Episode 474 - Tom Arnold
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fuckstables what the fuckadelics what the fucksters did i say that one doesn't matter how are you wow mr radio voice today doesn't matter how are you i am mark maron welcome to the show it's great to have you all here
Marc:You know, I was thinking, God damn, make me stop it.
Marc:Make me stop it.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:I appreciate you being here.
Marc:I got some things to say.
Marc:I got some things to tell you right out of the gate.
Marc:One is, and this is an apology.
Marc:To those of you who purchased tickets for my April 4th performance at the Tulalip.
Marc:Am I saying it right?
Marc:Tulalip.
Marc:Tulalip Casino in Marysville, Washington, outside of Seattle.
Marc:I had to reschedule that gig for a couple weeks later.
Marc:The Tulalip Casino gig that I was scheduled for...
Marc:On the 4th is now on the 18th, and they will honor those tickets that you got on the 4th.
Marc:It's just, folks, I apologize.
Marc:I'm a moron.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I am a moron because it's my nephew's bar mitzvah on that day.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:And was that in my schedule?
Marc:No.
Marc:Was my casino gig in my schedule?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Why wasn't the bar mitzvah in the schedule?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I guess somewhere in the back of my head, I was like, no, that's not that important.
Marc:A once in a lifetime thing.
Marc:I mean, a bar mitzvah, you got to go to those things.
Marc:They're not like weddings.
Marc:You don't do them twice.
Marc:You don't get bar mitzvahed once and then fuck it up.
Marc:You know, 10 years later, you go have another bar mitzvah.
Marc:I guess you can get rebar mitzvah, but that's a once in a lifetime thing.
Marc:And the kid is going to do it.
Marc:He's going to get up there.
Marc:He's going to read from the arcane text that he doesn't understand.
Marc:We're all going to be excited about it.
Marc:And you can give him some presence and traditionally say he's a man, though that that really is not true.
Marc:But it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, and I fucked up.
Marc:So I apologize.
Marc:I apologize to the Tula Lip Casino, and I apologize to the people who are holding tickets, and I hope you can make the reschedule.
Marc:So, again, apologies, and you can purchase tickets there through my website.
Marc:I will make it up to you.
Marc:I promise to do an extra 10 minutes of stuff that's unformed and undeveloped, and we can work through it together.
Marc:If that doesn't sound like a big evening out at a casino, I don't know what the hell does.
Marc:I'm slipping into radio voice again.
Marc:Maybe it's time.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I need to reevaluate.
Marc:Who am I?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:Yeah, but I was a little saddened by the whole thing that it's taken me this long to learn how to prioritize important moments in my family's life.
Marc:I miss my brother's wedding, the second one, the optional wedding.
Marc:I went to the first one, the required wedding.
Marc:Felt bad about that.
Marc:I've missed funerals.
Marc:You know, that's a one that that only happens once.
Marc:That's one of the few things that really happens once unless there's some horrible mistake or there's a mystery that needs to be solved.
Marc:You know, I need to show up because you're not just showing up for you.
Marc:You're showing up for everybody else.
Marc:You're showing up for your family.
Marc:Why wasn't that important to me?
Marc:Why was I so selfish?
Marc:I think we've answered that question at least 300 times on this show.
Marc:Tom Arnold is on the show today, and it's very interesting, the reaction that I get from people when I tweet that Tom Arnold's on.
Marc:For some reason, culturally, a lot of people have had enough of Tom Arnold.
Marc:And I sort of jumped at the opportunity to talk to Tom Arnold because he's a guy that's been through some shit, definitely through some up and downs, definitely persistent.
Marc:He's definitely a survivor.
Marc:He's definitely a guy that people judge almost immediately, that people put into some frame.
Marc:That guy.
Marc:He's one of those guys.
Marc:He's one of those that guy, that guy.
Marc:Tom Arnold talked pretty candidly about a lot of things, and I know that's not necessarily unusual for Tom, but I found a new respect for him.
Marc:And I told him right to his face.
Marc:I said, look, you know, when I first heard of you, you were that comic guy, a quote unquote comic who married Roseanne.
Marc:You know, I judged him as a climber, as an opportunist, as a guy who didn't have his own chops.
Marc:But he's got something now, man.
Marc:He's been through some shit.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:To check in.
Marc:I bought a bike.
Marc:As some of you know, I talked about it.
Marc:I moved the bike over to my house and had a fairly funny situation happen with the bike.
Marc:I took the front tire off the bike.
Marc:What I did was I had an old bike that was rotting here that I just seem to get tuned up every few years.
Marc:And then I don't ride it.
Marc:So I took that bike to the bike shop by Moon's house.
Marc:And I got that bike tuned up.
Marc:And I put that bike at Moon's house for when Moon wants to ride bikes.
Marc:I have that bike over there, which is a good bike.
Marc:It's a 21-speed bike.
Marc:Seems like an irrational amount of speeds.
Marc:And it's a little bit complicated.
Marc:And I took my new seven-speed cruiser back to my house.
Marc:I took the tire off.
Marc:I put it in Moon's car, drove it over here, and then I put the tire back on and the brakes were rubbing.
Marc:And I'm looking at the bike.
Marc:It seems like a simple bit of machinery.
Marc:And I can't figure out why the fuck the front brakes are rubbing on my brand new bike.
Marc:So I assume, like, is there something wrong with the bike?
Marc:Did I get a lemon?
Marc:How could you get a lemon?
Marc:It's just a fucking bike.
Marc:What is the fucking problem?
Marc:And now I got to take it down to the bike store by me because just transporting it seemed to cause some sort of problem with the brakes.
Marc:Coincidentally, they did a shoot over here to promote my IFC show.
Marc:And there was a bunch of crew guys around, bearded men, men who moved lighting, apple boxes, apple crates, the like, things, gaffers, lighting people, boom people, the sound guy.
Marc:So I said, does anyone know how to fix bikes?
Marc:Because I don't know what the hell happened here.
Marc:Brakes are rubbing.
Marc:I just took the tire off, put it back on.
Marc:Shouldn't be a big problem.
Marc:I don't know how to fix it.
Marc:Several men gathered around my bike, did not know what to do.
Marc:And then one of them says, wait a minute, the sound guy's Italian.
Marc:He's got to know how to fix a bike.
Marc:And the other guy goes, isn't that a little racist to assume that all Italians know how to fix bikes?
Marc:And the other guy goes, I don't know.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:Maybe they do.
Marc:So they called the Italian sound guy over.
Marc:Had that bike fixed in seconds.
Marc:That wheel wasn't rubbing nothing.
Marc:Two seconds.
Marc:He's like, oh, you just have to do the screw there like that.
Marc:I have no idea I'd do an accent.
Marc:But I was grateful.
Marc:I was grateful for the history of understanding delicate machinery.
Marc:Arts, crafts, woodworking, masonry, stained glass work, cathedral building, painting, frescoing.
Marc:I'm glad that, yeah, and also winemaking and, you know, shoes, shoemakers.
Marc:And I'm just happy that there's a legacy of that type of attention to simple and practical mechanics of things that this Italian man was delivered to me by the universe as a sound guy and fixed the front brake pads on my bike.
Marc:Thank you, Italy.
Marc:Thank you, Michelangelo.
Marc:Thank you, Leonardo da Vinci.
Marc:And I'd like to thank the de' Medici family for being patrons to much of that.
Marc:That's where that comes from.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to go change my shirt, and then you're going to go listen to me talk to Tom Arnold.
Marc:You don't have to go anywhere.
Marc:Just stay here.
Marc:Just stay here.
Marc:I'm going to talk to Tom Arnold.
Marc:All right?
Guest:What were you going to say, though, about shooting shit?
Guest:Well, you know, first of all, I didn't know if this would be your house or your house in the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is very similar.
Guest:And, you know, and I also said that I really liked the show and I felt it improve.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It's like when a new show starts...
Guest:You know, there's a point pretty early on, and it happened with the Roseanne Show, it happens with whatever, where you kind of decide, oh, this is working or this isn't working.
Guest:And because you don't air, I assume you shoot them before you start airing.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:In the old days, we had, we aired, you know, the two weeks after, let's say.
Guest:So we could really work on stuff that we got feedback pretty quick.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And so it's tough nowadays because you guys- Put it all in the can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you go, you know, what- Whatever happens is going to happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen in some ways, which isn't necessarily bad.
Marc:I mean, I have the production company and the network and the studio, and they're all pretty diplomatic, so there's a lot of eyes on it, just not audience eyes.
Guest:Well, you need one person, and I always said this on The Roseanne Show.
Guest:I don't know what I...
Guest:did i mean i feel i did something i feel but i could tell her no yeah and you need one person that you respect because you know where you're you're the star of the show you're all into it you're a writer and one person you respect is like no this isn't you know don't wrestle steven seagal on a train uh you know don't win the lottery yeah so you know that's it becomes an important person that you trust one person
Marc:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Marc:I definitely had people I could trust, but also being part of the whole process that you'll be part of the editing process and part of the writing process.
Marc:Like I'm there at all points.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm also learning as I go along.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm sort of the, you know, the last word and the de facto head writer.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:But there were guys, they were definitely, I definitely had a good crew.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So how are you doing?
Guest:I'm doing well.
Guest:I'm doing well.
Guest:What'd you lose, a million pounds?
Guest:I lost 100 pounds in a year.
Guest:I didn't even realize how fat I was, but I had my first child 10 months ago.
Guest:Congratulations.
Guest:And thank you.
Guest:And it was a long journey.
Guest:It was a long journey.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, I mean, I started really trying in 1990.
Guest:To have a kid.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:With this woman?
Guest:No, that was with Roseanne.
Guest:It would have been funny with this woman because she'd be like 12.
Guest:But no, that was my first wife.
Guest:I've been married four times.
Guest:Each of my wives has tried.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And because of my low sperm count, we had to do the in vitro fertilization process.
Guest:You had to deliver them.
Guest:Yeah, and the woman bears the brunt of all the crap, even though it was my fault.
Guest:So I just knew it wasn't going to happen, but Ashley, my wonderful wife, said, please try one more time, and just a miracle happened.
Guest:Yeah, and you got one.
Guest:I got one.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:The second he was born, I realized, oh, this is when I was supposed to have a child, not...
Guest:when I was 18 and my girlfriend said she was pregnant, or the other times I tried with my other wives and tried to force it and, oh, this will make everything good.
Guest:It's this relationship, it's this time in my life, I'm healthy.
Guest:So anyway, I also realized that even though I'm sober with drugs and alcohol, I don't eat soberly.
Guest:So I said, well, I'm going to, for my child there, because I'm 54, I've got to live as long as possible.
Guest:And I was getting close to 300 pounds again.
Guest:And I just started eating healthy.
Guest:I'm not on a diet or anything.
Guest:I just eat very healthy.
Guest:You exercise?
Guest:Exercise a lot.
Guest:I do a lot of cardio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little bit that.
Marc:So it's interesting because I have an addictive personality myself and I'm sober as well.
Marc:You seem pretty level.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, usually.
Marc:Well, I've seen you pretty, not on drugs, but certainly jacked up.
Guest:Well, people, it's funny because they say, oh, he's on coke or he's on whatever.
Guest:I haven't done cocaine or anything like that since December 10th, 1989.
Guest:I haven't had a drink since then.
Guest:In the mid-2000s, I was in a motorcycle wreck.
Guest:And it's such an old story.
Guest:And I've heard young people tell me this story.
Guest:And I go, you know.
Guest:So I should have been aware.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I do remember the moment it worked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where I went, oh, there's something there.
Guest:And so, you know, I had an issue.
Guest:I ended up in the hospital for a couple of months in a coma.
Guest:And, you know, I, so I'm very capable of things.
Guest:But it's funny because- You were in a coma?
Guest:I was in a coma for three weeks.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you feel rested afterwards?
Yeah.
Guest:So the experience, because as you're coming out of the coma, it takes a while, and you kind of feel like you're somewhere.
Guest:You can sort of hear people talking.
Guest:You definitely can hear people talking.
Guest:And you integrate them into what the reality is that you have.
Guest:And the reality I had was that I was backstage at SNL.
Guest:Really?
Guest:100%.
Guest:And we were backstage, and it was a different backstage in real life.
Guest:But we were backstage, and so every nurse or whatever that came in and did whatever or talked just became part of that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And were you waiting to go on?
Marc:Were you hosting?
Guest:I must have been hosting and just sitting back there.
Guest:You haven't hosted.
Guest:I have.
Guest:I hosted three times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Co-hosted once.
Guest:With Roseanne?
Guest:Yeah, I did Roseanne, and then I did without her after a week.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's weird, because I was trying to remember, like, I...
Marc:How do you think that people know you mostly as Roseanne's husband?
Guest:Well, there's young people that don't know that.
Guest:I'm always shocked because I do stand-up, so you meet all these people.
Marc:Well, that's what I remember.
Marc:I remember you first being on my radar, and I've been doing stand-up a long time, probably as long as you, maybe.
Marc:When did you start?
Marc:30 years.
Marc:82, 83.
Marc:So I'm 86, 86.
Marc:But I didn't know you as a comic.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But then when you married Roseanne, people were like, yeah, he's a comic.
Marc:I'm like, he's a comic?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's kind of... Because it was such a... When you marry somebody that famous, it becomes about that.
Guest:You know, up to that point, when I met her... I met her when I was 23 and she was 30.
Guest:And she was a comic from Denver.
Guest:She wasn't famous yet.
Guest:And she came to Minneapolis, where I lived for five years, where I really honed my craft or whatever.
Guest:And we bonded.
Guest:I opened up for her and we bonded immediately.
Marc:You were featuring for her?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And she wasn't...
Marc:This is before she even went to the store?
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Before she was on Carson, before any of that stuff.
Guest:And so, but she was, I also knew this is a freaking talented woman.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Powerful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she liked that I was, you know, I was crazy, crazy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And she liked that, that I didn't, wasn't afraid of the club owner, who, the club owner at the time, very nice guy named Scott Hanson.
Guest:He weighed about 700 pounds.
Guest:And he would say, he still does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although we had it, I don't, he says, because people have death pools about me all the time.
Guest:But we had a death pool and I had August 86 for Scott.
Guest:He's still alive.
Guest:He's still doing well.
Guest:But so he would be very, he'd say, Tom, please, my family is here.
Guest:Don't say any fat jokes.
Guest:But, you know, and then, you know, I did all the old standard, grab the curtain and say, Scott, you forgot your pants.
Guest:And just the fact that he said to not do it and I did it, which is really stupid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She liked that.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:It's like that guy's got spunk.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In fact, he's an alcoholic and he's crazy.
Guest:He doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:He doesn't give a fuck.
Guest:He obviously doesn't.
Marc:Well, I mean, so Minneapolis, that's where you ended up, but you didn't grow up in Minnesota.
Guest:I grew up in Otomo, Iowa.
Guest:Where is that?
Guest:Southeast Iowa.
Guest:It's a farming community 20 miles north of Missouri.
Marc:Do you come from farmers?
Guest:Yeah, well, everything in our town is farm-related.
Guest:My dad ran a plant that makes industrial knives, so, you know, into corn chucker combines and stuff like that.
Marc:So, blades?
Guest:Yeah, diamond blades.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He owns the company?
Guest:No, he ran it.
Guest:He was an industrial engineer, so he did time study and things like that, which is telling a person, if you work this fast, this is how much you'll make, if you can make this many pieces.
Guest:So he raised this by himself, too, until I was 10, I have to say.
Guest:But he knew how long a roll of toilet paper was your last.
Guest:Where was your mom?
Guest:She was an alcoholic, shockingly.
Guest:She was in our town.
Guest:When I was four, they officially broke up.
Guest:She was married seven times.
Guest:She died of the disease.
Guest:Now, being a father, I sure appreciate what he was doing.
Guest:How many siblings were there?
Guest:There was three of us.
Guest:I was four, my sister was three, and my brother was one.
Guest:What happened is they were going to court.
Guest:My mom was so crazy and whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were going to put me on the stand, and then Dad said, well, that's it.
Guest:And the very next day, she came out to his plant, and it said, here's the keys to the house.
Guest:The kids are with the babysitter.
Guest:They're all yours.
Guest:After this long sort of vibe.
Marc:She just gave up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was just mad.
Guest:She knew.
Guest:But I think she knew.
Guest:Like, that's the biggest blessing I have from her, that she went, oh, I'm an alcoholic.
Guest:I'm a little crazy.
Guest:These kids would be better off with their dad.
Guest:And so that, I'm grateful to her for that.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And when did you start to realize that you had the bug?
Marc:For alcoholism?
Marc:Yeah, for alcohol, for food.
Guest:Oh my God, very early.
Guest:Food, my mom would come and visit once in a while.
Guest:And when she came, she gave me a dollar.
Guest:And you could go to Kent's Grocery and buy 10 giant candy bars for a dollar, like the old days, the big ones.
Guest:And sometimes she wouldn't show up or whatever.
Guest:But I wanted that dollar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because that was my candy bars.
Guest:It was my sugar.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so I would put up with that.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:I want to see her.
Guest:I wanted that dollar.
Guest:I'd go right to the store.
Guest:I'd line them up on my bed.
Guest:I'd say, I'm not going to eat them all.
Guest:I'm going to hide them from my brother or sister or whatever.
Guest:But I'd end up eating them all.
Guest:And that sugar...
Guest:high, you know, out of it.
Guest:And then my grandmothers were wonderful and they would feed me and watch me eat.
Guest:And I became that guy in the family that people like to watch eat because I ate so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you feel so loved.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's absolutely my first addiction.
Guest:Food.
Guest:Yeah, food.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I have some food issues myself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm a little, my mother hadn't eaten.
Marc:I've heard.
Marc:I know you're, I bond with you there.
Guest:I get that.
Marc:I'm on Weight Watchers right now and I'm not, I just, because I need the control element.
Marc:And you're skinny.
Marc:I just want to get down to the weight I'm comfortable at.
Guest:And people don't understand, you have to kind of eat.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:If you don't want to do heroin anymore, that's pretty easy.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's one of those things, not like alcohol, where it's like, I don't put that in my body.
Marc:You have to eat.
Marc:Food issues are tricky.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They are very tricky.
Marc:God damn.
Marc:You've gone up and down a lot.
Guest:I have gone up and down a lot.
Guest:In 1988, Oprah lost a lot of weight.
Guest:I don't know if you remember, but she came out on stage and she fit in her skinny jeans and she had all that fat.
Guest:Anyway, I did that, Optifast, which is fasting for 65 days.
Guest:I did not eat food.
Guest:I just drank the shakes.
Guest:I was also doing a lot of cocaine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:which Oprah was on, and I remember losing 85 pounds.
Marc:Oprah was on cocaine?
Guest:She was not.
Guest:She's done it, but she was not.
Guest:Did you suggest that part of the diet to her?
Guest:I've told her that.
Guest:I've said that on the show.
Guest:But that was the time I lost a lot of weight.
Guest:Then I had this movie called Happy Endings that I loved and felt honored to be in, and it was premiering at Sundance.
Guest:It was the first movie, and I said, I'm going to get down so I can wear this suit,
Guest:And I lost a ton of weight.
Guest:And the moment that I got to 199 and three quarters, I went straight to McDonald's and had two double quarter pounders with cheese because it was over.
Guest:I had reached my goal weight.
Marc:I think that like I'd heard, I don't remember who told me or whether or not it's even public information or where the hell I heard it.
Marc:But I'd heard that you were trying to help Chris Farley.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We were buddies.
Guest:And Chris I met after he did an impression of me on Saturday Night Live with what's her name is Roseanne.
Guest:And I said, oh, that guy's funny.
Guest:And I had him come out.
Guest:And Lauren really set that relationship up.
Guest:I'd been sober two years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was pretty common knowledge.
Guest:And Lauren really set that up.
Guest:And that's why I will always love Lauren because I saw a side of him that a lot of people don't see, which is,
Guest:I believe it was my fifth sober birthday, which would have been Chris's third.
Guest:I was waiting for him to call me.
Guest:We were going to talk.
Guest:We were going to say, hey.
Guest:And Lauren called and said, yeah, he's in his room crying so loud that everybody could hear him, like making sure everybody heard him.
Guest:He's relapsed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's relapsed.
Guest:And, you know, this is after we talked about him because he had Lord has such a bad experience with John Belushi, obviously, even though it didn't happen on the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:People blame Lord gets when things go sideways.
Guest:They blame him a lot.
Guest:And, you know, he does give off this air of whatever the arrogance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And but the truth is that Lord says to me, I'm so pissed because he you and I, Tom, we grew up a harder life, you know, working class.
Guest:His his family was rich, which is true.
Guest:He's got every fucking opportunity in the world.
Guest:Everybody wants to help him.
Guest:And it's so frustrating.
Guest:I'm suspended for the show.
Guest:I might even fire him.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:That's hard to do when somebody's on a roll.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Because I've had many calls for people about Charlie.
Guest:I called Charlie Sheen's agent one day because I knew him.
Guest:And I said, I'm going to do an intervention on him.
Guest:He goes, no, no, no.
Guest:It's too much money.
Guest:I'm not going to get involved.
Guest:But he does underscore it, and whatever he wants to do, he should be able to do.
Marc:Yeah, his physical integrity is amazing.
Marc:He must be made of some solid shit, man.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, we know alcoholics like that that go about, and they usually don't smoke crack, but they're at the bar, and you've seen them year after year after year, and they become old.
Guest:Once in a while, it works that way.
Guest:It usually goes the other way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they usually end up buckling.
Guest:Like the Phil Hoffman.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's a more standard.
Guest:Horrendous.
Marc:You know?
Guest:so all right so you're in iowa yeah you're a kid yeah and you and you're what are you doing well when i was a kid uh you know when you don't have a mom and you're in a small town your mom's a crazy yeah and everyone knows your mom yes yes is she out in the street yeah well she's she worked at a bar and she was like all the young people called her mom which i always resented because you know and and people know your story so you get a lot of fights i mean you're picked you know over your mom yeah
Guest:Yeah, your mom's a whore.
Guest:You hear that a lot.
Guest:And they're so mean.
Guest:Kids are so mean.
Guest:So the first time I could make kids laugh in grade school that hated me, I did something inappropriate.
Guest:That's why I'm sitting here.
Guest:Because I was like, oh shit, I get those guys.
Guest:Because I really wanted those guys to like me, the bullies.
Guest:Sure, of course, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I sucked up to them or whatever.
Guest:And in fact, there was one bully named Ammo, Chris Abbenhauser.
Guest:And man, he picked on me.
Guest:He picked on everybody.
Guest:And the day I graduated from high school,
Guest:My whole childhood, this guy's picked on me.
Guest:He started a fight with me at graduation party.
Guest:And man, I finally had it.
Guest:And just, when you go nuts, it just broke his nose, just whatever, whatever.
Guest:I forgot that I'd gotten big.
Guest:These guys always seem big.
Guest:When I was eight and nine and 10, they were bigger then.
Guest:But all of a sudden, things changed.
Guest:And that was a big moment for me.
Guest:And I said, you know what?
Guest:From now on,
Guest:that's how I'm gonna handle things.
Marc:Yeah, and that's the way it went?
Marc:That's the way it went.
Marc:That and comedy.
Guest:Yeah, that and comedy.
Guest:You know, but trying to, because my thing was, and I honestly thought this, if I could be on TV once, the people in Tumbo, Iowa would like me, which is not true.
Guest:But, you know, but that's what I was thinking.
Guest:And also my dad, I mean, whatever respite he got was freaking Bob Hope Special, man.
Guest:He would work so hard and I'd be upstairs and Bob Hope Special would be on and I could hear him just guffawing.
Guest:And I was like, oh my God, that's what I got to, you know, so when I first moved out here, I did a Bob Hope Special like right away.
Guest:And that's so big.
Marc:How old was Bob?
Guest:He was so old.
Guest:He didn't know who Roseanne was.
Guest:He goes, who's the broad?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and you know his cue cards but it was Bob Hope and I got to go down to his house and I got to know his family and you know but it also taught me oh shit I'm gonna have to work forever this is how they do it this guy is so rich so successful and he's reading up these cue cards doing this absurd special that he did not rehearse he has no idea what's going on he just has to show up and be Bob Hope he has to show up and then I hear this story towards the end of his life where they're wheeling him down to the Palm Springs airport so he could greet people coming off the plane and that's a fact
Guest:So they would wheel it down.
Marc:He'd just like to do it.
Marc:He'd just like to do it.
Marc:And it just kept him engaged.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I see that a lot.
Guest:Because he lived to like 100, didn't he?
Guest:Yeah, I think he was 100 even.
Guest:But I see that a lot.
Guest:Comedians either die at 33 or they live to 100 usually.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:But it seems like it.
Marc:I'm not sure that's a law.
Marc:Yeah, that might not be the law.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I also know a lot of really funny old men that are comedians and women that are the funniest people in our business, and they're comedians.
Guest:So there's something to that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you think that your manic disposition and your sort of need to be liked by everybody was just genetic?
Marc:50-50.
Guest:Yeah, 50-50.
Guest:I mean, my hyperactivity was, I'm sure, genetic.
Marc:But nobody like your dad wasn't an abusive guy or anything.
Marc:No, no, no, not at all.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:And my when I was 10, he married the next door neighbor and she had a couple kids and that was terrible.
Guest:It was terrible because she'd come from a very corporal punishment background.
Guest:And I was the oldest and she was going to tame me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it made my life, it was not a pleasant experience.
Guest:I get along with her now, of course.
Guest:I know it was hard for her because I was like, oh my God, you're taking my dad.
Guest:But he did ask me if he could marry her.
Guest:And I remember saying, well, yeah, because, of course.
Marc:But she beat everybody up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, she had a chart on the fridge and check marks during the day for when my dad got home, and this is how many whips he'd get.
Guest:And the saddest thing, and I just saw this recently because my son's born, was the times I was in bed, man, I was loaded up with the extra underwear, the padding, because I knew it was coming because there had been a lot of check marks next to my name.
Guest:And he would say, oh, come on, Ruth, I don't want to...
Guest:She goes, God damn it, it's him or me.
Guest:And so you're 10 and you're hearing that and you're like, oh my God, I don't want my dad to get divorced.
Guest:So you march on down there and say, let's do it.
Marc:Yeah, I want my dad to be happy.
Marc:I'll take the hit.
Guest:Yeah, and I have to say too, it was the day when I was in rehab the first time, they flew out and I confronted him.
Guest:I was ready to not have a family.
Guest:I said, this is the abuse that happened to me.
Guest:And I talked about...
Guest:A neighbor that my mom had hired to babysit had raped me when I was a kid.
Guest:It was kind of an ongoing.
Guest:And then it turns out a lot of other kids in the neighborhood.
Guest:I eventually confronted him.
Guest:But to confront them, I said, this abuse and this treatment was unacceptable.
Guest:And I just was prepared for them to say it didn't happen or whatever.
Guest:But they both said it happened and were sorry.
Guest:We didn't know better.
Guest:And to me, that was everything.
Marc:Yeah, because that that sort of thing that fills you with shame and confusion.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you carry that forever.
Marc:It dictates who you are.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And if you can't get closure on that or grieve it, you're fucked.
Guest:Well, and also this intimate moment with my I'm not as close as people are with their families.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this intimate moment with my father and my stepmother.
Guest:It was so emotional that they copped and said, we screwed up, whatever.
Guest:And then Roseanne burst in the door.
Guest:She'd been outside and said, we're late for this, whatever.
Guest:And it was so weird.
Guest:I felt so emasculated and so fucking vulnerable and shitty.
Guest:And then afterwards, she said, I need to make amends to you.
Guest:I'm so sorry I did that.
Guest:I was just jealous because I want to do that with my family.
Guest:And I was like, oh, okay, I get it.
Guest:She did it on purpose?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:she was she knew what was going on in there she uh couldn't take it and uh and but yet i understood completely where she was coming from what year was this anytime that was in 1990 early 1990 did you just say that you were sexually abused and you confronted that guy as well yes yes um when you when i got sober i started really going over you know how did i get here how did i get all fucked up and had that been a memory you suppressed
Guest:It was there, but it wasn't... It was detailed.
Guest:It wasn't detailed.
Guest:It's like if you look at the sky and you see random clouds, and then one day you actually see, oh my God, it's fucking Mount Rushmore.
Guest:I see exactly who these people are.
Guest:That's really what had happened.
Guest:Because I was all fucked up all the time.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:It started when I was three until I was seven.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my mom, he lived right across the street, and my mom would drink during the day, and she...
Guest:And set me, you know, set me over there.
Guest:And, you know, so my first thing was detailing what happened.
Guest:First of all, the day, I didn't know how to, about sex.
Guest:And I remember saying to my stepmother, I don't know about sex.
Guest:And she gave me a book, read this book.
Guest:And I started going through this book and I went, oh my God, I've already done that.
You know?
Guest:But this dude, this fucking hairy dude.
Guest:When I didn't know about sex, I was like 12.
Guest:I was very immature.
Marc:And then you were like, oh.
Guest:Oh my God, I've done all these.
Guest:Because I thought, oh, maybe sex is something where you go buy something at Target and then you add something onto your body.
Guest:I was very naive, very...
Marc:Oh, that's horrendous.
Guest:And you're like, oh, I've done all this stuff.
Guest:Oh, my God, I've done this.
Guest:Oh, it's just fucking... But I wasn't going to tell my dad, because I didn't want him to be upset.
Guest:After it happened, I mean, when it was happening, I was like, first of all, scared of the fucking dude.
Marc:Did he threaten you?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's how it was.
Guest:He did.
Guest:He did.
Guest:The worst thing he did was his house sat up a little bit from ours, directly across the street, Center Avenue, Otomo, Iowa.
Guest:He...
Guest:said, and they're all big gun people.
Guest:I just have to say, he had his rifle and he said, I could shoot your dad right between the eyes from here.
Guest:And that was, he was just, there's one thing I wasn't gonna lose, it was my dad.
Marc:That was the threat.
Guest:Yeah, because honestly, my dad would have went nuts.
Guest:My dad was very low key, whatever, but I just know.
Marc:You're a kid, you don't know he's bluffing necessarily.
Guest:Right, and I also didn't know what, I knew it was weird and wrong and painful, but I didn't know what.
Guest:Well, it wasn't, it was rape.
Guest:Right, that's what it was.
Guest:But the great thing is, so I start putting this all together, then I fly back to my hometown, start walking the streets, you know, putting it back together.
Guest:This is back in 80.
Guest:Back in 1990.
Guest:When he first got sober.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The first time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I started knocking on the doors to see if the other kids lived there, and some of them did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, listen, I just got to ask you about, you know, Terry.
Guest:And they're like, oh yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they had these very, you know, they were very upset.
Guest:They're like, oh yeah.
Guest:They've done it to them too?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was, my sister had just been arrested for being a big time meth dealer.
Guest:Like a big, like there's a book called Meth Land that references her bringing the methamphetamine business to the Midwest.
Guest:It's a big, big deal.
Guest:She, so I was, she was on trial.
Marc:So you're all kind of famous.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So I didn't know about confronting the guy.
Guest:I just needed to put it back together.
Guest:He obviously didn't live there then.
Guest:I hadn't seen him, but in the back of my mind, I thought, boy, if I'm at Target back home and I see that dude, first of all, I don't want him saying to whoever he's with, you see that guy, that famous guy there?
Guest:You know, I fucked it.
Guest:That was your concern.
Guest:That was my big concern, honest to God.
Guest:So my sister's on trial.
Guest:I go to support her in Des Moines.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sitting next to someone, and I talked about being sexually abused on Oprah.
Guest:Sitting next to a woman, she says, oh, by the way, I saw you on Oprah.
Guest:And I said, oh, thank you.
Guest:And she goes, yeah, I'm married to so-and-so's brother, and he did it to him, too.
Guest:He did it to his own brother?
Guest:Yeah, his own little brother, yeah.
Guest:So then I'm like, oh, I got to do... There's so many people.
Guest:So I make the plan.
Guest:I get a private eye.
Guest:I find out where he works.
Guest:This guy is a big church leader in Des Moines now.
Marc:Get out of here.
Guest:Big church leader.
Guest:Runs a company.
Guest:Big company.
Marc:Still.
Guest:Still.
Marc:So this is all private.
Guest:yeah yeah so i go i plan this out i practice with my therapist because i didn't well first of all i didn't want to freaking kill him i didn't want to i didn't want to get arrested hard to know what you're going to do with the feelings behind that well i didn't know for sure but i practiced you know and i tried to get him arrested first i went to the authorities and they go boy we feel terrible to have the statute of limitations whatever so i knew i was going to do it i knew where he worked i had a so you had no legal recourse
Guest:No.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Zero.
Guest:I go to where he works, and my heart was pounding.
Guest:Roseanne was back here, but she was a phone call away.
Marc:She'd been through a similar thing, right?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:So the receptionist sees me.
Guest:She's like, oh, my God, Tom Arnold.
Guest:I go, I'm here to see Terry.
Guest:I'm an old friend.
Guest:She goes, I'm going to call him.
Guest:I go, no, no, don't call him.
Guest:Where's his office?
Guest:So I start walking down the hall.
Guest:He comes out of his office.
Guest:Sees me.
Guest:I haven't seen him in years and years and years.
Guest:He knew exactly why I was there.
Guest:I knew.
Guest:And so I start my speech.
Guest:I'm here to give you back the shame and pain you caused me as a child.
Guest:If you did that to me again, I'd break your fucking neck and whatever.
Guest:As I got closer to him, he seemed to get bigger and I seemed to get smaller.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I went right up to him and he stuck his big meaty fucking finger in my chest this time and said, your memories are wrong, which told me he's probably been confronted before.
Guest:And it scared me.
Guest:I was like, I felt four or five.
Guest:Like I could smell the fucking room in his house.
Guest:There was a secret room there that used to take me into.
Guest:I could smell it.
Guest:And I felt like a kid for a second.
Guest:And then I stepped out of it.
Guest:And it helps because the therapist said this might happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I grabbed his hand, I bent it back and said, I will break your fucking neck.
Guest:Now, by now, people who know Tom Arnold is there, they've come out to see me see their boss.
Guest:Because I'm going to say hi to him.
Guest:I was loud.
Guest:People heard it.
Guest:Everybody knew.
Guest:He knew.
Guest:We had the moment.
Guest:And he knew.
Guest:And then I left.
Guest:I get outside.
Guest:I call Roseanne.
Guest:I'm like, oh, my God, I fucking did it, man.
Guest:I fucking did it.
Guest:And then I said, you know what?
Guest:And I said, I'm going to make one more stop.
Guest:I run over to the state capitol, Iowa.
Guest:Terry Branstad, who's the governor now.
Guest:He was the governor then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just walk into his office.
Guest:I go, buddy.
Guest:I need a favor.
Guest:This motherfucker is raping kids.
Guest:And I'm telling you what, he's doing it now.
Guest:And he said, boy, we got to fucking do something about it.
Guest:Because, oh, he was about to adopt another boy.
Guest:He only adopted boys, by the way.
Guest:He was going to adopt another boy.
Guest:And so I'm getting upset talking about it.
Guest:But so I said, you got to stop this adoption.
Guest:And Terry Brand said, the governor's like, holy shit.
Guest:Well, you can't even be having this conversation with me.
Guest:You need to get on your plane and go home.
Guest:And this didn't happen.
Guest:I go, you got to do something, man.
Guest:We got to fucking figure this out.
Guest:He's like, Tom.
Guest:The adoption fell through.
Guest:I didn't talk to the governor again, but it fell through.
Guest:I got home and I said, have I done everything?
Guest:And I said, what about the kids in his neighborhood now?
Guest:So I had my farm hands in the middle of the night, six blocks around his house.
Guest:You got a farm up there?
Guest:I had a farm in Otomo, outside of Otomo in Waffle County.
Guest:Six blocks from his house, outward.
Guest:Put up signs with his name, his crimes, his address, just to warn every kid.
Guest:Put them up kid high.
Guest:Uh, everywhere.
Guest:Now I, uh, people are like, is he going to sue you?
Guest:And I said, I hope he sues me.
Guest:That's my only, so everybody knew and man, you know, it's, it's, I was very small town.
Guest:So everybody knew and, uh, you know, I haven't seen him since, but you know, I did, I did what I could do.
Marc:You don't know if he came clean ever or anything else?
Marc:I assume he didn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he couldn't deny.
Marc:I mean, it, you know.
Marc:When you put the signs up, did you get any feedback as to the reaction?
Marc:No.
Marc:And this was in 1990?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Maybe 91 because it took me a little bit of time to get over there.
Marc:So for most of your life, you were carrying this shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the repercussions of that might have had something to do with your eating disorder.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It might have had something to do with your emotional instability.
Marc:Oh, right.
Guest:And then you cover it up with alcohol.
Guest:Alcohol is great for covering drugs.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And, you know, I didn't even smoke pot until I got out of high school because in Iowa, you know, you were the stoners or you were the partiers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There was no, you didn't mix.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was drugs were bad.
Guest:Alcohol, tons of alcohol is good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, I spoke pot a little bit after high school.
Guest:I didn't like it.
Guest:And then when I moved to Minneapolis one night, it was the First Avenue.
Guest:It was a big club there where I worked and whatever.
Guest:And an old friend who also took me to my first AA meeting, not that I'm saying AA public.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:12-step meeting.
Guest:I talk about it.
Guest:12-step meeting.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Uh, she said, you want to do a hit of Coke?
Guest:And I was like, sure.
Guest:So I went to the bathroom and did it and loved it and did.
Guest:And I came back and she goes, where's the, I go, I did it all.
Guest:She goes, oh my God.
Guest:I go, don't worry.
Guest:I got my girlfriend's credit card.
Guest:Let's go get some more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so for five years from 84 to 89, four or five years, it was on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And escalated, escalated, escalated.
Marc:So while you were in Minnesota.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I brought it with me to Los Angeles in 1988.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so let's go through the timeline.
Marc:So you started doing comedy in Iowa or you didn't start?
Guest:First time was at the University of Iowa.
Guest:I got a stage at Student Union.
Marc:Is that where you went to school?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you finish over there?
Marc:No.
Guest:I mean, I went for, I graduated from community college in Indian Hills, which is at Ottumwa, and then went to the University of Iowa, went for two more years, not even close to graduating.
Guest:What happened was they had shows at the Student Union.
Guest:What were you studying?
Guest:Business administration.
Guest:I was going to work for my uncle.
Guest:He runs a big brokerage firm there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they had open mic night first, which I got up and told old jokes.
Guest:I stole it.
Guest:I didn't know you couldn't do other people's jokes.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:And then these comedians from Minneapolis, real comedians, would come, and I would have all of my friends come, and we'd drink Everclear Punch, which is Everclear, straight with powdered Gatorade.
Guest:No water.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's so drunk.
Guest:And then my 50 guys, as soon as I did my stupid set, we'd all get up and leave.
Guest:There wouldn't be anybody there.
Guest:And so the guy, this guy named Scott Novotny that owned the Comedy Cabaret in Minneapolis said, hey, if you get your friends to stay next time, we'll give you a job in Minneapolis.
Marc:Do you remember the comics that came through?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Joel Madison was one who I'm still friends with, still work with.
Guest:I brought him out.
Guest:A lot of them I brought out to write on Roseanne.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The best was Joel Hodgson.
Guest:Yeah, Joel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Joel Hodgson came and he ended up staying at my house at Iowa City that night.
Guest:And I was so amazed by him.
Guest:He was so different in his cadence and his props.
Guest:And he was so funny and so unusual.
Guest:And I love the guy.
Guest:And he kept saying, you need to have something original.
Guest:And he said that when he was in my bedroom and there was a fish tank there.
Guest:And I go, that's it.
Guest:I'll become the fish.
Guest:I'll do trained goldfish.
Guest:That'll be my thing.
Guest:And that's what I became known.
Guest:I had Tom Arnold in the Fabulous Goldfish Review.
Guest:I had these goldfish that went around.
Guest:And basically, they died.
Guest:But I did impressions with them.
Guest:One was a sword follower.
Guest:One did an impression of the Pope.
Guest:I had a ring of fire.
Guest:One got on a motorcycle, went through a ring of fire.
Guest:Then an audience member.
Marc:So you killed goldfish every night.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did.
Guest:But...
Guest:When I moved to Minneapolis, they said, first of all, I go, as soon as I find out I have a job in comedy.
Marc:You were the goldfish guy.
Guest:I was the goldfish guy.
Guest:People that, as soon as I had a job in comedy, I got a trash bag with my clothes, got on a bus, went there, 100 bucks to my name.
Guest:I go to the comedy club.
Guest:I go, I'm here.
Guest:I don't have a driver's license or a car, so I need to live close by.
Guest:What were you, 19?
Guest:I was 22.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I need to live close by.
Guest:He goes, you don't really need to live close by because it's one weekend.
Guest:I thought I had a full-time job up there for like $17.
Guest:I was like, holy shit.
Guest:So I went to Williams Pub, which is the closest bar, and said, do you need any bouncers or barbacks or whatever?
Guest:And I worked there, and one of the waitresses needed a roommate.
Guest:But if I had known there wasn't a real job there, I would have stayed at school because I was crazy, but not that crazy.
Marc:But now you're stuck in Minneapolis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you got a job at a bar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're working weekends at a comedy club.
Guest:Selling Time Life books.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And who were the guys before you got the goldfish thing, or were you already doing that right away?
Guest:I was doing that by the time I got up there.
Guest:I was almost on Letterman, like way early because of the goldfish thing.
Guest:Robert Morton, they had me fly out to Caroline's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was terrible, but I was the goldfish guy that did these.
Guest:And so it was more of a stupid human trick.
Guest:But I don't know if I was almost on there, but they wanted to see me.
Guest:So I went out there and, and, uh, you know, and of course I tell everybody I'll be on Letterman in six weeks.
Guest:And of course it takes 10 years or whatever it takes.
Guest:But, uh, you know, I thought, well, this is, this is great.
Guest:This is my thing.
Marc:So how long before, like, so you, how long did you do the goldfish thing?
Guest:I did them for the first year, two years in Minneapolis.
Marc:So you had a guy at the pet store who knew you would come in?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I had pet stores everywhere because what happened is after the show, I'd go out and get fucked up and I'd leave them in my trunk.
Guest:And even though I had them in a cooler, a lot of times they'd freeze to death.
Guest:And sometimes I had a new show with them dead and just keep swirling the bowl because I couldn't find a pet store.
Guest:But the worst part was Joel Hodgson came to see me after I moved to Minneapolis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I said, do you have my inspiration?
Marc:This is before Mystery Science Theater.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And he said to our mutual friend, he said, what do you think of Tom?
Guest:And he goes, I feel like I'm watching myself.
Guest:I picked up everything about him, like his cadence.
Guest:I talk like this and I did.
Marc:So you absorbed him.
Guest:I absorbed, like intentionally.
Guest:I thought it was okay.
Marc:But I also think that's by virtue, and this is just something that I noticed, I think that when people are sexually abused, and certainly the dudes that I've met who have had it in their past, their soul has been raped.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So they think their sense of self is incredibly fragile.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they almost absorb people's confidence.
Marc:They absorb their disposition, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think another thing about that, the moment my son was born, I mean, I've been having these flashbacks of these wonderful things that happened to me as a child.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you also remember the crappy ones.
Guest:And up till that point that he was born, there was a voice in my head that said, you were a bad kid.
Guest:You deserve that.
Guest:You deserve the other stuff.
Guest:You know, that's why.
Guest:You were bad.
Guest:You were something wrong with you.
Guest:And the moment I saw him, I realized, oh my God, I was him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How could these people have done this to me?
Marc:Oh, my God, I was him.
Marc:Isn't that weird that somehow or another, it's interesting that you thought that it was your fault.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If I could make anything my fault for real, it seems a little bit less, whether it's a relationship or whatever, it seems to take a little bit of the sting out of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also it's sort of a, it, it, it kind of, it means that your empathy ability is a little disabled because, you know, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, because it's broken.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So when you had your kid, you're like, it was a revelation that there's no way this is beautiful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't deserve that.
Guest:All right.
Marc:So, so you're doing the goldfish thing and, uh, no remorse for the fish.
Guest:Well, I worked at a meatpacking plant for three years out of high school.
Guest:No, so goldfish are not high on the list.
Guest:But there would be, towards the end of it, because it's Minneapolis, it's so liberal, people would start protesting and stuff.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It'd be yelling.
Guest:What'd you do at a meatpacking plant?
Guest:Well, I loved it.
Guest:I mean, I loved it because it was the best job at Otomo, Iowa.
Guest:And it's what I did after high school to save money for college.
Guest:I started on the kill floor.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:I worked on the kill floor.
Guest:My grandpa had worked there 50 years.
Guest:My dad had worked there a little bit.
Guest:It was the big job in town.
Guest:In fact, my dad, I said, would you hire me to work at Lund's or whatever his place was?
Guest:He goes, no, because I'd have to fire you.
Guest:But if Louis Dudica will hire you down at Hormel, I'll hire his kid to work for me.
Guest:And that's really what happened.
Guest:And so- It was a trade-off?
Guest:It was a trade-off.
Marc:He liked his kid better?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, he knew he wouldn't have to, this kid wasn't a fuck-up.
Guest:So it was very honest.
Guest:But I'll tell you, I love it, you know, because you go and, you know, then you're suddenly a part of something.
Guest:And I hear people talking about NFL locker rooms.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we have a locker room, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is even more disgusting, if you can imagine.
Guest:But there was a sense of law.
Marc:You're covered in blood.
Guest:Yeah, you're covered in blood.
Guest:You have knives.
Guest:You're working with some of the most disgusting people and human beings on the planet that happen to be really good at this thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, there was a sense of justice.
Guest:If we had a problem in the plant, and there was a lot of problems, you didn't fight there because, again, people have knives and guns.
Guest:You fought behind the union hall.
Guest:It was very organized.
Guest:The old guys would get idiots like me who are mouthy.
Guest:They'd say, and it was always this.
Guest:You know, Cubbage over there in Hambone says you're a fag.
Guest:I go, what?
Guest:He said, what?
Guest:He goes, yeah.
Guest:Then they go to Cubbage, Arnold's or whatever.
Guest:And then we'd meet behind a union hall for their enjoyment and fight.
Guest:And then everybody would go get drunk together.
Marc:So they'd set up fights.
Guest:They'd set up fights.
Guest:And if you're stupid, you'd fall for it every time.
Marc:Now, what happens on the killing floor?
Marc:The cow gets killed and then what do you guys dismember it?
Marc:It was pork.
Marc:It was pork.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Okay, I worked at livestock too.
Guest:I'll tell you, basically what happens is a semi comes and they drop off the hogs and we weigh them.
Guest:And if you work at livestock, you kind of organize them and then you drive them up the chute.
Guest:And people always say how smart pigs are, but they aren't that smart because their buddies are going up this fucking chute and then they don't come back.
Guest:They go up the chute, a thing comes down because we kill them in a humane way.
Guest:shocks them, they drop down, I throw a thing around their back hoof, get them up in the air like a chain, and then the guy who has the best job, the highest paid job in the plant is called a sticker.
Guest:He sticks them in the throat exactly at the right spot.
Guest:Because if the blood doesn't drain out immediately, it's gamey and you're fucked.
Guest:yeah one of the things about being in livestock is if somebody has a broken leg one of those guys yeah you got to put them out of their misery and you're supposed to one at a time shoot you take a bolt gun yeah it's 22 shell and a thing shoot him behind the ear kill him hang him up with the chain take get him up in the air and whatever and
Guest:And I got the nickname Gunner because one day there were six of them and it was almost lunchtime.
Guest:So I shot them all.
Guest:Then I went to lunch.
Guest:So I thought, well, I'll hang them up when I get back.
Guest:And the government condemned them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So they had to throw the meat away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's how everybody started calling me Gunner, which I had this perverse pride.
Marc:The FDA guy on site?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And thank God for them.
Guest:I'm going to tell you, if you know, I know a lot about food processing in general.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thank God for those guys.
Marc:And they're always there.
Yeah.
Guest:They are there, and they're a little, things can slide a little bit, but if they want to be dicks, they can be big dicks.
Guest:But even at their worst, they're doing a service.
Marc:Yeah, they are.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Because there's a lot of horrible, horrible things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, so I moved in, I moved up, and then I got to come inside.
Guest:I worked on a kill floor.
Guest:I chiseled heads for a while, which was a great job.
Guest:The heads are on a stake, a metal stake coming in front of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you take this long knife and you take out the meat that's in the temple, which is really good meat.
Guest:And so literally heads are staring at you one after the other after the other.
Guest:You take it out.
Guest:And I remember down there, I cut the whole scalp of a hog off with its giant ears.
Guest:And these are all 250-pound hogs.
Guest:And I put it on my helmet as I was working, you know, to pretend I was one of the whatever.
Guest:And the whole kill floor stopped.
Guest:They were plotting.
Guest:And when that stops, it's a problem for Orbel.
Guest:And that's how I got my first strike, which I eventually got fired.
Marc:By wearing a pigskin hat.
Marc:But was there any sense of moral conflict?
Guest:There wasn't at the time.
Guest:Now I see it as just a heinous death.
Guest:There's no windows.
Guest:But I also feel like people...
Guest:For the most part, farmers, real farmers, not factory farmers, family farmers, they have a respect for animals, even though they do slaughter them at a certain point.
Guest:The way they're treated and the way decent people work is more respectful than your average Joe.
Guest:I mean, I can see where vegetarians are like, oh, you shouldn't kill them, whatever.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't feel that way.
Guest:I mean, I don't think you should kill them.
Guest:And it's not something I want to get into again.
Guest:I don't hunt.
Guest:But I get it.
Guest:I know how farmers treat their land and the animals, and they're part of their thing.
Guest:And when they're three years old, then they slaughter them.
Marc:So, okay, so then once you, okay, so you're in Minneapolis.
Marc:You've done a year or so with the goldfish.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now you're starting to do your own act.
Guest:Yeah, people are like, you got to have your own voice.
Marc:And that's where you got the sort of sweaty, manic thing going.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So that was the easiest thing to go to.
Guest:And also I started writing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I started writing for Roseanne.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:After you met her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I didn't know who she was.
Marc:And you met her in 87?
Marc:83.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you just started sending her jokes.
Guest:well no she said would you write me some jokes i want to write me after you first met her yeah and so i wrote her jokes and you know when one of her jokes would be on johnny carson i'd be like holy shit look at that and but i knew her voice so well but more than my own yeah and it was this awesome thing she was so freaking talented obviously you were writing for her when she broke yeah uh-huh and then how long before you you guys got involved romantically oh
Guest:We got involved romantically in 1989.
Guest:I moved out here as the Roseanne show was ready to start.
Guest:In 87, I played her husband, ironically, one of her husbands, on her HBO special.
Guest:And then in 88, she says, I got this show coming.
Marc:And you were headlining or featuring?
Guest:I was, well, headlining in the Midwest.
Guest:She goes, I got this show coming.
Guest:I want you to play my husband.
Guest:So I told everybody, told my local newspaper, hey, the people that produce Cosby are producing Roseanne's show, and I'm gonna play her husband.
Guest:Well, I didn't know how to act, and she just was, so I got out there, and I realized, oh, I don't want to do this.
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:I really want to be a writer.
Guest:And you're all jacked up.
Guest:Yeah, I'm all jacked up.
Guest:But but so we went in to meet them for sort of this weird audition.
Guest:And John Goodman was also there who was fucking amazing.
Guest:I was like, there's no way, you know, there's no way.
Guest:So I was so grateful to be a writer.
Guest:And so, you know, and I was her buddy at first, which is also tough in the writing room when you're their buddy.
Marc:Well, yeah, you got a bad rap all around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were like her bitch from the beginning.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:The great thing about that is I was so proud of her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was my friend that was so successful, and she was amazing.
Marc:Yeah, no, she absolutely is, yeah.
Guest:This is why people are like, well, you know, she's fat or whatever.
Guest:She was performing in Atlantic City.
Guest:This is way before she was well-known.
Guest:And it was they had all the beautiful.
Guest:It was during the Miss America.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they all came out with their things on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She stripped down to a bikini with a sash and did her set.
Guest:And I thought that is like there's nothing sexier than so that fucking ballsy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and just turned it inward she had no shame about anything and that's really you know also the women i grew up with we look the men were different looking we're not like in la you know this body image thing the how how fast somebody is like the last thing on the list yeah a problem yeah can they carry something that's good that's a good thing so you know i was uh i was crazy about her as a friend yeah and then i came out and uh
Guest:I came out with my fiance.
Guest:We packed up.
Guest:We left Minneapolis.
Marc:Oh, you had a fiance in the middle of all that drug haze?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Poor.
Guest:I had a couple.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I had poor, poor women.
Guest:And we moved out.
Guest:We got a little apartment in Van Nuys.
Guest:And, you know, I'm going to write on the show.
Guest:And then, you know, shoot the pilot.
Guest:And then there's a writer's strike and whatever.
Guest:And my fiance was Denise.
Guest:Very, very nice.
Guest:Was a hairstylist.
Guest:And Roseanne came back for my going away shows in Minneapolis.
Guest:Because that's when you make your money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going away.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And, uh, so she came back for them and, and my fiance did her hair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and she said at one point, she told me later, she said to Denise, what is Tom like in bed?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, when she looked in the mirror, she had like a bride of Frankenstein hair after she was done because it's such a weird, I never thought she liked me like that.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:And when she told me she did, it was the spring of, of 1989.
Guest:You know, I mean, she said, you know, I, I love you.
Guest:And I go, I love you too.
Guest:And I, yeah,
Guest:It just seemed like, oh, my God, because at the time, I'm not sure how many people liked either of us.
Guest:And it made perfect fucking sense to me.
Guest:But the problem was we used to party, and she partied.
Guest:When she got together with me, we would do all the drugs.
Guest:And she'd come, and we'd meet somewhere in the Midwest.
Guest:We'd perform, whatever.
Guest:And then she'd go back to her kids in her normal life.
Guest:And so when I moved to L.A.
Guest:She wasn't married still, was she?
Guest:It was at the... Estrange.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I moved to L.A.,
Guest:One night, we went out with Goodman and Laurie Metcalf, and I kind of—a couple things funny happened.
Guest:Roseanne and Goodman were kind of messing around a little bit in front of us.
Guest:This was during the shooting of the pilot, and Laurie Metcalf and I were holding hands.
Guest:I mean, I'm crazy about her now.
Guest:And Roseanne told me the next day, oh, you can't hold hands with Lori.
Guest:And I go, oh, why?
Guest:She goes, because you're a writer, and writers can't be in relationships with actors.
Guest:And she goes, that's a rule of Hollywood.
Guest:I go, oh, I didn't know.
Guest:This was before I knew Roseanne liked me.
Guest:I go, oh, shit, I didn't know that.
Guest:I will follow the rules of Hollywood.
Guest:But also the next day she said, you know, the drugs from last night.
Guest:You know how we party when we get together?
Guest:You don't do that all the time, do you?
Guest:And I go, yeah, I do.
Guest:I do it as much as I can.
Guest:She goes, oh, well, you can't do that anymore.
Guest:I go, really?
Guest:Why?
Guest:She goes, well, it's bad.
Guest:It's bad.
Guest:And I go, oh, shit.
Guest:So it took me so long to move out of my apartment in Van Nuys because I knew once I moved in with her in Beverly Hills.
Guest:Party was over?
Guest:Party was over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd rather be in that two-bedroom apartment in Van I's with my drugs and my alcohol than to be better for real.
Marc:I mean, it wasn't even... Well, there's probably a lot of reasons.
Marc:I mean, even if your space is shitty, it's still your space.
Marc:Right, that's very true.
Marc:And you knew that walking into that, that you were going to be in the shadow.
Guest:I was going to be in the shadow, but I was also going to be a stepfather, which I actually loved.
Guest:You know, that was kind of the big... And the truth is, if I hadn't...
Guest:been there and and she hadn't busted me for drugs and i hadn't come clean and whatever all the things that happened i mean it saved my life it's a me going genuinely into rehab to get well because the first time yes yeah um and staying it was funny because we it was such a big news story you've stayed sober since then outside the painkiller yeah yeah yeah 100 100 wow that really took huh
Guest:But here's the thing.
Guest:In the middle of the painkiller thing, I took a 20-year cake, and then I was kind of questioning myself, because you could lie to yourself pretty good.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then I gave you that 20-year cake, and Ashley and I are in Shanghai.
Guest:Your new wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we've been together six years.
Guest:And at that time, I knew, I was like, I am not sober.
Guest:And so I told some friends and everything.
Guest:I mean, you will, you know, you... But the thing I didn't do, which is crazy...
Guest:A lot of people do this.
Guest:Once you realize you've relapsed, you're like, fuck it.
Guest:I'm going to go back and do the shit.
Guest:You know, since I'm going to go to rehab.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:And if I had done that, I'd have been dead.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was a big problem.
Guest:I did not do that.
Guest:What stopped you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think lying to myself that I had it under control.
Marc:And having that much recovery.
Guest:yeah well that's absolutely true yeah absolutely and to be honest with you after the coma yeah after that you know when i came to and and i had all these medical fucking horrible problems i woke up when i came to ucla ashley was there and she said i need to tell you something you know it took a few days she said i need to tell you something and i go what she goes
Guest:I need to show you something because I hadn't looked down.
Guest:And she shows me a mirror and I can see that my whole stomach area and rib cage area was open.
Guest:And it was they'd had to do emergency surgery, cut me open and it was having to heal open.
Guest:And they would come in twice a day and trim.
Guest:It's called debriefing.
Guest:And trim the dead skin.
Guest:And that's how it had to fucking heal.
Guest:But I could see the inside of my body.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:And then they put a wound back on there, which is something they use for combat soldiers to get a shot.
Guest:And that just devastated me that I'd done that to myself.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:That was from the accident?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, that was from, I had a blockage inside of me.
Guest:And my intestine exploded.
Marc:That's why you went into a coma?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:What's that called?
Marc:When it polluted your system?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was septic.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the thing is, and the reason, I mean, drugs, I am sure the pain meds wore down my insides.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But also, you don't feel, oh, I feel something is going to explode.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was thinking back over the days before that, because I'd already- And you were fat.
Guest:I was very fat.
Guest:I had already talked to a doctor, so I got an addiction doctor, and I told my sponsor, and I told people.
Guest:So I was on the road to getting well, and then that happened.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:And so she shows me that, and my heart just sinks that I'd done it.
Guest:I'm so fucking mad at myself.
Guest:This is what I did to myself by using.
Guest:This is what... And she goes, I got to show you one more thing.
Guest:And she shows me, and I have a fucking colostomy on.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, my fucking... My life is fucking over.
Guest:That is it.
Guest:I want to die right now.
Guest:And she goes, the good news is this time it's temporary.
Guest:It's 90 days.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so, you know, immediately I get a calendar out and start counting down that fucking 90 days.
Guest:Because they had to seal the other thing up first before they could take down the colostomy.
Guest:So, anyway, I go right from UCLA to Betty Ford.
Guest:And my wife was so cool about it.
Guest:She was like, well, you know, you could come home for a little bit or go to whatever.
Guest:You know, but...
Guest:I still was having to have a bunch of surgeries to do all this stuff.
Guest:I go, well, maybe I'll wait until the surgeries are over.
Guest:Anyway, she made it clear that this would be a good decision for me to make.
Guest:So I sit down there at Betty Ford, and it's a night, and I got this fucking colostomy, and I'm in the medical unit of that rehab, and I got this open fucking wound, and I've ruined my life, and I'm embarrassed, and I've lied.
Guest:It was the darkest place ever.
Guest:I could not figure out a reason to get it that was worthy of getting it together.
Guest:And I happened to call my sponsor, and he said, well, you know all the good stuff you did for people via the program, whatever, whatever, during those 20 years?
Guest:That still counts.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I thought, well, I'm a phony.
Guest:I'm a complete fraud.
Guest:I'm going around.
Guest:I'm going to meetings.
Guest:I'm sponsoring people.
Guest:I'm helping people.
Guest:I'm a liar.
Guest:I'm a phony, whatever.
Guest:And he goes, no, the good stuff still.
Guest:And I needed to hear that at that fucking low moment because it was dark and it was just me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that meant my shit.
Marc:Yeah, and how long were you out on the painkillers?
Marc:Years?
Guest:Well, in 2006, I had a show called Best in Sports Show, period.
Guest:And I came back because they wanted to do an April Fool's joke on Michael Strahan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, first of all, he said, no, it's April Fool's.
Guest:It's fucking stupid.
Guest:They go, well, we want you to pretend you wrote a book.
Guest:and named all the names and told all the backstage stories of all these people on the show with you.
Guest:And we're going to mock up the book and you'll come on there and talk about it.
Guest:And I'm like, that's so stupid.
Guest:So I call Michael Strand and go, listen, here's the deal.
Guest:They want me to play a joke on you that I wrote a book and I talk about all the locker room stuff we've talked about over the years.
Guest:I want you to pretend you don't know about it, and then let's get in a fucking real fist fight.
Guest:Let's blow these fuckers away.
Guest:So Chris Rose, the host, knows what's going on.
Guest:So he doesn't know I talked to Strahan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the other guys don't know.
Guest:So they're getting all pissies of describing some stuff, and they're like, oh, I don't think that's a pro, whatever.
Guest:Strahan starts getting in my face about locker room Medicaid or whatever, and it starts heating up, and I wonder how long they're going to play it before they go, surprise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all of a sudden I sense they're going to say it because it gets, he and I are swearing at each other.
Guest:And, uh, I stick my, I knew I had to activate him.
Guest:So I stick my finger in his chest.
Guest:He whips around, ends up, I ended up with a fractured rib and a, and a cut above my, whips around.
Guest:And I, the other guys, he's big fat, you know, Rodney Pete, who's awesome.
Guest:And Rob Dibble type, but they weigh like 400 pounds.
Guest:They're on top of me trying to break.
Guest:So this is all live on the TV.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And I flip him around behind me, and he tears his peck.
Guest:He had just sat out the season for the Giants for tearing his peck.
Guest:He re-tore his peck.
Guest:That's what we pretended.
Guest:And so the director in the thing goes, fuck, he finally killed the show.
Guest:Go to black.
Guest:So they went to black, and then Michael Strayed got up and go, April Fools.
Guest:April Fools.
Guest:They were so mad, but it was like one of the few good April Fool's jokes, but I actually broke a rib.
Guest:So the doctor came down there, and I got some pain medicine, and I remember being at home, and I took one.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:It wasn't the motorcycle accident.
Guest:And it worked.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, I didn't start taking it a lot then, but that's where the first time it worked.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'd had pain medicine before, and that was in the back of my mind.
Guest:So when I had the motorcycle wreck on PCH, I broke my scapula.
Guest:it was it was game on yeah you know and and another thing the ambulance came and i i i've broken my right scapula fuck it's so painful and they said you want something i go fuck yes and they gave me a shot of fentanyl and i was like oh that's it so that's why i get the heroin thing right because that was it and so from 80 from 2008 to 2010 it was yeah
Marc:every other month at least and we're and you were married already to ashley or you weren't i was going through a divorce and uh and but i met no i i excuse me ashley and i just started dating so so okay so you weren't married and she married you in the middle of all this yeah she married me in 2009 and then and then i mean i kept it i lied if i could right so that so that dark time yeah all that was built up right
Marc:And the weight was on you.
Marc:You didn't want to live.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Awful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Awful.
Guest:And it's awful for her that she marries a sober guy.
Guest:And it turns out sober guy is not so sober after all.
Marc:It's a scary thing, man.
Marc:It's like he had a lot of time.
Marc:And I go and I hear those stories about dudes.
Marc:And I'm like, holy fuck.
Marc:That's the scariest thing in the world.
Marc:yeah is dudes with long-term sobriety it is who either like say like maybe i can do this now right or they get fucked up on the painting that's always what it is right maybe maybe i'm okay or i got a backache right or a back injury right surgery because then you start negotiating every day is it hurting today
Guest:I think it's hurting today.
Guest:And, you know, I had a physical at UCLA last Thursday.
Guest:And I just remember before going to the hospital thinking, I got one mission here.
Guest:It's convinced.
Guest:Hopefully there is something wrong with me so I can get some pain medication.
Guest:But I've got to convince this doctor to manipulate him into giving me something.
Guest:And this time it was like, geez, I hope I, you know, because I lost all this weight.
Guest:I hope it's a good one and it was great.
Guest:And, you know, it's a hell of a way to live your life.
Marc:You got a couple years now?
Guest:I got three years.
Guest:August 2010 was my coma, but I had to have other surgeries in the fall.
Guest:I had a total of seven.
Guest:There was a couple times where I was managing my own pain medication, which I don't do at all now.
Guest:where I was a little loopy, and what actually happened was, in August of 2011, or excuse me, in January, we got back from Hawaii, and I was taking, I was on heavy stuff, and then also taking Ambient, and I don't know, I'd stayed up all night, I was so loopy, and my friend Kevin Zegers, this young actor, very nice guy,
Guest:Someone sent me a thing about his birthday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and whatever.
Guest:And so I was like, this is in the middle of the night for some reason.
Guest:I'm like riding back or whatever.
Guest:And I called him a faggot.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I hit reply all apparently.
Guest:And Elton John is his godfather.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, got that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so David Furnish writes back, I will kick your fat, sweaty fucking ass.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck you, man?
Guest:We'll meet out here.
Guest:And my wife has the ability to watch what I'm doing from upstairs on the internet.
Guest:She comes downstairs and says, what the fuck is wrong?
Guest:I go, this motherfucker wants to fight me.
Guest:I'm going to meet him at Cedars-Sinai.
Guest:She goes, no, you're not.
Guest:And then it started dawning on me how fuck crazy this was.
Guest:And I was like, I got to do a Hail Mary.
Guest:So I checked into UCLA Detox.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I also did that lame bullshit fucking thing of, I don't know what was going on.
Guest:Somebody had access to my computer.
Guest:I tried that, but then I said, fuck it.
Guest:I still got this issue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, even though, so since then, it's been just over three years.
Marc:You're a fucking handful.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I mean well.
Marc:Of course, a lot of people say that.
Marc:No, no, I think you do.
Marc:But I'm pretty impressed with the idea that... So, with you and Roseanne, you were on the show, and that marriage, I guess, publicly didn't seem like it ended well.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It ended terrible.
Marc:Yeah, it did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, honestly, for the first three years out of the four and a half, I thought it was going to last forever.
Guest:Because we had... You know, there was the on-camera bullshit, which...
Guest:We also played into, obviously.
Guest:That percentage was small at first in the marriage.
Guest:And then the real stuff of being a stepfather and the kids and doing stuff.
Guest:But then the public stuff became a bigger percentage.
Marc:Of what, the attention or the trouble?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do you mean the public stuff?
Guest:Well, I mean, it became more important where, you know, if everything's cool at home, you can handle whatever.
Guest:A little flack, yeah.
Guest:And two things happened.
Guest:One, I started working outside of the Roseanne show.
Guest:I did a movie called True Lies, a film for the seven months before we- With Schwarzenegger?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jim Cameron directed it.
Guest:And that was hard for her.
Marc:Well, she couldn't let go of the stage?
Guest:Yeah, well, she said, she was very honest, which I love.
Guest:I can't handle you getting this kind of success in this area.
Guest:And she was very honest, and she called Jim Cameron a lot and said he's quitting because we were way over.
Marc:So she was honest and trying to fuck your career?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was nothing compared to what she did when she fought for divorce.
Guest:But I think we both tried really hard to make it work.
Guest:And I know she tried really hard, and I know I tried really hard.
Guest:And then I remember one day we were fighting, and she just sat on the stairs and started crying and said,
Guest:You know what?
Guest:You did.
Guest:You tried.
Guest:And you know I tried.
Guest:Because it was always like, nobody wants to end something.
Guest:I want it to be her that ends it.
Guest:And then I'm the victim.
Guest:She wants the same thing.
Guest:And we should have ended it right there.
Guest:But we went a little bit more.
Guest:And I remember I said, we had a fight.
Guest:And I said, I'm going to stay in the apartment.
Guest:She goes, oh, you're not seeing.
Guest:I go, I'm the State Department.
Guest:I'll see you at the set.
Guest:And I came to the set, and there was guards outside of my office.
Guest:And she'd already done a press release that I was abusive.
Guest:I mean, the shit that she said I did, that I raped her, that I abused her, that I did all this stuff.
Guest:It was so fucking crazy.
Guest:And then she, this is so typical of the relationship, she called me and said, I'm so sorry, my lawyer made me do that.
Guest:We reconciled publicly.
Guest:This is all public.
Guest:We're back together.
Guest:And it was kind of big news because of what was, where she was.
Marc:Because of the accusation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then she already had a trip planned to Europe.
Guest:And I was filming the show called Tom on CBS.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And I said, I can't shut the, I shut it down for a week so we could reconcile.
Guest:in iowa at the farm i can't shut it down there's too many people depending on the job i'll meet you in europe and uh and she was not happy with that and then i heard a guy from the inquirer called and said she's holding hands with the bodyguard that you'd hired and uh honest to god i felt like such relief yeah but i said i gotta see this myself first of all no
Guest:i'm happy but i'm pissed off that guy because he fucking worked at duck and donuts and i hired him and now he's holding hands by what which so i flew my brother and i my gay brother chris comes out we fly and the guy from the choir is on the play too because i said to him this is what i'm he you gave me that info this is what i'm doing he literally went there we land in rome we get up one bodyguard yeah they're like because she's in sardinia they go you need to have a fucking bodyguard yeah
Guest:Okay, so we get one guy who's a captain in the police department.
Guest:He has a gun.
Guest:He gets up.
Guest:We land in Sardinia, and we're going to go to this villa and kind of scope out where she is, and I want to have this confrontation.
Guest:And immediately, our car's pulled over by three other cars.
Guest:This guy's got machine guns, and they're like, she fucking wants to see you.
Guest:So they take us up this long road.
Guest:She comes out of there, and in the background, I see the bodyguard, Ben.
Guest:And she's like, and my guy, I just got the one guy.
Guest:He's like, but she goes...
Guest:I go, just tell me, are you fucking Ben?
Guest:And she said, no, but she looked down and I knew it.
Guest:And so I had that feeling of, oh good, it can end now.
Guest:But also I fucking made a move at Ben.
Guest:You know, they got all the machine gun.
Guest:Ben's a giant fucking dude, but you know, you gotta take a punch at him.
Guest:You fucking got him.
Guest:So we get back to our place.
Guest:What happened when he tried to take a punch at him?
Guest:He was scared.
Guest:I'm going to tell you right now.
Guest:There's twice I've tried to take a punch at him.
Guest:He's way bigger than me and way younger, and he's at MMA.
Guest:Once I was in court where he came up behind me when we were having the thing and tried to be funny.
Guest:I fucking whipped around, and I could tell he was a little... Which, you know, he shouldn't be, but it felt good.
Guest:And so she...
Guest:So we get back to our place, and I had this sense of relief somehow.
Guest:And I found out that the travel agent that booked our flight, it was supposed to be a secret.
Guest:I'm going to surprise her, whatever.
Guest:I got a fax that was to her from him saying, okay, here's what he's doing, whatever.
Guest:So I realized he's been telling her the whole time.
Guest:She knew exactly when I would land.
Guest:So my brother calls.
Guest:People do anything for money, huh?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He says, we're staying for a month, he tells the guy.
Guest:Because I know that will freak her out if I'm staying here for a fucking month.
Guest:And then we end up leaving, but the guy, my bodyguard, the captain of the police department in Rome is so shocked because women do not, it's very, you know, man, women don't treat their man like that.
Guest:That guy cheated on you.
Guest:You know, we can have something done to them.
Guest:And he was like, totally serious.
Guest:And I go, no, I don't want anything done to her.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I go, what could you do to him?
Guest:He goes, well, when he goes back to Rome, we'll have him arrested and put him for drugs.
Guest:We'll put drugs on him.
Guest:He'll be in prison for life.
Guest:I go, no, no, no, no.
Guest:They should want to reconcile.
Guest:I go, no, no.
Guest:What about something else?
Guest:For 10 grand, what can we get?
Guest:He goes, well, six guys will come off the thing, and then they'll rough them up, and they'll miss their flight, and they'll do a body cavity search of this dude, whatever.
Guest:And I go, will you take pictures of that instead of me?
Guest:He goes, absolutely.
Guest:I go, done.
Guest:So that happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That happened.
Guest:They didn't touch her, but he got the whole full body.
Guest:Full treatment?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He felt better?
Guest:Yeah, and I felt better, more importantly.
Marc:So, all right, so you went through the horrible divorce.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And by the way, she called the day we got divorced, she called the presidents of each network and said, if you ever work with him, you'll never work with me.
Guest:And she was very powerful at the time.
Guest:And there were people that I'd brought out from the Midwest to give jobs to that could no longer speak to me.
Guest:They made that choice.
Guest:And I get that.
Guest:I appreciate people that did continue to talk.
Guest:But there was a line drawn.
Guest:And if it weren't for the movie True Lies coming out, being a hit, having Jim Cameron go on TV and defend me, having Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver say, no, actually, he's a good guy.
Guest:I would not be talking to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, has any of that?
Marc:I mean, you obviously tried to get married two more times.
Guest:Yes, I did.
Guest:Stupid.
Guest:The Weekend True Lies came out back in 1994.
Guest:I went to David Spade's birthday party.
Guest:It's the only time I've been invited because I was really hot for like a week.
Guest:And I love Spade though.
Guest:But this girl whose brother was a friend of Spade was visiting from Michigan.
Guest:She was a college student, 20 years old.
Guest:And I saw her and I'm like, that's it.
Guest:She's the opposite of everything I've known.
Guest:She's going to be the wife and mother.
Guest:And I projected myself onto her.
Guest:I moved her out.
Guest:I paid her student loans.
Guest:I did whatever.
Guest:And it was not right.
Guest:And I did it again.
Marc:The same kind of thing?
Guest:a little bit yeah she's right to have my kids yeah yeah yeah she's a very nice person right whatever uh you know and uh it's just you know and then i with ashley i was done getting married i mean it's so fucking ridiculous you've been married three times and
Guest:and stuff and uh we had mutual friends and we the passover uh six years ago this still practicing judaism i mean i've lightly yeah you know but you still identify as a jew yeah yeah whatever i'm not religious but i i will do it but in this they said well why don't you guys go out you know you're both single and and so she and her sister called or she called me and her sister met and her met me at a restaurant and we talked at a certain point her sister broke off and we went upstairs and uh
Guest:you know slowly got to know each other and uh you know she's pretty naturally yeah like this freaking frenetic yeah desperate no desperate and i i've i've made a lot of mistakes and those are two of my biggest ones well let me ask you uh have any of those are you in roseanne on any kind of terms
Guest:So I heard from her in maybe October.
Guest:I mean, you know, I did her roast, which I thought went perfect.
Guest:And then I wanted to get out of there because it went perfect.
Guest:And and obviously they needed me to be there or they wouldn't have asked.
Guest:There was a couple of texts back and forth.
Guest:We also hadn't seen each other for 18 years when I did a roast.
Guest:I'd been in the same room.
Guest:So then I tweeted something last spring and she took offense to it.
Guest:It wasn't even about her.
Guest:It was about cleaning up my garage.
Guest:And she started hammering me on Twitter.
Guest:And I thought, well, that's crazy.
Guest:She didn't get that as a joke.
Guest:So I started fucking with her back.
Guest:And it became this huge thing where everybody started participating.
Guest:but it was i was joking i was i said i cleaned up my garage and i'm going to goodwill i've got 39 remote controls and 42 phone chargers and my old wedding videos yeah and then she went how dare you my children are on those wedding videos and i go hey listen you could still buy them for a dollar and so she didn't get the joke but it's fine it's all good and then it was really nice this fall she wrote me and said um it was a sunday night she said i'm in trouble
Guest:uh i don't have a third act i have to have a script in for nbc tomorrow morning at whatever time and if i don't they're gonna fire me i need a third act this is like midnight on a sunday night i'm in bed with my wife this is october really yeah and so i look at that i'm like all right let's do it so i go downstairs i get on my computer we went back and forth all night and it was like the old fucking days man it was like the best of the best from 30 years before the best of what you guys were yeah yeah yeah that's sweet yeah
Guest:And I do have to say this about writing jokes for her.
Guest:When we became a couple couple, right before that, she said to me one day, yeah, too many fat jokes.
Guest:I go, well, you're so good at them.
Guest:And I realized later she liked me now.
Guest:And me writing all those fat jokes for her about her, she was like, yeah, I didn't even think.
Guest:I thought, they're just funny, man.
Guest:You just got to know.
Guest:But when you look at somebody different when you like them.
Marc:So you have a certain amount of closure and acceptance around this.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what about those writers that turned on you?
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Because of the program.
Marc:Have any of them come back around?
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:My business manager came back around.
Guest:He was our business manager.
Guest:Did you split the money?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Here's what happened.
Guest:People say I got $50 billion in his public record.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I had no alimony.
Guest:I took no alimony because I assumed, oh, my God, I made True Lies.
Guest:I'm going to make all these other movies.
Guest:And I just don't want to have to.
Guest:Yeah, why be that guy?
Guest:We had two houses and we divided those up.
Guest:That was a total thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:It's public record, which is weird because people always say, oh, he got all this money.
Marc:They just want to fucking cause trouble.
Guest:But I also didn't want to be here 20 years later talking to you and go, yeah, I took all this money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although there are times when I go, $50 million.
Guest:But no, not at all.
Marc:But it was your pride that stopped you.
Guest:It was by pride in my ego that I thought, well, fuck, I'm going to make many, many millions.
Guest:And I did make some money.
Guest:And you wanted to detach a little bit from that.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Well, I would have had to go to court and say, I suck.
Guest:I'll never work again.
Guest:She would have had to go to court and say, he's amazing.
Guest:He's brilliant.
Guest:That would have been funny.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:I could tell that the proceedings were dragging her down.
Guest:The lawyers were making a lot of money.
Guest:And so I just said, that's it.
Marc:You're a survivor, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm thrilled at your sobriety and at your new kid.
Marc:And it's a great thing.
Marc:It is great.
Guest:Right now, it's really great.
Guest:Yeah, good.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:And you're touring.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I am.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:You know, I don't like traveling, but, you know, it's it's the one thing.
Guest:And I feel it makes me a better actor, a better writer.
Guest:I love doing stand up and I love going to these towns that I probably wouldn't get to go to and doing people coming out.
Guest:They're coming out.
Guest:Are they?
Guest:It's so great.
Marc:That's great, man.
Guest:You're selling out, and it's hard work, as you know.
Guest:And I do that thing.
Guest:Everybody has T-shirts or DVDs.
Guest:I have some T-shirts for my heart.
Guest:I have a heart camp, a camp del cortisone for kids who have had heart transplants and major heart disease.
Guest:It's the only one like in the country, out in Catalina, and we never said no to a kid.
Guest:And I do a joke about these shirts that my wife made.
Guest:But I say, you don't have to buy a shirt.
Guest:I will sign everything.
Guest:I'll take a picture with literally everybody.
Guest:And like 150 people between each shows.
Guest:But you also have these moments where they go, hey, I loved you on Marc Maron.
Guest:Or I got sexually abused when I was gay.
Guest:Because they know a lot about my personal life.
Marc:We become a survival story.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, and a lot of people feel isolated in their problems.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they don't think there's hope for them.
Marc:And, you know, a guy like you is taking every hit possible.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I also feel it's important to talk about that.
Guest:I mean, when you talk about being on drugs, people label you a drug addict all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they assume no matter what they see me on, if I'm at all have any energy, he's on coke.
Guest:They don't know that how I was doing coke there.
Guest:I would be so dead.
Guest:You wouldn't be able to talk.
Guest:No, I wouldn't be able to talk, but I'd be dead.
Guest:I mean, I was killing myself.
Marc:Thanks for talking, Tom.
Guest:Thank you, buddy.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show, folks.
Marc:See, I don't know, whatever you may think, he's a compelling guy.
Marc:He's a genuine guy.
Marc:He's a fast talker.
Marc:It's a lot of information, a lot of emotion.
Marc:You know, if it's a con job, I'm in.
Marc:I feel closer to Tom, and I feel that I got a new respect for the guy.
Marc:He's definitely a persistent survivor, a guy willing to change.
Marc:I enjoyed having him here.
Marc:And please go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:For all you newbies who are just getting into the show, you can get that free app, upgrade the premium app, and stream all 450 or however many I've done episodes.
Marc:You can do that.
Marc:You can do that.
Marc:You can leave a comment.
Marc:I'm tired, man.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!
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