are moving around.
Guest:I don't know when I'm going to have time for that interview.
Guest:Call me back in three months.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Again, three months later, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Call him back in three months.
Guest:And it was like he was waiting.
Guest:He's like, all right, very good.
Guest:Let's do the interview on Monday.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Cool.
Guest:So we did that interview.
Guest:And then again, he goes, now, he was so generous.
Guest:He goes, I know people get nervous, you know, and you might have forgotten some things you want to ask me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, if anything comes up when you're editing this thing and you want to have any more questions, you know, this is my number.
Guest:Don't give it out to anyone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can reach me.
Guest:I go, okay.
Guest:So now I'm racking my brain for more questions because I want to call him again.
Marc:Sure, you got to call because George Carlin back.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I called him up with some more questions.
Guest:And that time around, we started talking.
Guest:And he's like, I'm going to be in New York.
Guest:We should meet up.
Guest:And somehow we wound up talking on the phone fairly regularly for about the last three years of his life.
Guest:So it was really cool.
Guest:And then he came into my college.
Guest:you know, podcast at a college radio show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was kind of, the Jamaican security guards asking him for ID.
Guest:I remember like, do you remember that guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He harassed everybody.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's like, oh, you know, I'm George Carlin.
Guest:I don't know who is George Carlin.
Guest:He's going crazy.
Guest:You have ID.
Guest:I come down, I'm like, he's cool.
Guest:He's cool, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, all right.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So, like, all right, so you have a relationship that goes on for a long time.
Marc:You're a young guy.
Marc:You got a relationship with Jackie Mason, who I apologize for being rude to, but he was rude to me.
Marc:And, you know, I certainly think he's a great comic.
Marc:And now with George Carlin, I mean, what resonated with you?
Marc:I mean, obviously, they got something out of you.
Marc:What do you think it was?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I have such a reverence for the art, I guess.
Guest:And I could talk about comedy for hours, which I've done for many years.
Guest:Do they do most of the talking?
Marc:I mean, it seems like sometimes these old guys, they want to have a young guy around just to feel like they're still in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Jackie always...
Guest:you know holds the table like yeah you know right remember how patrice used to hold the table at the comedy cellar sure jackie jackie's like times 10 in terms of like an older it's an older whiter table yeah yeah it was a strange collection of people sometimes but uh yeah he'd always hold the table and um
Guest:I think a lot of it is just wanting to leave a legacy.
Guest:I remember one specific conversation Jackie and I had in the lobby of his building one night at like 2 in the morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he started asking me all these names of people like, are you familiar with Myron Cohen?
Guest:I go, I know a little bit about Myron Cohen.
Guest:Do you know about Shucky Green?
Guest:I go, yeah.
Guest:Then he named a few people I didn't know.
Guest:And I saw his face drop.
Guest:He goes, you don't know any of those people?
Guest:I go, no.
Guest:no i don't i don't know who they are and he goes these were these people had huge careers it's not that many years since they've been gone yeah he goes you don't know any of them you're a young comedian you're in this business and you don't know who they are who are they you don't remember i don't know like mousy lawrence or somebody could have been i don't know but i just in that moment i kind of understood why i was there you know yeah yeah
Marc:It was on you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're the legacy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you got to keep it alive.
Marc:I'm an important man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you understand that.
Guest:You want to be remembered.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what were your conversations with Carlin like?
Marc:What, did he just need to talk about stuff?
Marc:I mean, what was the tone?
Guest:Well, there was a bunch of them, and then he kind of went into rehab for, I think, we talked a lot when he was in Vegas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he hated playing in Las Vegas.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And then we kind of fell out when he went into rehab there for a while.
Marc:He just wanted to call, he just had, like, road complaints?
Guest:No, usually it was me calling him.
Guest:It was rarely him calling me, but he did call me on a few occasions.
Guest:The coolest call I think I've ever gotten in my life was just him calling up and saying... I don't remember what was the introduction to it, but he said something about...
Guest:you do any sets tonight and i go yeah i did the village lantern and he goes yeah oh where where is that i said yeah he said i used to perform all that i go yeah at the bitter end right yeah yeah he goes how'd it go i go yeah to be honest with you it didn't go well at all he goes yeah i had a lot of long subway rides home up to harlem back in the day and i i felt that there was like the coolest connection that we both bombed in the same area
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Marc:Now, what about the archives?
Marc:You got them up?
Guest:A lot of them are up.
Guest:Where?
Guest:On iTunes.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Comical Radio on iTunes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I got to a point where I didn't feel there was a point for me to continue on.
Guest:And this is, to your credit and to a lot of guys' credits, I was touring all over Europe and
Guest:i was on a i was actually listening to your interview with dimitri martin yeah and um i remember being like oh i asked dimitri that question and and and you did it way better than me and that's that's fine and that's cool and and i i love your show yeah and i remember oh i asked him that question and then i heard another question i go i gotta stop doing this there was that moment where i'm like
Guest:I guess I felt I was filling a need when I started doing it.
Guest:People needed to get these stories out of these comedians.
Guest:But once the need was being filled in a way that I felt was being done better than me, I didn't... I was like, I got to do something else.
Marc:Yeah, but you were doing a lot of stand-up.
Marc:I mean, you were starting to come into your own over there.
Marc:I remember when you went over there, and you seemed to have a pretty good time of it.
Marc:But when I first met you, you were just a sweaty kid.
Marc:Still am.
Marc:Running around doing sets.
Marc:But it's weird because when you were with Jackie, did you bond around the Orthodox Jew thing?
Guest:Yeah, a lot.
Guest:I mean, I've had and continue to have a huge internal struggle with that.
Marc:Because I talked to Ari Shafir, and I actually got an email from a guy who said, you know, you didn't let him talk.
Marc:You didn't let him tell you why, you know, what the meaning was behind some of the stuff that he was brought up with.
Marc:You didn't, you know, you sort of were quick to stereotype and jump on the negative of it.
Marc:I didn't think you did that at all.
Marc:I listened to that interview.
Marc:Well, he was an Orthodox Jew.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was probably upset that, like, why didn't you talk to him about what he learned?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I listened to your interview with Ari, and I thought you were actually playing the other side pretty well.
Guest:Ari is very angry, and I've been there.
Guest:I think I've passed that point.
Guest:Angry at the upbringing.
Guest:Angry at the upbringing, because I have such an interesting situation with it.
Guest:First of all, I was raised...
Guest:Initially conservative.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then my family decided to move and become Orthodox because that's the community they moved to.
Guest:Where was that?
Guest:We moved from Flushing, Queens to Long Beach, New York.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I got sent to yeshiva.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I didn't hate it.
Guest:I liked learning Gemara.
Guest:I liked learning all that stuff.
Guest:What I didn't like is- Learning what, Gemara?
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Gemara, it's the commentaries on the laws, you know, by the different rabbis and the arguments and the minutia.
Guest:I think it's especially, it's kind of like listening to a bunch of comics at the cellar, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, these are great rabbis talking about- Your bigger issues, maybe not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Different issues, but they're all sort of sitting there with strong opinions.
Guest:I love that stuff.
Guest:I was always an artist when I was a kid.
Guest:I painted.
Guest:I still paint.
Guest:And I felt like it, you know, and obviously it doesn't really nurture the arts very much being in a yeshiva.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's where I always felt very alienated you know I never really fit in right but in terms of like the Jewish learning that I guess Ari didn't connect too much I loved it you know and uh and I still learn it you know I on my own yeah well I mean what is but maybe I should be more specific about what is expected of you
Marc:You know, as a kid in yeshiva, and your family was probably new to it, so they were trying to, they were probably overcompensating.
Marc:I mean, what were the responsibilities?
Marc:I mean, you had to get up and pray.
Guest:Yeah, pray three times a day.
Guest:Yeah, do tefillin.
Guest:Tefillin in the morning.
Guest:The school days were very long.
Guest:You wouldn't get out until seven at night, and you'd have a ton of homework.
Guest:Sunday school, you know.
Guest:We didn't have cable TV.
Guest:I didn't realize how sheltered I was.
Guest:Really, until I got into comedy.
Guest:And I remember being like, how am I going to talk to these people when I started doing stand-up?
Guest:They're not going to relate to me at all.
Guest:I found out about stand-up comedy.
Guest:I like to tell this story, too, because people don't believe it.
Guest:But I really found out about stand-up comedy because my grandma called me up and said, you have to check out this Seinfeld program.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I saw Jerry Seinfeld.
Guest:I was like, oh, that's so cool.
Guest:But I didn't know there was a whole world of it.
Guest:I just thought this guy started something new.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I went up, I started doing some funny stories.
Guest:You didn't know he was a comedian.
Guest:You didn't know.
Guest:I knew he was a comedian.
Guest:I didn't think there were that many in the world.
Guest:I thought.
Guest:And my whole world was the Jewish world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got the only where they intersected was there was a funniest Jewish comedian contest in the Jewish week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At Stand Up New York.
Guest:Stand Up New York, right.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, funniest Jewish community.
Guest:I'm going to get to meet Seinfeld.
Guest:I really thought that.
Marc:How many more could there be?
Guest:Yeah, I thought it'd be me and him.
Guest:And I'd heard of Jackie Mason and that was it.
Guest:I thought, okay, I found my people.
Guest:How old were you?
Marc:I was 15.
Marc:So that's old.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:For that kind of, you know, to be that in the dark about it.
Guest:yeah so what'd you do so i i signed up for this thing i went there yeah i couldn't believe the people were there you know some guy from a synagogue with index cards and you know uh some i'm i'm looking around for a sign for where is he you know i really thought i'd be going up you know he'd say oh cool we got another one you know yeah
Guest:Did you ever meet him ultimately?
Guest:Seinfeld?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never met him, but I sat behind him at Lucian's funeral.
Guest:So that's the closest.
Guest:Lucian, the guy who owned the comic strip.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But in terms of when you started doing it, when you started to realize that comedy was reality, I mean, how'd that affect your connection to Judaism?
Marc:What is your struggle that you mention here?
Guest:Well, I moved away from, I got very mad at Judaism at a certain point.
Guest:I got kicked out of yeshiva.
Guest:For what?
Guest:Well, for being a class clown and for being not an academic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I got put in yeshiva high school.
Guest:It was its first year of the high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had like this crazy standard that everybody here is going to graduate and go to Harvard and Yale.
Guest:And I didn't fit that mold.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I didn't do anything that would really warrant me being kicked out.
Guest:But they kicked me out.
Guest:And like I said, I loved the learning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't want to lose it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was devastated.
Guest:I remember sitting with the rabbi and I was like broken up.
Guest:And I said, don't take this away from me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, look, I'm sorry, there are people, it's not my decision.
Guest:In other words, there's people with money that want a reputation and they want you out of here.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I got so mad.
Guest:I got so mad at the religion.
Guest:I got so mad at Judaism.
Guest:I went to public high school.
Guest:First, no other Jewish school would take me because they're like, why is this guy getting kicked out?
Guest:And they're like, well, my parents are like, he doesn't have great grades or anything.
Guest:That can't be it.
Guest:He's got to be fucked up.
Guest:Something's really wrong with this guy.
Guest:So the only one that took me was this one for druggy Jews.
Guest:Jewish yeshiva students that were complete burnouts.
Guest:And I wasn't one of them.
Guest:So you were there with potheads, ex-heroine junkies, what kind of people?
Guest:All sorts of misfits.
Guest:Misfits in yarmulkes.
Guest:Misfits in yarmulkes, yeah.
Guest:There were some great, and I have some good friends from there until now, there were some great fucked up Jews there.
Guest:There was this kid, I don't want to say his name, but he was a Russian kid, and he had one arm.
Guest:And he had a prosthetic arm, and his insurance would replace it every so often.
Guest:And the best thing ever was, we took a short bus to this school.
Guest:We really did.
Guest:It was a short bus, and it was an hour away.
Guest:And we're on the Meadowbrook.
Guest:And he used to, you know, every time he'd get a new arm, he'd have these old arms to fuck with, you know?
Guest:So he'd gotten a new arm, he had his old arm, and he took a giant Ziploc bag and he filled it up with marinara sauce, and he clutched it.
Guest:The hand could clutch in the arm.
Guest:He clutched the bag of sauce in the hand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he stuck it out the window of the school bus.
Guest:And you know those windows you pull in the little tabs and push it up?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So tight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's holding the arm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the bag is like flickering in the wind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just waits till this car changes lanes to get behind the bus.
Guest:And he opens the window in the arm.
Guest:And the sauce flies out and hits the window.
Guest:And there's like this screech.
Guest:And the car pulls over the side.
Guest:And the bus driver pulls over.
Guest:And we're on the side of the meadow brook.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's like a big spider web of broken, you know, the glass isn't broken, but it's got that big spider web on the front, and it's an old couple, and they're screaming, and we're all sitting there for like two hours.
Guest:His parents get called.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:But he was a fucked up Jew, you know, so they're like, hey, that's why he's there.
Marc:Because he throws his arm out the window with sauce.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So was that, did you at least feel a little more at home with those guys?
Yeah.
Guest:A little bit, but I didn't like it there at all.
Guest:It was a half a hallway that we shared.
Guest:The rest of the school was a nursery school, and we were just pretty much treated like retards.
Guest:I hated it.
Guest:So I was like, I got to get out of here.
Guest:So my parents were like, well, no other Jewish schools want you.
Guest:So they sent me to a public school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I thrived in the public school.
Guest:I had the great art department and everything.
Guest:And I was like, that's it.
Guest:No more religion for me ever again.
Guest:I'm out of here.
Guest:And never dated Jewish women and made sure to sort of avoid it however possible.
Marc:But when you say you struggle with it now, did you believe in God?
Guest:Well, yeah, and I still do.
Guest:And that's not a popular opinion in the comedy world because I think it implies that you don't know a certain truth.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody else is like, come on, man.
Guest:This guy believes in God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We believe in Santa Claus, too.
Guest:And it's not like I just believe in God.
Guest:I mean, I've spent way too long, you know, reading and just thinking and pacing.
Guest:And I tried to get rid of this belief of God however I could because it would have been so much more convenient, you know?
Guest:But ultimately...
Guest:I believe in God.
Guest:I can't help that that's what I believe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The one revelation I had was that when I was born, I was born into the idea of God as a truth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I shifted to God as a belief.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because...
Guest:Basically, you have a choice.
Guest:You're given the evidence.
Guest:There is no right answer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There is no, yes, God exists, or no, God doesn't exist.
Guest:This is the evidence we got for God.
Guest:You know, you got guys like Spinoza and, you know, Richard Dawkins and whoever else, and, you know, I've read all their stuff, and they make good arguments here and there, and you figure out... Spinoza was a guy, wasn't he?
Guest:He was.
Guest:He was... He believed in God as sort of like nature.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:And I read, you know, religious things about God and I love reading things from atheists.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it basically, it boils down to this is the evidence for God.
Guest:This is the evidence against God.
Guest:Pick a side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which one appeals to you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the God side appeals to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's where I'm at.
Guest:And you find it comforting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's comforting.
Guest:It sort of makes sense to me.
Guest:I feel like too much in the world can't be a coincidence.
Guest:Too many different things that I've observed seem to have some kind of intelligent design where I feel like there's something.
Guest:There's something controlling it all.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then people go, hey, man, you just need to comfort yourself with God.
Guest:You just can't face your mortality.
Guest:And I go, oh, what's wrong with that?
Yeah.
Marc:what's wrong with that you know you're gonna die and i'm gonna die so who cares if i'm more comfortable than you yeah we're gonna do it alone no matter what yeah but i mean but when you like when you go like i know you struggle with stuff i mean do you find like uh some solace in the i mean do you pray
Guest:So I do, sort of.
Guest:This is where it all got crazy.
Guest:So I start dating non-Jewish women exclusively.
Guest:I'm like, I'm staying away from anything Jewish.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I have a proud sense of Jewish identity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could, you know, I could be a Herzl type, you know.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:You're going to start a country.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so I start dating my current girlfriend, and she moves in with me three years ago.
Guest:In New York.
Marc:Yeah, in New York.
Guest:Where are you living?
Guest:Now I live here.
Guest:No, but where are you living now?
Guest:Where am I living now?
Guest:Where were you living there?
Guest:Queens?
Marc:Oh, in Bushwick.
Marc:So you're out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And she starts telling me crazy shit like, I think I'm a reincarnated Holocaust survivor.
Guest:So I said, all right, well, it makes sense now that she's with me.
Guest:Is she Jewish?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I said, all right, well.
Guest:Then she said, I really want to convert to Judaism.
Guest:It's something I really want to do if I've always wanted to do it.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, just make sure it's the least religious kind.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Guest:So you're even fighting her on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm dating you because it's a rebellion.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You have to understand...
Guest:The fact that you're with me is because you're not Jewish.
Guest:You're going to fuck this up, you know?
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we start meeting with rabbis, and there's a lot of phony fucks out there, you know?
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, there's scammy conversion rabbis, you know?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They'll be like, yeah, give me a thousand bucks.
Guest:You'll be a Jew.
Guest:What, I don't got to do anything?
Guest:Sure, you eat the sandwich, and you're in.
Guest:One rabbi says, he goes, you ever had farmer's cheese?
Guest:I go, yeah.
Guest:You ever eat tongue, though?
Guest:I go, yeah.
Guest:He goes, you're more Jewish than most people.
Guest:Congratulations, you're halfway there.
Guest:So I said, get this guy out of here.
Guest:You know, we're not going with him.
Guest:And she didn't like him either.
Guest:Who does she connect with?
Guest:An Orthodox rabbi.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She gets this great bond with an Orthodox rabbi.
Guest:And I'm like, that's it.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:Get out.
Guest:Move out of the place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Over time, I started to, you know, she's like, have an open mind.
Guest:Come at it differently this time.
Guest:You've had bad experiences.
Guest:You have a lot of baggage.
Guest:I said, but I don't want it.
Guest:It's not how I want to live my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she goes, well, at least meet with him, you know, because it's important to me.
Guest:And I meet with him and I reluctantly connect with him.
Guest:And this is about her conversion.
Guest:But I have to be supportive throughout it.
Guest:They can't have someone converting with an anti-Jew Jew.
Marc:The self-hating Jew can't be part of the... It's going to ruin her experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I've sort of had to do certain things...
Guest:That I'd moved away from to help her conversion.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Go to temple?
Guest:Like Shabbat.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:So, you know, especially touring on the weekends, very hard to do Shabbat.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So I won't travel on Shabbat now.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I won't travel.
Marc:It's hard to travel with the bread and the candles?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, I mean, I won't travel on Shabbat.
Marc:No working, right.
Guest:Yeah, I'll walk to the venue from the hotel.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then there's this question of like, what am I doing?
Guest:You know, am I living this lie?
Guest:Am I going through motions for her?
Guest:And I'm not myself anymore.
Guest:And somebody questions me, why are you doing this?
Guest:I sound like an idiot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I was like, I have to find meaning in Shabbat for myself.
Guest:So I start reading about Shabbat.
Guest:Why do people like it?
Guest:I start having Jews over, you know, for meals and I start, you know, interrogating them at the table.
Guest:Like they're getting mad because why'd you have me here?
Marc:You yell at me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What'd you find out?
Guest:For yourself.
Guest:What I found out is removing myself on my own will from all this stuff and sort of turning off my phone and turning off my computer and all this has, I hate to admit it, been very good for me as a writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't write on Shabbat.
Guest:You can't write, but I can write as soon as Shabbat's over.
Guest:So you just sit there and remember things?
Guest:I can just pour out all these ideas that build and build inside me, you know, that I get, you know...
Guest:suddenly a shabbat diary you ever get stuck with your own thoughts you know there's and and you have no distractions you're like come on give me something give me something it can't be in my head but you're stuck and then i start writing deeper shit the new material i'm writing it's really about me yeah and i don't want to tell people not to get the album i just did but it's jokes and they're good jokes but right you don't get a good sense of the madness inside of me from it but now i'm sort of like honing in on that and that's because of shabbat
Guest:So now somebody says, why are you keeping Shabbat?
Guest:I say, you got to see the shit I wrote.
Marc:But do you give God any credit for that?
Marc:Or it's just, you know, it forces you to do things.
Marc:Is she a Jew now or what?
Guest:She's almost a Jew.
Guest:My relationship to God is complicated.
Guest:And I still can't seem to figure out what kind of God I believe in.
Guest:If it's like a Spinoza God like we were talking about.
Guest:Or a personal God, you know, a Moses God.
Marc:i you know i like the idea of talking to god but i don't know if i'm just a madman talking to myself you know for comfort yeah but you're honoring the laws of god and then all this this conversation is coming out of you it's revealing something to you yeah i mean it makes me think for sure you know yeah so what and now you tell me she's almost a jew what what other what hoops does she have to jump through now
Guest:well uh she has to complete her learning to become a jew so i'm excited about that because once she's a jew i could sort of figure out where i want to be and maybe she'll relax a little bit so maybe she'll become a lax jew she'd become a jew go through all the things just to say like yeah i don't want to be that jewy yeah and for me it's like i have to i have to do certain things throughout the conversion i don't know what i'll keep up afterwards you know yeah like what else um
Guest:Well, I keep kosher with meat, specifically.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's easy for me.
Guest:That's nothing.
Guest:Because, I mean... You just don't eat a lot of it.
Guest:At heart, I'm a vegetarian with bad willpower.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's really where I'm at.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't like...
Guest:I'm a big animal guy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:If I had a stronger willpower, I would be a vegetarian for sure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I've tried it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I've lasted like three months here and four months there.
Guest:So easy enough for me.
Guest:And kosher makes sense for me in terms of ethics because...
Guest:The way that an animal is killed for it to be kosher, it has to die instantly and painlessly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So if I'm going to kill an animal to eat it, I'd rather that it doesn't suffer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm big into all the vegan propaganda and, you know, how they kill cows and they put a, you know, I forget what it's called, but they drive a metal shank through their heads and they convulse and, you know, they suffer terribly, you know.
Guest:And I had a moment...
Guest:It just made me feel bad.
Guest:Yeah, I'm sorry.
Guest:No, that's all right.
Guest:It's probably good.
Guest:This is the craziest thing about it.
Guest:If there's something that's definitely crazy, and I think everybody has one of these things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Ralphie May, who's a wonderful guy.
Guest:I work for him.
Guest:I produce his podcast, and I open for him.
Guest:He's had me open for him for six years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's very against all this stuff that I do, and he's a good friend, and we talk about it all the time.
Guest:He's a big atheist.
Guest:He almost died not long ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had one of these moments where he says he felt like his soul was leaving his body, felt it being pulled out of the middle.
Guest:But he doesn't like to talk about it because it would make him sound crazy.
Guest:We all have that thing that makes you sound crazy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Whether you believe in God or not.
Guest:So I was sitting in Whole Foods eating chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had this moment with the chicken where I kind of felt like this piece of chicken, this piece of chicken of the chicken I ate, this chicken suffered.
Guest:It was like I felt some kind of a weird pain internally from this chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It could have been also because I was raising chickens in my backyard at that time.
Guest:Where was this?
Guest:In Brooklyn.
Guest:You were raising chickens?
Guest:I was raising chickens, yeah.
Guest:Well, for what?
For what?
Guest:For pets, for eggs, you know.
Guest:For eggs?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In Brooklyn?
Guest:In Brooklyn, yeah.
Guest:What, behind a brownstone?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, was it a brownstone?
Marc:I wouldn't call it a brownstone.
Marc:Is it an apartment building?
Guest:Yeah, an apartment building.
Guest:So you had a chicken coop behind your apartment building?
Guest:Yeah, me and my Ecuadorian gangster neighbors raised some chickens together.
Marc:Just as an experiment or you eat the eggs?
Marc:Did you butcher the chickens?
Guest:We didn't actually get any eggs out of it because we did it all wrong.
Guest:We got postmenopausal chicken and a rooster that would have fertilized them anyway.
Guest:We had a plan that we were going to sell fresh eggs to hipsters, but it didn't go right.
Guest:This was your big idea for a business?
Guest:I'm not that business savvy.
Guest:You're going to sell eggs to hipsters?
Guest:Yeah, I was just going to sell it.
Guest:We were going to do the Brooklyn Egg Company.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:With two chickens?
Guest:One chicken and a rooster.
Guest:That was the egg company.
Guest:You have one chicken?
Guest:But the rooster and the chicken, they sort of fell in love and the chicken was old and we tried to bring another chicken in and she pecked it to death.
Guest:You killed the chicken?
Guest:Yeah, the chicken got jealous of the other chicken that we brought in and killed the other chicken because it was going near her man, you know?
Guest:She didn't like it.
Guest:So you had chicken drama.
Guest:I had chicken drama.
Guest:And no eggs.
Guest:So then we said, you know, we both became very attached to the chicken and the rooster.
Guest:We said, fuck the egg company.
Guest:It was a stupid idea anyway.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we had a pet chicken and a pet rooster.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:But the idea that you were going to start a company with one...
Marc:Egg chicken.
Guest:Yeah, well, we were going to start with one and then buy more and more and more.
Guest:Did you read any books on it?
Guest:Did you get an idea of how you... This was an impulsive move.
Marc:Where do you buy chickens?
Guest:Live poultry shop.
Guest:In Chinatown?
Marc:No, in Bushwick.
Guest:All right, so you went to the Jew live poultry?
Guest:No, we went first to an Arabic one, and they wouldn't sell us live chickens, and then we went to a Spanish one that...
Guest:You know, it's funny, I actually wound up doing a whole story about this, and it got on This American Life.
Guest:I did it on a podcast, and then they had me redo it.
Guest:Ira Glass called me up and said, tell this chicken story.
Guest:And now everybody knows me as this chicken story.
Marc:Oh, so this is not new news.
Guest:It's not new news, but I got this deep connection with chickens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now, like, you know, I still feel guilty eating chicken because I kind of fell in love with these chickens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was this moment, I'm sitting in Whole Foods, I'm eating this chicken, I felt like this horrible inner sorrow for this chicken I was eating.
Guest:I was like, that's it.
Guest:I can't eat chicken anymore unless it's kosher.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Because at least I know that way, it died quickly and painlessly.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because I can't give up chicken completely.
Guest:I don't have the willpower.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So this is the struggle.
Right.
Marc:this is another struggle so i think whether i was religious or not i wouldn't eat chicken unless it was a kosher chicken okay so that part's easy for me right all right so the other stuff it's a long way to answer that question no but i mean the other stuff i mean what what else has to be done i mean you got the sabbath going and she's got her learning to do and yeah and then and then what happens she's gonna be a jew she's gonna be a jew you're gonna marry her that's the plan
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, if it doesn't fall through between now and then, I want to marry her.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And, uh... How are your parents the Jewish?
Guest:They're still holding on or what?
Guest:Yeah, they're still holding on.
Guest:What's your father do?
Guest:He's a photographer.
Guest:yeah yeah for who uh freelance photojournalist yeah yeah you grew up with that i grew up with that when i was a kid he was uh always he was always gone he did the gulf war yeah i remember like watching the war on tv and in queens on the in flushing with my mom and we seeing like bombs go off on tv and she's like that's where your dad is great yeah wait do you take any famous shots
Guest:Yeah, I mean, there's a shot of the Israeli peace process with Rabin and Arafat and Clinton where they're shaking hands and my dad took, there's several shots of that, but one of the ones that got used a lot was his.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what's your mom do?
Guest:She's an occupational therapist.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:I don't know.
I don't know.
Guest:No idea?
Guest:She works with kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Helps them.
Guest:Do things?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Troubled kids?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:She works with kids.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And you got a sister, right?
Guest:No, I have three younger brothers.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:How'd they turn out?
Guest:All right.
Guest:My brother, one of my brothers is sort of trying to find himself.
Guest:My other brother sells chemicals.
Guest:He's in India right now testing chemicals.
Guest:What kind?
Guest:For medicine?
Guest:I think it's evil shit, but I'm not sure, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's all this international, it's like, you know, Turkey and India are doing a big chemical trade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they have to make sure the stuff is pure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I imagine I'm sort of like in a Breaking Bad situation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:with some indian people yelling at him yeah and some uh turkish people yelling at him yeah and what's the other one do um and the other one is in college yeah all right yeah so how long you lived out here eight months now last i checked in with you you weren't too happy
Guest:Yeah, I'm sort of acclimating.
Guest:I'm trying to figure it out.
Guest:It's tough because I got some momentum going in New York and then I left.
Guest:Why did you do that?
Guest:Mostly on the influence of a woman, of my girlfriend.
Guest:She just complained and complained about New York.
Guest:And I kept saying, I'm going to go to L.A.
Guest:eventually.
Guest:And she said, well, why do you keep saying eventually?
Guest:Let's just go.
Guest:So I said, all right, fine.
Marc:This was after the European tour.
Marc:I mean, that seemed to be a big breakthrough for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you were doing comedy a lot and starting to work at some of the clubs in New York, but it wasn't going that easy, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was starting to get some paid weekends at a few different joints and it was good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:When I come here, it's like I'm starting from scratch again.
Marc:But you're running a podcast network?
Guest:i was running an early podcast network but i i dissolved that how do you produce ralphie's i just produce ralphie's podcast oh that's it that's it um you know i've been opening for him for a long time and he's he knew i it's a skill that i have and him and his wife lana wanted to do a podcast and i said all right let's do something kind of different and he said all right make it happen yeah so that's what i do
Marc:So how'd the European thing change for you?
Marc:Because, like, I remember, you know, you're a guy, been around since you were a kid.
Marc:We all know you.
Marc:We all do the radio show.
Marc:And, you know, you were struggling a bit, you know, trying to figure out what the hell your voice was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, this record, this is pretty new.
Marc:Some kind of comedian.
Marc:All we did was stand-up records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're already saying that this material, you've moved beyond it?
Guest:I recorded this two years ago.
Guest:That's Dan Swissel for you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, Swissel will take his time.
Marc:He's a good man, though.
Marc:I like him.
Marc:He's another Jewish man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A big Jewish man.
Marc:I love Dan.
Marc:Yeah, no, he did my second two records and then reissued my first one.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Guest:The good thing about that is I'm almost ready to do another one now, and this one's coming out.
Marc:So you followed up quick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you taped that in Scotland?
Guest:I did that in Scotland.
Guest:My mom is from Glasgow, and...
Guest:Yeah, there's a very small Scottish Jewish community that's been in Scotland for a while, and I come from that kind of Jew.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Like how long?
Marc:What's the history of that?
Guest:I know that we go back about at least five, I think about five generations in Glasgow.
Guest:How'd they end up there?
Guest:Did you ever ask your mother that?
Guest:Nobody really... My grandfather's... My grandmother came from Austria.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, when the Nazis came, she left and went to England and eventually Scotland.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:My grandfather is like an original Scottish Jew.
Guest:Right.
Guest:His father was big in terms of building up Glasgow and had clothing shops all over, and his father had been there.
Marc:Was it an Inquisition thing?
Marc:I mean, go back to the 1500s or no?
Marc:No.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I know for sure my grandmother's side was originally from Spain, and they were kicked out during the Inquisition and went to Italy and then... So you're Sephardic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Apart in Turkey, and then some went to Vienna.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And I still have a lot of cousins in Turkey.
Guest:I go out there and see my family.
Marc:You go to Turkey?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First cousins?
Guest:Well, second cousins.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's Turkey like?
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it's pretty cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:Istanbul is really, I mean, it's not a great time to go to Turkey now, but as a Jew, it's not very Jew friendly right now.
Guest:There's a lot of anti-Semitism kind of.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Anyway, that's what I hear through the Jewish.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But your family's still there.
Guest:Yeah, they're still there.
Guest:Are they Orthodox?
Guest:No.
Guest:But I got more family in Turkey and Scotland than I do in America.
Guest:So I've spent, especially in Glasgow, I've spent a lot of my childhood there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I was on the Glasgow boys swim team.
Guest:I was a camp counselor one summer in Glasgow.
Guest:This because your grandmother lived there?
Guest:Yeah, my grandparents and my cousins and my uncles.
Marc:They were all there?
Guest:Yeah, everybody's there.
Marc:That's fascinating to me.
Marc:Do they speak with a Scottish accent?
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Marc:That's bizarre.
Guest:Yeah, there's about 5,000 in total Scottish Jews.
Marc:That's so little.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So they can all sort of trace their genealogy probably back to like 300 people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you ever meet a Scottish Jew, I'm probably related, but I definitely know them.
Marc:I wonder if they all came at the same time, like that original community and it just built out from there.
Guest:I think it originally came from England and people started shifting over there.
Guest:But Scotland's always been very Jew-friendly.
Guest:There's never been any anti-Jewish anything in Scotland.
Marc:Yeah, it's a pretty place.
Marc:So you taped a record in Glasgow.
Marc:I noticed that too when I went there.
Marc:I went to, I think, one of maybe the first or the second Glasgow Comedy Festival, and I was nervous because I was doing long-form stuff.
Marc:I was doing that divorce show.
Guest:I loved that show.
Marc:The Scorching the Earth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I could barely get it over in America because it was so heartbreaking and difficult.
Marc:But when I did it in Glasgow, because it's all one story, and they fucking locked in, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they were like right there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I was like, this is amazing.
Marc:This is like they like stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's such a better place in many ways to do comedy.
Guest:They're there for the comedy.
Guest:They want it so bad.
Guest:I think there's such a famous star culture.
Guest:Now I can add something to what Pat Cooper was saying about a name and a star.
Guest:I think America's into the star.
Guest:And the UK is into the name.
Guest:Or not even into the name, but into the material.
Guest:They're there...
Guest:Without any preconceived notions, they're there because they trust that you say you're a comedian, you're going to be funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they'll let you know if you're not, but if you are, they'll be there with you through the whole thing, you know?
Marc:So you're this international guy.
Marc:So when you go to Glasgow, you're like, I know that's where I eat, and I got a buddy over there.
Marc:It's like a home away from home for you.
Guest:I know the city of Glasgow like the back of my hand, yeah.
Marc:So, all right, so wait, all right, so you go over there to do this record.
Marc:How long did you spend in Europe?
Marc:Because I felt like to me, I don't know you that well, but there was a period there where you're like, you know, everything's turning around.
Marc:Like, you know, you're stuck in New York.
Marc:The thing about New York is, you know, especially a sensitive guy like you, you know all the comics, you're busting your balls to get on stage, you know, but you're, you're, you know, all the, you know, my generation, the one after me, you know, they're all starting to click and everything else, and you're still pounding your head against the wall, right?
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, I just felt that at a certain point, you're like, what the fuck am I going to do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when I started going out to Europe and got an agent out there.
Guest:I did the Glasgow Comedy Festival six years ago, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And had a great, great run and got an agent in London off of it.
Guest:And he started booking me around the UK.
Guest:So I started going in two month chunks out to the UK.
Marc:And you were doing well out there?
Guest:I was doing really well out there, yeah.
Guest:I would go two months, come back for like three months, go back for two months, and then I could sort of float my apartment in Brooklyn off of that money.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you walk in with the community there?
Marc:Did you find yourself hanging out with some of the old guys?
Marc:Did you hang out with Jerry Sadowitz?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I hung out with Jerry Sadowitz a bunch of times.
Guest:It seems to make sense.
Guest:Yeah, and I think we're related, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He's a Scottish Jew, too, yeah.
Guest:Well, we're not directly... My cousin... He's my cousin's cousin, so we're related through a cousin.
Guest:Right.
Marc:He's an interesting guy, right?
Marc:He's cool, man.
Marc:He never wanted to do an interview.
Marc:He doesn't feel like he's... I wanted to interview him.
Marc:He's like, I don't know what the hell I'm going to say.
Marc:Why would you want to do that?
Marc:He's a little depressive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, he definitely is.
Guest:He's a funny dude, though.
Guest:The first time I met him, you know, this cousin that connects us, my cousin in Glasgow, he's a pathological liar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Does he know that?
Guest:You know, it's sort of like I tried to bring it up with him a few times, but he's too far gone from it, you know?
Guest:And it's just like, his lies don't hurt me.
Guest:They've never really hurt me.
Guest:They're just so ridiculous.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:All right, well, here's one that he didn't tell me, but I went out there once.
Guest:You know, I hadn't been in like two years, and I get there and everybody goes, it's great for your cousin there, you know, working for Rangers Football Club.
Guest:That's a big deal in Scotland.
Guest:You've got Celtics and Rangers.
Guest:I go, what's he doing for the Rangers football club?
Guest:He's like the assistant to the manager.
Guest:It's huge.
Guest:I go, I ask him, I say, you didn't tell me that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He goes, oh, yes, yes, it's great.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:You know, it's wonderful.
Guest:I've become the assistant to the manager, Daniel.
Guest:It's wonderful.
Guest:All the players know me.
Guest:I get any ticket you want to a game.
Guest:I go, well, let's do it.
Guest:Let's go see a game.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, I'm going to work on that, and probably next week we'll have it all sorted, you know.
Guest:So I go, all right.
Guest:Next week, and, of course, no tickets to the game.
Guest:I go, oh, how come you're around all this time?
Guest:Shouldn't you be over there?
you
Guest:He goes, no, no, they've given me a leave because I've told them that you're in town.
Guest:I told them my cousin's a great comedian from New York.
Guest:He's in town.
Guest:And they said, oh, take as much time as you need.
Guest:So I'm already starting to, you know, I know him.
Guest:I see his mom.
Guest:I say, so what's he been up to?
Guest:And she goes, oh, it's terrible.
Guest:He's been unemployed for some time now.
Guest:Poor guy.
Guest:So he tells me one time, he goes...
Guest:do you want to have a curry with me and my uncle jerry i go are okay my uncle jerry sadowicz did you know that i'm related to jerry sadowicz yeah and i i go i i immediately assume it's a lie and i go no but i'm you know i'm always down for a curry so that's how i that's how i work it with him you know yeah if part of it appeals to me i'm there yeah yeah
Guest:So I said, yeah, I'll go get a curry with you.
Guest:And he makes up these astronomical lies.
Guest:You know, Jerry said, he goes, Jenny, I've told him all about you.
Guest:I've told him about your comedy and he wants to take you and play theaters with you.
Guest:And it's one, you know, he's a, I showed him some of your clips on YouTube and I, okay, all right, well, let's get a curry.
Guest:You know, we get there and there's Jerry Sadowitz and they really are related.
Guest:It was like,
Marc:ah you got me yeah yeah you thought you were being strong and then he goes he's been telling me about your comedy yeah it's very good stuff yeah yeah jerry's he's a sweet guy yeah heavy-hearted guy so what what would you find different though for you why do you think you had a hard time in new york getting over versus like how were you received in the in the uk and stuff
Guest:I think it's as simple as in New York, they weren't given opportunities.
Guest:I wasn't getting a chance.
Guest:Nobody was saying, here's 20 minutes with a microphone in front of a crowd.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Why do you think that was?
Guest:It's very competitive, and there was too many guys above me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I went out there.
Guest:People didn't have a context for, okay, he's... Yeah, yeah.
Guest:he's below this and this and this rank yeah here's a guy from new york yeah he says he's funny let's see yeah i went up there and i was funny and then okay yeah you know were you building a following up a little bit or what yeah i've done okay with that out there i get i got a lot of regulars that come out oh yeah cool yeah yeah and they email me i gotta i'm gonna hopefully go back out in august i'm i'm trying to work to work scotland or to london both
Marc:anywhere in the uk now i'll just you know wherever they send me yeah you know uh probably you know england and and ireland and wales and hopefully scotland too you just do what you do one nighters you do a few days how does it work i don't do any of that so i'm curious yeah you know i mean what do you find the difference between the cultures are we if there are when you when you do the show and you talk about yourself you say you're doing this more autobiographical stuff is there a cultural difference in you know what they'll take as comedy what they won't take as comedy and
Marc:I don't think so.
Guest:I think basically because our biggest export is entertainment and everybody sees our movies.
Guest:When you go to a movie here, you're not seeing something from Spain or something.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:But someone in Spain is seeing a movie from here.
Marc:Yeah, and it's an American art form and they get it.
Guest:Yeah, so, I mean, you know, they're all watching Two and a Half Men, you know.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And they also watch American stand-up.
Guest:So there's not too much that's going to be alien to them in terms of references.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:So... But I always felt like, you know, because of what kind of self-involved and, you know, whiny, you know, that they're like, oh, why is he talking about that, you know?
Marc:I don't think that's true.
Marc:Or maybe I made it up.
LAUGHTER
Guest:I don't want to disagree with you either, Mark.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:But I don't think it's true.
Guest:Completely likely that I made it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that might be just something you came up with that you're going to have to dispel for yourself.
Guest:So did you give up your place in Brooklyn?
Guest:Unfortunately, I had to, yeah.
Guest:And where are you living here?
Guest:We're off the 10 by La Cienega.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know that there's a name to that neighborhood.
Guest:It's like La Cienega Heights.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And so I think when we connected a few months ago, you were unhappy.
Guest:Yeah, well, it's hard to leave that energy of New York.
Guest:And I've sort of had like a, you know, I'm from, it's hard to explain to people who aren't really from the city, but I'm from New York City.
Guest:And it's kind of like a part of me that's missing when I'm not there.
Guest:And I have a lot of anger towards New York because I feel like I never got the love there.
Guest:You know, people always come from out of town and sort of like jump ahead.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:this guy was great in arkansas yeah and they're like okay well put him up i started here in new york you know yeah like well you're still starting you're still you got to climb the ranks in new york it sucks because when you're from new york you can't come to new york and be right you know it takes a while and then everybody sees you starting out it's like they see your embarrassing moments yeah yeah yeah so what's going on for you here what's your feelings
Guest:It's getting better.
Guest:I'm getting up.
Guest:I'm starting to get up regularly at shows.
Guest:People are putting me up.
Guest:And I'm sort of finding some comfort in that.
Marc:It's rough here, man, because it's not the same system.
Marc:I get so far away from it.
Marc:And I remember the struggle of that.
Marc:When I talked to guys like you or...
Marc:like when I first came out here when I was really young, and you just don't know what's going on or how the system works, and you gotta have a friend or whatever, and it's just, everything is just, it's so separate here.
Marc:In New York, you just walk around the corner, there's that guy, and you know everybody, and you sort of like, there's a social network, and you just gotta walk across town and go to some other shitty club or whatever you're gonna do.
Marc:And here it's like, I got to drive, I got to figure out where to park, and I got to go walk around like an asshole and look for somebody maybe who knows me so they can walk me into the fucking room.
Guest:It's a humbling experience, especially like I'm coming on 11 years of this now, and...
Guest:Going somewhere else.
Guest:You know, there's always this hope.
Guest:Like, I didn't think I'm going to show up here and be a star.
Guest:People be like, hey, Danny Lobel, the guy from the thing in New York.
Guest:I didn't think that.
Guest:But I did kind of hope that someone would be like, oh, he's been around.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:And it really hadn't panned out that way at all.
Guest:I got to hang out more, but I hang out a little bit.
Marc:What are you doing if you're not hanging out?
Marc:Sitting around being Jewish?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:trying to get in touch with god yeah you're just like turning shit off and waiting to write on sunday yeah yeah or it's saturday afternoon what is it i've been writing so much saturday afternoon is a big writing day for you yeah since i got here i've like banged out six scripts you know have you yeah what full what screenplays one full screenplay and a bunch of shorts and uh yeah i've just been writing and writing and writing so what i got endless movie ideas how do we get these into production
Guest:I might have one of them getting made.
Guest:Somebody who heard me on This American Life was a director with AFI.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:So that's what got me going.
Guest:They're like, give me a script.
Guest:So I was like, oh, okay.
Guest:So I wrote it out.
Guest:And then I was like, oh, I got another idea.
Guest:I got another idea.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I started writing all these scripts like a madman.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Kylie, my girlfriend, writes with me.
Guest:And she's like a real writer, writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's a journalist.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a serious writer.
Guest:So it's kind of good because I get those serious bits in that are like legit and authentic.
Guest:And then I can kind of like make them funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that might be the thing that happens.
Guest:I think that I'm hoping that that's the thing that happens.
Marc:It's a lot easier life in some respects.
Guest:Yeah, it would be good.
Guest:And then I could, I mean, this is my dream.
Guest:If I could dream, I get some movies going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I build a following here, you know, there, here and there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can sort of do little theaters and sell them and play to those theaters whenever I want.
Guest:And I wouldn't have to worry about if I'm walking to a venue or not or anything like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a dream of mine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know ultimately I just want to be doing shows every night and getting on stage and jamming and jamming yeah did you did you interview Rickles no that's one there's two people that I've always wanted to interview one of them you got Mel Brooks that was a good one he's like a big hero and I loved your interview with him it was phenomenal I'm glad you could enjoy it without going no I asked him that question laughing
Guest:I really love it.
Guest:It's kind of nice to sit back and let you do the work on these because you do such a great job with them.
Guest:And I satisfy these questions that I want to know.
Guest:They're getting satisfied.
Guest:Good, good, good.
Guest:I think I wouldn't be writing as many scripts if it wasn't.
Guest:I'd be focusing on.
Guest:But you do such a beautiful job with these interviews.
Guest:Oh, thanks, buddy.
Guest:rickles i never got and i tried so hard for years i used to call this guy who uh who's who's the gatekeeper to interviewing rickles yeah and and he go uh he go don can't do it he's 80 years old and i and i put it in my calendar call back next year you know yeah so i called back he goes he's 82 years old he can't do it he's 83 i did this for four years he goes he's 84 i said you should have let me interview him when he was 81 and
Guest:He's still doing other things.
Guest:He's on TV.
Guest:And then I got close.
Guest:I met his cousin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had a Pesach Seder together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's like, oh, well, you know, unfortunately, I think one of his kids passed away.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She goes, oh, I could have got you an interview with him, but his kid passed away.
Guest:And I was like, well, that's it.
Guest:That's when I gave him.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:But I would love to.
Guest:I hope you do.
Guest:Are you going to interview him?
I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I felt like he was doing a lot of interviews for a while.
Marc:Did you interview Shecky Green?
Marc:I didn't interview him, but I didn't try.
Marc:I tried once, and he got angry about something.
Marc:It had nothing to do with me.
Marc:Who else?
Marc:Joan Rivers?
Marc:You interviewed her, right?
Guest:I didn't interview Joan Rivers either.
Guest:I came awfully close with Woody Allen.
Guest:Have you tried to interview him?
Marc:No, I don't even know where to start.
Guest:I can maybe help you with that.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, but I...
Guest:The thing is, I wanted Woody Allen.
Guest:That was my ultimate comedy guy.
Guest:I got to interview Woody Allen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I knew he played at the Carlisle on Monday nights.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I'm also big into jazz.
Marc:I know you brought me some nice records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a big clarinet fan.
Guest:He plays the clarinet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know all the guys that he loves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh, I said, we gotta have, we have comedy in common and we have Sidney Bechet in common.
Guest:Let's do this.
Guest:You know, I go down there and, and, uh, I, I talked to his, uh, the guy who manages the jazz band and he goes, oh, he says, what do you, what he's not going to want to do that interview.
Guest:He said, he doesn't like doing interviews, but if you want to stay and watch the jazz, you can stay and watch the jazz.
Guest:So it was great.
Guest:And, uh, and I'm chatting with the guy and he says, yeah, come around next week.
Guest:You can watch the jazz.
Guest:I go, all right, cool.
Guest:So I start coming around every week and,
Guest:I got to know Woody a little bit through that.
Guest:He's not a guy that wears his heart on his sleeve too much, as you know.
Guest:I finally asked him in the interview, and he rejected me in the nicest, sweetest way.
Guest:I wouldn't enjoy that.
Guest:I go, well, I don't want to make him do something he wouldn't enjoy.
Guest:Yeah, so all right.
Guest:But I still go around there when I'm in New York on Monday nights and they all kind of know me and I can come in and watch the jazz and hang out.
Guest:It's always a very interesting group of people that surround that table.
Guest:See, he's got a table too.
Guest:He doesn't usually sit at it.
Guest:Oh, he doesn't?
Guest:It's in the back in the Carlisle, and it's his manager and a bunch of old friends.
Guest:No, I never saw Jack Rollins there, but he has one or two friends from when he was a kid, and they all tell me some really cool stories about him.
Guest:They've sort of welcomed me in that scene, and I can talk jazz, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i don't know so that's as close as i got with him but it's interesting the idea of tables yeah yeah there's there's a table for everything it's just can you get allowed to can you get access to sit at it yeah yeah that's it we just want to sit around a seat at the table the seller table the jackie mason table the woody allen table there's the jesus table there's
Guest:There's always a table.
Marc:There's a table here, you know, down at the... There's a couple tables.
Marc:There's, I think, the Sunday table still at Victor's with the writers, and then I think Paul Mazursky and some old Jews, they hang out at the farmer's market.
Marc:There's a table over there.
Guest:I'd like to go to old Jews and farmer's market.
Guest:That's my kind of table.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I think you've got to go find some tables here.
Guest:Yeah, once I find my tables, I'll be at home, you know?
Guest:Well, you're always welcome in mind, Danny.
Marc:Thanks for talking, buddy.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's the broadcast.
Marc:People.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:People.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I will be in Buffalo at Helium Comedy Club this week, June 20, 21 and 22, doing the stand-up.
Marc:Yes, that is happening.
Marc:Tomorrow.
Marc:Tuesday, I will be here at the Paley Center in Los Angeles doing a panel, a IFC's Marin panel with the showrunners, Bobcat Goldthwait, the producer, Jim Cervico, the showrunners are Michael Jamin and Sievert Glarum and me.
Marc:We're going to run some footage.
Marc:We're going to answer some questions.
Marc:We're going to talk.
Marc:We're going to do a panel thing.
Marc:So if you're in L.A.
Marc:and you want to come to that, that's at 7 p.m.
Marc:at the Paley Center here, Helium Comedy Club in Buffalo this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Marc:All right, what else?
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:I'm looking forward to next week, the 400th episode.
Marc:Amazing guest.
Marc:I can't even begin to tell yous.
Marc:I could.
Marc:It'll be fun, man.
Marc:It'll be fun.
Marc:Do all the things you need to do at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get the app if you're new.
Marc:Boomer lives!
you