Episode 580 - Kevin Allison
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuck sticks?
Marc:What the fucksicles?
Marc:A lot of you out there, what the fucksicles.
Marc:I know it's still cold.
Marc:I know it's still snowing.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:I'm coming to you early in the morning.
Marc:Some of you might be actually up and listening to this early in the morning, but I am...
Marc:I have to get ready to go to set.
Marc:Today on set, we're going to be doing an episode with ex-professional wrestler CM Punk.
Marc:He's going to be playing himself in another episode of Marin.
Marc:I believe that his pal Colt Cabana is coming out as well to do a little part in the show.
Marc:It should be fun.
Marc:Hope I don't get hurt.
Marc:Hope I don't get hurt today.
Marc:That's all I'm going to tell you about that episode.
Marc:Yeah, we got some good ones, man.
Marc:Again, I know it's disconcerting for many, even myself, that I'm having a good time.
Marc:Every cell in my body seems to not want to acknowledge that because it is a lot of work.
Marc:And I know some of you think, like, is it a lot of work, Mark?
Marc:Is it being on your own television show?
Marc:Well, yeah, actually, it kind of is.
Marc:It is a little taxing.
Marc:It is real work, but obviously it's very rewarding.
Marc:It can be very fun.
Marc:Acting is a blast, but you repeat things.
Marc:Here's usually what happens.
Marc:I familiarize myself with a script at night a little bit with the sides I have to read, and the morning sides are the pieces of...
Marc:the big script that i'll i'll be uh i'll be acting in the scenes the next day and then in the morning i just i mark my script with a marker and then i go scene for scene before the scene i start running the lines with the other actors over and over again till i get them in my head then we knock out the scene four five six seven eight times uh and then we move on to the next scene the next location we just do that for 12 hours and
Marc:and having coming into acting later in life, having always kind of done it here and there, but not at the level I'm doing it now, I'm still, you know, obviously still learning.
Marc:I think that through the first two seasons of Marin, I was okay.
Marc:I think I got better in the second season, and I think I'm doing good now.
Marc:I'm looking at the dailies and...
Marc:Well, I'm not even looking at dailies, man.
Marc:I'm looking at full director's cuts as they go down the line of cuts.
Marc:And they look good.
Marc:I'm okay with it.
Marc:What am I trying to get at?
Marc:I'm trying to convince you that I have a real job.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I have several jobs.
Marc:I'm acting in the show.
Marc:I'm doing this right now.
Marc:I'm doing comedy later.
Marc:And those are my jobs.
Marc:I know they just seem like a blast, but I am exhausted and working hard.
Marc:How are you guys doing?
Marc:You all right?
Marc:Kevin Allison is on the show today.
Marc:Kevin and I, there's a little backstory in the sense that no, we didn't sweep together.
Marc:But Kevin had come in to do a WTF a couple years ago, I think.
Marc:And somehow or another, it was just fucked up.
Marc:There have been a few in the history of the show that got fucked up.
Marc:For reasons that are still unclear to me.
Marc:But now I do a backup.
Marc:There was just a noise.
Marc:Like, Kevin had one of the ones where...
Marc:For some reason, the recording was all in, like, robot noise.
Marc:It was just lost.
Marc:It was garbage.
Marc:There's been a few that have been fucked up sound-wise.
Marc:I think we've tracked it to maybe cell phones, but it still doesn't add up with clicks and weirdness.
Marc:But now I back up twice.
Marc:I got this going into the GarageBand.
Marc:I got it going into a Zoom.
Marc:I'm not going to lose it.
Marc:So you're going to hear Kevin Allison today.
Marc:And I always like talking to Kevin.
Marc:He's very nice.
Marc:He's very funny.
Marc:He's very filthy.
Marc:And I say filthy with love and compassion and a little perverse excitement because it's fun to listen to people talk about sex stories.
Marc:And of course, Kevin does a podcast called Risk that is pretty popular.
Marc:People enjoy it.
Marc:It's a storytelling show.
Marc:So Kevin will be here momentarily.
Marc:Anyway, anyway...
Marc:The sun is pounding into my face through a window and I don't.
Marc:God damn.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to just sit like this.
Marc:So the marination tour, you can check those dates at WTF pod slash calendar.
Marc:I'm doing like 17, 18 dates in different cities.
Marc:But I know that Toronto is sold out and I believe we're adding a new show.
Marc:I will be able to confirm that for you on Monday.
Marc:I would check.
Marc:over the weekend.
Marc:In Seattle, which is sold out, I believe we're adding another show at the Neptune.
Marc:And Boston, at Wilbur, another show has already been added.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:And I appreciate you guys hammering me to add those shows.
Marc:Now, all right, I'm not going to let my insecurity drift into this.
Marc:The second shows, we'll see what happens, right?
Marc:It's all new to me, selling tickets, people.
Marc:pow i just shit my pants just coffee.coop available at wtfpod.com that's a classic plug don't do them that often there you got one it's actually not coffee i'm drinking tea but i felt like doing the plug i'm still not drinking much coffee i'm still off the nicotine but god damn am i shoving food into my face like my my my soul needs nourishment
Marc:I would like to say this.
Marc:I am, as I mentioned in the pre-show plug on tonight's episode of This Is Not Happening.
Marc:It's a storytelling show.
Marc:I believe I'm on with Ms.
Marc:Pat and Steve Renazizi and my buddy Ari Shaffir host this show.
Marc:And I tell a story that you've heard in some version probably on this show about my visit to the neurologist and onward into the MRI machine.
Marc:which is also a backdrop of one of the Marin IFC shows this season.
Marc:But it's interesting because there's another story I told that I think I've told you here as well, and I believe I wrote about it in my book.
Marc:There are certain stories that kind of stay with me, obviously.
Marc:The story on the Comedy Central website for the This Is Not Happening that they have is not the one on the TV.
Marc:It's about Frankie Bastille.
Marc:And it's very interesting.
Marc:how everything works now, because I just got an email from the woman that Frankie Bastille was living with when that story took place.
Marc:When I knew Frankie Bastille, who's now dead, he was this junkie comedian, but quite a character, and he was with this woman, Karen.
Marc:She just wrote me an email saying like,
Marc:I heard that you talked about Frankie.
Marc:I got so many Frankie stories, and she reminded me of this.
Marc:I was just such a dumb little young comic, even though I thought that I was the real deal, that I was hard, and that I knew shit, and that I'd been there, and I was the dark wizard.
Marc:She just reminded me of this story where where they called me from Mystic, Connecticut, and I was living in Boston and they had totaled their fucking car.
Marc:And he wanted me to drive down to Mystic, Connecticut to pick him and Karen up.
Marc:And I was a young comic and I didn't have shit to do.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, I'll just bring my notebook with me and drink coffee on the way because that's all I'm doing here.
Marc:So I drove down by smoked a little weed.
Marc:And I drove down from Boston to Mystic to pick them up.
Marc:And he was like, you know, I need to go to New York to, you know, I got to, you know, who the hell even knows what he said.
Marc:But he told me he needed to go to New York to pick something up.
Marc:And I'm such a dumb little shit.
Marc:I didn't even know at the time that they needed to cop dope.
Marc:But I'm like, all right, man, if you need help.
Marc:He probably told me he had to, you know, he had to do a spot or something.
Marc:But I ended up.
Marc:Driving down there, he ended up, he's like, I know Jimmy Tingle lived around here.
Marc:Jimmy Tingle, who's a sober guy, a solid dude, who was living in the Lower East Side at the time.
Marc:And so, you know, I take Frankie to go, you know, he goes, he says, pull over here.
Marc:And he runs up out somewhere.
Marc:And then he comes back into the car.
Marc:And within five minutes, he's covered in sweat and manic.
Marc:And, you know, his eyes are jacked.
Marc:And then he's like, let's go by Tingle's.
Marc:So we go by Tingle's.
Marc:He was on his way out to go do a show.
Marc:And Frankie's like, hey, man, can I shower?
Marc:And and Jimmy was like, what's happening?
Marc:I'm like, I don't know, dude.
Marc:I don't know what's happening.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And so Jimmy, you know, let Frankie shower.
Marc:And then I drove both of them back up to Boston completely on the nod.
Marc:But for some reason, not quite putting it all together until that email came yesterday because I was a naive little man.
Marc:Ah, the life.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Let's talk to Kevin Allison.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:So you had them, though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got bed bugs.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:The thing it is, we do so much traveling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because the person right below me in the apartment below got them at the same time.
Guest:But I'm pretty sure it was probably me.
Guest:Why?
Guest:And the fact that I have boys over constantly.
Marc:I know, but what do you... I would think that bed bugs would be the least of your concerns as to what the boys are carrying in.
Right?
Marc:I mean, like, you know, I would think that, you know, giving your apartment building AIDS is a much smaller threat than the actual.
Guest:I'm worried about the bed bug bites on their nice, you know, tender skin.
Marc:You're concerned about their bodies.
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:I don't want blemishes on them.
Guest:Your little clean boys.
Yeah.
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:They're all Asian, which is something that for the longest time I was like, should I see a shrink about this?
Guest:About Asian boys?
Marc:Why Asian?
Marc:Is that the question?
Guest:Yeah, at what point in my career, in my life, did I become... I remember when we were at MTV, Michael...
Guest:Ian Black, there was a circle chart on the wall that MTV execs had put up.
Guest:And it was 50-50.
Guest:And Black erased whatever the demographic things there were.
Guest:And he said, Puerto Rican and Asian.
Guest:And then wrote it.
Guest:The graph was who Kevin wakes up next to.
Yeah.
Guest:So it's been going on a while.
Guest:It has been going on a while, but then the Puerto Ricans just dropped away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were they too much?
Marc:Maybe they were too much trouble in terms of emotional.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think there was a little bit too much.
Guest:Too fiery.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:These Asian guys barely talk.
Guest:They're very, you know, agreeable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If that's what you're looking for.
Marc:Agreeable.
Marc:Agreeable and clean without blemishes.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's all you require.
Marc:And chores.
Marc:You should be able to do some damn chores.
Marc:Is that part of the fantasy?
Marc:Is that part of the sexual routine?
Marc:Do you sit there in a chair and go, could you get me my slippers?
Guest:It's actually not erotically interesting to me.
Guest:It's that I really, I'm like you.
Guest:I could really need someone cleaning up after me.
Guest:And it just so happens, like, in the kink community, there's a real thing for that.
Guest:I know a straight guy who would go to Dominatrix's apartments and pay them.
Marc:So he could clean up?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Was there toilet licking involved and that kind of stuff?
Marc:Oh, no, no, no.
Guest:It was like, purely, I'm just cleaning your house.
Guest:Did he wear an outfit?
Guest:Well, maybe sometimes.
Guest:But I think it was mostly pretty straightforward.
Guest:Was it straightforward?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But sometimes the outfit, what outfit?
Guest:Sometimes.
Guest:Sometimes he'd knock something over and get a good thinking.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I see.
Marc:There's a little more to it.
Marc:Oops.
Marc:Look what I did.
Guest:No, I don't want that.
Guest:I don't want to go through the rigmarole.
Guest:I just want the toilet cleaned.
Guest:Right.
Marc:No, it's not part of the... So let's go back, Kevin, to when all this started.
Marc:I'm not going to...
Marc:Let's go back before the state.
Marc:Now, you got a reunion coming up.
Marc:I mean, this will post after that, but it'd be interesting to talk about how do you anticipate this will all go?
Marc:When was the last time everybody was in the same room?
Guest:I think everyone was in the same room about five years ago.
Guest:And my experience is it'll be...
Guest:We're going to have a week this week full of laughs, and then there will be a couple of moments where there's just rage and tension being modeled up.
Guest:No, there will probably be a moment or two of some people having to leave the room and being like,
Guest:jesus he's still like that really yeah yeah yeah the state the state has always everybody is working almost everybody is sort of still oh yeah we're we're actually i i was the biggest problem child i think in terms of like what happened after what happened after yeah yeah david wayne wrote to the group about a year and a half after we broke up in so that was around 96 when we broke up and he wrote oh let's work on another project again and at that
Guest:I was so drunk and so penniless and so just beside myself because I felt like my life had gone down the toilet.
Guest:After the stage?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was just so full of fear.
Guest:I made the mistake of not going out on stage every night.
Guest:All of a sudden, I thought all comedians were mean.
Guest:Well, we were.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Especially to you guys.
Marc:And by that, I don't mean gay guys.
Marc:I mean steak guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, we probably deserved it because we were mean to everyone else.
Guest:But yeah, I was just kind of fearful.
Guest:You know what it was?
Guest:I was afraid of my own... I was afraid I was mediocre.
Guest:I was afraid I didn't... I remember watching you at Luna Lounge all the time and thinking, wow, I do not want to become a stand-up comedian.
Guest:Don't want to be that guy.
Guest:He's got problems.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Not that you had problems, but that it seemed to take so much...
Guest:courage to be able to get up there and be so damn raw and vulnerable so he wrote you all a letter oh no he said hey let's all get back together and I wrote him back a letter and it said I don't think I can do that anytime soon because there was a cancer of arrogance and greed that tore this group apart and that was just me lashing out you know how did he respond to that
Guest:He responded by sharing it with everyone in the group.
Guest:And then everyone in the group was like, yeah, we can understand how he feels that way.
Guest:And then a year later, they're like, how is Kevin?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Is he in AA yet?
Guest:Has anyone talked to... It's been a couple years since we wrote that letter.
Guest:Has anyone talked to Kevin?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were that guy.
Guest:I was that guy, yeah.
Guest:For 12 years, I just didn't know what... I was getting up on stage and doing...
Guest:Funny characters telling stories.
Guest:But where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Cincinnati.
Guest:It's like the most boring place.
Guest:It's the most Republican town north of the Mason Dicks.
Guest:A lot of people say, you don't realize it, but once you're south of Columbus, you're in Kentucky.
Marc:right no i i get that i mean and i've had good shows there and i like the some of the people there there's a good comedy club there but yeah definitely when you drive into cincinnati you just feel like you've driven into the heart of sports and right-wing politics absolutely and i don't even know what the sports are but there's something that city feels like sports and you have spaghetti with chili on it that you gotta eat yes you
Guest:Well, I love the Skyline Chili, but everything else I'm not a big fan of.
Guest:You love Skyline Chili.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I don't know many people who were raised there who don't like it.
Marc:Yeah, it's an acquired taste.
Marc:You get the spaghetti with the chili and the onions and the cheese.
Guest:And cheese, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a strange combo.
Marc:Yeah, it is, but you love it.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Does it bring back childhood memories?
Guest:It does.
Guest:It does.
Guest:And there are places in New York that will sell it at a bar somewhere, and Tribeca actually serves it.
Guest:We'll give you some Skyline.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cincinnati expats, the three of you.
Marc:I had to come in.
Marc:Feeling lonely.
Marc:Need some chili and spaghetti.
Guest:But the foundational thing for me, psychologically, is that I knew I was gay as soon as I was conscious about things.
Marc:Was your parents, or you come from a Republican family?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:My parents were staunch Democrats.
Guest:I mean, you know, like my dad marched in the Civil Rights Movement and all that sort of thing.
Guest:But when it came to sex, they were just 1950s Catholics.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:super super super catholic and i i was hook line and sinker i have you know stories on risk about you know believing i was seeing the virgin mary when i was a boy and going down to peru to to uh help the poor did you go to peru yeah i was i was it was either i was going to go into the performing arts or become a jesuit
Marc:But I think that's a normal thing.
Marc:But you didn't feel like this was before you were out?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So did you feel shame?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:So I'm about three and a half years old when I'm looking at this statue, this Hummel statue of a boy with his pajama bottoms falling off.
Guest:And you can see his butt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And thinking, oh, my God.
Guest:I grabbed that statue and started running around the house saying, look.
Guest:look at this, you can see his hiney.
Guest:And my brothers and sisters laughed.
Guest:And then I thought, well, the neighbors, they ought to know about this too.
Guest:So I start running out of the house to be like, look, look, you can see his hiney.
Guest:And all of a sudden I feel my mom grab my collar from behind and bring me back into the house.
Guest:What they didn't realize is you were coming out.
Guest:Yeah, like three and a half.
Guest:You can see his hiney.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:She said, that's good.
Guest:I'm just going to take this and put it where it'll be safe.
Guest:And it was gone.
Guest:It was never to be seen again.
Marc:And I could just tell from the- You thought that was proactive on their part?
Marc:They're like, he's overreacting to the hiney.
Guest:Yeah!
Marc:Yeah, absolutely!
Guest:You felt like she knew then?
Guest:Oh yeah, I could see a look in her eyes that was like fearful and this, put the kibosh on this.
Guest:How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Guest:Four.
Guest:So I'm the fourth of five children, yeah.
Guest:And there's how many, what's the breakdown?
Guest:Two boys, a girl, me, and a little girl.
Guest:And so I was the space cadet, the black sheep, the gay kid in the family.
Marc:But did they do things to try to curb it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, my brother Peter was like, he has better, he has got to sign up for football or he's going to become a fucking fag to my mom.
Guest:And so second grade, I'm eight years old and I'm taking football practice.
Guest:And here's the thing, after like eight weeks of practice or whatever it is, the season's about to begin.
Guest:And I still don't know how football is played.
Guest:I asked the coach, I was like, excuse me, before we have this first game, could you just lay out on a chalkboard like, how does this game work?
Guest:And he said, look, it's just one team is trying to get the ball to this side of the field and the other to that side of the field.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:that's it like i really thought because i knew my father loved opera and football and he would take my brothers to the football games and take me to the opera oh so see he was and so i just assumed that football was as meaningful and like there was like if you understood it it was going to be like understanding wagner yeah
Guest:I think it is to some people.
Marc:Apparently.
Marc:I think there is probably direct similarity other than the competitive nature, but opera and wrestling, I think, is probably more similar.
Marc:But that's interesting.
Marc:Those are the two sides of your father?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So he's a really, really interesting guy.
Guest:I mean, he loved Catholicism, but what he loved about it was Michelangelo and Leonardo and Handel and all that stuff.
Marc:Yes, the pomp and circumstance and the artist.
Marc:The art, yeah.
Marc:In the cathedrals.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was a believer.
Guest:Yeah, he was a total believer and a sweetheart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whereas my mom was a real Puritan, you know, a real kind of like no say.
Guest:I'll go back to when I was about five.
Guest:Yeah, I was exactly five.
Guest:I convinced the boy next door, who was also five, to take off.
Guest:I said, here, wouldn't this be funny if we took off all our clothes?
Guest:And I had this all planned out.
Guest:If we took off all our clothes and ran around your basement listening to Walt Disney's Cinderella soundtrack.
Guest:That was your big idea?
Guest:That was my biggest.
Guest:So the song, like, Cinderella, Cinderella.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then at one point I said, wouldn't it be funny if you- So you did that?
Guest:Bent over.
Guest:I said, if you bent over and spread, I don't know how I put it, but spread your butt so I can see what's inside there.
Yeah.
Guest:And that moment was like a holy grail moment for me.
Guest:White light.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I swear to you.
Marc:It was like five.
Marc:And you felt you didn't know what you felt, but you felt what?
Guest:Well, he turned around and I had an erection.
Guest:yeah and i did not i was not familiar with that yeah i we were both he was pointing at it laughing i was like oh my god what the hell is this and soon after his mom came down and discovered us and and i was not allowed to hang out with the kid next door so no no humble figures no neighbor kid yeah you're becoming a problem in the neighborhood this guy's got an ass issue
Guest:Totally.
Guest:The priest, after I went to Peru when I was in junior year, a priest called my mom and said, Kevin is such a wonderful student and was such a great contributor to our trip, but I think he has an anal fixation.
Marc:How old were you?
Marc:That was when I was 17.
Marc:I mean, I guess he was putting it nicely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What led to that comment?
Guest:Just me always bringing that word into my jokes.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So now the neighbor kid, you're not allowed there.
Marc:The humble character has been put away.
Marc:Football is a mystery to you.
Marc:At that moment where the coach, and that was after eight weeks.
Marc:So you were just there, what?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:rooting people on oh i quit i quit i i went home and said look this isn't working because i couldn't face it you know in truth i i i told myself oh it's that the game is not as profound as i thought it was going to be now that i understand it but no i was terrified of it right and i imagine the the dudes that were into it were were not nice
Guest:No, I grew up with this terror of male competition.
Guest:And, you know, it was when I was right after that incident with the boy next door when I was five, I remember just dreading thinking, I'll be six next year, which means I'll be going into kindergarten, which means I'm going to be surrounded by kids all the time who might pick up on the fact that I'm gay.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:You were thinking that?
Guest:I was thinking that.
Guest:I knew the words gay and fag, and I knew that they were terrible things, and I knew that that was a reference to what I was.
Guest:So I grew up really with this inside horror and terror about that.
Guest:And, of course, being raised Catholic, I thought that it meant that I was ultimately gay.
Guest:you know going toward a life in hell and you but you believed in jesus oh yeah yeah you had to i guess yeah and how did you explain this to the priest when do you start going to confession and whatnot well that's the thing when i was 12 i came out to myself after seeing the movie et
Guest:that did it yeah I kind of well it's the story of a boy who wants a best friend and the friend feels like a freak because the friend is from another planet so I felt like I was a brown alien you were the alien yeah in love with this boy well but ultimately I also just thought Henry Thomas was cute yeah yeah so yeah after that I just broke down and said out loud for the first time I am gay to who?
Guest:to myself to myself and I thought how old were you then?
Guest:12.
Guest:And I thought, how am I going to tell, when exactly am I going to tell mom and dad, but especially mom?
Guest:And I remember that very week, I'm playing Marvin Gayehead, the big hit, Sexual Healing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:She came in and she took the ghetto blaster that we had and she said, when this song comes on, and she pressed the button and said, the radio goes off.
Guest:And I was like, well, it ain't going to be anytime soon.
Guest:So really, being funny was my way in kindergarten and grade school of letting people know that there was weirdness inside of me and letting you know it's okay that there's weirdness inside.
Marc:How were you behavior-wise?
Marc:I mean, you're pretty butch.
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Guest:I didn't have...
Guest:stereotypical gay whatever ways of acting.
Guest:But I was so horny all throughout my childhood, and I was just afraid that if people found out that I would lose my family and friends.
Guest:You might have.
Guest:Well, the first two people I came out of...
Guest:uh two it was the end of those really my very best friend from uh first grade through seventh grade i attempted to say that i was more interested in the young leading guy in et than most people he kind of got the gist of that and stopped talking to me for a year and a half it was the the enemy ship everyone called it and uh
Guest:For a year and a half, we weren't talking and everyone in school knew it.
Guest:And they knew why?
Guest:Well, they didn't know why, but we ran against each other for school president in the eighth grade.
Guest:And he started putting stickers around the school saying, Kevin Allison is a bisexual.
Guest:It was a smear campaign.
Guest:He was just saying bisexual to Hedges Betts.
Guest:Yeah.
Right.
Marc:That was actually the nicer way to do it.
Marc:He didn't say fag.
Marc:He didn't say homo.
Marc:He's a bisexual.
Marc:Like David Bowie.
Marc:Yeah, it's like a toothless smear campaign.
Marc:He's being a pretty polite kid, actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I won.
Guest:It didn't work.
Guest:So you were popular.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I think that a lot of what risk is about is I'm a person who's gone through his whole life obsessed with the idea of coming out about whatever it is, whatever it is that you feel like, oh, God.
Guest:can I talk about that to other people in mixed company?
Guest:You know, your drug problem, the way you never got over the death of someone, whatever it is, can you come out about it?
Guest:And I feel like it really is a reaction.
Guest:For me, it's all this perverted gay craziness, mostly.
Guest:But I feel like it's a reaction against my mom, on some level, creating this podcast.
Guest:And thank God,
Guest:She's 75 and has no idea how to get an email, much less download a podcast.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:So she's completely out of the loop.
Marc:Maybe if he called the podcast Fuck You, Ma, she would have figured out how to listen to it.
Guest:No.
Guest:She knows.
Guest:She says, I have heard that the podcast is rather raw.
Guest:Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:and i've said yes it is but i've said listen mom i've had people write to me hey i was able to get my son off of heroin after he heard the under the influence episode and uh people write in i was suicidal and then i started hearing people sharing these stories and i was like
Guest:Wow, I'm not such a freak or other people.
Guest:No, it's a really rough.
Marc:That's a great feeling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:People kind of feel less alone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Know how to talk to a kid that they didn't know how to talk to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Realize that, you know, if we're not careful, he's going to end up like that guy.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Maybe we should be a little more open hearted about this.
Guest:Lest he have this need to be... There was another thing.
Guest:Like I said, outbursts of craziness were what I thought was the way to show that there was weirdness inside me as a kid, right?
Marc:Well, right, right, right.
Marc:Because you had all that energy and you wanted that type of attention, but you couldn't clearly meet your desires.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:So you lose a couple of friends.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:All your siblings know you're gay, basically.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I came out to them officially once I was in college.
Guest:But they all sensed it.
Guest:I think so, yeah.
Marc:But what's interesting to me, and your father, what, was he sort of passive in this whole thing?
Guest:My father was, when I said, were you surprised?
Guest:He said, no, you have five children.
Guest:He said, I just thank God none of you guys wanted to go into the military.
LAUGHTER
Marc:He's fine.
Marc:That's kind of hilarious.
Marc:But your mom just couldn't.
Marc:I understand on some level I can be empathetic to.
Marc:I think they're usually just frightened for you.
Marc:And like your safety, and I guess in the case of being Catholic, your soul.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So she's a real believer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She did a lot of crying when I came out to Mom and Dad.
Guest:It was when I was 18, finally.
Marc:After Peru?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, after Peru.
Marc:So wait, what was this Peru thing?
Marc:Now, were you trying to un-gay yourself?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:I was trying to see how it was that I could do good.
Marc:So you're trying to negotiate with God.
Marc:It's like, I know I'm gay.
Marc:I'm going to go do this good stuff.
Marc:And maybe that'll give me points.
Marc:Maybe if I do enough good stuff, I'll just go to a more fun gay hell.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:guess so i get now that i think of it i guess that you know a lot of like in the same way that when i get up on stage now i will be like see how friendly and nice i am all right now i can tell you how i just tied my shoes to my balls the other night um so yeah yeah i think i think i probably at that time thought that i could pull one over on god too like see i'm doing good stuff so i hope you don't mind that i'm shoving you know hair brushes up my butt
Marc:Well, that is an interesting line or a balance to keep.
Marc:Because if you see yourself as perverted or that your desires are unique and you attach some moral significance to that...
Marc:That struggle, like, because your desires don't necessarily have anything to do with your heart.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I want to be a good person, but can I be a good person if my shoes are hanging off my ball?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think on some level you could say, like, not only am I a good person, I'm a clown.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Guest:But I don't know the heat of fetish.
Guest:I don't know that.
Guest:Well, I think that there are some fetishes that I now have that I don't talk about on Risk because I'm like, damn, that really is too fucked up for most audiences to hear about.
Guest:And I've talked a lot to friends about it and realized, you know what part of this fetishistic stuff is?
Guest:It's chasing after
Guest:the tremendous shame i used to feel as a kid because there used to be a process of getting all wound up and horny yeah masturbating and then feeling like oh my god you know like shaking like where am i what's going to happen to me because i'm garbage yeah yeah so that dynamic now i can sometimes play it out every now and then again by doing something where i'm like
Marc:whoa that was really fucked up uh i hope i don't get any more into that particular fetish or kink or whatever it is and then that's what becomes kind of attractive about it well so okay so it's almost an addictive process so that like see the thing is at some point you're not sated yeah like yeah i mean you can come and that's not enough like for me good come i'm good yeah yeah yeah i don't like you know i don't need to elaborate too much
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but then again, I never felt the compulsion to sort of like, I'm going to try this.
Marc:You know, life is short.
Marc:Why don't I tie my shoes to my balls or whatever you did?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I don't think that I don't know what those feelings are.
Marc:But I don't think I necessarily have the courage to to role play.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Because to me, I don't know how you don't go like this is silly.
Marc:Look what we're doing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You've got to commit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You absolutely have to commit.
Guest:And what I've learned is I can commit 100% in role-playing if I'm the submissive, if I'm the guy who's bowing on the floor.
Guest:But when I'm the dom, the nice guy thing is getting... I've tried to... We were talking before in the kitchen about... I've tried to have houseboys before, and I would love to have one again.
Guest:But the first guy...
Guest:He left after a month and a half.
Guest:He was a student at Parsons, and he was from Malaysia and everything.
Guest:He was interning for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sexual intern.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And he left after a month and a half because he was like, there's no sadism in you whatsoever.
Guest:You're just too nice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was like, so I created a class.
Guest:And then you hit him.
Guest:Like, how dare you?
Yeah.
Guest:So I created a class called Secrets of a Sweet Dom.
Guest:Whenever I feel like I don't have something that people want sexually, I'll just create a class on it and start teaching it.
Guest:Where do you teach these classes?
Guest:There's a place called Dark Odyssey.
Guest:It's a kink camp that I ordinarily go to.
Guest:That's getting ahead of ourselves again in the history.
Marc:All right, so you come back from Peru.
Marc:Your priest says you have an anal fixation.
Marc:What did you do down there?
Marc:You fed some people?
Marc:What did you do?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, well, it's another.
Guest:Now you realize looking back, it's like, oh, we weren't doing anything to help.
Guest:I mean, we were supposedly building a school for some kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we would show up at the ditches we were digging every day.
Guest:And the people were, this is like really, really poor people in the desert slums outside of the city of Arequipa in Peru.
Guest:They would use these ditches as toilets.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So every morning we'd have to dig their poop out of the ditch to continue with our work.
Guest:So they were literally shitting on you.
Guest:They were like, whatever, we have a better use for this than whatever you guys think this is going to become.
Marc:Yeah, thanks for the toilet.
Marc:We want to see what almost became a school down the street.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:But I was still very devout.
Guest:I told a story in front of the 1,300 students at my high school.
Guest:I went to a Jesuit high school about the experience of going down there to Peru.
Guest:And I guess I should have recognized at that moment that true storytelling was a thing for me.
Marc:Well, what was your relationship with your priest?
Yeah.
Guest:He was a closeted gay man who was, you know, like so many of those guys are closeted gay men.
Marc:I talk about this to Catholics all the time.
Marc:I think that there is a community sort of pressure when they recognize a gay kid.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Get him into the priesthood to save his soul.
Guest:My mother, the week before I came out to her, we're doing the dishes together.
Guest:I'm dry and she's washing or vice versa.
Guest:And...
Guest:She starts crying.
Guest:And I'm like, what's up?
Guest:And she said, well, I'm just thinking of your Uncle Jay, who's a priest.
Guest:And I was like, well, what are you upset about?
Guest:She said, well, he'll never have a romantic partner to share everything with.
Guest:And sometimes that just makes me terribly sad.
Guest:And I was like, oh, all right.
Guest:Then a week later, I come out to her.
Guest:The next day, we're doing the dishes again.
Guest:And she says...
Guest:Have you seriously considered being a priest as an option?
Marc:Get your mind off the cock.
Guest:I won't mind crying while doing the dishes about you as long as you're in the priesthood.
Marc:Not doing that other thing.
Marc:But were you out to your priest though?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Marc:So confession wasn't even functioning.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:I couldn't.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:What it was was when I was around 12 and I first came out to myself, I was like, I'm going to fix this.
Guest:I'm going to go to confession because I had also read Huck Finn at that same time.
Guest:And there's that incredible moment where he decides he's thinking, am I going to help my friend get to freedom?
Guest:Or am I?
Guest:And if I do, I'm going to go to hell.
Guest:Or should I do the right thing and turn him in the right thing in society?
Guest:And he says, you know what?
Guest:All right, then I'll go to hell.
Guest:And it seems like it's just a funny throw off moment.
Guest:But it's pretty profound, you know, that he thinks he's really choosing hell over turning in his friend.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I kind of felt at a certain point like, no, you know what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I'm going to hell, I'm going to hell because this just feels so natural to me.
Guest:There's no getting around this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now you're out.
Marc:You came out to your parents before you go to college and your family.
Marc:How did the siblings react?
Marc:They were all totally fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's just a generational thing.
Marc:You still get along with all of them?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're all, you know, my parents call every week crying about why aren't you all closer, you know?
Guest:Like, why don't we all stay in better touch with each other?
Guest:You know, relatively speaking, we all get along.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, it's hard.
Marc:You know, I got a brother.
Marc:We're tighter now.
Marc:You go through periods.
Guest:Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Marc:And you've got nieces and nephews.
Guest:Yeah, it's like the biggest problem is that occasionally a sibling marries someone who's insane, you know?
Marc:Yes, they marry something.
Marc:Something doesn't set well.
Marc:Yeah, you don't have any control over that.
Marc:No.
Marc:Just got to watch the train wreck unfold.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:All right, so you go off to college, and that's where you meet the guys?
Guest:Yeah, what it was was I got to NYU, and I saw Joe LaTrulio walking through the hallways of school, and I thought, holy crap, I really thought he was really hot.
Guest:Into Joe.
Guest:Joe LaTrulio, I know, isn't that funny?
Guest:Little Joe?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he used to, he came straight from Fort Lauderdale.
Guest:So all his clothing was just as Miami vice as it could be at that point.
Guest:And I remember, so one day I'm walking down the hallway and I see he's in a, he's waiting to drop ad with a counselor.
Guest:And I said, all right, I'm going to sit down when he goes into the drop ad and eavesdrop, find out what class he's getting into.
Guest:Then I can get into a class with him.
Guest:So I was kind of stalking him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Got into a class with him.
Guest:The very first movie he makes, it was a movie class, was about just how much he loves his girlfriend.
Guest:So I was like, all right, forget Joe.
Guest:But then he said, my comedy group is going to be doing a show tonight.
Marc:Now, wait, did you ever try girls?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I kissed a girl once.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And here's the thing.
Guest:I was so terrible.
Guest:I tried to... It's the comedian thing.
Guest:I tried to make a joke out of our budding relationship.
Guest:This was in the fifth grade, so I don't even... What's that, 10 or something?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:And, yeah, one day I was like, I got something for you, and it was a ring box, and inside was just like a mound of mustard and some coffee grounds.
LAUGHTER
Guest:What is that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just always like doing bizarre jokes rather than- How that lands.
Guest:That did not land well at all.
Guest:But you kissed a girl and it was not for you.
Guest:I kissed her and in my mind's eye, I was like, oh, that was like kissing a dog's nose, just being dramatic.
Guest:Because I put a lot of pressure on the moment.
Guest:It was the first spin the bottle game in the fifth grade, first alcohol party.
Guest:I had wanted there to be fireworks like Bobby Brady on right on whatever the Brady Bunch.
Guest:And it wasn't.
Guest:And then that night I woke up from a dream where I got stuck in a revolving door with the boy next door again.
Guest:Who's now 10, although still discouraged from hanging around me.
Guest:And we kissed in the dream.
Guest:And it was so powerful that it woke me up.
Marc:Now, when was the first time you kissed a guy?
Guest:Gosh, well, I started using my wiles of wouldn't it be funny if we took off all our clothes on my best friend in roundabout when we were 11 or 12.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we started streaking.
Guest:He's just a straight guy.
Guest:I think a lot of young guys that age are just like, well, we're not doing anything with girls yet.
Guest:Let's do a little experimentation.
Guest:And he probably was not aware of just how manipulative I was being.
Guest:So we did a lot of taking off all our clothes and rubbing up against each other and not actual sex or kissing or...
Guest:Cause that would be gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't want to be gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You want to have some fun time rubbing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I look back very fondly on that whole experience, but, but I wonder if, if you Facebook friends with that guy,
Guest:I was for a while.
Guest:And you have to wonder if you approach that person today and said, do you remember that?
Guest:You know, they probably would not say yes.
Marc:Yeah, they might not say yes.
Marc:I want to thank you for rubbing on me because that really helped me in my development.
Marc:I don't know if you remember that, but it's pivotal for me, the streaking and rubbing we did.
Marc:Did you talk about that on the podcast?
Marc:The rubbing?
Guest:No, I haven't yet.
Guest:I should explore that.
Guest:You always have to invent new names for people.
Marc:Of course.
Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you got a crush on Joe Trulio.
Marc:He's got a girlfriend, but then he says, I got a comedy group.
Guest:Yeah, and I went to see the very first show that the state ever did that night at this little black box theater in NYU.
Guest:And what struck me was that as soon as that show started, there was this energy in the room that I just assumed I was like, wait a minute, we're all like freshmen here.
Guest:How long has this group been around?
Guest:Because the audience was so lit up and the group was so lit up and there was just this feeling of this is a really happening creative entity.
Guest:And it was their first show.
Marc:And there was like, what, 12 of them?
Guest:Yeah, there was like,
Guest:literally there was like 16 when the group and then then like five disappeared before the first show started um yeah but most of the most of the core group was was there in that first show and i remember saying to my friends that i went to see the show with my brand new college buddies yeah i want to be in that group and i remember them saying
Guest:You?
Guest:Because that was my thing.
Guest:I was always bland, nice, Midwestern Catholic boy until I would get drunk and start being really funny.
Guest:So that became my plan.
Guest:I'm going to get into more and more classes with those guys, hang out with them afterwards, get drunk, take off all my clothes in public, and start to impress them that I'm crazy.
Guest:And it worked!
LAUGHTER
Marc:so you got in a group by just like stalking all of them yes yeah yeah i've had that feeling i mean i've done that when i was in high school and stuff or even later where you're like well those are the cool guys those are the guys they're doing something i want to be part of oh absolutely and i'm just a needy too much information kind of draining guy yeah how do i you know wedge my way in
Guest:Yeah, well, you're at NYU.
Guest:You're like, Jesus, we're only here for four years.
Guest:You only live once.
Guest:Let's get into the group that's making the funny movies.
Marc:What was the moment that impressed them?
Guest:We were all out at this...
Guest:So I had gotten into a film crew with Joe and Michael Jan.
Guest:And we went out with the rest of the group one night to this bar called The Dugout on Second Avenue in the East Village.
Guest:It was like a sports bar.
Guest:And I got very drunk and I went into the bathroom there of this bar and realized that I was standing in about an inch of urine water, yellowish water on the floor there at this bar.
Guest:And I took off all my clothes except for my boots and headed out into the bar totally naked in a East Village bar and lifted a glass of beer and started improvising a wailing song, which all I remember of it was that it started walking
Guest:standing in an inch of urine well becomes the sailing man and then it went on from there and everyone's like we've got to get this maniac in the group yeah that was your audition piece that was your showcase and they let you in they let me in based on that and that was what uh the end of freshman year yeah
Guest:That was sometime in sophomore year.
Guest:So I started contributing written pieces to the group, and then it was sometime in junior year that I became a full-fledged member.
Guest:But it was really rough and hard because the group was, from the very beginning, super competitive and super... You know, there was that roasting sense of humor.
Guest:I always joke around in my stories and say that...
Guest:Everyone would poke at each other's egos in order to make sure no one's ego got too big, but my problem was my ego's always been too small.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was always kind of the nice guy who would often just end up low on the totem pole because of it.
Guest:In terms of what does that mean, low on the totem pole?
Guest:Because if you...
Guest:wrote something then you got to cast it right right and there was a lot of tension all the time about who's getting more roles or not and is this fair and is this democrat who was running the group well that's the thing the they're
Guest:No one was officially running the group, but there were several people like Tom Lennon and Ben Grant and Michael Black who were just writing sketches so consistently.
Guest:Showalter and Wayne?
Guest:Showalter and Wayne, definitely.
Guest:But Wayne was the person that I should have looked to as my greatest inspiration throughout the whole process because he was a lot like me.
Guest:He was the guy who would make everyone laugh in the writer's room and then everyone would say, we ain't doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that was really funny.
Guest:But you're ridiculous.
Guest:You're you're too silly.
Guest:I would get that same reaction.
Guest:And, you know, like Mel Brooks used to have to deal with that on your show of shows.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like we all loved that, but we can't put that on TV.
Guest:But who is deciding that the rest of the group?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was always it was always a vote.
Guest:It's so funny because we all have mellowed out like like like black.
Guest:really was a could really be a snarky asshole to you back back in the group um i remember him once just like uh filling his mouth with water from a from a bottle and just spitting it all over me for no reason yeah like what the fuck was that yeah
Guest:But I think we've all really mailed out.
Guest:Black is the guy who most inspired and helped me with the whole idea of starting Riz.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because when we went to MTV, I was the one who proposed.
Guest:My ideas were usually shot down.
Guest:And here's the thing.
Guest:I could propose an idea to the group and people would say, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:And then someone else could just reword it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And everyone's like, that's great.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The when we got to MTV, I suggested, look, we rib each other all day long.
Guest:Can there be at least be like a half hour at the beginning of the day where we just like drop all that and tell each other how we're really feeling, which is funny because that's kind of like risk, you know.
Guest:And so at the beginning of the day, we would have check in.
Guest:This was an idea of mine that the group actually liked.
Guest:And what happened was, because everyone in the group would hang out with each other 24-7, except for me, because I was the gay dude who wanted to be going out at night, you know.
Guest:Being gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In some sub-basement in the meatpacking district.
Guest:Did you do that stuff?
Guest:Oh, God, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was always going to orgies and sex clubs.
Guest:In college?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and that's what my first stories on Risk are all about, the misadventures of a young Midwestern friendly guy who's in Central Park at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Guest:You did all that old school.
Guest:I always say to people, I think I'm basically a 1970s queer.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I should have the hanky out of my back pocket.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, young guys today with all the, oh, we're so precious, we want to get married, we want the white pickets.
Marc:But also there's just tender, there's no reason to, or whatever the gay version is, what is that one?
Marc:Oh, grinder, grinder.
Marc:Like there's no...
Marc:it doesn't seem like the the mystery and the weird secretiveness and the you know sort of like there's that area where you got to go and wander around the bushes i i imagine it still exists but now people are meeting there on purpose like i'll see you at the thing and well people go to gay bars yeah and you'll see them on grinder being like oh i'm i'm on the other side of the room right like
Guest:Like, oh, I'll take my head out of the phone for a second to nod at you.
Marc:Yeah, so all the mystery and excitement is... And also a lot of the community.
Guest:Like, gay bars, many, many, many less gay bars today than in the 90s.
Guest:Because they are no longer necessary?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:People are just hooking up via these things.
Guest:And I think that there needs to be a lot more talking about what we're all about.
Guest:Because people treat each other online...
Guest:terribly yeah you know all the famous grinder line no fats no fems no asians is like could anything be more like rude to have as your regular profile anyway so you're running around you're going to uh the meatpacking district and basements finding yourself in interesting situations with several people yes and then i would show up at mtv the next day and i'd tell my story at check-in and lennon and black were always like
Guest:jeez, Kevin always has the best check-ins.
Guest:So Black was like, you should get up on stage and share this stuff.
Guest:And I thought, no, wait a minute.
Guest:Hollywood is not going to like that.
Guest:That's not going to get me a role on a sitcom one day, right?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So I just said, it just seems too risky.
Guest:So for the 12 years after the state broke up, I was just doing bullshit on stage and being totally fearful and hiding behind characters.
Guest:And it wasn't until Black came to one of my shows.
Guest:I did a show in 2008 called F Up about five characters who had fucked up their careers.
Guest:Obviously autobiographical.
Guest:But it still wasn't really connecting with people.
Marc:But at that time, were you devastated when the state broke up?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:The night that we were the day that we were fired from CBS because we quit MTV because we thought we were going to hit the big time on the networks, thought we were going to be on ABC going up against SNL.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then they pulled that out from us just as soon as we had quit MTV officially, I think.
Guest:And then we went to CBS instead and did one special, and Les Moonves was coming into CBS at that time.
Guest:Changing the guard.
Guest:Yeah, and he was like, I can't wrap my mind around 11 kids sketch comedy.
Guest:Just get rid of that show for now.
Guest:So we were just immediately fired after one special.
Marc:Who would speak for the group usually in those situations?
Guest:We had two managers who did not get along with each other, and it was messy.
Marc:Why'd you have two managers?
Guest:One was a former agent, a William Morris kind of guy, and another was an MTV producer or freelance producer at MTV.
Guest:And the two of them would not share all the details with us a lot.
Guest:We didn't even know, I think, that MTV had actually offered us, before we quit, five more seasons.
Guest:So that would have been like, I don't know, triple the amount of episodes we'd already done.
Guest:And we also didn't know that MTV was just about to be in 25 million more homes.
Guest:So we really, really should have stayed put.
Guest:But we tried to go for something that we thought was going to be bigger and made the same mistake with movies.
Guest:We had an independent producer who did Kids and who did Citizen Ruth and a bunch of big indie films.
Guest:He wanted us, but we were like, no, no, no, we're going to go to the Walt Disney Corporation who strung us along for a year and a half until we were starving.
Marc:So misstepping, and then did that cause infighting?
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:The morale of the group just fell into the toilet, and it seemed... It was one of those cases where it's kind of like a marriage, where you're like, oh, geez, no matter what we're doing, this is just crappy now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so everyone goes their own way?
Marc:Was there rifts that were unresolved?
Guest:There was a...
Guest:And there was an unspoken, unofficial thing.
Guest:None of us takes on a job that is going to seriously take us away from being able to work with the group, from making the group our main thing.
Marc:This is after everything falls away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:After CBS and everything, it was still kind of that situation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You could take little freelance jobs or whatever, but not something that was going to take over your whole career.
Guest:And a few of the guys went over to Comedy Central to pitch Viva Variety.
Guest:And Comedy Central took it.
Guest:And so all of a sudden, about three or four members of the group, three or four or five members of the group were there.
Guest:And the rest of us were-
Guest:uh yeah and uh black right um and the rest of us were kind of out in the wilderness and so yeah there was some very very serious uh tension at first because i remember they invited us to their first live taping and we got there it was our makeup people our lighting people our old sets and everything and it was just every everything except like five of us that's horrible
Guest:So there was just a feeling of, you know, like that really ended up breaking it all up.
Guest:And there was a lot of tension around it.
Guest:But here's the thing.
Guest:In retrospect, I really came around to see that those guys were just doing self-defense.
Guest:You know, those guys were doing what anyone would do.
Guest:you know you gotta eat you gotta find the next job and the group no one could deny that the group at that point was just completely dysfunctional and demoralized and just having a hard time agreeing on anything so i really can't blame them but because of your particular lifestyle you know you you probably you felt completely set adrift i imagine oh god yeah
Guest:Go on.
Guest:What were you going to say?
Marc:Well, I'm just saying because your whole identity and everything you had worked towards emotionally was built around this group.
Marc:And you were already sort of not an outsider, but you were the gay one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who had a hard time controlling his impulses and his drinking.
Marc:So I imagine when everything got hard, you just fucking... God knows what you did.
Guest:I just... Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I really lost my mind.
Guest:And that's about the time that I also discovered Fire Island.
Guest:I was now at the age where I had friends who were able to get their hands on serious drugs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Serious party drugs and stuff like that.
Guest:So yeah, I was, and also I became obsessed with this idea of the survival job.
Marc:You know, I started doing cater waitering and really, so you, your confidence didn't enable you to really perform at all.
Guest:Yeah, I would get up at Luna Lounge once every two or three months, and that was me continuing to do work in the business.
Marc:But just all character work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You didn't have the courage to sort of get under that.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, if I had had the sense to, I should have gone right to UCB and started taking classes, you know, because they were just starting at that time.
Guest:And that would have been crazy seeming because here's a guy who was on this big hit TV show now taking classes.
Guest:But that would have been a hell of a lot smarter than just hiding in my apartment most of the time.
Marc:But who the hell knows if that would have worked?
Marc:I mean, it seemed like you were like that...
Marc:that your identity outside of your gay identity which was evolving what but your professional identity was completely locked in with those guys i mean yeah you probably had you know what you needed to move on but you just didn't have the confidence or the you know your shame was too great or something yeah and i was i was too i i should have stayed in much better touch with everyone else i was i isolated
Guest:was what it was and you were drinking a lot i was drinking a lot and uh you know i would have some even like some suicidal moment that's when i started taking antidepressants yeah so so yeah those were just really rough yeah years those were years of like going from one survival job to another and being recognized all the time catering yeah catering i remember having to like
Guest:Carry a tray up to Doug Herzog at a ballet fundraiser once, who was the president of... I guess he was the president of Comedy Central by that time.
Guest:And MTV before.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And just handing my tray to the waiter next to me and saying, I am not going up to that table.
Guest:I don't wonder... I wonder why you chose to do that.
Marc:You know, it's...
Marc:It's so demoralizing.
Marc:But sexually you like that.
Marc:It's a submissive position.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:You know, it's funny because Joe LaTrulio did it for a week and then he was like, you know, because he was like, I need some money too.
Guest:And I said, well, there's this thing I do.
Guest:So he did it for a week and then he was like, Kevin, no one...
Guest:Any self-respect can do that?
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I know.
Guest:I'm going to keep doing it for a while, I think.
Marc:But it's interesting how that plays itself in your emotional script sexually as well, that there's something about the comfort of that shame.
Guest:Yeah, and acting out, because when I was catering, I would be the guy, huge line of waiters walking out of a kitchen into the Metropolitan Opera House.
Guest:I'm the guy with the bottle of wine in his hand who is literally dumping it into his mouth as he's walking out, you know, before anyone can see.
Guest:I remember, you know...
Guest:throwing up in a fucking tuxedo right in the you know in in the yard of some you know connecticut wedding i remember blowing another waiter at some big like she she wedding oh god yeah it was it was those were messy years
Guest:Not your shining moments.
Guest:No.
Marc:Those were not the best years.
Marc:But it is kind of odd, this war against shame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like the podcast risk.
Marc:you know, is, you know, really on some level about.
Marc:Because the only thing outside of, you know, general appropriateness that stops people from speaking their heart or sharing those moments that could be liberating and not just for themselves or others, the only thing that stops that, if it, you know...
Marc:like i said outside of it being the appropriate time to do that is shame yeah and shame is is so powerful and it's what holds so many people in that weird stasis of you know not being able to take action of not being able to to make their life better because shame runs so fucking deep yeah that it just it feels like home to a lot of people yeah yeah exactly exactly
Guest:I think it's, you know, that is a place of comfort.
Guest:And, you know, the guilty feeling.
Guest:Like, I have a running monologue in my head all day long of, oh, you should be ashamed of the fact that you don't keep the house tidy.
Guest:It just goes from one thing to another.
Marc:You just beat yourself up all the time.
Marc:Yeah, beat myself up.
Marc:It's never right.
Marc:Never good enough.
Marc:But it's weird, though, because when you sexualize that, does that get you any relief?
Guest:You know, it's really strange because it's in the times that, like I said, like when I've had those BDSM experiences where I am 100% committed to being like almost like a slave serving someone on the floor, there's real comfort in that because it's giving up all control and there's no reason to beat yourself up because someone else is.
Yeah.
Guest:And there's a context and it's safe to a degree.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That situation can't really work unless you, the sub, have respect for the dom, right?
Guest:A lot of people think domination is, oh, I'm going to be brutal and yell a lot and all that.
Guest:No, a sub is going to react to someone that they feel like this person is smart and sensitive enough to know when they're going too far with me or that sort of thing.
Marc:So now, how did you get involved with fetish and kink in general?
Guest:Because when Risk started, I kind of lost a marriage at the very beginning of Risk.
Guest:When I was 31, I entered into a relationship that became a marriage.
Guest:We literally got married.
Guest:And in fact, we've never divorced because we're like, ah, it's $500 to get divorced.
Guest:Asian guy?
Asian.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And see, that's the thing.
Guest:I mean, once I was married to a Filipino guy for nine years, then that was the turning point of after that, I was just not interested in anyone else.
Guest:I mean, any other ethnicity or whatever.
Guest:Um, so yeah, it was an open relationship, but it was open with very strict parameters.
Guest:There was no actual romance allowed to be happening with other people.
Guest:Just you could casually have a hookup with someone or go to a sex club or something.
Guest:So that worked for us for nine years.
Guest:And it wasn't the open part of the relationship that ended up ending it.
Guest:It was that after nine years, we felt like we were more like brothers or friends.
Guest:And the romance was kind of gone.
Guest:And we felt like, God, we just don't feel like we're lovers anymore.
Guest:So we went our separate ways.
Guest:And we're still friends.
Right.
Guest:Which I'm proud of, actually.
Guest:I think that's a good thing when you can make that happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But anyway, part of the breakup was that I started Risk and I realized, oh, this is going to become to be doing a weekly podcast and starting to travel and do shows.
Guest:And then I was starting to try to create a school, too.
Guest:I have a school called The Story Studio.
Guest:How's that going?
Guest:that's going well that's the thing that pays most of the bills i do a lot of corporate workshops especially and you know i have to explain to people you know we tell x-rated stories or any kind of stories on risk but storytelling translates into any realm you know you just make adjustments for the context um so that's the story studio is going great but
Guest:But anyway, in that first year and a half, he was like, you're not making any money on this.
Guest:And it has become your full-time job.
Guest:I can't hang around anymore.
Guest:You need to get a full-time job.
Guest:I said, if I get a full-time job, then that's the end of risk.
Guest:And risk is the first thing that's worked for me artistically since the state broke up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we just agreed that that was going to be it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't blame him either.
Guest:We both understood where we were coming from.
Guest:Although I did say to him, listen, hang around a couple of years and this is going to start taking off.
Guest:And indeed it has.
Guest:So anyway, yeah.
Guest:Oh, so...
Guest:All of a sudden, I'm 41 years old.
Guest:I've got this podcast and I'm telling people, take a risk, take a risk.
Guest:And so people started challenging me to take risks.
Guest:So a guy came up to me once after a show and he said, I'm going to this kink camp in a couple of weeks.
Guest:You should come with me.
Guest:And I said, oh, I know I've told stories about doing crazy shit in my 20s that were sexual, but I really don't know anything about bondage and discipline and sadomasochism.
Guest:That was just me going to clubs and stuff as a kid.
Guest:And he said, no, Kevin, take a risk.
Guest:So I go to this kink camp and this became the most famous story that's been done on Risk.
Guest:It's like a two episode story called Kevin Goes to Kink Camp.
Guest:And I show up and there's no gay men there.
Guest:I hadn't realized that, oh, this is like mostly straight, even lesbian and bisexual people.
Guest:But here's the thing.
Guest:I kept telling people at the camp, you know, people are like, well, there's plenty of bi men here.
Guest:And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand.
Guest:A guy who grew up like me, I can't just poke someone on the back and say, hey, you want to... Like, I have to know that everyone in the room is a gay man and it's totally safe.
Guest:Otherwise, I'm afraid you're going to kill me.
Guest:LAUGHTER Could turn very easily.
LAUGHTER
Guest:So I just couldn't get over that conditioning.
Guest:I couldn't get over that, you know, this is in fact a safe space.
Guest:So at the end of it, I ended up just having my first sexual experience with a woman who... Now, it wasn't me stooping her.
Guest:She got out a strap-on.
Guest:Her name was Strap-on Joe.
Guest:So that was a hint of where it was all going to go.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that was your first sexual experience with a woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Getting fucked.
Yeah.
Guest:In a sling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in some like grungy back room of a... Now is King Camp in the woods?
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's a former Boy Scout camp.
Guest:Oh, isn't that ironic?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So was it that experience that sort of started you on this strange fetishistic path?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It did.
Guest:At the time, it was this sort of eureka moment where I felt like, because in my early 20s, I felt so connected to the gay community because we were still dealing with the AIDS situation at that time.
Guest:So ACT UP, there was a lot of activism and there was just a lot of like, oh, we are the new sexual revolution.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But by the time I was done with my marriage, the new gay thing was marriage.
Guest:Like, you know, let's try to fit in to the rest of heterosexual society as best as we can.
Guest:And all of a sudden I couldn't relate to most of the gay community anymore as far as I could tell.
Guest:So here I was in this kink environment.
Guest:All these people are straight and bi people who are basically taking all their notes from things that they've learned from gay culture in the 50s and 60s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a little behind the curve.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe these guys had something going there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the Internet makes it all possible.
Guest:You know, FetLife is like Facebook for kinksters and people just share and share all these ideas of things you can try.
Guest:You know, there's a group for every fetish and it's crazy.
Marc:What fetishes have stuck with you?
Marc:I mean, like, which ones did you like?
Marc:I'm not going to.
Marc:I never thought I'd be that guy.
Marc:And now you're that guy.
Guest:Yeah, well, exactly.
Guest:The second story that I did on this subject was called Beyond Kink Camp, where this Asian guy wrote to me one night on FetLife, and he said, hey, I understand you're into Asian guys.
Guest:I'm into mature guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, I guess I can do that.
Guest:Yeah, and his handle was something like Little China Boy, you know?
Guest:So I'm like, all right, this works.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But as we got to know each other, he's a 25-year-old...
Guest:college student, super smart, who knows the ins and outs of BDSM because he's been studying it online for years.
Guest:I'm completely out of the loop.
Guest:We would get on the phone and do role playing and he would be like, we didn't meet for the first five weeks.
Guest:It was all on the phone or texting.
Guest:And he would say stuff like,
Guest:should I crawl on my hands and knees with my tongue out and wagging my ass for you like a little bitch daddy?
Guest:And I'd say, yes.
Guest:You do that.
Guest:Because otherwise I'd be like, actually, I have no idea what I'm doing here, young man.
Guest:So eventually he had these midterm exams, right?
Guest:And it had gotten to the point where he was so mentoring me.
Guest:He was teaching me this, that, and the other.
Guest:So finally one day his midterms were over and I knew, oh, he's going to be, he can talk to me again because he's finally done with all his studies.
Guest:So I called him and I said, are you exhausted?
Guest:And he said, get on your knees.
Guest:That'll make me feel better.
Guest:And I was like, whoa, he's turning the tables.
Guest:And I realized that I had like an instant erection.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he keeps talking to me like this.
Guest:And I asked him if I could masturbate, if that was okay while we were having this conversation.
Guest:He said, okay.
Guest:He said, but isn't this humiliating for you that I'm telling you I'm spitting in your face and telling you to lick my ass?
Guest:And I said, yes, but I feel like I would kiss the ground you walk on right now.
Guest:And he said, then you're ready.
Guest:And he said, Friday, you're going to get a text from me.
Guest:Keep Friday night open.
Guest:So Friday, I get a text from him, and it's this long list of instructions.
Guest:Duct tape the front door of your apartment building so that it won't lock.
Guest:Duct tape the door of your own apartment or just leave that unlocked.
Guest:You're putting everyone in the building at risk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:totally for your fantasy this is someone i have never seen and he's like i want you naked bowing on the floor with uh blindfolded uh for when i arrive so it's this weird thing where i'm like well he'll be here sometime in the next hour you know and i'm naked and blindfolded on the floor and you take the doors yeah and your mind just starts to
Guest:go you know when you're staring into blackness like that but the last thing he texted me was oh by the way those images I've been sending you of me these past five weeks those are actually of me so as I'm there blindfolded on the floor I'm starting to think why was that the last thing he said it hadn't even occurred to me before that those might not be him might this not be him
Guest:And then I start thinking, wait, is he already in the room?
Guest:Is that his breath right near my ear?
Guest:You just start flipping out.
Guest:But you're committed to it.
Guest:But I'm committed.
Guest:You don't pull the blindfold off.
Guest:No.
Guest:And he comes, because he's got this sort of, I don't know,
Guest:energy over me at this point.
Guest:So finally I hear he does enter the room and he starts talking to me and now here's the thing.
Guest:On Grindr, in the past several weeks, I had also been flirting with this black guy.
Guest:This guy was like a PhD and was very knowledgeable about cinema, about foreign cinema.
Guest:So we were talking about Fellini and Bergman and all that kind of stuff.
Guest:And I finally decided with the black guy
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:I've got to focus elsewhere right now.
Guest:I don't think this is going to work.
Guest:And the last thing he texted to me on Grindr was, oh, you're not going to get rid of me that easily.
Guest:So when the young man comes up to me and pulls me by the hair once he's actually in my apartment...
Guest:and i start like feeling around eventually we got to the point where he had tied my hands behind my back and he was making me take his underwear off with my teeth and when i felt his cog hit me in the face i was like this is not a five foot three chinese guy
Guest:I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
Guest:This guy feels and seems much taller and he smells like a burly alpha man.
Guest:I was like, I think this is the black guy from Grindr.
Guest:So I start to just like go into it.
Guest:He's making me call him master.
Guest:Well, you don't know the voice?
Guest:No, I knew the voice from the phone, but I still... Maybe the guy on the phone was just fucking with me.
Guest:So he put on this different blindfold on me, and at a certain point he could tell that I was...
Guest:Gone that I was kind of like going into another you know energy because I was freaking out about who the hell is this guy and So he said I'm gonna open a sliver of this blindfold so that you can see so I'm kind of like Searching with one eye around to the room to steal.
Guest:Oh, there's a light bulb there and then I see these Asian eyes Yeah, and I was just euphoric because I was like, oh I
Guest:That was all in my head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like he just had that, that effect on me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he started skull.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He started skull fucking me.
Guest:And now I was just totally like relishing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and you were asking before, what's something, you know, where you didn't think that would ever happen before.
Yeah.
Guest:And he would do these things to me, like at one point he was like, I got to go get something here.
Guest:Just stick your face in my boot for a while.
Guest:So he shoves my face in his boot and I'm smelling this smelly boot and finding that there's this tremendous comfort in this act.
Guest:Like, I'm like, I feel like a kid, a baby with his blankie all of a sudden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when he's doing the skull fucking thing, I start to really gag.
Guest:I'm not used to, I wasn't even familiar with the fact that some people get off on making you really choke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So at one point I pulled back just out of natural.
Guest:And then, but then I felt his cock like kind of jump in my mouth and heard him go, ha ha ha ha.
Guest:And realize, oh, he really likes that when I start to be in pain and gag on it.
Guest:So I started just doing it again and again and again, like deliberately hurting myself in order to give him pleasure and kind of loving that.
Guest:And so that was really a moment of, what's going on here?
Guest:I've never felt this before.
Guest:And finally, I started to have this realization that there is this thing about Asian guys where...
Guest:You know, I know that they feel so alien and weird and considered in American society to not have all the prowess and the sexual... They're not the sex symbols and all that sort of thing.
Guest:And I know from being a little boy and feeling so alien and feeling like so afraid that I'm so weird and different...
Guest:that i remembered seeing the king and i when i was eight years old weirdly enough it was sarah jessica parker that took me yeah one and only time i've ever seen that person she just happened to be the best friend of the girl next door and they had extra tickets okay so sarah jessica parker took me to the night that i saw the king and i and the birth of a fetish how old were you then it was about seven or eight
Guest:Sarah Jessica Parker?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How old was she?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:She's like four years older than me, maybe.
Guest:So your kids.
Guest:Yeah, tiny little kids going to see the King and I. Well, with her, the next door neighbor's parent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um...
Guest:But anyway, I remember seeing the king and how the king was so magnificent and how he would whip people and stuff like that.
Guest:And I remember feeling like, oh my gosh, I want to bow down before a guy like that.
Guest:So here I am with this guy who's got me blindfolded and my arms tied behind my back thinking...
Guest:I know what it is.
Guest:I see Asian guys on the subway and I look at them and think, you think you're weird.
Guest:You think you're an alien.
Guest:You think you can't talk about what's inside you normally out in public.
Guest:Or sing.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or dance.
Yeah.
Guest:But I know that inside you is a king, you know, and I want to bow to that.
Guest:So it's at that moment that I'm having this little bit of a light, almost like an out-of-body remembrance of that and realization of what's going on here that I throw up water all over the floor because I've finally gone so too far with the gagging.
Marc:So you're getting, you know, mouthfucked and you're thinking about the king enough.
Yeah.
Guest:I saw a musical.
Guest:Sorry, you throw up all over the place.
Guest:I throw up all over the place and then I said, sorry, master.
Guest:And again, now I felt it again.
Guest:I felt, you know, because earlier I was not able to say master when I thought he might be someone else.
Guest:So that was the big breakthrough.
Guest:That was kind of a breakthrough.
Guest:And the thing of it was...
Guest:I've been searching for that since.
Guest:The thing about these kinky sort of things is people always say, oh, now you're on the beginning of your kink adventure.
Guest:But...
Guest:I've had mostly disappointments since then.
Guest:There are many times that I feel like, oh, it'd be nice to just settle into a perfectly normal.
Guest:Maybe that'll happen.
Guest:I think you have to just be open to all of it.
Marc:Is that something you want?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:Well, I would like, not monogamy.
Guest:I've never wanted monogamy.
Guest:But yes, I would like to have a primary partner, you know, who, you know, kind of like my husband back in the day, but I could still explore and experiment and...
Guest:And I think that when you're with someone for an extended period, you fall into patterns.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:I would not want to be with someone where every night it's like, all right, let's string you up and pretend you're- Here we go again.
Guest:Hoisting you up with an elaborate pulley system.
Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, who knows what the future holds.
Guest:I think that I am feeling my age lately.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 44.
Guest:And I did start drinking again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:About, well, in February.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How long had you not?
Guest:Nine years.
Guest:Be careful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I've... Don't get sad again.
Guest:Well, I've succeed.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:I've succeeded at the literal, uh, whatever you call it, moderation of it to a certain extent.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Uh, not as much as I would like, but it's the sadness, you know, that is just feed itself and guilt and guilt.
Guest:I had, I think I'm more addicted to guilt than anything else.
Guest:Shame.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:It's like guilt, there's a moral component to guilt, but it seems like you've got a shame core.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So if you do things that you feel guilty about, it's just going to feed that monster.
Marc:You're better off getting skull fucked than becoming a drunk again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Words to live by.
Guest:Thanks for talking to me, Kevin.
Guest:I'm so happy for your success.
Guest:Check out the show at risk-show.com.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:All right, folks, that's our show.
Marc:I love Kevin.
Marc:I thought that was wonderful.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Do what you got to do over there.
Marc:It's a little early for me to jam out on my guitar here in the garage.
Marc:I know some of you are going to be like, oh, thank God.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Saved.
Marc:Now I can just ease into my day without Marin in a very needy and demanding way blasting his okay guitar improvisations into my head.
Marc:Not today.
Marc:Go look at the tour dates.
Marc:At WTF pod slash calendar.
Marc:Go post a comment.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:Buy some merch.
Marc:Give me more posters coming.
Marc:Thank you all for the tour art.
Marc:I will get back to you personally when I have time to sit down.
Marc:I've chosen almost all the posters that I'm going to be using for the tour.
Marc:And I can't stop fucking eating.
Marc:Just sit at craft services all day, grazing, shoveling things into my face at different speeds, sometimes desperately, sometimes casually.
Marc:But sometimes I eat hard.
Marc:I eat hard, folks.
Guest:Boomer lives!
you