Episode 46 - W. Kamau Bell & Dwayne Kennedy / Dr. Steve
Marc:Lock the gates!
Guest 2:Are we doing this?
Guest 2:Really?
Guest 2:Wait for it.
Guest 2:Are we doing this?
Guest 2:Wait for it.
Guest 2:Pow!
Guest 2:What the fuck?
Guest 2:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest 2:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF!
Guest 5:What the fuck?
Guest 5:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How's everyone doing?
Marc:Welcome to the show, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, whatever the fuck you want to call yourself.
Marc:Good afternoon, good morning, good evening.
Marc:I hope you're having a nice workout or a nice drive or whatever the fuck you are doing.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I'm out in the garage here at the Cat Ranch.
Marc:We'll be right back.
Marc:You know, almost Dr. Steve is going to come in and we're going to have a little session, work through some issues.
Marc:I don't know why people assume that someone is racist or someone is avoiding black people if they don't have a lot of black people on their show.
Marc:I just don't know a lot of the black comics, so I have to reach out.
Marc:But Kamau, I know from...
Marc:from San Francisco.
Marc:He's a great comic.
Marc:And Dwayne is sort of a mythic comic in the way that he's very respected.
Marc:And as soon as anything is about to happen for Dwayne in a big way, in a show business way, Dwayne disappears.
Marc:And we're just lucky to have him on the show today.
Marc:I was thinking back about my own experience and about my own feelings about black comedy and my own issues around race, which I don't really have many because quite honestly,
Marc:There was part of me, I believe, that always wanted to be black.
Marc:I think that when I was younger, I know it to be true.
Marc:I was a huge Richard Pryor fan.
Marc:All the music that I liked, for some reason, I was turned on to the blues at a very young age.
Marc:There was a guy named Jim who worked at a record store that I worked beside when I was in high school, junior in high school.
Marc:But even before that.
Marc:who literally sat down with me for about four hours and made me a mixtape of every important soul performer of the last 40 years.
Marc:And Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave, I held on to that.
Marc:But somehow or another, early on, I was turned on to blues music.
Marc:And Chuck Berry was really my first hero, even though I got on board with that later, because certainly I wasn't a child during the 50s or the birth of rock and roll.
Marc:But I don't know what it is,
Marc:But there was always an envy of the sense of community that that black people had in my mind.
Marc:And there was an identity to it.
Marc:And I think that when you're growing up a white kid, a suburban white kid that, you know, it's sort of kind of pablum, kind of you don't have much to hang on to.
Marc:Yeah, I had the Jewish thing, but not unlike many Jewish kids.
Marc:I think I wanted to be black at some point.
Marc:I do remember.
Marc:an event that I think is sort of funny because it sticks in my mind.
Marc:When I was a kid, there was this doctor.
Marc:My father was a doctor.
Marc:And the guy who took my appendix out was this guy named Dr. Chester.
Marc:He was one of the few black doctors in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Marc:And there are actually two stories that are sort of awkward around Dr. Chester.
Marc:My family had moved to New Mexico.
Marc:I think in 1971, I was about eight or nine years old.
Marc:And within a couple of weeks of me being there, I had stomach pains.
Marc:And my father didn't really know anybody, but he had met Dr. Chester.
Marc:And my father made the assumption that I was having an appendicitis attack.
Marc:So in the socially inappropriate way that my father is want to do, he called Dr. Chester to come over to the house at night and examine me.
Marc:He was a fairly portly black man, and my father, in the bathroom at the home that we had just moved into, you know, giving me a proctological exam, a sort of, you know, bare-bones proctological exam.
Marc:So I...
Marc:So there was an intimacy here that I didn't really expect to be in a new town in a new house.
Marc:And within a month of being there, being, you know, finger banged by a large black man in the bathroom with my father watching.
Marc:But but that happened to me.
Marc:And I don't think we can call it sexual abuse.
Marc:It was under the guise of medicine.
Marc:So within a couple of days, I was in the hospital and Dr. Chester took my appendix out.
Marc:So I have Dr. Chester's signature on my right thigh.
Marc:A small scar that apparently most people have a diagonal appendicitis scar.
Marc:Mine is horizontal.
Marc:I don't know if he did it wrong or maybe he had a certain style, but that's not really the story I want to tell.
Marc:Ultimately, we moved to another house, and Dr. Chester lived down the street from us at that time.
Marc:I remember one day I must have been about 12 or 13 at that time.
Marc:Dr. Chester and his wife came over to hang out at our house and it was daytime.
Marc:It was nice out.
Marc:It was summer and I was getting ready to go do whatever an 11 or 12 year old does.
Marc:And I was in my room and I saw that Dr. Chester was there.
Marc:So I decided I was going to.
Marc:I was going to get dressed up and go out and be cool because Dr. Chester was there.
Marc:So I sported or I put on what I thought was cool to a black guy.
Marc:And I remember I put on like a vest from a suit that I bought.
Marc:It was just a green vest.
Marc:And I put that on with no shirt.
Marc:And I put one of them large caps on that my dad had brought back from New Orleans.
Marc:It was called a Big Apple cap.
Marc:And the only approximation I can give you is, do you remember like Rudy Davis from the Fat Albert show?
Marc:One of those hats.
Marc:So I walk out there just wanting to, you know, say hi to Dr. Chester and look cool.
Marc:So I walk out there with my outfit and it was all very innocent and in earnest.
Marc:I just wanted to be cool.
Marc:And Chester, Dr. Chester looked at me, goes, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Marc:Come here.
Marc:So I walk over and I know what he was going to do.
Marc:But what he did was he just took my cap and he just tilted it over to one side.
Marc:He goes, there you go.
Marc:Now you're all set.
Marc:And I remember being very excited at that time.
Marc:It was a very genuine moment.
Marc:It was kind of funny, I think.
Marc:I always think about race and I don't have anything.
Marc:against anybody I think in the sense that there's more of an envy on my part that there seems to be such a strong sense of community with almost every ethnic group and I just decided to abandon mine not whiteness but Jewishness to some degree and you sort of wander around without a real community or group in America sometimes if you're just sort of white and smart you sort of have a group in your head
Marc:And really more it's about acceptance.
Marc:You want to be accepted by other groups.
Marc:And I did have a moment at the gym the other day that that almost was something racial.
Marc:It wasn't racist, but I was on the treadmill.
Marc:Doing my business.
Marc:And next to me was a middle aged Asian man dressed inappropriately for the gym.
Marc:He had the kind of, you know, strange walking shorts and perhaps loafers on.
Marc:But he was walking on the treadmill and I got on the treadmill next to him because it was the only treadmill there was left.
Marc:And I'm starting to run and I smell this smell.
Marc:There was an odor.
Marc:coming off of this guy that was unique to, I think, his Asian-ness.
Marc:It was almost like ginseng and garlic.
Marc:It was mildly offensive, but I was tolerant.
Marc:I was tolerant.
Marc:And then in the middle of the run, another smell happened, and it had to be gas.
Marc:I have to think that the guy next to me just farted.
Marc:And I'm not one to talk about farts, but this was a profoundly pungent fart and it smelled very specific.
Marc:It just it had a generational quality to it.
Marc:I just it was almost like, you know, epochs of of of pork fat and shrimp had been digesting in the DNA of this person next to me for for centuries.
Marc:And there it was.
Marc:I was in this methane mist of just, you know, what I pictured to be, you know, peanut oil, green onions.
Marc:And it was pretty disturbing.
Marc:And I was angry for a minute.
Marc:And then I realized, you know, there is something so...
Marc:specific and and and community oriented about this guy's gas that this is the smell of china coming out of this guy's ass and now i how could i possibly what kind of tolerance am i guilty of to romanticize some guy's fart next to me as being sort of you know ethnically specific and representing a community and and a history and it literally i'm like this is the smell of the future
Marc:And now I am enveloped in it and I'm just gonna have to accept that.
Marc:And then I started to realize the thing about tolerance is that tolerance sometimes is earned.
Marc:You can't be tolerant immediately.
Marc:The path to tolerance is paved with a certain amount of fear or anger or resentment that in order to get to tolerance, you have to deal with your own issues.
Marc:Yes, that could be a fortune cookie.
Marc:Like, you know, if that guy, if I'd gotten off of the treadmill and we'd both gotten off together and I was still aggravated yet sort of understanding about the smell that came out of his ass.
Marc:If he had given me a fortune cookie and I'd opened it and it said the path to tolerance is paved with fear and anger, that that that would have been a great way to end that moment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that event at the gym, but also I think that me thinking that is slightly racist.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Guest 5:I guess it's good that me and Dwayne do know each other very well, so otherwise this would be kind of awkward.
Guest 5:Yeah, more awkward than it already is.
Guest 5:I got these two black guys.
Guest 5:In my house.
Guest 4:That's not the awkward part.
Guest 4:It is for me.
Guest 4:I feel quite comfortable.
Guest 4:It's for me.
Guest 4:Ah, please, don't start selling out now.
Guest 4:You know, don't buddy up.
Guest 4:Just because he's got his own show.
Guest 4:Yeah, my own show.
Guest 4:You don't have to throw me, you know, sell me out.
Marc:You're not going to throw Dwayne under the bus.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not this time.
Marc:I'm the one that brought you here.
Guest 4:I drove you here, god damn it.
Guest 4:I mean, darn it.
Marc:now what's your your whole name is dwayne kennedy yes and your whole name is w kamau bell that's right w stands for we'll keep that a mystery all right no say walter it's walter all right now folks i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and speak to my audience just for a second i've gotten a lot of flack for not having more black performers on my show from who from people that are you know not black people right right
Guest 5:They'd have to listen first.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:From that one dude.
Guest 5:I think I emailed you myself.
Guest 5:As your black listener, I'd appreciate it if Wyatt's an act.
Marc:Well, the weird thing is that it's usually because I have a lot of people from politics and from the left who are like, I thought we had a big tent here.
Marc:Where are the black performers?
Marc:And quite honestly, I just don't know a lot of black comedians because there is a separate world of black comedy that exists in its own universe.
Marc:I mean, and I'm not adverse to having any type of performer on, and I certainly have a lot of respect for a lot of black comics, some that a lot of comedians that I know listen to this probably don't even like, but I don't know where to get hold of them.
Marc:I don't even know where they're working.
Guest 5:Well, unfortunately, as a black comedian, I don't know where to get hold of those black comedians either.
Guest 5:So good luck with that.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 4:Good luck with Earthquake.
Guest 4:Yeah, well, but that's the thing.
Guest 4:There's some black comedians that do primarily black circuits.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:And then there's a lot of black comedians who do the same circuits you do, Mark.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:And I know them.
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:And he had him on.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, Wyatt was on, and I tried to get Hannibal Buress on.
Guest 4:Hannibal was just in town last week.
Marc:He was?
Marc:Well, he didn't get in touch with me.
Guest 4:He did Lopez's show.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest 4:Last Wednesday.
Marc:That's a whole other world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Lopez is a whole other thing.
Marc:I want to do that show, man.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest 4:I want to cast my net as wide as I can cast.
Guest 4:That's my new thing, man.
Guest 4:Go all out, you know, and let people see me and let those who like me make a decision.
Guest 4:Let me not make it for them.
Marc:Well, it's interesting, if I can focus on Dwayne for a second, because Dwayne is sort of a mythic entity in stand-up comedy in that he shows up in town, whether it be Los Angeles or wherever he is, and then there's a bunch of comics that go, holy shit, Dwayne's here.
Marc:He's the best.
Marc:He's one of the greatest.
Marc:And then Dwayne disappears for months.
Marc:Now, what is that about?
Marc:Are you trying to protect the myth of Dwayne Kennedy, or is it that you just have other things to do?
Marc:It's literally like, where'd Dwayne go?
Marc:I don't know, I think he's painting now or something.
Marc:Yeah, I used to paint, man.
Guest 4:I was painting porches.
Guest 4:I was painting porches.
Guest 4:Were you?
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:I was working for my sister, man.
Guest 4:I was painting porches, and I was taking cats around to the job sites, and I'd be in it a while, then I'd be out.
Guest 4:My ambitions were low.
Marc:Is that true, or is it that, you know, you...
Guest 4:You just sort of like... My aspirations were low.
Guest 4:I mean, you know, I like being funny and then that was it.
Guest 4:Hey, man, I had a good show.
Guest 4:That'll hold me for the next three or four months.
Guest 4:Wow.
Guest 4:Three or four months.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Marc:If I have a good show, that'll hold me for about six hours before I start deconstructing it.
Guest 4:Oh, I know you, Mark.
Guest 4:That doesn't even hold you during the show.
Yeah.
Guest 4:In the middle of the show.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:You joked a joke.
Guest 5:Why is this going so well?
Guest 4:Right, right, right.
Guest 5:I'll put an end to that.
Guest 5:I better sabotage that right now.
Guest 5:I love to hear Dwayne tell the story because people are constantly asking me to tell Dwayne's story.
Guest 5:What's up with Dwayne?
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:You know, and the thing is, Dwayne, you've been on a lot of things.
Marc:And then there was a period here where you're out here.
Marc:And well, let's talk about the type of comedy that we all do, because I'll tell you straight up that, you know, I like watching black comedy almost of any kind, believe it or not.
Marc:Like I found myself watching that Shaquille O'Neal NBA show that who hosted it, Cedric the Entertainer.
Marc:And I just don't see enough of those guys around.
Marc:I know those guys, but from where I'm sitting, being a guy that comes from respecting Pryor a great deal and having a life-changing moment when I saw Pryor's first movie in high school, that I just find that stylistically, there's something more immediate, more personal, more story-oriented about the way black performers perform most of their material in a general sense that I envy.
Marc:And do you come from that tradition?
Guest 4:No.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Guest 4:Yes, yeah.
Guest 4:You come from the prior tradition.
Guest 4:Oh, yeah.
Guest 4:Oh, yeah, I love prior.
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:But, I mean, I don't, you know, as far as, like, telling stories, I wish I could do that more.
Guest 4:I wish I could do that better.
Guest 4:But I don't, you know, just mostly jokes, I guess.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:Not one-liners, but, you know, things that...
Guest 4:No, but you look at the, again, I have to tell the Dwayne story.
Guest 5:No, but you definitely construct longer bits and, you know, you're not.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Okay.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Like scenes.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 4:I do that.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:I know.
Guest 5:And you certainly talk about your life and, you know, a little bit.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:But I mean, you've talked in direct and indirect way, but you know, no, you're not.
Guest 4:Oh, I do want to do this thing about handing out flyers for a sham tax service.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:that I was doing last year.
Guest 4:In January, man, it was like about four or five below.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:Like nobody warns you to tell you, hey man, when you grow up, don't ever wind up handing out flyers for a sham tax service about four or five below.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:That's like failure you can't even see coming.
Yeah.
Marc:i i just don't know what the i never understand really and i find that because kamau you come from san francisco you're you're integrating the comedy scene up there in the sense that there there is a mode of comedy now that i think is just by its nature is segregated i think that comedy is still segregated yeah i think that there are definitely two sides to to it and that you go to some of these alternative shows i used to say that i'd go do stella with those guys from the state and
Marc:And I would get on stage and I'd say this is voted for the third year in a row the most non-ethnic experience in New York City.
Marc:That there does seem to be these two camps of comedy, if not more.
Marc:More, yes.
Marc:The black comics stay with the black comics and the ones that do end up being accepted or integrated into white mainstream comedy.
Marc:They seem to have to do something different than they would do it.
Guest 5:it's more fractious than that man i think first of all it starts there's two things one it starts with america is segregated more segregated than we realize and i think that just lends its way into the entertainment industry yeah and then the second part is i think and i've talked to a lot of comics about this like uh i know you know al madrigal sure like al became way more mexican after he started doing comedy you know like he's you know and not on not that he tried to pick up an accent but suddenly he was like he was talking about this suddenly he's being thrown on mexican shows
Guest 5:And if you ask Al, he's a San Franciscan.
Guest 5:That's his ethnicity.
Guest 5:And suddenly Kevin Shea is another dude who was in Erie, Pennsylvania or somewhere.
Guest 5:Grew up and suddenly he becomes a comic.
Guest 5:Suddenly he's Korean.
Guest 5:And he never thought of himself as Korean until somebody asked you to do a Korean comedy show.
Marc:But that's interesting because the complaint always about some black comics is that it's not that they get more black necessarily, but if they go the other way.
Guest 5:Well, yeah, I think you have to make, I think you have to make, that's the unfortunate part.
Guest 5:You have to make some sort of choice.
Guest 5:Like when I started doing comedy, like with Dwayne, I remember you told me early on, he's like, get real comfortable with black audiences because otherwise you will never be able to do them, you know?
Guest 4:Hey man, and I'm still not, you know, but again, it reduces, it's not just, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh,
Guest 4:thing was just black audience then you have particulars and fractions within that because their group i used to do um in chicago remember bernie mack used to do a show right when he was in town he would do a show every tuesday at this club and it was great it wasn't the way a lot of people traditionally think of black audiences you know hard to do or because he cultivated the type of audience he wanted to have that i like to play for he would tell beginning of the show hey
Guest 4:No cell phones, no beepers, no hats.
Guest 4:No hats.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:Really, you know what I mean?
Guest 4:No heckling.
Guest 4:Yeah, no guns.
Guest 4:No shiny things, no shoes.
Guest 4:But respect the entertainers.
Guest 4:And you cultivate the type of people that want to be there for the show.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 5:I feel like when we talk about black audience, it's the same with, like, black radio.
Guest 5:It's really a specific type.
Guest 5:Like, R&B radio is a specific type of black music, but that's not all a black music.
Marc:No.
Marc:But I think that ultimately, you know, in terms of the heart of American comedy, you just have got a few cats, and Pryor's one of them, and there's a whole history of black comedians.
Marc:But I think that with black audiences, in my small experiences with them, but I felt like I had to learn how to do it, that if you step up and you're honest, and you're not, you know, trying to get something over on them.
Guest 4:Yeah, it'll look like
Guest 5:you're pandering that's right even if they don't like what you're saying if you're respectful and and you stand you know you you fucking man up and do it yeah they'll at least respect you that's the thing where you get especially as a white guy in front of a black audience you get like crazy white boy credit a little bit like yeah they sort of will give you more room yeah you are a black comic who's not doing it the way they want you yes because i've certainly been on that end where it's like how come that white guy's doing better than me
Guest 5:Right, right.
Guest 4:Yes, that's true.
Guest 5:For some reason, ironically.
Guest 5:Why do I wish I was white in this black comedy room?
Guest 5:Right, right, right.
Guest 5:I think I'd get more accomplished.
Guest 5:Right.
Guest 5:That's true, man.
Guest 5:They're angry at me for sounding like a white guy, but they like the white guy who sounds like a white guy.
Marc:What about the white guy who sounds like a black guy?
Guest 5:They like him, too.
Marc:They do.
Marc:They really like him.
Marc:What is that phenomenon?
Marc:I've only known a couple of them, but there are a couple of white dudes that only play black rooms, and I'm like, holy shit.
Guest 4:You know, but again, it comes down to what you sense.
Guest 4:If you sense that it's authentic.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:You know?
Marc:Well, I think that's what I find with a lot of black comedy.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:But if you sense this white cat on the stage is authentic and that he's not putting on and he's not Al Jolson.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:Do you know?
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:Then people give him that leeway.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:You know?
Guest 4:They give him those parameters, but-
Guest 5:But it's also a lot of... I think a lot of the black rumors, there's a little bit more of a... Also, if the character is funny enough, then it becomes a show.
Guest 5:You know what I mean?
Guest 5:Like that dude... Was that dude Simple John?
Guest 5:It was a white dude.
Guest 4:Honest John.
Guest 5:Honest John.
Guest 4:He did the black circuit.
Guest 5:He did the black circuit, but it was like a character.
Guest 5:Like they sort of liked... They appreciated the spectacle of it.
Guest 5:What kind of character?
Guest 5:I don't know.
Guest 5:How would you...
Guest 4:I mean, but he was just a funny cat.
Guest 4:He had jokes and he did the black rooms and he was comfortable.
Guest 5:Yeah, but it was like he was, I don't know.
Guest 5:Talk about, like I said, anthropological.
Guest 4:And he was comfortable.
Guest 4:He was comfortable.
Guest 4:He did the, you know, he ventured among the blacks.
Guest 5:No, I didn't really see him that much.
Guest 5:Like a lot of times, like, how come that white guy does better than I do?
Guest 4:But because he was comfortable and he was confident.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:You know?
Guest 4:Oh, you got to be confident.
Marc:You got to be, man.
Marc:There's something about a black audience that if you have any fear that's tangible, it's over.
Marc:They can't wait.
Marc:It's over.
Guest 5:See you later.
Guest 5:They'll get a good show one way or the other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So here's my thing in terms of, like, it took me a long time to talk about race at all because I didn't think it was my place.
Marc:And I've actually, with Kamau, he's been in the room where I've tried stuff.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I'll come off stage and be like, is that kosher?
Marc:Am I allowed to speak about race?
Guest 5:I'm the representative.
Guest 5:Most times, I think I say yes every time.
Guest 5:I don't think there's a time I said no.
Marc:Well, I do it from somewhat a personal experience.
Marc:And I just got delivered a tag.
Marc:because the way I write, and I don't know if it's the way you work, that I'll have a joke that works okay on an ideal way, and then I'll just keep hitting it until somewhere or another the tag is delivered to me on stage.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like that joke I did about, like, I'm not racist, but I'm nervous.
Marc:It's really case by case, and it's not ethnicity or race specific.
Marc:It's just a normal human reaction to something that's different, and then you adapt, and you acclimate.
Marc:It really doesn't become racism until you start hearing yourself say things like, oh, no, and there's a lot of them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And in that, I just got that.
Marc:But I think the joke that ended up becoming a pretty good joke is how I found out I was a little racist.
Marc:And the only way you can find out is next time you lose something that you think has been stolen.
Marc:oh yeah when you go to retrace your steps see how you cast that short mystery film how many ethnic ties do you use in the leading roles of that movie how many blacks and latinos do you get through before you finally hear yourself say oh shit here it is under the car seat i'm an asshole right and i'm a little racist but i'm not going to tell my one black friend who i thought stole this so
Marc:I find it difficult because I think that now that we have a black president and now that I think there's something about white comedians talking about race, and I see it sometimes, where I sense that it is misdirected.
Marc:The original idea of whites talking about race, if you're going to go to Lenny Bruce, was that if you take on all ethnic types equally, then you disarm the idea of racism.
Marc:But now because there seems to be this weird...
Marc:Misunderstanding of of the First Amendment in terms of how to use race and comedy as a white person.
Marc:If you can be shocking and use words that are racially inappropriate, somehow you claim legacy to that idea.
Marc:But I don't think it exists.
Guest 5:No.
Guest 5:And I think that's one of my big complaints with the alt scene is that, you know, there's a lot of racism in the alt comedy scene.
Guest 5:A whole lot of nigger going on.
Guest 5:Exactly.
Guest 5:I think he just wanted to say nigger.
Guest 5:I don't think there was a joke there.
Guest 5:I think that's true.
Guest 5:And me and him have had many occasions.
Guest 5:We've been to shows with comedians who are known or unknown and suddenly be like, I think I got to leave.
Guest 5:And it happens from comics that you would never expect it to happen from or comics that you can't ever.
Guest 5:And it's weird.
Guest 5:It's like I can't talk to white comics about it because then they think I'm crazy.
Marc:But I don't understand that because what right do they have?
Marc:Because what I was talking about with black comedy in the beginning and why it was an inspiration to me is these are people, whether they're hackneyed stories or not, you know, in the black comedy community, there's a lot of people doing the same shit.
Marc:There's a lot of black guys doing whenever they do a white guy.
Marc:It's Pryor's white guy.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And there's a lot of that going on.
Marc:But by and large, because of the community and because that a lot of black comics come out of the black community is a real community.
Marc:The white community doesn't exist.
Marc:So some of the stories are common knowledge.
Marc:And the reason why blacks stay within the community is because they understand the truth that is being told there.
Marc:But it is personal experience.
Marc:So when you get these white guys who don't even talk about themselves on stage, utilizing those words only to get to effect...
Marc:That they may not intend it as being racist, but you can't disarm that word.
Marc:Just because you all of a sudden found the freedom to say it to shock somebody does not mean that word doesn't mean what it means.
Guest 5:Well, I'm going to save this clip so I can play it for every white comic who tells me I'm wrong when I say something is racist happened on comedy stages.
Guest 5:Because I think a lot of people think because they stand on a comedy stage and they're a good guy, it can never be racist.
Guest 5:No matter what I say.
Marc:Right, but also the legacy and the history of that word, I mean, I learned that lesson the hard way.
Marc:I worked with a guy who was black on the radio, and I decided it would be audacious and forthright of me to say, let's talk about the word nigger.
Marc:And this guy, when I said that in that context, I saw his eyes just go, hmm.
Marc:like like what just happened what did that guy just say that that no matter how hard you try even with someone like quentin tarantino somebody else that that word is just it's it's it's not okay and i think that that argument is what that argument is it's like aren't we beyond that yeah you know maybe you are but you don't have a right to be beyond it i earned being beyond that word yeah but just just like you say in that context the way you stated it
Guest 4:Even though I don't like hearing... I don't care white people say it.
Guest 4:I'll just be honest.
Guest 4:But in that context, I can listen to you and I can hear what you have to say.
Guest 4:I don't think you're trying to be shocking.
Guest 4:You want to understand.
Guest 4:We're going to talk about it.
Guest 4:And I think it's core to say the N-word and this and that.
Guest 4:But when you hear...
Guest 4:people talk about it and they use it and you know there is there's there's no context there's no satire there's there i've heard white cats say it as a matter of reporting you know and okay you heard somebody say this right okay fine yeah but when there is no context yeah that that's my issue and it just seems to be because you know you know that it can shock and also
Guest 4:in the scheme of things, just in society.
Guest 4:Black folks are expendable.
Guest 4:So I can say nigger all day long without any consequence to my show business career.
Guest 4:Now, if I'm on stage talking about kike, you know what I mean?
Guest 4:That would last about one show.
Guest 4:But not that I aspire to do that.
Guest 4:I don't even want to do that.
Guest 4:Do you know what I mean?
Guest 4:It's like with Michael Richard.
Guest 4:He's on stage talking about...
Guest 4:nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, and fine, but only after it's discovered that he's saying that.
Guest 4:Otherwise, he'd done that before.
Guest 4:He had to apologize for a show he'd done the previous night.
Guest 4:Well, why would he have to do that?
Guest 5:It's only because of cell phone cameras and YouTube that became something he had to make a national apology.
Guest 5:Otherwise, it'd been business as usual.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:And it's huge in the alt-comedy community, which is why I don't find a lot of home in the alt-comedy community because you will be sitting there having a good time and suddenly out of nowhere for no reason.
Guest 5:Either nigger or something that's just like, why are you talking about black people like that when I'm the only one here?
Guest 4:Well, we heard a show and this cat will remain nameless.
Guest 4:But he's a famous cat.
Guest 2:Yeah.
Guest 4:alternative, whatever, hipster, fine.
Guest 4:Loved by all.
Guest 4:Beloved by all.
Guest 4:And me and Kamau were in the audience, and we were watching this cat, and he's on, and he's talking, and he's hip, and everybody's loving him, and we, fine, good cat.
Guest 4:And he did a joke, again, where the word was just, it was just gratuitous.
Guest 4:My sister is so-and-so, he's trying to illustrate how
Guest 4:I guess how much contempt he had for her or how inferior, whatever.
Guest 4:She's a so-and-so.
Marc:Right.
Guest 4:She's a so-and-so.
Guest 4:She's a nigger.
Marc:Right.
Guest 4:Wait, what?
Guest 4:What?
Guest 4:What does that even mean?
Guest 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest 5:And they got a big laugh because it was shocking.
Guest 5:Oh, yeah, they loved it.
Guest 5:Which was, I think, even, to me, more surprising.
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:Oh, I thought the alternative.
Guest 4:I thought we were all cool.
Guest 4:I thought we were the left.
Guest 4:Enlightened.
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:Visionary hipsters.
Marc:It's just a weird thing that I've noticed is that they take no risks at all emotionally with personal truths.
Marc:And that their idea of risk is saying something shocking or crass to get an effect.
Marc:or to get an emotion from the audience and i have found that like in the times like if i've used that word like i use i tried to i'm trying to do a joke now i don't you might even have a joke like this about the way that that angry white people say socialist or he's a communist
Marc:It's like these are new ways of saying nigger.
Marc:He's a social.
Marc:It's at the same intonation.
Marc:They just can't say that word.
Guest 4:But that's always the subtext.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And even saying it in that context, just using it as an illustration of racism, I have a hard time getting it out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which I think here's the thing.
Marc:Well, good.
Guest 5:Yeah, I think that's exactly.
Guest 5:That's what I was going to say.
Guest 5:Good.
Guest 5:I would hope that you do.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Think twice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:what was that not okay like i think and that's the thing i think comics do is they go well i'm gonna say it anyway and it's like well maybe if you don't you maybe you shouldn't say maybe you shouldn't say it just because you have the freedom to say it yeah i just it's just i think it's historically and in terms of culturally being sensitive that they have they have not earned i mean if it's still that offensive to black people you just cannot disarm that word and i think that there's a schism in the black community as well because you meet some black dudes like i don't give a shit
Marc:You say it all day long.
Marc:But I mean, the consensus is it's going to come down to you.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:That's one black guy.
Marc:But you're a white guy.
Marc:And if you're really going to appreciate the history of what that word means, you're going to shoulder that.
Marc:Just because you got a pass from one dude doesn't mean that it's okay for you to do it in any context.
Guest 5:And it's also not brave to do it in a room full of white people.
Guest 5:That's the thing.
Guest 4:You want to nigger it up?
Guest 4:Okay, I'll take you over.
Guest 4:We can go to 63rd and Cottage.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:Yeah.
Guest 4:And let it fly.
Guest 5:Yeah.
Guest 5:Let's see if those bits work over there.
Marc:It's interesting because you don't you know, I don't know that you see a lot of white people talking about race.
Marc:And I think that even the history of race in the way that Lenny Bruce set it up that, you know, his idea was to to disarm the language.
Marc:And I don't know if it is within the realm of white people to address race if they don't do it from a personal point of view.
Guest 5:Well, I mean, at the time, I think Lenny Bruce also being that he was Jewish, I think Jewish then was a much bigger ethnicity than it is now.
Guest 5:You know what I mean?
Guest 5:So I think in some sense, at that point in history, he wasn't reaching as far as some liberal arts grad who's at UCB is doing now.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:I think that the idea that these middle class bourgeois kids have decided to be, you know, absurd buffoons and use big words.
Marc:And I, you know, and I'm not I'm generalizing.
Marc:But I just think in terms of what comedy is supposed to mean, that they are not taking personal responsibility in relation to to what what it means culturally.
Guest 5:And then I think there's also a lot of hiding behind irony, too, which I think is really the other thing, is that you do it.
Guest 5:Well, I meant it ironically.
Guest 5:Well, I didn't hear it ironically.
Guest 5:You know what I mean?
Guest 5:I think there's a lot of hiding behind the free speech and irony, which I'm supportive of both those things as comedic tools.
Guest 5:But, you know, but I think that, like...
Guest 5:often when I've talked to comics about this, white comics for doing things like this, I'm the one who's made to feel, they're trying to make me feel like I don't get it.
Guest 5:And you know, and it's like, you just don't get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I heard what you said.
Marc:I totally get it.
Marc:And this is the reaction I'm having.
Guest 5:I can't have this reaction?
Guest 5:Okay, all right, all right.
Guest 5:So yeah, so that's the thing that bugs me.
Marc:I'm sorry, I didn't know they freed up the word for you to use.
Marc:It still bothers me.
Guest 5:You can say nigger, but I can't be offended.
Guest 4:It's funny how that works.
Guest 4:But again, like you said, I mean,
Guest 4:Free speech, people can say what they want to say, and then you just have to own, I mean, accept the consequences of what you say.
Guest 4:You want to say, nigga, fine.
Guest 4:You might get hit with a chair.
Guest 4:But that's a problem.
Guest 5:Nobody gets hit with chairs.
Guest 5:Anymore.
Guest 5:Back in the day.
Guest 5:Yeah, yeah.
Guest 5:Yeah, nobody gets hit with chairs.
Guest 5:And I think, you know, like we talk about these comics that we talk about very freely in other ways who are like on top of the industry.
Guest 5:And you're like, but, you know, that I've worked with and suddenly like that's, you know, that I see from a totally different perspective.
Guest 5:Yeah, like the cat that that came up after you.
Guest 5:Yeah, I have a joke that I do.
Guest 5:I used to have a joke that I open all the time that I said nigger in it.
Guest 5:And at the end of it, so at the beginning of my act,
Guest 5:opened, brought him up, give it up for Kamau, he's one funny nigger.
Guest 5:And that happened that that night the audience was like, oh no.
Guest 5:We liked him and that's not the same.
Guest 5:We like that nigger.
Guest 5:Yeah, it's not the same and that's not okay exactly whether that's what it was or not.
Guest 5:I was like, I think... He's our favorite tonight.
Guest 5:Exactly, and that it didn't go well for him that night and he didn't say it the rest of the week, but this is a dude who...
Guest 5:you know you know has a is has gone far and has done other stuff yeah super famous and you know and if i and i don't tell that story to a lot of people because i don't want to hear well he meant it ironically well i think he was trying to buy credibility and now everybody's on the same page and you know he's good with you and i can do that and they turned on it's interesting about it's like also he hadn't gotten good with me right we had just we hadn't even you know what i mean it's like you know we because there's times where comics will say make fun of you and you're like well that's my friend it's cool but that's what i felt like we aren't friends yet you know right
Marc:Yeah, it's interesting because I've done, you know, if you get to a certain level, like there are certain dudes I know, like some black comics that I know well, Todd Lynn, Keith Robinson, you know, a few other dudes where you can have a back and forth about Jews and blacks and whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it still has to be earned on some way.
Guest 5:Yes, exactly.
Guest 5:That's what I'm saying.
Guest 5:I've certainly been in a situation where comics will do things like that where it's fine.
Guest 5:And even if the audience doesn't like it, you laugh at them because they made a mistake.
Guest 5:But this was not a situation where we had bonded.
Guest 5:And then we didn't bond after that.
Guest 5:It's not like if I see him now, we're not friends.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:I had a cat say that very same thing.
Guest 4:I was emceeing at Zany's.
Guest 4:And same thing, man.
Guest 4:I got off stage.
Guest 4:Give it up for Dwayne.
Guest 4:He's one funny nigger.
Guest 4:All right.
Guest 4:And then I think after he said it, he even said, oh, man.
Guest 4:Then he called me from the back.
Guest 4:Dwayne!
Guest 4:Hey, Dwayne!
Guest 4:I don't know if he wanted to bring me back on stage.
Guest 4:Dom, dude.
Guest 4:Come back over here.
Guest 4:Yeah, good luck.
Marc:Yeah, well, I think what it speaks to, and I think...
Marc:It's just that this idea that we're living in some sort of post-racial world.
Marc:But I think what it speaks to more is that comedy, mainstream comedy, is fundamentally white.
Marc:And because these kids are smart and they feel that that buys them some leeway and that they've disarmed this language, it's just a word, it's just a word, they never get called on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So so they they've created this other world where they can say these words that are loaded and it just becomes part of the comic experience without any respect for it.
Marc:It drives me a little nuts because I just I don't I don't understand the point of it because it is not.
Guest 4:And sometimes it could be funny, though.
Guest 4:I give you that.
Marc:It's funny if it's balanced.
Marc:And the thing is, is that I know people that use the word and they are playing with words.
Guest 4:Man.
Marc:And they don't hate black people.
Guest 4:Exactly.
Guest 4:I heard a white cat, open mic-er, man, years ago.
Guest 4:Open mic.
Guest 4:Sounds so patronizing.
Guest 4:That cat might, whatever he's doing.
Marc:No one's an open mic-er anymore.
Marc:They just produce shows.
Marc:Everyone's a comic.
Guest 4:There's no such thing as an open mic-er anymore.
Guest 4:This cat had one of the funniest jokes I ever heard about that.
Guest 4:He said he'd play on the playground.
Guest 4:And, you know, he'd play with the brothers, you know, playing basketball.
Guest 4:You know, he said, you always hear, you always hear brothers saying, nigga, please, nigga, please.
Guest 4:But what you never hear is, nigga, thank you.
Marc:It seems to me that this idea of the black president and what that represents to black people and what it represents to white people, obviously it's all becoming somewhat of a disappointment.
Marc:But that racism, if anything, is probably stronger now.
Marc:yes absolutely and the other thing i was going to say is that like this assumption that people are okay i worked with paul mooney for for a week once in sacramento and and as much as i i like uh you know i respect paul mooney i'm not a huge fan but but i get it but i didn't really get it until i i worked with him because with him everything's nigger everything's nigger every joke yeah yeah
Marc:And I just never understood it.
Marc:It felt gratuitous to me.
Marc:I understand the point.
Marc:But what he does, because Sacramento is a white audience, so I'm middling for him all week, and he's doing two hours.
Marc:And it's all that stuff.
Marc:Two, two and a half hours.
Marc:And it didn't hit me until I realized what he was doing, is that he's finding the racism in people that think they're not racist.
Marc:Because...
Marc:After about an hour and a half of that, you know, I have to assume that at least a handful of people in the audience are going, I get it.
Marc:When's this nigger going to shut up?
Guest 5:And he would prefer them to leave.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But he found it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there's this assumption, like, I'm not a racist.
Marc:I'm not a racist.
Marc:Yeah, many people don't hate black people.
Marc:So categorically, they're not racist.
Marc:But that doesn't mean they don't look at them as different.
Marc:Which we all do.
Guest 5:And I think our definition of racism is to, it sort of, racism is defined as like a hate crime.
Guest 5:And I think that's not, it's not always, it doesn't always end up in death.
Guest 5:Like racism can be, like I feel like there's levels of racism.
Marc:Right, I think fundamentally racism is we are not the same because you are black.
Guest 5:Yes.
Marc:It's not like you're a black, you should die.
Guest 5:No, no, no.
Guest 5:And I think it just, it just, what, after you decide we're not the same, what is your next thing?
Guest 5:I'm not going to hang out with you or I'm going to kill you.
Guest 5:And I think there's a lot.
Guest 4:Or you don't deserve that job.
Guest 4:I'm not going to hire you.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:That's racism.
Guest 4:Yes.
Guest 4:And I think sometimes we talk about racism.
Guest 4:Which does impact your life, you know, fundamentally, eventually, you know, and waves and ripples.
Guest 4:You know, I don't mean you any harm, but I don't mean to help you in any way.
Guest 4:But then that when a large group of people feel like that and it becomes consensual, then that does begin to marginalize and then that does begin to impact your life.
Guest 4:Just in less goods and services in your community and less health care and going on and on.
Guest 4:Now, the quality of your life is diminished a little bit, but it wasn't like anybody directly doing anything.
Guest 4:But it's this consensual think that.
Guest 4:kind of pushes you away.
Guest 5:And it's also just the feeling of being otherized too, which I was like, we were talking about this today.
Guest 5:Like, I was like, I don't think white people realize how many white people there are out there.
Guest 5:Like, I don't think white people look around like, there are a lot, like a lot of white people out there.
Guest 5:And it's like, in that sense, like, which I think white people take for granted how safe that feels, you know?
Guest 5:And I think that like, I really want white people to start paying attention.
Guest 5:Think how many white people, like we were watching CNBC today, because that's how we roll, or how you roll.
Guest 5:And it was just like, we were just talking about like, it's all white people talking about the money, which is kind of a, you know what I mean?
Guest 5:Like, what does that mean?
Marc:Of course, they're working for the Jews.
Guest 5:You know, and it's not even that we're saying they're saying bad things or they don't like black people, but it's just like that's an otherizing thing that people don't realize that's all that takes.
Marc:I have no tolerance for people that don't believe that there is institutionalized racism.
Marc:I mean, I don't care how comfortable anybody is.
Marc:I mean, I lived in Boston for a long time, and everyone thinks about Boston like, Boston, there's all those colleges.
Marc:Boston's the most racist, segregated.
Marc:Like, literally, they're like, where are you hiding the black people?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, they're way out there.
Marc:It's like an encampment, for fuck's sake.
Marc:Over in Roxbury, right?
Marc:Roxbury.
Marc:And then there's in Mattapan.
Marc:And then there's also those projects way out on the point by the water that it literally should just be a prison.
Marc:But in San Francisco, it's not so integrated either, really.
Guest 5:No, no.
Guest 5:San Francisco is like 5% black and falling.
Marc:And I just don't understand.
Guest 5:And 90% Oakland.
Guest 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But how does, in terms of performing for you guys, because you guys are like, I have to understand, I have to believe that within the black comic community, there are those dudes that are in the middle.
Marc:There are those hardcore black comics.
Marc:Like Bernie Mac's a great example in him setting a tone because he was an honest fucking guy.
Marc:And he talked about real life and he talked about it in an angry way, but he was not fundamentally preaching to any sort of racist idea.
Marc:He was just defining black comedy for the community.
Guest 4:Right, and he was just a cat that wanted to be funny, tell jokes.
Guest 4:And the funny part is, I don't want to speak for Kamau, but just how I was socialized, which is what led me to do comedy in the places that I did it, is because I grew up and integrated to predominantly white neighborhoods.
Guest 4:So when I started to do comedy, I would gravitate toward those types of venues.
Guest 4:So I started at Zanies.
Guest 4:I started in front of predominantly white audiences.
Guest 4:So my agenda was initially one of the things I mean, you know, I got a million reasons for wanting to get on stage.
Guest 4:You want to whatever assuage, whatever, whatever.
Guest 4:But one of the things was, well, I'll speak to white folks about race and then sort of we can start to understand each other.
Guest 4:And, you know, you.
Guest 4:which you realize is useless after a while.
Guest 4:But then you have cats like Bernie or other comedians that operate within a completely black sphere.
Guest 4:So they're not even talking about racial things a lot of times because everybody understands.
Guest 4:No black person needs to be told
Guest 4:that they get discriminated against.
Guest 4:We all know that, just tell me some jokes.
Marc:Right, that's right, right.
Marc:But in that, when I see that kind of comedy, I am envious of the community understanding of the black experience only because, and this is odd, and I'm certainly not speaking as a victim, but people are like, well, how many black friends do you have?
Marc:I have two friends, period.
Marc:And literally, I don't have a community.
Marc:But I think that, you know, the heart of comedy, even with the Jews trying to pass and with the blacks trying to come into show business, that these were community defining events and they talked about community truths.
Marc:And there was a story tradition there that is completely annihilated now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's why all the truth that comes out, if you see white guys doing truth or even black guys doing truth, it's hackneyed because it's all been done before.
Marc:So if there's any apology to be made for alternative comedy, it's that these guys are without a community, they're without a world, they're just floating in this universe of words and images.
Marc:That means ultimately fucking nothing.
Marc:So they're clowns with no depth.
Guest 4:No depth.
Guest 4:I think that's it, Mark.
Guest 4:I mean, just forget the color part.
Guest 4:I mean, just a lot of great comedy just comes out of pathos, you know, and a lot of these people grew up, you know, pretty good lives, pretty pampered, whatever, whatever.
Guest 4:But, well, I can't talk about that.
Guest 4:That's not too funny.
Guest 4:So I'll be dangerous.
Guest 4:I'll be risky.
Guest 4:I'll say things that are inappropriate.
Marc:Right.
Guest 4:Because my life in itself has not been that bad.
Guest 4:You know, when Pryor could talk about a cat coming around and asking him, how you doing?
Guest 4:Is your mom home?
Guest 4:I'd like a blowjob.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:It's pretty sad.
Guest 4:Funny, but sad.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest 4:There's pathos there.
Marc:Well, yeah, and that stuff, it's a little harder to sell now because of the way television has treated this world, that if you have any sort of painful stories, somehow or another, you're a victim of something, and that it becomes harder to tell those tales.
Marc:Do you get flack from black comics?
Guest 5:My flack doesn't come from black comics.
Guest 5:Not at all.
Guest 5:Especially, like, you know, not in years.
Guest 5:No, I don't think black comics are thinking about me.
Guest 5:I think black comics are going for years.
Guest 5:You know, I don't think I'm any sort of, as of yet, any sort of challenge to the black comedy throne.
Guest 5:We're sort of in limbo, man.
Marc:That's what I mean.
Marc:That's what I'm talking about.
Guest 5:Like, I created my own one-person show up in the Bay Area.
Guest 5:The bell curve?
Guest 5:The W. Kamau bell curve, ending racism in about an hour.
Guest 5:And I'd create it in the Bay Area.
Guest 5:And it's been great because now black people are coming to see me because they've heard of the show.
Guest 5:And so now I have a black audience I didn't have before because those black people didn't know where I was or didn't know that I was something they would like.
Guest 4:Or might not have even come to comedy.
Guest 5:Yeah, might not even come to comedy.
Guest 5:So I've had to go find an audience.
Guest 5:Like, now I have black audiences, which is great.
Guest 5:But the black audiences already know what they're getting into.
Guest 5:That's the thing, man.
Marc:But it must be a type of black audience.
Marc:that is exactly because like i know for a fact you know i had this conversation with my with my former partner a lot that within the black community there is a drive to to to keep it black and that and how that is defined can get a little dicey in the sense that like if you are if you are considered to be toming at all
Marc:Right.
Guest 4:Which can constitute a myriad of things.
Guest 4:I don't like the way that brother speaks too clearly.
Guest 4:What?
Guest 4:I can understand what he's saying.
Guest 4:You better get your time, ass.
Guest 4:Right.
Guest 4:You know what I mean?
Guest 4:How come you not talking about that dude's head in the front row?
Guest 3:It's pretty big.
Guest 4:That's right.
Guest 5:Are those two black dudes on Marc Maron's show?
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest 4:Uncle Tom, mother.
Guest 4:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So where do you see the future of it all going?
Marc:Is it going to get worse?
Guest 4:2012, December 21st, but I'm looking forward to it.
Guest 4:I'm doing the 2012 tour right now.
Guest 4:Just like Hollywood, starting it out early.
Guest 4:Every city I wouldn't mind dying in.
Marc:Do you sense anything changing?
Marc:Do you sense anything different to you as performers since Obama's been president?
Marc:Or do you feel that there's more tension?
Marc:I mean, what do you think is going to happen?
Guest 5:I mean, personally, I feel like when I used to talk about racism on stage, I was having to prove it to the audience in some way that I don't feel like I have to prove it to people anymore.
Marc:So now they understand that they're racist.
Guest 5:Yeah, they understand, like, yeah, it's racist here.
Guest 5:And it's a much easier way to talk about it.
Guest 4:We saw the numbers.
Guest 4:Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Guest 4:I've stopped talking about race as much, man, just because, just to give myself a break and just trying, you know,
Guest 4:For me, again, talking about where we came up doing comedy, I've tried to move toward doing more black audiences.
Guest 4:In theory.
Marc:All right, fellas, you feel good?
Marc:Anything else you want to cover?
Marc:Kamau?
Guest 5:No, I'm good.
Marc:Where's your show playing?
Marc:Anywhere soon?
Guest 5:Actually, I'll be doing it in Oakland.
Guest 5:It's in Oakland at La Pena Theater in May.
Marc:In May?
Guest 5:In May.
Marc:All right, that's the W. Kamau Bell Curve.
Marc:Check my website.
Marc:Yeah, what is your website?
Guest 5:Actually, you can either go to wkamaubell.com, if you can spell all that, or just go to goodshownegro.com.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Did you say dot-tom?
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:What?
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:I'll kill you.
Marc:I can still say, oh, shit, right, like that?
Guest 4:Sure, man.
Marc:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:You need to practice a little bit.
Guest 4:I didn't get the reference.
Guest 4:You were cool all the way until you asked.
Marc:If you're asking, then no.
Marc:I think I just tomed myself.
Marc:All right, Dwayne Kennedy, DwayneKennedy.net.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you can see the history of Dwayne Kennedy and wonder when he's going to come back.
Guest 3:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Thank you.
Marc:My guest is soon-to-be Dr. Steve.
Marc:You seemed a little offended.
Marc:You were like, we don't have to call me almost anymore.
Marc:I'm almost done with my dissertation.
Guest 1:It wasn't really offense.
Guest 1:It was just more sort of fact check.
Guest 1:All right.
Guest 1:Well, you want to be valid is what you're saying.
Guest 1:I don't want to say Dr. Steve.
Guest 1:It's kind of illegal to say Dr. Steve unless I'm fully Dr. Steve.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So we're almost Dr. Steve.
Marc:So we got some emails.
Marc:Ree, your last performance on the show.
Marc:I don't call it a performance.
Marc:I call it a session.
Marc:The last session we had about porn and porn addiction.
Marc:Mark, that short part you did with your friend, the therapist, probably the most helpful, insightful, important, self-realizing thing I've heard in the last seven years.
Marc:Thanks to you, I feel like I have the emotional and intellectual tools to identify and deal with what I've been feeling.
Marc:I didn't even realize it was a what-the-fuck moment.
Marc:How blind was I?
Marc:But I see it now.
Marc:Thanks for the catch.
Marc:I think I got it.
Marc:Thanks for being awesome, a grateful dude.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It took one 15-minute session.
Marc:That wasn't even his session.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The most meaningful, what did he say?
Marc:The most helpful, insightful, important, self-realizing thing I have heard in seven years.
Marc:He didn't include the thing, but it was in whatever we talked about.
Marc:We help somebody out there.
Marc:You're welcome, by the way.
Marc:Thanks for the email.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Almost Dr. Steve, helping the people.
Marc:And as I said to you on the phone, since we do have conversations about this in reality, that given my two marriages and given my anger problem, I find that I don't know how to be in love if I'm not obsessed with the person.
Marc:and also i don't know how not to be uh it's it's anger is weird i i just i i started to look back honestly about my second marriage and even my first one and realize that i'm not sure i know how to deal with intimacy at all i don't know how to deal with emotional trust that well it's not about love and intimacy for me or trust in intimacy it's really about tension and release drama
Marc:And I feel bad about my anger problem, but I don't know where that comes from.
Marc:And I think that if we sort it out, because I know I got a lot of angry guys out there.
Marc:And I know they try to overcompensate in other ways for the anger.
Marc:And everybody snaps a bit.
Marc:And if you find somebody that'll take it for a while, well, then you got a good thing going.
Marc:But ultimately, they're going to fill.
Marc:You're going to drain them is what's going to happen.
Marc:They're just going to become a depleted emotional husk filled with your bile.
Yeah.
Guest 1:So I was trying to figure out where that anger comes from.
Guest 1:First of all, also it drains you.
Guest 1:One who acts out on anger, that's extensively and on an ongoing basis.
Guest 1:Their stress levels, their heart rate, their breathing rate, their everything, their body temperature is going through the roof.
Guest 1:So there's another...
Marc:But you just explained all the results of exercise.
Marc:I want you to be clear on that.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:So I'm saying that you can do one or the other and mix them up.
Marc:You rage like an idiot one day, a little cardio a couple days later, maybe a workout with some weights on the third day.
Marc:I find that I'm a lot less angry when I don't have a person directly in my life.
Marc:And I was dating this woman for a while, and we're going to take a little time here off, just because I don't...
Marc:First of all, let's talk about, let's try to break it down.
Marc:Why can't I be in love without being obsessed?
Guest 1:Here's the thing.
Guest 1:As almost doctor, I'm spending a lot of time on this dissertation, and I'm looking at this subject a lot.
Guest 1:I'm looking it through the eyes of trauma.
Guest 1:And last time we talked about trauma bonding, or you brought up trauma bonding.
Guest 1:And where a lot of this anger comes from, where a lot of this...
Guest 1:That inability to get close to someone, to be able to trust somebody, to be able to just get in there and feel safe is from some kind of trauma that happened earlier in life.
Guest 1:And when I say trauma, I'm not necessarily talking about 9-11 or things like that.
Guest 1:I'm not talking about those things necessarily.
Guest 1:Or perhaps a personal 9-11 of the ass, something like that.
Guest 1:Again, I have to digest and then continue.
Marc:So it doesn't have to be trauma to the point where it seems irrecoverable or you're just saying that it could just be emotional trauma.
Guest 1:Well, first of all, usually it's interpersonal trauma, as in someone else was involved in creating that trauma for you.
Guest 1:A lot of times it's sort of chronic, you know, it goes on for a long time.
Guest 1:So I'm not necessarily even talking about full scale, you know, God forbid child abuse, but I'm talking about, you know, those sort of what we call small T traumas that can bring a person to not trust people.
Marc:So let's say being brought up by selfish, needy people that had no boundaries at all and used me to validate themselves almost constantly and had no sense of values or discipline.
Marc:Could this have done that?
Marc:Yes.
Guest 1:Yes.
Guest 1:Oh, good.
Guest 1:So we fixed it.
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:Well, no, we didn't fix it.
Guest 1:We've discovered what's there.
Marc:But see, this is the racket you guys are in.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So I feel like we've discovered it and I knew it already.
Marc:But what about the fixing?
Marc:You know, I mean, is it a racket?
Marc:I mean, is there any fixing?
Guest 1:Oh, there's totally, absolutely and positively.
Guest 1:Well, how long does that fucking take?
Guest 1:Well, the fact is, depending on the level of traumatization, it can take a little longer than people want it to take.
Marc:And then you've got to find somebody who wants to put up with that shit of you working through this issue.
Marc:You mean the intimate partner?
Marc:The intimate partner who cares about you.
Marc:And because they care about you, you find that threatening.
Marc:But you're trying to work through that.
Marc:And it's just a constant daily struggle to not resent them for liking you.
Guest 1:So then there's all these people out there who are possibly at the level where they know where they're at.
Guest 1:Right.
Guest 1:They're willing to do the work to discover what's going on.
Guest 1:Okay.
Guest 1:And then they meet someone else who's at that same level and the two of them can, quote unquote, put up with each other as they work through it.
Guest 1:See, that sounds exhausting to me.
Guest 1:That sounds more exhausting than recovering from anger.
Marc:Only... Well, actually, you mean the anger burst?
Marc:Sort of the...
Marc:The challenge of working through something emotionally.
Marc:I mean, why wouldn't you just want to, you know, have sex and then, you know, fight and then, you know, cry and then, you know, have sex again and just do that cycle because that's rewarding in its own way.
Marc:But I guess you end up feeling a little empty.
Marc:I was, yeah, that's the part.
Guest 1:The empty part?
Guest 1:Yeah, the empty part.
Marc:The empty part where you're only left with the scars of your childhood?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Just you alone with your holes.
Marc:Or with the person next to you, you alone with your holes.
Marc:Even worse.
Marc:It's even worse.
Marc:Yeah, but you know, is anybody even in the same relationship?
Marc:That's another thing I realized recently, is that if you don't have communication, which is, I think, where a lot of the anger comes from, like, it's very hard for a guy to say, I'm just feeling sad right now.
Marc:I just need you to hold me.
Marc:You know, I...
Marc:I have this weird mixture just from pretending in that voice of incredible embarrassment and hostility.
Marc:Just happened in me right now.
Marc:Right here right now.
Marc:By using that example.
Marc:Isn't that fascinating?
Marc:It's good.
Marc:And this is a good session as a result.
Marc:The fact is that you're right here.
Marc:I could cry so easy.
Marc:I could cry so easy right now.
Marc:I've been having dreams about my ex-wife.
Marc:And it's tragic.
Marc:it's tragic because i feel like i'm over it in the angry way like i'm like i get why she left me i'll never forgive her for screwing me on the money but i understand i was difficult and i and i went through all that anger and all that sadness for two years and now i'm starting to realize it was just ptsd from abandonment and and damaged pride and now i think i'm really starting to have the feelings of like wow i really was in love with her
Marc:my dreams i have dreams i had a dream where i just saw her i knew she wasn't with me anymore i knew she was pregnant with someone else's child but we were just walking and i said i just i just can i just look at your face and i started crying
Guest 1:You know, you mentioned PTSD.
Guest 1:And this is something more along the lines.
Guest 1:Well, there's something called complex PTSD, which has not yet hit the DSM.
Guest 1:Wow, something you made up?
Guest 1:No, I wish I could have made it up because then I would be the genius who came up.
Guest 1:Complex PTSD.
Guest 1:Yes.
Guest 1:And what it is, it's referring to this kind of ongoing, chronic, the abandonment stuff, you know, all that kind of thing that brings on a whole cluster of other symptoms.
Guest 1:The dreams.
Guest 1:I mean, PTSD is built on the intrusive thoughts and the dreams.
Marc:I completely think that people who get heartbroken have PTSD.
Guest 1:Absolutely.
Marc:I mean, I had it for like two years.
Marc:My memory got fucked up.
Marc:I was incapable of thinking clearly.
Marc:I was incapable of focusing on my work.
Marc:And I wasn't even angry.
Marc:I couldn't sleep.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:It was ridiculous.
Marc:But you know why, ultimately, what it came down to when she left is that all those hurt feelings manifest themselves in anger because my pride was injured and I realized, I think for the first time in my life, deeply,
Marc:that you don't have any control over another person unless you lock them in the house and hit them, which that's not my thing.
Guest 1:Inability to manage anger is one of those things when, not if, complex PTSD becomes a DSM diagnosis, the inability to deal with anger or mismanagement of anger is gonna be one of the criteria.
Guest 1:Why does it feel good to hurt people mentally?
Guest 1:It's that feeling of most people that I've experienced who enjoy or have this good feeling from hurting people have been hurt themselves.
Guest 1:And so it's a primitive way to.
Marc:I understand what you're saying.
Marc:I mean, like when you argue with somebody, when you're yelling at somebody, when you're in a relationship that is driven by your own emotional insecurity.
Marc:So you start lashing out at them.
Marc:And then when they start getting upset or crying, then you're like, oh, I'm sorry.
Marc:Oh, you know, I didn't mean to.
Marc:Like that thing is the most disturbing part of the anger issue, the abusive part.
Guest 1:um in order to manage or to come to new terms with one's anger first one has to come to terms with the fact that anger is actually very natural it's not evil inherently it's just another feeling the problem is is that if we don't have a way of managing it it's part of our this is part of the communication breakdown is that if i'm not able to manage my anger then inevitably
Guest 1:I'm going to act out on it.
Guest 1:I'm going to turn you into a husk.
Guest 1:And then you even sort of play acted the end of that drama, which is I'm the husk too.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So isn't anger really just crying all worked up?
Guest 1:Pretty much.
Guest 1:Yeah.
Guest 1:I mean, there's, you know, there's sadness underneath anger and there's also, I like to look at anger as a person's feeling that comes up when their needs aren't getting met.
Guest 1:Right.
Guest 1:I mean, it's based way, way down in fight or flight.
Guest 1:So you're saying that I'm angry all the time.
Guest 1:Well, I don't have to have this conversation to know that about you, Mark.
Marc:A lot of needs aren't being met at all times, but they're infantile needs.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:They're needs that aren't ever going to be met.
Marc:No one's going to be your parents.
Marc:If you're yelling at a woman, I've said this before on stage, 95% all you should be saying is, why can't you be my mommy?
Marc:I mean, look, if you were poorly parented, that opportunity is over, right?
Marc:You're going to have to take up the reins and parent yourself and not expect, you can't walk through life like you're a kid lost at a mall.
Guest 1:my therapist back in new york yeah simon eccles may rest in peace he died last year sorry he absolute genius and he used to always talk to me about like what we're all we're doing here is reparenting all we're doing here is reparenting because you know you just need a new job done and what do you think of people that are like you know just fucking pull yourself together buck up
Guest 1:mean like ronald reagan or i'm not talking about politically but some people are like you know tough love to sort of like suck it up dr feel sure a little of that what do you think of that approach i don't think it works okay i mean there's there's room for that but as a cut all you know a cookie cutter catch-all like you know just you pick yourself up mr you know abandoned as a child that didn't you know have any parenting yeah abused whatever just pick yourself up yes doesn't work
Marc:Do you ever do anger exercises?
Marc:Do you have exercises?
Guest 1:You mean like throwing things?
Marc:No, I don't know.
Marc:Give me an assignment that I can do right now.
Guest 1:What I would like you to do for the next few days, and maybe you can revisit it with your listeners, is I want you to, anytime you get angry, I want you to be able to rate it on... Actually, we can do it right now.
Guest 1:Rate your level of anger on a scale from zero to ten.
Guest 1:Zero is you're like a guru in a cave, and if someone came up to you and spit in your face and said you're a crappy guru, you would be like, oh, well, that's okay.
Guest 1:Nothing.
Guest 1:A 10 is first Prius you see coming towards you on the street, you just haul off and try and punch it in the grill.
Marc:I had a little problem today, because I went to yoga today, which I always find aggravating, and I walked through the market, the farmer's market in Hollywood, and there's this old Asian guy, or Hawaiian guy, that plays guitar, and it's completely incomprehensible what he's saying, his guitar style, he's shouting, and it's horrible.
Marc:And he's there every week, and I resented him.
Marc:Then I resented all of the women that looked the same there.
Marc:You know, this sort of like hip hugger, long hair, you know, pilot glasses, this standard kind of Hollywood Laurel Canyon 1971.
Marc:Only these women are 50 walking around looking the same.
Marc:I started to resent them.
Marc:Then there were people with kids and I started to resent them.
Marc:And then I decided, look at this fucking clown parade.
Marc:Nobody's being real here.
Marc:And I resented all of them.
Marc:What level was that?
Marc:Probably an eight because I was aware that it was ridiculous.
Guest 1:Okay.
Guest 1:Great.
Guest 1:That's exactly, that's the exercise.
Guest 1:And the reason why it's the exercise is that if you do this long enough, you will start to see the difference for you between a five and a six and eight.
Guest 1:You'll see how to bring yourself down.
Guest 1:Maybe you were at a 10 and then you said clown parade and it got down to eight.
Guest 1:And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to get your resting anger level down.
Guest 1:The key word here is acceptance.
Guest 1:You accepted, I guess, on a certain level that it was a clown parade, and that's part of what made it feel better.
Guest 1:So it's sort of accepting of yourself for who you are.
Guest 1:And this goes back to the intimacy, too.
Guest 1:A lot of the reason why people are unable to be intimate with each other is because they have a low level of acceptance of themselves as just being human.
Marc:Well, I also find that being intimate, I feel like it's hard for me not to feel like I'm being manipulated, number one, and not to feel like now I owe somebody something and not to feel like, well, if I if I put that all out there, how am I ever going to get out of this?
Marc:That I'm just there's part of me that's not ready for it, but I don't think I've ever been ready for it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Because then the trust becomes almost necessary.
Marc:It becomes almost dangerous.
Marc:That like, well, now that you've got that part of me, how do I know you're going to take care of that?
Guest 1:That's what all of that, everything you just said, is what blows trust out of the water for people who've had a rough time earlier in their lives.
Guest 1:right you know every everything you know all that i made the list you made the list and it made me want to shut off the microphones and like get you on a couch and start you know like finish this session oh yeah without witnesses no in that you you really and and i think this is helpful for people listening to like hear that like all of those different things that go into you know like i have a newborn daughter and i just met her very pleasant woman very
Guest 1:And she smiles a lot.
Guest 1:She's great.
Guest 1:A lot of hair.
Guest 1:A lot of hair that came out.
Guest 1:Anyway, I just see, you know, I see the innocence and I see this looking at things and, you know, she doesn't see the tree and name the tree tree.
Guest 1:She just sees it and goes, whatever, you know, what's that?
Guest 1:And, you know, at some point along the way, all those manipulations of society and everyone, whatever, you know, all those things happen.
Guest 1:You know, someone busts our trust.
Guest 1:Someone busts our trust on a regular basis.
Mm-hmm.
Guest 1:Of course the trust is going to be gone.
Guest 1:Of course.
Marc:So we have a distended mental anus from being mind fucked for so long.
Marc:Well put.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, I think we've covered enough because I'm exhausted.
Marc:Is that what you're supposed to feel after a session?
Marc:Actually, yeah.
Guest 1:I feel emotionally exhausted and I want to go yell at a stranger.
Guest 1:Well, what I advise you to do is instead of yelling at the strangers, reach back inside yourself and figure out where on zero to 10 you're feeling it.
Guest 1:And instead of yelling at the guy, just kind of number it.
Guest 1:And then at the end of the day or sometime during the day, journal a little bit about, you know, that level of anger, what you wanted to do.
Marc:I think it's all about just crying.
Marc:I think that usually, you know, when you're angry, you should just take a deep breath and sit down and cry on the street.
Marc:Not a bad piece of advice.
Marc:Thank you almost, Dr. Steve.
Marc:We'll be doctor next time we talk to him.
Marc:Sounds good.
Marc:Okay, that's it for today.
Marc:I hope I helped you out.
Marc:I hope we got some things cleared up.
Marc:We certainly covered a lot.
Marc:Covered a lot on this show.
Marc:I think we solved the racial problems.
Marc:I think we solved some relationship problems.
Marc:The two R's, racial, relationship.
Marc:I just, I don't know what the third R is.
Marc:Making it up.
Marc:And as always, maybe I'll do this at the end of the show because I was too caught up during the show to...
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Go there or go to WTFPod.com to get the link to JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Also, at WTFPod, we're putting videos up.
Marc:They're there.
Marc:There's some videos from the live UCB shows, one of which will be on February 19th at the UCB Theater here in Los Angeles, 8 p.m.
Marc:with Mary Lynn Rice Cub, Lori Kilmartin, Jackie Cation, Jim Earl, and Eddie Pepitone.
Marc:As always, go to punchlinemagazine.com for all your comedy information.
Marc:The pulse of the comedy biz at punchlinemagazine.com.
Marc:And I think that's it.
Marc:I think we've covered what we need to cover.
Marc:Get back to me if we didn't.
Marc:I'm getting the emails, but now, of course, that I said that I read all the emails, there's a lot of them.
Marc:So that's going to take me a day or two to get at.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Have a good day.
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