Episode 572 - Brian Koppelman
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck-ineers?
Marc:What the fuck, nicks?
Marc:What the fuck-aholics?
Marc:I am Marc Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I appreciate your, uh, your listenership.
Marc:Good day to you.
Marc:I hope you're doing okay.
Marc:I am squirrely as fuck.
Marc:I've been shooting all day.
Marc:That's what I've been doing.
Marc:And I've bitten my lip three times in the same fucking place.
Marc:And it's driving me nuts.
Marc:And every time I do it, every time I hit it, again, I just want to punch myself in the fucking face.
Marc:Because it's like, what is that about?
Marc:I understand.
Marc:It's because the part that you bit gets a little bigger.
Marc:And so it becomes a natural target for whatever is going to bite it.
Marc:My teeth.
Marc:So I just hit this place three times in my mouth.
Marc:Then I hit the other side once.
Marc:It's like, when is it going to stop when I can't talk?
Marc:I got shit to do.
Marc:I'm on camera.
Marc:I'm talking to you.
Marc:I'm recording stuff.
Marc:I can't be all bitten up in my mouth.
Marc:Then I start worrying, well, shit, maybe I'm going to get a cold sore now because it's all bitten up and I can't have a cold sore because I got to tape my show.
Marc:The weird thing about making television, about having a production schedule is that there's no sort of like, yeah, I'm going to take a sick day.
Marc:I'm in every scene of every show, pretty much, give or take a minute.
Marc:And we're making 13 shows.
Marc:I'm not complaining.
Marc:I get panicky about shit.
Marc:I don't know what to tell you, man.
Marc:Brian Koppelman's on the show today, and this is sometimes a thing that I don't always appreciate or understand or know what I'm supposed to do with.
Marc:Brian Koppelman is a film director and a screenwriter.
Marc:He also has a podcast.
Marc:He's the writer.
Marc:He wrote Rounders, and he's the director of Solitary Man, which I believe he also wrote.
Marc:He's the host of the podcast, The Moment.
Marc:He's a guy I met years ago.
Marc:Says he's always been a fan of mine.
Marc:And he started his podcast because I inspired him.
Marc:A lot of people seem to be doing things and they find me inspirational.
Marc:That makes me very happy.
Marc:I'm humbled by it.
Marc:But I don't always take it into, you know, I don't always really realize how profound that is.
Marc:I don't know what I'm doing here.
Marc:I don't have some sort of process or mode of operating.
Marc:I don't have a system.
Marc:Yeah, okay, granted, some of you guys listen to a lot of these and you're like, no, sometimes you kind of do have a system.
Marc:Yeah, I have a style, I guess, but I didn't plan anything.
Marc:But it's very flattering that people are inspired by me.
Marc:All right, so let's just lay it out.
Marc:Today, let me tell you who I've been working with on the show.
Marc:Dave Anthony's back on Marin this season.
Marc:We shot a bunch of stuff in the rain last night.
Marc:That's always great to be out in the chilling rain at night.
Marc:I know some of you were in a blizzard the other day, kind of.
Marc:Some of you were anticipating a blizzard.
Marc:Didn't happen.
Marc:It rained a little here, but we're okay.
Marc:Thank you for asking.
Marc:So we had a little rain.
Marc:We're doing some shooting.
Marc:We're driving and shooting.
Marc:Very exciting, me and Dave Anthony.
Marc:Uh, today I worked with, uh, with Andy Kindler.
Marc:I worked with Eddie Pepitone today.
Marc:Uh, tomorrow we're going to, we're shooting a big day of, uh, who else?
Marc:Oh, Eddie Pepitone again.
Marc:I'm not going to tell you all the, uh, people playing themselves on the show cause I don't want to spoil anything, but it's going well.
Marc:It's going well.
Marc:I'm not thrilled about my hair, and most of my pants are fitting well, and the shirts I'm happy with.
Marc:I've got new shoes that I don't love because they're a little tight, and I might have fucked up, but that's the way life goes.
Marc:Now let's go to a cat update.
Marc:Look, I tell you this because people ask me, folks.
Marc:monkey and la fonda are fine okay all good ever since i've been giving them the uh monkey the prescription food his bladder's been better he's got all his energy back he's not sick fonda's getting a little fat but she's fine she's not biting me very much and she uh she seems chipper now the outdoor situation is not great i don't know what happened to deaf black cat have not seen that guy in a while might be dead
Marc:It's happened before, but it feels like he was making weird noises with his face the last time I saw him.
Marc:There's nothing I could do about it.
Marc:So I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what those noises meant.
Marc:Maybe he's around.
Marc:Don't know.
Marc:Scaredy Cat, the striped cat that's been coming around for about a decade, he was coming around and back, and he was doing fine, getting fat.
Marc:Wild cat, fat wild cat.
Marc:You know, a couple people are feeding him up the street, and I'm just another sucker making him fat.
Marc:So then all of a sudden, some other cat that looks exactly like him, only a little smaller, exactly like he just broke off a piece of himself and it grew into another thing.
Marc:Couldn't be a kitten because scaredy cat's been fixed for a while, but he looks exactly like him.
Marc:So I got these two identical striped cats and the little guy pushed the fatso out into the front.
Marc:Because I don't know, he's freaked out.
Marc:He's only eating out front and this guy's eating him back.
Marc:Some sort of weird changing of the guard of these striped cats.
Marc:I don't know if scaredy cat number one is on his way out and scaredy cat number two is coming in, but they look identical.
Marc:So that's weird.
Marc:I don't know what's ripping apart my lawn out front.
Marc:I might be skunks, might be raccoons.
Marc:That's the update from around here.
Marc:Things are fine with my relationship so far have not fucked it up.
Marc:And I'm keeping I'm keeping I'm keeping cool.
Marc:In other words, I'm repressing a lot of negative emotions and I'm calling that cool.
Marc:I'm just locking down some bullshit.
Marc:I'm just keeping it to myself and letting it fester and cause tumors inside of me so as not to cause trouble for other people.
Marc:Perhaps I should communicate better as opposed to give myself cancer.
Marc:Good idea.
Marc:I'll work on it.
Marc:Thank you for all the presents.
Marc:Thank you for all the kind letters.
Marc:Thank you for all the emails.
Marc:I'm going to start reading some emails again.
Marc:I know people want it.
Marc:It might be an easier thing to do while I'm shooting, occasionally to read the emails.
Marc:I feel stories brewing.
Marc:I'm just a little burnt out.
Marc:It's a tough schedule, my friends.
Marc:Tough schedule.
Marc:Let's talk to Brian Koppelman now.
Marc:Like, I don't really know, you know, how people do things.
Marc:Yes, I believe you.
Marc:I know what that means.
Marc:Like, how do you, at 50 years old... Right, it's like, okay, like, it's still really... I know that all I have to do, really, is spend a couple hours, make a couple calls, and I could have everything cleaned up.
Marc:I could have my driveway fixed.
Marc:I could have the wall fixed.
Marc:I could do all that.
Marc:I just have to engage.
Marc:I could...
Marc:have this guy, I could hire contractors and go live somewhere else for a while and just be like, well, that's happening.
Marc:They're doing my house.
Marc:But it's so overwhelming, the anxiety of it, that that's what's holding me back more than anything else.
Marc:And actually successful is a word.
Marc:I don't even like that word.
Guest:It's just anxiety.
Marc:Because you were successful before.
Marc:Even if I bought a house, like, oh my God, how do I make the right choice about decision making?
Marc:But there is some part of me
Marc:That doesn't quite know how other people see me.
Marc:Because successful or no successful, still, whatever I do, I come here, I do this.
Marc:The only tangible way that I know that success is changing is that there are people coming to see me.
Marc:There's more people that come.
Marc:And even that's a little weird.
Guest:Of course, you'd find it weird because you so...
Guest:It seems like you so identify yourself still as the opposition as opposed to as the seated.
Marc:I don't know if it's the opposition, because I know that I'm seated in my world.
Marc:I don't know if it's the opposition, but certainly someone who's on the outside.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:But not the opposition.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:Because I am still on the outside.
Marc:But I could make decisions and live my life a little more on the inside if I wanted to.
Marc:And you could accept that it's not all disappearing.
Guest:Because all I mean by successful is that it's not all disappearing.
Guest:I don't know about that.
Guest:But that's the work you got.
Guest:Isn't that the work you want to do?
Guest:No.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because it can all disappear.
Guest:Anything can disappear.
Guest:Well, we could die.
Guest:Yes, we could die.
Guest:I could get sick and it could disappear.
Guest:I mean, it's not... That it's not, yes, but that it's not going to, other than, yes, what people would say, other than acts of God.
Guest:Or, yeah, you could get sick, a boulder could fall out of the sky.
Guest:But...
Guest:But you are no longer going to self-destruct and even if you, weirdly, you would have to do a whole series of very dramatic things to reverse the course of all this stuff.
Marc:You just got picked up for the third season of your own TV show.
Marc:I did, but it's still like- Congratulations.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I don't know if it would take that many steps.
Marc:And I don't worry about self-destructing.
Marc:I don't really pay attention to money that much.
Marc:I just keep going.
Marc:What I'm really concerned about is not having a family, not having dependents, not having these things.
Marc:I don't know what the hell to do with myself.
Marc:So it's really like, I would rather not do anything, to be honest with you.
Marc:And people don't believe me when I say that.
Marc:But I really think that I could occupy myself.
Marc:I've done...
Marc:yeah you could write you could play music i don't need to write oh you don't even want to write no i don't what do you how would you so okay if you're not writing yeah you don't you don't uh you play guitar yeah i like to do that i'm not sure what i do it's a fantasy yes i mean you had live that out even for like it's just it's just uh it's just anxiety it's not even uh i don't think it's all going to go away necessarily i'm i you know i'm saving money and stuff but i just don't know what it all means sometimes buddy
Guest:Well, no, I get that.
Guest:Yes, it's funny, driving up here, I was thinking...
Guest:I was thinking about that no one can ever tell anybody else, certainly about the family stuff, but gosh, it's so easy to picture the way that you would change and the way that it would just light up so many things for you to do it.
Marc:Yeah, I guess so.
Marc:I'm a little cynical right now.
Marc:How long have you been married?
Guest:I've been married 20, 22 years.
Guest:No problems?
Guest:Dude, I'm like, I mean, no, that thing has been the luckiest thing in the world for me.
Guest:That's the most important decision that you make.
Guest:And I was just fucking lucky because I was 25 when I got married.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just married the right person.
Marc:And that's luck, largely luck.
Marc:But you don't strike me as a guy that's about to lose it, do some stupid shit.
Guest:I don't strike you like that, right?
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I know.
Guest:You seem like a pretty- I married the right person.
Guest:We have these great kids.
Guest:But part of it is that the person I married, and I'm the same towards her, we were just from the very beginning really on each other's, like completely on each other's missions.
Guest:So when I was 30 and miserable about what I was doing with my life,
Guest:You know, and we had just had a little kid.
Guest:Amy cleared out the storage area underneath the apartment we were living in.
Guest:That's your wife.
Guest:Amy.
Guest:And she cleared out the storage area and was like, you're going to do this.
Guest:And I'm going to handle, you know, this first year of Sammy's life.
Guest:If you have to write in the morning and then go to work and then go out and research, because, you know, it was about poker and I was like playing cards.
Guest:She was like...
Guest:you can do this is when you were writing rounders yeah and she was like with my best friend dave she cleared the space and dave and i met every morning but the but the point of it is she said uh and from the beginning we had this thing with each other that um we were just along for the we were there for like whatever this ride she didn't want to she didn't want to be married to a guy that was whining about not having done something for the rest of his wife sure maybe that's the thing maybe that's all it was
Guest:Well, there's nothing worse than living with a guy like, ah, I should have, man, finally.
Guest:But a lot of people, as you know, would douse the dream as opposed to stoking the dream.
Marc:Well, let's go back.
Marc:So this was in New York.
Marc:We didn't go anywhere.
Marc:Yeah, New York.
Guest:You grew up in New York.
Guest:I grew up an hour out of New York.
Guest:I grew up Long Island.
Guest:So you grew up on the island.
Guest:What town?
Guest:I grew up first in Westbury and then in a town called Roslyn.
Guest:Roslyn, Long Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And big house.
Guest:Oh, yeah, big house.
Guest:Yeah, when I was 13, we moved into a big house.
Guest:Before that, we lived in a fine house in a neighborhood, Jewish kids, Italian kids, Irish kids, stickball in the street, basketball.
Guest:um my dad was someone who was like made a lot of money and then would like spend it all and he had in the first sort of like 11 years was great as he never let us my sisters and me know that it sort of was in flux but uh when he at a certain point like when i ran when i was 13 it became apparent oh he did well we moved into this big ridiculous house no more italian kids no more stickball then it was just the jews
Guest:No, we'd send the driver to get him to come over and play stickball.
Guest:How many sisters you got?
Guest:I have two sisters.
Guest:And your dad's like a big deal.
Guest:Yeah, my dad was, I mean, he discovered the love and spoonful.
Guest:John Sebastian, who people say I look like him.
Guest:uh yeah my dad my dad was uh you know he was a kid he never finished college and he was a record producer he but where'd he grow up new york city queens yeah so he was part of the like what in the 60s yeah i mean he had a hit record as a singer a novelty record called yogi yeah like went to top 10 yeah when he was 18 and so he was a music business guy yeah he was a music business was he a musician
Guest:Nah, not really.
Marc:He just wrote a hit record?
Guest:Yeah, he wrote a hit record and sang a novelty record.
Guest:But he had great taste in knowing... He was able to identify what songs were going to be hit songs.
Guest:He always kind of knew that.
Guest:And when he was very young, he met Don Kirshner playing basketball somewhere.
Guest:Before Kirshner was anything?
Guest:No, Kirshner had just sort of been on the rise.
Guest:As a... Like a public... As a before...
Guest:Way before Don Kirchner's rock concert was on television.
Guest:But it was when Kirchner had this big publishing company.
Guest:That's where the money is, right?
Guest:Music publishing.
Guest:He hired my dad to be a songwriter.
Guest:And...
Guest:So my father was riding in one cubicle with this guy named Donald Rubin, his best friend and partner.
Guest:And then in the cubicle next to them was Carole King and Jerry Goffin.
Guest:And next to Carole King and Jerry Goffin, you know, would have been like... Weber and Stoller?
Guest:Sadako.
Guest:They were in another floor.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:But essentially, every person there... Aren't you in that building?
Guest:uh yeah i will yeah sometimes i record in the brill building they were in that one and one next door and then one day kershner kershner will call them in and say hey what do you think of this song what do you think of that and then finally called him in one day and said listen uh you are the worst songwriter i've ever put under contract but you really know what hit songs are and by the way i'm selling my company and uh but i have to stay here you become the president he made my dad when my dad was like 24 the president of his publishing company
Marc:Of a music publishing company.
Guest:And said, stop being a songwriter.
Guest:You're the guy who's going to pick songs from now on.
Guest:And so that's what he did.
Guest:And where did he go from there?
Guest:He did that, and then he and his friend Donald left at a certain point and started their own company with that, you know, where they signed Tim Harden, the great folk singer and songwriter, and The Spoonful, and the guys who wrote the Turtles hits, and they made those records.
Guest:So they did all that sort of like 60s pop rock stuff.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And then he had a long, incredible career in the music business.
Guest:He was very focused on pop music after a certain point.
Guest:So he made a lot of Barbra Streisand's records.
Guest:He made them in that he produced them?
Guest:He was the executive producer of them.
Guest:He would like pick the songs with Barbra, sit there in the studio with the producers.
Guest:The big records?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of the big, like the Barry Gibb record, all those records.
Guest:But I mean, he produced in the studio.
Guest:He's the guy who produced If I Were a Carpenter for Bobby Darin.
Guest:Hands on the knobs.
Guest:Yeah, for Bobby Darin.
Guest:If I Were a Carpenter, which was written by his songwriter, Tim Harden,
Guest:And Bobby Darin talks about it in a special, how he convinced him, he and his partner, to do it.
Guest:But so my dad, the life I lived, I grew up a lot in recording studios.
Guest:No Hollywood, no showbiz, so we wouldn't go to any parties.
Guest:We had a very... It is showbiz, though.
Guest:Oh, yeah, but he was very clear, and my mom was, too,
Guest:My mom would always say to me, who knows if any of this or anything is going to be left.
Guest:You better figure out how to do it on your own.
Guest:And you better not count on any of this being here in any way.
Guest:But also... But did he still own the publishing of some songs?
Guest:No, at a certain point, he didn't.
Guest:He sold them.
Guest:No, he did fine.
Guest:He was huge.
Guest:Oh, dude.
Guest:He was a gigantic... He became like...
Guest:He was one of the biggest independent music publishers who built their own thing.
Guest:And that's where all the money is in music.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:My dad did great.
Guest:There's no question about it.
Guest:How's he now?
Guest:He's awesome.
Guest:He's 75, I think, or 74.
Guest:What's he doing?
Guest:I talk to him like every day.
Guest:What's he up to?
Guest:Well, when he was like 50 years old, I think he got fired.
Guest:His last job was running EMI North America and he got fired and had a, I think he got fired, you know, paid out and all that stuff.
Guest:But everybody who runs a giant record company, especially them, they all got, you know, it's one of those jobs, you get fired basically.
Guest:And he reinvented himself over the course of five years and ended up, like, running companies that had nothing to do with entertainment.
Guest:So, I mean, it was 25 years ago, you know.
Guest:He ended up, like, running Martha Stewart's company.
Guest:He was chairman of the board of that company.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's done all sorts of... Sort of a CEO guy.
Guest:He's a consultant, board member.
Guest:Likes to work.
Guest:Loves to work.
Guest:And, you know, still, I mean, it's the greatest thing.
Guest:He's the most practical, quick...
Guest:Answers no bullshit person no airs.
Guest:I mean he really is a guy who You know was a Queens kid couldn't get through college because he was like gambling and fucking around Went into the Coast Guard so that his parents wouldn't know we failed out of college You know gotten almost got basically court-martialed out but
Guest:has a very, very clear eye, an incredible bullshit detector.
Guest:And really, at the time, he had these great ears.
Guest:He just knew.
Marc:Yeah, some people have that.
Marc:He just knew.
Marc:So you grew up around this music business and you grew up around the enchanting nature of the music business and also the business itself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were sort of like, your dad was this big mocker, which he was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you grew up with money out on the island.
Guest:Yeah, and it was, I'll tell you, it was something in me hated it.
Guest:I was like, I never talk about this, so it's good.
Guest:I'm happy to do it.
Guest:I said on the way up here.
Guest:You hated what, music?
Guest:No, I hated living in a big house.
Guest:I hated when I would have people come over
Guest:that we lived that way.
Marc:I know that feeling to a certain degree.
Marc:Because you go to school, depending on where you go to school, you got friends.
Marc:And my parents, no, it was not comparable money, but we had a big house and we had a pool.
Marc:And there was something, it was embarrassing in some weird way.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, obviously I loved and what an incredible gift it was that I never had to worry about where my meals were coming from or how I was going to pay for college.
Guest:Did you think about that then?
Guest:My mother was good at... My mom was very good at... She died six years ago, but she was incredibly good at pointing that stuff out.
Guest:But what did you hate?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I hated...
Guest:the value kind of that was i hated like the big i hated the bigness of it and i hated the grandiosity of it because i hadn't done anything to earn it so it wasn't mine so you got a car oh yeah i got a car like a car will car what was your first car i i oh dude i got uh you know like whatever you wanted yeah it didn't well no not like they weren't gonna get me a porsche but i but it was weird too i'll tell you because starting at a very young age
Guest:I think partially in reaction to it, partially because my dad was so good at from a super young age, he would have me like come in anytime I wanted to the city.
Guest:I could sit in any meeting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He would do this great thing.
Guest:Even when I was 11, 12 years old, you know, let's say he was having a meeting with some people who wanted to play songs for him or a producer who wanted to produce an act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or an artist.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:He would have me sit in the meeting, and I was always a pretty good talker, and he would say, listen, guys, you can say any fucking thing you want in front of the kid.
Guest:He would say, you know, he's heard it all.
Guest:And he would make me a participant.
Guest:He would bring me to the recording studio at 2 in the morning.
Guest:And I knew all the studio players.
Guest:I knew every bass player, like every drummer.
Guest:And...
Guest:those were the cool guys right oh it was the yeah i mean that was the great how old were you starting at like nine yeah and uh and i guess they would put away the joints when i showed up until i was like 14 then sometimes they would still get my dad would never but those guys would still get would get fucked up around me but they didn't when i was really little who were these guys which albums were you talking about oh i mean it was like the guys a bunch of the guys who became toto mm-hmm
Guest:So it was like David Hungate and Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro and Skunk Baxter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, those guys were all super cool to me.
Guest:David Foster, who, you know, was when Josh Groban was in here, he was talking about how David Foster was this giant music guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But at a young age, at 16, I started doing things that helped make a lot of money for my father.
Guest:And that was great.
Guest:Then I felt like, all right, I was helping.
Guest:I was managing these folk acts.
Guest:At 16?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Okay, so this kid named Ethan Hurwitz.
Guest:which sounds like a start.
Guest:He was a good songwriter.
Marc:So you were this precocious kid whose dad was this big deal and you kind of got music because you were living in music and you knew what your dad did.
Marc:So you're like, I'm going to manage bands, which means what?
Guest:Yeah, and I started managing bands like young, like getting them gigs and trying to get them recorded, you know, people to record them.
Marc:Were you using your name's name, your dad's name?
Guest:I mean, I wasn't, but I had a last name that they, I'm sure it helped.
Guest:But also it's so funny to have a 13 or 14 year old kid calling and being serious that I'm sure people were humoring it.
Guest:Bookering them at clubs?
Guest:Like, so here, I'll tell you that.
Guest:So like, for instance,
Guest:When Eddie Murphy was in his first year as a featured player on SNL, he had a gig at a club near my house.
Guest:Now, this was a club that was called My Father's Place.
Guest:It's a legendary place out of Long Island.
Guest:All the bands played it.
Guest:And I had made a deal with the guy there, this guy named Epi Epstein, who owned that club.
Guest:He was a giant guy.
Guest:There would always be pictures of Epi in hot tubs with girls of indeterminate age.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I'd made a deal with him.
Guest:I'd promote concerts on the weekends for kid bands playing for kid audiences.
Guest:During the day?
Guest:Yeah, like on a Saturday afternoon.
Guest:So you were a wheelie dealer.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:So as a result, when Eddie Murphy was going to play at this club, I had a folk singer kid open for him.
Guest:And the folk singer kid got booed off the stage.
Guest:I was 16, 10th grade.
Guest:And the folk singer got booed off the stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was a horrible night for him.
Guest:Eddie came out and destroyed.
Guest:And I snuck backstage afterwards.
Guest:And I went up to Eddie and I said, listen, you should be making albums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that time, I guess Lorne Michaels didn't own everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That the guys on SNL didn't.
Guest:Eddie was only a featured player.
Guest:He hadn't yet fully exploded.
Guest:He was still just playing a little club.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I found his manager backstage.
Guest:And I said, Eddie should be making records.
Guest:Was it the guy from the comic strip?
Guest:Bob Wax.
Guest:And I ended up working it out that my...
Guest:I woke my dad up in the middle of the night and I ended up working it out that they all met up the next day and Eddie's first three comedy albums were like on my dad's thing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so at that point, I then started feeling like, okay, well, I'm, you know, in some way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Contributing.
Guest:so you think this is my ticket this is what I'm going to do and be my dad's guy yeah that's what I always figured I always figured I was just going to end up being in the music thing like I figured oh I'll be a record producer I'll be an A&R person I know what this is you just did A&R with him that's all it takes to do A&R right basically that's it
Guest:And then you get points, right?
Guest:Yeah, you get points.
Guest:Did you get points on the Eddie Murphy?
Guest:Not on Eddie, but later I did, but not on Eddie.
Guest:Why didn't your dad throw you a bone?
Guest:Well, what did I just tell you?
Guest:16 years of living in the big giant house and everything.
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:I put a lot of food on the table.
Guest:You earned it.
Guest:He took me to Don Pepe's a lot of Sunday nights for pasta.
Guest:I'm not going to ask.
Guest:That would have been ballsy if you asked him.
Guest:I didn't ask.
Guest:Give me my points.
Guest:But you know what, man?
Guest:You know what was so great?
Guest:Imagine being 16.
Guest:I mean, I got to then go to the Delirious show, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And go sit there in the front, and I knew Eddie, and I got to bring my friends back.
Guest:Was that your first experience with comedy?
Guest:uh yeah maybe i mean i love no uh my first experience with comedy david steinberg and my dad were really good friends david um knew that i liked i loved comedy i loved steve martin i was a loved comedy as a kid and uh that's probably why i was set up to get how how different eddie was in a way or like what a star eddie was because i knew
Guest:I kind of like was around a lot of comedy.
Guest:But when I was 14, David Steinberg said, hey, I'm going to bring you to New York City tonight.
Guest:There's a guy performing at Caroline's.
Guest:And he's either going to be incredible or horrible.
Guest:Caroline's the one downtown.
Guest:The original.
Guest:The Supper Club.
Guest:He's either going to be incredible or he's going to be horrible.
Guest:But...
Guest:Either way, he's a genius and you're going to see something.
Guest:It was Gilbert.
Guest:And it really was like one of those things.
Guest:Like seeing that made me understand the whole world entirely.
Marc:Because I mean, the first time I met you was with Havy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:At the comedy cellar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I don't know, six years ago, maybe.
Marc:Was it?
Marc:You were upstairs and you were like this guy hanging around with Havy and I was like kind of a dick to you.
Marc:Probably.
Guest:You were asking me about... Well, yeah, because you were asking me about movies, he was like, oh, my friend Brian's a screenwriter and director.
Guest:He was like, oh, really?
Guest:What movie?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, what?
Guest:What kind of movies?
Guest:And then the worst thing is when I said ones that were actually successful movies, that was worse for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First, you were skeptical, and it went from skeptical to why the fuck does he get to do that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that what you read?
Guest:It was hilarious.
Guest:Is that what you said from me?
Guest:I had met you before, because I was there that night that you and Havy had difficulty with one another, and when you went long...
Guest:yes uh but so i saw gilbert and then i was around comedy and i was someone who wanted to be a comic and couldn't quite get up the guts to do you never tried it i later i did i did it for a year and a half you did stand up yeah for a year and when was that how did i miss that i did it uh i did it like eight years ago man after i'd already made all the like tons of movies you tell me you did it at like 40 yeah that's when i did it what are you nuts i did it for a year and a half not on the weekends but i was working during the week at stand up how'd your wife feel about that
Guest:Was she supportive?
Guest:She was like, finally, fucking do it for God's sake.
Guest:Oh, so you did have one of those things.
Guest:No, that was like, go fucking do it.
Guest:Because Heavey and I- You had nothing to lose then.
Guest:now you know that to get up on those stages no I don't want to hear about it you were comfortable oh that's really you think that's what you think I think that like all right so you made you made your money you always had a few bucks there was nothing on the line and you know you got over the stage fright and you wrote your jokes and what did you really think you were going to tour uh you know it's really I really had a moment here's what happened I was really blocked writing solitary man I was like halfway through it and I was super blocked I watched it I thought yes I know I liked it thank you ballsy movie
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yeah, it took me fucking four years to write it.
Guest:It's a ballsy movie, though.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:Yeah, no, and I felt you'd relate to it somehow.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I felt you'd relate to it on both sides, really.
Guest:I felt you would relate to it as the sun, like as the, you know, you'd relate to it from Jenna's perspective and from Michael's perspective.
Marc:But let's go, before we get to this, I mean, I'm glad you did stand-up and I'm glad you got out, but because, you know, you don't want to be that guy, do you?
Marc:What do you want to do?
Yeah.
Marc:It helped you get some courage.
Guest:I got through.
Guest:It helped me really break through a bunch of shit, man.
Marc:It was huge to do.
Guest:It's like me and singing.
Marc:I wanted to sing publicly for my whole life, and I was petrified.
Guest:But you have to back up at it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I heard you talking about that the other day when you were talking to someone on the show about how you're uncomfortable singing in public, but you've done it.
Guest:You've done it on the podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, but it's all very recent.
Marc:It was a terror.
Marc:I just broke that cherry three years ago on Greg Barron's show.
Marc:But it was an amazing thing to do.
Marc:Because if you have this fear and you have this desire to do something for your entire life, and it's something in your heart, but it's really just basic wall of fear, that if you just break through that wall and you're like, no, I'm here now.
Marc:Then it never goes back.
Guest:The wall never goes back.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was a horribly, that's the thing.
Guest:I was a crushingly blocked person until I was 30.
Guest:That was really the thing when I had to do it.
Guest:When you went downstairs?
Guest:Go downstairs and start doing this.
Marc:But what were you doing?
Marc:You were in the music business.
Guest:Yeah, and I had done fine in the music business, you know.
Marc:Where did you go from Eddie Murphy?
Marc:So what did you do?
Marc:You're 16.
Marc:You helped sign Eddie Murphy's deal.
Marc:Your dad's a big shot.
Marc:And where did you end up going to college?
Guest:I want to say, and it was largely my own choice, because the thing you even said about being, you made these movies.
Guest:You had some bucks in your pocket.
Guest:You always did.
Guest:I mean, the truth is that because I made money for myself when I was 21, which I'll tell you, I didn't, at that time, I didn't have money from anyone but myself, my wife and I. That was another piece of it.
Guest:You know, when you ask about this.
Guest:yeah my well my choice my father's a generous person but i think it's you get to be you're an adult uh i mean it doesn't mean my dad's never said hey come on a family vacation or he wouldn't offer whatever but i mean um i my wife and i have like lived on what we do the whole time and it was really you got to it really important to me no matter what yeah
Guest:to live that way especially when you come from a lot of money because that kills people well if you don't have personal value system around that you know you who knows how the hell you turn out yeah you don't have to do anything i've you know i knew i would hate myself essentially uh i would hate myself if i didn't from a young age just like go and figure it out but the battle so yes i went to college uh i was always
Guest:I was never a great student, but I did a lot of different stuff.
Guest:So I went to a good school.
Guest:I went to Tufts, which is like a good college.
Guest:I lived over there.
Guest:In Somerville?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I lived on Cottage Ave.
Guest:No, you didn't.
Guest:I did.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:I think I lived in a house that Tracy Chapman lived in.
Guest:She lived, I believe you.
Guest:I mean, I remember how she lived at the end there.
Guest:So, I mean, that was the thing.
Guest:When I went to college, I will say that the Long Island part of my life was just an incredible bubble, right?
Guest:Even when you ask that question, like I did have an awareness and I was, I had friends from every socioeconomic group the whole time, but you are in a bubble when you grow up on the North Shore of Long Island.
Guest:It's very specific, man.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's a very specific thing.
Guest:Did you have to lose the accent?
Guest:It always mattered to me not to have it, even at a young age.
Guest:Surrounded by like... I always was a reader.
Guest:I always read everything.
Guest:You don't read as a Jap.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I read everything.
Marc:But you must have run from being a Jap.
Guest:And I'm sure there are pictures of me wearing fila and all that stuff.
Guest:With your color shirt turned up, the color turned up.
Guest:No, but then Van, I mean, it doesn't, this is all, but no, I wore Capizios, man.
Guest:I went to the whole other place.
Guest:But in college, I became very, as people did, you know, I'm sure you remember the divestment movement.
Guest:From South Africa?
Guest:Yeah, because the colleges were invested in companies doing business in South Africa.
Guest:So a bunch of us, especially these Northeastern liberal arts colleges, felt it was unacceptable.
Guest:So I kind of was one of the two or three people who led that movement at my school.
Guest:And in doing that, meaning I organized all campus boycott classes to protest it, got speakers to come in.
Guest:I was really like...
Guest:at the front of that with, I don't know, maybe there were five or six of us who really like did it.
Guest:And probably even a bigger group of really radicalized people who fought, protested everything.
Guest:I really only was involved in that.
Guest:That was the one that mattered to me because that just seemed egregious.
Guest:But in doing that, a friend of mine,
Guest:A guy named Pete Zizzo, who I grew up with and also went to Tufts, said, you know, there's a folk singer.
Guest:You should get to play at this rally you're organizing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when I saw it.
Guest:That's when I went to this little coffee house that was on campus and saw Tracy Chapman play.
Guest:And...
Guest:That was a truly epiphanic moment.
Guest:My entire world shifted on its axis, man.
Guest:It was like in a movie, I was crying, everything changed.
Guest:The entire focus on my life up to that point was one thing, and from the moment she walked on that stage and started singing, for the next three years, the only thing I cared about was that.
Guest:Everything changed.
Marc:And so you were a guy that was a socially active, political, radical leader.
Marc:And then you saw Tracy Chapman.
Guest:I remember going up to her.
Guest:I remember going up to her and saying, and we were never friends, by the way.
Guest:And I could barely two years older.
Guest:I could bear it.
Guest:She's two years older.
Guest:I could barely talk to her.
Guest:You know, she was she was everything.
Guest:I mean, you think about it.
Guest:she was every single thing that i knew deep in my soul like i could never i could never have lived or understood really the life's you know raised by a single mother black cleveland poor race riots started around her when she was a little girl like the totality of what led to that and then just the extraordinary talent the ability to then uh you know the mind that she had and the voice that she had and the ability to translate
Marc:uh that experience into these songs and i really did i i i remember sitting there and um it's interesting to me because you come from this like you know your father's focus and was post the 60s folk thing but like everything it seemed that he was doing came out of that but the relevance of folk music was gone but you knew the history of it i did for sure yes
Marc:So somehow or another, you were transported to 1965.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were in the middle of a political struggle in a way.
Marc:And it was like you were given the gift of a liberal Jewish catharsis.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, you're totally right.
Guest:I was.
Guest:And yet, and I will say, and it became, it was just immediately clear to me that she was among the most gifted people walking the earth.
Guest:And I could not understand how, I remember I stayed up all night.
Guest:I walked around, I went up to her and I said, listen, I'm here because I want you to, and it's funny, we had met, we were in a class together that some moron taught and we were sitting, we would sit next to each other, but we never spoke.
Guest:And I said, hey, um,
Guest:you have to come play this rally.
Guest:Here's what we're doing.
Guest:She said, okay, I will.
Guest:And I said, but... And I remember exactly what I said.
Guest:And I said, I've been managing bands since I was 13 and producing demos and working in record companies every summer and...
Guest:And I really have worked, I said, I really have worked to be my own person, but you're so extraordinary that I really think that my dad can help you too and that we should find a way to do something together.
Guest:And she said, I'll play the rally.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:and i spent two years following her around i mean i so i i was unrepresented oh yeah unrepresented and college didn't want wasn't ready at first said like i you know i think she was she was maybe a senior and i was a sophomore i was a sophomore for sure and uh
Guest:She said, she played the rally the next day, which was my, you know, the sanity test, right?
Guest:Because I basically had stayed up.
Guest:Then I watched her the next day and it was even better.
Guest:I couldn't believe, I mean, honestly, Mark, it was talking about a revolution.
Guest:It was those songs, not Fast Car, but it was talking about a revolution and Baby Can I Hold You Tonight, all those songs from the first album.
Guest:Half the songs from the first album.
Guest:And... Have the crowd respond.
Guest:They... Well, that's the thing that the... It taught me... I'll say this.
Guest:Some of the most valuable lessons of those three years taught me things that, to this day, give me an incredible amount of strength.
Guest:Because...
Guest:She wasn't interested in all this at first.
Guest:And my dad wasn't interested because I wasn't a great student.
Guest:And I was so easily distracted by all this stuff.
Guest:And he was like, I'm sure she's great to go to school.
Guest:You know, I don't want to hear about this bullshit.
Guest:I'm sending you up to college.
Guest:He didn't graduate college.
Guest:I'm sure he was scared to death.
Guest:I wouldn't graduate college.
Guest:He really wanted me to graduate college.
Yeah.
Guest:But so I did a real record business thing, which was I went, I'd heard that Tracy had recorded for copyright purposes songs at the radio station at Tufts.
Guest:And I had a friend of mine walk me to the radio station and he distracted the DJ.
Guest:And I stole the cart that she, you know, radio carts.
Guest:I stole the cart.
Guest:They look like eight tracks.
Guest:I went in the back.
Guest:I copied the cart onto a cassette and I put the cart back.
Guest:And then I had a cassette of Talking About Revolution.
Guest:So you did a little dirty business.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did.
Guest:And I took that back to New York.
Guest:I flew back to New York and I- In a panic?
Guest:Were your father like the next day or what?
Guest:Very soon.
Guest:Yeah, because I had the tape and I listened to it.
Guest:I mean, you know what you're like at that?
Guest:I just listened to the tape a hundred times, right?
Guest:And I remember exactly where I was.
Guest:I played it for him.
Guest:And he just, you know, to my dad's credit at that time, I mean, the records he was making then were, you know, Here You Come Again, Dolly Parton and Samantha.
Guest:He was making real pop records and so far away from this and what she did.
Guest:And he heard it and he immediately said, you're right.
Guest:You're correct.
Guest:she's that good but it still took uh years i would go and follow her she would play these lesbian clubs all across new england and i would go alone and i would get mocked mercilessly by my friends at college you know and i would say who's gonna come with me and they would go we're not going with you to new hampshire to see and i would walk into a room and i'd be the only guy and it would be you know 200 women staring at me and i'm sure that i was still you know i wasn't quite in the capizios but i looked like a douchebag and uh
Guest:And eventually over time- Were you talking to her during this time?
Guest:Yeah, she would see me at every show.
Guest:I mean, she would kind of smile like, are you really, you're really here?
Guest:And again, let me say, I could barely talk to her.
Guest:We were never friends, but she understood that I was messianic about her, that I was telling everybody and trying to find a way to bring more people in.
Guest:But when you look back at it,
Marc:What was the combination of being your father's son and looking for a hit record and being moved by the power of this artist?
Guest:What was the ratio?
Guest:Well, no, I mean, the question is great because it's all what led to me leaving the music business was...
Guest:Ultimately, all my sympathies were with the artist.
Guest:Instinctively, every part of the process other than the moment of discovery and making records, I felt like dirty and gross and lying and the business did not exist in any way to serve these artists.
Marc:What's interesting, you know, because like innately my perception of you, which was which was off, was that this guy likes to be around talent.
Marc:Oh, you mean the night you met me?
Marc:No, I'm just saying, well, yeah, but whatever.
Marc:That somehow or another, and it makes sense because of your father, that whatever the message is, that your appreciation of it was very personal.
Marc:That if somebody could express themselves...
Marc:you know, in a complete way, in a unique way that, you know, either you didn't feel like you had that or you, you, you know, you, you just needed to be around that to feel like whole or to be part of something.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, my books and music and movies were the things that I, and comedy, those things were the things that I gave a shit about, right?
Guest:That's what... It sort of made you feel connected.
Guest:Yeah, but it was also the, you know, the thing Julia Cameron talks about, the shadow artist and the artist's way, which is that, uh,
Guest:But at that time, if you would have asked me, I would have said, I'll never be the person who's going to create this stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:At that time, there was no way that I thought that the people who could do that were touched and special and that no matter how much I wished I could express it, I couldn't.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's who I was then.
Guest:And that's torture, by the way.
Guest:Yeah, but if I read it, there's still some part of you that feels that.
Guest:Well, I would say, no, no, there's no part of it.
Guest:With the stand-up, there's no part of it where I feel like, I mean, I think I've written, directed, or produced 13 movies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I do it.
Guest:So you're all good.
Guest:I mean, all good.
Guest:No, every day, I just wish you, no, no, I wish I were, every day, this is true, I wish I were better at it every day.
Marc:But you said that, you know, in that process with her over those three years that you learned something that guided your entire life or that there was a wisdom.
Guest:Well, a huge, yeah, because it's something that's repeated itself, which is that when we, so finally I got them together.
Guest:We all met.
Guest:Who, you and your father?
Guest:My father and Tracy.
Marc:How did you explain to Tracy Chapman?
Marc:Did you keep it a secret that you had the tape?
Marc:No, I told her.
Guest:i told her what did she say she just i mean she she wasn't she was a woman of few words right but she also probably didn't believe your bullshit for a while the whole time she didn't believe i mean the whole time who's this jewish kid yeah well i mean i don't even think she wasn't like who's just like who's this fucking what is this what does he care about this for but eventually i do believe that uh
Guest:Well, I know eventually we got together and then I went into a studio with Tracy and recorded acoustic demos, like 20 songs, 22 songs.
Guest:After you met with your father?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Then we said, can we record demos?
Guest:What was the moment where she finally relented?
Guest:I mean, it was nice.
Guest:Did your dad have to fly up?
Guest:Oh, she flew down.
Guest:Yeah, he flew up to see her.
Guest:He flew up to see her for sure.
Guest:And she liked him, I think, immediately, and probably more than she liked me, you know, because he was not conflicted.
Guest:Like, the thing you're talking about is he was definitely unconflicted and only- He was like, we can make a record.
Guest:We did this, you're a great artist and we'll make a record.
Guest:I was like, you're the, you know, on the one hand- You're gonna save the world.
Guest:You saved the world, and on the other hand, but sign on the, you know, like sign on the, I was sign on the dotted line because I see, I mean, it was a real split, right, for me.
Marc:um though i didn't know that then then i would have said to you and i would have meant that it was only about her yeah but there's also this this this interesting psychodynamic that you know like this was you know you had this passion and commitment for for musical artists and your father was a vehicle but this was also you know you're on your father's turf and you're doing a big thing
Guest:Well, yeah, but yes.
Guest:You're going to make a hit record.
Guest:But to me, this really big thing, but you have to remember where the world was then.
Guest:When we made these demos and then tried to get her signed to a major label, right?
Guest:Because my dad had at that time a publishing company and a small production company, couldn't distribute a record, didn't pay to record an album.
Guest:We did demos and then went and shopped her for a label deal.
Guest:and these you and your dad yeah these well for me and my separately and together we were because i had worked because uh i was so interested in it like every summer i worked i was always out watching bands i knew people at every label because my father was it's funny you know the way in which he was incredibly generous to me although he would certainly like have been and paid for college and law school and all that stuff
Guest:But the way was he would always, a lot of guys who were successful, they want to smother the people around them.
Guest:And he would always, like if I was going into a room or into a world, like go do your thing, man.
Guest:Make it happen.
Guest:You were going to law school?
Guest:later I went to law school yeah I did a lot of shit I graduated law school but I never practiced um and uh but that was later that was for a whole different reason that was when I was knew I had to leave music and do something that was uh like real and I was gonna go I want to practice civil rights law that was what I was gonna do I read Morris D's book A Season for Justice and that book blew my mind and then
Guest:Right away at law school, I realized, well, this isn't the way to effect change.
Guest:But I was already in and I just, I finished.
Guest:I went at night.
Guest:I was working full time and I went at night.
Guest:But to the Tracy lesson, to get back to the thing that I felt was ultimately such an empowering lesson, but miserable at the time, these A&R guys would come up and women would come up to Boston.
Guest:Tracy would perform in front of 300 people going crazy because she had built a real audience for herself in New England.
Guest:She would play all those songs with that voice.
Guest:They would stand up and give her four encores.
Guest:The A&R person would almost have tears in their eyes, and they would say to me, can I please meet her?
Guest:I'm so blown away by this.
Guest:And I would say, yeah, so come back, meet her.
Guest:I'd walk them to their car, and they would say, you know I can't sign her.
Guest:And I said, what do you mean?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:They said, well, I mean, no one's going to play it.
Guest:No one's going to buy it.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:This woman is the real deal, but I would like a copy.
Guest:I'm glad I have the demo.
Guest:They all passed except for one person, the guy at Electric Records, the president of Electric Records, Bob Krasnow.
Guest:And even Bob, so then senior year of college, making the record, that summer before senior year, me and one other guy figured out who should produce the record.
Guest:Got rejected by tons of producers.
Guest:I still know a bunch of these guys.
Guest:I would take them out and try to convince them.
Guest:And they all said, like, this is never going to happen.
Guest:And how can this work?
Guest:And no one cares about this kind of music.
Guest:And we got this guy, David Kirshenbaum, to produce it.
Guest:And every day they were FedExing me.
Guest:He was recording that album in L.A.
Guest:I was in Boston.
Guest:they would send me every day the basic tracks.
Guest:And I'm a senior in college getting these tapes of this album being made and giving my notes.
Guest:And I was the one doing it.
Guest:Now, it's weird.
Guest:I never talked to Tracy during that process.
Guest:I only talked to Kirshenbaum.
Guest:What is your credit on that record?
Guest:Executive producer.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I had a point on that album.
Guest:So that's when I had the point.
Guest:I mean, on that album, I asked for and got a point.
Guest:So you're a senior in college, you're getting these records, and what's the lesson?
Guest:Well, no, the lesson was that we finished the album
Guest:and go and present it to Elektra, and they say, this is great.
Guest:And I remember it was a huge conference table, and every single person stood up and said, I can't get it played on my format, and none of the stores I sell till will buy it.
Guest:And I remember my dad stood up, and he said, you guys all love it personally?
Guest:And they said, yeah, my wife loves it, my husband loves it.
Guest:And he said, then you're all out of your minds.
Guest:Like, what the fuck have you bought into?
Guest:Go sell the record.
Guest:And the president of the record company, the guy who walked us back, my dad's office is like around the corner, and he walked us back, and he said, your father's insane, Brian.
Guest:uh if you sell 50 000 albums you've won and started a career and done something important and beautiful and never forget that and uh you know the thing sold 13 million albums worldwide and and it just the experts i realize the experts don't know any better than i do everyone's afraid and they're all scared and they are especially when something touches that special place in them their instinct is to run from it
Marc:But it's weird because what that means is that they're instinctively false instincts about what they think people want, the public, and that they're somehow insulated and unique in their emotions.
Marc:Because all they do is look at the market.
Marc:What's selling?
Marc:What's selling?
Marc:What's selling?
Guest:That has repeated itself over and over and over again.
Guest:With movies, too.
Guest:I mean, I've told this story before, but I mean, you know, the stuff we're talking about now, I mean, this is deep history.
Guest:I'm 48.
Guest:I mean, this happened when I was 21 and 22.
Guest:And, you know, I left the music business at 30.
Guest:So the last 18 years have been far away from it.
Guest:But I will say, you know, Rounders was rejected, that script, by every single agency in Hollywood.
Guest:And the day that then Harvey Weinstein bought it, they all called us and all wanted to sign us.
Guest:And they all rejected us and said it'll never be a movie, and then it becomes this really important cultural landmark.
Guest:So the lesson is what?
Guest:The experts are fucking wrong all the time.
Guest:They don't know.
Guest:The gatekeepers, the gatekeepers... They're just concerned about keeping their job as the gatekeeper.
Guest:Yeah, but you know that as the person doing the thing...
Guest:It's very hard to not let it penetrate you.
Guest:It's very hard for it not to be wounding.
Guest:Because especially when you invest so much in creating, it's very hard.
Guest:And especially for young artists who are trying.
Guest:And those are people I try to talk to all the time.
Guest:It's very easy to turn back and to change fundamentally what the thing is that you do.
Guest:And to believe that their judgment is right because on her business card, it says vice president or on his, it says general manager.
Guest:But in fact, most of the time, they don't fucking know.
Marc:And also it's relative to your expectation as well.
Marc:I mean, it's like if you're just passionate about what you're doing.
Marc:It doesn't necessarily mean it's like this has got to sell to everyone in the world, but it is worthy.
Guest:Well, yeah, I would never have said to you, oh, this album is going to sell over 10 million copies worldwide.
Guest:So what happened to your relationship with her?
Guest:What happened to her career?
Guest:Well, she ended up, I mean, a couple years later, she had that huge song, Give Me One Reason.
Guest:That was a song we had demoed together all those years earlier.
Guest:Did you do all her records?
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm sure my dad had it.
Guest:I only was involved in the first one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um although songs that she and i had recorded and like that i'd helped choose which ones ended up being on some subsequent records no man uh we did not have any relationship really i mean i i saw her she definitely when she was recording the second album i went to the studio once the producer the same guy called me and i the last time i saw tracy was then so i was probably 24.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:Was there gratitude?
Guest:You know, I will say this.
Guest:My gratitude to her is so enormous because my entire life changed.
Guest:What I said to her, I think she felt she had lawyers and everybody made sure of it, but I think she felt somehow that...
Guest:Why didn't she own her song?
Guest:Why was there a publishing deal?
Guest:Why did we have points on her?
Guest:I think she felt, though never articulated this to me.
Guest:I never understood exactly.
Guest:I've had to intuit what her story is.
Guest:And I've tried a couple years ago to reach out to her and say like, hey, let's meet.
Guest:And I still very much want to because I have incredibly high regard for her.
Guest:I was absolutely...
Guest:you know hurt by it for sure that uh i had spent so much time and energy uh in trying to get her music to the world i never i don't think she ever knew that um how deeply involved i was in the making of that first album the musicians know and the producer knows but i don't think she ever knew because i and it's my failing
Guest:I thought she was so many leagues and levels beyond me in terms of depth, intellect, authenticity, experience, that I could never talk to her, really.
Guest:Other than to sort of, in a very inchoate way, say, I understand what you're doing, and it's really important, and I want to help you.
Guest:So that all definitely...
Guest:That's what I could communicate.
Guest:But I don't think she knows that, like, you know, when they recorded talking about a revolution, they recorded it, you know, 10 beats a minute too slow.
Guest:And I, you know, got them all on the phone and had them redo it and resend me the track or the mixes or the... Like, there's no way because I was too scared to talk about it.
Guest:I was 20 or 21 years old.
Guest:I couldn't figure out how to... And she never responded to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Someday.
Guest:I'll run into her somewhere.
Guest:The last time I saw her was at the studio in the parking lot.
Guest:And she rolled down her window and she smiled at me.
Guest:And I said, it was out here.
Guest:And...
Guest:I said, thanks.
Guest:I said, listen, you really, no matter what, you know, my life's forever changed for having seen you, and I'll be forever grateful.
Guest:And she said, listen, we changed each other's lives, and I feel the same way about that.
Guest:So we had that moment.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah, you know, it was a long time ago, and...
Guest:And I know that whatever the narrative she has, and her narrative may be correct.
Guest:You know, I can't... I will say that...
Guest:That having been there to help do that.
Guest:And she would have found her way in some way.
Guest:Maybe.
Marc:I mean, who knows what her idea of it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do.
Guest:And it was in so many ways because ultimately having done that released me.
Guest:from having to uh compete with this idea of what my dad did in that business and that i had to do it and it was enabled me to go okay i that happened i did it uh-huh and i you know had a few more of those things but like so they're in so many ways uh but if you're asking me is uh
Guest:Is there a part of me that's still heartbroken by what I can't understand what happened?
Guest:Sounds like that parking lot thing could be enough.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What exactly do you expect?
Marc:I mean, some of you said she didn't talk much.
Guest:I guess I expect it as a grown-up person now.
Guest:I would love to know...
Guest:the ways in which I let her down, right?
Guest:I would like to know what part of that wasn't communicated properly.
Marc:Yeah, but that might just be your own desire to confirm something that is a fundamental element of your personality of not thinking good enough.
Marc:Maybe there isn't any of that.
Marc:I mean, gratitude's a big deal.
Marc:If somebody is genuinely grateful, and even in that moment she expressed that to you and you felt it, maybe she's transcended whatever the hell you need to feed yourself loathing.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I'll buy all that.
Guest:I like that you're doing this because I always do this exact thing for people, but yeah, that's possible.
Guest:But then also just on a human level, this thing did happen that...
Guest:was a really significant thing.
Guest:And I have, you know, I have, it's one of the only things about which I have very unresolved feelings because I've, throughout my life, because I've always tried to like own it wherever I was, I've tried to like, you know, square accounts.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Marc:It sounds like it might be square.
Marc:Okay, great.
Marc:You know, I mean, whatever, like a lot of times our emotional needs can't be met because you might be making something up.
Marc:Yeah, maybe she just didn't give a shit.
Marc:Yeah, who knows?
Marc:Maybe, like, whatever your assumptions are about what effect you had in a negative way or where you failed her, they might be your projections.
Marc:You're running on no evidence.
Marc:It sounds like the last exchange you had with her, you shared, like, you know, a mutual moment of gratitude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're sort of like, no, but I must have.
Marc:Why?
Guest:Yeah, no, I guess it's the desire.
Guest:You know what it is.
Guest:It's the desire.
Guest:It's either the desire to, yes, to confirm worst self-opinion or it's the desire to be seen.
Guest:It's the desire to be sort of like seen.
Marc:Yeah, but I also think that you might be, you know, the way you're talking about your initial relationship with her, even though it was one-sided, I mean, you were consumed with this person.
Guest:Yes, that's accurate.
Marc:So, I mean, you know, whatever it was, you know, heartbreak is relative.
Marc:I mean, those feelings that you had, you know, they were unrequited in a way.
Guest:Yeah, yes, for sure.
Guest:They were, and then, and I guess Norm, and then the fact that, I guess it's this, right?
Guest:The fact that everything I said to her would come true, came true.
Guest:And so then I would, some part of me wants to be able to just, like, understand that on balance, like on balance, was this bad for, like on balance, was this bad for her?
Guest:Or was it good for her?
Guest:What would your dad have done?
Guest:Oh, I mean, he would say they always break your heart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Move on.
Guest:Yeah, move the fuck on, man.
Guest:They're going to break their heart.
Guest:They're going to break your heart.
Guest:But I'm built slightly differently than he is.
Marc:So you were in the music business for another eight years?
Marc:Nine years?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:Like, quickly.
Marc:A&R for different labels.
Guest:So you were the guy who went out and found the things?
Guest:Yeah, and I found a couple of them.
Guest:Like who?
Guest:Things that became hits, I was sometimes ahead of it.
Guest:So like I signed David Gray to his first American deal.
Guest:I signed Five for Fighting to their first American, to their like a deal, John Androsik and Five for Fighting.
Guest:This guy, Josh Cattison, sold a couple million albums that I signed.
Guest:And then as I kind of like advanced up the ranks,
Guest:this guy who I brought in brought D'Angelo to me and we signed him together.
Guest:And that was a big deal thing.
Marc:It's a tough business because like, you know, these A&R guys, they have their runs.
Marc:So if you weren't going to gun him for executive or, you know, some...
Guest:It's brutal because but no, the part that's bad is that especially then the artists were treated so shittily and that it was what it was impossible from.
Guest:It was really difficult to marshal the forces for me to to get them all to understand what was really special about these.
Guest:So like David Gray, who then, you know, two years later sold 5 million albums.
Guest:To him, I couldn't keep my word because I told him I flew around the world to sign him.
Guest:I'd heard his little record that he'd made in England and spent a year and a half like going, hey, when you're going to get out of this little deal, come make a record in America.
Guest:And then I couldn't keep my word to him because I couldn't get them to put the records in the stores.
Guest:I couldn't.
Guest:So but but I mean, what started to happen, Mark?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:was that when my son was born, which was really when I was almost 30, when my son was born, I realized that I wouldn't... It's good, I journaled a lot then, so I actually know this is what I was thinking.
Guest:It sounds almost too pat.
Guest:But what I realized was I'm miserable.
Guest:I don't want to be the guy telling somebody to rewrite their chorus and then helping them rewrite the chorus and then telling them, oh, that bridge is really the second verse and the second verse is the bridge.
Guest:I realized that I would not be able to tell my kids
Guest:that they could follow whatever their dream in life was if I wasn't.
Guest:And I knew that if I didn't find a way to become somebody who did it, who wrote and made movies, that I would have, I would never get over it.
Guest:What was your dream?
Marc:But that was the dream initially?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So the music thing was just sort of like, all right, dad.
Guest:All my friends were writers.
Guest:What I realized was every person, it wasn't, it's not the thing you said about talent.
Guest:All my friends were writers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just wanted to be around people who wrote.
Guest:And I was the guy who people would give their stuff to to make better.
Guest:And, oh, hey, how should I fix it?
Guest:What should I edit?
Guest:But I was a horribly blocked writer.
Guest:I couldn't get five pages.
Guest:You know, I'd write five great pages, and then I couldn't write anything else.
Marc:So in essence, the opportunity, like the Tracy Chapman event was innate because you grew up in it.
Marc:And it served a lot to sort of honor your father, honor yourself, level the playing field.
Marc:You did what you had to do.
Marc:And, you know, you realize you couldn't be your dad on some level, even though that business was your business.
Marc:And then you found this, you knew this other thing was going on.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I just realized I was miserable.
Guest:I just hated myself.
Guest:I went to law school because I felt like, oh, all these people in the record business are a bunch of fucking idiots, and also I'm wasting my talent, and I'm wasting my brain, and nobody reads, and nobody knows what's going on in the world, and they don't care.
Guest:So I went to law school where a lot of great people, I was at night, which was awesome, at Fordham at night, because you have a lot of cops who are trying to better themselves.
Guest:You have a great crew of people at night, and it's a great law school.
Guest:But still, I had this other thing that was like eating me alive.
Guest:I never smoked cigarettes in my life.
Guest:I've never had substance, you know, luckily, no substance issues.
Guest:I started fucking smoking.
Guest:Who starts smoking at 29?
Guest:I remember sitting in my office in the record business, smoking a cigarette,
Guest:Fat, miserable.
Guest:I knew this artist had called me from the middle of the country.
Guest:The records weren't in the stores.
Guest:They're playing in-store without the records there.
Guest:Oh, you were dealing with that shit?
Guest:Oh, yeah, because I would give your word to these people.
Guest:Come and sign, and I'll protect you, and then you can't, and it's helpless.
Guest:But all that was the sort of like outer layer stuff.
Guest:I knew that I had to see if I was the thing or I wasn't the thing.
Guest:And that I would never be happy if I couldn't figure it out.
Guest:And if I didn't chase it, I would never forgive myself.
Marc:And is that 30 or 40?
Marc:30.
Marc:30.
Guest:So that's when he said to your wife, I got to do this.
Guest:Well, she'd been saying it to me for years.
Guest:She was like, you're supposed to be writing and making movies and making television.
Guest:You're not supposed to do this.
Guest:Not getting fat and smoking.
Guest:Heading for a heart attack land.
Guest:Yeah, what are you doing?
Guest:Worrying about records.
Guest:He was like, yeah, why?
Guest:And I went to my best friend who has been my best friend since we're 14 years old and I'm a year and a half older.
Guest:And he had been writing and trying to do it.
Guest:He had written a novel that later got published.
Guest:he knew he would send me screenplays sometimes of people.
Guest:And I said, I really, let's do this thing.
Guest:Let's figure out how to write a movie.
Guest:And he said, all right, we're going to read these things, you know, read the art.
Guest:He gave me the artist's way.
Guest:He said, do the artist's way.
Guest:No Sid Field?
Guest:He's going to unblock...
Guest:Oh, I hate that shit.
Guest:None of that.
Guest:He said, read the artist's way because that'll help you get unblocked.
Guest:And then I had also started playing poker all the time.
Guest:But in L.A., I walked into a poker club in New York, looked around, and it was the second one of those moments.
Guest:I looked at it.
Guest:I called him in the middle of the night, and I go, really the third thing like that professionally.
Guest:I walked in, looked at the poker room.
Guest:It was this illegal poker room.
Guest:I heard the way the people were talking.
Guest:I saw how they dressed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, how has no one made the movie?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so Dave and I just met every morning and wrote that script.
Guest:Did you have a poker problem?
Guest:Almost.
Guest:Any other gambling is really bad for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I start to play blackjack or craps, I'll lose everything.
Guest:I'll ask you for your money.
Guest:I'll max out my thing.
Guest:If I only stick to poker, everything's fine.
Guest:There's a little skill set to poker.
Guest:It's different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I became obsessive about it.
Guest:And so, you know, then we did have this miraculous thing of, you know, it got rejected, but we were... Rounders.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that... But, you know, it... Getting to make that movie, which really did start... There have been documentaries about it.
Guest:It really started the poker boom.
Guest:And although the movie wasn't a hit in theaters, you know, it became a real cultural thing that matters to a group of people sort of like...
Guest:You know, men, 45 and under.
Guest:Really, really give a shit about that movie.
Guest:And then I, you know, was able to do this thing.
Guest:That got you in as a writer.
Marc:That was 18 years ago.
Marc:And then you wrote a bunch of other movies.
Marc:Yeah, then wrote other movies and produced and directed.
Marc:Well, no, I know, but like some of these are big movies.
Marc:Like when you do a movie like Walking Tall...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How much time do you spend with the original?
Guest:No, Walking Dead was a four week rewrite.
Guest:Oh, that was it?
Guest:And no, but like Ocean's 13, that's a real, you know, that Dave and I wrote that movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're on set of that movie every day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yeah, that was, I mean, that was.
Guest:That's a big movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was an incredible thing to be able to be a part of and to do.
Marc:And that opportunity.
Marc:So what was that?
Marc:The third in the series or the second?
Marc:Third.
Marc:So it's a franchise already.
Guest:You know the guys.
Marc:It must be fun to be able to write for the characters as they stand.
Guest:Giant pressure writing it because if we didn't write a script that they wanted to make, everyone would have just blamed us.
Guest:Was that your first real big money movie as a writer?
Guest:Well, in what way?
Guest:You mean getting paid a lot of money?
Guest:No, we started getting paid a lot soon after Rounders.
Guest:Yeah, because you start getting hired... The way Hollywood works, if you write a movie that people regard and that has cool, swaggery dialogue in their mind, Hollywood's mind, then they'll ask you to do that.
Guest:Well, then they want you to do that on their big movie.
Marc:Even do a pass, you get some money, right?
Guest:Yeah, but I will say that this is...
Guest:I don't know that this is good or bad, this is just true.
Guest:Half the movies we made are indie movies and we, I'd say a few different times, sort of like I was able to amass some savings and then use those savings so that my family didn't have to change their quality of life while making a movie for free for two years.
Guest:Like, a few different times, a couple times, we went, and in order to be able to make a movie, had to not make any money.
Guest:You know, go from making a lot of money to making no money for a year and a half.
Guest:But you had everything in order.
Guest:It wasn't like you were... No, I mean, no, at the end of those... No, it's very scary at the end.
Guest:At the end of that period of time...
Guest:um a couple of different times we had to like scramble to go like okay like i know at the end of solitary man i had no say no i had some like retirement my money in my kids college accounts that you couldn't get yeah but i had no savings left after that movie that was like because you know uh you you gotta live well but but there's also like but you're you're passionate enough it's amazing thing to commit to a movie because you know when i hear people talk about it i don't have the nerves for it
Marc:You know, to have a vision, to execute the vision and then to stay in it for the years that it takes to make the vision a reality to me is daunting.
Marc:And it causes anxiety just to think about it, to have that much to have the fortitude to commit to it.
Guest:Yeah, I don't I'll say that the committing to it.
Guest:To be able to get lost in doing that is the greatest.
Guest:It's like such an incredible reward.
Marc:I guess at every step of the way, especially with something like Solitary Man, you know, you got the idea, then you got the story, then you got the script, and then you get somebody like Michael Douglas attached to it.
Marc:Then at every turn, there's juice.
Guest:But I mean, writing it took four years, and I was miserable in the middle of it, and I couldn't figure it out.
Guest:Well, couldn't you figure out?
Guest:So I was still a couple of things I want to say, which is one, the thing you said before, you said two things that I think are not exactly true.
Guest:One, which really is annoying, is that that there was nothing at stake when I was doing stand up, because that for you to say that when all you judge people on is whether they've actually done it or not is bullshit, because there's nothing else in the world, as you've said.
Guest:It doesn't matter what the fuck you have if you're standing on that stage and bombing.
Guest:And I did it four nights a week.
Guest:Like I did it every night.
Marc:Well, what I meant by that, and I don't want you to misunderstand me, is that there's a difference between, you know, and as you did with the music business, not necessarily quite the same.
Marc:But when you go all into something and there is nothing behind you is different.
Guest:But I didn't know, I will say this.
Guest:I was so, I lead all the time.
Guest:And that's why, as you know, I do this podcast now, The Moment.
Guest:And I just don't calculate.
Guest:So I just lead by, when you say the thing about going into a movie, I would never think about the ramifications of it.
Guest:All I think about is,
Guest:The whole pursuit for me is to be authentic and to be comfortable in my skin.
Guest:Every part of the way has been a journey to get to, like, you know, are you okay?
Guest:Is to get to, like, am I okay?
Guest:Am I being exactly what I want to be?
Guest:To be yourself.
Guest:Yeah, am I being what I want to be?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so until I did stand-up and knew and put in...
Guest:like 18 months of really doing it, I didn't know.
Guest:Like I had to know, could I do it?
Guest:Could I actually hang?
Guest:Could I follow Todd Lynn?
Guest:And could I follow Chris Rock?
Guest:And could I stand it when Todd Lynn was in the back of the club watching me, knowing that he thought- He's the guy.
Guest:Look at this.
Guest:Well, cause you know, he was like, look at this.
Guest:And then when he came up to me and you know, he's the, I mean, that guy was so difficult and came up to me and he was brilliant and so fucked up and brilliant.
Guest:And, you know, he was like, oh, you could fucking do this.
Guest:I hate you.
Guest:You could really do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's how I became friends with Goldman and Dan Soder and all those dudes was because like Soder tells the story that he was sure I was a construction worker until because I didn't talk.
Guest:No one.
Guest:They didn't know at first what I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Soder was like, I thought you were a construction worker the first three months I knew you.
Marc:well i i get it i i get the warrior uh approach and i get that you had something to prove to yourself and others and i had to like go and do it i understand but no but i remember but it's still hard for me not to look at you as a weekend warrior on some level i'm glad you did it yeah but uh but first of all anyone who acts no weekend warrior is somebody who went to three open mics and a couple bringer shows
Guest:All right.
Guest:All right.
Guest:No, isn't there?
Guest:Tell me something.
Guest:Is there not a difference between showing up Wednesday at 1210 at Boston with nine drunks, three of them Scandinavian in the audience and having to figure out how to get through that with like your dignity?
Marc:Yeah, but there's some part of you that wanted to beat the shit out of yourself in order to find yourself, and that was a fine venue to do it.
Marc:Yeah, but anybody who's done comedy... No, no, I get that.
Guest:I'm not taking away your experience, but I mean, the way you're framing it is that... Well, because the terror... I guess this is what the point is.
Guest:The battle for me to actually get to being... And the reason I talk about it is I hear from people every day who are sitting in whatever their job is and they have this fucking dream that they don't chase down.
Guest:Because they think... But this wasn't your dream.
Guest:This was something you had to do.
Guest:If you talk to Havy, he would say to you that when I was like... I would go with him to the fucking cellar when I was 22 years old.
Guest:Right?
Guest:So I was doing A&R.
Guest:I would go with Havy to the cellar every weekend.
Guest:Certainly for like a year and a half.
Guest:Yeah, but you just told me that your dream was to be a movie writer.
Guest:Yeah, but to be actively creative and living it.
Guest:No, and then what it came to was, yes, I have to be able to do this thing and write movies.
Guest:But I'd written all these movies with a partner, my best friend Dave.
Guest:I hadn't written a movie alone and still had the question, could I really get in there and...
Guest:And write this thing, because that movie was super important to me to write.
Guest:And when I was at the point in the middle of it where I couldn't solve it, something said to me, you're still scared.
Guest:And the reason you're still scared is the thing that you've been the most terrified of in your life, in all this stuff, is can you stand on a stage with a microphone and get through it?
Guest:And I was like, fuck.
Guest:And I had to fucking do it.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Marc:And I respect that.
Marc:I'm not taking your experience away from me.
Marc:Because it's hard.
Marc:No, but what I'm saying is, like, you know, I did morning radio for a year and a half.
Marc:I would never call myself a radio guy.
Guest:You've never heard me say, I'm a comedian.
Guest:I would never say that.
Guest:I agree with you.
Guest:I would never say, I'm a comedian.
Guest:Yeah, but you needed to do it.
Guest:I'm glad you did it.
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Marc:But was that to, like, not only, because it seems to me in watching the film, that in order to garner any sympathy for that character...
Marc:That it had to be so true.
Marc:And the thing that you're talking about, the fearlessness in the face of failure to the point of almost sociopathology, that was instrumental in that character.
Marc:That, you know, somebody who was fearless to the point of denial and inability to change.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, that character in that movie, I mean, came out of some people that I knew and out of anger.
Guest:You know, I started writing it out of anger and... What do you mean, anger?
Guest:I started writing it out of anger because...
Guest:Someone I know very well, their father is very much like, not my dad, is very much like that guy and did the thing at the opening of the movie, which is he was going to meet his grown-up daughter.
Guest:And his grown-up daughter said, hi, dad.
Guest:And he said, don't call me dad in public because it makes it too hard to pick up women.
Guest:And when I heard that story, I got so enraged that a man would say that to his daughter and like hurt her in that way.
Guest:Deny his, you know, deny his own daughter because he called dad that I wrote the first 20 pages in almost exactly as they are in the movie, just in a fever the next morning and then had these pages staring at me.
Guest:and knew that if I could get that character going for a whole movie, it could really be something.
Marc:But in order to do that, the weird thing about it is that even me and the familiarity with that character, I mean, whether it was your friend's father or not, that character is that character.
Marc:That character, on some level, is every man if he had game.
Marc:So the thing is, is that innately, that character is sympathetic and should not read that way.
Marc:To me, anyways.
Marc:And I think that the challenge that it seems to me that you were up against was making that guy human.
Guest:Yes, for sure.
Guest:Being able to have him talk in a way that you would take the ride with him.
Guest:Dave and I directed it together.
Guest:And we were incredibly lucky that Michael said he'd do the movie because Michael has so much charm and is able to put that across.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He's only gotten better.
Guest:And I guess part of it also was Mark Parts in the movie had to be funny.
Guest:And maybe I just had to get up on stage to know that I could make it funny.
Marc:No, look, you had to get up on stage to break through a wall for yourself.
Marc:Yeah, just to know that the rejection, just to know that I could live through that rejection.
Marc:Sure, the rejection of nine people at 1210 in the morning.
Marc:For some reason, it takes a very, in those moments, it seems all important to the entire world.
Guest:So, no, why is that somehow worse than- The world is watching.
Guest:Because, yeah, I once bombed in front of like 300 people at Caroline's early, and it was not nearly as bad as the nine.
Marc:Well, you think you should be able to manage that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I mean, Christ, if you can't charm nine people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yes, the nine people.
Guest:You go one by one.
Guest:Yeah, you just can't.
Guest:You just can't fathom that you have that little ability to connect.
Marc:Sometimes, yeah, I mean, it's easier to bomb in front of a big audience, I think.
Marc:Because it's easier to gauge because you got all these people.
Marc:It's like, that's not quite enough laughter for a room this size.
Marc:With nine people, you almost feel your heart connecting to them.
Marc:So they're right there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not this big...
Guest:And it's a fascinating thing, too, because it's fascinating how quickly you can turn mean.
Guest:It's just a fascinating thing.
Guest:Yeah, but that's connecting.
Guest:Yeah, but it's a fascinating thing to do, to see the places that you'll go in desperation.
Marc:But that's the thing about stand-up.
Marc:It's like, you can do whatever the fuck you want to.
Marc:And certainly, at a 1210 spot on a Thursday or Tuesday, it's like, who's going to tell you?
Marc:The door guy who wants to be a comic that you're doing something wrong?
Marc:You can literally go up on stage and look at people and go, fuck you.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you might get hit.
Marc:But you could do it.
Guest:No, and the amazing thing is that when the people that you know then, that I knew then, that I did open mics with, and that then, you know, there are two sane people in the open mic who became, I mean, you really like the connection you have with the people who were in those clubs.
Guest:It's like a very intense.
Marc:Well, yeah, it always is, even if it's only for a day.
Marc:Because the life is so specific.
Marc:And the commitment to it and the connection of the weird selfishness of all of us.
Marc:Yet we're all so close in some weird way.
Marc:It's very bizarre.
Guest:It's an intense thing.
Guest:And so the other thing that you said that I think is not...
Guest:is only half right when you said that I struck you as someone who wanted to be around talent.
Guest:And I know what you mean by talent.
Guest:The way people in the business use that term.
Guest:It's actually more... It's simpler and more innocent than that, which is that I...
Guest:I am always searching out genius.
Guest:And I am constantly in trying to push myself to be better.
Guest:And also when someone's work, it's not talent.
Guest:I don't give a shit about fame, about meeting famous people or about meeting people who are regarded by the world.
Guest:uh i care about uh if i think that they're special and great and that their work is amazing that i want to be around because i want to like learn from that i want to look at it uh i want to uh engage in some way and be able to talk about that's why i do my podcast uh because i mean the whole premise of it is that uh
Guest:You know, I'm fascinated by how like remarkable people process big moments, bigger, you know, good or bad.
Guest:We're really not remarkable people that it's people who accomplish remarkable things.
Guest:Like how do they handle crushing disappointment or huge success and move forward?
Guest:I'm just fascinated.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But what is it?
Marc:Why?
Marc:What do you feel like you're lacking?
Guest:I don't know what I'm lacking.
Guest:What am I lacking?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I am... When are you going to know?
Guest:You never know, man.
Guest:You know, all you can do is try to keep going, right?
Guest:Like, how can you really know...
Guest:what it would be like to do something really beautiful.
Guest:And then I realized, just do the work.
Guest:At a certain point, I realized, well, just do your best.
Guest:Do the work.
Guest:Don't worry about that.
Guest:But I still like having the conversations.
Guest:I still like hearing it.
Guest:Part of me probably still thinks,
Guest:It kills me that David Foster Wallace, I met him twice, but it kills me that he died.
Guest:And I never got to really hear it from him.
Guest:What does it feel like to be that?
Guest:What does it really feel like?
Guest:to be that deep and that smart.
Guest:Apparently it felt a little too much.
Guest:But I don't know, that pursuit is still enormous.
Guest:I mean, when you're a writer, and you create characters even, you're trying, I mean, I don't think about what it is I'm trying to work out and that stuff, but you're trying to touch
Marc:some experience uh in a way that's different than you experience it or understand it well i'll tell you that movie solitary man took a couple of turns i didn't see coming and they were very bold but uh you know the ending as ballsy ending
Guest:yeah thanks i i remember writing the ending of it and knowing uh it's not good i was never gonna change it and there might have been one day it was great because dave levine my partner is like one of the greatest guys on i mean to me you know the best guy i know and uh
Guest:the right before we started did you look at that ending and go like well not a lot of people are going to see this movie no you know when people were um refusing to make it right when people were rejecting it uh if i would have changed the ending i would have a big deal for the movie i know and but uh we said no over and over again and then i remember standing there soderbergh who produced the movie helped us and got michael douglas he said don't shoot he wasn't going to be there when we shot the end of the movie and he said listen
Guest:you're going to have a huge instinctive pull to protect yourself and shoot an ending.
Guest:That's different from that.
Guest:You're going to want to cover to not, if you shoot another ending, someone's going to force you to use it.
Guest:Don't do it.
Guest:And I remember being there on the day and the assistant director coming up and going, do you guys want to just have them?
Guest:And I'll tell you, my insecurity rose up and I almost did it.
Guest:And Levine just said, no fucking way.
Guest:this is the ending you wrote this is the ending we're shooting that's it yeah and that was it that's all that we did uh because man i i know i just knew that that's where that had to uh sit and then i got really well protected by my partner uh and um and was able you know was able to keep it that way but
Guest:uh i i did i i will say i i felt like from i felt like you would get something out of it you know it's not a movie for everybody but i felt you would get something out of it well i i do and uh i'm uh and we're not gonna have any uh this is the end mark man listen um so i gotta say yeah uh
Marc:i'm happy to be here uh this has been i i love the show and you've done a real good you know you've done a really good thing thanks man did how was your experience is all right with it how i feel doesn't matter what matters to me right now no didn't you say it doesn't matter how we feel it only matters that we did it no but i know that you wanted to do it and you know it's a and i and i inspired you somehow but what was your your wtf experience
Guest:It was really good.
Guest:Are there any coffee mugs?
Guest:Do you have any more souvenir mugs?
Guest:I'll give you a mug.
Guest:All right, all right.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I just think the souvenir mug.
Marc:All right, all right.
Marc:Good talking to you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:See that?
Marc:He's got his podcast.
Marc:I got my podcast.
Marc:He started to interview me a little bit.
Marc:It was interesting.
Marc:I like that guy.
Marc:You got one good, I thought.
Marc:Anyways, go to WTFPod.com and get on that mailing list because I'm going to be got something coming up.
Marc:Might want to share with you.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop over there.
Marc:Leave a comment.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.
Marc:Stream all the stuff.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:Right?
Guest:guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives!