Episode 551 - John Mulaney
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks how are you i'm mark maron this is uh wtf
Marc:My guest today is John Mulaney, the young stand-up comic.
Marc:A young man.
Marc:A young man.
Marc:You know, I've gotten some feedback on occasion when I talk to the younger comedians.
Marc:And maybe I'm a little hard on them.
Marc:Or maybe it comes off as sour grapes of some kind.
Marc:But I don't think I did that with John.
Marc:But maybe I'm guilty of that, I guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Show business is tough, man.
Marc:It's tough.
Marc:And if you're lucky or unlucky enough to not see any way out of it, maybe something will pan out for you.
Marc:Things eventually did.
Marc:But I can't tell you how many times in my life...
Marc:where I thought that everything was going to happen, that this was it.
Marc:This was it.
Marc:If I really think about the amount of heartbreak and disappointment that one encounters in pursuing one's dream or even a career, any of you, everyone understands that, how much we have to sort of reconcile that and absorb it and process it if possible, hopefully without getting bitter or cynical, which seems almost ridiculous, a ridiculous task.
Marc:to open your heart so much that any sort of leveling will just become a learning experience.
Marc:It sort of has to be.
Marc:You don't have any real choice, do you?
Marc:But now looking back at it as a 51-year-old, I don't know that I learned any lessons necessarily other than when I look back at all the failures and disappointments and the ways that I fucked up, I just sort of think like, well, I lived through it.
Marc:But there are some things I don't know if they're any better at all.
Marc:Because there are younger people.
Marc:I'm going to talk to John Mulaney today.
Marc:He has a big opportunity.
Marc:His show is in a little bit of trouble.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is he's going to go on with his life one way or the other.
Marc:Life is full of heartbreaks and disappointments.
Marc:It just gets to a point where it's like, I don't want anymore.
Marc:Can I not have them anymore?
Marc:Wow.
Wow.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:I watched that movie whiplash last night and it has something to do.
Marc:Like there's something about that, you know, really being humbled and beaten enough to finally grow the fuck up.
Marc:And I know some of you are onto me already with this stuff.
Marc:I don't know that if I've fully done that, I don't like, you know, I know I'm a 51 year old man, but you know, emotionally I don't seem to be that.
Marc:And I don't know what I expect out of people, but like all of a sudden all this shit is becoming very clear and
Marc:Like, you know, I got all this stuff going on, but here there's this one flaw, dude.
Marc:There's this one flaw that keeps you spinning in the same place, keeps you in pain, keeps people who are with you in pain, on and off, pain relief, you know, the drama cycle.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I'm just having a bad day.
Marc:Maybe I think I wasted my youth somehow.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:I don't look back and think like, what about all them good times?
Marc:Just panic.
Marc:Just a parade of panic in different outfits with different ideas about what was going on.
Marc:It wasn't panic.
Marc:It was passion.
Marc:Angry panic.
Marc:and a lot of like come on look at me what about me where's mine how come i can't have it when am i gonna what's the story why does that guy get to god damn it what about me what do you do i do me i do me i'm doing it right now you don't like it come on fuck you fuck you reckon with me i don't know if that's everyone's idea of entertainment well you're bullshit fuck you you're not entertained are you compelled
Marc:Are you engaged?
Marc:You fuck?
Marc:Yeah, I got this meeting's over.
Marc:Yeah, fine.
Marc:I don't give a shit.
Marc:I don't give a shit.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:That was my early years.
Marc:I was definitely not as together as John Mulaney, who we're going to talk to right now.
Marc:John Mulaney's in the garage.
Marc:I don't even intro people.
Marc:I don't even know why I did that.
Marc:But I just did it for my own sake.
Marc:Just like a clapboard.
Marc:We're gonna land.
Marc:We're gonna get grounded.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right now.
Marc:We're gonna set it up.
Marc:How you feeling?
Marc:Were you nervous coming up here?
Guest:Nervous?
Guest:Yeah, I'm nervous before everything.
Guest:But I was not extra nervous.
Marc:You're not freaking out?
Marc:It's nice to see you too.
Marc:Yeah, a little bit, sure.
Marc:It's been a while.
Marc:It's been a while.
Marc:How you been?
Marc:I'm all right.
Marc:I'm trying to work.
Marc:I'm very busy.
Marc:Yes, you are.
Guest:You moved out here, though?
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:I got married in July, and my wife and I have been renting a place.
Guest:You got married in July.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm happy to hear it for you.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:What does she do?
Guest:She was a makeup artist for years and is now a style writer.
Guest:Has a new book out called The Daily Face.
Guest:Plug in his wife's book, folks.
Guest:Right out of the gate.
Marc:Right out of the gate.
Marc:Make sure she's happy.
Marc:Anna, I plugged it right out of the gate.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He got that taken care of, Anna.
Marc:July, August, September, October, November, so it's been like four months.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:And you dated for how long before?
Marc:Four and a half years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're like right on track.
Guest:You're right on track for everything.
Guest:Everything was done in the proper way.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Courting?
Guest:There was courting.
Guest:We knew each other for a while.
Guest:And then we were like friends who wanted to date for many months and then started dating.
Guest:So you were like, oh, we got to.
Guest:I feel it.
Guest:Do you feel it?
Guest:Well, I didn't think the pattern of my life was liking a girl and she didn't like me back.
Marc:Really?
Guest:But we'd be good friends.
Guest:So I thought, OK, this is another one of those, which I was very comfortable in.
Guest:I was very, very comfortable in that situation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then she wrote me an email saying she liked me, but I thought the email said, sometimes you flirt with me and it's uncomfortable.
Guest:There were two ways to read this email.
Marc:It was that difficult to read, huh?
Marc:She said she liked you and you somehow read that as like, please stop bothering me.
Guest:I think she said something to the effect, without having the exact language, something to the effect of...
Guest:You know, we're such good friends, but sometimes we seem like we're flirting and that seems like it's a different level.
Guest:And I thought she meant like, stop flirting with me right now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But she meant... She meant I like you.
Guest:Are we taking it up a notch?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was mad.
Guest:I was in the middle of an all-nighter at SNL and it was like 1 a.m.
Guest:when I got the email and I didn't write back.
Guest:And so she thought it was like a rejection or not a rejection.
Guest:She just thought like, what the hell's wrong with this guy that he didn't write me back after that?
Marc:So you're fundamentally an insecure fella.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I know I'm just saying this out loud.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why is that?
Marc:You seem, you're an attractive man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So are you.
Marc:Talented fella.
Marc:So are you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You're young.
Marc:You got good hair.
Guest:Your teeth are nice.
Guest:I have newscaster hair and I had a good orthodontist in the 90s.
Guest:One of Chicago's best orthodontists.
Marc:Did you?
Guest:Is that what you were told?
Guest:Yeah, he was a good north side of Chicago orthodontist.
Marc:What does that mean, north side?
Marc:You grew up on the north side?
Guest:Yeah, like Lincoln Park, so not far from Second City and Zanies to place it in a comedy.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Okay, so I remember Zanies as being almost in a suburb.
Marc:Kinda.
Guest:Well, there's three zanies.
Guest:There's Naperville, then St.
Guest:Charles, Illinois, and then the one on Well Street.
Marc:Yeah, the one on Well Street, in my mind, was sort of like, I remember there was an apartment building around there.
Marc:It didn't feel like I was in Chicago.
Guest:Oh, well, that's 10 minutes from downtown.
Marc:Right, so you grew up around there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You grew up with a large family?
Marc:Yeah, I'm the third of four kids.
Marc:How many boys?
Guest:Two sons.
Guest:I'm the second son, and then two daughters.
Marc:And the daughters are old?
Guest:No, I have a little sister who just turned 27.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not going to do the math, Claire.
Guest:And the oldest of us is Carolyn is my older sister.
Guest:And she's how old?
Guest:She is 1970 and eight.
Guest:So she is 35 or 36.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:I don't know why I'm saying that.
Marc:These are ordinary facts.
Marc:They're ordinary facts, but you're a young person.
Marc:I am 32 now, yeah.
Marc:32 years old.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you've done an amazing amount of stuff.
Marc:It's been a nice few years.
Marc:Okay, so let's get down to brass tacks here.
Marc:So you grew up, there's a lot of kids, Catholics.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Irish Catholic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're Irish guy.
Marc:I'm about 99% Irish.
Marc:That black Irish thing is what you got, right?
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I always loved that term as a kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Me too.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:My mom told me I had jet black hair when I was a kid.
Guest:And I always, that's one of my favorite compliments.
Marc:Black Irish to me, like I never knew what it meant.
Marc:And then it just became like this menacing thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The black Irish are like, they're very, you know, intense looking and nothing but trouble.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're not sunny and red haired and you don't have a limerick at hand.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:You more, it's the Irish goodbye people who leave a party without telling anyone.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:The brooding kind.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:That's what I'm thinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think out of the two, it's probably the more attractive to be.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, you know, having a happy redheaded disposition.
Guest:I'm glad, actually.
Guest:As I say that out loud, I'm glad.
Marc:Do you have cousins who are redheads?
Marc:Do you have friends who are redheads?
Marc:I don't know many redheads, really.
Marc:I'm not against them.
Guest:There are some redheads on my mom's side.
Marc:I'm not against them.
Marc:I'm not against them.
Guest:Well, there's lots of lore about not trusting them.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are they untrustable, the redheads?
Guest:I've heard such things.
Guest:Share some of that lore.
Guest:I just heard Bernie Brill's...
Guest:I didn't know Bernie Brillstein.
Guest:I just heard he said that you should never trust.
Guest:Well, he said never trust a redheaded Jew was the was the interesting.
Marc:There are a few of those.
Guest:I've heard that many times as quoted to Bernie Brillstein.
Guest:It was not something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And your parents were high educated working people.
Guest:Yeah, they're both lawyers.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom's a law professor at Northwestern University.
Marc:Well, that's noble.
Marc:She probably believes that the law is a good thing.
Marc:She does.
Marc:They both do.
Guest:And that people should treat it with respect.
Guest:Yes, we were very, it was a lawyerly upbringing.
Guest:And your father, what kind of lawyer is he?
Guest:He's a corporate lawyer.
Guest:He does mergers and acquisitions.
Marc:See, now that sounds a little, that doesn't sound like, you know, completely on the level to me.
Marc:How's that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Mergers and acquisitions.
Guest:It's definitely not pro bono, but.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I just don't, you know, when you start talking mergers and acquisitions, I feel people are losing their jobs and crying.
Guest:Well.
Guest:That's life.
Guest:Right?
Guest:No, I'm not going to say that's life.
Guest:Don't, you know, sometimes companies need to merge.
Guest:And he was, you know, he would help them do that.
Marc:It's not his problem, whatever.
Marc:It's not his problem.
Marc:You know, he's just trying to do it right and protect everybody.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:Who's merging and acquiring.
Marc:Who's merging and acquiring, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, for those corporations.
Marc:For those made up of people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just ordinary people.
Marc:There's no reason to think that, though.
Marc:Just treat the corporation as its own entity, as an individual.
Marc:That's what we're supposed to do now, right?
Marc:That's what the law says.
Marc:That's what the law says.
Marc:Seems crazy to me, John.
Guest:All companies are an individual.
Guest:So he's just helping little folks.
Guest:That's right, the little folks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like Procter Gamble.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:That little guy.
Guest:Maybe not P&G, but why not?
Marc:Yeah, that's a bad one.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Every comic in Cincinnati would work for P&G, I remember.
Guest:Really?
Guest:When you go to Go Bananas, everyone would work for it.
Guest:Their day job was P&G.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Because that's where it was located?
Marc:Yeah, they had a big office.
Marc:Where the hell was it?
Marc:In Indianapolis, it was the pharmaceutical company.
Marc:Lilly, I think.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Everyone at Crackers worked for Lilly?
Marc:Well, no, but it was there looming, I think, if I'm not mistaken.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then comics in Chicago would work for Leo Burnett, the advertising agency.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, there were always these sort of home offices where it's like, well, I could get a day job at Leo Burnett.
Marc:And some advertising agencies have temp jobs, right?
Marc:Yeah, that's probably what they were doing.
Marc:What did you do when you were a punk?
Guest:When I was day job in it, I was an intern over at Comedy Central, then I was a temp at Comedy Central, and then I wrote freelance wholesale ad copy.
Guest:So for big catalogs of tchotchkes and stuff, I would write the descriptions of them for the catalog.
Marc:But Comedy Central's in New York, no?
Mm-hmm.
Guest:I never lived in Chicago.
Guest:What?
Guest:After I was a kid.
Guest:I mean, that's not true.
Guest:I lived there for 18 years.
Guest:Then I went to school, and then I moved right to New York.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And that was it?
Guest:That was it.
Marc:See you later, Chicago?
Guest:Yeah, I never started in Chicago.
Guest:It was weird, because it was like Second City and tons of stand-up was there, but I just never did it there.
Marc:Why did you run away from Chicago, John?
Guest:Well, I didn't want to start in front of my family.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because I, you know, I wanted to... Feel like you're out in the world?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Doing your own thing?
Marc:Doing my own thing and occasionally asking for money.
Marc:Wish me luck.
Marc:Wish me luck.
Marc:I might need a check occasionally.
Guest:I might need $500 tomorrow.
Marc:But when did the trouble happen?
Marc:Because I know that we're both sober guys.
Marc:We established that on our last podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, our last one was at comics.
Marc:Yeah, it was, oh, comics.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Remember comics?
Marc:Comics Live.
Guest:But like you, how long are you sober now?
Guest:September 22nd, 2005.
Guest:So 10 years will be next fall.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So you just got nine years or so?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just had 15.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Guest:15.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And God damn it, do I want a drink.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:Yeah, not really.
Marc:I'm uncomfortable though.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:I want a relief.
Guest:A little squirrely.
Guest:I'd like a ripcord.
Guest:Relief.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's all it is.
Guest:It seems like it'll be relief.
Marc:Right, but that's the feeling.
Marc:Because I have that feeling a lot when people ask me, are you happy?
Marc:Do you want to be happy?
Marc:I just would like to be, I want some relief.
Guest:I always wish I had just a ripcord next to me.
Guest:I should wear a parachute and just feel it occasionally and go, okay, it's there.
Marc:Even though you don't want to deploy a parachute on the street.
Marc:Well, we're both falling is what you're saying.
Marc:We're falling at a high speed all the time.
Guest:I constantly feel a feeling of falling.
Guest:I don't know enough about physics.
Guest:Neil deGrasse Tyson could explain why that is.
Guest:We're plummeting right now.
Guest:Yeah, we're constantly plummeting.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:So hopefully we won't hit the ground since we don't have parachutes.
Marc:That's what you do.
Marc:You just adapt to the feeling of plummeting.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So nine years, so you were like, what, 23, 24?
Guest:I was 23.
Guest:I got started doing everything young.
Marc:But you grew up in a nice upper middle class.
Guest:I had no excuse.
Marc:No, I mean, but it's easier in a way because people don't expect you to necessarily be fucked up.
Marc:True.
Guest:And I just had a real, I remember a psychiatrist told me when I was young, he said, half of you is this really nice guy.
Guest:He's very polite.
Guest:And the other half of you is a gorilla whose job is to kill the other half.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, and I thought, okay, that sounds right.
Marc:So I had this inclination.
Marc:I talk about that a lot, the two voices.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Have you decided what the authentic you is?
Marc:Or is it just still up in the air?
Guest:I think the authentic me is the nice guy who's very aware of the gorilla and goes, stay over there, gorilla.
Guest:No way.
Guest:Not today.
Guest:Things are going all right today.
Guest:Things are going okay at the moment.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Stay over there, gorilla.
Marc:So I can't imagine you as just out of control.
Marc:What did that look like?
Guest:Everyone says that.
Guest:Yeah, it's fun.
Guest:My wife is always like, I wish I could spend a day with you as an out of control person.
Guest:You know what that sounds like?
Guest:That sounds like someone wants you to drink.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That would be wonderful for her.
Guest:What a delight that would be.
Guest:to go back to it now.
Marc:Come on, John, just one day.
Guest:To go back to it after four months of marriage for her to see that.
Guest:She just wants to know you, John.
Guest:She wants to know all of you.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:That was an interesting person.
Guest:A confident person?
Guest:At moments?
Guest:Please.
Guest:Full of bravado and bluster.
Guest:I had a lot of bravado.
Guest:I had a lot of ideas.
Guest:So you started drinking when, what, you were 14?
Guest:Yeah, 13, 14, yeah.
Marc:And you were just drinking with your friends?
Guest:Yeah, we just drank a lot.
Guest:I think we just had an unhealthy familiarity with drinking and drugs early.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:It was around a lot.
Guest:Culturally?
Guest:Was your older brother a sister?
Guest:They were very responsible.
Guest:I think they drank in the high school sense.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was about it.
Marc:Just laughing.
Marc:It's just fun on weekends and someone holds somebody's hair and drink for a month.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't drink for a month.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You'd have that one incident.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never had like an incident in high school.
Guest:I was very looking back.
Guest:I was very careful to keep it going, which is interesting.
Guest:I didn't want to come home and don't want to fuck that up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Got a good thing going.
Guest:And I did feel a sense of pride in that I kept my parents out of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'd come home and go, I'm home.
Guest:I'm going to bed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just like, you know, make it as quick as I could.
Guest:I think they knew we drank some.
Guest:I don't think they knew that we were messing around with a lot of stuff.
Marc:Really?
Marc:What stuff?
Guest:We were smoking pot and drinking, and then we did Coke and stuff like that.
Marc:Some glow.
Marc:Did some glow.
Marc:Yeah, we were those types of kids.
Marc:Somebody had the good allowance.
Guest:Yeah, and also just, or just terrible Coke.
Guest:That teenagers could afford.
Guest:Someone knew a guy who knew a guy.
Guest:Yeah, we were just like, we'd take, you know, we'd take like Ritalins and Adderalls to do school work.
Guest:That was the thing.
Guest:And then we'd do that stuff, other stuff at night and drink a lot.
Guest:And this is towards later high school and then into college.
Marc:And then in college.
Marc:So in college you're a free man.
Marc:Where are you going to college?
Marc:To Georgetown.
Marc:So you're in D.C.?
Marc:I'm in D.C.
Marc:And now the sky's the limit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:You're free.
Marc:You got some money coming in every month.
Guest:It was more like everyone had a tiny bit of money and would buy pot and coke and stuff like that.
Marc:But what did the bottom look like?
Marc:What were you studying at Georgetown?
Marc:I was an English and theology major.
Marc:huh i was an english major theology huh yeah are we a god guy oh yeah i believe in god yeah you do undeniably not even second guessing it ever of course constantly second guessing it all the time did you grow up with the with the hell sure oh yeah irish catholic like catholic i know but your parents are lawyers they're smart people they are smart people smart people don't believe in hell
Marc:Yes, they do.
Guest:All right.
Guest:You know, despite religulous or whatever that shit was.
Marc:Well, you studied theology.
Marc:You're a practical person.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're a practical person.
Guest:I studied a lot of Jewish theology, though.
Guest:I was mainly interested in that.
Guest:That very much lined up with my personal outlook.
Guest:What specifically?
Guest:There's a God.
Guest:He might not like us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there might not be nothing else after this.
Guest:So let's focus on this.
Marc:And you're free to talk to him at length about anything.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And sometimes there are arguments.
Marc:You can shake your fist.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He can take that.
Marc:God can handle that.
Guest:That he can handle that was also very, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't this like, oh, this is a friendship.
Guest:I was like, this isn't a friendship.
Marc:No, no, this is a difficult relationship.
Marc:This is difficult.
Marc:And I've got questions.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And if you're not going to answer them, me and these guys are going to just,
Marc:Kind of go over him over and over again.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's like working for like an aloof famous person where you just talk about him when he's out of the room.
Guest:It's a group of assistants.
Guest:We're a pool of us.
Guest:Not we, because I'm a pool of Talmudic assistants.
Guest:Yes, yes, yes.
Guest:Writing a Midrash to understand their boss.
Marc:So you were like what?
Marc:Reading the Kabbalah, reading the Talmud, studying that, writing papers on the Jews?
Guest:Yeah, Torah, Talmud.
Guest:Kabbalah, you didn't get into the?
Guest:No, I don't think we did really.
Marc:Didn't do the mystical stuff?
Marc:It was probably like, that's only for special people.
Guest:There was a class on Jewish mysticism that I don't think I took.
Guest:No, I didn't take it.
Guest:No, I think the last class I took when I was a senior was theology after the Holocaust.
Guest:So there was a much more.
Guest:That was the why did God let this happen?
Guest:What was that about?
Marc:Semester.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:A semester of what was that about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How could he have let that happen?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:And it meant a lot of the same questions they'd had forever.
Guest:Always the same questions.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what was the focus of that course?
Marc:Just sort of like how did Judaism change within the community after the Holocaust?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was, well, the first course I took was Judaism, what was it called?
Guest:Changing tradition and continued practice.
Guest:I liked that it adapted.
Guest:Were you just preparing for show business?
Guest:No, I just, it was like, I think being raised religious.
Guest:I want to speak the language of the people I'll be working for.
Guest:Yeah, but I didn't take like a, you know, like a handbook of Yiddish, conversational Yiddish thing.
Guest:A year-long seminar and communicating with Lorne Michaels.
Guest:I had a book when I was a little kid called Yiddish is a Second Language.
Guest:It was like a novelty book that I somehow acquired.
Guest:I really liked that.
Guest:Yes, I wanted to be Jewish.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know why I'm- Did you really?
Guest:Running away from that, yeah.
Marc:But how Catholic were you brought up?
Marc:I mean, seriously?
Marc:Yes, serious.
Marc:Talk to the priest?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Go to confession.
Marc:Go to church every Sunday.
Marc:I like the idea of confession.
Marc:It seems like it's relieving.
Marc:You must have gotten-
Guest:Free therapy, by the way, like it, it is just kind of the old thing of the screen and you kneel on one side and the priest and you never see their face as portrayed in films and so forth.
Guest:It actually became after, I guess, I don't know if it was Vatican II or just growing up in the 80s.
Guest:It was like you sit in a room with a priest and tell them what's going on.
Guest:And it's kind of, it was more like what therapy is like.
Marc:So there was a back and forth?
Guest:Very different parameters.
Guest:There was a back and forth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I first went to confession, though, I would make up different than therapy because things many things are not OK.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:But you don't.
Guest:I was never like read a riot act in confession.
Marc:I mean, kind of like, well, of course, life's you know, it's very hard.
Marc:And, you know, right.
Marc:And it's difficult.
Marc:But you still like you need to ask forgiveness.
Marc:And if you don't, there's going to be a.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I got to say, the idea that the creator of the universe would forgive you for individual things you did wrong is a nice feeling.
Guest:Sure it is.
Marc:Because you think he's busy, but I'm glad he could make the time to take a load off of me.
Guest:Yeah, someone let me know that I was square with him.
Guest:yeah you're okay you can you you masturbated it's okay well see what i would do was i would make up wholesome sounding sins because i had to go to confession right so i'd go in and i'd be like oh me and my brother were throwing snowballs at a house and someone told us to stop and even after they left i threw two more snowballs because i just had to make up like norman rockwell sounding sins when really it was like uh just jerking off humping my bed like a maniac right but oh so you never you never came clean on that stuff
Marc:You just kind of make, how did you actually feel forgiven?
Guest:No, I never said that out loud.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Well, I have to say, I knew enough to know that that stuff was fine.
Marc:But throwing snowballs was a big problem?
Guest:No, I just needed to get through the session.
Guest:You ever go to a psychiatrist or therapist and you don't have anything that day, so you just need to make something up to get through the session?
Guest:Well, I'll talk about something and pay him for it.
Guest:Well, exactly.
Guest:So sometimes I'll go to my shrink and I'll be like, I got to think of something to focus on for these 45 minutes.
Guest:And I exaggerate whatever the problem is just so it sounds like it's a thing.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:For me, it just ends up being like a regular conversation I could have had with a friend over coffee.
Marc:Like sometimes I'd be like, did you see that show?
Marc:What did you think of that show?
Guest:You talk about True Detective.
Marc:Yeah, whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I got nothing against Catholics.
Marc:I mean, I don't want people to get the wrong idea.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I'm a little hard on Catholics, but the Catholics and the Jews, these are ancient religions.
Marc:Have you been to Rome?
Marc:Have you been to Florence?
Marc:Have you done that thing?
Guest:Yeah, I've been to Rome.
Guest:I've been to Jerusalem.
Marc:You see all the dead wizards in caskets and wizard parts?
Marc:Statues of wizards.
Marc:Yeah, crips and coffins.
Marc:Crips, yeah.
Marc:Each church has a part of somebody, a piece, a finger, a toe.
Marc:Yeah, they have like, or a piece of a shirt.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:A piece of a pant.
Guest:You went to Israel, too, because you were fascinated?
Guest:I've been to Israel, yeah.
Guest:I went to Israel with my dad in 07.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And why'd you- That was the best trip I ever took in my life.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Why?
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:There's an energy to that whole place that's just incredible.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we landed in Tel Aviv and then went up through Caesarea, the Roman ruins, went through the Golan, came down.
Guest:The Golan was really interesting because I was like, oh, this is beautiful.
Guest:You hear about the Golan Heights, but you never realize, what are people fighting for?
Guest:And you get up there and you go, oh, this is nice.
Guest:This would be horrible to be dispossessed from here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, just my dad and I and a guide named Menachem.
Guest:And he decided to go to Israel.
Guest:Former Israeli colonel.
Guest:They're all former Israeli colonels.
Guest:Well, that's true.
Guest:But this guy never let you forget it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We were at the Wailing Wall and he was against, not against, he didn't like that there were, you know, that young females were also enlisted when they were 18.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we were just leaning against the car near the wailing wall and Menachem looked at this 18 year old girl holding a, you know, M16 or whatever.
Guest:And he said, you see that girl there?
Guest:I could disarm her in 2.5 seconds.
Marc:He didn't say that about the men.
Guest:No, just that girl.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But he was also tiny, by the way.
Guest:He was about one foot three.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why did you guys choose Israel?
Guest:My parents travel a lot.
Guest:We took interesting trips when I was a kid.
Guest:My dad took great vacations when he was young with his dad.
Guest:He went to Africa and South America.
Guest:We'd always wanted to go there, and I was out of college at that point.
Guest:I studied a lot of Judaism, and I just really wanted to go.
Marc:Did you read Hebrew and stuff?
Guest:No, I don't read Hebrew.
Guest:This was just English translations.
Marc:Was this right after college that you went?
Marc:A couple years, yeah.
Marc:And were you drinking still?
Marc:No, I was done by then.
Marc:What was your bottom like?
Marc:Did it happen in college?
Guest:No, after college.
Guest:It had to happen after college because that was when I realized that other people weren't still doing this as much.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:You were like, hey, where are you guys going?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Why don't we, hey, for the next 72 hours, why don't we?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Come on, man.
Guest:It's not time for bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was still young.
Guest:However, I will say it was apparent that other people had moved on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:College was over.
Guest:And you felt stupid.
Guest:I felt stupid.
Guest:I just felt, I thought, I've been coasting on the idea that I'm a good person now for maybe five years.
Yeah.
Guest:I remember what it felt like to feel good about myself, and that was about five years ago.
Guest:And that flicker would kind of help me get through times, but I was like, I don't... So you're starting to feel a little corrupted.
Guest:I remember thinking to myself, if I was watching this person in a movie, this was the day I stopped.
Guest:I thought, if I was watching this guy in a movie, I wouldn't be rooting for him anymore.
LAUGHTER
Guest:No matter what happened to him.
Guest:He took a turn.
Guest:Oh, he had a breakup, blah, blah.
Guest:Just, I wouldn't care by now.
Marc:That guy's no good.
Guest:It'd just be like one of those three-hour movies where you're like, I don't care.
Guest:They can all die.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was it, huh?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:But did you feel like you were in trouble?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I knew I was not... I knew I was... So...
Guest:In part, they were fun to do drugs, but also you'd get attention for doing them.
Guest:And I knew that, like, well, then people would be worried about me.
Guest:And then that was an interesting amount of attention.
Guest:And, you know, girls would be concerned.
Guest:Even if they'd broken up with you, they'd be, are you okay?
Marc:So they'd check in on you.
Marc:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Cocaine doesn't make girls like you, but it does make them worry about you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's, what do you need?
Guest:And were you like, what do you care?
Guest:Yeah, what do you care?
Guest:Call me back.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I might do something bad.
Marc:I'm in trouble.
Guest:Yeah, I'm in trouble.
Guest:Don't call me, call me.
Guest:So then that was all over.
Guest:I was just like, I'm not, this is nothing but doing it.
Guest:Yeah, so it was Coke, really.
Guest:Well, I'm drinking a ton.
Guest:I just drink and make bad decisions.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:No, Coke keeps you drinking.
Marc:Sure, keeps you awake.
Marc:Yeah, for more drinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But were you like, were you a hostile drunk?
Guest:Yes, by the end.
Guest:I could really snarl.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No fight, though?
Guest:You don't look like you've been taking too many punches.
Guest:No, I've never... Exactly.
Guest:You can tell that just by looking at me, but I... As a type, if you were at a party and you had a cup, I remember a friend telling me, I saw you, you were on the other side of the room, and you came right for me, just dead-eyed, and I walked up to him and I slapped the cup out of his hand and just stared at him.
Guest:He was like, you know...
Guest:Fuck you, John.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I had that kind of like, I'd flick your tie and go like, what are you going to do?
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:I'm not a phony, you're a phony.
Guest:You're a pest.
Guest:I was a pest.
Guest:I was a nuisance.
Guest:You were like that guy.
Guest:A little drunk nuisance.
Guest:Here he comes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's got that look in his eye.
Guest:And I looked 12.
Marc:And you were kind of a dick is what you were.
Marc:I was becoming a dick, yeah.
Marc:And what did you hang the primary feelings on?
Marc:Like, you know, were you unhappy with yourself?
Marc:Were you, I mean, like,
Guest:what was it were you chomping at the bit were you doing comedy yet did you not i was doing a little bit of comedy but i didn't want to do like i'd started in college i really liked the first rush and then i was like oh you just got to keep doing it yeah and sometimes you don't do well and other people are doing well i really wanted to have done comedy sure i remember like around 2021 i was like i just wish i'd already done a lot of it yeah i could say i did it so you're hard on yourself
Guest:I was hard on myself, sure.
Guest:But I also wasn't doing enough.
Guest:I was just talking about how I wanted to be a comedian or was a comedian or whatever.
Guest:To all the girls on Coke when you were like, I'm just going to do it, man.
Guest:I'm going to do it.
Guest:Yeah, and sort of stretch things I've done.
Guest:If I was at Stand Up New York when there was a Conan Showcase, I'd done it, but I hadn't.
Guest:Oh, so you're a liar.
Guest:Yes, I was a liar, too.
Marc:I was a real liar.
Marc:I was never...
Marc:I'm only a liar if it's absolutely necessary.
Marc:Now I am.
Guest:And that was the hardest thing to wean myself off of were lies of convenience.
Guest:Just lies because you could?
Guest:I remember feeling that after I stopped drinking.
Guest:I was like, oh, right.
Guest:I haven't used that muscle of explaining the truth in a long time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I would just say, oh, my phone was broken or just make something up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The idea that I would now have to say, I miscalculated the time and I'm sorry.
Guest:It's hard, right?
Guest:It is hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you used to just lie for the hell of it.
Guest:Yeah, I lied for the hell of it.
Guest:I lied to be grandiose and I lied to get out of trouble or to not deal with any inconveniences at all.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's a great tool.
Guest:Sure, it's very convenient.
Guest:A lot of people don't check up on your lies at all.
Guest:Or you get in one of those situations where you've lied so much people are like, okay, and they don't even second guess you because they used to.
Guest:You're not even credible anymore.
Guest:No, you're just a hostile witness.
Marc:Sure, John.
Guest:Okay, we're not gonna question this guy anymore.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when did you start doing comedy in earnest?
Marc:I mean, so you moved from D.C.
Marc:to New York when?
Marc:You graduated?
Marc:Yeah, I graduated.
Guest:Did you do well?
Guest:I did pretty good, yeah.
Guest:I always tried to keep up appearances, like I said, so that I didn't have to deal with anything.
Guest:Let's see, when I was 20, I came to New York and I was interning at Comedy Central in New York.
Guest:For who?
Guest:for Jesse Klein and Lou Wallach.
Marc:Lou Wallach was the head of Comedy Central at the time?
Guest:Yeah, it was the summer of the Graham Norton effect.
Marc:Oh, big summer.
Marc:Big summer.
Guest:We all remember where we were.
Marc:The big summer of failure, the Graham Norton effect.
Guest:Yeah, but then there was also Chappelle Show, Daily Show, South Park.
Guest:It was a cool place to be.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:There was still Let's Bowl and stuff like that.
Guest:That was the summer of 03.
Marc:Okay, so Jesse was development person.
Guest:She was a development person at that time.
Guest:Lou was there, you know, Naomi.
Guest:Frisch?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what were you doing?
Guest:Whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I like deliver stuff to tough crowd.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I was on that show occasionally.
Marc:Yes, you were.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you like it?
Marc:Yeah, loved it.
Marc:It was exciting.
Marc:Real things happened.
Guest:Yeah, I went to a lot of tapings of that.
Guest:That was fun.
Guest:Now, did you work with Nick in... In college, yeah.
Guest:And Aziz and those guys?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I met Aziz when I moved to New York.
Marc:But you weren't part of Human Giant.
Guest:No, I never did anything on that show.
Guest:But we were all kind of around Rafifi in those places.
Marc:Eugene Merman's thing.
Guest:Yeah, Eugene's show, Invite Them Up, that was like the show to get on.
Marc:Right, so that was a whole new generation.
Marc:You were like really, literally part of the next generation, the next wave of comedy in New York.
Guest:Yeah, and I had a very, looking back, had a very comfy time because of that.
Guest:It was very friendly.
Marc:You didn't have to do open mics at stand-up clubs.
Guest:I did some, I do Hamburger Harry's, I do... So that was early on, sure, right, so you were running around doing those kind of things.
Marc:Yeah, I do those shows, Rock Albers and... So you started to do comedy in earnest when you were doing the internship?
Guest:Yeah, I was about 20.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I would do the B3 every week at 3rd and Avenue B. Uh-huh.
Guest:And Comedy Kebab in Brooklyn.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But.
Marc:But not stand up, not like the comic strip.
Marc:You didn't hang around.
Guest:I went up at the comic strip once for Lucian Hold.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Birbiglia got me a spot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To go up in front of him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he said, I've got enough white guys.
Guest:Well, Mike went in the other room.
Guest:He goes, I'll ask Lucian what he thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he came out and he went, no, no.
Guest:And I said, well, what did he say?
Guest:And apparently he watched me on the monitor and said, well, no.
Guest:Which, having heard other stories about him, that was like, that's very tame.
Guest:Were you doing well?
Guest:Uh, I had like two good minutes wherein other comics would help me out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then there was a, there was a, I feel like a year of like, then that was it.
Guest:You know, I could like get a, I could get a spot and invite them up and do well.
Guest:Uh, and then, you know, I'd, and then you'd be, uh, get another spot months later.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, I'd have nothing new then.
Guest:So I just, in that world of like, okay, this, these three minutes kind of work, uh,
Guest:in downtown new york that plateaued really fast right so i started going on the road right then i remember i was hosting at the nashville going on the road i would as a feature no as an mc oh really my first mc week was at the penguins and cedar rapids so was that under the tutelage of mike burbigley yes i was opening for mike so i was hosting you know right so mike said you got to do comedy clubs that's how i started but that was still pretty cush that was still very nice to have someone getting me into those
Marc:And also his audience, I imagine, was fairly.
Guest:He was right at the point where he'd done like a Comedy Central half hour.
Guest:Just starting to build it.
Guest:He had a lot of people knew who he was, but he still would have, I think, some of those nights where the audience was just there for zanies or there for penguins.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But he got you into that experience.
Guest:He got you working as a comic.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And realizing I sucked.
Guest:At a year in.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And realizing I wasn't a comic, I was like a writer of jokes.
Guest:But he helped you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You feel permanently in debt?
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Indebted to Mike.
Guest:Oh yeah, I went on the road for him for 30 days straight.
Guest:And that was like a huge turning point.
Guest:It was a lesson.
Guest:Well, the lesson for me was like before that tour with Mike, I always wanted the show to be canceled.
Guest:I always wanted to have done a show and be- Again, you wanted it behind you.
Guest:Yes, I wanted it behind me.
Guest:And that after doing 30 days straight where you just had to, I had to MC every night, I started to want to do the show itself.
Guest:So you were getting into it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You started to get it.
Guest:He also told me in a very cool, direct way.
Guest:He was like, hey, you have to be better if you're going to open these shows.
Guest:In a very like, hey, you can't softly throw your jokes under the bus and act like you don't give a shit when you do.
Marc:Oh, that's a good point because that's like a defense mechanism.
Guest:Absolutely, and it also felt like you had to start, or I felt I had to be, it felt like at Rafifi, places like that, you had to begin clumsily and act clumsy.
Marc:Yeah, you had to act cute and undermine yourself.
Guest:Yeah, the best joke would be a joke.
Guest:Don't tell me you're not act cute.
Guest:I knew how to do that.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:But in Nashville, when I had to do the announcements that Killer Bees was coming, I had to bring the fucking energy.
Guest:Better save up.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:James Gregory, the funniest man in America will be here next week.
Guest:And now let's make some noise for your headliner.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mike Birbiglia.
Marc:So, but he taught you, he gave you a sort of work ethic.
Marc:He told you what was wrong with the way you were presenting your jokes.
Marc:He, he obviously had faith in you as a joke writer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He thought I was very funny.
Guest:Uh, I, I, I'd like, you know, followed him around a lot and, and would try to pitch jokes to him and stuff.
Guest:And, uh, I think he thought I was a funny guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because one time when I was visiting, he was working on his half hour special.
Guest:And I just went with him like everywhere when he was running.
Guest:Did you help him?
Guest:No, not really in the end.
Guest:I think I was so excited.
Guest:He'd go, what do you think of this?
Guest:And I go, that's great.
Marc:Well, it's interesting because you are joke heavy.
Marc:I mean, you are a joke teller.
Marc:You have a very fast pace.
Marc:You are a written guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're not necessarily riffing.
Marc:No.
Marc:No, more so now, but not for a long time.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:When I saw you, I mean, you were doing something a little more personal.
Marc:I saw you at, where did I see you?
Marc:I saw you at a small theater of some kind.
Marc:Why were you doing- Was it Montreal?
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:It was a long set about- St.
Marc:Catherine Theater.
Marc:Proctelage.
Marc:examination yeah yeah they had oh it was your one person show right i did a show there and i went to see your one man yes you came i was very flattered by that yeah yeah it was great but that was uh that was you venturing into uh autobiographical stuff because my recollection of you previous to that was you know very clever clever jokes with a lot of good references many of which i didn't get because i'm too old right i do a joke about the movie ray yeah and it would be good for a month
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that was sort of what you did.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Uh, that was how you can see what, but did you, but I had no sense of myself or not that I do yet now, but, uh, that's sort of a weird dodgy topic for you in a way.
Guest:What was that?
Marc:Well, just, you know, who's in there, John?
Marc:Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, because I can hear, like, sometimes your laugh is a little up here.
Marc:It's not as deep as it should be.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:And, you know, like, you're very together.
Marc:Because when I saw the one-man show, I was excited for you.
Marc:Because I thought, well, you know, he's stepping out.
Marc:He's going to do some stuff.
Marc:There's a there's a moment there during the proctological exam where, you know, where I was like, are we gay?
Marc:Are we not gay?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And I was like, who is this guy?
Marc:There's a you know, you do keep it together somehow.
Marc:You're kind of a controlled dude.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah, that's it's for me to let out.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So what's going to make you what's going to make you lose your shit?
Guest:get angry you mean whatever i don't get that angry where is it all going john i mean probably internal organs are not doing well i haven't gone to a doctor in five six years you're fine i might be fine come on i'm relaxing everything's going everything's relaxed come on are you not you're not like this with your friends like pete and everybody you you come on guard you're on guard no i mean am i i don't know i don't know huh
Guest:yeah is this something that you've heard before am i telling you absolutely all the time yeah really sure from your wife uh yeah sure oh wow yeah so you're not not in a terrible way not like are you um where are you john right right right yeah who's in there yeah what's going on yeah there's no there there yeah my parents used to say about bill clinton yeah oh yeah there's no there there sure
Guest:Who has a there all the time?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's submerged.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:It's for you to know.
Guest:It's for me to know.
Guest:I don't have to give that to anyone.
Guest:Well, I thought you were a comedian.
Guest:Well, I give it out in the doses I want to.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Marc:That's fine, John.
Marc:Do you think I don't?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Okay, you're just asking.
Marc:Well, no, I think that sometimes, like, here's the deal.
Marc:Like, you know, I listen to your record.
Marc:I watch you perform.
Marc:When I saw you do the story show, I was like, all right, so now I get an idea.
Marc:Like, I had no idea who you were.
Marc:And I watched you and I'd listened to your stuff before.
Marc:And I'm like, he's great.
Marc:He's got, you know, good clips, got good pace, got good jokes.
Marc:But who is that guy?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But then again, I've been saying about that about Seinfeld for 30 years.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know who that guy is.
Marc:How can I watch a guy for an hour and have no fucking idea who he is?
Marc:It bothers me.
Marc:As time goes on, I realize who Jerry is, and it's not terrific.
Marc:But the thing is, if I can't see somebody's vulnerability almost immediately, I'm like, I don't know, either he's really confident or he's fucking with me.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The fucking with me part of it.
Marc:Well, yeah, but that's my own problem.
Marc:It's just sort of like, it's evasive.
Marc:I know that comedy being innately funny is a defense mechanism in and of itself, but it should reveal some insecurity.
Marc:And I think that it may be there, but until I saw you tell stories about your life, I just didn't have a sense of who you were with just a standup.
Marc:That's totally fair.
Marc:And now you're evolving out of that.
Marc:You're changing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also I have a life now.
Guest:I only had those jokes before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I only had TV shows and bullshit.
Marc:But were you, was that, was that the craft?
Marc:Are you like, well, even, but, but it tells different.
Marc:Cause it tell like, you know, he can't help, he can't help, but you know, see exactly who he is.
Marc:But was, was, was writing jokes for you sort of like doodling, like, like a math equation.
Marc:Like it was just something you were.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Oh, I thought of a joke.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:I'll do it.
Guest:I'll put it in my standup.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No matter what the topic was, you know,
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I remember I started off trying to write jokes about topics no one else had jokes about.
Guest:Yeah, like what?
Guest:Like the Liberty Bell.
Guest:I wrote a joke about the Liberty Bell.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:It was that.
Guest:I remember writing it because I'd never heard a joke about the Liberty Bell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How precious is that?
Marc:Yeah, no, it's good.
Guest:The joke was that it's supposed to be this patriotic symbol, but it's broken.
Guest:So it's like we fought this war for our independence and the first thing we do is break something nice.
Guest:Like we're a bunch of special ed kids who finally get unsupervised recess and we come in after 30 minutes like Ernie fell.
Guest:That was the joke.
Guest:There's a lot of words in there.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Look how rapidly I got through it, avoiding eye contact with you.
Marc:But that was your style.
Marc:It just keeps going.
Guest:It keeps going, sure.
Marc:Amazing clip, too.
Marc:When you take pause, when everything sort of slows down, what do you feel?
Marc:Uncomfortable?
Guest:I feel very comfortable on stage.
Marc:Right now, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You saw my worst set ever, I think.
Marc:At that one man show?
Guest:No, in Aspen.
Guest:Did I?
Guest:Yes, you don't remember that?
Guest:Of course you wouldn't.
Guest:That was a huge moment in my life and not.
Guest:But I was there.
Guest:You were the host.
Guest:I met you that weekend.
Guest:I hosted for you and Tosh.
Guest:You guys were co-headlining a show.
Guest:This was... Oh, my God.
Guest:You were wearing American apparel jackets and overcoats a lot during that time.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:So you were very nice to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had just seen you on Conan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I really liked that joke you did about your mom calling you and asking you what you thought of this guy Sabu.
Guest:And you saying, Mom, do you mean Barack Obama?
Guest:So I told you that at the Tosh, I got to host for you and Tosh.
Guest:And then I think you were co-headlining a show with Showalter and Mary Lynn.
Guest:Yeah, that sounds about right.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:And then I did, so then I did my second, so you have these showcases at Aspen.
Guest:You do like...
Guest:It was me, and it wasn't Kyle Kinane and Dan Mintz, but they were also there that year.
Guest:So it was like people, that age group, we would go.
Guest:We'd do our five-minute sets.
Guest:And I kind of, I didn't do well the first one.
Guest:So then I hosted for you and Tosh.
Guest:I did a little better.
Guest:And then this was like the second showcase that I was going to do, and it was in the big tent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You remember that thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walked up on stage and I started to talk.
Guest:It was, uh, you reminded me of it when you said my laugh was up here.
Guest:I couldn't breathe at all.
Guest:Hard to breathe there.
Guest:Couldn't breathe at all though.
Guest:And my first joke died.
Guest:It died.
Guest:And then, uh, white hot panic rolled over me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you were having trouble.
Guest:I was having real trouble both in the bombing sense and also I couldn't breathe.
Guest:And to this day, I don't know if I was having a panic attack or elevation sickness.
Marc:But there was like concern.
Marc:Like you got off stage and it was like you were fucked up.
Guest:Yeah, you and Mike DiStefano were very nice to me backstage.
Guest:They got me an oxygen tank.
Guest:I remember.
Guest:I remember this now.
Guest:And Mike DiStefano sat with me for a little while.
Guest:You came and checked on me, which I always never forgot.
Guest:You were very cool in that moment.
Guest:And you came on stage and so I bomb and almost die.
Guest:You come back on stage and said some nice things about my set and kind of used one of my jokes to get into one of your jokes.
Guest:I remember hearing it and going, oh, he's really trying to make it seem like that went fine.
Guest:And it really didn't.
Guest:And everyone was there.
Guest:I remember some guy that worked for like Conoco was in the front row.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, he saw me bomb.
Guest:I'll never go to Conoco.
Guest:I remember this now.
Guest:It's coming back to me.
Guest:Right?
Guest:And so I was really like, I'm done.
Marc:Because I was in bad shape because that must have been right after my wife left and I must have been- Your wife was there.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:oh that was that time yes what year was that 2006 maybe 2006 okay yeah 2006 right that's where i went up on stage and did the storytelling show that was probably right the end of my marriage i remember she was there i remember running into stephen wright i remember hosting that thing because i remember like stephen baldwin was or one of the no uh no uh
Guest:billy billy baldwin was on the show with me yeah he was around and backstage at that tent thing that's right i remember bits and you were hanging out with your wife and billy baldwin right right yes now i remember being backstage and then i'd go outside smoke cigarettes and i was drinking coffee backstage this is why i also wonder if i had like a panic attack
Guest:You were smoking then?
Guest:Yeah, I was smoking in Aspen Elevation for the first time.
Guest:I mean, I don't know why.
Marc:No, it's hard to breathe.
Marc:Okay, so I saw one of the worst sets.
Marc:I do not remember it that way.
Marc:I do remember now that you were in trouble.
Marc:No one remembered it at all because everyone was so drunk.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was a rough night.
Marc:It was weird because there was industry there, but there was also a lot of drunky regular people.
Marc:Oh, there were men in fur coats in the front row with beautiful bronze faces.
Marc:Was it outdoors and heated kind of thing?
Guest:Yes, there were heat lamps in a tent in the middle of a cold afternoon.
Guest:Yeah, it was weird, man.
Guest:Only Dan Mintz remembers it.
Guest:He was in the back of the tent, and he brings it up all the time.
Guest:He said it was like watching a beautiful train wreck because...
Guest:I came out confident and the jokes were probably pretty good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there was nothing doing from second one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And as soon as nothing was happening, I remember that feeling of air from the bottle.
Guest:I had air in my throat and nowhere else.
Guest:Oh, horrendous.
Guest:It was terrifying.
Guest:And I went long because my closers kept not working.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So I did more closers.
Marc:And I remember when you got off, you were in trouble.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, I hated all, it was like when you faint and everyone surrounds you, I hated all the attention so much.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wanted to absolutely die.
Marc:But you know, it turned out okay.
Guest:Yeah, but I was so scared.
Guest:It's funny, I remember you and Mike DiStefano being really nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was like, it's gonna be okay, you're fucking funny, it doesn't matter, I got a meeting with James Dixon.
Guest:He told me that while I was breathing in air.
Guest:I got a meeting with James Dixon.
Marc:Well, I'm glad that you have a good memory of me.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:I have a lot of nice ones.
Guest:You were always very nice to me.
Marc:All right, so then let's get up to where everything starts to change.
Marc:So you interned at Comedy Central for how long?
Marc:Oh, just a year.
Guest:So you come back from the road with... About 06, I'm kind of starting to feature.
Guest:I did Conan for the first time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then I went and did Aspen and bombed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And almost died.
Guest:Well, you need to take the hits sometimes.
Guest:You need to, you gotta take hits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was kind of off, I was like on the road, sometimes with Birbiglia, sometimes on my own, started writing for like, I started doing that show Best Week Ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On VH1, so that was easy.
Marc:As a talking head guy?
Guest:Yeah, you just go to Midtown.
Guest:You go to that 1633 Broadway building and talk in front of colored paper for like an hour.
Guest:You get a couple hundred bucks.
Guest:That was a very good time.
Guest:And then I did like a NACA.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Hosted a NACA.
Guest:That's the National Association of Colleges or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, it's the National Association of Bombing in a Hotel Ballroom.
Marc:In front of a lot of student activities people.
Guest:In front of a lot of student activities people who can often be very interesting people.
Guest:And then you stand in a booth.
Guest:Yeah, selling yourself.
Guest:Yes, next to like sword swallowers and the principal from Saved by the Bell.
Marc:With your headshots up on the wall.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But what's at stake there is that, you know, theoretically, if you got 20 colleges for the year, that's a lot of money for a guy starting out.
Guest:I remember I got five, and that was a lot of money.
Guest:Yeah, hell yeah.
Guest:And then I did that.
Guest:How'd you do with the kids?
Guest:Medium.
Guest:I was like young looking, but my jokes weren't college fun.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was a weird fit.
Guest:Well, you're black Irish.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There was a darkness that they didn't appreciate.
Marc:You have a history.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They wanted me to do like, you know, just.
Marc:You were the guy that knocked cups out of people's hands and you were hiding that.
Marc:And I would flip ties.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was not who you were.
Marc:This is the new John.
Marc:This is the new John.
Marc:They would have liked the old John.
Guest:Yeah, sort of, but they wanted fun college and I only had strange darkness of college.
Guest:You ever just put on a hoodie and put on your headphones and walk drunk?
Marc:Smoke cigarettes by yourself?
Guest:Yeah, think about everything.
Guest:Think your life's over even though you're like 18.
Guest:When did you get off the smokes?
Guest:I've had them in the past couple months.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you were never a big smoker?
Guest:No, I was.
Guest:I smoked a lot, a lot, a lot at Saturday Night Live.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:And then smoked all through college.
Guest:I like knowing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it makes me feel better about you.
Guest:Oh, I have many addictions and issues that I have to grapple with like that.
Guest:Like what else?
Guest:Well, I have to avoid a lot of things.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, just like anytime I take a Klonopin, I want three.
Guest:No, I know that one, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And cigarettes.
Guest:I go like, why are you chain smoking?
Guest:Oh, because you are still trying to fill some void.
Marc:Is it just a void?
Marc:Maybe you're not, I want you to be angry.
Marc:I think you're angry.
Marc:I have anger, but it diffuses quickly.
Guest:I'd say that.
Guest:That doesn't sound very black Irish to me.
Guest:You mean you're just a brooder?
Guest:I'm very also like just... Sober.
Guest:USA too, you know?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I had a very nice upbringing despite things I did to myself.
Marc:And also I think, I think things are, you know, went pretty well for you.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And also we were one of those families where it was like, Hey, you know, things could be worse.
Guest:Look at that guy.
Guest:He's got hooks for hands at the hot dog stand and stuff.
Guest:So I was always putting things in perspective was like, you had some gratitude all the way through all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So when do you get the gig at, how do you get SNL, how's that?
Guest:I auditioned in the summer of 2008, so I'd been, I'd written for a couple shows, I wrote on Dimitri Martin's Comedy Central show for a summer, and then I worked on this pilot with
Guest:Mike Black and Mike Showalter.
Guest:But I was still just kind of doing stand-up.
Guest:But these guys are respected.
Guest:You must look good on the page.
Guest:I had like a funny packet for each.
Guest:And then I auditioned in August of 08 for SNL.
Guest:I found out on a Tuesday I was going to audition on a Thursday.
Guest:And then I just was like, I cannot put together an audition of impressions and shit like that.
Guest:So I just did stand-up.
Guest:But was that ever your thing, though?
Guest:No, but I thought I should.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because everyone who was getting their audition ready was, like, writing all new pieces.
Guest:Like, I'm going to come up with three characters and a Gordon Ramsay impression.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, I'll just eat shit if I do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I only had about 48 hours.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I went out.
Guest:I think I did, like...
Guest:maybe death ray and then jimmy doors show after it or something and i was out in la for some reason and i had to fly from la to new york right and i just went in um two days later and did like i just did like a stand-up set right and i got hired as a writer where was that where was the audition it was actually on conan's stage on the sixth floor of oh so you went right to 30 rock they didn't come see you at a club
Guest:No, I'd done monologues for the ASCAT show that Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler would do, so I'd met them a little.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Seth recommended me to the show, and I'd been on Conan a couple times, so I think Ayala Cohn, who worked there, had seen tape of me or whatever.
Guest:And what was your experience meeting Warren?
Guest:So I auditioned and I met him a few days later.
Guest:At his office?
Guest:Yeah, at his office.
Guest:Did you wait?
Guest:No, because I was there for another reason and they sprung the meeting on me.
Guest:I didn't even know he was there.
Guest:Why were you there?
Guest:Because you were already hired.
Guest:I was already hired.
Guest:I think I was like, you know, moving a desk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was in Higgins' office and they said, oh, Lauren's here.
Guest:He wants to talk to you.
Guest:And I went in there and it was about a one minute meeting.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He just said...
Guest:uh do you have siblings and i said yeah and he said where are they and i said oh they're back in chicago and he went they're back in chicago and now you're here and i said yeah and he did say you were very funny which was really nice yeah uh and i said thank you so you know i went into this like thank you so much it's an honor and he went no no no no just sort of waved that off yeah and then uh that was it
Guest:Got up and walked out.
Guest:And you wrote there for how long?
Guest:Four and a half years.
Guest:Was your first year hard?
Guest:My first year was not, it was scary, but it was really exciting.
Guest:That was fall of 08 when- Who was the cast?
Guest:Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Daryl Hammond, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers.
Marc:Those seem like good people.
Marc:It doesn't sound like you got in after all the weird competitive- 110%.
Guest:All that shit from the books that we've read, that was all over.
Guest:Because Mike Shoemaker and Seth Meyers had created a really, really nice environment.
Guest:As the head writers.
Guest:As producers and head writers, it was just like the writers all worked together.
Guest:There was no sense of competition.
Guest:What was Higgins at that time?
Guest:Yeah, Higgins was great too.
Guest:Was he the head writer?
Guest:Who was the head writer?
Guest:Higgins was the producer.
Guest:Seth was head writer.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:There was no sense of like, well, this person gets iced out if it's their piece.
Guest:Everyone's stuff was sort of enjoyed and heard.
Guest:And the cast was so amazing.
Guest:And yeah, that was a really, really nice time.
Guest:And then also that was the election of 2008, which was a very big time for the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my first year was great.
Guest:My first year was really fun.
Guest:I came back.
Guest:My second year is more like I thought I'd figured it out and got my ass kicked for the fall sort of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I just was like, you know, figured I knew what I was doing.
Guest:So when I would get stuff cut or get Lauren would get mad at me about something, it was like I was suddenly spinning out like I didn't.
Guest:He got mad at you?
Guest:Well, I mean, just get frustrated with a sketch or something on bleachers.
Guest:Like, really?
Guest:You're going to open with that?
Guest:You know, that type of thing.
Guest:That was like, I had had a very nice beginning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If there ever was a tough time, I'd say the beginning of my second season.
Guest:I just remember feeling like...
Marc:And then what, that leveled off and you did two more years and you started to do on camera stuff and what?
Guest:Yeah, that leveled off.
Guest:That also, I don't know why I blew that out of proportion.
Guest:That was like, you know, a few shows of feeling like.
Marc:Do you feel like you know Lauren and you're close to him?
Guest:Close, I don't know, but I've gotten to know him pretty well.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know how close.
Guest:You know, he's been, I've talked to him a lot in the past couple years, I feel like.
Marc:Right.
Guest:With the TV show.
Guest:The TV show that he, you know, is producing.
Marc:Well, let's focus on that for a second.
Marc:Because, like, so it seemed to me, like, before you did the TV show, that the buzz was, you know, you're going to be the update guy.
Marc:You were the heir apparent.
Marc:There are no heirs apparent in show business.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:You know what I'm saying.
Marc:I understand what you're saying, but having... But that was the word on the street.
Marc:Was that not the word that you got?
Marc:Uh...
Guest:I did some update features.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I entertain the idea that I might get it.
Guest:But word on the street versus what you hear at a place like that is different.
Marc:But what was Lauren saying to you during that time?
Marc:I mean, you weren't going to get fired from SNL.
Marc:You were writing.
Marc:You were starting to do stuff on camera.
Marc:You were developing a relationship with that guy.
Marc:What was he telling you?
Marc:What was he teaching you?
Marc:What did you think was going to happen for you?
Guest:I knew I was developing a lot as a writer, and I was made a producer on the show, and I knew I was doing very well there.
Guest:Honestly, I did not know where I stood in terms of that.
Marc:Performing?
Guest:Yeah, which is a very common thing there.
Guest:As I said, it was very, very friendly.
Guest:There was also still things that are cryptic and strange.
Guest:Did you want to do Update?
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:And was it ever offered to you?
Guest:It was not offered, and I...
Guest:it was not offered like do you want to do it right now right I think it was maybe a possibility right but I then did a special that you that what you saw in Montreal then I recorded that in August or something for Comedy Central Comedy Central that special came out and I was a writer there and the special was you know it was small well reception but it got a nice reception so I was kind of like I think maybe I'll move on
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:You and Hannibal.
Guest:Yeah, Hannibal went to 30 Rock and then was gone.
Marc:But the decision was, I'm going to do stand-up.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:I've had enough of this writing for SNL thing.
Guest:I miss it still, but yeah, I was ready to go.
Marc:So you told Lauren you're leaving.
Guest:Yeah, well, let me think.
Guest:I told him I was leaving, but I wanted to create a show.
Guest:So it was kind of like, I'd like to continue working together.
Guest:Oh, so you asked him to produce your show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, when you work for NBC and Broadway video, it's not.
Guest:I don't know if it is mandatory.
Guest:No, it's my point is there's a sort of natural thing to talk to them first.
Marc:So he wanted to know, what are you going to do?
Marc:What do you want to do?
Guest:Yeah, it was like all one meeting of I'd like to develop this show and I don't think I'm coming back.
Guest:And he said what?
Guest:In that meeting, I think he thought I should take some time to think about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which was true.
Guest:But he also really liked the idea of doing a show.
Guest:I think maybe we talked about, would I be able to do both?
Guest:And I thought, I can't do that.
Marc:And what was the last show?
Guest:So 30 Rock was his show as well, right?
Guest:Yeah, at that time he was doing 30 Rock and Up All Night.
Guest:So...
Guest:It seemed like all a natural, you know, I was like, oh, okay, well, this works out well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So my last show was Mick Jagger was the host.
Guest:Did you talk to Mick?
Guest:Yeah, I spent a lot of time with him, actually.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yes, because I would write a lot of the monologues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I would hang with those people in their dressing room because that's the thing that people were the most hands-on about, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because the one moment that they're themselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I spent a lot of time with Mick Jagger.
Guest:I spent a lot of time with Elton John.
Guest:It was just an interesting way to shadow those people was to work on the monologue, because you'd constantly have to go in their dressing room.
Guest:And what was your impression of Mick?
Guest:I really liked him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was like- Was he nervous?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:He is a famous, famous person.
Guest:He looks famous.
Guest:Even if he wasn't in the Rolling Stones, if you saw him on the street, you'd go, oh, can I pay money to look at you?
Guest:He has like really, I just remember staring at his hair and going like, this guy is like 22.
Guest:And I know that's said about him.
Guest:Like, oh, he still has the energy of the 20s.
Guest:But I was like, this is like a young person.
Guest:And just like, you know, long eyes, long eyeballs and the face.
Guest:I was just like, this is a fascinating person.
Guest:He was Mick Jagger.
Guest:So he was very, he'd been Mick Jagger for his whole life.
Guest:So he was very famous.
Guest:He was like, those people that have played arenas.
Guest:just have a different outlook.
Guest:I don't mean mean or they're not diva-ish, but I think there's just like, he never had that thing of just being anything but Mick Jagger.
Guest:He would never be like, oh, does anyone have a laptop cord I could borrow?
Guest:He was just very direct.
Guest:I remember he would always be like,
Guest:Like, no, not funny.
Guest:And, like, in comedy, you rarely hear not funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you do sometimes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But... But he had to say it, so he was saying... He would go, no, I don't like that.
Guest:Not funny.
Guest:And, like, Elton John... And, by the way, not mean.
Guest:Like, you knew they were just, like, what's the fastest way to make this conversation go?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Elton John would go, no, not doing it.
Guest:No, are we done?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay, I'll do that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Are we done?
Guest:Good.
Guest:Are we done?
Guest:Good.
Guest:It was very, like, I...
Guest:tour i have things to do i'm elton john i've been elton john for 30 years yeah are we done yeah you know so uh yeah i wrote a song with mick jagger there was a sketch with a song in it i was helping him write lyrics yeah and uh it was just me and him sitting in his dressing room and uh who was playing an instrument no one we were just writing lyrics okay uh and he said uh all right
Guest:what rhymes with drink and there was a long pause and i said brink and he went now and then there was another long pause and i went sink and he went yeah
Guest:And I was like, motherfucker, is this how you write songs?
Marc:It was great.
Marc:So that's fun.
Marc:You got to hang out with a lot of those people who were hosting?
Guest:Sure, they have no idea that they ever were in a room with me, but yes, I got these weird hours sitting with these people.
Marc:Who were some other ones that left an impression on you?
Guest:I loved Danny DeVito.
Guest:He was amazing.
Marc:He's a comedy guy.
Guest:Yeah, but he was doing a cameo in Charlie Day's monologue.
Guest:He just spent a lot of time working on it.
Guest:Because I was a huge fan of his, so I would stretch out the time as much as possible.
Guest:And we would just write pages and pages of stuff that was unusable.
Guest:For a cameo?
Guest:Yeah, for a cameo.
Guest:Just like long, so many rewrites.
Guest:And I go, I'll put this on cards.
Guest:And then that would jam up cue cards for like an hour.
Guest:And then we'd do like most of it wouldn't work.
Guest:We just had a fun couple days.
Guest:And then my favorite thing about him was he met my then girlfriend at the after party.
Guest:And she was a big fan of his from Always Sunny and many other things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:he was as excited to meet her as she was to meet him.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:He was like, hey, what do you do?
Guest:She said, I'm a makeup artist and a hairstylist.
Guest:He goes, I used to work in a hair salon.
Guest:He was like, he was like just on it.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:Sweet guy.
Guest:McCartney was very nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:McCartney knew how to give everyone maybe 45 seconds of I know how big of a deal this is to you and I'm going to listen to the thing you have to say to me.
Guest:and I'll take it in and it was very interesting to see how he was like, I know how big of a deal this is to you.
Guest:My mom came to a show he did and she would have rushed him if she could.
Guest:At the after party, she went by his table but he had a couple bodyguards.
Guest:It was a closed booth.
Guest:My mom couldn't get in at that moment.
Guest:But she blew a kiss to him and he blew a kiss back.
Guest:He's a classy guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Class act.
Guest:She said, he knows what that means to a woman of my age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He gets it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Paul McCartney.
Guest:Paul McCartney of the Beatles band.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The famous Beatles.
Marc:So who are the comics that you grew up loving?
Guest:The first comic I remember knowing or watching on TV was Dennis Wolfberg.
Guest:Sure, with the eyes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and the intensity.
Guest:He was from Chicago, but I watched him a lot on Comic Strip Live or whatever those shows were.
Guest:And then George Carlin stuff, but I must have been in junior high then, and I was already sort of a comedy fanatic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So like...
Guest:Yeah, but before that, just all the stand-ups of the 80s and 90s.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We had Comedy Central then.
Marc:I mean, you grew up with Comedy Central kind of, right?
Guest:Or was it just, there was a show, and it was not Evening at the Improv.
Guest:It was called Comic Strip Live.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I watched that all the time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're a comedy fan.
Guest:I liked everyone.
Guest:Amazing Jonathan.
Guest:I just liked anyone I saw on TV.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then I got into albums in that same age when I got into Monty Python and found out what Caddyshack was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Find out what Led Zeppelin was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You started buying comedy records as well?
Guest:Yeah, I started buying comedy albums.
Guest:And then I had tons of comedy albums, tons of old radio show things.
Guest:I liked everything.
Guest:So you're always gunning for it.
Guest:I was always I knew what I was doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So Lauren agrees to develop this show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he secures a deal for you at NBC.
Guest:I think I maybe had already talked to NBC about doing something.
Marc:Maybe they were aware of me.
Marc:But he was behind you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you get an agreement from NBC to develop a show?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you write the pilot?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you shoot the pilot?
Marc:We shot the pilot, yeah.
Marc:And they said, okay, let's do how many?
Marc:No, NBC passed on it.
Marc:Okay, so now Lauren's like, this is ridiculous.
Marc:He said, we'll take it to Fox.
Marc:It's so weird though, NBC is his house.
Marc:There was nothing, there was no conversation you were privy to that made you, because obviously he believed in the show.
Marc:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Marc:But he didn't say, like, I can't believe they just didn't want this downstairs.
Guest:I'm trying to think.
Guest:I mean, as successful as he's been, he's also had a lot of these.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so he was, you know, immediately.
Guest:I mean, full confidence that it would go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which I also, not knowing anything, was confident that it would go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when it didn't go, it was kind of like, I just remember him saying like, this is, you know, they don't know what they had and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And, uh, made you feel better.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:And also said like getting knocked down is really good for you, which it is.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:But then it was immediately like Fox was interested in it.
Guest:So I feel like there was like a- There was not much.
Guest:72 hour period of this is dead.
Guest:And then it was like, oh, maybe we- Were you panicking at all?
Guest:I mean, did you feel- No, I was just really, really sad.
Guest:Because I was never going to get to, I thought I'd never get to work with like Martin Short and Elliot Gould and just work on that stage again.
Guest:And just everything about it was like, oh, I wish- Loved it.
Marc:You were like, this is what I want.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I wish I'd known that was going to be the last time where, you know, I had those just really like, ugh.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So then Fox picks it up for what?
Guest:Six?
Guest:Six.
Guest:We made six episodes last fall and then we made seven episodes from the summer to like a month ago.
Guest:And now it's in trouble.
Guest:Well, yeah, but it was in trouble from the beginning.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, the ratings were low.
Guest:No, but what on your side?
Guest:What do you think was the issue?
Guest:Oh, no, no, no.
Guest:I don't think it was in trouble.
Guest:Making it was a joy.
Guest:And it was actually a really incredible experience.
Guest:It's the show you wanted to make.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:100%.
Guest:All the way through.
Guest:Oh, do I go back and look at joke to joke things?
Guest:No, but I maybe think about changing a thing here or there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But not the fundamentals, not the bones of it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And you were there through all the writing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was my show.
Guest:Right, full script approval.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And it was very pleasant working with Fox.
Guest:It wasn't like one of those crazy developments where they say, well, can you and Nassim Pedrad date each other and all that shit.
Marc:Right, and also you seem to have your head on your shoulders in terms of
Marc:To them, it's show business.
Marc:To you, it's your show.
Marc:It's your life.
Marc:But to them, it's like, let's see what happens.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I think having been passed on at NBC also, I knew it could get taken away at any time.
Marc:But when you thought about the kind of immediate comparisons to Seinfeld or to the structure of being a comic, I mean, did that bother you?
Guest:No, because I'd been working on.
Guest:So then I developed this show starting in 2012 with NBC.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I decided to be a comedian because I wanted to do stand up on the show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was aware that those comparisons were going to be made for like two years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So when people started making them, I was only surprised by how many people made them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I just was like, isn't that boring after a while to make the comparison?
Guest:Yeah, it is what I do.
Guest:So now where is the show?
Guest:The show's on Sunday nights.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's still on.
Guest:You said there was trouble.
Guest:You meant, like, the problems?
Marc:No, I mean, like, you know, I think from an outsider's point of view, it looks like they're moving it around.
Guest:Yeah, it's a bumpy time right now.
Marc:It's a bumpy time.
Marc:Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Guest:We got, we did not come out as a huge ratings hit right away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I love the show.
Guest:Some people do not.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what do you think is going to happen?
Guest:I have no idea.
Marc:You really don't know?
Guest:You know, look, what happens to shows that have low ratings and don't take off as critical successes?
Guest:They can get smoked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And maybe that's going to happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:The one thing I've learned in all this is I have no fucking clue what's going to happen with these things.
Marc:And what if the worst happens?
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:I'm on tour right now.
Marc:And how's your crowds?
Marc:You pulling people?
Marc:It's been really fun, yeah.
Marc:You getting people?
Marc:People are like, we want to see John Mulaney.
Guest:It's been good, yeah.
Guest:Now that thing of like, oh, they came to see me.
Marc:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:That's a really good feeling.
Guest:I'm really actually...
Guest:I love making this show.
Guest:I'm really excited after a couple years of working in a studio and an office to be back on the road.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it's fun to do stand-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then if the worst happens, Endless Tour.
Marc:Endless Tour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Until you put another show together.
Guest:Yeah, but I loved this show.
Guest:This was the show I wanted to make.
Guest:I think it'd be a little while before I'd want to develop a thing again.
Marc:Are you scared?
Marc:Are you sad?
Guest:Yeah, I'm a little scared.
Guest:And then I'm sort of like... I'm watching it all a little...
Guest:I don't know why, if you told me, if you showed me this on paper, and we're like, hey, here's things people are gonna say about your show, and here's what the ratings are gonna be, and it's gonna be a struggle.
Guest:If you showed me that a year ago, I'd go, I'm gonna be completely freaking out.
Guest:I'm kind of watching it a little disassociated, and it's kind of interesting.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Because it's like, how strange, like what an interesting thing to go through.
Marc:I'm sort of watching it.
Marc:You're in denial, and you're stuffing your feelings.
Guest:Uh, no, I'm, I'm aware it's happening.
Guest:I'm just not feeling it right now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm sort of watching it like, that's interesting.
Marc:Now does Lauren call you and say, don't worry about it.
Marc:It's going to be, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We've talked a lot about that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what does he say?
Guest:It's just very nice.
Guest:I mean, like it is scary and he'll say, you know, you're going to be fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:He said the good news is it's a good show.
Guest:The longer you're on the air, the longer you're on the air.
Guest:I'm glad that Fox is airing all of these 13.
Guest:I really hope people get invested in it.
Guest:I have zero idea, though, if...
Guest:that will turn around.
Guest:Or if we'll come back and it'll still be a struggle and we'll keep battling it out.
Guest:I love making this show and I really love those people.
Guest:So it's hard for me to be sad because I did it.
Marc:You know, like I did it.
Marc:No, absolutely.
Marc:I know that.
Guest:But I'm scared and I'm like, oh, this is strange.
Marc:Well, it's interesting, like your name's on it, right?
Marc:It's called.
Guest:Yeah, when people say Mulaney sucks, that's me.
Guest:Or I hate Mulaney or I hate John Mulaney or things like that.
Marc:But I also understand the other side of that, having done this show on IFC, it's not as big a profile.
Marc:But there's this idea that when you do 10 of them, or 12, or 13, there is part of you that's sort of like, well, I did it.
Marc:I did it.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:Because you go, well, I had maybe 16 stories to tell, and I told 13 of them, and that's great.
Marc:It's good.
Guest:It's out there.
Guest:And it's a bear experience.
Guest:Making the damn things is huge.
Guest:So it was an incredible amount of work.
Marc:I definitely get that.
Marc:It's a good position to have.
Marc:It's a very good position.
Marc:Because at IFC, I really didn't know what was going to happen.
Marc:I don't even know what it's based on necessarily.
Marc:So the idea was to make the best 10 shows I could and feel good about them all the way through.
Marc:Like knowing that you made your own decisions and you had creative control is not nothing.
Guest:No, and just being in charge and accepting that you're in charge and learning how to be in charge was invaluable enough.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And going like, oh, okay, this is a burden to be in charge, but there's also great, interesting freedom in it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I like to pretend like I'm not in charge.
Guest:I did that for a while.
Guest:Yeah, it's good.
Guest:I go, who's going to figure that out?
Guest:And then everyone was looking to me, and I thought, oh, shit.
Marc:But you guys are being paid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then you realize it's better if you figure it out.
Guest:Well, it's also my show.
Guest:I didn't realize that.
Guest:I was like, surely I'll look to some adult in the room.
Marc:Now, what if Lauren said, let's say the worst that happens, they're like, okay, it's done.
Marc:And Lauren says, you want to come back to SNL?
Marc:Come back to SNL?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, as a writer?
Guest:Yeah, and maybe a performer?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:I don't know if that would happen.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:What if it did?
Guest:I don't, I mean, I'm in no position to turn down work, Mark.
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:Oh, could I be on a show that's not gonna be canceled?
Guest:Ever?
Guest:That everyone, well, people criticize that too, but you know, you can roll with it because it's a variety.
Guest:But you're okay and the comedy's going good.
Guest:And your parents are happy?
Guest:I think they're happy, yeah.
Guest:With you?
Guest:yeah yeah yeah we're good yeah yeah all right well i mean it's like a why did i hesitate uh it's just you know it's a funny question are your parents good with you you know yeah well that's scary when their kid goes in the show business and then there's all this uh you know there's all this excitement i think you know part of the thing was i was always trying to assure them how predictable it was or rather i was trying to show them it was not unpredictable i was like mom it's very very solid look at this yeah i've
Guest:It's like a doctor.
Guest:I've got an order of episodes from a major network called Fox, right?
Guest:It's, you know, I'm going to go in every day, and I'm going to make this, and then suddenly it was like, Mom, I don't know that I'm going to take my show off the air, and I'm sorry it's your last name too, and I don't know what I'm doing.
Guest:i had a lot of that yeah autonomy suddenly my mom yeah it's been fun it's been fun uh because like if you have a google alert you can't things are going great mom yeah like that era where you could go visit your parents and there was no internet and you could go i'm i'm a doctor and i'm married yeah oh we're so proud of you you know like then you go back to your single bedroom yeah then you go back to your squat yeah no you can't do that she's got the google or she's got a google alert she knows what's up
Guest:Oh, and should she call you?
Guest:Your time slot moved?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She calls you, are you okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:One person was very mean.
Guest:I know, Mom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I turned the alert off three months ago.
Guest:So this has brought you closer to your mother.
Guest:It's good to, it's been good to be knocked down to the ground, yeah.
Guest:Because, like, I always thought I was a grounded person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you get knocked down and you go, oh, that's where the ground is?
Yeah.
Guest:You gotta write that down.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It'll be on tape if you need it in this episode of WTF.
Marc:It is on tape.
Marc:It is on tape, yeah.
Marc:Well, I hope that everything works out.
Marc:I feel like you'll be all right.
Guest:I think it'll be fine.
Guest:No matter what, who cares?
Guest:We're all gonna pass away and die.
Marc:There's the giant I'm looking for.
Guest:There it is.
Marc:Look.
Marc:Yeah, existential, man.
Guest:I'll do a series of these with you, and we'll get to the bottom of it.
Guest:Frost Nixon.
Marc:Well, let's call it a day then.
Marc:I think we did all right.
Marc:I think we did great.
Marc:It was nice to see you.
Marc:Thanks for having me on this.
Marc:So when do you think you're going to hear, though, about the destiny of your show?
Marc:Could it be like any second?
Guest:I feel, well, it could be any second, right?
Guest:But I also feel like, I just have this feeling it's not going to be any second.
Guest:I feel like this moment in time will last for a long time.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:But maybe it won't.
Guest:Maybe my phone, when I take it off airport mode, will be nice.
Guest:messages what's the best thing that can happen what's the best thing that can happen yeah like they say like all right we're gonna reconfigure it or we're gonna give it a better time slot or what i mean what what's the best thing the best thing that can happen with the tv show now is just time more time because i don't i actually don't care the time slot thing's fine with me because it's like okay well was it was it uh hitting it out of the park at that time no so move it who cares everyone's watching it on hulu or dvr anyway
Guest:right so it truly doesn't matter it doesn't look good but like it's probably a good way to get some new people to see it to move it earlier in the night so what's happening as of today is that it was moved to 7.30 from 9.30 just for posterity's sake yeah on Sundays so it doesn't fucking matter when a show's on people don't watch people don't watch TV yeah
Marc:Great.
Marc:Well, it was good talking to you.
Marc:It was great talking to you, man.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:John's a good kid.
Marc:Good ending.
Marc:He'll be all right.
Marc:Whatever happens, that kid will be all right.
Marc:That kid, listen to me.
Marc:He's a grown man.
Marc:Something comes out of me sometimes when I speak to the younger folks.
Marc:Don't forget, folks, about The Frame, the new arts and culture news show produced by Southern California Public Radio and Vulture.com.
Marc:Every day, The Frame covers the important stories in the arts and culture world, talking to the people who make the things you love.
Marc:You can get it on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and at TheFrame.org.
Marc:So go subscribe to The Frame.
Marc:Dig it.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:We're restocking shit for the holidays.
Marc:I hope it wasn't too negative today at the beginning.
Marc:It's just one of those days, man.
Marc:I went on a hike.
Marc:I guess I just gotta breathe.
Marc:I mean, here's the deal.
Marc:A lot of stuff is going on.
Marc:We're writing the show.
Marc:Sometimes I don't always acknowledge just how much is really going on with me and my life.
Marc:I think that as a way of as a stress release kind of thing or a stress relief, I just focus on the negative.
Marc:That's the weird thing.
... ... ...
oh oh
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!