Episode 402 - David Sedaris
Guest:Lock the gates!
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 fuck Nicks?
Marc:What the fuck Canadians?
Marc:What the fucking us?
Marc:How's that?
Marc:It's going to be in Montreal for the Just for Laughs festival.
Marc:That just reminded me.
Marc:I'm not plugging it, but I might as well plug it.
Marc:I will be up there.
Marc:This is Mark Marin.
Marc:This is WTF, the podcast.
Marc:David Sedaris is on the podcast today, which was pretty amazing.
Marc:It was pretty exciting to meet David Sedaris.
Marc:I'd met him maybe once before, maybe 1995 in a peculiar situation at the Aspen Comedy Festival, which I believe I will bring up.
Marc:It wasn't peculiar.
Marc:It was just a weird place for anybody to be doing comedy in that altitude, unable to breathe, trying to behave like somebody who's got it together when you're gasping for air and your stomach is full of gas and you probably have diarrhea from altitude sickness.
Marc:and you constantly feel like you're going to black out, not an easy place to do the job.
Marc:That's all I'm saying.
Marc:Look, I really appreciate all the feedback and excitement that there was around the first season of Marin, which ended on Friday.
Marc:I know those last couple episodes, especially the last one, a little gnarly, but I thought well-balanced and exciting.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:What do you just want to...
Marc:Be comfortable all the time.
Marc:That's not the way life works, is it?
Marc:Let art imitate reality a bit occasionally, but realize that it is not reality.
Marc:Very interesting thing that happens in the culture today is that many people don't really quite know the difference between reality and fiction.
Marc:I'm not sure I do, even, given what I do for a...
Marc:for the way I do it.
Marc:I got to get a bigger house.
Marc:It's gotten a little nuts.
Marc:You know, the issue here is that I interview here at the house.
Marc:I don't want to move my studio.
Marc:I enjoy interviewing the garage.
Marc:I'm probably going to try to build an addition onto the house as opposed to try to get a new house, which are inflated.
Marc:The primary issue is that Jessica, my fiance, would like to have another bathroom.
Marc:So when Iggy Pop or Cheech and Chong, whoever,
Marc:that, you know, they have a bathroom that they can use that doesn't have to be our bathroom or her bathroom.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:But I realized today that having one bathroom as a couple, when you live together, builds intimacy because at some point, you know, you each kind of pace yourselves.
Marc:All right, she's got her shower time.
Marc:I got my shower time.
Marc:Sometimes we shower together, but a lot of times it's separate.
Marc:And that first day, that first day where they're having their shower time and you bang on the door and say, look, I thought I could hold it, but I can't.
Marc:that moment that is a big step in a relationship the moment where you have no choice but to take a dump in the presence of another person that that is like almost an engagement that i think on on some levels that you are married in a soul way at that moment you know whether that holds or not it doesn't matter but that is the intimacy available from a first house when you're with somebody
Marc:Just know that, just know that, that that moment is coming if it hasn't come yet and that there's no reason to run from it.
Marc:Just sit in it.
Marc:You can make faces and go, oh my God, Jesus, what did you eat?
Marc:Whatever, but it's a powerful moment.
Marc:It's a bonding moment.
Marc:Don't run from it.
Marc:Don't run from it.
Marc:I thought I could hold it, but I can't.
Marc:I'm coming in.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:And then just sit there like a shivering dog at the end of a leash as the owner just looks at you and goes, okay, don't be uncomfortable.
Marc:Don't be uncomfortable.
Marc:Maybe you should say that to the person, whoever it is in the relationship.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:We're not in a hurry here.
Marc:Just don't freak out.
Marc:Fortunately, when you're in a relationship, you don't have to bag it.
Yeah.
Marc:So David Sedaris is on, and he's one of the greatest humorists, really, I think, that this country has produced, certainly lately, but probably ever.
Marc:And he's a sweet guy.
Marc:And he's one of those guys, he's written a lot of books.
Marc:I've read some of some of the books, and I think he's very funny.
Marc:But I didn't I didn't really know him.
Marc:And I know that many people have a relationship with him, but I wanted to have one as well.
Marc:And I was fortunate that, you know, right away he got in the garage and told me how much he liked my book and read some of it to me, which is very flattering and humbling and also completely, you know, ego engorging at the same time.
Marc:I had engorged ego for a few minutes.
Marc:But we were able to talk about actually memoir writing and memoir in general in that, you know, I always do autobiographical stuff.
Marc:I mean, the show and I'm having some very new experiences that I've never had before around using my life as fodder and as a basis for what I put out in the world as my art or my expression.
Marc:The show, when I watched some episodes of Marin on IFC, I was literally uncomfortable with watching myself work through things and be involved in things that were sort of heightened versions of some things that happened in my life, at least emotional.
Marc:There's an emotional reality to the show.
Marc:You know, if all the things obviously I can't transcribe my life precisely, but there's an emotional reality and there's some memory mixed in with fictionalization.
Marc:When you write memoir, you're really dealing with memory and you have to be careful.
Marc:Memory is naturally revisionist.
Marc:When you remember something, it's revision.
Marc:It's your side of the memory.
Marc:It's your point of view.
Marc:It's the emotions you had in that memory.
Marc:And some memories get sort of chiseled and reshaped as you grow, as you get older, as parts of that memory diminish.
Marc:You can sit there and go, this is the truth.
Marc:This is what happened.
Marc:But you always have to qualify it with, well, this is my side of it.
Marc:Sure, you can be a journalist about your life and who, what, when, where, why, and answer those questions.
Marc:But the emotions of it are going to be specific.
Marc:The real question that comes into play is, well, how do I treat other people in my memory?
Marc:How are other people going to be affected by that?
Marc:And I admit to becoming more empathetic and certainly being less empathetic when I started the podcast and started doing the work that I do.
Marc:But there is a selfishness to it.
Marc:And you have to deliberate things.
Marc:Like right now, quite honestly, my father and I aren't speaking because of what he assumed was on the show or what he assumed was in the book.
Marc:I don't know whether he's read either, but I do have a heavy heart about it because I felt it was important to include my experiences with him and a few other people in the book as part of my life because they defined me.
Marc:And I think it's important to sort of to illustrate who you are or to to bring resonance to a story.
Marc:You are going to include people that are in your life.
Marc:And it's tricky business because it is your perspective and it is your point of view and it is your side of a story.
Marc:But of course, I thought, you know, well, man, I handled that pretty well.
Marc:I let him off easy.
Marc:You know, I handled my first and second marriages pretty well.
Marc:You know, I didn't go into detail.
Marc:It was my side of it.
Marc:But now I find that I'm actually, you know, I'm going to have to.
Marc:sort of regroup with my father and figure out where he's at with this stuff there is a price to pay when you commit to using your life as your art and i'm not calling myself an artist but it is what i draw from you know almost exactly is the emotions that are loaded up in me from my immediate interactions with my life
Marc:And, you know, I don't know.
Marc:I wouldn't say that I've made enemies, but I've caused people discomfort.
Marc:And I think what I'm experiencing now, you know, after the show and after the book is that, you know, I have a sort of postpartum empathy, which means, wow, I might have I might have pushed that too far.
Marc:Not saying it's not true.
Marc:It is true.
Marc:I vetted everything and I went over everything.
Marc:It is my side of my experience, but did I really take into consideration how it would affect other people?
Marc:Yeah, I did, but now you sort of pay for it.
Marc:One of the other episodes was sort of loosely based on somebody.
Marc:And now, you know, he's mad at me for what?
Marc:It was a characterization.
Marc:It's all very becomes very personal to the individual.
Marc:But in my mind, well, it'll pass and it's not untrue.
Marc:And I thought I handled it deftly and with humor.
Marc:But, you know, there's still other people's feelings at stake.
Marc:That's what you get when you don't make things up.
Marc:That's the burden of heart that you have to carry when you don't make things up or you just amplify or reprocess or fictionalize things slightly.
Marc:Feelings are at stake.
Marc:But I think it's worth it.
Marc:I think honesty is worth it.
Marc:I really do.
Marc:So now let's enjoy some chat with me and David Sedaris.
Marc:Do you have any advice for me?
Marc:I tend to just talk.
Marc:So you don't read from the book?
Guest:No, I do a bit, but it's hard to select what to read.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, I've got some ideas for you.
Guest:I mean, I think what's nice about it is that the chapters are all great length to read in a bookstore, I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you told me the cover was a mistake.
Marc:That's what you're telling me.
Guest:I think you didn't have to be on the cover of your book.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because I feel like sometimes when people are on the cover of their book, it's a way of saying, not a real book.
Guest:Well, maybe they, yeah.
Guest:Like it's a celebrity book.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's a real book.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think the writing is just fantastic.
Guest:And I think it's hard.
Guest:Sometimes you see people trying to write jokes and they try to write timing onto the page and it just looks gimmicky.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But this doesn't at all.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It just sounds like, and I think anybody could read it out loud.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like you're reading it right now and laughing.
Guest:Well, one thing I like about, I feel like kind of the enemy reading books on an iPad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But one thing I kind of like about it is that you've got those notes at your fingertips, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She didn't say it like that.
Guest:What she said was, I'm leaving.
Guest:Then she took her vagina and left.
Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:very specific uh so many great bits in here um well i'm very flattered that you like it because you're sort of a pro at this and you know i come into your stuff and like i always wonder after i wrote my book because i'm so uh sort of compulsive and intense that i should have had more fun writing it um i i feel like i i wrote a
Marc:my heart out to a degree, but I don't know that I, I could have, I feel like I could have been funnier, but I imagine I always will feel like that.
Guest:Maybe because, I don't know, maybe because you're on lines, but I mean, okay, it was a very sad orgasm.
Guest:My dick was crying.
Guest:How did you not laugh when you were up?
Guest:When you wrote that line.
Guest:I love this too.
Guest:My father needs to have an effect on people.
Guest:He needs to either drag them down to his level or blast through them with his anger.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, that's not a laugher.
Guest:No, but I thought it was a really good summation of somebody.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:This is the best episode ever.
Guest:He didn't know his own strength and would snap at you for no reason.
Guest:A bite from a stunning dog doesn't hurt any less.
Guest:So true.
Guest:So true.
Guest:I don't... You know, I said something last night on stage about not liking dogs, and I just felt... I mean, the audience didn't leave, but 60% of them no longer liked me.
Guest:Really?
Guest:After I said that.
Marc:What's your experience with dogs?
Marc:I mean, that would make... Don't trust them.
Guest:How can you trust them?
Guest:A cat will just go away.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I've been... I mean, I haven't been torn up bitten, but...
Marc:Are you reading my book still?
Guest:Yeah, I am.
Guest:That was interesting to me about the dog, about dog shows when you were young, going to dog shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's probably more there, right?
Guest:If you ever wake up in the morning and the first thing you say is, oh, fuck, not again, you might be a little bitter.
Guest:That is such a good thing to say to yourself in the morning if you're bitter.
Guest:What else are you going to say?
Guest:Also because I'm on tour so often, then I related to a lot of what you had to say about university towns are okay for a few hours before you realize that you were old and silly.
Guest:That's it exactly.
Guest:Do you feel that?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, you said in the book how when you go on tour, sometimes you're downtown and the downtown 90% of the time dries up after 5 o'clock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just kind of sad for that reason.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or then you're in Ann Arbor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you realize that everyone's 18.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Really young.
Marc:That's an important moment to realize that I'm not in college.
Marc:I'm just not in college.
Guest:I like this too.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Running away works.
Guest:Sometimes you have to change it up.
Guest:New people, new restaurants, new laundromats, new barista, new life.
Guest:Yeah, the adage is true that wherever you go, there you are.
Guest:But you are in an entirely new setting.
Guest:It is new to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or at least the old one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A new context.
Guest:And that's not nothing.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:It's a good second best, I think.
Guest:I'll take it any day.
Guest:But, you know, after you've been on, I'm on this tour, I started April 2nd.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:And I've had... April Magee.
Marc:Oh, but you're a big act.
Marc:I mean, when you go on a book tour, it's like me going on a stand-up tour.
Marc:I mean, it's like, you know, you do big rooms, big crowds, a lot of demands.
Guest:Um... Okay.
Guest:When you eat that hot pepper... Yeah.
Guest:I got into bed and made the mistake of touching my balls.
Guest:This was the next level of the journey.
LAUGHTER
Guest:How did you not laugh when you were writing this?
Marc:I did.
Marc:I think I did.
Marc:I don't know if I laughed as much as I was satisfied.
Guest:Um...
Guest:I was just trying to get through this, this thing that was happening, this holocaust in my face from eating a hot pepper.
Guest:I got one the other night, and that's such a good description of it.
Guest:And going through the different stages of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, when you thought you had cancer of your mouth.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:uh that's not mouth cancer i couldn't have mouth cancer anger fuck i have mouth cancer yeah what else could it be bargaining god i know i don't really believe in you but please let this not be mouth cancer i will do anything depression i have mouth cancer it's over i wish i could die now then finally acceptance maybe i don't need my mouth
Guest:I'm telling you, I laughed so hard reading this book.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:I don't even know what to say.
Marc:I'm very excited and humbled by that.
Marc:Now I've got to tell the publisher about the cover.
Guest:Well, I just don't think you needed to be on the cover.
Marc:I mean, I think their fear is, oh, you know, I mean, it's probably been a while since you've been in that that game where it's like they're just hoping to God somebody will buy the book, you know, with that book in that I'm not a known quantity.
Marc:They could appreciate that I had these listeners.
Marc:I made the extended bestseller list for one week, and now I'm gone.
Marc:So I think that they were just hedging their bets.
Marc:They were saying anything that will get people to recognize this guy will be good to sell the book.
Guest:But how many bookie things did they do?
Guest:Like, I don't know.
Guest:I mean... Why did Terry Gross?
Guest:Oh, I heard you on Terry Gross.
Guest:I thought you were great on Terry Gross.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:I made her laugh.
Marc:Everyone was very excited that I got her to snort.
Marc:That seemed to be a big thing.
Marc:Did you talk for a long time?
Marc:We did, and I don't know if it was... She was having some technical difficulties at first, so there was a lot of this sort of like, we're in a new studio, and we'd start, and then we'd stop, and I didn't know if that was her...
Marc:thing that she did to to kind of you know to but i think it was genuine we talked for like we talked for a while she always seems to want to talk about dirty things with me i don't know why like she talked about porn with me and then she put it on the website she didn't put it in the the the episode proper
Guest:because she'll i mean sometimes she doesn't like to talk to you face to face like even if you're in philadelphia i did it face to face with her one time how was that well because i kind of had gone out you know we'd had dinner together oh really seen her here and there before so really yeah so it was a little bit different but still i think her fear is that you're going to look at her and she's going to be looking at her notes and you're going to think oh she's not listening to me but she is she's just looking at her does she have a fully formed personality in life
Marc:Did you talk to her about like, because when you listen to her and when I talk to her, she's very careful as to not let on anything almost about herself other than her interest.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, I met her husband.
Marc:I haven't been to her house before.
Marc:To me, that would have been like seeing a teacher out at a movie.
Right.
Guest:It was a little bit to me, too, because I'm not... Even if somebody says, oh, call me the next time you come to town, I always think, oh, then I'm going to call, and they're going to be like, God damn it, why did I give this guy my number?
Guest:Do you feel that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, all the time.
Marc:Sometimes I have people, even with you, you're over at my house, but if you were to say, give me a buzz, I'd be like, what am I going to call David Sedaris about?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are we going to do?
Marc:See, I would feel that same way.
Guest:With me?
Guest:I would feel that same way.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I don't do anything.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, my life is very simple.
Marc:You come over, we have coffee, I explain to why there's dishes, and that's my day.
Marc:Yeah, the dishes are dirty.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, because I hear, you know, I listen to your podcast, and so I hear you, and you know you're talking, and I know you go on tour, and you have your television show, and it just seems to me like you'd be very busy, and you wouldn't be able to remember half, you know, like most of the people you met.
Guest:No, I would remember you.
Guest:I think I see.
Marc:Look right on my bulletin board.
Marc:Do you see that postcard in the bottom left?
Marc:Right up there with the mic.
Marc:You sent me that.
Guest:Oh, after, because I think we talked.
Guest:On Air America.
Marc:On Air America.
Marc:And I saved that.
Marc:So I would definitely, you know, I wouldn't say like David who if you texted me.
Marc:I mean, I saved a postcard from four years ago.
Marc:Eight years ago.
Guest:That was a taxidermy collection in England that went on auction.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was so excited.
Guest:And it went for like Damien Hirst bought things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was super, super expensive.
Marc:And you were there?
Yeah.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:You could have people bid for you.
Guest:I just had no idea it would be that crazy.
Marc:Were you looking for something?
Guest:I love a thing like that.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Taxidermy things?
Guest:Well, that was really special.
Guest:Those are guinea pigs in a classroom.
Guest:But there were pieces that were like rabbits dressed up in costumes.
Guest:They were all done during the Victorian era.
Marc:People had absolutely no respect for animals at all.
Guest:Yeah, plus... It's dead, dress it up.
Guest:In a little costume or a little cape.
Guest:I'm sorry to keep doing this, but the chapter that you write about having a baby and your fears of having a baby, one of your fears is, the baby won't like me.
Guest:Don't babies like everyone?
Guest:Do they like everyone?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think babies will accept anybody, don't you?
Marc:I mean, I guess if you handle them properly.
Marc:I mean, I don't think they're really registering acceptance as much as they know they're eating now or they're being held by somebody that seems to care a little bit.
Guest:I mean, I worry about people not liking me, but I guess I just don't ever worry about...
Guest:Babies?
Guest:Not liking them.
Marc:How about three-year-olds?
Marc:Is that now a person?
Guest:I feel better when nature likes me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We have a bird in England that comes into our house.
Guest:How big?
Guest:It's a little robin.
Guest:It doesn't fly and bang against it.
Guest:It just walks into the house and hangs out for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Being recognized by nature makes me feel.
Guest:Oh, I see.
Guest:It makes me feel better than like a baby.
Guest:I never thought about it like that.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I have this beat up stray cat that comes every day.
Marc:You know, now I'm feeding him out front.
Marc:I can't touch him, but we clearly have an understanding.
Marc:I mean, he likes me, but he's got psychological problems.
Marc:He's not going to let me touch it.
Marc:And I respect that.
Marc:But I think he accepts me, or at least the food.
Guest:I liked your chapter in your book about cats because it doesn't seem to be about taming them.
Guest:You seem to accept that these are feral cats and that's the way it's going to go and kind of observe them.
Marc:Yeah, you can't tame them.
Marc:They come around eventually, but they're all a little crazy.
Marc:But there's nothing I can do about that.
Marc:It's one of the few things in my life where I can actually accept that I have no control over this particular situation.
Marc:And that's just going to be the way it's going to be.
Guest:Do you have a lot of squirrels here?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't deal with them at all.
Marc:I have no love for the squirrel.
Marc:I mean, if I see it eating there, there's moments where you're like, oh, that's cute, but there's something filthy about them, and I don't really like them.
Marc:Do you like them?
Guest:Well, I think it's different if you own a house.
Marc:I own this house.
Guest:Well, don't they get in, because they can tear up a house.
Marc:No, they're tree things.
Marc:The things that get into the house, I've got possums and skunks that live under the house.
Marc:I've had a skunk have babies under the house.
Marc:which is horrible, but it's not a dead thing.
Marc:Dead things are worse, but the skunk had babies, and it was awful for a month or so.
Marc:But then the babies come out, and there's no way you can't love skunk babies.
Marc:Four skunk babies eating the cat food with their tails up.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:I have no problem with skunks.
Marc:Possums, I got no love for the possum.
Marc:I mean, I don't resent it.
Marc:I don't hate it.
Marc:I feel bad for it.
Marc:Yeah, they're pretty ugly, aren't they?
Marc:Ugly, horrible, horrible ugly.
Marc:Do you know the first time I met you, do you know when it was?
Guest:Wasn't it at Air America?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:At Comedy Central?
Marc:No, it was in Aspen in maybe 1995.
Marc:You were there with Jackie Hoffman, David Barakoff, I think Amy was there, and you were doing the Comedy Festival, and you were doing a one-person show.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not a one-person show, a play.
Guest:We wrote a play called One Woman's Shoe.
Guest:One Woman's Shoe.
Marc:And that's what we were doing there.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Now, how far along into things was that for you?
Marc:Had you written many plays?
Guest:I think that was like the third or fourth play that we did.
Guest:And the one that kind of, we did, I did one when I first moved to New York and it was a theater for the new city and, you know, not many people came to see it.
Guest:But I hadn't started on the radio yet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just moved to New York.
Guest:And then we did one, there was one after that that I just kind of started on the radio.
Guest:And then we did Stitches and Stitches was the one that like really kind of.
Guest:Clicked?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because One Woman Shoe was interesting.
Guest:What was the premise of that thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Clinton was doing his welfare reform then.
Guest:And so the premise of the play was that if you were a woman, you couldn't get welfare or food stamps or SSI unless you learned to put on a one-woman show.
Guest:Just because it seemed like everyone had a one-person show then.
Guest:And I was just trying to think of a skill that would just be kind of worthless.
Guest:And so it was like putting on a one-woman show.
Guest:And David Rakoff was in it.
Guest:And yeah, Jackie Hoffman and Amy and Jody Lennon.
Marc:That was the first time I met any of them.
Marc:And you know, Jody is the Jody in that story, in the cats.
Guest:I didn't know that.
Marc:She lived downstairs from me in Astoria.
Marc:She's the one that came outside with me and helped me trap all of those cats.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:Yeah, that's Jody Lennon.
Marc:And the first time I met your sister was when they were doing Exit 57 because I was doing a short attention span theater in the same studio.
Marc:So we had offices next to each other.
Marc:So I met that whole crew there, Paul and Amy.
Marc:And I was all constantly ashamed of myself.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because I was hosting a silly show and they were doing something creative and exciting.
Marc:And I was throwing to clips.
Marc:You don't know that horror.
Marc:This next clip, that's something you've been able to avoid in your career.
Guest:But at that same time, were you doing Air America?
Marc:No, Air America didn't happen until 2004.
Marc:I mean, that show was in 1992.
Marc:So the social element or the political element of that show, you're not highly politicized in your writing, do you find?
Guest:No, because usually when I go on and do a show, usually I'm in theaters, right?
Guest:I mean, I'm on a book tour now, but usually I'm in theaters.
Sure.
Guest:And I figure like 98% of the audience voted the way I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it just feels like pandering.
Guest:You know, you can get up in front of the audience and you could say, you could say Mitt Romney's an idiot and people will applaud, but you didn't say anything clever.
Marc:No, that was, yeah.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:That was the whole problem with Air America for me is that like, who am I really talking to?
Marc:And the biggest problem about that kind of pandering is that sometimes you don't pander enough or more or specifically enough to one particular part of the liberal understanding.
Marc:So you can carry water for them, but they'll still be like, oh, you didn't really get into that thing with his limo driver.
Marc:Not enough.
Guest:I noticed I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was reading from the book and there's a story in which I mention CPAC.
Guest:And it's like, okay, I just say the word CPAC.
Guest:And there was another point in the story when I had to mention, oh gosh, I guess it was just a name that I had.
Guest:There was something similar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, no, I had to mention, I mentioned an anti-abortion billboard that I saw in Minnesota.
Right.
Guest:And I thought, so really, what would happen if everyone around you in the audience didn't know how you felt politically about CPAC or an anti-abortion billboard?
Guest:Nowhere else in the country does that happen.
Guest:Do you get that hissing?
Guest:And I wasn't even, like I wasn't saying that I...
Guest:I just said the words and context.
Guest:And I felt like, look, I'm going to take care of this.
Guest:You know, I mean, this is a setup and I'm reading about the anti-abortion.
Guest:I'm going to get to this and I'm going to do it a lot better than.
Guest:So why don't you just trust me?
Guest:Did you say that?
Guest:No, but I'm just thinking.
Guest:I never believe in stopping for any reason.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No.
Marc:Not to improvise at all?
Marc:No improvising?
Guest:No, I never.
Guest:Because it's inherently more interesting than what's on the page.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, what's on the page are just words and you were in a room alone and you arranged them just this way and those words are going to be the same tomorrow and the next day and 10 years from now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if you're stopping to confront someone, that's more interesting.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then trying to get back into the story is just too late.
Marc:It doesn't work.
Marc:So you don't want to upstage yourself.
Marc:With immediate engagement, because that has a... Right.
Marc:And that's really kind of like, I'm in a relationship now, whereas if I just read this, this is contextualized here.
Guest:And you can't get back into the story.
Marc:Like, I was reading... Well, then I'm doing it all wrong.
Guest:I don't like having my picture taken.
Marc:Yeah, why?
Guest:Because then you have to worry about a lot of other things.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like you have to think like, oh, what do my teeth look like?
Guest:Or what kind of face am I making?
Guest:I don't want to think that.
Guest:And so you'll be reading sometimes and you look up and you see someone with a video camera.
Guest:And so I want to stop and I want to say, what are you doing?
Guest:But then I might as well just not continue with the story.
Marc:Just continue the riff with the video guy?
Guest:But see, what you do and so many of your guests, and I find that so interesting, is I've never been heckled because I'm just reading.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this never happened to me.
Guest:And I don't understand people who do heckle performers.
Guest:And I don't... It would be so...
Guest:So make me so angry, you know, like you've got something you do and the timing is right there.
Guest:And then just right before you get to it, somebody does that and just ruins something you worked so hard on.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:They just take a shit right in your yard and you just got to sit there and look at it.
Marc:Yeah, I think that.
Marc:But that's the difference in what we do in that.
Marc:I think specifically for the reason why you avoid that type of interaction is the same reason why people feel comfortable to heckle one way or the other.
Marc:Because a lot of times hecklers just think like somehow or another they feel like you're speaking directly to them and they'll respond to such.
Marc:No, I don't think that's the way that works.
Marc:And it's not like they didn't try to sabotage your show.
Marc:They just had this reaction.
Marc:And because of the intimacy I create when I do a show, I mean, I've had to deal with that.
Marc:But sometimes you don't know what'll happen there.
Marc:That moment where you engage.
Marc:it could be amazing and sometimes it's worth sacrificing the rest of the material you know just to like if something real happens for me in a moment like when i do stand up that's the best thing that can happen uh you know me you know doing a joke i know works again okay well good that works again but hey that as opposed to like i had no idea that i would get into that crap like i had someone heckle me at the book event
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Book event.
Marc:Just the other day at Powell's.
Marc:I was about to read the baby's piece.
Marc:But see, I'm not doing it the same way you do.
Marc:I get up and I tell a story.
Marc:I talk about a lot of these people know me, so they expect the intimacy.
Marc:And I'm about to read the baby's story.
Marc:And there's a couple of babies in the audience.
Marc:I hate it when people bring babies.
Marc:Well, this one was a single mom, couldn't get a sitter.
Marc:She emailed me later.
Marc:She said, thank you for being so nice.
Marc:And then the other one had a kid or whatever.
Marc:But I bring up the baby singing.
Marc:Some woman's just sort of like, ugh, all right, here we go.
Marc:Like with this weird bitterness that clearly just the word babies had triggered some failure of hers or something.
Marc:And I said, what's the matter?
Marc:And she's like, you know, just do what you're going to do.
Marc:And I'm like, what's going on with you?
Marc:And she's like, I don't, you know, just go on, go on.
Marc:And I'm like, what, you're saying this relationship's over between us?
Marc:And, you know, that got a laugh.
Marc:So I was just riffing and whatever.
Marc:And it went by.
Marc:And then she asked a question at the end.
Marc:She's like, do you ever get afraid of the Jewish evil eye?
Marc:And I'm like, okay, what's happening here?
Marc:She was this woman that, you know, she ended up waiting around till the end to get her book signed and talk to me.
Marc:And her questions were revolving around like, do you feel like because you're successful now that some vengeful Jewish God is going to make your life horrible again?
Marc:And then she asked me, do you ever question the authenticity of your Jewishness?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know, you know, it became this long thing, but for some reason I thrive on that, and I just described your biggest nightmare to you.
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:For that to happen, I mean, I always have a Q&A at the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the time to do that.
Guest:That's the time.
Guest:But sometimes they want to put microphones in the audience, and I don't like that, because there's a certain kind of person who goes up to the microphone.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't like that person.
Marc:Why?
Guest:Who is that person?
Guest:They want the microphone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's my microphone, and they want it.
Guest:So this way, if somebody... I just prefer to repeat the question.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:I do it that way.
Guest:But I like Q&A, and it's the same thing.
Guest:When you're into it, it doesn't really matter what the question is.
Guest:If there's something I want to talk about, I just kind of plug that into it, and it's my little opportunity to...
Guest:You know, run my mouth about, I don't know, whatever happened that day or something that I've been working on, a little theory I've been testing.
Marc:Doesn't that bring you gratification?
Marc:Isn't that moment, the improvised moment, as exciting or if not more so than reading something that you know works?
Guest:Yeah, but I guess it's just not what I'm there for.
Marc:Oh, so you're looking at a job responsibility.
Guest:Well, sometimes I'll write down something I talked about on stage and I'll think, wow, that worked.
Guest:Maybe I could write that down and have it work.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:There's something about just it being spoken.
Guest:Certain things.
Guest:They're not stories.
Guest:They don't have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Guest:It's just something to kind of...
Guest:was talk about was it was your moment with somebody on a microphone is that based on like did something happen i mean there are there things that have happened uh in terms of where you're like that guy we can't have that happen again whatever just happened well one time i was at a bookstore event it was a bookstore event and i didn't know the bookstore manager had a microphone and so i'm answering questions and then she says all right then if anybody wants a book signed she cut me off right right and and you don't
Guest:just end the Q&A you don't just look at your watch and end it you end with a certain kind of question you know you end it it has an ending it doesn't stop and she stopped it rather than me ending it and I was so angry and I most people I'm really angry at have no idea that I'm angry I wish I could be more diplomatic but I just said to like the assistant manager of the bookstore I said I hate her and I'm never ever going to talk to her or look her in the eye again laughing
Guest:Ooh, punishment.
Guest:Punishment.
Guest:And have you held to that promise?
Guest:No, but bookstore went out of business.
Guest:It wasn't that hard.
Guest:It went out of business, and I felt a little bit responsible for that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:But did you feel any satisfaction from that?
Guest:Oh, complete.
Guest:Because she cut me off during my Q&A.
Marc:But it seems that you have the, you're certain, there's a fine line between, you know, sort of, you know, active and managing, you know, OCD and being sort of a complete control freak, is there?
Guest:Well, I mean, a lot of times, I mean, don't get me wrong.
Guest:I love a book tour.
Guest:I love going on a book tour.
Guest:But sometimes they have a way, like I always get to the store a couple hours early, right?
Guest:Like last night, I signed books for eight hours.
Guest:Eight hours?
Guest:That's not the reading.
Guest:That was sitting on my ass signing books.
Marc:After?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So you did it during the day, I'm assuming.
Marc:We're not talking three in the morning.
Guest:Yeah, it was a daytime event.
Guest:Sometimes it's a night event, but I did it during the day.
Guest:But I got there late, so I got there an hour early.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I carried on for 45 minutes, and then for seven hours after that, I signed more books.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And it was a great bookstore.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you do it?
Marc:What's your name?
Marc:Do you put their name?
Marc:Or do you just… Oh, yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I mean, I tried… Someone gave me a book of stickers.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'd never seen them in a book like that.
Guest:It was like a big, thick paperback book full of stickers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I worked with that all night.
Guest:Like, there was a sticker of a log, right?
Yeah.
Guest:My publicist was there and she heard me saying to people, do you have a blog?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so eventually I met someone who had a blog.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then I wrote A and then I wrote a B and then I put the log in their book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So blogger and then I wrote ER.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a blogger in California.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:Silly stuff like that.
Guest:I just completely enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Completely enjoy it.
Guest:And I'm always looking for things to sign in books.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you talk to people?
Guest:Oh, completely.
Guest:I talk to them so much that they look at their watches.
Guest:Oh, so you're like, okay, I got to go.
Guest:They're like, I got to go.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Because I would never...
Guest:I was doing an event a while ago and somebody kind of swooped in.
Guest:And I didn't ask them to.
Guest:And they swooped in and they started taking books out of people's hands and putting them in front of me and then handing the books back and then saying, thank you for coming.
Guest:But I just asked that person a question.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:When was the last time you had chicken salad?
Guest:Thank you very much for coming.
Guest:And I would die if I was that person.
Marc:You feel rude by proximity.
Marc:That happened to me the other night where they were rushing people along.
Marc:And I'm like, it's okay.
Guest:Who's that for?
Marc:Yeah, but they think they're helping you out because what happens is they get into a series of writers that come who are bogged down or not sociable and they've had to manage this line because they've had some whiny prima donna writer.
Marc:So it's not had nothing to do with you.
Marc:They think they're helping you out.
Guest:Well, it used to be that I would not be able to do anything about that, and I would just feel helpless.
Guest:It took me a long time to be able to say, well, actually, I didn't handle this very well.
Guest:I should have said, that is so kind of you, but I really don't need the help right now.
Guest:Instead, I just let it go on, and then I started getting really angry at myself, and then I said, I think you should go home now.
Guest:Like that.
Yeah.
Marc:So the fight had been going on in your mind for a while.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That relationship had started when she did that or he did that.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:But now, I mean, I've been doing this long enough that I go into the bookstore.
Guest:Like sometimes I'll get there, you know, I'll get there two hours early if I'm on time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they'll say, well, we'll bring you into the back.
Guest:And it's like, no, there would be nothing for me to do back there.
Guest:I came here to start signing books for people who are already here.
Guest:So sometimes you just have to say to people...
Guest:You know, really trust me on this and this is a way I think we can do this that will keep me the happiest.
Marc:Yeah, they always think they're deferring.
Marc:They just want to treat the celebrity with as much respect as possible.
Marc:And sometimes you're like, I'll go out into the room.
Marc:I don't, you know, I like that.
Guest:When I first moved to New York, I went and saw Wallace Shawn.
Guest:He did, it wasn't The Fever.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:It was a one-man show that Wallace Shawn was doing.
Guest:He was doing it La Mama.
Guest:And I just moved to New York.
Guest:And I went, and there was Wallace Shawn shaking everybody's hand as I walked into the theater.
Guest:And I thought, that is so smart.
Guest:Because when the show started, I thought, I know him.
Guest:or at least I'd met him I would have forgiven him anything because he shook my hand before I mean some people I understand they're like mysterious and they're going to come out on stage and they're going to disappear and it's best for everybody that way but I mean for me it's not necessary so I like being out there beforehand and meeting people who are in the audience and seeing who's going to you know when I do a theater show I sign books beforehand too because I just want to see who's in the house and I just want to talk to them
Marc:Do you ever have that moment where you're like, oh, that guy looks like he might be a problem?
Guest:I try to keep it dark, you know, keep the lights dark so I don't see anything.
Guest:But like a few weeks ago, I was at a college and the lights didn't get as dim as I wanted them to be.
Guest:So I could see the first four rows.
Guest:And I said, I was doing the sound check and I said, oh, I see there's a seat reserved for the dean, right?
Guest:And so...
Guest:Oh, yeah, the dean's going to be here.
Guest:So I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to curse.
Guest:I'm not going to curse in front of the dean.
Guest:And the dean hated me.
Guest:Like the whole time, the dean's like looking at his watch.
Guest:And so I'm just focused on him.
Guest:I'm not focused on the people who are having a good time.
Guest:And I wasted the whole evening.
Guest:If the dean didn't like me anyway...
Guest:Then I might as well have... Performed for the rest of the people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But are you making assumptions?
Marc:I mean, the guy looking at his watch, was he like... Was he like exasperated?
Guest:He looked like the way I look like in London.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:When I'm waiting for a bus and then I'm waiting for the 49 bus.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And three 49s go together in a herd on the other side of the street.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like just...
Guest:Furious.
Guest:And now it's going to take forever.
Guest:That's what he looked like.
Guest:The Dean.
Marc:The fact that you're already censoring yourself because the Dean, like, what do you think's going to happen?
Marc:Who is that guy?
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:I thought, well, I'll be disrespectful for the Dean.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm in a college.
Marc:He seems to be in charge here.
Marc:He's the warden.
Marc:But La Mama, see, I think, when did you get to New York?
Marc:1990.
Marc:Because I was there in 89 through 91, and then I went back in like 94 or so.
Marc:And I think that that world of, you know, the excitement of that place, what exactly was that place?
Marc:Because I don't remember ever actually going there, but I know you worked with them a lot.
Marc:And it seems like that type of theater is not as vital as it once was, like almost anything in New York.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the place that we had, maybe it was like a 200-seat black box theater.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was La Mama ETC.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so I did something there.
Guest:And then Amy and I did a play there.
Guest:And then they just said, this is whatever you want to do anything, you just tell us.
Guest:And then it just became kind of our clubhouse.
Guest:And it was fantastic.
Guest:And you could only, because there's a nonprofit place, shows could only run for so long.
Guest:I think they were only allowed to run for like three weeks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:but they would extend us and extend and then say, oh, you know, the place is going to be empty in August.
Guest:You can have August too.
Guest:And so it was just what we'd hoped for, you know, just a little... A place where you could work stuff out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it had a reputation, it had a name.
Marc:It was sort of like, even if it wasn't the main theater, there was a cutting edge element to La Mama as a brand at that time, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then the stuff that they were doing was a lot more... We were just doing silly shows.
Marc:But when you say silly, I mean, it's still theater.
Marc:I mean, how do you... I mean, you were writing plays, right?
Marc:You saw them as plays.
Guest:Yeah, but to me, I guess I would think of...
Guest:I mean, I wouldn't, you know, there are people who I would think of as a playwright.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I would be embarrassed to call myself that in front of them.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Even now?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, they're like, these were, take my word for it, they were like silly shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's nothing wrong with a silly show.
Guest:Like one woman's shoe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what were the other ones?
Guest:There was one called... The last one we called... We had one called The Little Freedom Mysteries.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That was big, though, right?
Marc:Amy really shined in that, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then the last one was The Book of Liz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was the last one we did.
Guest:And... Oh, we did one at Lincoln Center.
Guest:We were invited to the Lincoln Center Festival one year.
Guest:So we did one called Incident at Cablo's Knob.
Guest:And...
Guest:They were, we would get together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then have a script and then read through the script.
Marc:Who would write it?
Marc:You and Amy?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then panic and just think, wow, that's awful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is just awful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was just written over a bong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just completely written over a bong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and then we would say okay we open in three weeks yeah so it was really a collaborative effort you know I mean everybody everybody because look you got Jackie Hoffman in a show yeah sure you know Jackie Hoffman if she can come up with something better let her do it
Guest:On her feet than what I spent all night, a line I spent all night on.
Guest:Let's go with Jackie's line.
Guest:Because otherwise, what does it get you?
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:To be the bully that way.
Guest:Not the bully, but you know what I mean.
Guest:Control.
Guest:To be the control freak that way.
Guest:So it was really like a kind of a Christopher Guest kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Collaborative.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when you started working with Amy, when did that really start to, when did you guys really start to do that?
Marc:I mean, how did you know you were going to, I mean, I know you grew up with her and she's your sister and everything.
Guest:We did something in Chicago.
Guest:I moved to Chicago in 1984.
Marc:And was she at Second City?
Guest:No, she was living in Raleigh.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And then I went to Second City and then I wrote to her and said, you should come here and look at this place, Second City.
Guest:So she came and then she moved to Chicago.
Guest:You were part of it, the Second City?
Marc:You just went to look at it?
Guest:Yeah, I just went to look at it.
Marc:And you thought she would dig it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because she was just living in Raleigh and she was just...
Guest:I don't think a person like that would have stayed in Raleigh for the rest of her life, but she just needed a little nudge, I think.
Guest:And then she and I did something in Chicago at a place one time after she had lived there for a few years.
Guest:It was just like a germ of a little silly show.
Marc:And what were you doing?
Marc:What were you doing at the time?
Guest:I went to art school.
Guest:I went to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Guest:To study what?
Guest:Painting and sculpture.
Guest:But I was writing when I got there.
Guest:And then after I was there for a while, I looked around me and I thought, I saw people who were really talented.
Guest:And I thought, I don't have their talent.
Guest:It's not just that I didn't have their talent.
Guest:I didn't care the way that they cared.
Marc:But could you imagine dedicating your life to sculpture?
Marc:I mean, seriously.
Marc:I mean, painting even.
Marc:I mean, painting, at least there's some romantic notion that you may be able to tap into something that might resonate with a large group of people.
Marc:But I never really understood how someone could be like, I'm just going to work with wire.
Guest:Well, what I would do, my thing was I took wind-up toys apart and then I encased the motors in wood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and I made models of human hearts, and then you would wind them up, and where before it would be a panda playing a drum, now it would just sort of flop.
Guest:It was like a bird that had hit the window and was just sort of flopping around the ground, and it wasn't rhythmic, and it was just painful to look at.
Guest:So that's what I was making.
Guest:So it wasn't like just with wire.
Guest:I was using some balsa wood and some...
Guest:but at some point were you looking as what are these things flopping around going like this is it i mean this is what i can do i i think well i've been writing but no one ever saw anything that i wrote and then and then i read something in class one day yeah in a sculpture class it was part of my piece and i don't know if people laughed and i thought that feels better than anything i've ever done
Marc:What was the piece, though?
Marc:How did that work?
Marc:It wasn't a heart.
Guest:No, in art school, you have these critiques.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so you put your work up and you talk about it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people would talk, but they would talk as if they were talking to a therapist.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And so I just wrote a little thing.
Guest:It was a little monologue about why my paintings weren't better.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was just blaming everyone in my life, just a character's life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was short.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:people laughed killed huh yeah it did and i thought you know i mean i'd said and it just felt great so you were there with a piece of paper next to your painting and you're like yeah you were able to sort of go back and forth in that moment maybe not consciously but to realize like you know this just resonated immediately immediately that people can't even understand what's up here on the wall and i'm not sure i do
Guest:Or, you know, you're not there for it.
Guest:I think that's the difference.
Guest:Like if you do a funny painting, you're not there for it.
Guest:So it might be in the gallery or something and people might laugh, but you're not getting that response.
Guest:And then I realized, no, if I have something published in the New Yorker, I'm not getting that response either.
Guest:I don't know if someone's at home and they're getting it and I don't know what noise they're making.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when I go on tour, I like to be on stage and I like to hear that.
Guest:I always feel like, well, maybe the better person doesn't need to hear it.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So that was just something you had to rise above.
Marc:I mean, you're writing these things and you know, I mean, I can't imagine that you write something for the New Yorker and just say like, you know, no, I feel okay about it.
Marc:And you wait until you can finally read it in front of people to go like, yeah, it was good.
Marc:It was good.
Guest:Well, like I'm closing something with them now, right?
Guest:So that means like today, like I was in the back of a car and they're sending me little changes and stuff.
Guest:And so I added three lines.
Guest:And I read this story when I was on the lecture part of the tour that I'm on right now.
Guest:I probably read the story like 35 times.
Guest:But I didn't have a chance to read those three new lines.
Guest:So I'm kind of nervous about that because I don't know.
Guest:What if I read those three lines out loud and then they don't feel right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would have preferred to have done it the other way, but what can you do?
Guest:At least it's only three lines and it's not a whole story.
Marc:But you workshop stuff like that, right?
Marc:I mean, I've been told that you, so like in my mind, you strike me as somebody who is like a performer at heart that, you know, like even though you're writing funny stuff, when you read them publicly to see if the laugh is where you want it to be, I mean, that's a comedian's game in a way.
Marc:I'm not sure that a lot of people work like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I love reading it out loud.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:But you've actually, you know, you've taken notes and said like, well, I got to, you know, this joke is one beat off.
Marc:Like the stuff you read from my book, you know, two of those, or maybe at least the one where she took her vagina and left, that was a beat.
Marc:I mean, I did that on stage.
Marc:I know that beat.
Marc:You know, the other one, my dick cried.
Marc:That wasn't.
Marc:But I mean, you can't lose with a crying dick.
Marc:No, you can't.
Yeah.
Marc:But I'm sort of fascinated with the idea that structurally you'll determine their comedic poignancy on reading them out loud before they're published.
Marc:How often do you get an opportunity to do that?
Marc:Do you actually tour with all new material ever?
Guest:yeah i mean i always try to but a couple things that i put in the in the book the new book they i wrote them at the kind of last minute and so i went to boston for a week and i was just in a smaller theater than i would normally be in right and it was billed as a work in progress and then i went to denver for a week and so again they were it was billed as a as a work in progress and so i worked on stories i kind of pounded on them
Guest:So that's great.
Marc:I mean, but that's so that, you know, that kind of puts you in like outside of the the the writing world.
Marc:I mean, that's a that's a really a performance artist game.
Marc:I mean, in a way that like Spalding Gray comes to mind.
Marc:You know, I'd go see him and I'd see Boghossian sometimes when I was living in New York.
Marc:And they would be workshopping stuff.
Marc:And then, you know, you could see it two or three times.
Marc:And by the time the final thing is done, it's like, what happened to that guy that you were doing?
Marc:Or where's that whole chunk on that?
Marc:It's gone.
Marc:Did you ever meet Spaldinger?
Marc:No, I didn't.
Marc:I wish I did.
Marc:I talked to his widow recently.
Marc:It was kind of a weird, why did I talk to her?
Marc:Was it an email thing?
Guest:She's a lecture agent, I think.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But she saw me somewhere, you know, because I had done a bit on my last album about him that I was in New York and I was in an elevator and I saw somebody that looked exactly like Spaulding Gray.
Marc:And my first thought was like, you pulled it off.
Marc:Secret's good with me.
Marc:I'm not going to tell anyone.
Marc:Looking forward to the show.
Marc:You know, and I told her that.
Marc:You know, because I was sort of nervous because, you know, when she... I can't remember what the interaction was.
Marc:I get bogged down with stuff.
Marc:And she says, I thought that for weeks.
Marc:Like, she really didn't.
Marc:It was hard for her to believe as well.
Marc:Did you meet him?
Guest:I met him a couple times, but just, you know, like at Aspen, you know.
Guest:Probably that same year, right?
Guest:Or in New York.
Guest:But every time I met him, he would be... He would say something, and I thought, how many times today did you say that?
Guest:Like...
Guest:Like I could get the idea that he was working on something.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Guest:And I do that sometimes and I don't like that about myself.
Marc:You try a joke a couple times?
Guest:Or when you're with somebody and all of a sudden you realize you're not really connecting to that person.
Guest:You're just kind of performing in front of that person.
Guest:I hate it when I do that.
Marc:Because you feel kind of beside yourself in a way.
Marc:I know the feeling and I don't know why it happens necessarily.
Marc:I don't do it that often.
Guest:It happens on tour a lot because you're just... With a bookstore owner or something?
Guest:Yeah, or somebody's driving you from place to place.
Marc:Yeah, I always wonder what's the better thing to do there?
Marc:Do I just not say anything?
Marc:I've had a lot of those lately where I get in and I'm a little aggravated and there's a driver there and he starts and I'm like, I can't do the interview right now.
Marc:I can't be interviewed right now.
Guest:by you well i usually try to do it the other way what i was always surprised about though is a number of because i never learned to drive a car so to this day yeah so i'm driven around quite often you know when i'm on tour why didn't you learn how to drive a car i mean i never i i how'd you avoid that you live in the south i got a driver's license i mean i got a permit and then i hit a mailbox and i thought that's it the next time i hit something it's gonna be a child
Marc:You wrote about that, didn't you?
Guest:So I'm never ever going to do it again.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How do you manage all the fear that you have of little things?
Marc:I mean, I ride a bike.
Marc:You ride a bike?
Marc:I'm not afraid of bike riding.
Marc:How much pain could you cause if you hit a guy on a bike?
Marc:You drive.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I've been driving a long time.
Marc:I mean, in Albuquerque, you get your license when you were, when I was growing up, you were like 15 and there you were in a car.
Marc:And I wrecked a couple, but I didn't kill anybody.
Marc:I didn't, you know, I mean, I do think about that more lately.
Marc:I have a profound fear of it right now for some reason that someone's going to step in front of my car or that there's a moment that you can have in your life.
Marc:That's completely out of your control.
Marc:That's accidental.
Marc:That'll change everything.
Marc:Everything.
Marc:Just like that.
Marc:You know?
Marc:That stuff scares me.
Guest:The worst would be if you were drunk, though.
Marc:Horrible.
Marc:I don't drink anymore, so that's gone.
Marc:So that's not going to happen.
Marc:Just be stupid.
Marc:I'd be texting somebody.
Guest:oh but the drivers yeah it's just interesting to me how many of them will say oh no you know i had i was working in the you know the software industry and i just realized one day you know that i just wasn't smelling the flowers and it's like really so you decided instead to drive someone to the airport at five o'clock in the morning
Marc:I just love the number of times you... Yeah, I don't mind that so much.
Marc:Like, it's a lot easier for me to be in that position.
Marc:Like, I feel bad when I don't feel like talking.
Marc:But a lot of times, maybe it's because I do this.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:But a couple recently...
Marc:Some dude told me like, you know, why he was driving was because his wife of 35 years just said she didn't love him anymore and she was leaving and she was the breadwinner in the family.
Marc:So now he's going to lose part of his income and he doesn't know how to explain it to his kids.
Marc:He was hanging on to hope that maybe they could work it out and they went to a therapist.
Marc:But then he found out that it was really a divorce counseling therapist.
Marc:It was a therapist to help people leave the other person.
Marc:And now he's just doing this because his whole business is gone.
Marc:He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do.
Marc:It was this heartbreaking thing.
Marc:But being divorced myself, I could kind of chime in sympathetically a couple times.
Marc:And at the end, I felt like we should hug, that there was crying necessary.
Marc:It was very bizarre.
Marc:And then there was another guy where you get these...
Marc:Like that, life stories.
Marc:But yeah, like, you know, how do you end up, you know, a lot of them are sort of like, well, now I can make my own hours.
Marc:You know, I don't have that much responsibility.
Marc:It's not my car.
Marc:Another guy who drove, who drove me in New York, he was like, his wife had died of cancer.
Marc:And it was almost like, it seemed like his driving was just actively running away from something, you know, like it was, it was brutal.
Guest:But I had a guy one morning and he said, you know, he said, I had Garrison Keillor in my car.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He gave me a hundred dollar tip for a ride to the airport.
Guest:And I thought, okay, he told me it was five o'clock in the morning.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So maybe Garrison Keillor thought it was a $10 bail or a $20 bail.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But that's not fair.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, tell me that somebody, so you're going to make me feel cheap if I give you anything less than $100 for a ride to the airport.
Guest:You're a pretty big writer guy.
Guest:Where's my, what do you got?
Guest:And then I had another guy and he was saying, he was a Palestinian and he lived in Austin, Texas and he had a rental property.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I said, I have a rental property too.
Guest:I said, what's your tenant like?
Guest:So he told me and I told him what my tenant like.
Guest:He said, where's yours?
Guest:And I said, it's in Paris.
Guest:I said, it's just a little studio we rented out.
Guest:We have this woman who's been living there.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:He drops me off at the airport.
Guest:I go through security and I hear my name.
Guest:Well, David Sedaris, pick up the white courtesy phone and it's him.
Guest:And he says, would you ever sell me that rental property in Paris?
Guest:And I said, well, I said, you know, we're pretty happy with it.
Guest:And he says, let me just give you my number in case you change your mind.
Guest:And then I said, okay, great.
Guest:And then he said, read it back to me.
Guest:And of course, I hadn't written his number down.
Guest:And I said, I'm so glad you said that because I can't read my handwriting.
Guest:Because I got my satchel in one hand.
Guest:Give it to me one more time.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:Yeah, he gave it to me one more time.
Guest:And I wrote it down because I was afraid he was going to ask me again to read it out loud to him.
Marc:That's an afterthought.
Marc:The guy pulled over.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Pulled over, he had to call you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Call the airport.
Marc:What do you think the urgency was?
Marc:I know it.
Marc:It's bizarre.
Marc:Was that the house you lived in when you lived in Paris?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:We got a little apartment for my boyfriend here.
Guest:We got an apartment for his mother.
Guest:And then this little studio next to her opened up.
Guest:And so we bought it so we could just...
Guest:Eventually when we sell it, we could sell the whole floor.
Guest:So we just inherited a tenant and she's great.
Guest:Now when you go, see being an expatriate, would you call yourself that?
Guest:I don't like that word.
Guest:I think it's kind of a romantic word.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So no, I mean it makes it sound like, I wasn't mad at the United States when I left.
Guest:No, no, expatriate, yeah.
Guest:Bill Clinton was president.
Guest:I was fine with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I, uh, we were going to be gone for a year and one turned into two.
Guest:And, you know, now I have in the UK, I have my green card and I can get my passport whenever I want.
Marc:In the UK.
Marc:But you can, but you always remain an American citizen.
Marc:So now you're, you're, you're a citizen in both places.
Marc:You can have an American passport or a British passport.
Marc:Is that the way that works?
Guest:Well, you can have both in England.
Guest:Like in Germany, it's really hard to have two passports.
Guest:In some countries it's hard to have two, but in England, yeah, you can have two.
Marc:Did you do research in Germany?
Marc:Did you want to live there?
Marc:I'd love to move to Germany.
Marc:Why?
Guest:I love Germany.
Marc:I don't know anything about it.
Guest:You know, it's odd.
Guest:As I get older, I really like places where people follow the rules.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:As long as the rules are okay?
Guest:I like Japan.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:I like Japan.
Guest:People stand on one side of the escalator and they stand in line to get on the subway and they don't just charge on there when the doors are open.
Guest:They don't put their feet up on the seats.
Marc:So everything's just chaos to you as you get older.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:There's no respect or order here.
Marc:So New York must be just exhausting for you.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It is now.
Guest:I mean, I'll move for any reason.
Guest:I mean, I'm not one of those people that... I love moving.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love everything about it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I love packing the boxes.
Guest:I like labeling them.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:There's no part of you that thinks like, oh my God.
Guest:It's not that hard.
Guest:No?
Guest:It's not hard to take stuff off the shelf.
Marc:That causes me a tremendous amount of anxiety.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Tremendous.
Marc:Like, it's paralyzing.
Marc:Like, in my mind, if I didn't have this girlfriend, I wouldn't leave this place.
Marc:I'd die here.
Marc:Why would I go anywhere?
Marc:I don't need more than the room.
Marc:How much do I need?
Marc:It's, like, terrifying to me.
Marc:Yet, you won't get behind the wheel of a car, and I can't leave my garage.
Marc:These are different things.
Marc:But I wonder if they're somewhere somehow.
Marc:Why do you like moving?
Guest:It's exciting.
Guest:I mean, I like moving to...
Guest:i like it moving to another country too because then like a couple years ago i decided to quit smoking right so how's that going you know i smoked for 30 years yeah and i smoked a lot and i wanted to quit and i decided let's say in november i decided to quit so i moved to tokyo yeah and so i went to tokyo and i rented an apartment in tokyo for three months and my boyfriend went with me
Guest:And I went to Japanese school when I got to Tokyo.
Guest:And, you know, if I just decided at home I'm going to quit smoking and then I would sit at my desk the next morning and I would think, oh, this is ridiculous.
Guest:Give me that cigarette.
Guest:But I was in a whole new apartment.
Guest:I was in a whole other language.
Guest:It was a whole new me.
Guest:It was what we said.
Guest:It was like running away work.
Guest:So I went and I quit smoking and I haven't had a cigarette.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's been like six years now and I don't even think about it.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Because I eat nicotine lozenges constantly.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I haven't smoked in like 10 years.
Marc:Are you on any other medicine?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I don't have to take anything.
Guest:I brought all these lozenges with me when I went over there and patches, but I didn't use any of them.
Marc:It just went.
Marc:You were done.
Marc:You were done.
Guest:I told myself that when I was born, I was allotted a certain number of cigarettes and that I smoked them all.
Guest:If I had smoked more slowly, I would still be doing it.
Guest:But I smoked all my cigarettes and I took all my drugs too.
Guest:All my drugs I took.
Marc:They're done.
Guest:Yeah, I can't have any more.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Other people, you know, they haven't even touched their allotment yet.
Marc:How do you know what your allotment is?
Marc:Do you just know when you're done?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There wasn't a number on it.
Marc:You knew when you were done.
Marc:You just hit your limit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And if you'd gone one over, you'd be like, oh, this is horrendous.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then it would have been a huge... Then I would have had a hangover for the rest of my life, I think.
Marc:If you'd done one more.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Guest:But yeah, I think it helps to have some kind of little story, don't you?
Marc:I guess.
Marc:I mean, for me, it's just sort of like, oh, what is that pain?
Yeah.
Marc:Is that going to go away?
Marc:Did I go too far?
Marc:I don't have a narrative around that other than you get to a point with the cigarettes where I'm like, this is stupid.
Marc:I'm too old for this shit.
Marc:I can't breathe.
Marc:It becomes impossible to rationalize the pleasure of them when you can't breathe.
Guest:Well, I did.
Guest:Only reason I quit was because all the good hotels went non-smoking.
Guest:And if someone else is paying for your room, and you're at the Ameris Suites, five miles outside of town, instead of being at the Four Seasons... In town.
Guest:Yeah, I had a problem with that.
Guest:And so that's why I quit.
Guest:You know, like you wrote in your book, you'd mention making your own waffles a thousand times.
Guest:The best.
Guest:And I thought, oh my God, what kind of places are they putting him?
Guest:Those are places where there are like seven billboards on the desk when you walk in.
Guest:Those fold up things, advertising.
Guest:And I don't know, I didn't mean for it to happen, but I became like hotels started mattering to me.
Marc:Well, yeah, they matter to me, too, but for different reasons.
Marc:You know, I don't... Like, I still have part of me where you look at the... Like, I was recently put up at the London in New York.
Marc:And I was given a per diem, which to me is a big deal.
Marc:You know, like, that they trust you enough not to be the guy that's sort of like...
Guest:I'll get it.
Marc:You know, like, give me a per diem to eat.
Marc:And I brought my girlfriend with me.
Marc:And even then, when we ordered room service, we just wanted coffee and maybe a bagel for breakfast.
Marc:And then I'm signing a thing for $50.
Marc:I'm like, this is fucking ridiculous.
Marc:And it's not even my money.
Marc:But I'm like, it's unjust.
Marc:It doesn't make sense.
Marc:They should be ashamed of themselves.
Marc:So then I started sort of calculating a way to spend all this money on one big, beautiful dinner.
Marc:Why waste it on bagels when we could just go outside?
Marc:So I have a weird thing with that.
Marc:And with the buffet thing, for me, like if I'm on the road, if I can have a hotel where I can wake up before 10 and all that stuff's just out there, I love buffets, even if they're shitty.
Marc:Just the idea that I can just linger and like, maybe I will have some cereal and then sit there for a little longer.
Marc:It's like, well, that oatmeal doesn't look good, but it's right there.
Marc:It's free.
Marc:And they have the frozen berries.
Marc:I like that.
Guest:The London just has those little ironing boards.
Guest:Ironing boards.
Guest:I didn't even look for one.
Guest:Yeah, they just have little ones.
Guest:I need a big ironing board.
Marc:So that's a deal breaker with you.
Marc:That's in the writer.
Guest:Well, it's a consideration for me.
Guest:I mean, sometimes you go to a hotel and it's a nice hotel, but they don't have, it's not a hotel for me.
Guest:How about power strips?
Marc:I mean, do you ever go to a hotel and there's not enough plugs?
Marc:Oh, all the time, yeah.
Marc:How can't they get that shit together?
Marc:I don't understand that at all.
Marc:Some people I've spoken to bring their own power strips.
Yeah.
Marc:it's genius plenty of thing to pack i mean like i haven't done it yet but it's only a matter of time so all right your sister is doing well uh-huh i saw her she was in my show not too long ago the live one i love her always loved her the other the brother paul is he doing all right
Guest:Yeah, I finished this tour and then I rented a house on the coast of North Carolina.
Guest:So I'm going to go there with my family for a week.
Guest:That would be nice.
Guest:With the two sisters and your brother?
Guest:I have four sisters and a brother.
Guest:And then my brother has a daughter.
Guest:And your dad's still around?
Guest:My dad's 90.
Guest:90?
Guest:90 years old.
Marc:Do you feel good about it?
Guest:You know, he's never forgotten anyone's name.
Guest:He drives.
Guest:He does his own cooking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's 90.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's, and he lives by himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom died.
Guest:He never remarried.
Guest:And, you know, he's the same.
Guest:He's kind of like, you know, become saturated.
Guest:You know, I mean, like become more of himself as he gets older.
Marc:Yeah, all the fronts diminish in a way, or there's a vulnerability to getting older, I guess, that wasn't there necessarily before.
Guest:Well, you know, my dad was always a Republican, but it was just about money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so now, you know, he listens to Rush Limbaugh, and he watches Fox News, and then he started feeling like maybe he wasn't conservative enough.
Marc:Enough?
Guest:I thought you were going to go the other way.
Guest:Yeah, so he started rethinking.
Guest:a couple of issues you know which ones oh like abortion and gay rights and gay rights like in north carolina they had that amendment one an amendment one like gay marriage was illegal and the amendment one made it super extra special extra illegal my unconstitutional my father could not wait to tell me he voted for it couldn't wait
Guest:knowing that you're gay yeah yeah and i said why would you vote for that yeah and he said well you got these some girls go to college and they don't don't even know and it's like are you talking about college lesbians like who who put this in your head because he listens to his crackpot radio and so i guess it made sense at the time you know he heard something that made what was he talking about
Guest:College lesbians.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:You know, like girls go off to college and sometimes they experiment and stuff.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:So I guess he's worried that they're going to decide to get married and then wake up in graduate school and decide they're not really lesbians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, so what?
Guest:They just get a divorce and marry guys.
Guest:But do you think it was specifically to bait you?
Guest:Maybe, but then he got frustrated when I tried to argue with him.
Guest:He just said, I don't have to explain myself to you.
Guest:So normally we don't talk about things like that, you know, because there's really there's not there's not any point.
Guest:I'm not going to change his mind.
Guest:And it just makes me sad to think because I always thought when growing up, I just thought that that's once you got old like that, you became conservative.
Guest:But like Hugh, my boyfriend, his parents weren't like that.
Guest:And when we lived in France, the people across the road from us in Normandy were my dad's age and they were communists.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, communist.
Marc:Well, that was, it's a little easier to do that in Europe.
Marc:I mean, it doesn't have the same stigma collectively as it does in America, you know, being communist.
Marc:I had a great aunt and uncle who were American communists.
Marc:They had money.
Marc:I think it's easier to be a communist when you have money.
Marc:But, you know, they fought, you know, they used to entertain Angela Davis at their house.
Marc:And they were part of all the causes in the late 60s and early 70s.
Marc:And what they identified as communist.
Marc:I never knew it until we used to always go to their house, my father's aunt and uncle.
Marc:And we'd go to their house and they'd show us slides from their trips.
Marc:And it wasn't until years later that I remembered that, you know, I think we saw slides from Russia, Cuba.
Marc:Chomp, wow.
Marc:It was like, wow, these are great places, but they were all communist countries, and I never put it together.
Marc:But do you find, I mean, the way you write about your father, he's still somewhat endearing.
Marc:Do you feel that, I guess, what I want to know, given the way I write, and I'm not really a writer, but given the way you write, that you seem to write a line where you don't seem to get into darkness that you can't get out of.
Guest:Gosh, that's a nice way to put it.
Guest:I mean, everybody's got... I remember reading this book once and this guy was writing about his family and he wrote that he went through his parents' bedside table and he found a dildo and a copy of Shaved Asian.
Guest:And I thought, wow.
Guest:I mean, that was really interesting to me and it explained a lot, but I would never write that because there's stuff...
Guest:My dad has a right to keep certain things private.
Guest:My mother's been dead for 20 years, but there are things that I would not write about her just because I know she wouldn't want the world knowing those things.
Marc:So there's still a respect there.
Marc:You don't have an axe to grind.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, I'm really grateful that I had my dad, that I had exactly the dad that I had, exactly the same, the one that I had, because, you know, I just kind of worked against him my whole life.
Guest:It's what got me out of bed every day.
Guest:And if, you know, if I had, you know, someone who was like my champion and stuff, it would just, I can't imagine what kind of a worthless drug addict I'd be today.
Marc:Be a waiter.
Guest:Maybe, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, with his blessings, you know.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm dealing with that now.
Marc:I think I destroyed my relationship with my father because of that book and the TV show.
Marc:But, you know, I didn't take into mind, you know, in my mind, like, I don't know where, like, okay, so you say you're happy that you had the father that you had.
Marc:and because you wouldn't have turned out differently but there's still you know you make a decision about what elements of his life are part of your life and that you know i guess that gratitude is probably what separates us in in in terms of how i approach it because i think that my father's you know secrets or his sickness is directly responsible for a lot of the things that i fight in myself and
Marc:So I made a choice to put that stuff in there.
Marc:And I don't know what's going to happen in the long run with our relationship, but I was willing to roll the dice on that.
Guest:I wrote something years ago, like, I don't know, 12 years ago about my grandmother, right?
Guest:And my dad was mad about that.
Guest:He's never been mad about anything I've said about him, but he was mad about that.
Guest:And I think he was just ashamed because he had to put my grandmother in a nursing home.
Guest:And Greeks don't really do that.
Guest:They don't want to do that.
Marc:Oh yeah, I know that story.
Guest:But he was forced into it.
Guest:I mean, my mother said either she goes or I go.
Guest:My dad was in a tough position.
Guest:And I thought that I put that in the story.
Guest:But I think he just didn't want to even be reminded of it.
Guest:So that's the only thing he's ever gotten angry about.
Guest:But I think...
Guest:I think if an outsider were to read the story, they would think like, oh, the guy was in a mind instead of what a heartless person he is.
Marc:Yeah, no, I didn't get that from that story.
Marc:But they can't see that because they probably are only carrying the shame.
Marc:So they're only going to see through that lens of the shame of what they felt for having to do that.
Marc:They weren't going to say like, oh, yeah, that was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.
Marc:But my son seems to have framed it properly that other people are not going to see it that way.
Guest:But I think, I met somebody, I have a friend who's a writer, and she had written just a little bit about her family, and I met her sister recently.
Guest:And I felt like saying, oh, I know you.
Guest:But it's like, no, I know that her dad made a canon, and I know that she has a baby.
Guest:That's all I really know about her.
Guest:But people have the idea that they know, right?
Guest:So my sister Lisa will go to a dinner party, and someone will say, I've read all about you.
Guest:I know everything about you.
Guest:They don't.
Guest:They know she has a parrot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it can be hard for her.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That can be hard for her to hear.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So I have to hear that.
Guest:I have to understand that.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a lesson I'm going to probably learn the hard way, given if I'm going to write more.
Marc:Yeah, I think it's a very reasonable position to have.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, so that story that I closed for the New Yorker, right?
Guest:So the New Yorker fact checks everything, every word.
Guest:So my sister Gretchen in this story, she came for Christmas, and I'm quoting her as in my house at Christmas.
Guest:You know, she's like 53 now, and she had said, it used to be that whenever I passed a mirror, I would look at my face.
Guest:Now I just check to see that my nipples are lined up, okay?
Yeah.
Guest:She said that.
Guest:Yeah, so the fact checker called.
Guest:And then Gretchen called me back and said, you know, I read the story and everything.
Guest:She said, but I don't think my aquarium was heated back then.
Guest:Because I said she had a heated aquarium.
Guest:That was her only thing.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:That she didn't really recall if her aquarium was heated.
Guest:That was...
Guest:That was her beef with that story.
Guest:But she knows that that line's funny.
Guest:And when I read that line in the theater and there are 2,000 people laughing at it, that's a laugh for her.
Guest:That's not a laugh at her.
Guest:She knows that's funny.
Guest:And if she wanted to be the one on stage with the microphone, it might be a problem.
Guest:But she doesn't want to be the one on stage with the microphone.
Guest:She doesn't mind me telling the world that she's a funny person.
Marc:But you don't, do you ever feel like, you know, challenged to, you know, obviously you've evolved as a writer and, you know, you mix it up now.
Marc:You know, you've only got so much of your family to draw from after a certain point.
Marc:But, I mean, do you ever feel like you gave, you were too easy on somebody or that you weren't, that you aren't getting out something that you want to get out?
Marc:I mean, is there an anger or a darkness in there that you would do or feel like you haven't been able to service?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, but at the same time, you know, like I've never read, written anything really about, let's say, you know, somebody who I used to go out with, you know, because do I want them doing that?
Guest:writing all that about me, probably not.
Guest:I mean, if they changed my name, I have to say if they changed my name, I honestly don't think I would care because I just wouldn't read it.
Marc:Even if you knew it was you.
Guest:I don't read anything connected with me.
Marc:What is there?
Marc:Oh, you mean reviews or anything?
Guest:Reviews or… Really?
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:Interviews or… No.
Guest:Do you?
Marc:Only if they're put in front of me.
Marc:I don't Google search myself.
Marc:But for some reason, whatever I'm obsessed with, which is Twitter right now, if somebody sticks something in my face like, what do you think of this article?
Marc:I'll go read it, but I'm trying to find some room.
Marc:I'm trying to figure out how to navigate this for the first time, really, because I have a book out there and I have a TV show out there, so now this stuff's coming.
Marc:And one of my biggest fears was right when I knew this stuff was going to be out in the world, I was like, I got to gird her up for the attack.
Marc:That was my feeling, not like, I'm so happy to share this with the world.
Marc:It's like, now I'm going to get it.
Marc:And I've read a couple of things, and I was surprised.
Marc:The ones that are just angry, I can identify.
Marc:The ones that were thoughtful and critical, I find helpful in a way.
Marc:Because I don't think about myself in the same way a good critic would think about me.
Marc:So I'm sort of open to that.
Marc:I don't know how long that'll last.
Marc:I don't spread it around.
Marc:I don't go, okay, take a look at this mediocre review of my work.
Marc:But I take it to mind and I'm narcissistic enough to see when someone makes a connection that I would never have thought of to go like, wow, that's kind of sharp.
Marc:I wish I had intended that, but no.
Guest:Well, because I know your character on your TV show.
Yeah.
Guest:is all caught up in that and it really kind of explains so much of that character.
Guest:I don't know if that character is exactly you or just an idea of... No, it's close.
Guest:Because I could never do that.
Guest:What, Twitter?
Guest:Read things like that.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:It just seems like it's pouring fuel into his tank.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, that might be the tank I run on.
Marc:Maybe we run on a different tank.
Marc:I'm more than happy to take your tank.
Marc:It would probably provide me a lot of relief for a little while.
Marc:So you're telling me you've never engaged with negative...
Guest:From the beginning.
Guest:I think the last review I read was in 2000.
Guest:And it was a good one.
Guest:But I didn't think it was fair just to read good ones.
Guest:So I just haven't read anything since then.
Guest:Or out of respect for the people that are writing shitty things about you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, like even with an interview, like if you do an interview and then you read it and then you'll just think, like my brother Paul was quoted in an interview one time and he won't do them anymore because he thought, is that what I sound like?
Guest:Is that what I talk like?
Marc:He was embarrassed?
Guest:Yeah, but it could have just been the writer.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:They take it out of context.
Guest:Yeah, or sometimes it can just be... I didn't read any of it because I thought, well, what's the point?
Guest:If you watch yourself on TV, then you're going to think, oh, I should never hold my face in that angle.
Guest:So don't watch yourself on TV.
Guest:And if you read an interview with yourself and...
Guest:No, I just don't engage with myself.
Marc:So for you, the work is done.
Marc:You put the work out there, and then you go do the readings, and you enjoy that.
Marc:And you get a lot out of that.
Marc:But the rest of the time, you've done your part.
Marc:You don't need to.
Marc:What?
Marc:oh okay okay all right all right okay i guess you gotta go it's like i'm over at your house playing we just got a knock on the door that david has to go where are you going uh to i think i'm going to kcrw maybe oh oh yeah so you got to go to a radio interview well it was great talking to you you too thanks for coming by it's such a such a joy to be here it was a real honor for me
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So that was kind of a sweet, cute, awkward ending, but what a joy.
Marc:Seriously, really an honor and a pleasure to talk to David Sedaris, and I think it was fun.
Marc:I felt like we got to know each other a little bit.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:As always, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Yeah, do whatever you need over there.
Marc:Leave some comments.
Marc:Look into Lipson, our server, if you want to start a podcast.
Marc:There's a deal that you can get at WTFPod.com.
Marc:My calendar is there.
Marc:I'm in town for a bit.
Marc:I'm going to be up in Seattle for the sub-pop thingy.
Marc:Just go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:I got dates coming up in Nashville.
Marc:I got dates coming up in Bloomington, Indiana.
Marc:I got dates coming up in Denver, I think.
Marc:There's stuff happening.
Marc:I'm going out.
Marc:I'm going Rochester.
Marc:Just go to WTFPod.com and check out the calendar.
Marc:And it's time to write some new material.
Marc:It's time to put myself, it's time to corner myself on stage until something comes out of me that's never come out of me before.
Marc:Those are the best moments.
Marc:Boomer lives!
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