Episode 487 - Karen Kilgariff
Guest:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fuckleberry thins?
Marc:What the fuckminister fullers?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Karen Kilgariff is on the show today, and in a couple of minutes...
Marc:Bob Saget's going to drop by.
Marc:What do you make of that?
Marc:How do you feel about that?
Marc:He's got a thing coming out and, you know, I like Bob.
Marc:So I'm going to talk to Bob Saget for a while.
Marc:Who doesn't want to talk to Bob Saget for a few minutes?
Marc:Are you kidding me?
Marc:Where's his new book?
Marc:Where's his new book?
Marc:I think it's called Dirty Daddy.
Marc:Where is it?
Marc:I always like talking to Saget.
Marc:So he'll come by in a minute.
Marc:Yeah, you're expecting a pal there.
Marc:I didn't do it.
Marc:I do still have a brand.
Marc:I do still work with Just Coffee.
Marc:If you do go to justcoffee.com and get the WTF blend, which is very dark and it'll get you jacked.
Marc:I didn't even tell you guys about last weekend at the bar mitzvah.
Marc:As some of you know from knowing me for a long time.
Marc:Uh, my family's, uh, my brother's kids bar mitzvahs can be a little bit dicey because let me explain it to you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So my brother and his first wife are divorced.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And, uh, and his current wife, uh, has four kids and he has three kids and their exes are now married to each other.
Marc:So there's that excitement.
Marc:That stuff sort of leveled off.
Marc:Now, my first wife is best friends with my brother's first wife.
Marc:So she's there with her husband and their new baby.
Marc:And my ex in-laws are there who I still have not made an appropriate amends to.
Marc:For some reason, I feel like I should say, look, I'm sorry I caused you trouble, but I haven't.
Marc:So there's that tension.
Marc:Then my mother, she is with another man and my father is with a woman and my father and I, as of last week, are not speaking.
Marc:So and my mother showed up with her sister who likes to have a few cocktails.
Marc:So that is the basic, you know, the basic soup of dysfunction.
Marc:I'm going to use the word vortex again that I walked into.
Marc:And usually I have a little more confidence and I can rise above things.
Marc:But the fact that my father and I, you know, aren't speaking and he's he, you know, whatever.
Marc:I don't know if that's ever going to come back around.
Marc:That's a little difficult for a man of 50 when his, you know, 75 year old, 76 year old father wants to kick his ass.
Marc:Uh, it's a little tricky.
Marc:And then I, I enter moon who goes with me.
Marc:And so like, I can't, it's not like this is going to be great.
Marc:You're going to meet my family.
Marc:It's more like, oh my God, you're going to know exactly why I am the way I am.
Marc:And to be quite honest with you, I'm a little ashamed and I'm a little embarrassed, but now you're going to know it all.
Marc:And it was rough, man.
Marc:It was emotionally difficult because what we're there for is to celebrate the bar mitzvah.
Marc:This kid who's got no fucking idea about any of this.
Marc:None of this has polluted his young brain yet.
Marc:He may feel the toxicity, but he doesn't know it.
Marc:He just wants to go, you know, play with snakes.
Marc:And that's what we it was.
Marc:It was interesting because, you know, I had to do a little bar mitzvah toast to him and I did some research on rites of passage.
Marc:And the Jews got it easy.
Marc:You just got to read in a language you don't understand, you know, as as well as you can.
Marc:You know, for the duration of the thing, which is, you know, one night, maybe two nights, a few, you know, probably all in about 45 minutes to an hour of reading an arcane tongue and singing melodies in it and figuring that out.
Marc:That is a small price to pay.
Marc:Some cultures send the kid out into the wilderness for six months.
Marc:And if he doesn't die and he comes back, then he gets the big payoff.
Marc:Then he gets the Israel bond.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are some cultures where you got to put your hands in a in a mitten full of stinging ants and just live through the immense pain of that.
Marc:That's easier.
Marc:And after that, here you go.
Marc:Here's here's some gold coins or there's another culture where kids just beat the shit out of each other.
Marc:And the winner, the winner gets a check from grandma.
Marc:So in the big picture, looking at other tribal traditions, the Jews have it kind of easy in the way that, look, just read this.
Marc:You're not going to understand it.
Marc:And you're not even really a man.
Marc:But, you know, there you go.
Marc:But my my my nephew wanted to have his party.
Marc:They had this party at some sort of reptile refuge.
Marc:So you drive out into the desert to this refuge where they had a buffet meal.
Marc:And if you got there before sunset, you got to tour the grounds and they had fucking alligators and crocodiles.
Marc:They had like 50 of the most venomous snakes in the world.
Marc:They had every lizard you can imagine, all in relatively natural environments.
Marc:And for some reason, because it was nightfall, everything was active.
Marc:All these animals.
Marc:Are they nocturnal?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But have you ever looked right at a cobra when it's doing its cobra thing?
Marc:So this was the gift of the bar mitzvah.
Marc:Had all this family toxicity.
Marc:But you know what?
Marc:I had no cage to protect myself against that.
Marc:And later that night, after all that garbage went down, I got to look right in the face of a cobra, you know, arching up, spitting his tongue at me.
Marc:And there was a nice thick piece of glass.
Marc:between me and that cobra, and I was able to say, you can't hurt me, and I'm going to stay right here looking at you.
Marc:That was not something I could do with my father.
Marc:Hey, look, can we talk to Bob Saget now?
Marc:Can I bring Saget in here?
Marc:All right.
Guest:The truth of it is you look better than you ever looked.
Guest:Yeah, thank God.
Marc:You have more positiveness than you ever had.
Marc:Well, I think that there was a genuine sense of self-esteem and validation that happened because of this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like whatever the hell I was missing just from putting all the work in happened.
Marc:It doesn't happen for everybody.
Marc:That's the weirdest thing about comedy.
Guest:And if you have a kind heart, you don't respond to it like I did when...
Guest:But I wasn't doing fully connected work.
Guest:I was hosting a show where people got hit in the nuts and was on video.
Guest:That helps the id.
Guest:The id is very... Good evening.
Guest:Welcome to America's Idiot Id videos.
Guest:Idiot Id video.
Guest:Yeah, the id is an idiot.
Marc:But isn't that interesting, though, that even though you made a fortune doing that and you were doing all that stuff, that it's not that satisfying.
Guest:It was unsatisfying.
Guest:but what was satisfying was i provided as people say a very nice house yeah i mean this is where i was when you started your podcast yes and i haven't been here since yeah and you have one person and you don't go back do you not usually i i don't know so smart it's so cool
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I think there are some people that I think can be revisited because their lives have changed so dramatically.
Marc:But usually I don't.
Marc:Sometimes I'll do, you know, on live ones.
Marc:But, you know, if a friend wants to sell a book.
Guest:And it's about death and comedy.
Guest:I mean, it's.
Marc:Well, the interesting thing about you is like, you know, when we talked the last time a couple of years ago, we talked about, you know, your sister and your involvement with charities.
Marc:And, you know, you still have this.
Marc:The interesting thing to me is that you have these things hanging over you.
Marc:America's Funniest Home Videos and the other show.
Guest:I run from them all day.
Guest:They're just floating above me.
Guest:It's some bad CGI thing.
Marc:I know, but there was some conscious decision that when you knew that people followed you from that and the, what was the other one called?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Full House.
Guest:That's cursing to me, to say the name of that show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:By the way, I have love for both of them, so that's a weird- No, I get it, but- That's a lot of therapy also.
Marc:But there was a time after you made your money and you were out of the woods on those things where you went on stage and just set to reestablish Bob Saget as Bob Saget.
Marc:It's like, I'm glad you like that guy, but you were wrong.
Guest:Well, here's his reaction to that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But what I would have loved to have seen you do a job that you would go, should I take this?
Guest:And someone said, just take it.
Guest:And you would have wound up on something.
Guest:Maybe you would have hosted something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, Tosh has an edge to him, and he hasn't really lost himself.
Guest:Well, he defines that show anyway.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:He redefined how a contemporary person that's a comedian that's smart does a blooper show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Mine was 7 o'clock on a Sunday night on ABC.
Guest:For grownups with morals.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're going to say for grownups with morons living in their home.
Guest:But it is morals because you cut before the old person hits the cement.
Guest:You know, they always cut before that horrible... You never say who died in these videos.
Guest:It's no Zabruder footage.
Guest:They get out.
Guest:And then they cut to the audience and their head snapping back.
Guest:And it's not something I would do now, but it's... Do you have regrets?
Guest:Do you have any regrets before you started this podcast, before your life changed?
Marc:I think I did at some point because I felt like I missed opportunities.
Marc:But as I get older, I realize now that I clearly wasn't ready for those opportunities.
Marc:And the ones I pursued and I got, I don't think I was a full person as a comic or as a human until recently.
Guest:And that's just the timeline of life.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Because some people are really lucky.
Guest:And at 23, they have a wisdom and you go, holy fuck, how did they get that good for them?
Marc:Or an actualized talent.
Marc:They know what to do with their talent.
Guest:But then being able to be a human and have all that talent can be very complex, and then you can still self-destruct.
Guest:It's tricky.
Guest:But you have so much inner intelligence anyway, you could have had it, but probably my guess would be miserable throughout it.
Marc:But when I hosted my first TV show on Comedy Central, I was hosting Short Attention Span Theater, the last version of it, and I hated every minute of it, but I learned skills that I would never have.
Marc:But I was completely uncomfortable because it's like, this isn't what I do.
Marc:Hey, we're back.
Guest:you know like this fucking blows this next clip is i have my mfa in that hey here's here's you know how kids go to parties sometimes and they learn to speak yeah let's watch that and then as soon as you go to the camp the camera goes up you're like oh what the
Guest:fuck am i doing they have footage of me doing that oh really yeah they have footage of me like naked gun i it's in the book actually i walked into the bathroom it's i think it's a chapter things i shouldn't have done it's very much like when leslie nielsen was uh you know drop the mic in the toilet yeah i went into the bathroom after america's funny some videos shooting and i just went in during it yeah and i went this is the worst fucking audience and the guy next to me yeah man what is it i don't know you know sometimes it happens
Guest:And I walked back into the studio and a young girl said, we heard everything you just said.
Marc:Because your mic was on?
Guest:Yeah, but I told the guy to turn the mic off.
Guest:And it turns out they had the monitors on.
Guest:So just the audience monitors.
Guest:And then my retort to her was, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We say that every show.
Guest:Because that's our thing.
Guest:That's just love.
Guest:Sorry about the cursing, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:Did you walk out and see just a room full of shocked faces?
Guest:They don't even listen.
Guest:I think they're all numb when they get there.
Guest:They waited so long to get in there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I barely remember that that even happened because my life is so different now.
Marc:I didn't realize that this was your first book, Dirty Daddy, The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian.
Marc:This is the first one.
Guest:There is.
Guest:There was a picture book.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I did a picture book, I don't know, 25 years ago with Tony Hendra.
Marc:Oh, from National Lampoon?
Guest:Yeah, called Tales from the Crib.
Guest:And it was just pictures of kids and captions.
Guest:I don't think that's a book.
Marc:Is it still around?
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:It's one of those things where I have all the copies.
Marc:What drove you to write this?
Marc:I mean, what was it like?
Marc:Because, you know, you're doing okay.
Marc:You probably got time on your hands.
Marc:Did you just say, like, there's shit I got to talk about?
Guest:What's interesting, it really came out of show business.
Guest:There were agents.
Guest:I had former agents that I left.
Guest:They had an idea for a book.
Guest:I didn't like it.
Guest:So it was gimmicky.
Guest:It was sticky.
Guest:And then I went to different agents, and they said, people really want kind of a memoirs comedy book out of you.
Guest:I said, well, that's going to be all about death because I lost two sisters.
Guest:I lost four uncles.
Guest:Everybody was really young when they died.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wrote like 13,000 words.
Guest:I gave it to my agents and then I got six offers.
Guest:I met with everybody in New York.
Guest:It was like really nice.
Guest:It was where you go there and everybody goes, we want to be in business.
Guest:Bidding war.
Guest:Yeah, which it's nice to have.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I chose a guy I really liked and we're living together now.
Guest:That's very... Congratulations.
Guest:Great, great.
Guest:Are you getting married?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:We've got this inflatable calf that we both share and we have sex with it.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:But we don't make eye contact.
Guest:Is that in the book or is that the next book?
Guest:No, I'm just telling you.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:It's just for you.
Guest:I wanted something special for this.
Guest:But it's... I don't know about a next book.
Guest:I'm literally like my hands... I was like adaptation for me writing this.
Guest:It's crazy, right?
Guest:Because it's...
Guest:A 48-hour day, you go from your left.
Guest:It's hanging over you, too.
Guest:You're supposed to do four.
Guest:They said, are you going to write this?
Guest:I went, of course.
Guest:How are you going to do it?
Guest:Oh, four hours a day.
Guest:I called a couple of writer friends that are legitimate writers.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:But these are like smart, real smart.
Guest:Their job.
Guest:Super smart lady, they do it for a living.
Guest:They sit there, they have their back arch, they got support, they got carpal tunnel machines.
Guest:It's almost like they're Stephen Hawking.
Guest:They got every contraption so that nothing hurts on them.
Guest:They get massage teed up.
Guest:I'm like, oh my God, I'm just taking Excedrin.
Guest:What medication's in the house?
Guest:How am I going to stay up and not get addicted to anything?
Guest:I can't drink.
Guest:You can't do anything.
Guest:You have coffee, but then your emotional side's shut down.
Guest:So then you just, oh, well, just churn it out.
Guest:And then, because I forgot to write four hours a day for a couple months.
Guest:Oh, sure, and you're just looking at blank pages, too.
Guest:You stare there, and then you go to another environment.
Guest:Yeah, and then you jerk off.
Guest:I did that.
Guest:You couldn't even read my screen.
Guest:I mean, it just looked like it was just gooping down.
Guest:It looked like the beginning of a James Bond movie.
Marc:That's something, but you can't sell that.
Marc:You can't send that to the editor.
Guest:You can.
Guest:You can these days.
Guest:It depends on what company you're with.
Guest:There are companies that would go, you got a screen full of goo.
Guest:I want your book.
Guest:Saget goo.
Guest:I want your monitor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I really started to love what I was writing, but I was outlined with this guy.
Guest:I wrote the whole thing.
Guest:You wrote the whole thing of your both of them.
Marc:But it's weird.
Marc:There is this weird element of discovery when you write that you can't have when you think or when you talk, because you have a little more control.
Marc:And you start pumping things out, and you're like, wow, that's pretty, huh.
Guest:And it's not a screenplay.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:And it's not anything.
Guest:From the heart.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And it's a diary combined with a stand-up idea, but it's not.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, if you're talking about- It's more this.
Marc:It's this.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And if you're talking about death and you're talking about heavy things and you're talking about these elements of your family and you're also pacing it out with show business stories with people that everyone knows.
Marc:So you got a personal story.
Guest:And you want it to have laughs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I put laughs on every page and I also found-
Guest:It made me go, why isn't my stand-up like this?
Guest:Because it's so conversational, and yet it had observations about relationships, about just how I look at the word fame.
Guest:I just look at celebrity.
Guest:Just look at people.
Guest:Look at why people are cruel to each other.
Guest:How do you look at the word fame?
Guest:Well, I really hate, I think celebrity is the C word.
Guest:I think that is the worst thing that our culture, you've been places where you'll hear someone, a showbiz thing where someone say, well, have our celebrities over here.
Guest:And it's like, it's just people ingrandize that.
Guest:Yeah, you're like a product.
Guest:Here's our new line.
Guest:I mean, they make famous people that don't have any talent.
Guest:It's worse than it's ever been, which is all done one giant talent show where everybody wants to be famous.
Guest:They don't want...
Guest:Nobody wants to do anything.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, there's a lot of channels to be filled on both the Internet and the TV.
Marc:There's more opportunity for people with no talent to be doing something.
Guest:And there are more people, and they're just unbelievably untalented.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't watch that much.
Guest:We were talking before we started this that you don't watch very much.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I don't know where people have time.
Guest:I don't either.
Guest:I go, would you watch that?
Guest:Oh, my favorite show.
Guest:You've got to see it.
Guest:When did you watch it?
Guest:Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey.
Guest:You've got to watch it.
Guest:It's only eight episodes.
Guest:Oh, here's House of Cards.
Guest:I have all of it.
Guest:You've just got to download it on Netflix.
Guest:I'm like, I really would like to.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:But I really got to write.
Marc:Yeah, I get no time.
Marc:So what did you come up with, though?
Marc:Because I talk to people about death all the time, because I think when I turned 50, I was in denial about certain things.
Marc:And now that I'm about halfway into 50, it's sort of looming in my mind.
Marc:You have a fear of it?
Marc:I have a fear of the transition.
Marc:I know that it's going to happen.
Marc:I think that if I really think about it, the difference between being and not being is a little daunting for me.
Marc:I don't know if I'm terrified.
Marc:I guess I just hope it happens quickly.
Guest:I hope that for you also.
Guest:Well, thank you, Bob.
Guest:Maybe we should just shoot each other.
Guest:Right at the end of this.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Let's wait a couple years.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I mean, you're doing really well.
Guest:I want to see how the book does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I really had strong feelings about it because you went through a lot of metaphysical stuff in my 20s.
Guest:I went to real woo-woo shit.
Guest:I was married then, and I went to past life therapy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I sat there and kind of went, oh, I was a pharaoh when I was 14.
Guest:How is that possible?
Guest:I just, who knows?
Guest:That's what you were, a pharaoh?
Guest:They told you that?
Guest:Well, then I started getting into drugs, so I was fine after that.
Guest:So then that went away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Any search.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I...
Guest:My outlook now is to not be afraid of it.
Guest:I think that's, I would say 80% of my life, this is a stupid thing to say for a mortal, but a mortal, what am I, I don't know, I'm going to be a witch next week, is to not fear, if you cannot fear death,
Guest:you've or just stop thinking about it for a while which seems to be where you're kind of at yeah you can give some thoughtful moments to the things that actually mean something to you yeah put it put it out there you know what i mean try to be try the the output should be more good than bad when you're on a plane yeah i read your tweets yeah i know when you're suffering
Guest:I know that this, I mean, Twitter has changed since I saw you last time here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's changed everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know that there are people with smelly balls on your flight.
Guest:I know that there's everything we all know about what we go through.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's- I just want everyone to be involved.
Guest:I want people to- And the guy in front of you knows it sometimes.
Guest:I had a guy next to me go, you just talked about me on Twitter.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had to take it down while I was- Are you serious?
Guest:Yeah, it was terrible.
Guest:He was overweight and he was pushing onto my hand rest and he smelled like balls.
Guest:I have a problem when people smell like balls.
Marc:Yeah, it's bad.
Guest:Might have been bad enough.
Guest:I really try to not have that ball smell.
Marc:If the ball smell gets to the point where you're smelling it... If it's you?
Marc:Yeah, that's bad.
Guest:If it's yours and it smells foreign, you need to go first.
Guest:Maybe a checkup.
Guest:I think surgery could... Or if it's your breath...
Marc:god i smell balls oh my god it's my breath what does that mean it means you had balls in your mouth that's right so that i the fear of death was something that that's not what the book's about really but but you but you talk about real shit but you also talk about you know uh hanging out with rickles hanging out with dangerfield coming up in the comedy scene because i don't think people really that everybody really realizes that you have this you know long and profound history and stand-up that you were there seven years
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you were there at the beginning of the comedy story.
Marc:You started with all the guys, and before- On that first boom, that crazy one.
Marc:And before America's Funniest Home Video or Full House or everything else, you had a very specific style that you still have that I think a lot of people may not know.
Marc:It's interesting when you say, I want to do more long form, thoughtful things, because it's like the exact opposite-
Guest:Stand-up was I would just hit with all these things.
Guest:The jokes were like, I have the brain of a German shepherd and the body of a 16-year-old boy, and they're both in my car, and I want you to see them.
Guest:And it was basically groucho combined with a run-on sentence of free association, and there was no middle steps.
Marc:Right, it was packed.
Guest:I needed to get it done.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I wanted to make them laugh as hard as I could.
Guest:I still have that, but now I do stories.
Guest:Now I'm becoming more of, I guess, a man.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, maybe you have more to say.
Marc:I mean, I think when you write jokes and you just write jokes for joke's sake, you're not concerned about saying something.
Marc:You're concerned about the joke.
Guest:You want the joke to do well.
Guest:And then your stage persona is, is the guy likable or is he too handsome?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Are his abs too good?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, what was the most difficult thing for you to write about them and the most powerfully funny thing in there?
Guest:Ironically, the suffering, all the suffering, there's a chapter called Surviving Stand-Up.
Guest:There's a chapter actually about Full House because I had to write about it because I wrote a book and the editors won a chapter.
Guest:It's a big part of your life.
Marc:And how long were you on that show?
Guest:Eight years.
Marc:How long were you on Funniest Video?
Guest:Eight years.
Guest:That's a weird thing.
Guest:They were simultaneous.
Marc:That's a hell of a life investment because you have a life outside of that, but that's who you are.
Marc:That's your gig.
Marc:That's a long gig.
Guest:And then it stopped, and then I just directed stuff.
Guest:But it's not really a career thing.
Guest:It's part memoir, but it's really about death and comedy and how they intersect.
Guest:That's what I set out to do.
Marc:What was the hardest thing to write in there?
Guest:The hardest chapter that I couldn't get through was the loss of two great women is the chapter.
Guest:And I would say things throughout.
Guest:And so one sister died at 34 of a brain aneurysm, and another one died of scleroderma, which is one of the things I love to be part of, the Scleroderma Research Foundation.
Guest:I'm on the board.
Guest:She was 47 and she had this rare disease.
Guest:So that was really hard to write because I don't ever want to relive any of it again.
Guest:And I had to, in writing a memoir kind of thing, you do your life story a little bit and I do it in moments.
Guest:I was going to say spurts, but that's about two thirds through because it's a dirty book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was really hard because I didn't want to go through it again.
Guest:So I found myself missing them a lot.
Guest:And I went through the pain of their death, which was untimely and painful for both of them.
Guest:And then there was another chapter after that where my ex-wife almost died giving birth.
Guest:But that was the reason Paul Provenza came to my apartment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was the reason that The Aristocrats ever happened because of a gallows humor I had.
Guest:Not the reason the movie happened, but the reason I was in it and interviewed for it was there was a gallows humor that was just built into my life that just came from how our family dealt with everybody dying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think I think with comedy in general that, you know, we if you're wired that way, you're preemptively, you know, in sort of a survival mode to alleviate suffering or, you know, pain or the the idea of rejection.
Marc:I mean, the tool of comedy, if you're funny and you hang.
Marc:That's that's the other thing I realized about when you hang around comics, which we have our entire lives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've figured out it's family to me.
Guest:in a weird thing.
Marc:Well, it's amazing because you're always hanging around fucking brilliant people.
Marc:Like, even guys nobody knows.
Guest:It is so much better.
Marc:Yeah, and it's so quick, and there's nothing that's off limits.
Guest:No, and they know you, and they go, and they say things, and you're like, I don't think you should say that.
Marc:So in a way, this thing saved our lives.
Marc:It saved our sanity.
Marc:The comedians have saved my life over and over again.
Guest:It's just about comedy.
Guest:It's called Dirty Daddy.
Guest:So the people I had to get it to was my ex-wife, my three kids.
Guest:And I've gotten approval.
Guest:They're very proud of me.
Guest:It's important to get them to sign off on it.
Guest:Not even kidding.
Guest:I mean, it's Dirty Daddy.
Guest:And I'm doing all these signing things.
Guest:I got the 92nd Street Y. I'm doing one in LA.
Guest:I've gone to Chicago and San Francisco and got all these little events.
Guest:And I don't want any hard feelings out there with anybody that I'm related to directly.
Marc:Yeah, well, that's good.
Marc:I wasn't as cautious with my book, but me and my dad will be okay, maybe.
Marc:Do you want me to talk to him?
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Marc:I don't know if it'll work.
Marc:I have a hard time with it.
Marc:Maybe you'll have an easier time with it.
Marc:I'll call him when we're done.
Marc:Well, thanks, Bob.
Marc:And good luck with it, man.
Marc:I hope it sells well.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:It's nice to see you here.
Marc:Nice to see you.
Marc:Today is Karen Kilgariff day.
Marc:I could look that snake right in the eye.
Marc:Right in the eye.
Marc:Comfortable.
Marc:I saw the most toxic snake in the world.
Marc:They had like 12 cobras at that joint, man.
Marc:The most toxic snake in the world in one bite has enough venom to kill 10 men.
Marc:That is overcompensating.
Marc:And he's a little snake, so that makes sense.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Sometimes the fellas that are the shortest got the biggest personalities.
Yeah.
Marc:Come on, Marin.
Marc:You making dick jokes about venomous snakes?
Marc:Yes, I am, inner Marin.
Marc:That is what I'm doing.
Marc:Karen Kilgareth is hilariously funny, and she's writing these insanely cutting, humorous songs.
Marc:She's going to play some of those at the end.
Marc:She makes a brief appearance in...
Marc:In the next season of Marin.
Marc:And I've always loved her.
Marc:We've gone through some times where I thought we were tense together, but I think she was just tense with herself.
Marc:And it was a joy talking to her.
Marc:And I am going to share that conversation with you.
Marc:Karen Kilgareth.
Marc:Two Fs.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:For all these years, I thought it was Kilgareth.
Marc:Did you really?
Marc:Kinda.
Guest:That's heartbreaking.
Marc:I apologize.
Guest:It's been 31 years.
Marc:Do you want to leave?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Has it been 31?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:I'm trying to think.
Guest:Although it's since the early 90s, 91 or 92.
Marc:So that's like 25 years.
Guest:Yeah, 25.
Guest:Isn't that crazy?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:How long have you been doing it?
Guest:Since I was 20, since 1990.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:I know.
Marc:No, because, okay, so I moved to San Francisco in 92.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So that was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Around then.
Guest:That's right when I was first started there.
Guest:So I would be the opener when you would headline.
Guest:Remember at the improv?
Marc:I do.
Marc:The old improv downtown.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did you grow up in the Bay Area?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I grew up in Petaluma.
Marc:By the beach?
Guest:No, we were right above.
Guest:It was like 30 minutes up over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Marc:Was it horrible?
Yeah.
Guest:No, I loved it.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Yeah, it was nice, but it was very rural.
Guest:You know, I grew up out in the country.
Marc:Where Petaluma was, is that, what horrible thing came from Petaluma?
Guest:Pauly Klaas.
Marc:Oh yes, Pauly Klaas.
Guest:Was kidnapped out of her bedroom during a slumber party and murdered.
Marc:In Petaluma.
Guest:In Petaluma.
Marc:Wasn't the guy who killed his wife in the boat from there too?
Marc:What was that guy's name?
Marc:The Scott Peterson?
Guest:The Nicole Kidman movie?
Guest:No, no, Scott Peterson.
Guest:No, no, no, that was Modesto.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Very similar feel.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We're a little bit cooler because we're closer to like Marin.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Modesto's like serious central California cow town.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I have friends from there.
Marc:Polly Klaus, that was her name, right?
Guest:Yeah, Polly Klaus.
Guest:Horrible.
Guest:Class.
Guest:Class.
Guest:Like nightmare.
Guest:Nothing like that ever happened.
Guest:Nothing ever happened in my town.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:I was in San Francisco.
Guest:I was like 20.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, did your family know her family or anything?
Guest:Her mother was my boss at the last job I had before I moved to San Francisco.
Guest:I swear to God, it's a tiny town.
Marc:That's horrifying.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It was very surreal.
Guest:No one kind of knew what to do.
Guest:The craziest story out of that that I love is that happened on her...
Guest:It was like a slumber party at her house.
Guest:The next day they told her junior high class.
Guest:I think she was in seventh grade.
Guest:They had they made that announcement and then they passed out flyers to the kids of like, have you seen this child?
Guest:And all the kids got up and ran out of class and ran out into the town to start putting them up everywhere.
Guest:My sister told me that story and I just started sobbing.
Guest:It was just like, that's how everyone felt.
Guest:And the first time I went home from the city to visit my family, there was purple ribbons everywhere because that was her favorite color.
Guest:Every car had them.
Guest:Every store had them.
Guest:It was like it took over the town.
Guest:It was really crazy.
Marc:How many people live in that town?
Guest:When I was growing up there, it was probably $25,000, but I think now it's closer to $50,000 because of the dot-com boom.
Marc:It's still insane that you worked for her mom.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Where did you work for her?
Guest:It was a children's clothing catalog called Bio Bottoms, where they made cotton diapers that you could reuse.
Guest:I was a phone operator taking people's orders.
Marc:Oh, so it was a big thing.
Marc:It was a company.
Guest:And her mom started that company with her friend in their basement, and then it became a big company.
Marc:Oh, it's so sad.
Guest:It's terrible.
Marc:So did you come from a big family over there?
Guest:Well, I only have an older sister, but then my father is one of nine.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:So I have a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles.
Marc:Kilgariff, is that like Irish?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It is?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Like full-on Irish?
Guest:Completely Irish, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you go to Ireland?
Guest:I have been, yeah.
Marc:Did you track down relatives?
Guest:No.
Guest:There's a town called Kilgareth in Ireland.
Guest:My family was from Longford and Galway.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But both my grandparents left when they were teenagers to come over here.
Marc:So your parents are first generation?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:It is really great.
Guest:I have a lot of white pride about it.
Marc:Did they speak with a brogue?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:They did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That makes sense to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I feel like, I don't know, you seem close to an Irish spirit.
Guest:I think it's the storytelling.
Guest:I think because you saw me in the height of my drinking probably as well.
Marc:Yeah, you were kind of boozy.
Marc:I was super boozy.
Marc:Yeah, but cute.
Marc:You were cute.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Not the gross kind?
Yeah.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:My recollection is you were you were forced to be reckoned with.
Marc:You know, you weren't like, oh, God, this is sad.
Marc:She's drunk again.
Marc:It was more like, oh, here she comes.
Marc:What's going to happen?
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:That's absolutely the truth.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And did you date Dave Anthony during the drinking?
Guest:I sure did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We did some serious drinking together.
Marc:So, I mean, I can't even imagine that brawl of a relationship.
Guest:It was very exciting.
Guest:It was terrible and wonderful.
Guest:He was like my first real boyfriend boyfriend.
Marc:He is terrible and wonderful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a fine way to describe him.
Guest:He's all things.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he's hilarious.
Guest:But but also it was very hard to be like an up and coming comedian with another up and coming comedian.
Guest:I think that's a terrible fucking combination.
Marc:I was married to a comedian, but I was not an up and coming comedian, which Mishnah.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Marc:When she was doing comedy.
Marc:It's no good.
Marc:No, there's no way it's good.
Guest:No, you can't have two lunatic narcissists.
Guest:Competing with each other.
Guest:Competing.
Guest:That's what it was.
Marc:Yeah, and there's no way not to compete.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And you don't know whether it's okay to work on the other person's jokes or say anything.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Because then it just leads to a fight and someone's going to get more work than the other person.
Marc:It's fucking horrendous.
Guest:It's so horrible.
Guest:And I kind of have that thing, like, I'm... Comedy was so hard for me in the beginning because you have to book yourself.
Guest:You have to call people and try to sell yourself.
Guest:And that was so disgusting to me, that idea.
Guest:I remember Patton giving me a speech about it one day, like, you need to call Rooster Teeth Feathers, you need to call Blubububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububububub
Guest:The zoo was around, but I'd never called them.
Guest:That was one of the places where I offended people at the zoo for not calling and trying to get on.
Guest:So then when Patton and Brian did one of their shows together, they wanted me to be on it.
Guest:And whoever ran the zoo was like, no, she hasn't passed our muster.
Guest:Tracy Forrester.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:And I didn't know.
Guest:I just didn't like that element of it seemed totally pathetic and disgusting.
Guest:I just wanted no part of it.
Marc:I just like that Patton was like the organizer, the guy.
Marc:He always had his shit together.
Guest:He really fucking did.
Guest:He wrote every day.
Guest:I used to see his notebook, and I'd just be like, my notebook is just kind of like song lyrics written out and some Chinese food orders and directions somewhere.
Guest:No jokes ever.
Marc:Well, we'd all just gotten there.
Marc:That was 92 years.
Marc:That I got there and Patton got there within... We got there within weeks of each other.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And Blaine.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:We were also stoned constantly or drunk constantly.
Marc:That's true in San Francisco.
Guest:Always.
Guest:And you kind of... Which was great.
Guest:It was like very luxurious way of living.
Guest:But...
Guest:We were sitting in at a party in that apartment one time and there was people everywhere and Blaine and I were sitting on this bed next to each other and just completely stoned out of our minds.
Guest:And he turned to me and he had been playing with two staples.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he turned to me and handed me the staples and he had bent them together into two interconnected little squares.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he goes, here, I made you some hydrogen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I started laughing, couldn't stop.
Guest:Like I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown because it was the greatest thing anyone had ever done.
Marc:Very clever guy, that guy.
Guest:He's very genius.
Guest:And it was like this very sweet, like it was like a little valentine of geniusness.
Marc:Oh, stoned moments.
Marc:Oh, drugs.
Marc:Let's just do a whole podcast called Stone Moments.
Guest:I think they have that.
Guest:How touching they were.
Guest:Doug Benson will sue you.
Marc:Oh, that's true.
Marc:When did you start, though?
Marc:When did you decide this was a thing?
Marc:Was he intent to be a singer or songwriter or to be a comedian?
Guest:Comedian.
Guest:I started in 1990 in Sacramento, where Brian also started.
Guest:Brian Posehn started there, too.
Marc:At that punchline?
Guest:No, that wasn't there yet.
Guest:It was before that.
Guest:Andy Kindler was the first comedian, like, real comedian I ever met because my friend was a waitress at Laughs Unlimited, and she was, like, very casually dating Andy Kindler.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and that was right when I had, like, very first started.
Marc:It's hard for me to picture Andy Kindler as sort of like a dog, like a dude that had dating and was casually dating someone on the road.
Guest:Well, he's very charming.
Guest:He didn't do a dog style.
Guest:He did it like, I'll be your boyfriend every eight months when I come through town.
Guest:It was that kind of thing.
Marc:All right, so you started at Laughs Unlimited?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, well, that was the first real club I ever played.
Guest:They had a comedy contest there that I think Brian Posehn was also in and Vernon Chapman was in it.
Guest:People came up from San Francisco to be in it.
Guest:I can't remember who else.
Marc:Isn't it interesting the career paths that people have had, the ones that have had them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The fact, either they've had them or they haven't, and then when they do, what happens?
Guest:Like, Vernon Chapman, I think, has done amazing, amazing shit for himself.
Marc:Yeah, he's just like this odd genius for hire.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then we all made the rounds and did the little TV shows and stuff together, I remember?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Like, what shows?
Marc:Do you remember?
Guest:Well, I remember other people getting like the MTV.
Marc:Half hour.
Guest:Half hours.
Guest:I was, that was like, those guys were like, well, you were, I would say you were like a junior or senior to my freshman.
Guest:That's how I always look at it.
Guest:So I wasn't, I never even thought of that I would ever be on that because that was like for the sophomores and juniors.
Guest:I remember the show.
Marc:I do.
Marc:It had some concept to it.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Like it was hosted by a head or something that was John Bowman.
Marc:It was, but I remember it.
Marc:It was not, oh.
Guest:It was a big deal to everybody.
Guest:That's all I remember.
Guest:Everybody was like, am I going to get it or not?
Guest:Why am I up for it?
Guest:Who got it?
Guest:Everyone's pissed.
Guest:That's back when stand-up was really cutthroat competitive.
Marc:That still happens with premium blend and shit, I think.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:But I think everyone's so much nicer to each other these days.
Guest:There's so much more communal shit going on.
Marc:There is.
Marc:It's disconcerting.
Guest:It just doesn't suit my personality.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm so much better if it's asshole to asshole.
Guest:Not like that.
Marc:No, I know what you mean.
Marc:But you know the territory.
Marc:It's like we're competing.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I'm pretending to like you.
Marc:You don't deserve that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I got my dukes up.
Guest:Bring it.
Guest:I'll fucking destroy you.
Guest:Oh, everyone's trying to be nice now.
Guest:I don't know what to do or say.
Marc:It's uncomfortable.
Marc:I got to go.
Guest:It's very odd.
Guest:I'm going to stay in my house.
Guest:That's going to work better for me.
Guest:When did you move to L.A.?
Guest:In 94.
Marc:And why?
Guest:Because I got an agent.
Guest:I got Margaret Cho gave my tape to her agent.
Guest:Did you open for Cho?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That was your deal?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think I remember that.
Guest:Yeah, she did.
Guest:When she started doing colleges, she brought me on the road with her.
Marc:But you didn't play music then, did you?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Just straight stand-up?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're kind of tough, brassy, boozy stand-up?
Guest:Boozy, in-your-face, opinion-based.
Guest:You know how we used to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I had a really distinct point of view that I couldn't figure out now if I had had to.
Marc:Looking back on it, you don't know what it is?
Guest:Well, it used to just be like, my point of view was, fuck you, and here's something funny I said one time, essentially.
Guest:It kind of boiled down to that.
Guest:It was really charming.
Guest:People really enjoyed it.
Guest:Sounds warm.
Marc:Sounds really warm.
Marc:It's a fun time.
Guest:You go pay $50 and have some girl kind of sneer at you and tell you how you're stupid.
Marc:Yeah, you're stupid.
Marc:This happened to me.
Guest:Yep, that was it.
Marc:That's how I remember it.
Marc:That was the feeling I got, yeah.
Guest:And you probably liked that a little bit, I would think.
Marc:I never thought we really essentially got along.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I didn't think we didn't get along, but I don't feel like, do you remember any fun times, like your hydrogen moment with Blaine Capach with Marc Maron?
Guest:No, not you and I.
Marc:No, exactly.
Guest:But for me, it was because you were a senior.
Guest:It seemed like you just had better things to do.
Guest:I wasn't going to try to.
Guest:So that was my other thing.
Guest:I would never try to make someone like me or hang out with me.
Guest:That would never happen.
Marc:And you were probably locked down with Anthony, man.
Marc:How long did that go on for?
Guest:Until I moved to L.A.
Marc:So it was a while.
Guest:Yeah, two years.
Marc:You guys could have been just an Irish disaster together.
Oh, fuck.
Guest:We were an Irish disaster.
Guest:There was one party where I started drinking during the day.
Guest:He didn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember Susie?
Guest:She used to work in the booth at the improv.
Guest:She had really long hair.
Marc:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:And I think she had a nose ring.
Guest:She was great.
Guest:And Susie was Dave's roommate.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Susie and I started drinking vodka and then we went thrift store shopping.
Guest:We got ourselves dresses for this party.
Guest:And by the time the party started at like five, we were blind drunk.
Guest:I mean, just annihilated.
Guest:And they were trying to barbecue on the roof and everyone was positive I was going to fall off the roof.
Guest:So I'd be like, fuck.
Guest:stop trying to make me stand in a certain and then i just go walk you know like right on the edge of like a three-story san francisco apartment building smart yeah and then this fighting started all of dave's friends were there it was like it was like something out of shameless where they'd be like don't include that it's not even funny and it's depressing just that's not entertaining it's a sad drug girl yeah well what about your your folks were they be on board with the whole what'd your dad do up there in the petaluma
Guest:He was actually a San Francisco fireman.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he commuted in.
Marc:Did he sweep at the firehouse sometimes?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you go to the firehouse as a kid?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Did they have a pole?
Guest:They did.
Guest:We weren't allowed upstairs, though.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:That's where the men are.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:That was man's area.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which was fine with me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Irish fireman.
Marc:I like it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It seems to make sense.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Did he come from a tradition of firemen?
Yeah.
Guest:No, my grandfather was a bricklayer.
Guest:I mean, it's just old school San Francisco, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have another uncle.
Guest:My uncle, Martin, I think he was a fireman for a while.
Guest:Then he started teaching at the fire college.
Guest:So most guys that are firemen in San Francisco had my uncle Martin as a professor.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh-huh then and uh my uncle mike is a plumber my uncle john uh was an electrician and they all built my parents house that they live in now like when my parents moved they basically all these are solid practical you know crafts yes professions this is this is what the middle class used to be yeah yeah they were kind of the real jobs tangible blue collar yeah color but uh yeah did your dad see a lot of action
Guest:Um, no, he told a story that's kind of awesome.
Guest:One time he went into, he had to use a Scott air pack, which was very new at the time.
Guest:And he didn't really know how to use it, but he had to go into a building that was burning that was, had just been built.
Guest:And he got in and he was walking around and,
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Basically, the important part of the story is that he got to a spot he couldn't see anymore.
Guest:And he's like, forget it.
Guest:I'm just going to take this thing off.
Guest:And he's standing at the top of a flight of unfinished stairs.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So if he had taken another step, he would have...
Guest:fallen he would have been killed essentially in this fire so that was like that's pretty much the most exciting thing i think that ever happened to him yeah and other than that he he worked in chinatown so there was a lot of they just had to do a lot of inspections of like right you can't cook that in here yeah you
Guest:Because this is an apartment building.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:You can't have 17 families in this one room.
Guest:There was a lot of that underground stuff that he would, you know.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, like tunnels connect.
Guest:Apparently Chinatown is like a honey, a beehive of, you don't even know what's going on because it's all.
Marc:I've heard there's other tunnels in that Cobbs building.
Marc:Like down on the wharf, not the original cause, but where the one is now.
Marc:There's all kinds of weird shit down there.
Marc:I know there's tunnels all over San Francisco.
Marc:I don't know for what reason.
Marc:Usually it's for booze, prohibition area stuff.
Marc:I don't know what was going on in that city.
Guest:It may have been in the 1849 one, the gold rush and all that.
Guest:This is the kind of thing that I think normal adults would have read a book.
Guest:It's their city.
Guest:I'm very interested in this, but I would never look for a book about it and read it.
Marc:No, it's more fun to speculate.
Guest:Let's make up reason.
Guest:I heard it was mole people.
Marc:Yeah, me too, and I hear that they're still there.
Marc:Occasionally people see them.
Marc:The last one that came out was in the late 60s.
Marc:You can't believe Paul Cantor.
Guest:Because he's on drugs.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But you do know from relatively credible sources that there's some shit going on in Chinatown that no one knows?
Guest:Yeah, there's some serious shit going on there.
Marc:Some underground stuff?
Guest:Yep.
Marc:All right, well, I guess we're going to have to leave it at that.
Guest:I mean, maybe someday we'll learn more.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:So you don't drink anymore?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:Really?
Marc:No.
Marc:Like nothing?
Guest:Well, in 1997, I started having seizures.
Marc:From drinking?
Guest:From drinking, and so I was on speed for a while.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Trying to get down to a nice Hollywood fighting weight.
Marc:Were you obsessed with the weight thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's always been a big thing.
Marc:So you're taking speed and drinking.
Marc:It's a great diet, the speed.
Guest:Well, there's no time for eating after all that.
Marc:Like crank or old style speed?
Guest:Diet pills, like prescription pills, but they were on par with the best cocaine you've ever had.
Guest:It was like getting up and doing...
Guest:Six, no, it was more.
Guest:Because it was like, I can't explain it.
Guest:It was like a cocaine high and it lasted for 12 hours.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You're just kind of like really tense.
Marc:Like Benzedrine or something like that?
Guest:Well, it was fen-fen without the second fen that used to bring you down.
Guest:They used to give it as a cocktail.
Marc:I remember when everyone was doing that for a while, the fen-fen.
Guest:Everyone thought it was the answer.
Guest:But all it was doing was basically making your heart race
Guest:So that your body would just kind of like process calories really fast.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then everyone started getting like heart problems and dying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they made it illegal.
Guest:So I had it like when it very first came out before the Downer cocktail.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it was just the up all day long.
Guest:So there's a lot of like smoking and staring out the window.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not blinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cleaning.
Marc:Some cleaning.
Guest:Oh, a lot of cleaning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of folding of shirts.
Guest:A lot of shopping.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I was just, I wasn't eating.
Guest:So then I was just, I replaced it with shopping.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So this was when you were in LA?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were trying to, what, get on TV?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you thought, yeah.
Marc:And so had you had this weight obsession when you were younger as well?
Guest:No, up until I moved to LA, I didn't realize how fat I was.
Guest:I didn't, it never really came up to me.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't, I knew I wasn't thin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew that was what I was quote unquote supposed to be, but it didn't bother me as much.
Marc:But you're not the kind of person that, you know, should be 110 pounds.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, because I have, yeah, it looks super weird.
Guest:I've lost a ton of weight before.
Guest:I kind of remember that because you were wearing a plaid skirt.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:There was a period where plaid skirts were your thing, kind of.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:That was right in the speed time.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Guest:Plaid skirts, black tights, boots.
Marc:Right, and I remember knowing what's going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Why is she, she's like lost, she's doing that thing.
Guest:Yeah, I had to do it.
Guest:Whatever that is.
Guest:I went and did it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was pretty great in like one, like in a 3% slice of the pie, it was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then the whole rest of it was pretty fucked up.
Marc:So what ultimately ended up happening?
Guest:Well, I was having seizures at night and I didn't know it.
Guest:So I would wake up with like a really bitten tongue or like I would wake up on the floor and I'd be like, that's so weird.
Guest:I once had a dream I was a spinner dolphin.
Yeah.
Guest:And I was just having seizure, basically.
Guest:So the big, you know, the big climax of that story came when I woke up.
Guest:Well, I woke up one morning and I was like, immediately got on the phone and was talking to somebody.
Guest:And I was like, God, my God.
Guest:I keep biting my tongue, and my tongue is so bitten.
Guest:And I turned and looked back, and the wall of my bedroom had just huge spray of blood on it.
Guest:Like this crazy... And then I just was like... I looked at it, and I was just like, I can't deal with that.
Guest:There's no way.
Marc:I don't even know what happened there.
Marc:You had no idea what...
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know why it happened.
Guest:It looked horrible.
Guest:It looked like a mini murder.
Guest:And I had no capacity to deal.
Guest:And this was literally when I was getting up in the morning and walking into my kitchen and grabbing a bottle of Jameson's and taking a huge swig.
Guest:Like in my mind, I knew things were getting really bad.
Marc:That's bad.
Guest:But at the same time, like when you're a comedian and you go out every night and drink, there's this weird kind of normal, it normalizes it.
Marc:Yeah, we don't live in a normal world.
Marc:It's not a normal environment.
Marc:And, you know, we all know people that were worse or more fucked up.
Marc:And we just didn't have to answer to anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was fucking great.
Guest:So anyway, eventually Kristen Barrett came and stayed with me, Greg's sister.
Guest:And she woke up one morning and I was having a seizure.
Guest:Like my lips were blue and I was totally out.
Guest:So I woke up one morning to a couple L.A.
Guest:firemen sitting on my bed saying, do you know your name?
Guest:And do you know what day it is?
Guest:Get out.
Guest:And I'm just wearing a Dodgers t-shirt and no pants.
Guest:And I was just like, you guys.
Guest:And they were amazing looking, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you didn't know if it was a dream or.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was very surreal.
Marc:Someone had called them because you were in.
Guest:I was like blue lipped.
Guest:Like she was.
Guest:It scared the shit out of her.
Guest:Was she sober at that time?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So was she staying with you to sort of check in?
Marc:Was it a mild intervention?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, if it was, she didn't do anything because she had just moved to town.
Guest:So I think she was just like getting settled and figuring out what she was going to do.
Marc:So she buzz killed your seizure party with the fireman.
Guest:Yeah, I was having such a great time.
Guest:And she called the man.
Guest:No, I mean, I think it was one of the worst ones I'd had because I was actually, I was out for a really long time.
Guest:and whatever but it that could have been happening for a while and i just didn't know uh so anyway i went to the hospital you know i had like it was crazy it was like there was no liquid in my body it was it was all that shit of like when you're drinking too much and then um but the seizure part they thought it was purely literally a doctor said to me the seizures are just from alcohol withdrawal and i said but i've never stopped drinking
Guest:Which is really one of the saddest things I've ever said.
Marc:You had gotten to that level of alcohol intake that you couldn't make it through a whole night without a seizure?
Guest:Well, no, no, no.
Guest:The seizures happened when I was sleeping.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:I didn't know.
Marc:But you were going into withdrawal that quickly?
Guest:Well, I, but that's what doesn't make sense is because, and here's the thing that that theory doesn't prove out because I still have seizures to this day.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I am on medicine that controls them.
Guest:But anytime I've like, I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled a couple of years ago when the Vicodin made me like just throw up and, and I couldn't keep my own medicine down and I had a seizure then.
Guest:So I still have them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's not, uh, it's not, it has nothing to do with the levels of alcohol in my system.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I think I personally think it's the diet pills screwed something up in my system.
Marc:Oh, you think that was a cause of them to this day?
Marc:That's something.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:I do.
Guest:But it's just all theory.
Guest:And like I've gone to a ton of neurologists and all they can do is say like I've had CAT scans and stuff.
Guest:And they're like, there's no reason that you should be having seizures.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:But I but I would do.
Marc:Were you working?
Guest:When this all happened?
Guest:No, you know what's funny?
Guest:This was like the weird period in between when I was still trying to act and do stuff and kind of after that is when I started writing.
Marc:For Mr. Show?
Guest:No, I never vote for Mr. Joe.
Marc:You didn't?
Guest:I was just a cast member on it.
Marc:Yeah, but you were in a lot of things, right?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:But you didn't get to write?
Guest:Mm-mm.
Marc:Was this before or after that?
Guest:I don't remember.
Marc:How'd you get in with those guys?
Guest:Laura Milligan used to have that show at the Diamond Club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That she would do, I think it was every week.
Marc:I kind of remember that.
Marc:I kind of remember doing that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that possible?
Guest:Yes, I'm sure it was.
Guest:It was right on Hollywood Boulevard and everybody did it.
Guest:And Bob and David- She did it with a band, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Bob and David did their first couple sketches together there.
Guest:And we also did that cabaret together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I just, it was like we, basically from hanging out with Laura Milligan, she was friends with Janine, you know, she was friends with David.
Guest:Laura had already lived in LA for a couple years, so she kind of already had that group of friends.
Marc:All right, so you work with those guys.
Marc:So what happens?
Marc:So you go to the hospital, then what do you do?
Marc:You go to rehab?
Guest:Nope.
Marc:No?
Guest:It scared it out of me.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah, I just stopped.
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Cold turkey, and now it's gone.
Guest:No, like, I would have champagne at, like, a wedding or whatever, but my thing is, I just knew in my mind, like, I don't want one drink.
Guest:I don't want three drinks.
Guest:I want 12.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's just I know that about myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and just if I do that, because I had a couple of people tell me, like, you can still drink.
Guest:It's not that big of a deal or whatever.
Guest:But I just knew if the if the problem was with my brain and I was filling replacing the liquid in my brain with alcohol, that's bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like anything.
Guest:It's it scared me so badly having those seizures.
Guest:I would do anything to never have them again.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:And so, yeah, it didn't seem like, I mean, every once in a while, I'll say it if I'm at a bar with people or whatever, it's like, I would just love to have a pitcher of Budweiser and drink the whole thing myself.
Marc:Yeah, cold.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Cold Budweiser.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're actually just scared straight?
Marc:No, you didn't do any system, program, nothing?
Guest:No.
Marc:Wow, that is some Irish fortitude.
Guest:It is fortitude, but then it's also like it's a test to the power of how scary it is to have a seizure.
Guest:It's like dying or drowning.
Guest:It's a really horrifying experience.
Marc:Do you come from a drinking family?
Guest:My parents drink, but they were not drunks in any way.
Guest:They were, you know, our working class people.
Guest:They got their stuff done.
Guest:But, you know, my dad always has a Budweiser in his hand on the weekend.
Guest:And they enjoyed themselves.
Guest:And they were like 50s cocktailer type of people.
Guest:But my mom had, both of her parents were alcoholics.
Guest:And she had a terrible childhood.
Guest:So we definitely got it in our family.
Marc:It's wild, isn't it?
Marc:How that shit travels?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's bizarre.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:So you get scared straight.
Marc:You start eating like a person.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Stop drinking.
Marc:Were you more productive?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, I was never productive before.
Guest:That's my problem.
Marc:We had some jokes.
Guest:Yeah, I was, you know.
Marc:You were funny.
Marc:You just did that part on my show.
Marc:That was funny.
Marc:You were funny on Mr. Show.
Guest:I love that part on your show.
Guest:I get to work with Sally Kellerman.
Guest:That was the craziest experience.
Guest:I mean, that was like, I knew when I read that script, I was like, oh, I get to be in a scene with Sally Kellerman.
Guest:But then like you're standing next to Sally Kellerman.
Guest:It's a whole different thing.
Guest:She's unbelievable.
Marc:She looks so great when we cut it up.
Marc:It looks so great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because when you're acting with somebody and you take after take, you're like, oh my God, are we getting it?
Marc:And then like all of a sudden like, oh my, that's why she's magic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Look, look, you didn't notice how great that was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You can't see it.
Guest:Isn't that the weird thing about shooting stuff?
Guest:It's like what's happening in the room has nothing to do with what goes on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's an important lesson to learn.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So when did you start shifting from acting to writing?
Guest:Right around that time.
Guest:I mean, there was I just wasn't getting parts.
Guest:And I was the worst auditioner in the world.
Guest:The worst, which is kind of goes back to that thing of like, I don't like asking for things or like what happened.
Guest:Do you have me like, I just would always be really mad.
Guest:Like I would hate the material and I would hate the people in the room and they would always look.
Guest:I just hated it.
Guest:I hated it.
Guest:And it showed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So many times they'd be like, could you do that again and a little less angry?
Guest:And I would just be like, I didn't think I was being angry, but I just was so angry.
Marc:I know exactly what you're talking about.
Guest:It's just such a frustrating situation to have to walk into a room and feel like you're being appraised and judged.
Marc:And then to sit outside with nine other people, some of you've seen on television, it's just like the mental sort of challenge of the whole process is baffling.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And also we were, I mean, our personas were sort of angry.
Marc:So like that's how we function.
Marc:Okay, there's people here.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:What?
Marc:This is the tone I operate at.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know why you'd expect me to act differently.
Marc:I don't act differently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or I could, but if you want me to know differently, then you have to write better lines.
Guest:I think that was when I really had that realization of every time I got a script, I'd be like, this is so fucking stupid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was always reading for the part of the best friend who was either a man-eater...
Guest:It was so like a crazy slut or like it was it was so two dimensional.
Guest:Everything was just so pigeonholed that I would start.
Guest:I almost felt like I had like political feelings about these scripts or just like I can't read this anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I'm going in for it, that means this girl is only A or B. There's never.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, there's never any more to it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I think that was the other thing I would come into the room with.
Guest:Like, I almost wanted to go.
Guest:Who wrote this?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Which one of you?
Guest:I want to see who thought they should put this on paper.
Marc:Well, those sitcoms are always like that.
Marc:I never understood.
Marc:The miracle that those things work ever is just a testament to the character actors that do it.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Marc:Because it's all the same shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Just like crappy jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:One after another.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know how people write that.
Marc:But when you write...
Marc:And the experiences I've had with it, you do have to fight the, it's almost like, not second nature, but the way television is in your head.
Guest:It's programmed in there.
Guest:You know what the words are if you're going to write a conversation where two people are fighting about a bill.
Guest:And it's jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's stupid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We had to fight that so hard when I was working on my show.
Marc:It's like, we can't talk like that.
Marc:People don't talk like that.
Guest:People don't talk like that.
Marc:And also, it's not, this isn't the show.
Marc:We're not doing some vaudeville here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I mean, it is hard to I mean, I I hope, you know, I love your show.
Guest:I've told you that before.
Guest:But I think that's a thing of like getting real life to actually look real and have everybody act, quote unquote, real.
Guest:Like we're saying, it's it's such a huge challenge.
Guest:It's so much harder than it even sounds because it's not reality TV.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like you're there's an there's art.
Marc:There has to be a naturalness to it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, it still doesn't look quite real.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But, you know, it's just really a matter of not going for the joke every fucking time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And trying to be what's interesting about what really happens in real life between people as opposed to the.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just can't.
Guest:That's why I can't watch sitcoms.
Guest:It's just like no one talks like that.
Guest:And it's not interesting to watch two people not listen to each other and just riff.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like I've done that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I've had it.
Marc:And the good ones, the only testament to the good sitcoms is you don't notice it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That's what makes it good.
Marc:It's like you have enough invested in these characters to where you don't notice that they're not talking like people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or when those jokes come out, then you're like, oh, my God, that is, you know, like you.
Guest:It feels like a it feels like a victory in some way.
Guest:But you're exactly right.
Guest:I remember seeing when I watched Megan Mullally the first time on Will and Grace.
Guest:because i think i i think i may have auditioned for that part and i remember my agent doing that thing you know how they used to always do where they're like they want you for this thing yeah and i remember looking at it like there's no way like i'm just a no name in hollywood there's no way they want me for this part what that usually means is they're having trouble sealing the deal with the person they want yeah and they're just going to run people through yes exactly because you're already on the schedule
Marc:Or they've already given the part to somebody.
Guest:We've got to do something.
Guest:We've got the offices rented.
Guest:Let's get people in here.
Marc:The worst part is when they've already cast.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they're still running auditions.
Marc:It's horrendous.
Guest:The whole thing is a big zen exercise.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:Let it go.
Guest:If you are invested or you care, you're totally fucked.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Or you believe your management necessarily.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because it's all garbage information.
Guest:It is.
Marc:The whole thing is a long shot.
Marc:And they're just looking for a type usually if you're not a name.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they don't care about you at all or your chops.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Just want to see if you fit this thing.
Guest:But it also made me realize like the Megan Mullally thing is like talk about fucking chops or a person that can make something out of like a normal sentence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember watching her and just being like, thank God I didn't go even.
Guest:I think I either didn't go in for it or maybe it was just like one round or whatever.
Guest:But it was that thing of like, oh, yeah, that's someone that that should absolutely have that part and be seen by a ton of people because that's like real talent.
Marc:Yeah, were there people that you had that feeling with in general, like growing up, comedic heroes or people that were inspiring?
Marc:Because you were a stand-up, so I mean, I imagine it was some stand-ups, but I mean... Yeah, I used to watch Letterman a lot.
Guest:I used to get up, like go to bed and then sneak back up and go watch Letterman.
Guest:So I watched everybody.
Guest:I remember seeing Tom Kenny when he was on Letterman with his long tail.
Marc:Oh, way back, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, like Rockabilly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I used to watch, I mean, I have to say in that same way my obnoxious personality is most of the female comics that I would see, like in the 80s when I would watch it, I would go, I'm funnier than her.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I really wanted to do that.
Guest:I really wanted to be a comedian from a very young age.
Guest:So I always had that thing of like, I could do that.
Guest:I could do that.
Guest:It was always that feeling.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, when you do do comedy and you're opening for Margaret, I mean, whatever you think about Margaret, I mean, you did have to, you know, you watch somebody who did an hour.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, comfortably.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And had her own thing going.
Marc:I still don't know that I appreciated it when I was younger because now when I sit...
Marc:Or I do a show or I'm on stage with Conan or I do a live WTF or something.
Marc:You're just sitting next to a person, a peer, and they're just talking.
Marc:And there's 400 people like laughing.
Marc:And it's sort of like, how does that even?
Marc:I still don't really understand how it works.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It's so bizarre to me.
Guest:It is bizarre.
Guest:And it's because I think.
Guest:When I watch comedians that do well, what I respect and admire are the things that I don't do or feel I can't do.
Guest:And one of those is when you just use inflection and tone as the joke almost.
Guest:It's almost that thing of like, and here's the end of the sentence, therefore, you're going to laugh.
Guest:It's that, which I never did.
Guest:I always just talked like I was talking to...
Marc:It's an innate thing that, you know, it's not something I think people necessarily decide to do.
Marc:It's something you get to know about yourself.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's that like and also a physical comedy.
Marc:I'm like, how do they do that?
Marc:Yeah, they just do that.
Marc:That's, you know, they they're that kind of person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or people like I Love Rory Scovel, he just has a tone in his voice naturally that everything he says is funny.
Guest:And a lot of times it's nothing.
Guest:It's just how he seems to be approaching life in general.
Marc:Yeah, I'm always jealous of those people.
Marc:I'm always jealous of the laid back people.
Marc:It's like, I got to work so hard to get...
Guest:I've got to kill so many demons just to fucking show up here.
Marc:Yeah, you're just kind of half-sweeping through it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it's just a stylistic thing.
Marc:So how did you end up with Ellen?
Guest:That was... So I think it was my second staff writing job was Zach Alphinax's talk show.
Guest:The VH1 thing?
Guest:The VH1, yeah.
Marc:I was part of that move, that VH1 reinvention.
Guest:Yes, for the... Never mind the buzzcocks.
Guest:They turned their eyes to the young people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Young white people.
Guest:Young whites.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Which was like, no, I'm not going to.
Guest:Zach used to call them.
Guest:It used to make me laugh so hard when the people from VH1 would come to watch a show or whatever.
Guest:He'd go, because they all wore Banana Republic clothes.
Guest:He'd go, the bananas are here.
Guest:That was just the perfect thing.
Guest:It's music for us.
Guest:It's like, we're going to make our station for us.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It was Fred Graver.
Marc:That was the guy.
Yeah.
Marc:But they really chose Zach that Zach was their poster boy.
Marc:I mean, he had that dumb hat.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, he was on buses everywhere.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they were like, this is it.
Marc:We're going to hang it all on Zach.
Marc:And then they canceled it in four months.
Marc:Well, I mean, it was they just couldn't turn that that network around.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was not.
Marc:You know, that wasn't destined to be.
Marc:But it's a real testament to you and to Zach in general that, you know, that's a pretty big hit.
Marc:But Zach sort of found his way.
Marc:You found your way.
Marc:But what a weird kind of, you know, public disaster that was.
Marc:But nobody really noticed it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:If you lived in New York, I mean, that Zach picture was everywhere.
Marc:And the show was just like a clusterfuck.
Guest:Yeah, it was like, you know what it was?
Guest:If they wanted to do a talk show to turn their network around and make it more than just videos to give to give a talk show to a comic who is like an absurdist, a complete absurdist and doesn't like to do anything normally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, what a stupid fucking idea that it like did.
Guest:They didn't line anything up in terms of like how stuff works.
Marc:Well, what was the fight that you guys had?
Marc:I mean, because I know it was a huge space and Zach had a clipboard and there was like nothing conventional about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So was there a constant battle with the network?
Guest:No, I think they had no idea what to say, what to tell anybody.
Guest:But I wouldn't know because I was just a staff writer, so I wasn't really on the inside.
Guest:I think they just thought it was like they were going to throw it out there and see what happened.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there were some really fun, amazing things.
Guest:We had the Foo Fighters on, and there were some really good bookings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, I mean, at that time, you didn't go to VH1.
Marc:That was pre- Oh, yeah, before it was just like Tony Braxton videos.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was acid wash jeans by the pool.
Marc:Yeah, it was crazy.
Marc:I mean, I remember I did some interstitial things.
Marc:I'm one of those like, yeah, this will be good.
Marc:I always hated that advice because I see that my old manager still gives it.
Marc:It's like, you'll just be that guy with the microphone who does the thing.
Marc:And it's like...
Marc:That never leads anywhere.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's just a quick gig.
Marc:And I remember they dressed me up and I had to do the sort of like facts about Tony Braxton and this or that.
Marc:And I was like, what am I doing?
Marc:It was like such hell.
Marc:Like, what is this leading?
Marc:Like, you got the idea that it was like, this is the deal you have to make.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that was back when it worked the other way like this these days.
Guest:It's so the opposite where it's like you find your project based on what you do and like all doors are open and figure it out.
Guest:We've got back then it was like there's four jobs.
Guest:Are you going to be a VJ?
Guest:Are you going to be a leading man?
Guest:Are you going to be the kooky best friend?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Or are you going to write?
Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, as a comic, it was really, yeah.
Marc:Are you going to get a sitcom?
Marc:Are you going to host something?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or are you going to write?
Marc:Are you going to write?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Or be, yeah, be a bit part on a sitcom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, I have to say, picking the writing part, like Zach asked me to write on that and I was so thrilled and it was such a good timing wise.
Guest:It was like the perfect thing of like, oh God.
Marc:You were in New York, right?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was here.
Marc:It was all here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was like, oh, yeah, something to do, like a direction to take myself.
Guest:And then to be behind the camera, I was like, oh, what a fucking relief.
Guest:It was like six years of stress and anxiety about what I looked like and whether or not I measured up and all that shit.
Guest:It just disappeared.
Guest:And yet I still got all of the fun and then some because I got to make decisions about what was on the page.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There was all these... Because I think...
Guest:Like, especially in San Francisco and coming up, taking the writing path was a little bit of like a concession or a failure or like you didn't make it in these other ways.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:There was this sort of road warrior kind of like comic, you know, independent.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:You know, we do what the fuck we want attitude there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So you were kind of like.
Marc:It means you gave up the stand up.
Guest:Yeah, you gave up that and you didn't make it and you weren't whatever enough to be in movies or on TV.
Guest:It was very much the bronze medal.
Guest:And so I feared it for so long.
Guest:And then when I finally did it, I was like, hey, fuck this.
Guest:This is exactly what I want to do for all those other reasons.
Guest:And the other stuff, that's the heartbreak that kind of comes with being here.
Guest:It's like so many things don't work out the way you think they're going to.
Guest:But none of that is the end of the story.
Marc:And it doesn't necessarily mean you won't get paid.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I mean, once you hit a certain level, it's like, yeah, a lot of things don't work out.
Marc:But if you're in circulation, you're in circulation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you just keep doing stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, and then so Ellen's brother, Vance, was the head writer of that show.
Guest:I remember that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Vance Jenner.
Guest:He's super nice.
Guest:And apparently that's when Ellen had just been offered her new.
Guest:I'm saying apparently this is this is really what happened.
Guest:She had just been offered an HBO special.
Guest:And so she wanted someone to help her write it.
Guest:So he gave her my name.
Guest:So literally one day I came home from work from Zach's show.
Guest:There was a message on my answer machine that was, hi, Karen, this is Ellen DeGeneres.
Guest:Call me back.
Marc:But she wasn't huge then, was she?
Guest:This was post- The sitcom?
Guest:Anne Heche.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Post the second sitcom.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Basically, she had been gone for a while.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But she had gotten big shots.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And was a very public personality.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Guest:A famous person left me a phone message.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was crazy.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went ahead and called her back.
Marc:And she's San Francisco comic for a while, wasn't she?
Guest:Yeah, she did.
Guest:She lived in the city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And hers actually have to say her stand up was the kind was I can't say it inspired me, but I definitely noticed her on, you know, on all those shows that were all she was a stylist.
Marc:She had a very specific and unique tone.
Marc:I think I kind of lump her with Jake.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I think that her and Jake were sort of similar in their delivery and their ability to sort of run through long chunks of material with a unique voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And do super weird stuff and somehow keep you in.
Guest:Yeah, she was cool.
Guest:I mean, when everything else seemed like very all Rita Rudner, which to me, I did not like.
Marc:One-liners.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just kind of like, this is what a lady's like.
Guest:Or it's like, oh, fuck you.
Guest:We've had that for 50 years.
Marc:Why do we got to identify as ladies?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, or just we know there's no identification necessary.
Guest:That's like you're the picture on the bathroom door.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:Yeah, like what about something else, right?
Guest:So that's kind of what I like but yeah, so then I Just I literally went to her.
Marc:I feel like I should say I was talking about Jake Johansson.
Guest:Yes, Jake Johansson Another one I used to watch on Letterman all the time.
Marc:Was he was he still in San Francisco when you were there?
Marc:No, he was gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I'd so alright so you get this call and
Guest:Get the call.
Guest:Go to her house.
Guest:Don't bring a pen.
Guest:Don't bring paper.
Guest:Just show up.
Guest:Hang out a little bit.
Guest:It's a nice visit.
Marc:We're going to talk.
Guest:Yeah, let's have a visit.
Guest:Which was funny, like literally at the end.
Guest:She goes, so next time you'll bring some paper and a pen?
Guest:I was like, okay.
Guest:It's so stupid.
Guest:And that's kind of a good, like, that's a good picture, microcosm of what it was like, where she just basically, I don't know why, she just kind of took me in of like, you're going to be my writer.
Guest:And I mean, not to say I don't know why, like, false humility or something, but I mean, certainly not the most professional person in the world, certainly not the most experienced person.
Guest:But we got along and I think she must have liked my ideas.
Marc:When you do that, when you're one-on-one with somebody who's trying to construct an hour of stand-up, she had ideas and you just sort of brainstorm stuff?
Guest:Yeah, just like talk through.
Guest:The thing that was really smart is she had...
Guest:She hadn't been... One of the first things she told me is, the phone stopped ringing.
Guest:No one wants me in their thing anymore.
Guest:So it was absolutely the aim to reconstruct her career.
Guest:And so she wanted to write an HBO special that would appeal to everybody.
Guest:She felt like...
Guest:There are people who definitely had been alienated by her coming out and her being gay being such a identifier of her as a human being.
Guest:She wanted to kind of reset as like, but also remember I'm a comedian and the person that used to like before all that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:um so that was the that was the aim so it was mostly like let's just do a ton of observational comedy of like everything anything that bothers you that you see every day right and it all became those jokes about like when something comes in plastic that you can't open sure and cut your hand and all that stuff right so that's it was that uh-huh and then that kind of built your relationship
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I went on the road with her.
Guest:Opening for her?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And while we were on the road, she found out she'd been offered a talk show.
Guest:And then while we were on the road, she offered me the job of head writer.
Marc:For the one that's on now?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Or was it somewhere else first?
Marc:This one.
Guest:This one's been on for 11 years.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:And I was on for the first five.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's a popular show.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Clearly.
Guest:It's doing really well.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:People love her.
Guest:Yeah, I think they do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:Um, yes, I do.
Guest:I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But when, how did that go?
Marc:So you'd never been the head writer.
Marc:No.
Marc:And, you know, entering that situation where a syndicated talk show is daily.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:That must've been fucking insane.
Guest:It was crazy insane.
Guest:Everything I did was wrong.
Guest:I hired my friends as the writing staff, which is a fucking nightmare mistake.
Guest:Like who?
Guest:Greg Fitzsimmons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Karen Anderson.
Guest:Margaret Smith was one of the writers.
Guest:That was not my hire, but I loved her.
Guest:Yeah, she's great.
Guest:Where is she now?
Guest:She lives in rural Illinois.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And she's written some books.
Guest:She was so hilarious.
Marc:She was great.
Guest:So hilarious.
Guest:But she did not work at the speed of a daily show writer.
Guest:She worked at Margaret Smith speed.
Guest:That's kind of what I adored about her.
Guest:She was Margaret Smith the entire time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was no like, yeah, come on, let's all freak out and run along with this speeding bus.
Guest:It was just like, uh-huh, I have some idea.
Marc:But she's got kids now, I think.
Guest:she does she has two yeah yeah okay so that's the crew yep there's a couple others um and then just i had to like learn i had to go and tell like directors who had been doing it for 30 years like that they were shooting incorrectly i mean i had to do stuff that like was so ridiculous and hard and i felt like such a fraud it was crazy
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:Did it level off, though?
Guest:It did, but it took like three years, essentially.
Guest:So I kind of just lived in constant anxiety and stress.
Guest:And it was the kind of thing, I was just talking to somebody about this, where especially a show like that, because it was launching and...
Guest:um it took such kind of this monumental effort to do like everything else in my life fell away and I didn't do I stopped doing stand-up I didn't Laura Milligan was one of the few people that I saw outside of that work I basically only hung out with work friends yeah um and it was like joining a cult it was just like you're in it completely it she'd started getting all these hosting jobs and all these other things that she would then have us work work on that with her too so it would just it ate up my entire life and that's all I did
Marc:And what was she like to work for?
Guest:She was great.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, she really was.
Guest:She was so good to me the entire time up until the strike.
Marc:And what went down?
Guest:Well, they crossed the picket line because all of the other daytime shows were still on the air.
Guest:And because they weren't they like soap operas don't have like guild writers, I guess.
Guest:They're all producers.
Guest:And then like Dr. Phil that, you know, we were competing against being it.
Guest:We were a talk show, but but it was all written comedy.
Marc:Yeah, it was like a variety show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:a regular show a regular show like that a much more like a nighttime show yeah but we were up against you know judge judy and dr phil and right the view and all those places that were just like oh we can still be on because basically they have writers but they call them producers and they don't it's not like the creative um they don't it's not the same thing so you're in a position now where the show has decided to cross the picket line and you said no
Guest:Well, I didn't say anything.
Guest:I mean, I had to go on strike.
Guest:So we kind of all said goodbye, like, oh, this sucks.
Guest:This is so weird.
Guest:See you later.
Guest:And, you know, when I was talking to like my EPs were like, we'll call you.
Guest:And it was all that kind of stuff.
Guest:And I don't think anybody was prepared for the kind of like political action that was about to take place.
Guest:Like, I know no one had experience.
Guest:No one knew what was going on.
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Well, the writers guild found out that they were the our show was going to cross the picket line.
Guest:They went fucking berserk.
Guest:They were just like they they wanted to like they made sure that we that I was always at the center of the like at the strike gate.
Guest:It was really crazy.
Guest:We just kind of became the eye of the storm in this weird way of like the show that's doing the worst thing because there were there were other you weren't working.
Guest:No, we were striking.
Guest:We showed up every day.
Guest:Like that was the crazy part is our show was mad at us because the guild was mad at them.
Guest:And they were it was just this.
Marc:How was she going on the air without writers?
Guest:You know, I have I don't know what happened because I wasn't there, but she they were going on the air.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't there.
Marc:What happened after that?
Marc:With your relationship with her?
Guest:Oh, yeah, it was bad.
Guest:I mean, it was just... So we got her to stay out the first day.
Guest:So Karen Anderson and I both were talking to her, and we were just like, please trust us.
Guest:This is way worse than you think it is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so she stayed out the first day.
Guest:She told them, I'm not going to cross the picket line.
Guest:And then that's when they swarmed her.
Guest:The affiliates?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:WGA.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:The production company.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:The people that ran the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm sure her people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like all the bigwigs went in and were just like, no, you're doing the show.
Guest:So she wasn't comfortable with it, but they basically convinced her like, this is what you have to do.
Guest:And then that's kind of when the whole like, we are union zealots.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A story started getting floated.
Guest:And the next time after that, that I talked to her.
Guest:Who, your writers?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, like all of us striking, which we had no fucking choice.
Marc:So you became almost like an example.
Marc:So the fight between the fact that Ellen had to go do her show for whatever reason, because she made a choice, but she was being pressured.
Marc:You guys as the writers could not work.
Marc:So this was the narrative.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Like she's doing something horrible.
Marc:Her writers are doing the right thing.
Marc:And that's an example.
Guest:That was our narrative.
Guest:We have to do the right thing.
Guest:We're fighting for writers' rights and all that shit.
Guest:And then their narrative was, we have to do the show and we have to compete and we have to continue.
Guest:And you guys are...
Guest:It was super weird because any logical person would just be like, we have no choice.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We're out there.
Guest:But it almost to me seemed like old stuff started coming up.
Guest:It was like now because we were kind of the golden children.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like she had her writers.
Guest:We were all super close.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:So suddenly it was just like, oh, this is what I can't.
Guest:I feel like I'm actually kind of scared to talk about this because I'm afraid.
Guest:I don't think any of the legal shit that I signed back then would still cover this.
Guest:But like, I honestly, I have that weird fear of like these people.
Guest:I just don't.
Marc:It was a classic.
Marc:It was an example of what's destroyed all the unions is that corporate interests were making demands based on the market.
Marc:And we're like, fuck you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, do you want to work or do you want to, you know, want to make a point?
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:You can't stand up for politics.
Guest:She was definitely guilted of like, there's all these people that have jobs.
Guest:You can't stop their paycheck.
Guest:They put her in that weird position.
Guest:And meanwhile...
Guest:I think the part that fell apart the worst was just that interpersonal connection of nobody needed to be demonized.
Guest:Nobody needed to be like, she's the one that's doing all this stuff.
Guest:But at one point, there was a story in the National Enquirer that I was in about how Ellen had crossed the picket line...
Guest:there was like a picture of me on the strike line in the national inquirer.
Guest:It was the weirdest thing.
Guest:And I never talked to anybody from the national inquirer.
Guest:Like that was not a thing.
Guest:That's not a thing you do when you work on a show, you sign papers, confidentiality.
Guest:Um, and I've no, there was nothing, there was no story to tell.
Guest:We were on strike.
Guest:It was just, it was what it was.
Guest:And they, the people, the EPs and stuff found out, uh, that that story, and they thought I went to the press and,
Guest:So it was things like that where it's like, you've known me for five years and you think you think I would go to the fucking National Enquirer to talk about this ridiculous situation.
Guest:It was like it was all that kind of stuff.
Guest:And then by the time it was over, people, everyone was so estranged and everyone was so angry.
Guest:And those people had to work for four months.
Guest:I think it was four months.
Guest:on a talk show with no writers.
Guest:Like, they must have been stressed out of their minds.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't good.
Guest:There was a couple monologues I remember people telling me about that were just... They weren't monologues.
Guest:It was her doing weird stuff, like going, the writers are on strike, so I'm going to play the bongos type of stuff that didn't fly, that was not good.
Guest:But I never watched it.
Guest:I was just like... I honestly felt like at that time...
Guest:It was almost like an act of God.
Guest:It was like, I've been here for five years.
Guest:I've given my all.
Guest:This really weird thing has happened that would never happen in a million years.
Guest:It's just like this strange thing.
Guest:I'm out.
Guest:This is my chance to go.
Guest:And I just kind of washed my hands of it.
Guest:Because it was just too, it was really painful.
Marc:And what year was that?
Marc:2007?
Guest:It was 2008.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did that permanently rupture the relationship with Ellen?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you guys don't talk at all?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:That's sad.
Guest:It is sad because she was great to me.
Guest:And all the stuff that I learned on that show was like the reason I had get jobs now.
Guest:I mean, that was like my college.
Guest:It was like college.
Guest:It was like TV production boot camp is kind of what I've referred to it as before.
Guest:It was invaluable.
Guest:The people that worked there were great.
Guest:really, really smart and great and everyone was really close.
Guest:So it was kind of tragic.
Marc:And you did the right thing.
Guest:I had to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what have you written on since then?
Guest:Oh, The Marriage Ref 2.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I just leave it at that.
Guest:Just The Marriage Ref 2.
Guest:That's the only one I want to talk about.
Marc:That's Tom Papa's show?
Guest:That was Tom Papa's show, yeah.
Guest:The second season of The Marriage Ref.
Marc:Yeah, that could have been good.
Guest:It wasn't bad.
Guest:It was definitely better than The Marriage Ref 1.
Guest:That's for sure.
Guest:It was way better.
Marc:But I think that the best thing is, is that you kind of like reentered the world as a performer and a humbled and less angry one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you started writing these fun songs.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Well, that's, I think that's so true.
Guest:I got, I think, I think it was all meant to be because, because not doing standup was so heartbreaking and I kind of couldn't acknowledge it or deal with it.
Guest:It was just like, I don't have time.
Guest:That doesn't matter anymore.
Guest:That's not my life anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the lesson of that is like, I can't do that to myself because that's the, it's my whole, that's who, that's what I do.
Marc:That's what you want to, do you want to do some songs?
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This first one's about the strike of 08.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:No.
Marc:A workman of spoke song, a popular spoke song about the union.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I forgot my password again, I have no idea what it could have been Tried my old dog's name, my birth date I tried 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 But I guess it slipped my mind, cause those little blue words came up every time Did you forget?
Guest:Did you forget?
Guest:I gave up and I clicked yes Why do I pretend?
Guest:Whatever I come up with I will just forget again Why don't I break down and use your name It's the only thing that's in my brain that never seems to go away
Guest:I think I lost my phone again.
Guest:Oh, holy shit, it's in my hand.
Guest:Something's really wrong with me.
Guest:I'm not the man I used to be.
Guest:I can barely text my friends, and then when I do, I don't hit send.
Guest:Something's really wrong with me.
Guest:I said that already.
Guest:When does this part end?
Guest:When do I go back to being smart again?
Guest:Will it just get worse and worse each day?
Guest:Is that the only way my brain will ever let you go away?
Guest:That's the funny thing.
Guest:I have 10 songs, basically, so I'm always doing it.
Marc:Well, you just did a record, right?
Guest:I did.
Marc:And what's it called?
Guest:It's called Live at the Bootleg.
Marc:And it's available.
Guest:It's an unedited evening of me doing songs at the Bootleg Theater.
Marc:And the 10 songs.
Guest:It's my 10 songs.
Guest:I actually did nine songs.
Guest:Then I had an encore and I had no idea what to do.
Guest:And Karen Anderson was standing in the back.
Guest:She's like, sing the Christmas song.
Guest:And then I remembered I had one more song.
Guest:Thank God.
Marc:Are you writing more songs?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So I make sure.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Do your homework.
Guest:No, I don't want
Guest:I don't care where you went to school.
Guest:You're not interested in sitting around watching you trying to act cool.
Guest:Just be brave or go away.
Guest:Either way, you'd say okay
Guest:want to go on a hike i think that's obvious and i don't want to hear about your funny friends i'm sure they're hilarious just come across or take a walk cause i do not have to
Guest:Can you take a little heat?
Guest:Can you take a little heat?
Guest:If you ever had somebody who just knocked you off your feet Can you take a little heat?
Guest:Can you stand a little pain?
Guest:If you ever had somebody who just walked away Just walked away
Guest:What bands are you into?
Guest:Me too, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too.
Guest:Do you like Ethiopian food?
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Is your dad a drunk?
Guest:Mine is nice.
Guest:Why is your heart so fucked up that you have to roll around on a stupid fucking website?
Guest:Did you take a little heat?
Guest:Did you finally find somebody who just knocked you off your feet?
Guest:Did you take a little heat?
Guest:Did you stand a little pain?
Guest:Did you finally find somebody who walked in?
Marc:Wow, that one choked me up a little.
Guest:Did it really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah, it happens sometimes.
Guest:You've got some feelings in there?
Marc:No, I definitely do.
Marc:I get moved just by people singing.
Guest:I know, right?
Guest:Me too.
Guest:No, I get the same thing.
Marc:To me, it's like, how are they doing that?
Guest:And when it comes out really good, did you see 20 Feet from Stardom?
Marc:Uh-uh.
Guest:Oh, you had to see that documentary.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:But I cried the entire time.
Marc:What's that about?
Guest:It's about like the great backup singers, the kind of great unsung people of music.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's like, it's incredible.
Guest:But there's that one, they have Mary, I want to say Mary Carey.
Guest:I can't remember her last name.
Guest:She's the woman that sings the rape murder part in that Rolling Stones song.
Marc:Oh, Brown Sugar?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It's,
Guest:They have her, they bring her in and she tells the story of recording that, which is like at three in the morning, she was pregnant in a fur coat with her hair and curlers.
Guest:They tried someone else.
Guest:They didn't work.
Guest:They bring her in.
Guest:and she tells the story, and she's like, I just decided I was going to give it to him.
Guest:She's all cocky, and then they play the isolated track of her singing that, and it's the most incredible singing you've ever heard.
Marc:What's it called, 20 Feet from Stardom?
Guest:And they have all these people, all the women from Phil Spector.
Guest:It's just incredible.
Marc:I'm going to watch that.
Marc:And thank you for doing this.
Guest:It's my pleasure.
Guest:I'm so happy to do it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'll talk to you soon.
Guest:Okay, bye.
Marc:All right, that's our show.
Marc:That is it.
Marc:I feel better.
Marc:I feel less stress than I did at the beginning of the show because I enjoyed it.
Marc:I even listened to that conversation with Karen again as if I were there, and I was there, and I was able to go back to that and feel the peace and joy that I felt then.
Marc:Sometimes that's what you have to do when you're anxious.
Marc:You have to go back to those places in your mind and your heart that bring you peace, if you have any of those.
Marc:Go pick up the app.
Marc:You can get it at the App Store at WTF.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Pick it up.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Deaf Black Cat's looking okay.
Marc:Didn't see him for a few days.
Marc:He's doing alright.
Marc:That's always a sign to me.
Marc:That guy's fucking doing it.
Marc:I can do it.
Marc:DBC and me.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!
you