Episode 479 - Lena Dunham
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks what the fucksters what the fuckle heads okay what do i see i see uh lana dunham is on the show today lana dunham
Marc:You know who she is.
Marc:The creator of Girls.
Marc:I enjoy talking to her.
Marc:I enjoy talking about art and stuff.
Marc:As some of you know, I am a fan of the art.
Marc:And she grew up amongst the art.
Marc:And by that, I mean she grew up amongst artists.
Marc:Her parents are both...
Marc:of relatively famous and successful artists.
Marc:And I felt a little envy, honestly, talking to her about the world that she grew up in.
Marc:I mean, that world, the art world in New York, I mean, that was one of those things that I aspired to, I looked up to.
Marc:We had a bit of a conversation about installations and conceptual art, and I remember the first time I saw a wall of televisions just sitting there on...
Marc:a namjoon paik installation i was like holy shit you can just do that and put it on the floor and people will reckon with it here you go this came out of me reckon with it look what i did reckon with this sure you can dismiss it you can call it garbage whatever you gotta reckon with it and i just think it's interesting that that's what she came from and and now uh and now we reckon with her
Marc:And some people have a problem with that.
Marc:I had a lovely chat.
Marc:Let me tell you where I'm going to be because sometimes I don't plug myself.
Marc:Now, tomorrow night is the second to the last Ramble, Flounder, Soul Wrestling workshop show at the Steve Allen Theater at the Trippany House.
Marc:I don't know if it's sold out or not, but I'm doing one tomorrow.
Marc:That's the 18th and one on the 25th.
Marc:The last one, the lovely Moon Zappa will be opening for me.
Marc:Tomorrow night, Jeff Tate.
Marc:From the Midwest.
Marc:He's going to be doing his thing before me.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:That's a classic.
Marc:Classic.
Marc:Just shit my pants, pow.
Marc:So look.
Marc:Here's where I'm playing.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:April 11th and 12th.
Marc:Hilarities.
Marc:Cleveland, Ohio.
Marc:I told you I was coming back.
Marc:Thursday.
Marc:April 17th through Saturday.
Marc:April 19th, Good Nights, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Marc:I haven't been there in a while.
Marc:Had a pretty good time the last time.
Marc:Some shit went down on stage.
Marc:Some funny shit.
Marc:Friday, April 25th, Midnight Show at the Moon Tower Comedy Festival.
Marc:Festival.
Marc:Festival at the Paramount Theater there.
Marc:Sunday, May 18th, Wild West Comedy Festival in Nashville, Tennessee.
Marc:I'll be interviewing Vince Vaughn one-on-one in front of people.
Marc:I don't know if I'm doing comedy.
Marc:Happy St.
Marc:Patrick's Day to those of you with the Irish persuasion.
Marc:Is that a persuasion?
Marc:To those of you who would mean something, too.
Marc:I pay my dick green every St.
Marc:Patrick's Day.
Marc:I don't.
Marc:That was filthy.
Marc:But I will tell you this.
Marc:I did say that to Moon on the phone.
Marc:I said yesterday, I said tomorrow I pay my dick green for St.
Marc:Patrick's Day.
Marc:Thinking I'd get a little bit of a yuck.
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Actually, she was like, really?
Marc:Is that something?
Marc:And I'm like, really?
Marc:Are you taking that seriously?
Marc:No.
Marc:And she said, look at the household I grew up in.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And I'm like, no, I'm not painting my dick green.
Marc:Jesus.
Marc:So here's what happened.
Marc:Look, I understand the logic.
Marc:I understand the logic of progress.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:I do.
Marc:As some of you know, I don't spend a lot of bread and kind of hold up here.
Marc:I don't redo my house.
Marc:I drive a 2006 Camry.
Marc:My mother said that I should buy a new car.
Marc:I said, why?
Marc:And my mother said, aren't you embarrassed?
Marc:Why do I do that?
Marc:Why can't I just enjoy maybe buying a new car?
Marc:Because I don't know.
Marc:Because I need to hold on to the money I have in case I need it when I don't have any money.
Marc:That's the way I think.
Marc:I'm not playing along.
Marc:I'm not being bullied into buying shit.
Marc:But I'm not a rich man.
Marc:You know, my series is on IFC.
Marc:I'm not selling out theaters.
Marc:I'm making a living, people.
Marc:Making a fucking living.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Just trying to get by.
Marc:Doing okay right now.
Marc:I mean, the most extravagant thing I got was my stereo system.
Marc:As some of you know, I've sung the praises of my tube amp.
Marc:I'm playing a lot of vinyl.
Marc:And something happened yesterday.
Marc:Something went down, man.
Marc:Something went down.
Marc:Not a big thing.
Marc:No one was hurt.
Marc:maybe a little bit on the inside.
Marc:I pushed a power button of my tube amp, and one of the tubes went, that's the sound effect of a bright light happening, and then smoke coming out of it.
Marc:Within seconds, there was smoke coming out of my tube on my tube amp, one out of the eight tubes.
Marc:And I immediately turned it off, and I thought, well, that can't be good.
Marc:So now I'm in this weird position where, you know, I got this tube amp.
Marc:I don't know where the fuck to get those tubes.
Marc:I got to order them from a tube place.
Marc:I guess I can get them online.
Marc:Why not call the place that ordered that I got the amp at?
Marc:And they go, yeah, it probably had just burned a tube.
Marc:Hope it didn't defect any of the other components.
Marc:You need to bring it in and have it biased anyways.
Marc:I'm like, what, what?
Marc:How would he open till?
Marc:Five.
Marc:That's an hour from now.
Marc:And I got plans to make dinner with.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:When are you open next?
Marc:Tuesday.
Marc:All right, fine.
Marc:I guess I got to bring it in Tuesday.
Marc:So now I'm learning just how addicted I've become again to music.
Marc:I always liked having a little sound around, but now I'm sort of jonesing.
Marc:Got a lot of records laying around, and they've got nothing to do.
Marc:These records are just sitting there.
Marc:They're all over my house now going, what are we doing?
Marc:Are we making sounds or what?
Marc:No, because a tube went out.
Marc:And then I realized that that must have been the moment.
Marc:That must have been the moment.
Marc:You know, where enough people were like, can we get a tube?
Marc:My thing burned out.
Marc:This burned out.
Marc:Where they said, you know what?
Marc:Is there a way around these tubes?
Marc:Who cares if we lose a little sound quality?
Marc:I don't think we will, quite frankly.
Marc:Let's just do solid state, man.
Marc:And that's the transition they made.
Marc:The cost of time travel to purity is inconvenient.
Marc:So now I got to wait two or three days and, you know, hopefully they have the tube and that might burn out again.
Marc:Another tube might go.
Marc:So there's a little bit of hassle to this time travel business to a place of analog purity.
Marc:And I'm willing to ride it out.
Marc:But I'm just saying it's not tragic.
Marc:It's not tragic, my friends.
Marc:I'm just without my records for a couple days.
Marc:And it's my new addiction.
Marc:So I'm a little tweaky.
Marc:Got a little Jones going.
Marc:Got a little Jones going.
Marc:Some of you were wondering what the quote was that Moon sent me during our tense time.
Marc:Some of you yelled at me for texting and driving.
Marc:I'd like to think I was stopped.
Marc:I'd like to think that.
Marc:But it turns out it was just a summation of a quote that got dumped into the middle of an emotionally chaotic scramble to bring Moon some food and to do things right.
Marc:And to show up and be a guy who enjoys being in a relationship, which I do.
Marc:And doing it right.
Marc:Doing it right.
Marc:But it was a very tense time.
Marc:And this is what I got.
Marc:Did you know this?
Marc:In the symposium by Plato, an abstract discussion about love and its implications ensues between a romantic group of philosophers.
Marc:Aristophanes attempts to describe the omnipotent power of love through his understanding of its godly origins.
Marc:Insolent and disobedient by nature, Zeus decided to humble mankind by cutting them in half to make them weaker.
Marc:Thus, the separation created a universal hunger among mankind to reunite with their other divided soul.
Marc:This, according to Aristophanes, explains the desperate need to find the missing half of the soul, which has been incarnated in the form of a soulmate.
Marc:The origin and motivation of love is explained in terms of a physical and emotional need to be whole again.
Marc:The desire to search for the other half of our severed soul is an ancient and powerful force meant to promote healing, enlightenment, and empowerment.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:where I was going in that chaotic and aggravated state with food, frightened of the future of my relationship, frightened that I am incapable of ever having a relationship that functions properly, frightened that I was letting the woman who I am in love with down.
Marc:What I realized after reading that now in retrospect is I was doing everything I can to make my soul whole again.
Marc:by delivering some food and some support and some love.
Marc:Thank you, Plato.
Marc:Everything's good.
Marc:We're doing all right.
Marc:We're pretty whole.
Marc:Well, she's at home and I'm here.
Marc:But the ether connects us still.
Marc:Let's go now to my conversation with Lena Dunham, who I enjoy.
Guest:I ran into Laura Dern at the Golden Globes, and I told her that I thought you two were in love.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Turns out it was with Moon Zappa.
Guest:That you were in love?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You told me that, and I didn't listen to that one yet, even though I need to.
Marc:Listen to that one.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you know, Laura Dern, I don't know that I could handle Laura Dern.
Marc:I don't think I'm handling Moon Zappa that great, but I'm trying.
Guest:Is Moon Zappa your girlfriend?
Marc:We're doing it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you mean doing it like having sex or doing it like being boyfriend and girlfriend?
Marc:Oh, no, no.
Marc:Yeah, there's no just having sex with her.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:I don't think it would have worked that way.
Guest:How long have you guys been together?
Marc:Like a few months.
Marc:Yeah, it's definitely, it's hands-on.
Marc:It's exciting.
Marc:A lot of juice there.
Guest:That's so exciting.
Guest:So you must really like her.
Marc:I've liked her for years.
Guest:Really?
Marc:For like 20 years.
Marc:And we've just never been able to... Well, I mean, it's not like we were trying.
Marc:She was married, I was married.
Guest:Do you call her Moon or do you call her Moon Unit?
Marc:I call her Moon.
Marc:I called her Moony the other day, which was cute.
Marc:I think it's hard, you know, eventually a nickname will evolve.
Guest:i call my boyfriend all kinds of shit like what just like bucket bumpy bubbles what's his name jack bucket just anything that comes out of my mouth that's cute is that sounds cute to me is his name and like he does a lot of text me that's like hey schlaxworth hey schlamp oh so it's a thing it's just like a thing where we just call each other whatever how long have you been going out
Guest:Like two and a half years.
Marc:He's the best.
Marc:Still that cute?
Guest:He's the best.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:He would love him.
Guest:He's the most fun guy in the world.
Marc:He's a guitar player?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:He plays guitar, but he's like a producer, and he has his own solo project, which just came out.
Guest:how much music is do you use in your show pretty much a lot i mean and i've totally stopped trying to like create the illusion that i'm like doing it for any reason beyond just it's my boyfriend he's my boyfriend and we together would like the proceeds of this oh it's just but that's better than i like i it's nice that he's successful enough to where you're like look he's you know they're struggling i
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, I like that now it's a benefit to us to use this music because it's good and people like it.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:But I do get a little embarrassed when I'm like, Jack has a song that could work great here just because I always think about, do you remember when Billy Joel let Christie Brinkley paint the album cover to River of Dreams?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I didn't mark that on my calendar.
Guest:That's the worst couple collaboration in history.
Marc:Well, I think it's happened a lot.
Marc:I mean, there's that footage of, I don't know where I got, I think Bill Burr dug it up of John Lennon playing with Chuck Berry.
Marc:And Yoko Ono is sitting behind, you know, playing a drum or something.
Marc:And right in the middle of like Johnny B. Goode or something, she just starts going, yeah!
Marc:And the look on Chuck Berry's face is astounding.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:Just like, what?
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:Yoko Ono's featured on my boyfriend's new album.
Guest:I think he's the only man under 30 who passionately pursued a Yoko Ono cameo.
Guest:I'm really proud of him.
Marc:And what did she do?
Guest:Well, I can't fully spoil it because it's not out yet, but she made Yoko sounds.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:I don't think you're going to spoil it.
Guest:She made beautiful Yoko sounds.
Marc:Beautiful Yoko sounds.
Guest:Yeah, they sounded... Actually, it was amazing.
Guest:Like, when I first heard it, I was like...
Guest:I mean, it sounded so much like Yoko Ono that I couldn't really even think about it on a qualitative level.
Guest:I just kind of went like, wow, that's Yoko Ono, and it sounds pretty incredible.
Guest:And then when he added music, I cried.
Guest:Really?
Guest:When he added his kind of sound landscape underneath it, it was suddenly deeply affecting it.
Marc:But are you a Yoko Ono fan in general other than her cultural significance?
Marc:I mean, do you go to her art installations?
Guest:No, I don't really go to anyone's art installations.
Marc:Not anymore?
Guest:Not anymore.
Marc:Or ever?
Guest:Not anymore.
Guest:Maybe in a reaction to my parents and the amount of art installations I was forced to go to as a child, it's just very hard to get me to an art installation.
Marc:I think I went to one of hers for some reason because maybe I was walking in Soho and there was the Yoko Ono.
Marc:And all I know is it involved grass.
Marc:I think there was grass inside.
Guest:Here's the thing about Yoko Ono.
Guest:She's really reached that enviable point where anything she does is pretty much okay.
Yeah.
Marc:Is it really?
Guest:I think so.
Marc:I think that's your framing of it.
Marc:You do?
Marc:I don't know that if you were going to ask most people, how's Yoko Ono doing?
Marc:I don't know what happened, but she broke through.
Guest:By the way, I only just realized we're recording because you're so good at just like slipping right in.
Guest:I don't like how that's... You're just so good at just moving... Like, you didn't make a big deal about the fact that we were going to start the podcast.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We just got into it on a friendly level and suddenly we were doing the podcast.
Marc:What, is there another way to do it?
Guest:No, just making a big... I feel like sometimes people are like, Brian, do you have my water?
Guest:That kind of...
Guest:All right.
Guest:Headphones, okay.
Guest:Good to talk to you.
Marc:Well, all of that would have been problematic because there's clearly no one else here.
Marc:If I would have started going, Brian, could I have my thing?
Marc:And you would sat there uncomfortably saying, this is weird.
Guest:There's no one called Brian.
Guest:But I can tell everyone that finally being here where I've heard so many interviews is thrilling.
Guest:And the room is...
Guest:More fascinating and layered than I even expected.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Had you seen pictures?
Guest:Yeah, I'd seen pictures.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:Some of it is slowly losing its meaning, and I don't know what to do about that.
Guest:That's the hard thing about having lots of sort of fan documents is that they lose their significance or you meet some of the people who are behind them and suddenly they hold different significance.
Guest:I've sort of had to remove a lot of the fan detritus from my life.
Marc:Really?
Marc:But you couldn't help yourself but get into it, right?
Marc:Like initially you're like, oh, look at all this stuff.
Marc:And then eventually you're like, this is getting weird.
Guest:Yeah, like I don't keep mugs from talk shows.
Marc:Oh, well, that's not fan detritus.
Marc:That's schwag.
Guest:That's schwag.
Guest:But then also, I also used to be really into collecting playbills or keeping my Archie comic collection.
Guest:Or I used to have the world's biggest VHS collection of movies from the 90s.
Guest:And I just...
Marc:What are you going to do with that shit?
Marc:Eventually, I have a storage space that someone broke into the other day.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah, but I was like, there's nothing in there.
Marc:So why am I paying for it?
Marc:There's nothing they could steal in there that I give a shit about.
Marc:Why don't I just let it go?
Marc:Why can't I just throw it away?
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, this room.
Marc:Tell me later.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I could become such a hoarder that I've gone the other way.
Guest:And I like delete all my text messages.
Guest:I throw everything out.
Guest:My house is pretty stripped down because of my fear of going in the opposite direction.
Marc:Really?
Marc:But it's comfortable.
Marc:Isn't that a weird moment when you move or something and like everything's out but your bed?
Marc:You're like, why am I not living like this all the time?
Guest:It's the greatest thing in the world.
Guest:Like, you're like, there's finally peace.
Guest:Like, I don't know if you ever have that feeling.
Guest:I get a headache a lot on the right side of my head.
Guest:And sometimes I have to lie down.
Guest:Like in the frontal right lobe.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Do you know what that is?
Guest:I think it's neck tension and existential anxiety.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have anxiety?
Guest:Lots.
Guest:And I've had these headaches since I was a little kid.
Marc:Really?
Guest:And they kick in at inopportune times.
Guest:And I can operate.
Guest:It's not like I have to go lie down in a dark room.
Guest:But sometimes if I have the opportunity to lie down, I do.
Guest:And sometimes when I have a really bad headache, I'll look around and it's like all my things are like buzzing and making me nauseous.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:I do get waves of nausea, but I don't know that they're tethered to things, but I've noticed that lately, like where nothing's really working, like there's no comforting going on somehow.
Marc:And then as opposed to just like, I feel a queasiness.
Guest:I vomit a lot.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah, like once a month maybe.
Marc:I don't think that's a lot.
Marc:I'd say if you talk to a professional vomiter, they think you're an amateur.
Guest:My boyfriend hasn't vomited in 15 years.
Marc:Yeah, I can't remember the last time I vomited and I'm afraid of it.
Marc:The act of gagging.
Guest:That's a really intense, that's a real fear that people have to be
Guest:Did you read the article by Scott Stossel, The Age of Anxiety?
Guest:No.
Guest:That was on the cover.
Guest:Scott Stossel is the editor of The New Republic.
Guest:Or no, he's the editor of The Atlantic.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was on the cover.
Guest:Excuse me for confusing those two magazines.
Marc:Yeah, it's okay.
Marc:A lot of people out there, like three, are going, good catch.
Marc:Good catch.
Guest:But it was an amazing article about basically recounting the worst anxiety syndrome you've ever heard.
Guest:He basically has all of our anxiety...
Marc:combined into one anxiety disorder and he just talks about what it's like to be a productive person in the world who's battling the most common mental illness which is anxiety I had a guy who used to write for the Atlantic that fellow Daniel Smith was in here he wrote that book monkey mind about anxiety yeah I think it's one of the there's no way not to have it because just the fact that we have to adapt to what we're adapting to on a basic level just phones I know it's fucking ridiculous
Guest:I texted Jenny Connor, who's my producer, producing partner.
Guest:She loves your work.
Guest:She's jealous that I'm here.
Marc:She tried to get me and Natasha Lyonne and her to have dinner, and there was some fevered emailing, and then I got anxious.
Guest:You mean you were like, that's too much powerful woman with me at one table?
Marc:No, it wasn't so much powerful woman.
Marc:It's sort of like, how is this going to, is this going to really happen?
Marc:And then it just went away.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It seemed to be fun.
Marc:It was a fun thing to talk about.
Marc:It wasn't a real plan.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:And that's how most of the plans in my modern life exist.
Guest:I feel like sometimes talking about having a plan is as good as just having it.
Marc:Yeah, you kind of get the excitement.
Marc:And what else do you really need?
Guest:You don't.
Marc:So, okay, what were we talking about?
Marc:Anxiety?
Guest:I texted Jenny and he said, I had a realization, which is you're basically the only person where seeing a text from you on my phone doesn't fill me with panic.
Marc:Freak out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, God, if I see some names in my mailbox, I'm like, oh, fuck it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I feel fine when my boyfriend texts me.
Guest:But even when my mom texts me, she and I are best buds.
Guest:And if I see her name come up, I'm like, what the fuck happened this time?
Guest:What did I do?
Marc:My mom just texts all caps and all of them have the emotional content of maybe a 12-year-old.
Guest:What do they say?
Marc:Love you.
Marc:L-U-V-U.
Marc:All caps.
Marc:Mom.
Guest:Stuff like that.
Guest:The best.
Guest:When parents sign text, that will never get old to me.
Guest:Ever.
Marc:It's adorable.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's adorable in parents' text in general.
Marc:But wait, how did you... Why do you throw up once a month?
Guest:Different reasons.
Guest:Anxiety, hormones, over-caffeinated.
Guest:Sometimes if I drink green tea in the morning too much.
Marc:With no food in?
Guest:With no food, I throw up.
Marc:That's fucking ridiculous.
Guest:Sometimes I just don't feel good all afternoon.
Guest:Sometimes I have a really bad headache and it makes me throw up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Do you have migraines?
Guest:Are they migraines?
Guest:I never thought of them that way.
Guest:They're just a bad right side of the head headache.
Guest:But I feel like with migraines, it's like you have to lie down and it doesn't go away for 10 hours.
Guest:Whereas these headaches might only last for 20 minutes, but sometimes... Maybe too much caffeine, maybe anxiety.
Guest:Maybe all of it.
Guest:And I feel like I function fairly well for someone who vomits as much as I do.
Marc:That's once a month.
Marc:It's not a lot.
Marc:And you seem to have your plate full, at least for a good part of the year with the show.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Marc:So...
Marc:Let's talk about this anxiety or what we were talking about earlier, which is, you know, when I did my first season, obviously it did not.
Marc:It was probably similar because you're in most of the scenes, give or take.
Guest:You and I do the same job on our shows.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I don't have any.
Marc:We don't have the budget for a B story.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So it's all you.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like when you were doing the first season, how did you what was your mindset around it?
Marc:And in the sense, because I all I knew, I knew I didn't know how to do most of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So my control was limited and I just wanted to show up for work.
Guest:For me, there was a real ignorance is bliss aspect to it where I was like, I didn't know what to expect and what to be scared of, so I just wasn't scared of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you knew all you could be was yourself.
Marc:You weren't aspiring to something.
Guest:No.
Marc:Did you have models in your head of what is good television and what isn't?
Guest:Well, it was interesting because, yes, I absolutely did, and there was the television that I loved and grew up on, a lot of which is not from this time, a lot of which is stuff that I saw on Nick at Night as a kid.
Guest:A lot of it is, you know...
Guest:Mary Tyler Moore, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, that girl, shows that had female protagonists, a different kind of female protagonists at a different point in history.
Marc:You were aware of that as a child?
Marc:Like, these women are powerful, and I need to emulate them.
Guest:Well, I wasn't consciously aware of it, but I remember thinking...
Guest:These shows are really good.
Guest:I like watching them more than I like watching TGIF or what's on on a Saturday morning or what's on the Disney Channel.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And I feel connected to them in a different way.
Guest:And I was also encouraged to watch them by my mother because they were our common television ground.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:It was something that was nostalgic for her to watch and exciting for me to watch.
Marc:I remember watching Mary Tyler more with my parents while they laid in bed and I was at the foot of the bed watching.
Guest:That sounds so cute.
Marc:In real time.
Marc:You know, they liked those shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And also those are very extraordinarily funny women.
Yeah.
Guest:incredible and like i was obsessed with gilda radnor as a kid so have to be i think right there's no one else or better i have an amazing gilda poster that i got off ebay that i framed very it cost me like 10 times more to frame it than it did to buy it and it's just my favorite thing that i own i had katherine o'hara in here did you listen to that one that was one of my favorites her relationship with gilda was fascinating and she in her own right obviously has a very unique approach to comedy which is fucking mind-blowing
Guest:I liked how listening to her, she sounded pretty balanced.
Marc:Yeah, she's like, yeah.
Guest:She was like, you just expect someone who's played those characters and who has that history to come in and sort of like be manic and jump all around your studio and lay across things and say inappropriate stuff to you.
Guest:And Catherine O'Hara sounded like a person you would not mind being in line next to at the grocery store.
Sure.
Guest:But who also happens to be a brilliant comedic genius.
Guest:And I'm always looking for and taking note of those people who are able to like put it all into their work and then live as productive humans in the world.
Marc:How's that going for you?
Marc:I mean, you seem together.
Marc:I mean, you're not that character that you play.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I have a lot of anxiety and I have a lot of neuroses, but I really try not to inflict it on the people around me.
Guest:I really try to make it my own issue.
Guest:And I really try to seem like someone who you could, you know, trust with your house keys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, you would have to be.
Marc:I mean, obviously, in order to handle the responsibility you have and to sort of arrive at the place you've arrived at the age you're at, not being condescending, you have to have a certain amount of shit together.
Marc:No one's going to carry you that much.
Marc:No one's going to carry you that far if you're a fuck up.
Guest:Well, I hope you know how much you're listening to your podcast.
Guest:And I'm not the only person who has this reaction.
Guest:Serves as like a guidebook for people who want to not fuck it up, not fuck it up and have a life like getting to listen to your heroes.
Guest:Talk about the ups and downs of their existence for an hour and a half with somebody who gives a shit.
Guest:It's like an invaluable resource.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it could be a lot like I feel like.
Guest:college could just teach a class that's like listen to all of wtf and then write a paper about what you think makes a productive human who will live longer than 40 years and what do you think it is well i think it varies and limit your drug intake limit your drug intake don't be an asshole be nice to the people around you don't be self-destructive yeah follow your intuition hold on to and be good to the people in your life who make you feel good
Marc:Those two are tricky.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Those are like the hardest ones.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Follow your intuition is like sounds so easy and isn't that easy because sometimes you go, but I don't have an intuition.
Guest:It's terrifying.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Or how can I trust it?
Marc:If there's insecurity involved, you're not going to be able to get to your intuition.
Guest:It's true.
Marc:It took me, you know, 25 years.
Guest:It's really true.
Marc:So, but you grew up in like with artists, you said, going to installations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I grew up, both my parents are artists, and I grew up in Soho in New York before it was what we know it to be.
Marc:When it was artists.
Guest:When it was artists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I lived in a community that was only Hasidic people and artists.
Marc:The Hasids were in Soho?
Guest:The Hasids were in Soho.
Guest:The Hasids had businesses.
Guest:Oh, that's where they were.
Guest:That's where their businesses were.
Marc:That's where they went to work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think the Hasids were living in a building.
Marc:They've come from Williamsburg to Soho.
Guest:They moved.
Guest:There was like a Hasidic stocking store.
Guest:Really?
Marc:There was a. But anyone shopped there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's where we got most of my.
Guest:It also sold like little girl shoes and weird underpants, all of which I owned as a child.
Marc:What was your feeling about Hasids at the time?
Guest:I think I didn't understand that it was a religious preference.
Guest:I thought it was just like, that's some people's style.
Guest:I thought some people like to dress like punks.
Guest:Some people like to wear big hats and grow beards and tendrils from their heads.
Guest:I don't think I understood that it signified anything.
Marc:Well, how long did you live in Soho?
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:I lived there until I was 13.
Guest:so you you were a new york kid yeah and then we moved to brooklyn yeah because like a victoria's secret moved to our corner and my dad was like we're not fucking doing this anymore really yeah it just became almost overnight we would go away for the summer and they probably owned their loft they'd owned it since 1974 oh see they did all right my mom yeah they were my mom moved there it was her first apartment after college
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So she moved in with her best friend who was an artist called Jimmy DeSanta who died in 1990 and they lived there together and made work together and then my dad moved in and then I was born and then my sister was born and we had a really good run there and then we moved our operation to Brooklyn and...
Marc:But you grew up in that, so they were there in the late 60s, early 70s.
Guest:My mom moved to Soho in 1973.
Marc:So they were doing that whole New York art, you know, modern sort of pop performance was starting and all that stuff.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Neither of my parents has ever, both of them are pretty big traditionalists when it comes to their mediums.
Guest:My mom takes photographs and my dad makes paintings, but they know a lot of people and interact with a lot of people who were blurring and are blurring those boundaries more.
Marc:But that's where they came up.
Marc:I mean, they're traditionalists only in the medium.
Marc:They're not subject matter.
Guest:No, they're New York, 70s New York art world all the way.
Marc:So what level of players were they?
Marc:Does your father sell?
Marc:Has he always sold?
Guest:They both, my mom, they both had really good careers.
Guest:It's hard to sort of, I don't know how much it translates outside the art world.
Guest:Like my mom has like 16 pieces in MoMA.
Marc:That's huge.
Guest:My dad has a bunch of huge paintings that's hanging in MoMA right now.
Marc:Really?
Guest:They're both in the collection of the Met, in the collection of the Guggenheim, in the Whitney.
Guest:They've had really good, solid runs that are not over yet.
Marc:So these were important artists.
Guest:Yeah, they totally... It's cool.
Guest:It's like I'll be in an art bookstore or a museum in some random city and see their stuff.
Guest:I'm super proud of them because neither of them... I think when people hear artists, what they think is...
Guest:Children of rich people who have managed to fuck off for their entire lives.
Marc:Or people, yeah, right, or people trying.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And they, like, are people who've had the careers they wanted.
Guest:Like, that's why it's funny whenever anyone wants to sort of make fun of the art world in a movie or, you know, does a pitch that's like, they go to a gallery opening where someone's just eating grapes and calling it art.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm always weirdly sensitive about it because that is the world that...
Guest:sent me to college, paid for my education, paid for my shoes.
Guest:That's what my life was, and those are the people that I've taken seriously as the adults in my world.
Marc:And I think it's important.
Marc:I think that it's one of the few things that people you think are intelligent and sophisticated become ignorant, condescending douchebags.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I want to kill everybody when...
Guest:There's that conversation like, how do you know that my spaghetti that I'm eating right now isn't art?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like, really, we need to have this conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like very much equivalent to the like, how do I know the blue that I'm seeing is not different than the blue you're seeing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That eighth grade stoners have.
Marc:It's a lack of education and intelligence about the context, you know, like art just isn't fucking important to some people.
Marc:And I get that.
Marc:But that doesn't mean it's unnecessary.
Marc:And it doesn't mean that you should engage in that conversation.
Guest:And I kind of think of my parents as like these kind of purists who are especially my dad, because he's a painter who are like holding on for dear life to something that doesn't have the same life that it once did.
Guest:And there's something inspiring about that.
Marc:Is there something inspiring about somebody who uses that medium and is great at it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because to see somebody, to see a painting, because you know the difference.
Marc:I mean, if you're sensitive to art, you know the difference between someone who can paint with confidence and somebody who's just trying to do something and not quite there yet.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:That's the difference that people say, who's to say the spaghetti is an art?
Marc:They're not sensitive to that.
Guest:No.
Marc:They can look at any painting and go, nah.
Marc:They can look at a Roth going like, nah, it's three colors.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then you want to hit them.
Guest:No, totally.
Guest:I love the fact my dad is like, both my parents, but my dad especially is one of the most verbal people that I know.
Guest:Like my mom communicates.
Guest:She's really smart and funny, obviously.
Yeah.
Guest:I think that, but she communicates very much visually.
Guest:That's her medium.
Guest:That's how she organizes the world and expresses herself.
Guest:My dad is hyperverbal.
Guest:And so it's really interesting to me that he made the choice to be a person who goes into the studio and paints every day.
Marc:But when you were growing up, I mean, would he sort of like, was it like, I got to go, I got to do it?
Marc:Or did he was sort of like every day at 10?
Guest:Every day.
Guest:It wasn't never like the muse has struck me and I'm going to the studio at 3 a.m.
Guest:Like I once read this book Night Studio by Philip Gustin's daughter about the experience of being his child.
Guest:And it was all like him like going into the studio in a blind rage for three days.
Marc:To make these giant cartoony things.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:My dad makes giant cartoony things too, but he handles it more like he works banker's hours.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my parents both always worked in our house.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they worked down.
Guest:We were on the fourth floor and they were on the second floor.
Marc:So you had a black room?
Marc:There's a black room in the house.
Marc:There's a dark room.
Guest:There is.
Guest:My mom doesn't develop her own pictures.
Guest:She's not like a photography nerd like that.
Guest:Like it's all about she takes the pictures and sends them off to a lab.
Guest:But she had her studio where she did setups and had lights.
Guest:And then on the back.
Marc:She does big format color.
Yeah.
Guest:Big, huge color images of a lot of dolls, toys, inanimate objects set up in animate ways.
Guest:She did a series, probably still her most popular stuff is like objects on legs.
Guest:Like a camera with legs or a cake with like sexy women's legs.
Marc:So they both had a sense of humor.
Marc:They were coming at art from that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They may have taken the craft seriously, but their subject matter was...
Guest:It's funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if I always got that as funny.
Guest:My dad's stuff is super cartoony and like men, a lot of men with dicks for noses.
Guest:That's a big, like dicks for noses and a fedora.
Guest:That was his thing for a good 10 year period.
Guest:He's moved on to like rear views of like big Amazonian women spreading their asses open basically is what the word is.
Marc:So he went from dick noses to large assholes.
Guest:Large assholes, which I'm really into.
Guest:Like I've never occurred to me to be embarrassed.
Yeah.
Guest:Ever.
Marc:Yeah, and I think that that idea, obviously, growing up in the art world without the shame around any of that stuff has got to have helped your creativity.
Guest:It's really nice.
Guest:And I was always sort of taught what people make isn't who they are.
Guest:I wish I was taught that.
Marc:I seem to be going the opposite direction.
Marc:I'm the complete opposite in thinking.
Guest:Do you think everything everybody makes is a direct reflection of who they are and you can judge them morally by it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Sometimes, and just from my own creativity, if I feel distance from what I'm creating, I feel like it's inauthentic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's frustrating.
Marc:I would like to just be able to do a character, do stuff like that, to free myself in that way.
Marc:I imagine I could.
Marc:I imagine I have the talent, but it's not satisfying.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think that's... I think I don't know how to do that thing that you're describing.
Guest:I don't know how to separate myself in a clear way.
Guest:But I think more of the lesson that my parents were always trying to make clear was...
Guest:If someone makes work that's sexual and makes work that's angry, it doesn't mean they're a sexual deviant or they're angry.
Guest:Like in the latest Woody Allen debate, I'm I'm decidedly pro Dylan Farrow and decidedly disgusted with Woody Allen's behavior.
Guest:But for me, when people like go through his work and comb through it for references to child molestation, that's not the fucking point.
Marc:No, I've had this conversation with a couple of people.
Marc:I'm like, if he's guilty and obviously he has a history of being inappropriate or wrong-minded, then that's a moral implication of that guy.
Marc:But I'm not going to say... I'm not going to indict the work.
Guest:Fuck no.
Guest:I think that you can decide that you don't want to support the work of somebody who has molested a child.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's a completely appropriate choice.
Guest:But going through it and saying, look, he's told us in 57 ways that he rapes kids.
Guest:That's not the thing.
Guest:The thing is to look at the actual evidence that exists in the world, which I think...
Guest:strongly suggests that Woody Allen is in the wrong.
Guest:But for me, the point is not to go through his one-act plays looking for references to child molestation because I'm not comfortable living in a world where art is part of how we convict people of crimes.
Marc:Yeah, but also the conviction happens completely, almost completely outside of the court.
Marc:I mean, it's not that that does a disservice to everything that if you're going to sit there and dismiss an entire body of work, you know, in retroactively because of a personal transgression, I would imagine that there's a good deal of art that needs to be thrown out.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's definitely a slippery slope.
Guest:I mean, for me, I haven't wanted to watch his movies for a long time, partially because of who I think he is and partially because I think they got really bad.
Guest:But I think that, yeah, I agree that it's looking at art and trying to basically decide who and who...
Guest:who we can and who we can't support, it's dangerous.
Marc:Yeah, it is, because more so than not, because of the temperament it requires to either be an artist or a leader or a lot of things.
Marc:Bad people have done amazing things.
Guest:It's totally true.
Guest:And that doesn't mean... I can acknowledge that, well, I think one of the reasons that people have been so uncomfortable... People who really believe Woody Allen is guilty have not felt comfortable saying that because...
Guest:They're so afraid to lose their connection to his work.
Guest:And the thing is, I feel like people need to understand that you can hold two positions in your mind.
Guest:You can know that someone's made work that's meaningful to you and also know that they have most likely molested their daughter.
Guest:And I am – that's been an interesting – I've probably spoken about this way too much on Twitter just because it's so important to me that victims of sexual abuse speak out about it.
Guest:But I was so unimpressed by people's inability to –
Guest:To like think in less binary ways and to just experience the ambiguity that life is constantly offering up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also just the sort of blanket dismissal of everything that like how you can rewire your brain to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's I've had the same conversation and I don't it's it's it's not an easy conversation to have.
Marc:No, because, you know, certain people will be like, how could you even watch?
Marc:Like I was with I talked to somebody on Twitter about he just he's nauseated now with all the work.
Marc:And I'm like, really?
Guest:I'm nauseated with the person.
Marc:I was nauseated with the person before, like not nauseated, but when I saw that documentary on him and found out that, you know, just how much of the stage persona, this green persona was a fabrication, I was disappointed.
Guest:And it seemed very calculating.
Guest:I thought that documentary was so masturbatory.
Guest:If somebody made a documentary about me or anyone whose work I really cared about like that, I would be bummed.
Marc:Well, the only thing that because I had not seen anything of him and I grew up, you know, loving his stuff, most of it, the fact that he was so together was disconcerting to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The fact that this was clearly a guy that, you know, never, you know, struggled, you know, in his career, never really confronted the issues that the character.
Marc:It was a complete fabrication.
Marc:It was a clown.
Marc:He made a clown that worked and that was it.
Marc:It kind of bothered me because I didn't feel any soul from the guy.
Guest:i get that like someone who becomes the patron saint of confused men everywhere defined a generation of comedy yeah you know the the the era of analysis was all him everyone should go visit philip roth and just anoint him as their new hero well that was that stuff's gotten very honest in later years i mean have you read his last few books jesus christ
Guest:You know, I will always have... It's so interesting.
Guest:His last few books are so intense.
Guest:I also read his ex-wife's memoir about being married to him because... When was that written?
Guest:Ten years ago.
Guest:It's called Leaving a Doll's House.
Guest:It does not make being married to him sound that fun.
Marc:I don't know how it could be.
Guest:I mean, he's a goddamn animal.
Guest:But I feel more comfortable because Philip Roth has been...
Guest:playing whatever his sick games are with adult women who are prepared for what he's bringing yeah and for years for years I know and he's warned everybody like basically if you've ever read a Philip Roth book then gone he seems fun to date that's your fucking problem yeah
Marc:Yeah, but these last ones, as he ages and as these guys look mortality so directly in the face, what he ruminates on is just painful.
Marc:I mean, what was it?
Marc:Indignation was one.
Marc:They had titles like Indignation and Shame.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's really tackling the big stuff.
Marc:Yeah, very clearly, the story that's written by the narrative of the kid who goes to the Korean War on a fluke.
Guest:I know.
Marc:And it's a dead man's narrative.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:That was horrendous.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:I have to read him, though.
Guest:I can't help it.
Guest:And I have to read every article about him that ever comes out, ever.
Marc:Oh, so you're obsessed with Philip Roth.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:I don't want to be like that's not an obsession that I really want to own up to in my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I just just because like being a feminist obsessed with Philip Roth is it is not like the most clean cut position.
Guest:But I just his his life's work, his legacy, the whole thing are just they're super compelling to me.
Guest:And I was obsessed with Goodbye Columbus from the minute I read it in seventh grade.
Marc:But when you say as a feminist and having that sort of it's not even a love hate relationship.
Marc:I mean, you understand the dynamics that he has with women in his real life and also in the book.
Guest:Yeah, I have a I have a I think as clear a sense as I can, considering I don't know him.
Guest:And right.
Guest:But, you know, there's also like incredible women like Mia Farrow are friends with Philip Roth because he's smart and he's compelling and he clearly makes amazing company.
Guest:and has the sensitivity of a great literary mind while also having the darkness of an enraged dick Jew.
Marc:But there's something compelling about that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Have you ever dated an enraged dick Jew?
Guest:Like 15 of them.
Guest:I mean, it was the specialty de maison before my current relationship.
Marc:But is that what evolved your feminism?
Marc:Was your own compulsion towards abusive men?
Guest:Well, it was interesting because I was raised by a decidedly non-abusive man and by an intensely self-actualized feminist.
Guest:And then when I found my way into the world as an adult woman embarking on my sexual life and saw that I was – I talk about this a lot in my upcoming book, which is an embarrassing thing to say, but just like –
Guest:This incredible drive to find myself in dark situations where I wasn't being treated with the respect that I thought I or even any human deserved.
Marc:Like what?
Guest:You know, just being with guys who didn't have a... Who didn't... Yellers, screamers, druggers, which?
Guest:I did never... Have never been... I would have walked right out if somebody screamed in my face or was abusive to me in any physical way.
Guest:It was much more just like...
Guest:People who have a dark relationship to themselves, an uncomfortable relationship to their sexuality, and express that through hate and disdain for the woman that they're with disguised as humor and need to be obliterated half of the time.
Marc:So most comics.
Guest:basically although they were never comics I've got all the pleasure of I got all the dark stuff of dating a comic minus the pleasure of dating somebody funny but isn't that you're describing somebody who is married to their misery and requires a lot of care these are needy people needy people who want to pretend that they don't need you needy people who want to pretend you're not an important role in your life people who aren't happy for you when you're successful people who don't believe in you people who don't
Guest:People who act like they're doing you a favor by being attracted to you.
Guest:All of those things factored into my early dating life.
Marc:But did you hit a point of fury?
Marc:I mean, was there like, is there like what what is the level?
Marc:Because I think that when people hear someone identifies a feminist or certain men and certain women, you know, think about feminism.
Marc:They believe that there must be some inherent anger that runs deeper than just ideological anger.
Guest:I think I'm capable of getting very angry about moments of my early – I'm not trying to be cagey.
Guest:It's just that there isn't – I'm not describing one boyfriend or one incident.
Guest:I'm describing a chain of people and situations that I put myself through that, while not technically –
Guest:You know, not abusive on any level that the police would be interested in.
Guest:They were painful and they were, you know, took a good four years off of the evolution and health of my self-esteem and they were...
Guest:They seemed like these cool explorations of a life that I had never known.
Guest:And in reality, they were super damaging.
Guest:And I think I do.
Guest:I have a lot of anger.
Guest:Like, I hate this, but I do have some definitely like some like look at me now energy directed at ex-boyfriends that I don't really want to own.
Guest:But how can you help it?
Guest:You must have some of that like towards people who you feel like didn't understand.
Marc:My second wife said, you're not going to be famous till you're dead.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Now look at her.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You're alive.
Marc:I'm alive.
Guest:And a lot of people really like you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm trying to accept that now.
Guest:And I also feel angry.
Guest:I think I spend a lot of time...
Guest:Trying to say, and again, this is stuff that I'll be exploring.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:I'll be exploring these relationships for way longer than I was in these relationships.
Marc:Because they resonate.
Marc:The thing is that a lot of times they become part of your behavior.
Marc:You get a trauma and then you have that expectation.
Marc:Once you go through something like that, you enter the next thing with an expectation.
Marc:And part of your brain is trying to make it that and you have to release it.
Guest:Sometimes I feel like every time, and I don't want to feel this, I feel really safe with a lot of the men in my life.
Guest:I feel safe with my dad and I feel safe with Jack and I feel safe with Judd and I feel safe with the guys in my cast.
Guest:But sometimes I feel like I go into a situation with a guy I don't know.
Guest:ready to feel mistreated or manhandled.
Guest:And I'm like pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:We're having a great time.
Guest:But no, I knew I feel familiar.
Guest:I feel close to you already.
Guest:But I go into these situations like a little afraid.
Guest:And I know that that and I'm always trying to understand, like, where does that come from?
Marc:Is it a bad feeling?
Guest:Yeah, it's not a great feeling.
Guest:It's like a gross feeling.
Guest:It's like a feeling like I'm ready for someone to like trespass over my boundaries.
Marc:But it's not compelling.
Marc:You don't find that there's some part of you that... No.
Guest:It used to be, I think...
Guest:I think it used to be really compelling.
Guest:I think there used to be a sense that I entered into relationships that were like the ones I'd been in before to prove to myself that it was my choice.
Guest:To prove to myself, oh, this is what I like.
Guest:No one inflicted that on me.
Guest:See, I keep doing it because this is me.
Guest:I like this push-pull and this repartee and this complexity.
Guest:When actually what I was doing was just like...
Guest:You know, trying the same thing over and over.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Is that an AA term to think about?
Guest:Like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Guest:Well, Jemima, who's on my show, said that to me a bunch of times in the context of guys.
Guest:And it took me a while to hear her.
Guest:But now it's so hard for me to relate to the person who was such a like double life because I'd be, you know, having a meeting with HBO and.
Guest:Getting ready to start shooting my pilot, having people be really kind about my work and the things I was making, which seemed to be come from a more evolved position.
Guest:And then like having a boyfriend who would just text and be like, can you pick me up a sandwich?
Guest:And I don't really want you to sleep over tonight.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's I the way I've explored that lately is that I'm actually working on this joke where I was in a relation for three and a half years.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I follow your follow.
Marc:I don't think she really liked me.
Marc:I mean, there was an age difference and that we both had other problems, but it became clear that it was like I was interchangeable and that she didn't really like me necessarily.
Marc:So the way I sort of framed it in my head is like everything was going pretty well for me at that point.
Marc:And I wasn't hating myself, so I needed to outsource that job.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:That's so smart.
Guest:That's so smart.
Guest:Julie Klausner, in her book, I Don't Care About Your Band, I don't know if you read that, but she talks about...
Guest:Basically, on one of the best nights of her life, she did a great show, got tons of attention, and was like, I need to go find someone to have degrading sex with because I don't feel quite okay.
Marc:You don't deserve it somehow.
Marc:It's a fundamental shame or insecurity or something that needs to be honored for some fucked up reason.
Guest:That's so smart.
Guest:That thing about outsourcing a job is a really good joke.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Please use it beyond just this joke.
Marc:I've been doing it on stage a little.
Guest:Good.
Marc:It's heavy.
Marc:These are not just sort of like, hey, we're out for some entertainment.
Guest:It's so true.
Guest:What?
Guest:What is happening?
Guest:I watched some stand-up online.
Guest:I don't even know who it was last night.
Guest:I saw a link to a 17-year-old stand-up comedian that everyone was like, he's the funniest thing in America right now.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And his jokes were all like... He was like...
Guest:What were they?
Guest:He was like, somebody told me I looked like John Cryer, the gay guy from Two and a Half Men.
Guest:It's the fucking worst compliment in the world.
Guest:Who wants to look like John Cryer?
Guest:That's like...
Marc:really gay or something and everyone was like ah something like that and i just went i'm old i don't get it no they're the but no the the thing is is that something peculiar has happened and i and i think you could identify it in relation to your own success on some level is that because of niche marketing you know people find their audience and now a lot of different demographics have their voices so what we once understood as a very specific context of entertainment or whatever is
Marc:Because now it doesn't exist anymore.
Marc:So kids can have kids talking to kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:So it's not like this should be good.
Marc:This is going to be stand-up comedy.
Marc:This guy's got something to say.
Marc:He's worked some shit out.
Marc:No, it doesn't matter anymore.
Guest:No.
Marc:There's no quality control.
Guest:Because everybody's just talking to the people who want to hear them.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's so interesting.
Guest:And true.
Marc:It's not horrible.
Marc:It's not a bad thing necessarily.
Marc:I think it more speaks to the outlets available than the actual quality or money.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean...
Marc:You seem to be representing a generation to some degree that I think a lot of people that my age, which I don't because I don't really have a clear sense of what my age is.
Guest:How old are you?
Marc:50.
Guest:You're 50?
Marc:Yeah, I just turned 50.
Guest:I thought you were younger than that.
Guest:I thought you were 40.
Marc:Well, okay.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:But 50 is a great age.
Marc:No, I'm happy.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I'm not complaining.
Guest:Good.
Guest:I had a nightmare the other night that our ages, it was a nightmare because it was so horrifying.
Guest:Like life was a day and our age was the time of day.
Guest:Like you were like 11, you're like, how old are you?
Guest:I'm 1130.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 245.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I realized in the dream that I was 230.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like flipped out.
Guest:I was like, that doesn't seem like enough time to get everything done.
Guest:Like I only have till midnight, 230 to midnight.
Marc:How old are you at 230?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I don't know because I haven't done the direct calculation.
Guest:I'm trying to go from pounds to like kilograms.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Marc:But you're saying you age a full life, not that you never get past the age of 24.
Guest:No, you age a full life.
Guest:You age a full life from day.
Guest:I mean, it was very abstract, Mark, but it was like you age a full life.
Guest:It's like you're born at midnight and you die at the next midnight.
Marc:There's a couple things that are pretty great about that.
Marc:Poetically great.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I was really impressed with it.
Guest:It was one of the only dreams I've had that wasn't like, you know, like Harvey Weinstein's chasing me with a mallet.
Guest:Like it was a really.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But no, the beauty of it is like, you know.
Guest:I've never had that dream about Harvey Weinstein.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Harvey Weinstein.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It felt like a joke, but it's good.
Marc:You actually worried about alienating Harvey Weinstein?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm not worried about alienating him.
Guest:I just, what if he then did chase me with a mallet over the dream?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That'd be prophecy.
Guest:We have to protect ourselves.
Marc:You'd manifest what you think.
Marc:But no, the idea, the poetry of it is that like, yeah, every day you're going to live a whole life, but at the end of it, you're like, well, tomorrow I start over.
Guest:That is the poetry.
Guest:It's amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:It was like, but in the dream, you only got one day, I think.
Guest:Life was just one day.
Marc:So that was it?
Marc:Yeah, that was like... It started at the beginning of this dream.
Guest:Yeah, and then I was like, someone was like, how old are you?
Guest:And I was like, I'm 230.
Guest:And then I was like, that sounds late.
Marc:And I'm running out of time.
Guest:And I'm running out of time.
Marc:Well, the poetry, that's darker, but it's also about how fleeting.
Guest:It all is.
Marc:And how short life really is when you think about it.
Guest:I mean, at the amount that I think about it, hopefully the amount you think about death in your life
Guest:is in some way directly proportionate to how settled you'll feel at the end of your life about dying.
Guest:Because if that's the case, I'm going to have the greatest time dying.
Marc:It's like what you find yourself thinking about it a lot?
Guest:Every day.
Marc:It's weird because I sort of stopped.
Guest:How?
Marc:I don't fucking know, man.
Marc:I used to be a hypochondriac.
Marc:I used to be consumed with it.
Marc:And I just stopped.
Marc:And I don't know if it's... Maybe you're happier.
Guest:And so you're more present.
Guest:The fact of your death is abstract, which in reality it is.
Marc:I think it's denial.
Marc:I'd like to go with what you're saying.
Marc:Like, yeah, I'm ready to die.
Marc:But I think you get to a certain age where you understand in a deeper way the inevitability.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:So, you know, the way you think about it is a little differently.
Marc:And I feel my brain avoiding it.
Marc:It did it today.
Marc:Actually, I was driving.
Marc:I went to meet Moon.
Marc:Her daughter was at roller derby class.
Marc:So I watched these little girls skating around with their helmets and their outfits.
Marc:And I was driving home for some reason.
Marc:And, you know, when you're 50, you're sort of like, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:You know, how much time is there, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then my brain was sort of like, I haven't eaten breakfast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How old is Moon?
Marc:46.
Guest:That's a great age too.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's great.
Guest:I like that she's age appropriate.
Marc:Me too, finally.
Guest:I think it's really a positive step for you.
Guest:As a longtime listener, first time caller, I feel glad that I'm able to tell you that.
Marc:Well, I appreciate it.
Guest:Yeah, I think about that all the time.
Guest:We've had a big loss year in my family.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:My great aunt died.
Guest:She was almost 101.
Guest:We were very close.
Marc:It's a good run.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:I had a cousin who passed away who was 36.
Guest:That was not a good run and it was...
Guest:And then we all miss him a lot.
Guest:And then our family dog just died this weekend.
Guest:And he was 12 and a half.
Guest:Everyone is okay now.
Guest:I mean, not everyone in the family.
Guest:I mean, like, all of the people.
Guest:I have a strong feeling that all of the people who died are okay now, whatever that means.
Guest:But...
Guest:I, it's definitely, it's weird.
Guest:It's heightened the amount that I think about death, but it's also in some way lessened my fear of death because sometimes when faced with the actuality of, I mean, again, I recognize that I didn't, you know, lose my partner in a plane crash, but I recognize that it all is different.
Guest:But being close to the grieving process and in it is, I think it's helpful to the whole thing.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:That's why Jews sit Shiva.
Marc:That's why grieving, you know, you need to process it.
Guest:And maybe it can shift, like sort of our daily abstract neuroses about death and health are in some way shifted by coming face to face with the actual thing.
Marc:I think that's why in different types of communities that one of the big fears about the idea of when someone is old, you put them in a home.
Marc:When somebody is sick, you get them out of the way that there's a denial and an avoidance of that stuff.
Marc:But if you look at religion and tribal practices, the idea of processing grief is important about everything.
Guest:People need to process grief when their pilot doesn't get picked up.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Everybody needs to feel it all.
Marc:Yeah, because if you don't, you just carry it in you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it turns it turns dark.
Guest:It really does.
Guest:I feel like my family does a pretty good job and has taught me a lot about being there's not too much is swept under the rug.
Guest:And I definitely I don't know if you get this.
Guest:I get a lot of like sometimes if I'm in the middle of a conversation, I think it's stupid or unnecessary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first place my brain goes like, you know, we're all going to die someday, you idiots.
Marc:Why are you wasting time with this?
Guest:Why are you being so lame when you're just going to die?
Guest:What do you think?
Guest:You're going to live forever because of your stupid green juice, you bitch?
Marc:Do you want to write this down for season four?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We already did a big death episode in season three.
Guest:Judd and I wrote a bit because he's the only person who can match me in Death Obsession.
Marc:Yeah, he does.
Guest:Because he's more morbid than he might initially appear.
Marc:But what do you think that is, though?
Marc:Because, I mean, is it a self-centeredness?
Guest:It's a great question.
Marc:Because, like, you know, a lot of people do have a certain amount of acceptance about it, and they don't dwell on it.
Marc:It seems like dwelling on it is its own waste of time.
Guest:Well, I think a lot of people who are death-obsessed think everyone around them is oblivious, but maybe they're not oblivious.
Guest:They've just accepted that, like, this is kind of the way things are going, so they might as well get up every day and do their thing.
Marc:Or they might not think about it at all.
Marc:But I think it's not unlike the person who always thinks they're sick.
Guest:I used to be a huge hypochondriac.
Guest:And actually, something my boyfriend struggled with, too.
Guest:And it's really shifted for me in the last year or so.
Guest:I've been able to feel much more... I've...
Guest:I get sick more than most people that I know, and I just get lots of colds and stuff for whatever reason.
Guest:I always have since I was a kid.
Marc:That's because you're anxiety-ridden and hypochondriasm.
Marc:I was horrible, but my father was a doctor, and I think it was a way of getting attention.
Guest:Did he pay attention to you when you pretended to be sick?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I didn't pretend.
Marc:I always thought I was dying.
Marc:I always thought I was dying.
Marc:I can't tell you how many.
Marc:There was probably two or three prostate exams that I volunteered for because I thought I had prostate cancer.
Marc:That might speak to other things.
Guest:Is a prostate exam like when they stick their finger up your butt?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You let them do it just for... Not for kicks, but like I'd gotten a panic.
Marc:I thought I had prostate cancer.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I was like, you better check again.
Guest:I had a friend who had like a tingling in his balls for a couple months.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he was really like...
Guest:And freaking the fuck out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he had a lot of examinations and they kept coming back negative.
Guest:And he was like, my balls still tingle.
Guest:And at a certain point, I was like, maybe they tingle because people keep touching them.
Marc:Or maybe if you obsess on it, you're going to manifest it.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I mean, at the amount that I've done that and the amount that I've convinced myself that there was...
Guest:Like how good I am at convincing myself.
Guest:One time I was so sure I was pregnant, I told Jenny that I thought I could feel my baby crawling up and down my spine.
Guest:And she was like, that's not what babies do.
Marc:No, they're contained.
Guest:At this point, they're not big crawlers.
Guest:If you were one month pregnant, your baby wouldn't be like doing a little dance.
Guest:It's not like the dancing baby from Ally McBeal.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So what I was getting at, in terms of you looking at a 17-year-old comic and thinking like, what am I watching?
Marc:I'm old.
Marc:And you're 25?
Marc:27.
Guest:27.
Marc:I'm old, Mark.
Marc:No, you're not old.
Guest:I'm going to die soon.
Guest:I'm at 230 of my life.
Marc:But there's been a generation of people my age, of boomers, that sort of dismiss that generation that you're in as being vapid and shallow and preoccupied with bullshit and spoiled and entitled.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I once had a 50-year-old man yell at me.
Guest:What?
Guest:Early in my working life.
Guest:I read a script without asking.
Guest:He's not fit me, but he's 45.
Guest:But I read a script.
Guest:You're all the same to me.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I read a script without asking and then gave him a compliment about it.
Guest:And he was like, no one in your generation has any manners.
Guest:No one ever asks anybody if they can read anything.
Guest:It's just all available on the internet.
Guest:And they grab, grab, grab it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And I was like, okay.
Guest:And I think I had some really dumb insult.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:I already have a dad, by the way.
Guest:So, sorry.
Marc:But do you think that that's... I don't think that stuff is necessarily true.
Marc:I think that there's an adaptation happening to a new bunch of stuff that older people feel left out of.
Marc:I don't think emotionally that people are that much different than they've ever been.
Marc:I'm sure that you're right.
Marc:It's just not.
Marc:They're not that complicated.
Guest:I'm sure that you're right.
Guest:They really aren't.
Marc:They're just maybe more distracted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not a good... People expect me to have a lot to say to either defend or explain my generation, but because I feel like 75 inside myself and most of my friends are 15 years older than me, I'm not really the right candidate for the job.
Marc:No, I mean, I don't know that I expected that, but you clearly cast a show revolving around people that are your age.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:I just don't think that... When I hear myself say even anything like that, it's so generational.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's just like things get introduced into the culture, the culture changes, and people that were in cultured a different way are like, oh, these kids.
Guest:Yeah, it's like how my dad's really peeved about Twitter.
Marc:Is he?
Guest:He doesn't understand what could be useful about it.
Guest:He sees it as this terrible obligation.
Guest:inflicted on me by the Hollywood powers that be that like only causes me pain and misery but that's because I don't tell him when I'm like some of my followers the funniest things in the world today yeah instead I just say like people were mean to me were they do you get a lot of that yeah all I get is like I mean I get a lot of really sweet and incredible
Guest:women and men young women gay men smart guys yeah who are 50 who actually want to look at female behavior i get a lot of i can't complain but like everybody i get a lot of like you're a fat cow rotten pears belong in the garbage you know just like rotten pears belong that was my favorite of this week rotten pears it was rotten pears belong in the garbage not on tv
Marc:I think that rotten pears belong in the garbage is poetically nice, but then it was attached to you and television.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Rotten pears belong in the garbage could be like a great thing like a TV psychiatrist is saying, like, get the assholes out of your life.
Guest:But they were referring to my body as a rotten pear, like a rotten pear-shaped body.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know there's always a lot of discussion about your body and...
Guest:Yeah, it's interesting.
Guest:It's funny.
Marc:But you like provoking it on some level.
Guest:On some level, I don't stop.
Guest:I haven't backed away from it.
Guest:So it's not like I would say, yeah, these reactions really get me off.
Guest:It's more just like after the first season reaction, I was like, I'm not going to stop and make it that...
Guest:this was a glitch of first season is that my clothes were off and now I've really learned my lesson.
Guest:Like that, what would that do?
Marc:No, but there's a defiance to it is what I'm saying.
Marc:It's not that you're getting turned on to it, but it's like, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I've always been the person who, when you tell me that I can't do something, I want to do it five times as much.
Guest:That's just always been my personality type for better or worse, oftentimes for worse.
Marc:But interesting contextually, which is a word I seem to be using a lot with you for some reason.
Guest:It's a good one.
Guest:It does its job.
Marc:Well, because you grew up in the environment that you grew up in, which is balls to the wall, open-minded expression, and the art world, is that it seems that the way you're handling that particular element in a fairly mainstream show is provoking the same type of response that art at one time did when your parents' generation was doing it.
Marc:There's always going to be those people that's like, well, what's the point?
Guest:We don't need it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and it's like those are the conversations you almost can't indulge.
Guest:But it does, that's smart of you to get at.
Guest:My approach to it does have a little bit more to do with sort of performance art and sort of feminist rabble-rousing than it does to anything that I've seen cinematically or to like porn.
Guest:It's not a cultural commentary on porn.
Guest:It comes from a different place and always has.
Guest:But because my audience is way more...
Guest:In some ways, this is maybe the wrong word, but mainstream.
Guest:My opportunity to reach people is through a more mainstream venue than I'd imagined.
Marc:It's better off.
Marc:There's a little more money in it.
Guest:I feel so lucky.
Guest:You're never going to ever hear me complain about, like, being on TV is a really hard gig.
Guest:I have the greatest job in the world.
Guest:I totally agree.
Marc:Well, you know, doing what you're doing versus doing one of those installations that you would never go to, you know, on some weird night that in any event is misunderstood by, you know, the lesbian community as their own event.
Guest:I'm sure.
Guest:I'm sure that was I always thought I was like, I'm going to be a gender and women's studies professor.
Guest:I'm going to make short films like I remember going to see this actually amazing at BAM.
Guest:I went to see like a feminist shot for shot lesbian remake of Deliverance.
Guest:It's the best thing I've ever seen.
Guest:It was heaven on earth.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:I once was sent out of... I was kicked out of a lecture by a feminist writer, artist.
Marc:It was interesting.
Marc:I remember it was in Cambridge, and I was studying the history of photography in terms of images.
Marc:And some woman had written or put together a book of how sexism...
Marc:has been depicted in images, primarily even referring to the Earth.
Marc:It was the Bikini Islands thing.
Marc:The argument was that the Bikini was really sort of taken from the Bikini Islands, which was a nuclear testing site.
Marc:So it was like, this is hot.
Marc:The sort of...
Marc:The idea that something so destructive would yield.
Marc:It was kind of high-minded feminism.
Marc:And I went there.
Marc:It was brutal because I was just thinking about the other day.
Marc:I just wanted to hear this discussion about images.
Marc:And it was all women.
Marc:And it was clearly put together by a woman's space of some kind.
Marc:But it was at a college.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that i went to i'd seen an advertisement for it and i just remember like a like a woman like i just sat down and and there was a lot of people there and a woman who was badly scarred like her face was badly scarred like old scars like i don't know what happened but yeah like seal style yeah yeah and she came up to me and she goes this is you know this is a woman's face oh no
Marc:And I can't remember whether I left or not, but I just felt like the vulnerability or whatever.
Guest:I want to see that reenacted you going to a woman's space and being removed by a badly scarred woman really badly.
Guest:Like, I want you to do a flashback on the show.
Marc:It's sad right now because, like, I really was... It seemed wrong to me, and it was wrong.
Marc:Yeah, that is wrong.
Marc:You know, the least they can do is, like, well, he might be trying... He might be trying to learn.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:And if I actually left because she said that, she added to the problem.
Guest:I mean, we... 100%.
Guest:We at Oberlin, where I went to college, had a women's... Like, a safe space for women.
Guest:It was a women's and transgendered people's dorm.
Guest:And I remember I was once at a party.
Guest:And that's really...
Guest:big for lack of a better word lesbian in a dog collar yeah invited me to go back to the women's safe space and play video games she was like i have a single room i have a leather couch come back and play video games and somewhere in the conversation she told me i looked like britney spears and i remember thinking i know this is supposed to be a safe space for women but i feel really unsafe right now
Guest:I would feel safer right now in my co-ed dorm than I do right now.
Guest:But I was also really flattered.
Guest:I was really excited by the attention.
Guest:So it was all complicated.
Marc:Well, what is the, you know, in your mind, the sort of compelling and strong public need to say, I'm a feminist, I'm a feminist.
Guest:I feel the need... What does it mean to you?
Marc:Where did it come from?
Guest:Where did it start?
Guest:It came from my mom.
Guest:It came from the world that I grew up in.
Guest:It came from a sense that, well, a lot of people thought that the sort of world had equalized itself.
Marc:Like we've gotten... We've gotten where we need to go.
Guest:We're good.
Guest:It's behind us.
Guest:It isn't.
Guest:And I feel...
Guest:anger and frustration every day some of it intellectual and some of it very visceral about the way women and women's stories are handled in the industry in which I've chosen to make myself a part and I feel like by announcing that that's a concern of yours and by making it clear that that's where your passions lie you are pushing the ball forward and encouraging other women to also announce themselves
Guest:When it would be so easy to feel like you were the bummer at the party or the I mean, I think so many women are self-conscious because they love men and they're friends with men and they don't understand.
Guest:Does feminism mean that I have to be angry at all men?
Guest:Does feminism mean that I have to distance myself from the guys in my life or fight back?
Guest:And I'm like, no, feminism means that you have to take the space that you feel that you're.
Marc:But isn't that interesting that even those people that identify with it are are encultured and and really acting in relation to men.
Guest:Men are acting in relation to women.
Guest:We all have to act in relation to each other.
Marc:But they're letting themselves be defined by those expectations.
Guest:It's scary to be the bummer at the part.
Marc:Did you see Jill's movie, The Afternoon Delight?
Guest:Yeah, Jill's so smart.
Marc:That was some stunning thing, wasn't it?
Guest:Yeah, she's amazing.
Guest:I loved her pilot, too.
Guest:Transparent.
Guest:Did you watch it yet?
Marc:No, I didn't watch it yet.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:She's asking important questions.
Guest:And I think right now there's a moment.
Guest:We're at a very specific moment in time where...
Guest:arguing the word feminism.
Guest:And, you know, Beyonce has recently announced herself as a feminist.
Guest:A lot of women who previously would have been scared to make that claim because of what it would mean for their careers or whatever have stepped forward and said, these issues in whatever way are important to me.
Guest:And so there's a big moment now.
Guest:on Twitter, in the sort of online feminist syndicate, there's a big moment of trying to debate the word.
Guest:What does it mean?
Guest:How do we express ourselves?
Guest:What is a good feminist?
Guest:What is a bad feminist?
Guest:And while it's important to, it's always important to discuss everything, I think we need to recognize that
Guest:We all have the same goal, which is to feel safe and to feel known and to feel powerful.
Guest:And whatever way we come to that, it's good.
Marc:It's interesting, though.
Marc:Traditionally, though, it's one of those... In the progressive world, it's one of those definitions that there's definitely different schools of thought.
Guest:I get scared that soon we're going to have different words.
Guest:Like, some of them are going to be like, I'm a feminist.
Guest:And other ones are going to be like, well, I'm a girlist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's happened.
Guest:Well, I'm a womanator.
Guest:Like, I just want it all...
Marc:It's very hard when people feel they need to be represented, they need to have a voice, especially if the voice hasn't been there before.
Marc:But I mean, in your education of it outside of your mother, I mean, like in college, were you reading Andrea Dworkin?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I was like obsessed.
Guest:But I was never...
Guest:Like, receiving it all as gospel.
Guest:I was always picking it apart and agreeing or disagreeing.
Guest:I was reading as much Andrew Dworkin as I was reading He's Just Not That Into You.
Guest:Like, I was educating myself on all sides of the argument and trying to find places in pop culture where I felt like...
Guest:feminism was being explored, even if it wasn't being explained as such.
Guest:And, you know, it was really interesting.
Guest:I just went back to my college to give a talk.
Marc:Oberlin?
Guest:Oberlin.
Guest:Where is that?
Guest:In Ohio.
Marc:It's a good school.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It's really liberal.
Guest:It's really smart.
Marc:It can be a little... It's the only liberal thing in Ohio.
Guest:Basically, it's crazy.
Guest:There's another one.
Guest:Kenyan.
Guest:Has frats, but still a liberal school.
Guest:Oberlin was the first school to admit women.
Guest:It was the first men's college to admit women.
Guest:It was the first college to admit African-Americans.
Guest:It has a history of social action that I think is impressive.
Guest:And people have a lot of pride in that.
Guest:And as a result, it's like there is never not a protest happening.
Guest:Ever.
Guest:Last year, the young Republicans brought Karl Rove to campus to speak.
Wow.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, I'll come.
Guest:But all my questions need to be vetted.
Guest:Like, I don't want to be attacked by 19 year old liberals in hemp necklaces, please.
Marc:He said that?
Guest:He said that exactly.
Marc:I don't want to be attacked while I'm attacking them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, no puka shells, please.
Guest:And so all the questions were vetted.
Guest:Students got up and read their pre-vetted questions.
Guest:And at the end, two boys got up and they said, I wasn't there, but this was recounted to me.
Guest:We would like to place a citizen's arrest on you for war crimes.
Guest:And they attempted to citizen's arrest Karl Rove, at which point they were dragged out by security, at which point people started booing because their civil liberties were being violated by not being allowed to stage the citizen's arrest.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I cannot tell you how much joy a story like that gives me.
Guest:Not because of my joy that they're arresting Karl Rove, just because of my joy that people are behaving like that in the world.
Marc:I agree.
Guest:I just love it.
Marc:And sadly, there's part of my brain that because I'm my age and because I understand the spectacle of excited, angry, young theater, but it's sort of like, all right.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:There's the part of me that's also like, guys, lay it down.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But when I went, I was warned.
Guest:Two things had happened.
Guest:I went to do an interview with the school newspaper and someone said,
Guest:How does it feel to be a line item in so many people's stories of privilege and oppression?
Marc:What the fuck is that?
Guest:They said I was a line item in the national tale of privilege and oppression.
Marc:What does that mean to you?
Guest:That I'm a privileged oppressor, but not the most important one, just one of the smaller ones.
Marc:A privileged oppressor.
Guest:I have a lot of privilege, and I am oppressing others with the force of my privilege.
Marc:How?
Guest:I mean, you'd have to ask them.
Guest:I guess that they would say... That was it.
Guest:They just gave you this weird... I mean, I knew that some people like theirs was a narrative.
Guest:Like, she comes from a family of people who were artists and they...
Guest:Like, there was a whole, like, rich artist pushed her into Hollywood, got her... I mean, there's, you know, the stories that people make... Who's generating that?
Marc:The left?
Marc:I mean, that's... Yeah.
Marc:Because that's a lefty... I don't know.
Marc:Oh, Gawker.
Marc:So, no.
Marc:So, it's not.
Marc:So, it's just a tabloid thing.
Guest:It's like a tabloid thing and, like, pissed off people on the internet thing.
Guest:But then also...
Guest:There were debates about diversity in the show, which is something I've talked about a lot and learned a lot from.
Guest:And so I think that was kind of the place that the argument was coming from.
Guest:Then, of course, there were the girls at Oberlin who felt like my version of feminism wasn't something that they could get behind or it was commercialized.
Guest:So I'm told, though I did not see, that there were seven protesters with signs at my talk.
Marc:Feminists.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:People in I didn't get the full scoop.
Guest:I assume it was people who felt like the show wasn't like representative diverse, diverse enough or representing an accurate cross section of New York, which.
Marc:Why is that your responsibility?
Guest:I mean, this is I mean, I actually this is not me telling you that I don't want to talk about anything.
Guest:But now I feel like I I feel like I've.
Guest:been so careful to say over and over, which I really think is true, how much I've learned from this dialogue.
Guest:Because I really have.
Guest:I really have.
Marc:And... Like, what have you learned?
Guest:That it's really important to... It's just really important for people to see themselves reflected on television, that there's a diversity problem, that it's in some way... I don't want to use words like responsibility.
Guest:It's no one's responsibility to do anything besides not kill other people.
Guest:But it is my... It is my...
Guest:goal as somebody who tries to make realistic work that is inclusive to show a version of new york that resonates with people and if i failed in doing that then i want to correct that
Marc:Well, I understand that.
Marc:I guess the only argument against that is that, not against it, but, like, because I know that, look, my life is relatively small.
Marc:So that once, like, the idea that, like, well, I'm representing my life, and sadly, it's not that I'm intolerant or have an issue with diversity.
Marc:I'm just not living that life in terms of my day-to-day.
Marc:Totally, totally.
Marc:So, but I guess what it's implying is that once you are fabricating something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's on you.
Guest:It's on you to create a world that's inclusive and people see themselves reflected back in.
Guest:And that I never had a problem with and was actually, I actually love, like I started doing this job really young.
Guest:I love being educated.
Guest:One of the things I love most about Twitter is when somebody says to me like, hey,
Guest:I didn't love the way you phrased that.
Guest:Or like the other day in our writer's room, somebody said to me, I referred to someone as an illegal immigrant.
Guest:She's like, actually, you should say undocumented worker.
Guest:Like, that's what is a more comfortable terminology.
Guest:I'm like, thank you so much.
Guest:All I want is to know, understand, and be better and represent the beliefs that are important to me as well as I possibly can.
Guest:What's painful for me is when the attacks become personal.
Guest:Like, you are a privileged girl.
Guest:You are a racist.
Guest:You are a racist.
Guest:You don't understand real suffering.
Guest:You, you, like that's when it starts to feel like it's ringing in my head and like it's too hard.
Marc:But that's a projection.
Marc:You know, someone pointed that out to me a lot of times that, you know, you become a beacon for people's projected resentment.
Marc:that they don't feel like they have a target or a voice, but when they find a target, certainly the one that's reactive, then they feel heard and they cause you this turmoil.
Marc:But I also think though, the very discussion that we're having about it, that is not the proper way to address that, that in order for people to learn,
Marc:No one's going to learn by going, like, you're a racist.
Marc:But the actual, because, you know, you're clearly not.
Marc:And we're sensitive people.
Marc:But a lot of times, not unlike the generational problem, you know, culture has to have the conversation publicly in a non-angry way.
Marc:And also, they have to see it to realize, like, all right, you know what?
Marc:I was probably off about that.
Marc:Maybe it's time to make that change.
Guest:I feel so lucky.
Guest:What you're saying is, right?
Guest:I feel so lucky for the people in Twitter, in my life, in the writer's room, wherever that,
Guest:who have talked to me the way that I would want to talk to somebody else.
Guest:Like sometimes I feel like it's my job to explain to people, particularly men, but lots of people will say ignorant things to me about the way that I depict my body on the show or, you know, say like, I don't think you're representing women well because the women on your show are, you know, not together and they're sexually irresponsible.
Guest:So how is that feminist?
Guest:And it's like, then I have to explain like the history of representation of women and
Guest:to some person and i try to do it in a way that i think is respectful respects the fact that they're an essentially intelligent person who is experiencing a little bit of a glitch when it comes to but it's a human thing it's like you know people who are sexually irresponsible exist women are not people who are sort of like you know have all intention of using condoms don't totally i mean it's that's those are human issues
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And you kind of have to explain to someone why it's okay, why in the context of the politics you represent, it's okay to show those things.
Guest:I'm grateful to the people who have explained to me what they found hurtful, offensive, or isolating in the show because I'm like, I really hear them and I'm so grateful.
Marc:But being provocative is part of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And like, you know, I have issues on this show when I have guests called, you know, transgender people or if they use the word tranny.
Guest:I learned, I got an education about the word tranny because I used it in girls.
Guest:And someone said, you know, that's not...
Guest:That's not the correct terminology and also the context.
Guest:For that community.
Guest:For that community.
Guest:There is... Here's my thing is sometimes there's a character who's not going to know not to call a person a tranny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you have to represent that.
Guest:But you also want to make people... You want to counter it by making transgendered people who...
Guest:I don't want to isolate.
Guest:You also have to make a person understand that you're speaking in the voice of a character and not speaking from your own ignorance.
Guest:In that case, I kind of was.
Guest:I didn't really know what else to say.
Guest:And I was grateful to be corrected.
Guest:But that doesn't mean like...
Guest:My character says a lot of ignorant shit that I wouldn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's also the argument about people, too, that like, you know, whether people come around or they don't, you know, some people that may not use the right words or insensitive are not bad people.
Guest:No, I basically given up.
Guest:I was telling this to my dad last night.
Guest:I basically given up on the idea of bad people as a whole.
Marc:Like, I mean, it's a bad way to think.
Guest:Yeah, it's not.
Guest:And it's not good for me because then I start to think today I'm a good person.
Guest:Today I'm a bad person.
Guest:It all comes back to me, obviously.
Guest:But I just I think that.
Guest:There are people who do bad things who I don't want to have in my world and who I don't want to have in my space.
Guest:But I recognize that we've all been dealt this completely insane set of cards of being born on Earth to people who didn't hug us the way we wanted to be hugged or talked to us the way we wanted to be talked to.
Guest:And if we can recognize that, then we're just coming from a more spiritual evolved place.
Yeah.
Marc:But also, there's also this big problem in culture today where a lot of times people can't tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction.
Marc:It's jarring.
Marc:It's bizarre.
Guest:I'm sure you experience it with your show all the time.
Marc:No, I do.
Marc:It's sort of like, we created this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And being...
Guest:Indicted for having characters say things that they believe, but you don't necessarily believe.
Guest:I think it takes a lot of the mystery out of it to then have to explain each and every position of the fictional people that you've created.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I had this idea.
Guest:Maybe you're the right person to pitch it to.
Guest:Go.
Guest:Well, I thought it would be cool to have this thing called the Too Soon Summit, which was like a summit where people could talk about like when they'd said things that were accidentally offensive or when they made jokes people negatively reacted to and like when is too soon and what can comedy do and what can't it do?
Guest:Because I feel like that debate has gotten real heated in the last few years.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:You know, there's been so much talk about.
Guest:Like, can men joke about rape?
Guest:Can white people joke about black people?
Guest:Can black people joke about white people?
Guest:Can women joke about rape?
Guest:Like, there's just.
Guest:And so I was thinking, like, what if we all had a weekend and there was no press there and no one could tweet us and we just talked about it all?
Guest:Well, I think it was a summit.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I like the idea.
Guest:You can be the leader of the summit.
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:I always do, when I'm talking about other things other than myself, I do tend to think about it a little bit.
Marc:I don't just reactively do it.
Marc:I think that's good.
Marc:I'm happy.
Marc:Yeah, that's also why I'm much more self-centered in what I'm doing because I don't want to be in the fray of that.
Marc:But I think usually too soon is, if it's not just some dick trying to get a reaction, I think it's a weird emotional protective reaction.
Yeah.
Guest:I was at Howard Stern's birthday party, which was a pretty great experience.
Guest:And Joan Rivers got up.
Guest:She was making all these like horribly racist jokes.
Guest:I mean, she was just going for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people are like, losing their mind.
Guest:Then Joan Rivers made a Paul Walker joke.
Guest:And everyone's like, too soon, too soon.
Guest:And like.
Guest:this is all due respect to paul walker his death was a terrible tragedy but the idea that like a room full of white people are going to laugh their fucking asses off at a bunch of really racist jokes and then lose their minds when she makes a joke about the star of fast and furious six i was like get it the fuck together i was literally wanted to stand up and be like you people are abominations yeah right then joan rivers after all the jokes goes someone booed her and she's like i don't give a shit i'm 80 years old
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay, so then we'll make jokes if you die right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to say it to you here, right here and now.
Guest:With love, the day Joan Rivers dies, I'm going to make a killer zing.
Marc:Okay, you heard it here first, folks.
Guest:I'm going to zing the shit out of her.
Marc:It's an interesting idea to me.
Marc:The idea that people need to have something to be up against.
Marc:I wonder how that compares to the need to be part of something.
Guest:For the listeners at home, he just wrote it down, so it's clear that he is going to work it out later a little bit.
Guest:And I'm impressed.
Marc:Where are you going with your dad?
Guest:We're going to Palm Springs.
Guest:We're going a little father-daughter road trip.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We're going to go to Palm Springs and we're going to go to Joshua Tree.
Guest:We're going to go get tacos.
Guest:We're just going to like, we're going to stay the night at a La Quinta Inn.
Marc:Oh, there's a place.
Marc:There's a place in Desert Hot Springs.
Marc:I don't know if it'd be appropriate for father-daughter.
Guest:We don't really like to bathe together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's this cute little hot spring hotel called the I think it's called the Sagewater Inn.
Marc:It's like nine rooms.
Marc:But no, it's not.
Guest:But you don't want to do anything that could even like I don't want anyone to think like they've come to Palm Springs to get away from it all.
Guest:This May, December romance.
Guest:Like I really want people to feel a dad daughter energy from us everywhere.
Marc:That one episode that you did, I don't know, it was last season or where, you know, your dad and mom are fucking in the shower.
Guest:It's disgusting.
Guest:I mean, they're both very attractive.
Guest:It's just it's a disgusting concept.
Marc:No, the whole thing was pretty astounding to me.
Guest:Judd kind of forced me to do it.
Guest:I'm happy that we did.
Guest:But Judd was like, and then your parents fucking slip.
Guest:And I was like, you're not going to be on set.
Guest:I'm not going to direct my TV parents fucking.
Guest:That's not a thing that is on my bucket list.
Guest:And Judd was like, enjoy.
Guest:And they're both attractive, sexy, awesome.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was just that I had already parentized them in my mind.
Guest:So to then see them simulating intercourse was challenging for me.
Marc:How'd they do as actors?
Guest:They were amazing.
Guest:They're the most professional people I've ever met.
Guest:They were much better.
Guest:When I'm doing a sex scene, I'm like, guys, everybody.
Guest:And they were...
Guest:Could not have been more professional.
Marc:It's so funny because I didn't do any nudity, but we had to do sex.
Guest:But it's when you're doing it, like, there's... It's can't... You can't believe how unsexy sex is when you bring the genitals out of it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like, the act of sex really... You realize how goofy it is when you remove genitals from the equation and are just doing the physical motions?
Guest:You're like...
Guest:The fact that I was born from this is the greatest cosmic joke there is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's also that moment where you're like, I find myself checking in with the woman like, are you all right?
Marc:Is this comfortable?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I check in with the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's sort of like, okay, do you got this?
Marc:Is everyone cool?
Guest:Am I crushing your balls is a question I've asked more times than I'd like to admit.
Guest:I also have my self-consciousness of being like, probably everybody else you've had sex with on TV is really tiny.
Guest:So you can just throw them around.
Guest:So what if I'm hurting you and you can't handle the weight of my form?
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:That's your struggle.
Guest:That's my struggle.
Guest:This is so nice.
Guest:I love talking to you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So let's wrap it up.
Marc:So you've got a book coming out.
Marc:In October.
Marc:This is season three.
Marc:It's wrapping up now.
Marc:In March, right?
Marc:And what are you going to do?
Marc:Is it acting or do you want to direct a movie?
Marc:What do you want to do?
Guest:I want to keep making the show for another couple of years.
Guest:I want to direct and write another movie, which I've got on the brain and hopefully will get to make soon.
Marc:To make, having had little experience with it, but what goes into making a frame of a movie or anything, it requires a lot of levels.
Guest:I love talking about craft.
Guest:No one ever really asks me those kinds of questions.
Guest:No one really ever says like, hey, what kind of camera do you like to shoot on?
Guest:What do you think about when you're framing?
Guest:I'm not saying you should, but it's like- But what do you use?
Marc:The red?
Guest:The Alexa.
Marc:That's what Louis uses.
Guest:It's really a great camera.
Marc:Yeah, and how are you with lenses?
Marc:Do you know when to go?
Guest:I'm more just like, can we go closer, can we go closer, can we go closer?
Marc:How are you on sight lines and that kind of stuff?
Guest:Like jumping the line and things like that.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:I can tell when something's off.
Guest:I kind of feel like I know what I need to know to know.
Marc:How many of them did you direct?
Guest:I've directed, I directed five the first season, four the second season, and three the third season.
Guest:So I, but still, I mean, this is a juicy thing to say, but like the DGA award I won is like the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Guest:Just because it was like real old men saying you did a good job at a thing that you required your brain.
Marc:I did one episode.
Guest:Did you like it?
Marc:The second season.
Marc:Yeah, I did.
Marc:I felt like I couldn't be as attentive in the shooting process because I was in every scene and we had to make our days.
Marc:But the editing process was fascinating.
Guest:It's a pleasure.
Marc:That's where it seems to really happen.
Marc:It does.
Guest:I just directed a music video for my boyfriend last weekend, which will come out soon.
Guest:And I'm going to watch the first cut of it today.
Guest:And I loved how purely it was about directing because I wasn't worrying about dialogue.
Guest:I wasn't worrying about anything besides just like serving the music and making it look beautiful.
Guest:So it was a really cool craft exercise for me.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:Well, thanks for talking to me.
Guest:It was a real pleasure.
Guest:I can't tell you for how long and how severely I've been crushing on this show.
Marc:Do we do everything?
Marc:You all right with it?
Guest:Yeah, I'm really happy.
Guest:If you feel good.
Marc:I do feel good.
Marc:Have fun with your dad.
Guest:I will.
Guest:You have fun with your dad.
Marc:Maybe I should call him.
Guest:I'll talk to you soon.
Marc:Bye.
Bye.
Marc:That's it, folks.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:That was a fun romp.
Marc:A fun, brainy romp with Dana Dunham.
Marc:Enjoy, girls.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.
Marc:Leave some comments.
Marc:Very active comment board whenever I have a woman on the show.
Marc:For better or for worse, when there's a woman on her show, on this show, and there will be more, the comment board gets lively.
Marc:Not always for the better.
Marc:Interesting dynamic.
Marc:Some people were quite adamant, one way or the other, about the Annabelle Gurwitz show.
Marc:But feel free to leave your comments.
Marc:Please pick up the app.
Marc:If you don't know, you get the free app.
Marc:You can upgrade to the premium for like eight bucks and stream all 400 and whatever episodes of this show.
Marc:We've been going a long time now for a podcast and we appreciate you.
Marc:Deaf Black Cat seems to be switching to a summer schedule every few days now.
Marc:Now I don't know where the fuck it goes.
Marc:I don't know where it goes.
Marc:Boomer lives!